City Council - Regular Meeting

Mr. Mayor, it's 6:00. Are we ready to begin? We are ready to begin. recording in progress. Well,

uh, good evening and welcome to all to our regular meeting of the Pedaluma City Council and the Pedaluma um, Community Development Successor Agency for Monday, April 6, 2026. Now, tonight, if you wish to provide a comment on anything on tonight's agenda, please fill out a speaker card and they're located in the hallway right before you walk in. and uh please bring them over to our clerk here at the front of the room. And uh just want to note that we do concurrent translation services which are available all during the meeting in Spanish in a variety of other languages. And to access uh the translations online, please use the link that's posted in the agenda. Um or to access that translation, you can use the QR code that's on the door at the back of the room. Now I'll turn to our uh clerk and ask for the evening's roll call.

Barnacle present. Kater Thompson here. D Carly here. Now here. Quint here. Shribs here. McDonald here. We do have a quorum. Thank you. Let's all stand for the pledge of allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And a moment of silence, please. You know, um, from time to time, the council uses this opportunity to honor a member of the Pedaluma community who's contributed to the fabric of Pedaluma through their efforts and who has also recently passed. Tonight is a moment of such an honor and sadness as we'll close this meeting in honor of Arie Cohen who taught us that we all have an obligation to give more than we take and that with a strong spirit of volunteerism we accomplish much more than we ever imagined. Arie alongside with his wife and daughters founded the Carousel Fund in 1986 and after raising funds for the family of a little girl battling leukemia in town. Their goal was simple yet profound to provide financial assistance to families in Paluma um facing catastrophic illness. The carousel fund events whether opulent or casino nights and they were the biggest deal in town for a long time. Um there uh lot of all-star entertainment glitz and glamour but grounded in the purpose and through these efforts more than $2.5 million was raised supporting over 200 pedaluma families in their time of greatest needs over 30 years. Arie played an active role in promoting um ballot measures for the school district. He also served as president of Special Olympics Marin County for 12 years and always championed inclusion, dignity, and opportunity for all. Arie leaves behind a legacy of generosity, leadership, and deep community connection. It occurs to me that there are no angels, just people like Arie who put on wings

and do the work and do incredible things. He will be missed. We will be closing this meeting tonight in Arie's honor. At this point I look at the agenda. I look up and down the dis see if anyone wishes a modification of our agenda. And seeing none, we have adopted our agenda as it's posted and as you have in your hands and we get to move to proclamations. Tonight we have um a couple of proclamations we'd um like to read. And um first it is uh sexual assault awareness month. And I'd like to invite Rebecca Fine, the executive director of Varity, Georgino Tel Aurin, the Varity domestic violence advocate, to the podium to come and accept for tonight. And it reads, "Whereas sexual assault awareness month is intended to draw attention to the fact that sexual violence is widespread and has profound and lasting impact on every community member in Sonoma County. And whereas Varity Sonoma Countyy's sexual assault prevention, intervention, and healing center works with over 1,200 survivors in the county every year, providing 247 365 crisis and support hotline and tailored advocacy services at any point in their healing and justice journeys and host over 200 presentations and events reaching over 14,000 community members. And whereas nearly half of the women half of women will experience some form of sexual violence, at least one in six men has experienced sexual abuse or assault. And youth under 18, people with disabilities, people of color, queer, transgender, and non-binary people, homeless people, undocumented people, youth in foster care, and people of other marginalized identities are at much greater risk. And whereas over

18,000 members of the military and over 80,000 people who are incarcerated experience sexual violence every year. And whereas the city of Paluma strongly supports the efforts of Varity and encourages every resident to actively engage in efforts to end sexual violence, including conversations about what sexual violence is, how to prevent it, and how to help survivors. Now therefore, be it resolved that I, Kevin McDonald, mayor of Paluma, along with all the members of the Paluma City Council, do hereby proclaim April 2026 as sexual assault awareness month and commend Varity in its efforts to support local survivors of sexual violence through intervention and healing. Thank you. We want to thank you, Mayor McDonald, and the members of the Pedaluma City Council for this procla proclamation and for recognizing sexual assault awareness month. Um, this acknowledgement matters. It matters because sexual violence is often invisible, carried quietly, sometimes for years or even decades. And when a city and elected officials take a moment like this to name it, recognize it, um it sends a powerful message to survivors. It says that we see you. You're not alone. We believe you. At Verity, we have the privilege and the responsibility of walking alongside survivors every day. Every year we support over a thousand survivors, notably approximately 20% of whom are children under the age of 18 through crisis intervention, advocacy, and healing services. They come to us to support their healing and justice journeys all while trying to hold

together the rest of their lives, work, school, family, community. In addition, we work hard every day to ensure the community is aware of what's going on and knows how to talk about this and recognize the signs when uh be hopefully before it happens. And while our work is deeply rooted in care and connection, it is also shaped by a constant reality that funding for these services is fragile. The need has not decreased, but resources often do. Sustaining this work requires ongoing investment, not only in responding to harm, but in preventing it in the first place. And we appreciate and honor Paluma, who stands out as a city in Sonoma County, specifically for their ongoing investment in having an embedded sexual assault and domestic violence advocate right here by my side, Georgina T, to work alongside the the Pedaluma Police Department every day. This year in the leadup to sexual assaults awareness month, a new revelation related to a cause that's near and dear to our community came to light. It was Cesar Chavez, a rever civil rights a revered civil rights leader had groomed, abused, and raped women and girls who he worked closely with. Dolores Huerta and others carried these experiences in silence for decades for fear of undermining the movement and not being believed when speaking out against this powerful man. That fear, the tension between speaking truth and protecting something larger than oneself is something that many survivors of sexual assault understand deeply. The experiencing the experience of holding harm while also feeling a responsibility to family, to community,

or a broader cause is a reality that far too many people have to navigate. Their fear was not only about not being believed, but about the possibility that speaking out might undermine a movement that meant survival, dignity, and justice for so many. It reminds us that sexual violence does not exist in isolation. It intersects with power, culture, history, and community. And it reinforces why our response must be thoughtful, inclusive, rooted in justice, and clear in our message that we believe survivors survivors are not alone, and do not have to carry this burden on their own. We will not tolerate power-based harm and violence in our communities. So today, we accept this proclamation with gratitude and with a continued call to action that we continue to build a community where survivors are supported without hesitation and with the resources that they deserve to heal. So thank you for standing with Verity and with survivors this month and always.

Thank you. And and we have Thank you. We are going to leave some of the pamphlets here in case someone wants to reach out to us and thank you. Tonight,

we also tonight h have a wild fire wildfire awareness month. And I'd like to invite um our um fire representatives, fire marshal Amy Seay and assistant chief uh Chad Costa to the podium to accept. And it reads, "Whereas the city of Paluma is located in an area at risk for wildfire and whereas the residents in wildfire prone areas play a critical role in reducing risk and severity of wildfires and in preventing the loss of life, the injury and property damage through proactive preparedness. And whereas the city of Paluma is committed to reducing wildfire risk and has done so through programs such as the hazardous ve vegetation management and community chipping services that support residents in creating defensible space. And whereas Pedaluma residents are encouraged to serve as local leaders by taking steps to improve defensibility and resilience, contributing to more fire adapted community. And whereas all residents are encouraged to participate in wildfire awareness month by taking meaningful actions to reduce wildfire risk around their homes and in their neighborhoods. Now therefore, be it resolved that I, Kevin McDonald, mayor of Paluma, along with all the members of the Pedaluma City Council, do hereby proclaim May 2026 as wildfire awareness month in the city of Paluma. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. I just wanted to say quickly that uh having traveled the western United States and unfortunately seen the effects of wildfire in many communities, uh this is very important. I apprec we appreciate the acknowledgement and uh greatly appreciate all the residents efforts to reduce that from happening in our community and thank you to the prevention team for all the great

efforts that they're doing to help prevent that as well. Thank you for your time. Thank you. And that moves us to our presentation for the evening. uh we have a presentation on our grazing program and um it's really been a u quite the change over the last few years and I'm really glad the city has stepped into this space and to help us with this we have Delana Bradford our senior management analyst to present take it away Delena

good evening mayor council members and community as we recognize our incredible fire staff during wildfire prevention week it's also fitting to celebrate one of Paluma's most unique traditions, the Transhumans Festival. This Saturday, April 11th, please join us for the annual Running of the Sheep beginning at 9:00 a.m. at the Gardenway Stage and Lawn at the Pedaluma Fairgrounds. This festival is a great opportunity to connect with fellow community members and your opportunity to take part in a free livestock stockmanship lesson from our amazing grazing consultant, Sarah Kaiser. This Saturday at 10:30 a.m., the flock will make its way down D Street. And this is where we need the community's help to keep the sheep on track as we shepherd them to Steamer's Landing Park. The celebration continues there from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. with live music, local food, sheep shearing, and weaving demonstrations. We really hope to see you all there. The tradition of this festival reflects something deeper about Pedaluma, our connection to our working landscapes. Tonight, we'll share how targeted grazing builds on that legacy to reduce wildfire risk, eliminate chemical herbicide use, and advance our climate climate and stewardship goals through strategic partnerships. While grazing may appear simple, sheep, goats, or cattle in open space, it is a carefully managed data-driven vegetation strategy that delivers measurable public benefit. Our grazing program aligns directly with city policy and broader state changes. First, Pedaluma's integrated pest management policy commits us to ecosystembased vegetation management that minimizes harm to the people and the environment and discourage routine discourages routine use of synthetic pesticides. Grazing supports this commitment by reducing reliance on chemical herbicides while effectively managing vegetation. Second, beginning back in 2024, the state of California

updated its small off-road engine regulations, requiring most new landscaping equipment, such as leaf blowers, mowers, and string trimmers to meet zero emission standards. While existing equipment can still be used, transitioning to zero emission tools has increased upfront costs for municipalities and our contractors. At the same time, labor and landscape maintenance costs continue to rise due to workforce shortages and those equipment transitions. Taken together, these factors make grazing not just environmentally aligned, but also operationally practical and forward-looking. In 2023, the city launched its first targeted grazing pilot across five park and open space sites totaling approximately 32.5 acres. These sites included Oakhill Park, Manion Nles Park, Westridge Park and Open Space, Country Club Open Space, and a Royal Park. The pilot was designed to test feasibility, evaluate vegetation reduction effectiveness, and assess whether grazing could serve as a reli reliable tool within our park system. The results were clear. Meaningful fuel reduction, effective vegetation management without chemical herbicide use in those areas and thankfully strong community interest. In 2024, we expanded acreage, refined site selection, and improved operational logistics and public communication. In 2025, with grant funding secured through the Sonoma and Gold Ridge resource conservation districts via the co coastal conservancy, we further increased acreage, including introducing grazing at the airport and began developing a formal grazing master plan. This plan establishes prioritization criteria, environmental safeguards, operational standards, and long-term cost modeling to guide responsible scaling. In 2026, we are continuing to expand coordination, introducing grazing at Laferdy Ranch, piloting grazing as a creek management tool, and evaluating

use at the Ellis Creek Water Recycle Facility oxidation ponds to help protect critical infrastructure and support wershed stewardship. In total, over 313 acres are planned for grazing this year. As with any program in our public spaces, community feedback has been essential. We've received strong report from residents who value a natural climate aligned approach to vegetation management. We've also heard two consistent concerns. First, dog interactions within the parks. And as a result, we continue refining signage, communication, and site planning to minimize conflicts and improve safety. And secondly, the overall costs of the program. And those are the exact kinds of questions we should be asking as stewards of public resources rather than relying solely on internal estimates. This year, we partnered with Lisa Kaine, senior economics and AP government teacher at Kasa Grande High School to launch a semesterlong project in which her senior students conducted a comprehensive costbenefit analysis of the city's grazing program. The students are evaluating not only contract costs, but broader public value, including avoided wildfire damage, public health benefits from reducing chemical inputs into waterways, and the long-term impacts of healthier soils on erosion control and slope stability. While we expect grazing to be more cost-effective over time, students are helping quantify quantify those long-term comparisons, including identifying optimal acreage and in which year the greatest benefits will be realized. We're excited to have students tableabling with us at the Transhumans Festival this Saturday and at FutureFest on May 3rd at the Paluma Community Center at Lucasey Park. We encourage you and the community to stop by and hear from the students directly. This partnership reflects local government at its best. Transparent, collaborative, and educational while

helping quantify the full return on investment in prevention and resilience. This slide shows where the community can catch the flock over the next several weeks. You can see we began with Laf Laferty Ranch and Rocky Memorial Dog Park, which we are happy to report has already been completed. The flock is now moving through Aoyo and Wiseman parks and they will next be headed to Westridge Park and open space. Because grazing is dynamic and depends on site conditions like vegetation height or density and weather, this represents only a portion of the full schedule. For the most up-to-date locations and any adjustments, we're directing the public to city of pedaluma.org/grazing webpage, which is listed at the bottom of the slide. Our web page includes the full schedule so residents can easily find the flock at any given time. When our community members go to visit the grazing sites, we ask that they please follow posted signage and give the animals and shepherds plenty of space. As we look ahead, this is about more than grazing. It's about choosing prevention over reaction, reducing wildfire risk before disaster strikes, protecting our waterways and public health, and investing in strategies that deliver long-term resilience. With completion of the grazing master plan anticipated by June 30th, 2026, we will have the framework to scale strategically and compete for upcoming grant opportunities. Our team goal is clear. Build a program that strengthens public safety and environmental stewardship while minimizing reliance on local operating funds. Pedaluma has always blended tradition with innovation. Targeted grazing does exactly that, honoring our agricultural roots while applying modern data data-driven land management. We invite the community to see this work firsthand at the transhumans and future festivals. This is prevention in action. This is stewardship at work. This is Pedaluma at

its best. Rooted in tradition, guided by data, and leading with purpose. Thank you. Thank you. Great presentation. Appreciate it. Hope everybody comes out to the transhumanist festival this weekend. Another good thing going on at the fairground, by the way. Right. Um and um I'm sure the council has a couple questions. Uh, and the public, if you have a question on this, uh, please feel free to, um, speak during public comment, and I'm sure we'll be here to answer questions during during public comment. Anyone in council have a question. Council member Shribs.

Yes, thank you. I fully support it. Even though I was in the pesticide industry for 25 years, I've loved having the sheep do it instead. Um the other uh program that u I've seen work pretty well and advertised in fact we have crews here that do sthing. In fact we have uh groups that wanted to come out and I think we've tried that. So how does the uh uh cost and efficacy relate between uh using the sheep and then using a sthing team to go out and do the work? Uh is there comparisons on the two both economically and um actually end results?

Yeah, thank you. We do not have any uh cost information for our sithers but we are trying to build a relationship with them. So we are working with them to try to put an event um when we do grazing sometimes the weather doesn't cooperate when we get this rain and then the heat and then the rain and the heat and sometimes in those first parks that we graze we can have a little bit of regrowth. So, we are actually working with a group of our community sthers to come into a royal park the second week of May to do uh sthing of the park for that regrowth. Um they've previously done work up at Laferdy Ranch uh and we're also looking at having them help us out over at the marina. So, we are exploring sthing. We don't have any cost related um updates to give you right now, but we can certainly look into those and report back.

Okay. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Now, um just real fast, thank you for the presentation. Um do you want to explain why it started earlier than expected because of the weather, mother nature wasn't cooperating and how there's a sheep herder on site 24/7 with the herd and um their signage. So maybe you could fill the public in on those items.

Yeah, thank you. I think you just did a good job. But um so we started a little bit earlier this year based on the feedback from uh Rocky Memorial Dog Park last year. Uh when we grazed a little bit later in the season, there was a lot more vegetation that was a lot taller and it took the flock a very long time to get through it. The park was closed for about 2 weeks, which was a little too long for the community to miss out on that space. So this year what we did was we actually had our parks team mow the top which is the main area where the dogs um you know the primary area that they hang out and then what we did was have the uh animals graze the perimeter which is primarily where you find the foxtails which was the biggest concern. So we got in there earlier to try to hit the foxtails before they went to seed and then we also worked uh kind of a two-pronged approach to get them in and out of there to have that space open back up. So, community members, when you go out to any of the parks or spaces, uh there is signage that lets you know the fences are electric. Please don't touch them. Um even though we love all of your dogs, the sheep do not love your dogs. So, giving them plenty of space. Um and I think that was everything.

Thank you. One more thing, please do not feed the livestock.

Okay. Thank you. And um with that um I just want to note it must have been 10 years ago we um first banned uh herbicides at city parks and was in for a few years later before at uh public works for other areas. Um and there's an impact in not doing that and grazing addresses that impact and uh so I'm excited for the day in the future when we are able to graze the medians here now. So you know I'm big fan of the future here. All right. Right. Well, thank you very much and um please uh hang for a minute to find out if anybody in general public comment has a question on our program. And um that does move us to general public comment for the evening. And during general public comment, the public's invited to speak on uh items of public interest that are within the city council's subject matter jurisdiction and that are not listed on the current agenda. Public comments are limited up to three minutes per person and depending on the number of persons um wishing to address the council, time will be allocated in equal shares totaling no more than 20 minutes. If we have more than 20 people wishing to speak, the additional comments will be heard after the last business item on the agenda. And I'd like to ask our clerk if she if we've received any emails uh uh cards and letters prior to our meeting and then to follow through with our messaging, please.

Yes, we did receive 15 comments ahead of the meeting and those are posted online. And at this time, I will start a 30 second clock. During these 30 seconds, members of the public should bring their speaker cards to my desk if they have not already done so. Speaker cards received after this time may not be accommodated. So we have uh five cards and that allows the full three minutes for each speaker. And so our first speaker is Christine White to be followed by John Hania. Thank you, uh, council and mayor. Thank you for this time. I wanted to first thank the grazing program because I walk Westridge and Thompson Creek all the time, several times a day, and I appreciate the the sheep. The signage has been great. The shepherd is on site um, full-time, and the shepherd doesn't mind cookies, I'll tell you, usually, but not for the sheep. Uh, dogs have been acclimated. I mean, I think it takes them a first day is usually probably the most challenging for the shepherd, but otherwise, so thank you. I I I love this program. Um, the other I wanted to ask is we have opportunities in Paluma to uh promote more business. I know you all are trying to do that, but I just wondered if there might be an opportunity to have an indoor farmers market in one of the buildings in one of our locations downtown. We have an opportunity for um there's one in Olympia that that I go to when I'm

there. There are vendors that are there year round. There are some vendors that are there seasonally. There are also um artisans that are invited in for different special weekends. And on the weekends, they also have music. So, we have an opportunity with Walnut Park being right there and we have the Bank of the West that's empty. And I know people will keep saying something about it. I wish my bank was there, but it's not. Uh but it's an opportunity for an indoor farmers market and I wondered especially with Pedaluma it's challenging with our winds um at times it would be nice to have that. So I think that's all I have to say. So my three minutes is turn back. Thank you.

Thank you John Haneia to be followed by um Christian Ellen Jaden.

Good evening. Well, Kevin, I've noticed since October 15, even prior to that, you are very inconsistent. An elected official who participate in no king protest shouldn't be behaved like a king. The first meeting of this year, I've asked you about your policy. You couldn't give me an answer. I sat in the audience and I watched people turn their cards in after your new policy for 32nd. You called their name, but when I turn my card in, you have a fit. Okay. Last meeting you opened the public comment at 1315. A gentleman at 14259. You could see him walking right here. The phone in the left hand, the card in the right hand. 11 minute 11 minutes and 44 second after you called them last at the meeting with the U animal shelter. I told you I have another card. You had a problem with that. But yet when somebody else gave their time, you didn't bother asking if they had a card until there was confusion about who had the time. You seem to have a real issue. I'm sorry that I have to say this to you, but it need to be said. You're all over the map. Why can't you set a policy? Every meeting, you have a different policy. Why is that? You have two set of rules. One set of rules for the community, one set of rules for you. Any of you out there who violate the court, you don't hold them accountable. You don't say a

word. When the urban chat they wanted to come down here and ask you to have special election, you allowed 27 minutes. When people you associate with, you have no problem bending the rules. The meeting after that 22 1/2 minutes. People you want to hear from, you have a leeway. Few minutes, a few meetings ago, somebody stood here and was giving you compliments. And I had a conversation with Mr. Shribs. He can tell you about that. Okay. He went way over his time. Did you cut his mic? No. When one of you up there wagged the finger at you, I'm not done yet. You don't stop him after they their time finish. If I stand here right now and my time is up and I wag my finger at you, tell you I'm not done. You're going to cut my mic off. Why is that, Kevin? Why can't you be consistent? treat everybody equally. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Christian Alan Jaden should be followed by Chantel Rogers. Sorry. Was that three names?

