City Council - Regular Meeting

We good? Okay. Welcome to the City of Plymouth City Council regular meeting for Thursday, December 11th, 2025, 6:30 p.m. We'll call the meeting, excuse me, 6:31 p.m. We'll call the meeting to order. Uh, let's start with a roll call. Miss Vicki, council member Bottomley here. Council member Dell here. Council member Hornish here. Vice Mayor Nun here.

Mayor Cranford here. Thank you. We have a quorum. Let's stand for the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, before we move to approval of city council regular meeting agenda for tonight, I'm going to request that we rearrange the agenda a little bit. Um, let's move and and we'll go over this reason for this in a minute, but 7.2 2, 7.5, and 7.6 all above 7.1. Put them together. And after we finish 7.6, move to 71, 3, 4, and 7. Does that make sense to everybody, Miss Vicki?

Um, okay. We're going to move 7.2, 7.5, 7.6. So, they'll be one, two, and three. Correct. And then we'll after 7.6, 6. We'll do 1 3 4 and 7. Does that work? Okay. All right. With the amendment in place, can I get an approval or a motion? Excuse me. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda uh with the amendments for December 11th. I second. Council member Bottomley. I council member Dell. I council member Hornish. Hi, Vice Mayor Nun.

Hi, Mayor Cranford. I thank you. Motion passes. Okay. At this time, we will take regular meeting public comment. This is anyone who wants to come up and make public comment that is not an item on the agenda. So, if there's an item not on the agenda that you would like to discuss and come up, we would love to have you. I don't Do we have any written in? Uh, no we do not. Thank you. Go ahead.

Good evening, council members. Uh, Victor and I, engineer with Amar Fire. So, tonight I'm going to be presenting to you some of the calls that we've had as well as some hydrant information. So, for the month of November, um, engine 5221 out of the Plymouth station here ran a total of 48 calls. Of that um 12 of those were within the city limits of Plymouth, eight of those being medical. We had one traffic collision which was literally on the borderline but just within. We had one debris fire which was a legal debris fire and then two public assists for the hydrants. Oh, you shut off your mic. There you go.

Oh, I can just push it and leave it on. I thought you hold it. That's great. Uh for the hydrants 2025, we have completed all of the hydrants. Um all of them were operational. I checked over the notes. There were a few that had some notes regarding um sticky valves, cross threads on there. When we went out there and evaluated them, all of them were operational. Two of them did have um top stems that were a little hard to open up, but they were operational um for servicing or emergency response um with no difficulties. And during that time when we're inspecting them, we're taking um grease. We're lubricating all the threads for ease of taking the caps off, opening the valves, flushing the hydrants, and making sure that they're flowing adequately, as well as getting uh pressures um static and uh working pressures to make sure that they're all operational for us in the event of an emergency. Any questions? So, it's safe to say, you know, in in years past, we had had some hydrants that were not operational, and that's been vastly mitigated now. Um, we can get water out of everything is what you're saying if we have to. Yes. And yes, there's some hydrants that are in poor condition or that maybe need to be replaced. Um, that's something you can come back and let us know if there's some you're saying there's a few of sticky valves and stuff in the future. If there's some that you're feeling need to get replaced to stay, you know, fully operational and stuff if uh we can get a future report on that and have some direction. So for us uh if there is an issue um that raises a large enough concern for us that would prevent us uh opening up a hydrant in the event of an emergency or operations. Uh we do have a form. I'm

sorry I don't have that with us. Uh it's an AWA form that we will submit to AWA for them to review and then they will come and repair the hydrant if needed. So, but when I took over the hydrants for city of Plymouth and surrounding areas, uh they were all operational with no issues. There you go. Thank you. Of course. Thank you.

Any other public comment items not on the agenda? Okay, seeing none. Oh, okay. Oh, go ahead. Rosemary Marino Moody, City of Plymouth. Um, I believe your Zoom's not working because I tried to get my husband hooked up because he's under the weather and it's saying it's locked out by the host and he still is not able to get on. Um, he just text me. Um, we we do have a new person doing tech, so little bit of patience on that.

Um, couple things. I went to the planning commission on Tuesday night and they approved the new um restaurant across the street and I brought up my concern about parking and I know that businesses on Main Street aren't responsible to provide parking, but I think it's a big issue and I want to know how the city is going to deal with this cuz last week I stopped at 6:00 p.m. at the post office to get my mail and there were only two open parking spots. I went into the post office and there were nobody in there. Okay, so since the new pizza place opened, they're using the parking lot. Um the street's full. They're using the Fig Barn parking lot. I mean, they're closed at that time, but there's cars around. Um tonight, I just went through there and there's five cars parked tonight in the post office. There's nobody in the post office. So, it's going to be an issue, especially with this new place opening. And I think the city needs to address that because the post office is open from 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. for people to pick up their mail. And being the retired postmaster, I will tell you that people pick up their mail at all hours. And I already got a couple complaints to me. They want to know how to deal with it. So, I know it's going to become an issue. Um, the second thing is the sweet pea contract. I'm curious about that cuz I've seen the trucks go by now. Um, are they dumping on Saturday and Sunday because I saw them both Saturday and Sunday this week. And is that meaning we're opening the plant for them? Is there additional costs for that overtime for employees coming in because that's not a normal staff day I don't believe. So I'm curious about that. And then the last thing is I'm going to keep bringing it up is the safety on Main Street. Um just Monday I went out to walk. I saw a car coming down really fast. I was in the, you know, standing next to the crosswalk. I waited for it to go by cuz I knew it wasn't going to stop. And then I looked both ways. I started walking across the road and before I got 3/4ers of the way over this car, I don't know where it came from. So, it must

have ran it came down Main Street, so it must have came ran the stop sign. It went by me so fast and the lady was texting that I could have reached my leg out and got hit by that vehicle. So, I'm going to continue to bring it to the city because hopefully never any of my relatives get hit by that. But if we do, I have evidence that we brought this up year after year after year to the city and nothing's being done. Thank you. Thank you. It's a uh uh I know that the parking issue is an issue during farmers market too for the post office. I've I've actually had some folks bring that up to me.

Is is the the dumping thing on the weekend something you can quickly address um profess? Yeah, so they did dump on Saturday. Um there was no dumping on Sunday. Um but they they were dumping on Saturday and it was coordinated to make sure there was no overtime occurred and that outside of normal overtime cuz we do have somebody that goes and checks the plant on Saturdays and Sundays but there was there was only dumping on Saturday. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else have public com? Oh, okay. Do you want to also say something? Okay. Yes. Go ahead and come up and then we'll take Stephanie online. She's online on Zoom.

Well, this is actually addressing Stephanie's concern about the post office part. That's Rosemary. Okay. Rosemary. Stephanie's on the same same last name.

Um uh my parents or my mom owns the post office and we are getting new signage for the post office. Um it it has been a concern for us because we are responsible for maintaining the post office parking lot. Um my brother and my mom and myself, we talked to the owners of the Crush Pizzeria and we asked them to encourage their patient their their you know pay customers to park somewhere else. Um, so I just wanted to let you know that we are aware um of the problem and we're, you know, doing whatever we can as far as the owners of the property to make sure that the parking is available for post office customers. Can you do me a favor and say your name and where you're from?

Oh, I'm sorry. Mickey East. I already knew that, but I know just for the record, I'm sure almost everybody here knows. Yes. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Stephanie uh is online for public comment. items not on the agenda. Hi, Stephanie Moreno. I was just able to join because your Zoom meeting said that the host had locked the meeting. So, I missed the first 10 minutes of the meeting. We do have a new tech person and so we just were getting some stuff worked out. Sorry about that.

Typically, they test before it starts to make sure it's working. Um, so I did not hear what it is. I know that you made some amendments. I finally got the YouTube going. Um, I don't know what those are. Um, but I do want to say that I will say this into the record again. Your agreement with Sweet Pea and the other contractors for sludge is illegal. It violates California law because you have not approved the fee that you're charging these people as part of your rate schedule. I did quite a bit of research in between now and the last meeting and uh if you if you do your own research, you'll see that every jurisdiction has a has it on their right schedule and it's adopted by their city council. Um it may not require a 218 hearing because it's not property related service, but it still requires that the city council pass a rate fee after a rate study, which you have not done. Um, and so I'm asking you to cease those agreements until you do it legally and properly. Um, secondly, I'd like to um ask why the recruitment for the city manager position was pulled off of Western C's advertising where most city manager positions are advertised and instead is only being advertised on the Sacramento B site and the Amter Ledger site. If you are truly concerned about getting a city manager um to um come in that's qualified that has um the skill sets that you need um to get through the current crisis, it would seem that a good faith effort would be made to make sure that the maximum amount of people are seeing that ad. Nobody who wants the city manager position goes to Sacramento B um to find it.

Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Andreas, do you have any info on that? Sure, I'll I'll briefly respond to that. So, when the council had approved the recruitment, we had a rather limited budget to work with on for the postings. And so, based on where we were receiving applicants from during the first month of posting, we decided to renew with those sources that had generated the most applicants. Well, and didn't one of the websites we were posting on generate out of the country applicants? I thought we had that happen, too. That was a different position. So, public works posting. Okay.

And as far as the rearrangement, I'll just go ahead and read back the agenda item order for for Stephanie's benefits. And she had raised that if you'd like as well. Oh, or I can either way. Go ahead. We rearranged them to have items 7.2, 7.5, and 7.6 uh be taken before 7.1 and then continue with the regular order. Yep. Could you excuse could you briefly the rate study she's talking about is that something I'm not going to get into that right yeah we can you don't have information on um okay anyone else for public comment items not on the agenda

okay seeing none hearing none none online um we will close public comment at this time under presentations proclamations 4.1 consideration of to planning commission appointments. We don't need to take public comment on that, right? Do we do that? We do. Okay. Public comment. Sorry, I couldn't remember. It's been a long time since we had a presentation or proclamation or so. Can So, can I have public comment? Anyone want to give public comment on 4.1 consideration of two planning commission appointments? Stephanie Can you hear me? Um, it wasn't unmuting me. Um, I think these are two good applicants. Um, I'm happy to see that they've applied and the council's considering them. I would say that it's unusual not to have put their letters uh of application in the packet as is normal so that the city council can see that um what their goals are, what their purpose in applying for is and identify if there are perhaps any conflicts of interest that need to be addressed before appointment. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else for public comment on this item? Seeing none, I'll close public comment for 4.1. Staff, do you have a report?

We do, Madame Mayor. The city of Plymouth Planning Commission is composed of five members, all of whom must be residents of the city pursuant to uh municipal code 2.60.010 with each commissioner appointed by an individual city council member under PMC uh 2.60.020. At this time, two vacancies exist on the commission corresponding to the appointment authority of the council member Botmley and council member Dill. Council member Bottomley has recommended the appointment of Micah Malcolm who meets all eligibility requirements set forth in municipal code. Council member Dill has recommended ILce Mickey East who likewise satisfies the requirements of PMC 2.60.010. In both cases, the recommended appointees are qualified residents of the city and their terms upon confirmation will be co-extensive with the terms of the respective council members making the appointments. These recommendations are therefore consistent with the standards and procedures established by the city's planning commission ordinance. Both candidates have been spoken to and understand the commitment required of the planning commission. No other interest has been shown from members of the community in the form of letters, emails, or correspondence or verbally. Notice of the planning commission vacancy seeking letters of interest was posted on the city's website, bulletin board, post office, library, and social media. Uh, our recommendation is the city council discuss and possibly appoint the count candidates to the planning commission. Thank you.

Thank you, council. Go ahead, Wendy. Um, I met with Micah and talked to him about coming on board with the planning commission. He's lived in Plymouth a long time. He's um the chef over at Taste. He's very much entrenched in the living here and I I think it'll be great.

Awesome. Thanks, Debbie. I spoke with Mickey. Um I've known her for a long time. She's been here longer than me. Um our kids have gone to school together and I think that she would be a great addition to the planning commission. I think she's very levelheaded and um will be great. Thank you, Olar. No comments, Don. Oh, put write that down.

