City Council - Special Meeting

Okay. All right. We'll call the meeting to order. Special meeting of July 22nd, 2026. Madam Clerk, the real Madam Clerk this time.

Thank you. Happy to be back. Good evening and welcome to the City of Lincoln's special meeting of the City Council. Tonight's meeting will be televised and available on cable channel 18, YouTube, and Zoom. Those wishing to address City Council on either a non-agenda or agenda item are will be called upon at the appropriate time. Those who submitted a speaker card will be called first, followed by those in the audience, and finally those attending through Zoom. For those participating through Zoom that wish to provide public comment, please use the raise your hand feature or press star nine if you are calling in. Once public comment is open, please wait to be unmuted by the city clerk. Once unmuted, your name will be called and you may proceed in making your public comment.

Okay, roll call please.

Thank you. Council Member Andreatta? Present. Council Member Reedy? Here. Council Member Brown? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Eklund? Here. Mayor Perl?

Here. I pledge allegiance, and since you're on a roll there, I hope would you lead us in the pledge?

Thank you. I'll go ahead and sit for this one. Please raise your hand. Proceed after me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

OK. Public comment. The person speaking, wishing to address the city council or ask you voluntarily. Speaker cards and we can see only address items that are not on the agenda. Do we have anyone audience?

I see no one in the audience and I have no one attending through zoom.

Very good. So we opened And close public comment. Very good. Over here, discussion item 5A, amendment to Resolution 2026-104. It will be presented by City Clerk Hope LeBrun and City Manager Sean Scully. Take it away, sir.

Yes, thank you. Our City Clerk is going to give the bones of this, and I'll wrap up.

Thank you so good evening mayor members of the city council tonight's item is a follow up to council's action taken on June 3rd 2026 when the city council adopted a resolution calling the city. Lincoln's general music municipal election and requesting consolidation with the statewide general election to be held on November 3rd 2026 as provided under the elections code. On July 16, 2026, county election staff notified the city that an omission had been identified related to a boundary change to the city limits that occurred after the last election period. City staff worked collaboratively with county elections officials to review and identify the affected area known as Village 5A. based on that review and consistent with the city city's muni code staff has prepared an amended district map proposing that the newly annexed village 5a area be incorporated into city council district 3. the muni code provides that newly annexed areas shall be incorporated into one existing council district that is contiguous to the newly annexed area in this case district 3 is the most logical district assignment it has the strongest contiguous connection to the newly annexed area and highway 65 serves as a clear delineating boundary that more closely aligns village 5a with district 3 than with any other council district it is important to note that this action is limited to the proposed boundary update for the newly annexed area no other changes have been requested by the county elections office all previously submitted election requests remain unchanged including the district 1 and district 2 council elections consolidation with the november 3rd 2026 statewide general election and placement of the measure on the ballot those items have already been accepted by the elections office In conclusion tonight staff is requesting that the Council approve the amended map incorporating village five a into city council district three so that the city's district boundaries accurately reflect the current city limits for election administration purposes. That concludes my presentation. I'll hand it over to City Manager Scully.

Yes, just so for the record, I wanted to acknowledge a couple of things. The first is that when newly annexed area happens, which is not every day, more frequently in Lincoln recently, a bunch of things happen. There's a legal process for the annexation. Then there's a bunch of legal work that occurs in between when that's approved by LAFCO and when it's actually effective. And during that period of time, all kinds of things are happening. We're determining how we're going to police that area. We're talking about where the boundaries are, where now it's our responsibility to maintain roads and provide services to the residents. And so, for example, in Village 5A, one of the things that we did When that annexed is a letter went out from I think was for myself and a couple of other department heads welcoming those new residents to the community and letting them know all the benefits that they receive as Lincoln residents and who to call where to go if you need things. That includes picking, you know, starting up of utilities and some cases, for example, trash service, etc. And then one of the things that is not always super urgent at the moment that you do it is determining whose area that goes into in between censuses for election purposes. When this annexation occurred, we had a discussion about making sure we do this, which we've done before in other areas. And our city clerk right around that period of time had signaled that she was getting ready to retire, and we went through a process to get ready for that. But I want the council to know and the community to know that this oversight is no one's responsibility except mine. So my full responsibility should have caught it, just didn't. And so the second thing I wanted to say is a huge, huge thank you to... the Registrar of Voters, Ryan Rocco, and his office for being flexible enough to allow a little flexibility in their deadlines so that we could cure this. And I think our motivation here is we really want those less than 100 voters that live in that area to have the opportunity to participate in our election this cycle and then certainly in future cycles when their district is up for consideration. So Just wanted to point that out in case anybody's wondering why why we're doing the redo here. We did get notification from Ryan this afternoon that the resolution that is in your packets is in his mind sufficient to solve the problem. And so we should be just fine moving forward. And happy to answer questions.

Questions for my colleagues. OK. Sean, you said that there's less than 100?

Yeah, we looked at, we actually don't know exactly how many registered voters are, but we know that there's somewhere in the 60 to 70 people over the age of 18 that live there. So assuming they all vote, roughly that number. And then the other thing, in case it wasn't really clear, the reason why District 3 made the most sense is District 3 technically has the most contiguous area that's adjacent, and then the vast majority of Village 5 is under well, not under, south of 65, which is also a lot of District 3 as well.

So all of those incorporated in District 3 for voting, which wouldn't really affect elections so much, they can vote on city items.

Yeah, so that so like, for example, we have a revenue measure that they will be able to participate in, they obviously wouldn't be voting members of either district one or two. No other questions.

Hope anyone in the audience or online?

No.

Okay, online. Okay, bring it back to the to the council over here. Final comments or questions?

I just want to say that there is error in being human, and it's normal. Mistakes happen, unfortunately. Thankfully, I don't think we see very many since I've been on council, and I just want to take a second to appreciate how well I think that our city manager handled the situation expeditiously at light speed, found a solution after hours. got it taken care of, worked collaboratively. And again, appreciation to Ryan Ronco at the elections office. They worked together to get this taken care of so quickly and took ownership of it. And it's going to be taken care of. And thankfully, I don't think that there will be any issues moving forward. It's going to affect anybody. So I think that That deserves some appreciation and recognition.

Very well said. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else? Colleagues over here?

Nope. Okay. In that case, we'll call for motion. Moved. And second? I'll second. Second, Holly. Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Nope. 5-0. Thank you very much. Meeting adjourned.