City Council - Special Meeting

Recording in progress.

According to the City of Sissing and City of Poundfield, the success agency can re-vote a new city on a special meeting year going forward for the new city of Sissing and City of Poundfield.

Council and agency member Miller. Here. Council and agency member Burks. Here. Council and agency member Garcia-Arizuela.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem and Vice Chair Pacheco. Mayor and Chair Oglesby. You do have a quorum.

I would ask Councilmember Miller to lead us and pledge allegiance, if you would please.

To the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you so much. We'll go to item number four, which is public comment. Members of the public listen to address the City Council on matters underneath our jurisdiction. They do so up to three minutes. We ask that you order comments on items that are on the agenda. Today's agenda item is called. You have three minutes during that time. It is helpful for the record if you would state your name. Public comment is open.

Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium in the rear of the room. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star nine if you're calling from a phone.

Good evening, Mayor, council members and city staff. My name is Robert Daniels, Jr., and I'm a community organizer employed by Building Healthy Communities, formerly known as the Action Council of Monterey County. I approach today to speak concerning the 2026 budget using a community, a communal focused lens. budget makes clear that seaside is at a financial turning point on page four the budget states that 2026 2027 budget should be understood as a stabilization and recovery budget and acknowledge that the city has not yet restored structural balance between recurring revenues and expenditures on page five it states that the general fund includes five 51.3 million in operating revenues and 52.8 million in operating expenditures creating an operation an operating deficit of approximately 1.5 million It also states reserves are being used as a limited bridge sitting at approximately 88%. That means residents are being asked to live through a deficit budget, reserve use, reduce flexibility, and constrain services. On page 93, the budget also notes that the city is continuing 22 frozen positions after several years of operating reductions. At the same time, the budget shows that the city's long term recovery strategy depends heavily on development, tourism, revenue, improved free collection and future economic growth. On page fifty nine, the budget says community city management is implementing a long term physical strategy focused on economic development, improved fee collection, grant fund opportunities and accelerating development activity. is why community benefits must be part of this budget conversation if major development is part of seesaw's physical recovery plan the residents should receive enforceable public benefits in return i'm asking the council to direct staff to return with a community benefits framework for major projects including local hiring affordable housing anti-displacement protections small business support youth work for youth workforce pathways infrastructure commitments and public reporting I also want to connect this budget conversation to tourism and housing. On page 84, the budget says transient occupancy tax applies to hotels and short-term lodging stays of less than 30 days. That seaside TOT tax rate is 12%, and that all TOT revenue is deposited into the general funds. That same page projects TOT revenue at approximately 4.9 million and 8% increase. On page 64, the budget says short-term rental TOT revenues are expected to improve partially because of new VRBO collection agreements intended to strengthen the collection compliance and reporting. But tax collection is not the same thing as housing accountability. If short-term lodging revenues help fund basic city services, then the city should know who is operating short-term rentals and where those units are, where the correct taxes are being paid, and whether long-term rental housing is being removed from the market. Finally, on page 149, the budget says community development established and ran a rental assistance program that listed distributed funds around $630,000. That is important, but rental assistance without rental data is incomplete. A gentle register would help the city identify rental housing, responsible owners, affordability restrictions, and short-term rental conversions. So I'm asking for two concrete actions, a community benefit framework for major developments and a general registry that includes short term rental reporting. Thank you.

Hello, City Council. My name is Rolf Herblondis, 1495 Mascale Street, right next to Mascale-Neal Park. I asked the City Clerk to give you a quick handout. I don't know if you've got that in front of you, but it's a two-page handout. Maybe Dominic can give it to you. It relates to the fact that, as you well know, and you've probably all been there, you've all seen the State of Affairs at Mascale-Neal at the top of the hill. The path has become a service road. The service road has been used now for a couple of years. The path is completely destroyed. The service road is nonexistent. So basically, every truck that goes up there, sometimes two to three times a week, basically uses dirt, a little bit of gravel. And for the rest, it really needs to have something done to it. I've talked to pretty much all of you. You pretty much all know the problem. I would love to see that sometime in this particular city budget, you could find a little bit of money to make that happen it would be really great all the mescal new folks would love it the foster folks would love it your city trucks that come up there every uh every two or three days they would like it because the trucks don't get stuck in the sand so please keep that in mind as you consider the budget thank you very much

Members of the public in the Chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star nine if you're calling from a phone. Carla Lobo, you now have the floor to make your public comment.

Thank you. Great presentations yesterday. I think that we got a very great insight of where the trajectory of Seaside is going. I would appreciate a fuller funding of your foundational departments, like the city clerk's office and your human resources office, because without those two functioning bodies, the city would collapse. But we're strengthening, local business retention and expansion is and supporting long-term housing affordability for residents, I don't see it in this budget. And that's concerning because if economic diversification remains the city stated long-term physical strategy, Why are we divesting from the economic development department? And I understand the long term, but there is nothing in place that grows even our top three industries that bring us the top revenues in our city. So it's concerning about where the attention is going as far as upward mobility and economic growth. uh what are the actual budgeted investments being made today to generate new reoccurring revenues beyond future tourism and development projections because we keep hearing about these projects um at the horizon but they're not here they're not generating anything so um it's also concerning because though I am all for investing in the recreation department and expanding that, but expanding it at a level to increase programming when it was already struggling at the budgetary constraints it was at. And the new grant funding that we're getting from my understanding is only going for that new programming that we're going to be, So I'm interested to hear tonight what that's going to look like. I yield the rest of my time.

Good evening City Council, Tiffany Meyer speaking as a private resident. I just wanted to say thank you for the flags on Fremont. I don't know that I've seen them before. Maybe they were there, but I noticed them this time the flags along the median from. Broadway North to. I think it might have been. echo, but the flags are really nice and I would like to see that expanded. I think it's important to recognize, to be patriotic, to show our children our patriotism and show our service members and our police force and our fire department how much we appreciate the work that they do. Thank you.

Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star nine if you're calling from a phone. Mayor, no other members of the public have come forward to make public comment.

Thank you. Seeing no one here, no public comment is closed. Mr. City Manager, are there any questions, issues, or concerns you can answer at this time?

Yes. City staff can take a look at several options for the service entry road in Mezcal Neal Park.

James Moore- Thank you. Well, let's go to item number 558 receive a presentation on the draft fiscal year 2026 2027 operating budget. James Moore- Capital Improvement Program fee schedule position control the salary schedule and reserve amounts and provide directions to staff as to any changes to be made prior to adoption must see manager.

Yes, good evening. Thank you, Mayor, members of City Council, community members. Tonight, we continue the City Council's review of the proposed FY26-27 budget. Last night, we began with the overall fiscal framework, the finance director's budget summary, and then our first series of departmental summaries and presentations. Tonight's discussion will focus on several of the city's most visible and operationally significant areas, police, fire, recreation, public works, and our capital improvements program throughout the community. Before beginning those presentations, I would like to briefly reconnect tonight's review to the broader budget framework discussed last evening. I will not repeat the full introduction, but I do want to reinforce the policy context that should guide the remaining departmental discussions and ultimately the council's direction on the proposed budget. Last night, staff presented this proposed budget as a stabilization and recovery budget. The reason for that framing is straightforward. The city has entered a period in which recurring operating costs are increasing faster than the current recurring revenue growth. While Seaside has important development projects and revenue opportunities on the horizon, those revenues cannot be assumed in the operating budget until they are realized or formally approved. As a result, the proposed budget relies on reserves and fund balance as a limited transition bridge. That strategy is intended to preserve essential services, to maintain operational continuity, and to avoid making short-term decisions that could impair the City's ability to deliver Council priorities or pursue future revenue opportunities. However, reserve use is not a permanent operating solution. It is a temporary strategy that must be paired with disciplined expenditure management, revenue diversification, economic development progress, and improved cost recovery where appropriate, and introducing additional regular financial reporting to the City Council. this budget also continues significant workforce restraint 22 positions are frozen as a significant expenditure control measure as discussed last night the city is already delivering services and managing major projects with the constrained staffing capacity any further reductions to those filled positions would no longer would no longer be simply a budget adjustment that would become policy decisions about surface service levels public safety capacity project delivery organizational risk and community expectations So with that framework in mind, tonight's departmental presentations are particularly important. Police and fire directly relate to public safety and service capacity. Recreation relates to community programming and quality of life, and public works in the capital improvement program will help council evaluate infrastructure commitments, street funding, and general fund-supported capital projects. As we proceed to tonight's presentations, I would ask council to evaluate the proposed budget through five policy considerations. First, does the proposed budget appropriately protect city's core services and filled workforce capacity to deliver those services? That includes public safety, day-to-day operations, capital development, development activity, and implementation of council priorities. Second, is the council comfortable in using reserves as limited bridge during the upcoming fiscal year? Staff has recommended this strategy again because it allows the city to preserve those essential services during this fiscal transition period. Third, are the proposed street and capital commitments appropriately prioritized? Fourth, does the Council support continuing the broader recovery actions discussed last night, including revenue diversification, economic development, and operational efficiencies? And then finally, does the Council support a more formally quarterly reporting structure beginning in October 26? Those reports, again, would include information regarding operating performance, reserve projections, major revenue trends, and development milestones. We're not asking the Council to consider each of those questions before tonight's hearing or Department presentations. These are the lenses through which staff recommends evaluating the remaining budget proposals, but that will begin tonight's departmental review with the police department. And so it asked police chief Nick, or just to come down and proceed with the police department's budget summary and accomplishments.

Okay, what are getting getting situated to do that? So. I'm trying to understand what you want us to do with those 5. I understand you don't want a direct answer before the presentations, but are you going to go down the list later?

Yes, we'll circle back to this later and for framing of the discussion following all the department presentations.

Okay, everybody. So yeah, when you get ready to take us through there, get ready to take us through so to make so you can have all the direction you need. We leave here tonight. Thank you so much. Go ahead to miss city man. I guess you already introduced him. So please continue. No, go ahead. Do that.

Yeah. Police Chief Nick Borges for the police department review.

Thank you, Mayor, members of council members of the public. My name is Nick Borges. I'm the police chief here in Seaside. I'll start off with who we are. the Seaside Police Department is committed to providing ethical, professional, and compassionate law enforcement services while upholding the highest standards of integrity and accountability. Guided by our motto, trust, transparency, respect, unity, service, and training. We are dedicated to building strong community partnerships and keeping Seaside safe. In the 2025-2026 fiscal year, the Seaside Police Department achieved a remarkable 38 reduction in crime rates our commitment to justice was recognized nationally as we were featured on two prominent television programs highlighting our success in solving cases and supporting victims recruitment efforts proved fruitful resulting in the hiring of several new police officers a parking compliance specialist and a community resource specialist additionally we reopened multiple cold case homicides leading to an arrest in a 2015 homicide To further enhance our team's capabilities, we implemented a department-wide leadership orientation and career development consultations for all personnel. Looking ahead, the Seaside Police Department aims to bolster staffing levels, invest in new patrol vehicles, reduce traffic collisions, establish a Citizens Academy, and enhance traffic enforcement in the upcoming fiscal year. This strategic priority alignment falls under effective, accessible government, diverse, inclusive community, community safety, and quality of life. And with that, I will pass it on to the Finance Director.

Thank you. Actually, we also have your Community Safety Advisory Commission.

Thank you. Yes, we have the community safety advisor commission, which I am the liaison. There are six commissioners with one chair and a vice chair. And the mission statement of the commission is to provide input and suggestions and create a collaborative partnership between public safety departments, the residents and visitors of seaside. It is sworn to protect. It is also to share information with the seaside community on various aspects of our local law enforcement and discuss local and national high-profile police-related incidents, engage the community for feedback pertaining to community challenges. And with that, there are no budgetary requirements other than the basic fundamental budget.

Thank you. And now I'm just going to follow up that description for the department with some basic overview and high level updates to the police department's fiscal year 2627 proposed budget. where staffing levels remain unchanged with 48 full-time approved positions and continuing to freeze the following positions, one administrative analyst, one deputy police chief, one police officer, and one police service specialist. Personnel services are budgeted at $13.9 million, services and supplies $1.8 million, capital outlay and debt service at $188,000, and internal service charges at $2.6 million for a total department expenditure budget of $18.5 million. Department revenues are projected at $311,000 from fees, fines, and reimbursements. $402,000 from special revenue sources, $27,000 from grants and other revenues. The remaining 17.7 million will be supported by general fund tax revenues. And overall, the police department budget is increasing by approximately 7% or 1.3 million compared with the prior fiscal year. And the increase is primarily driven by higher personnel related costs, including rising personnel and medical benefit expenses and anticipated compensation adjustments. Personnel services increased from 12.9 million to 13.8 million. with the same drivers pretty much recognized across all departments. Services and supplies increased by approximately 138,000, largely due to a higher costs associated with county communication systems and automated criminal justice systems. Supplemental funding is available for capital purchases and was used to support the replacement of police body cameras and implementation of or continued subscription to the flock shot detection program, helping offset some operating costs increases with the use of the supplemental funding for those equipment purchases. And that concludes the budget summary for the police department.

