City Council/Public Finance and Economic Development Authority/Parking Authority - Regular Meeting

Agenda item A, closed session. We'll call Councilmember Dupont.

Present.

Tao.

Present.

Harris.

Present.

Smith.

Present.

Zhong.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Boyle. Here. And Mayor Serrato. Okay. Council will go into closed session, discuss items B1 and B2. And just for the record, there's no one in the audience nor registered to speak on these items.

Start in 20 seconds, 20 seconds. Good night.

All right, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I wanna welcome everybody to the August 3rd, 2026 meeting of the Merced City Council. We're gonna begin today with an invocation from Debbie Croft from Alpha Pregnancy Center, Merced. And after that, Council Member Harris will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Ms. Croft.

Good evening. Would you bow with me in prayer, please? Dear Lord God, we thank you for your great love, your wisdom, your grace, and for life and breath. We ask that you meet with us this evening to give guidance in the discussions that take place and in the decisions that are made. I thank you for the people of Merced who care and who serve, who want to bring meaningful change to our city. And I ask for your help and direction as we work for good for our community, for the people of the City of Mercy. Father, thank you that you care about us and everything we do. Go before us now, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Please join me in the pledge. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag

All right, thank you, Debbie. Thank you, Council Member Harris.

Agenda item D, roll call. Council Member Dupont.

Present.

Tao.

Present.

Harris. Present. Smith.

Present.

Zhong.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Boyle. Here. And Mayor Serrato.

Present.

Mayor, I'd like to remind the audience that if they wish to address the City Council, they may submit a green request to speak form or request to speak in one of the following ways. Complete a green request to speak card available at the back of the Council Chamber and submit it to the Deputy City Clerk before the item is called, preferably before the meeting begins. Scan the QR code corresponding to your preferred language, English, Hmong or Spanish, located behind the seats in the council chamber and follow the instructions. Submit a request to speak online by visiting publiccomment.cityofmerced.gov and individuals participating virtually by phone must provide a valid phone number so staff can identify the caller during the meeting. Please be patient as this is a new process and there may be some disruptions or issues. Staff will do their best to ensure everyone gets an opportunity to speak. Additionally, citizens can submit public comment to the city council electronically no later than 1 p.m. on the day of the meeting. Comments received before the deadline will be sent to council and will be part of the record and will be mentioned as part of the written petitions and communications portion of the agenda. And they will also be posted on the city's website. Material may be emailed to cityclerk at cityofmerced.gov and any correspondence received after 1 p.m. will be distributed to the city council and retained for the official record. Also for those audience members who wish to have Spanish or Hmong translation services, please let our interpreters know. If you are participating virtually by phone, please indicate that as you register to speak.

Hola, buenas noches. Mi nombre es Elizabeth. Yo voy a ser su intérprete de hoy. Si tienen cualquier pregunta, yo voy a estar sentada atrás. Para las personas que están haciendo la comunicación telefónicamente, por favor, de decir una a dos oraciones para yo poder interpretarles apropiadamente. Gracias.

Nha Trang,

In accordance with government code 54952.3, it is hereby announced that the city council sits either simultaneously or serially as the public financing and economic development authority, parking authority, and or successor agency to the redevelopment agency. City council members receive a monthly stipend of $500 by charter for sitting as the city council, and the mayor receives an additional $100 each month as part of the adopted budget and resolution 2024-78. The public financing and economic development authority, parking authority and successor agency to the redevelopment agency received no compensation. Agenda item E, report out of closed session.

There is no report out of closed session.

Agenda item F, special presentations. F1, presentation from the City of Merced Fire Department on Independence Day holiday response.

Thank you, Jennifer. Chief Wilson.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Casey Wilson, Fire Chief. Thank you for the opportunity to present about our Independence Day response and enforcement efforts. We have a short presentation for you to outline how our day went. So coming up to the 4th of July, we did some education outreach efforts. We focused on social media posts via Facebook and Instagram. Most of those were static posts. We did some social media videos. We did television interviews with the various stations in the area. And we also put up our banner in the weeks leading up to the 4th of July to remind folks of the $1,000 Menon Citation for utilizing illegal fireworks. Mitigation and prevention efforts. The fire department focused on the implementation of property owner citations. These are done contactless by the fire department. We utilize a GIS system that our IT team has put together for us. We administer these citations as we're going around doing patrols throughout the evening. We use a database with a map layer and we administer the citations through that. Leading up to the fourth, we utilize the complaints and phone calls and Merced Connect requests that are coming in to focus our efforts in those areas so we know where the hotspots are in the community where we should focus our patrols. For additional fire staffing, we had an additional chief officer working this year. This proved to be rather beneficial as we had multiple calls for service at the same time. Merced PD had two additional officers that worked from June 29th through July 4th and they were focused on fireworks enforcement throughout that period. Our July 4th response, some positives and some challenges we had this year. So for the fire department calls for service on the left-hand column, you'll see that's July 4th, which is a Friday in 2025. And what we're doing is we're comparing to the right column there where July 4th was on a Saturday this year. Last year, we actually had significant amount more calls for service. We had 61 calls for service total and 26 total fires and one structure fire. This year calls for service were down we actually only responded to 44 calls for service our average per day is about 35. Unfortunately we had a disproportionate amount of fires versus medical and public assist calls like we normally have so we had 16 fires although it's down 10 we still had a significant amount of fires that were compressed in a short amount of time that made our 4th of July response a little bit challenging for us. And I'll break that down a little bit more shortly. As far as the police calls for service, they had a significant amount of calls for service come into the PSAP as well, or the dispatch center, 177. It's likely much more than this, but when multiple calls come in in the same vicinity, they don't enter those calls for service into the system multiple times. They will fall under the previous call for service it was put in. So that data is probably a little bit low. Celebrate Safe phone line. This is a dedicated phone line that we have for reporting illegal fireworks. This is really beneficial for our dispatchers in the sense that it takes away calls from coming into the 911 system and allows us to prioritize those calls. So on July 4th through the night of the 5th, or the morning of the 5th rather, we had 69 calls come in to the Celebrate Safe phone line. Again this is really beneficial because that's potentially 69 phone calls that would have potentially came in through the 911 system and tied up our 911 system even more than it did. To break down our 4th of July response, as I mentioned, we had 44 calls for service. 16 of those were fires. We had one building fire, 15 grass, brush, rubbish or debris fires and dumpster fires. 21 EMS calls, three public assists, three motor vehicle accidents, one smell of gas and mutual aid requests. This is actually us requesting mutual aid from Merced County Fire because we were out of resources at that time. Generally speaking, we run about 70% EMS calls. So you can see we had a disproportionate number of fires that evening, 37% fires and about 49% EMS calls with some other call types varying in there. Two significant incidents I would like to highlight. One was a structure fire on Baxter Court. This was a two-story residential with heavy fire to the rear of the structure. One adult male was rescued from inside the house when our units arrived on scene. We had an unambulatory male inside the home. This was illegal fireworks cause, and unfortunately, the illegal fireworks landed in the backyard of this residence that unfortunately was not maintained very well, so the fire spread very quickly. That additional chief officer that we had staffed happened to be first on scene. It happened to be his, I think, second shift as a battalion chief, so he had his hands full when he got there. But he did a really nice job managing this incident. It was very challenging. The residents on scene and the neighbors reported that the individual was inside so they immediately went into rescue mode and was able to pull this individual out and essentially was was transported for precautionary purposes, no major injuries we're happy to report. This incident occurred early enough in the evening and it took up a significant amount of resources, so the timing of these incidents really play a big factor on our enforcement efforts during the 4th of July. Another significant incident was an MVA. This occurred at Campus Parkway and Child's Avenue. Unfortunately, the vehicle accident resulted in a fire. and we had one patient with critical injuries. Luckily we had an advanced life support engine that responded, but more importantly, there were two civilians actually that provided a rescue prior to our arrival, which was absolutely critically important considering the vehicle was on fire. So in a future council meeting, we'll be recognizing those individuals, really pay tribute to the efforts they put forward that evening. Moving forward, we would like to get a little creative. The last couple of years we've been looking at what other agencies are doing and we're seeing a rising increase in folks using drones for fireworks citations. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna go back to the drawing board, see if we can find some more creative ways to enforce our fireworks, do a little more preventative efforts and get this information out to the community, utilize some of the drone technology that we have, the GIS technology that we have, There may be some additional equipment, additional training that we need to bring in to try and shore this up, to try and do this by July of next year. But we're seeing a lot of success in agencies throughout the state of California. One, for example, Sacramento, they flew seven drones over on the 4th of July. They issued 70 citations, which equated to $300,000 in citations issued. Not that we're trying to generate revenue, but we're really trying to deter that, the use of illegal fireworks, especially in our neighborhoods to prevent these fires. All right, any questions for me?

Thank you, Chief Wilk. Any questions? Chief, thank you and thank your department for all your work in addressing this. You guys make this a big priority year after year. It's a huge community concern. We hear it constantly over the years from our residents. I think you guys have definitely made a dent and made progress and things are certainly getting better. Still work to do, obviously, but you guys have, congratulations to all you guys too. Thank you for your work and things are definitely getting better. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you.

Agenda item G, ceremonial matters, G1 proclamation, National Health Centers Week.

Okay, thank you, Jennifer. Our first proclamation tonight is for National Health Centers Week. So if all the good people from Golden Valley Health Centers could come on down, everybody can make them feel welcome, give a nice round of applause. ALL RIGHT. WELCOME, EVERYBODY. WELCOME, EVERYBODY. WELCOME, EVERYBODY. WOULD YOU LIKE TO TELL US ABOUT WOULD YOU LIKE TO TELL US ABOUT WOULD YOU LIKE TO TELL US ABOUT THE GOOD WORK THAT YOU DO AND THE GOOD WORK THAT YOU DO AND THE GOOD WORK THAT YOU DO AND EVERYTHING THAT YOU'RE HERE TODAY EVERYTHING THAT YOU'RE HERE TODAY EVERYTHING THAT YOU'RE HERE TODAY FOR TO TALK ABOUT NATIONAL FOR TO TALK ABOUT NATIONAL FOR TO TALK ABOUT NATIONAL HEALTH CENTER WEEK?

HEALTH CENTER WEEK? HEALTH CENTER WEEK? ABSOLUTELY.

ABSOLUTELY. ABSOLUTELY. I'M GOING TO LET MY PHONE I'M GOING TO LET MY PHONE

THANK YOU, MAYOR. THANK YOU, MAYOR. THANK YOU, MAYOR. GOOD EVENING, MEMBERS OF THE GOOD EVENING, MEMBERS OF THE GOOD EVENING, MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL, CITY STAFF, AND CITY COUNCIL, CITY STAFF, AND CITY COUNCIL, CITY STAFF, AND MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC. MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC. MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC. MY NAME IS ELUSA BIOS. MY NAME IS ELUSA BIOS. MY NAME IS ELUSA BIOS. I'M THE GOVERNMENT AND AFFAIRS I'M THE GOVERNMENT AND AFFAIRS I'M THE GOVERNMENT AND AFFAIRS MANAGER FOR GOLDEN VALLEY MANAGER FOR GOLDEN VALLEY MANAGER FOR GOLDEN VALLEY HEALTH CEN Every year the first week of August really provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the work that we've done to increase access to care and increase the quality of care to the communities that we serve. Just this year we began offering virtual urgent care services seven days a week. We also introduced a self-scheduling feature that allows patients to self-schedule all their primary care appointments via our MyChart app. And most recently, we actually started launching our virtual AI assistant, which would allow patients to manage and schedule all their appointments over the phone. So, we're hoping that with these initiatives, it will really help patients receive the care they need when they need it. And we recently also, at our Child's Avenue Clinic and our Sandpiper Clinic, we expanded our pharmacy services so they do home delivery. So we're always continually trying to expand and service all of our patients. So with that, I appreciate you guys for the recognition for National Health Center of New England.

THANK YOU, IT'S AN HONOR TO THANK YOU, IT'S AN HONOR TO THANK YOU, IT'S AN HONOR TO RECOGNIZE YOU GUYS. RECOGNIZE YOU GUYS. RECOGNIZE YOU GUYS. YOU DO SO MUCH GOOD WORK IN YOU DO SO MUCH GOOD WORK IN YOU DO SO MUCH GOOD WORK IN MERCED, IN THE CITY, IN THE MERCED, IN THE CITY, IN THE MERCED, IN THE CITY, IN THE COUNTY, PROVIDING AN EXCEPTIONALLY IN THE COUNTY, PROVIDING AN EXCEPTIONALLY IN THE COUNTY, PROVIDING AN EXCEPTIONALLY VALUABLE SERVICE TO SO MANY VALUABLE SERVICE TO SO MANY VALUABLE SERVICE TO SO MANY PEOPLE. PEOPLE. PEOPLE. I ALSO EMPLOY A LOT OF PEOPLE all right here's our proclamation whereas for more than 60 years community health centers have provided high quality affordable comprehensive primary and preventative health care in communities with limited access delivering value to and having a significant impact on america's health care system and whereas as the as the nation's largest primary care network community health centers serve more than 52 million americans through over 17 000 service delivery sites across the country providing care to one in seven people in the united states and whereas community health centers are a critical component of the nation's health care system serving rural suburban island frontier mountain and urban communities and often providing the only source of primary care in underserved areas and whereas golden valley health centers founded in 1972 is a trusted safety net provider serving the central valley through 50 locations across merced san joaquin and stanislaus counties and whereas golden valley health centers employs more than 1400 dedicated professionals who embody the mission of delivering compassionate patient-centered care while advancing health equity and improving access to care throughout the Central Valley. And whereas during National Health Center Week, we celebrate the legacy of America's community health centers and their vital role in building innovative care where it matters most. now therefore i matthew serrato mayor of the city of merced do hereby proclaim august 2nd through 8th 2026 as national health center week i encourage all americans to participate in this week by visiting their local health center and celebrating the vital partnership between america's community health centers and the communities they serve thank you

and item G2, certificates of recognition to Kaden and Anthony Nance, requested by Mayor Serrato.

Thank you, Jennifer. All right, if Kaden and Anthony Nance, young men want to come on down, give them a warm welcome, ladies and gentlemen. All right, we have two of the best junior boxers in the country right here, ladies and gentlemen. And they're also associated, I think, in a really cool way with our Merced PAL, our boxing gym on Main Street as well. So hand it over to you guys to share some details. And Ernie, he's always too shy to talk, so you might have to jump in there and talk a little more. Go ahead.