Yeah. Sorry, guys.

Oh, you're good. You're good. You're good. Hopefully you guys are having a pretty good day so far. Um, we're here to talk about Fair Street and Douglas Street needed to be more safer and uh for people to walk around there. Many students and families cross there every single day. times I walk there with um seeing people with their dogs, walking around for workouts, and there is no not yet any strong signal to traffic lights. We should add a street light or cross uh street light on Douglas Street at a crossing near the school. This helps us and it helps us and the drivers see us when we're walking around and needed to stop. Moment

uh we're also here to talk about uh sidewalks. Uh the sidewalks also need repair right now. They are uneven and hard to use after school and events. Uh many people walk through this area and it becomes crowded, unsafe. Uh people have with people who use wheelchairs have trouble moving. Older adults with low balance uh face risk of falling. People with pets also struggle to walk safely. Then uh uh fixing the sidewalks and adding proper crosswalk lights will make the area safer and easier to use for everyone in the area. These changes will support the students, families, and whole community all together. That would be it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Um, I think we recognize that safety in town is everyone's major concern and I appreciate you guys speaking tonight and we have one of the one of these has an email on here. Who do we have for an email on here? Chris. Christian. Yeah. Hi. Um, so I'm going to pass this card to our clerk and she'll have um the um safe streets staff person contact you so you guys can continue this dialogue because I think you're on to something there. So um our last speaker is Jasmine Cage. I'm I'm sorry. Our next speaker is Chantel Rogers to be followed by Jasmine Cage.

It's like a pattern with you Kevin. Sorry. Um, this evening I'd like to revisit the subject of the public records act requests that were referenced in the last city council meeting. The many requests for information from the public were characterized as a nuisance and the time spent on them was uh categorized as mind-boggling, not cool, a burden for the good of the public and transparent government to an excess level. My first public request was not submitted by me. I called the public works department with a question that the person answering the phone could not answer. So, I sent an email. As a response, they told me they had created a P in my name. I was frankly a little freaked out. I thought, whoa, I just want this question answered and had not intended to submit a formal request. When I got an answer, the response was that there was no information available and they had closed my request. Now, I know that there is an answer, so it would seem that my only option is to put in another request, maybe phrased a little differently to again try to get the information that I'm looking for. In talking to people around town, I'm apparently not the only one who has experienced this. Departments sometimes create PAS instead of responding directly. As well, email writers who do not get a response from city employees may submit a P in an effort to obtain information not forthcoming from city departments. Residents create PAS when the information they are seeking is not readily available online or through city communication avenues. It's our right for the state of California. Pedaluma might be able to reduce the number of requests made by posting additional information online and be by and by compelling departments to communicate more openly concerning citizen requests and inquiries. Informed citizens are

engaged citizens and Pedaluma should welcome an engaged citizenry. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our last speaker is Jasmine Cage.

Hello everybody. Thank you for your time. Um I'm here to talk about kind of a delicate issue. It's happening in real time at Kennallworth Junior High uh where my daughter is an eighth grade student. She has a medical condition which makes um physical PE difficult. She has what's called exercise induced urtdicaria. If you can imagine anytime your heart rate's elevated, being covered with itchy welts, it's very uncomfortable. She's had it since she was a little kid. You know, she used to throw tantrums as a 2-year-old, and she would stop cuz she was itchy. So, I came to the school. This is med medically documented. I said, "Please, like, can we um work with her in PE?" And they said, "Yeah." Well, she comes home crying a couple weeks ago because um apparently, and she hadn't told me this because I'm a fierce mother and she was afraid of my reaction, they have been punishing her all year long for not suiting up and not participating and giving her lunch detentions where she doesn't get to eat lunch and because she can't run, they have to make her do a mile and she just basically spends the whole time walking and so she doesn't get to eat lunch. The last straw was when vice principal Jessica Denon uh called her into her office for 10 minutes and was uh interrogating her and asking her very personal questions about her anatomy. So my daughter came home finally told me this. I went to your district office and had the fortunate occurrence of running into Jason Sutter on his very last day as assistant superintendent. As he was telling me this, as I was telling him this, his jaw kind of dropped and he couldn't really understand. He said, "We did away with the mandate of students having to suit up for PE. We put that in place like at the beginning of this last school year." So, my daughter's been missing lunches and being, you know, penalized for not dressed. So, I go to the school, I lodge a formal complaint. They kind of get this, oh, crud kind. They they hire external counsel, a law firm called F3, Fagan, Freriedman, and Full Force Full Frost, which the school district's paying for right now, to investigate this. Um, I was deposed. My daughter was

deposed. everyone involved. Um, some of the PE teachers were gone for a while and I thought maybe they've been fired, but they're back. Um, my daughter's been pulled from PE, but apparently instead of uh shrinking back, they're doubling down on this. They're been they've been doing these raids asking students if they have their PE closed, searching lockers. They have crazy crazy regulations. These students when they're in the locker rooms, a PE teacher is in a glass enclosed office, a mail for the boys. Can for a second, please. We hold the time for a second. Um um our our um public comment is for things that are in the subject matter discretion of the city and school districts. Does the city not fund the school? Nope. Not at all. Okay. Well, y'all should know.

And so what I'm going to ask people forcing people to for kids to put on little tiny shorts every day or um so I I think you were looking for the school board and the elected officials that run I have launched a formal a formal investigation through the school board and nothing's happening. So my next course of action is just I don't know to go to Tik Tok. I don't want to bring a lot of attention to this fine city but you got a bunch of a bunch of people who are just you know they're doing their own thing at this school. They're not uh responding to unless it's not a city subject matter jurisdiction. We don't have a role in that arena. So um I have to ask either to tie it to a city matter or that's your time for tonight or just move. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. And that was our last uh speaker um public comment speaker for the evening and that brings us up to council comments and u I'd like to start with council member Shribs tonight.

Okay. Thank you. Um just a couple of meetings been to but uh couple of the webinars I've gone to but same story over again. We need more housing, especially um mixed use and uh missing middle type of housing. So, that's that part. On coming up on Thursday, the museum is opening up for a new exhibit. Um um that's going to be all about our river and our title um slew and the marsh. So, everyone that'll be there for several months. Um I was on the team that that helped uh put together some of the materials. So, um everyone can show up at anyway in next two months. um haven't heard of a special event yet, but there will be several throughout that period. Um and then at the last uh council meeting, we we talked a little bit about using uh um AI by staff and using it as a tool. And so I offered to uh look at it as uh especially for the city charter, which I did. And so I had a conversation with with AI um and I did share it with our city attorney. Um and we came to the conclusion that actually it is a useful tool. it can work really well to help uncover new ideas and help create um language based on uh the 400 other city charters here in California uh which can be read in in 10 seconds by AI and and analyzed and and um brought back to to uh and related and compared to ours. So as a tool we we've kind of worked on that. Um, but we just discovered that um there is a there is a long process. Even if we got started today, it's still going to be at least an 18-month process because there is a process to get the city charter going. Um, and at the moment um staff is we have uh the general plan and the general plan also needs a lot of zoning needs to get done, fees need to get done which are pretty high priority. So staff's pretty uh book solid with taking care of right now currently immediate issues. But if as a suggestion, if if um if we

want to put together a a team by us or from past council members that want to work on this, there's some lawyers around that I think that we're on the council. Anyway, that's just an option to think about down the road here uh to see if we uh maybe help because I know this has been a long-term um um concern and issue that uh maybe we can help along the way, but at the moment, it's still a long-term project. Anyway, that's my report for today. Thank you very much, Council Member Quint.

Thank you. Um, I don't have any liaison reports tonight. Uh, we're going to the last TAC meeting that I was at, we're going to go through a lot of that uh later in this meeting. I but I do want to give a tip of the cap to the young gentleman that came in. Um, I was at a high school class recently and and you know, the question was asked, you know, how do we how do we, you know, uh, get things changed? how do we get more parking spaces or make our streets safer? And I suggested uh well, do you know what general public comment is? And uh I'm glad um I'm glad they showed up. So, I'm going to encourage staff to uh uh um get their contact information and and connect with them. Thank you.

Thank you, council member. Now

um tonight my first leaison is on report is from the regular meeting of their public safety advisory committee. Members were given a presentation on the pedal police department's bodywn camera program. The PPD staff members gave detailed answers to various questions the committee members and public had. Evidence from the body warn cameras are used for criminal investigations and more information can be found on the PBD website. My secondly as on report is from the Sonoma County Homeless Coalition board meeting. In this meeting, members discuss the many challenges that are forecasted for providing future funding for behavioral health aspect of the unhoused population. My favorite quote from the meeting was crisis is always an opportunity and what do we need to do to work together efficiently? I attended the Pedalum area Chamber of Commerce two 2026 directory event and this is it. Um the Pedaluma means business a city that works with you and I was very proud to represent this city and I'm going to open it up. I put a postmark here. There's a picture of our mayor and our city manager and um and see and hear how many wonderful things the city is accomplishing and um Paloma means business. So, this is all our wonderful businesses downtown. And for the public comment about an indoor um farmers market that we have some big stores downtown that could use that and where Amy's Kitchen is now was thought to be a great farmers market location. Um I hope everybody is ready for all the April activities in the community. Um Saturday is the opening ceremony of eggs day at the Pedalum Museum. Our 2026 Good

Egg is our very own Pedaluma Library his history room librarian Connie Williams. And yes, as Pedaluma's 1995 Good Egg, I have heard every egg joke and it's no yolk. The Grand Marshall is the great great granddaughter of John McNeer, Heidi And Saturday, April 18th is the actual butter and egg days parade, America's birthday pedaluma style. Downtown businesses right now have window displays, many featuring the history of Pedaluma. Chick City, one store downtown, has artifacts from many of our good egg recipients sharing their collections that were used in our dairy and egg industries. Remember to shop local. If you go to Chick City, you'll see some of the things that are normally in my living room. um that are the history of Pedaluma's um egg and dairy industry. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Barnacle.

Thank you. Um just want to say the school board meets on the fourth uh Tuesdays of the month at 6 p.m. just right over there. So that's the place to to go um comment on that. Uh Sonoma Clean Power met earlier this week as did the air district. Um nothing really to report on the air district. Uh on the Sonoma Clean Power Front, we um gave feedback on our draft budget. Um the with the way the energy markets work, we'll be dipping into our rate stabilization fund, which is up toward uh about $160 million right now, and we'll be spending about $40 million of our rate stabilization fund next year. Um which is exactly what we plan for. So, um, we're all in in in a good, uh, place there in Sonoma Clean Power. That's in addition to our reserves, and that'll keep us, um, below PG&E for the coming, uh, year and whatnot. Um, and then finally, I just want to say because it's a pet peeve of mine, it is butter and egg days. I know council member now said it right, but the days are plural and the butter and the egg are singular. Um, so please tell your neighbors, tell your friends. Don't get it wrong. Thank you. Okie dokie. Council member Kater Thompson.

Um I was down in LA at with League of California Cities. I'm on the community service committee and what we did was look over this committee looked over four different bills and one was on um food deserts, you know. So, not necessarily in our area as much as in other areas, but you're pushing housing and by pushing the housing, the food is deserts are occurring because it's not mandated. And so, we made some language changes with that. And then we made some language changes with seniors also. And the other bills just we just kind of let go um as is. We didn't make any language changes. What one was making sure with the general plans that a child care element is included in all general plans and I know um some cities haven't updated their general plans in 40 years. So it was a little bit surprising to hear that. Um this morning I was at the water agency, the WAC meeting and it was we just talked about um water rates and water rates will be increasing but ours will not necessarily increase because we've already put that in place last year. Um and we need to be concerned about not enough rain. Um Mendescino is not completely full. Um but Lake Soma is doing better. And so, but I think what we really need to be concerned about is fire this year because um we just haven't had enough rain and we can hope that there's going to be um rain maybe in April or May, but it looks like that's a little scarce also. And on smart um there'll be a ballot measure in June to um continue smart um that sales tax and it's really important and writership we expect to be 1.4 4 million this year compared to about 800,000 last year. So, it's a big increase of people using SMART. Um, and I just want to make

a couple comments on the um students that came and spoke about Douglas Street. Well, there was an area on Western Avenue where I think it's is it east? No. Um, North Fair Street hits, which is opposite of they they jig each other. Um, that's an area where I would like the city to look at putting a crossing. Um, because there's a crossing there, but it's not lit. And it's I was driving by there the other day and wrote some notes down about that particular area. And so if you're looking at Douglas Street, please look at Western Avenue also. And that's all my comments. Thank you very much, Vice Mayor Carly.

Just a couple updates this evening. Uh, airport commission was cancelled this month. we didn't have enough on the schedule to do it. Um but we are still looking for an airport manager if anybody's interested or looking for something new. We um I'm on the Agon Open Space Advisory Committee and over there we looked at some of the regular easement acquisitions that the um that Agon open space is working on and you know I said it before but again the whole purpose of Agon open space is to preserve our open spaces our agricultural land you know through easements and working with property owners. Um they also did a presentation on some prescription burns that they're doing uh near the Kalisoga side of the county and that was an area that's historically burned in some of our recent wildfires and so they do prescription burns to try to reduce the fuel loads going into the drier months. Um they also have some species of plants that they're trying to protect there as well and that's another thing that they consider as they look at different easements and acquisitions. And then lastly, just wanted to wish everybody a happy Easter. Hope you all had a good day yesterday. Thank you. And um to start out, I just want to give a shout out for the progress on the Gateway project. It's new art at the South Boulevard roundabout that's being produced by David Best and led by our rotaries and want to thank them so much for that. They've been in front of our arts committee already and and they're making progress so that should happen. Uh I also attended the Cal City's debriefing on upcoming state legislation here recently. There is a lot of impactful legislation coming towards the city. Uh I was able to attend a presentation at the pedal pedaluma library with council member shribs uh titled pedaluma before Columbus exploring indigenous uh regenerative sustainability. It was really fascinating. Um I got to tour CS and uh provide service awards to the volunteer workers from CS which is really if you haven't volunteered at CS I highly recommend it. Um this I

attended the veterans open house we had just recently with council uh member Quint and uh I promised that I would announce their game night that's coming up on April 10th for all vets and families there there's a strong vets community but there's a disconnect between more recent vets and so um focus on that is where they they are right now and um they I attended the uh elected meet elected officials for ending homelessness Zoma County with um um council member now and we uh we're trying to move to an even more efficient system as funding uh fades away on us. Also attended a webinar entitled how grid how electric cars can cut the electric cost and boost energy resilience. It's about micro grids. The future is batteries to cars, batteries to buses and um taking the peak off of Pione's power system. uh attended Paluma Education Foundation scholarship reception where PEF handed out about $250,000 in scholarships to this year's graduates and um just an amazing organization um and proudly marched in the Nokings March and by way of saying I just want to thank our police for all I mean the organizers but also our police for um their ability to keep what can be a combustible situation um under great control and Um, I wanted to um shout out Rebuilding who did their workday and another volunteer project in town this past weekend. Lots of good projects in in a variety of areas in town. Um, and I got a chance to tour the Monarch uh way station in the Turtle Creek neighborhood. It's amazing work that volunteers are doing there. I'm sensing a theme here. Okay. Yeah, a lot of volunteerism. But um and then in case it hasn't gotten mentioned or the I haven't checked the city manager is going to mention but our general plan and the draft EIR

are going to be mentioned by the city manager. Um the butter and egg parade uh comes before our our next meeting and so I appreciated uh council member now and Barnacle's comments. But remember, walk or bike, uh 40,000 people in town will make it very crowded. And there's a bike valet area that the city is helping to produce. So, um let's all have a good time and get there uh safely. And to the city manager now.

Thank you, mayor, um council, uh staff, and community. Uh we are kicking off our annual recruitment to fill vacancies on our city committees and commissions. It's a great way to get involved in your city. Uh there are 24 vacancies to be filled across 10 of our advisory bodies and we welcome a diverse range of experience and encourage all to apply. Applications are available on the city's website and are due by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 21st. Appointments uh will be made by the council on June 8th for terms to begin July 1st. Additional information be found on the city on our city website or by contacting the city clerk's office. And we also have flyers out in the hallway. Um to the mayor's point, our um draft general plan and our draft environmental impact report for our general plan is now available on plan pedaluma.org. And public comment will be accepted through um May 18th. And I want to appreciate um Miss Rogers comments regarding accessibility of city information. We want to make sure that we're routine that when routine questions are asked, we respond promptly and that info is easy to get. So, I will circle back with our team and make sure that's happening. Thank you.

Thank you. And that brings us to our consent calendar for the evening. And um it's at this point I uh look at the 10 items on the consent calendar and ask if anyone on the council wants to separate any of those items or if we're handling them as a whole. And it doesn't look like any requests for separation. So we'll be handling the entire consent calendar as one. Um now I'd like to ask if there are any questions of the consent calendar from the council and vice mayor. Thank you. Um, I have some questions around item five and I think the public had some as well wanting to understand um why we were swapping subcontractors out or why the why the contractor was swatching swapping subcontractors out and how that's going to impact the the budget for that project because I read in the staff report that it isn't, but I don't see how it couldn't if now we've hired another and we're already paying one. Um, so anyway, if anybody could speak to that, please,

we'd be happy to respond to that. I'll have um our director of parks and wreck, Drew Halter, start that conversation, and I think the city attorney and the project manager can probably chime in.

Yeah, thank you, city manager. Thank you for the question, council member. Good evening. Drew Halter, director of parks and recreation. And and yes, there's there's several layers to this, but I'll get it started with kind of the big overview. Uh first and foremost, we're incredibly excited to to have uh potentially an award of construction bid tonight. Um as many of you know, this is a project um that's more than four four and four four and a half years in the making. Um started initially as a scope to um put some seed money towards a potential renovation of an existing skate park. uh and that turned into morphing into a citywide assessment and really taking that from a a small skate park uh to a a new um kind of world-class facility for next generation. So, fortunately tonight um you know, we have the the opportunity to partner with two of the the premier skate design and uh building companies. Now, Grind Line um was one of those premier firms and companies that we set out with the very beginning uh to work with and to design uh one of the best parks we could. So, in in hindsight, um when that project um kind of transitioned early on to to then a larger project, um we could have with the information we have today, um we could have structured it differently to do a design type build. Um but four years ago those weren't that wasn't an option or kind of tools that we had um or had familiarity with. Um so at this point what I'm really excited about is we have the opportunity to continue working with Grind Line through the construction of the project uh and they're going to be helping us with construction administration um but not um as a subcontractor on the build. Uh, so Grind Line as well as California skateparks are both familiar working uh

in this way, whether it's a a California skate parks design and a Grind Line build or vice versa. I think we're really fortunate um to have both on the team. Um, but I I get the questions from the community and and several that reached out have been following this project every step of the way uh because we definitely want to make sure that it's constructed the way the design is intended. Okay. Now, thank you. Um I and how budget-wise though like you said there's no net change in the budget but how how do we hire somebody else and have there be no change? I'll get a project manager perhaps up here but yeah my understanding there is no change

in case somebody from the public works team is coming up. I'll start that answer. So, um it was already the case that um Grind Line was under contract for construction phase um advice, management work and and some technical studies through a subcontractor. And that's not going to change um the the package that's that the the parties have have um um participated in in in and approved regarding the substitution process that's before the council tonight um for award um will maintain that contract. So so it wasn't a change to put them under contract. That was already the case. Um Drew's description is is correct and accurate in terms of what we call the project delivery method which in this case is a what's called design bid build and not design build. Um and with some of the um really great project management staff that we've added over time in our public works department, we have the capacity to do that kind of project which is a little challenging under our charter but we can do it. Um so so but we didn't at the time and because of the public contracting law and government code section 1090 um we had to um um to to separate the um with respect to the scape project we had to separate the final design plans and specifications work and the um bidding phase. support work um and the construction management work from the construction trade work. And so that's what this package does. Um but the substitute subcontractor is substituting in at the same subcontract price as was submitted in the low bid. And as I said, since the

grind line construction phase services were already contracted for, that's not a change either. So that's how the that's how the um design stays the same. the project delivery stays the same um but with different parties but in accordance with the legal requirements um and the cost stays the same. Thank you. Thank you. Hello that cover that covers the question. Okay, I think so. Yeah, unless you have No, that was perfect. Yeah. Okay, wonderful. Thank you.

