City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, Vacaville. We're going to start with quick introductions, and thanks for joining us today to understand our budget, a little bit about Measure M, and then the path ahead. I'm Savita Chaudhry, your city manager.

Hi, I'm Chris Boland, the CLECIE. Hello, I'm Frank Drayden, the fire chief.

And I'm Georgianne Meagher-Smith, assistant city manager. So the way we're going to do today is we're going to take turns, talk about different materials, and then there will be a Q&A at the end. And we'll just make sure that everybody gets enough time to ask their questions. The meeting is recorded. It's not live telecast. The meeting recording will be posted on our website later on. There are also individuals who are joining us through Zoom. So we also want to give them opportunity to ask questions. So I'll pass it on to police chief to kick us off. Thank you.

Thank you, Savita. And good evening, Vacaville. I truly appreciate you allowing me to speak to you tonight to talk about something that's very important to our entire city, to all of you. And I want to speak to you on behalf of the police department and why it's important that we talk about this difficult topic together. Most of you may not be aware, but this is my home. This has been my home for, I'm 49 now, for 46 years. I've raised a family here. This city is so important to me. And the idea that I am your police chief, the support that you have given me, it's truly an honor to represent you and to stand in front of you today to talk about this. And through this process, there's a couple of things that I'm hoping to accomplish. One, that we build trust in this process together, that we can talk about it as a community, as leaders of the city, and we can have this engagement together. Two, this open communication that goes back and forth, not just at community meetings, not just on Zoom, but whether it's by emails or it's town halls, we just have to have this open communication together because we're gonna have to make a big decision as a city. And the last part of it is just to educate all of you when you decide what Vacaville looks like in the future. As your police chief, I just want you to know that we spend countless hours investing in this community to build trust with you. We do prevention efforts. We have outreach efforts, 75 to 100 of them a year. And of course, we also hold people accountable for their actions in this community. I hold that near and dear to me in reference to this idea of what safety is. Safety is not just crime stats, it is a feel. It is a feel when you drop your kids off at school. It is a feel when you go shopping in the outlets. It is a feel when you walk your dog in the park. My job as your police chief is to make sure that you can do that anytime and anywhere and feel safe doing it. We invest a lot into our public safety. We invest a lot into our police department to make sure that all of you have this sense of security. And tonight, we're gonna talk about a tax measure and to explain to you where the city is at, the cliff that's near, and we need to make a decision together as a community how we're going to bridge that gap. And I'm hopeful that you as this community can take this information in and look at this and see How can we make a difference together? How can this community come together? And how can we work through this problem together? Our city manager has prepared herself with all the information that you might need, and we're ready to take the questions after she is done, after fire chief is done, and after our assistant city manager is done. I just want to leave with this. Our mission at the police department is very simple. Our job is to improve your quality of life, period. Our goal is to pioneer policing so that we become one of the safest cities in California. I cannot do that alone. I cannot do that with just the men and women in our organization. I have to do it with all of you. I have to do it with you believing in what we're doing in the police department. We can do this together, but it is not cheap. So with your support, with your appreciation, and your continued investment to educate yourself in this process, I'm grateful to be your police chief. I'm here to answer any questions at the end that you might have in reference to the police department. So thank you very much. And next up is going to be our fire chief, Frank Drayton.

Welcome everybody. My name is Frank Drayton. I'm the fire chief of Vacaville. Vacaville for me has been my home away from home. I met my wife here in 1989. We've been together ever since. I retired in 2015. I was the fire chief then. A little bit of history. I retired, went back active duty in the military. I've been a reservist for a long time. Went back active duty for a few years and then went back into fire service until 2023. It is such an honor for me to be able to come back to the community that I've been involved in since 1989. To have the opportunity to come lead the men and women of this fire department is amazing. Our service is built on trust, it is built on integrity, and it is built on the commitment of our employees. And that means a lot to me. We respond to most people for emergency medicals, every type of emergency that you can think of, we are there to respond for. And we're there to respond to your worst days. When the community calls, we always respond. Vacaville is strong, it's united, and that's one of the reasons why I opted to come back for a short time. I'm here for about a year because this community is always there for The city and the city is always there for this community through rough times I I was here in the 2008 to 12 during the last downturn I had experienced that in between this city and the city and the city of Vacaville we worked hard to work through all the problems of that downturn and I'm sure we're going to be able to do that now. We want to be prepared. We want to also spend a lot of time to try to educate because our business is a little bit complicated because we respond to a lot of different emergencies. I also have a ambulance service as well. That's part of the city. So it gets a little bit complicated. So we want to take this time and Educate so people understand why we respond the way we respond and I want to have a open communication between You folks and my organization so we can help educate what we do and how how we do it We are exploring a one-cent sales tax. We want to explore that we want to try to educate the community we want to try to look at opportunities internally of how we can help minimize the things that we're doing so we can provide a better service but at the same class. For me being involved in public safety obviously want to provide and we want to protect public safety and the vital services of the city such as the roads the streets the parks everything it's a all encompass city. So we want to spend some time doing that, and we want to encourage community involvement. We need to have community involvement. We need to be able to educate the community, and we need to be able to answer questions and do what we can to help educate, educate, educate. And I just want to thank everybody for being here. It's a large group. I wasn't expecting this large of a group, but it's a good group. And again, I'm here. I'm going to leave my cards back here. If anybody wants to reach out and talk, I'll give them tours. I'll show them what we do. I'll help educate what we do. And that concludes my portion of this, and I'll pass it on to Georgianne.

THANKS, CHIEF. AND I REALLY WANT TO THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING HERE TONIGHT AND TAKING TIME OUT OF YOUR THURSDAY EVENING TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CITY'S BUDGET, CITY'S FINANCIAL SITUATION, AND ABOUT THAT POSSIBLE ONE CENT SALES TAX MEASURE. I ALSO WANT TO LET YOU KNOW THAT I HAVE BEEN A LONG-TERM RESIDENT OF VACAVILLE. I'VE BEEN HERE SINCE 1986 WHEN MY DAD RETIRED FROM THE AIR FORCE OUT AT TRAVIS. AND I'VE RAISED MY FAMILY HERE. I'M JUST REALLY PROUD AND HONORED TO SERVE AS YOUR ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER. Let's see, clicker's not working. Technical difficulties, just one sec. All right, back on track. So today's presentation is really about understanding the financial reality that Vacaville's facing, where we've been, where we are today, and why the city's carefully evaluating whether a new local sales tax measure may be needed for the November 2026 ballot. This is really an informational conversation. We want it to be grounded in facts, transparency, and local accountability. SO WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW? ON FEBRUARY 10TH, THE CITY COUNCIL RECEIVED A PRESENTATION OF THE VOTER SURVEY RESULTS REGARDING A POTENTIAL SALES TAX MEASURE AND DIRECTED STAFF TO MOVE FORWARD WITH PUBLIC EDUCATION AND OUTREACH, AND THAT'S WHY WE'RE HERE TONIGHT. THE CITY IS GATHERING INFORMATION And with community input, we'll decide how to move forward together. You may have seen that we published a questionnaire recently so that residents can share their feedback and their input on this important decision. If you haven't had a chance to do that yet, we really encourage you to do so. I think we've been handing out QR codes that have the access to the survey on there. AND WE'LL ALSO BE HAVING ADDITIONAL MEETINGS WITH THE COMMUNITY. WE'VE GOT TWO SCHEDULED IN EVERY DISTRICT ACROSS TOWN, AND WE'RE OPEN TO MEETING WITH OTHER GROUPS AND ORGANIZATIONS. SO JUST LET US KNOW IF THERE'S SOMEPLACE ELSE YOU WANT US TO COME AND TALK ABOUT THIS. THERE WILL ALSO BE FUTURE COUNCIL DISCUSSIONS ABOUT PLACING A MEASURE ON THE NOVEMBER BALLOT. AT THIS POINT, THERE ARE NO FINAL DECISIONS HAVE BEEN MADE. So why are we having this conversation? Why is it happening? We're having this conversation because Vacaville is facing a structural budget deficit, meaning the cost of providing basic services is growing faster than the revenue that the city receives. Even with Measure M in place, ongoing expenses continue to outpace revenue. Planning early, like we're doing right now, gives us more options and really avoids crisis-driven decision-making. Vacaville is a full-service city, which means that it provides services such as police and fire, emergency response, public works, parks and recreation services, housing, administration, and water and sewer. Some of those areas fall within the general fund, and some are enterprise funds, and we'll talk more about that. The city's budget is comprised of a number of different funds that you see on the screen. The general funds, special revenue funds, capital projects, internal service funds, and enterprise funds. Our focus for tonight's discussion is going to be on the general fund. The general fund is the city's, basically it's our chief operating fund. It's kind of like our main city checking account. IT'S SUPPORTED PRIMARILY THROUGH GENERAL TAX REVENUE LIKE PROPERTY TAX AND SALES TAX, AND IT PROVIDES FUNDING FOR A MAJORITY OF THE DEPARTMENTS LIKE PUBLIC SAFETY, PUBLIC WORKS, PARKS AND RECREATION, AND INTERNAL DEPARTMENTS LIKE HUMAN RESOURCES AND FINANCE. The city's total budget is $295 million and the general fund represents about 53% of that. The other 47% is assigned to other funds for specific projects and needs and cannot be reallocated to the general fund. Looking at the general fund breakdown, 10 city departments are funded through the general fund. The majority of the general fund, or 67%, does go to public safety, so police and fire. 10% of the general fund is for public works, which might seem low, but public works is also funded through special revenue funds, grants, lighting and landscape districts, developer fees, enterprise funds, and then some internal service funds as well. 7% of the general fund is parks and rec. AND THEN THE REMAINING 16% GOES FOR KIND OF CITY ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS, LIKE THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, THE CITY MANAGER'S OFFICE, FINANCE AND HR AND IT. WE DO ALSO HAVE THREE OTHER DEPARTMENTS, UTILITIES, HOUSING, AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, AND THOSE ARE FUNDED THROUGH ENTERPRISE OR SPECIAL REVENUE FUNDS. Here is a snapshot of the city's tax revenue, broken down by category. Property tax is $42.3 million, or 36% of the tax revenue. Sales tax, which includes both Bradley Burns and Measure M, is almost $49 million. And other taxes, which includes paramedic tax, franchise tax, and transient occupancy tax, or also known as hotel tax, is about 22%. As you saw in the previous slide, property tax is one of the largest general revenue sources that we have. And per Proposition 13, property tax is limited to 1% of the assessed value. You can see that property tax has been trending up slightly in the past few years. We get a lot of questions about property taxes and where they go. For every $1 of property tax paid in the city of Vacaville, the city gets 16 to 18 cents or percent. The remaining 82-ish percent goes to other agencies that you see on the screen. So schools, the county, community colleges, and libraries. So what does that look like in real terms? On a million dollar home, that 1% property tax per Prop 13 is $10,000. Of that $10,000, the city's only receiving 16 to 18% or 1,600 to $1,800. So looking at sales tax and measure in sales tax and we track them separately as you see with the golden blue bars on the graph. We are projecting to in the current fiscal year at about $49 million. You'll see that's about a $10 million reduction from last fiscal year. You'll see that spike in last fiscal year and that spike about $7 million of it was due to the one time sales tax revenue that came from Genentech selling to Lonza. So we won't get that revenue again. So for the fiscal year, the current fiscal year, 2526, the projection is to end the year at about $49 million, which is a reduction of almost $10 million from last year. The city's other tax category includes paramedic tax, franchise tax, and transient occupancy tax, which again is known as hotel tax. And these taxes are trending slightly upward, mainly due to the paramedic tax. A few more notes on other taxes. We are seeing a decrease in both real property transfer tax and transient occupancy tax. And compared to last year, you'll see there is a spike in last fiscal year. The county was experiencing, they have a new system they're having some trouble with, and so they were experiencing some challenges with a system that manages real property transfer tax. and that resulted in some delayed payments that we that hit all at one time last year which created that spike so without that one term one-time payment the real property transfer tax is a little bit flat through mid-year and i will turn it back over to the city manager now

