City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, I'm gonna go ahead and call this meeting to order and ask Stacy for roll call.

Council Member Little is absent. Council Member Sander? Here. Council Member Polipotti? Here. Vice Mayor Budge?

Here.

Here. Mayor Gatewood?

Here. All right, I'm gonna go ahead and stand and ask Maria's daughter to do the Pledge of Allegiance. You have to.

Before we do the Pledge of Allegiance, can I read the... Oh, yeah, go ahead. Thank you. The meeting of the Rancho Cordova City Council is recorded with closed captioning. The recording will be cablecast on Metro Cable Channel 14, 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, August 6th at 9 a.m. and Friday, August 7th at 6 p.m. on Metro Cable Channel 14. Once posted, the recording of this meeting can be viewed on demand at youtube.com forward slash Metro Cable 14 and on the city's website at www.cityofrentalcordova.org.

Ready?

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Can you guys stay standing? We're going to have our invocation by Walter Little. Come on, Pastor.

Could we take a moment and reflect on the last words of the Buddha to his disciples? Make of yourselves a light. Om Shanti. Peace.

Thank you very much. I WANT TO GO AHEAD AND SIT DOWN. NOW LET'S HAVE PRESENTATIONS BY THE SHINING A LIGHT ON THE SERVICE. SPRING DAY SERVICE HIGHLIGHTS FOR RANCHO PEDROVA MAY 16, 2026. AND WE CAN GO AHEAD. Okay. All right, and this presentation is by Lorianne, and behind her is, of course, the city of Rancho Cordova's boss.

Okay, good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, and guests here this evening.

My name's Lorianne Carl, the Community Engagement Manager here at the city, and we are here to present, if I can...

We're here to celebrate and present to you the wonderful outcomes of our third annual Spring Service Day. We are extremely proud that we accomplished three years, knowing you're all going to want a fourth. But this year, we really did focus on our goals, making sure, I'm gonna, am I good, Stephanie?

Okay.

I'm improvising, I'm good. I have my presentation. So our goals were to connect community volunteers to existing and new services. which I think we did, highlight local nonprofits, continuing to promote ongoing volunteerism, which is something that we have heard was a need, and then strengthening the sense of community and civic pride, really bringing volunteerism back, which has always been at the heart of the city of Rancho Cordova. We had 450 volunteers this year, which exceeded the first two years. We had 23 projects which were also an increase from years prior, giving us 1,887 volunteer hours on that day. I want to take a second to thank these amazing people behind me, and they will also have an opportunity to share some of their experiences. But our Spring Service Day Advisory Committee, we have Terrence McNamara, Carrie Johnson, Rebecca Thomas, Sandy Runner, Jennifer Larratt, Shelly Blanchard, Chase Michelotti, and I may not be pronouncing that correctly, so I apologize, and Madeline Sanderson. I also want to take a moment to thank Matt Bulin on my team and Danielle Hale who really worked hard on those two that the leading up to it and the day and of course we couldn't do it without our sponsors and our two title sponsors were Atlas Disposal and the RAS group. I'm extremely proud of that day. I cannot tell you the accomplishments that we had with all of the projects. And what really comes to mind is the support that we gave campuses. at New Charter Pacific, A.M. Wynn Elementary, and Riverview STEM Academy, building garden beds, people working extremely hard, and just really taking that day to shine. So I want to take a moment and have a few people come up and share so you're not just hearing it from me. I'm a little biased. I love that day. I thought it was fantastic, but please.

Hi, everyone. The Cordova Community Council hosted not one, but two of the projects at Spring Service Day. So we were official double dippers. We had one project, which I believe was the project that had the most volunteers assigned to it. at the mineshaft property where these mostly Cordova High School football team players were there planting landscaping and other landscape chores, and they did a fantastic job. And just to show how balanced we are, at our second project at the MAC, we had a lot of Girl Scouts there, and they painted, I don't know, platforms for the display of art. So we had a wonderful day of working with youth in our community, watching them, sometimes having their first volunteer experience of actually getting their hands dirty and working for their community. So thanks for the opportunity.

Yeah, I was out at the mine shaft with the football players. And if you want to watch comedy hour, you can watch the football players with a jackhammer trying to take out concrete. But it was a great experience for them. And they learned so much. And it was really interesting because at the mine shaft, one of the parents of the football players was telling us that his grandfather was one of the original builders at the mine shaft and had built the little houses and things like that. And so he was giving some of the kids like a history lesson. And so it was just kind of this really cool full circle moment of, you know, what, what this building had used, what it had, what the purpose of it had been previously. And this connectivity between now one of our athletes at Cordova high, who didn't really realize that his grandfather had had this like, part in our Rancho Cordova history. But I was also over at one of our other schools, and it was just interesting and really cool to watch kids who were out there and beautifying campuses. And what I loved the most about it is that we were able to lay that bark at Kinney, and those students, even though they had fulfilled their hours, they were desiring to go to another location. So they immediately were like, you know texting and saying hey what are some of the other locations that i can go to and instead of just wrapping for the day they went to the next location which was the food locker and they were able to go there and help with some of the beautification over there and planting the plants and things like that so just on behalf of the vols and cordova unified we just want to say thank you for the partnership that we had at our schools we definitely had more participation um at our sites but also just the opportunity for our students to be able to engage in a meaningful way to connect with their fellow community members and to really see it and to understand what it means to be part of a community. And that really often is through community service. And so we just really appreciate that opportunity to be a part of that as well.

So for me and for Atlas Disposal, we couldn't be more pleased to be part of this event every year. We have our headquarters in Rancho Cordova. I don't know if you knew that. So in addition to having the residential contract, all of our employees work here on a daily basis and they care deeply about Rancho Cordova. And this was a really cool experience for them to be able to participate in this. I also dragged my 12-year-old daughter with me to kind of show her what was going on. And it sparked a bunch of questions. And perhaps one day she'll be one of the football players or something that's helping out. But we had a whole conversation around service. and why it's important and why we do those things. And it was a really good conversation starter. We also spent a few minutes over at the new food hub. She had worked previously at the food locker, and so to see that transformation was a really cool kind of bookend to the whole thing. But we really love being a part of this, and it's a good benefit for our employees to be able to give back like that. So we appreciate the opportunity.

what i got it i can improvise um so i would love to hear i know that several of you were there so i would love to hear uh councils any questions or comments you have of your experience and what you've seen at the third annual i would say the kickoff was a lot of fun

And obviously you had far more people show up there than anticipated. Because I think you ran out of t-shirts, which normally that would not be a thing that would happen. And I know we ran out of food as well. That would also not normally happen at a Rancho Cordova event. So did you have unexpectedly large day of turnout of volunteers?

