City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome everyone to today's city council meeting today, March 9th of 2026. I now call this meeting to order. Roll call. District 1, Council Member Casey, present. District 2, Council Member Vieiraa, present. District 3, Council Member Otto, here. District 4, Vice Mayor Martinez, present. Mayor Lopez, here. Please stand for the invocation by Tim. I don't know if he's is he online? Oh, he's here. There you are, sir. And followed by the pledge of allegiance. Thank you.

Thank you for allowing me to be here tonight. In Romans 13 in in scripture, it says that we are that all authorities and leaders are placed there by God himself. In first Timothy, it tells us to pray for all authorities and leaders. So, it is my privilege tonight to not only pray for you, but to thank you for serving in the way that you do. And so, heavenly father, we thank you for the opportunity to gather and for those who serve this city in leadership, the way they give, the way they serve, the way they sacrifice from their families and the time and the thought that they give to this community. And while we acknowledge that all authority comes from you, Lord Jesus, we ask that you grant these council members, our leaders, and those in different capacities of this city. Grant them with wisdom, discernment, integrity as they consider the manners before them tonight. Give them hearts that seek what is right and good for this community. Help them to listen well and to lead in humility and to serve faithfully. We ask your blessing on this city and its people. Guide this meeting and may all that is done reflect justice, respect, and a genuine desire to serve others. It's in the name of Christ Jesus we pray. Amen. All right, we're going to go ahead and do the pledge of allegiance now.

Hello everyone. My name is Kayen Perez Granberry. Um, put your right hand over your chest and please look towards the flag. I pledge allegiance of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. Thank you, city council. We do have one proclamation. The recipients of the proclamation is Pphanie Guild and Series Sarophanus International of Series will be accepting this proclamation. City Council, if we can please go up to the podium. Are you done? Come on. That was a great

I tried. Good evening everyone and thank you ladies. I appreciate all of these beautiful women behind me. And today we're doing a declaration. It's March 2026 as Women's History Month. Whereas Women's History Month began in 1978 as a local celebration of Women's History Week in Santa Rosa, California. President Jimmy Charter issued the first presidential proclamation declaring March 2nd through March 8th, 1980 National Women's History Week. In 1987, Congress changed the week into a month. And whereas women of every race, class, ethnic background have made historical contributions to the growth, strength of series in countless records and unrecorded ways. And whereas women play a critical economic, cultural, and social role in every sphere of life and series. And particularly important is the establishment of early charitable. So I can't even say that Phil anthro. Thank you. Thank you. Exactly what she This is why we work together. It's the great thing about women and cultural institutions in our city. And whereas women have served as early leaders in the forefront of every major progressive social change movement. And despite these contributions, the role of women has consistently been overlooked and undervalued in literature, leadership, teaching and study of American history. And it is therefore fitting that we recognize their numerous accomplishments. began. Whereas from classrooms to boardrooms and from grassroots movements to global initiatives, women educators and leaders have been instrumental in nurturing minds and sparking transformative

action. Their invaluable contributions have shaped educational landscapes and have also inspired significant social change, proving that empowered women can ignite powerful movements that resonate across communities and cultures. Now therefore, I Javier Lopez, well, not me personally, that's him, Major City of Series, on behalf of the rest of the council, Vice Mayor Daniel A. Martinez, Council Member James Casey, myself, Rosindanda Vieira, and Serena Otero, do hereby proclaim the month of March 2026 as Women's History Month in the city of series. Thank you young ladies for being here tonight. And I have two proclamations. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be recognized in the city of Series. It means a great deal to us um to know that we're not invisible. So, thank you very very much for this proclamation. And I do have dinner tickets if anyone is interested. So, come look me up. You can see me right there.

All right. Thank you once once again. Uh we will now move on to the citizens communications while the city council welcomes and encourages participation in city council meetings. Oh, that's right. There is a prescog my apologies Stanco. Today we have a presentation for transportation plan and community strategies. And this is Chris, correct? All right, Chris. Well, welcome. Look forward to the presentation. Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Um, I'm my name is Chris Gregerson. I work for Kimley Horn. We're the consultants working with Stanco, the Sennis uh Council of Governments on their 2026 regional transportation plan and sustainable community strategies.