It's like me having nothing to say. I have nothing to say either. Whoa. Yay. Great selections. Although, I will say one thing. Ah, I know it was too good to be true. I just want to tell both of them that we appreciate them stepping up here at the city. Absolutely. It's been hard to sometimes get people to do that and uh sometimes could be a little thankless and take up a lot of your time. So, um we appreciate you stepping up. Yes. Thank you. All right. Can I get a motion

to appoint I'll make a motion that we appoint both these individuals to the Plymouth City Councilman Plymouth Plymouth City Planning Commission. Excuse me. Second. Council Council Member Bottomley. Hi. Council member Dell. I. Council member Hornish. I. Vice Mayor Nun. I. Mayor Cranford. I. Thank you. Motion passes. Congrats. Do you want to swear in? Sure. Madame Mayor, Mr. Malcolm wasn't able to be here tonight. He was so shortterm.

Yeah, I heard earlier that he's at work making delicious food.

I swear. I state your name.

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of State California and the Constitution of State against all enemies foreign and domestic against all enemies foreign and domestic. that I will bear true faith and allegiance that I will will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California and the Constitution of the State of California that I take this obligation freely that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation without any mental reservation or purpose of evocation and that I will well and faithfully and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duty upon which I'm about to discharge the duties on which I'm about to enter.

Thank you. All right. Bye. All right. So, we're going to move to consent calendar items. Can I get a motion to approve the consent calendar I Oh, nope. Sorry. Public.

I caught it. I caught it. Well, let's take public comment on the consent calendar items. Does anyone have public comment on the consent calendar? Seeing none, hearing none, I'll close public comment. Oh, Stephanie, thank you. Um, I have to wait till they allow me to unmute, so that's why it takes long. It's not me. Um, yeah, I have a question um about the warrant register. Okay. Do you want me to ask the question? Do you want to pull it off or what? How how do you want to do that?

You can ask the question. Um there are uh several charges on there that I saw that are being charged to general fund instead of uh that are ZR related and I wonder why that's happening. Give us a minute to look at where you're talking about. So possibly we can I think it's on the fifth. It's under uh the one that I noted first was under Geo Weber. Can you tell us what page? I think it's page five of six. Let me get there really quick. Six of seven. Page. Page six of seven.

Six of seven. Sorry. under the CFD if you'll notice. Um, see I'm trying to get there.

It says um Weber Guo and Associates uh General City Engineering um is charged general fund. Um these two projects are also charged a general fund even though those are planning projects. I assume that they're supposed to be reimbursed um to the city under the current fee schedule. Um but down below, yeah, I own bands charged to the it looks like the right fund. The water system is, but then down below it says ZR drain and maintenance issues 232345 is charged to general fund. And if you look up above under Pacific Gas and Electric number 3928, you'll see that those ZR charges were charged to fund 80.

Thank you. Thanks. We're looking I don't I don't know if you can tell that, but we're looking at what you're talking about. Give us just a second. You want to answer this, Cameron, or can you? Uh, sure. The only thing I could think of is that we've had a lot of movement here in the last week or two. Um, and so I will definitely get with our finance director and corre make these corrections. Okay. Yeah. Just so we're everyone's aware, we did hire a new person in finance and um we're making some transitions. So, we appreciate it if you catch something and bring it to our attention. Thank you, Stephanie.

So then, do we want to pull the warrant a consent item or con or an amended? You can still move to approve it subject to staff resolving this issue of having those attributed to the right funds. Okay. So, if you want to approve that separately, you can. Otherwise, you can just note that amendment with your motion. Does someone want to give a motion? I'll make a motion to to approve the Hang on. Where's my page?

The consent calendar. to the consent calendar and the uh warrant register once the um changes are made the the amendments. Does that work with amendments? With amendments with the with the changes to move the ZR charges to the GR fund. Yeah. Second. Council member Bottomley I. Council member Dell I. Council member Hornish. I. Vice Mayor Nun

I. Mayor Cranford. I thank you. Motion passes. Thank you. Okay. So, we're going to move to regular agenda items. So, we're moving, as we talked about earlier, we're moving 7.2, 7.5, and 7.6 up in the agenda above 7.1. The reason for this is because it has been called into question if my FPPC letter regarding my conflict of interest uh as to do with the I own band um and the casino project if I have a conflict of interest. I did receive a FPPC letter that I believe states that I don't have conflict. However, that's been called into question upon legal further legal counsel. At this time I'm going to recuse myself until we get further clarification from the FPPC uh on some of the matters brought into question. So I will be recusing myself from the dis on 7.2 7.5 7.6 and when we get past those somebody will come and get me and I'll resume my place as mayor. In the interim, Vice Mayor Nun will take over for running the meeting on those items. And then you have uh public comment 727576 right here.

Here's the change right here. If you want to just use mine. Yeah.

Wait. Yeah. Give me just a minute to find my place here on Okay. Okay. Item 7.2, town hall planning for public feedback on the I own band of Miwok Indians casino proposal. And this is just for planning. I want to make that clear to everybody planning to have a town hall. I'm going open it to public comment. It's like uh

Did you want a staff report first?

Oh, yeah. Go ahead and do the staff report first. I'm sorry. Thank you, sir. Uh the city of Plymouth has previously engaged its residents regarding the proposed casino project by the Ion Band of Miwok Indians. The last formal community survey on this topic was conducted more than 20 years ago. Since that time, community demographics, local and regional economic conditions, and public priorities have evolved significantly. With renewed public interest and inquiries from res residents, it is appropriate for the city to re-engage the community to understand current viewpoints and ensure that the city council's decision-making reflects the community's present interests and values. Given the amount of time that has passed since the last formal survey, the city staff believes it is important to provide residents with updated information and an opportunity to share their thoughts in a structure in a transparent forum. Community engagement remains a vital component of effective local governance and go gathering updated feedback will support the council in evaluating the city's policy direction, priorities, and potential partnerships related to the casino project. A town hall meeting will allow present factual updates regarding the history and status of the Ion ban of Miwok Indians casino project. Share information about projected impacts including potential economic, environmental and public service considerations. Offer residents an open form to ask questions, express concerns, or share support for the project. Strengthen trust, transparency and collaboration between the city and the community. Um there are no fiscal impacts corre correction. They're minimal that will include stock staff time for the fiscal impacts. Staff recommends that the city council select a date for and direct staff to organize a town hall meeting to provide residents with an updated information on the casino project and to gather current community feedback. And um after speaking with the city council or excuse me the city attorney um there's two different ways we can go about it. We can have a full council

present where it would be a regular meeting type of uh atmosphere or we just have the ad hoc committee where it's a little bit more formal where we can express uh some more ideas. Thank you. Informal. Informal. Yeah.

Thank you for that. Um let's go ahead and open public comment. Uh we have one on here. Um Mr. Cranford. Rich Cranford Plymouth property owner resident Burke Ranch. Wow. Now the last survey was taken 20 years ago and all the data on which the current project is being built is 20 years old as well. All of the environmental data is from 2004 2005. It's in the 2006 DEIS and FIS as well. Oh, and the updated 2024 I own mitigated data deck is based on that FEIS. So you have no new data as far as I know on which to hold the meeting. So we can you can hold this meeting and I encourage you to do so and I hope that somebody has some updated data particularly we'll get to it later particularly on the water. So we've had two meetings called in short order for the contractor to have water. I have suggested this forum to this city council for months and months and we haven't had a forum yet and we're still talking about it. So, if anybody on the council or staff could give us a time frame when this town hall might actually occur. I think that answers my question.

And that's the the object of the meeting is we're picking a date to have this.

Yeah. Let's hope it's soon. Should have happened in 2024 in February or March. Maybe at this meeting we can find out why the city council has taken no action to have the maps that are in the in the 2024 mitigated negative debt corrected to indicate that village drive is not in trust. That was suggested by me months and months and months ago and as far as I know the city council has taken no action to do that. Maybe we'll find out why this city council is unwilling to, for all practical purposes, as far as I can tell, to even ask the ion band for documents. I've asked repeatedly that you ask for water data and that you ask for the pre- March 20, 2020 trusted and the land consolidation plan required by federal law. And for whatever reason, the oath I just heard taken here sounds like that I took that same oath more than 55 years ago when I entered the United States Air Force, and I hold to it to this day. And that's why I stand before you tonight. I have a case in the federal district court in Washington, DC. I have been contacted by not one person on this city council about that case. and I offered to sit with four members of this council and I received one phone call in response to that. That offer still stands by the way. Thank you for your comments. Do we have

anyone else that'd like to give public comment on this matter? Looks like Oh, Rose, go on.

Rosemary Marino Moody, uh, Plymouth, California. I just wanted to get my two cents. I I think it should be an informal meeting rather than a structured city council meeting. That'll give people the chance to come in a different atmosphere um and maybe speak and and listen and ask questions um where they might not do so in a formal setting. So, I think an informal would be good. I'm glad to hear that they're doing this because there's so many rumors spreading out there that citizens are just they don't know what's going on. They want to know what's going on and I think it's a really step forward with transparency with the city to do this. So, thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else in the audience? Looks like we have Stephanie Marino on Zoom. We can take her call, please.

Yes. Thank you. Um, so, uh, thank you for considering doing this. I think it's long overdue and I'm really u grateful that you're going to do it. I agree that an informal setting would be best. Um, in fact, I think that it's important that you not open the discussion to legal issues, but that you focus on the project because that's what's in front of the city council. Um, the the legal issues are not in front of the city council as far as I know. Um, the project um is and its impacts on the citizens. I think it would be um a sign of good faith even though they may not um want to participate at this point because of the negativity that's come out of previous councils. I think it'd be nice to invite the tribe to make a presentation about their project so we can actually hear what it is they're going to do there. Um so that we know what the impacts are. Um, and I also think that it would be important to perhaps get a neutral facilitator, um, somebody that's not representing the city council, um, but an outside person that can be neutral to guide the community discussion during the meeting. I also like to encourage you to pick a time and place, um, that allows for the most participation from people that cannot normally attend nighttime meetings. um you know, people that work during the day or have children um maybe even a weekend meeting, maybe even two meetings so that you're to being totally inclusive of this very important project. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Do we have anyone else? Can I make a quick comment about you do it on your on your next ones? Um because I see yeah let's wait till those ones since you've already gone. Um otherwise I would say yes but you're going to have another chance to speak. So if seeing no other public comment and no one else hand raised I'm going to go ahead and close public comment and we'll open this up for council discussion. Go ahead.

Um I think the town hall um idea is great. I think the the city residents aren't completely understanding what's going on with the casino. Um I think they've got a lot of rumors that are going around and this would clear the air and um you know on the description of the meeting make it clear that you know no decisions are being made no um this is justformational just to let the people of the city understand what the casino is about. I think it's a great idea and I think we should the sooner the better. And Stephanie's idea of possibly doing two meetings and having an outside um mediator for the meeting for the lack of a better word is a great idea. So my two cents,

go ahead. I mean, I would also well, first of all, echo what council member Boni said, but also that we should absolutely encourage the tribe to put forth a presentation of sorts because we don't know everything either that is going on. Um, uh, number two, Stephanie's point of having a neutral mediator, I think is a very smart move. Um, and as far as date and time, I mean, I'm I'm open to almost anything as long as it can work with my work schedule, obviously. And yeah, sooner the better, January sometime. Deborah,

I agree with both Wendy and Holar. Um, if they want to keep it informal and just have the ad hoc, I think that would be good. But if they want the whole council there, then I will try and make sure my schedule is available to be there.

Yes, I I think that uh I like the idea of having a neutral facilitator be there. I definitely would like if we can to invite someone from the tribe to come and, you know, speak about where they're at and what they're where they're going with the project and so forth. Um I feel the the biggest thing about this is that after moving to town um quite a few years now 13 14 years ago um the last time to my understanding that the meeting was held a town hall or any discussion on this has been closer to 23 24 years ago and we know how people felt then we as a council don't necessarily know how people feel now. So I think that's the importance of this and for people to understand it's like it's has been brought up. So I would be willing um if everyone else thinks that uh you know that possibly it would be better to do this say on a Saturday or you know uh it's due Sunday but like a Saturday at some point I would make myself available for that also. So, it's kind of what people think would be best and or the idea of having two meetings to get people's input. Does council have any recommendation? I mean, I'm all for the informal version of this.