Thank you, Georgian. Welcome, community. I am Savita Chaudhry, your city manager. I've been a resident of this city for about 23 years. I raised my family here as well, and I'm proud to be calling Vacaville my home. When we talk about sales tax, I always take a look at it from my perspective that it is going to impact my household too. So we will be going into some of those details today, how it will have impact on every single household, what the impact on your grocery receipts and some of those other challenges that will come and how we would address them. So we'll talk about structural budget deficit. So what is a structural budget deficit? A structural budget deficit is considered for a city when our ongoing expenditures are exceeding our revenues. They're not caused by a single year or an event. It happens gradually over time. It persists even when we do some efficiency measures. It will continue even when the economy is stable. The structural deficit still exists, and it requires long-term solutions. So what are some of the factors that are affecting all of the California cities? There's lots of state mandates that have shifted the cost to the cities where state will have a housing law or some other law would come where they would pass on the cost to the city. They will have these mandates, but there will be no funding or grants available for some of these mandates, which requires us to increase our expenditures. It also was resulted due to the loss of redevelopment funding, which happened many years ago. Again, there are lots of unfunded mandates and rising pension and benefit costs for the employees. So what are these inflation and cost pressures. Police, fire, EMS services, all of those costs are increasing for us. Asphalt, fuel, equipment, all those are getting more expensive. So one example I always give is with Valero closing, Valero provides almost 50% of asphalt to the Solano County. When it closes, our asphalt costs are even going to go higher. from where they are today. The construction and ongoing maintenance, the equipment is again increasing. The labor market competition is also increasing for us. So what is the impact of inflation? So the one sentence we can describe it as in, we're not buying more, we're just paying more for what we already have. So for example, a police car that used to be $60,000 in 2019, after COVID, the cost of the same car has gone up to 94,000. And that is without electrification. IF WE WERE TO DO ELECTRIFICATION MANDATES, WHICH WE'RE WORKING TOWARDS WHAT THAT WOULD LOOK LIKE FOR US, IT WOULD BE OVER $100,000. SAME THING WITH THE FIRE ENGINE. THE FIRE ENGINE THAT USED TO BE $700,000 IS ALMOST $1.2 MILLION. AS I MENTIONED, THE ASPHALT COST AND THE CONCRETE COST ARE ALSO GOING, AND THEN THEY HAVE AN IMPACT ON OUR ROAD AND INFRASTRUCTURE. AND ALL OF THESE SLIDES WILL BE AVAILABLE ONLINE, AS WELL AS THE RECORDING OF THE MEETING. SO THE NEXT QUESTION IS WHAT THE CITY HAS ALREADY DONE TO ADDRESS SOME OF THIS DEFICIT. SO WE WORKED WITH ALL THE DEPARTMENTS. WE HAVE REDUCED OUR BUDGET BY 2.5% ACROSS ALL THE DEPARTMENTS, RESULTED IN REDUCING OUR EXPENDITURES FOR SERVICES AND SUPPLIES, A LOT OF TRAININGS AND OTHER AREAS WHEREVER THE CITY COULD FIND FUNDING TO BE REDUCED. OVERALL BUDGET REDUCTION BECAUSE OF THAT 2.5% RESULTED IN $9.2 MILLION SAVINGS FOR THE CITY. GENERAL FUND REDUCTION OUT OF THAT $9.2 MILLION WAS ABOUT $8 MILLION. WE ALSO IMPLEMENTED HIRING FREEZES AND POSITION REDUCTIONS. WHAT THAT MEANS IS THE THREE FROZEN POSITIONS ARE NOT EVEN COUNTED IN OUR BUDGET BOOKS. THE 22 DELAYED POSITION ARE STILL THERE. THEY'RE IN THE BUDGET BOOKS, BUT WE'RE USING THAT FUNDING TOWARDS BALANCING OUR BUDGET. SOME OF THE THINGS YOU WOULD ALSO HEAR ABOUT THE DELAYED POSITION IS, FOR EXAMPLE, NEXT WEEK, WE'RE GOING TO TAKE AN ITEM TO THE CITY COUNCIL TO RESTORE SIX OUT OF THESE 22 DELAYED POSITIONS, BECAUSE AFTER GETTING THESE POSITIONS DELAYED FOR OVER A YEAR, WE IDENTIFIED THAT THE SIX FIREFIGHTER POSITIONS THAT WERE DELAYED FOR HIRING ACTUALLY RESULTED IN $1.5 MILLION WORTH OF OVERTIME. SO IS IT REALLY WORTH MAKING THOSE POSITIONS TO BE DELAYED, SO WE'RE CONSTANTLY EVALUATING ALL OF THOSE THINGS. AND THEN WE'LL LOOK AT OTHER POSITIONS AS WELL. OKAY, IF WE HAVE TO RESTORE THESE, THEN ARE THERE OTHER POSITIONS THAT WE CAN DELAY? WE HAVE ALSO DEFERRED MAINTENANCE ON SOME OF OUR ROADS AND STREETS PROJECT, AS WELL AS, AS GEORGIAN MENTIONED, WE RECEIVED ONE-TIME $7 MILLION FROM THE SALE OF GINANTEC TO LANZA, SO THAT WAS ALSO USED FOR BALANCING OUR BUDGET. SO WHAT DOES OUR FORECAST LOOK LIKE WITH OR WITHOUT SAVINGS? SO THE GREEN BAR REPRESENTS OUR REVENUES. THE YELLOW, THE EXPENDITURES. SO AS YOU CAN SEE OVER THE YEARS, OUR EXPENDITURES ARE EXCEEDING OUR REVENUES. PROJECTED RESERVE, IF WE CONTINUE WITH THE COST SAVINGS, OUR GENERAL FUND RESERVE WILL STILL BE IN THE GENERAL FUND RESERVE POLICY LIMITS OF 18% BY END OF THE NEXT FISCAL YEAR. OUR GENERAL FUND RESERVE RANGES 16 TO 25%. SO YOU CAN SEE IT WILL BE GOING VERY CLOSE TOWARDS THE LOWER END. AND THEN IF WE WERE NOT TO DO THE COST SAVINGS, THE ONES I TALKED ABOUT, THE $9.2 MILLION, THEN OUR GENERAL FUND RESERVE WILL EVEN GO DOWN FURTHER TO ABOUT 14%, AND AT THAT TIME WE GO BELOW OUR RANGE. So putting that graph into the numbers, as you can see with the cost savings, our reserves will be down to 18% next fiscal year, but by 2030, we're down to 2% reserves. If we do not do the cost savings and we, for some reason, have to reinstate some of those measures that we have pushed towards the cost savings, then you can see in fiscal year 27, we would be down to 14% below our cost savings. RESERVE POLICY LIMITS. IN FISCAL YEAR 29, WE'LL BE OUT OF THE FUNDING. ONE OF THE THINGS I ALSO WANT TO MENTION HERE, SOME OF THESE GRAPHS AND CHARTS, THEY DO NOT INCLUDE ANY NEW MANDATES THAT WILL BE PUSHED BY THE STATE. THEY DO NOT INCLUDE OUR UNFUNDED OR UNDERFUNDED NEEDS. WE HAD A CITY COUNCIL RETREAT BACK IN JANUARY, AND ACROSS ALL OF THE CITY DEPARTMENTS WE HAVE OVER $400,000 OF UNFUNDED NEEDS OR UNDERFUNDED NEEDS, NOT SORRY, $400,000, $400 MILLION AND ALSO $300 MILLION WORTH OF ABOUT LIABILITY TOWARDS OUR RETIREMENT. SO TOTAL FOR THE CITY, WE HAVE $737 MILLION OF EITHER LIABILITY TOWARDS RETIREMENT OR OUR UNFUNDED OR UNDERFUNDED NEEDS, WHICH IS ON TOP OF THE NUMBERS THAT I'M PRESENTING TODAY. FISCAL YEAR 29, OUR POLICE AND FIRE RADIO SYSTEM WILL ALSO BE DUE FOR REPLACEMENT, AND THAT NUMBER IS NOT INCLUDED HERE BECAUSE SOLANO COUNTY IS STILL WORKING. WE DON'T HAVE THAT NUMBER AVAILABLE TO US, BUT APPROXIMATELY IT WILL COST US ABOUT $3 MILLION. SO IF WE WERE TO SET MONEY ASIDE FOR THAT, THEN IN FISCAL YEAR 28, OUR RESERVE WILL BE DOWN TO $2 MILLION. So our forecast summary, again, this is just a summary. Our gap, we have reduced to $9.2 million, out of which the $8 million goes towards the general fund. Overall, if we do it without the cost savings, it's a $13 million budget deficit. Our projected revenue at the end of the next fiscal year is 27% with the cost savings. Sorry, at the end of this fiscal year is 27%, and it will be 18% with cost savings by end of next fiscal year. THERE IS NO UNUSED MONEY. WE GET A LOT OF QUESTIONS ASKED, IS THERE ANYTHING THAT'S AVAILABLE? SO AS GEORGIAN MENTIONED, THERE'S A LOT OF FUNDS THAT WE HAVE THAT CANNOT BE REALLOCATED TOWARDS GENERAL FUND, WHICH ARE EITHER ENTERPRISE OR SPECIAL FUNDS OR WE GET A LOT OF GRANT FUNDING. ON AN AVERAGE, THE CITY ALSO WORKS VERY HARD TO APPLY FOR GRANTS WHEREVER WE CAN TO DO SOME OF THESE PROJECTS. FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS, ON AN AVERAGE, WE HAVE RECEIVED $42 MILLION IN GRANT FUNDING FOR THE CITY. WE HAVE LIMITED DISCRETIONARY SPENDING AVAILABLE RIGHT NOW ACROSS THE DEPARTMENTS. MOST OF THE FUNDS BEYOND GENERAL FUND ARE RESTRICTED AND NOW IF WE HAVE TO GO INTO CUTS, THEN THEY WILL START IMPACTING OUR CORE SERVICES. So why is this conversation happening today? So with this, I'll pass it on to Georgian to talk a little bit about we have currently a Measure M and how we're spending funds for the Measure M. Thanks.