There we go.

All right. Um, so I'm here tonight really to uh inform the public. We're going to all of the city councils uh throughout the month of March um all the agencies in Stannis Loss County um to give an overview of the RTP and and really try and get uh a little bit of input as we develop the plan. So these are the topics I'm going to going to cover briefly. So the RTPCES uh reflects the shared vision of the cities and counties uh through 2049 uh and really focuses on transportation and how land use growth over the next 25 years drives transportation needs. Um it's a high level planning document that's used to really uh look at how the region's going to grow over the next 25 years. Um so a few requirements on the plan. Um prioritizing transportation projects not just roadway but bicycle, airport, transit. Um and one of the important things is that it's fiscally constrained, meaning that we have to identify revenue sources for all the projects included. Uh there are state and federal air quality requirements that we must meet. And then there's also um the SQL requirements. So there's an EIR that goes with the plan. A couple of quick definitions that'll appear in the rest of the presentation. A vehicle miles traveled or VMT is really just the distance driven by a number of vehicles. So in the examples shown here, there's four vehicles going 30 miles. 4* 30 gets you 120 BMT. And then we're going to talk about uh missing middle housing, which is really the housing that falls between single family and large apartment complexes. So, town homes, um, duplexes, forplexes, things like that. So, Stanco partners with the University of the Pacific to do demographics, uh, projections. So, over the next 25 years,

they predict the amount of household population and employment growth, um, in each of the agencies within Stannis Loss County. And we use that to develop uh, different scenarios that we analyze. So these scenarios look at how uh where the growth is going to go in each of the different uh agencies in the county and then also what types of projects uh will be matched. So a few of the guiding principles that we use are um trying to preserve farmland, growing uh infill areas and really trying to reduce the reliance on on single occupancy trips or or driving alone. Um, so the four initial scenarios that we've developed, uh, I'll cover on these two slides. Really, the business as usual is what was the preferred scenario from the 2022 RTP. Um, that focused on missing middle housing throughout the county. Um, and what we're developing now is really trying to focus in on uh growth more in the the infill areas or the more uh existing developed areas. So we have a focus on putting growth near transit and then also uh grow housing growth near jobs. So trying to provide access to jobs and other supportive land uses without having to drive everywhere. Uh the final scenario really focuses on increased accessory dwelling units and both uh existing and future lots that has both spread out a little bit more throughout. So in terms of some of the transportation improvements, all the scenarios include the same roadway projects. Where they differ is really when it comes to transit and then bicycle and pedestrian uh improvements. So when we're looking at bicycle improvements for the two mixeduse scenarios, we're trying to connect either transit or jobs consistent with how the the scenarios grow in terms of land use. And then for transit uh we're

really focused on express bus service. So the the transit scenario includes six different new uh express bus routes uh throughout the county. Um the mixed use kind of falls a little bit less so a little bit less investment. There's three routes and then the business as usual and the ADU focused one just include one express route. There's a few other projects that are going on along with uh the RTP and those um are focused on developing a toolkit to help agencies throughout Stannis Loss with building um missing middle housing and how they can fund that and and expedite it. Um there's focus on trying to address SQL requirements with the BMT reduction strategy and then taking a regionalized look at uh bicycle improvements trying to close any gaps in between agencies so that you know you're not riding your bike and you hit the edge of the city and then all of a sudden there's no uh bike infrastructure anymore. So really why I'm here is uh for input opportunities. We have some flyers in the back with QR codes or fill out to get uh input. Um we have a project website that has a lot more information on all the topics I covered. There's a survey there. There's an interactive map where the public can go out and put in, oh, I want something here or this is an issue uh near my community. Um and then we're going to go um we have workshops and popups throughout the county uh last month and this month. Few of those are listed here. So, we're going to continue through March to reach out to the community as much as possible to get input, select a preferred scenario of the four that I presented tonight. And then the public hearings in June and August when the plan uh will be ready. It'll be presented in June and be open for public comment and then adopted in