OK, yes. Hi, my name is Valerie. I'm the mother of Anthony and Kayden. They've been going to nationals for about four years, competing at a high level. So they have outgrown, I mean, how can I say it? There's kids that have been doing it their whole life, and they out beat all the years. So right now we have Anthony. He's been on a winning streak. So he's ranked number one at 132. He just won gold for the Junior Olympics. And then Kaden, yeah. And he won gold again. This was February and the beginning of the year. So applause to him. Kaden won gold at an international tournament in Oklahoma, and he defeated Hawaii, which was a very hard fight. He was undefeated, but it wasn't hard for him, so he unanimously beat him. and we're currently getting ready to go to international tournament so he's gonna Anthony's gonna be fighting against England which is the UK and that we're getting ready on the 24th we're leaving and then we're getting ready for another tournament next next month in Cincinnati Ohio So these boys have done a lot in boxing. They work out six days a week. They train six hours a day. And we are our own boxing business. So we're a boxing academy corporation, and we're partnered with Merced Pal. Jennifer is a good friend of mine, and she is the one who opened her doors for us to be a part of the gym. So we do a lot of our training there. And we'd like to thank you for the opportunity for our boys. Thank you so much. Thank you.

First of all, thank you, Mayor Serrato and City Council for giving the boys this opportunity. And I'm a pretty easy guy to inspire. But these guys really, really inspired me, not only because they're members of our community and they have been born and raised in our community. But when I noticed their worth ethic, I had to go up and introduce myself. And so that's what I did. I introduced myself to them at the gym. And mom was there supporting them, directing them and making sure that they got their workouts in. But great kids. And to boot, you know, they have a Instagram page that is called Christ Boxing. And that right away just told me what kind of values these boys held because they're also very faithful. They're also very faithful in Christ. And then all the things that they have already accomplished and all the things that I foresee in the future. that they're going to accomplish. I think it's going to be very impactful and it's going to put our community on the map. And I doubt that this will be the last time you see these boys. I know these boys are going to go a long way, not only in life because of their faith, but also because of their boxing skills. So all we ask is for you guys to support them, follow them on Instagram and check out all the great things that they're going to do for our community. Anything you guys want to say?

Yeah.

So tell them about how it started. Yeah, of course. Okay. So first off, my dad took me to the gym to start boxing. And ever since that, I liked it. And then he used to take me sparring with national champions, and I used to get beat up. So after that, I wanted to be good because I wanted to, like, I'm competitive, so I want to be better than somebody. So, yeah, that's how I started.

me the same thing and my dad took me to the gym and taught me the fundamentals of boxing and took me sparring national champions and yeah.

Well done, guys. When Merced's behind you or sitting in our communities behind you guys, inspire a lot of people. You have the power throughout your lives, too, to give back, inspire a lot of folks. I think already at your young age, you recognize that. And all these, the discipline, all the great things you've been taught through sports. And sports is a great teacher when it comes to the culture and the culture of boxing too i go and see what you guys are doing i see what um you know other gyms are doing as well and just the the discipline the respect it really does good things to young people and you guys got a big future and but also too with that power comes a lot of ability to do good so always use that use that power for good too you guys are going to be a great influence in our town for a long time so i want to recognize you and thank you Look at all these medals. Here we go. Jennifer's going to come and take some pictures. I'm sure you guys are used to getting your picture taken.

Okay.

Agenda item H, written petitions and communications. Mayor of the clerk's office received emails from Rosie Campagna, George Leivel, and Strongtowns Merced regarding public comment and emails from Ashley Marie Suarez and Curtis Thomas regarding agenda item K1. These emails were received by the 1 p.m. deadline. They were sent to council and post on the city's website. Any emails received after the 1 p.m. deadline will be sent to council. Agenda item I, public comments. Members of the public who wish to speak on any matter not listed on the agenda may speak during this portion of the meeting and will be allotted three minutes. There may be proposed a further limit to the time available for all speakers at the discretion of the city council in order to accommodate as many speakers as possible. State law prohibits the City Council from acting at this meeting on any matter raised during the public comment period. And members of the public who wish to speak on a matter that is listed on the agenda will be called upon to speak during the discussion of that item. And Mayor, I currently have six in-person speakers.

Okay, any online?

I have no online speakers.

All right, we'll call the first several, the first group of in-person speakers, Jennifer.

Okay, if I can get Cheryl Elgin, Lavon Phillips, Vincent Trammell, Lisa Kaiser-Grant, Auggie Freeman, and Linda Griffin.

All right, thank you, Jennifer. Ms. Elgin, I believe you're first.

I like to speak on about three or four different items and I first like to have a shout out to the chief because I've been always complaining about speeding and he put down a thing on his feet and he's kind of slowed them down but now since you've moved it And also Councilman DuPont, I'd like to shout out to you for cleaning up our area. I buy my church on Wyandotte. Church is on Mather, but Wyandotte, it looks like Stockton, but it's looking better. Okay and also Mayor Serrato. I'd like to have a shout out to him for feeding the people on Loughborough breakfast. Okay now let me get to the important thing. The important thing is three S's sidewalk, street lights and speeding. That's a problem here in Merced. I mean these people fly like Daytona 500 down my street and you can't even get on M Street or R Street for the half time. It's just, I mean, it's, I don't know where the police be when you need them. They don't be there. Then I have a big hole on my street and it's across the street and I live on Northwood. 940, 949 is a big hole and they were, they were working on the street. So I asked them, I said, can you guys fix it? Oh, that's not ours. It's the city. So I called the city. nobody fixes a big hole somebody needs to check that and then i want to also talk about the data system centers i know you guys don't know that we're buying but we have two here in merced one on ashby road and one at uc merced so y'all need to check that out okay and i'll have a shout out on cooling center fresno singer everybody i haven't heard merced have something about it's hot out there it was 103 today do we have any Cooling centers open. OK, and then I want to shout out to Avenal, city of Avenal. City of Avenal, they recalled their city council. They're smart.

Living your dream right there to do that. LaVon, with regards to the sidewalks, I'd encourage you, city attorney Jordan, if you want to reach out to him or city engineer. Okay, but our city engineers right there, if you reach out to city engineer Jordan. All right, Ms. Elgin.

Good evening. I've been here quite a few times in the past. It's been about two years that I've been hassling and requesting that you guys finally do something about East 21st and the speeders and the racers and the horrible traffic there. I was pleased to see the traffic trailer recently posted there that you guys are gonna be reducing the speed limit to 25. Since I've been so harsh on you guys about this at times, I want to say thank you. And I hope that it's strictly enforced because it's needed. I'm very happy that you guys finally did this. Thank you.

Thank you, Cheryl. Keep fighting for East 21st Street. Mr. Trim.

Sir.

Evening, sir.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. So I'm going to get right with it. Mayor, members of the city council, as a high speed rail approaches Merced, our biggest challenge isn't where the train stops. It is how seamlessly we connect people to their final destinations. I propose integrating stagecoach private, transport services as a first class connecting carrier to link the rail landing with our local neighborhoods and surrounding communities. In addition, this partnership will grow, will power the gold belt tours to bring travelers directly into our local business district. to modernize municipal infrastructure and accommodate growth, our proposal relocates court functions and county administrative facilities out to Sandy Mush Road Quarter. Furthermore, the old downtown parking lot will be transformed into a dedicated police parking facility equipped with maintenance shops and garages to directly support local public safety operations. By transitioning vehicle traffic off of Main Street and in streets, we unlock a vibrant, walkable main street promenade connected directly to an eco arts center anchored by our historic courthouse and cultural spaces. Incorporating these key updates into our overall vision keeps regional revenue local and establishes Merced as the premier transportation hub of the Central Valley. Thank you for your leadership and consideration. All right, thank you, Mr. Trammell.

All right, folks, could please keep it down a little bit in the audience.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Lisa Kaiser-Grant. I live in Merced. I am a recently turned out member of the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Commission after 15 years, and I'm on the Merced Bicycle Coalition. However, these are my comments. I haven't run them by the other folks. I read with interest the County Times article about the discussion in Council about bike safety, and I thought at last we're going to be addressing in a significant and sustained way the issues of safety for bicycle riders. I was not happy to realize the focus is on what bicyclists are doing wrong, e-bikes and regular bicyclists. and what bicyclists need to do to make sure that car drivers and pedestrians are safe and protected and feel good where they ride while bicyclists are still relegated to the margin of whatever's left between the street and the sidewalk and whatever condition that might be. Yes, we absolutely need to address unruly riders, illegal riders, and we definitely need to get illegal e-moto bikes off the streets where they don't belong. However, I'm not sure people realize that some of those people riding the wrong way and so forth are doing that because that's where they feel safe. That's what they think is correct, sidewalk riding, wrong way riding. It isn't, but that's what they believe. The policy examples that were provided to you as a model for a program, they rely heavily on bicycle riders already knowing, being familiar with and accomplished with all the rules of the road and being punished if they're not, while not offering any education. I encourage you not to follow those models. There's a great need for all users of roads and bike paths to understand the rules of the road. For instance, drivers may not be aware that it is absolutely legal and safe for bike riders to take the center of a lane and ride it in town in many circumstances. And yes, it slows you down as a driver, but you're still gonna get there before the bike riders, so have a little patience and courtesy, please. Bike riders don't have to ride in the bike lane if there are hazards there. They have a right to ride in all the roads anywhere except marked freeways. pedestrians on the bike path, it's not uncommon for them to be in a group obliviously taking up the whole lane. Most of the interactions with bikes and pedestrians there I found to be cordial and perfectly wonderful, but they need to do some things too. So going forward, I encourage the city as it makes its plans to collaborate with the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Commission, which has yet to receive information and have this as an addressable agenda item. Use the Marin County's Education Forward Program for bicycle and e-bike safety. Collaborate with the Merced County Office of Education for education on bicycling in schools, elementary and high school, very appropriate. Plan your infrastructure for bikes specifically and not just as a side effect because infrastructure absolutely can affect how people ride. and as we go forward remember there's everyone's responsibility to make sure the roads are safe as drivers as pedestrians as bicyclists and so I encourage you to please remember that in your policy making bring the bicycle coalition in the conversation info at mercedbicyclecoalition.org okay thank you very much Ms. Griffin good evening

Good evening. Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Linda Griffin. I'm the president of the Greater Merced Black Chamber of Commerce. I stand before you today on behalf of the residents, business owners and families who believe that process progress should never come at the expense of one community. We support economic development, we support the high-speed rail, and we support investment in Merced. What we do not support is to leave behind or bypass the historic Black community. For generations, Black families in Merced have overcome barriers to building homes, churches, businesses, and community institutions. Our history includes displacement from previous development projects, and many of those losses can never be replaced. Today, we have an opportunity to do better. Recent discussions about relocating the high-speed rail station away from downtown have raised concerns because the station has long been viewed as a catalyst for downtown investment while fewer proposals should sift these economic benefits elsewhere. If investment bypasses our historic neighborhoods, we risk creating another chapter where one community bears the cost while others receive the benefits. We ask the City Council to ensure that every neighborhood receives equal consideration, that minority-owned businesses have meaningful opportunities to participate, and the historic black community is included in planning, not after the decisions are made, but before. and during the planning. Community voices are heard through public meetings held within our neighborhoods. This is not simply about transportation, it's about equality. It's about preserving the history and future of black families in Merced. Progress should unite our city, not divide it. History will remember the decisions made today. Let us choose a future where every community moves forward. Greater Merced Chamber of Commerce is ready to work with city council, the California High Rail Authority, local businesses, and community organizations to develop solutions that create opportunity for everyone. Thank you for your time and your commitment to all the people of Merced.

Thank you, Ms. Griffith. Ms. Freeman.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, Chief Stanfield, members of our community. My name is Aggie Freeman, and I have the privilege of speaking on behalf of the Merced Police Canine Association. Do you want to put that on? Okay. Tomorrow, August 4th, we'd like to invite every family in our community to visit National Night Out at Applegate Park. Our Merced Police Canine booth will be a place where neighbors can come together and meet our officers and their remarkable canine partners and register early for the Paws on Patrol Fun Run and Walk or make a donation to support this important canine program. Our event will take place on Saturday, October 17th at beautiful Lake Yosemite. As a nurse, I've spent much of my life caring for others and witnessing the extraordinary dedication of first responders, people who answered the call to serve. Our Merced police fire and the canines and their handlers answer that same call every single day. These highly trained dogs are trusted partners and they stand faithfully beside their handlers to serve our community. National Night Out reminds us that the safest communities are built when neighbors know one another, families are engaged, and law enforcement and residents work together with trust, respect, and shared purpose. Paws on Patrol is an opportunity to strengthen those relationships while helping provide resources that keep our canine teams safe, healthy, and ready to serve. Please stop by our booth tomorrow evening at Applegate Park, meet our officers, shake a handler's hand, meet these incredible canines, and register and donate if you are able and become part of something that makes Merced stronger. Together we can show our community's appreciation for the Merced Police Department and ensure that our canine program continues to protect our community. Chief Stanfield and Merced PD, thank you for your commitment to making Merced a safer place for all. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow evening at Applegate Park. Thank you.

Thank you. Any additional public comment?

Mayor, we do have two more. Blanca Ojeda and Angela Matthews.

Good evening Blanca.

Good evening council members. I want to thank.

If you'd like you can move that we can move that down a little bit so we can see you. Yeah there we go.

Thank you yeah I'm much shorter than the rest. I would like to start off by just thanking the op-ed that was released by Councilmember Shane Smith questioning the high speed rail boards decision to move the train track and really wanting to get at the transparency, more like the lack of transparency and asking needed questions. Again, we wanna continue to voice our concern about the changes that the High-Speed Rail Board has made to the draft plans and continue to share that there needs to be more community participation in this decision. And overall, I really wanna highlight that you as the Council of Merced really have the ball on your court. So please do not give up the power that you have to negotiate further for the residents of Merced. We need the high speed rail to be placed downtown to further continue to invest in our downtown community. Again, there is a law, SB 198, and this law has not been changed. I understand there's efforts to change the law, but again, I think the ball is in your court, and we're really hoping that you stand up for the needs of Merced and for the residents. Thank you.