Thank you so much. Are there any questions? Council member Miller.

Thank you. Thank you, Chief. I just want to get into where we are with staffing. Are we fully staffed at this point with officers?

We have three vacancies at the moment within the department.

And two frozen positions.

Four, correct? Yeah, four frozen positions.

Four frozen, three vacancies.

Correct.

And are we recruiting those three or...

Absolutely. We are in the process with two police officers and a parking compliance specialist.

Okay. And in regards to, I presume that we have a training budget. Is the training budget included in here? Training for our police officers?

Yes.

Do we have a number of what roughly what that is?

I don't have this specific number in front of me.

It's in the packet. Yeah. Sorry. And so the reason why I asked is because I was getting at is are we comfortable with where we are with our training?

We have a great training program in the department and we continually train our officers. We focus on things that we can really service our community with. And it's not just tactics. These are things like deescalation. These are things like community policing. In fact, we're sending our three community resource specialists this month to an out of state location in Texas to be a part of a national platform that professionalizes community based engagement with communities. And we're one of the few agencies in the county that participate with this program. It's highly effective. that's the kind of training we're investing in and we're considering that to be essential so i'm very happy with the training budget that this council has provided us through the years i think that helps us to continue to improve to be better service oriented to our community thank you and do we often have training outside the state or no it's very rare that we have um outside of out of state training did we have any recently no not off top my head no

Okay, and then when I look at the sheet up on the projector, I see, you know, 18.5 mil in 2025. We heard why it increased from 17 to 18, our finance director, but why did it decrease from 25 to 26 and then has a similar increase? Was there something unique that happened in 2025? 2026, excuse me? Because the explanation that I heard was rising cost and rising cost of the department, but in 25, we were at the similar amount, 17.75. So if it's the rising cost that made it go up 1.3M, why is it different in 20? Why is that 1.3M there in 25, but not in 26?

um my um i don't have um the detailed analysis line account line by account line but uh from our experience when we developed the budget for 25 26 we were starting to um um kind of look for more other funding sources for capital equipment, because departments such a public safety department, such as the police department and the fire department, a lot of the equipment purchases are essential and not really it would reduce public safety if we reduce the budget for those purchases. So we had an accumulation in the supplemental police fund without using those funds for fiscal year 22, 23, or sorry, 23, 24, and 24, 25. So I think it's the initial use of those funds for the police body cameras and the flock shot detection software which amounts to I think about $200,000. And so we did continue to use that sorts of funds in the proposed 2627 budget, but all other equipment and supplies costs have sort of offset the reduced expenditures from the use of those sources.

Okay. I mean, I hear 200,000 roughly. These are 1.2 differences, 1.2 million differences. But in regards to the chief's comments about our vehicles, did you mention that we're in need of replacing some of the vehicles?

Yeah, absolutely. Our cars are beginning to fail on us. They're older, and it's certainly something we need to start working on is upping our fleet.

How many is that, roughly?

How many vehicles? Yes. It's about 14 vehicles.

And all 14 are in need?

No, not all 14. I think we could start in slow cycles to accommodate the city's budget. And we're actually working on setting up meetings with a company to look at some leasing options to reduce some of those costs.

Understood. And I wanted to get into our animal control section. Our animal control officer is budgeted here. And is that allocation proper? I guess my question is, is there a need for more animal control services?

We always love more animal control services, especially with what we're doing here in Seaside. But I would say for the budget, we have a very responsible, reasonable budget that we operate under, and there's been no major need and desire for additional funding at this time.

And is it under your budget that we have our spay and neuter services?

That's correct, yes.

And that's working out?

It's working out very well.

It's working out good. That was all my questions. Thank you, Chief. Yes, sir. Yes, thank you.

Anyone, Mayor Putnam?

Related to staff. For past history, when you first started as your tenure as chief, we were down at one time, five to eight years ago, 10 to 13 staff, police officers. So since that time, you're at three short and you're potentially hiring two. we're doing well comparatively to us from previous years and across the nation. Isn't that a continual thing where police departments are short-staffed and compared to the nation we are doing fully staffed is a good thing comparatively.

Absolutely, and I'll say nationally there are some trends showing that at a national level there's improvements with hiring. But a lot of those improvements are connected directly to financial sources of advertising and spending money. In Seaside, when we are struggling, we put up a sign out on the city hall lawn that cost us $100 about eight years ago, and we get more applications that way. But the key thing is why we're getting so many people applying for is number one we have a very strong process here in the city and number two is we have a very strong reputation people come to places that they want to work and they feel it's a healthy environment and i always say we're not perfect but we do a very good job in seaside as a whole as a team and i think that's helped us get these numbers down to such uh low vacancies great and then

As Councilman Miller mentioned, the vehicles, are we budgeting? Do we have money budgeted for vehicles, be it the lease option? And based on the restrictions we have financially, we're doing okay, I guess is my question.

yes we are working on on we do have a budget to get that program started and we have the special revenue fund that the finance director mentioned that we're going to look at but we'll have more information on the cost and work with the city manager to see what's appropriate for our budget but yes we have that set aside to move forward to start the process and then just lastly um the parking enforcement um

I continually hear concerns related to neighborhoods, people parking for a week at a time, and even a little bit on the business districts. Are we remaining short? i know a while back it was you were hiring an additional person is that improving is the status moving in a positive direction as far as being proactive in the neighborhoods and the businesses so that way there's potentially less more business in seaside as well as safer neighborhoods where people can park near their houses absolutely and we actually hired from within the city uh we have a young man who's working parking

who came from the rec department within the city of Seaside. He's doing a very good job. He's still relatively new, but he is enforcing. But one of the things we're working with him today, in fact, is we really want to educate as well as enforce. So we enforce the things that are pretty clear and cut with signage and so forth and curb coloring. But a lot of people in Seaside are still unaware of the 72-hour parking ordinance. A lot of people in Seaside are still aware of the daylighting parking violations. So we want to educate them at the same time. Part of what we're doing in the enforcement is creating flyers to educate our community because this isn't about I got you. This is about compliance in parking violations and the best way to do that is with two hands, one with consequence and one with compassion. And that's great. Thank you sir so much.

Anyone else?

Okay.

Yeah, thank you, Chief. Oh, I had a question of surrounding the The leadership orientation, but really the career development consultation with all personnel. And I guess you gave an example of that about this new training you're sending them to out of state. Is that kind of like what you're thinking is about that career advancement type thing?

The out-of-state training, and they travel in various states every year, that's more geared towards community orientation and professionalizing community engagement between law enforcement organizations and the public. the in-house leadership was actually the consultations were done by me. So I met with almost all of our staff one-on-one and did a career development consultation one-on-one with each person. And then we got all of our leadership in the department, our command staff to actually use this room. And we had a day of leadership orientation where we went over points to our entire department and it seems to be very helpful and it costs us nothing to do those things.

Yeah. There was a couple of questions on, um, But is it the vacancies? I would imagine that every police department would love to have zero vacancies, but is it uncommon for you to have a few vacancies? You know, whatever the cycle is, is that uncommon for you to have any?

No, it's I mean, we're human beings. So we just like any other business with a lot of employees, people come and go, people retire, they get hurt. So it's not uncommon. It is uncommon for it to be as low in vacancies as it is at this moment.

It's uncommon for you to have such a low vacancy.

That's right.

Okay. I'll just say, you know, I said it to you before, and I think we all say to you often is, you know, just remarkable job, you and your department, because, you know, our first obligation is safety and to reduce these crime statistics by what you have to your leadership and your department, people working together. And I just, and I know you said that, and I just add in the community working with you, right? But that's come from that partnership. So thank you so much. Please continue. Well, I asked you guys, it'll be Councilmember Miller and then Councilmember Garcia-Rozal.

Sorry, I forgot something in my original comments. Sorry, Mr. Mayor. To the Chief, you said at the beginning, the Citizens Academy, we don't currently do that? Correct.

Not at the moment, no.

Have we ever done that?

We have.

How long ago?

Over a decade ago.

Okay. That's something that I really think is a great idea. Thank you.

Yes.

My question that just came up was blood and account number ending in 2060. Blood alcohol, you had budget of 10,000, and now you have a proposed budget of 2,000. Why is there that clear change? Because it says that you only utilized 648. What exactly is that account?

so uh the blood one has a lot to do with the ui testing that we get charged from the hospitals very expensive and i think the reason why we reduced that as i recall was because the previous budget was so low that we we didn't we couldn't justify asking for so much money in an area that we didn't have a pattern of spending so high okay thank you everybody's good uh please continue

Next up, we will have Paul Blaha, our fire chief.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council members, members of the public and city staff. I'm Paul Blaha, the Fire Chief. I would like to begin by sincerely thanking the City Council on behalf of our entire Fire Department. We truly appreciate your leadership, continued support, vision, and guidance. Your partnership plays an important role in helping us serve this community at the highest level. Tonight, I also want to recognize the outstanding firefighters and support personnel who serve this department every day. Their dedication, professionalism, and commitment to our community are the foundation of the exceptional programs and services we provide to the city. I would also like to acknowledge our command staff, Deputy Chief Solins, Division Chiefs Nava, Black, and Fugate. Together, they bring more than 100 years of fire service experience and leadership to this department. Their commitment and expertise continue to position our organization as a leader in the fire service in the Monterey Peninsula. They consistently go above and beyond, often given their own time and energy to advance programs and initiatives that strengthen our emergency response capabilities and improve the level of service we provide to our community. We'd like to highlight a few of our accomplishments in fiscal year 2025-2026. Hired two firefighters. Hosted the 2025 Fire Prevention Week open house at the fire station. Installed more than 100 smoke detectors in partnership with the American Red Cross. Delivered Thanksgiving dinners to residents of Seaside and Delray Oaks. Collected and delivered toys during the holiday season to four nonprofit agencies serving over 500 children. Conducted promotions for deputy fire chief, division chiefs, fire captain, fire engineer, and we held a badge-fitting ceremony. We acknowledged the firefighter of the year, Matt Bryan, conducted blood pressure checks at the Oldermeyer Center on the first Friday of each month, and we completed the fire station kitchen remodel, hosted the September 9-11 commemoration at Seaside City Hall, conducted community CPR training, conducted child car seat checks, Received the type three fire engine after four years from the purchase date. Completed and submitted plans for fire station number two. Fire personnel logged 4,980 hours of training. Conducted defensible space inspections. Completed the 2025 fire department annual report. There was defensible space mitigation in the very high severity zones done by Cal Fire. Fire personnel logged a total of, pardon me, that's in there twice, responded to 3,412 calls of service in 2025. The fiscal year 2026-27 goals. Recruit and onboard three new reserve firefighters. hire fire cadets for the CHAMP program, continue efforts to improve the department's ISO rating, and continue providing support and advancements opportunities for fire personnel as part of the ongoing succession planning efforts. In closing, I would like to sincerely thank our city manager, assistant city manager, and finance director for the tremendous amount of work and dedication that went into repairing this budget. Their professionalism, responsiveness, and ongoing support throughout the process have been greatly appreciated, and they continue to be tremendous assets to the city of Seaside. Also want to recognize and thank all city staff through the strong collaboration, hard work, and a shared commitment to serving our community. We have continued to move important programs and initiatives forward that strengthen and benefit the city as a whole. That completes.

Thank you. Now I'll just, again, for the Fire Department, a brief overview of some of the highlights for the fiscal year proposed 26-27 budget. At the top of the budget, we're showing the number of full-time employees stable at 28. Personnel services are proposed at 9.7 million. Services and supplies at 581,000. Capital outlay and debt at 633,000. And internal service charges are 1.4 million. for a total of $12.4 million in expenditures. And out of this amount, $326,000 was funded by fees, fines, and reimbursements, with the remainder coming from general taxes. Overall, the fire department is budgeted to increase similarly to the police department at around 7%. or $763,000 in fiscal year 26-27. And also similarly the primary driver of cost increases are higher personnel related costs including rising pension and medical benefit expenses as well as anticipated compensation adjustments. in addition services and supplies continue to increase adjusted for the cost of equipment and the county communication system costs and that concludes the overview of the fire department's budget uh thank you so much thank you for the presentation any questions uh councilmember miller thank you and thank you chief i lost the same as you as i did the police chief is our staffing levels are are we uh projected to hire more firemen

We currently have one just finished backgrounds, and this can be going through a psychological and medical, which would bring us up to the total of 28. If we go any higher than that, we won't have a place for them to sleep.

I see. And so when we talk about a fire station number two in the beginning of your presentation, we would then have to, we're going to potentially, if that were, when that happens, then we'll be looking at hiring more.

That's correct.

But at this point, 28 is kind of our...

Correct. Correct. We're doing an overhire for in preparation for the station number two.

Understood. And I'm sure I know the answer to this, but, you know, fire has been a huge thing in California with cities being destroyed. I just wanted to make sure that we're prepared and we're ready for that to happen if that happens here in the city of Seaside and that our budget reflects that we're prepared.

Yes, we're prepared.

Thank you.

Thank you. So what I read was you've completed and submitted building plans for Fire Station 2. What's the next step in that process?