August. And with that, I'll take any questions. Thank you very much. Is there any questions? No questions here. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Citizens communications. The city council welcomes and encourages participation in city council meetings. Adopt the rules. Allow no more than 5 minutes. Resolution number 2007106 for expression of non-aggenda items. Matters under the jurisdiction of the city council and not on the posted agenda may be addressed by the general public. However, California law prohibits the city council from taking any action on any matter which is not posted on the agenda unless it is determined to be an emergency by the city council. Citizens are entitled to address city council on any agenda item subject to the five-minute provision. Anyone wishing to address the city council must adhere to the rules of decorum and the rules of decorum are posted outside the chamber doors. And we will start off with our representatives and we do have Baja here from Senator Alvarez Gil's office. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Lopez and members of the city council. My name is Narender Beia. I'm a senior district representative for Senator Marie Alvarado Gill's office. I will be providing a legislative update. Senator represents California's fourth Senate district which spans 13 counties across the Sierra and Central Valley. Senator's 2026 committee committee assignments are a vice chair of the agriculture, vice chair of revenue and taxation, governmental organization, and joint committee on fairs allocation and classification. One of the Senate bills Senator House has introduced is SB 1234, LEO's Law. When a juvenile court represents parents or guardians to undergo drug testing before a child reunification, LEO's Law will ensure fentanyl is included on the test panel. If anyone needs any assistance with any state agencies or has legislative questions, comments, and concerns, please feel free to contact our office at 209-576601. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Now, we'll open it up to the public for any Oh, yes. We'll open it up to the public. Go ahead. Please state your name.

Thank you. My name is Isiveros. I've been here several times. Uh we were here the last meeting uh in regards to the trees that were looking to be cut down at um series youth baseball at Costa Fields for the lighting situation. And I just wanted to touch base on some comments that were made towards the end of the last meeting uh specifically by the uh city manager. And you know, we were handed a an estimate for field three a couple years ago that we turned over to the city and he mentioned that we we knew what we were getting when we have these lighting issues now because we're uh fighting with the city to, you know, ramp up the lighting because it's it's not enough uh the lights that were replaced. And I feel like we feel like the city manager is throwing the blame on us when he's the manager. You're the manager. You're here to manage the city. You're the one that gets paid $220,000 a year. We are volunteers. And when we handed you the estimate, it's up to you and the engineer to pick the right lighting. It's not on us. It's on you guys. And the reason why we're here in the first place is because of the ARPA funds that you mismanaged. the $80,000 plus that was allocated to CYB to replace the lights on field three in the first place. Had it not been for those misallocation of those funds, we wouldn't be here at all. So, stop blaming us. Thank you for your comments. Next person, please. Um Jorge Guerero with uh series baseball. Well, it was surpris um surprising to me that it was not on the agenda as it was tabled last time, but uh I have some information that I had told you guys that I was um I don't know how I can get it.

We'll take it right now. As soon as you finish your comments, we'll grab it from you. That way I can u explain what I'm giving you. Um, this information is for the staff. Correct. For the council. Oh, we're not authorizing that at the moment. You can give it to staff and then they'll go ahead and go through the information.

Okay. You can give it to her. You can give it to her. She'll she'll make sure she gets to the right hands. Thank you, Lauria. So basically what I'm uh providing is the com uh the comparison between field one and field two with the old lights and new lights. Um like coach Ismael mentioned um that last comment by the city manager was blaming us for giving a referral for giving a referral of a company that had accepted or have said that they could do the the fields. Um on those pages you're going to be highlight you're going to see highlighted the most important part of the field the home plate. That's where all the action happens from. And in comparison field one when they were in good condition they had a 62 ft candle at home plate. Now they're at 30. Field two used to be at 62. Now it is at 43. Field three is at 28. It should be at around 50. Field four, which is where the youngest, less experienced players play, it's at 16. It should be at 50. So just some information. And then the last page that I provided shows the project for the tree removal which shows how there you guys or somebody is proposing to remove all those trees in the outer part of the uh complex which would not benefit any of the areas on the infield which are the most the ones that need most uh work. So that's basically what I wanted