Thank you, Blanca. Ms. Mathis. Good evening.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Angela Matthews and recently there's been a growing narrative that the city of Merced should simply accept the current direction of the High Speed Rail Project and move on. But I would have to say I respectfully disagree. The law currently does not require public agencies to choose the easiest option. It requires them to make informed decisions that serve the public interest. That means evaluating alternatives, weighing long-term impacts and ensuring that the public has a meaningful opportunity to engage and understand and participate in the decisions and processes that affect their communities. A downtown station has never been about nostalgia or resisting change. It has always been about maximizing the public benefit of a once in a generation investment. The question really is around whether there isn't change that is inevitable, but the community's goals that justify the investment in the project in the first place. So if we're being asked to embrace a different vision for Merced, then the public deserves more than assurances that it is the best path forward. We deserve the data, the analyses, and the transparency that demonstrate why taxpayers should expect decisions to be supported by evidence, not just simply an argument that it's time to move on. So progress is not measured in how quickly we stop asking questions. Progress is measured by whether decisions we make today will obviously withstand public scrutiny tomorrow and serve our community for decades to come. So 20 years from now, No one will remember your excuses. They'll remember the decisions. So let's make sure that this is a future generation or this is something that future generations will obviously recognize and reward you for your stewardship and not a missed opportunity. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you, Anne. Jennifer, any additional speakers?

We do have one more from Joyce Dale.

All right, good evening to our poet laureate. Thank you, good evening. Good evening, Mayor Matt Serato, Mayor Pro Tem Sarah Boyle, and members of Merced City Council and the audience. My name is Joyce Dale. I am a lifelong resident of Merced, Vice President of the Greater Merced Black Chamber of Commerce, and Merced's inaugural poet laureate. Thank you, Mayor. It is no secret that I love Merced. For generations, my family has proudly called Merced home. We have watched mercy grow into the Community, it is today, with the university thriving multi generational family businesses and tremendous potential for our future. At the same time, we have seen the uneven distribution of investment across our city South mercedes still lacks a grocery store and many neighborhoods continue to need basic infrastructure, such as sidewalks. I am here today to advocate once again for equitable investment so that every part of Merced shares in the opportunities being created at every level of government. High-speed rail represents a once-in-a-generation investment and Senate Bill 198 was enacted to protect the Central Valley by ensuring that these investments deliver meaningful benefits to our community. So I respectfully urge the council to continue advocating for the state to uphold the intent of SB 198, keep the high-speed rail station in downtown Merced, and ensure that this historic investment strengthens all of our neighborhoods and creates opportunities for every resident in Merced. Thank you.

Thank you, Joe. Anybody else?

Those were all the registered speakers we had, Mayor.

All right, moving on to consent.

Okay, agenda item J, consent calendar.

All right, are there any items on the consent agenda that any members of the council would like to have pulled for separate consideration? Okay, Jennifer, anything from the public?

We don't have anything, Mayor. Well, hold on one second. We do, I'm sorry, J11.

Okay, so we'll pull J11, that's the RHNA. All right, nothing else? That was it. Okay, back to Council for discussion or a motion with respect to the balance. Motion. Second. DuPont, Harris.

Okay, I have a motion by Councilmember DuPont and a second by Councilmember Harris. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. Okay, the motion passes unanimously.

All right, J11, Jennifer.

Okay. We can get Ashley Marie Suarez.

Ashley Marie Suarez. is the second reading and final adoption of a zoning ordinance amendment to complete the regional housing needs allocation, AKA RHNA, the requirements for compliance with state housing laws. Good evening, Ashley.

Good evening Mayor and Council Members. Leadership Council and the Public Interest Law Project have submitted a handful of comment letters addressed to Planning Commission, the City Council, the City Staff as well as Legal Council, HCD and the Office of the Attorney General. We recently sent a letter July 16th with attached copies of previous comment letters dating back to 2024. all outlining concerns that residents have had with the housing element process as well as this zoning ordinance amendment. As an initial matter, I did want to mention that MHCD did share additional requirements which included that the zoning ordinance amendment be adopted concurrently with the housing element, otherwise the housing element would not be found in substantial compliance. Unfortunately, things were done a little bit out of order and the housing element was adopted prior to the adoption of the zoning amendment ordinance. And so we just wanted to raise a couple of concerns with that process. Firstly, one of the concerns that we've had is that the zoning ordinance amendment was not really brought forth as a text a policy to planning commission. It was just mentioned in the presentation and it didn't really give the public an opportunity to make comments on what the actual language was that was the planning commissioners had to make a decision on and recommend to council to make a decision on. Only when it was introduced to the city council was it put forth as like a text or a document that the public could make a comment on. Secondly, I did wanna also bring it back to the housing element itself. A lot of the requirements that were proposed by HCD and that were brought forth by the zoning ordinance amendment could have been resolved had the city taken the opportunity to revise the housing element draft make the necessary revisions, and also consider priorities that residents have been advocating for decades, including affordable housing investments, more tenant protections, stronger policies and language, amongst other community development opportunities, like bringing more opportunities to South Merced, such as previous speaker mentioning the need for a grocery store in South Merced, more investments on roads and sidewalks, public lighting, everything that makes a neighborhood whole. Because at the end of the day, the housing element isn't just about building more housing. That is not the city's job. It's to facilitate whole neighborhoods, holistic communities that have everything that they need to thrive at all segments of economic levels, including the extremely low all the way to market rate and above moderate. And so we really wanted to emphasize that although this cycle is coming to an end, council, a lot of the folks here that are going to be rerunning in the future. Y'all have the opportunity, potentially in the future, to influence the people that are gonna take your spot to do better and to prioritize the policies, even if they don't make it to the housing element, to do so in your time as policy makers, because that is the action that y'all have promised to community members. Thank you.

Thank you, Ashley. Okay, Jennifer, anyone else?

Those are all the registered speakers we have.

All right, back to council for discussion or action. Motion. Second. DuPont Harris.

Okay, I have a motion by council member DuPont and a second by council member Harris. The motion will include the adoption of ordinance 2594, an ordinance of the city council, the city of Merced, California, amending ordinance number 2577 and adopting environmental review number 26-0068. Mayor and council, please cast your votes. Let me clear it first, hold on one second. Okay, go ahead and cast your votes. Okay, and the motion passes with Council Member Zhang voting no.

Okay, thank you, Chair. On to our action items.

Agenda item K, action items K1, adoption of a resolution calling a November 3rd, 2026 general municipal election for the purpose of placing a measure on the ballot known as the City of Merced Vital Services Protection Measure, establishing a one cent sales tax until ended by voters and requesting the County Board of Supervisors to consolidate the city's election with a statewide general election being held on the same date.

Thank you, Jennifer. City Manager McBride.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Mayor, council members, members of the public. I'm here tonight to provide for your consideration something that I think resonates well this evening. I heard a couple comments I wanted to acknowledge. I heard somebody mention the fact that decisions should be made by evidence. And I really would encourage everyone in attendance tonight to go back and read the admin report we prepared for this item. I think it very thoroughly explains the issues the council's been dealing with for many years. It talks about the most immediate needs we have for public safety, needs for park safety, needs for addressing deferred maintenance. And so I think the record is very clear about why we're discussing this this evening. The other thing that I just heard was this concept of neighborhood whole approaches. and I think the reality is we talk about it every year during town halls and the budget that we're doing our best to get by we're doing our best to make decisions with the resources you have but the reality is I'm going to steal a quote from Ashley we need to thrive we need to find a path forward that addresses all the community-wide needs and so I think you know in in the spirit of what we heard tonight let's talk about this item and we'll go from there. Okay, so tonight's decision, very important that we clarify that there's no action being taken tonight on behalf of the council that is in any way approving a tax for any purpose. Your role tonight is really about whether or not a question should be put on the ballot on November 3rd of this year for voters to decide. Okay, your option tonight is to review the language and determine if it's appropriate to go forward or if it needs some modifications so we can walk you through some options that you may potentially have. What we're proposing this evening, what's in the resolution, the draft ordinance has been crafted with a lot of support from legal department, city attorney's office with outside support. And it's based upon about six months or more of community input through surveys, through a couple of polls. And what you're seeing on the question is a general tax that's intended to provide for a lot of solutions to a lot of current issues. Okay, I just alluded to this a little bit. I know this is a busy slide. We normally don't try to have this much text on the slide because it's a little bit impossible to follow, but I would just want to acknowledge a couple of things. Through the last two budget cycles, you've had to deal with deficits in the general fund that's operating over expenses. You had $500,000 the year before and 1.3 million this current year. Every year we've been providing you the five-year forecast to kind of show this disparity of growing cost but revenue is not keeping up. With that in mind, we've taken a lot of actions at the council level to address fees, address costs. Department constraints have been placed on decision making to try to realign and keep resources where they need to go that we have to work with. We've also had a subcommittee that was formed by this Council that looked at whether or not there's potential to look at a solution that might include a measure. And so with that in mind, we've held a couple of statistically valid polls that have occurred and we reported back previously on that and we're doing an update here again tonight. In addition to that, as I mentioned before, we've had a lot of serving from the community. We've had stakeholder meetings as well. We've also met individually people when they've asked for it. And so, You know, the congregation of these issues is really listed here before you. These are the priorities that we've heard from many people about responding quickly to neighborhood fires, protecting 911 police responses, preventing gang activity, fixing roads and potholes. Probably this one comes up almost more than any others about a priority. We heard about that tonight as well. I wrote down 949 Northwood. We're gonna figure out what that pothole is so we get it fixed. Maintaining quality of life. safe and clean parks. I know that we had YLI come some time ago talking about the conditions of parks that provided video evidence of it so we know it's out there we know exists. I'm not going to read all these. They're there for you to review. They're also very detailed in the admin report. Okay, we want to highlight just a few real imminent issues we've got coming up. The police fire, the police department is an amazing job. We try to provide information in the report that talks about the fact about how they're meeting the needs of your community. In some ways, the policing we're doing is doing tremendous benefit. The numbers speak for themselves. The reality is the department hasn't grown since 2009. That is a concern going forward. The community is going to continue to grow. Resources will be tighter. The need will be more imminent. And yet we're stuck with a resource that dates back to 2009. So the work they do is impeccable. We have to continue to allow to maintain that to go forward. Fire Department has a huge issue coming up at the end of this fiscal year. That's the expiration of the SAFER grant. As you all know, we now have ALS certified crews on nearly every engine company. I believe KC, that now is accurate. Every station, every crew? There you go. Fifth station next week. Why is that? Well, we've made a determination some time ago that the quality of life for this community includes ALS responses for our first response, not taking a step backwards. Okay, roads are rated as poor. I don't think I need to reiterate this anymore. I think many of us know this. In some cases, the last data that was looked at, our roads are worse than some of the Merced County roads and they haven't gotten better in the last couple of years. Not gonna pick on Daryl. Daryl and his team do amazing work. As you know, we're getting ready to work on McKee Road. We're coming back with a roads update to you all pretty soon. but it's really about where our limited resources are gonna go. It's about the fact that you get around 8 million a year to do work, you got a problem that's probably double that every year to really get a hold of it and do the work we need to do. Quality of life. Chris Jensen and I talk about these types of issues every day. We gladly celebrated General Vang Pao Park and the groundbreaking recently. Soon we're gonna celebrate the work of CP 42. These are really transformational projects for the community. The reality is they wouldn't be done without one-time funding or grants, right? There's not a solution you have going forward to address the 30 acres of vacant parkland that you have that's already in neighborhoods already, waiting for the park to be built there. You don't have the resources to do that, not at this current time. We also need to do as much as we can to maintain those parks and make them places that people and families wanna use and enjoy. Okay, I just wanna re-emphasize the road condition. Numbers speak for themselves. By the end of the year, we're gonna have a new index that kind of revisits the conditions of the road. I think the council hears this every year, town hall, budget, even tonight, roads, roads, roads. They're important for us too. Everyone that we have in our community that relies on public safety relies on the roads to get there. When the roads are bad, it affects commerce, affects a lot of things, and we do know that. All right, I want to circle back to what's on the question. Could everybody please silence their phone? Thank you. All right, thank you. So we're going to circle back to what is being requested tonight of the council. And that is the question of whether or not it's placed on the ballot. And at this point, the question is about a one cent local tax. It's a general sales tax. Some of the salient features about it, as you know, is it would be subject to local control. The City Council makes decisions about how it's spent. As our other measures currently are done, it's also going to be required to have audits, citizen oversight, and you make decisions in public. You make decisions through your budget process, through town hall meetings, but the voters do have to decide whether or not this would be enacted. So it's subject to the voter approval. I would just add too there's a general tax that's subject to the 50% plus one because it's intended to address a lot of issues not anything not anyone's specific issue. So council just kind of a reminder of how we got here this evening. We've shared with you a lot of fiscal data in the past. We've had community engagement through the surveys, through the polling, through the interaction you have with the community, through the work we have here at the council meetings. What we're asking for tonight is consideration whether or not this goes forward on the ballot and then the voters will decide what they feel is best. We're recommending approval of the resolution. I know there might be some questions about, can some aspects of it be amended? I think between City Attorney Cornwell and myself, we can navigate through that if you have some questions, but that constitutes the presentation for this evening. Okay, thank you, Mr. McBride.

Questions for our city manager? Okay, seeing none at this time. will open public comment. Jennifer will now open public comment for this agenda.

Okay, Mayor, we have six registered speakers. We have three by phone and three in person.

Call the registered remote speakers first and the in person speakers.

Okay, we'll have Daisy Ramos.

Not connecting. Daisy, Ms. Ramos, can you hear us?

Hello?

Yes, hello? Hello, Ms. Ramos.

Ms. Hi. Good evening, Aaron Council. My name is Daisy Ramos. Sorry about that. I was having some issues with my mic. I can't really hear anything on Aaron, but I'm assuming I'm live. And I wanted to make a comment on Agenda K1. I'm calling in today as a Merced resident to express my strong agreement with the letter submitted by Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, Youth Leadership Institute, and local community leaders. I urge the City Council to vote no on placing the proposed one cent general sales tax on November ballot as it currently stands. While our city certainly needs investment raising sales tax to the state mandated maximum rate without proper public input concept provisions, or clear equitable safeguards is unfair to Merced residents, especially working class tenants who are already struggling under immense financial pressure. I know firsthand how critical sensible housing policies and accountable local government oversight are. My personal journey as a renter in Merced has been defined by severe housing distress from dealing with serious habitability issues like unaddressed toxic mold and unpermitted asbestos abatement to fighting a contested eviction, retaliation, and unfair financial burden Living through housing instability in our city makes it painfully clear our community's top priorities must include robust tenant protections, habitability, enforcement, and truly affordable housing. The outreach conducted for this proposed tax measure did not give residents an honest space to advocate for these vital housing protections. The surveys distributed were narrow, firmly framing funding around police and fire services while leaving out broader community priorities like tenant support, infrastructure, and parks. Before pushing a permanent max out sales tax on residents voting on this item tonight, hold a dedicated study session in a public hearing with broad accessible community participation, include a clear sunset provision for the city public accountable rather than relying on a permanent tax blanket. Establish an independent citizen led oversight committee and amend the taxes intent to specifically support essential community needs, including tenant protection and affordable housing. Please do not rush with measure onto the ballot without fixing these critical flaws. Listen to the community and protect versus renters and working families. Thank you. All right, thank you.

