City Council - Regular Meeting

You ready? Stacy? Alright. Let's go ahead and call this, meeting to order. Ask for roll call.

Council member Little is absent at this time, but we expect him shortly. Council member Sander? Here. Council member Polipotti? Here. Vice mayor Budge? Here. Mayor Gatewood?

Here.

Thank you.

Alright. And go ahead and read the, metro cable.

The meeting of the Rancho Cordova City Council is recorded with closed captioning. The recording will be cable cast on metro cable channel fourteen, the local government affairs channel on the Comcast and DIRECTV U verse cable systems. The recording will also be video streamed at metro14live.saccounty.gov. Today's meeting will replay on Thursday, May 7 at 9AM and Friday, May 8 at 6PM on Metro Cable channel fourteen. Once posted, the recording of this meeting can be viewed on demand at youtube.com/metrocable14 and on the city's website at www.cityofranchocordova.org.

Thank you. I'm gonna go ahead and call on our illustrious Diane Rogers to come up and do the pledge of allegiance, and then please stay standing for Saint John Vianney's invocation.

Heavenly father, we come before you with gratitude for the gift of this day and those serving in this community. Thank you for our mayor, for the members of the city council, and for leaders blessing upon them as they undertake the world before them, often complex and demanding, yet so important for the well-being of all. Grant them grace to pursue truth, justice, and stability in our region. Where there is uncertainty, bring clarity. Where there is division, bring understanding.

Where there is tension, bring peace. Strengthen their resolve to do what is right even when it is difficult and to govern with fairness, integrity, and consistency. May our community be known not for discord but for justice that is steady, compassionate, and enduring. As our leaders meet today, we ask for patience, patience to listen carefully to one another, patience to consider differing viewpoints, and patience to seek solutions that may require time and humility. Give them perseverance when challenges arise and obstacles seem discouraging.

Help them to remain steady in purpose and faithful in the responsibility to serve the public good. Grant them wisdom to discern what is truly beneficial for the city, strength to carry out their duties with diligence, and courage to make decisions that are just and good even when those decisions are not the easiest path. May they not be swayed by personal interest or pressure, but instead be anchored in what serves the common good. Teach them to put the interests of others before their own and to lead with a spirit of generosity and responsibility. May their actions be rooted in love for the community they serve, and may that love be reflected in policies and promote dignity, opportunity, and well-being for all citizens.

Help them be attentive to the needs of the people they represent, responsive to concerns, and willing to engage with openness and respect. May they see the humanity in every person they serve, and may their leadership foster trust, cooperation, and unity within the city. We ask that you guide this meeting and that all will be discussed today. May every decision be made with wisdom, care, and a sincere desire to do what is right, And may your peace rest upon this gathering and upon this community. Amen.

Amen. Nicely done. Alright. Great. No presentations. Moving on. Public comment. Members of the public wishing to address the accounts for any matter not on the agenda may do so by, completing submitting a speaker card to the city clerk. For items on the agenda, speakers will be called by, the mayor at that point of the agenda. When item has been heard.

Speakers are encouraged to keep matter, comments to three minutes or less and state the name and community of residents under the provision of the California government code. The city council is prohibited from discussing or taking immediate action on any items not on the agenda unless it can be demonstrated to be of an emergency nature or need to take immediate action, Rose, before the posting of the agenda. Stacy, do we have any public comment?

We do. We have two speaker cards. The first speaker will be Helen Whalen Beshaw. Following Helen will be James Garcia.

We've missed you too. Get back up here.

You'll have up to three minutes. Thank you.

Almost didn't make it here tonight. Good evening. I wanna bring it to the attention of the city, but I'm sure you already know it, that the Rancho Cordova has, what I consider, a person who was immigrated into The United States and has made a successful life for himself, and that is Danny's automotive. I believe he is the first private service station that we have that has corporate sponsorship. He was sought out by Castro Oil to, for them to sponsor him at two of his service stations.