Yeah, the next step is to develop a financial model that could be considered by the city council. We are part of this budget also includes obtaining a municipal advisor that will answer some of those questions and start on that bonding capacity since the current study is several years old. Thank you.

In the past, you've had high school young ladies, I believe, have a clinic as far as wanting to be firefighters.

there clinics of that nature for high school kids in the plans or do you continue to do that monterey peninsula college has the uh fire npc fires girls boot camp this was the third year that they've had them and this was just happened this last april and it is for high school females from i believe 14 to 20 And we sponsor it monetarily, plus our ladder truck goes out there for the day for them to climb it. Great. And we have personnel out there as well.

And just on my last question on a positive note, all this is positive, obviously. The fire department are, in my eyes, are kind of like the goodwill ambassadors of the city with being involved with the dances at the Oldenmire Center, Judge Zepicetti Dog Park, the boot fundraiser, I believe that was MDA, being a different open house as being Derry Oaks or the city of Seaside. And I think it means a lot to spend in your open house. It means lots of the young kids that are, that first want to be firefighters when they grow up. Is those kind of programs, as far as the outreach to the community, continuing your path forward? Yes, it is. That's it. Thank you.

Anyone else? Thank you, Chief. Thank you for all what the department does. I know a couple of your accomplishments, I was around some of them, and I know it's a positive thing when kids see the fire department or the police department on happier notes, as opposed to the first time they're seeing them in some tragic fire or something like that. So you guys' goodwill goes a long way. And then I was looking at some of the numbers for the calls, besides the obvious fire, and it was an EMS. But service calls, good intent calls, and false alarm calls. And I was saying, well, how do you get that number down? But then I just thought to myself, well, we want people to call you if they think they need you. So thank you so much for responding.

Thank you.

Thank you. Please continue.

thank you at this time we'll have Dan Mewis assistant city manager to go over the recreation department good evening honorable mayor members of city council Dan Mewis assistant city manager

and just a little bit about the rec department the department provides high quality park and recreation facilities programs and services as well as natural areas for the community we're responsible for the management of four major recreation facilities which include olden meyer center catino park super community center the petula swim center and the youth and education center and we also are the We provide all the recreation programs for families, youth and older adults throughout the community. We are proud for all the programs that we offer. We strive to continue to expand those offerings when able to, but also understand that we have a core fabric of programs that are legacy programs that we'd like to continue and make sure that we have available for the community every year. Some of our major accomplishments for the last fiscal year is while we did host over 10 special events, a couple of our major events that we hosted was the 50th annual Older Adult Community Holiday Luncheon. We celebrated the fifth annual Oaxaca by the Sea, as well as the fourth, we honored the fourth class of the Seaside Stars program. um we have been awarded for two years in a row uh ten thousand dollars from chevron for our stem based program so we're excited that we're able to build off that with the partnership with chevron and we also launched a new art gallery at olden meyer center that goes in conjunction with the avery gallery here so we have multiple areas where we can highlight the art throughout the community In addition, we also started a new after school program in partnership with MPUSD at the Dual Language Academy of the Monterey Peninsula. And that program has received pretty high reviews and the superintendent reached out to make sure that we're able to continue that program into the next year. So we're excited to do that. And one of the goals for next year is there'll be a component where we'll be actually recruiting Some staff that are being driven from the high school that have a focus in child development that will be pushed right into that program as well. So they will be hired through the youth employment program. Our youth employment program is also one of the programs I like to highlight. It continues to be successful within the community. While we bring in those individuals through the rec department, they are placed in a variety of other departments throughout the city. And I'm happy to say that over this last fiscal year, we had two of those employees that started a youth employment actually make it to full-time status here in the city of Seaside. So it is a proven pathway for work related programs within the community so that is something that we're looking forward and while we had two this last fiscal year we have three in total that have made it to the city a couple of the other accomplishments was the rec department took the lead in obtaining the blue zone certification through monterey county so city of seaside in Is included in moderate county, but the city seaside as a whole in general also got its own certification. So, in partnership with the mayor and the city council, the rec department was 1 of the lead departments to make that happen. So that is 1 of our big accomplishments over the year as well as we look forward to the next fiscal year. We want to make sure that we are maintaining our core services. We understand that this is. going to be more of a lean budget for the rec department and maintaining our main programs, activities and events is a focus. However, one of the key initiatives that we will be launching is we've been, we've gotten word that we will be getting two fab in a box units from the Fab Foundation. And so being able to implement that in the community is gonna be one of our main focuses this next year. As we start to look at newer programs, we're gonna continue everything else. But other than that, that is our main new program that we will be offering. And I'll just close with, we did launch a new event that actually happened today. We were a part of the National Senior Adult Health and Fitness Day. So that is something that we want to make sure that we continue to offer throughout the coming years as we look for more ways to provide programming for older adults. The Rec Department also has liaisons for three of our city commissions. So the first one is the Art and History Commission. And so the main focus of the Art and History Commission is to advance the preservation and protection of historical culture and heritage throughout the community. So we have, it's a five member commission. I think there's a typo here. It is only a five member commission and we do not have any vacancies. and so the staff liaison for this commission is the recreation superintendent keon higgins they have a couple of initiatives that they'll be working on through their work plan and they have requested 10 500 in this budget So a couple of their work plan highlights, coordination of the year-round art exhibit at the Avery Gallery as well as Oldemeyer, develop implementation of the Seaside Poet Laureate and Youth Poet Laureate programs, coordination of the utility box program and public murals and postcard program. So the murals and the utility boxes is primarily funded through NIC funding. So that is one area that the Art and History Commission has been working hand in hand with the NIC in order to make sure we got recommended funding for those programs. They host community art events and provide networking opportunities for local artists and organizations. They improve the marketing accessibility and organization of the city archives, and that's an ongoing process that they're continuing to refine for the community. And then they provide, as I mentioned with the TOT, they provide input to the Neighborhood Improvement Commission for recommendations on the TOT funding allocation. You can see the bottom two photos on the left and in the center here on this slide. Those are two of the postcards that were designed for their postcard program. So we have quite a few postcards that the commission will be giving out. When you go to many locations, it's hard to find actually seaside postcards. So we're happy to say that we have those available for the community to distribute. So if you're looking for some, you can contact the rec department for that. And then the picture on the right is one of our many utility boxes that the commission helped to facilitate. Our other commission is the Parks and Recreation Commission, and it is the mission of the PRC to promote and advocate parks and recreation services in advisory capacity and advance and preserve park and recreation services to the community. Currently, it's been a challenging year for the Parks and Rec Commission. We haven't been able to meet since October as we haven't been able to have a quorum. We lost quite a few members. I am happy to report that we recently got one new member and then there'll be two new members um being appointed at the next city council meeting so we are looking forward to have a meeting in june um with that said we will still have one vacancy after those two um are hopefully appointed at the june meeting so uh still probably we are looking for one more person if they are interested in applying um i am the liaison for the parks and rec commission and so our budget this next year um is it's just basically a carryover with a little bit increase from uh seven thousand two hundred fifty dollars um so our work plan didn't really change from the year prior as you know as we are still trying to um get back up to speed so we're kind of rolling that one forward um but we want to continue the the department uh reviews uh department policies and provide input and suggestions for changes uh provide input to the neighborhood improvement commission um they They want to host a Parks and Rec Commission focused community event. They collaborate and table with Blues in the Park and other city events as well. Review progress of park improvements and provide input as necessary. They want to host a field user meeting, group meeting to gauge the need of field space in the community as well as review locations potentially for a new indoor facility in the city at some point in the future. as well as find opportunity for the youth to be involved in parks and also research for potential grant opportunities. And finally, we, the homeless commission also falls underneath the recreation department and their, their main mission is to plan advocate and support and collaborate with those affected by homelessness and the organizations that serve them. They have a full commission of 7. there's no vacancies and our family and community support practitioner. Mr Derek elder is the liaison. They have 22,500 requested in this year's budget. And some of those highlights continue to provide funds for community organization for food insecurity programs, host community outreach forums with community partners, and then provide support to individuals, families during the holidays, as well as provide support to youth focus groups that support youth at risk of experiencing homelessness. So a lot of the funding that they are requesting this year is more of a pass through. They submit RFP or they put out an RFP for these organizations to request funding to be able to assist with individuals in areas of those needs. And with that, I will pass it on to the finance director.

Thank you. And now just a few highlights for the Recreation Department's proposed budget for fiscal year 26-27. The department is authorized for 13 full-time positions, reflecting the restoration of the Recreation Director position, which had previously been frozen. Personnel services are budgeted at $4.4 million, services and supplies at $4.8 million, capital outlay and debt services at $448,000, and internal service charges at $2.5 million. The total recreation department expenditures are budgeted at approximately $12 million. So several notable changes in this year's budget affect the services and supplies category, as well as the internal service charges. And these changes are largely technical in nature, so I'll try to distinguish them from the underlying general fund impacts to the department. In personnel services, costs are increasing by about $403,000 compared with fiscal year 25-26. And this increase is due, similar to other departments throughout the city, to rising pension and medical benefits costs experienced citywide, along with the addition of the Recreation Director position. The most significant change in services and supplies category that relates to the behavioral health continuum of care and services grant, also known as the Proposition 47 grant. This is a multi-year grant received at the end of fiscal year 24-25 that will continue through fiscal year 27-28. And the grant funding appears as approximately 2 million increase in services and supplies. However, it doesn't necessarily represent new general fund costs Instead, it reflects the remaining grant funding that will be spent and reimbursed over the life of the program. Excluding the grant-related activity, services and supplies are projected to increase by approximately $187,000, and that includes $80,000 to support the senior activities program now within the general fund, and then along with other routine cost adjustments for departmental operations and services. The seniors activity program had previously been supported by separate funding sources, but those funds are expected to be fully exhausted by the end of fiscal year 2526. Internal service charges and central services support increased by about 1.8 million due primarily to a revised methodology for allocating indirect administrative costs across departments. So the updated model places greater emphasis on facility square footage, which had a larger impact on the recreation department because of the extensive recreation and community facilities that were highlighted in the budget overview. So of the department's total $12 million budget, approximately $444,000 will be supported through fees, fines, and reimbursements, while approximately $4 million will come from special revenue and then the remaining 7.5 million will be supported by general fund tax revenues that concludes the recreation department overview and we're available for any questions thank you so much any questions uh council member miller and then mayor putin thank you my questions are are quick uh i just wanted to ask about the pool i remember we had issues with lifeguards and are those issues still reoccurring yes is there any foreseeable solution

We have we are researching ways to attract more lifeguards to the peninsula and into our city in general. It is a challenge. It's not something that is specific to seaside. It is a nationwide shortage of lifeguards. It is difficult to overcome, but we are reaching out to local high school swim teams. We're reaching out to the older adult community that swim in laps that generally have more time on their hands. We are trying as many creative ways to get more lifeguards in the building.

It's not a budgetary issue, right?

No.

And that was all my questions. Thank you.

um thank you mayor um the square footage under internal services that whole process is confusing but that's okay um that's a whole new addition to the dollar amounts compared to previous years right that's correct okay and this is just a thought on the postcard issue um It's frustrating for tourists or for me when I go to a different town, I can't get a T-shirt or a postcard or anything when I go to Walgreens or Embassy or wherever to highlight Seaside, be it out of the state or whatever. Was there any thought to talking to Walgreens or Embassy or, I don't know, other businesses in Seaside? Maybe they would sell the cards for us or maybe we'd give them out there, whatever it be. People know that they, you know, if they want to get a postcard at the minimum, they can do that. Any thought to that at all?

Yes, absolutely. That is, you know, after we launched this program and we saw the cards come in, that is definitely an area that we're going to be looking at in the future and trying to build those partnerships. And then.

This is on page 218, I believe. The proposed preschool budget is $30,000 in the projected 2026. Why is that, and will it negatively impact the program?

Is there a specific line item you're referring to?

I would assume it's page 218. I could find out for you, but I know it's there. Right on the top of that page, I believe that that helps you. yeah i don't i have to look it up just like i didn't uh i did not write the line item down i just wrote down the page because i knew that you would be on top of that what was your question again the preschool it's a 30 000 less i believe the hourly wages decreased from 122 to 92. so the the part-time hourly wages throughout the department and whole is a bit

finicky if you will, because staff, you know, we budget one area for staff for certain program areas and those staff tend to jump from program to program. And so while there is a decrease, it's not going to affect the program in the short answer.

Okay.

And then I'm trying to, I just wrote the page number. I did not write the, what do you call it thing, but on your senior programs, On page 218, I think it's on top of the page. Let's see. You talk about the same thing at the swim center. It looks like it's $60,000 less. Yeah, it's right on page. and part-time salary. So if I gave you a number, it would be $194,000. It's $60,000 less.

