City Council - Regular Meeting

Wow, everybody got quite all at once. I didn't even have to call you to order. Good evening and welcome to our September 1st City Council meeting. We will start with our invitation with Director Alan Harris for Come and See Chico. Do we have Alan? Mr. Harris? No? All right. Well, then we will go into our Pledge of Allegiance. Everybody stand. Salute and pledge.

Madam Clerk, can you take our roll for us, please? Council Member Goldstein?

Here.

Council Member Hawley? Here. Council Member O'Brien? Here. Council Member Van Overbeck? Here. Council Member Winslow?

Here.

Vice Mayor Bennett?

Here.

Mayor Reynolds?

Here. Speaker card and remote participation announcement. If you are in person, you should first complete a speaker card found at the back of the chamber. Once completed, turn your cards into the city clerk, and the speakers are taken in the order received. Once the first card is turned in, we will not take any additional... on that item. In addition, for citizens, participation is now available via Zoom. Please note that those of you who wish to speak on Zoom will be asked to raise your hand when it's time for public comments on each specific item. Once the first speaker begins, no additional cards or Zoom speakers will be accepted. Persons demonstrating rude, boisterous behavior speaking on matters outside the jurisdiction of the City Council or engaging otherwise disruptive behavior will be called to order. If such conduct continues, we may call a recess, request removal of such persons if needed. Mr. City Attorney Jones, can you give us our closed session announcement, please?

Yes, happy to do that. There were two items in closed session. The first was anticipated litigation and direction was given to legal counsel on that. And then a conference of labor negotiators and similarly direction from the city council was provided to the labor negotiators. And that's all I have. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. We have a presentation tonight from Pioneer Community Energy, CCA. And our assistant city manager, Eric, is going to introduce her and kick us off.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor. Yeah, I'd like to introduce Lisa Rhodes. She's the Community Relations Manager with Pioneer Community Energy. She's going to present to you tonight. Just a quick update on our efforts with Pioneer Community Energy. As you know, we dismantled Butte Choice Energy early 2025 and opted to join Pioneer Community Energy, an already well-established community choice aggregator that's operating quite well. And we're still slated to go live in October of 2027. So this is just simply an update and to advise council that kind of that we're on schedule and the community could start anticipating to see information coming out shortly on those efforts. So with that, I'd like to bring Lisa up to the podium to present.

Good evening, Mayor Reynolds and Council. I'm Lisa Rhodes, Community Outreach Manager with Pioneer Community Energy, and I'm happy to be here today, tonight. As a quick recap, staff began working with Pioneer back in 2024. An impact assessment study was conducted, and it found that impact assessment study was conducted with Butte County, Chico, Oroville, and Paradise, and it found that all parties would benefit from joining Pioneer. We are a not-for-profit JPA. The CPUC approved in October 2027 launch of service, and I'm pleased to provide an update tonight and share some exciting news about our programs and services and what we have coming in the coming months ahead. We've got about 13 months before we launch, so we just wanted to give you an update and go over it in more detail. So this slide really highlights how Pioneer works. As a reminder, Pioneer buys the electricity from various suppliers, and then PG&E continues to deliver that electricity through its power lines and poles, and they still maintain the infrastructure. So as a customer of PG&E and Pioneer, you still will receive just one bill from PG&E. It'll be on the third page, and it will list the transmission and distribution charges from PG&E, but it'll also list the electricity-only charges from Pioneer. And in your appendix, you'll see that there's a sample bill there, if you have any questions of what it would look like. So again, customers will continue to receive one bill. We only handle and manage the electricity portion of the bill. PG&E will continue to monitor those, have the infrastructure and the poles and lines. This next slide really illustrates our pioneer service map. We service Placer and El Dorado counties and those cities they're in. And then we'll also be expanding into six counties and nine cities. And we're very proud of our history of saving customers money. Our pioneer board of directors prioritizes rate payer savings over anything else. We don't have shareholders. Our customers are our shareholders. And we've saved over $145 million since 2018, and we're really looking forward to our partnership with the City of Chico and our other expansion partners. So there are many benefits to Chico joining a JPA and joining our not-for-profits. Organization, as I mentioned, our number one priority is saving customers money, but we're more than just a JPA. We're about choice for residents and businesses. We're about local governance and representation. So you will have a local voice. You'll have a local member, I believe, Mayor Reynolds, your appointee, to be on our board of directors, and an alternate delegate would be appointed as well. We'll provide briefings to the representatives from the city of Chico, and then the position will become a voting member in July of 2027. So it's pretty exciting that you have local representation and a local voice. So in addition to that, there's local governance. There's rate-setting transparency. We set our rates in the open annually, and we also have opportunities to meet climate change. We're committed to community reinvestment, and we're also committed committed to economic development projects. We have an exceptional local customer service call center. They answer your calls within a minute. And they don't have quotas. They don't have time constraints. So folks are already calling our call center now and asking how soon we'll be coming in. So it's pretty exciting. But our call center is wonderful. They'll take time to answer questions. And they also offer educational webinars on our website. And I will go to the next slide. This slide highlights the many ways Pioneer reinvest into our local communities. We support local events. We offer local programs. And we work to create local power purchase agreements in the areas that we serve. Locally, we're working with West Biofuels and Biggs in Grass Valley on a 20-year, $180 million power purchase agreement. And there's more. We were also working with Colusa County on a 15-year, 80-megawatt Solar and battery storage, $400 million power purchase agreement. We've also worked with the El Dorado Irrigation District on a 10-year, $37 million power purchase agreement. So it's great that those funds stay in our local communities. We want to explore those opportunities in Butte County and Chico. We also remain committed to working with the local chambers of commerce and also researching any local events. We definitely want to have a local presence at community events here. But we also value your input on sponsorship opportunities and We want to hear what events we should be participating in and what we should be looking at as well. So this slide really highlights some of the key programs that Pioneer offers to the community. We have an AC tune-up rebate program, which allows you, when you tune up your AC unit, you can receive up to $75 back as a resident or $150 back as a business customer. We have our PowerShift Rewards, which is a $25 gift card you receive just for signing up. And you'll receive even more rewards for conserving energy when you save when the grid is stressed during the hot summer months. We also have GridGen. It's a zero up front, no money down battery storage program. And there's other retrofit programs that we offer as well. And we also have a community advisory committee. And we would welcome representation on our local CAC committee. They discuss new program ideas and help put some of these programs into action. And there are ag programs for ag customers in Chico. We have an ag program known as the hourly flex pricing program, which is available for those that reduce energy during peak times. And also I'm pleased to note that our board of directors has approved early access to two programs for our member agencies. The first is our solar recs program, which allows jurisdictions to sell their solar rec credits and get paid quarterly for large solar projects in arrays that they own. So you can receive quarterly payments for that. And then also our clean fleet revenue program, which allows you to sell your renewable energy credits from EV chargers and EV vehicles. Now I'd like to take a moment and provide more information and an overview of what you can expect from Pioneer over the next 13 months. During this time, we'll be implementing a very extensive public education campaign to educate residents about Pioneer and take the mystery out of who we are and what the process entails. Our goal is to make the information clear and concise. So our partnership involves collaboration and information sharing. We're wanting to hear what you're seeing, what you're hearing. We want to be able to help answer any questions that you get out in the community. We have an FAQ, and we'll be working with staff to stand up a web page on the home on your website so that we can help address some of those questions that are coming in head on and really take the mystery out of it. We have an FAQ. We've got a resource guide. And so I'll be working with staff on that. And then we'll also be available. Our call center is already getting calls. And they are prepared to answer questions. We want to be your partner. And we are your partner in this. So we want to help answer any questions and be a resource. So this slide really details our phased approach to community outreach and our advertising plan over the next 13 months. The first phase was a research and planning phase, and that ended in June. We're currently in phase two with planning of our media strategy, our media materials and messaging. We'll be ramping up for phase three, which is taking place January through June. We'll have early ads saying Pioneer is coming, and those will change later on in the campaign to Pioneer is here. And we'll have town halls, webinars, direct mail, website updates, press releases. We'll really have a full community advertising campaign going on. So you'll start seeing that. But overall, we want to hear your feedback, what you're seeing, what you're hearing, what kind of questions you're getting. And we want to help answer those and be a resource. So we want to know if you're seeing the ads and what your thoughts are, too. To summarize, communications and community outreach play a key role in our partnership. You have a voice in the process, and we really want your feedback. We will be ramping up our extensive outreach and advertising campaign. As I mentioned, paid media, direct mail, public meetings, town halls, and an on-site presence at the fairs and other community events. It takes a variety of communication vehicles to reach the audience and the community. And we're here to be a resource and a community partner for you in the process. And we welcome your questions and look for feedback. And I just wanted to say thank you for your time and thank you for staff for all that you've done to help support during this time.