Yeah, I think what happens is you have somebody who might sign up and then they end up coming and bringing their whole families that maybe weren't anticipated. It's also word of mouth. I think there's a lot of media and social pushes that we lead up to that day. And I think there's this fear of signing up in advance because I'm committing to something but then I'm going to wake up and I don't want to miss out and I come to the event. And we're fine with that. I think I do owe you a cup of coffee, Councilmember Sander, because I know you didn't get your coffee that day, but I think it's a good problem to have when we run out of things sometimes because it does show us We need to really prepare because the year before we only had 350 volunteers. This year we had 450 signed up. That isn't the numbers that we saw in the morning at the kickoff. So I think that says something to our city that people want to really come.

Super. OK, so I can say that one of the lesser known projects was painting fire hydrants. And if you see red, white, and blue fire hydrants sprouting around Rancho Cordova, that was a project that was started by one of the ladies who is a 1976 graduate of Cordova High. got together with the class of 2026. And then all these volunteers, because when you're out painting fire hydrants, people show up and they say, oh, I'd like to participate. And so she puts them together with a kit. I just ran into one of our artists on Saturday who would like to do the same thing for the fire hydrant in her front yard. You know, why not?

The feedback that we received from all of the participants from that particular project all had an incredible experience. And what I've been receiving is a lot of comments of, hey, I went down Coloma or I went down Chase and I saw a painted fire hydrant. How do we get a painted fire hydrant? So she's a lot busier than she thought she was going to be because now everybody wants one.

we can waste more time if you want no I would love to hear mayor if you have any comment well I mean like it was an amazing event I got to go to a couple but my favorite was going to of course the mineshaft and then seeing one of our volunteers with a broken ankle still try to go around and do the volunteering that's how much If you know him, Lee loves the city. Like, he literally had his ankle separated and was like, it's fine. I took some aspirin. I'm just going to knock this out real quick. I'm going to knock out, fixing the entire. I was like, go home. He's like, no. He said, then who's going to do this? I was like, anybody else. Anybody. Lee, please. You're going to die out here at the mine shaft. And we all know that Lee's going to die like he should in the fireworks booth. So. yeah it was amazing i love seeing all my citizens there's three or four events that really show how much we care about our community and that's one of my favorites that and the walmart thing we do for christmas so now let's hit it okay this is loud What Service Day really is, is hundreds of people willing to come together, taking projects that beautify our city, to give back to the community and really show that.

This is the third annual Spring Service Day here in Rancho Cordova, and we've got volunteers from the community coming to help other organizations and people in the community. That tells everyone that we love this place.

We have well over 550 to probably 600 people, and this year we have over 23 projects. It's just incredible.

So Atlas Disposal is headquartered in Rancho Cordova, so it's our city. It's really improving the community, it's making it a better place to live, and we love being part of that.

This is really where we're able to take a dream and build it and grow the spirit of people coming together and wanting to do good in the community that they work and live.

We are at the Rancho Cordova Community Food Hub beautifying the lands, getting it ready for its grand opening next week. I love seeing the community. I love seeing neighbors that you don't know are neighbors coming out, supporting the community. I make it beautiful. Knowing that I got to give somebody a little bit of happiness when they walk in is just a great feeling to have.

We're out here at Riverview STEM Academy, and we're refreshing the garden beds. So we're giving new wood, fresh dirt, new plants, and making it beautiful for the kids to continue to learn gardening. It makes me feel part of this city. Like, it makes it feel like a home, giving back and getting to meet people who I probably wouldn't meet otherwise.

We are helping out a lady. She's 90 years old. Lived here for about 60 years, and we're just helping refurbish her house. We're replacing the fence. We pulled up a chain link fence, and now we're doing wood and wrought iron. I mean, I get chills in my arms just from thinking about the feeling of giving back to people who are unable to do it themselves.

All the kids 10 and under did fingerprints. Older kids were able to add the stems and leaves. Parents were doing stems and leaves. So it was a project that everybody could be involved in. I have to say, when they first came out, I had to chuck back some tears because it was just amazing.

Today we are out at Heron Landing Community Park, and we're planting around 18 trees, and we're really excited to see some shade grow here. Because it's a community park, it's really investing in everyone regionally, not just the local neighborhoods. You get to meet people who've done it in past years, you get to meet people who it's their first time, and just seeing how excited everyone is to be a part of it. Yay!

I'm a parent volunteer and one of the garden leads for A.M. Wynn. Today we're creating a new program for our special day class so they can have a nice outdoor classroom and we're just creating more accessibility so more kiddos can get out and enjoy the gardens. Pretty much did a couple years worth of work in one day today because we had so many volunteers. It warms my heart. There's just like such a good community here and we're very grateful.

And what's amazing is I still get to see new people that I haven't met yet and the community is coming together and they're volunteering for a great cause and we love our city.

Just pretty amazing what we can do right with all of us together. The sponsors, the city, and then us as community members and volunteers. So I would just say be here next year. I feel like it gets better every year. There's more projects, but there's still more. There's still room for you.

Can I say something? You wanna say something about your wife? You know, we're all watching.

I mean, I would always, but I, you know, just, you know, kind of what you don't see in some of these videos is the kind of staff team that is a part of putting these together. And so I think whether it's, you know, Lorianne or her team or actually on the day of volunteering, I mean, there are probably 30 to 40% of our city team is out on these teams and doing work. And so I think that's something you don't see that just want to highlight the work that goes into this really share appreciation for the team that put all this together. They did try hard not to give me paint this year, which I did try to put my handprint on the wall, but apparently that was for 10 and under. And so I did not cause any paint spills, but apparently I can move wheelbarrows in dirt. So that's what I'm capable of. So really appreciate the team and all the partners that put this together. It really is a great day. And really appreciate my wife who supports that as well. Thank you, Garrett.

There you got your kudos. All right, thank you guys. Moving on, so let's get Brenda Roach up here and you can talk about all the people we've tricked into staying with us for over a decade.

All right, I get to follow a great presentation, super pumped. So good evening, Mayor Gatewood, council and staff, Brenda Roach, Assistant Administrative Services Director for Human Resources. Tonight, we are honored to recognize four employees who have reached significant years of service milestones with the City of Rancho Cordova. Each milestone represents years of dedication to public service and a commitment to making a positive difference for our resident and our community. Following the presentation, we invite council members to join staff on the floor for a photo to help celebrate this occasion. So first I'd like to recognize Maria Chacon-Niestad. Maria joined the city in April of 2016 and celebrates 10 years of service this year. As the Communications and Public Affairs Director, she has helped strengthen connection between the city, and our community by ensuring residents and businesses have access to trusted, accurate, and accessible information. Her leadership has enhanced transparency, supported citywide initiatives, and helped keep our community informed and engaged. Maria, I'd like to invite you to share some remarks.