Next speaker, Jennifer.

Okay, we'll have Rene Gutierrez.

All right, Mr. Gutierrez, good evening, sir.

What committee had amend process in chat?

Good evening, hello, can you hear me?

Yes. Hello? Yes, Mr. Gutierrez, we can hear you.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes. Can you hear us, Renee? Hello, Mayor? Yes, sir. How are you, sir?

Not sure if anyone can hear me. Can anyone hear me?

We can hear you, Renee. Renee, I'm going to text you and say we can hear you. I don't got your number. Shoot. We can hear you.

Thank you. Just confirming someone's able to hear me. Good evening, Mayor and members of City Council. Rene Gutierrez, District 6, City of Merced. I heard the council to vote no on the proposed resolution placing the City of Merced Vital Service and Protection Measure on the November 3rd ballot in its current form. While I recognize the city's need for sustainable revenue, this proposal asks voters to approve a permanent one cent sales tax without providing the level of transparency, accountability, or long-term financial framework that residents deserve. this measure is too broad it does not clearly identify how revenues will be allocated establish funding priorities or provide a framework for measuring outcomes without those safeguards voters are essentially being asked to prove a blank check additionally the proposed tax contains no sunset date if the city believes additional revenue is necessary it should demonstrate fiscal discipline by proposing a defined duration measurable performance objectives and a periodic opportunities for voters to value whether the tax and achievements attend the purpose the council moves forward with the revenue measure it should include dedicated investments and departments have historically been underfunded but have the greatest potential to improve the city's long-term financial health these include parks and community services economic development with the airport authority a planning department and public works imagine a park and community service that gets 40 percent of 18 million dollars we would have established, full built out parks throughout the entire Merced. We have a dog park in the south of Merced. With all due respect, the current assistant city manager has had told three department head positions in the past I still have yet to confirm that there has been a grant dedicated member for the economic development. Historically, this department needs investing. Planning, there's critical conversations, discussion about high-speed rail. The city of Fresno has been awarded millions and millions of dollars for their planning efforts to improve their downtown infrastructure around high-speed rail. Merced should not be left behind. Merced should have a planning department that's proactive to be able to go out for grants funding and investment needs to happen for the planning department. The public works department has requested personal investment over budget cycle, over budget cycle, and that keeps being deferred. So imagine if these departments were allocated 40%, 20%, 10% of $18 million, the city would be in a whole different light five years from now. Investing strategically in the departments can generate economic returns by improving the quality of life. attracting private investment, streamlining development, supporting business growth, and expanding local tax base, and reducing the loss of consumer spending to neighboring communities. These investments create opportunities for revenue generation rather than simply increasing taxes to maintain current service levels. Merced residents deserve a measure that is transparent, accountable, and strategic. Before asking voters for a permanent tax increase, the city should present a detailed exponential plan, establish clear oversight and public reporting requirements, Dedicate funding to priority service areas.

Thank you, Renee. Thank you. Unfortunately, the time's up.

Retain the ability to reassess the measure in the future. I respectfully ask the campus to delay the placement of the measure on the ballot.

Renee, if you can hear us, the three minutes are up. So we appreciate your comments very much. Jennifer did what she wish she could do to me all the time and just cut it off.

And then our next speaker is Norma Cardona.

Ms. Cardona. All right, Norma, can you hear us? All right, Ms. Cardona, if you can hear us, your three minutes will begin as soon as you're ready.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, city council members and city staff. My name is Norma Cardona and I'm a proud downtown Merced resident, small business owner and advocate for working families, youth and our most vulnerable neighbors. I want to start by acknowledging how challenging this moment is. More taxes are not necessarily popular. The city has a 1.3 million shortfall. 24 firefighters slash paramedic positions are at risk when federal funding is to run out next week. Can you run out next year? Roads and potholes need fixing. These are not easy numbers and I don't envy your decision today. If you move forward with it, however, I do propose the following. The quality of life in Merced is not only measured by the number of officers on patrol. It's measured by whether a young person has somewhere safe to go after hours, whether a family can find an affordable place to call home, and whether a parent can go to work without owning a car. Merced is a university town, home to UC Merced, and as such, we should be leading with data and evidence. The research is clear. Young people turn to gangs when they're searching for belonging, safety, and identity, not because we lack enforcement, but because we lack investment in youth jobs and permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing work to help reduce homelessness. And we also know that having affordable housing is a best practice to prevent homelessness. That is why this measure moves forward. I'm asking you to build some real guardrails. A sunset date of 10 years the voters revisit this tax and independent citizens oversight and transparency commission separate from any existing body in place already and a dedicated youth advisory committee to help prioritize these dollars are spent grounded in best practices and evidence-based practices. Public safety and quality of life are not I'm asking this council to invest in both responsibly, transparently, and with our young people at the center. And so with this, I submit for the record, the following proposed resolution, which I also emailed to the city clerk, Mr. Mayor, and gang activity and homelessness requires investment in prevention not enforcement alone and the city is committed to directing measure funds towards evidence-based and best practice interventions including youth programming and youth employment initiatives shown to reduce the risk factors associated with gang involvement and affordable housing housing first permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing models recognizes effective strategies to prevent and reduce We're asked to ensure the funds generated by this measure are spent responsibly, effectively, and in alignment with community priorities. The city shall establish an independent citizens transparency and oversight commission, separate and distinct from any citizen oversight body already established by the city, along with the youth advisory committee charged with reviewing data and recommending priorities for the allocation of youth programming and youth job funding. And we're asked to preserve voter control over this revenue source and to require the city to periodically demonstrate the continued necessity and effectiveness of this tax as measures shall end in 10 years. And I also submit to the record, the ballot measure, which shall the measure to maintain local quality of life, general services, such as 911, police, emergency, medical, natural disasters response, retaining firefighters, evidence-based gang and homelessness prevention, affordable housing and youth jobs. Thank you, Norm. Thank you, Norm. The three minutes is up. We're going to have to cut you off.

Thank you. All right. We'll see. Any additional online speakers, Jennifer?

That's all we had, Mayor, but we do have four speakers for in-person.

Thank you. If you'd call those speakers, please.

Okay. Can I get Gloria Sandoval, Ashley Marie Suarez, LaTanya Richard, and Adam Shane to the podium, please?

Good evening, Mrs. Sandoval.

Good evening you know one of the things that I wanted to bring up is because sometimes people get a little confused with the issue of percentages and we know that what you're asking for with this putting this measure on the ballot and it would add a dollar to every 100 dollars that are spent But what it doesn't say, and I don't think people generally know, that we already pay 8.25%, or there is $9, it would go up to $9.25 for $100. It wouldn't just be $1. So if you spend $500, you would have to pay with this additional 1%, $46.25 rather than 41.25. so also looked up the fact that the state has an eight point excuse me the county has a or the city I should say 8.25 percent there's a state tax included on there that's six percent there's a local tax which is Merced county which is a 0.25 which is a quarter of a cent there's a city tax that's 0.5 percent and there's a special tax that's 1.5 percent I don't have time to do that but I agree with the caller that mentioned that I think we need to have youth services there's two trigger terms that sometimes people have an anger or fear reflex and that's gang activity it's kind of oh my god you know what's going to happen to us we need public safety but we need public safety reimagined you need to imagine you know that we have to prevent things that could hurt other people or that our young people will be attracted to things that they shouldn't be. Okay, the crime has gone down. I have heard Chief mentioned that before. So I don't think it's a matter of just how many police that we have. And in fact, there's been some creative ways of getting people involved without having to have the badge. So I think there's been a lot of investment. I know my time is ending here but I want to turn to just a couple of things that Transparent California is a non-profit group and they have people's salaries there. What I found is that police and firefighters in our city are the highest paid people that are part of the city staff. So I don't know how that's gone. I mean, I'm talking about, you know, $200,000, $150,000 a year. That's not including pension and benefits. I mean, no wonder, you know, we've got a good thing going here. You know, they elect you and then you do things for them. Seems a little kinky to me. Thanks.

Okay, thank you. All right, next speaker. I think, Ashley, that was you? Yeah, you're next.

Sorry, I don't remember the order.

Good evening. Welcome back.

Good evening. The City of Merced's proposed vital services protection sales tax measure can most definitely serve as an opportunity to address community needs, but the process in which this measure was brought forth to the agenda is inadequate and inequitable. We recognize that the fire department's grants are expiring and threaten the employment of various staff members. However, a lot of the partners that I've connected with encourage the city to find funding sources that continue to sustain these positions consistently and in a stable manner and that future tax measures can prioritize the department instead through other means. The city's outreach and engagement efforts were limited and insufficient in reaching all segments of the community. In my experience in connecting with residents, they did not hear about the community meetings that were hosted or the surveys that were passed around, but Unfortunately, that resulted in not a lot of honest feedback from residents getting collected, especially because the responses were limited to multiple choice options in specifically one survey that I do recall regarding community priorities. And it didn't really allow for residents to fully identify what areas of quality of life or departments or services they prefer to get funded through a sales tax measure. So we urge the city to vote no to adding this measure to the November ballot and instead continue to host study sessions, public hearing opportunities to solicit more public input on the use of the revenue for a proposed future sales tax measure, especially one that is a special revenue sales tax to align more with the intended uses that the city wants to focus this on. And so although the measure is pitched as a general sales tax, the messaging behind the use of the revenue more so categorizes this as a special revenue tax aimed at sustaining public safety. In addition, this proposal lacks a sunset provision requiring that voters collect signatures to bring this back to the ballot in the future for it to end. And so that can be super detrimental where there's no transparency or accountability on how this money will be spent. And so although the city already has a tax transparency commission, it's crucial that the commission has an advisory capacity or that there's a different commission established to oversee the expenditures of the revenues generated by the tax as well as to set goals and objectives associated with the revenue of the measure. These additional responsibilities will ensure that there's transparency and accountability. Additionally, there's no current sunset. In addition to there being no current sunset, the 1% tax rate increase will max out the city's tax rate and will not leave any future opportunity to fund any other projects that residents deem appropriate or as a priority in the future. And the city must get more feedback on whether this should be a half cent sales tax, or if it should be a full cent sales tax. These decisions perpetuate the disinvestment of communities who lack parks, youth programs, transportation, infrastructure improvements, affordable housing and tenant protection. So with that being said, we urge the city to vote no on this proposed tax measure to placing it on the ballot and then setting up other public opportunities. Thank you.

Thank you Ms. Suarez. All right, next speaker. Mr. Richard.

Hello, good evening, Mayor, Council, residents. I'm Latonya Richard and I've been a resident of Merced for the last two years. I oppose this new sales tax measure. I find it deeply hypocritical to listen to self-proclaimed conservatives preach small government and fiscal conservatism while actively proposing to tax working families to cover millions in structural deficits. passing a new tax to cover possible multi multi-million dollar annual deficits treats the symptom not the cause the city needs fiscal discipline and budget realignment not another financial burden passed on to residents struggling with inflation People in Merced are drowning. Sales taxes are notoriously regressive. They hit lower and middle income residents disproportionately hard because a higher percentage of their income goes toward everyday purchases. Charging residents more while giving zero guarantee on specific oversight on how general fund dollars are spent is literally taxation without representation or accountability. Working-class families are struggling with sky-high rents, inflation, and virtually zero economic protections. In August 2025, Mayor Serrato openly stated that the unhoused must accept services or go to jail. While the city continues to underfund real support systems, you are using the penal system to handle economic failure. While building some low-income housing is a step, it doesn't erase the fact that you are criminalizing people for being poor while draining their pockets at the register. Look at where our tax dollars are actually go. Local public safety consumes the massive majority of our general funds. Over half of discretionary spending goes to policing while scraps are left for direct community investment, tenant protections, parks, and youth programming. You pour millions of dollars into law enforcement and criminalization, then claim you're out of money for the people. If you insist on forcing a tax measure onto the ballot, we demand strict community conditions. not a blank check. My asks are one, lower the ask, cut the tax to a half cent, not a full cent. Two, enforce a 10 year sunset, no permanent revenue streams. We are already paying measures out to 2044. Three, independent citizens oversight. A resident committee with real authority, not council allies. Four, protected human investment. Legally ring fence these funds specifically for tenant protections, affordable housing, fire, youth programs, and community parks, not policing or administrative bloat. Stop passing the check for structural spending onto the very people you are driving into poverty. Vote no on putting this on the ballot. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Okay, next speaker. Mr. Shane.

Good evening council. My name is Adam Shane. I work as a nurse here in Merced and my kids go to school here. I just wanted to talk about if this 1% was passed that I feel like it should go to the youth because I think we need to find the root cause of why we're having gang activity, homelessness, a lot of homelessness has to do with drug addiction. And I was recently found out about in the city of Richmond, they passed a measure E and K, it was called the Kids First Initiative back in 2018, which was a 1% chance tax, which went all to youth. And since then, they've seen a significant decrease in crime in their city and gang activity. And they had a lot more crime than were said. And also the youth in Merced make up 30% of our population is under 18. I feel like we need more youth programs, more youth education, jobs. And I think that's something that we can all agree on is we would like to leave a better world for our kids and our grandkids. Thanks.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate your comments. Jennifer, anyone else from the public?

Those were all the registered speakers that we had, Mayor.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Would you like me to close the registration?