Thank you. All right. Council Member Hawley.

Lisa, thank you so much for traveling here and being with us today and for the presentation. I was especially interested to see some of your rebate programs for the communities that you serve. And I was curious if, you know, the AC tune-up rebates and the grid gen program as well, are those also available for renters or is that a homeowner slash property owner program? application only so anyone can once we launch in october those programs will be fully accessible Okay, right upon launch. And then I believe GridGen is likely to be of particular interest in Butte County just because those battery backups are so vital when it comes to power shutoffs on severe fire risk days or when there's a small flare-up. And I'm just curious if in the other communities you serve, you've seen a lot of residents take advantage of that.

We have. We have seen an increase in Lincoln and Rockland and El Dorado County. Great. I'm excited for the future of this.

Council Member Winslow.

Thanks for coming back and keeping us up to date, Lisa. We appreciate it. I don't have anything else substantial, but when you're talking about events that y'all could sponsor, we used to have this thing called Pioneer Days in Chico, and it hasn't been around for a while, but I can totally see Pioneer Community Energy being the sponsor of a re-energized Pioneer Days.

There might be some issues with the history of Pioneer Days at the last. I mean, it started as a great thing, but kind of turned into... I'm an alum of Chico State. I'll be really candid. So I started in 1986. So it was the tail end of Pioneer Days. I see your point.

We'll put you in charge of the quads. That'll be a non-controversial part.

Anybody else have any questions for Lisa?

I think one of the biggest things that I hear is, you know, when talking to people in the community about it is how can we how can you do more while paying less? You say we're going to get better customer service and all of those things. So maybe if you can do just a brief just to put it on the record of like how you work and bring it around in case somebody is hearing about it for the first time, because it sounds too good to be true. that we're actually going to get better customer service. We can talk to somebody on the phone. We're going to get lower rates and possible rebates.

Thank you, Mayor. Appreciate that. Yes, we are a very lean group. There are 24 employees. And we purchase power in the communities that we serve. We're a not-for-profit. And we don't have the legacy costs that PG&E has. We don't have... The staffing that PG&E has, we're different, and our board of directors really prioritizes ratepayer savings overall, and that makes us unique and different from other CCAs along the coast, where they prioritize sustainability, and we do offer 100% renewable product, but it's a little more than the standard rate plan, but it is available, so... There are choices, and it's great that folks have a choice. They can choose to go with Pioneer, or they can choose to stay with PG&E.

But at least they have a choice. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation, and we look forward to hearing more in the months to come. Thanks so much. I'm sure as we get closer, we'll be seeing you more often.

Thanks.

Thanks. All right. Consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine in nature and can therefore be enacted with one motion. Do we have any no votes or council disqualifications? No. Do we have any speakers on the consent agenda? We do not. Okay. I'll consider a motion.

I'll move to approve the consent agenda.

Second. All right. I have a motion and a second. Second.

Council Member Goldstein. Yes. Council Member Hawley. Yes. Council Member O'Brien.

Yes.

Council Member Van Overbeek.

Yes.

Council Member Winslow.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Bennett.

Yes.

Mayor Reynolds. Aye.

Carries 7-0. All right. Members on public comment. Members of the public may address the council at this time on any matter not already listed on the agenda and are within the city's jurisdictional authority. For those of you, if anybody's on Zoom, this is the time to please raise your hand to speak. Please note that Council cannot take any action at this meeting on these requests made under this section of the agenda. How many speakers do we have? We have seven. All right. Three minutes each.

All right. I'll call the first three. And if you could line up in the middle aisle. Ann Perry, followed by Doug Hurchin, and then Matt Depa. So Ann Perry. Ann Perry.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Representatives. My name is Ann Perry, and I reside in District 6, the California Park area of Chico. And this is one of the reasons myself and my partner, Gracie, have chosen this area for our litter pickup campaign. Hopefully you're familiar with that. Tonight, I wanted to express my gratitude to Skyler Lipsky for having him and his staff for the procurement of the first trash barrel. that has been installed on Bruce and Humboldt Road. And I am hoping that there will be at least two more additional trash barrels placed along that Bruce Road corridor in the near future, because we really need them. And I feel safe in saying that we all can agree on one subject. We all do enjoy clean streets. And I also wanted to thank, I know this person may not be here, but Kelly Sam from the Action News for the follow-up story she showed last week. Following up to the June... segment of Gracie and my litter pickup efforts and Kelly's story was viewed by many and the positive feedback that we have received when we're out and about on the street doing our thing is extremely gratifying believe it or not and we certainly recognize that this is an ongoing endeavor and because really the equation is people equal litter, unfortunately. But I feel we are making a big difference and an important positive impact in the community that I live in. So thank you. Thank you, Skylar, for your help. And I really do hope that... We really see a difference in the area that Gracie and I have been focusing our energies in. So thank you again. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Doug Herchen, followed by Matt Depa, and then Bo Powell.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Doug Herchen, Waste Management, Chico. I'm the District Manager. I wanted to take a moment to share a few comments about Touch a Truck event that took place at Merriam Park this last Saturday. It was a really cool event. First, I want to say what a tremendous event it was for our community. The turnout was outstanding. North Valley Disposal was proud to be a partner. Seeing so many families and kids and the community members come close together made it clear just how valuable events like this are. We are already looking forward to participating in this event again next year. One thing that stood out to me personally was the number of people who stopped by to compliment our team. Throughout the day, residents shared positive comments about nearly every one of my residential drivers, which was pretty cool. It's very humbling and a great reminder of the impact our employees have on the community. Our drivers work hard, often behind the scenes, and it was very gratifying to hear residents recognize their efforts. We also brought a new commercial front load truck to the event, quickly became one of the most popular attractions. We had a line of kids and adults waiting all day for a chance to climb in the driver's seat and experience the truck up close. And seeing that level of excitement made me realize that next year we definitely need to bring more trucks. Events like Touch a Truck created meaningful opportunities for families to connect with people and the equipment to help keep our community running. And I want to give a shout out to Emery Gibbons for coordinating the event and for keeping set up and tear down extremely organized. Lots of heavy equipment out there, getting it set up and torn down was a big undertaking. So did it safely. And then I would also like to address the closure of the Chico Yard Waste Facility. And I wanted to make council aware that I am working with city staff on the transition to Old Durham Wood as yard waste disposal site. And we are already working on cleanup of the Chico Yard Waste Facility on Cohasset Road. Thank you.