So with the pool and a lot of the other divisions within the department this last fiscal year, we saw some divisions have a higher part-time salary range, just depending on how many employees are assigned to that specific division. And so the pool was actually way under this year. And so the numbers for next year are based off of what the actuals are for this year. And if you remember at mid-year, we transferred out part-time wages from the pool to go to i believe sports and um i think after school program because those areas were under so that is the reason why it's more in line with what the actual is going to be projected for the year end so bob bottom line the quality and the and the safety will not no not at all and then on page 219

um let's see here zero no one hundred ninety five hundred seven one two five and zero one hundred ninety five hundred seven one seven two uh in senior activities it went from zero to sixty five thousand in senior activities i believe and from zero to fifteen thousand in um in excursions. I know in both areas. Well, I know in excursions for sure that's been going on forever or 10, 12 years. And then senior activities obviously have been going on. So why from zero to blank?

So in the previous years, as the finance director stated, the older adult program was funded through a trust account where we had quite a bit of dollars in there. And so that money has finally expended. So now the older adult program, if you will, needs to be fully funded from the general fund. So in the past, it was out of account 251 and not a 100 account. So now we are moving it in the 100 account, which is the general fund. which is why it's been zero. And so now it is included. And then for the senior excursions, that account was actually in another division in 190, 200. And so we've folded that into the actual older adult program of the 90, the 190, 500.

And this is just a point regarding your lifeguards and water safety instructors. And maybe for Mr. Miller, who is Councilman Miller, that problem with shortage of lifeguards and water safety instructors has been going on for at least 50 years. And Mr. Fittrow has helped with it in the past at Seaside High, but it's been ongoing both at the sports center. So it's a constant challenge. That's just for what it's worth.

Going on that for just a second, I just want to highlight that we do have our rec program coordinator is certified as a water safety instructor training, a WSIT, which he is the only one in the county. So individuals wishing to obtain a WSI search would, you know, our employee would be the one training them.

And that's great. For decades, it was a representative from Salinas and they didn't allow anybody else to have that role. The page 220, if I have to give you an account number, it would be 245-9250-1029, the opiate settlement. Can you talk a little bit about that? Who manages it? And it's gone from zero to 20,000.

So the city recently was awarded a settlement through and the city attorney may be able to answer this a little better than I can, but yeah.

through the mayor and city council members of the public yes so the city uh council authorized city attorney to engage in receipt of the in participation in the opioid settlement proceeds city to date has received about 160 000 plus or minus that money is managed primarily by different departments city manager and the finance director have been working on putting together a plan to effectively utilize those funds they cannot be used for just anything they have to be used for specific programmatic things that are outlined in the settlement agreement and the settlement agreements are coordinated through the state their statewide participation agreements

uh who manages in the recreation department it will be through the family community support program so mr uh mr elder's department and just maybe you can help me out and maybe i'm i'm i'm wrong uh isn't that program the family and communal isn't that to support the police and as a for domestic violence and things of that nature. And isn't that more in the top of my head would be under Mr. Black, but I'm just wondering why in that division versus the other division.

It's it could be for a variety of different things. And so the police department is also going to have a piece of that that they're managing as well. And so it made sense to us under the family community support program because a lot of the calls and issues that they do deal with to resolve around or revolve around mental health and substance abuse.

And then on page 220, I believe it is. senior activities i'm sorry it seemed yeah senior human services it looked like it went from i had a 43 000 let's say for senior activities uh to zero this fiscal year yeah so that that would be the trust account which has no more money into it which is why it was moved into the other account to the 100 account that makes sense Hopefully then I won't go there. I'll tell you afterwards. Good. Thank you.

All right.

Anyone else?

Okay. All right. I think I had one or two.

When we're talking about the one program, the older adult lunch program, right? Is that, Is that fully funded to go into this budget year?

Yeah, we actually increased it by $20,000. So if you look at what the account that Mayor Pro Tem was referring to that went from 45 to zero, this year we increased it to 65,000 out of the general fund. So yes, it is fully funded.

Right. Okay. Now, which line item is that then?

9,571.75, 7,125. Right. Okay. I see what it says, but that program, lunch program is included in that. Okay.

Is that the whole lunch program or is it other things in the entire department or the entire division so it includes a lunch yes it includes a variety of things so you know activities and everything so i i want to so i'm breaking it down so i can understand is the monthly lunch program fully funded at the level and quality of food that it has now yes okay I am not just in closing. I guess I'll just. So I had to. When we're talking about the training and education, because I highlighted to the opioid settlement, I didn't. I heard the city attorney talk about we have money before, but I don't see no money 2526 right budgeted, but that's a different like covenant later, but the 20 will go through the. the family community support program underneath what is training. When you guys think about training and education, what is that? So the public can understand what exactly that money is going to be used for.

So we really need to pull it back to what is allowed through the opioid settlement. So it would be trainings in regards to mental or drug overdose trainings and being able to identify and recognize those. Part of it is working through the police department as well because the police department may have some additional trainings that we are not aware of.

Right.

It will be both internal and external trainings regarding substance abuse and mental health.

Okay, and then does that training leads itself to impacting the community to stay away from these or prevent these type of things? That's what I'm getting to. I know we'll take the training, but how do we push that training out to community members so we have less of these incidents?

Yes, this will include some external training for the community, again, designed at that, reducing community harm.

Right, that's right. Thank you so much for that. You know, I said earlier, there's a lot of stuff going on in the recreational department. You know, for me, what we don't want to do is, because we're suffering from budget constraints, is It's always go to the recreation, go to things impacting the kids, the seniors, family members, and cut there. And we know why, you know, city managers do that. But I just want to thank you and the department heads and the city manager for increasing some of these areas. And then I'll just take another 30 seconds to say, I noticed throughout all of these so far, Training and education has been increased. And all the line items in these departments, and that's a concerted effort that I can see. So. That's just going to improve the whole city and the city employee. So thank you. We will. If there are any more questions, the city manager has a note for me to take a break here. So we're going to take our scheduled break. And then when we come back from break, we'll have public comment. So there's no questions before we go on a break to return at the sound of the gavel. We stand at adjournment. Stand at recess. Yeah.

Recording stopped. Recording in progress

are we recording okay thank you uh coming back let's please continue i believe the next what we're doing now is um public comment on an old public comment on this item which is the budget the budget discussion uh either from uh yesterday or today's uh budget uh discussion public comment is open

Members of the public in the Chamber, please approach the podium members of the public on zoom please use the raise your hand feature or dial star nine if you're calling from a phone.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council, City Attorney, City Manager. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the animals of Seaside. I'm here tonight to ask for continued funding of SNP Best Bay Neuter Services for our citizens' pets. I also want to express my gratitude to everyone here for being trailblazers in animal welfare policy by being the 1st city in Monterey County to pass a required spay neuter ordinance. This forward thinking leadership combined with a strong partnership with the police department. Has allowed seaside to proactively address pet overpopulation rather than merely reacting to the overcrowded shelters and the taxpayer funding what it costs. I would like to acknowledge and thank Chief Borges and our dedicated and productive ACO Alex for their incredible results, including a 30% reduction in shelter intake numbers and 100% compliance with pet fix-it tickets. Our success in lowering intake would not be possible without our partnership with SNPUS. With 30,000 in funding in this fiscal year, SNPUS has fixed 211 pets for seaside residents, holding seven clinics, and also holding six bonus afternoon clinics funded by grants obtained from SNIP. These bonus clinics have increased opportunities for residents to comply with the ordinance. This time last year, our demand was filling clinics every eight to 10 weeks, but our current demand now makes it possible to fill clinics every four weeks due to increased public awareness. To meet this demand, we would seek 48,000 in spay-neuter funding this year in order to have one clinic a month. We should all be proud that Seaside's ordinance has become a model for local governments to improve public safety, reduce shelter overcrowding, and save taxpayer resources, and prevent unnecessary animal suffering through prevention-focused policy. Monterey County has taken note with the referral to pass required spay-neuter ordinance for the unincorporated areas. Additionally, Salinas, Soledad, and Marina are all researching our success and are in talks to implement similar ordinances. You all deserve commendation for your progressive approach to animal overpopulation and I'm here to thank you.

Members of the public in the Chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star nine if you're calling from a phone.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Laura. You don't have to look far to see what's happening across this country. Turn on the TV and Dateline, NBC, 48 Hours and Forensic Files. They all tell the same kind of stories. Violence, tragedy, drugs, gangs, shootings. Lives changed in an instant. That is the reality in far too many places, but that is not the reality here in Seaside. And that does not happen by accident. It happens because of leadership strategy and a clear message from Chief Borges and the Seaside Police Department, not in Seaside. There was a time when a gang shooting in Salinas often meant retaliation in Seaside and vice versa. That cycle felt predictable. But today, what do we see instead? We see people walking their dogs late at night because they feel safe. We see families pushing strollers in the evening because they feel safe. We see residents enjoying their community because they feel safe. That safety is the result of intentional policing and smart investment. We've heard about flock cameras and how they're carefully monitored to protect privacy while helping solve crimes, and we already know how they work. Most recently after a hit and run that injured two people, law enforcement was able to identify the suspect because of that technology. Without it, that person could still be out there free to hurt someone else. Instead, our community is safer tonight. And while we talk about public safety, I also want to recognize another form of protection happening in our city, protecting our neighborhoods, our taxpayers, and animals through the incredible work of our animal control officer, Alex. Alex has trapped over 231 cats in Seaside. If those cats had entered the shelter system at approximately $265 per animal, the city would have paid over $61,000 in sheltering costs alone. But the impact goes even further. If just half of those cats had one litter of four kittens, that would mean another 462 kittens entering the cycle of overpopulation, costing potentially another $122,000. And today alone, Alex brought in two female cats to be spayed that had a combined total of 15 kittens between them. That is why prevention matters. There are simply not enough homes for all of these animals. So we thank you for funding SNP. We thank the Seaside Police Department, our animal control, and our council for being the first city to pass a spay, neuter, and breeding ordinance that is making a real difference in our community. because whether it is fighting crime, protecting neighborhoods, or preventing animal suffering, Seaside has made one thing clear, not in Seaside. Thank you.

Thank you for your public comment. Lucy A., please unmute and make your public comment.

Good evening. My name is Lucy Ahrens. I'm a longtime resident of Seaside. I am here today to request that the City of Seaside continue to provide funding for the SNPBUS spay-neuter services. The spay-neuter ordinance that was passed along with tremendous efforts by our ACO, Alex, and ongoing support from Chief Borges is making a difference in the reduction of pet overpopulation. And the city of Seaside has become a model for other areas within Monterey County to aspire to. Let's keep Seaside on the forefront of innovation in humane practices and continue to fund SNP. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your public comment. Carla Lobo, please unmute and make your public comment.

Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. I want to encourage the Council to establish a dedicated budget item for real-time interpretation and language access services within both the police and fire departments. including but not limited to traffic stops, investigations, emergency interactions, fire response, and all public safety-related contact. Language access is not a luxury. It is a civil rights issue directly connected to due process, public trust, transparency, and overall community safety. No residents should be left confused, fearful, or unable to understand interactions within law enforcement or emergency personnel simply because interpretation services were not immediately available. In a proudly diverse community like Seaside, communication during emergencies and public safety interactions must be accessible. I also believe that if the city is going to continue investing heavily into policing, then we should also be investing into culturally competent perhaps even grassroots based youth intervention training for officers engaging with young people. These types of partnerships and training should not be viewed as optional or secondary. They are critical to building long term trust and improving outcomes between youth and public safety personnel. Officers engaging with youth should be equipped with tools grounded in trauma informed response, cultural understanding, and communication methods that ensure young people actually understand their Miranda rights and the situation taking place. That includes, again, explaining Miranda rights and law enforcement procedures in a developmentally appropriate and understandable ways for youth. I also want to better understand how the increase connected to Prop 47 and the opiate settlement funding are being translated into actual long-term youth infrastructure and staffing expansions within the Recreation Department. While recreation still remains extremely lean in staffing and facility capacity, we are outgrowing facilities. We are outgrowing programming demand. And frankly, we have many families that are actively seeking more youth-centered spaces, programming and preventive support systems outside of the city of Seaside. So I believe the community deserves clarity on whether these restricted behavioral health and opioid funds are helping expand youth services in a measurable and sustainable way. And if these new funds in turn entering the system, are they actually expanding permanent youth infrastructure, staffing capacity and facilities? We already recognize the importance of dedicated senior programming and senior wellness investments so much. So the same should be invested in youth and they deserve the same. I yield the rest of my time.

If you're a public comment, members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star nine if you're calling from a phone. Mayor, no others have come forward.

Thank you so much. Public comments close. Please continue.