Thanks, Evita. So Measure M has been a critical part of Vacaville's financial stability. It was first approved by voters in 2012 during the aftermath of the Great Recession and then was reaffirmed in 2016. Measure M was proposed to stabilize city services during a time when revenues were unstable and costs were rising. It was about protecting public safety and other essential services. So what does Measure M fund today? Measure M supports a wide range of general city services that residents rely on every day. These funds help maintain public safety response times, infrastructure, and neighborhood services. There's a ton of information on our city website on the Measure M webpage. The URL is on the screen above. If you haven't checked it out, I really encourage you to do so. You can see kind of all the details, all the projects, all the services it funds. Measure M also supports staffing across several departments. 28 positions are funded through Measure M, including six firefighters and firefighter paramedics, 13 police department staff, including officers, a captain, and PAL staff, public works, parks and recreation, and a few other positions are also funded through Measure M for an annual cost of approximately $7.2 million. Measure M also supports ongoing programs like vehicle and equipment replacement, street maintenance, the family resource center, and homeless remediation. It also funds youth scholarships and neighborhood cleanups. Additionally, Measure M funds have been set aside for projects including the Rancho Lagunitas detention basin, which is designed to reduce the risk of flooding here in town, the downtown specific plan, park improvement, and the potential Allison housing project. So to give you a summary of Measure M last fiscal year, revenues were $26.2 million and expenses were $19.7 million. The balance of $6.5 million in Measure M funds was needed to balance the general fund. This year, the general fund has a projected deficit of $9 million, I think Savita mentioned that, with the cost savings, and $13 million without cost savings. SO LOOKING AT MEASURE M AND ACCOUNTABILITY. A KEY FEATURE OF MEASURE M IS ACCOUNTABILITY. THE MEASURE INCLUDES TRANSPARENCY REQUIREMENTS THAT ENSURE FUNDS ARE SPENT AS PROMISED AND REMAIN UNDER LOCAL CONTROL. I KNOW THAT WE'VE GOTTEN SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT FINANCIAL AUDITS AND THE CITY DOES HAVE INDEPENDENT AUDITS DONE EVERY YEAR. OUR FINANCE TEAM HAS ALSO RECEIVED THE DISTINGUISHED BUDGET PRESENTATION AWARD FROM THE GOVERNMENT FINANCE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION AND WE ALSO HAVE A FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY TRANSPARENCY PORTAL AVAILABLE THROUGH THE CITY'S WEBSITE WHERE YOU CAN SEE ALL THE REVENUES COMING INTO THE CITY AND WHERE ALL THE EXPENSES ARE. YOU CAN EVEN DRILL DOWN TO FIND INVOICES BY VENDOR SO YOU CAN GET A LOT OF REALLY DETAILED INFORMATION THERE. AGAIN, IF YOU HAVEN'T CHECKED THAT OUT, IT'S A GREAT WAY TO LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR BUDGET. Measure M has been used responsibly and effectively. However, it does not fully close the long-term gap between revenues and expenses. The gap continues to grow over time. I'm going to hand it back over to our city manager who will take over the rest of the presentation.