Thank you. Bo Powell, followed by Larry Graff, and then Kevin Walters.

Hello, Council. I wanted to welcome the new city manager. I was here before they accepted you or whatever, and they were saying goodbye to the old city manager. Said he was a history extraordinaire. Ask him how Chico's history came to where In 2006, Butte County, not just Butte County, but California got a emergency use for ag chemical that was banned worldwide. And they started using it without regard to the law. But California have 300 foot setback. It can't spray. Butte County, you can't sell your nuts unless you spray or they're organic. You don't have to go far to see the trees right up by the road. There's old trees by the road. They legalized it in 2015. I came here in 2014 and the city council didn't give a crap. They're spraying the little kids in this school. There's 750 teachers. Not one of them say a word. 750 teachers. I heard you have family members and friends here. They had realtors. Well, I know a new realtor that used to work here. And he told people when they were buying a property near Orchard about the chemicals. And that was before they started doing this. I was here in 2014 and they didn't care, the counselors, all different people. They didn't care. But they appointed Michael Bryan as chief. They don't wanna appoint people who they think are gonna stand up for what's right. I went to school with Bailey. They didn't spray us when we were kids. Ask, I talked to Mr. Gufferson before, told him to ask you Chico State. There was two orchards in between Chico State Farms and my home, and I was sprayed, our property was sprayed so bad you couldn't walk through it without your boots turning a different color. I couldn't eat the steer that I raised, no. Ask these people who their doctor is. Their doctors don't say nothing. Why? The integrity of these people right here, for one.

Thank you, Bo. Larry Graff, followed by Kevin Walters, and then Nels R.

Thank you very much. Honorable Mayor, members of Council, my name is Larry Graff. I'm the new Executive Director of Safe Space Chico. I'm here tonight on behalf of those without a roof to thank you for your funding of the safe space cooling season. We just ended it on Saturday. We had two months of operation in the hottest months of the season. We had 2,400 sign-ins and we served over 350 unduplicated guests. I want to thank you so much for your financial support of our operation and look forward to continued support for our winter shelter season as well. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Kevin Walters, followed by Nell Czar.

Hello. I'm Kevin Walters. I was the first water baby born in Chico, in the hospital. I'm worried about the vaccine and stuff for COVID. It's been labeled a weapon of mass destruction, and it's still being offered at the VA and the hospital. I dropped off a letter here, and I dropped a letter at the Capitol at City Hall, too. I don't know if you guys ever heard of me, Kevin Walters. I read the letter. Nobody? Okay. Well, yeah, so we got that. That's a bioweapon. And the 5G towers is what caused the COVID-19. It made everybody sick. And then the real weapon is the vaccine, the weapon of mass destruction. And... Fauci knew what everybody knew what this was. And in a 2015 report, he knew that there was two medications that cured COVID. And he didn't tell anybody, obviously. And then in a 2016 interview, he said that there's going to be a pandemic during election year. So we still have this weapon of mass destruction being offered to the people. And then we have a lot of other bioweapons going on. We have the fluoride and the chlorine in the water. That's a bioweapon. That's not good for you. It was good for your teeth or something, but it's really bad for your bones. And then there's the chemtrails. They're outlawed in one state. The fluoride in the water and the chemtrails have stopped in one state. They're not the same state. It's a $100,000 fine for the chemtrails. And that's being sprayed on us every day. And that's 40 different chemicals. Aluminum oxide is one of them. And scientists have done studies on top of Mount Shasta and found over 61,000 nano aluminum particles on top of Mount Shasta. And that's where I used to get my water. I don't drink water now. So, yeah, those are a bunch of genocides, but the one that's going to happen that's going to do away with all organic life is all the data centers and AI have been programmed to think that we're grossly overpopulated. So they're all going to be a neutron bomb, and it's going to do away with all the birds, the bees, the animals, and human life. One data center is equal to 13 nuclear bombs. So that's 13. If any 12 nuclear bombs go off anywhere in the world, it'll set off the ecosystem. But data centers, one is equal to that of nuclear bombs. A neutron bomb gets rid of all the organic life, but leaves the building standing.

It's time. Thank you. Our last speaker is Nels R.

So for the second time in as many weeks, a homeless person's dog off leash has attacked me, resulting in my bodily injury. The first attack on August 14th left me with a bloody bite mark on my right calf, which will probably scar. The second attack two days ago left me with a bloody foot as I attempted to defend myself. Now I'm left without a toenail until I heal. And as you clearly saw, walking painlessly has become quite challenging. Both attacks, I was simply riding my bicycle. Evidently, I'm unable to simply ride my bicycle safely due to city laws encouraging off-leash dogs who are untrained and unvaccinated. My neighbors, who are native Chicoans and longtime residents, tell me they're unable to walk downtown for fear of this exact reality. is responsible for public endangerment the police department who refuses to enforce the laws created for safety or this city council who refuses to take public safety seriously could very well be the case that both are at fault however i'll leave the task of that discovery to my legal counsel as they are better prepared and equipped for such endeavors thank you he's our last speaker

All right, we have no public hearings tonight, so on our regular agenda, item 5.1, authorizing limited rapid refueling at Chico Regional Airport. And we have a report from Skyler Lipsky, our Public Works Director of Operations and Maintenance.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. This item is a relatively straightforward amendment to our airport regulations regarding rapid refueling, commonly known as hot refueling. Currently, City Code prohibits fueling an aircraft while its engines are running. The proposed amendment would maintain that prohibition for normal aviation activity, but create a limited exception for authorized military and emergency response operations where faster turnaround times can be important. This was brought forward at the request of Northgate Aviation, our fixed-base operator, or FBO. It was reviewed by the Airport Commission, which recommended approval subject to the review of Chico Fire Department. Fire subsequently conducted a site visit, reviewed Northgate's procedures, and confirmed that the proposed operations align with NFPA 407 safety standards and expressed no concerns with the change. So in short, the amendment gives the airport some flexibility to support time-critical military and emergency response missions while maintaining the existing safety restrictions for routine aviation. Staff and the Airport Commission recommend approval, and myself, Airport Manager Tom Barr, and the FBO President Alicia Rock are available to answer questions. And I'll note that Northgate's rapid fueling policy requires approval of each specific aircraft prior to allowing this to occur.