to um provide so that you guys can take a look at it, make a um educated decision since unfortunately somebody misled uh the council to make the incorrect decision. The biggest issue that we s have here is that once again money was thrown away. Um, according to what the city manager said last time, the only way to fix field three was to get the T grant, which was around $69,000. Um, the city spent over $100,000 in the whole project. Field one and field two didn't need to be part of the project. Field four didn't need to be part of the project. So, Even without the money from T3 should have been able to be taken care of but were somebody's misunderstanding or not putting everything in all the numbers in the correct way. There was a misplacement or misallocation of the funds. field three should have been taken care of with the $100,000 that you the city that you guys again thank you allocated to the project but unfortunately to be able to take 70,000 that we're throwing away wasted um we have a worse situation now we have a worse situation and we're trying we're we were playing last council meeting we were exact words where CYB provided that information. That's why we went with them. It's their fault. It's not our fault. Um, on other note, March 27 at 6 p.m. we have our opening ceremonies. All

of you guys are invited. I hope to see you guys there again. This um unfortunate situation that we're here. Hopefully, this can be taken care of. On Friday, we had the third accident. One girl got hit on the face, blooded nose, loaded teeth because she lost the uh the ball in the light. And this is the third one. One of them was one of our coaches who also lost uh ball in the light from an AU AU player, one of the youngest players, and he's an experienced person. Thank you. Have a great day.

Thank you very much. Next person, please. Good evening, city council members, city staff and community. I'm actually here wearing three hats, so hopefully I can do this all in five minutes. My first hat is going to be with Sophimus, the ladies that were joining me tonight. Um, I just wanted to announce that on March 20th, which is coming up soon, is our Denim and Diamond fundraiser. We still have tables available. We still have tickets available. It is a shrimp boil and pasta dinner. Uh it's here at the community center and it's for a good cause. The money that we raise through Sir Optimus helps uh women and girls in the community. We give scholarships. We give um adult live your dream funds. We get we do dream at be it programs for the high school. We do set programs for the junior high. So it it does go for a good cause and is all for um for our community. So, if you can buy tickets, come see me or see any of our Optimus, I would really appreciate it. All right, my second hat is going to be for the chamber. Uh, thank you to those who came to our multi-mixer series multimixer chamber mixer last Thursday. I was at Fabulous. Uh, we we like to promote and support our businesses. They are a member of the chamber. We had a good turnout. uh raising canes provided all the food, very good food, and uh it was a great time. It's a great time to network and visit with other businesses. So, thank you to those who came out. On March 18th at 9:00 a.m., we're going to be doing a coffee and conversation with another business member. This will be with Flawless downtown on 4th Street at 9:00 a.m. Uh so if you're available, come on down and again do some networking, meet our businesses, meet with our board members, and it's a good time. Have some

coffee. Uh on March, sorry I have my glasses. On March 26th, um we are going to be meeting at another business member which is Corazone Aztec for our underserved business workshop. We are getting businesses together. We are looking for 25 businesses in series who um need a little extra support. So as a chamber we'd like to support them and find out what their needs are so that we can be the leazison between them and the s the city and get that information and resources. So we actually have two meetings, one in March, one in April. The first meeting is to find out what their needs are. The second meeting will be where we invite um a panel of experts to help provide resources for what they need. So that's in March. Then of course in May, everybody knows already about the street fair. May the second and third always the first weekend in May downtown series. And how much time? Two minutes. Okay. Another hat. My next hat, last hat is going to be love series. Um and I actually wrote because I didn't want to forget. So Excuse me. Okay. Uh, we'd like to invite everybody to Love Series. It's scheduled for April 25th starting at 8:00 a.m. Our kickoff will include a breakfast by Lion's Club, coffee from Starbucks, and donuts once again from Adam Gay's office. Siri's Rotary Club will be providing lunch for everybody. They're going to do a little bit different this year. They're talking about driving around to the project to drop off lunch rather than trying to get everybody back uh to our location. So, um it' be a lot easier for everybody to get lunch this time. And then my CPR first will be providing water for everybody. During our kickoff, we will have music, games, raffle prizes, um all kinds of fun. I know a few people here have already RSVPd, so they're going to be there. We currently have eight projects that are confirmed and