Yes, so we'll close unless absent anybody else. Okay, seeing none, we'll close the speaker registration for this agenda item and bring it back to council for discussion. Just before we begin discussion, any questions for Mr. McBride? Okay. All right, just a few opening comments too. First, I wanna thank our subcommittee that did a lot of hard work over the course of months on this and all the surveys that went out, our consultants, everybody else who helped with this. There's been a ton of work, a ton of outreach involved in it. And some of these numbers were brought up. I just wanna be clear. The state sales tax is 7.25%. That's the minimum. Ours is currently at 8.25%. The state average is roughly 8.75%. A few cities in Merced County, such as Atwater, Livingston, Los Banos, they're all at 8.75%. Richmond, which you just mentioned, when you said that I looked it up, Richmond's actually at 9.75%. So a lot of the, especially Los Angeles, Bay Area cities, they have rates, some of them in excess of 10%. They gotta get extra permission to do that. So I think that's one, and two, and we all recognize the need. Even the people who came and spoke in opposition, I can see several of you here, you all made points. We need this, we need this, we need this, and we all agree with you. And I think, you know, Renee and Norma on there, LaTanya, you mentioned a lot of things too. Ashley, all the things you mentioned that we need, you know, all that takes resources and takes funding. This is our way potentially of trying to address a lot of those needs. The thing about a general tax is that you can't specify what exactly is for. So that's why we have to be general. So general requires the 50% threshold. If we start specifying, it becomes a specific tax. And so once it's a specific tax, then it's gonna require two thirds to pass. So just a few introductory comments and I'll turn it over to my colleagues, Councilor Smith.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You just spared me from asking several questions, but I have some questions for Mr. McBride. So the mayor did a good job of laying out kind of the existing sales tax structure in Merced. I wanna ask you about the process through which we got to this point. What was that maybe a year ago that Mayor Serrato asked the council subcommittee to work with you and Ms. Flagman to think about and test the potential measure, is that right? That's correct, yeah. And how many different surveys did the council put out into the field?

we had two distinct pollings and the pollings you know they reached out to community members to get a statistically valid poll result and so each one was over 400 so over 800 by polling reached out by way of calls and emails and then the polling can be administered by the phone or through the website so that's the that's the technical polling side of things beyond that we had I think Jennifer's here three different times we've mailed out surveys, QR codes, website, placed it on the city website, really made it no secret we want to hear from the community and so yes there were certain priorities that were kind of developed at the beginning but we also have the ability to have new ones provided to us through you know a mechanism that can be provided to us so Jennifer I don't know it's over several thousand responses we got back to the surveys on top of the the pollings that were done.

When was the first, was it telephone poll?

Yeah, telephone and online first done in November and December of 2025. When was the second one? Just recently, right after 4th of July.

So we did two quantitative surveys and in the middle we accepted qualitative feedback from the community? Correct. Okay. This question of whether half cent or full cent, Can you tell us, did either one of those two tax amounts test any differently when we asked the community?

No, council member did not. It was basically a push. The half center once it did not make a difference. I would also add that in November, December 25 polling, there were two other questions that came up about special taxes, one for public safety and one for parks and community services. and those require two thirds for adoption. Those both polled at below 50%. And so they were very low based upon the polling data that we received.

Is it the case that the proposed ballot statement and the values, the things that the community wants more of that's reflected in what was showing as community support in the surveys?

Yes, I would agree with that.

Okay. the concept of a sunset. What are your thoughts on that?

A couple things. The council has discretion to add a sunset if you feel that that has merit. The sunset did not seem to be an issue from the polling. The other issue is some of these issues that you're trying to potentially to address may require bonding with this measure to repay it. you're going to need 25 years or longer to repay some of these issues. I'll give me an example. The county just recently bonded for I want to say around 40 million dollars in road funds to do a massive amount of roads projects at one time. That's going to have to be repaid now over a series of years. If we wanna get at the heart of looking at park improvements, more fire stations, looking at the public safety features that we have, replacing apparatus for the fire department, you're gonna need more than 10 or 15 years to pay those things off. It's gonna be longer.

So it'd be your thought if a sunset was something that the council wanted to impose, it needs to have a long time horizon, like a 40 or 50 year timeline? Correct. Okay. Those are all the questions I have for you right now. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Smith. Councillor Dupont. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, you kind of alluded to it earlier, but I want to ask the city attorney a legal question. As to the threshold of If the council was to start to decide of what we call specifically placing this funding into departments or specific resources or specific areas in which we should deem that we wanna spend right now, would that change the nature of the tax that it's currently presented?

If we are going to try to restrict revenue, I would say go into the specific, the special tax area.

And the special tax area requires what percentage of voters to approve? Two-thirds. So if we were to start saying, you know, This $18 million were input $8 million into this pot and $7 million into this pot. It would change the requirements of the tax measure.

Correct.

And Scott, you had alluded that we had tested two special taxes in this process. Correct. Can you remind me what those special taxes were again?

Yeah, exactly. I believe one was for, I don't remember the exact amount. It might have been a half cent for public safety. The other one was a quarter cent for parks and community services.

And so those both would have had to receive two-thirds approval from the voters. Correct. And it pulled below 50%. Yes. Yes. So unless we want to go to a special tax, I mean, the general tax is what is in front of us currently. And if we start to earmark any money within the general tax, it starts to change the nature of the tax. That's just, I think, just laying it out there as a ground rule. That's all the questions I have right now. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Councilman Harris.

Thank you, Mayor. Mr. McBride, I want you to check my math because I'm not sure that Gloria's math was mapping with me. For every $100 spent, this additional tax will add $1, correct?

I break it down to the dollar or to the $1. So for every dollar, it's one cent.

Right.

Yes.

So every hundred is a dollar, every thousand is ten dollars.

Yeah.

Ad nauseum.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. I'd storm the gas stations.

Mr. Ritter, he's in charge of the city budget. You want a little more confidence coming back.

Well, we have a great finance officer, so she always keeps me on the right track. So she's the best. And a good team. Anything else, Council Member Harris?

That's all.

Council Member Jean? I would like to follow up on councilor Mary DuPont's point here. So if we specify exactly percentage or dollar amount for specific use or department that will require the two thirds vote is accurate. That's correct. Okay. And then for the resolution itself, it's okay to mention the fire staffing. It's okay to mention roads being rated as poor. It's okay to mention the police staffing. These are not necessarily where we're saying we're putting money. Is that accurate? It's not a budget allocation though. Correct. But we could say these things, right? And so we could change the language here. Those are possible uses of the funding. So as a result, we could put other language here that could potentially be uses of the funds. Is that accurate? Not necessarily this language here, but we could replace this language. So we could say, for example, whereas the state of Merced, as was previously mentioned by one of the speaker, we want to invest in youth jobs. That could be one of the items we put in here. into the resolution itself.

The whereases are not operative language. So it would have no binding on the use of the funds.

I understand. And I completely agree with that. I think it doesn't mean anything relative to whether or not it's a special sales or general sales tax. But just on the merit of the resolution, that language could be changed. Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

I think it's up to us to craft the ballot language, but I think, as our city attorney said, the ballot language has no, it doesn't require anything. We could say this is going to this general service, that general service, this general service, and then at the end of the day, you know, it's a general tax, so it can go to whatever council allocates it to. So we could say it's going to police and fire and other possibilities, but at the end of the day, it's gonna be up to each council to make that decision. I'm telling you things you know already.

All right, any comments?

Just a couple other comments too. I think, you know, historically Merced's been under invested in for sure. A lot of these comments reflect that as well. Look at some of the things that we were able to do with our ARPA funding, for example, building the new sports complex, multiple park bathrooms, redoing downtown, the zoo, kiddie land, a couple hundred units of affordable housing, just with a one-time infusion. So you thought year after year with a significant infusion, we could do a lot of work. ARPA notably wasn't allowed. We couldn't do road projects with ARPA. But as roads, there's certainly a huge need. In speaking with, I spoke with the Modesto mayor about their sales tax not long ago, and she couldn't, and other people in Modesto, other council members, and they had a Measure H, their sales tax, and Chief being, previously being a police captain there as well, is familiar with it. And just the enormous list of things they were able to do and deliver for their city in every way. with their sales tax measure, which wouldn't have been possible otherwise with coming roads, parks, other services on and on. And then with comments were made about transparency and accountability that is electing us. That is what you do here coming here, talking to us. And that's what we do at our council meetings and our budget process, which is a lengthy year long process. I think that's it. I'm surprised that a half would pull the same as a full cent. I don't know if anybody else shares that surprise, but because we deal, for example, we deal with a lot of the local taxes, the maintenance districts, for example, and a big complaint we'll get is that there was too much of a jump. We recognize the need for added services, but it was just too much of a jump. We hear that complaint quite a bit, but it pulled the same.

I can tell you too that overwhelmingly like over 66 percent recognize there's a need for funding and so I think it's undeniable everything I heard this evening from the speakers I understand concerns about some aspect of it but the bottom line is it's about resources and delivering resources to programs or activities but right now you don't have a path forward to deal with that and so fundamentally everyone we've we've received fund uh you know the polling from over 66 percent know there's a need for more resources yeah and and the half cent versus one cent the same yeah the same okay and instead of being kind of behind a little bit being able to get caught up be proactive get ahead of the curve a little bit i think it's important counselor dupont thank you mayor i want to ensure everyone had their questions out of the system before we got into comments but

So I was on the subcommittee for this potential ballot measure. This is gonna be a very interesting ballot measure for a couple reasons. The time right now in which we live in affordability and really the unaffordability of California is one of the biggest issues that we all face. Especially to our residents. and putting another tax measure out to the public and requiring them to vote on it and then implement that, bring funding back to the city is very difficult. To put that burden on neighbors, on constituents, on ourselves, those that are passing through the city because it is a sales tax So there's a couple things I want to point out that I think we can be better as a city in doing. It's a sales tax. And a sales tax, which we have now, one of the largest ways in which we can generate revenue is through the Economic Development Department. The facilitation of bringing businesses to the city is a way in which to increase revenue. I think we have failed in doing that. I think we have lacked the ability to market the city correctly. I think we have lost opportunities to other cities and other communities and not have done our due diligence to bring the best to our city. So I challenge the city. I challenged the city to bring better economic development, better marketing, better connections. And we see it, right? We see it in our current sales tax report. When we bring in options to our residents, we see an increase in sales tax. Currently, right now, we are... Higher in projections at 6% than what our 4% increase in our budget year in, year out currently. So we're 2% higher. That's what economic development drives for a city. So we have to be better at doing that. A couple other things. In the budget this year, I've pointed out some areas in which we can be better at budgeting. we can be better at looking at our line item and figuring out a way to sharpen our pencil and be better as a city. Our third largest department is the finance department and the general fund, 22 positions. Not saying we need to cut positions, but I'm saying we need to sharpen the pencil. we have to take a real look at our budget each year and what we're spending. So look, I wanna send it out to the people so that they can vote and give it up to them. I do not like increasing taxes is not where I think we are currently situated. but if the people wanna decide that, I will let the people decide that. And the problem is we also have to look also at the current state of the state. The state this past legislative session did three increases of taxes, actually created three new taxes in our state. So while I don't like that, and we have to press back against that, local taxes do do one thing, and that's local control. We can't always expect money to come back from the gas tax or other taxes that the state is implementing, but local taxes, we have local control, local accountability, local transparency in our own city. So we have to do both. We have to push back against the state. We have to take a reflective look at what we are doing in our own city. So my position is definitely not in support of increasing taxes for the city and for our residents, but I will let the people decide.

All right, thank you, sir. Councilman Harris.

Thank you, Mayor. I do appreciate the comment about conservatives and raising taxes. It's cost me a few sleepless nights. I originally had some issues about the until ended by voters, but I think that is the safest method because otherwise it's a 50 year term and leaving that in the hands of the voters makes us report to the voters even more. Because if we're not doing the job in three to four to five years, then you can go to the polls and end this tax. Having said that, I would not be opposed to adding after the roads and potholes part of the measure, youth support. I think that would be a good addition.

About youth services. Just ask. Anybody else? Councilor Smith.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. You know I hear the discussion and I really don't think it's that complicated. I think it'd be a real mistake not to give the voters a chance to decide this question. I mean, that's why we spent what? Over the course of a year, $200,000 of general fund money to do polling and surveys and to listen to the community. The community told us what they want us to do more of. That's how we populated this list. Mr. McBride said over 60% of people recognize that the city needs more money to do the things that the residents want us to do. That's why we came up with the list. We're not placing the tax on the ballot. This is a way in which the residents can get more out of the city that they want. I think it would be a mistake not to give them that opportunity. They want things like for a firefighter to show up at their house who's cross-trained as an EMT. They want us to be able to develop parks instead of letting them sit as flood ponds. They want us to do a better job of more quickly repairing our roads. We just passed an anti-slumlord ordinance. Our code enforcement department in 2025 had almost 2000 calls. Halfway through the year, they've already got 1500. We need more code enforcement. So I completely, I'm right there with Council Member DuPont about investing in economic development. We should be doing that as well. but that should not be a reason not to give the voters a chance to tell us whether or not they want to be taxed another one cent to do these things they've asked us to do. Right now, we don't have the wherewithal to do it. In terms of a half cent or a full cent, there's no meaningful difference in the polling, and I would agree with that. I'm not sure it's worth doing for a half cent tax just to get $9 million in revenue. The to-do list from the community is much bigger than that. So at the end of the day, I trust our community. The fact that it's a general tax or a special tax, I see that as a red herring. If we don't like a general tax, there's never gonna be a reason to pass one. But remember, 2006, voters at that time passed the original measure C, which was a general tax. The city told the voters and the ballot statement and other things would be used for public safety. And for 20 years, it was used for public safety. I think that the ballot statement and what we tell the voters is gonna keep the council and future councils in line with what we said the money would be used for, even if it's a general tax. And you know what, if that's the reason why a no campaign prevails ultimately, then hey, that's how it goes. That's not a reason not to put it in front of the voters. So I'm gonna be voting to put this measure in front of our community. I'm open to the youth services addition that Mr. Harris suggested. But I think we need to pass this and let the campaign unfold.

Agreed. Additional thoughts, comments? Councilor Taup.

Well, first, I want to acknowledge other speakers for their comments and their concerns. One thing I realized is that Merced needs stable funding, right? And in order to provide resource to all the programs youth program to all the services that we need, we need a stable income. But at the same time, we also need stable income for police, fires, and road maintenance. So all those come from, you know, like Council Member DuPont said, you know, we don't want to raise tax, but we have to so that way we can provide these resources. to our constituents who need the resource. So again, I wanted to make sure that my constituents or the resident Merced here gets an opportunity to vote on this ballot. So I will be supporting this ballot. So that way it's up to you as a resident to, it's your choice. You have a choice to vote yes or no on this on November 3rd. So yeah, thank you.

All right, thank you, sir. Anybody else? Mayor Pro Tem Boyle.

Thank you. So I was on the committee with Councilmember Shane and DuPont and since starting in November, it's been a lengthy journey of just understanding what our constituents were in favor of. And some of it was very surprising because we had thought it might go one way and when we received the poll results, we were very surprised. But it's being a general sales tax. I mean, I'm looking at Collins Drive, which I brought up years ago to get repaved, but it comes down to funding. And Mayor Serrato, I'm glad that you brought up ARPA funding. You know, that was a great check for the city of Merced to receive and look at all the benefits that we did for our city. There's so many great things that we can look at that that money was spent on. And so if we were to generate $18 million, I mean, there's so many things that we will be able to do for our community, make Merced a better place to live, work, everything. I'm in support of putting the measure on the ballot. Ultimately, it comes down to the voters, if they're going to vote yes or no, but at least we tried to figure out something when it comes to all of these projects that we're trying to get accomplished.