Good evening, Council. I have to tell you, when I came here 10 years ago, I didn't know what to anticipate. I was from the private sector, and I was very excited about being able to work back to work on behalf of people. I had worked for the state of California real early in my career. And I have to say, it is the best job I have ever had. hands down being able to serve our community our residents our businesses the greater region to be able to build the city image to really make an impact in being able to tell the story of all the incredible work our team is doing and the work is as you know just incredible top-notch it has been really just the honor of a lifetime to be able to do that And so I just want to say thank you. Thank you for taking a chance on a little private sector gal and inviting her to serve a city. And I want to say a huge thank you to my team, my communications team. You just heard from the community engagement team. they are working so hard behind the scenes and making our city building our city you know brick by brick telling the stories that are meaningful and so thank you for your faith and in me and also in my team and appreciate the the ability to serve the city for the last 10 years

I'm gonna do it when we come.

When we come back for the pictures?

Yeah.

All right, before you go on, Maria, I've been here a decade, and you came in with me, and so I've always appreciated someone that can be like, please don't say that out loud. And honestly, you really took, and this is just from someone on the outside that actually had a company that basically did this type of communication, you truly took us from a different level. The way you communicate, the way you engage us, the way you keep us counseled, engaged on what's going on with police and fire is truly amazing, and I appreciate everything you've done for our city.

Thank you, thank you very much. Appreciate that, okay.

Next, I'd like to recognize Kim Duran. Kim joined the city in June of 2016 and now celebrates 10 years of service. As the assistant city manager, she has helped strengthen the city's organization by providing strategic leadership, fostering collaboration across departments, and advancing initiatives that enhance city services, supports employees, and improves the quality of life for Rancho Cordova community. Kim.

Thank you, Brenda, and thank you, Council. I have a few comments I'm going to prepare. I had prepared just because I'm not very good at thinking on my feet. So I was thinking back 10 years ago when I started here, and I remember my first day, there was a council meeting that evening, and Cyrus said, oh, by the way, you're going to go and introduce yourself at the council meeting tonight. I thought, what? Well, really, that's strange. And, you know, I'd worked in a couple of other cities, and that's not common practice. Typically, councils don't take a personal interest in employees when they join the city. And they come and go, and it's just the way it is. And what I didn't realize at that time was that that is really kind of what sets Rancho Cordova apart. I came to Rancho Cordova because I'm kind of a closet public administration geek, and I had read Reinventing Government when I was in grad school. And I was really intrigued by the opportunity to work in a city that did things differently. And so I remember coming to my interview and telling that story and had Stacy make fun of me. She told me I drank the Kool-Aid. So I said, yeah, I guess I did. But what I've come to appreciate over the last 10 years is that the Ranch Away is really more than a philosophy. It's really just about how staff, council, and the community all come together with the genuine intent and interest of making this community a better place to live. So with that, I want to say thank you for keeping me around for the past 10 years, and I'm looking forward to the next chapter.

So next, I'd like to recognize Wyatt Peters-Saliz. Wyatt is unable to join us this evening. However, we want to recognize his 10 years of public service. As the building permit services supervisor, Wyatt has helped support the city's building and inspection efforts through efficient, customer-focused permit processing and responsive service for residents, contractors, and developers. So thank you, Wyatt. And then lastly, I would like to recognize Lorianne Carl. Lorianne began serving the city in April of 2006 and now celebrates a remarkable 20 years of service. As the community engagement manager, she has helped build stronger, more connected Rancho Cordova by bringing neighbors together, fostering community leadership, and creating meaningful ways for residents to engage with and shape their community. So, Lorianne, I'd like to invite you up here to share some remarks.

Thank you. I think that you work at a place where you love your job. If you love your job, they say, what is the saying? That if you love your job, you never work another day in your life. That's kind of how I feel here. I've made and built relationships with our residents that I think I spend more time with people that I work with and our residents that I do with my family. I love the leadership that we have here and the culture. It is so unique. When I first started working here, I used to go and meet people in other cities, and I'm really sorry if you're watching this from another city, but everybody would go, that's not possible. You aren't allowed to do that. You all don't do that. Your culture's not like that. You don't talk to your council members. And I didn't know any different. And as I started learning how other cultures or non-culture organizations were, I always knew that that is not where I wanted to be. So I think we have a very unique culture. We have a very unique relationship with our residents, with our council, with our just community. it feels more like a family, and it really made it where I wanted to live here. When I first started working here, I'm not gonna lie, I did not wanna live here, but I have lived here now for a long time, and it is our home, so I appreciate, and I think Stacy said this when they were giving her her 20 years, I'm not leaving anytime soon, so thank you.

So congratulations again to Maria, Kim, Wyatt, and Lorianne on these significant service milestones. Thank you for your years of dedicated public service, your professionalism, and the positive impact that you've made on our organization and our community. Micah, I invite you to add any feedback.

Sure, as I sometimes reflect on when there's 20 years awards and 10 years awards, this doesn't happen by accident. And this is only partly because of the permission from the council to be able to operate in a certain way. And so I think that's what we want to highlight and participate and really honor as far as that kind of permission that you give us as a team the ability to do things differently to do things creatively and to solve problems on an ongoing basis and so congratulations to the folks are honored today and we just expect you know double the amount of years every time somebody gets these awards so with that thank you for that and I think we'll come down for a picture

All right, moving on. Public comment. We will now move to public comment. Members of the public wishing to address the council for any matter not on the agenda may do so at this time. Public comment period is limited to matters that fall within the council's authority, known as councils for subject matter jurisdiction. It's new. For the items that are on the agenda, speakers will be called by the mayor at the point on the agenda when the item is heard. Speakers are asked to keep their comments to three minutes or less and asked at the beginning by stating their name for the record. To submit public comment, please submit a speaker card to the city clerk. Raise your hand on Zoom by using the raise hand feature or pressing star nine. If participating by the telephone and wait to be called upon by the city clerk. Under provision of the California government code, the city council is prohibited from discussing or taking immediate action on an item not on the agenda unless it can be demonstrated to be of emergency nature or the need to take action arose immediate after the posting of the agenda. Stacy, do we have any public comment?

We do. I'm going to take public comment for those who are in the council chambers first. Kelsey Cobbs, if you're in the council chambers, if you'd like to come forward.

Kelsey.

You'll have up to three minutes, and then I will look to Zoom to see if there's any hands that are raised.