Thank you. Next up, we will have the Public Works Department led by Public Works Director Thomas Corman.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, members of the Council. So this evening, I'll be presenting the budget for the Public Works and Engineering Department. Just to begin, I wanted to introduce William Scali to my left, our new Public Works Superintendent, glad to have him on board here, who oversees many of the budget divisions that you'll see here, you know, as far as streets, fleets, parks, and etc. So, just I'll begin with a brief department description, then we'll look at the fiscal year 2025-26 accomplishments, and then onward to the fiscal year 2026 2027 goals and budget highlights okay so just as a recap uh for our our department uh the services that we provide uh we'll begin with just engineering the list here begins with you know the capital project management environmental review development review we issue permits as far as grading permits We oversee SCSD, fat, oil, and grease inspections. We have other services in terms of municipal professional services, working with planning department on lot line adjustments, lot mergers, fostering development in the city. We also oversee multiple contracts for environmental on-call contracts, for building maintenance, our public works infrastructure improvements in terms of paving and other civil improvements. And then lastly, you'll see here, we have the solid, oversee solid waste collection through Regen Monterey. The other utilities that we oversee, as you're familiar with, is water, storm drain, street lights, and then of course, through SESD, separate agency, our sanitary sewer. We also oversee all government buildings and all park maintenance, the streets and then vehicle maintenance, serving police, fire, the city hall pool cars, the public works service vehicles, and then lastly, the Seaside County Sanitation District vehicles as well. So our fiscal year 2025-2026 a compliment that many many throughout the world just just to highlight a few. We have citywide landscaping improvements, the street improvements, that we have completed over 13 capital improvement projects. The second bullet point there is the securing of $4 million for the Broadway Avenue Complete Streets program that is beginning going to come to our next council meeting for award. And then our interdepartmental collaboration on citywide events. So just to reiterate, our public works department serves the events for the, you know, on CDR when we have closures to support the events like, you know, Juneteenth, Huaca by the Sea, Fourth of July, and any other services or special events as well. including the exotics on Broadway and hot cars on Broadway, hot nights. As far as staffing goes, we did have several internal promotions and then a couple new hires as well filling spots. Jesse, did you want to take over, do the recap at this point?

And now we're just going to go over a few highlights for the public works budget for proposed for 2627. At the top of the table here, the number of employees went down from 40 to 39. And that was due to the removal of an administrative analyst to position from the position control list, which was formerly a position dedicated to the administration of the contract with the army at the Presidio of Monterey, which ended as of July 2025. Looking at expenditures, personnel costs for 6.1 million, services and supplies 7 million, capital outlay and debt 5 million, and internal service charges at 1.2 million. Total expenditures at 19.8 million. And the increase in personnel costs proposed for fiscal year 26-27 reflects the same general rise in pension costs, medical benefits, and potential labor contract changes that are occurring across departments. The variance in services and supplies includes an additional $129,000, and mostly that I believe is due to uh increases in general costs of equipment supplies and pretty much utilities and fuel all items that are just subject to the regular uh increase in inflation other notable variances by fund because there's several funds that the public works department administers includes a additional 74 000 for the mou agreement with regen monterey in the general fund an additional subcontracted work of 180 000 and department equipment of 60 000 in street operations which will include more in-house work related to paving and a mini excavator which will be funded from non-general fund special revenue sources and the variance in capital outlay and debt is from the combination of the completion of the multi-year capital projects while at the same time the start of new capital projects has slid There continues to be substantially reduced general fund support for capital projects for a second year in a row. Where previously during the budget summary it was stated also yesterday's budget study session that there is $819,000 new general fund appropriations to support capital projects i just wanted to note that 300 000 of that amount is a required tree maintenance project for the new courthouse site so however other new appropriations to capital projects include 2.5 million from special revenue for the pavement rehabilitation project 250,000 for citywide curb ramp projects funded by the CDBG grant funds, 850,000 in federal grant funds for the San Pablo pedestrian bridge repairs, and 3 million in capital projects for infrastructure improvements to the sewer system for the sanitation district. and the status of ongoing capital projects and new capital projects for fiscal year 26-27 will be discussed further in the following section for capital improvement projects but on the next slide i have on a separate slide the department revenues for the public works department uh which is funded by fees fines and reimbursements in the amount of 2.5 million dollars special revenue funds in the amount of 4.4 million so that includes multiple streets related grant revenue including the atp grant for the broadway corridor improvement as well as highway user tax 1.3 million in the enterprise fund that's the municipal water system 1.1 million in the internal service fund that's our fleet management division which is uh whose expenditures are reimbursed by other departments and 522 000 in grants and other revenues the remaining 9.9 million is funded uh from general tax revenue support and we'll uh pause here before going over cip for any questions about the public works department's budget thank you well done well laid out any questions uh

Councilmember Garcia-Zola and then Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you. I can't recall if I asked this question yesterday, but are we prepared for any type of inflation costs due to ongoing situations out of our control at a national scale and possible inflation supply delays and how that might impact our projects or might increase the project prices?

So into the budget, especially in the operations side, we built in some inflation factors. So in terms of replacement of tires, fuel, oil, anything that we would use, especially on the fleet side. And the other thing in terms of how that would affect asphalt as we continue and start to do our own work on the streets. So we did build those in. As far as the CIP projects, when we bid those, Those are somewhat built in too because they're fixed contracts. And when we talk about those, the on-call contracts, yes, I'll let Andres address that further.

I mean, we've shifted over to using a lot of on-call contracts. The on-call contract does have, you know, list pricing for fixed pricing for the asphalt and materials that we do buy, which protects us. from short-term inflationary.

Does recalibrate, I guess, the urgency for certain projects? Do we have a plan to prevent, to basically get the hard projects out of the way first?

I mean, we just bid our largest project. Great. The Broadway Complete Street project. It came in, you know, Great, great price. Fabulous price. We're really excited moving forward with it. We're looking at doing our street maintenance maintenance, which are our next large, large purchase large. That's affected by by oil price and things like that and that's that we're going to use for the 1st time. We're going to use on some contracts for that. So those prices are also fixed. So we feel like we're ahead of the curve on the great.

So we feel confident.

Thank you.

thank you mayor you know just in thinking about your department it's kind of to me if you look at the golden state warriors dream on green was considered the pulse of the warriors and when you guys operate effectively you are the pulse of the of the city because you touch bases on for anywhere from cars to recreation, to fire and police on emergencies, city hall, moving tables, the economic development related to engineering. So your tentacles, when operating effectively, goes a long way in making sure all this stuff works. But as you know, I have a lot of questions, because I want to ensure that the pulse continues in a strong way.

in parks and public works operations how many do we have budget for and is it an increase or decrease from last year i'm assuming you're asking for a number of personnel is that correct yes yes yes so that so we currently have 30 uh if we go back one slide here you'll two slides, you'll see that we have proposed 30. The projected in 2026 was 40. And so that was due to the last excuse me, the loss of the POMA contract. So there was one administrative assistant to that that that position was not refilled. So that's where we went from 30 to 40 to 39. Yes. So in a nutshell,

we're at this getting rid of the administrative assistant we're at the same as we were last year that's correct okay so in talking to you and looking at some numbers from the 1980s we're about 50 percent down from the 1980s than we are now but with more responsibilities be it uh all the medians and all the things that you're doing is that a fair statement

The percentage I can't be quite certain of. Andreas and I were going back from a past organizational sheet that we found from 1971. What I can tell you is that we have nine positions that are frozen. So that 39 that you see there would be nine higher. So that's what we're dealing with. When that peaked out, I couldn't tell you.

Just for what it's worth, from my experience, you're significantly down comparatively to the 70s, 80s. Yes. And when Ford closed as such was when that... but that's just for what it's worth. How do I say this thing? I'm just looking at, I see a lot of needs, especially in the parks and the medians where weeds are growing will represent the city is very important. So just if we could, this is if we could, if we could entry at higher and entry level position, uh let's say in january or 30 hour person that could roll into a full time would that help make sure those areas or fix cars whatever it be mostly in public work then because you're going to be increasing your work in the street pavement project as well would that help in any way to make sure that city is best represented for our residents yes any additional labor we can get we would appreciate yes would benefit on page

181 I believe what is the status of the new street repair equipment that you're going to help that's going to change yeah the streets improvements yes well and first let me express gratitude for the support of the the council's funding of that equipment you know we had some personnel changes We have our new superintendent on board. I've been filling him in on that equipment, so I'm going to turn this over to William to just reply on that. We are getting on board and he'll explain the details of that.

Hello, everybody. Thank you for your time.

Right off the bat, we had a brand new skidder delivered mid-April. We're still waiting on the equipment trailer to be able to get it out to job sites. What else? We got a training coming up on Wednesday of next week. We're going to be hitting the parking lot over by, is it a parking lot? Yeah, by Acme Coffee. We're going to be doing a scheduled demonstration there with the Caterpillar, what is it called? My bad. Yeah, the grinder is going to go out in the paved box and we're going to be doing stuff out there. The demo is going to take place at 10 o'clock if anybody wants to join us.

be cool but uh shortly after that we'll get a plan together and start hitting the worst spots of the city okay okay great and then um i appreciate that i'm glad to see that as a start operating because there's a lot of need for that vehicle as such yep um then on page 186 um and why is that there's a 300 $350,000 ballpark increase for governmental buildings. Oh, yes. Okay. And salaries from the 226th projection.

I think I can respond to this question based on what I observed in preparing the personnel budget. So we do, in the budget development process, meet with the HR department, the city manager's office, and the public works department director. And we have to take an extra special step to list all 39 employees and determine which fund and which division their baseline home account is going to be. So from there, that's what we budget. But as the year moves forward, the Public Works Department staff, especially in the maintenance department, is very dynamic in rotating staff between divisions. And that's for training purposes or otherwise to allocate staff where there might be an emergency or just more service needed. So while there's approximately a 350,000 increase in the government building division, you'll probably see an equal decline in possibly the parks operations or street parks or the streets fund. But overall, when you look at all the divisions under the public works maintenance, um direction which will include the sanitation district as well as the water municipal water system you'll find that the personnel budget overall is probably increasing along with all the other increases among different departments which is pension and medical benefits and you know this uh we'll go over those as we proceed but i know you know that in advance um

Page 180, because I just want to make sure that we do our best we can to maintain what we got as far as in our city facilities, as well as parks, as well as streets, without showcasing a lessening of dollars when the work is seemingly increasing. Page 188, the projection costs for parks operations in 2020 is $80,000 less than the 2027 budget. uh i think it says 476 is the projected and the budget is 392 and that's you know within a 10 000 here or there uh when most divisions in the city

are increasing staff while budget-wise this seems to be a reduction and it might be the answer that you stated earlier but uh is that a true statement that is true so just to reiterate that there's a rebalancing of the positions between streets and parks and government facilities so overall there's a net equalization so some are higher and some will be lower

so there's not really a net increase other than cost of living adjustments uh pers contributions this is not written down and you don't have it so i'm just wondering when you do the budget why isn't it is and you i assume you guys are working together staff is working together to why is it not more um directly associated with the moving from A to B, I guess.

It's really based on need and response to the different divisions where they're needed. So where we start off the dial at the beginning of the fiscal year, you know, three or four months down the row is that, oh, we need to shift another personnel into streets because we're doing so much street work. Or someone may move into parks because we need to catch up. So it could be seasonal too. And so I apologize, I don't have all the exact details of that. especially because we've had, you know, our superintendent change. So as William gets on board, that will become, that will be revealed more. And you can answer that probably that question better in a couple of months. Yeah.

Good. And then this is comparatively a small, but I'm just worried about the maintenance of our parks. And again, it shows on page one 94, a $30,000 reduction from the previous year.

if i read that if i'm reading it correctly which i'm pretty sure i am same thing the answer is really in the in light of the same the same situation is that there's a just a movement of uh employees between divisions okay yes and some of these questions on and off will be

for the general public and for me as well as far as not knowing what these things are or not hearing of them and that's on me. Yes sir.

One thing that was also done in this budget and Jesse can you confirm is that irrigation was a separate division and that has been folded into parks so there's also some movement in the numbers as well. So there's not really that there's a change in the number of employees but the budget numbers were moved into

consolidate the divisions great on page 196 and this is basically for me in the public what is the look kuna grandi trash capture but i know it's increased by a hundred thousand dollars i believe that is going to be discussed during the capital improvement ocean that will be yes so if i ask the wrong question because it's the wrong budget i'm just going by the book as such um And then probably the same thing. The Coe Avenue Wells, is that the same thing? Okay. And sanitation is the same thing.

That's correct.

So we can discuss those under capital because that's where I would, anyway, I would just go and buy the papers in the book. I think that a lot of those questions tie into capital improvement. I just want to, I'll just leave it at that. I think that's it. And then all the other questions will tie into capital improvement. Thank you, sir.

Anyone else? Council Member Garcia-Anzales.

Thank you. I just have one more question. Storm preparedness. Are we taking that into consideration in addressing that ahead of time before a storm hits and then it ends up being more costly. And I just want to know what the plan is for that.

That's correct. That's part of our stormwater operations. So interestingly enough, the street sweeper is programmed under stormwater preparedness and stormwater operations. So we have two people in storm water. We have one street sweeper. And so prior to storms, they're looking at and they're cleaning out, checking catch basins. They routinely are looking and monitoring those catch basins. And then also we're looking at the 90-inch outfall. So prior to a storm, we're basically making sure that is opened up. we have flow through that so that outfall yes thank you as part of the routine operations and means anyone else I got a couple comments one thing one two questions page 188

193 underneath street funds congestion management program i just had you know earlier this morning for our tamp cb so i think i understand congestion but what what do we mean by the management project program you know what what that money is to do what i see that line item here and i'm going to have to defer to kirsten on management

Yes. Oh.

You hand them.

Well, I can pull up some detail on that really quickly.

While she's pulling up the detail, that doesn't ring a bell?