Thanks, Georgian. So some of the next steps we're going to talk about today is what are we planning early so we can avoid the deeper cuts later? Why doing nothing is risky? So as we mentioned, we have used the reserves to balance our budget. We're using one-time funds, like from the sale of Genentech to Lonza. One-time funds don't occur every year. We don't get $7 million in one-time funds every year. Again, the reserves are finite, and our service levels are going to start declining over time if we're not able to balance our budget, as well as we'll have to take some strict emergency decisions at a later date. So what is at risk without action? Police staffing and patrol levels will start to go down, fire station availability, the response times would be impacted, as well as the street maintenance and road repair funds would be impacted. Public safety, protecting what we have. So currently our police and fire department have response times that they try to meet to respond to our community needs when in emergency situations. If we do not have enough budget or we're not able to hire more officers and various factors, then our response times will get impacted. Our fire and ambulance readiness will be impacted because we're having challenges with refilling OR BACKFILLING THE BUDGET FOR OUR FLEET MAINTENANCE AND VEHICLES, AS WELL AS DISASTER PREPAREDNESS AND NEIGHBORHOOD SAFETY-RELATED ACTIVITIES. STREETS AND ROADS, WE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT PAVEMENT CONDITION. YOU'LL SEE IN FUTURE SLIDES. THE PAVEMENT CONDITION WILL START DECLINING IF WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH MAINTENANCE DOLLARS AVAILABLE, AS WELL AS THERE WILL BE LONG-TERM DELAYS WITH THE IMPACTS TO THE COST. THE MEASUREM HELPS, BUT IT DOES NOT COVER THE GAP COMPLETELY. FROM THE COMMUNITY, WE ALSO HEARD WHAT HAVE WE DONE SO FAR TO IMPACT OUR ROADS AND STREETS. SO AS YOU CAN SEE WITH THE MEASUREM HELP, WE HAVE INVESTED QUITE A BIT IN THE LAST FEW YEARS TO IMPROVE OUR ROADS AND STREETS. THE TOP YELLOW LINE IS WHAT VACAVILLE REPRESENTS. WE ARE AT 73. BEYOND 80, YOU'RE CONSIDERED EXCELLENT LEVEL FOR YOUR STREETS. AND YOU CAN SEE WE HAVE THE BEST ROADS ACCORDING TO THE PAVEMENT CONDITION INDEX IN ALL OF THE SALONA COUNTY. So why is the city studying new sales tax? Well, the sales tax is not charged on grocery and medical supplies. It does not impact every household like the property tax does or some of the other taxes. Sales tax is spread out broadly. 22% of our sales tax comes from outside of the commuters, the visitors, the people who come and shop in Vacaville, and that is unique to Vacaville, which the remaining cities in Solano County cannot claim that. So our outlets in Nutry, all those areas, do bring 22% sales tax outside of the Vacaville. And also with any sales tax, we have local control. So we'll give some examples. So we did an example just with the Nugget Market. It will apply to any other grocery store. So if you were to go and buy grocery items like bread, egg, you know, the state, if you go to the state website, there's like a long list of which are considered grocery items. The basic grocery, you will see a zero dollar increase or zero cent increase in your tax bill. because it is not charged there. But if you start adding carbonated water, soda, or ready-made meals, that's when your grocery bill starts impacting. What if you're not buying groceries or medical bills? You know, we all go to the Nike store, we buy shoes, t-shirts, you know, we come out with a $200 bill. In that scenario, if we were to go up by one cent, then your tax bill or the difference in your receipt would be about $2.24. So what have we studied around the sales tax so far? So as you can see across the Solano County, we have the lowest sales tax at 8.125%. We are looking at going one cent, which will put us at 9.125. In 2024, FOUR OF THE SEVEN SOLANO COUNTY CITIES ALREADY INCREASED THEIR TAXES. SO DIXON WENT FROM 7.3 TO 8.375. SUSUN CITY ALSO WENT UP BY 1%, RIO VISTA AS WELL AS BENICIA. IN THE LAST TWO YEARS, I BELIEVE BENICIA HAS GONE THROUGH SIX DIFFERENT TAX MEASURES TO BALANCE THEIR BUDGET BECAUSE OF THE CHALLENGES THEY ARE FACING. One of the other things that happened when Benicia was facing all the challenges with the upcoming Valero closeout, they worked with Assemblywoman Wilson to increase the bar for the Solano County to 9.75%. The regular bar for Solano County is 9.2%. With that, Benicia was able to increase their sales tax to 9.625, which helped them with their financial situation. But that bar is only applicable through January 1st, 2029, and then it will slide down back to 9.25, which is the standard sales tax rate for Solano County, or the cap for the Solano County. So even if we go up by 1%, 9.125, we're still below that cap, and right now, AS I UNDERSTAND BOTH VACAVILLE AND FAIRFIELD ARE LOOKING AT GOING WITH THE ONE CENT SALES TAX. SO AS YOU CAN SEE FAIRFIELD WILL BE GOING FROM 8.375 TO 9.3 AND WE'RE LOOKING AT ABOUT 9.125. ONE OF THE OTHER THINGS I ALSO WANT TO TALK ON THIS SLIDE IS YOU KNOW WE OFTEN HEAR WELL, YOUR GAP IS 13 MILLION. WHY DON'T YOU GO HALF CENT VERSUS ONE CENT? SO THE CHALLENGE WITH THAT IS EACH ONE-FOURTH CENT WILL BRING US APPROXIMATELY $7 MILLION. SO AT HALF A CENT, IT PUTS IT AT 14 MILLION. SO WITH 14 MILLION, WE'LL BALANCE OUR BUDGET, AND WE WILL BE BACK IN THE SAME SITUATION BECAUSE THE EXPENDITURES ARE GOING TO CONTINUE TO GROW. So with one cent, it does give us that additional 14 million that we can apply towards the projects and staffing and other needs. In addition to that, I also want to point out that with the sales tax, one of the common questions we get is, how are you planning to spend it? SO WHEN WE DID OUR CITY COUNCIL STRATEGIC PLANNING EFFORT, ALSO THE CITYWIDE STRATEGIC PLAN, WE DID SURVEYS, WE DID FOCUS GROUPS, AND WE COLLECTED INFORMATION. WE HAD LIKE FLIP CHARTS ALL OVER THE ROOMS AND WE HAD COMMUNITY MEMBERS PARTICIPATE AND PROVIDE US WE WANT TO INVEST IN INFRASTRUCTURE OR COMMUNITY PROGRAMS OR INTERNAL SERVICE FUNDS TO IMPROVE OUR PUBLIC SAFETY LIKE RADIO SYSTEM UPGRADE AND THOSE THINGS WE CAPTURED ALL OF THAT DATA EVERYBODY WANTS APPROXIMATELY 35 OF WHATEVER THAT GAP IS TO GO TOWARDS INFRASTRUCTURE AND THESE ARE HYPOTHETICAL NUMBERS WE'LL BE PRESENTING ALL OF THESE NUMBERS TO THE COUNCIL WE'RE CAPTURING ALL OF THIS DATA WE DID SIMILAR EXERCISE WITH OUR CITY COUNCIL THE NUMBERS WERE VERY CLOSE. SO SOMETIME IN MID APRIL WE'LL BRING BACK A GENERAL FUND RESERVE POLICY TO THE CITY COUNCIL, WHICH WILL SAY IF THE SALES TAX PASSES AND WE BALANCE OUR BUDGET WITH THE FIRST HALF A CENT, HOW DO WE PLAN TO SPEND THE NEXT HALF A CENT? AND IT WILL CATEGORIZE INTO INFRASTRUCTURE, INTERNAL SERVICE FUNDS, COMMUNITY PROGRAMS, AND ALL OF THAT DATA WILL BE AVAILABLE TO ALL OF YOU AS PART OF THE STAFF REPORT. IN ADDITION TO ALL OF THIS, WE ALSO CONDUCTED AN ASSESSMENT WITH ONE OF THE ECONOMISTS, VERY WELL KNOWN IN THE AREA, DR. ROBERT EILER, AND HE LOOKED AT THE AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD SIZE, THE NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLDS IN THE CITY OF VACAVILLE, AND DID AN ASSESSMENT BASED ON THAT 22% SALES TAX COMES FROM OUTSIDE OF VACAVILLE. SO WHAT WOULD THAT MEAN FOR OUR RESIDENTS? FOR AN AVERAGE FAMILY OF FOUR, IT WOULD IMPACT ABOUT $1.50 PER DAY PER HOUSEHOLD, WHICH RESULTS INTO ABOUT AN IMPACT OF $500 TO $600 ON AN ANNUAL BASIS PER HOUSEHOLD. SOME OF THE ADDITIONAL THINGS I WANT TO POINT OUT HERE IS, FOR EXAMPLE, AT THE LAST CYCLE, SOLANO COUNTY WAS LOOKING AT DOING LIKE A 25 cent sales tax or a general tax for firefighters or other things. ABAG, Association of Bay Area Government, was also looking at certain taxes. Metropolitan Transportation Commission was also looking at transportation tax. When those taxes come, so for example, MTC, if they were to put a sales tax on the ballot measure, it will eat into our percentage. SO THE COMPLETE VACAVILLE, EVERY SINGLE HOUSEHOLD CAN VOTE NO ON THAT MEASURE, BUT IF THE OTHER EIGHT BAY AREA COUNTIES, THEY VOTE YES AND THE MEASURE PASSES, THEY WILL STILL EAT INTO OUR GAP FROM 8.15 TO THE 9.2. SO YOU WILL END UP PAYING THAT TAX IN SOME FORM OR THE OTHER. SO THE ADVANTAGE OF THE SALES TAX, IF WE WERE TO DO IT FOR OUR OWN CITY IS, AS YOU CAN SEE, IF WE GO AND PASS THIS ADDITIONAL 1% TAX, IT WOULD STAY LOCAL. IT WOULD STAY WITH CITY OF VACAVILLE. WE CANNOT PREDICT AT THIS TIME WHAT OTHER MEASURES WOULD BE PUT ON. FOR EXAMPLE, THERE WAS A BILLION-DOLLAR HOUSING BOND IN 2024, WHICH WAS PULLED BACK AT THE LAST MINUTE. SO APPROXIMATELY AROUND JULY TIMEFRAME, WE WOULD KNOW WHAT OTHER BALLOT MEASURES WOULD BE PUT FROM OTHER AGENCIES. WE DO HAVE CONFIRMATION THAT MTC IS PUTTING THEIR BALLOT MEASURE. in 2024 it was going to be for all of the nine bay area counties but in 2026 they have actually pulled solano county out of it so as of today solano county is not part of that mtc tax that would be placed but things can change and again those are the kind of things which will also impact our percentage SO WHEN YOU SPEND $100, YOU SPEND ABOUT $8.13 TODAY IN THE SALES TAX, OUT OF WHICH THE CITY ONLY GETS 1.75. SO $1 IS WHAT IS WE, IN THE GOVERNMENT WORLD, IT'S CALLED BRADLEY BURNS. IT GOES, ALL THE SALES TAX GOES TO THE STATE, THEN THEY DISTRIBUTE IT TO THE COUNTIES. THE COUNTY WOULD SAY, CITY OF ACAVILLE, HERE'S YOUR $1 OUT OF THE $8.13. THE ADDITIONAL 75 CENTS IS THE THREE-FOURTH CENT TAX MEASURE THAT OUR VOTERS, THAT OUR COMMUNITY PASSED AS MEASURE M. SO WE GET COMPLETE 100% OF THOSE FUNDINGS BACK TO CITY OF VACAVILLE. SIMILARLY, IF WE WERE TO PASS THIS 1% TAX, THE FULL DOLLAR WILL COME TO CITY OF VACAVILLE WHERE WE WOULD HAVE LOCAL CONTROL. OUR CITY COUNCIL WILL GET TO DECIDE. THE COMMUNITY WILL GET TO SET THE PRIORITIES. WE WOULD HAVE INDEPENDENT AUDITS FOR THAT MEASURE AS WELL. ANOTHER QUESTION WE GET IS, WHY DON'T YOU DO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT? SO WE DID SOME RESEARCH FROM, YOU KNOW, A DATA GATHERING. SO ON AN AVERAGE, A RESTAURANT GENERATES ABOUT $8,000 TO $20,000 IN REVENUE AND A GAS STATION ABOUT $50,000 TO $75,000. SO TO COVER OUR $9 OR $13 MILLION GAP, WE WOULD NEED ABOUT 100 GAS STATIONS AND 300 RESTAURANTS IN THE CITY. THAT IS NOT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE. WE DON'T HAVE THAT AMOUNT OF EVEN REAL ESTATE AVAILABLE HERE. yes in addition to this this does not occur over time but we're also beyond gas stations and restaurants looking at different companies the city just city council at the last council meeting also approved for us to go start looking beyond biotech and how we can expand our economic development strategy biotech is wonderful but it takes a long time So now we're gonna start looking at advanced manufacturing, defense industry, food and agriculture, since we're right next to Davis, and how do we retain and sustain our small businesses. So we have hired a local company to work with us on that, and in about next six months, we should have our new economic development strategy available to the community. SO WHAT DOES LOCAL CONTROL MEANS? THE LOCAL CONTROL MEANS THE FUNDS WILL STAY IN VACAVILLE. STATE CANNOT TAKE THAT MONEY. IT WILL, LIKE AGAIN I SAID, THE FULL DOLLAR WILL STAY WITH CITY OF VACAVILLE. CITY COUNCIL GETS TO SET THE PRIORITIES. AND WITH THIS MEASURE, WE WOULD ALSO HAVE A CITIZEN OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE, WHICH MANY CITIES ACROSS OUR COUNTY HAVE. SO THE ROLE OF THE CITIZEN OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE IS THEY WORK WITH THE CITY STAFF, THE FINANCE DEPARTMENT. THEY EVALUATE IS THE MONEY BEING SPENT HOW WE PROMISE TO THE VOTERS. THEY PROVIDE QUARTERLY UPDATES. IF WE SAID WE'RE GOING TO BUILD A FIRE STATION, THEN THEY'LL VISIT US TO THE FIRE STATION AND CONFIRM FIRE STATION WAS ACTUALLY BUILT. SO ON A QUARTERLY BASIS, THEY DO THAT. AND THEN ON AN ANNUAL BASIS, THEY WILL PROVIDE A FULL REPORT. AND ALL OF THESE REPORTS WILL BE AVAILABLE TO THE COMMUNITY AS WELL AS REPORTED TO THE CITY COUNCIL. So what is the estimated annual additional revenue? So we did some sort of math about 1% increase. So we did add about 2% to 3% escalator into this. So we would start with about $28 million. And as you can see, then we would be able to generate additional revenue over the next years. It would help us with, as our expenditures grow, that the revenue coming in would be able to balance it out. So what does this new measure does not include? It is not a property tax. It is not applied to gross resource prescriptions. It is not automatic, and it will require voter approval. So why does this planning matter? We are going through all of the organizations. If you have community organizations, HOAs, VNAs, Vacaville Neighborhood Associations, or if you know that have you reached out to this particular organization that could help us in spreading the message, we welcome all input and feedback and we will be available to communicate. We want the community to make data-driven decision-making. That's why we have launched our financial transparency portal. We're sharing all of this information with all of you. We want to avoid rushed choices, so we're taking the time between now and May to educate and inform our community. And full transparency, if you have questions, you know, we're completing a FAQ. Soon we would be launching a website. We're calling it Choosing a Path, and I'll be going into a little bit detail about that. So you will have all of this data available there, so you as a voter have a choice to make based on the data-driven decisions. So what will be the role of the voters? You will decide if this is something you would like to support or oppose. City's job is to provide you all the factual information. We will have a full transparent portal and a process. And again, at the end of the day, this is a community choice. FOR OUR CONTINUED ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THE CITY, WE DO HAVE A COMMITMENT FROM OUR CITY COUNCIL AND OUR CITY STAFF THAT WE WILL HAVE A CITIZEN'S OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE. WE WILL PROVIDE INDEPENDENT ANNUAL AUDITS LIKE WE DO EVEN NOW. WE HAVE THE PUBLIC REPORTING AVAILABLE AS WELL AS CLEAR SPENDING PRIORITIES THAT WE WILL RECEIVE THE DIRECTION FROM THE COMMUNITY AND THE CITY COUNCIL. Again, we're trying to plan ahead of time so we can protect versus react. This planning would help us prevent deeper cuts in future. It will provide us the stability to provide and support the quality of life for our citizens, as well as early action will help us preserve some of the options. If this does not pass, this also gives us time to plan for what kind of reductions are we looking at, what kind of services we would have to cut if this does not pass. and there will be more information coming on that as well. So what residents have said matters the most, again, we did the surveys, we did the focus groups with the community, and these were the four priorities that we received from our community members, public safety, roads and infrastructure, quality of life, and responsible finances. Back of this track record, so as Georgian mentioned earlier, the funds were spent as promised with Measure M. The voter approved measures were honored. We are trying to do long-term planning as well as we're trying to develop both short-term as well as long-term fiscal sustainability plan using our general fund reserve policy, identifying and we are embarking upon a new plan FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN, WHICH WILL BE THE DRAFT WILL BE PRESENTED TO COUNCIL ON APRIL 14TH. OUR CURRENT STRATEGIC PLAN IS COMING TO AN END ON JUNE. SO THE GOAL IS TO PRESENT A DRAFT AND THEN ALIGN IT WITH THE RESOURCES AND BUDGET. SO WHEN IN JULY IT'S ADOPTED, THEN WE CAN START TRACKING THOSE INITIATIVES THAT OUR COUNCIL REQUESTS AS SAF MEMBERS FOR US TO IMPLEMENT. AGAIN, THE CHOICES AHEAD OF US ARE MAINTAIN THE CURRENT SERVICE LEVELS, REDUCE THE SERVICES OVER TIME, AND AGAIN, IT IS A COMMUNITY DECISION. SO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? WE WILL CONTINUE THIS COMMUNITY OUTREACH FOR NEXT FEW MONTHS. WE WILL HAVE ADDITIONAL SURVEYS AND PUBLIC MEETINGS. IT WILL BE A COUNCIL DECISION WHICH WILL BE TAKEN TO COUNCIL AROUND END OF MAY OR BEGINNING OF JUNE FOR THEM TO DECIDE IF THEY WANT TO AGREE TO PUT THE BALLOT ON THE MEASURE. Sorry, the measure on the ballot. And then no decisions have been made yet. All of this will be, again, a transparent process. So the key takeaways. Measure M is critical, but it's not enough. Structural deficit is real. Public safety and roads will be at risk. And planning early will help us protect our community and city of Vacaville. So we do want you to be involved and informed. So there are some of the links. The website that I mentioned, we just launched it. It should be available starting today. It's called cityofbacaville.gov slash choosing a path. All of the stuff, all of the meetings that we have completed as of today, the focus groups, a lot of data is available there. It has links to the financial transparency portal. We also have a questionnaire that's out there in the form of a, you know, like sort of a survey. It's quick questions. So please go and take the time and complete the survey so we understand what are your priorities and what are the things you want us to look into. And also, if you want to subscribe to emails on further updates on this topic, there's a QR code and there's a little sheet up front that you can take with you with all of this information available. Some of the upcoming community meetings, if you have family and friends who would like to get engaged in more information, we already have two meetings planned for each of the district across the city. And these, I know it's a little bit smaller font, but this information will be published on the website and we will be doing like a social media release on the dates. And with that, I would close the presentation. Thank you for being informed and engaged and open for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I took the survey. The survey, I really didn't care for it. It was akin to knowing that you have enough money. If you did not have enough money, which of your two children would you starve? It's a terrible survey. I took it. I'm going to address a couple of things that I've seen the city of Vacaville has changed. We have outstanding public safety. I want to keep it that way. But I've seen a few things. Just before I retired from the city of Vacaville, a friend of mine who was the union secretary as an avowed Marxist communist, that's his words, came to me and said, I can't believe the city signed this contract. And here's why. AND THE CITY NEEDS TO MAKE AN ORDINANCE NOT TO EVER DO THIS AGAIN. THEY SIGNED A FIVE-YEAR BETTER THAN CONTRACT. AND FOR THOSE WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS, A BETTER THAN CONTRACT IS VACAVILLE WILL ALWAYS GET 2% MORE THAN THE FIVE CITIES IN OUR SURVEY CITIES. SO IT INCLUDED NAPA, RICHMOND, FAIRFIELD. I'M LEAVING OUT ONE. So what happened is two of the other departments signed five-year better-than contracts. So Vacaville got a 2% raise. That meant Napa had to get a 4%, which meant Fairfield had to get a 6%, which meant Vacaville had to get an additional 4%. You see, and this went on for five years. WELL, AS AN EMPLOYEE, I'M LIKE, YEAH, WHOO, WHOO-PEE-DOO, BUT THIS IS INSANE. WE'RE GOING TO KILL THE CITY. AND IT PRETTY MUCH DID, BECAUSE THE CITY STARTED HAVING A LOT OF FINANCIAL TROUBLES. UP TO THAT POINT, WE WERE FLUSH. ONE OF THE OTHER PROBLEMS, I SAID, WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT? AT THAT TIME, THE CITY HAD WHAT WE CALL A ME-TOO CLAUSE, AND WHAT THAT MEANT WAS MANAGEMENT HAD A ME-TOO. SO IF THE UNION GOT A RAISE OF 2%, MANAGEMENT GOT A 2.5% RAISE. SO THE MANAGEMENT ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT WHEN THE WORKER BEES GOT THEIR RAISE. HOPEFULLY THAT'S GONE AWAY. I DON'T KNOW. THE OTHER THING THAT WE WERE DOING, AND THIS IS JUST BEFORE WE WENT TO 3% AT 50, WHICH 2% AT 50, I WAS LIKE, WOW, THIS IS FANTASTIC. Fell off my train, you guys would be very glad. The pension system, we paid in for our pensions. And when I first started, we paid the equivalent of our social security contribution, which was like 7.15%. We were invested in our own pension. I'm gonna read you one person's pension from 2024 with two cost of living increases, and I'll give you that number too. JUST ONE PERSON, IN 2024, THIS PERSON'S PENSION WAS $18,067.34 PER MONTH. SO THAT'S 2024. SO WE'VE HAD TWO COST OF LIVING INCREASES SINCE THEN, WHICH ARE ABOUT 2.5% EACH. SO WE'RE TALKING ABOUT $22,000 PER MONTH. NOW, I HELP PAY FOR MY SISTER-IN-LAW SINCE MY BROTHER DIED BECAUSE HER SOCIAL SECURITY WON'T KEEP UP EITHER. AND THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, EVERYBODY KNOWS WE HAVE AN AFFORDABILITY PROBLEM. WE HAVE THREE TAXES ON OUR FUEL. THAT MEANS WE HAVE THE ROAD TAX, THE GAS TAX, AND THEN THIS MADE-UP CAP AND TRADE TAX FOR A MAKE-BELIEVE CLIMATE CHANGE B.S., WHICH I WISH THE CITY WOULD OFFICIALLY COME OUT AGAINST IT. OUR CITY COUNCIL, WE HAVE TWO OF OUR COUNCILMEN BACK HERE. WE NEED TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE HELL THEY'RE DOING. THESE PENSIONS ARE EXCESSIVE. WE'VE GOT GUYS KNOCKING OUT $500,000 a year. Good for them. And part of that is overtime. Part of it are the extra roll-ups. And the extra roll-ups for those of you who don't work for government means that if I'm bilingual, I get an extra 2.5%. If I have an associate degree, I get another 2.5%. If I have a bachelor's degree, I get 5%. If I'm a paramedic, I get 13%. If I'm a And by the way, EMT, they get paid extra even though it is the base requirement to be a firefighter in Vacaville. So what the heck are we doing here? I'm not against our public safety. I am one. And you can look it up. I'll give you the website. And I'll give you my, yes. Yeah, I'd be happy that you would. But I'm going to make you look it up. There's two websites on that, madam. And I know that you're really not interested in that because you probably know about it. And I don't mean to be disrespectful to anybody and not show love. Openthebooks.com and the other one is transparentcalifornia.com. That's the easiest one to use. What I'm trying to figure out is how did we go so far off when my very good friend, and, you know, I got all sorts of different friends, but he's a freaking communist Marxist says, I can't believe the city signed this contract. Vallejo went bankrupt twice thanks to their unions going crazy. I expect our police officers, our firefighters, our road maintenance people, all to be good citizens and maintain reasonable. But when you have a pension at $22,000 freaking dollars per month, and the rest of us have to supplement for our older siblings or family because they don't have enough to live on. And now you want to increase. And then, by the way, the state of California, everything you buy, there's an additional tax on it. I went through one of my sales tax bills, et cetera. I think I'm paying eight different school bonds for my property tax. I can go down the list. I don't want to take too much of the time here. But... Yeah, so we've got salaries here that I think, as much as I love and respect, and mostly important, respect, all the people that work for Vacaville happen to love this city very much. People will say, what are you going to do? I'm not leaving, man. This is my home. I love it here. But people, if the kids get out of control... hear me Mister G and over we need the adults to have some courage and do the right thing is I'm not leaving unless you force me out because I can't afford to live here anymore and I and I do have what I call a reasonable pension. All right and enough of that he's love I don't hate anybody I love everybody, but I'm telling you this is this is insanity when every day schmuck who's trying to get by on if they're lucky $2400 a month. And the city's coming to and saying, give us more. We have an addiction problem. Give us more. We need $250,000 a year plus roll-ups. We need $500,000 a year for one person. Thank you, ma'am.