I think the informal structure is going to make it easier to have a back and forth rather than having our time limit on public comment, everybody getting one turn. I think for this kind of information session, that seems to be the wish for everybody to have. Yeah, informal structure would be better and obviously the ad hoc committee would report back to the full council at the next meeting anyway. Okay. About how it went. So everybody on the council would be informed.

Okay. Yeah. I I I like that idea also because it for the same exact reason people are able to talk. We're not sitting there holding the clock on them and uh often times people after listening to other people speak, you know, they they need have something else comes to mind they want to bring up. So, I think we're going to do it. Make it open. Make it to where people can talk. And uh I would agree with that. Another related consideration is how you'd want to publicize this event. You're want going to want to Do you want to send out a flyer to everybody in the city? Do you want to just post it on the city's website? Do you want to post it on social media? How do you want to go about publicizing the event?

Could it be possibly? I think we've gone away from it, but uh for years the city would simply just add little flyers or the Plymouth Colony thing to the water sewer bill. What would it cost to just add something to the water and sewer bill like that? I and put it in the ledger maybe.

Yeah. The only thing is my feeling is on it is obviously there stakeholders outside of the city limits. you know, I mean, you have people obviously Burke Ranch and and the surrounding areas who aren't technically in the city, but I mean, they are they're Plymouth residents essentially. And so, there does need to be a way for those people cuz they're all affected also to know about it. Um, I think for the residents though, um, maybe putting something on the water sewer bill and then possibly a small ad in the paper or some way letting people in the surrounding area know that are surrounding the city that are affected, connect with each HOA.

Yeah. Right. And they can help us spread the word. Certainly. Yeah. That's just uh I know Willow Creek, I think Burke Ranch has one and Willow Creek I believe does they would be somewhat affected by this. Um but as far as the people outlying um or possibly I don't know if it's something we could ask the post office what if they put one in everybody's box because everybody this you know in the area gets it's something to look into. You know we just have to look at what the expense is of doing that. I don't have those figures off top of my head but I could definitely get some answers to you. Yeah. I mean, it's just something, you know, you bring maybe bring back to the next meeting.

And how much lead time do you think we should have? If if we're hoping to do this meeting in January, I don't know that we can bring back costs at the January meeting. Got it. And get it off the ground. That's why I was hoping for some direction now on a rough ballpark of what kind of right marketing budget you'd want to attribute to that. And we did just When does a casino open? soft opening I think is January Jan soft opening um it's not verified but I was told February 22nd is their hard opening date there it is we'd like to we do this before it open does that yeah in February

well I I think we could pick a a budget for what to spend on advertising it I think that if uh if we're wanting to do it sometime soon. I think we could give direction for the city manager to kind of use his judgment. I mean, we need to put it on the website obviously, maybe post it in the regular places. We would post meeting agendas. Um, try to put it in the water sewer bill. I'm not sure what date that's going out, the next one. Um, or talk to the post office about, you know, if we were to have staff print up some kind of small thing that could go into the boxes at the post office. I don't know if you can just put things like that in the post office boxes.

You can't, but you could have them do it. You can't put stuff in people's I believe. And we have somebody who could tell it's real simple. She'll stand up. Yeah. Okay. Rosemary Marino Plymouth. Um retired postmaster. So, um, in the water bill, you could add it to the water bill easily and it still be under an ounce. So, it would be the regular price. They wouldn't up it. So, that's one way to do it. If you want to hit all the residents, you can hit all the boxes and you can do the um the routes that go to the surrounding area. We go all the way to the Sacramento um b uh Sacramento County line, the Elorado County line on both sides. Um, there is a thing called Every Door Direct Mail, which is a very cheaper way to go. I don't know what the current price is obviously because I'm retired. Um, but it was about 17 cents per sheet. You make up the sheet. You can do both sides. You can um it's usually like like card stock or a little lighter, but not the real flimsy. And you can do them and drop them off at the post office locally. And there is a tool at usps.com for every door direct that you can go in and you can see how much it would cost to hit everyone. So you can hit you can decide if you want to go on the routes. Um it'll show you where the routes are because like Hawk View is on Highway 2. Um out there at Will Creek Estates, that's highway one all the way out, you know, Old Sacramento Road. Um, but you can go in and play with the numbers and it'll give you a cost, but it's very um, a lot of businesses do it because it's a lot cheaper. You don't have to get the permit. You don't have to have so many pieces to go out. It's just you decide which areas you want to hit. You say, uh, you do it. It calculates it. It shows you how to print it. It's very easy and economical. So, that is a good way to do it. And plus, you would get if you go out on the routes, you'll get the outer aligning

people around. And there are people in town, well quite a few people that don't live in town that have PO boxes, so they would also get it if you did that route. How many days lead time does that process have? It doesn't take long. I mean, you go in um you can design it. You have to put the the the logo on it. It gives you all that information. You just print out the statement for the cost. You can either pay it online or pay it at the post office. You just take that paper at work in with the mailing and they accept it that day and usually it'll go out the next day to the routes. Okay. Mhm. Thank you. Thank you for that.

So, we don't need to approve a specific dollar amount. This would all fall within authorized spending authority of the city manager. I mostly brought it up just to raise the point that there would be a cost associated with marketing this and to get a general feel of how broadly how many different ways of marketing we'd want to would want to use. I think it's a minimal cost and a great thing to do like just because it's going to cost a little bit we can't not do this. Yeah. I think

Go ahead. Go ahead. No, what I'm what's rolling around my head right now is that I think we're going to have to wait for staff to come back with a timeline what is feasible and then we can probably just pick a date that at that time. Would that be correct? I think we pick a date now then we can get to work. I'm fine with that too. I just don't want to apply too much pressure. Pressure is privilege sir. Um what day works? And do we have to have staff here for setup tear down and stuff? We could have it set up during the day or prior to if it's on the weekend then we could do it before we close out for the day. Okay. And we're looking at February.

They open in February. Um I would think January. I would think January here. And do you does staff have a recommendation of a particular day before we before we just pick arbitarly here?

Uh we do have a council meeting on the 8th. I'm away on the 10th the weekend of the 10th and so if if I'm required to be here then that I I'd prefer to be here but that'd be my only conflict. I don't believe we have any other conflicts. So we basically given direction of how we want it very well publicized and so you're able to move forward getting getting that all done. If we say the meeting of the 8th you let us know you're ready to go and we do it right after that meeting. Um not on that weekend of the 10th but that would put us out around the weekend of the 17th.

17th Martin Luther King weekend. a lot of people going out of town. Just saying that would also be too close for putting it in the ledger, I believe, for getting it published in 24th. Yeah. 24th is a Saturday. Yes, sir. Yeah, that would be fine with me. Um, yep. Yep. Saturday the 24th. And then uh recommendation on on time obviously we don't want to do too early for people but uh afternoon also prefer it not to

you know if you put it too late in the day people have stuff they want to do it's weekend so I would think 10 10:30 till well till we're done I guess I mean we don't want to cut people off the whole point is to let people come and and speak and say what they want so we put a time limit on it then I think by adding a time limit though you you give structure of some level I mean it could take 8 to 10 hours uh and and let's remember this is not it's not going to be like a debate like people can come up and talk their concerns and things we're not going to debate with them right

yeah I'm fine with what you guys want if you guys want a set of specific like 10 to 12:30 or 10 or 10 to 11:30 I don't I don't care I mean I I'm I'm happy go longer than that like 10 to two or something. But we go 10 to 12. If it goes over, it just goes over. I mean, as far as um we'll just keep our own plates kind of clear for that day and

Okay. Did you have some more information? Rosemary, if you want to come forward, please. So, I just went at USPS.com, went to the every door direct. That's how fast it is. Selected them. Uh, for Highway 1, there's 450 deliveries. Highway 2, there's 244. And the PO box section is 804. And if you were to do all of them, the cost shows 38,137 for 1544 pieces. That's very reasonable.

And like I said, it tells you everything how to do it. It's pretty easy and it's a really nice nice thing. So thanks awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the help on this. So it sounds like uh staff have any questions of the council on this? It sounds like you have direction and use your judgment on it. That sounds like Rosemary's idea is a pretty good one there. Um as far as getting it out to everybody. Yes, sir. We'll get it handled.

Okay. So, think we can close that. It's nothing we need to take a vote on or anything. So, we'll move on. Okay. Let's go. Item 7.5, authorization to continue bulk water supply for more field construction for the Acorn Ridge Casino project. Let's go to staff report.

At the special meeting held on November 26, 2025, the city council authorized the temporary reconnection of the hydrant mounted construction water meter for Morfield Construction, allowing service only until this meeting. Staff reinstalled the meter in accordance with that direction. Morefield Construction now requests continued access bulk or to bulk water through April 15, 2026 at the previously approved rate of $100 per 4,000 gallons. Morfield Construction is constructing the Acorn Ridge Casino at 17500 California 49 in unincorporated Amber County, a major regional development that requires substantial quantities of construction water for dust control, compaction, concrete production, and other critical activities. Morfield originally submitted a fire hydrant meter rental application on February 26, 2025, seeking water service through May 1st of 2025. The application was processed, a $3,577.25 deposit was received and the city issued a construction water meter. Morefield began drawing water from the Village Drive hydrant and was build at the established rate of $100 per 4,000 gallons along with a $30 monthly rental fee. In November 2025, staff discovered that Morfield's encroachment permit for Victory Village Drive had expired in July and that the meter rental period had extended beyond the date listed on the original application. Service was disconnected and Morfield was notified on by November 25th, 2025. All outstanding invoices were paid and the company requested reinstatement. The city council subsequently authorized a temporary reconnection at the November 26, 2025 meeting. Since that time, Morfield has remained fully current on all payments and has complied with all city requirements. The company continues to demonstrate a legitimate and ongoing need for construction water as work on the Acorn Ridge Casino progresses. Continued access to bulk water supports timely advancement of a significant regional project while generating consistent revenue for the city's water

enterprise fund. This arrangement does not negatively impact local water customers or supply reliability and the city maintains full oversight over metering, billing and compliance. Um, as the city did not have any approval authority over the Acorn Rich Casino, the city did not study the environmental impacts of the project. Instead, the environmental impacts of the Acorn Rich Casino project were analyzed by the Ion Band of Miwok Indians through a tribal initial study mitigated negative declaration. Access to water through a construction water meter on Village Drive to the project site immediately adjacent to the village drive was not specifically analyzed in the TIS MND. However, staff has determined that the temporary nature of this connection and the limited physical impact of the connection i.e. Connecting a construction water meter to an existing fire hydrant and connecting a hose to that meter mean the provision of water under these circumstances is exempt from the environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to class 4 categorial categorical exemption. Continued rental of the fire hydrant or the hydrant meter and the sale of bulk water of at $100 per 4,000 gallons will generate ongoing revenue for the city's water enterprise fund. Morefield construction remains current on all payments and maintains a deposit on file. No adverse physical impacts are anticipated and staff recommends that the city council discuss and possibly authorize the continued use of the construction water meter by Morfield Construction through April 15th, 2026 at the established rate of $100 per 4,000 gallons and direct the city manager to execute any necessary documents required to facilitate this extension. Thank you.

Thank you. This time I'm going to open this uh to public comment. I believe uh we have Butch Cranford Rich Cranford playing the property owner resident Burke Branch. Um I'm going to talk about something previously. Uh Stephanie Marino said we ought to invite the tribe so they can talk about the process. Let's hope that they talk about the process where they took the property at the corner of Highway 49 and Bush Street, the Miwok Plaza into trust without notifying the city of Plymouth and in complete and total violation of the feed of trust regulations and section five of the IRA. So if you want to talk about the process, that's just the latest in a series of violations by the ion band of the process. So two hours did I just did you just decide two hours for the for two hour windows put on it? Yeah,

two hour window and we're going to invite the tribe. How much time do you think this city council is going to spend talking to the tribe about this project? You're going to spend 2 hours with with this residents of this city. You got to be ashamed. 2 hours is not even sufficient. I believe what was stated is that we were going to put two hours on there. We need to have a window and then we also discussed that we were keep our plates clear if we needed to stay longer. Meeting goes longer. I would recommend a big window and then if it's shorter, people will be happy. on this issue. Is there a single member of this council or a member of staff who can tell me is there a fire hydrant on the casino site?