This is a person who, about nine, immigrated to The United States to Rancho Cordova, went to school in Rancho Cordova, went to trade school, worked at dealerships to learn the behind the scenes for automotive repair, had his first service station open up on Brevarda. Then he bought the or he has a lease to own on the corner of Paseo And Folsom Boulevard, the Danny's Automotive. He also has an automotive in what was it, Folsom and in Orangevale. So corp so Chris the oil company came in and asked him to let them be a corporate sponsorship. This was the first, as far as I can see, in Rancho Cordova, that you have a corporate sponsorship for a little business that only wishes to be able to expand in the current location, but it's not being allowed.

Change subjects. I'm here to talk about the PAR, preserve the American River, Parda SARA. We are in the process of gathering public monies up to $2,000,000 We have a foundation that's willing to put up the $12,600,000 but we have to pay the cost. Currently, we have about $1,000,000 on hand. And I myself have pledged and they will get the check this week a rather large sum of money, 6 figures.

So I just want everybody to know, I am living what I believe, preservation for future generations. And I've been fighting the battle since 2018 when Kathy Birch and myself showed up at the meeting when Linda was the mayor, and the company out of Illinois was putting on a presentation. So, you know, I believe in building internally in this city and preservation for future generations. Thank you.

Thank you. You have one? James, get up here.

Alright. James Garcia, resident of Stone Creek. I just, wanna share my disappointment with the council for only having one that was willing to step forward to bring forth, the quick quack car wash that would have been in Stone Creek that's now been approved by the Planning Commission on April 8. I really wish we would have had more than one of you. Willing to actually bring this forward to be consumed.

Heard, at this point in time, we're now gonna have a quick plaque that's gonna be a blight to the community right there on Zinfandel and Bear Hollow. It's a improper location, very egregious traffic flows on a two lane road. No additional car lane entrances into the shopping center, so it's just going to be a nice detriment to our area. The safety of all those that walk the area next to handles, as well as to the already existing carpool type of a situation with, Dutch Bros. So we have two now queuing systems within a shopping center that is next to apartments, and it's just now gonna be an eyesore.

And, hopefully, we don't get bad health, from it and accidents that are already occurring nearby. So just a little disappointment that no one else decided to step up. So thanks anyways.

All right. Let's go into council reports. David. No report. David, you dirty talker you. Siri.

I have to follow council members and You

guys are killing it right now. Linda, you better come with something, I guess.

Okay. So we actually have not met for an entire month because of a variety of people being out of town and cap to cap and a lot of scheduling issues. So we've done some very important things. We've broken ground on Mather Veterans Village Number 4. Community Council entertained the presentation about downtown Dova.

We met about the Community Engagement and Enhancement Fund. We cut a ribbon over at Folsom Lake College to inaugurate a lovely new complex for Sutter Health that will teach health care over there at Folsom Lake College. And we met in a very unique, what was called five by five by five with the Folsom Cordova Unified School District and the Folsom City Council. RT had a routine meeting. The library had a routine meeting.

The the highlight of the month really had to be the Rachel Barton Pine concert at, Symphony du Oro. It was absolutely remarkable. And for those of us who went to the reception afterwards, she talked about the importance of her music and how and this lady is from Chicago, and she felt that every time she performed in the big park in Chicago there on the water, that it was like the entire entire region could come to hear the benefit of her music. And she really takes her craft seriously and she's an absolutely great lady. I felt kind of funny inviting people to attend an event up in Folsom.

But they have decided to bring back their snail races from the 1980s. And I was going to talk about that. But then it turns out that Folsom Cordova Unified is also doing snail raises at some of the schools in the school district. So if you haven't been or you've got little kids, be sure and check their website for the schedule of schools both here and in Folsom that are gonna do this. It's really one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

But the most important thing is that we need to during tonight in the memory of David's mom. And that's what David's been doing for the last month, and I couldn't be more sympathetic. David and I have been so blessed this entire journey to have our parents with us. And they were there at the inaugural meeting. They've been there every step of the way.

And now they're all gone. And David's mom was a teacher through and through and one of the most gracious, delightful ladies that we've ever had the privilege of meeting. She graced our meetings. She made her little city and our little city better for having known her. And we want to adjourn tonight in her memory and her honor.