THANK YOU. I JUST WANT TO REITERATE, IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT OUR UNION CONTRACTS, THEY ARE AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE. IF YOU GO UNDER OUR HR DEPARTMENT, YOU WILL HAVE ACCESS TO ALL OF THOSE. AND MANY OF THESE ISSUES, I DON'T KNOW ALL THE DETAILS RIGHT NOW, BUT WE WILL BE LOOKING INTO THOSE. AND WE HAVE OUR HR DIRECTOR JESSICA AVAILABLE HERE IF YOU HAVE ANY SPECIFIC QUESTIONS.

I actually have trouble believing that there's a transparency. Well, that transparency is evident. There's a plot of land on Bush and Depot that was plotted for low-cost housing, and it would have been very good for the city about to build the downtown merchants who are already struggling very, very much. was slated for low-cost housing the city through some closed session sold it to the muslin community for a hundred thousand dollars and it was worth over three hundred thousand dollars so i don't think that there's transparency i do think there are back door deals i you're very nice but i don't trust the whole city um and How could you sell something for $200,000 for less than it's worth and come to us for more money? I really question that. Thank you.

Thank you. Before you go, ma'am, I believe there's someone on Zoom. Yeah, go ahead. Who's been waiting in the line?

Um, yes, um, thank you so much. I just had a question about how much. Has a city has a city department has to reduce over time and by how much.

YEAH, SO I GAVE AN EXAMPLE WITH OUR FIRE DEPARTMENT EARLIER, SO AS WE FROZE THE POSITIONS OR DELAYED THE HIRING, IT RESULTED INTO A LOT OF OVERTIME FOR US, AND WE ARE GOING TO TAKE AN ITEM TO OUR CITY COUNCIL NEXT TUESDAY TO RESTORE SIX OF THOSE POSITIONS, WHICH WE'RE ANTICIPATING WOULD RESULT IN ABOUT $1.5 MILLION OVERTIME REDUCTION So we are doing all the efforts within our city to take efficient and effective measures to address overtime.

Yeah, but that doesn't answer the question.

How much have city departments been asked to reduce overtime? For example, San Francisco PD has been asked to reduce overtime by 22%. So how much have city departments been asked to reduce their overtime?

We haven't done that yet, but we for sure can look into that option as well.

Thank you for sharing that.

Go ahead, ma'am.

Okay, thank you. I'm going to read mine. On March 15th of this year, our family received an email from the City of Vacaville Police Department signed by the Chief of Police, Chris Poland. This email states that the chief of police has a responsibility to prepare for the budget challenges ahead. He states, quote, without increased revenue, the police department will be forced to reduce services, unquote. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association is now considering whether to challenge the police chief's communication in court because they clearly state that Vacaville safety is at stake and if the voters don't approve the sales tax increase, he will be forced to cut the police force and reduce police services. The police chief's warning is not necessarily protected factual information, in which case it is prohibited political advocacy. The city is telling us it is looking ahead, but they have failed to look ahead while all the new houses and multiple large apartment complexes are being approved. I have a list here of all those projects, ones that are under construction, ones that have been approved, There's quite a few of them, and they were gonna need, when this decision was being made to allow this, to approve this, were they then thinking about the policemen to cover all of those new residences, all of those apartment complexes, or were there enough firemen and trucks to put out a fire? So this shows that the city has gone way overboard and packing housing into our town. We don't even have the streets to cover it. Before there might be a couple cars at a light. Now there is a long string of cars at a light. Vacaville City directed staff to begin public education efforts in anticipation of the sales tax increase appearing on our November ballot. At a one cent increase, that would generate between 12 million, and that's been talked about, and 24 million. It seems like we were just, the figure was told that we needed to get 9 million, but now we know what that one cent addition will do. Perhaps it was the Vacaville City Council that directed both the police and fire chief to use intimidation and scare tactics to instill fear into our community through the emails that they sent us. Thank you.

Thank you. I do want to address your question on housing. I believe our finance director is here. Ken, if you can talk about the impact of the housing and how the fees and other things play into the role.

I'm sure I was in the back. I didn't get a chance to catch the question. If it's related to development and housing and how that impacts kind of our financial sustainability. And so whenever we have any sort of new development, the goal is for that to not impact any of our existing residents. And so new development brings in revenues. It also brings in costs. And so whenever new development comes in, there are two kind of financial analysis that we do. And so with new development, it requires often infrastructure. And so for those upfront costs of infrastructure, such as the roadways that need to be built, sewer, water lines, things of that nature, developers have to pay what's called a development impact fee. That's a one-time fee that is meant to cover the cost of putting in that infrastructure so that the existing residents don't have to pay that. FOR LONG-TERM KIND OF THE SUSTAINABILITY OF THAT DEVELOPMENT, WHETHER, LIKE, YOU KNOW, OVER THE NEXT 10, 15, 20 YEARS GOING FORWARD, IS THAT DEVELOPMENT GOING TO ACTUALLY COST THE RESIDENTS OF THE GENERAL FUND MORE MONEY, OR IS IT ACTUALLY GOING TO BE POSITIVE FOR THE COMMUNITY? WE DO SOMETHING CALLED A FINANCIAL IMPACT ANALYSIS, AND SO THAT ANALYSIS INVOLVES LOOKING AT, FOR THAT PROJECT, HOW MUCH PROPERTY TAX IS IT GOING TO BRING IN, HOW MUCH SALES TAX, BASICALLY THE REVENUE THAT'S GOING TO COME IN FROM THAT DEVELOPMENT, AND HOW MUCH IS IT GOING TO COST TO PROVIDE THE SERVICES OUT THERE, POLICE, FIRE, MAINTENANCE. AND SO THROUGH THAT ANALYSIS, WE FIND OUT OR WE'RE ABLE TO DETERMINE IF IT'S GOING TO BE A POSITIVE PROJECT, IF IT'S GOING TO BE BASICALLY FISCALLY NEUTRAL, OR IF IT'S ACTUALLY GOING TO COST THE CITY MONEY. AND SO IF IT IS GOING TO COST THE CITY MONEY, BEFORE ANY DECISIONS ARE MADE, THE CITY IS ABLE TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS. SO IF IT'S SOMETHING WHERE WE NEED TO CHANGE THE L OR IF WE NEED TO MAKE ANY CHANGES CONNECTED TO THE PROJECT, THOSE TYPES OF CONSIDERATIONS COULD BE MADE BEFORE ANY SORT OF FINANCIAL DECISION IS MADE.