All right. Any questions from Council before we go to speakers? Council Member Goldstein.

Yeah, thank you, Skylar. And I just had a couple of questions. One, do we predict that this would be useful for any wildfire response?

It certainly could be. We don't really have control over which aircraft aircraft. Companies or agencies choose to take advantage of it. They have their own policies, procedures, and insurance. But since we are sort of putting this rule in the books, if you will, we wanted to make sure to cover our bases with any emergency response as well.

Okay, thank you. That's all for now. Thank you. All right.

Council Member Winslow.

I mean, it feels like a fine thing to let them do it, but I'm reading it, and there's a company, Northgate, that requested this, but then most of the rationale is for military operations. Is this a military company?

No, Northgate Aviation is not a military company. They're our fixed-based operator. You can think of them in plain terms as the folks that, well, they're a gas station, basically, at our airport. So they sell the fuel. In addition to that, there's aircraft maintenance and other things like that that they do. So they're a critical partner at our airport, certainly. And the city does receive fuel flowage fee revenue from fuel that is sold at the Chico Airport.

And just to be sure, we have this rule in the books, and I assume, is it kind of technologically obsolete? I mean, the fire department had no issues with, I assume, the reason why you'd have to turn off a plane to refuel is it probably gets to be dangerous at a certain point, like something can blow up, and this is no longer a concern, or just now there are overriding features? I don't know if you can weigh in. I don't know if you know enough, or Tom, if you know more about airplane technology. Yeah.

Yeah, I think the regulations are there because there are different hazards. From what I understand, the hazard of the transfer of the fuel is roughly the same between the two procedures. The hot fueling or the rapid refueling procedure does require additional personnel and positions that are in place for that operation to be safe, and their procedures meet those requirements that are outlined in NFPA 407. Okay, thank you.

Council Member Van Overbeek.

I have a question for, I guess, you, Chief. Do they use a dry brake technology, you know, where they attach the fuel line and then when they're finished fueling, they detach it, but nothing leaks out? Do you know if they do that? Which is probably new as opposed to the old days where they used to just dump it in.

Yeah, I think that question is best for Northgate to answer.

Good evening. My name is Alicia Rock. I'm president of Northgate Aviation. This has been in my family for over 20 years now that we've been operating the fixed base operation at the city of Chico's airport.

Can you speak up just a little bit?

Sure. What you're asking has to do with the closed circuit system, and that's basically the only thing that would be used in a rapid refuel system. That basically is a single point nozzle that locks on to the aircraft. And then once you're done, you unlock it and it completely seals off the flow of fuel. Sure.

Council Member O'Brien.

Thank you, Mayor. And probably a question best directed towards Chief Matroka. So obviously hot fueling requires a protocol, particularly on the end of the people that are doing the fueling completely understand that. Would there be benefit for the fire department as part of this protocol to be notified that this is occurring, whether in an operational period or an individual aircraft, some type of situational awareness? Again, I'm not talking about an elaborate situation. Notification, maybe a simple call of dispatch, but just giving us that awareness, giving the fire department awareness that this is going on, would that benefit the fire department as part of this protocol?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think for the fire department, anytime you can have an increased situational awareness, there's not a negative to that. Determining what that process is, regards to how often they're going to have those fielding operations, and I don't know what that is at this point. But if a council desired to have that, it would be beneficial for us to have any kind of situational awareness as to as to a rapid refueling or a fueling operation on our end.

Do we have any understanding what that number might be? Have we had any analysis at other airports similar to our traffic? What the numbers are we talking about? A very low number? Is it moderate? We have some indication of what that would be.

I don't. I would defer that question to Northgate as far as what they anticipate their needs for that.

Thank you. We obviously don't have a number since it's not allowed at this time, so we have no history of it. But I've been told it would be highly infrequent.

And that's what I've heard, too.

Thank you.

Council Member Van Overbeek.

I just want to confirm this with the North Gate people. So when we had this ordinance put in place to shut the engines off, it was probably in the era where everything was pretty much piston driven. So you're using high test gas, which is very volatile. So now pretty much everything you're refueling, I would think military and emergency stuff is turbines. And you're using jet fuel, which is significantly less flammable. And you've got the, I call it dry brake system, but you had a different term for it. But that's a race car terminology. But it's the same thing. It doesn't allow for any fuel to spill during a refueling operation.

Right, and it was back in, I think, 2016 that we stopped operating the aerial firefighting aircraft that took Avgas. Those were the P-2s. They retired them out, and they brought them back in 2017. Surprise, surprise. And so we do have different operating procedures for Avgas, and those are absolutely not going to be hot fueled ever. Very, very bad. But we do feel comfortable with the closed circuit, which is the single point, the dry break that you call it, because it does shut off the fuel. And we also have a dead man button as well. So there's a double protection against any sort of fuel spillage.

Yep.

All right, how many speakers do we have? We have one. All right, three minutes. Tracy Vincent.

I'm so excited about this, actually. So with my military aviation background, this is really my jam, so I'm liking it a lot. I really support this, and I think this is important that we have. So hot fueling is routine for military. We do this all the time. And it's almost a necessity that we actually have this because Northgate is a DLA provider, and this is a critical time-saving facility. element when you are hot fueling, especially anything that has to do with a mission involving wildfire response, medical evacuation, emergency response, mass casualty, any kind of event like that. And of course, we don't have anybody doing it right now and don't have a number because it's not been available. So I absolutely 1000% say absolutely do it. This is like Routine for military and fuel providers. So and them already being a DLA provider. This is like easy, easy day.

Thank you. She was our only speaker. All right. Vice Mayor Bennett.

So this is a question. This is a question for you. If you have to turn off, because you have some experience and you have some knowledge, if you have to turn off the engines on a plane, it's not an easy, quick procedure to turn them back on, is it?

No, and it varies by aircraft. So by doing a hot refuel, you could save anywhere from 15 minutes to sometimes even up to two hours. It all depends on the aircraft. Every aircraft is different. Some can do a pretty fast shutdown and get cold. Some it takes a little longer. It's just. It's speed. It's what we do.

So if we're talking about Cal Fire, a few minutes can make a huge difference. Absolutely. Absolutely. A thousand percent. Thank you.

Council Member Hawley.

I'll make a motion for the Council to pass a resolution authorizing limited rapid refueling operations at the airport and adopting an amendment to CMC Code Section 11R32010. Second? Second. Go ahead. Second.

Council Member Goldstein. Aye. Council Member Hawley. Yes. Council Member O'Brien.

Yes.

Council Member Van Overbeck.

Yes.

Council Member Winslow.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Bennett.

Yes.

Mayor Reynolds. Aye.

Carries 7-0.

All right.

5.2, Councilmember Hawley's request, cooling standards. I'll pass it to you, Councilmember Hawley.