And then my last question about is because it was in the reading and stuff is is there any sort of a plan for the original skate park? Is anything going to change there? Is it going to stay as is or does it need anything?

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, you know, most of the the community that we've engaged with really hold to a high standard um call it a the v a vintage park. So, they really prefer us uh touch nothing um including the artwork that's there. Um, with that said, there are certainly some improvements we can make, shade, seating, those type of things that, um, we were committed to. Uh, but the the outreach towards the the end was very much preserve, save, um, put money into this new park, and once we're off skating again, then don't lose sight of the old park. Make sure that we have those kind of critical functions and take care of it. Um but those elements that are there, they're they're very they hold very dear. So there's not any um changes we expect to make to the skating surfaces.

Okay. Thank you, Drew. Thank you. Thank you very much. Not and any other questions? Um I do on um on item eight, this be a question for city attorney. Um, you know, I was brought up again by the public at the last meeting that um that there was a case post the ninth circuit decision where um Spirit Living did have conditions um that said they were supposed to be all electric and um you know and I since then went in and looked at the conditions of approval and found two instances in there. So, I mean, is that was that consistent with what we were supposed to be doing or

uh we have um in part of the communications with the Department of Justice leading to their dismissal of the case, we let them know that we'd um be reviewing our records to make sure um entitled but not yet built projects um and their their current owners are aware of the the change that the council has approved to our regulations. Um and staff are in the process of doing that. Not just with respect to that, but in case there are any other similarly situated projects. So, so that way um it still may be the case that the um that the uh developers may choose electric constructions um because we understand that can present cost savings, but they will certainly be aware from staff um of the current status of the city's regulations that they're a policy and encourage electrification, but do not require it.

And the the Department of Justice is aware of of those steps that we'll be taking. Oh, okay. Was Spirit Living aware at the time or are they aware now?

I don't know. I'm It's I don't know the answer to either of those, but we can follow up with the council. Um we they'll certainly be made aware if they're not. Um at the time when the um the there was a lot of what do I want to say? It was a dynamic time when the um Berkeley case was being litigated and cities like um Pedalum and others were taking different um approaches to electrification and there was also a time when what's called um bonk review was sought from the ninth circuit which is the whole the whole all the justices and also um US Supreme Court review was sought um but but the holding in the ninth circuit decision from the initial panel did not change um and so I think there might have been there's probably some flux when we weren't sure what the outcome was going to be. But regardless, we'll be sure to make sure um projects NIA built that that have condition all electric conditions in them that don't need them for another reason like in some cases they need that to satisfy their squa analys their environmental analysis. Um so it really wouldn't be an option for them to switch even if they wanted to. But we'll have those discussions and identify those projects as needed. So, so no one is unaware.

Thank you. Okay. Um, then with no other council questions, let's uh go over to public comment and and ask the clerk to bring in our public on this. Any uh emails?

Yes, we received three comments on item number 5, 219, and 23 on item number 10. And I have a number of cards here as well, but if anyone else would like to make a comment on the consent calendar, now is the time to turn in a blue speaker card. I think I see one coming. We have Jody Johnson speaking first to be followed by Tim Portius. Mayor, city council, and city staff, as mobile park residents living in Paluma, our residents have felt the heavy weight of retaliation and weaponization from the newer breed of mobile park owners, large private equity groups. Tonight's agenda item 10 is very important to us mobile park residents, especially our senior citizen residents. While we watched in amazement as this large private equity mobile park owner tore down a senior sign from our entrance, prepared unlawful rules and regulations stating Youngstown as an all-age park, sold, marketed, and signed purchase and agreements of ground rent leases to all age families. The federal law Hopa Enrew and the city of Pedaluma's own senior park overlay zoning for all five senior parks was blatantly not only disregarded but violated with pure intent. This intent is that park owners believe they are above the law and and unanimously voted in senior park overlay does not allow the act of senior park overlay to be circumvented while one challenges its authority. We are aware that our fragile democracy is using methods like this, but it remains unlawful to violate the authority of the city, state, and federal government. Our

senior citizens were and have been violated every day for over two plus years. Codified laws and zoning are valid, and still park owners go against these very laws and zoning every day. As seniors, disabled, physically and mentally exhausted residents speak up time and time again about the laws and ordinances. Park owners continue to ignore lawful ordinances, federal laws, and housing under HOP under HOPA. While true that the park owners are suing the city of Pedaluma for the senior park overlay, in part their lawsuit has been denied and in another part been denied summary judgments and even stays in lawsuits against them. In fact, Fanny May and the city are suing the park owner's default of their mortgage terms which state that Youngstown is a senior park. While not many of us could ever violate law, zoning, or federal rules, these park owners have and continue to do just that. The importance of support for AB 2596 proposed legislation simply codifies existing laws. The city of Pedaluma has and continues to set the bar for protecting, defending, and strengthening the most vulnerable. The city knows if not them, then who will stand up for the vulnerable seniors who purchased a mobile home to live within their means. Thank you in advance for standing up for those who simply cannot stand for themselves. In addition, the city voting with our mobile park residents to oppose egregious money grabs matter. This attempt at fee increases is an abuse of power and the only human beings touched by this fee attempt is us mobile park residents. This firstofits-kind attempt to raise mobile park residence fees by CPI every year and then rounded up is simply outrageous.

Thank you. Tim Portius should be followed by um Tina Yoners. Social Security nor disability have never rounded up, nor do they use CPI in any annual increase. This is a money grab on the most vulnerable mobile park residents throughout our entire state, but here in Paluma as well. How is this preserving affordable subsidized housing on mobile homes when we residents own and maintain? We seniors must choose many times after the assault by large investment groups between medicine, food, or ground rent. This trailer bill can be and must be stopped. AB2596 is a lifeline to stopping the attack on our senior mobile park communities, merely codifying existing federal law, which has been violated time and time again in our communities. AB2596 is sponsored by Assembly Member Mike Gibson, code enforcement officers of our state as well as JSMOL. We are proud of the courageous way the city of Paluma leads allowing our voices to be protections and our protections to be equally important with other work you do for our community. Thank you for voting yes on the following consent calendar agenda item number 10 on Monday, April 6th. Letter of support for AB2596 Gibson, mobile home parks, federally approved housing programs, compliance with state and local laws, and a letter of opposition to the HCD budget trailer bill proposal relating to Department of Housing and Community Development fees RN260876.

Missed one. Respectfully, Mobile Home Residents United GSMOL members. This one, you guys, all of us can make a difference. This is a good one. Stop it. They're really using bizarre methods to suck us dry. It's awful. Thank you. Thank you, Tina Yoners. Jennifer Bole.

Um, uh, Lexi Maggon. Uh, good evening, Mayor McDonald and all members of the council. Um, my name is Jaxie Mandrean. I'm from Paluma originally. Um, but I've been priced out of Paluma. I now live in Rona Park. Um, AB 1903 um, is really concerning to me. I don't like that this bill removes the ability for a homeowner or claimant to file against a developer for inadequate repair. I don't like that it gives the developers the ability to dismiss a claim altogether if the claimant doesn't conform perfectly within the pre-litigation standards. And I also don't like that it removes the ability of the claimant or homeowner to recover uh investigative costs. I think these are reasonable protections by the law and this bill is seeking to remove those protections and giving the power to the developers as well as giving them the option for a private um I'm sorry I'm I'm blanking on the word but uh inspection a private inspection which to me is more capital and kind of gives this incentive this money incentive to these inspectors, which I feel leads to more corruption. So, um I don't I don't love that the council is seeking to um put out a letter of support. Um it's really concerning. It's really um disappointing. So, that's my comment on item seven. um for my comment on item 10. Um I'm actually really um happy that the council is choosing to put out a

letter of support. This is um a reasonable protection for um mobile home park uh residents and um you know any any protections that we can afford them. I really think that the council has done a pretty good job of like doing what they can with the limited power levers of power um in the situation, but um I know that the home park residents are still struggling and that it's an ongoing issue that's that no one should have to go through. So, um, thank you for putting out the, um, letter of support or hopefully for voting on the to support the, um, resolution for item 10. Um, but please reconsider, um, adopting a letter of support for item seven. Thank you.

Thank you, Eric Vasquez to be followed by Matt Callaway. Good evening, Mayor McDonald and council members. My name is Eric Vasquez and I am here to express my thoughts on two items today, so seven and 10. Uh my first concern is with the city of Pedaluma supporting AB1903 um and its potential impacts on new homeowners in the community. While the bill is framed as streamlining construction defect claims, it fundamentally shifts power away from the homeowners and towards developers. It allows builders to hire private inspectors define their claims process, making it harder for homeowners to bring forward legitimate concerns. We don't have to speculate about how things are like already. We're already seeing it in places like Florida where yes, faster homes are being produced and it's occurring, but there's less public oversight left for condo owners to face costly repairs, legal battles, and in some cases, serious safety risks. And it's ironic because state legislators are now looking towards not necessarily modeling what we have in California, but moving closer towards um consumer protections. Condos and multif family homes are often the primary entry point for into home ownership, especially for first-time home buyers, young residents like myself, um and lowincome households. This bill prioritizes quantity over quality. Yes, we are in a housing crisis. Let's not let's be real about that. But this is also an equity crisis. If this bill moves forward, it must include key amendments. One, independent inspections by neutral entities. Two, protections for health and safety claims before visible damage. And three, guarantees access to inspection records and independent inspections, especially for incomequalified homeowners. I urge you to please reconsider weighing weighing

in on this bill at this time. And so, we'll move on to item 10. The second item is supporting AB 2596 and and the opposition letter of the proposed HCD trailer fee uh increases. Simply put, AB2596 is about basic accountability and protections. When mobile home park owners participate in federally approved housing programs, they are still required to comply with state and local laws. It sounds simple enough, but for many residents, this is critical. It provides an added layer of protection against sudden or unjust actions that can threaten their housing stability and quite frankly their way of life. Our mobile home park residents are often seniors, working families, immigrants, and individuals on fixed incomes. AB2596 helps close that gap that can be exploited and ensures consistent standards across the board. In a time where we can no longer trust our federal government to do the right thing, this bill is what we need. I also urge you to oppose the HCD budget trailer bill proposal. Automatically increasing fees year after year without a public rulemaking process removes transparency and accountability. Thank you.

Thank you, Matt Callaway to be followed by Ilana Madreal. Hi there, mayor and uh city council members. Um I'd like to speak on item seven. Um my name is Matt Callaway. I'm speaking on behalf of Sonoma County Conservation Action. Um speaking about item 7, we really do appreciate the intent behind uh Bill 1903 to help address California's housing shortage. Um streamline uh construction. However, as the bill is written currently, uh this bill raises serious concerns about consu consumer protection, housing quality, and long-term community resilience. Um, AB1903 shifts far too much power towards developers by allowing builder selected inspections and limiting homeowners ability to pursue defect claims. This really creates a clear conflict of interest and undermines independent oversight. For first-time home buyers especially, as well as low-income families, those already stretched to access home ownership. This could mean being locked into unsafe defective housing without any kind of meaningful recourse. Uh, from a climate sustainability perspective, this is also deeply concerning. Poor construction often leads to uh inefficient buildings that require costly retrofits, waste energy, and increase greenhouse gas emissions over time. If we are serious about building climate resilient communities, we must ensure that they are built right and the first time. Um we're not opposed to housing construction. We are um actually in strong support of it. Uh but we can't trade away basic protections like safety and long-term affordability in the process. Um, so we very much urge the council to take an opposed unless amended position on 1903 and advocate for key improvements, as Eric said, independent third-party inspections, full transparency inspection records, nonwaveability warranty protections, and access to independent inspections for income qualified homeowners. Uh, we can't let developer apologists push through a narrative that home buyers or consumer protection regulations are the ones slowing down the rate of new affordable

homes. Rather, it is always greed and the motivation to maximize profits without regard for the public good. If we really want to spread abundance, let it be an abundance of caution when giving more power to private industry and taking power away from consumers, consumer protections, and hardun regulation that protect communities and consumers. Thank you very much for consideration. Thank you, Liliana Madrical.

Good afternoon. Um, my name is Selena Madrial, a lone resident of Paluma and a new resident of Council District 6. I'm also a renter and I don't know when I I'll ever be able to afford a home here, but I still believe in what home ownership is supposed to mean. It's one of the biggest investments someone can make. It's a stability. It's security. It's something people work their whole lives towards. And what worries me about AB1903 is this. When people like me finally do get the chance and will be buying something we can actually trust. Because if this bill makes it harder to hold developers accountable, then we're not just talking about paperwork or lawsuits. We're talking about people being stuck with homes that were not built right with problems they cannot afford to fix and no real way to fight back. I do not want my first home, if I ever get there, to be something I have to fear. I do not want to invest everything I have into something that was built quickly but not carefully. We all want more housing. That's a fact. But we also deserve good housing. And for item 10, I don't want to repeat, but I just want to give my support to the resolution authorizing letter support for AB2596. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That closes uh public comment on uh the consent calendar as a whole. And I'll bring it back up to council for um comments on the items. And I'll start with council member Shribs.

Um thank you for bringing your attention to both uh 7 and 10. Um now it turns out when I bought my house uh 35 years ago, um I ended up with three or four problems uh in the house. and I've uh pointed out it was at least three at the time I was able to point out to the developer never got fixed, never got to deal with and I'm still dealing with it 35 years later. So yeah, so um so I'm hearing these stories and uh so I ran into that exact problem of um the developer didn't fix it even though it passed inspection on a couple of these items. So, um, and so I will need to, um, after reading the staff report on it, I said, "Okay, looked good up front, but maybe it needs to be reviewed a little bit more strongly." So, um, maybe I would suggest we, uh, pull seven off the list for the time being until we get a better review of it or have better answers to work on. Um, because I'm not comfortable, uh, um, going with it at this time, hearing what I've heard today, uh, and not having enough information on it at this time. Thank you, Council Member Barnacle.

So, I'll be recusing on eight, but I'll speak to seven because I'm the one that requested it be added. Um, since 2011, 97% of multif family homes that have been built in California have been built for rent. So, if you want to um talk about uh homeowner like and that's because one of the main reasons is because if you're if you bill it for sale, it's a 10-year um constru uh construction defect um statute of limitations. So, um, developers that I've spoken to, including people who are no longer in the development space, um, have trial attorneys come through at 9 years looking for defects because they're looking for, um, that whole there's a whole industry built around that. Meanwhile, rental renters or rentals have four-year, so you get lower investment uh, interest rates and things like that. There was a bill in the legislature last year for this, and it wasn't consumer protection advocates who were fighting it. It was the trial attorneys association that killed it. So, I just want to be clear that if we want to have home ownership, affordable home ownership opportunities here, we need to have condos built. And um if we don't fix this and bring this to parody with um what you see in rentals, you're definitely not going to see that get built. So, if we care about, you know, affordable home ownership and creating a pathway for people, like this is like we have to have condos get built or every one of the large multifamily projects that are going to come because the land use maps that we just passed are going to be for rent and then we're building a renter class where people are complaining about $3,000 a month rents instead of spending $3,000 a month to build equity in something. Um, it does not uh take away someone's right to fix something. It says that there is a right to fix instead of go right to trial attorneys. Um so I'm going to put my

money on trying to build um affordable homes for people, help create opportunities for people to build equity so that the people who've been priced out of Paluma have an opportunity to come back here and build equity in this community and put down roots here. That's what condos offer to people. Um it offers an opportunity for people to downsize. Um and this is not um a situation where um we are taking away someone's rights to to address the defects in projects. This is an uh something that is um fundamentally killed condo development in California since 2011. Like it's killed it. And we um have an opportunity uh this year to actually move the needle on this and try and unlock more forale multif family housing because as especially for cities like uh Paluma and Sonoma County where we have urban growth boundaries um there's not much land left. So if we want to create new home ownership opportunities, we're not just going to build new subdivisions out Lakeville. We're not going to do that. um we need to create for sale opportunities within our city limits on the scarce resource that we have which is land. Um and so for that reason I'm a strong supporter of it. I hope it passes. Um and I hope that the rest of the council will support it as well because um we absolutely need more home ownership opportunities um if we if we want to create opportunities for you know first-time home buyers and things like that to start building equity. Council member Quint mentioned the Brody Ranch project in those condos that were there. Um, people got into those things at $10,000 down and now they're living right next to the train station. Like that's affordable home ownership. Why don't we see more of that? We should all want more of that. Um, and right now the state law is crushing that. So um I

respect the people who come in here um and say that. But, um, I think you're, uh, I think opposing this under the the guise of, um, consumer protections is playing right into a bunch of trial attorneys and, um, and what they want, um, and not actually what, um, what the research and the data shows. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone? I I'm going to um, actually kind of echo a bit a bit of that. I mean, we talk about what's missing in our portfolio here and um we what's missing partially is the entry- level house, the missing middle income. How does that person get started in housing? And condo is um been a path that's worked quite a bit and um and home ownership is an important uh value here. Uh the equity has been brought up, but equity is generational wealth. What we say when we say we don't have home ownership is means we separate into classes where we don't have that um generational wealth moving through from um generation to generation. So that's a part that bothers me. It also bothers me that um that um Pedaluma has had a 1 half of 1% growth rate over the last 25 years. I mean we really haven't moved. And so we're looking for ways that um that housing our people and and solving the housing crisis we're all identifying works. This is another tool. Um we we look at um condos as denser housing uh newer newer housing being more efficient. This is the climate path forward to trying to house people. So it is the environmentally best way to have this. You have you have the equity component and the climate component. And um I look at it and remember tonight we're just putting our approval on this need that the state is talking about. We're not approving it. We're saying, "Yeah, we think you're on to something." And we realize that the state it's going to get negotiated by many more parties. But I think it's really important that they hear that having crushed the the trial attorneys having crushed the condo market for the uh recent memory has really hurt the people and it's time for us to get that piece of the market of

housing back for our young people who need to start building equity. So I'll be uh strongly in support. Council member Quint. So, I'm going to support this for highly selfish personal reasons. In 12 years, I want to retire and sell my beautiful house on Sarasoma Circle and move into a condo in Mr. Darly's district. So, I'm going to be in support of it. If we don't, and that's a real good point, if we don't have new housing for seniors to downsize to, they they hold up all of the familysiz housing and really hurt the family market as well. Council member now,

um, and I'm proud to say that in 2007, I was on the council and we approved the mixeduse condos at Foundry Work by Aqua's Cafe. can't remember the name of the subdivision, but um one of our council members that were elected in 2008, she was able to purchase her first home in that um development and I gave her as a gift for uh getting on the council. I gave her the little gold shovel from the groundbreaking and um the single family homes that were built 35 years ago. I don't know which developer bill council member shribs but um off the top of my head I can remember condandy and Leonard J who had so many mistakes in their building and there was lots of um building errors. Luckily I did not buy one of those homes. I bought a Monarch Space Maker and um we have to hold those builders accountable so that the single family homes are built correctly. that I am all in favor of condos and um I want to retire too. I'd like to retire. Maybe not in Council Member Darly's district, but near uh downtown so I can walk to the the night life. But um yeah, I don't need 2,000 square feet anymore um just for the grandkids right now. But, uh, we need to make sure that those retired folks can give up their single family homes and move into condos. Um, I was looking forward to Oyster Cove getting built. So, thank you.