Thank you, Ken. And in addition to that, we also have this process we call MSR, which is municipal services review. When these new developments come in, we work with the Solano County as well as LAFCO, which is the local agency formation company, which is required for each county. We submit all the project-specific plans to them before they allow. All those projects have to be approved that the city is capable of providing those services currently and in future. And as a result of that MSR study, which is reviewed every five years and with every specific plan that comes in. There's another one on Zoom. Yes. We can hear you, ma'am.

Hello?

Yep.

Hi. So, yeah, I grew up in Backville. I was born there. I'm not there right now. Sorry, I can't be there in person. But thanks for the presentation. You had this slide where it said, like, we could build 300 more restaurants to increase property taxes, but this doesn't happen overnight. And I feel like in That mill that's for a long time prioritized incentivizing like warehouses and big pot retailers. And these kind of developments, kind of going off like the strongtowns.org framework, they produce a lot less property tax per acre. And there's a limited amount of you know, land in Vacaville. So if we prioritized other types of developments, like what is in downtown Vacaville, like small shops and places where people can walk to get things, then you can get more property tax per acre. And it's a lot more efficient, and then you don't have, like, extremely long roads and long pipes to get to these places. You don't have, you know, parking lots that take up a ton of space and don't provide property tax. And I, like, I'm not, like, so sales tax is extremely regressive. It impacts the poorest people the most. So if we can work, like, maybe we do need the sales tax increase, but if we can do something, like, if we can bring the conversation so that, oh, we're going to actually try and increase these property tax cuts and do this by hardening, a, you know, an initiative to not have so much car-oriented development, where you've got huge parking lots, huge big box retailers, and get more smaller stores, and smaller companies, and things like that. Is that something that can be added to the conversation?

Yes, that is part of our economic development strategy that we're going to revise because we were heavily focused on biotech at this time. And that industry is amazing, but it takes a long time because the FDA process is pretty long for the pharmaceutical approvals. So we are going to shift. Biotech will still remain a core part of our economic development strategy. BUT WE WOULD ALSO ADD, LIKE I MENTIONED EARLIER, SMALL BUSINESSES, HOW TO ATTRACT THEM, RETAIN THEM IN OUR DOWNTOWN. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE CITY'S DOWNTOWN INVESTMENT, YOU CAN GO AND WATCH A STUDY SESSION WE PRESENTED ON JANUARY 6TH OF THIS YEAR. I BELIEVE IT WAS THE FIRST MEETING OF THIS YEAR. AND THE CITY HAS INVESTED OVER $20 MILLION IN LAST FIVE YEARS IN DOWNTOWN TO IMPROVE THE INFRASTRUCTURE, TO PROVIDE FACADE IMPROVEMENT AND OTHER PROGRAMS. improve the roadways, the street, the lighting. There's a ton of information available as part of that study session.

Thanks.

Can you hear me? Thank you for this meeting. Seems very well organized. Really appreciate you guys reaching out. Thank you to our fire and police. I love the city. I've lived here since 2000. I've never been involved, city council kind of stuff. But when I got the email announcing, or the mail notifying of this meeting, it really surprised me because I live down the street from Alamo Park. And last year, they closed the park for about three to six months. And they took a half court basketball court and changed it into a full court basketball court. They did some other aesthetic type non-necessary things. And to hear that now the city has a shortfall, but they took a beautiful park, it's been fine for the last 30 years, and put money into it, yet you're saying you got a shortfall of money. I just thought, what's going on? And why, you know, as individuals and citizens, we are all dealing with inflation, rising costs, and we don't get to get more money coming in. We have to cut back. So why does the city not live within its means, instead of constantly raising taxes, because it's all that's ever happened, why does the city not live within its means? And this... And all the more puzzling to me that we have these outlets, which most cities don't have, and they bring in a huge amount of money. Yet still, the city says we have a shortfall. So, very baffled by it. And it was that park. And I know it's probably things like overtime and pensions that are the real money problem, but when the city is spending things that we don't need, they're perfectly fine. yet then say we've got a shortfall, it just makes no sense to me. Thank you.

Thanks for the feedback.

Hi. I moved here about 20 years ago after my boyfriend moved up here and bought a house 40 years ago. And so we live in separate houses, but we're in Ridgeview subdivision. And I just recently heard that you're going to widen Browns Valley Road to four lanes. The road's in excellent condition. I can't imagine why they think widening that is important right now. Because when my boyfriend bought his house 40 years ago, the subdivision showed on the huge map that was part of the general plan to continue Allison Drive all the way to Allison Parkway. And that never happened. And I've been to the city to ask questions, and I can't find any information on why that never happened. So I'm just thinking right now, instead of building four, making that into four lanes on Browns Valley Road, why not continue Allison, and I've written letters, and I've talked to people at the city, why not continue allison drive all the way over to allison parkway that will connect and relieve traffic on browns valley parkway because the people can reach whether it's kaiser or genentech or other subdivisions that are out that way so i and it's um i would imagine there's several million involved in redoing i mean they'd be digging up a road that's in good condition they'll also have to replace my understanding is they'll be replacing the traffic light at shannon And so they also have to dig up where the sensors are so they can extend the sensors. So when we come up to the traffic light, we don't have to wait so long if we don't get there far enough in time. So that's got to be millions, if not a billion. I mean, I have no idea how they budget that. But apparently, they just told me today when I talked to someone that that's going to happen this year. And so obviously, that will happen before the rainy season in the winter. And that means the roads will also be congested because of the construction that would go on. So my request has been over and over, why aren't we extending Allison Drive as an alternate route to go all the way over to Allison Parkway?

So I can give you a brief introduction and I can put you in touch with our public works director. So from a perspective of the development, the projects, the capital improvement projects are envisioned five to 10 years ahead. So Bronze Valley upgrade or extension might be happening today, but it is looking at the forecast for next five to 10 years, what that traffic impact would be with the future developments that are planned in that area. AGAIN, AS KEN MENTIONED, A LOT OF THIS INFRASTRUCTURE IS PAID BY THE DEVELOPERS, SO WE WANT TO TAKE THE ADVANTAGE OF WHEN THEY ARE IN THE AREA WORKING ON THEIR PROJECT SO WE HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE THAT YOUR PROJECT WILL RESULT INTO THIS INFRASTRUCTURE IMPACT FOR OUR CITY SO YOU HAVE TO BUILD THIS FOR US BEFORE YOU START BUILDING YOUR COMMUNITY. SO FOR EXAMPLE, LAGOON VALLEY, THEY ARE BUILDING A LOT OF HOMES THERE, BUT WE WERE ABLE TO FORECAST AND SAY THERE WILL BE AN IMPACT TO OUR FIRE SERVICE, SO YOU WILL HAVE TO BUILD A FIRE STATION. SO FIRE STATION WAS BUILT BEFORE WE HAVE A LOT OF HOMES THERE. SO THERE'S A SEQUENCING OF ALL OF THIS THAT HAPPENS. WE WORK WITH THE DEVELOPERS ON THAT. I BELIEVE ON APRIL 28TH WE WILL BE BRINGING OUR CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECT PLAN FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS TO THE CITY COUNCIL AND IT WILL BE ADOPTED AS PART OF OUR BUDGET AND IT GOES INTO ALL OF THOSE DETAILS THE PROJECTS CAN TAKE ANYWHERE FROM TWO YEARS TO 10 YEARS DEPENDING ON THE SIZE OF THE PROJECT AND WHAT THE IMPACT FUTURE IMPACT OF THAT PROJECT IS AND SOMETIMES IT'S ALWAYS EASIER FOR US BECAUSE WE SPEND LESS DOLLAR IF WE BUILD IT TODAY THAN WE WERE TO BUILD THE SAME PROJECT FIVE YEARS LATER. SO WE EVALUATE ALL OF THOSE THINGS. OUR ENGINEERS SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON THAT AND THEN WE PRESENT THE PLAN TO THE COUNCIL AND THEY ARE THE FINAL AUTHORITY WHO APPROVES IT LOOKING AT THE FORECAST OF THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT. BUT IF YOU'RE STILL INTERESTED IN MORE DETAILS WE CAN PUT YOU IN TOUCH WITH OUR PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR.

I WAS THERE TODAY AND NOBODY KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED 40 YEARS AGO WHERE THEY NEVER you know, up to the future, whether they never continued that road. And I'm wondering, is that something that can be put on hold? Because that's gotta be millions of dollars. And I specifically asked like twice for a traffic count. and so they did provide that to me like two years ago and then again more recently and it's pretty much the same but my concern is yes you can make that road wider and i talked to one of the traffic control women who well not traffic control crossing guard for one of the schools and she says people are just zooming right by her even though she's out there in the middle of the road so i don't think making it wider more lanes is going to help her situation but if that can be put on hold at all that would save you a lot of money because right now I understand they're negotiating the contracts. So the other thing is once you've got four lanes going out there, you're going to have more subdivisions out there in our beautiful countryside, which is the same thing that's happening all the way from here almost to Fairfield. I haven't even been out that way for quite some time and now it's just I mean, I can't believe how many houses are out there. And when someone was talking about affordable housing and building more apartment buildings and such, what I saw out there when I was over on that side of town, there's one subdivision that says, one, two, and three bedroom homes for sale. I'm sorry it said one two and three bedroom homes available and so I called them up I said oh one bedroom home I have a friend who could really use that and they said well they're all rentals every single one of those in that subdivision are rentals and then I just now off of Alamo I just saw another sign this way to new rental homes so they're building brand new homes and none of them are for sale for people who want to move here

I don't want to cut you off. Let's just keep the focus on the sales tax, but I'm more than happy to set up a separate meeting with you and go into development and all of those other things. But from the sales tax perspective, even if we put the hold on the Bronze Valley project, it will have zero impact because that comes from construction funding, that comes from development impact fees. The funding sources are completely different and a lot of that is paid by the developers, but the sales tax, it won't impact our general fund in any way. even if that's a shame because you do have an alternate route that you could be using so thank you thank you uh there's a zoom let's try to alternate one in person and zoom and let's try to keep our comments short please so everybody has an opportunity to ask the questions

Thank you. So this question's in the Q&A. And since you were talking about development impact fees, there's a desire for additional information about how the development impact fees work in the state. And with all the more housing construction, how are those impacting the overall cost? Where are we at in terms of raising costs to developers to hold them accountable instead of passing the cost of developing to us as residents?