Will anybody? It doesn't and so when we have these line items as far.

No, no, I got it. I know. I know it's just a 1000 of them to remember. So that's not. I'm not judging that. So.

What Kirsten is saying is it's funds we get from teams.

Yeah, right. And I can understand that. And then what do we do with it? That's that's kind of like, you know, I know it's not a lot. So, but I just, like I said, I.

Or maybe we can just keep transportation and planning.

I know where it gets spent.

Oh, it's kind of reconsidered. Yeah, that's important. We need to give them a chance to be there. Okay, that's funny.

No, I know. Yeah, when we're talking about spending, that makes sense. That's what I said. Because that's, I think we spent like an hour today about congestion on 68 and how to improve that. Okay. And then I had a Question on Cohen general Jim or our intersection. That's page 195. It's been about 37,000 just trying to get understanding. What is that? Is that for study or is that for some actual somewhere?

Yes, it's currently, it's basically like priming the pump. We're doing some conceptual designs and then what we're doing is just pursuing outside funding for that.

okay then the the designers was that is it the roundabout is just straightening out putting a light up there or something no that's for the the potential roundabout that we can attract funding for yeah that's correct yeah yeah i just i think we where are we i think we talked about that somewhere before if you don't put the money into uh doing the pre-work uh you can't ask for grants you can't do anything if hey what do you want to do i don't have plans well you have to spend money Thank you so much. I think that was it before we go on to the CIP, so please continue.

Okay, thank you. Oh, yes.

I think these were the slides. This is slow.

Okay, yeah, why don't we just have you jump in?

I was going to begin with just basically review. And so we appreciate the comment on being efficient. So as you know, in the last budget, you know, we added inspectors to basically our personnel. So what that allowed us to do is relieve ourselves from the use of outside consultants for doing construction management and inspection. The on-call contracts that we also put in place allowed us to utilize them as we needed on an on-call basis. So much of the work here that you see here, we're proud of what we completed. I'm not going to read through the list here, but it's a combination of mechanisms that we did with on-call contracting or publicly bid. So that's the list that you see here. and actually even some of the CMP replacements were actually done in-house with our own operations staff. So, you know, as we have the time, we like to, you know, we'll integrate that work into just like we're doing with the asphalt work. So in construction right now, We currently have the 2026 citywide curb ramp project, and our large projects in design is our pavement rehabilitation, which will come before the council in a following city council meeting, and then our water rate and capacity fee study that we're also working on. So just a little bit of the highlights as we move forward here for the upcoming fiscal year is that we're launching the construction of the Broadway Complete Streets that will forthcoming in fall 2026, again, to come to council for approval, an award of that contract. We'll be keeping the public informed. In fact, tomorrow we have another outreach meeting at Martin Luther King School. And then we'll be pursuing and securing additional grant funding for stormwater, for the water system, for any additional electric vehicle charging, and then general capital improvement projects as we see fit, as we look for those opportunities. Lastly, there we're going to be increasing our street improvements projects handled by our street divisions. Thank you, William, for being on board with us and then utilizing that equipment that we're that we have now purchased. And as you said that, as you heard that our plan for the training for that and rolling that forward, you know, We'll bring to you the list of streets that we're going to be utilizing that. We're beginning with that parking lot number one, the alley behind Acme Coffee. And then one of the uses for that for our streets division that we can do with basically low impact, low traffic control is address some of the worst of the worst alleys. in the city and some of the the specific areas in the city that just are bad that aren't on our overall so we'll bring that list to you um and we're continuing collaboration with other city departments and lastly to create a safe and sustainable seaside so um

yeah oh okay thank you jess yeah this slide is just a brief overview of the numbers and then we'll go back uh to the public works director for more detail on the projects so the capital improvement program it just consists of a five-year program and it outlines our current and future needs in the primarily the following areas government facilities parks special projects stormwater projects transportation projects municipal water fund projects and sanitation district projects. So the CIP is comprised of 111 projects proposed for 2627 with a total cost over all years of 198.3 million. for fiscal year 26-27 there are 27 projects totaling approximately 8.8 million so on the next slide we'll show the cip and how it's broken out by category and then by funding source and each of these pie charts sum to a total they're just categorized a little bit differently and on the chart on this slide it just says a sanitation district is the largest cip category at 3.2 million followed by the transportation category at 3 million and highlighted on the pie chart on the next slide and we're just talking about new cip appropriations we'll see the largest funding source for all our cip projects is basically coming from special revenue and grants and with that i'll turn this over to

Thank you, Jesse. This is a further breakdown of basically the 2026 and 2027 funding requests. So as you can see, as compared to the prior pie chart there, it split into a little bit more detail. So you can see where basically all that is coming from. The Panetta grant that was slated for the bridge, our Measure X funds, our SB1 funds sitting at 22%. our CDBG, which we're using for the curb ramps, our RSTP fair share, the marina station developer deposit, the sliver there, that we have our water funds, SCSD on the last slide, you saw that was approximately $3.2 million. That budget has already priorly been approved on May 19th. So we're shifting resources to, you know, within our department to work on those projects as we move forward so the general ask as we move into the general fund and the request from general fund is really only 10 of our complete cip budget okay thank you yes that's right that's that's that is not new requests as andreas was staying here and this is a little bit uh excuse me what is that the broadway complete street project is not captured in that okay okay that's correct so this is the cip budget request the breakdown of this as you can see where it totals the 8.8 million uh a breakdown by fund pool fund housing fund panetta grant in in real dollars as opposed to percentage is that somewhere in the in the book

I see it on the slide deck.

It is a summary.

It's just, you know, that's a lot for one slide. And so it's part of it.

So highlighted projects, I will turn this over to Andres to address what's included in our new CIP slide.

Great. We're asking for some money for the Laguna Grande trash capture project. This funding will primarily be for design of the project. The trash capture is a requirement for all of our storm drain outfalls, and it's an area that we're really lacking in the city seaside, and we need to make a big push towards trash capture both through the storm drains that flow out through Laguna Grande as well as our main 90-inch outfall. uh broadway avenue uh corridor uh complete street project that is uh is a is a 13 uh 13.5 million dollar uh investment we're making in broadway avenue it's going to involve both the upgrade of the sewer line as well as the installation of seven roundabouts uh on the on you know upper broadway from fremont to general jim moore boulevard uh san pablo bridge project you know a lot about this project we've got new grant funding for it uh and we're hoping this year to finally be able to to remove the old bridge and get the new bridge installed. The pavement rehab project, we Well, this project in conjunction with our 26-27-88 curb ramp project, we feel like we're really cracking the code and doing cheap and efficient pavement rehabilitation and curb ramp installations. We've got this down to the point where we're installing lots of curb ramps really cheaply with a contractor that really specializes in concrete work, and it allows us to engage uh pavement contractors that just specialize in pavement work and get the best prices in in both um and a co avenue well um you know we have two existing wells that were abandoned uh when the golf course got got converted over to recycled water uh those wells have have real value we believe they have real value and maintaining those wells and getting them operational uh for the Co avenue could potentially self water field. You know, park. With with some of the surplus water that we're generating through, there's like a water program at on the golf course, and it could be really valuable to us the black horse. Well. You know, it also is a is a is a. well with a new motor and VFD that produces 550 gallons a minute, has a deep sanitary seal, and looks like it might be viable as a potable water well to work in our system.

If I can add here too. So as far as as we move forward, we're making a coordinated effort to look at our underground utilities as we look at our street work. And the same thing as we've mentioned to you before, all this curb ramp work that we're doing, it's in preparation of paving work and then getting up to upgrade that. So we're looking at that basically the city as a whole and working with our neighboring agencies. Of course, our own municipal water district as well as Cal Am. So staying away for streets where they have program work that we can come back later or requiring them to do the improvements to that. So our next slide breaks down just the request from the general fund. So I don't know, Andres, do you want to?

Yeah, I mean, I don't think I'm going to go through these each one by one unless you'd like me to. I'm happy to go through them, but in general, You know, we have really, really cut back our requests for funding and project funding this year. The funds that you do see, the requests you do see are, in many cases, only a portion of the funding required for the project and or the funding that's needed to put our finger in the dike and keep things afloat. In many cases, these are not. Laguna Grande trash capture project, for example, the picture that's there is an existing trash capture device that's not sufficient. We did some initial engineering this work with the $50,000 that was budgeted last year and determined that that box can't be retrofit. If we retrofit that box in particular, we're likely to flood out the police station parking lot. uh the next upstream uh inlet and and flood out our city hall so we we are not going to do that we need to look at another place for the trash capture uh installation in the laguna grande and uh and the projects likely going to cost a lot more than 135 000 so that money is really just to keep us moving on the project

That last budget item, the $300,000 for the courthouse project, is the tree portion that Jesse priorly had mentioned.

Somebody that came from the state and is earmarked specifically for tree work at the main gate properties.

So essentially it falls into the CIP budget, but we're not actually doing anything.

It's not a project.

Yeah, it's not a project. We just have one last slide here. So, you know, just we realize that what the budget is and for what it's worth. So, you know, we looked at potential deferment of some of the items here, and this is what we came up with. You know, we're not recommending this, but if there is something that can be cut, you know, we'll take a closer look at these, yeah. Mm-hmm.

right oh i'm sorry no no go ahead and that's the end of our presentation thank you okay thank you thank you well done a lot in there and uh engineering has so many line items of work that you guys do in public works uh any questions mayor yeah this

And you did a good job and I just make it clarify stuff for me on this Laguna Grande trash captor. Is that a one time fee or is that?

think that's a hundred thousand dollars that's why we think i think we have budgeted out in the 27 28 uh 29 budgets uh about four hundred thousand dollars for this project total we're asking for a hundred thousand dollars now it's kind of a minimum to keep the design moving forward and the project moving forward so it's going to rotate this is not this is not the end of the funding request for the trash capture and this is a state required project project correct the the bridge and i'm trying to i just had a thought is the goal for it to be done this fiscal year you know we are yet to receive the 850 000 from panetta we are yet to we don't have the full instructions on what's required uh with that 850 000 so you know i can't say i can't commit to spend the money that we don't have at this point i can tell you that our status is We are about two weeks away from having our analysis of the abutments completed, and we do have quotes in our initial designs for four options of bridges that we'd like to bring forward to you that are fairly cost-effective. And while we don't think we can complete the bridge, plus all the pathway connections, ADA pathways, all to and from it, and and and we don't think we can we can we can complete if we have to completely tear the hills down and and put new bridge apartments apartments down the project could be well above 800 000 but we are hoping to get at least the bridge replaced for that eight thousand dollars okay just on that issue then so to simplify it for me i guess it might be a year year and a half

two years project, depending on circumstances. And then did I hear, and I may not have, that you may need some more dollars down the road.

We are proceeding with a project with the intentions of getting the bridge replaced within the next fiscal year. And what you heard, staff is actively working on the preliminary engineering and design to make that happen so that when we receive the funding from Congressman Panetta's office or actually the agency that's funding the project that we will be able to proceed with council selecting the bridge options. At this point, we believe that we have sufficient funding to complete the project. This fiscal year?

Correct. And this may, and I apologize in advance. So if the city wanted to, from the NIC, if they were so kind or the council was so kind to put a mural on that, that would be a good timing to do it this fiscal year then?

Possibly it will, it will depend on what type of bridge is selected or whether if a mural is desired, that may have to be some additional components that are added to that bridge. But that's something we can discuss some of this next.

This new street equipment. I believe that can do pathways in the parks, i.e., whatever park that pathways are messed up. I could think of a few, but they can do pathways in the park. Is that correct? Yeah.

A grinder and a skid steer fits in a pathway and is ideal for it. It's not a deal for us. We do have challenges meeting ADA requirements in a lot of our parks.

I don't want to be too specific, but I think you know what I'm trying to get to. I'll put it straightforward. There was a recommendation from the NIC to do Havana Solis Park. If that moves forward, you're gonna use that equipment to do that park, that's what we were told.

That is the intent, that's correct. Yeah, we're excited about that. That's right, yeah.

Okay. So again, is that Coe Avenue and Black Horse Puddle, is that a one-time fee or is that continual fees?

Coe Avenue and Blackhorse, so neither one of those projects have been fully engineered or designed yet. And that money is to get us started and assess the problems. And ideally, we think the problems can be completed with that $300,000, but we don't know the full extent of the damage or the repairs at those wells yet.

worst best worst case scenario you'll need the 300 000 and maybe a little bit more in the following fiscal year but not the total amount we're hoping i mean we're we're absolutely trying to maintain uh a surplus uh funds in our water budget and we're and we're we're not we're not going to drain the entire water budget on these two laws okay i'm just going to ask one more question again this this is me and you may have already answered this did you mention the delray sewer upgrade under page 205 i believe yeah that's a sanitation uh an scsd project so can you explain what that is because

Yeah, absolutely.

And the manhole improvement, did you talk about that as well?

Delray Oaks is looking at doing a big street improvement project, and we're trying to coordinate with them. We've gone ahead and surveyed our sewer lines underneath, and we're trying to coordinate with them to make any sewer improvements that are required ahead of their street improvements. Is that in Delray Oaks? That's in Delray Oaks, yeah.