Hi, I'm Kelsey. I'm a little nervous, so don't mind me. My name is Kelsey Cobbs, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm here because I believe in Rancho Cordova deserves another opportunity for its youth, a new little league that's built on community, transparency, and putting kids first. Rancho Cordova continues to grow every year. More families are moving here and more children are participating in youth sports and demand for quality baseball programs continuing to increase. As our city grows, our opportunities for our children should grow with it. Our vision is to establish Rancho Cordova Central Little League, a league that gives every child a place to play, learn, belong, regardless of experience and ability. Our motto is simply where every player finds their second home. We want our fields to become more than baseball diamonds. We want them to become a safe place where children build confidence, friendships, leadership skills, lifelong memories. This league isn't about baseball. It's about investing in our youth, strengthening family, creating volunteer opportunities, partnering with local businesses, and bringing our community together. We've always begun building supportive families throughout Rancho Cordova. We're working through Little League charter process while developing a long-term plan that includes fundraising, sponsorship, volunteering, recruitment, and community partnerships. Tonight, I'm not asking the city to build everything overnight. I'm asking for the opportunity to work alongside you. We hope to explore available field space, learn more about the city's facility process, and begin building a partnership that benefits the children and families of Rancho Cordova of many years to come. I truly believe that every child deserves a chance to put on a jersey, step on that field, and feel like they belong. Together, we can create a league that reflects the values of this growing community and gives future generations a place that they're proud to call home. Thank you for your time, your service to your city, and for considering this vision of Rancho Cordova Central Little League.

Thank you, that was awesome. And good job on this.

Next.

Okay. I don't have any, let's see, additional public speaker cards for those in the council chambers, but I do have hands that are raised. We'll start with Maricel. Maricel, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you, and you'll have up to three minutes to speak. And it looks like Joe Little, Council Member Joe Little, has also joined. He's raising his hand, and so I'm going to invite him to participate in our meeting as well. So... if he, I'm gonna see if he is gonna join us.

Don't we have to have a request for a special dispensation for not being in the room?

That is possible, yes, so.

If he's just speaking in public comment, I think if that's the purpose of him joining the meeting, then I think that's fine.

Okay, so I will remove him for right now and see if he wants to speak under public comment, and I will connect with him. We'll start with Maricel.

Is she up?

She is, yes. Just a moment. Maricel, are you there?

Yes, can you hear us? There he is. All right, go ahead.

Yes, hi. So it's my wife, Maricel, and my name is Jermaine. And we are new to the area. Well, we've been here, moved here in September. And we are over in the ranch community near Anatolia. And so that's my comment first. And my question is, you know, when will we see some fine dining restaurants and shopping experiences here? near Anatolia and the ranch community, similar to the village built recently in Elk Grove that now includes restaurants like Yard House, Hold Foods, et cetera. It's not just a shopping center that we're looking for. It's an experience we're looking for. not just fast food and quick transactional businesses and small strip malls of dry cleaning and UPS stores that we're looking for. So that's my question. And I just want to follow it up with, you know, we moved here from Elk Grove and, you know, since we've been here, we love the new neighborhoods that we live in, but we're, it seems like we're having to go outside of Rancho Cordova to go spend our money to be able to, have those experiences at the El Dorado Hills Town Center or at the Elk Grove, the Village, or even Folsom Town Center. And so we'd like to see some of those things around here. We want to know what's being planned for that kind of experience for Rancho Cordova residents. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, who's next? that is it we do not have any additional public comment let me just follow up I think his name is Marcel and Jermaine yes all right good news is and just so you know this right now the city is pursuing a full stadium inside the stadium there's going to be fine dining in the area along with other cool hotels possibly if you've read it maybe movie theater possibly bowling alleys but Increasingly number of fine dining will become into the area with that So keep your ear to the ground and we have some pretty amazing stuff getting ready to get announced in the next Couple months for the city of Rancho Cordova Okay, is there any way to be a part of those committees We'll have some stuff on general plan The best thing to do is come to those meetings and get your voice heard. We'd love to hear from you.

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right. I'm going to move on to council reports, and we're going to start with David. David, what's going on?

Well, it has been an interestingly quiet couple of weeks as most agencies are on summer break. And so I have had not too many duties that call me away to other meetings. So I am going to limit my report to just hoping everyone had a great vacation season this summer. And that will be my report.

Somebody needs to tell us where the summer went.

Moving on. Siri.

You're back. Yeah, I'm back. I've been out for a few weeks, but the 10 days that I've been back, this is my second council meeting. So it looks like we're having council meetings, and that's not stopping. You guys maybe took a pause while I was away, so it's back in full swing. I was telling Micah I bought this upon myself, coming here in 110-degree weather.

Thanks for bringing that back from India for us. Really appreciate that. Yeah, I know. Couldn't bring food back. At least you didn't bring the humidity.

Yeah, that would have been better. It's raining, actually, back there. It's rainy season. We have a season called. Well, go bring the rain with you.

Anyway.

So yeah, I've been back, got over my jet lag. So two council meetings and I attended an event over the weekend called Meraki 2026. This was by a young woman who started this program to empower other young ladies and women in leadership. So I got to talk about my journey and to encourage more young ladies to step into public office and in the field of STEM. So that was a good event.

Thank you.

Very cool. Linda?

Well, I can't believe David got a holiday because I didn't. I mean, it's been a month since we met. So we got a really nice little letter from Splash about sponsoring their youth environmental leadership program. They always draw. I heard the presentation from kids at City Hall back on the 7th. And Garrett heard it the other night, so he can talk about that. But the cool thing about kids at City Hall is they always do these presentations. And they talk about what they think, what kinds of principles or projects they think the city should be involved in. And it ranged in everything from quality, no hierarchy, total equality, no discrimination, no smoking, the right to vote, no homeless, free speech, and unicorns will evaluate the purity of heart. Take that as you will. Our SPTC-JPA, the Sacramento-Placerville Transportation Corridor met this morning and it was a really fascinating meeting as they talk about how to plan for the jurisdictions but to include projects that the jurisdictions may want to include that might not necessarily be already on their radar. We did have a Growing Strong Neighborhoods meeting. We had a couple of them. And there will be some information about changes to potential city codes coming out of that. Regional Transit met. They are continuing to work on establishing the The low floor stations, they're working now on the blue line. All of our stations on the gold line have been done. And they're buying more of the low floor cars, even as we speak. There's a lot going on at Regional Transit. It's been extremely... Oh, they're getting ready to open two new stations. And tell your kids this is the perfect time. Kids still ride free on Regional Transit to get everywhere, not just to get to school. The library met... there's a question about the relationship between the library and the friends of the library we had a couple of really great meetings with our school district and ad hoc committees we're still working on getting our CTE high school over on Prospect Park And we had a great meeting with Metro Fire, Metro Fire collaboration meeting, and talked about how Station 61 on Folsom Boulevard could be rebuilt. And it would move a little bit to the west, kind of towards the shopping center that the person that Garrett knows is trying to remodel. So you want to tell them to be sure to coordinate with Metro Fire. So, like I said, I don't know how David got a holiday. I didn't.

Vice Mayor Linda Butch.