scheduled, but we'd like to have a lot more projects. I do have a few people who have reached out. They just haven't confirmed their projects yet. So, probably about five more, but we'd still like to have a few more than that. Uh, our goal is to have about 200 volunteers this year. So, in order to do that, we need to get our projects filled. We will also be providing child care for the families who would like to volunteer, but they can't take those littlest family members with them to the project. So, u we will have our um childc care available for the little ones. Anybody who pre-registers gets a free love series t-shirt and if they don't pre-register, we will be selling t-shirts at the event for $10. So, it's our way of encouraging people to pre-register. We do have to have everybody registered that we can cover everybody insurance and legalities and all that stuff. We want to make sure we know who's on our projects and u make sure everybody's protected. Um, many hands make light works. Light works. So, the more volunteers the better. The the project we have so far. Um, making thank you cards for veterans, encouragement cards for incarcerated youth, cleaning up the downtown around the community center, yard work for seniors. That's a popular one. Hotspots around town and series. We're working with code enforcement and public works to identify those hot spots. Hungry caterpillar garden, which is new. Oh, shoot. I'm over. Sorry. Flag replacer. and then series high table painting.

Thank you very much. You have any questions? Let me know.

Appreciate it. Anybody else? Good evening, council members. John Warren from the city of Siri. First of all, I want to congratulate all the nice ladies uh and women that were here tonight. Mrs. Casey always corrects me when I use the lady's word. She said women and she is entirely correct. So, um I thank them for being here tonight. Um I need to thank the council for their vote last month. I was not able to thank them because the u communication period was at the beginning and and your vote on the donation to the uh series VFW post is most appreciated and um will keep us plugging along for a couple three years without uh too much financial difficulty. Thank you very much for that. Also on that same note, um this year the uh American Legion is hosting the um memorial service uh on May the 25th, Memorial Day at the Syria Cemetery. The Saturday before, which is May 23rd, we put up all the large American flags throughout the cemetery. There's about 140 of them that we put in place. And it takes a lot of manpower and work to do that. Last year, the mayor and his football team were very helpful. Councilwoman Vieira and and Serena and all the other folks here were of great help. So, giving you those dates now to mark on your calendar um would be uh something that we need to plan for coming up. putting those things

up on the 23rd and taking them down on the 25th in the in the evening when the services and things are concluded. So, we look forward for the help that you provided last year and hopefully this year. On another note, I still have three minutes left here. Uh I wanted to speak about the upcoming um Copper Trail specific plan. um situation for our series city. Um recently, a year ago, the draft, the original draft was available for the public to make comments on. And I have a page here taken out of the final draft that lists the name of the people and the agencies that commented on that uh environmental draft. There were nine. The last one was the uh series Unified School District. U they were number nine. And what I noticed, the biggest thing that jumped out at me is there's no citizens names on this. There is one person number five and you can probably guess who that was but you had the Pacific uh gas and electric company. Um the state water resources office, LAFCO, Sanwalk Valley Air, uh Stannis County Department of Environmental Research, all of these people made comments in regards to the uh to the draft, but not one citizen that lives in the pocket area did so. And that tells me that they don't know what's happening in their community and the situation that they're going to be placed into without any notification. At the planning commission meeting, there was a lady sitting next to me and it just turns out that she was not quite

in favor of this project because she lives at the intersection of Redwood and U and Moffett and she didn't know anything about this or was able to participate in it because the notice she got was just only a couple weeks before that meeting. So that tells me all the people that live in that project really don't know what's going on unless they're part of the project itself, the applicant and the people that surround the applicant's uh um interests to bring this to the city. And um so please read the 159 pages of that environmental report, the final report. it's a lot easier reading the 634 pages of the original draft. And I perused both of those and um a lot of the comments that I did make or question were really not addressed. And one of the biggest is the financial impact it's going to have on the city of Series while this project is growing out. How is a city going to be able to afford this? Nothing in there that I could find that addresses that. So something for you to look at in your spare time in the evening at home is that final draft uh before it comes up because it's going to come to you for a vote. Thank you

very much. Anyone else? Seeing none. Anybody online? There are no hands raised and we did not receive any emails. Thank you very much. We're now close to this communications. Is there a conflict of interest from the council? Seeing none, no appointments, moving on to consent calendar. All matters listed on the consent calendar considered routine in nature and will be enacted by a single motion unless otherwise requested by an individual council member or public for special consideration. Otherwise, the recommendation of staff will be acted, excuse me, accepted and acted upon by roll call vote. Is there anybody on the council that would like to pull a consent item?