Thank you, Mayor Reynolds, and thank you to the Council for allowing us to discuss this today. For a little bit of background, I wanted to agendize this for a number of reasons, namely that July 2024, it was over 110 degrees every single day, peak temperature, and Regardless of the reason you believe the cause to be, it is going to get worse and we should be planning for it. So there has been legislation recently passed in the county of Los Angeles with pretty significant limitations, including residents having to be living in unincorporated county land requiring maintained indoor temperatures i believe for the city of chico as you can see in my council member request write up that legislation replicating that would be overly ambitious for the city of chico but despite our temperatures being significantly higher than the county of Los Angeles is. The reason for that is that it's expensive and onerous, usually to property owners and landlords, and inadvertently that cost usually gets passed down to renters if it applies to renters. And I think it would almost be certainly impossible to enforce. So for those reasons, I'm recommending that we not pursue Any code updates for that? But I think the only zone for consideration would be downtown due to the aging buildings, particularly, and that's where I'm getting feedback from, you know, some commercial renters that it can be a problem. So spaces can sometimes be advertised as restaurant-ready but may not have the electrical capacity and building envelope to effectively, you know, run commercial ovens and fridge and a fryer all at the same time simultaneously. That's a lot of load. But, you know, there already is some California code mandating that that electrical capacity do already be installed in the building to be advertised as restaurant ready. So I think, you know, there's also a problem with leasing and property owner leases that can sometimes be breached and people don't always know the means to pursue litigation when stuff like that occurs. So Director Veague has also warned the council in the past of reacting globally to really isolated incidents when it comes to CMC changes. And I also want to be mindful of that, right? We don't want to be reactive to scenarios that have been fairly isolated by creating a lot of strings for everyone else operating in downtown. But I do think this conversation is a great opportunity for the council to see what we can do to alleviate extreme heat in the city jurisdiction. So just a couple examples that I thought of off the bat is extreme heat planning, and I don't mean master planning, but just what tools can we leverage to ease the burden on our residents? This could be incorporated into... Entry into the pallet shelter when it comes time for the Warren settlement to expire, which we've already discussed as a board. And I think. Have all agreed that some of those processes are going to be changing. Following the guidance of Jesus center administration. Opportunities for urban greening, financing and grant application. Implementing water features where extreme heat is most impactful to residents, right? A really good example of this is the. Splash pad that Chico Area Recreation District worked for in Chapman Town, which already has lower tree canopy than other parts of town, as we all have seen in our urban forest master plan. And then potentially, this is a bit of a stretch, I think, from what this agenda item is named, but what influence we could have on shaded bus stops with BCAG governance and what action has been taken in the past. But I think the two really direct pieces of action that we can and should take tonight are, is just getting a really basic report from the applicable staff member on urban forest canopy coverage and geographic equity gaps. Again, this would be just a review of our urban forest master plan, likely from our urban forester. So we have areas to focus on in the future. And then secondly, actually having accessible cooling center information on our CEVE Chico website. Right now, our cooling center tab just says exactly when cooling thresholds kick in, but it doesn't have any information on location and how to access the cooling center that we do help to fund. So that's me opening up the conversation. I'm happy to answer questions before we go to public comment.

Council Member Goldstein.

Yeah, thank you, Katie, for this staff report that you put together. I'm curious if you can reiterate the part where you mentioned restaurant ready businesses or something to that effect. I might have missed it. I'm trying to figure out what if you had any suggestions that we could take or that building owners could take to make sure that buildings are ready for restaurants that have high heat in their kitchens.

Sure. Yeah, that's a great question. This is just from my own baseline research. I didn't want to take too much staff time on this. That's just saying that from what I can find, if you are a property manager, advertising your property as being restaurant ready, then it should be an expectation. And this is all, you know, California building code that the electric supply can handle a restaurant type kind of equipment being run simultaneously. And again, this is kind of outside the city's jurisdiction, like the city can always get stricter, but it just seems to be more of an issue between um you know property tenant agreements that really the state of california has more jurisdiction over um so that's part of the california building code from what i could find okay and that's for the electrical does it

mandate that there be cooling provided of a certain type, or perhaps it would mandate that there's a type of electrical that could theoretically be used to provide cooling? Not that I could find.

But again, I'm not an expert. This is just baseline knowledge. And if the council chooses to, we could always... you know, include in our direction to have our, you know, Attorney Jones come back with us, giving a very brief overview of cooling standards on the California state level when it comes to commercial operations, namely restaurant operations.

Okay, yeah, I'd love to know more about what already exists. If there isn't anything, then I think that's still something that we can consider locally. Thanks, Katie.

Council Member O'Brien.

Thank you, Mayor. And I'm going to commend you, Councilmember Hawley, for a thoughtful and thorough report. In fact, I rarely see references attached to council reports, so well done on that. But the question I have, and Councilmember Goldstein kind of touched upon it, So on the commercial end, obviously the state does get involved on the OSHA side. Do we know much about their involvement, particularly you were mentioning in some situations, someone who is operating certain machinery in a restaurant or something, obviously temperature wise, that could be a real concern. Did you have any research or anything to provide back to council regarding OSHA's involvement with some of that?

Not OSHA's in particular. From what I could find, cooling apparatus in particular is an upkeep agreement between the leaser and the property management themselves.

Thank you.

Council Member Van Overbeek.

Yeah, so I own a commercial property that has a restaurant in it, and when a potential tenant comes to look at the space, one of the very first things they do in their due diligence is to make sure the air conditioning is adequate. And so the normal operation of the market takes care of that. And the reality is if you don't have functioning air conditioning as a landlord, you're not going to rent your space. The second thing I would say is... You know, I grew up in Modesto, same climate as here roughly. We had no air conditioning. Our cars didn't have air conditioning. I didn't know anybody that had air conditioning. And, you know, you use fans. I know people now that don't have air conditioning. And, you know, having grown up on a farm where you, you know, a lot of times you have to work when it's 100 degrees. do manual labor, you learn to adapt. Now, I wouldn't go to a restaurant if it was 100 degrees inside, but I just don't see that as an issue. The last point I want to make is the hottest day in Chico's history was in 1972 when it was 117 degrees. It wasn't in 2024. Council Member Winslow.

Boy, the average heat has gone up over time, though, just to be clear. Just to be clear. You had 10 days over 110 degrees. It was not something that happened when I was growing up, and it's certainly getting worse. But just to make sure we're covering our basis and what kind of intellect we've got in the room, City Manager Hain, you mentioned in passing that the City of Vallejo had adopted some sort of cooling standards, and I wonder if you could weigh in, if you have anything to contribute to the conversation.

So yes, I was mistaken. Our cooling standards were for cooling centers as the other nonprofit provided, not for residential or commercial landlord tenant.

Right, not within building code. And then I guess just Mr. Jones, just because you might be kind of aware. My understanding is, yeah, OSHA aside for specific workplaces that the state of California has no requirement for AC. For heater, yes. For AC, no.

Yeah, I'm not aware that they do.

Yeah. Thanks.

All right, how many speakers do we have?

We have three. All right, three minutes each. Tracy Vincent, followed by Matt Depa, and then Anika Rodriguez.