I should report on my non-holiday, I guess. I did do one little mission on behalf of the city, and that is a self-directed tour of libraries in Yolo and Sacramento County. So I visited three in Yolo County and three in Sacramento County. I specifically focused on middle to small size libraries, looking for unique things they did. And I've noticed a distinct cultural difference between the Yolo County library system and the Sacramento County library system. And it's my recommendation that we join the Yolo County system. They are very innovative and kind of edgy in all of their locations, meeting something that's happening on the ground locally. For example, in Clarksburg, I saw that they had established a seed library, but there are a lot of people there who are gardeners or farmers and are growing things. They had special relationship with the school that was adjacent, and they functioned as a school library. It was a charter school. They were full, they were busy. I'm visiting them in the middle of the day in the summer. So I was sort of evaluating how many kids are in the space. The old libraries all kind of fit that mold. Sacramento County Library's much more sterile, much more empty, much less decorated, and much less local connection, which is not the impression I get from the existing Rancho Cordova Library. And I can't say that I have visited on any regular basis any other one than that one. But there was a definite feeling of difference there. And I would actually recommend as we go into discussions about our community center and how to place a library in that structure, we should probably be really sort of maybe demanding of what sort of things we're looking for and how they might roll out. And I did collect a few business cards from the library staff who mainly the YOLO staff who were willing to talk to me about what their job was like and what things worked, how things worked in their system.

Did you go to the West Sacramento Library?

Yeah.

Okay, because it's right there behind their community center.

It's pretty cool.

So it is.

That's a really nice mid-sized design. That's the best design I've seen so far.

The big issue, and if Kim were here, she'd be seconding this. The big issue is the the split between the old City of Sacramento library system and the county's library system and the fact that one of them is dramatically underfunded.

Oh, interesting.

And that's going to be an issue that is not going to go away and it will need to be addressed because it will impact what we're able to do here in Rancho Cordova.

Thank you.

All right, moving on to me. I had a very, lots of stuff. All right, met with the California Black Chamber of Commerce. They are very interested with all the stuff that we're doing on jobs and job placement and technology, and they want to know how they can get involved to help people get jobs. I got to see the animal barn. It was cool. It's kind of unique that we... It was funny because Sean came to me. He's like, hey, I really want a good long speech, even though you were told to do a small speech. And so I went to Maria, and I was like, he wants a really in-depth speech because he wants to talk about from where this came from. And it's funny because if you actually do the research, it's Lieseldorf. the Indians to Leeseldorf, Leeseldorf to the community, and just how far back that farm area was, what it used to really do because it was on the river or the creek bed, and then how it became part of Rancho Cordova, and then it was like a note on a piece of paper like, hey, can I have access to this land to farm on it just to show people how to do fruit? And then they moved from that over to this piece, and now it's just this amazing facility where you can really learn to go learn about growing things. I come from a farming background because my family owned John Deere tractors, so it's interesting listening to people glorify farming. It's hot, it's awful. But I appreciate anyone that's willing to do that and teach our kids. I find it fascinating that we're gonna take our kids there and actually have them grow stuff and kind of learn where it is. And it's funny of them talking about how now they're really excited about having animals in there so they can take fecal matter and spread it around to better turn the it's called manure okay you know what i was just trying to be nice to make compost regenerative farming it's funny because they use all these words that i grew up with and i'm like are you trying to say they and they and you're going to turn it over and they're like yeah but they use they said it fancier and i'm like okay you didn't all do so essentially so now we're going to have goats and think and i said here's the biggest thing we need a tribe of goats to clean up our areas that are fire risks so we're counting on you to have about a 40 to 150 person tribe of goats that we can then take throughout rancho cordova and eat the grass down and that's my new idea you have But we can brand them with names.

We contract out for that service. I think Garrett is recommending we have our own branded goats.

We can name the goats after the employees. So rancher of the goats? Yeah. And the fire ones could have fire caps.

The police one could have policeman hats. And this is what we do with unmowed lawns? Yeah.

So if the managers are upset with their employees, they can go shout at the goat? Yeah.

If you have a problem, the goat will listen to you. They will also leave fertilizer behind.

Yeah, council could be on there. I could have a cool-looking goat. I like this idea. Well, fertilizers, they go. They fertilizers do it.

As long as we don't plate them red and black. In Scotland, they paint their sheep.

They paint the goats?

No, they do. Instead of branding something, they paint the sheep.

Oh, fun thing. They started talking about people were getting in line to read to the sheep because of that movie at the thing. And I was like, that's fabulous. But the sheep. There's no goat yoga. You know what? Moving on. Congratulations to Walk Your Place.

They're a new technology. Siri has a new industry for us.

Goat yoga. See what you did?

It's already there in the same farm that you went to.

They do goat yoga? Really? No, they don't. They're delicious. Anyways, Walk Your Place is an amazing facility where they take your drawings and they blow it up in real life and you can actually walk the area. Congratulations to my young ones from City Hall. That was awesome. to see people wanting to learn about how government gets done in the city and all the different groups we have. And I think it's cool.

I think it's the 10 cohort that went through, which is just perfect. Everything's like a decade now.

Congratulations to North Valley Specialty Group. They opened up their facility. What they do is they kind of, it kind of reminds me of a facility that basically takes like senior care and brings it back to where they come to where you are instead of making you go to them. So they take their facilities out there and treat you so you can stay in your house even longer. So it's awesome that they're opening a Rancho and it's another business. Coffee with the mayor was cool. Very interesting everybody that showed up, always saying, And whoever shows up, listen, Rancho Cordova is one of the most diverse, loving cities in the region. We have every type of culture, race, creed, religion. And so when we do these things, we always want to come with a big open mind because that's what makes Rancho Cordova special. McEwen Mobility Solution, if I mess up their name, I apologize. Dopest thing I've ever seen. It's for people that are paraplegics and can't walk or having trouble and walk. And they're returning that with four wheel vehicles so that you can still walk through parks and like stuff like tanks and looking things and and they have like big rotors so you can go through it. And I'm like, super cool. And they want more engagement with the city. uh, embark program, which is minorities in business, um, recovery starter kit to kind of get them going. Uh, we invest a lot in trying to get to regenerate or grow our small business because we know what small business do is generate is the lifeblood of any city. It's what, uh, gives like 70% of most businesses, um, Most employment for your city comes from small business. And then congratulations to us. We opened another grade school and I've never, I went with Micah. It's called the Cypress Grove Elementary. I've never seen more kids, like parents on parents at the event waiting to go inside. Like there's excitement and then there's like so much need of a school that they're like, oh my God, this is the greatest thing ever. And they bum rushed over me To get into the school. And I was like, this is nuts. So, awesome. Lots of great stuff going on at Rancho Cordova. And it's just amazing. Micah.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple things to highlight that weren't already mentioned. One is I just want to thank the team that put together Kids Day for our team, for our staff at City Hall. So that's Laurieann and team as well. So it's a good thing Laurieann is here tonight to talk about all the great things she's doing. But really what I want to highlight is actually a note that I got from one of the spouses, from one of our team members for that event of having kids. Some of our team members kids come for the day and see where their parents work and so it's the 19th annual kids day so this has been doing this for 19 years, but Heartfelt gratitude to the entire organization organizing committee volunteers staff members and everyone who contributed behind the scenes their dedication enthusiasm and hard work were clearly reflected in the success of the event and We truly appreciate the city's continued new commitment to supporting employees and their families if we look forward to participating again in the future year. So just a great kids day with over 50 kids here with representing our team. And so something that if you wanted to miss that day and it was loud and I think I had them scream at one point as loud as they can to see how if we could reverberate through the city hall. But I think that's something that we want to continue to celebrate and have a good time doing.