Thank you. And, um, with that, with no further comments, do we do we have a motion, Mr. Mayor? Sorry for interrupting. I'm thinking that it might city attorney, go ahead. you hold your remarks

just briefly. I just want to recommend that um you conduct a separate vote on items seven and eight on eight so council member Barnacle can recuse as he indicated he is choosing to do and you needn't leave the deis because it's the it's on the consent calendar but on seven in case some of the members want to vote differently that's just my suggestion. Thank you. And um and u before we um I agree. I I that's right. I I didn't offer council member anyone chance to recuse from any particular items and I understand you're interested. You mentioned recusing from eight. Clearly we'll be breaking this into two separate votes on that. And you had indicated uh not joining on seven. Is that stand or is that

Yes. this I don't feel comfortable uh I don't have enough information to go either way on this particular so then what we're looking for is uh the consent calendar last seven and eight and uh I need a motion for that. I'll make that motion. We have a motion by Kater Thompson a second and a second by now in a roll call vote please. Barnacle I cater Thompson yes. D Carly yes. Now yes. Quint. Yes. Shribs. Yes. McDonald. Yes. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Move item seven.

And then we have a motion for item seven from Barnacle and a second from Gator Thompson. And a roll call vote, please. Barnacle. I. Gator Thompson. Yes. D Carly. Yes. Now, yes. Quint, yes. Shri, I'll abstain. And McDonald. Yes. Just I just want to note abstension counts as a yes vote under the council rules. Then I'll switch to a a no. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Motion carries with council memberships voting no.

Thank you. And now I'm looking uh we have uh uh item eight up and council member Barnacle is recusing on this. So we need a motion. I'll make the motion. We have a motion from second. Okay. So, we have a motion from Gator Thompson and a second from now. And a roll call vote, please. Uh, Barnacle recused. Gator Thompson, yes. D Carly, yes. Now, yes. Quint, yes. Shri, yes. McDonald, yes. Motion carries unanimously with the recusal.

Thank you very much. That closes out uh this uh portion of the consent calendar here and we move to public hearings. Matters for consideration. We have a public hearing to receive comments on the city's 2026 2027 proposed community development block grant program, the annual action plan, and the adoption of the resolution approving the plan and authorizing the city manager to sign all documents required for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Brian O pulling this together and taking a little breath here while we uh let the room change. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, we're good if you're good.

I am good. Thank you, mayor. Good evening. Brian O, director of community development. I'm also joined by our housing consultant, Angie Mohler, via Zoom. Um, and she'll have an opportunity uh to field any questions um that the council or community may have. So, this evening we are concluding the public hearing period for the upcoming fiscal year. Each year we have um as an entitlement jurisdiction we have a um roughly $300,000 allocation from the federal government through our CDBG program. And so this evening we want to present um a staff recommendation on how to utilize those funds for the upcoming fiscal year. In the past five years, we have supported many different efforts throughout the community. Last year, focusing on rebuilding together as well as Pedalum People's Services uh in total $1.4 $4 million um over the past five years that we have been able to essentially facilitate our service providers in support of our community. Um at least 264 housing units supported through minor rehab with over 550 on average residents served throughout this program. For the past 30 days, we have solicited uh public comment, um posted a public notice, uh worked with our local service providers, a few that are here with us um this evening, as well as coordination with our housing and uh

community organizations such as CS um to really review the different needs that this very specific funding source um could offer. And so we have identified three um three priorities uh that we'd like to pursue with this funding. Expand and preserve affordable housing, which um rebuilding has done uh for us for a number of years. Provide essential services for low-income residents. um as well as improve new to this year improving public facilities and neighborhood infrastru infrastructure. While we won't have the final allocation until I believe May um later in May, we anticipate um again having a similar allocation uh somewhere in the $300,000 realm. uh the funding categories are the same and so we wanted to take this opportunity this evening uh to present what we heard from the community um again I have um our new executive director from ped pedaluma people services excuse me um staff from rebuilding together here as well and then cafeente had submitted public comment earlier in the day um and the culmination here would be um the recommendation to to fund some capital work for Cafe Poente. They have a commercial kitchen Midtown um that they're looking to enhance and expand and to be able to provide uh free community meals and food distribution um which has been a growing need in the in the last handful of years. um a

recommendation for rebuilding to continue their safe and healthy homes program. And so that's minor rehab uh that we're able to facil facilitate um through the staff at rebuilding together and their workforce training and then also the continuation of our senior meals program. Um while that has a cap of 15% um through the generosity of different funding sources, Pedal People Services has able to is able to continue this program and so um our recommendation would be to uh provide that maximum allocation to continue that much needed program and service to our community. um and as well as a um minor administrative uh fee of that um which the city would be allowed to uh reimburse their time. Um and so with that u mayor and council, I'm pleased to uh make these recommendations for your consideration. Um and happy to answer any questions you may have.

Great. Um appreciate it. And this is always uh great to have funds come in that we can assist our um social um network with. And so I'll ask council any questions. Council member Shribs. Uh yes. Can you tell us a little bit more about the actual facilities um for Cafe Poente? Um where where are they located and what what condition are they in now and how is the $50,000 going to uh help? um just so we know that um where where the money is going. Exactly.

Great question, council member. Um and so each year uh with the proposed funding, we set targets. Um so I'll start there. Um so the $50,000 would go towards the rehab of the commercial kitchen. um it's something that they've received a um a construction estimate uh for and so we know that it is something that can be um accomplished with the funding that they've submitted or the requests that they've submitted. So this proposes to serve at least 375 people annually through their food program uh which would essentially match what they did last year. um a super majority, 93% um of the population served um are and would continue to be Latino. Um, and there aren't details on exactly what the rehab would be, but

they're in a existing um building u off of Washington and um they already have secured most of the appliances. I think it's now just build out. Very good. I was just facility was actually being uh and and that's across from Whole Foods, correct? Whole Foods. Whole Foods. or Whole Foods across the street. Right across the street. Is it in the old restaurant? Uh restaurant there or there's a little strip mall tucked away in there. Oh, there's this old strip mall. Okay. Just thought I'd just find out what that was really about. And uh anyway, it sounds like a great program. I want to support it. I just want to make sure where it is and uh what's actually happening there.

Yes. And unfortunately, the executive director couldn't make it. Both uh co-executive directors couldn't make it, but they did um make a point that they would like to come and do a presentation at a later date. Thank you.

Any other questions on the um funding? I I had one um last year this time we allocated the funds last year and we thought we had $330,000 to allocate and so I compared them to this year and it was only 300 and the question the answer to my question before the meeting came back well actually we only ended up with near 300 last year. Are we worried that it'll be less than? If if it's always less than, is that a worry this year? You know, last year's went from 330 to 300. What will are we worried about this year? So, I may uh phone a friend uh with Angie, but I think just my initial response to that. So, that's where we do want to have the flexibility should the number come down. Um it's somewhat formulaic. Um but last year was challenging in that we actually didn't receive the funding from the federal government um I believe until June. Um so I think that's really um the one that we want to be mindful of. Um there is some carryover funds from this current fiscal year because we had that late start date. Uh to this point, our um program administrator at um HUD has been uh pretty easy to work with. Um and so I would expect um whatever number that ends up being, we're going to be able to fully utilize that this fiscal year.

Thank you. Yeah, they um it's great if you can still get somebody on the phone at HUD. Um but uh the other question I had on this is that uh the administrative costs at the city that um in last year's budget said we would take some and this year it it has us pretty much saying you know we're we're not going to be taking much in the way of administrative funds. Um I think that's maybe that's more of a comment than a question. I'll back off that. I I mean I'm happy to provide

if you find a question a context would be great. Um, so I I do think this is something we um have traditionally um wrestled with, right? Do we do we, you know, turn out as much of the funding out to the community? Um, obviously there's some caps, right? The 15 uh% allocation to public services. Um, but each year we try our best to identify how much the true cost would be to administer. Um, again, this this year since we got somewhat of a a late start, I do think there's some additional administrative funds that we may be able to carry over, but we always want to make sure that, you know, um, not only are we supporting our service providers, but we're also um, recouping those costs. And so that's just the balance that we always strike.

Thank you. And see no other questions, we'll go to the clerk for um whether we received emails on this and then take it to the public comment.

We did receive one email comment on this and it's posted on the website. I have not received any cards for this item, but if anyone would like to make a comment, please bring your card to my desk. Seeing no one rushing, um I um I will close public comment on the item and bring it back to the council. And did anyone have a comment on this before? I just want to note one thing. Um I think this we um the city pedalum is an entitlement city which means that the money from HUD comes to be our discretion. If we were any smaller, the money would go to the county and you'd make it, you know, you'd ask them permission for uh, you know, it would be a competition for funds. And I'd see it those things. I see uh bike trails and other things. It there's many eligible components. So, I really appreciate that Paluma is putting the money it has its hands on into these kinds of programs in the community. And with that, we're looking for a motion.

I'll make the motion. We have a motion from Kater Thompson. Second and a second from Shribs. And a roll call vote, please. Hi. Barnacle. Hi. Thank you. Gater Thompson, yes. D Carly, yes. Now, yes. Quint, yes. Tribs, yes. McDonald, yes. Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you. Thank you very much for the presentation. Thank you for being here in the audience tonight. We move to item 12, resolutions ordering abatement of nuisances consisting of hazardous ve vegetation and rubbish growing upon public and private property in the city of Paluma and ordering the fire department to abate such hazardous vegetation and rubbish by contract if property owners failed to do so pursuant to chapter 1070 of the Pedaluma Municipal Code. And I'd like to invite our fire marshall on up to make a presentation.

Good evening, mayor, city council members, city manager, staff, and Paluma residents. Tonight, as we do once a year, we are bringing forward a resolution to declare certain properties with hazardous vegetation and rubbish as a public nuisance and to authorize the fire department to abate those hazards if property owners fail to do so in accordance with chapter 1070 of the Pedaluma Municipal Code and our standing ordinance. This program is one of our most important proactive wildfire prevention efforts. Reducing hazardous vegetation lowers fuel loads, slows or even stops fire spread, gives firefighters critical time to respond, and protects properties and neighborhoods. With fire season now essentially year round, this work is essential to maintaining our safe community. Our process is structured, more transparent than ever, and designed to prioritize voluntary compliance. Property owners are notified by mail and public notice of their responsibility to abate vegetation. The compliance deadline is May 31st, 2026. Inspections begin June 1st. If a property is non-compliant, contractors post a door hanger notice and provide another opportunity for compliance. If still not compliant, the city abates the property through a contract service and bills the property owner for actual cost plus an administrative fee designed to cover the cost of the letters, inspections, door hangers, invoicing, etc. This ensures due process at every step, including tonight's public hearing. Of note, in general, a minority of properties require city abatement. The program is successful largely because of voluntary compliance. More specifically, 29 properties were abated last year, which was less than 4% of the properties identified on the abatement

list. Our goal is always compliance, not enforcement. This year, we are introducing a new pricing model, which is a significant improvement to the program. Previously, costs varied widely by contractor and were based on labor and equipment, making them unpredictable for property owners. The new pricing structure is based on lot and abatement size as well as slope and is standardized across both contractors we will be using for abatement this year. It will be published and available on our website this week with finalization of PSAs, allowing property owners to reasonably estimate their potential cost in advance should they not abate themselves as the ordinance requires. This improves transparency, fairness, and consistency, and strengthens the defensibility of our program. In summary, this program is a proactive wildfire risk reduction effort that ensures a fair process, strong public outreach, and balanced enforcement. It also introduces improved cost transparency this year. Staff respectfully recommends adoption of the resolution, and I'm happy happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. And uh this is an every year thing, so I'm hoping we're getting used to, but a question from council member Shribs. Um yes, I I submitted some uh um a couple questions about the two properties that I need to recuse myself on. I didn't have a chance to actually read any um answers from staff before the meeting, but if you could uh tell me um the two properties is uh I think it's the St. James Church property, which I I live near, and also um looks like Washington Creek area, which I think is city-owned. Could you explain to me why those two properties are even on the list?

Yeah, so it's only the 125 um Pedaluma Boulevard North location that is on the list. Um it is the church property and it is because of some um weeds issues that they have had in the back of their community garden area and so our fire inspector has worked with the church every year to make sure that those get abated. We have never had to send them to city abatement. Okay, good. And then the other one was the um the creek um creek side there between Sutter and I assume Eli. Um what what portion of that is is on private land because I thought that was all city land. We do have certain city properties on our weed abatement list and we work with our our city departments to manage those as well.

Okay. Yeah. So even though it's city property, it still gets on the list. That's correct. Okay. Just thank you. That that solves it. Okay. Um, if no further questions, um, uh, let's go to public comment on the item. And, um, we did not receive any comments ahead of time. And I don't have any cards, but this is the moment.

Public comment is open. And seeing no one moving, it is closed. And, uh, now we'll bring it back to the um, council. And I should announce that um when we do get to mo motions here, we have a little bit of a uh um there's a property near my house, property near your house, so there's a recusal recusal recusal process. Don't be intimidated. Our clerk will get us through as in proper order and our city attorney.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just a quick um update regarding that process which you're referring to which is called segmenting. and allows the council members allows decisions to happen with the council members taking turns accusing just as to one aspect or one affected property. Um, council member Barnacle asked us a question um regarding um attachment three which lists some properties um that um that were thought to present a conflict for him. But I I think um those relate to um one of the locations that's owned by the employer of his spouse. um they don't have an ownership in that property, an ownership interest. Um and it's not on the abatement list. Um it's just near properties that are so u if and I I've sent that to staff, but it's in the background of this meeting. They may not have seen it. Um but if if I'm right in that um then that would mean council member Barnacle does not have any any need to recuse and the attachment three properties could be included in the attachment one properties and all done by particip

there are a couple of properties that I do need to recuse from on Bedga um but just not the ones that are on Lakeville or Pedaluma Boulevard North. So we'll need to do is just adjust the the property list for attachment three. Yes. Okay. Thank you, council member. Yep. I have a question. Someone has some secretly deed me property somewhere. I do not own any property in that area. Let me ask Thanks for raising that. Thank you. Let's ask for clarity on that. How will we do that? Will the clerk just uh consolidate?

Yes. So, we can move the the secondary properties from the resolution that would have council member Barnacle recuse. We'll move those to the one with no recusals and we'll leave his where he recuses just his primary residence. Okay. So, we'll be clear on what we're voting for when that moment comes. Adjustment to the the property list to three. Thank you. I have a question. Council member Kater Thompson.

Um it says um North Mcdow 495. I think that's past 500 ft from my house. So, I'm curious why I have to recuse. I'll refer that to staff on the listings or to the crack GIS team who helps you out with this. Yes. Uh we we send our list to uh the GIS team at the city and and get back a a layer um that shows which properties are within that 500 foot zone. If something was on your recusal sheet, it was because that was identified during that process. Um but we're all human and very fallible, so it certainly could be a mistake.

Um although I I haven't seen any fallibility on the part of our GIS team as of yet. Um on my part, not their part. So I council member Kater Thompson, if that showed up, it's not because it's between 500 and 1,000 feet. It's because according to GIS, it's within or at least touching 500 feet. And remember, it goes from parcel boundary to to partial boundary. I believe this is close to the Lynch Creek Trail. Unfortunately, I don't have I'm happy to recuse from it, but Okay. We we can follow up to make sure we don't have errors in the in the app that thanks for raising that. The other comment was I'm really happy about the new pricing and that who's ever doing the work, the two companies that they're consistent because

that was definitely a problem. It was and it was a uh it was a hope that we could get to that point this year and thankfully right in the nick of time we were able to um reach agreement and work really diligently on the staff side to ensure that that didn't mean costs were going up for our residents. Really appreciate that. Thanks. I'll make the motion. Oh, well, I can't. I can hear. Okay. So, um I think what we're looking for is um the resolution attachment one, a motion for attachment one uh as modified with uh Barnacles Lakeville nonpropies. And so, who would like to make a motion on res on attachment one? I'll make that motion.

We have a motion from Kater Thompson. Second. A second from Shribs. Thank you very much. Roll call vote. Barnacle. Hi. Kater Thompson. Yes. Yes. D Carly. Yes. Now, yes. Quint, yes. Shrimps, yes. McDonald, yes. Motion carries unanimously.

Wonderful. Now we'll move to the part where um I am going to u recuse for parcels near my house and leave the room and uh pass the u meeting over to our vice mayor. Okay. So would any council members like to make a motion? I'll move it. Anyone second? I'll second. Okay. Barnacle. Hi. Kater Thompson. Yes. D Carly. Yes. Now, yes. Quint, yes. Shri, yes.

And McDonald recused. Motion carries unanimously with the recusal. And I'll recuse now. Okay. Okay. And um now we're looking at attachment three and a motion. Please make the motion. We have a motion from Kater Thompson. Second. Second from Shribs. Thank you very much. Roll call vote. Barnacle recused. Uh Kater Thompson. Yes. D Carly. Yes. Now, yes. Quint, yes. Shri, yes. McDonald, yes. Yes.

Motion carries unanimously with recusel. Thank you very much, Rahee. Thank you. We're looking at attachment four, uh, the resolution with Kater Thompson recused. May I have a motion? A motion, please. Motion from a second from now. Roll call vote. Barnacle. I. Kater Thompson recused. Darly, yes. Now, yes. Quint, yes. Shri, yes. McDonald. Yes. Motion carries unanimously with the recusal.

And now we have Peter Thompson returning to the room and uh D Carly recusing on this one. And it is attachment five. And I'm looking for a motion on this one. Okay, I'll move five. Second. We have a a motion from shrimps and a second from now. Roll call vote. Barnacle. I. Kater Thompson. Yes. D Carly is recused now. Yes. Quint, yes. Shribs, yes. McDonald, yes. Motion carries unanimously with recusal.

Thank you very much. We're inviting D Carly back in the room and recusing now for attachment six, the resolution. And uh do we have a motion? I'll move six. We have a motion from Shribs and a second from Kater Thompson. Roll call vote. Barnacle I. Kater Thompson. Yes. D Carly, yes. Now is recused. Quint, yes. Shribs, yes. McDonald, yes. Motion carries unanimously with recusal.

Thank you very much. Inviting now back into the room and Shribs to be recused. This is attachment seven. Um, and a roll call vote. I mean, a motion from Kater Thompson. Second. A second from now. Roll call vote. Barnacle, I. Kater Thompson, yes. D Carly, yes. Now, yes. Quint, yes. Shri is recused. And McDonald, yes. Motion carries unanimously with recusal.

Thank you. I believe that brings us through the entire process and uh that concludes concludes that item for the um evening. Thank you.

Right. Okay. Thank you very much. Uh Amy, thank you very much for being here all evening with us. And um brings us to item 13, which is a workshop. and we'll take a heartbeat to get set up here, but um we have a recommendation to receive a staff presentation and discuss the FY2627 pedalum transit budget service modification options. Um we have uh Paul Kashell, the director of public works, Jared Hall, transit manager, and Camille Sullivan, senior management analyst on the team here. So, um, we have a presentation. I'm sure it will take a a heartbeat to pull up. So, relax in your chairs or stretch a leg if you need.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, if I may, while he's bringing up the presentation, I'd like to start with a staff announcement. Okay, please do.

Yeah, sure. Uh before we start, so um Jared Hall, our transit manager for the last 8 years, uh has accepted an exciting offer um to with uh the Riverside Transit Agency to be their next director of planning. Um and so we're excited for him and we want to congratulate him uh want to thank him for his uh eight years of dedicated service to the community. Um so thank you Jared um you know from city staff and the community. So next question may be okay well what next who's who's going to help uh run transit especially with some of the discussion we're going to be having tonight. Uh so with that and to help ensure continuity and a smooth transition we're excited to welcome back a former transit employee that's Maria Arce. So Maria started back with us today um and she's going to help us provide a smooth transition. and she'll be taking over as interim transit manager.

Oh, and I if I didn't mention Jared's last day is this Thursday, right? Yeah.