YEAH, SO THE DEVELOPMENT IMPACT FEES, THERE'S A LOT OF STATE REGULATIONS. THE DEVELOPERS ARE PAYING THE CURRENT FEES THAT THE CITY ADOPTED IN 2022. ACCORDING TO STATE LAW, IT ALLOWS US TO REVIEW THOSE FEES EVERY EIGHT YEARS. SO RIGHT NOW, WE HAVE GOT APPROVAL FROM THE COUNCIL TO GO BACK AND TAKE A LOOK AND POSSIBLY INCREASE OUR FEES IN 2029. AND DEVELOP A BACKWARDS TIMELINE SO WE CAN BRING IT BACK TO THE COUNCIL AND SAY THIS IS WHAT THE IMPACT ON THE TRAFFIC IMPACT FEES WOULD BE OR PARKS FEES SO WE ARE EVALUATING ALL OF THAT SO THE NEXT ROUND THE LAST TIME THE FEES WERE ADOPTED WAS IN 2022 SO IF YOU CALCULATE EIGHT YEARS THAT PUTS US AROUND 2030 SO WE ARE PLANNING TO BRING BACK THE DEVELOPMENT IMPACT FEES TO THE CITY COUNCIL AROUND 2029 BUT DEVELOPERS ARE PAYING THEIR FAIR SHARE DOES THAT COVER ALL THE PARTS OF THE QUESTION

yes thank you thank you good evening thank you um i look around and see people who i know have budgets just like i do we do not have a problem with money we have a problem with spending money now each of us has to budget every single month right every one of us we can't spend more at the grocery store than we have in our wallet why does the city spend more money than they take in i'm 80 years old i was a cop for 40 years i've spent but i've also run organizations and sat on numerous boards of directors managed millions and millions and millions of dollars in money 17 years in a row i brought in a many many hundreds of million dollar budget in on time and on budget it can be done you just have to make the hard decisions in leadership so i commend that to you you're new here as a city manager i commend that to you i hope that you engage in that i've got nothing against anybody making a good buck but I do have a real problem with money being spent for things we don't need. We want things, but we need those things. It's like giving your teenage boy the car keys and a half a pint of Sneaky Pete and think you're gonna get a good outcome. You're not.

Thank you for your comment.

Hi. I've lived in Vacaville for about 15 years now. I come from Omaha, Nebraska. And that's a state that has required its legislature to balance their budget. They have no choice. They have to balance it. So they can't carry deficits. So they know going forward that they've got to be careful because they know what's coming in. I find it disingenuous, terribly disingenuous for people with six-figure salaries, $500,000 when they get their benefits added in, to turn to people who are living off of Social Security or trying to raise a family and maybe they're pulling in $56,000 a year because they don't have a city job that keeps upping and upping the salaries. you folks are asking people who don't make anywhere near what you make to come up with another five hundred dollars so you folks can get your salaries paid because this is not just talking about roads and police and things to protect our city this is talking about you being able to buy a new car you being able to have a fancy home Your salaries are huge and you're asking people who don't make as much as you to give you more money so your salaries can get bigger. And I find that very disingenuous.

Do we have another one on Zoom?

Good? Oh, there we go. All right. We've got one on Zoom here that says that they're a homeowner in Vacaville. They pay both property tax and Melrose assessments. And when they purchased their home, they were told that Melrose fees would go directly towards public safety, roads, and essential city services. Their question is Vacaville has seen significant new home construction, all of it generating additional Melrose revenue. So why are we still looking at negative fiscal projections if those fees were supposed to sustain city services and we keep adding new homes?

SO WE DO GET FROM OUR COMMUNITY FACILITY DISTRICT ABOUT $9 MILLION WHICH GOES TOWARDS OUR POLICE AND FIRE AND THAT IS ALREADY ALLOCATED 4.5 MILLION EACH INTO THEIR EXISTING BUDGETS. WHEN IT COMES TO PROPERTY TAXES, YES, ALL THE NEW HOMES HAVE, IF YOU LOOK AT THE LAST I BELIEVE last council meeting when we did the mid-year budget our property taxes are on the rise they have been rising about 6.9 percent uh since 2021 but this deficit we're talking about is even after those increases go ahead please good evening i have a couple questions then i'll make a comment uh the measure m when does that expire 2038, I believe.

So in 2038, when Measure M expires, and let's just hypothesize that we get this one cent increase, so then it'll drop down to half a cent. Am I correct? Like the revenue coming in?

MEASUREMENT PROVIDES US .75%.

IS THERE AN EXPIRATION DATE ANTICIPATED FOR THIS FUTURE TAX INCREASE?

WE HAVE NOT DECIDED THAT. THAT WILL BE A DECISION THAT COUNCIL WILL BE MAKING IN JUNE.

SO IT JUST SEEMS TO ME THAT BY 2038, IF WE DON'T HAVE another extension onto Measure M, then we're gonna be in the same exact spot where our, even with a one cent increase, we're gonna be in a bad spot. So that's just my question, thank you for answering. My comment is that it feels like the city of Vacaville is becoming tone deaf to what it really costs families to live here and being taxed extra while not seeing services gained is frustrating for the average family we've already gotten express lane taxed we get battery taxed we're taxed quite a bit of money and um It just seems that the return for the average citizen business owner is lacking. And everyone would, I'm sure positive, everyone would appreciate paying more taxes if they felt like the return on that tax was worth it. As far as... Police officers' pensions and stuff are a concern. I know the average police officer lives about three to five years after he retires, and so if you take that average, and yes, they're getting 90% of their pay, and that's really great, but I think that's a small price to budget for our law enforcement. I'm not sure what the fire average lifespan is afterwards, so when I hear anyone complain about paying the police officers so well and them getting a great benefit of retirement. I think about that. But I will say vice versa, if we have a librarian who's getting 3% of 50 or whatever the average thing, and I know the pay would be a lot less, but their average lifespan is really long now. So they could potentially be retired for 30, 40 years. So I think there needs to be an adjustment with the risk involved of pension. And then the last thing is I feel like the city of Vacaville is... It's forgetting that within the last five years, we've seen shutdowns. We've seen parks and recreations shut their doors to our children. We've seen our schools shut their doors to our children. We've seen businesses be served with cease and desist. We've seen the Vacaville Police Department being utilized to shut down small businesses and the fire department as well to come give constant warnings. And then, Fast forward a short five years, and then you want to ask the residents and small business owners to risk an amount of income that will take away from their families only to think back of how we've already been. We've been abused. The citizens of Vacaville have leadership that is unwilling to stand up for them they have leadership that's unwilling to make tough decisions and balance their budgets and i just think that moving forward if you guys are going to add if the city of vacaville is going to ask for more they need to give more and thank you sure

I DO WANT TO REMIND EVERYBODY, MEASURE M WEB PAGE, IT HAS EXTENSIVE INFORMATION WHERE THE MEASURE M DOLLARS HAVE GONE SINCE VOTERS APPROVED IT IN 2018. EVERY SINGLE PROJECT WHERE THIS MONEY WAS SPENT IS LISTED THERE, WHETHER IT WAS A PUBLIC WORKS PROJECT OR A PARKS PROJECT, WITH THE DETAILS ON I BELIEVE BUDGET IS LISTED THERE AS WELL. BUT IF YOU NEED MORE INFORMATION, WE'RE MORE THAN HAPPY TO ADDRESS THAT AS WELL.

GO AHEAD. We have a couple questions for our public safety. We'll start with the fire chief. Chief Drayton, can you tell us a little bit about how the city deploys paramedic services? Do they send a paramedic van or vehicle as opposed to sending a fire engine for a medical call?

so yes real real quick the emergency response model based on a medical aid we send a ambulance and a fire engine with three people on it so a total of five people and our response criteria is based on a national institute of safety and training response model so for example and this gets a little complicated, so I'll try to make it not so. But if you're having a heart attack and your heart stops and you stop breathing, there's a national study that determines your survivability. And the national study refers to six people on scene to help you to five people to four people, three people, two to one. your survivability with the more people i can send the higher your survivability rate is so for example i have a paramedic on that ambulance i have a paramedic on the engine so two paramedics who can give you narcotics medication ivs all that stuff the faster i can get those on board your survivability is better So that's kind of why we send an engine and an ambulance, because we treat every emergency as an emergency, whether it's difficulty breathing, heart attack, stroke, seizure, whatever. We treat it so we have the resources to give you the best level of service so you can survive. So that's why we do it. Hopefully that answers your question.

Yes, thank you. That answered that question. And I have a second question for our police chief. So the question is, how many law enforcement individuals need to show up for a call? And then if you can expand a little bit more on the type of review the city has done for the exact necessary number of units for all over the city.

Is there any specifics on the type of call or just a call?

Just a call.

So that depends. Obviously, it depends based on what we're dealing with. If it's a violent crime, we're going to send what we have available to show a presence so we don't have to use force. That's always our goal. We can deescalate through a variety of means. So it's a difficult question for me to ask based with the lack of information. If it's a traffic stop and we pulled the person over for a seatbelt violation and there's three police officers on scene, you're correct. We need to do a better job and remove ourselves from that. Make sure the officer is comfortable with who they're dealing with and the other two can leave. So if people see that out on the street, it just depends on who we're dealing with, what the call is, how many people are around the car. So a lot of variables there. THE CITY OF ACCAVAL IS WORKING ON WHAT WE CALL A STANDARDS OF COVER. WE'RE WORKING THROUGH THAT. PROCESS NOW AND WE'RE TRYING TO DETERMINE AS THE CITY GROWS HOW DO WE GROW WITH IT. BECAUSE RIGHT NOW WE ARE 11 POLICE OFFICERS DOWN. I HAVE SEVEN, EIGHT OUT ON WHETHER IT'S MEDICAL OR INJURY OR LIFE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ARE PREVENTING THEM FROM WORKING. SO AS THE CITY CONTINUES TO GROW WE'RE TRYING TO GROW WITH IT AND WE'RE TRYING TO HAVE A STANDARDS OF COVER THAT'S GOING TO GUIDE US THROUGH A THIRD PARTY TO SHOW US WHAT'S THE BEST MECHANISM FOR EFFICIENCY FOR THE CITY OF ACAVILLE.

Thank you.

Good evening. As a former management analyst with the city, I don't have any problem at all with our police and fire personnel. I think they do a wonderful job. But I do think that the city needs to pay more attention to project management and how we go about spending the money that we do have before we ask for more money. Case in point, this gentleman was talking about the Alamoa Creek Park. Spent hundreds of thousand dollars on a park and park improvements that we didn't need. The paths fled all the time. They didn't fix the paths. They put in basketball court that we didn't need they put it they took out all kinds of plants that were perfect and put in new baby plants didn't need that so that's just one of the issues that i have with what's what's going on with oversight of our city budget um the other thing is a couple of months ago i was at a planning commission meeting where we learned that there was a apartment complex that was being put in people didn't want it didn't fit the neighborhood but we were told that the state required it and then this evening you were telling us that we have some state mandates that things that are the state's telling the city that we have to spend certain money on certain things and of course other cities in the county their sales tax is a little higher than ours they have those same mandates Is it possible that the city's managers could get together and say, state, get off our backs? Because the local people should be controlling their local city. And it just seems to me that the state has gone way too far and needs to back off.