Oh, okay. I don't have the answer to that. There's there's one right there at the road where it takes off. So, we don't have the answer to that. So, not that we don't want to

I I you just got you just gave me the answer. Uh, I was told at the last meeting by the contractor's representative who was here that they need water for things like tile cutting. Now, I've done some tile cutting. You can pretty much cut tile all day long with 10 gallons of water. Now, I have some serious questions about the con. One, the construction that's going on up there. You mean they put in all the infrastructure for that gigantic building and there's not a fire hydrant up there anywhere? What if the building catches on fire now? Oh, that could be a problem, couldn't it? There's some serious issues here that this council and staff seems to just want to ignore. So, they want water till April. Well, how's that going to work with their proposed soft opening in March? I don't think that's going to work very well. this w this water a needs to be cut off now and you need to find out what water is available on that site because they allegedly have a 100gallon per minute well that they can get all the water they want out of. So till 4:26 no not till tomorrow. cut it off now until you get the water data, until you get the trust documents, and until you get a land consolidation plan, and until you get the maps corrected.

Thank you. Believe uh Steph Marino has her hand raised. Stephanie Marino has her hand up. If we can take that.

Thank you. Um, first of all, I want to correct um Butch misqued me. I said uh the project, not the process. I think we need to be talking about the actual project um which is the casino. Um I'm in support of extending this U water. I think that it's important not to put a hard stop on it um but to because I I don't know of a single construction project that's ever ended on time uh of this size. um give the city manager some flexibility to extend that without having come back to the council. I think that there needs to be if there aren't already noticing requirements built into the agreement so that both sides understand what kind of notice will be given uh in the event there's any kind of um uh allegation of non-compliance. And I think that it's important for the council to recognize that having this water there is in the best interests of the city of Plymouth residents and businesses for fire protection purposes as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Stephanie. Anyone else who'd like to give com Yes. Rosemary.

Rosemary Marino Moody Plymouth. Um, I just have a question regarding this 30 day a $30 monthly rental fee for the meter. That is less than residents in Plymouth are paying for their meter. And it it's like an arbitrary amount. There's nowhere on the the rate schedule for meters that shows a $30 fee. And also, if you read further down in the regulation, it shows like a minimum of $125 a month for people getting water for outside the city limits, which they are. So, I'm curious where that $30 came from, and I don't think it's right they're paying less than us residents are paying for our meters. Thank you.

I think you can maybe speak to this. What we're talking about here is two different things. This isn't a residential meter like in the ground that the city owns. This is construction meter. Bolt water meter. Yeah. Just for It's portable for used on hydrants and stuff. So, it's a different thing. I mean, yeah, they're both water meters, but it's a different thing. And Cameron, correct? Or if you have any other input on that, but no, nothing to add. I mean, other than the $30 was established last spring. So, that's what we kept.

Yeah, I did want to bring that up. This what this is about. This isn't between, just for clarification, I'm going to go and say this. This isn't between so much the city and the tribe. This is an agreement that was made previously by by city staff previously, not the current city staff to agree to provide this water. And the contractor came in in good faith to the city and basically asked for to buy bulk water and he was granted permission and to do that. And so at this point, all we're doing is basically honoring the agreement that was made is what we're discussing here, honoring the agreement to the end of his project. And as far as uh rates and stuff, that's something to look at in the future. But it comes down to if we feel it's proper to in the middle of a project go and change the price on somebody after they've already put in their bid, I don't know. So if we not seeing any other public comment, we'll close public comment, offer it up for council discussion, which I guess I already started a little bit.

Uh I I agree with continuing with the water. I think our um agreement is with Warfield Construction, not the tribe. Yes, that's there's a big difference there. or field construction has a contract with the tribe, not us. So, so we um I think we continue with what we've been doing with them and extend this contract until the April 24th uh uh 15th and um evaluate it then. order.

Is April 15th a cuto off that was that is posted on their paperwork on their application? Um there isn't an we we haven't asked for a new application for the from the original one. Um but this was provide this date was provided by Morfield as they will be. So there's an end date insight correct. Correct. And list it. Yes sir. Okay. Um to me Morfield construction is just another customer like anyone else wishing to purchase buck water. So I don't see any reason to deny them that. Deborah,

do we do a lot of bulk water with other um is this like the the rate that we would charge other people for a bulk water rate? Uh currently uh council me woman we sell bulk water to one other entity and that more fields being about close to three and a half times more than they are.

Okay. Thank you. So, I believe it it's been brought up the rates of the water and so forth and I think those are all legitimate concerns people have had and it's obvious that we need to look at that along with several other things in the city at bringing things current and uniformed on what we charge. I I just don't think that's really the topic of discussion here is basically it comes down to this contractor came to the city in good faith and asked to buy water. Um he's not part of everything else going on. He was told that yes, he could buy the water. He was given a rate. He agreed to pay it. And to me, it comes down to, you know, basically honoring the agreement we made, the city made, whether the agreement should have been made or not. At this point, the the fact of the matter is that's that's a whole another thing to look into. Fact of the matter is the deal was made and I believe that the city makes a deal for better or for worse. You need to stick to it. And so I believe that we should honor the agreement. I believe that um what Miss Marino said online was right construction I did it for well over 10 years projects never end on time and people need extensions and like I said before you know this person already put in their bid um being told they were going to buy water at this rate so I don't believe it'd be right to go and change the rate on them in the middle of a project. So, I'm for extending this out. Um, I'm for granting the city manager permission to add up to another one month or 3 month extension if he has to. If there if something happens and he feels it's necessary so this whole thing doesn't have to come back before council again. I think we would do that for

anyone else. And I don't think we should treat Morfield any different than anyone else is treated by the city. I think it comes down to we treat everyone who does business with us the same across the board. I'll make a motion to approve the authorization to continue bulk water supply for more construction for the Acorn Ridge Casino project. I'll second that. Council member Bottomley. I. Council member Dell. I. Council member Hornish. I. Vice Mayor Nun. I. Thank you. Motion passes.

All right. Moving on to 7.6, we're going to go to report on encroachment permit activity related to Morfield construction in the Acorn Ridge Casino project. If I could get a staff report.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. In January 2025, the former public works director approved encroachment permit number 2025 TAC01 TAC 27, authorizing Morfield Construction to relocate a city-owned fire hydrant and perform related work necessary for a new entrance to the Acorn Ridge Casino located at 17500 California 49 in unincorporated Amodore County. Although the casino project lies outside city limits, the work required adjustments to city infrastructure making the encroachment permit necessary. The permit covered the period period January through July 2025 and more field construction has fully completed all activities authorized under that permit. Um, it should be noted that I think they finished after the 20 the July 2025, but it is completed. During subsequent coordination with Morfield Construction regarding both the encroachment permit and the contractor's interest in purchasing bulk water for on-site construction needs, the contractor submitted a second encroachment permit application. This additional application was submitted proactively to ensure pro or proper authorization in case an encroionment permit became necessary to facilitate bulk water access. Importantly, the application does not request or allow any additional construction, modifications, or new work beyond what was already approved and completed under encroachment permit 2025, TA tax 01, TAC 27. At this time, staff has determined that no new encroachment permit is require required and therefore the supplemental application has not been issued as a new permit. Um there's no environmental impact um related to this permit and there's no fiscal impact associated with this report. Any future encroachment requests would be subject to standard application fees, inspection costs, and cost recovery for staff time as applicable. and staff recommends that the city council receive and file this report regarding status of encroachment permit 2025, TAC 01, TAC27, and the

supplemental application submitted by Morfield Construction and authorize approval of the additional encroment permit for administrative purposes only should the council determine that such approval would support clear documentation and continuity of a pro of project records. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, city manager. Um, I am at this point going to open this to public comment and I believe Butch, you for this Cranford property owner Burke branch resident First of all, I'd like a copy of the encroachment, the original encroachment permit, if I could get one, please. Is there anything in that encroachment permit that allows uh connecting of a paved road to Village Drive? Yes or no? I'll take my time back, too. If the city attorney would like to answer that, if you can

public comment, we're not back and forth here. Yeah. Yeah. So, he's right. It's public comment question. It's a yes or no question. Oh, yep. Well, we can't answer that this time. Well, can't answer that. Well, I'm glad we have public comment so we can ask questions and find out what's But I believe we can get you a copy of the what we have

relative to water. this whole issue that you just decided. They allegedly in 2005 and six had 83 gallons per minute water out there. Where's all their water gone? Then they drilled another well for 100 gallons per minute. I'm going to suggest to you because I I just verified with Amodore Fire they have a fire hydrant out there. Why aren't they using it for the water for the contractor? Well, an obvious an obvious answer comes to mind because they don't have any water. Now, this encroachment, I'm going to remind the city, John Coburn's not here tonight, but he and I sued this city about 20 years ago for SQA violation. And there's a state there's a state court order that's binding on this city and on the ion band as well that anything that has to do with Village Drive is most likely going to require SQA. Now, I would suggest that attaching another street. Does anybody know the volume of traffic that might be coming on Village Drive because of the attachment of that street? Oh, maybe that would happen in a SQA evaluation. So, be careful because we were successful in state court and we have the court order that the Ion band appealed to the circuit court and that judgment was upheld. do your SQL work.

Thank you, Mr. Cranford. I give this to you again if you like. Okay, it looks like Stephanie Marino uh has her hand raised on Zoom. If we could take that.

Hi. Um it first of all uh in in response to what was just saying I want to say that um the squa for that he's referring to was the agreement which was a very big agreement that um needed squa on it um between the tribe and the city of Plymouth for all the impacts that were needed. Um, and it it did nec it did need squa and the court ruled that the squa had to be done and it rendered the agreement mood. I think the city council canceled it. So, that went away. I don't know that there were any binding things other than that agreement. So, I I I think it's worth looking at. However, I think that that's being conflated with what's on the agenda tonight. um this is exempt from SQA um an encroachment permit um uh that has already been completed and I see now where Cameron was talking about the July date. The July date was on this encroachment permit not on the water agreement. Those two things were being conflated in the previous city council meeting. This uh encroachment permit is to create a driveway for access to the new casino and to abandon existing one I think it says 1 in water service. I don't think that's right but water service and relocate a fire hydrant. So that was the encroachment permit that had nothing to do with the water that was being provided. Those are two separate things. So the water did not expire July. This encroachment permit did. So I just want to put that into the record. Um, and I understand that this was just a report, but I wanted to correct those fallacies that have been stated tonight and at a previous meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no one else, their hand raised, I'm going to go ahead and close public comment at this time and open this up for council discussion. Um I do have some questions. Just trying to gather my thoughts here. Um on the background that you gave um it says at this time staff has determined that no new encroachment is required and therefore the supplemental application has not been issued as a new permit. How or why did you come to that conclusion that no new encroachment would be required?

So when the when the construction company came back to us about the water continued use of water, they basically submitted this renewed application for an encroachment permit as a belt and suspenders thing trying to give us anything we might need to facilitate that continued provision of water. With this application for the encroachment permit, they're not asking to do any additional work. everything they're asking to do has already been done. That's why we feel the encroachment permit's really separate as Stephanie said. So that's why this encroachment permit application hasn't been acted on because there's really nothing to do under it. There there's no new work they're requesting to do and we don't feel it's an important part of providing them the construction water which was the prior item you just authorized. Is there or should there be or is there does there need to be a expiration date for the current permit for the per the encroachment permit. So the encroachment permit that was originally authorized was through July 2025. Um the construction I believe went beyond that what they were doing cuz they just wrapped that up not too long ago. Uh so there's no new construction coming that they're asking to do or connection to any other streets or services um in the city. So but they did file this as um Andreas said just to make sure we can you know give us whatever we needed to facilitate the bulk water. We did not act on this. We haven't approved this this uh encroment permit. Um it's been decided by the council that all um permits or permit requests come to the council and this was officially brought in and submitted to the city. So that's why it's on your in front of you today.