And does that involve the manhole improvement?

It does include the manhole improvement project, and it's all SCSD funded. It's not funded out of them.

Right. I was just curious because those terminologies had not – I don't remember the Delray sewer upgrade. So I guess it's new, so therefore – no and that was approved at the uh scsd budget uh scsd district meeting right and i just wasn't there anyway you saw mike and that's a one-time fee or beyond that one time yes okay so maybe that would help a little bit of us down the road okay i think that's it thank you for your time anyone else

Yes, the slide after this 1, those are potential deferments. Why were they selected? And realistically, how long could those be deferred before fully in need.

Those items, I mean, we hope that you don't defer any projects. Yeah, we, we don't have enough money to, you know, we had almost 200Million dollars worth of unfunded projects. We need every time we can get. We're just hoping to steer, if you do decide to make cuts, we're hoping to see where you make those cuts. This is the least painful area.

If I can add to that, so that's just, you know, all these are deferred maintenance. So just deferring another year will, you know, the price will probably increase.

So that's where realistically, I know I defer it and then it's something huge. And then we may have to, it may cost more, right? When you, when something's damaged versus being prepared ahead of time. So I was just curious why you selected those and.

just because they're deferred maintenance and then they don't come under any regulatory compliance that we're up against for instance like Laguna Grande trash capture right so thank you just one more on the just because I've seen this and done that and been there on the boiler room if that at the pool if that breaks down you're closing the pool for for many many many months is that

That's true. I know that's true, but can you verify that that's true?

Yeah, I mean, when the boiler goes down, the pool can't be heated and we close the pool. The boiler is currently a repaired boiler. It's one that broke down last year. It took us about two weeks to repair the boiler and get it back up and running. During that time, the pool was closed. And I don't think $65,000 is enough to replace that or upgrade that system the way we need it. So that's a worst case scenario. Are you budgeting it forward or not?

I guess that's my simple thing.

We are wanting to budget for what you see here. All these costs are included in the budget. The other thing we should mention that parallels with this is we're also analyzing performance contracting for some energy efficiency improvements for city facilities. So a company will come in and analyze top to bottom our entire envelope of the old meyer city hall and several other city facilities including the corp yard potentially some of our water assets and look if a larger project can be designed that holistically improves all of those systems uh that then is paid back from the savings derived from the project it's an energy performance contracting and so we're in the very early stages of looking into that right now

Thomas Greene, Thank you, thank you so much, and again like I asked him before as long as he should feel comfortable jumping in and clarifying and answering some of these questions go back to that last. Thomas Greene, um. I'm just still trying to figure out what is that supposed to be? Because it went from deferred maintenance, it went from don't take it away, went from we don't have enough money.

What does that slide suppose to say?

I think one of the themes underlying the 26-27 budget is that there are normal short-term balancing strategies to balance the budget in a year ahead. and this goes back to our strategies that we uh uh utilize to preserve reserves in fiscal year 25 26 and it's just demonstrating that these short-term fixes are now no longer viable

I still don't understand that. Okay. So are you saying, Mr. City Manager, if we... What is this saying? This is saying... The money, we can cut those things?

This is saying that out of the capital improvement projects the staff has included in the budget, these are the items that staff has identified as possible deferments. We're not recommending that, but if one of the strategies council wants to use to balance the budget is further reductions or deferments in capital improvement items, these would be staff's preferences.

uh over the remainder that have been included in the budget okay i just yeah let's let the subheading be something like that next time if you guys are looking for money you know we don't suggest it but i'm just saying that's not clear to me uh besides what it says what is the chiller replacement is

the the chiller uh cools the billing is basically the case here i didn't know for the billing yes

Well, no, I didn't know. I know they got ice machine. I know they got a big walk kind of like walk-ins, but it's the, it's the, it's for the building. Yes.

For the air conditioning.

Yeah. Cause I know right now it's always on. And then the swimming pool, I understand the boiler, now the courtyard part of that I've seen in the staff report, it's mainly the bathroom. Is it the bathroom is a hundred thousand dollars?

No, that would cover design.

Yeah, the design and the bath for the folks in the bathrooms.

But there are the courtyard itself isn't isn't very poor shape.

100,000 is for the design of all you want to change in there.

Correct?

Right. Okay. When I did see in there or something about I'm doing the bathroom too.

Yeah, there's definitely significant bathroom upgrades that are needed at that facility.

Okay.

Okay. Okay. I think that's. Like I said, you know. Public Works has so much to do. You guys are doing so much over there. And we have saved so much money since the two of you guys have been on board. And I know that the superintendent will help do that and get things done. So I think that's all we have. Let me just check here real quick. Yeah, that's all the questions I had. Now go to the next one, if you could. Was it 25? Well, right here it says for the gateway sign improvement. You guys put that in the CIP. Is that the same thing as what the NIC is supposed to be finding and suggesting? I'm trying to figure out how it got in there.

It complements that. So it's not duplicate TIF funding, but it's, I say, complementary funding.

So, okay, for what? What would you do with that $10,000? I mean, that way we know we need to do that $10,000, otherwise the NIC money may not work right.

Right. So collectively, it was the fencing, the landscaping, the upgraded lighting, possibly some pathways through there.

you put your 10 000 our 10 000 general fund and what they're donating to make the whole right okay okay i'm just yeah okay yes yes sir so i'm making twenty twenty five thousand dollars also for the nit representation and this ten thousand dollars is added to that twenty five thousand dollars correct and if the city council or the nit wanted to add $10,000 as part of their recommendation, that would bring up $10,000. Yes. I'm just asking that.

No, I think that's an excellent question. Excellent.

So that possibility brings a little bit of a little bit of benefit to us if we chose to do that.

Correct. And 60,000 for the city call improvements, I believe that's supposed to be the, the old improvements.

Correct?

Well, the city hall improvements is. It's in the city hall fund, the improvements are focused on the pump station. That's in your parking lot. There's a pump station. That's.

So, it's for our drainage system, that's what it's for. Yes. Are some pump.

Okay. There's no other questions then we'll please continue. And thank you so much, like I said, and I think it was 50. 50 capital improvements this year. That's a significant work and, you know, I know the public appreciate it. I did want to ask the council to think about 1 thing the city manager. So, you mentioned that this new machine will fix the streets and. It's possible even to work on some of the worst alleyways. I know we got some bad alleyways. We do. But I would think if we have limited time, limited personnel, limited funding, streets would probably be a high priority. So I just throw that out to the city manager to think about. If you don't have anything for us, we say please continue. All right, thank you. Thank you.

Our finance director will now present a peace schedule.

So the last presentation for the proposed 2627 budget is simply an updated fee schedule. And this will be a very brief presentation. The staff is proposing the annual fee adjustment consistent with the ordinance number 1013, which uses the San Francisco Oakland San Jose CPI w index to help recover the costs of providing city services. The year-over-year CPI change as of April 2026 was 3.3%. Overall, I just want to tie this into strategy six, which was a new strategy in strengthening the fund balance for the city this year, which was financial resilience through strategic action. uh where um the comp a comprehensive master fee schedule update is coming forward on july 2nd and it reflects a commitment of a year's worth of work that's already taken place in consistent with the principles that we brought forward with uh strategy six so implementing that will be a characteristic of the meaningful structural improvements that strengthen the city's long-term financial health through proactive solutions accountability and ongoing fiscal management and that concludes the 26 27 proposed budget presentation um but i'll take any questions about this fee schedule before we move on to a closing message from the city manager thank you so much excellent presentation about fees

All right, any question? Mr. Mayor Pro Temp. I'm sorry.

It's late. The first one is, and this is, I guess, to the city manager. We have a lot of small businesses in Seaside and a lot of the, and I think you discussed this somewhere or some discussion, the fees are significant not necessarily for a corporation but for mom and pop to start a new business so that in turn by starting a new business they're going to bring revenue to the city but when they can't get started because they're paying i don't know 10 000 for this 20 000 that 30 000 for that it's hard to cross that line to success Are we going to bring something forward or not to try to give our people the opportunity to start a business?

Yes, that's what staff is currently looking into, possible incentives that align with the business development fees that are typically required to open small businesses, as we know and have heard that they're oftentimes preventative.

Okay. And this has always been my concern on, and I may have misheard you and I apologize in advance. You were talking about doing this long study for a year on potential fees increases. And is it possible, I'll try to phrase it in a question, is it possible when we increase fees significantly, that, and this is based on my past history and I've seen it happen, that people don't, and that would help offset the fees if everybody was to play equally, but when you increase the fees significant, people have the choice to play somewhere else, i.e. a new business or i.e. a park or i.e. use of the Oldermeyer Center or the use of the swim center because the fees have gone beyond the affordability and they leave the area and therefore in turn you lose dollars rather than gain dollars as the whole would be. Do you see that? There's that fine line where stuff happens where it may not be good?

Absolutely. So in a comprehensive fee schedule update or fee survey, the fundamental basis is to determine the costs of providing that service and set a fee consistent with the percentage of cost recovery that you want to achieve. um so for recreation services the council will have a opportunity to weigh in on the cost recovery for various services and one one thing that has been kind of taking place uh within the city in a different engagement parallel to the fee survey is how we're collecting these fees and the collectability of these fees and it's very closely aligned with the fee study in so far and this actually applies more to building department fees rather than recreation department fees is that if the fee schedule is outdated not comparable to other cities then it makes it prohibitive and people just don't come in to pay for the fee and it renders it uncollectible and we would benefit if we made it at a more reasonable level and and the same goes for and recreation just i don't want to say a small level but if it is an element but let's say i want to

um fix my house and there's fees associated with adding a fence two more two more feet or to do this and there's all kinds of fees if we increase them i'm not able to fix whatever fees that i have to pay because the fees are more important higher than the cost of the are we taking care are we concerned about that when we look at fees and adjusting as far as improving my house so therefore it's cost prohibitive because i've i've increased the fees the city pays so therefore i can't afford no longer afford to deal with that is that part of the equation that you're looking at

The staff, while first they considered the full cost, they also did a first wave before we present the new fee schedule to council of what's actually reasonable and making adjustments to have a reasonable cost recovery that doesn't prohibit members of the public for coming in and benefiting from that service and paying for it.

Gut feeling is just be very careful because everybody's suffering to do what we can do now. Thank you. Thank you. That's fine.

That's fine. But I do have a question. You said something about. People can come in and probably come in and talk about. The fee schedule for the right department.

um well i i don't uh know if they can come in and talk about the recreation department but what we plan to do is present the update to the comprehensive uh master fee schedule on its own item not with the budget and i suppose the public can make comment at that time no i thought you said

answer the mail for some questions i said they can come in and do that as it relates to the recreation i was going to say it's probably for the whole fee schedule which you just said exactly and then i'll just end my my comments with um you know we go through this kind of often talking about the fees and fee schedule but the city can only charge what it costs to provide a service to facilitate that fee and that whatever that person is building, whatever that building is going on. Is that correct?

That's correct. And that's the first start.

And I appreciate what you said is to recover some of the costs, meaning we're not always trying to get every dime we spend. But if you go too low with these fees, we pay our bills with those fees. And if we're not able to collect a probing amount of money for the services we're providing for the employee to facilitate all of this stuff, we're still doing it. Does that make sense? But that means the people that are not benefiting from that project, that house improvement, that business, their tax dollars is supplementing that.

That's correct.

Okay, I'm just trying to be clear, right? You can only do so much. And we want to be competitive, but we don't want the other taxpayers to be supplementing someone else so we can say, hey, we got low fees here in the city. Now, if we are not competitive, then the city manager and you will let us know. But I just think it's a double-edged sword. And so like Mayor Pro Temp said, what is that fine line? All right, that's my comments. And you said the city manager is coming up next, so I'll just say please continue.

all right i want to say thank you to the finance director and each department head city employee who had presentations over this budget workshop period and all the work that went in preparing to where we got to this evening council has now reviewed the overall budget framework the finance director's summary department operating budgets major to capital and street considerations and now the proposed fee schedule as staff is presented through these workshops the proposed budget is intended to preserve essential municipal services and maintain the workforce capacity currently needed to deliver those services, manage the capital projects, and advance the development opportunities that responds to the council priorities. At the same time, the proposed budget acknowledges that the city has not yet restored its structural operating balance. The recurring operating gap is approximately 1.5 million. When the proposed general fund supported capital projects and street maintenance commitments are included, that projected reduction of the general fund balance is approximately 4.7 million. The proposed reserve use is supporting both the operating transition and the streets and capital priorities that are represented in front of you. So staff's recommendation is that City Council consider this budget as a disciplined temporary stabilization strategy, again, as it preserves those core services and maintains our existing workforce. um and as we move towards um refining our position uh revenue including revenue diversification economic development expenditure controls cost recovery and operational efficiencies with that framing i would like to invite city council to discuss further discussion around these four buckets that you see on the screen first the overall philosophy of this budget i can go through these all at once and let you all discuss or i can go through individually but staff is is wanting to discuss whether is this, is there general council support for proceeding with the stabilization and recovery budget that prioritizes these core services, maintains the city's current filled workforce capacity, and continues that discipline restraint with these new discretionary agreements as shown? The second piece for discussion again is recognizing that this proposed budget relies on those reserves and the fund balance as a primary bridge during these transition periods. So is council comfortable with that approach for this upcoming fiscal year? Provided that the reserve use is treated as a limited and temporary and is monitored through the upcoming financial reporting. Third, with the proposed level of reserve use that we've discussed this evening, are there specific operating expenditures, general fund supported capital projects, street commitments, or other items that council would like staff to modify? prior to budget adoption. And then finally, as Council supportive of staff returning to the City Council beginning in October 26 with more detailed quarterly updates and movement on potential revenue generating methods for the City of Seaside. Those are kind of the real four questions after the entire budget has been presented for Council to kind of work through. And again, staff is happy to answer any questions.