SO I CAN ANSWER THAT. WE DO HAVE A MONTHLY CITY MANAGERS MEETING THAT WE ALL DISCUSS ALL OF THESE CONCERNS AND AS CITY OF VACAVILLE EARLIER THIS YEAR WE ADOPTED OUR FIRST EVER LEGISLATIVE PLATFORM THAT ENABLES US TO THEN SEND THOSE SUPPORT AND OPPOSITION LETTERS. We worked with all of the departments, what their concerns are, what kind of mandates they feel that we should support or oppose, as well as there's a section in there which talks about monitor, which means we really don't have enough information if we should support a particular state mandate or oppose. So in that scenario, we take it to the full council, we analyze it, and then we do submit those letters. So we have been successful in pulling back some of the measures in the past, but that effort for City of Vacaville, we have finally adopted our first legislative platform this January. Thank you. Thanks.

Good evening. I have a question.

Does the city get any revenue from Nutry Airport?

I don't believe so. Ken, do you have that information? I believe that goes to the county.

Yeah. Why don't the city get a portion?

I believe the property is owned by the county, so they would get the property tax from there.

So has the city thought about approaching the county since it is in Vacaville itself and it affects whether noise or whatever? and possible growth for revenue as well. There's huge possibilities there. I know they have the aircraft manufacturing out there. Have they considered even approaching the county to see revenue from the county for Vacaville itself? Any possible growth for the airport to also increase revenue for the county as well?

WELL, SO THE CHALLENGE RIGHT NOW THAT ALL THE CITIES IN SOLANO COUNTY ARE FACING WITH ALL THIS DEVELOPMENT HAPPENING, OUR SOLANO COUNTY ACTUALLY PULLED OUR TAX SHARING AGREEMENTS AWAY FROM US. SO ORIGINALLY WE USED TO HAVE ONE TAX SHARING AGREEMENT THAT EACH CITY WOULD HAVE. And that would say any new development you can annex and you will get a share like we shared 16 cents to 18 cents. Last year, I believe, in August of 24, I believe, that tax sharing agreements was unanimously canceled by the Board of Supervisors. So now we have to go back to county for every single project. And if it is a county-owned property, then they have to initiate that that they would like us to annex into it. We can't approach it. I mean, we can try, but the answer would be why. So that's where there are areas which are within their boundaries. The annexation is a really long process, and that's what I mentioned earlier is the municipal services review that we're working on, which talks about what is within our sphere of influence and what is our urban growth boundary.

right but i'm not talking annexing i'm just talking about maybe a cooperation a LOA of sorts or MOU that would allow revenue sharing because there are grant federal grants out there for all airports if you want to expand the airport and make improvements which would bring in you know outside You have private jets and stuff that would come in. I know during the fire season that CAL FIRE flies helicopters in to refuel. There's tax revenue from the refueling and the ramp, using the ramp and everything like that. So there's a lot of revenue that could be gained without having to tax everyone here. But you guys have to approach the county and work with the county to get that going. Because there are grants out there. And I've worked with them because I'm a retired FAA air traffic controller. And I've worked with Napa Airport and their growth. So I already know that there's grants out there. And you could get them. It won't cost the city a dime.

Well, thanks for the suggestion. We'll look into it. Thanks.

Hi. Moved here about 2025. This 1% tax, basically, for sales tax, we'd be higher than the city of Sacramento, and we have a fifth of the population. So why aren't we able to make do with what we have? You're saying for a family of four, which I am a family of four, single income earner, $500 is about 25% of the Melrose that I already pay for public safety. So you're asking me to make 25% more payment every year. And I don't know about anybody else, if you have kids, the things that I buy for my kids are the things that that sales tax is going to be generating. It's not for myself. So you're really penalizing people when they're having these kids. And the things they have to buy for these kids, if you want the city to grow, people need to have kids and be able to afford them. you're basically penalizing people trying to just have a family and buy things for their kids, right? And as far as the gloat goes, I'm just gonna read off the top 10 salaries of the city right here. Starting from the lowest, $237,000, $238,000, $252,000, $252,000, $267,000, $274,000, $277,000, $283,000, $316,000, $323,000. You're asking us to have to pay more. Are you gonna step up and be leaders and take a reduction in your own pay? You're asking, you're our leaders. You need to lead by example. If you can't do your job and balance a budget like we all have to, you have to share the burden. I'm sorry. And as far as the transparency goes, I try to use your portal. Maybe it's just me, I haven't been able to find itemized anything on there. Like we have a drinking water lab that can't even run their own samples. Nobody's told us about that either. So the transparency needs to really get better here as well.

Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have another Zoom? Go ahead. Excuse me.

Steve McDonald, Vacaville resident, 32 years in my house, North Orchard area. As you can see, and thank you for this forum. As you can see by everyone that's come to the mic, we love our city. We respect our city workers, our park workers, our police. the gang units that nobody knows about, the unmarked cars that you see roll up at an incident in a flash when they need to get somebody. So we appreciate the city and the administration, the fire department. That's why we live here. And that's why I'm not leaving until they roll me out of 566 Gonzales Drive. Now, We do have a problem as citizens, and I can only speak for myself and a couple of neighbors. We're running out of money, okay? I'm not gonna go through all the salaries somebody just did. You guys aren't gonna feel the pain at 300,000, and those are including benefits and pensions. And I would like to, on a side note, You mentioned $700 million of unfunded, some unfunded pension money and all that stuff. Somebody needs to tell us tonight where that money's going to come from, because I don't think any of this revenue's going to pay that off. At least it didn't show up on your slides. So... We're having a hard time making it. I'm on a pension. The average salary, I looked it up today in Vacaville, the average worker be here is I think $53,573. I got that off of today. It's gonna hurt. Now 1% sales tax, you could probably slide that through. because a lot of people aren't gonna come to these meetings and really know about it. And as we know, in Vacaville, you're lucky to get seven, 8,000 voters. You get 10,000 votes, it's a big deal. And I have been involved in this community. I love this community. I campaigned for David Fleming, Len Augustine. I'm a Labor Democrat, conservative Democrat. But I've supported Republicans. I go by the person, his background, what they've done, the history of them. But we can't keep feeding this machine. And I don't mean that a negative connotation towards anybody. But just like our federal deficit, $38 trillion. This balloon is going to bust. I've seen it in the 70s. I'm 73 years old. I just turned that. We saw 2008. We've seen these. These young 20-somethings have never seen it. They've only seen the stock market going like this. Well, the last three weeks, right, might have something to do with the war in the Middle East. They set that on fire. So just be mindful that we're running out of money. Us retirees, somebody brought up the tax bill. My property tax, yeah. And I am guilty, I voted yes on every one of those because I wanted to support my fire, my police, whatever we needed, schools. I've been involved in this community a lot, campaigning for good things. I pick up trash every day in the park when I go. This is what we do, we love this city. But there's gotta be a reckoning We can't keep giving money. We're running out of it. And young people are living with their parents and their grandparents. They can't even afford a one bedroom apartment in this town is $2,600 a month. Now if you guys were coming and wanted one cent sales tax to build homeless and help people that are struggling, You wouldn't get any problem from me because I've had three homeless people that I've brought into my personal home and got them back on their feet. That's what America's all about. Tighten your belt.

Thank you.

We have a question in the chat. So it's related to slide 48, which we've just pulled up there about the estimate of additional revenue if we were to proceed with a sales tax measure. So if you can talk a little bit more about the half cent recommendation versus a full one cent recommendation. And the question has to do with the half cent appears to fulfill the deficit. So what would the other half cent, what would that spend be?

YES, SO THE HALF CENT WILL FULFILL THE DEFICIT AND THE ADDITIONAL HALF CENT IS WHAT I MENTIONED THAT WE GOT THE FEEDBACK FROM SURVEYS AND COMMUNITY FOCUS GROUP MEETINGS THAT WILL BE PRESENTED TO THE CITY COUNCIL I BELIEVE ON APRIL 14TH OR APRIL 28TH MEETING. WE DIVIDED THE WE PROVIDED FOUR DIFFERENT OPTIONS TO OUR COMMUNITY. ONE WAS INFRASTRUCTURE, WHICH INCLUDES AN ADDITION OF POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS OF OUR THREE OAKS COMMUNITY CENTER OR THE IMPROVEMENTS, LIKE FOR EXAMPLE, WE ONLY HAVE ONE GYMNASIUM WHICH IS VEERING OUT AND WE NEED TO MAKE IMPROVEMENTS TO THAT FACILITY. SO IT INCLUDES FACILITIES, IT INCLUDES ADDITIONAL NEEDS ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION. IT INCLUDES STREETS AND ROADS, INFRASTRUCTURE, THE PAVING, ALL OF THAT THAT GOES INTO THE INFRASTRUCTURE SIDE OF THINGS. THE SECOND CATEGORY WAS INTERNAL SERVICE FUNDS, AND THOSE ARE THE ONES THAT SUPPORT YOUR TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR YOUR RADIO SYSTEM. SO WHEN WE RESPOND, TO THE EMERGENCY CALLS. OUR POLICE AND FIRE HAVE RADIO SYSTEMS THAT THEY USE TO COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER AND WITH THE COUNTY. IN CASE OF MUTUAL AID, THAT SYSTEM IS GOING TO BE 10 YEARS OLD AND THAT NEEDS REPLACEMENT. THERE ARE OTHER FLEET VEHICLES FOR OUR POLICE AND FIRE FOR RESPONDING, AMBULANCES AND OTHER THINGS. WE HAVE, AGAIN, THAT ALSO WILL BE COMING TO CITY COUNCIL ON APRIL 28TH. WITH THE FLEET INFORMATION. SO WE DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY. WE SET ASIDE, I BELIEVE, $2 MILLION FOR THE FLEET, BUT THERE IS A LACK OF ABOUT $5 MILLION ON AN ANNUAL BASIS TO KEEP UP WITH OUR FLEET REPLACEMENTS. THE THIRD SECTION WE TALKED ABOUT WAS MORE AROUND COMPLETING OUR PENSION LIABILITY, PUTTING FUNDING SET ASIDE TOWARDS THAT. WE WERE PUTTING MONEY ASIDE FOR OUR OPEB LIABILITY, BUT WE HAD TO PUT A STOP ON IT BECAUSE OF THE DEFICIT. THE FOURTH CATEGORY WAS COMMUNITY PROGRAMS, WHICH, AGAIN, ARE DEFINED BY THE COMMUNITY. FOR EXAMPLE, WE HAVE A NEIGHBORHOOD PROGRAM. WE HAVE A COUNCIL DISTRICT BENEFIT PROGRAM THAT WE HAD TO PUT STOP ON WHERE COUNCIL MADE A CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS THE COMMUNITY PROGRAM. SO THOSE ARE THE KIND OF THINGS. YOUTH SCHOLARSHIPS, WE SUPPORTED 164 FAMILIES WITH $150,000. Those are the kind of programs which belong to community programs. So the community gave us feedback. There were multiple tables. We had three different focus groups. Two were in person. One was on Zoom. We got the feedback. We brought the data to the city council. They gave us feedback. And we will put all of that into our future projections, how we would spend that additional $14 million. I hope that answers the question.

Any other questions? We have one more on Zoom. Yeah. We're gonna call up iPhone 17. You're live. iPhone 17, if you can hear us, you're live.

All right. Well, we want to be cognizant of your time. This meeting was scheduled until 7.30, but if anybody has any questions, we're open to take a couple of last questions. I'm seeing none. Thank you for your time. And all of this information will be available on the website, and you know how to reach my office. If you have any specific questions, I'll be happy to answer any specific questions or reach out to your HOAs. Thank you.