Thank you very much, Paul. Uh bittersweet moment for me. Of course, it's been great to be in the pedalum community. I very much love the people, love working with our committees and the council, but a great opportunity. So, thank you for all your time and support over the years. So, I'll pull up the presentation here if you'll bear with me for a moment. All right. So, good evening members of the council, members of the public. We're here tonight to talk about transit and to give you an update on our service as we lead into our FY27 budget and some challenges that we're looking at paired with some recommendations that we have from our transit advisory committee for modifications in FY27. And so in terms of an overview, we're going to give you a overview of the transit budget as a reminder of how that works and a snapshot in time of where we are right now. We're going to provide a summarization of feedback that we've received from the community and the transit advisory committee over the past several months. We're going to provide a recap of feedback that we've received over a series of meetings during that time. And then we're going to lead into our staff recommendation. Although there's no specific item requested tonight as an action, it's a discussion consensus item. We do have a staff recommendation that's being presented based on the TAC meetings. and then of course questions discussion. So in terms of the broader scope of transit finance um I know people have kind of heard the overview before but as a reminder transit is really a patchwork of several different funding sources and those are both local state federal and they often have dedicated uses. So there's a lot of grants that are capital in particular and we've done a great job

of receiving those. like all of our recent electric bus purchases are pretty much entirely grant funded and the harder part of the equation is the operating grant side to where we've actually received several of those recently due to the great work of Kami but overall transit financing is a patchwork and usually it's segmented and uh the specific funds can only be used for particular items. So in terms of the recent trends, transit regionally and even nationally has had a difficult time since 2020. Of course, there was big economic shocks to the country during that time. We were fortunate to have several temporary grant funding sources come in, some of which were CARES or Chrissa, the uh COVID recovery acts, but overall since then those funds have been depleted now for multiple years. And we've seen a continuing trend of decreasing funding with our two major funding sources. One of which is TDA, Transportation Development Act funding. That's our biggest funding source. That has been down for 11 straight quarters at the Sonoma County level. Hopefully a trend that reverses soon. And STA, state transit assistance, has been down 27%. And that was already a decreasing funding source because that's tied to diesel tax, but it's a per gallon charge. So as vehicles get more efficient, as they electrify, that was just a naturally decreasing funding source even before the recent downturns. And this has led to a lot of transit agencies facing what you've probably read about in the paper as a fiscal cliff. For example, there's a ballot measure for five counties in the region right now to do uh funding, especially bigger agencies like BARTs and MUN are looking at significant cuts that I'm sure some people have heard about. But the biggest piece is expenses have been going up faster than revenues have. And that unfortunately leads you to a scenario where you're likely going to be

looking at service modifications or potentially cuts. And so, Camille, give us a quick overview reminder of the pedal limit transit budget. Thank you. Uh so as you can see represented in the two pie charts, one is our operating revenues and one is our operating expenses. The large green essentially half is our TDA. So that is the one that Jared mentioned is declining by declining 11 straight quarters. Um that is funded at the state level through a sales tax. Uh we also have STA which is rapidly declining. That is the state transit assistance. Um and that's specifically funded through a fuel sales tax. And as California has switched from uh gasoline vehicles towards electric vehicles, that revenue source is just going to continue to decrease. Um what you might notice is the 22% of grants. That's actually new. We've been increasing our grant operating grant uh I guess uh resources. Um so we've applied for more operating grants recently in the last few years uh to try to fund any gaps in these decre declining fund sources that we receive every year. Um and as you can see the third major one is uh go um which was previously measure M. So measure M sunset on March 31st 2025 and then go to effect effect on April 1st 2025. Um on the operating expenses, you can see that our largest expense is our contractor hours. So that's our uh management, repairs, driver hours. Um that is the largest uh expense that we incur. But then the second expense is supplies. So that's parts, fuel, anything for the wear and tear of the vehicles. And on the next slide, I'll discuss the Thank you. So some there we go. Okay. some trends that we have seen at the

Pedaluma level and then at the Sonoma County level. Um so we've seen driver wage increases in FY2223 to stay competitive as we've uh reached a driver shortage. Um overall just higher maintenance costs due to an aging fleet. We do have an aging fleet. You have seen some of our new electric vehicles potentially on the road. Uh they have launched they took off in the last few weeks. Um, and so we are actively replacing and I do want to note that our discussion tonight is specifically as it relates to our operating budget. Our capital budget is funded the majority through grants. Um, and so that's where our electric buses are coming from. It's through a variety of grant sources. So this is specifically going to talk about our operating expenses tonight. Uh, we also launched Lumigo in the fall of 2024. Um, and then the service expansion on routes 2 and 11. So, the 15-minute headways um during peak hours. Uh but then also nationally, we're seeing inflationary price increases um due to tariffs or just rising costs of parts labor. Um and then we began our new operations contract in as of July 1st of this year. Um and then at the county level, uh we have seen a little bit of an increase in funds from the switching of measure M to go Sonoma. The sales tax remains the the same. When you go to the store and you buy something, the sales tax remain the same. But there is a new formula. So instead of 13%, it's 21% now dedicated towards transit. So this fiscal year we are seeing essentially an 85% increase in uh the goma formerly measure M uh fund source. However, that's not an every year we'll see an 85% increase. It's just a one time as the new um the new measure took effect. So uh we have identified that uh there

is a gap uh expenses are outpacing revenues, revenues are declining. Uh so staff has already taken action to decrease costs where possible. So this includes updating the PG& energy plan especially since the facility electrification project phase one has been or is in the process of being completed. Um we have deferred fleet maintenance um as appropriate uh specifically like gate electrification projects or something like that just to shift funds as appropriate to meet the operational gap. Um and then where grants are able to we have funded staff time to try to shift billable expenses to ease up the pressure on the operating funds and then reducing any other operating costs as possible um that are would not impact service. So we've already enacted these items and then we have also gone for a variety of revenue sources. If you want to go to the next slide, sorry. Thank you. Um, so we have looked at increasing our revenue sources specifically as it relates to transit operations. As I mentioned, we do have a variety of grants funding various capital projects, especially the bus and the bus electrification process. Um, so we have resumed transit advertising program. So you might see some new ads on our the back of our buses. So we have a paid advertising program. Um and then we're beginning the process of generating lowcarbon fuel saving credits um now that our facility is becoming electrified. Uh we are also switching some of our annual funds. So the lowcarbon transportation operating program that's LCTOP uh that can be applied either towards capital or operating. So in the past we've used it towards electric buses but as we've had enough electric buses we switched it towards uh this year we're switching it towards operating because it does fund fair free programs as well. Uh so we're trying to be strategic with uh repositioning some of our funding sources as possible to meet that

operating gap. Uh we've also applied for G uh grants and been awarded various grants recently such as the safe access for all which will fund Lumigo through the rest of the fiscal year. Um and the clean California communities and employment pathways grant which allows for enhanced bus stop cleaning and minor maintenance work. Um and we do have a few pending grant applications as well that we're hoping to hear back from over the summer as it relates to transit operations. And as those get awarded, I add them to our budget projection. So as of right now, when we're about to look at the next slide, which has the budget on it, it doesn't reflect anything that has not been awarded to set the tone. So this is our current operating budget, like an overview of what we're projecting for the rest of this fiscal year and then going forward. So to do this, we estimate expenses as a at a 5% increase just due to cost increases every year. But the revenues, it is all based upon all the grants that were awarded, the projections based upon the Sonoma County Transit and Climate Authority and MTC. So we we factor in all of these. Um, so without the cost savings measures that I uh described in the last few slides, we would be looking at a $1.2 million deficit in FY26 and 27. Right now we're looking at $18,000 deficit for 2627, but then compounding the future years. And so that's why we're here tonight is to talk about what we can do to address this deficit.

Thank you, Kami. So even given all those different changes that we talked about and turning over every stone that we can financially, there still is a remaining budget shortfall as we saw in that slide. So what we did is we launched a process once we realized that was a case where we want to make sure that the community is heavily involved and aware of the situation and providing us guidance on what the service is going to look like going forward knowing that some changes are likely going to be imminent. And so our process started back in September 2025 when we had our first annual budget presentation to the transit advisory committee. And since then we've been back several times. Most notably, we had a January tech workshop to where we promoted that throughout the community with our community partners on social media, letting them know this is going to be the workshop where we really talk about a lot of the budget update and some potential service changes for FY27 so that we get good public input. And then from there we had two more meetings with the transit advisory committee which were in February or March and those further refined the different options looking at really all aspects of the service route by route service by service and from there we had a recommendation that was adopted by TAC at the last meeting to bring forward to council today. So that brings us up to April 6 where we're presenting the staff recommendation and then anything that comes out of this meeting in terms of guidance would be implemented for changes that would start on July 5th, 2026 is part of the larger city FY27 budget process. So in terms of the approach that we talked about going into this, we wanted to make sure that we have a lot of community involvement. We want to have clear priorities for how we're going to determine how we're going to make any service modifications that we need to. We want to look at every single service that we have under

several different lenses, whether that's equity, ridership, performance, and then figure out, you know, what level of service will be needed to achieve fiscal resiliency both in FY27 and beyond potentially. And then of course present the list of staff recommendations to you. So in terms of the priorities and how we're looking at this and the lens and a lot of these are always consistent with pedaluma transit but especially for this process we always want to have a safe reliable transit system throughout the community. It's a reminder that transportation is the number one expense for people in Paluma and really across the country especially now with fuel prices going up significantly. We want to maximize our ridership our accessibility and our efficiency. We want to always achieve a balanced budget as we're trying to do for FY27 and beyond. Any service changes that we do have to implement. We want to minimize the impacts as much as we can. So try to minimize any impacts to ridership to equity communities throughout Paluma. So we did the equity analysis and then ensure that we're still helping to fulfill the highlevel priority goals for Pedaluma such as a blueprint for climate action. And then of course a big goal is starting to rebuild our transit funding reserves over time. So as we dove into different options for service modifications, there's several different lenses that you can look at it through. You could do some of the different things shown on this chart, such as you could truncate hours. Right now on weekdays, three of our routes run until about 8:30 p.m. Do you perhaps end that service at 7 p.m.? You could shave off a day of service. We run seven days per week right now, but perhaps you just run six days. You could modify routes, perhaps truncating a portion of a route if there's any operational savings. You could do other route reductions, how frequently they run throughout the day.

Instead of every 15 minutes, they run every 30. And then of course, any combination of different considerations or hybrids, even looking at things like the role of microtransit going forward. So on this chart you can see the performance of all the different types of services that we have and it's worth noting that it's our highest ridership year at FY25 since COVID. So that's great news. But you can see the ridership for all three services here. Our paratransit service on the top left, our fixed route service on the top right and then lumigo which launched in October 24 on the bottom. So when we were looking at all the routes, we wanted to try to identify if there's changes to any routes, which ones would have disproportionate impacts to equity communities. So we looked at two different lenses, one of which you can see on this screen, and these are the lowincome populations throughout Paluma. So where you see the darker redder colors, there's larger concentrations of low-income neighborhoods. With this chart, we're looking at minority population representation throughout the city. So as it gets darker on the purple side, you can see larger concentrations of minority populations and then how that's balanced out with the different routes, some having more pockets than others, etc. So with that approach, we launched our public feedback process. And at our first workshop on January 20th, some of the feedback that we heard that we want to bring forward is we need to look at one consideration of the new Envy operation contract and any changes or efficiencies we can find in that as well as overall operations of Pedaluma Transit. We want to work with our community partners given how vital they are to our success to see if we can partner with them and really maximize and leverage our funding and our resources. Lumigo, as we'll talk about in a minute, has been a really popular service since we've launched it. It's been incredibly wellreceived by the community. Um, it is

one of the more expensive services, but people really said, "We love Lumigo. We want to look at several different options if there's any way to keep any form of that service. And then we want to look at doing a multi-year funding solution rather than perhaps revisiting the process on an annual basis." So, that was a preliminary workshop meeting. And then as I mentioned before, we continued to revise that feedback through the next two meetings. And so what we came out of those two meetings were continue to look at any equity considerations and if you can do any offsets in the staff recommendation to minimize those impacts. Focus on cutting the lowest performing routes as in the ones with the least riders, least boardings per hour. create a list of services to retain if there was any additional funding that were able to find you know in the budget process or otherwise continue funding discussions with the community partners and then provide some of that context that we heard at the beginning of the larger regional transit funding scenario. So several of these items we've already started. So one such example which is really exciting is the second item is we've met with uh Santa Rosa Junior College Pedaluma campus and we submitted a grant about two weeks ago for a uh transportation fund for clean air grant and that would provide us for more funding on the operations side for some of our east pedaluma routes but they were so excited by that that they were offering to partner with us perhaps on that grant as well. And so that's something that we're currently discussing with them and they have a recently formed transit advisory commission on campus who we've met with a couple of times and so that's been a really productive conversation so far. But similarly, we've started conversations with other partners throughout the community such as Healthy Pedaluma, Kaiser, the business community, and SMART. And not all of these are going to be immediate impact items, and they're part of a larger consideration of the overall city dynamic and relationship with these

partners, but something that will continue to be a conversation going forward. In terms of the city and MV service agreements, as a reminder, that's a 5-year base agreement running from FY26 to FY30 with a 3-year one-time option period. It's worth noting with this agreement, as you saw in the earlier slide, it's over 50% of our operating costs. And this contract, even though it was thought that it was going to go up about 12% in the first year, the new contract went up about 20%. So, something I would say to keep in mind. And the biggest piece of the labor through this is actually a union agreement between MV and the Amalgamated Transit Union, of which we have some members here tonight. Um, and there's an agreement embedded within that. And then there's FTA requirements governing the city's ability to adjust certain things within the contract. Some things are adjustable. Some things such as that type of labor agreement is something set by the FTA to where the city's options are a bit limited. And then we want to continue to work with MV. They've been great partners to us, serving the community for multiple decades, and they've been willing to engage with us and been great partners to see how we can find additional efficiencies within that contract. And then, of course, pausing staff hiring. The last thing you would ever want to do is have to lay off staff. So, in terms of looking at the specific staff recommendations, we looked at everything again route by route. We're not going to talk about all of them tonight, but just the ones that were recommending changes. And so you'll see a few different route cards like this. And the way to read these are you'll see the route name on the top left with a description of the hours. You'll see a map on the top right. You'll see the cost and the frequency on the bottom right and then the ridership on the bottom left. So route 10 is currently our lowest performing fixed route. It runs Monday through Friday, roughly from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and we currently

have three boardings per hour on that route. Uh there is some other service provided on that corridor by Sonoma County Transit. It's worth noting, but this is one of the difficult decisions of which we were recommending to end this route although it would be replaced with a limited service school tripper route that runs on weekdays during peak times also along Pedalum Boulevard North. And this route of course is a reminder of the one that goes from downtown Paluma along the boulevard out towards the Outland Mall and back. Our school routes and school trippers are a real important part of our network. These, even though they're limited and run on weekdays during peak times, are actually our most productive routes. We get 32 boardings per hour on these routes over 67,000 per year. And so we have several you can see on the map that serve east pedaluma like 301 302 501 serving west pedaluma. So we're not proposing any major changes for these other than a minor one to route 501 to modify the routing which would allow it to connect to the downtown smart station and provide additional connectivity for west pedaluma residents and to some of the schools along the route including Pedaluma High, Paluma Junior High and Valley Vista. And this is one of several services that we do have temporary grant funding for uh thanks to a lot of the great grant work that we've done that helps to partially fund this route these routes for a period of about 3 years. Route 24 is another one of the lower ridership routes. This of course is the route that runs from downtown along Lakeville Highway out to the Kaiser Hospital. This route, however, is one of the ones where we didn't think it would be viable to eliminate the route altogether given the fact there's large equity concerns of serving the hospital that people wouldn't have other options for necessarily and certain pockets of low-income minority neighborhoods along

the route such as near the Baywood area. So, what we are proposing is we have a couple of trips that allow the service to run for 30 minutes during weekday peak times. those would go away. So, you're left with a route that runs 60 minutes all day on weekends. And as one of the balances with that, getting back to the equity piece, there was an item that was carried forward from the last TAC meeting where we would launch a one-year pilot program with a somewhat similar routing that goes from downtown to Scholenburgger Park running on Saturdays from 12 to 6. So, the savings is 55K. The added cost for that last item is 15K per year. Going back to Lumigo, this has been one of the most exciting services that we've had running uh since October 2024. It's been really wellreceived by the community. We of course had several goals with the service. We wanted to bring a lot of people in the door to transit who may not have run it before. We want to provide a lot of people with a new mobility option as kind of a proof of concepts. It was a pilot program and it's worth noting it was our most expensive service compared to any of the fixed routes. So we are proposing that the pilot program be discontinued which would save 488,000 per year. The grant is partially funded as Kami noted. So during this proposal it would continue to run through June 2026 and would end beyond that time. And currently that route is running seven days per week. Another difficult choice is our Sunday service. Again, we're running seven days per week. So on Sundays, we have three routes running 21 and 33. We have our paratrans and our Lumigo service running from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. This has about 9 and a half boardings per hour, but it is something where we're recommending eliminating Sunday service, which would save about $110,000 per year.

Looping back to the evening service again. Three of the fixed routes to 11:33 and our paratransit service are running until 8:30 p.m. Per this recommendation that service would end at 700 p.m. So saving a handful of trips and that would result in net savings of 112,000 per year. And then we wanted to have a summary chart that shows a cumulative effect of all these impacts and how that impacts the bottom line and kind of the overall ending balance. So I'll let Kami talk on that.

Thank you. So as you can see um all the items that Jared has discussed is represented in the blue table on top. Um so you can see the estimated cost per either route or segment or service um hours um represented in each year. um fiscal year as well. Um as well as the total savings by either discontinuing pilot programs or eliminating routes or reducing service. Um and then the bottom table represents the initial deficit that we were looking at in like a couple slides ago. Um the total of the recommended package and then any balance carryover from previous years. Um and then the new ending balance with the um recommended package. So you can see that FY2627 has a zero carryover. That's because it's already factored into the initial surplus deficit from the previous slide. But going forward, any savings compounds into the next fiscal year. And if you want to go to the next link and so the next slide represents the updated revenue um and expenses budget if we were to go forward with the service modification. So an updated expense, revenues and endofear operating surplus or deficit based upon um what was presented in the first slide or not the first slide but a few slides ago. And so one item worth mentioning to go back really quick. One of the items that had been part of the original staff recommendation is of course there's a city agreement with UCPN ODS which is United Cerebral Policy of the North Bay where they provide bus cleaning services. That of course is a very treasured program. They've been great partners. That was something where we're looking at potentially uh modifying that service, eliminating that. We were able to find a grant thanks to Kim's great work which would continue that for at least one additional year in FY27 to buy a bit more time and perhaps find some

additional options to continue that beyond that period. So, um several different options that we're looking at to try to address the overall budget situation. So the staff recommendation is really two parts. It's the items that you see on this slide here and then it's also paired with several pieces that will occur over upcoming years. And what that represents is things like continued discuss discussions with MV transportation on the city MV service agreement. See if there's additional changes or savings we could do there. Continued funding discussions with the community partners. Additional grant applications. We're being conservative right now with not assuming any grants that we don't know are confirmed, but we have been successful applying for more grants and new grants that we've never gotten before over the past couple years, but being as conservative as possible. Those aren't assumed. And then there will be a lot of coordinated transit planning efforts over the upcoming 18 months. And those include things such as the mascots's plan, Marin Senoma County Coordinated Transit, and that's starting in April 2026. So, as a reminder, people can look forward to additional service frequencies on SMART starting April 12th. So, that's great news. Also, bringing more funding back into city of Pedaluma, Pedaluma Transit. As a result of that, there's the Sonoma County Transportation Climate Authority study called SYNC that's just kicking off now that looks at further transit collaboration and efficiencies across agencies that we'll be a part of. There's of course the city of Pedaluma short-range transit plan that'll be kicking off later this year and we have a large grant that we're hoping to be successful on. We'll hear back on the summer. If we're successful with that, that would allow us to do a full transit revisioning effort altogether. So, word on that soon. And then even Sonoma County is doing their own operational

analysis. So, the net effect of all this is there's going to be a lot of brain power and a lot of thinking going into how all the agencies can work together as efficiently as they can, trying to really ring out every ounce of cost savings that we can find working together as part of the network. So, one other piece of feedback from the March TAC meeting we want to pass along. In addition to the recommended items that we covered, there's two additional things that they wanted council to consider tonight. The second one is already included in the recommendation, which would be that one-year pilot on Lakeville Highway, Saturdays from 12:00 to 6:00. That's already included. The item that isn't included, if there was more funding available, would be maintaining weekday evening service. So again, instead of ending at 7 p.m. running until 8:30 p.m. as that does now, that would be the highest priority item, although that would require an additional $100,000 per year. So in terms of next step, we're looking to get the input and guidance from the community tonight and from council. And then again, these changes will roll out in the form of the FY27 budget process. And we'll be doing a major community outreach education campaign as a result of any changes. And so that's things like updating schedules, the printed ones, the website, signage at transit stops and hubs, social media outreach, signage and audible messages on our buses, working through our community partners, and then continuing to monitor the budget situation and updating in the future as needed. And so with that, we're happy to take any questions. Thank you very much for the presentation. A lot of data there. Um, a lot of a lot of lot of going on going on there and um and I appreciate all all the tax done to um to to force it into a conversation three times and try and bring together a packet to council that

um looks at things and it's a workshop. So um it's I'm I'm not going to be able to I don't not interested in constraining this to question at any moment. I think um we're going to be offering opinion and mixing a question and then you know misunderstanding a certain thing you presented on and and and back and forth between council members. So could could be interesting. Um council member strips you wanted to weigh in.