Uh council uh do these encroment permits typically have an expiration date. So they're typically for a period of time. So that's very common. And as Cameron mentioned earlier, if there were additional work that the construction company would do, we would need a new encroachment permit application that actually outlines what work they would want to do. The current application is really just duplicative of the application, which is what they're already that had already been issued and expired. The scope of work, if you will. Yeah, exactly. The scope of work has already been completed. So, this current application we have for the encroachment permit really wouldn't accomplish anything. Thank you, Deb. Do you have anything you want to say on this?

No, I I think all my questions have been answered. I have a question. So So is this just an extension is what they're asking. I mean, they're not going to do any work. They're just want to make sure that this is active while they still while they're getting water. They they wanted this to just be with us in case we needed it for the water pro providing the water, but it really it has nothing to do with it. Right. So they didn't even have to give us this. Correct. Okay. That's That's what I'm That's what I'm understanding because the work has been done. They just had it, but they're like, "We're still on site. We probably just Let's cover our bases. Give them everything they need because we don't want anything to go sideways." Exactly. Got it. Okay.

Yeah. My questions are answered, Don. I don't really have anything to add. Don't believe this isn't a matter we need to take action on or vote. Just receiving. So, I think we could uh move on. And at this time we could ask the mayor um to return. Vice Mayor Dun, can I request a short break, please? Yes, we're going to take a short break and uh we'll have Mayor Cranford rejoin the meeting. After that, let's take five minutes at uh

Yeah, I will.

Maybe we never shut off recording. I thought I heard it. We're recording. Okay. All right. We're going to call the meeting back to order at 8:01 p.m. Um, we'll move to item 7.1, consideration of accurate dissolution and execution of acknowledgement letter. Can we get a staff report on this?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Uh, the Amar County Recreation Agency, also known as ACRA, has formally notified its member jurisdictions of its intent to dissolve and cease operations. Over the past several months, ACRA has been evaluating its financial and organizational capacity and has determined that this disillusion is the most appropriate course of action as part of the part of the winding down process. ACRA is requesting confirmation from each member agency regarding whether they have any objection to the dissolution. Historically, the city of Plymouth has not been obligated to contribute fees to ACRA and has chosen not to participate financially in that component of the agency's funding structure. As a result, the city is not entitled to receive any uh rest redistribution of remaining funds or assets at the conclusion of ACRA's dissolution. ACRA has indicated that any remaining financial resources will be used to satisfy outstanding obligations incur incurred through the close of operations. And I did put in front of you guys tonight um the breakdown of what each city or member agency is going to be receiving. Um I received that today at 512. So um from

And you also provided it to the lobby. I did provide it to the lobby as well. So, I apologize it wasn't in time to make the packet. Um, ACRA is requesting that its member agencies remain in place during the final stages of the dissolution process to facilitate an orderly windown of agency business. This includes completing final administrative, financial, and legal tasks necessary to formally terminate the agency. The Honor County Council has indicated that it may prepare a formal letter for each member entity to sign acknowledging Acro's dissolution and confirming that the ND has no objection to the agency's termination. There's no environmental determination and fiscal impact. There is none to uh impact to the city of Plymouth. The city has not historically contribute mitigation fees to ACRA and will not receive any distribution as part of the dissolution process. and staff recommends that the city council formally acknowledge ACRA's intention to dissolve indicica indicate that the city of Plymouth has no objection to ACRA proceeding with its dissolution process and authorized city manager to sign the letter acknowledging ACRA's dissolution. Thank you. Oh, and I also attached um a recent email from county council and the original JPA ACRA agreements. Thank you.

Thank you. Um public comment on this item 7.1. Anyone online? Stephanie has her hand up.

Um yes, if if I could get some clarification. Um I thought that the city had voted to pull out of ACRA several years ago. So um did that not happen or did they vote to do it and just didn't go through or did it did they am I remembering wrong? because I thought that there was a discussion about that. And secondly, um there the city may not have participated in mitigation fees, but the city definitely was helping fund ACRA. Um if I remember right, they were putting money into to ACRA. And so it seems to me there are assets related to that funding um that should should be part of this, not just mitigation fees. And those are two separate things. the mitigation fees were going towards, you know, actual probably um infrastructure on on actual recreation programs, but there was a participation fee that the city of Plymouth was paying at least at one time. And so those are as assets were purchased with that like office assets or things of that nature and those should be uh considered as um reimburseable. Thank you.

Thank you. I can provide some clarification after the rest of public comment uh on this because I am on the ACRA board uh of directors. So I can I can provide some of that. Anyone else want to make public comment on this item? Okay. Seeing none, hearing none, I'll close public comment on this item. Um, so really quick for clarification, we did not, as far as I'm aware, and I've double checked with the city, with Cameron, and I've double checked with um, uh, ACRA. We did not pay our participation fees this year. They were paid in the past. You are correct, Stephanie. There are assets to be divided and and given out. Um the board Acra board has not dissolved yet and the reason this is being taken action in this manner is because we can't dissolve the board because we still need the board to function in order to to divide up assets and to deal with the monies and everything that has to happen. So if if all the cities were to just pull out of the board, then there would be no one left to determine how all those things work. So at this point, it's just our intent is that we have no objection and that yes, we are in agreement that this is going to happen. And then that kind of allows the ACRA board, according to county council, what I was told, that then allows the ACRA board to work in accordance with dividing the assets up and doing whatever else needs to be done, making sure all the cities get their monies back appropriately, um, and things like that. So, I hope that provides some clarification as to why we're doing it this way and

not just completely removing ourselves. On the other point of I'm unaware of the city of Plymouth ever city of Plymouth paid participation fees last year. So I know that there was a decision made for ACRA to not do our pool anymore. I know that uh the swimming pool in the summer that decision had been made, but I'm I'm unaware of any other decision to completely pull out of ARA and we've been sending somebody from our city to be on the ACRA board uh since I've been here and before I know the last council had somebody on the board, Maryanne Acurland was on the ACRA board before me. So I I have no knowledge of that. Andreas, do you have any knowledge of that?

I'm I'm not aware of the city withdrawing from ACRA. Okay. All right. So, with that, um, I'll open it up to council discussion if they have any questions or comments. Wendy Hul. No. Debbie, I have nothing. Don, no, I'm good. Okay. Um, can can I go ahead and get a motion to have staff execute a letter, an acknowledgement letter that we will how how do we want to word this, Andreas? Authorize staff to issue the acknowledgement letter.

Oh, okay. I'll make a motion to authorize staff to execute an acknowledgement letter of ACRA dissolving. I'll second it. Council member Bottomley. I. Council member Dell. I. Council member Hornish. Hi. Vice Mayor Nun. I. Mayor Cranford. I. Thank you. Motion passes. Thank you. We'll move to 7.3. the approval of auditor services for outstanding financial audits for fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2025. Staff report.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. On April 13, 2023, the city council approved a letter of engagement with the pond group to complete the city of Plymouth's fiscal year 2021 2022 financial audit for a contracted amount of 35,000. However, that audit has not been completed. Over the past several years, the city has faced a range of financial management challenges that contributed to this delay, including significant staff turnover, incomplete reconciliations associated with the transition to a new financial system, unfinished bank reconciliations, and the absence of adequate prior audit documentation. Staff also encountered difficulty locating records necessary to verify past financial transactions along with numerous incorrectly posted entries and broader issues related to fiscal organization. Although the although these issues created substantial obstacles, the city has made considerable progress toward audit readiness through combined efforts of former accountant Miss Leon, contracted support from 3E Business Solutions, and ongoing work by the city's newly hired staff accountant, contracted finance contract finance director Andy Heath has since evaluated the city's needs and recommended engaging Moss Levy and Hartzim LLP, a firm experience in municipal audits, to complete the still outstanding fiscal school year 2021-22 audit and restore compliance with regard uh required financial reporting standards. Um no actions proposed on this report constitute projects under SQA and the following provide uh following provide the fiscal impact for the outstanding fiscal year audits because we they will help us get us caught up. Fiscal year 2021 it'll be 25,000. 2022 will be 25,750. Fiscal year 2023 26,523. Fiscal year 2024 27,318. Fiscal year 2025 28,138. Staff recommends that the city authorize

the city manager to engage Moss Levy and Hartzim LLP to complete all outstanding financial audits from 2021 through 2025 and execute any necessary documents to begin the work. And if you see on your attachments, you have the April 13th, 2023 staff report and engagement letter for the PUN Group. And then you also have the current audit cost work proposal from the Moss Levy and Hearts LLP. Thank you. Thank you. I'll go ahead and open it up to public comment. Does anyone have public comment on 7.3? Stephanie has her hand up online. Go ahead, Stephanie. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes.

Okay. So, um, so if you could, uh, allow me to go through these points because I'm a little confused about some of this. Um, they talked about the 2122 not being completed, which would be the second one under fiscal impact. Um, yet they've added the 2021 in there. There was, uh, the last audit that the city completed, they did not, it was when Rex and Michael were here. They did not do the management report as part of that audit. That was the only thing missing from it. They wanted the city of the council to adopt it without the management audit or the management letter. Management letters prepared by the city and um and I I spoke up and said that the management letter is required under Gatsby and it needed to be done. And so the city council told staff to go get that management letter done. They're at the time they said we can't do it because we don't know what happened last year, which didn't make any sense to me because they were both there. But so my question is the 2021 audit was done, I believe, except for the management letter. So why are we paying $25,000 to do that management letter? It's supposed to be done by the city. So that's question number one. Regarding the others, um it's very unusual for an auditor. In fact, it's it's best management um practices from the California Board of Accountancy for an auditor to submit an engagement letter. And the engagement letter, the purpose of the engagement letter is to explain what's going to be covered. Um it talks about the scope of work to be performed, who will be performing the work, um including whether any of it will be outsourced, what the client responsibilities are, which in this case would be the city of Plymouth, the cost of the services, and when the work will be completed. Um not only did they not go out to RFP for this, which is unusual

for because I think this comes out to about $138,000 worth of audits. They didn't go out to RFP on it, but you can see that the previous one that was done by the pun group has this engagement letter that is typical to find. And you see all the important things in there that it sets forth. And yet for this $138,000 um request, there's a one-page thing in here that just says um this is the all-inclusive rate and signed by u one of the uh people uh one of the primaries at the firm and it says that it is a bid, but it is not a bid because there was no RFP process for a bid. I'm sure that the city probably contacted them and asked them to give them an estimate. This is highly unusual to do it this way. Um, and I just want to put that into the record. Also, uh, so in addition to charging for an audit that's already been done, I believe, um, I couldn't go through the records because the the city's still not in compliance with the Brown Act that allows their records to be searchable. You have to go in um, take the the documents, download them, and then search them. and I don't have time to download years worth of agendas and search them for a certain item. So, but I think if you go back into the records, Victoria probably has easier access to go see that comment about the management report. Um, uh, so, so the other thing is that this firm, although it looks like they've done a lot of city audits, um, and that they are a good firm, they are based in Southern California. They have a Southern California um uh representatives and they have central valley representatives. They don't have anyone in Northern California. So um I think it would be in the best interest of the city number one to to separate this so that you do a couple of audits first, see how they do, then go on and

finish the rest so you make sure they're performing. Secondly, that if you're not going to go to bid, at least you make them do this engagement letter so you know what you're getting. Thank you. Thank you, Stephanie. Anyone else for public comment? 7.3.

Rosemary Marino Moody, uh, Plymouth. My question is, are we now up to date with our finances? So, we're able to do the audits through 2025? Not yet, ma'am. Okay. So, how far are we up to? Do we know? because we haven't had a finance report for well I haven't had one for a while. Oh we we are ready to proceed with the 2021

so none of the rest. So I just find it highly unusual that you're guaranteeing all these audits when we're not even close to closing those to be available for audits. So, I agree with Stephanie when she's saying maybe do a couple of them and then come back because you know it could be it could be years before you guys get to this unfortunately. I hate to say. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Anyone else for public comment on 7.3? Seeing none online. We didn't have any written in. Um I'll close public comment at this time. We'll move to council discussion, Wendy.

Um, yeah, I have I have a few things. Um, first off, we don't have an engagement letter because we not have not engaged with the firm yet. This is your mic. This is um this is a proposal from Moss Libby Hartsman. It's not a engagement of what we will they will do for us. I just want to make that clear. That's just a it's just a proposal. Um the what we're looking at here is five five years of audits. It in accounting it's best practices to have one auditor do three years and then move on to the next. The fourth year you go forward with another firm.