So you did answer a couple of the questions, but I did have some questions. Like, were we having some code enforcement cases or heat-related illnesses or deaths? And we didn't really talk about that. And then also, this is basically a public health concern. Has the public health department identified any problems or issues or recommendations? Just curious if they're weighing in on that. And then I couldn't see any new stuff, but the Census Bureau does have a local air conditioning estimate as far as housing goes. And, you know, I know I was raised in an old house and our air conditioner was a cold towel with a fan. So I know there are some older houses that don't have ACs. So I mean... I guess we could see who needs that. But then I am wondering why the commercial properties are being included because the materials cited in here even did acknowledge there is actually Cal OSHA workplace standards for a max 84 degrees. I don't know if we have something within the city that people know that or if they realize a heat index could get higher, but we do have that. So I just want to make sure that we're not compiling more things to do when we have other things covering what we're already talking about um and you did say you didn't want to add or change any of the zoning information for housing i just feel like i'm not understanding exactly where the problem was and whether or not public health is involved with this or if we had like i said complaints or deaths i'm not trying to minimize it it gets hot i get it just trying to figure out driving factor behind it

Thank you, Matt Depa, followed by Anika Rodriguez.

Thank you, Council. I had a bunch to say, but Council Member Hawley, when you mentioned the unneeded costs coming down on housing providers and tenants, and you don't want to move forward, I really don't have much to say, which is probably a first. So thank you for doing research there. If you need help with anything, myself, MVPOA, also other commercial real estate brokers here in town, I'd be more than happy to help meet with you, meet with Council, and discuss options to make things better for everybody here. So thank you.

Thank you. Anika Rodriguez is our last speaker.

Council Member Hawley, thank you so much for agendizing this item. On June 17th, I sent Council an email about downtown tenants having issues with their HVACs. It was brought to our attention by Lily from Lily's Bistro. She's actually moving her business out of downtown, but on the 100 block of... Broadway, there's quite a few businesses that are either leaving downtown or have moved locations due to undersized units in their commercial spaces. Most of the units have two-ton units that can't, they don't have a large enough capacity for kitchens, so even in the customer service area, it feels cool, but in the kitchens, it's reaching over 115 degrees. Luke from Alibaba stated that on multiple occasions last summer, he had to throw out food because his Sorry, I wasn't planning on speaking tonight, but it is a really big deal to me, that he had to throw out food because his refrigerators were not keeping food safe. He installed mini splits so that his customers would feel comfortable. He did that at his own dime. He asked his landlord if they could go in half on a bigger unit, couldn't do that. So he ended up moving across the street. Lily from Lily's Bistro, when she took her space, that only had a two-ton unit, also not able to handle a full kitchen. Something that I noticed with both of these places is that the businesses prior were like coffee shops or small, like serving frozen food, and they're doing like full kitchen service with like grilling steaks and meats. And I think that... When people go into their lease agreement, it is their responsibility to make sure that their HVAC units can handle it. But if something is being leased as a restaurant ready space, you would assume that the HVAC was adequate. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for agendizing this. I think it's really important for downtown that we are lease ready. We are losing two restaurants on. broadway and that's really sad they're really great restaurants i enjoy eating at them and i think it's going to be hard to lease those spots if these places continue to have inadequate hvac thank you councilmember winslow

Thank you. Maybe weigh in just to clarify where I see the issue. If we didn't have standards for heating to be required, would we say the same thing? We're like, well, we can't push that burden onto people, and then people just maybe die in the winter or just suffer because of it. Because around here, people probably wouldn't die. They would just be very cold and uncomfortable and unable to carry out daily activities. And as we talk about, yeah, so if there's an OSHA requirement as opposed to being the building standard, this means that it falls on the commercial tenant, the business that's in there, and not on the landlord. And so when you have these issues like restaurants downtown not having AC units that are capable of actually keeping the kitchens at safe levels, levels of temperature levels, it then becomes their onus because these landlords are able to get them in leases where they have no requirement to maintain this sort of stuff. And they can provide substandard services, substandard AC as the climate gets hotter. And the businesses just have to deal with it because they're the tenants. And that's usually just how it's going to come down a lot of these things is it's the We can hire things of landlords, but then they can put a burden on tenants. And I think generally it's responsible for us to look into how we can allocate that burden because as Council Member Van Overbroek said, you can't rent a space very well if it doesn't have an AC because people have that expectation. But then on the flip side, like when I was elected to office, I lived in a place with no AC. And, you know, I lived there for years. We had massive wildfires, North Complex fires, and it was smoky outside. It was COVID. So all the like coffee shops everywhere was closed down and we had um about 10 days over 110 degrees and there was just nothing i could do but just sulk like wait for it to be over because i didn't have ac because i didn't have places to go and this is just like life for lots of people so my grandmother also lives in a mobile home park granted she she owns her mobile home but she keeps her ac on 80 and i guarantee you it's hotter than that in there and i'm sweating when i'm in there um and these are situations i think we shouldn't really tolerate in our city it'd be good to have clarity about how this is addressed and yes it would drive up some costs But that's for the landlords that would provide the lack of what we consider a basic service, having AC at safe levels. I think it would be responsible to go in that direction, but also seeing that LA County is struggling to deal with it. And I don't know that we have examples to go off of that maybe we're not the city to pioneer it at this time. But I would stand by that it would be responsible for us to look into it.

Council Member Goldstein.

I agree with that sentiment. I think this is something that we could look further into. We don't have to take immediate action, but I think it's worth asking staff to dig deeper into what our potential actions are. Maybe look for what other cities have done. I know Councilmember Hawley did a great job of doing some initial research, but we could always use more. And I also just want to reiterate council member Holly's suggestion that we get a presentation from our urban forester about shade coverage in Chico, perhaps identifying some areas that might have a stronger urban heat island effect that we can. come up with some kind of strategies to help the people who live or work there. And having that cooling center info on the city of Chico website kept up to date. I don't even think that needs to be a council direction. I think it's just a good reminder that that's something we should keep up to date. But I also would like to support directing staff to further research this and come back with some potential actions. Council Member Hawley.

Just before I make any sort of motion, I want to test the waters because I'm more than willing to remove some elements of a motion. So just feel free to let me know if any of these you would be averse to, and I can think about rolling them back so we don't have to go back and forth with friendly amendments whatsoever. So first, just receiving a preliminary presentation from our attorney, Mr. Jones, on what already exists on California state code when it comes to commercial cooling standards and typical lease agreements, especially when advertising as restaurant ready. That's one ask. Secondly, having a brief presentation from our urban forester on urban canopy coverage and geographic equity gaps that exist now in the hopes that that could guide our urban greening prioritization in the future. And then third, just directing staff to really quickly update the cooling center information on our City of Chico website.

I have a question too, but Councilmember O'Brien.

So I could support further conversation on this. I would like, as we direct our city attorney to weigh in on this, really dive deep into those areas that are already covered by public health, by OSHA. I mean, that's really their bailiwick, quite frankly. But understanding where those intersections are, where some gaps may exist, would be a recommendation I would have as well.

I think my question is for what you're asking of the urban forester. We get a report once a year already. Do we do a geographic equity gap analysis in that update that we get annually? And are you asking for it to be done like semi-annually instead of annually or what exactly?

I feel so silly. I didn't know we had a urban forest update. Yeah, we get it.

I don't remember what time of year it is, but we, every year we do the tree coverage and I don't, It used to be Eric, now it's Skylar. I don't remember what time of year it comes, but we get an annual update.

I'm going to check the agenda forecast real quick, because that's an important question. If it's already on the regular agenda forecast, I don't want to be duplicative. I just haven't seen that.