All right. Additional discussion.

Councilor Jean. So I'm probably gonna be the only person up here that disagrees with this. When this first came up a little over a year ago, I was against it back then. We know where it's going to end up. It's always police and fire. It always is, right? We know that, okay? Back then it was proposed as, hey, it's not gonna be a sales tax. It's going to be this idea that we're going to just start looking into. And then we're going to look at services for everybody. And then similar to the original measure C, all of that money is going to just be used for police and fire. We know it, right? Council members up here mentioning it's up to the voters, let the residents decide to let this measure C committee do the work. Why did they not leave this? Right, if you really want citizen ownership of this, let them do it. It's because this ain't gonna pass that way. And they know it too. It's disingenuous to include items in here where we have no intention of actually putting money there. Parks, we know it's not gonna ever go there. It's never have. Original measure C, we could have put money there. It's a general sales tax. We never did it. I disagree with adding youth services in here without removing any of the other stuff. Because again, it's disingenuous. We're going to say these things and not actually mean it. The presentation mentions that PD, the staffing level hasn't matched the population. No department here has, none. How many people work in housing? How many people in planning, engineering? It doesn't match either. And so again, a lot of this stuff is very specific into how we message this out And we all already know how this is going to end up. We keep saying the same story of, hey, this is meant for the overall greater Merced. It was just mentioned about ARPA. That money couldn't be used for police and fire when we approve items for it. None of that was used for police and fire. If we talk about the greatness that comes out of SCP-42, the youth jobs program, utility bill relief, downtown, none of that stuff was for police or fire. And so let's not confuse the two, saying that they're the same things, that we're going to see the same results, because we're not going to see it, right? The renewal of measure C talks about roads, right? Police and fire again, roads. So what's happened? Nothing. So we're adding it in here because we hear it all the time, right? We do hear it all the time, that streets and roads are an issue, right? But at the end of the day, we're not gonna actually put money there to fix anything. One other thing that's a little bit interesting is with regards to how the city of Merced, our road quality index, right? I'm a little surprised it's in here because I feel like the past year we've been talking about roads and we've been asking, what's the quality of our roads? We've been asking for a report and we've always been deferred saying, hey, the county's making a study, it's gonna come out when it comes out and we're waiting for it. And we ask for priority in terms of which streets are going to be fixed, which streets are just the list. So we could give to community members and that just doesn't happen. And so again, in this case, it's interesting that it's being shown here. I'm glad it's being shown, but it's interesting that it's coming out here. And so I completely disagree with this. I think if the council members up here are honest about this, that the, Measure C, committee, do this work. We know where this money's going to go, and I fully oppose it. Okay, thank you, Mr. General.

All right, anybody else? Again, it'll be up to the council. I mean, I can tell you for one, I'll do this on record right here in front of members of the police and fire department. I think we certainly have needs in police and fire. I mean, there needs to, they have, but you know, there's no way I think if this passes, everything should go to police and fire. There's no way. We have significant needs citywide. So you can, at least for me, for one, put me on record right now saying that. I think there's needs citywide and...

you know we've seen it through this polling we hear from our community members every day police and fire certainly some of them um but uh there's a lot of other needs as well mayor pro tempoy i'm just going to piggyback off this i've had many conversations with our city manager how we have cp42 general bang pao park and how are we going to continue to maintain those i mean councilman jung you have a park in district 6 that hasn't even been built yet and so i feel like This money generated is going to help build those parks. We've heard it from many people over time, but always comes down to money. So I know for me, I mean, my terms up in two years, but parks are definitely important to me. I've sat with you with Chris Jensen, too, to talk about parks. So to say that everything's going to go to police and fire is just not true.

Mayor, if I may, I apologize for the disruption, but we're experiencing a technical issue affecting the ability to participate public comment. I know we closed it out now, but we have been disconnected. So if you can read your yellow card, please.

In the spirit of the World Cup, ladies and gentlemen, I'm pulling out the yellow card. We're experiencing a technical issue affecting online public access, public comment capability, or accessibility services for this meeting. Pursuant to government code section 54953E2 of the Brown Act, the council must pause the meeting if members of the public participating remotely are unable to observe the proceedings or participate in real time. The time is now 8.01 p.m. we will reconvene no later than 9.01 p.m. unless the issue is resolved sooner. Hopefully it's resolved sooner, as soon as possible. Sorry, I'm going off script right here. And hopefully it's resolved as soon as possible and we'll start as soon as the issue is resolved. But in any event, no later than 9.01 p.m. No action will be taken during this period. We'll, once the Everybody, please stay close. Once the issue is restored, we'll do our best to go find folks, bring them back in, let them know the meeting's gonna reconvene. Accordingly, I'm declaring the meeting in recess. And according to the card, I also have to use the gavel. All right, ladies and gentlemen, the technical issue affecting online public access, public comment, capability or accessibility services has been resolved. The time is now 8.17 PM. We're gonna reconvene the meeting and resume the agenda at the point where the interruption occurred. Any member of the public participating remotely who is unable to observe or provide comment during the disruption will be provided an opportunity to do so before the council takes action on the affected item. We will now proceed.

And Mayor, if I may, just for the record, we did close out registration for this item prior to the disruption.

Yes. Yeah, we had to close our registration. And then we restored service a few minutes ago. I know myself and a couple other members of the city went around City Hall trying to round folks up, went outside too to look for people who might be outside. And so we've given everybody a chance to come back in. All right, back to Council for additional discussion and action.

Council member Smith. I'll make a motion to approve the item as presented with the addition of the words youth services to the ballot question pending its there being space under the word count. All right.

Is there a second?

Second.

Additional discussion? Seeing none, Jennifer will call for the vote.

I have a motion by Council Member Smith and a second by Council Member Harris. The motion will include the adoption of Resolution 2026-52, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Merced, California, approving an ordinance and ordering that a measure be submitted to the voters of the city at the general municipal election to be held on November 3rd, 2026, to consider a local one cent general transaction and use tax to be administered by the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. Okay, the motion passes with Councilmember Zhang voting no. Okay.

Thank you, Jennifer, and thank you to our subcommittee and the city manager and everybody else who has worked very hard on this issue for many months.

Okay, agenda item K2. Adopt resolution 2026-48, approving the first amendment to the property tax sharing agreement with the County of Merced.

Mr. Mcbride. Thank you, Mayor. This is actually very simple tonight, much less complicated than the previous item. We currently have a tax sharing agreement with Merced County that talks about property taxes and that agreement is set to expire later this month. It's expiring in August. It had an original 10-year term. What we're proposing here is an additional three years Essentially this would allow the city to take action on several current annexations or processing and also allow time for the general plan update process to conclude. That's generally the time when a city will approach county and start discussing tax amendments and the arrangements. And so I think this is a good will effort, good faith effort on behalf of the county. I know that they're also working with other cities right now on tax sharing agreements. and I believe we're the first to kind of take action on this. Depending on your outcome tonight, it would be going to the Board of Supervisors, I believe it might be next week, so they're tying very closely together. The reason for that is, as I mentioned earlier, it's expiring in August and if that does occur, although you could work on entitlements for annexations, they can't be recorded or finalized until the agreement's in place. So with that, I'm here to answer any questions you may have. Questions for our City Manager?

All right, Jennifer, anything from the public?

We don't have any registered speakers for this item.

Okay, we'll open public comment for this agenda item.

And again, no registered remote or in-person speakers? Correct.

Okay.

All right, if anyone would like to be heard on this item, now's the time. Again, extension of a county or a city-county tax sharing agreement. All right, seeing no one volunteering to speak, Jennifer will close the speaker registration for this agenda item. All right, back to council for discussion and or action. Move to approve. Okay, is there a second? Second. All right, pending discussion, Councilmember Smith, did you have a comment? Or is that? I was just gonna make a motion. Thank you. All right, motion DuPont and Smith.

We have a motion by Councilmember DuPont and a second by Councilmember Smith. The motion will include the adoption of Resolution 2026-48, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Merced, California, approving the First Amendment to the Property Tax Sharing Agreement with the County of Merced, dated August 16, 2016. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. And the motion passes unanimously.

Okay, moving on to agenda item K-3.

Okay, agenda item K3, approve the police department to apply for the United States Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services Fiscal Year 2026 Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act Program Grant to expand existing health and wellness programs not to exceed 250,000 and approve to accept the grant award when offered.

Good evening council, Steve Stanfield, chief of police for the city of Merced. Tonight we're asking the council to approve us, the police department applying for a USDOJ community oriented policing grant specifically targeted toward mental health and wellness. This grant opportunity came to us from our deputy city manager through some of our legislative partners. And we attended the online conference that talked about this grant. There are several agencies that are going to be awarded quarter of a million dollars and we were one of the agencies that they'd reached out to and we have a grant application ready. I just want to remind our council and our city that about 150 officers a year commit suicide. It's 54% higher than other jobs and 84% of those suicides are from officers that are working employed on duty. So they're not retired, they're active duty police officers that experienced a lot of trauma. We're asking to apply for this grant. What we wanna use it for is many things, including advanced training for current peer support team members. We wanna use it for training for basic peer support for sworn and our civilian employees. We want to expand employee access to family wellness, confidential wellness resources, counseling, suicide prevention, stress management, sleep health, financial wellness, and family support. We also want to formalize procedures for critical incident defusings and debriefings, and also referrals to professional services. We're asking the council tonight to approve us to apply for this grant. Thank you, Chief. Questions for Chief Stanfield?

Okay, Jennifer, open public comment for this agenda item.

We don't have any registered speakers for this item.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to speak on this item, please submit your request to speak now. Okay, seeing none, we'll close the speaker registration for this agenda item, and we'll bring it back to council for discussion and action.

Motion.

Second. Pending comment? Seeing none, Jennifer will call for the question.

Okay, I have a motion by Councilmember Harris and a second by Councilmember DuPont. The motion will include the adoption of Resolution 2026-47, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Merced, California, approving the grant application and accepting the grant award from the U.S. Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. Okay, and the motion passes with Councilmember Zhang voting no.

Agenda item K-4.

Okay, agenda item K-4. Approval of amendment number one to the Measure V regional project funding agreement with Merced County Association of Governments to receive Measure V funds for the Highway 59 widening phase one project CP-200064, agreement number 20180913SD. L-1 and Highway 59 Black Rascal Bridge Project CP 200065 and agreement number 20180913SD-1. All right.

Thank you, Jennifer. City engineer, not city attorney, Jordan. Sir, what do you have to say to us on Highway 59, both the potential Highway 59 widening and the 59 Black Rascal Bridge Project?

Good evening, Mayor, Council. Thank you. On November 8, 2016, the voters of Merced County approved Measure V, a one-half cent sales transaction and use tax to supplement transportation roads and alternative transportation project funding. The Measure V transportation sales tax will be in place for 30 years, expiring on March 31, 2047. MCAG is the administrator of the apportionment of sales tax funds to the county, six cities, and the agreed upon regional areas within Merced County. Staff met with the Transportation Subcommittee on September 30th, 2025, to discuss funding options for the three regional projects. It was advised to focus funding on the Highway 59 Black Rascal Bridge project due to the current unsafe conditions of the bridge for travelers. Staff requested from MCAG to redirecting four million dollars of Measure V regional funds from Highway 59 widening project to the Highway 59 Black Rascal Bridge project as well as requesting an additional four million which will be programmed in fiscal year 28-29 to be added to the 2025 implementation plan. update to fully fund the bridge project. Now staff also requested a leaving a balance of 2,500,000 in the Highway 59 widening phase one project for right-of-way acquisition purposes. Highway 59 widening started with a project budget of 5.94 million and is now being requested to be reduced to 2.5 million. Highway 59 Black Rascal Bridge started with a project funding of 4 million and is now being requested to be increased to a total project funding of 10 million. The additional $4 million request is programmed in fiscal year 28-29 for the 2025 implementation plan. MCAC has verified that the funding could be made available in earlier fiscal year 27-28 or 28-29 if we were ready to move into construction sooner than that. Staff will incorporate this request to increase the budget by $4 million into the future budget. Staff is requesting approval of amendments one tonight for both projects in order to move forward with the right-of-way acquisition and construction phases for highway 59 bridge widening. I'm here to answer any questions that council may have with this project.

All right, questions for our city engineer? Councilor Jean.

just curious what's the rationale behind pushing the bridge expansion or whining before the 59th whining one issue we ran into councilman was that we had two budgets of money for two projects neither of them could fund either of the two they were both leave vastly underfunded so we had to choose if we wanted to move forward on any one of the two construction projects. So we did meet with the subcommittee, which consisted of three members of council, and they directed us to prioritize the one over the other.

Okay, so it was from the subcommittee's direction to prioritize the bridge.

That is correct and it was just historically when I was back here in the council.

Darryl, if I get it real quick too. The subcommittee made a recommendation. We had disagreement at the subcommittee level and we came to council and council, I forget the exact vote, but council voted to prioritize the bridge. That was a full council discussion. Go ahead, sir.

That's true. My first tenure back in 2009, 2010, this was an issue way back then that we were dealing with and still haven't rectified yet. So it's been around for quite a long time.

Okay. And then with regards to just the money, I guess in my head, I was originally thinking which one used less money in the overall grand scheme of construction. And then with that in mind, how long are we technically postponing phase one of the 59th winding if we move the funds over?

Phase one, we'll be ready with construction plans in about six months. So we move them forth rather quickly. So it's just a matter of whenever we get more money. Well, this will allocate the money so we can move forward for the bridge side.

Oh yes, sorry, what I meant was the Highway 59 winding delay rather than the bridge winding.

You're asking the timing on that portion?

Yes, with regards to the winding of the road itself.

We would be looking for further funding on that since it is severely underfunded at this point. So that's to be determined.

How much do we need in terms of total construction?

At least another 12 to 14 million dollars for the widening south side. 12 to 14.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

I think, Scott, you can jump in too, but a couple answers to that too is when it comes to a Measure V regional project, so we have our Measure V, our annual Measure V allocation, there's a half cent countywide sales tax. The city, we get back roughly two million a year, and then also there's roughly 27% of the money generated countywide goes into what are called east side regional projects, this being one of them. Also, it's a state highway. So if there was a recent Caltrans report that City Manager McBride emailed to all of us that they presented at a MCAG meeting that I forwarded to him. And there's some talk there about them too, potentially having some funding. for that project. It was unclear what exactly their intentions are, but hopefully we can work with the state because it is a state highway and that project's on their radar to do it and the state would fund it too. But for us, for regional projects too, that's going to have to compete with most notably going forward in the near term with mission. And so with mission being a big priority as well too, with CP 42 out there. So that's the tricky part too. We're gonna have to make a decision. Do we wanna continue to prioritize 59 or do we wanna prioritize mission or something different? Anything to add?

