City Council - Regular Meeting

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All right, good morning to everyone. We're going to call today's council meeting to order. Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Yes, good morning. Council Member Perea is absent. Council Member Karbassi?

Here.

Council Member Arias?

Present.

Vice President Maxwell. Present. Council Member Vang.

Present.

Council Member Richardson. Here. Council President Esparza.

Present.

Six members being present, we have a quorum.

Thank you, City Clerk. Next, we're going to have the invocation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. So I'll ask everyone, if you can stand, to please stand. Our invocation is going to be by Deacon Mark Schultz, the Chancellor of Diocese of Fresno. And again, once the invocation is over, I'll ask you to keep standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Esparza and the rest of the council members. Brothers and sisters, I read today from the Book of Wisdom. Sincerely, I learned about wisdom, and ungrudgingly do I share. Her riches I do not hide away. for she is an unfailing treasure. Those who gain this treasure win the friendship of God, being commended by the gifts that come from her discipline. Almighty and eternal God, you have revealed your glory to all nations. God of power and might, wisdom and justice, through you authority is rightly administered, laws are enacted, and judgment is decreed. We pray for the members of this civil council and all others who are entrusted to guard our political welfare. May they be enabled by your powerful protection to discharge their duties with honesty and ability. We likewise commend to your unbounded mercy all citizens of the United States, that we may be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of your holy law. May we be preserved in union and that peace which the world cannot give, and after enjoying the blessings of this life, be admitted to those which are eternal. We pray to you, who are Lord and God, forever and ever. Amen. Thank you, deacon.

Thank you, deacon. Council, Vice President, would you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, we're gonna move on to approval of the agenda. Clerk, are there any announcements or changes from the agenda?

Yes, thank you. First of all, we'd like to make everyone aware that we do have translation services available for today's meeting. We are using the Wordly digital translation for closed captioning as well as Spanish language. You'll see that here live as well as it being available online. We also have online translation available in Hmong and Punjabi, as well as American Sign Language. American Sign Language is also shown here in the council chambers. If someone does wish to make a comment from the public, they can do so in a language other than English and the translation will be automatically provided. With regard to changes to the agenda, ceremonial item ID 26-1090 regarding proclamation for the International Green Building Week, Office of the Mayor and City Manager have been added as a co-sponsor. Item 2M, ID 26-1049, regarding resolution directing the city manager to terminate the marketing agreement with SLWA Insurance Services. The resolution has been corrected in Section 1. The council directs city manager to terminate agreement, striking in accordance with the 90 days written notice provision of the agreement. It will now read... One, the City Council directs the City Manager to terminate the agreement at the end of fiscal year 2027. Item 2N, ID 26-1187, regarding resolution initiating a text amendment to Chapter 15 of the Fresno Municipal Code, pursuant to FMC Section 15-5308-A, relating to the prohibition of data centers within the City of Fresno, Office of the Mayor and City Manager has been added as a co-sponsor. Items removed from the agenda. to LID 26-1136 regarding resolution of intention to annex the territory known as assessor's parcel number 474-030-82 as annexation number 76 to the City of Fresno Community Facilities District number nine was removed from the agenda with no return per staff. Item 5B, ID 26-1144, regarding conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, government code section 54956.9, subdivision D, subsection 1, Richard Fitzgerald versus City of Fresno. It was moved to September 17th, 2026, meeting by the city attorney's office. Item 5C, ID 26-1144, Dash one one four five regarding conference with legal counsel existing litigation government code section five four nine five six point nine subdivision D subsection one to tell you and company incorporated versus the city of Fresno was moved to September 17th, two thousand twenty six by the city attorney's office. Item moved to contested consent for further discussion. 2K, ID 26-1148, regarding actions pertaining to the 2027 Selective Traffic Enforcement Program, step grant, was moved to contested consent by Council Member Richardson. 2N, ID 26-1148, regarding resolution initiating a text amendment to chapter 15 of the Fresno municipal code pursuant to FMC section 15-5308-A relating to the prohibition of data centers was moved to contested consent by council member Arias. Item 20, ID 26-1194 relating to the prohibition regarding resolution, a resolution of the Council of the City of Fresno, California, adopting the 17th Amendment to the Annual Appropriation Resolution, number 2026-159, was moved to contested consent by Council Member Richardson. This concludes the changes to the agenda.

All right, Council, is there any additional changes to the agenda? Council Member Broaddus? No, thank you, Council President. All right, Council Vice President?

No.

Council Member Vang?

No.

Council Member Richardson?

No.

Okay. All right, I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda. Motion and a second. Any opposition to approving the agenda? That passes five to zero. All right, on to the funnest part of the day. We have our ceremonial presentations. First up, we have a proclamation sponsored by Council Vice President Maxwell, and that is a proclamation for Dr. Catherine Flores Day.