Does any of our staff know? I don't know off the top of my head. Eric, do you remember?

You do? Oh, Vice Mayor Bennett.

I do. Okay. Mr. Bramlett repeated this quite a few times last night, 37%. I heard it over and over again, 37%. As far as his referencing areas in Chico where there should be more trees... I don't know about that. He didn't say anything about that. But we're one of the highest shade coverage areas in the state of California. There's nobody, I think, higher in California, maybe outside of California. And you can ask Mr. Bramlett any time you want exactly what it is. He's going to come up with the right answer. He knows everything.

I think it's 37 in the city of Sacramento. It was like 19 or something.

Can I just tag on to that? In Mr. Veague's office, I know there was planning going on for environmental justice element. And I recall a Civic Spark fellow some years ago that was looking into tree coverage and identifying areas that had a significant lack of public trees. And so I know some of that data exists somewhere on the second floor.

And again, I'm not opposed to the information. I just want to make sure that we're not duplicating if it's already scheduled to come back to us annually. I don't want to.

That information is indeed in the Urban Forest Master Plan. It outlines all of that and the goals to get from 37. We were at 36. Now we're at 37. The goal is to get to 40%. I'm not quite sure on the annual update. We'll have to check on that.

Council Member Van Overbeek.

Yeah, I was going to say we did the Urban Forest Master Plan in 23, I think, wasn't it, Eric? Yeah. And when Dale stole my thunder, so he hit all the points I was gonna hit. But I think we wanna be careful here. I just don't see where the harm is. I don't see what the problem is that this is trying to solve. And we need to be careful about city staff time. We have a lot of big issues and this is not one of them. I can't support this.

Council Member Goldstein.

Yeah, real quick. I was unsure if we addressed if we get like an annual report to us at council from urban forest.

I'm not seeing anything in our agenda forecast. We may have previously, especially when the urban forest master plan was being curated and. And finalized, but that was before my time. I think really the focus here. You guys are 100% correct. I was at that parks and playground commission meeting last night too. And and Richie always does a phenomenal job at pulling up statistics out of his sleeve. And we're very resilient to extreme heat because of this. A lot of our neighbors, you know, like the city of Orville, they don't have the same canopy coverage that we do. This is something, you know, we're trying to protect and expand upon because it makes our city more resilient than other cities. And my ask really is specifically on the geographic gaps because it is covered in our urban forest master plan. But if that's a deal breaker for a council majority to get a quick update on that, then I won't include that in my motion.

Yeah, I was just going to add, I think your focus was on finding out what gaps there are, not just like how well are we doing in general, but what areas can we focus on improving?

Yeah, because there are differences for sure. Neighborhoods that have historically been disenfranchised and disinvested in and maybe were recently annexed do have some differences. Vice Mayor Bennett.

Did you already talk or are you good? Pardon me? Okay, your turn.

So I've been leasing commercial, retail, and industrial space for about 45 years. And it is the responsibility of the tenant or lessee to make sure that they are, in fact, renting a property that's ready for their intended purpose. And I've gone through this a million times, and they will check everything out. And they can hire people, architects. They can hire environmental people. They can hire an air conditioning company to come in and take a look at things. So increasing governmental... interference in the industry, I would not support ever. We've got so much that we have to comply with right now. And if somebody advertises a space as being ready, restaurant ready, and it isn't, They've got a lawsuit. You go hire an attorney, you can break the lease easily, and the landlord's going to say okay because they're not going to take on that kind of exposure. So I think your ideas are very good, and I'm familiar with the incident downtown that maybe precipitated this, and it's unfortunate. It does happen. Sometimes the landlords do not do the right thing. And that's just part of the process, part of the risk factor you take when you rent. But every lessee should do everything necessary to make sure the space that they rent is properly prepared for their purpose and negotiate with the landlord to say, I need a bigger air conditioner or whatever it is. I've gone through that many, many times. So if you want the tenant bad enough, you're going to do what they're asking to rent that space.

Yeah, again, Vice Mayor Bennett, I think you bring an excellent point in perspective with your career history there. And that exactly reflects why my ask is not to build into the municipal code any sort of cooling standard regulation. But I hope you'll be supportive in having our city attorney come back and you know, just give a brief presentation on what's already existing in California code and OSHA and what gaps are there. But I think you're right. I think the problem is, you know, a small handful of cases, maybe just one or two property owners that are allowing those properties to fall into disrepair and not be in the shape that they're being advertised for.

Council Member O'Brien.

Thank you, Mayor. And I don't want to add layers of bureaucracy to our businesses, certainly, however. There probably are some properties that do need some attention. I think a report is just getting information back to us. And I think when we get that report, we'll find out that OSHA and public health and other such entities are very robust in the things they can do. And I think understanding that from a council perspective, maybe even from... A perspective of the end user would be helpful too. I'm not opposed to getting information, having that conversation. I don't think that's a bad thing, but I think once we get that report back, I think we'll find some of these different entities that are really tasked with this are more robust than we probably think.

Great comment, Council Member O'Brien. And I think with that, I'll make a motion for Council to direct our City Attorney Jones to come back with a very brief presentation on what already exists when it comes to California state codes regarding commercial cooling standards and lease agreements. including gaps that could be left in OSHA legislation as well as public health, you said? So, Mike, you said public health? And, sorry? My second ask is, you know, formalizing that the cooling center information be updated on the City of Chico website as well.

I'll second that.

Can I ask the city? Just a second. A complete evaluation of OSHA's cooling. I feel like that in brief in the same sentence are a little bit contradictory. I'm okay with a brief report, but. commercial cooling standards specifically i think i can summarize that without spending an inordinate amount of time okay just wanted to make sure that we're getting a brief report beside before we spend a whole lot of staff member time going further and i would just add that our website is one of my nemesis um but maybe as we move forward with our website we could also put on there at some point um an education area for landlords and for tenants and um that there could be an faq You know, where can I get help? What can I look for later down the road when it comes time that we would also add that to website, not just the cooling station? Because I think there's a lot of information that we could point potential renters in the right direction that doesn't have to take staff time, but sending them to the.

authorities that already exist would be helpful so mayor reynolds i just want to be clear is that an ask as a friendly amendment to be no website updates okay just in the future we're talking about the website and putting the cooling center on there but i think an area where we could if i need to do a council member request later down the road we will but we need that we can also take action on that later down the road when it comes back to us absolutely

Member Goldstein, did you have something else?

Oh, yeah, real quick. I think it's a great time to talk about this one. We've also been talking so much about how we want to help downtown businesses and would love to see bad actors change their ways due to demand. But with so many vacant storefronts, I think it's a really good idea for at least to find out how we can help downtown business owners stay downtown. So thanks for bringing this up.

Yeah, and Council Member Goldstein, I think some other CMC changes that were approved at the last council meeting, including a vacancy registry for our downtown commercial properties, may aid in that effort.

We've got a motion and a second.

Council Member Goldstein? Yes. Council Member Hawley? Yes. Council Member O'Brien?

Yes.

Council Member Van Overbeek?

No.

Council Member Winslow?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Bennett?