Okay. First, thank you for all the work. You've gone through a variety of outreaches and committees and planning and organization um to do a lot of work ahead of us before even getting here to do this efficiency. and uh looks like really great for the next 3 to four years. You're actually being proactive in and reducing the services now to save money later which I think is a good plan is what you got so far. So that's just I just want to thank you for all that work before you leave. You should be very happy about leaving behind a very good plan for the next uh it looks like three to four years. So uh I'm now thinking about beyond the four years uh for for my questions here. So, Lumigago, we've got uh a set of buses that are smaller than our larger buses. And I was running for um two things. One is on the actual cost per ride because I think I've read that was $28 per ride. Comparing that to just a simple taxi or Uber um as the cost goes, uh is it is Luma any more efficient than than having a Uber in town and having them work? But different people would be paying for it instead of the city paying for it. customers would be paying for it. And then uh once the Lumigo go uh disappears, the program um what happens to those buses uh at the end of that uh are are they going to be usable for our fixed routes and any sort uh school buses u and everything or because of their size they're they're not any more efficient because they just like as a driver is the cost not the actual vehicle. So can you talk a little bit about the the buses and comparison to Uber?

Yeah. So I'll take the second part of that first in terms of the vehicles. So the vehicles that have been operating on Lumigo service. They actually were originally paratransit vehicles that were repurposed. If Lumigo were to end, they would go back into that mold. So the wrap would come off them and they would go back into serving our paratransit service that they did previously. So we still would be able to get use out of those vehicles beyond that point, which is good news. In terms of the cost, it's hard to know the cost of Uber service. Uh, do you recall the cost per rider on our Lumigo? 28 $28.40 is the cost for a Lumigo rider. Now, I think it's worth noting it serves a somewhat different crowd and there was a big equity consideration with that service. That of course was free. So I think it was turning out some people that are similar that were riding both but also a new type of clientele that may not be riding Uber and Lift or maybe additional barriers there. That is something though that we would consider going forward. For example, we have several outstanding grant applications with SCTCA. One of which would be perhaps a program that would provide a discount or subsidy on Uber and Lifts. And so if that's successful, that's a type of program that we've looked at in the past where we could potentially leverage that service and do some sort of partnership there as well that would lower the cost for people and kind of leverage those existing services as well.

Okay. Next question um comment is on um the taxation of electric vehicles. I've got two now and it's really nice because they're low very low cost to run. cost me less than five cents a mile to operate these my vehicles now that I own them. Um so but the state I think has been looking at and talking about a separate tax for EV vehicles for maintaining roads and maybe even supporting transit since that's one of the major causes of reduced funding for public transit. So, uh, should we be jumping forward and helping out and supporting um to tax me, my e the EV driver, uh, for for both roads and for tr public transit? Do we should we be stepping up and moving forward like we did today in supporting state bills and making that happen? Is would that be a idea that we that we should be doing?

I think anything that helps to advance electrification and bring more funding in the doors, great for us. That's ultimately kind of a policy advocacy position to discuss, but I think we've had great luck with EB buses so far. There's been several grant funds we've been able to get such as the HVIP hybrid voucher incentive program which lowers the cost. We'll have those low carbon fuel credits coming in. We anticipate that brings in about 20,000 per year. But I would say any opportunity to bring more funding in for electrification and fulfill our goal and the blueprint for climate action of trying to have a zero emission bus fleet by 2030, I think the better from our point of view.

Right. So this as a possible thing that the council can think about is maybe promoting going upstairs to our state representatives to promote uh taxation of EV vehicles through their the DMV. U I think that's what's being talked about now, but could be used a little more support.

I can add to that. I've attended some webinars with CALR and the California Transportation Commission and they are actually studying this right now but it's a few years out from the uh webinars that I've attended. Um they the reason why it's a few years out is they want to make sure that the transition is a sustainable one and not uh let's tax gas and then gas goes away. So that that is why the the transitions anticipated to be prolonged but it is something that uh high high up state is looking at. So you're there. Um and then finally just looking down the road past four years looking more like 10 years from now. Um and looking at since we have autonomous vehicles operating in many of the larger cities and the higher density locations uh and the technology is improving all the time. I suspect it's coming. Um so can we talk a little bit and and your opinions and your ideas about um autonomous vehicles whether it be the small ones like that would do the paratransit type work or even the buses like Google has Whimo. Um are our um our city roads adequately signed and lined and painted adequately so for autonomous vehicles to to operate uh so that we could actually trust them to turn them into public transit type vehicles. Um and if um and our streets are are good enough and then if our density is high enough to actually accommodate this type of of um thing because it looks like 50% of our costs are basically its drivers basically is our our biggest cost 50%. So, and then I did a little research using AI. Um, and it basically the report I got back was uh 10 small autonomous vehicles would be highly much more efficient than large buses entirely uh and operating on a door-to-door basis would be at less than half the cost uh and provide a lot more service. And so, if we look at that as a long-term model, um can we get there? Uh how soon can we

get there? And h how do you feel about it? Yeah, I would say we've not yet looked at the technical side of whether those vehicles could operate on Pedaluma roads with the signage and the striping. I think a great opportunity for that will be once we dive more into those planning studies that we referenced like the short-range transit plan. I think that's when we can really weigh those type of largecale changes. Overall, I would say we're open-minded to any type of service and vehicle that provides the best optimized service so that it's safe, it's reliable, its cost effectiveness is there. I think those are all the type of things that we'll be looking at more as we dive in those studies. At this point, we can't say for certain if those technical pieces are in place right now. Okay. Okay. So, just as a comment just to be thinking about for our traffic engineers as we're building our roads for bikes and peds to all looking at both signage and painting that would accommodate autonomous vehicles down the road 10 years from now if we start thinking about that now.

Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else want to weigh in on questions they have here? Uh, council member now.

Oh, thank you. Um, I'm so sorry to see you are leaving Jared, but congratulations. And if everybody doesn't know, he's won awards for the city for his partnerships and um I'm looking forward to some of the partnerships that you mentioned for funding healthy pedaluma, the blue zones. They're trying to get people to walk, ride bikes, um, and have a more healthy environment. And we know that our middle school children are using Lumig Go quite a bit um because they're not quite licensed drivers and they Lumigago's a cool thing for them to use. I'm really sad to see it go because my grandson has been using it and the neighbors in that are a middle schooler, they have been using it a lot. Um, so I'm very sad to see that Lumigo transportation um go. Um, but can you explain the smart station to Scholenburgger route? Because that's going to go down Lakeville. Why is it not going to Kaiser? So, yeah, that's one of the items that was presented as an idea at one of our TAC meetings, again, as a mitigation to some of the reductions on Route 24. It was proposed as a one-year pilot program. The reason it's not going to Kaiser is that would be a Saturday only route and Kaiser, of course, is closed on the weekends. So, there was some discussion of do you still serve that area, the business park, it wasn't recommended at that point. We didn't think there would be enough ridership for it to be productive, but we're still open to ideas on the exact routing of that and that's something that moves forward.

Okay. Because we have heard from the community that the residents off of Baywood Little Woods mobile home parks, they would like to see um service especially on the weekends in their neighborhood. So, if it could go to the smart station that's close to downtown. So, I just wanted to put that out there. And this option goes both Shenburg Park and to downtown and the downtown smart station. So, that would be a new option for them on Saturdays if it proceeds. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, obviously I'm not uh thrilled to have to be in a position where we're u decreasing what I call essential services around the city. Um, I mean that you make a good point that Lumigago is $28 um per ride and an Uber from downtown to Loganas is $15. So I mean Lumigo is distinctly more, but it is that equity component that that free component. Um I'm hearing junior high and suspecting there's only 200 um is it 200 riders a day on the Lumigo system? No, that's that's too high. What's the right number for for that? 200. Yeah, and 200 a day and 850 riders a day on the on the main service. And so that's not really a lot of anybody. We need to drive writership up. That's I think the takeaway here is things will be more effective and more valuable with more writership. Um, but do you have any demographics for who's using the go? I mean, you say it's an equity thing, but I hear it's a privilege thing. You know, it's it's the people who won't ride a regular bus because that's for poor people saying, "I'll take a lumigo." Can we get facts? I mean, you know, can we get data on that? H I mean, I know you can't walk up and say, "How much do you make?" So, how do you determine who your demographic is? neighborhood of pickup, things like that.

We haven't done any rider specific demographic survey on Lumigo. I think the way you would do that is to do a survey likely through the app. Of course, it adds its own white label app where you could ask questions like what's your age, income level, those type of demographic questions. We don't currently know that now on there. Really, we think it's not wholly different from our fixed route system. It's still pretty similar and represent representative based on kind of anecdotal feedback from our drivers. So you still get a lot of students riding that certain times like the morning you get people riding that for different trips throughout the day like going shopping and those type of errands. So anecdotally that's pretty similar but we don't have any specific data to that particular service.

Okay. You were um I'm going to go for two or three more here. the um um you show that there'll be a deficit next year, 100k, 108k. Um and you express all this optimism that we'll pull in funding. Um don't we feel like we can optimism seems to me a bigger number than 108k that we could be balanced next year if our grants come through correctly. How do we take the optimism and make the right amount of cutting? because you you're saying that if we make all the cutting we we're a 400 surplus next year. Is it 400? Was that the correct answer on that slide? Yeah. Ballparking. So, um you know, you're saying that there's $500 500,000 worth of cutting you're doing to get us to next year's surplus of 400. So, how much optimism and what kind of grants? Hence, how slow should we roll out the cuts that you're talking about? I mean would midyear adjustment give us a better indication?

I'll take the first crack and pass it off to Kami. I would say a lot of this process has been a balance of striking the right blend of a couple different things. One, we want to achieve a sustainable budget. So that's one piece. But two, we don't want to cut any further than needed given how vital the service is for people and that you're impacting people's lives on a day-to-day basis. So that's something where we had several conversations with TAC of how much service do we potentially look at modifying now? How much budget surplus is reasonable to keep for outlying years and we felt this was the balance of all those different approaches. It gives us a multipleear solution for the funding side with fairly good confidence we'll talk about in a minute, but it's not cutting too far that we're impacting people more than we need to. if you know the situation is different and we do have more revenue. Can we do you want to talk?

Yeah. So the various grants that we are hoping for the optimism um a lot of them won't take effect next year. Uh so specifically the cycle 2 with SCTCA they're actually in the evaluation process right now and that takes a few years for it to roll out. Um the first cycle of SCTCA started hitting our books at the end of June this year. Um so for time frame it does take a little bit. So, we're anticipating that one, if awarded, take effect FY28, FY29. Uh, the TFCA grant that we applied for, it's actually a two-year grant. And so, even though we've applied for over 100K for that grant, um, it wouldn't solve that 108K deficit because it would be essentially 50K one year, 50K the other year. Um, and so that's the the balance of the um, as much optimism as there is, I want to have enough caution um, to prepare as well. Um, and as we continue to see prices increase and stuff, I don't necessarily um, predict, you know, like that the 5% increase that I have estimated going out, you know, FY27, 28, 29, if it could fluctuate more or less, hopefully less. Um, but if it does,

I think you picked the worst case scenario here. Yeah. And I'm not sure I'm comfortable going to worst case. Um you you um said the Luma growth uh system cost about 450k to to run and um and we have a grant that we're in the middle of. Are we walking away from money? Would it would it go into other business? No. Um so the uh SAFA grant that we were just awarded um that grant is specifically we reached out to them um knowing this and so they said no you can expend the grant fully. Um I did the calculations of just our driver hours. We can fully expend the grant by the on other operate if we if we cut um lumigo July 1st

do um do we or can we receive the the grants from that and apply them to other purpose? No. So that specific grant it's specifically for ondemand wheelchair accessible vehicles. So any wheelchair accessible vehicles outside of parransit. So unfortunately we can't put it towards fixed route because fixed route is not considered on demand. And so that is why we have And how much is that money per year? We'd be walking away from it. So we are able to fully expend it. It's 150k grant for the rest of this fiscal year. But you said it ran through 2028. Not that grant. So this grant is the one I'm interested in.

Okay. Yeah. The grant through 2028, the one that takes effect after 2028, that one hasn't been awarded yet. So that's temporarily. the MTIS grant. Um that one funds a variety of different operational things such as uh our school tripper service. So that is been funded through the MTIS grant which took effect April 1st. Um and that also funds our service increase on routes 2 and 11. So that 15minute headway um during peak time. So it's not just funding entirely lumigo that um that one. So if we walk away from it, it doesn't necessarily mean that we would be losing the grant. That's the MTIS that you're referring to. Yes. So the MTIS goes to other use, correct?

And the SAPA grants that can be used for FY26 alumo. So even if that service doesn't run past the end of the fiscal year, we can still fully utilize that 150k and that helps the budget situation overall. All right? Because it only appears on the slide for Lumigo. That's why if he was focused on Limiggo and they have sorry um so Limigo 450,000 and the deficit is about 500,000 between this year and next year 100 down in the coming year. Um if we cut Lumigo is get to the whole 500 we don't do the other changes I mean seems like that's the number we're hunting for

the numbers on the graphs. Yeah. So if you look at this summary slide again on number there's two slides. There's the the early one that shows 100k down next year with no changes.

So the recommendation which is on slide 31. So lumigo would not be enough in and of itself. If you discontinue that pilot to achieve this balance you could always look at do we keep more of those services on the table. The net result would be the ending balance would decrease. So right now the cumulative effect of the Lumigo changes along with the other ones the other eight items on slide 31 would result in a year- end balance for FY27848. So you could potentially eliminate some of the things from that list but it shrinks that budget and it makes it closer to kind of um being in the red. So that would be kind of the impact of doing that change.

Uh I just ran the numbers. So, if we were to only eliminate our pilot service with Lumigo and not make any of the other changes, um our estimated deficit, excuse me, our estimated surplus for next fiscal year, so FY27 would be 380,000, but that would result in a deficit in the uh FY28. So, it would essentially buy us one year. For me, I'm trying to weigh all that optimism you had on other stuff versus how soon to cut what. And um so um um the um it it also um um I think it would be wrong not to uh raise the question but it's fair free now. Um could you tell us about the impact if you made it a far system you know not you know with the nominal pick a nominal fair but what magnitude impact are we talking versus overall budget? Yeah. So, as a reminder for our fair free program that's funded through two primary funding sources, we have the 180,000 coming in from the city general fund and then we have the 75,000 approximately coming in from SCTCA and those two additive help to cover the cost of that service. But that 180k is tied specifically to doing the fair free program every year. We did look at options including reintroducing fairs whether on a route byoute basis like just lumigo or for the whole system but you would want to presume that that 180k would still be there if that's tied to fair free but that goes away because you bring back fairs now you're not necessarily collecting more money you're still getting 180k just a dollar a time at the fairbox while still also probably taking a ridership hit since you're charging fairs you could collect fairs on Lumigo that would bring in somewhere between 30,000 to 60,000 but there's actually costs associated with

collecting fairs that right now we're not bearing things like bank costs fees so even the thought of starting to collect any fairs at all that brings in about $40,000 of annual costs so there really wasn't a net gain under that scenario and there was no reasonable fair you could charge on Lumigo that would cover the entire cost of the service even going up to $50, it doesn't really get you close to that number. I just wanted to um have that in the public record that it was analyzed and said that's really a a net no significant impact to start adding a fair. Thank you. Um Vice Mayor Darly,

thank you for the presentation, Jared. Um, you asked some of my questions, so I'll I'll comb through mine and see what we've got left. But, um, I'm curious what's what's the breakdown of how many different um, buses we have between the fixed route, the larger buses, the paratransit, and alum. Right now, we have 18 buses on the fixed route side, anywhere between 30 to 40 ft, although four of those are temporary buses that'll be retired with, but then next year we got for free from another agency. And then we have eight vehicles that are running on both either paratransit or lumigo.

Okay. And then with um with this last year being about 300,000 riders or so in the fixed route system, um do we know how many individuals are regular riders? Has there ever been a study on that to see like what's the actual number of people that use it? I know it's about 850 a day or so, but how many actual people are using it every day? We don't have a recent survey within the past several years that looks at what you call unique riders. So, it's not quite known how many of that is an individual taking like one trip a year versus people taking that multiple trips per day perhaps. That's not currently known that breakdown.

Okay. I I was curious about that because um um I think it was you that answered the questions for council earlier earlier where it was $132 per ride for the fixed route system and I'm I'm curious what that number would look like if we knew what unique riders were you know and how roughly how much that's costing per unique rider. Um yeah and then the question was asked about you know um about equity and do do we know much about you know the demographics of who the writership are kind of and like what they what they need what you know besides going from stop to stop what what is it that they really need if we had those conversations with them and then at the same time too um in making things more equitable I know we looked at uh income and and minorities, but also what about what about um you know the elderly?

So those are all things that we looked at like our last short-range transit plan which people can find on our website. It does an analysis of all that. So it does surveys of the current riders by age, by income level, by racial demographics. So that's something we'll be updating as we do that study. One thing I would say worth noting is the unique rider versus repeat riders. I think a lot of the benefits are there kind of regardless. Everyone riding the bus has a potential cart trip taken off the road, a trip improving public health, reducing emissions. So that's really one of the main impacts and benefit even if that is a pool of riders that is riding more frequently, that's still those benefits that you're receiving as a result.

Sure. But if you you extrapolate that out and say that maybe there's a a thousand unique riders or so and you know it's there's 300,000 riders. I mean it's it excuse me um uh if you're charging if it costs $13 per ride, you know that's it's a significant amount of money per unique rider and it and I think that's something that should be analyzed if we can. I think as we dive in that study again when we update our SRTP we'll take a look at that similarly but really with any public service that's always a consideration discussion not every service is used by everyone some are used by a smaller handful more often but that'll be the great opportunity to kind of refresh that data and take a look again and then um looking at the Sunday routes do you know what just route 11 would cost on Sundays from that 110,000 I think Okay. So, route 11 on Sunday operating from 8:30 to 4:30 would cost 37K annually.

Okay. Thank you. Do we know um student wise roughly how many of them rely on the transit system? According to our last survey, 60% of our riders are K through 16 students. Transit always has a bigger proportion of riders in that age group, but especially for pedaluma, that's heavily skewed towards a youth ridership on our system. And I I saw that we do qualify for some grants. I think it's MTI for for student riders. I mean, are there more grants that we can take advantage of in that in that case?

Yeah, any type of operational grant I am working on. So, currently we are applying for the LC top which funds fair free programs as well. Also that goes that does impact operations um and that allows you to choose whether you want to have an entirely fair free system or just uh offer fair free programs for certain groups of the population. So seniors, students and that so right now I'm currently applying for um an entirely fair free system since we are operating as a fair free system. Well, but I mean are there more of that specifically like for students seeing student writership?

Operational grants especially writership grants are uh extremely limited. um there's an abundance of grant opportunities for electric buses or something like that, but the operational grants um are a lot more limited. I've been meeting with various groups just to see and we're all coming up with like the same thing. Um so as there are opportunities, I always make sure to apply for them. If anyone ever sees anything, please feel free to send it my way cuz I'm happy to apply for anything I can see. Um any dollar I can save. So, um, yes, but that's the the unfortunate reality is, um, we're turning over every stone, but the the stones are limited when it comes to operating and, um, fair free programs.

And yeah, I don't think we've come across any grant that could potentially fund that yet that we have not applied for, but we'll keep looking.