Thank you, Linda. All right. I hate following you. I hate it. It's the passion. All right. I'll try to go back up. I met with Amazon, which is awesome. They have 300 more jobs for our community members that are coming in the door. So I'm not supposed to tell you about it, but if you're watching and you want a very highly paid living wage job with tons of training benefits, it's in Rancho Cordova.

They are a great partner, and they are looking at how they can get more gains with the Chamber of Commerce, the Cordova Community Council, and just give back because they want employees. And for someone that needs over 400 plus employees, that is awesome. But that I mean, that will take them to one of our biggest employers in the area. So then I said I required them. I was like, I'm gonna require 30% to be Rancho Cordova, and they laughed.

Thank you to Daniel and Lisa DeRosa. They set up a prayer commute, which was fun because I hadn't known how many churches, and there's 14 churches in District 2. And so I actually drove around to each church, and they have you pray over each church you you pull into. And so of the there's actually 26 churches in the area, but 14 I was able to get to in my prayer walk. So you drive there, you hit something on a on a little app, and it tells you what to pray over, and then you go to the next church.

So that was cool. Then I did which I wasn't ready for, which was the Sunrise bike ride. And so Jacob Ford had all these kids, and we parked somewhere in the Butterfly Park. And then we put all the kids behind us, and then we rode to Sunrise Elementary. And so he wants to get more and more kids to do the the very fun bike ride. So that was cool. And then they this dad had hooked up a bubbler behind it. And so he hit the bubbles, the kids were supposed to fall behind. And so you get all these, like, you know, first graders to kindergarteners swerving and trying to hit the bubbles. And us dads trying to keep them from dying, but still super fun.

And I was like he's like, his goal is to get, like, 20 or thirty percent of the kids out there. And I was like, okay. And then it was nice because I called Micah last minute because they didn't have this plan. And I was like, hey. It'd be really great as if we had a bike cop here to make sure the little babies don't get hit by the car. Micah's like, let me see what I can do. And then one of my patrols showed up awesomely and was like, hey. I see you guys driving. And so he turns on his lights and just keeps the cars off, little kids, because these kids honestly are gonna live forever because they're impervious to paint. So they fell.

They kept riding, screamed at each other, jumped at each other. It was great. Thank you, Tian Ho, for spotlighting a couple of our citizens at the outstanding citizen award. Thank you, Folsom Light College, inviting me to speak at the Men of Color. It was awesome because, first of all, when you prep a speech for men of color and then men and women show up to try to ad lib your speech by trying to include both of them at the same time.

I knocked it out of the park, though. But they were it was fun, and it was great because two buses were full of Folsom Cordo or Cordova Rancho Cordova kids that showed up. And this is all to try to talk them about helping them out and where their steps are and to show them that junior college is right around the corner if they really wanna take those steps. Thank you to Cap to Cap, the group that set up Cap Cab. And, really, if you guys didn't know, the originator of Cap to Cap is Linda Budge.

It was to start and save our airport at one time. And she did go back a couple times and win. And I think the reason she lost is because someone got a cold, they forgot to schedule something and other. But I think we came back with millions of dollars and people engaged. I've never seen more people engaged in our city's success or know about our city, like across the region.

Had the most ex went to GSEC and went to New York City to pull businesses out of that. Most interesting facts were is that if you ask how high on taxes California is across all 50 states, The best was listening to him be like, oh, it's like the worst or second worst. I'm like, we're only twenty fifth because of inflation and how things have happened. Even Austin, Texas, there's no room. There's no housing.

The people are hard to get. So Ranch Cordova and the Sacramento County region has become very enticing. And so I would be shocked because the guys we talked to were actually from the area. The best was I went into place someplace called Blackstone. And I you know you're wealthy when your ears pop going up to go see his building. And and he comes out, and he's like he's like, oh, I know Rancho Cordova. He's like, I sold my first building there. And so everyone so first off, people, like they warned me, like, listen. This guy's gonna be very aggressive. Like, just be straight to the point.