Mr. Casey. Item number eight. Thank you very much. Is there anybody any member of the public that would like to pull an item? Seeing none, bring this back for a motion. We do have a hand raised. Oh, yes, we have a hand raised on online. Which item?

Keys. Sorry, I have to figure out how to Sorry, I had to figure out how to unmute myself on this this Zoom. Can you hear me now? Yes. Did you have an item that you would like to pull? Yes. I was just wanted to comment on Mr. Warren's point there. I am the lady at the corner of Redwood. Miss Keys, my my apologies, but we've already closed public comment, so my apologies. Is there an item that you would like to pull for the consent calendar? I don't have an item to pull. I just want you to address that issue and make sure that the people that are being affected are informed. I

I appreciate that. Um, unfortunately, we already closed up citizens communications. We invite you to come out to the next city council meeting during citizens communications and we will get your information. If you need anything further, please reach out. And this item, this thing has been recorded. If I see right, where can I pull that up on the internet? It'll be on YouTube tomorrow. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Have a wonderful day. I'll make a motion to approve items 1 through 7 and 9 through 11 of the consent calendar. I'll second that. Roll call, please. Council member Casey, yes. Council member Vieiraa, yes. Council member Otto, yes. Vice Mayor Martinez, hi. Mayor Lopez, yes.

Motion carries 5. Okay. Item number eight, Mr. Casey. Thank you. My my question is, if I'm reading this right, and I've read the the pages attached to item number eight, we're we're asking to approve uh an amendment to our already deficit budget of another million dollars. Is that correct?

Uh if Thank you, council member, for your question. If I heard you correctly, you're asking if we're adding to a budget deficit. So, uh, with this project, no, this project does not touch the general fund at all. Uh, this project solely comes from, uh, the sewer enterprise funds. Any additional comments, Mr. Casey? Okay. Public, anybody would like to make a comment on this item. Okay. Then we'll bring it back for a motion. Make a motion to approve item number eight. Second. Roll call, please. Council member Casey, yes. Council member Vieiraa,

yes. Council member Otto, yes. Vice Mayor Martinez, hi. Mayor Lopez, yes. Motion carries 50. Moving on to discussion items. Approving letters of support from the city of Siri Council to present to Stannis Regional Transit Authority for the transit and intercity rail capital program application. City manager.

Mr. Mr. Mayor and council members, the Stanlo Regional Transit Authority is applying for the transit and interc city rail capital grant program. Uh they did this uh two years ago asked for letters of support. Unfortunately, they did not get it. Excuse me. Again, this year they are applying for that. They're requesting the uh council to approve four letters going to various members of the different agencies uh to move forward in trying to get this grant. I think believe they're asking for about $25 million to help, excuse me, build the operations facility that the land they just purchased on the corner northwest corner of Crows Landing and Service Road. U and so the letters are attached. Um there is a slight change we're going to do because all the letters are addressed to Senator Padilla. Those will be addressed to the appropriate person that's listed on the top and we'll make that correction.

Thank you very much. We'll go ahead and open this up to the public. the public have any comments or questions about this item? Seeing none, we'll bring this item back for any comments from the council. Uh Doug, it's my understanding that they're about 80% funded for that project. Yes, sir. Any other comments from the council? Outside of the letter of support, is there any other commitment from the city of Series?

There's no other commitment that I'm aware of that for this. This is the we're just applying for the grant. They're they're applying for the grant, excuse me. And so we're not they're actually going to be improving the service road for some distance that's west of Crows Landing and then that whole intersection they're going to be improving that. So uh they'll be paying for all all that themselves. So we'll just be using our engineering department to mainly make sure that they're following the correct procedures and stuff which I'm not too worried about with Stan RTA. Thank you sir. Okay. Uh, with that being said, uh, council like to make a motion, make a motion that we accept item number 12. Second that. We get a roll call, please.