Okay. And then kind of back on the topic of fairs, um, I know you said it kind of maybe evens out, but I mean it I don't know. I mean, it it'd be nice to see a study that actually shows that. Um, you know, I I realize there are some of the grants that are based on fair free, but um I mean, even if if you just looked at things as they are now, even if we charged, you know, just $3 per passenger, you know, that over 300,000 rides would would account for everything we're talking about cutting this evening. So, I realize that that might change based on what grant money we might lose, but it would be good in the future to see an actual study on that.

And I would say again when we dive into some of the studies like the SRTP, a good chance to update that. That was one of several options we didn't present tonight, but was discussed with TAC that was not recommended to continue forward beyond those preliminary discussions for several of the considerations like equity. um it's kind of a double whammy in that effect if you're both eliminating the fair free program perhaps and instituting a fair increase. So I think that was one of the considerations as well when we discussed it. Are there many municipalities in the state that what what's the breakdown I suppose of municipalities that do charge a fair versus free?

We're only the second transit agency we know of in the state that's fair free. So that was a great you know claim to fame for us. Several others have fair free programs, you know, like they'll have a free shuttle within the particular community. They'll have free K through 12 or free seniors, but we're only the second one we know of in the state that's free for the entirety of the system. Okay. I think that might be a great thing for promotions, but we're here talking about cutting cutting stuff because we can't fund it anymore. Um, will route changes or cancellations affect paratransit riders? I'm sorry. Could you say that again?

Will route changes or cancellations affect paratransit riders because don't don't um isn't there a rule about it being within a certain distance of fixed routes for that for that to work? So, some of the options would impact paratransit riders and some wouldn't. There is a requirement through the FTA that anytime you're providing regular consistent all day fixed route service, you have to have ADA equivalent service within a 3/4 mile buffer of that fixed route. And so if you're talking about something where it's like reducing frequency on a route and causing it to go from running every 30 minutes to 60 minutes, there's no impact to the paratransit apartment. It's still the same. If you do something like if you reduce a route to a part of the city that you were serving but you're not, you could either shrink the geography and not serve the entire city limit boundary. That was something discussed with TAC that wasn't moved forward. Uh one notable thing that would also reduce a paratransit cost is item number five on slide 31 which is the Sunday service. If you're not running any service on Sunday's fixed route then you can also eliminate the paratransit service. So that one and the late night service on weekdays, those are the two that would really have impacts and cost savings on the paratransit side in addition to fixed route.

Okay. So just kind of ask a little bit piece of that question again. So like um cancelling something like route 10 would and that goes all the way to the north end of town. Would that eliminate some areas that could be benefiting from paratransit? It could potentially if you say that the area that's within a 3/4 mile buffer of that that's now served isn't that wasn't something that we wanted to recommend. Uh because that would be taking yet another service away from those people. So again, it's something you could do but something that was discussed with TAC that wasn't recommended to carry forward. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Uh, Council Member Barnacle, thanks. Just so I get my numbers right, it the fair free costs it's 180K out of the general fund plus a 75k grant. Is that what I heard correct? That's correct. Okay. Um, we rolled out fair free in uh 2024 mid 2024 calendar year, right, with the new budget cycle.

So since that time we we saw a 100,000 bump in ridership, right? So essentially bear free is marketing program. We could not spend uh that that amount of money on marketing and get that many people to pay into the system. Like it is the best marketing that you can possibly have. Um so I concur that I don't think we want to be going after fair free. Um also I was just looking over some of the old data on who rides. um 90% of the people who ride our buses um have a household income below $75,000. So like in terms of equity like that is literally the the population. Um and then um about 50 well about 60% of people are 24 and and younger. So, we're talking about um largely a young um low earning community that is riding our our transit. Um in terms of uh of cuts, I think you've done that. Um, are we are we trimming enough for a worst case scenario or is there any opport or is there what is the what is the potential that we the rainy day we haven't thought about is you know could be it could be more gloomy I suppose. Um so the recommended package is um essentially trimming enough to get us enough time for a potential medium case or worst case depending on what that looks like scenario plus buy time for coordinated studies. um without it without any cuts um we would be looking at um essentially operating if we had a worst case scenario um we we would be

looking at a deficit right if we were to just somehow um make 100k uh happen next year uh through whatever type of reductions we can do if we hit a worst case scenario we wouldn't be able to afford that worst case scenario so like a whole engine rebuild or something like that that can cost up to 100k sometimes depending on the engine rebuild So, uh, those do get hefty and the grants that we get for that, um, we have the state of good repair grant that's maximum 10K a year. So, this year we're looking at 8K. So, it's a huge cost. So, uh, to answer your question, it depends on the worst case scenario, but with the recommended package, it allows for some wiggle room to do studies and then, you know, uh, adjust accordingly in the next fiscal years after that. Yeah.

Yeah. Just to add to that, I think that's one of the benefits of not le just looking at fiscal year 27 is trying to look at, you know, the year the outy years is so if if it does turn into a worst case scenario, something that we're not anticipating, then we have that buffer, right? And then these studies like the the analysis and looking at the projections from the state and all the funding, that's an ongoing process for us over the next years, right? Because those are constantly changing as well. So, it's not a one and done. We're going to continue to look at it and continue to adjust as we need to.

Okay. Thank you. That's all for me. And I would say we put these numbers together working with the finance staff to use similar assumptions in terms of expected revenue returns. So, taking a similar approach to what we're doing with the city budget overall with those items. So, thank you. You um you've been discussing uh expense and revenue. Um is there a fund balance? Is there a reserve independent of this? conversation. No. So, the reserve would essentially be the 848. Um, and so we do need to have a reserve as well. That's currently not. So, we're just this ending balance would show as a potential reserve. Is there a policy on reserve standards?

So, there is a policy that was adopted by tax several years back to where we have a reserve goal of 6 months operating. We've obviously been dipping into that reserve recently as a result of the budget situation, but that would be the stated goal that we're hoping to build back to once we're able to level out the budget and start increasing our uh reserve and balance. Okay. Thank you, Council Member D.

I had one more question I missed. Um so with routes like route 10 and 24 having you know three and seven passengers on average per hour respectively. Um how how long have routes like that been in effect and and happening? I can't say specifically. Route 24 in this iteration has been running in its form about 8 to 10 years and route 10 I would say would be the same. With transit it's always a balance of a couple different things. one being your productivity type service. So our highest ridership corridors are Washington to where they're denser and you get a variety of uses and then route two that runs on North Mcdow. But then you also have to balance that with routes that are providing coverage to vital parts of your city. And so route 10 and 24 are those. For example, I think people would generally agree that it would be hard to not have any service going to Kaiser given the importance of it. But when you look at that corridor overall and kind of the uses and the densities throughout, it just does not have the same ridership generation as Route 11 or two does, but it's still something where it's a vital part of the city. We've heard it isn't really viable to not serve that area with transit. So that's kind of the trade-off and the balance of looking at the entire network and those routes in particular.

Okay, but those are the two that are also being recommended to get cut tonight. So, I you know, part of what it makes me think about is, you know, with our with transit being so crucial to our climate goals and attaining those, um, we've got buses running to both ends of the city that are largely empty. So, to me, that doesn't set a great model for what we're trying to promote when we're sending empty buses back and forth all day long, you know, when when, like tonight, we're considering, you know, taking them off the list. But um I don't I don't know if that sets a great standard.

Okay, great. Uh let's go to public comment and will you um fill us in at some point question? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you know set up a flare. Not all here here. Um Council Member Quinn, I can wait till after. Um but now is good. Okay. Um on slide nine you had a bullet point um cancelling arrangement with Sonoma County Transit to recover remaining transportation development act funds. Can you elaborate on that please?

Yeah. So there is a unofficial agreement between Pedaluma Transit and Sonoma County Transit that's been in place uh for a couple decades and it's part of what's called a coordinated claim for Sonoma County. What happens is a lot of the transit funds TDA and STA, they come from MTC at the regional level down to the county level and then they get distributed amongst funding agreements that the agencies have worked out. So that's how we determine how much of TDA and STA funds go to each operator based on agreements that were derived that give you right give you revenue for things like number of boardings, number of service hours, etc. And so one piece of that annual process is an interoperator funding agreement between Pedaluma Transit and Sonoma County Transit where we've been contributing funding towards routes 44 and 48 that they run and those generally run along Pedaluma Boulevard North and then Sonoma Mountain Parkway and we've been helping to fund a portion uh approximately 15% of the cost on those and then for that service our contribution is prov providing service above and beyond what would be the baseline on that. And so it's been a unofficial agreement to where the city has been providing that funding to Sonoma County Transit every year as part of the coordinated claim. That's one of the items that we talked about with the TAC and one of the items that's also recommended as an action is that the city backs out of this informal agreement. as we're looking at our budget and looking at all aspects, turning over all stones, that's not just the services within the city, even things like our inner city services, our regional services or something that's considered. And so that's one of the ones that was another hard decision that we looked at to where we are recommending backing out of that agreement. The net result of that would

be saving the city $260,000 per year as part of that agreement. Without that, you're potentially finding other areas where you have to trim. In our case, that would potentially be entire routes, if not more than just one. So, that was also considered as were all the city services as part of the overall budget and something that was recommended as a staff action is to resend from that agreement.

Thank you. So, um, so just to be clear, when we're looking at the numbers, I'm looking for the, uh, I guess it's slide 31, the two-year funding solution, where the bottom result shows, uh, in a reserve of 848 and 27, 575 and 28, and then we have a our reserves are depleted more 400k in a hole in in 29. Those numbers include us um not paying that $260,000. Is that correct? That is correct. And the city as voice our intent of backing out that agreement.

And so is that um and I I don't know if this is a question for the city manager, but is that a done deal? Are we I mean we're we're kind of banking on it here in this presentation. Uh, but I just wanna, you know, I want to know like is that a done deal or is what risk do we have that that's, you know, that we're gonna have to pay that or some of it? We've requested to withdraw from that arrangement, but we have not gotten confirmation.

And so what is there any legal recourse if they say no, we want you to pay it? like what's how's that like gonna play out? Because I think it's important for this body because we have a recommendation that's kind of close and it's banking on the fact that we're saying we're not going to pay that. So I want to make sure that everybody is cleareyed about what happens if we don't go through with that. So just for purpose of tonight and we haven't dove into that as the legal team but as a general matter there's really no such thing as informal public agency contracts that are enforcable. So there's been coop what I would say from a legal standpoint is some cooperation and coordination but in the absence of a contractual obligation unless there's some other kind of leverage or control that I'm not aware of um there's really most likely no basis for requiring pedalum to continue to pay or forgo those funds. I'm not sure in what way they're structured at which of those it is, but that I mean maybe staff needs to correct that or amplify that, but that's what I would say based on what I'm seeing tonight. Well, um I'll just add to that um that, you know, staff, our transit staff has been indicating to the other transit agencies over the last several weeks our intent and and need to really, you know, um uh withdraw from the agreement because of all these uh modifications that we're talking about tonight. Um, and so, uh, we, one of the requests in talking with SCTCA staff was for us to put that in writing, which we did, you know, per the city manager's comment. We put that in

writing last late last week. Um, and so we just provided it. Um, we essentially uh, SCTCA staff said they they would like acknowledgement uh, from Sonoma County Transit, a receipt of that. Um and because it will we what we understand is is that they'll have to make some they'll have to absorb that reduction, right? They'll have to make some modification to Sonoma County Transit. What what that looks like exactly, we don't know. Um but that's going to be an ongoing discussion. So, the other thing to note is the an item for the coordinated claim, if that's the right term, is going to be going to the SCTCA board next week, Monday, I believe, on the 13th. And so, that'll be an action where they'll uh presumably uh accept that withdrawal. Is that Jared, if you want to confirm that?

Yeah, that's all correct. that funding. It's in the overall pool of the TVA funds that are associated with pedalum transit and it's taken off the top. Uh that's how it's doled out every year. But as um Eric outlined, there's no formal agreement on that. No contractual longstanding type uh written documents requiring that.

Okay. Would someone So I appreciate all of that. uh would someone care to like guesstimate the risk that we that that may you know um create some issue for us. I I guess I'm just I don't know if there's um you know a a political piece of this that that comes into play that makes us decide you know what that's really we probably need to pay that. Yeah. Yeah. I I think you bring up a good point about risk. Um I think council member Barnacle brought it up in a a different way of saying what about worst case. I think you're talking a worseer case.

So um yeah, I mean there's consequences to actions we take. Um we're we're in an unclear space, but we're in a financial imperative.

Yep. Okay. Uh thank you. I appreciate uh the answer there. Um my next question is there's a fair amount of optimism expressed and I know mayor you touched on this a little bit in your question. Um but I you know again I want to make sure that uh that we help level set expectations with council on future grants that are above and beyond sort of what we've been living with in our normal run rates. Um would you care to articulate um or could you articulate um you know just kind of like a ballpark direction? What what do we think we can get in terms of new grants that we haven't had in our um in our funding sources? And and kind of what I'm looking for and maybe someone else wants something a little bit more definite, but I'm just like is it in the magnitude of an extra 100k a year, an extra 200k a year? Like that's good enough for me.

Yeah. So, uh essentially right now the new grant is a a fund. So uh we can continue to use the LC top towards uh operations. Um and it is a fund. So the difference between fund and grant in case anyone doesn't know is a grant is a competitive you get awarded you know depending on cycle. Sometimes it's every year sometimes it's every few years depends on the grant cycle. A fund is an every year essentially set aside. You might have to go through a grant application to get you know allocated that fund. Um so the LC top fund we anticipate about at least 100 plusk a year. Right now we're looking at like 120ish um K for the next fiscal year and we continue to do do that every year. Um however the issue is it's funded through capp trade which is declining. Um so it it's based upon a sales tax through cap and train trade. Um however for operations for our go cycle 2 we did apply for an operating grant. um we requested I don't want to misquote but it was about a million or 2 million um for operations and it was written in a way for any type of short-range transit plan any new operations based upon that um for changes that take effect either new routes or rerouting or service frequencies um and so we are hoping for that because we did get awarded something very similar in the last cycle so that was the MTI grant um through go um which is currently funding school trippers and um service increase and then lumigo. Uh so there there is that because we have been awarded in the past. However, operational grants don't owe a score as competitively as um you know an active transportation grant or a bus purchase grant um because it's an ongoing expense whereas grants like to traditionally they tend to fund a program and then they'd like to you know tie it up with a nice ribbon and then be done and then move on to the next project. Um, so there is a high chance

that we could potentially get it, but it is a very competitive process. So it it depends.

And I would add that it's hard to know beyond the grants we've applied for, you know, multiple years down the road. In the past, as any indication, over the past couple years, we've gotten somewhere between like 200 and 500,000 I would say, per year for operating funds through those grants. So if that continues to be the case, that would be a good scenario. But beyond the ones we've applied for, it's hard to know. Got it. Uh, okay. And I know we touched on this a little bit, but um what is um and may you answer this, but is there a penalty for like the net um impact to the city uh to ending Lumigago sooner? Can we I understand that we have grant grant money to help fund it through June 1st. Uh but could we it would it benefit us in a net positive way to end the operation sooner and apply any remaining funds to other operations?

So potentially uh we can look up the cost per month. Do you know how far the 150 takes us if there's still cost beyond that? And

uh the 150 would uh just invoicing for operation hours. So driver hours, billable hours um would get us through midJune. Um so that 150k I estimated and it would um essentially we would expend the funds fully through halfway through June um using entirely Lumigo go and that grant is very specific. It would have to specifically be for ondemand wheelchair accessible vehicles. So that's that specific grant. the MTIS grant. Um because of being awarded the Sappa grant, um I've been able to reshift funding for the MTIS grant to fund larger portions of the school trippers and service increase because in the past I was just invoicing for um just driver hours, but now I'm able to invoice for fuel and other expenses that were previously not invoiced for because of this new Lumigo grant um through the end of this fiscal year.

Okay. I'm not sure I I like understood the answer I was hoping for. I would say the quick summary is the grant funding will take us through mid June and so we wouldn't really have any benefit because we cannot spend that funding alternatively and so we'd be ending the service and not using the 150k. So I would say not really any significant savings and we'd get less service as a result. Does the total expense for continuing Luma go exceed 150k or is that paying for all of Lumago? Uh the total expense for the remainder of the year for Lumigo exceeds the uh grant. The grant covers essentially um driver hours.

Okay. So can you estimate what savings we would get if we ended Lumigo and and for the grant? So like 80% 90%. I I I see what you're asking.

Yeah. It would cover everything other than the last two weeks of the fiscal year. So we can figure out the exact percent, but something like 80 to 93% something like that would be covered to run it through the end of the fiscal year with that grant. So the only piece that wouldn't be funded is that remaining sliver which we'll calculate here in a second. Okay. If it's nominal, I'm not interested. I'm just curious if there's a way like if we could carve out an extra 50 grand and put it back into the kitty, then I would be, you know, something to look at. But if it's nominal, I'm not too concerned about it. Yeah, I think we're talking less than $10,000 under that scenario.

Wherever possible, can we stick with numbers instead of percentages just so like we're actually I was getting lost in the percentages. Thanks. Thank you. Um, we were headed towards public uh comment. Let's go there now.

We did receive a comment ahead of the meeting and I have several cards. If anyone else would like to speak, now is the moment to submit your card. And seeing no one else standing and walking, we're closing public uh comment period for submitting cards. Our uh um first speaker will be Lesie Fchay and then Matt Callaway to follow.

Hi, thanks for your time. Um I just wanted to come for you to say, you know, I understand budgets are tight across the board and cuts do have to be made somewhere. Um, but I would just really encourage the council to think about whether public transportation is the right place to make those cuts, particularly our, you know, pretty cost-effective fixed routes. Um, and the reason I say that is because cuts to transit have been shown to increase unemployment as people can't reliably get to work, decrease graduation rates, of course, you've got increased traffic, um, air pollution, and, uh, worse health outcomes. Um, but another thing I'd ask you to really strongly factor into your considerations is that gas prices are extremely high right now. The war with Iran is, you know, there's no end in sight and there the projections are that gas prices are just going to get astronomically higher. Um, so now is not really the time to be cutting these essential services. now is the time to double down and really show people who might be turning to the bus for the first time that um you know our public transportation it can be reliable and cost-effective and a great way to get where they need to go. So um thank you for your time.

Thank you Matt Callaway to be followed by Morin Gotch and Matt I think has left the building. So that brings us to Moren Gotshaw to be followed by Chantel Rogers.

I want to uh make a comment that I've really found the questions the city council has asked to tonight um great and really informative and so good job. Um, the one of the questions that I had was when we're talking about equity, what was the decision process and recommending cutting all of Sunday service versus just uh reducing it? Because I've I've, you know, we're talking about basic services, I'm really concerned that we don't know what day somebody's day off is. You know, people work all different types. A lot of people work on the weekends or they have two jobs. And so for me, Sunday feels like a critical travel day for seniors, people with disabilities, workers, residents. You know, they're going to need that might also be the only day they can go somewhere with their family or, you know, go grocery shopping or go to religious services. Um, so there are many establishments in Paluma that are still open on Sundays. So, the data shows that 11,300 annual riders depend on Sunday transit services. 9.6 boarding per hour is the highest efficiency of any service proposed for elimination. Sunday peak demand is 100 p.m. um with a strong wrership from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. And I was just thinking about that timeline and especially the 11 which goes from the east to the west. And St. Vincence has a Spanish-speaking um mass at 12:1 and it's a big huge community and so I feel like this community has been really hit hard and probably one of the only places they can go and feel safe is at their church and so I'm really worried about the isolation that Sunday service or Sunday transit service would cause if you

remove it completely. you have a whole group of people who are now not able to get around. So to me, I just want to understand what equity because you guys talk about it a lot like what does that mean and what does that mean when you're talking about basic services seven days a week. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Chantel Rogers to be followed by Eric Vasquez.