Okay, thank you. Does any council member have any clarifying questions? Oh, yeah. Clarifying questions. Council Member Garcia.

Thank you. Are you asking us to sort of choose one of those policies?

No. These are just considerations that I think, again, because staff has presented this budget with those elements included, are there any things that are concerning with you to this point with reserving using, again, the reserves as shown in the budget that we've presented to you? Gotcha. Okay. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Yeah, I'm not sure this appropriate time to ask this question. But if we have hopes or thoughts or questions related to like the adjustment is now the time or is that time later?

Now is the time to discuss those or as early as we can in this process. Again, we do have some time to modify the budget before adoption. However, we think if there's any significant shifts that need to be discussed as a governing body, now's the time to do it.

You want mine now, Mayor? I have just two little suggestions.

No, no, hold on a second. Just give me 30 seconds. No, that's fine. That's fine. That's cool. If there's no more clarifying questions, We'll get to any adjustments to council members want to make. And then you need to begin to be clear what questions you want us to answer, because some people are not understanding. So. All right, we'll go into any suggested changes.

And initially, I'm fine with if you want to hear this, I'm fine with all three out of four adjustments. I just like to consideration the ten thousand i know a small amount of money the ten thousand dollars under the gateway sign uh to remove that and yeah i will suggest or the nic can suggest and there are money to put roll that into there if that's a possibility i'm just throwing it out as a what i want to say is that's a possibility i think that's the wrong way to do it okay i think you put the money in first

okay right that makes sense because you have to if you pull it out now there's no guarantee the council is going to support putting it in okay that's a good point thank you i just appreciate it when we when we put it in you can remind us remind him to take it out thank you and my other and i you know just hope uh is a consideration of um

entry-level position starting in January, February, March for the Parks Public Works operations stuff because of the shortage of staff and the increased workload, be it a 30-hour employee or a full-time.

What we won't do is try to see how to manage them. Right. So what are you trying to do? Entry-level position for public work operations. Does that make sense to the manager to try to?

Yes, we can run some financial impacts behind that.

And will you have a number?

Yes, we'll have a number of how that impacts the budget.

money and you know we'll help you but yeah exactly i'm just throwing out as a whole okay so those two things yeah anyone else have any suggestions of moving stuff around uh council no i didn't have any uh moving things around just overall comments this is appropriate time now um i i appreciate the manager's position on uh the uh the overall philosophy that we are in a stabilization recovery budget And I support the ideas moving forward here and a majority of the budget. But in the last two days, what I've seen is Really, the needs of our community are outweighed by our resources. And this city and the city council needs to figure out a way to have more resources coming into City Hall. And one way to do that is by what we talked about, our sales and our sales tax, our TOT tax. And this city does not have enough resources to support our community. We talk, we look at see Monterey, we look at different agencies and billions of dollars drive through highway one passing seaside and going into other communities, billions of dollars. And the city and the city council and the city management needs to figure out a way to capture some of that so that our general fund revenue and our accounts can meet the needs of our residents. To freeze 22 positions is tough on employees. And I feel for the employees that have a large workload and there has to be a way that this city, we can free up some of those positions. I know maybe now is not the right year, but in the future, we can't be saying in 27 and 28 and 29, that we're in a stabilization and recovery budget forever. So it might work today, it might work for this year, but there has to be a way to figure out ways that we can increase our general fund revenue. And one of the ways is looking at the downtown and making it a family-friendly place downtown where our taxes and money can be generated from that area. Also generating money from the car week, figure out a way to make it make sense, make money for our city. I think a city of our size and a city of our geographical location should be much greater than what we're looking at here. So although I'm disappointed by the numbers we're having to work with, this is what we have to work with. But I think we need to focus on what we can do to increase those numbers through economic development and spending money to make money. So those are my thoughts. I appreciate all of the department heads and our budgeting. And everybody's kind of tightened their belts. So we certainly appreciate that. But we are meeting. many of the standards, but I think we can do better. And in the future, I look forward to doing better. Thank you.

Anyone else? Council member Garcia Azula, you left when Mayor Pro Tem made his suggestions about moving a little bit of money around. Did you want to restate that in a sense so he has his own grasp about the possibilities? Thank you, Mayor.

just and then maybe we can have a closing comment like the city uh city councilman had after but my only two suggestion was um in the mirror correct me rightfully so uh was the ten thousand dollar uh gateway saying that maybe when we find out if the nic adds that or the council adds that we can save that ten thousand dollars from the general fund and the other uh area i would like to see an entry level at the half year point for the public works operations because they're way understaffed comparatively to the 70s and 80 and the workload is becoming much and now the workload will become even more so with the street improvements uh that they're going to do in-house versus outside the house for lack of a better word those are my two operational small tweaks i guess uh if you can you know hopefully can down the road consider that when you bring it back on the 18th

that's all and then maybe comment down the road yeah we'll have all close the comments here in a few minutes and what i just shared with him if the council decides to put in that 10 000 then the city manager can do something else with that money if that makes sense right so is there something you wanted to adjust and then we'll go to council member burks and then we'll have some closing comments on your reflections about the okay go ahead

So, my understanding is city manager gave us 4 questions and so for me, I do feel that the overall budget that was presented did focus on core services, workforce capacity and limited new discretionary commitments. I agree with that when it comes to the reserves. I also agree very limited. We know this isn't a long term solution, but yes, that this is the action we. unfortunately need to take um it's not just us it's our school districts all around the world right now our country right now are dealing with budgets um as far as possible adjustments I'm not sure there's very much to adjust. The only thing I heard was that the TOT had increased or had the potential of increasing. So that's the only place I could see potential, but I'm not sure what we would adjust. And then as far as the accountability, I also agree that us having these quarterly updates is definitely necessary. So based on the questions you asked the council.

Thank you.

Yes.

I have to agree with the quarterly updates. I think that's going to be imperative for us, not only for the Council to be abreast of what the trend might be, but also for accountability and transparency for the constituency. Reserve use, I'm comfortable with that, if and only if we are developing a plan, which it seems like we are, to stabilize which i we're using that word a lot this this year to stabilize our our budget and and i think there are some valid arguments as to how we can possibly yeah i'm hearing tot um i mean i'm hearing yeah yeah no no and whatever those ideas might be using i i feel comfortable with reserves and having quarterly updates no adjustments at that at this time i think we're running on a razor thin budget and any other cuts could be detrimental and could have trickling down effects but right now is a very very important time for us to sort of tighten our boots and steer ahead as far as much as we can

Anyone else want to close it out? Are you sure? Okay. I agree with what you laid out, City Manager. I think you did a heck of a job positioning us for the revenues that we have coming in, particularly the expenditures that we have going out. I think if you read the document, even in a cursory manner and listen over the last two days, you talked extensively about this is not an ongoing process that you see yourself recommending. This is your budget, what the money you have and what's going out. And it's a it's a disservice to the to the public to act as though you're not doing all you can to to balance the budget. We went into the reserves for a little bit amount of money. That's what those reserves were for. I guess I should have asked you before, because I think either you're not being clear, you're not saying enough. You're not forceful enough. Maybe it needs to be in writing. But I've heard you said several times about your economic plan coming forward. And so to continue to harp on that we're not thinking about that, we're not doing nothing about that, I don't understand where that comes from. Because that's outside of today, right? That's outside of today. There's no way you're talking about balancing this budget and we're saying why you haven't performed already. know why your stuff hasn't come already i guess i guess we can rush you you know but that's not what we chose to do we didn't tell you to have those things in plan uh before this budget and i don't know if even if they were in plan they would have an impact on the budget so i do look forward to the plan you have and could you speak on that just to close this this thing out about you know are you sitting back and you're not planning on increasing economic development because you know i want to take what everybody said and that's why i kind of stopped a couple people when they said hey we should do this we should do that okay say that stuff outside of this because this is the budget right here right and tell him what you think he should be doing uh in a council meeting outside of that so we all can weigh in on that but the last couple

opportunities you've been telling us stuff is coming so could you just articulate what you yeah so people could stop yeah absolutely and we talked a lot in the last two days about economic development being our strategy for the long-term recovery we have major projects but it's not just the campus towns the main gates the the grand hyatt seaside hotel and resorts it's the average it's the economic development along broadway it's it's throughout the community Over the last year, we have put in a lot of things in place to set that framework. We've augmented our staff with national recruitment advisors that know how to bring the contacts to our staff so we can execute on the ground. We've put in data, which is something that we've never really had internally to be able to provide that to external stakeholders and small businesses. But moving forward, we have our economic development policy is based on our general plan and it's based on our annual strategic plan. In the middle of that is an economic development action plan. It's the document that the council says this is a holistic approach to economic development as a community, and it's typically a five year action plan. So staff has taken the framework from the general plan and our strategic plan, combined that into a draft five year economic development action plan that has specifics. Join California Main Street. create a business incentive that takes care of the fees it has those things in place as draft so in that draft form right now that document has been uh prepared the next step for that will be taking it to the sea jobs commission for early review and then we're hopeful to get that to the to the city council uh by the fall uh for possible consideration and adoption and that really will help us move the needle on the economic development outside of our major projects we have in place

and and i would just conclude which is you know again i appreciate you providing this balanced budget for us to adopt a little bit later with the challenges but until until someone and i'm not picking anybody out right because we all can throw ideals out there but people you guys keep throwing ideals out there and then you ask him to make a plan on that one idea when he said he has a comprehensive comprehensive plan coming And I'm waiting on it. I won't say it took too long, but I would just end with this. Besides you're the city manager, you're a certified economic development specialist, whatever they call them nowadays. I'm waiting to follow that. I'm not gonna try to say I'm an engineer, so I know the best, but I'm waiting on that.

We're just excited to provide it, and I think it's new for this community. This community hasn't had a five-year strategic economic development action plan. So as an elected official or as a community member, this is a new process. And so staff's working through it, and we're hoping to get to the seed jobs very quickly.

All right. We will proceed to close here. Our next regular meeting is June 4, 2026, at 5 PM. Through the mayor. You were going to read it. Yes, yes, thank you so much.

Make a comment is that after this.

I'll open up for public comment and then you want to make a closing comment.

Yeah, that's just okay. Just to tie into what some people say.

Oh, okay. We'll open up for for public comment.

Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star nine if you're calling from a phone. Mayor, no member of the public has come forward.

Thank you. Seeing no one, hearing no one else, public comment. Sure, nobody's on the internet? Okay, I'm just checking. Just want to make sure. Public comment is closed. Starting from this end, is there any more closing comments?

uh councilman burks any more closing comments may i protest just hopefully briefly um when i thank all the staff for all the hard work you did i think that's uh commendable in their challenging financial times two i i really appreciate the idea of um not spending the money when you don't have it in the past years decades ago we did that and it took a long time to to get out of that system where we had to make drastic changes because we spent money before we didn't we had it uh thirdly and hopefully lastly is i think related to economic development i've been in city for decades and in my time with the city they had a project-based economic development but we've never had a economic based development project for the entire cities. So we were one step at a time and sometimes those steps never happened. So we never had a plan to move the city forward. So in your efforts to create an overall plan and with the AI equipment and tools and usage, uh that i don't understand but i know it helps uh as in one business in seaside used the information that you provided to him to change his uh business model so i know i know two businesses actually that use the ai equipment to improve and enhance their opportunities therefore they made more revenue so the overall plan of the overall city and some of the ideas that we've all recommended to improve the city combines for a larger effect, because we're talking about a vision versus a one plan movement. And I think that goes a long way in providing opportunities to get out of this, I don't want to say mess, but this mess that we're in to improve us for the poor. And we're still holding our services together across the table. So I think the overall economic plan, what we did tonight, and hopefully we'll do on the 18th, will make us better. That's all. Thank you.

So what I don't wanna leave is somehow Seaside is different from any other city in this state, in this nation. Everybody's facing the same thing, 30% tariffs, healthcare costs, employee costs, and we need to meet that. I wanna support and appreciate city manager by saying, let's not only just freeze people, those positions, but let's not lay anybody off. And so to sit up here and act as though, you know, you're just supposed to snap your finger and push back against all that's what's going on is for me is a little difficult. But I do appreciate the overall vision that he has. I'm going to support the city manager and this budget. Look forward to when is this coming back to 18th?

June 18th.

All right. No further comments. The meeting is adjourned.