Okay. That's um that's it's not a rule but that those are best practices. That's practice. Yes. Um you don't want the same firm doing all your audits basically. Yes.

Um the other items I'm I'd like to know a little bit more about this 2021 audit the 2122 audit that this um the pun um did. How much how far did they get? How how much did we pay them? To my knowledge, the pun group hasn't done any work. This was never we never proceeded with with the pun group. Okay. Oh, did we pay them? I didn't look into that, but I can get that answer for you, but I wouldn't imagine so if we didn't if they didn't do any work. Okay. I I wouldn't put it past us.

I uh Yeah. Yes, that is my number one thing is like, did we pay them? uh because it was set to begin April 17th of 23. I believe the last time Andy was here, he had said we had not paid for any work under that contract cuz I want to verify that. Clarification on that one, please. Wendy, did you have something else? Yes, cuz um from from this it looks like they were doing the 2122 audit. So, is this the 21? Is it the 2021? And I'm just I'm 2020 2021 or 2122.

Yes, that's um and let's see what other items did I have that I wanted to talk about. Um and we just answered the question how close we are to actually being able to engage in these audits because it doesn't sound like we're quite ready. We're ready for the first one. First one. Okay. Okay. And staff has made tremendous progress in the last couple weeks to uh get us ready for the following. Okay. So the we could the timeline expectation is workable like you you there's something that you can we can build a timeline right now.

I couldn't give you that timeline right now because we are going through some changes but I can tell you that they're diligently trying to reconcile everything and and get everything squared away. Right. in 20 2020 20 the 21 audit will take time so probably by the time that one's done we could we'd be far enough long to do the next year I imagine

okay at a cadence um then the one of my last things is is if with with the with the initial setup of of audits they do all the internal controls they do all the testing that usually can float over to the remaining years. Say say we we a we have these engage these guys for a threeyear audit. These prices are going up every year. They should be able to alleviate some of the upfront costs out of the second and third years and do a step down as far as pricing. So because they're not going to have to recreate the wheel every time is I guess what I'm saying. So um that that concerns me with what they're proposing and um and of course the the fiveyear their willingness to do five years which again it's it's best practices but you know people do it. I don't know if we would really want to engage with that. I've heard that.

Is that is that all your comments on that one? Do you have further ones? Um uh just one there are full audits and not just um full audits, not just reviews. Correct. Cameron, they're full audits, right? That's correct. Just not reviewed financial statements. Correct. Got it. Okay. Okay. That's enough. Sorry. Thank you. Aren't we glad we have a finance person on council? Uh, and then we have another finance person on council. Debbie,

I agree with Wendy. Um, I was also wondering why the cost was going up each year. It looks like at least for the first year um like a 3% I I didn't have a chance to see if they were just automatically doing a 3% each um year, but I think to um what Wendy said about the three years and then going to a different company. Okay, do you have any comments?

Yep. Um, uh, Stephanie, if my hamsters are right, um, it adds up to 132,729. Um, just to point it out, I know you said 138, but it's still a whole lot of money um that we would be spending. So, my question, first question is why or how was this firm floated in or picked? Uh this is a firm that our finance director is very familiar with and comfortable with and uh confident in their ability to get our our things done that we need. So Andy recommended them. That is correct, sir.

Okay. Um why wouldn't we get quotes from other firms? An RFP?

We absolutely can. We were just itching ready to go. just best practice I think would suggest to get um quotes from other firms as well because when I first saw this it's like wow they're really you know it's not a cola kind of situation and to to Wendy's point um they're already in there they don't have to recreate the wheel and my first thought was can we get a buy two get one year free um well I'm just saying Um you know anyh who um and where does the funding come from for these?

I believe it's a general fund sir but I can get a for sure answer for you just a curiosity. Thank you. You done?

Yeah. So I was basically going to bring up exactly the concerns Holder just brought up. Um I have I'm not sure where I I've actually heard about that we shouldn't go more than three years with one firm also. Um the big thing to me is not having multiple bids and then basically doing this audit. So we have the finance director and the audit is basically going to go back over all the work finance director done. It seems like it should be an independent, not somebody the finance director picks because he works with all the time to check his work. Not that I mean Andy's a great guy. I'm not saying anything. I'm just saying it doesn't look good in my opinion to the public that we let the person doing the work pick who checks his work. Okay. Um so I think that that's something to take into consideration. I'm sure this is a fine firm. Um, but I'm sure that there's also several other vine firms out there. And you know, the biggest part of our job sitting up here is that we're supposed to be the stewards of the citizens money. And so to just pick someone because we were told, hey, this is a good company, use them without even engaging with anyone else for bids. I don't think that we're doing our job when we do that.

Seems irresponsible.

Yeah, very irresponsible in my opinion. So, I would not be for moving forward on this tonight. I would want to uh you know, I'm going to want to have bids from other companies um independent from, you know, the recommendations were given. And then, you know, we could we could review those companies, you know, see what their credentials are. We now have several people that uh we didn't have in the past. you know, all the people with the accounting backgrounds we have now. We've now hired our own accountant. We have people up here now who can advise us that have the accounting backgrounds. So, I think we're in a good place to look at different companies and that we have staff who can weed out and and help us make a decision on who we pick. But I I do think for transparency wise to the public, it needs to definitely be that we looked for the best deal we could get with the best company. That's all I have.

Yeah, I can't agree more with all of my council members. I I'm took all the words out of my mouth except I didn't know all the fancy things that council member Bottomly knew. So, so, um, yeah. Does anyone want to make a motion or just give staff direction to you guys want are you in agreement to give staff direction to I think it's a direction call, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, put it out for bid. Um, would you want it split up as two separate proposals to do three years and then one to do the other two? Yeah. Yep. Definitely. Yes.

Good call. And then just as a followup to makeund well 100% sure that we did not spend that 35 grand to the putting group. Yeah. If we did we want our money back. Yeah. Work was done. We pay do it again. Either they need to do it or they need to refund us. Yeah. Because if it's not completed, it's not like something we could pass to the new accountants. No. Because they won't take it. Yeah. They'll re Yeah. They'll want to redo it. Like every doctor you go to, they want their own set of X-rays. Yes. Uh, okay. Is that Are we good on that one? I understand. Yes, ma'am.

Yep. Okay, cool. Uh, 7.4 update employee handbook and municipal code revisions. Direction for future council consideration. Staff report. The city's employee handbook and municipal code 2.08.090 service foundational documents governing personnel policy employee conduct conduct disciplinary procedures and general employment standards. Over time both documents have become outdated, inconsistent and in some instances unclear leading to confusion in the administrative of administration of staff members or matter excuse me. Several provisions did not reflect current laws, best practices, or operational procedures. During recent personnel reviews and administrative matters, city management identified areas where the handbook and municipal code lacked clarity or conflicted with each other. These in inconsistencies created challenges in ensuring transparent, fair, and legally compliant personnel management. There's no uh this project does not constitute a project under SQA. The fiscal impact is limited to existing staff and contracted staff time required to implement the updated policies. And his recommendation that city council review the updated employee handbook and propose amendments to municipal code 2.08.090 and provide direction for these items to be brought back for discussion consideration at a future regular city council meeting. And if you see the attachments are the updated city of Plymouth employee handbook um provided by BBK and the updated city of of Plymouth Municipal Code 2.08.090 authority over employees. Thank you.

I just want to add to that briefly. Yeah.

So over the time that Frank was city attorney and in my time here, we've never taken a comprehensive look at the employee handbook. We've not gone through that expense and exercise. So, as Cameron said, because of some recent things we've noticed in there, we decided to take a look just to make it legally compliant. We didn't rewrite you a new employee handbook here. We took what the city had already and just plugged in some of the changes in law that have come come into effect. So, consider this still a working draft. It's not a perfect document. I expect there's flaws, edits, things that still need to be fixed. So, this is not the time that we're going to take action on it. This is really just a first look at it to start getting some feedback to to get it towards a final polished document.

Okay. So, the intent tonight is not for us to sit here and have a lengthy discussion about this document as much as it is for you to have provided it to us. Now, we have a chance to go review it over our Christmas break. Thank you. You're welcome. And don't say I never got you anything nice. Merry Christmas. and uh and then reconvene on this essentially is is yeah it's it's a it's a lengthy document. I don't expect everybody has read it. I know one person is very eager to point out that he has read it cover to cover.

Yeah. But I think it makes more sense if there's overarching questions right now to get those out there. And otherwise, I think it's going to be more effective for people to provide written feedback and I can incorporate those with Laura Fowler and we can written feedback to you, me and Cameron. So CC Okay, thank you. Okay. Um, and same for members of the public. If there's broad questions now, we can try and address them. But really, this is more of an exercise to just get this draft out there for feedback. Okay. So, we'll go to public comment now. I see Stephanie has her hand up.

Can I do Stephanie first and then take you Butch? Okay. Thank you. Go ahead, Stephanie.

Um, thank you. Um, again, um, there's a whole bunch of changes made in here, but you really don't know what they are because it doesn't have track changes. So, um it it would be helpful if they used the previous um handbook, as it sounds like they did, if they did a track changes document for you, you can see what they've changed and and why. Um uh secondly, there's no reference to the inloo cash program. You allow employees to take cash in lie of benefits. I don't see any reference to it in here. If it's going to be a benefit, it needs to be in here. Number one. Number two, it may mean that the current program is not authorized by the city. So, that needs to be looked at. Um, number number three, on page uh 29 of the handbook, it talks about the deferred compensation plan. And it's clear that somebody cut cut something out of here. Um, it says the city provides access to a deferred compensation plan, and then a bunch of empty spaces. Um, be nice to know what they cut out. Um, it's also important that what the because right now the city is allowing employees to take from judging from what was in the budget to take $750 cash in lie of benefits and then get that $750 cash matched by another $750 of city money for their deferred comp plan. So, they're able to put $1,500 a month into their deferred comp totally at city expense. If that's going to be the city's policy, it needs to be in writing somewhere. And um this would be the logical place for that to be. Um thank you.

This goes um for the municipal code too needs to have strike uh track changes on it. There's a excerpt in there, but it's not track change. Thank you. Thank you. I could just quick Stephanie, thank you. I took notes, but if you could send me an email with your comments as well, that would be very helpful as I'm going through this. What?

Coach Cranford, Plymouth property owner, work right there. Um, I don't know. Maybe maybe attorney could uh has a better idea, but is is there any value or benefit in looking at the uh handbooks from cities of similar size to see where they are, if they're already in compliance, if that would fit with the city of Plymouth. Something to think about. Uh, the other thing that I would like to comment on is that in in the on the previous agenda item, I was so pleased to learn that the council and staff do answer questions. I guess you just have to ask the right ones.

Okay, thank you. Um, 7.7. No, sorry, I got thrown off. Anyone else for public comment? I scribbled out my 7.4 too soon. No other public comment. Okay, we'll go to um council discussion and a closed public comment and go to council discussion. And I just want to remind everybody, we're not going over every fine tooth thing in this document tonight. That's not what this is for. It's just to for us to review this and of course if there's anything outstanding major for you that you want to bring up. Uh Deb uh sorry Wendy, you want to go first?

Uh yeah, I don't have anything right off the top. I still need to go through some of it. I'm not quite the overachiever that Hogar is. Um, but I will go through it and for the anything that we find, send you an email.

Okay. But we'll send you both an email. I can do that. Debbie, I wasn't going to throw Holar under the bus. Um, I did glance. I didn't read the whole thing. I scrolled through, but um I do have some notes and I will make sure to email um just overall um just kind of documenting processes um like um for progressive discipline or um like the advanced steps. Is there like going to be a policy on what qualifies for the advanced step? So, thank you. Thank you, Don. Oh, sorry. I got to go to holier affairs. Oh, I you did so much work. I almost skipped you.

There was a lot of work put in and now I know who's on the naughty list up here. Um, and I'm just going to send an email seeing the two of them and I'm just going to keep it leave it there. Thank you. Okie dos. Don.