Council member Casey, yes. Council member Vieiraa, yes. Council member Otero, yes. Vice Mayor Martinez, I. Mayor Lopez, yes. Motion carries 5-0.

Okay, moving on to council member referrals. Is anybody on the council would like to make a referral? Seeing none, we will move on to reports. I do have a report today. This report is on the federal advocacy visit to Washington DC. I would like to provide a brief recap of my recent trip to Washington DC where I represented the city of Series and met with federal officials to advocate for our community. First, I want to make it clear that this trip was not budgeted by the city of Sir and no taxpayer dollars were used. I personally cover the cost of my flight, hotel, and travel expenses. I felt that it was very important to make this trip because the city of Series, like many rural communities, continue to face significant needs across several departments. Building relationships at the federal level is critical if we want to positions our city for future support and funding opportunities. And during this visit, I was joined with representatives from the capital advocacy partners who helped coordinate meetings with the federal offices and agencies. Over the course of two days, we met with several key federal offices to discuss the needs of our city and challenges that rural communities in the Central Valley often face when competing for federal resources. During the visit, we met with the following federal offices and agencies. The White House, Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, Office of US Senator Alex Padilla, Office of US Senator Adam Schiff, Office of Congressman Adam Gray, the US Department of Transportation, the US Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, House Transportation Infrastructure Committee, Subcommittees on Water Resources and Environmentals. These meetings were provided an opportunity to highlight the needs of rural communities like seriesir which often face the same challenges as larger cities but with fewer resources and less access to federal funding opportunities.

Key priorities presented during the discussion. We focused on several priority areas of the city of seriesir which include the following public safety support for our police department. Infrastructure improvements to support housing growth and economic development. water and wastewater infrastructure improvements needed for future growth, transportation and mobility projects that improve safety and connectivity, and community resilience and veteran support. There was a community project that was submitted as part of as part of our advocacy effort. The city of Siri submitted federal project requests, including funding to renovate the American Legion VFW Hall into resilience and veteran community center. This project would provide a dedicated space for our local veterans and serve as a cooling center during extreme heat events and often impact rural communities like ours in the center valley. This visit allowed the city of Sirius to strengthen relationship with federal offices and ensure the needs of our rural communities that are being heard at the national level. It also helps position the city for future federal partnerships that can support public safety, infrastructure, and community development. and I look forward to the continuing work with the federal partners to bring opportunities and resources back to the city of series. And as on a side note, I also want to thank everyone who submitted a support letter for the VFW project. And that concludes my report. Councilwoman Vera,

thank you, Mayor. Uh just a few updates. the housing um the census housing alliance meeting has been cancelled this month but last month we did discuss ways to try to um attract attainable housing for the often forgotten middle class. We talk a lot about the unhoused um but yet the ones in the middle class are often the ones that are struggling right now. So we were discussing ways that we can try to attract and address some of that for the middle class which I know came up a little bit earlier. Um, we also met u the mayor and staff met with Siri school district regarding scheduling some bike safety and education and advocacy with the community. I'm very pleased to say that the chief is on board with a lot of these plans. He's nodding his head. Um, I also connected with man just to make sure we were going to get the flyer available and get it printed out to the community with the ordinance. So, um, and also the county has also offered to do some tableabling which may involve some free helmets for the community as well and by safety information. So, I look forward to seeing this move forward. Um, when it comes to code enforcement, I don't know if you've seen them out in the public. They are available on the weekends now. So, please do not hesitate to submit your requests and make the phone calls because they are here available on the weekends. I have seen them almost every Saturday, I think. Now, um, the last one, I know Brandy had touched on it regarding the chamber event that was in my district. We had a great response and I was glad to see how supportive people were of the city of Series as well as a lot of the businesses that came out. A lot of them were here from Series, but there were some from even from Modesto. And I talked to a lot of Series residents who actually have businesses in Modesto and kind of encouraged them about possibility opening or expanding here into the cities cuz they're they're doing well out there. I'm hoping they'll have the same response locally. Um March 28th is going to be our annual Easter event here at the Series Community Center. Um we have some signs out in the community. It's also on the website maybe 1 to 3:00 p.m. here at the community center. So please don't