Don't talk to him about things, you know, because he's walked out of meetings. And so the minute they said I'm the mayor of Rancho Coco, and he turns to me, he's like, oh, yeah, I sold there's a building over off Coloma that was my first sale. And I was like, oh, Okay. He's like, yeah. I was like, did you drink the water when you were there? He's like, yeah. I was like, that's Rock And Field. You're welcome. That's your superpower. And I want to thank you from Rancho Cordova. And he just started cracking up because he knows the area. And he's like, just love it there. He's like, I just feel like I can't come home because you're doing the billionaire tax and and you don't want business. I was like, not every region in in California is the same. I was like, why don't you come home, bring some of your businesses with you, set up, and help us guide Branch Grover in the next generation?

So he's got, like, some some technical companies and stuff that he moves and manages, and they're gonna they're now coming into Rancho Cordova. And it was a great thing because he was like he's like, I'll sign an NDA, though. And I was like, you you don't need to sign an NDA for us. We we we're not scared of people finding out you wanna move. He's like, no. What we'll do is sign the NDA. Was like, cool. We'll send you an NDA. The NDA is a super secretive NDA you can figure. I was like, let's go ahead and get this guy an NDA.

But I did 15 plus meetings, and I think out of them, I think we pulled, like, 20 potential partners to come in, including, like, the consulate of Japan is now gonna close the Japan office for, like, a week and come out here and hunt where they can put businesses. The most interesting one was a guy that does, which I think Dave would be fascinated by, is they have a machine that can take T cells and create any type of cell you need it to be and then inject it for therapy. And so it's no man involvement, completely machine, takes about two weeks to get these T cells. I was like and then it was it was fascinating because I don't know anything about this. But then he's like, yeah.

But every once in while, the cell will just mutate into something it's not supposed to. So you'll come back, and your cell will have a heartbeat. And I was like, I'm sorry. What? So you have heartbeats on your cells? They're like, yeah. And then you have to throttle it. Is that a word? Am I close? No. It doesn't matter. It's something where you strip out the cell of what it was programmed to be. And I was like, so the cells just sometimes just wanna be something? They're like, yeah. And you just you just gotta, you know, pull it back out again. I was like, so fascinating. I have no way to talk. But, anyways, he's really interested. And so they said if they they would invest $50,000,000 in wherever they land their next plant. And they have one going into the middle of The United States.

They have one on the East Coast. They want one in the middle, and they want one out here. And they're like, we just need to be near because when they do therapy, they have thirty minutes to finish the therapy and inject it into their person. I was like, that's fascinating. Thank you to Diane for the embark program and introducing me to mermaids and fairies.

And that was an interesting day. That's interesting text messages I got from my friends. Voice of hope, VOA Voice of Hope, they mentioned that we did, like, 250 homes with them or helped fix up at one time with the city of Rancho Cote D'Ivoire come alongside them. I mean, that's amazing that we've helped that many people in our city over our lifetime to help them, like, you know, clean up their backyards, do water resistant, remove gates, help them with with things that are like there are not a lot of cities that come and try to fix up the house because they know that it's gonna bring the entire community up. Maybe condemn a house and buy a house, but we'll go into a house that's just in need, help the owner out, and then help the whole community from it.

Still going. Then I went to FLC for the Sutter Health ribbon cutting. Coolest thing ever. We now have Sutter has now partnered with them to do a nursing program. And they have the full dummies and X-ray systems, and they've invested, like, $2,200,000. And they're not done investing in Rancho Cordova because they see how we're growing, and they think we'd be a great spot for something else. We're not gonna talk about it, but it starts with an h and ends with Atoll. So hopefully, they can be one of those people that comes alongside us. Very exciting. And then lastly, we had our five by five by five with the Folsom Cordova School District.

Thank you to Jen, wherever you are right now, for trying to help us pick back up our high school out of Sac City Unified. And I'm sorry to all those kids. I really wanted to do something. But Folsom Cordova is making heads about doing AI, using technology, helping to reach out our kids. And I really feel like they're as we are putting pressure on, they're starting to move in the right direction, which is and but they still have a lot of work to do.