Yeah, a couple things. Um, it's really difficult like uh look at this and there's changes made. I know we did some of them blue but without doing it in strikeout with the old we need the policy on something like this at least myself. I need the policy put in here in strikeout version and then add what you want. So on some of this, I could tell there was stuff missing. And I had to go to my policy manual and try and look at what's the proposed changes are. I shouldn't have to do that. So by putting everything in strikeout, it makes it a lot easier to try and make a decision on this. Like uh I'll just bring up what I'm talking about real quick on one is like uh if you go on 2.08.090, 090. You get to the end and there's just a blue line and nothing's there. So, you have to go and look at it and try to figure this out. It talks about uh it ends at, you know, it ends at evaluate or demote employees in accordance with personnel rules of the city and it just stops. So if I go and look it up in my own policy manual after that it talks it says that uh and it shall be the duty of the city manager to inform the council of appointment or removal of any permanent employees at the regular next regular council meeting. Okay. We have no way of knowing what we're agreeing to here if we don't know what it was if we're just going off of this. So we need we need all of the information.

I'll generating one that shows the track changes.

Okay. Thanks. And then the other one other um thing that's going to be big is uh with what's gone on the last year, you know, uh several citizens definitely um aren't happy with some of our hiring policies and stuff and I know that became a big thing as we all well know um on 2.03 employment of relatives. We had talked about when before we update stuff, we were going to have a discussion or something to decide on in the future moving forward, you know, what policy we're going to have on relatives working for the city. That's not anything that affects people here now, but we need to have something in place. And so before I'm going to vote to approve any new policy manual, um, it's going to have that in it

or I'm going to be a no. Okay. I think that's what we're doing this for is to come up with all those things. All right. Uh I don't have anything. I've only glanced at it and didn't take a bunch of time sitting and reading it yet. Um cuz I wanted Holar to be the overachiever for this meeting. So uh we will move to There's really no direction to give. It's just it is what it is. We're Yep.

Yeah. Depending on how extensive the comments are, the next version you see might just be another draft step depending on what we get into on this. This could be a multiple multiple more times before we finally get to adopting a document. Great. Thank you. We'll move to 7.7 city council reorganization selection of mayor and vice mayor. Um I Oh, what' I miss? There was an amendment. Uh 7.7 is actually the recommendation of award for Z infendo service district ditch repair. How do I not have this? And then and then 7.8 is now the um reorganization.

Okay. Okay. All right. Sorry about that. Uh 7.7 Community Facilities District uh recommendation of award for Zimpendelle Services District Ditch Repair Project. Staff report.

One moment here. My apologies. I didn't have the the updated agenda packet. Um, the city staff met with representatives from Zimodil Ridge on October 26, 2025 regarding ditch repair to various sections of roadside ditches within the Zimpedel Ridge subdivision. Project plan specifications were prepared that included removing sediment from the roadside ditches and lining them with angular rip wrap base bid project. An additive alter alternate was requested by the Zinfidel Ridge represent representatives for substituting out the angular rip wrap with rounded cobble. The project was advertised for bids on November 7th, 2025. A mandatory uh pre-bid conference was held on November 18th, 2025 and the bid opening was held on December 2nd, 2025. The city received three bids as listed below. RD Morgan construction, the base bid was 24,850 at the additive alternate was 34,500. Phase 1 construction was 46,330 with the additive um alternate 6,000. Shannido Excavating was 46,391 with an additive alternative 6,500. Due to RD Morgan's construction's bid price differences between phase 1 construction and Shenado excavating, the city engineer spoke with each bidder. RD Morgan Construction informed us that the base bid price was just to clean out the existing ditches and no angular rip wrap or rounded cobble was included. RD Morgan Construction also uh thought the additive alternate alternate alternate excuse me was for adding the cobble rock after cleaning

out the ditch. Phase one construction instead of excavating bid the project as intended. There are a few options the city has noted below. One, declare the low bidder as unresponsive and award the base bid to the second low bidder, which would be phase one construction where for a total cost of 46,330. Option number one, but included additive alternate rock, rounded cobble rock instead of angular rip wrap for a total cost of 52,330 or reject reject all three bids and rebid project. The city engineer does not anticipate lower bids with this option. The fiscal impact funding for this project would be from the community facilities district number 21 2016 tax 01 Zimidel services district and recommendation after discussion with discussion with representatives from Zipil Zimpidel Ridge. It is recommended the project be awarded to the second lowest bidder phase 1 construction for 46,330 for the base bid only. And you have attachments for the bid summary and the resolution of uh 2025 TAC 24.

Thank you. Um we'll go to public comment on this item 7.7. Stephanie, I see your hand up. Thank you. Um, so this isn't my area of expertise, but um I have a few questions that hopefully council can um answer. one is um it I believe it's allowed still um and and that's what I I need a clarification on if if it's allowed um to do a local um business preference um typically 5 to 7% um given for a local firm on a contract. Um I don't know if that has to be codified. That's the question I have. I know that that it's legal, but I don't know if it has to be codified before it's applied. Um the the difference between the the out of county phase one construction, which I believe is located um according to a Google search down in Atwater and Shannidoa Excavating, which is local here in Amir County, does a lot of work in the city of Plymouth um including I believe proono work occasionally um for local people. uh it's only a difference of $61 and that's well well below the five to 7% that's typically um allowed by other cities and counties. So I'd like to encourage the council if if legal to consider uh giving the award to Shundo excavating um the local bidder rather than the other firm especially since the bids are so close. Secondly, I I um I want to point out I I I hope it's a typo. Um at the top it says recommendation award for Zinfendel Services District. I assume this is supposed to be for the CFD. Um there is not a Simidel Services District. Is that correct? I just want

to make sure that's just a typo. Um because if there's a separate services district, that's a whole another conversation. Yeah, it's a typo.

Okay. And then thirdly, um you know, there's a lot of drainage issues and storm water issues out at ZR um that were the fault of the developer and the city and um the original agreement and implementation. Um I think there is a lack of storm water facilities put out there. Um a lot of homeowners that had to put in their own money to solve these issues. Um, I I'm wondering if these particular issues since they want to do a different lining on these things, it it indicates they weren't done properly in the first place. Maybe um whether um the homeowners out there should have to pay for this. Um, I mean, maybe there should be some checking of the agreement to see if the developer is responsible for some of this for not implementing um the way it should have been to standards so that we didn't have to. I know sediment is a normal thing, but it looks like this goes above and beyond just sediment getting in the ditch. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else for public comment? Butch. which Cranford, you know where I own property and you know where I live. I would echo uh Stephanie's suggestion that that you look at Shannondoa because I'm just going to tell you Cam Cameron will verify this. They've done several thousand dollars worth of work down to Veterans Park uh proono and I don't know what other projects, but you you can ask Ron Leno or Mike and uh Donna or Jamie and they'll get back to you. They are truly uh good citizens in this community and if they have a bid that's a few dollars more than somebody from Atwater then we need to award that to Shannondoa. Just just my thoughts.

Thank you. Any other public comments at this time? Seeing none, I'll close public comment. We'll move to council discussion. Wendy Um I don't know a lot about this project. I don't know a lot about the ditch repair and how how it works but um I agree if you know the cost sheno it should be they're local. Is it legal for us to go with them?

I don't believe we have a local preference codified the way that Stephanie was describing. So unfortunately here we are bound by going with the lowest responsive bidder even though it is only six. And I say cancel it and get rebids. Yeah. Yeah. Lower.

Typically how this works here and the Zinfendel Ridge representatives did express a preference here for phase one construction. We did talk with them about this. I spoke to two people from the HOA on this exact thing because when I went through my packet and I noticed the $61 difference, they also echoed the fact that, you know, um they wish that Shannondoa had come in lower because they also are aware of the situation that they have to uh legally accept the lowest bit which of course My first instinct also was that come on. Yeah. So,

why is it that there was something else we did that we didn't have to take the lowest bid on? What was that? The park. Was it the park? Was that No, no. There was something else that we got to choose. What was that? Oh my brain. So public works projects are kind of a different beast. That's what it was.

They were talking about the accounting service or the auditing services earlier there. That's a professional service. That's not subject to taking the lowest responsive bid. That's a different thing. So here with a public works project, our hands are a little bit more tied than they are with other types of procurements that the city does. Here's the thing. So, oh, go ahead. Oh,

I mean, we're given three options here. One's reject all and rebid the project since the one contractor seemed to have not bid it properly. My thought is kind of what everyone else is is. And I know that uh not only is Shannonoa very close to the city limits, I know some of the employees are are citizens and constituents. Um, I don't know why we don't have this local preference thing in place. I wonder how long does it take to have a local preference thing voted on and in place. We can we can look into that.

Okay. Um, I don't know how the citizens in Zimpendel Ridge feel, but me personally, I say you go with option three. Just reject them all and rebid it. Now, one risk with that is we could get no no bids next time around. we could get higher bids. Our engineer estimates that the responsive bids, the reason they're so close is that that's really about as low as it's going to get for this project. Well, you live there. What do you think?

My my I mean, I'm with you. I'm I would go with number three on this as well. However, you know, rainy season is upon us and I don't know when and how fast this work can even be completed um to send so I have spoken with our engineer about that and okay it can be done relatively quickly. That's part of the reason we've brought this forward now is to try and right still get some utility out of it for this rainy season. An RFP would take another two weeks minimum. It would add much more than that. Probably 30 days. We come back for another council meeting. It would add at least a month if not more.

Sounds a bit of a tough spot here in a pickle.

Um there's definitely something to be said for having, you know, a local contractor in town doing the work. they, you know, um not that there's these other contractors wouldn't do a great job also, but you know, when somebody's doing work in their own town, you know, you tend to be getting getting their best. And so I really I mean, I'd like to see us use the the contract right here. Over $61 is just this is ridiculous. Um how critical is this to get it done? Um, I haven't looked at exactly. I haven't been out there and looked at this. I mean, Hulker could probably tell us he drives through there every day. So, um, it's something that's critical to get done right now. I could tell you from talking and meeting with the CFD, they they want this done as soon as possible. Like, they're they're they wanted it done last week type of thing. Um, I feel like if Jamie was here right now, she would say, I'm I'm I could be speaking out of turn. She'll call me later and let me know if I did, but I think she would say, "It's okay, guys. We know how this works." So, cuz that's the kind of person she is. So um I I don't know

another consideration is that if we reject two bids that are on their face responsive there could be some challenges brought by those responsive biders if we reject their bids and then a month from now accept responsive bids that are substantively the same to what they're proposing.

Right. Yeah. I mean, I I think that I know Jamie and Ron well, and they're reasonable people, and they know that we're between a rock and a hard place, and that our hands are really tied legally is what I'm understanding. And I hate to delay uh the project work. I really hate to not be able to give this to Shannon do excavating, but it just doesn't seem like it's feasible without putting off. I don't know. I don't know what to do. Wow. I'll say this much. Um, no time for this later on, I guess, but uh I would like to to say that uh something for our attorney to work on by next council meeting that we adopt a local preference.

Is that possible? I don't know if we can get it done that quickly, but it's on my list. Yes, I feel like that I feel that if we as long as we get it on there, uh you know, um it's a bit if we wait to make a decision on this until that's put in place. Yeah, that that wouldn't work. No, unfortunately not. Um but it's something that would behoove us to have in the future and that's knew the answer to that before I asked it, but we'll have more projects that will benefit from something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Debbie, did you have anything?

I would like to go with option three, but I think in the best interest that we have to accept um the bid.

I'm going to wait for for discussion or emotion. I think all in all I you know I have my personal feelings on it but I think we got to do what we got to do. I agree with Debbie. Um you know the citizens out there want it done and I don't know how big of a problem it is but it sounds like it's something needs to get done now and we got to go with what was in place when the bid was put out when it was put out to bid. So, I think uh I'm going to vote to reluctantly accept the bid and get the job done and remedy the situation in the future in case we have stuff this close. Do are you making do you want to make a motion?

Um, yeah. Let me see here. I'm going to make a motion. It's the worst thing we've ever had to do. The motion would be to approve resolution 2025-24. Okay, that that lays it out if that makes it easier. All right, I'm going to make a motion to approve resolution 2025-24. I'll second the motion. Council member Bottomley, I. Council member Dell, I. Council member Hornish, I. Vice Mayor Nun, I.