Absolutely. All my kids went through it. And I got to see the mad magician.

Yeah, you came in for the magician too. Yeah, apparently there's some critters and some different things involved that I'm appreciative that council member Pulipati was not here for.

David doesn't like science.

So the other just kind of team oriented thing is we have almost completed the little city hall over at Safetyville. And so I think look forward to an opening soon. And so the team was out there at various locations. times with their hard hats and hammers and putting together a little city hall. And so we look forward to the, I guess grand opening we'll have or some sort of thing once we get the letters for city hall that are attached to the building, but really something exciting to celebrate the little city hall. And then tomorrow night is national night out. So just for everybody's calendars, as we go to the community with our team and our public safety friends to just hang out in the community and eat some good food and celebrate what's going on in Rancho Cordova. So with that. I'm done. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. All right. We're going to go ahead and move on to consent calendar items. Matters deemed routine and non-controversial by staff unless a member of the council wishes to pull an item. For individual consideration, all items may be approved with one motion. Are there any items council wishes to pull from consent calendar? Seeing none, I'll ask the city clerk, is there any specific comment related to consent calendar?

I do not have any speaker cards. I'm looking at Zoom, and there are no hands that are raised.

then I will move approval of consent calendar items 9.1 through 9.15. Second.

Roll call, please.

Councilmember Little is absent. Councilmember Sander?

Aye.

Councilmember Polipotti? Yes. Vice Mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood? Yep. The motion passes.

Excellent. Let's go on to consent public hearing items. Sent public hearing items that consist of managed, deemed routine, and not controversial by staff. Unless the member of council wishes to pull an item for individual consideration, all items will be approved by one motion. I'm gonna go ahead and open the public hearing very quietly.

Thank you.

And ask the city clerk, is there any public comment?

I do not have any speaker cards, and looking at Zoom, there are no hands that are raised.

Seeing no public comment, we'll close the public hearing. And ask the council, is there any items they wish to pull?

I will move approval of 10.1. Are we doing just 10.1 or both? 10.1, 10.2. And 10.2.

Awesome. And can I have a roll call, please?

Council Member Sander? Aye. Council Member Little is absent. Council Member Pulipati? Yes. Vice Mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood? Yes. Motion passes.

Excellent. There's no public hearing items tonight, so we're going to go to regular calendar items and... Can I go ahead and ask Stacy for the subject?

An update from 50 Corridor Transportation Management Association.

Albert, hit it.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. Albert Stricker with the Public Works Department. And recently, City Council requested an update on the 50 Corridor TMA, and Cheryl joined the TMA several years ago and has been doing a spectacular job in promoting augmenting programs, bringing new programs, and connecting with the community, and she's going to be giving us an update this evening.

Excellent. Welcome, Cheryl.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Excellent. Do I have control over this? Yes. Okay, cool. Thanks for the opportunity to present. My name is Cheryl Crozier, I'm the director of the 50 corridor transportation management association. And I've been in this role for just about five years now. And I'm really proud of the work we've done to respond to, and also grow from the pandemic, which as you know, really changed the way people live and the way they get around. So as quickly as I can, I'm going to tell you about our organization, the fun work that we're doing in Rancho Cordova, who we're collaborating with in the city, and then I'll leave plenty of time for your questions and discussion. So who are we? We are a nonprofit organization, and we work with around 200,000 people across the Sacramento metro area. Obviously, a good proportion of them are in the city of Rancho Cordova. And we help people walk, bike, carpool, and take transit more. This is my awesome, friendly, helpful team. We've grown a lot over the past five years. And what work are we doing in Rancho Cordova? So our funding comes primarily from two sources to do work in the city of Rancho Cordova. The third source of funding is that the city is actually a member of our organization, and so you and all of the city employees also have access to some of the benefits that we provide. That's not the focus of my presentation, but just know that a lot of what we do for residents is also available in a different form for staff. But the two main sources of funding are the first one comes from your transit zones, which are shown here on the map. And these are mostly the newer master-planned communities and other newer developments around the city that pay a special property tax for education, outreach, incentives to help residents drive less and reduce their air emissions. And this tax also pays for some transit service to these areas. And so that's the cordovan service that many of you are familiar with. And for single family homes, I believe this tax is about $135 a year right now. The catch is that this money has to be spent in these communities. And so something that we found over the years was that we'd be doing this awesome programming in the transit zones. And residents from around the city would hear about what we were doing, and they'd be like, hey, how do we get in on that? And we'd have to politely tell them that these services and benefits were reserved for the taxpayers, the special taxpayers. So we've also worked really closely with staff to pursue grants that allow us to expand these services across the city. And so most recently, we worked with staff in Public Works to secure a five-year grant through SACOG's regional carbon reduction program. So we're in year two of that. And that allows us to expand almost all of the services that we're offering in the transit zones to the entire city. So what are these services? The first one is we're trying to help people ride light rail and the bus more. And so we offer people free transit fare. We will send any resident of Rancho Cordova a Connect card in the mail and load it up to $25 a month. Most of the people in this program have never ridden transit before or are very infrequent riders. And so we're loading $5, maybe $7.50 a month. and people who were not previously using the bus or the train are now using it on occasion. So in the last fiscal year, as you can see, we gave out over $11,000 in transit fare to nearly 230 residents. When they get their Connect Card in the mail, we're also giving them a lot of educational materials. So this is what somebody gets in the mail. It tells them how to use the Connect Card. It tells them about the bus routes and the light rail that are in their neighborhood. It gives them a map. So we try to make it really easy and hold people's hands as they learn and try transit, many of them for the first time. I just passed out, and some of you may have gotten this mailer in the mail recently, but we worked with a local artist and cartographer, Queenie Lou, recently, to develop this custom map of the city of Rancho Cordova. And we really wanted it to celebrate the city, to highlight the best bike routes and transit routes in the city, and to be attractive enough that people would want to stick it up on their fridge and sort of let it hang around. But the idea is to make it easy to see the sustainable modes of transportation that are available. It also advertises this app and website that we use called NorCal Go. It's another SACOG-funded platform. That's where we give out most of our services and incentives. So for example, When you create an account in NorCal Go, you can put in your commute or a regular trip you make and look for carpool buddies. It'll match you with other folks going in the same direction. But you can also use it to plan your trip, to explore transit routes. And we use it to incentivize people to try these sustainable modes more. So right now, all Rancho Cordova residents, if they log 10 sustainable trips in this platform, we'll give them 20 bucks. So you can see here, we just launched this incentive in October. We've already given out almost $6,000 to Rancho residents. This is just an example of some of the mailers or the advertisements that we've used to promote this incentive. And then maybe you've seen us at Good Neighbor Days or other events. But we're also trying to help residents shift some of their car trips to biking. And so we do that by bringing mechanics into the community and also leading people on community bike rides, trying to introduce them to the bikeways that exist in their neighborhood. So as you can see here, we had 10 opportunities this past year for residents to get their bikes tuned up. And we did that at parks and at schools. And so we got 230 bikes rolling more smoothly. And we also took over 250 residents out on a bike ride in the community. And then finally, our sort of general service that we offer is something called guaranteed ride. So this is, again, for any Rancho resident, if they are using a sustainable mode of transportation, And it's not working for them. Like their kid is sick and they have to go pick them up or their carpool buddy is sick and they get stranded. You get a flat tire on your bike. We offer guaranteed ride where they can call an Uber or a Lyft and we will pay for it. So residents can do that up to five times a year, up to $50 per trip. And then in the transit zones, we do work with elementary schools and other school communities. So these are some photos from McGarvey Elementary where we're working with faculty and staff and parents to organize two what we call walking bus routes from nearby parks to help more families walk to school, and then also a bike bus from Kavala Ranch Park. And at the elementary schools, we're putting these under the umbrella of walk and roll to school days. And so we're putting the emphasis right now on like a monthly walk and roll to school day. But our hope is that as we build this out, we can get them to weekly and then really try to normalize walking and rolling every day. At Sunrise Elementary School, we've been working with parents to facilitate this bike bus, and by the end of the year, they just started it in November, December, but by the end of the year, they had 25 students riding, and Mayor Gatewood joined in the spring, which was great.