We want engineering and sciences in the place where where NVIDIA and SolidDigm are landing, not in to have our kids try to drive to another city to do that work. But still, good pathways, open up talking, and and I think that's it that I can remember in of the stuff. But I have been busy literally every two to days, and I now understand what Siri was talking about. Joe. Happy

to be

here. That's what I'm talking about. I'm

so tired. Micah. Sure. Thank you, Merrick. Just a few things to cover. One is public service recognition week. So I want to thank all of our city team and that have spent their careers, most of them in public service, all of it. And so we're recognizing team members throughout the week celebrating public service week. So there's there's different recognitions taking place to celebrate them and the team that that works in this in this space with all of you. I did go to a few of those different places that the mayor mentioned and and and the things.

I won't dwell on on those, but really wanna mention the Mathers Veterans Village Ground or phase 4 was a great event and really gives the next step in the in the conversation around what's what we're doing in the community for our veterans. And then last, wanted to thank the council for letting me in American Leadership Forum. So, unfortunately, I did miss the five by five by five with the school district the other day because I was graduating from the American Leadership Forum program where we get to build relationships, learn new skills, and leadership theories around, basically, group of 24 of my new best friends that are trying to make this region a better place. So I really appreciate that. So with that, I'm done.

Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Let's see. Let's go on consent count consent vote. Consent calendar item consists of matters deemed routine and uncontroversial by staff unless a member of the council wishes to pull an item for for individual consideration. All eyes may be approved with one motion. Are there any that you guys would like to pull? Ask is there any public comment?

There is no public comment.

May I have a motion for

the Since none, I'll move approval of items 9.1 through 9.4.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Roll call, please.

Council member Pulapati? Yes. Council member Sander? Aye. Council member Little? Yes. Vice mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood? Yes. The motion passes.

Alright. Moving on to consent calendar. I or consent public hearing items. Consent public hearing items because some matters are deemed routine and noncontroversial by staff unless a member of the council wishes to pull an item for any consideration. All items will be approved by one motion. I'm gonna go ahead and open this public hearing, hearing item quietly.

Thank you.

You're welcome. And ask the clerk, is there any public comment?

Yes. We do have one public comment that was emailed. It is from Bill and Ellen Land that has been distributed to the council, printed for the public in the back of the council chambers, and has been placed on our website.

Excellent. I'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing item. Ask if there's any items that council wishes to pull. Alright.

Seeing none, I'll move approval of items ten point one and ten point two. But I do wanna make a comment that the letter that came in Mhmm. Was incredibly extensive and very well researched and very well thought out. And I think we can all feel sorry for or feel sympathetic with people who are moving into new areas. And the land around them, the adjacent land, is completely bare and wild and has house cows, and maybe, if you're lucky, a giant beevo or two.

But an awful lot of us have experienced that in the past. I can remember when Franchise Tax Board was a beautiful field of yellow mustard. And so as we all grow and expand, this is typical. Again, kudos to them because they have used every tool in the planner's tool book to try to encourage our further review of this project. But I do move approval.

I have a second?

Second.

Roll call.

Council member Polipotti? Yes. Council member Little?

Yes.

Council member Sander? Aye. Vice mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood? Yes. The motion passes.

Alright. So now we're going to public hearing items. There's none. We'll go into regular hearing items. Also none. We're going to council request for future agenda items. Also seeing none. So we're gonna go ahead and adjourn the closed session. And, clerk, will you please announce public comment?

We do not have any public comment for items on the closed session.

Excellent.

Recording in progress.

Recording stopped.

From my team. There she is. Here she is.

Recording in progress.

Alright. I'm gonna go ahead and call this meeting back to order and have Adam go ahead and read this out.

Thank you, mister mayor, council, members of the community. This evening, the city council met in closed session and took up three items of, closed session business, conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, Angus versus city of Rancho Cordova. Council received updates from and provided direction to outside litigation counsel in that matter. Counsel took up one item of real property negotiations regarding 2875 Kilroy Road and received updates from and provided direction to its real property negotiators and one item of anticipated litigation that counsel provided, received updates from and provided direction to legal counsel. Took no further action.

I'm gonna go ahead and close this meeting and adjourn it in the honor of Lois Marie Sanders. God bless you. Very nice. I met

her. Yes.

I was one of the

Recording stopped.