Mayor Cranford, I thank you. Motion passes and let's please get that local thing done ASAP. Yeah, I don't want to face this again. Okay. 7.8. Um, city council reorganization selection of mayor and vice mayor. Uh, staff report.

Thank you, madame mayor. Every year this there is a selection of mayor and vice mayor among council members. Duties of the mayor include the mayor as chairperson presides over the regular and special meetings of the council. Keeps the discussion focused on the issues. Prevents overly dominating members from having a disproportionate influence. Solicits opinions, feelings, and positions from uh resident members. Discourages fingerpointing and blame oriented statements or questions. Protects colleagues and staff from verbal attacks. Encourages the generation or generation of alternative solutions. Protects new thoughts from being rejected prior to consideration. Delays evaluation and analysis of alternatives until all all are on the table. Facilitates the meeting and does not let the elected body drift off topic. Guides the process of screening alternatives and selecting a solution. Attempts to build consensus among members during the meetings only. The mayor has the authority to call special council meetings. The mayor is required to sign all ordinances, resolutions, and proclamations. The mayor signs all letters from the council. The mayor represents the city at civic and community functions such as purple heart ceremony, harvest festival, Christmas market, league of California city division meetings, and then moving to the vice mayor assumes the duties of the mayor when the mayor is not available. The city clerk is the elections officers for officer for the city holds the selection for the mayor and the process includes the following. The city clerk declares that the nominations are open for the office of mayor. The deputy city clerk accepts nominations from the council members. You may nominate more than one person for a position and you may nominate yourself for a position. When there are no further nominations, the city clerk will close the nominations and take a roll call vote. If there is more than one nomination, a vote will be taken in order of nomination. You may vote for more than one person for the position. The mayor

is selected by a majority vote, three votes. If a tie occurs, there will be a runoff vote. If more than one person is nominated and during the roll call vote, the first nomination receives a majority vote. The election is now complete. Following the votes, the city clerk declares that the mayor is elected. Once a new mayor, newly selected mayor is seated, the mayor holds the selection of the vice mayor in the mayor manner as outlined for the mayor. There is no fiscal impact and staff recommends proceed with the selection of mayor and vice mayor. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll open this to public comment at this time. Anyone for public comment on 7.8. Okay. Seeing none, hearing none. Nothing written in. We'll close public comment on this and we'll move to council discussion. Before we before I open it up to my council members, um I would like to say at this time that I've really enjoyed being mayor for the 5 months I think it is that I've been mayor. Um, but in this new season that I'm in, starting in January, my daughter will be in my home for about 6 months and then she'll be off to college or whatever she's adventure she's going to be on next. So, um if not that there was, but if there was any intention for me to continue being mayor, um I would like to step aside and allow one of my other council members to take over being mayor at this time. um and have that discussion because I want to if I if I need to miss a meeting during the time of visiting colleges and and things like that, I don't want to feel the pull of of leaving running a meeting. So, um I just wanted to make that statement before we got into discussion. I hope I I thank everybody for their support and it's and I hope to do it again before my term ends. I've got a while. Okay, Wendy, anything?

Um, no, I don't know. I mean, I guess we have to do this, right? Um, I'm I'm not interested in being mayor. Okay, Debbie,

I feel like I'm too new to step into that role. I'm still learning um the ins and outs of it and would like at least another year under my belt before I even think about trying for that. Holer, I'm speechless. Yeah, open discussion. I don't know who wants it, Don.

I'd like to do it. Um, just because it's my most most likely my last opportunity. This is my last year or I'm in my second year, my two-year term. So, I would definitely like to do it once while I'm here. And this would pretty much be my only opportunity. So anyone have any comments? Use your mic. I think Don would make a great mayor. I think I would like to nominate him. Is that what we're doing tonight? Yeah, you can motion.

I'd like to make a motion to nominate Don Nun as a new mayor of city of Plymouth. I'll second the motion. Council member Bottomley. I. Council member Dell. I. Council member Hornish. Hi. Vice Mayor Nun. Hi. Mayor Cranford. I. There are five votes for Vice Mayor Nun. So, he has been elected mayor and I'm going to turn the meet meeting over to him. Congratulations.

Thank you guys. I appreciate it. appreciates for um okay so I guess we're going to um do the same exact thing now for the vice mayor position open it up if uh to discussion whoever would like to uh speak if Wendy if you want to go first as far as vice mayor um or do we have to have a separate We're good yeah right we're good okay Um, I think any anybody Huler, you want to do it? I would do it. Yes.

I I would nominate I I make a motion to nominate Hogar. If no one else has any objections, I would second that motion. Council member Bottomley. I. Council member Dell. I. Council member Hornish. I. Mayor Nun. I. Council member Cranford. No, I was really out of order. Threw me off. Hi. Thank you. Motion passes. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations.

Thank you all. We're in good hands. You're running the meeting now, sir. Just so you know. Oh, I figured we'd let you finish out the night there, but then what do we want to do? I can do that. Doesn't work that way to finish it. Oh, okay. So, I got to find I closed my packet so I can see what we're up to. We got there. Uh, city manager report.

Yeah. Thank you, Vice Mayor and Mayor. Um, we've had a short time since our last meeting. Uh we did get the Morfield reconnected and they're very happy with the service that we've been providing. Um but our biggest news is we hired two new employees. Um one we had an exit of an employee that went to another jurisdiction and we have Jacob Smith who's now handling that and uh he's also handling our Zoom stuff right now. Um he comes with a great background of computer science and he could help with a lot of a lot of our groundwork and very energetic. And we also hired an accountant, um, Mr. Ricky Van Djk, who's here in the audience. He wanted to see what a council meeting looked like. He started, uh, they both started this week and so they're both getting their feet wet. Ricky's been working with our contractor, contracted accountant, three business solutions, right? And, um, the plan is to keep that contract going for the time being just to help get Ricky trained. He's also working with our direct f or our finance director um and to ensure everything's getting caught up and they're they're hustling. So, it's been a it's been a very exciting week down here at city hall. Thank you.

I almost it's gonna it's going to be hard for me to not Yeah. And I'm I'm like sitting over here waiting for you to move on with it. Okay. Yeah. Um, so, uh, thank you for that, Cameron. Uh, mayor and council member reports and council requests for future agenda items. Uh, Wendy Botley, we'll start with you on future agenda item or any reports. Did you have an Acra or something?

Um, I went um the ACTC last week. Um nothing super um informative for the city of Plymouth regarding um the meeting. They did they did talk a little bit about the R RITF RTMF

RTMF there's so many acronyms. Um uh but uh Felicia um bridges talked about they had sent notifications to a few of the cities. Pummouth was one of them and she reported that Cameron was the only one that had gotten back to her. She was very happy about that and he got a shining star for that. So um but other than that nothing I um nothing to report from that meeting. That's it. Oh, I can't turn my mouth.

Oh, yeah. We must get used to this. We're calling this. So, I guess we would go to actually Wendy one comfort. It's going to take some serious getting used to. Um, okay. So, for reports, I attended the holiday home tour. Um, you attended it too. I get usually become to meet Phoenix. I almost did. I was like, I'm thinking about this.

Uh, yeah. Now you're vice mayor, so you're last before dawn. Uh-huh. Get used to that. So, holiday home tour was awesome. I attended that in the morning with my best friend. She came up from Sacramento and we had a wonderful time. ate at taste and then I volunteered at the holiday home tour for the Colurn House which was awesome and incredible. And a huge shout out to Rotary for putting this entire event on. Huge shout out to Jamie and her family for working so hard to the co I can't believe what they were able to do to the Cobburn house in 7 weeks. It's unbelievable. And so that was super awesome to be in there um and see that. And then um the Christmas market was the same day and it was super successful. And the holiday home tours I think I'm going to say this. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I Jamie told me 400 tickets were sold. That means 400 people were in Plymouth wandering around driving. Taste was packed. My friend and I almost didn't get a seat. We we had lunch at Taste and the market was packed and Arrowhead Acres, who's our new pop-up plaza lease person, she said she was almost sold out. It was awesome. I can't say enough about it. The whole event was incredible. And I hope next year they do it again and they plan it on the same day as Christmas market just like they did this year because I think it made both events made the other event so successful. Um so that was incredible. Acra obviously we've already talked

about but I'm on that board. So um I will continue to follow up with them on that. We have a meeting coming up December 15th and I think that's where we'll begin figuring out assets and what comes next. So if anybody from the public wants to attend the ACRA board meeting from the city of Plymouth to give input on that, I would I would encourage that. I think it's 10:00 a.m. December 15th uh at the board of supervisors room. Um I think that's it as far as agenda items. I think I've already said the local services that is my new favorite thing to have put on an agenda. I've already put a colleague on it.

Perfect. So that's it for me. Okay. I don't have anything to report out. One thing I did want to ask to be added to the agenda is if we could get a budget update, see where we're going with revenues and expenditures coming into midyear. ogre. Yay. Um, I can't stress this enough that the holiday home tour was phenomenal, as was the Christmas market, and they have to coincide because

you know, my wife Tiffany calls me Mr. Christmas, and I had the best day that day. Um, I had no meetings and I think you're, you know, you've got a lot of marching orders for future agenda items. So, I'm going to drop it, leave it there. Um, but I wanted to welcome the two newbies to the team again. So, thank you for being here. Thank you.

Yeah, as far as agenda items, we've already brought it up. I think we all want that local preference thing. Um, so no more on that. Um I don't have any report but one thing I will bring up it's not necessarily anything take action on the f but I was talking to the city manager this last week and as a lot of you guys know I go out and walk pretty much every single day for an hour or so I walk around town and I try and go up and down all the different streets in town and different things. And I'm walking up and down Main Street and it kind of it occurred to me that the other cities in the county, they put up a big Christmas tree every year and they have an event, a Christmas tree lighting. They have lights going across the main street. And I mean, some of our businesses have done great. City staff has put some stuff up and it it's wonderful. But it occurred to me that I think we're the only city not actually putting up a tree and you know we just did all this work in our park renovation. We could have added something. We still can. City staff can go back. So I would like to I don't know in the something you know we talk about or in the future. But, you know, next year I'd like to be on top of things and I'd like to see us maybe the city staff go out and actually put a spot for a large tree to go and then we have people that know either we get a tree or we have people I think one here in the room right now could help us get a really tall 20 30 foot tree

supervisor onto he's in his own world but it it'd be something I'd like to see us add to the city's agenda events every year be like an actual Christmas tree lighting town can come and we add that to the home tour and Christmas market and yeah and that's fine and I'm open to in the evening when it becomes dinner yeah and it's something when we don't have more pressing issues on the agenda things you know that that we need to to deal with that we could have this discussion about maybe setting up and doing that and you know yeah we you could add stuff to it everybody could put their input And uh but I would like at least to

Yeah. do something have an event, an actual lighting where everybody in town can come out and have a tree that's up and everybody can come to and Yeah. called the tree lighting ceremony. Yeah. The tree lighting ceremony and actually, you know, um delegate some funds to maybe purchasing some lights for across the street and so forth. So that's a discussion I'd like to have in the future and I just wanted to bring that up. Costco has a wicked deal right now on those cafe lights. I'm just letting you know. Online you buy a threeack and they're 20 bucks each for 48 ft. That's pretty awesome.

That is amazing. Shout out to Costco. Okay, so that's uh any anybody else with anything else come to mind. All right. So, at this time, I believe we're going to uh go into close session at 9 17 17. So, we should take public comment if anybody has public comment on that. Any public comment on the close session on item uh 10.1 liability claims um claimed by Outfront Media LLC against the city of Plymouth. Uh Stephanie Maro,

thank you. Um I just would like to remind the city that they're still not complying with the Brown Act requirements to disclose what happens in close session. Um after action is taken um which requires not only a report out of what action was taken, but a report out of the individual votes of each city council member. Thank you. Thank you, Stephanie. Um, seeing no one else, I will close public comment on this matter and we will adjourn to close session at 9:18.

The city council has heard a claim by outdoor media against the city outfront media against the city of Plymouth. The council has voted unanimously to reject that claim. Meeting adjourned at 9:37 9:37