They were really fast. And the best was the dad in the front, he turns on a bubbler, and all the little kids try to follow behind the bubbler. It's the cutest thing you've ever seen in your life.

Yeah, there's like an engineer dad who built out a bubble machine on his bike.

His only way to keep those kids, listen, he's got a lot of little, very rambunctious kids behind him, and they're like, ready to explode, and then the bubbles come, and then they try to hit every bubble with their bike. It's fabulous.

Yeah, I think that bike bus gets to that school earlier and earlier every month, so they might have to adjust the schedule. And then our last sort of school-related program is a school shuttle that we ran for the first time this past academic year. So we're operating three vans that take kids to Albionni Middle School and Pleasant Grove High School down in Elk Grove. So there's three vans. Two of them are electric. They each seat nine passengers. We charge families $5 a day for that round trip. And it was super popular. People liked it this past year. We had 53 applicants for the 27 seats for the school year that's starting next week. And we will continue that for the next three years, after which hopefully there will be a new middle and high school in the area. But importantly, we're not doing any of this alone. And so I just wanted to highlight some of the local businesses and organizations that we're collaborating with. It's been so fun to expand our work from the transit zones across the city, which has allowed us to partner with all these other organizations to really reach people where they are and in the communities that they're already engaged in. And then just before I open up to questions, You all did approve a new three-year contract for our work in the transit zones back in June, I believe, so thank you for that. And we're excited to expand our work to the new Cypress Grove Elementary School and just keep doing what we're doing and reaching more residents. I'd also invite you all to come out to any of our events that we're having this fall. So we'll have a bunch more bike events. We'll be at Good Neighbor Days. And we'll keep you posted with what we're up to. But I'll finish there.

All right. You guys have any questions?

I have two.

Linda, hit it.

OK. First of all, you know that Connect Card is transitioning. Yes. It's not going to be called Connect Card anymore. I forget. I didn't find it.

Transit Connect is the new app. And SACRT has told me that they are planning to continue with a physical card for people who might not use a smartphone. And yeah, we're testing that now.

Right now, there's a lot of discussion about it because members of the Mobility Advisory Committee are concerned that they not lose access. And they may be better with something physical than something on a phone.

Yeah. I think Sacartia is hearing those complaints. We also raised that concern. So it sounds like they're going to have some sort of physical option.

Yeah. So my other question is just kind of out of the blue. So across the street from me, And I'm basically at the corner of Disc and Prospect Park. The office building over there, every morning at 930, between 9 and 930, there are several vans that drive up and they let people off. And every afternoon at 330, they come back and pick up those people. So are you involved in that?

I am not. I'm trying to think of what that might be. It's an office.

It's obviously a carpool service of some sort, but I don't know where they come from. They all get off. They've all got backpacks. They all go in and go to work. It's apparently a call center of some sort. But economic development, and I have talked about it, and we're still scratching our heads.

Do you know what businesses are in that building? You said a call center?

No, other than it's a call center. This is one of the buildings owned by Palmer West. And the vehicles are all different. Some of them will say something on the side, but a lot of them are just plain vans.

We're going to stake it out and solve this mystery at some point.

That's not creepy at all. Go get on the bus some morning and see what happens.

Stacey, do we have any public comment?

I do not have any speaker cards. And looking at Zoom, there are no hands that are raised.

I just want to congratulate you on this. It's very attractive and fun. I think I'll try to post it to Facebook or something to share it.

The artist who made that, she lives just across the river in Fair Oaks. But she does this for cities all over the country. So it was really fun to work with her.

The fact that you included alcohol is special to us.

Yeah, that's nice. You've grown this organization a lot since the last time I sort of paid attention to what you guys were doing. And it's been a while, like almost pandemic era probably. What has been the source of funding that has allowed you to grow to the size I saw?