Hi. Um, I'm just going to continue a little bit on what Moren talked about with um, Sunday services and um, segue that into the uh, paratransit um, component of Sunday. Um, because you know if able-bodied people can't take the bus, they have alternatives. Um, and if uh, disabled people can't take paratransit, they often have no alternative. um which means that on Sunday they just can't go to the places they would have gone. They can't walk, they can't bike. Um you know, these are people who go through a whole process of um uh you know, filling out forms, getting doctor's orders. This is critical to them. Um again, same thing, church, shopping, you know, joining family for lunch downtown, whatever. And it seems to me that that um that taking away that entire day um is maybe not the best place to cut to cut um expenses. Um the other one thing I would say about this route 24 which is a not you know it's it's crucial in some sense but not very um wellridden. Um, so it totally makes a sense to reduce the um to reduce the frequency. Um, but I'm really curious about how this pilot going out there actually happened. I mean, there's a lot of places in town. I'm sure that people would like to see a pilot like go here, go there, we could go, you know, but but 24 goes out to Kaiser. That's why it doesn't run on Saturday and Sunday because Kaiser's closed. So chances are that even with

these low numbers, a big portion of it is going to Kaiser. The other big portion is probably going to the light industry on um South Mcdow extension, all of those places or whatever. And so those places are also closed on the weekend. So to say this is a pilot that we need to try, I I mean I get the equity. I know it goes through some disadvantaged neighborhoods, but but I don't know that we're going to see the numbers and that that's a pilot we want to try. Um, and I also think that we need to be a little bit more careful with pilots because, you know, we put these things out and then people get um dependent on them. It's the same thing with, you know, Luma Luma Go. It's a pilot. Well, what's the plan to keep this this going? people become dependent but we don't seem to have any kind of plan to uh maintain that going forward. So I think we need to think carefully about about what we what we pilot in the future. Thank you.

Thank you Eric Vasquez. And um it's okay if you're a member of TAC to say I'm a member of TAC and I've been thinking about this. So um Good evening. So, I'll just start by saying I'm a member of PAC. Not being bashful about it. So, forgive me if this just sounds like a word salad. I really didn't have anything prepared for this, but um you know, I was the one who brought forward the um the pilot idea for Route 24. Um, just a little personal story with me. You know, the bus routes have always been um a lifeline for folks and as far as I can remember, this has never really existed for a Saturday service. So, it was I propose it as a Saturday service because we have a lot of communities. We have CS, we have the Alura Apartments, the um Littlewoods residents, um and a few other ones that I just can't think off the top of my head right now. But to me, this is where I think of equity. I think of the folks who have relied on these who would rely on these services all the time. And yes, you know, it's fundamentally clear that we know that Kaiser to SMART are the two biggest peaks of where we want to see this route going, but ultimately I want to be able to see the community and the neighborhoods that I'm around, be able to enjoy going into downtown on a Saturday and not have to rely on their car because, you know, I I will say that I've gone into events in downtown and I'd prefer not to take my car um and relieve traffic congestion, We don't know what that would look like. So that's why I'm hoping that we can see this come through. Um, with everything that's going on right now, I just really hope that the council comes to a

decision that continues to stay vigilant on where we need to be in the future. I had said on TAC that I have grave concerns with cuts and I believe that it's abundantly clear that no one wants to see anything cut. Lumigo is particularly important with folks and we can continue to debate how effective or how how much frequency we have on it, but it is popular and I would hope that if we were not in the situations that we were on a local level with budget cuts happening here and across the state that we could continue to expand. And I guess in closing, um, I respect the decision that is made, but I hope we can continue to strategically think about what we do for going forward. So, thank you. Thank you, Gail Abrams to be followed by Dave Alden. Good evening and thank you. And for my sins, I am the chair of TAC. Um, none of us wanted to see any cuts. And I want to thank Brian for pointing out what I've said at tax several times or anytime anyone will listen is that everyone who's riding the bus in Paluma is an equity issue. You know, nobody is riding the bus because it's really convenient. We just don't have that kind of coverage um and that kind of frequency. But it's great that we have it at all. Um do an internet search. Middlesize cities that have public transit, reasonable public transit are viewed as they're more successful. They have higher property taxes. Um businesses want to come in. People want to move there. It's something that

people look up when they're thinking of where they want to live. With increased smart, people don't want to get off the bus and have, oh, now where do how do I get to where I'm trying to go? So, it's not just good for people and it's not just an equity issue. It's really, it's good for the city. And I wanted to thank you um for funding Fairfree. Um, again, oh, Brian, you I I wasn't thinking, but I kept calling you out twice. Yes, you couldn't buy that kind of marketing. You couldn't buy that kind of success. Um, and it's also so great for everyone who could not afford to ride the bus or who it made a difference to. Um, and so just like every organization I've ever made a contribution to, three more people asked me for a contribution. And as the mayor said, in times like this, we have to double down. And so I'm going to ask you to contribute more to transit. $100,000 can keep our buses running one hour later into the evening. So people who would not normally take the bus could because they'll get home instead of driving. And I'm haven't been in Paluma all that long, but one thing I do know that more than most places, everybody complains about the traffic. So, you know, if if a few more people don't have to take their car, everyone will be happier. But thank you so much. Thank you, Dave Alden. By my tally, I'm the fifth member of TAC

to speak this evening, which um hey, good for us. I that shows a level of commitment um I'm I'm proud of. Uh I appreciate the mayor bringing up the reserve policy this evening. I was afraid it might not come up, so I turned my card in. I was actually probably the TAC member who spearheaded that adoption back in about 2015. As Miss Sullivan said earlier, it's 50% of the well, let's say six months of operating costs, which is something around $2 million, I believe, right now. So when we look at the numbers today and we're sort of looking at you know 200 grand above 200 grand below that's the end of year surplus I'm going that's compared to an end of year reserve that should be 2 million. So, we are in a deep, deep hole no matter what we do this evening. And I know we can't get back there very quickly, but I think we need to keep in mind that the long-term goal is to get back to that reserve because within the last decade, we have had proof that it's needed. When the pandemic hit, a lot of those federal funds that came to save transit weren't there day one. For the first six, nine months, that reserve was crucial to keeping transit on the road. So, we need to reestablish that reserve when we can. And then I also heard the comment tonight that the buses are empty more than they should be. I don't ride the bus a lot. I don't really need to for anything in my life, but I ride it once in a while just to check it out as a member of TAC. Other than maybe one stop at a time, I have never been the only person on a bus. It averages half dozen typically. I I think you hear a lot of concerns about buses running empty the same way you hear about smart trains running empty. Even as we approach 1.4 million in annual wrership because the nature of transit vehicles being high off the ground with shaded windows, you don't see people as well as you think you might. But there's more people on there than you might see from the curb. There

always should be more. We want I want to see a day where there's 20 25 people on the bus everywhere. But there's more out there than you think and we need to take care of those folks. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you. That was our last speaker. That closes public comment. I'll bring it on back up to the dis. Uh I think we've heard quite a bit. Um um I I think we actually have a question for staff if they want to take a crack at it. Um how did Sunday become um an identified separated issue? Um, so on Sundays, that was one of the difficult additions to the list because there are concerns with Sunday from the equity point of view. We know that it's hard to eliminate a day of service altogether because some people may not have an option whatsoever on that day. I would say several of the additional items come into play with Sunday. So if you're not running the fixed route service, then the paratransit service is also a potential savings. One of the things that we're recommending is a reduction in our dispatcher uh positions. One position going from 40 hours a week to 24. And so there's also savings on that day. If you don't have dispatchers working that day, that's a savings. If you don't have your utility workers fueling buses, that's a savings. Now, that's to say that's counterbalance with equity concern. So, we are getting to the point where it's very hard to find items for this list that are recommended. The tradeoff if you're not including Sundays, you're potentially looking at other options like perhaps eliminating another route altogether. And we didn't think that was a viable option by comparison, but that was one of the difficult ones that we were looking at for that list for sure.

Appreciate you hitting that. Um, and and I bet all of them were difficult when you were reviewing them. I think at this point we've um had our try to get our arms around this thing and I'd like uh to try and get each of the council members or whomever feels comfortable to kind of summarize and give staff a little takeaway from um from tonight's workshop since it's not a resolution or an action or anything else. this is your opportunity to summarize your thoughts on the matter and um as Council Member Quint as the representative to TAC I thought I'd let you lead off the six number.

Yeah. Um this um well first of all I I want to you know I want to appreciate the uh the TAC member showing up. Uh I know it's a it's a group of people that care deeply about transit in our community. Um and so that's why they're there. Um that's why they show up and um you know and participate. Um, having looked, you know, having sat through this a number of times with the TAC team, um, I I feel that the, uh, that the proposal that staff has put together, I think, addresses, um, you know, it it's it's a it's a really it's a wellbalanced plan um, to address the shortfall. I think um you know I I I get a little you know and I've expressed this to my to my colleagues on tech and they probably um you know think I express it a little too much. I I get a little concerned in the third year, right? because I don't I look at what um at what Saturn Rosa City Schools are going through and they've you know tried to take a short-term view and um you know and and maybe make considerations for this year and the uh the deficit in the future years starts to compound and I want to make sure you know what's sort of kept me up at night with this is um you know taking a a you know a view that's this year or just next year and not thinking about year three because in year three is where the biggest um you know where the biggest concern is. Having said that I think staff has done a really good job in the plan that they put together. We

still have a, you know, on paper right now, if everything played out the way, um, you know, if our, if our best guess comes to fruition, um, you know, we'll have a $400 shortfall in year three. Uh, I'm optimistic and I'm going to share staff's optimism that we'll be able to find a way, uh, to to shore that up. Um but it is a you know it's a cautionary tale if we come back and we're not for some reason if we have to continue to pay the 260k that could be um that could be problematic. So I um overall it's I think I think staff has done good work and I you know I would encourage uh city council to um to to support the recommendations that are being made.

Thank you. Council member Shrebs.

Yeah. Uh, thank you. The, um, belt tightening that we're going through now, being proactive and moving forward. Um, what I'm thinking about is is it's not just transit at this time that we need to be thinking about. We have a budget meetings coming up for the entire city for all operations. And it'd be lovely if we oh, we'll just go ahead and reduce public safety and move money over here and make transit wonderful and and and fully fund it that way. But looking at all our budgets, I think what we're doing tonight, the tight belting that we're doing now with the transit, public transit, we're going to need to do across the board for everything down the road because we're going to be cutting this. And then equally, we need to cut everything out. So, I think we're going to have to take a fine pencil all the way down because um the future right now uh financially here in the US is looking a little sketchy from my point of view and I think a lot of folks might agree with that and so we have to be more precautious right now and be more careful and this is going to be our first round of budget cuts on one item but I'm thinking we're going to be making budget cuts on 10 items shortly uh across the board. So, um, thank you for all the work you've done to to at least give an example of what we are doing now to do this one program, but I think we're going to have to put an equal amount of effort in all our programs coming up this year because I said I'm a little scared right now. Thanks,

Council Member Now. Um, thank you. Thank you, staff. Um, it's never easy to um to make cuts and thank you, Council Member Shreves. Um, when we talk about marketing, as council member Barnacle brought up, LumiGo is set to to end the first week of June. The first week of July, July 5th. So, it will be available during the fair. Yes, it would be under this

because that's a huge marketing and like better eggs day is coming up and I think somebody else brought it up a public comment when there's an event we want to encourage people to take public transportation and leave their cars at home to ease the parking situation downtown. Um the talking to the you know the residents of Paluma, my neighbors, my family, there are retail employees who don't make a lot of hourly wages and they use our public transportation to get to their jobs and that frees up parking space because they're taking public transportation. So we have to think about that. We're easing up our parking situation downtown. And then the customers, there are some customers who aren't really handicapped, who aren't going to be riding a bike, who aren't going to be walking, but they that's their social um it's their it's their lifeline to go on the bus, to go downtown. They're retired. They that's their enjoyment. That's what they do. And they have quite a friendship. And how I know that is I was downtown shopping for a get well gift and someone said, "Oh, who are you buying this for?" And I said, "Oh, she rides the bus and I'll have to tell the bus driver." Cuz we were worried about her. So, it's like they really have a social network with those bus drivers and those bus lines. I was I was like, "Wow, this is really a whole social scene that I didn't even know about." And it takes me back to 1976 when we got our little diesel buses in Paluma. I'm going to date myself. Uh, Council Member Aer Thompson will remember these little pup pet diesel buses came around town. They were called like Hey schooner. That was my lifeline to downtown. I was a kid that lived out

in the country. I could jump on that thing and ride into town. I'm dating myself. It probably cost a quarter. But it was it was wonderful. I could take the little kids I babysat. I could get to my job downtown and that was my lifeline as a teenager. So, um I do support staff's recommendations, but I would love to go into another year of at least using Lumigo um as a lifeline to our community and helping out those who need that public transportation. Thank you.

Okay, Vice Mayor Well, I appreciate staff being as conservative as possible in in the cuts on all this. Um, I really do think we have to look at, you know, having having a fair system again. Um, I don't think we we can't not look at that and and especially I think if you graphed out the numbers, the the deficit as was pointed out over the next three years, I think that would be an exponential curve and you you can't say that in a best case scenario an exponential curve is just going to flatten out on its own. So, I I think we really have to consider that and look at it. Um, I think uh, you know, it's brought up in public comment that ending Sunday services, you know, would be bad for a lot of reasons, you know, probably at least for Route 11 and for paratransit. Um, you know, so I I don't know if something has to be cut in its place. I don't know if like say on route 24 we further reduce the frequency there and see what that saves to help balance it out but um I I think that uh I don't think we want to end paratransit and something like a east east side to west side service as in route 11. So otherwise I support the recommendations.

Thank you council member Kater Johnson.

Well I'm going to start off with why we need economic development in a town. If we had a hotel that was almost built, we would be getting well, people might think it's really funny, but we're cutting services because we don't have that revenue coming in. And that was a lot of revenue from that hotel. And so people can sit out there and laugh and stare at me, but the bottom line is we lost a lot of revenue because a group of people that have the money um decided this wasn't good enough. This isn't what they wanted for Paluma. We We may not get a four-story hotel. We might get nothing. We have a lot of vacant lots in our town. We have a lot of housing that could be done. All that money goes into the city to pay for services. And now we're cutting services because people didn't realize what would happen when you don't have that economic development coming into this town. I I'll go along with the majority on the council. Um I'm not happy with this at all. Um I it's um it's just unfortunate and we shouldn't be here today and we wouldn't be here today if you know few years ago people decided we don't want this hotel. Let's do a ballot measure. Well now those same people are hurting people that need public transit. And and just on another note, um I had a neighbor that moved in from San Francisco and what was really important was that 15 minutes, having a bus every 15 minutes. You have a bus every half hour and every hour, it's just not as successful. And so to have a successful system, we need to have it integrated every 15 minutes. And this is a real problem if we're going to be changing

um changing to longer times and I think less people will use it. Um and and I think with the cost of living just wondering,

please carry on. I'm wondering with the cost of living and the cost of gas and everything else, are more people going to actually use transit and or other means um to get around instead of, you know, spending $7 on gas? And um as council member Shri said, I don't see the forecast really great. We have a maniac in the White House for the next three years. We don't know what's going to happen from second to second. what comes out of that mouth and so I'll go ahead and okay support this.

Okay. No, I totally concur with you at economic development and the economic development is widespread. Our our losses in town are widespread every you know I worry that our reductions are going to be widespread as well and that's that's troublesome. Council member Darl you had another thought question. Well, I just had a quick clarification because I think public transit's funded by grant funds, not hotels. That's all. Okay. Thanks, Council Member.

Have a clarification on that because when you have a shortfall, that extra revenue can be spread out into all different areas, whether it's parks or our bus transit. So, that's how the that's how it really works. and and like you say the fair come the fair free program comes out of general fund and other opportunities exist and if we wish to make an equity thing that says that people who can't get around town people who need to be mobile on Sundays you know that that's a value decision that could be made in the budget as the budget is our biggest policy point

and I took the smart train um home after I went down to LA I did a quick turnaround in one day and when I was coming back there were people that probably should have paid and they let them on there because they were lowincome workers and there were quite a few of them on there. So transportation is important for people to go to work so we can buy the goods that we want. All right. Thank you, Council Member Barnacle. Why do people just

So, um I can't help but think we should have seen this coming and so I hope that this type of forecasting happens. um um more regularly. It needs to be mandatory going forward um for any any of our programs that are heavily funded by grants and formula. Otherwise, this needs to be something that um is daylighted as part of the budget process in a budget meeting. We need to have this kind of information. Um because I, you know, we may have made different decisions last year if we had known some of this stuff. Um, I support the staff recommendation with a few thing a few caveats. Um, the uh cancelling the arrangement with the county. Um, I don't there's a a big assumption there that we're just going to get the money back and that whatever service those lines are providing right now is just going to be continued. But I want to understand what trade-offs there are there if there are any. Um, so that when this comes back before us, I definitely want much more thorough information on that because that's feels like um probably when I asked about the rainy day, like that's the thing that is an assumption in there that just we're kind of taking for granted and thank you council member Quinn for um airing that. Um I just went through a reduction in force in my organization. It's painful. And so I know this is painful because at the other end of this there's people who aren't getting who aren't going to be mobile in the city as much. There's people who are not going to be working right like cutting cutting routes or cutting people's jobs too. Um my sort of northstar in doing this is making sure that you identify the core things that you need to do um and that you continue to do those well otherwise you'll be out of a job. So, um I think that we've done

that here. Um I have some concerns about uh very low wrership lines and things like that, but I think um having heard the stories of people who absolutely need to get to Kaiser, like I think that's an important line. So, um I think you've done that, but just please sharpen that pencil and make sure that like the core function of operating a transit network and the people who rely on it for the thing that they need it for, um that it continues to do that because if they stop riding it, then we truly are up a creek and we don't have a paddle. Um we need to be focused before we start adding back routes. We should be thinking about building reserves and getting back to that um financially strong place. Um and just to to you know the hotel is a is this symbol of things but um the the issue is is like this is a symbol of what's to come in the budget process because if we were flush with cash and the economy was great right now. We wouldn't be talking about this right now. We'd be probably continuing going forward and we'd be subsidizing transit from the general fund. And so, um, no one up here wants to be having tough conversations and that's what we're doing because we don't have the revenues and costs keep going up. So, like, um, you know, Janice gets, you know, animated about this stuff. I get animated about this stuff, but it's because none of us want to be having these conversations. We don't want to be talking about what roads we're paving, what new lines we're opening, things like that. We want to be creating opportunity and and value for the community. And right now, we're talking about what we're not going to deliver for them. and no one up here ran for that reason. And so the hotel, I don't love hotel developers. I don't love hotels. I do love rooftop bars. Um but um what I love is delivering for the community and right now we're not doing that. We're making tough decisions and um and I think that we're going to see more

of that. I think the c the community can expect that this is a sign of things to come as we get into the budget process. Um, and I hope that this is uh, you know, a wakeup call to the to the to the community that like if we want to keep attaining things, we need to also be focused on economic development, focused on revenue generation. Um, because all of these funds right here, um, so many of them are like hinging on federal monies that we have a completely unstable federal government right now. And um we could be like in a real hard place with things like that. And so um you know this is like the rainy day is the federal government does something horrible to this. And um and so you know I support the staff recommendation. I've given my input. Um this sucks. Um but thank you for the TAC members who put in all the effort into this because I know it's it none of them are easy conversations. Um, and I appreciate um, you all sifting through the weeds and and helping get us to here.

Thank you. Yeah, I think that's probably a good summary on things when you get the bad economy is real, hard decisions come real. I think u, you know, one of my greater concerns is the reserves that uh, we are not with reserves and that's that's that's a a big concern but um, my concern for the system is higher than that. My concern is is that it does provide equity in the community. It does serve our climate goals. It does benefit our uh traffic in in town and it and it benefits getting kids to school. And so those are all constituency or issues that are critical to to us. Um so I would love to have all our f fix routes stay unimpacted and u I think there's this is not a time for add-ons. We're talking about things that might be good things to do. I think this is not a time for add-ons. Um, but my bottom line is um I think the TAC and yourselves have spent a lot of time pulling together the least worst lists and um and and so I think realism is that we respect the proposal. So um you know on one hand I'm saying don't fix any if you can find a way to keep fixed out there that's the that's the way it is for me. And did does that provide you the kind of input you were look hoping for this evening? Okay. And that was a a long and exhaustive and we only did this once and you all attack did this multiple times. So thank you very much and thank our audience and uh with that we are adjourned for the evening. Thank you.