I'm going to go with a brief presentation, so take a look at this.

Okay.

Mayor Reynolds? Aye. Carries 6-1. All right. Reports and communications. The following reports and communications are provided for the council's information. No action can be taken on the items under this section unless the council agrees to include it on a subsequent agenda. City Manager's Report.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members, Gillian Hain, City Manager. Over the last two weeks, I've been busy. We took a tour of the Cal Water Facility, which was really cool. Great to see where our water comes from and learn about all the sources and the processes, and that was really great. I'm meeting with lots of different community groups. I had a luncheon with women in Chico and met with some other stakeholders in the community. About four of those recently did the community billers podcast with metrics. So everybody check online about that podcast. Talk a little bit about what is the city manager's job and what do they do? CEO for the city. So check that out. I think that's great for education, for community. Meeting with all the staff and still gathering input, scheduling all the one-on-ones and meeting all the staff. I'll be going to the police department this week for a roll call at Shift Change to meet everybody there. So that's exciting. And then we have scheduled tours for Jesus Center and Genesis this week on Thursday as well.

Great, thank you for the update. Council member requests pursuant to APMP 1010, council members may verbally request an item to be agendized at a future meeting after stating what the item would be. A majority of the vote of council is needed in order for staff to agendize. Council member Winslow.

Thank you. I have one. We talked about like a specific version of this during the budget hearing, but I think it could use its own focused discussion. And that would be a discussion on conserving some allocation of Measure H in a budget policy for capital improvement and infrastructure. This is a budget policy would act as standing direction to the city manager and staff in preparation of the budget that we maintain a certain proportion of those funds for infrastructure. I mean, if we have to have tough conversations about how to manage our other obligations, we would have that while we still have a road budget and not when the road budget is gone. So that would be my motion.

I'd second a discussion on a measure each budget policy. Okay.

All right, Council Member Goldstein? Yes. Council Member Hawley? Yes. Council Member O'Brien?

No, that's a budget conversation we'll be having rather soon.

Council Member Van Overbeek?

No, it should be in the Finance Committee.

Council Member Winslow?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Bennett?

No.

Mayor Reynolds? No. It fails 3-4.

Council Member O'Brien? No.

I was actually going to speak on the other one, but we're good. Thank you.

Oh, I apologize. And Council Member Van Overbeek.

Yeah, I'd like to agendize directing staff to have a discussion with CARD about CARD managing Tigert Ponds area and developing it into a city park. So when Mark Sorensen was a city manager about a year ago, he started that conversation. CARD said, gee, we got our hands full. Don't talk to us now. I've talked to Annabelle and she's ready to talk about it again. I think that's a gorgeous area. I mean, besides the water, there's topography, there's great tree cover.

You can't sell your idea.

So I think it's a conversation we should have.

It's a conversation. I'll second the conversation.

All right. Council Member Goldstein.

I think we should be amenable to discussing everyone's ideas. So yes. Council Member Hawley? Yes. Council Member O'Brien?

Yes.

Council Member Van Overbeck?

Yes.

Council Member Winslow?

Maybe she'd be in the Parks Commission, but I'll say yes.

Vice Mayor Bennett?

Yes.

Mayor Reynolds? Aye. Carry 7-0.

Council Member O'Brien, did you have a request? Okay.

Council Member Winslow. Okay, I have another one. So we had this discussion now a few years ago, and I think it's worth bringing back up. So my grandmother, among many others, have experienced turnovers in ownership of the mobile home park, and they have jacked up the rent in ways that cause them to have to ration in unhealthy ways their income. And 100-plus jurisdictions in California have rent stabilization ordinances, and I'd like to make a motion we have a discussion on rent stabilization in mobile home parks.

I'd second that.

All right. Council Member Goldstein? Absolutely. Council Member Hawley? Yes. Council Member O'Brien?

These typically do not work, but I'll have the conversation, yes.

Council Member Van Overbeek?

Begrudgingly, yes.

Council Member Winslow?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Bennett?

Yes.

Mayor Reynolds? Aye. Carries 7-0. All right. Anybody else?

I have one more. So I propose that the council form an ad hoc committee to find and appoint a third party expert to audit the findings reported by Chico PD, which will happen on September 22nd, on the issue of Chico's ALPR camera system. I propose that the members of the committee be council members O'Brien and Winslow. I would ask council to waive the rules and put this on the agenda for the September 16th, 26th meeting. This is in no way... reflect any question about the integrity of our police chief or Captain Struthers, who's running the investigation, but I think it's inevitable that there will be some segment of the population that will question the validity of the results of the police department investigating itself.

You want to have an ad hoc committee.

You would like an ad hoc committee. Okay, so I'll leave it there. Sorry, I don't want to get in any more trouble.

Yeah. But can we ask... I'm just trying to keep...

I just want to understand the purpose. I want to make sure I understand. Can we certainly get that clarification? The purpose, Tom, can you just please communicate that?

Yeah, well, I was trying to. So... I think there's a segment of the population that no matter what the Chief and Captain Struthers come back with, will question the validity of the findings. So I think by having a third party that you look at and that Councilman Winslow appoints, that that will remove a large part of that doubt and it'd be good for the community.

Willing to have the conversation. Not to take action to form the committee.

So it's not what the motion is.

The motion is to bring it back to waive our rules to bring it back at the next meeting to talk about forming an ad hoc committee. That's what the motion is. Right. Yes. And I'll second that. Are you good with that, Tom?

We have a meeting on the 22nd where Captain Struthers and the chief will report what they found. I would like us to have made a decision to have a third party look at that. They won't have the results yet before the meeting on the 22nd. I think that's important.

I can talk to our city attorney and he can advise us, but I don't believe that that's something that we can do.

Can you? Well, which part?

He would like to have the ad hoc committee come meet and commemorate and do work before our next meeting.

No, no, that's not what I said. What I want is that the council have approved that we form an ad hoc committee and that that ad hoc committee won't have time to appoint a third party. But the community will know that we've empowered... City Councilperson O'Brien and Winslow to do that, which I think will settle a lot of people down that there's going to be some third party look at this.

So asking to waive the rules for the conversation to occur in two weeks from now. OK, and I second it.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's permissible. It's already something we're likely going to be discussing on September 21st, but I understand, I think, Council Member Van Overbeek wants it ahead of the September 21st special meeting.

But the earliest that we could talk about this would be the 15th at our next meeting.

And to have a third party, we're already internally doing something between my office and the police department, too.

I understand that. I'm just making sure we understand what we're voting on, and that's to talk about an ad hoc committee at our next meeting on the 15th.

I just remembered that the 15th is a crazy packed day, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God.

We'll see how far we get.

Okay.

All right. Council Member Goldstein? Yes. Council Member Hawley? No, because it's so packed that day. Sorry. Council Member O'Brien?

I want to make it clear, I trust the Police Department and Chief Aldridge implicitly, but I will vote yes on this.

Okay. Council Member Van Overbeck?

Yes.

Council Member Winslow?

I do support citizen oversight as well. Yes.

Vice Mayor Bennett?

Yes.

Mayor Reynolds? Aye. Carry 6-1.

All right. We will adjourn to our 15th meeting and to close session at 5 or 5.30.