hesitate to come out. Especially love to see all the children. And then lastly, I just want to touch I know there's a lot we get a lot of comments regarding events here in the series. Um when are we going to have stuff for youth? And it was exciting this weekend. Thank you, mayor, for helping with making this possible. Here in the series, we had an event, a boxing event. It was organized. It was sanctioned. We had officials here, judges sitting on all parts of the ring actually judging it, just like you would do an official boxing. Um, everyone was checked by the nurse or the doctor on and off as they went into the ring. Um, we had youth as far as Fresno all the way up to Stockton gather here to showcase their skills and they were doing it. It was a great event. Lots of energy in the crowd. there was no problems whatsoever and I was just glad the parking lot was full which means there was definitely a large crowd that was there and they ran out of chairs. So that's always a good problem to have and I was glad to see that the community supported um these events and cheered on our youth and that was something I was really glad to see. Thank you.

I'll just really quickly add Charlie's Boxing is a local gym here in the city of Series. They held it with USA Boxing, which is a se section sanctioned boxing company. And also want to thank Howard Prep uh training center. They allow the event to happen in that location. And I think that it's great that we're having community events like this. One thing you didn't mention is that we had uh one of the bouts for 8-year-olds and that's really interesting to see these young boys going up there going toe-to-toe which was really great. And I just wanted to add to that. Uh Vice Mayor,

thank you Mr. Mayor. Actually, Council Member Vieira touched on it. I was just going to bring up our extravaganza event at the end of the month. Uh that weekend in particular will be pretty busy like Coach Jorge had said. The 27th will be opening night for CYB and then the 28th following that will be our extravaganza event. Uh and I believe it's from let's see 1 to 3 p.m. here at the community center. Thank you very much. Uh council members, anything? Okay. Well, with that being said, we'll go ahead and move on to our city manager. Is there any additional comments you would like to make, sir? I have nothing to report, sir. Thank you very much. And the city attorney? Nothing tonight, mayor. Thank you very much. From our departments,

Mike,

thank you for the uh time, council members and mayor. Um, Hatch Road uh phase 2 has started paving today. Uh, that it is their final pave job. Um so obviously we will we will monitor it for anything that you know may come up during during and after that paving process. Um so that that project for phase two should be wrapping up here within the next couple of weeks. Um at that time we will mobilize uh our phase three contractor and so that should start probably here within the next month. Um, and so as we move through that, traffic will obviously get a little worse again on Hatch Road. Um, but phase two is finishing up and phase three will begin, like I said, here within the next month or so.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, council. Just want to inform everyone that we met with EMC and we are starting the implementation for our housing element projects that need to be completed by the end of December. So starting next month, you will be receiving um notices along with the citizens of series as we will have to have um community meetings um and bringing it stuff back to council. Um the goal is to have uh phase one completed by June by July and then the second phase by December. This will include implementations of projects and our ADU um update in our ordinance along with our downtown specific plan.

Thank you very much. Good evening, mayor and council members. Uh I just really wanted to thank um all the public works staff and the supervisors and also uh Joey Chavez. Um, I just returned from family leave, so I was off for 4 weeks. And in that time, you know, they they just really took care of everything that that came up. There was, you know, issues that arose and everybody just stepped up and, uh, really did their part without making any gripes or grumbles or anything like that. So, I just really want to shout out the public works staff, um, the supervisors, and also to Joey Chavez as well.

Thank you very much, Councilwoman. Go ahead. to both of you. One of you are having a birthday this week and I just want to say happy birthday Mr. Beltran. And congratulations Joshua and your new baby. And I hope you enjoyed your time off and got a little bit of sleep because there's probably not going to be much the first year. But congratulations to you and your family. Congratulations. Well, thank you very much. Unless there's anybody else. We'll go ahead and conclude this meeting. This meeting is now adjourned. Thank you.