Thank you, Mayor. That's a really good summary. You know, unfortunately, like a lot of the topics we've discussed tonight, it's about competing for resources, right? And so there's a methodology to get regional projects on the list. There's a very large regional project. That's the Outwater Merced Expressway in the next phase, which connects the infrastructure to Santa Fe, which is essentially completed for construction funding at this point. That's the good news. That means that there may be potentially fewer projects in the future we've got to compete against to get funding. I do know that some of the other projects we're going to be looking at are going to be Santa Fe Drive that's coming up as well. But as the mayor mentioned, this is really a state facility. There should be some state money involved. You have the option of doing nothing at that point. We don't have enough money to do any projects. We just keep waiting or we can proceed forward and get something done that will provide for safer passage over that bridge. I'm reminded constantly by our refuse drivers that they prefer to go around it. I think we've made it as a policy not to even go over it. I've been on larger vehicles like buses that pause for drivers to come the other direction. It's definite need. Again, it's all about resources allocation and trying to do the right thing with the limited amount of resources we have.

Another big point too is the Measure V regional projects have prioritized big ticket items such as the Outwater Merced Expressway, such as our bridge project. Do we, I mean, maybe warning a discussion in some way amongst this council, try to instead of hitting home runs, try to look more at some of the smaller projects that would qualify as regional projects as well, pushing those. Those are a lot more easier to accomplish. And there's some examples there. Yeah. No, that's it. Yeah. For example, the county now they've prioritized Santa Fe. So Santa Fe is a much easier project than the Atwater-Merced Expressway, for example, and they can get that done and that's a needed project. So, you know, is it projects more like that or is it the big, you know, big ticket high dollar transformational products such as the Atwater-Merced Expressway?

Yeah, and just to clarify, I fully support consolidating the funds so that we at least complete one of the projects. I think it's unwise to sit on money and have two underfunded projects. And so I fully support it. I was just wondering if there was an engineering reason as to why we chose the bridge over the road itself. More financial.

One metric that you might be interested in is as we look at costing out our road projects, a fully redeveloped road at this point with signals and striping is running almost a million dollars per lane mile to reconstruct. So you can imagine a few million dollars may not go as far as you think it does sometimes. So.

All right. Well, thank you. Yeah. There's no questions. All right. We'll now open public comment for this agenda. Eisen. Jennifer, are there any speakers for this item?

Mayor, we don't have any registered speakers for this item.

Okay. If anyone wishes to speak on this item, please submit your request to speak now. All right. Seeing no one, we'll close the speaker registration for this agenda item and bring it back to council. All right. Additional discussion, questions, or a motion?

Motion.

Call for the vote.

Okay, I have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Boyle and a second by Council Member Harris. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. And the motion passes unanimously.

All right, on to K-5.

Agenda item K-5 adoption of resolution 2026-49 accepting $246,000 in post-programming congestion mitigation and air quality improvement carryover apportionment funds for project number CP220066 Merced traffic signal synchronization.

City Engineer Jordan. Thank you Mayor. In 2021 the city applied for congestion mitigation and air quality improvement monies which we call CMAQ funds for citywide traffic signal synchronization timing project along R Street, M Street, G Street, Yosemite Avenue and Olive Avenue. Appropriation was made at the August 5th the 2024 council meeting to accept CMAC grant funds in the amount of $993,000 and a local match of $128,000 for construction costs associated with the traffic synchronization project. Staff prepared plans and specifications. The project was advertised for bids and the city council awarded the project to St. Francis Electric in the amount of $1.386 million on March 16th, 2026. At the request of the Engineering Department, Merced County Associated Governments approved an additional usage of regional CMAQ funding carryover apportionment in the amount of $246,000 to supplement the construction phase of the project that was approved by Council. And this will allow us to complete additional intersections for this project. And I'm here to answer any questions that Council may have tonight.

All right, questions for City Engineer Jordan. Okay, seeing none, we'll open public comment for this agenda item. Jennifer.

We don't have any registered speakers for this item.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to speak on this item, please submit your request to speak now. Okay, seeing no speakers, we will close the speaker registration for this agenda item, bring it back to council for additional questions, discussion, or a motion.

Motion. Second.

Okay, motion and a second. Noting our city attorney notes that this is a five vote item, just so everybody knows.

Okay, I have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Boyle and a second by Councilmember Harris. The motion will include the adoption of Resolution 2026-49, a resolution of the City Council, the City of Merced, California, accepting post-programming CMAC carryover apportionment funds in the amount of $246,000 and authorizing related budget. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. And the motion passes unanimously.

Thank you, Council.

Okay, agenda item K6, approval of Arts and Culture Advisory Commission's recommended 250th commemorative mural art project.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Jennifer Flackman, Public Information Officer Senior Management Analyst, sorry, I was distracted. Sorry, you got a lot of time in my presentation. Tonight, we are asking for approval for the 250th Commemorative Mural Art Project. Funding would support the design and installation of a mural on a city-owned exterior wall or structure. The artwork would commemorate the 250th anniversary of the US, celebrate California through imagery such as the California brown bear, California poppies, California quail. or incorporate a combination of these themes. So at the Arts Commission meeting, which I was not in attendance, my colleague Chris Jensen supported that meeting for me, we had a robust discussion about the location of the mural and two locations were identified. The M Street Bridge at Bear Creek beneath the flag displays on both sides, and then an exterior wall at the Corp Yard. And so here is the exterior, it's an overview of the Corp Yard. And so we're looking at, those two walls that face grogan and west avenue and so that's the wall that faces west avenue and that's the wall that faces grogan so they're both there you can see both walls from grogan and west And then here is the M Street Bridge and both sides below those. So there was much discussion and at one point the Arts Commission selected or recommended for Council's approval the Corp Yard and that would be up to the artist to decide what wall. But I think at the end and Council Member Harris was in attendance and he can support this, that the commission is recommending or suggesting that the artist make the final decision on what wall, either the Corp Yard or the M Street Bridge. So their submissions would be a design on either one of those. And Council Member Harris is agreeing with me. So we are asking for approval to continue with this item, we're asking for your approval, but we're asking you to approve subject to other than what's been recommended on the admin report from the staff so that the artists can decide what location they'd like to put the mural. And I'm happy to answer questions.

All right, questions for our public information officer management analyst, senior management analyst, I'm sorry. Mayor Pro Tem Boyle.

Would it be possible to do both locations? Yes, we would just need to allocate funding from one of the other projects that we're going to discuss next. Okay. So basically we would need to reallocate about $5,000 so that one mural would be 10, both murals would be 10. Okay. That was my next question. Thank you.

I think that kind of got to my question. So either location there, it's going to be a cost of $15,000. If we don't do both, either location is a cost of $15,000 to the city.

So one location would be, yes, allocated funding of $15,000.

No further questions. Thank you, Councillor. Additional questions? Councillor Jean.

I suppose my question might be more for Chief Stanfield, but have we seen graffiti on either of the two locations?

um i don't know if i could speak for the courtyard wall considering that that's occupied most of the day and i just don't know off the top of my head but the m street wall there has had some graffiti on it i can actually see in the picture where it's had some cover-up done you probably look in the same part i am where you can tell there's some cover-up i know recently there was some graffiti over there that we talked to our contractor and he fixed it immediately so I think that area, because I drive by it every day, I will say yes. The other area, the corp yard, I could not give you an honest answer. I just, I don't go to the corp yard every day. So is that where, so those areas, I know where they're at. Council Member Zhang, I just don't know about any graffiti on those areas off the top of my head.

No worries. I appreciate that. Yeah. My thoughts are always with art deterring graffiti. And so generally speaking here, I would love to see it on M Street. Rosemary Smith.

Thank you, Ms. Flackman. Help me out here, I have no talent. Where are we gonna put this mural on the M Street Bridge?

So they would, it would be, oops, wrong way. It would be on those cement structures below the flags that are holding the flags, so. I couldn't get out into the middle of the road to take a photo, so that's the photo that I was able to take. So it would be on both sides.

So the mural would be basically just be on each of the pylons?

Correct, and that would be up to an artist to determine what they'd like to put. If it would be a continual mural or if it would be three separate. So I am not an artist.

I'm not either. Trust me. Did the Commission have any discussion about whether or not a mural at that location would take away from the flag display?

I did not hear that discussion and I'll look at Chris. There was no discussion.

Okay. I feel like this is actually our most difficult to you tonight. Kind of seems like there's a potential for a grand mural on the corporation yard, maybe a micro mural on M Street Bridge where maybe we don't need it. This is my non artist take, but if the commission recommends allowing the artist to make submissions that the commission then considers, I'm okay with that.

So the artists would submit their proposals and we would bring them back to you for a final decision. So the subcommittee would meet, review however many proposals we receive for these projects, and then we would, depending on the number, narrow that down and then bring that back to you for final decision.

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense, I think. Mayor Pro Tem Boyle.

So we may receive submissions and all of them are M Street, and then that clearly shows M Street was, okay, thank you.

We have no public comment yet. Additional questions? Okay, seeing none, we'll now open public comment for this agenda item.

We don't have any registered speakers for this item.

If anyone would like to speak on this item, please submit your request to speak now. Seeing no speakers, we'll close the public speaker registration for this agenda item. Bring it back to council for... additional discussion, questions, and action. Council Member Smith.

There's a question for Mr. Cornwell. So I see the item was actually noticed as a recommended motion to permit the installation of the mural at the corporation yard. If we're gonna take the commission's recommendation to allow the artist to submit further proposals, don't we need a motion to deny? The item so I can go back to the Commission for further discussion.

I think the city can get by with a mending motion. If we want to add the bridge to this recommend the recommended motion.

Would we be able to approve subject to other than recommended by staff? Yes, so you have alternatives. Approve as recommended, approve subject to other than recommended, deny or refer to staff for consideration of specific items.

If you can mention the motion you'd like to, that staff is requesting.

So approve the recommended 250th commemorative mural project to be installed on an exterior wall of the city of Merced. So we can add identified as the M Street Bridge near Bear Creek beneath the flag displays or on the exterior wall of the Public Works Department.

One more. I can give a shot. Not to exceed 15,000.

Correct. Did we just ask you to hear Mayor Pro Tem Boyle's suggestion about adding 5,000 to it or taking 5,000 for another? We'll talk a little bit about that. Is that a thought and do both? What are your thoughts on?

I mean, I look at it this way. A lot of people do travel down M Street and I think it's a reflection of the 250th anniversary or birthday of America. But however, on Grogan, a lot of people are taking that to go to our airports. And I think both serve a great purpose of installing a mural. So I mean, I would love to see an extra five grand to where both can be done. I know, unfortunately, we'll take funds from other projects, but I think they're in both really good areas that would serve different purposes, so. Okay.

Additional thoughts? Councilor Smith? Is that new or is that a... I was going to make a motion, but if there's further discussion, I'll wait.

Councilor DuPont. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I would join in Mayor Pro Tem Boyle. I also think art projects in South Merced serve a good purpose as well for South Merced. Terminal we're getting just more activity on that side of the city. So, um, I, I would look. To maybe reallocating some funding from other projects to see if we can't do both sides. Customer Harris.

Thank you, Mayor. The original amount for the mural was 20,000 and the Commission voted to reduce that and allocate more in the next item. You'll see more for programmed events at Bob Hart Square. we also had a discussion about getting the business community involved in sponsoring events at bob hart square and not have the city pay for it all i think it would be in keeping with the commission's wishes to restore the 20 000 to this project and do both of them and then in the next item cut back that bob hart square money

Okay and the next item too you have we have 13 for Bob Hart Square, 10 for the splash pad and 20 for the utility box refresh so you could I mean you could do a little bit from each or you could do five from well let's not we should call that item yeah let's not get ahead of ourselves let's call the let's actually have the item in front of us before we start discussing the item.

So I think we have a motion on the table if I'm not mistaken. Hang on one second.

Do we have a motion? I will make a motion to install a mural project at either of the Corporation Yard or M Street subject to the further feedback from the Commission. And because this agenda is in an amount not to exceed $15,000. Okay, is there a second?

Second.

Okay I have a motion by Councilmember Smith, any second by Councilmember Zhang. Mayor and Council please cast your votes. Okay the motion passes with Councilmember DuPont and Mayor Serrato voting no.

All right takes us to case seven.

Page and item K-7, approval of arts and culture advisory commissions recommended remaining public art projects.

Yes, so there are three art projects remaining. There is, based on the Arts Commission's suggestions to put forward to you, $13,000 to continue programming in Bob Hart Square. Dates would be determined. The funding would support anywhere from 16 to 20 community events at $500 to $1,500 depending on the event. And that could be line dancing, swing dancing, karaoke. So there's an emerging band. So we could do a combination of what we've done with concerts at Bob Hart Square and other activities. So there is that project. $10,000 for a splash pad mural at Stephen Leonard Park. We've done these, we haven't done a splash pad mural, but we've done basketball court murals and the community has loved those. And then we're asking for $20,000 for the utility box refresh project. You previously allocated $12,000 for the project. We've done a lot of studying and prep work with our public works department to determine how to prep the utility boxes with the existing murals. that were painted on them in 2021 and it's labor intensive to try and get those murals removed and so we've talked to or I've talked to manufacturers of wraps that specialize in utility boxes and so we are recommending that The refresh include final wraps for those utility boxes. And so the budget would cover artist design and then the manufacturer and the placement of these wraps.

Okay. Questions? Councilor Dupont. Thank you, Mayor. For the utility box refresh project, we previously approved $12,000. So this is an additional $20,000 on top of that $12,000.

No, we are asking for $20,000 total. So you approved $12,000, so we need $14,000. I mean, we need four, eight, six, eight. Sorry. It's okay. I'm a communicator.

I went to law school. I didn't go to math school either. It's okay.

I wish I went to math school. So we're asking for an additional eight.

Okay. And we are... We are not creating new murals on utility boxes. We are refreshing the ones that already have murals on them?

No, we are refreshing. So there were 15 utility boxes in 2021. Of those 15, eight are in ill repair. So what we'd like to do is refresh those eight and then we noticed that there was another one but we're working on that and so we'd like to refresh those utility boxes that have graffiti or have sun damage with the vinyl wraps and so that would include the total amount for 20. And then we would deaccession. It's called deaccessioning the art that's on there. So we'd memorialize it on Engage Merced and pay tribute to the artists that originally did that art.