Yeah, well, we obviously do a lot of work in the city of Rancho. And I think for many years that transit zone money was not being spent. So I think we've built trust with public works staff, and so we've been slowly building our capacity to do more. And we also do work with the county of Sacramento, so similar program, but in a community that's just north of Elk Grove. So similar story, it's another community that's growing, so that property tax base keeps growing. We also merged with the Sacramento Transportation Management Association. There we go. It legally went through last June, so it's been about one year. So that represents 200... MOSTLY DOWNTOWN SACRAMENTO, BUT SOME OUT HERE IN RANCHO AND FOLSOM AND THROUGHOUT THE COUNTY. IT'S ONLY ABOUT 20% OF OUR REVENUE AT THIS POINT. THE OTHER COMMUNITY THAT CAME ONLINE IS FOLSOM PLAN AREA. SO FOLSOM PLAN AREA HAS THE SAME PROPERTY TAX SETUP. IT'S STRUCTURED A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENTLY THAN THE WAY YOU DO IT HERE IN RANCHO. same concept so we provide these same services and I think one of the ways that we're able to you know invest in really beautiful things that attract people's attention is that we try to do a lot of the similar things across all of the communities but we just you know tailor it to Rancho Cordova or tailor it to Folsom but on the back end we're kind of doing and we're tracking where all the money is spent but the marketing materials and a lot of our internal processes are kind of the same across all the communities.

That's good. What would you say is your best measure of success? Because it's been said if you can't measure what you're doing, you don't know what you're doing. So it's always a challenge in government to figure out exactly how do we measure what we do. So we're not selling widgets, but we are doing things, most of which should be measurable, although it may be hard to do so. But if I challenge you to that, what is the measure of your success? How do we know what we're getting for our dollar?

I would say there's quantitative measures, and those are always tricky in this field. because it's a lot of education and marketing. So we do have quantitative results. And then there's qualitative. So we had another grant through SACOG. It was in 2024. We did a big campaign. And I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head. But we had probably 500, 600 Rancho Cordova residents sign up for that. And the effort was like encouraging people to try a new mode. And then when we did surveys of the people who participated, you know, before they started the program and then after they went through the program, again, surveys have their, they are what they are. They're kind of self-reporting. They have their limits. But those surveys showed that the people that went through the program reduced their driving by, I think, 15%. So that was, that's one number that is, like, in my head that I find helpful. Qualitatively, I would say we hear, you know, we have these stories that we hear from people. So sometimes we're out. And I would say the things we're doing when they reach people, you know, through multiple means, that's when I feel the qualitative impact. So we might meet a family through Sunrise Elementary School. And they get their kid riding on the bike bus, but then they learn that, you know, we have these other bike events and that the parents can come get their bike tuned up. And then they learn that we offer free transit fare. And they're like, oh, I didn't even know there was a cordovan bus in the neighborhood. So then we tell them about that. And it turns out there's, you know, maybe a grandparent living in the household who doesn't drive. And then they have a new means of getting around by using the cordovan. So it's like the compound effect of building relationships and reaching people through multiple channels in their lives, you know, you can't just put out like one social media ad and get people to do anything, but it's like being embedded in the community and learning what are the local, the really hyper-local issues, what are the problems, what are the pain points, and then like what are people hoping for? You know, the caller in public comment who was talking about wanting restaurants in Anatolia, is something we hear all the time. People are like, I moved here because I like the community. I really wish I could ride my bike out to dinner. And so I feel people want that kind of multimodal living. And we try to help them do that with the transit routes that exist, with the bike infrastructure that exists, and just educate people. about what options there are. My background is transportation planning. So before I took this job, I worked as a consultant to cities, helping them implement SB 743, and with transit agencies to innovate and try new things. So the research shows the way people, the way to reduce driving, the way to get people to try something new, One of the most effective mechanisms is just education. People don't know that the options exist. And so just trying to get the word out and educate them about what already exists can reduce people's driving and their VMT and their air emissions by up to 4%. So that's what we're aiming for.

So Albert, the transportation tax started with the approval of Stone Creek. And I'm thinking that a bunch of that went towards the Cordova when we first started it.

That's correct. The transit districts did when we first started and continue to help fund the Cordova.

So given that we have implemented the transit tax in new growth areas as well as office buildings that have come on board, so it's probable that we're still using it for the expanded RANCHO CORDOVA. RANCHO CORDOVA. THAT'S ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.

THAT'S ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. AND AS THE CITY HAS EXPANDED, AND AS THE CITY HAS EXPANDED, PARTICULARLY OUT TOWARDS THE EAST, PARTICULARLY OUT TOWARDS THE EAST, TOWARDS GRAND LINE, WE ARE IN TOWARDS GRAND LINE, WE ARE IN REGULAR COMMUNICATION WITH REGIONAL REGULAR COMMUNICATION WITH REGIONAL TRANSIT WHO PROVIDES THE SERVICE TRANSIT WHO PROVIDES THE SERVICE ON BEHALF OF THE CITY OF RANCHO ON BEHALF OF THE CITY OF RANCHO CORDOVA ON OPPORTUNITIES AND WHEN CORDOVA ON OPPORTUNITIES AND WHEN IS THE RIGHT TIME

Cheryl, I'd really like to thank you for your efforts on sustainable travel. Council Member Sanders, I think one of this we have as a success story is the kids in Anatolia area were having a really tough time to go to Elk Grove. It was more than our commute. And so we tried to do a backup. We tried to work with this Elk Grove school board. But I think Cheryl worked a lot with the parents and the school board to create this option for kids to go on this when we're 27. I remember when we initially first started it, I think we'd gotten like nine kids But we said, let's still go ahead with the pilot program to see how it works. And I think it worked really well. So now we're having double the number of kids that want to participate in this. So, you know, it's sometimes, like she said, trying to be hyper vigilant of what's needed in the community and try to come up with solutions. And so that's one of the things I really like is that they were willing to collaborate with the city on trying to come up with ideas and working with the parents and taking that ownership onto themselves to work on this so and this one was a success so thank you yeah thank you great job thank you very much thank you all right moving on we are moving to i'm going to go ahead and close this meet oh is there any future agenda items you want to talk about

Seeing none, I'm gonna go ahead and adjourn this meeting. Recording in progress. Future agenda item, I have one.

Uh-oh, hold on. The National League of Cities has a civility pledge, which a lot of cities nationwide are signing up for this particular year. I think we've actually talked about it and not done it, so I'm gonna ask for this on a future agenda item, as a future agenda item.

Civility pledge.

Civility pledge so that we act civilly.

We'll go ahead. Let's do it. It's always good to be civil.

I told you.

We're going to go ahead and close. We're going to adjourn this meeting, and we're going to adjourn to closed session.

And there's no public comment for the item that is on the closed session. I was going to read that. Thank you.

Just let me finish reading. When I look up, then you correct me. Before we adjourn to closed session, are there any public comments related to this closed session 16.7?

There is not.

Then I look up, and then you're like, Garrett, you missed it.

Recording stopped.

order and ask our lawyer to read out a closed session.

Yes, good evening. The council met on closed session in one item of existing litigation under government codes 54956.91 DPML Bear Hollow LLC and DPML Stone Creek LLC via the city of Rancho Cordova. Only reportable action is that the council got an update from legal counsel and provided direction.

All right. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and adjourn this meeting in the name of Jamila Farr. Ms. J, happy birthday. Thank you for what you do for our community.