So let me rephrase my question. The utility boxes that we have art on them already, Are we refreshing those utility boxes?

Yes. We're going out to an RFP and asking artists for their own designs. So, we're asking for new designs.

So, like Kobe Bryant is going to be taking this, you know, as the example.

Potentially, yes.

Kobe Bryant could be refreshed and redesigned and will be gone.

Correct.

Okay.

But it would be de-accessed and memorialized. Yes, much discussion.

Unengaged. Okay. All right. Thank you. That answered my questions.

Additional questions? I will now open public comment for this agenda item. Jennifer.

We do not have any registered speakers for this item.

All right. If anyone would like to speak on this agenda item, please submit your request to speak now. Okay. Seeing no speakers, we will

uh close the speaker registration for this agenda item back to council for additional questions discussion or emotion counselor smith thank you mr mayor i think the commission put together a nice suite of projects i'll just throw out there at the risk of opening pandora's box i think the way that this item was agendized gives us some more wiggle room if council wanted to To change the allocation from eight utility box refreshes to six, that then frees up $5,000. It could be reprogrammed for the mural project that we just discussed.

True.

This is my colleagues who expressed support for that a couple minutes ago, maybe. Let's see what your thoughts are now. All right.

Open up Pandora's utility box.

Well, my initial thoughts with the utility boxes are, one, I would love to see pictures of the eight. It would help me visualize which eight we're talking about. And personally, I'd rather see more boxes be painted than refreshing. But again, I don't know to what extent these are looking like. And so that's why I would appreciate pictures. So that's my comment at this point.

Council Member DuPont. Thank you. Yeah, I joined Councilmember Zhang's, I think, requests. If we lose Kobe Bryant, that's just very unfortunate. But he may not be on, obviously, that utility box may not be on the chopping block. So understanding what utility box, I would lean to the side of reallocating 5,000 from that eight. TO GO TO BEING ABLE TO DO BOTH LOCATIONS OF THE 250 COMMERTIVE MURAL.

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS, DISCUSSION, COUNSELOR HARRIS.

MOSTLY FOR CITY ATTORNEY, DOES THAT MEAN WE NEED TO REQUEST RECONSIDERATION OF THE PREVIOUS ITEM?

YES, AFTER THIS ITEM WE NEED A MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION.

YEAH, MY WAY WAS EASIER.

All right, okay, additional questions, comments, discussion or motion? Mayor Parton Boyle.

I have a quick question in regards to the programming at Bob Hart Square. So it says funding supports a variety of events and they are from 500 to 1500 but how many events are we anticipating on having and is it the remainder of this current calendar year or the next fiscal year?

So it's between 16 and 20 and we can hold if we can hold up to one to two events a week. I think Mr. Jensen and I were thinking one event a week. We talked about that. Yes.

Thank you.

Questions or discussion or a motion? Councilor Jean.

Just clarifying, an additional $5,000 would allow both locations to have a mural, is that accurate?

Correct. We would have $10,000 at each location. So $10,000 at the Corp Yard, $10,000 at the M Street Bridge.

Are those under one artist or are those as two separate projects?

That would be up to you. We would put an RFP out. We would gather and collect the responses and then the subcommittee at the Arts Commission would meet, determine what they would like to bring forward for your consideration.

Okay, thank you.

Did I say a week?

Yeah. Two concerts a month, not a week. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification.

That whole math thing. Because I looked at Darren and I said, that is a lot of staff time.

That's a lot, yeah. The whole math thing, I apologize. Thank you. Thank you. But yes, you would be able to select the murals that would go on the M Street Bridge and the Corp Yard. But like Council, Mayor Pro Tem Boyle said, if we only got murals for M Street, then you would select the murals that would go on the M Street Bridge. Okay.

Anything else, Council Member Jo? All right. Additional discussion or a motion?

All right, Council Member DuPont. I'LL MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE 13,000 TO CONTINUE PROGRAMMING AT BOBHART SQUARE, $10,000 FOR SPLASH PAD MURAL AT STEPHEN LEONARD PARK, AND 3,000, IF I DID MY MATH CORRECTLY, FOR THE UTILITY BOX REFRESH PROJECT LEAVING IN an excess of five thousand dollars to go to the 250th commemorative mural project.

Is that with the condition that the Kobe Bryant mural stays?

I think a lot of people would want the Kobe Bryant mural to stay.

I'll second that and hopefully the artist that did the Kobe Bryant if it is selected he'll redo a submission.

All right pending discussion. Councilor Smith.

We have a motion and a second. Question on the math. Aren't we talking about reducing the allocation for the utility box project to 15,000 and moving 5,000 back to the 250 mural?

So if I got it correctly, it's, Yeah. So only 3000 would be 3000 extra on top of the 12 would be allocated currently. So right now we're only allocating eight because we already allocated 12. That's my question earlier. We allocated 12 already, and it says 20,000. And my question was, are we allocating an extra 20, or are we just allocating up to 20? And it was up to 20. So we're only allocating eight additional thousand from the 12 that we previously already did. So the total would be 15. We are both correct.

You guys are saying the same exact thing. It's a plus three instead of a plus eight.

That's correct, which leads to 15.

So we're allocating 15 for the utility box program.

Yep. OK, I just want to make sure. We got the math correct on that one, Shane.

Councillor John. A question to the maker of the motion. Would it be possible to defer the utility box appropriation? Again, I would love to see in a council meeting pictures and which ones are the ones being selected. My opinion again is that I want to see new boxes if that's the case, if we're able to do that at any point. to kind of come back with pictures of the eight that's being refreshed and if there's any potential to do new ones rather than refresh.

So now we'd only be doing one utility box?

No, I mean, no, 15,000. You're right, 15,000.

Yeah, Councilor Harris.

Thank you, Mayor. Jennifer, if I recall, We're not refreshing the eight with the same ones that were on there are we? Correct. They're new art.

They're new art. But if you'd like I can bring pictures back and show you the inventory of utility boxes.

But it's new art on it?

It's new art on the original utility boxes that were painted in 2021. So there, yes.

So we're moving the art that's already on the utility boxes and putting new art on the utility boxes?

We're wrapping the utility boxes. So we're wrapping over the painted murals since we cannot remove the painted murals.

Council Member Xiong's request is for us to know which ones we're removing.

Their damage doesn't matter?

My point is more to the extent, and I'd rather see more art disperse if that's possible.

I'm going to keep the motion as is. All right, additional comments? Council Member Harris, is that a new one or is that older comment?

Okay.

All right, we have a motion and a second. And Jennifer will call for the vote.

I have a motion by Councilmember DuPont and a second by Mayor Pro Tem Boyle. Mayor and Council please cast your votes. Okay the motion passes with Councilmember Zhang voting no.

All right now City Attorney Cornwell now that uh five thousand dollars has been freed up from agenda item case seven will be the next step sir.

We need a motion for reconsideration to go back uh to

Okay, six. Is there such a motion?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Comments?

All right, is there any public comment on this, on the motion to reconsider? Okay, seeing none, close the public, close the speaker registration, bring it back to council. Additional discussion on the motion? Call for the vote.

I have a motion by Councilmember Harris and a second by Mayor Pro Tem Boyle. Mayor and council, please cast your votes. Okay, the motion passes unanimously.

All right, takes us back to case six for reconsideration. Councilor Harris.

I'd like to move to change the expenditure not to exceed $20,000.

Is there a second?

Second.

Discussion? Okay, we'll open this public comment. Anything from the public on this? Jennifer, anything from the public?

We don't have any registered speakers.

No registered speakers? No. All right. It's the 707 script we got to go through.

It is, yes. I appreciate that.

This is your script. All right. Jennifer, please close the speaker registration for this agenda item. Thank you. All right. We have a motion. We have a second.

Councilor Jean. Just a question. Do we need to be more specific in terms of how that $20,000 is split? And it's a and rather than or with regards to the locations.

And this is a two for one deal to 10,000 each one.

It's 10,000 for each location.

Oh, yes, I understand. I mean, like, just with regards to Councilmember Harris's motion. Yeah, do we need to be more specific than saying not to exceed 20,000?

Councilmember Harris, would you be willing to amend your motion to be more specific?

Yes, I can do that. We're still using the same language that we voted on. We're just adding 10,000 per mural.

Correct. Okay. So moved. Is there a second?

Second.

Discussion? Seeing none, I will call for the vote.

We have a motion by Councilmember Harris and a second by Mayor Pro Tem Boyle. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes.

Mayor, the motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much for your investment in public art.

Thank you, Jennifer. We appreciate all your work on this.

Agenda item L, business. L1, request to remove a member of the personnel board and appoint to the personnel board one employee nominated individual.

All right. We started, we thought the tax measure would be the toughest part. Then we reached art. That was going to be tougher than now. Boards and commissions, traditionally the most difficult topic. All right. L1. This is the personnel board. Two requests from staff. One is to remove Jessica Fernandez for non-attendance. And the second is to appoint Pamela Tacones. So moved. Second. All right. We have a motion second. Any thing from the public, Jennifer?

There are no registered speakers for this item.

OK. Anyone want to speak on this item? Okay, seeing none, we'll close the speaker registration back to council, additional discussion. Okay, seeing none, we'll call for the question.

Okay, I have a motion by Councilmember Smith. Any second by Councilmember DuPont. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. Councilmember Jung. And the motion passes unanimously.

Okay, L2.

Okay, agenda item L2, annual appointments to the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission, districts five, six, and one ex officio.

All right, from the report, no applications for district five, no applications for district six, and then ex officio, two applications, one from Amanda Estrada, one from Sabrina Abong. Jennifer, anything from the public on this?

We don't have any registered speakers for this item.

Okay, would anybody like to be heard on this item? Okay, seeing no speakers, we'll close the speaker registration for this agenda item, bring it back to council for questions, discussion, or a motion. The only thing before us today would be to one, keep open the district's five and six seats, and then two, to appoint an ex-officio member, either Amanda Estrada or Sabrina Bong, both of whom I believe serve on other commissions or have served.

I'd make a motion to keep all three open.

Second. Mayor, if I may, I didn't ask this at the last meeting, but I'm going to ask it now for this particular one or just all the other ones we're going to push forward is, is there a certain number of applications you want us to get before we bring them back to you? Or if it's we get one, then we bring them back to you. That way we can kind of gauge what your expectations are when we bring these back to you guys.

i think i don't know i think kind of a judgment call on your part when you see other coming in or give me we trust you i think definitely like for the ones that may not have applications if there is an application that comes in as for the ex officio i continue it because i think they already serve on boards and commissions so need to work on trying to find different

Okay. So for those that we haven't received any applications for, if we receive at least one, we can bring that back to you. Okay.

If that's fine with you.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you.

Okay. Motion to leave all three open. Is there a second?

I think Mayor Pro Tem was the second.

Okay.

Okay. I have a motion by Councilmember Dupont and a second by Mayor Pro Tem Boyle. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. Okay, and the motion passes with Council Member Smith voting no.

L3.

Okay, agenda item L3, reappointment of Robert Tyler as the Citizens Oversight Committee Measure V City Representative.

All right, we'll open public comment on this item. Anything from the public, Jennifer?

We do not have any registered speakers for this item.

Okay, if anyone would wish to speak on this item, please submit your request to speak now. Okay, seeing nobody jumping up, we'll close the speaker registration for this agenda item. All right, back to council. This is to reappoint Robert Tyler as a Citizens Oversight Committee Measure V City Representative. Discussion or a motion?

Motion. Second. Okay, I have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Boyle and a second by Councilmember Harris. Mayor and council, please cast your votes. Okay, the motion passes unanimously.

All right, L4.

Agenda item L4, request to add item to future agenda.

On my right, Mayor Pro Tem Boyle.

Nothing this evening.

Councilor Dupont. Nothing tonight. Councilor Jean. Nothing. Councilor Harris.

Nothing.

Councilor Smith. So I would like to have a discussion as a council and then the idea being to give direction to the ethics and governance subcommittee to improve our working relationship with the planning commission. And I think also in more generally all of our boards and commissions, but the importance of the planning commission's work to our community, I think has probably never been greater. And it seems like we're really not, we're not always in sync and I wanna make sure that we're doing our part to make sure our planning commission is in a position to be successful So I'll come back with some specific proposals and hopefully with feedback from individual planning commissioners. But I mean, number one, this question of what's the line of communication look like? The charter talks about there being a way for the planning commission to provide proposals to us. I think the procedural aspect of that needs to be fixed. Other things like what's the expectation for a planning commission meeting report? You know, we've had an instance, high-profile instance in the past where the Planning Commission bowed to the temperature in the room and voted to just kick an issue to us without making their own findings. I feel like there needs to be some more support to make sure that they're in a position to do their job for us and for the city. The Planning Commission has gotten to the point where these are people dealing with a lot and they're giving up their Wednesday nights, but they don't get anything in terms of a stipend. So something else to consider. Anyway, those are just some ideas. I don't think it needs to be expedited, but 30 days or so, I'd like to have this conversation with you guys and maybe give some feedback and direction to the committee like I was talking about.

Second.

Thank you.

Would September the 8th be okay? Sure. All right. Turn September the 8th. Okay. And that is all for me. Thank you.

Go ahead.

Councillor Tao, anything for future agenda, sir? Nothing for me. Okay. Council comments?

Okay. Agenda item L5, City Council comments.

Again, on my right, Mayor Pro Tem Boyle.

Nothing this evening.

Councillor DuPont. Just a short comment. We've heard a lot of comments over the past weeks and tonight on high-speed rail. We sit here August 3rd. Two meetings ago, I requested that the CEO, Ian Chaudhry, come to talk about the high-speed rail project with us. As you could see tonight, he did not show up. They have not done a community town hall before this date, which I requested, and none has been planned as of yet for after. So, you know, I asked the public's help, help in holding High Speed Rail accountable. help in holding our state legislatures, both in the state and the assembly accountable for the law that they have to abide by, which is SB 198. There's been really a lack, continued lack of of collaboration and trying to figure out what the best way for this project to move forward. And so I, again, I asked our public to help us in that point. A city council can only do so much and our subcommittee is working hard to do so. Now it's time to put the pressure on the high speed rail authority. And so I asked for your help. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Council Member Xiong. Nothing tonight. Council Member Harris.

Nothing tonight.

Council Member Smith. Nothing for me, thank you. Council Member Taft. Nothing for me. Nothing for me either, mercifully.

Agenda item M, adjournment.

All right. Is there a motion to adjourn? Motion.

Second. Okay, I have a motion by Council Member Harris and a second by Mayor Pro Tem Boyle. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. And the motion passes unanimously.