Dr. Flores, if you could join me at the front, and husband Juan, and anybody else that has an embarrassing story to share that wants to come up is welcome to do so. I'm going to reach that microphone behind you really quick. Good morning, everybody, and thank you all for being here today. It's very much like Dr. Flores to invite the whole team up here. You know, I kept on trying to give her credit in the back room when we were talking this morning, and she just kept insisting, no, no, no, it's not me. It's not me. It's my team. I'm nothing without the team that's behind me. And she has a big team here with her today, and I think that's very telling of the kind of person and doctor she is. that Dr. Flores is, but born and raised here in Fresno to immigrant farm workers. She grew up working in the fields, which is where Dr. Flores initially learned about her desire to give back and serve those around her. And that's what she's dedicated her entire adult life to. She ended up going to Stanford University and going to UC Davis Medical School. After that, she moved back to Fresno. and became intimately involved with ucsf where she became quickly ingrained in the leadership over there and opened up a practice in district 4 in central fresno and i served so many people and saved so many lives and touched so many people across our valley in our city and today we honor her and we thank her for all her amazing work you might also know her from the doctors academy this is a program that she initiated to get young people from rough backgrounds involved in a pipeline where they could see themselves becoming doctors and they could see themselves becoming young professionals and has grown quite an illustrious alumni group of folks at CHEE and the program have been able to help and become doctors and lawyers and professionals across the Central Valley in the city of Fresno. And so we're very lucky to have people like this here in our own backyard. They are the unsung heroes. They are the folks doing the quiet work in the background, but they are doing important work. They are doing hard work and sometimes they are doing thankless work. Today we are here to thank them for all the amazing things that they continue to do for our community. And I wanted to hear a little bit from Dr. Flores about this work that you do. Why did you do all that hard work and what does it mean to you? What does the community mean to you and all these amazing people that are surrounding you here today? What do they mean to you?

Thank you so much. So thank you all for being here. Thank you all for allowing the time for this. And as I did share with you, this is not about me. This is really about the team, the team that I work with. It's all of the team members that work at UCSF Fresno. It's my medical practice partners, Um, those are all the people who should be up here, um, receiving recognition, not me. Um, but the why, um, so as he mentioned, I grew up, um, as a farm worker with my grandparents and saw the inequities in the fields of how access to healthcare just wasn't there. Um, and so that had an impact on me and I was blessed to be able to become a health professional. and I had always said that if I ever had the opportunity I would come back to Fresno and help young people like myself who grew up in families who were loving and caring but who did not have the experience or the knowledge of education and could not offer them help learning how to become a health professional. And so I was very fortunate to meet with leaders in our community, with the president at Fresno State at the time, Dr. Welty, with the superintendent of schools, with the city school superintendent, with the hospital system, with the clinic system. And collaboratively, we came up with a program which is now known as the Doctors Academy. to help young people and their families. It's not just about the kids. It's educating their parents how to navigate the educational system so that they could become whatever it is that they dream to become. And equally important, at least to my team here and to me, is to help these young people recognize that they have a commitment to return to the community. As you all probably are well aware, the Central Valley is very, very under-resourced when it comes to health professions, health professionals. We have wonderful, wonderful health professionals, but we need more. And so we try to inculcate in these young people through our programs the importance of returning to community to be the culturally competent, linguistically capable provider of care that these patients need. And also, we help politicize these young people to recognize that it's important for them to stand up for the needs of our community, to stand up, for instance, for the Medicaid cuts that are coming and to be a voice for the community who needs those health services. So with that, I'm going to stop because I've gone on and on. But I just want to stand here and turn to all of you. And thank you, team. I did retire, by the way, recently. But this amazing team continues to do the work that God put us on this earth to do and to help young people and families meet their dreams. And I also want to recognize my husband. who put up with me all these years. It's not easy being married to a doctor, for those of you who may not be married to a doctor. It's challenging, but he's been an amazing person and committed to the work that I do only in his world, it's through education as well. And also to my compadres, for those who don't know what compadres are, They are like best friends who also have supported me in the work. And my brother's out there somewhere. I want to thank him. It's hard for him to get up early in the morning. But again, I just want to thank my whole family. So thank you all. And with that, I'm going to give it back. And nobody has anything to say. You need to get on.

Juan, did you want to share a few words or anything you would like to say? I did want to share one thing.

You know, one of, for me, the most touching moments is her grandfather was diabetic, worked in the field, continued working in the fields even after he lost his legs. And the doctors prescribed him medication, but he couldn't afford it. You know, he didn't have access to it. And so, you know, this access to medical care is what was his downfall. And that that's been Kathy's driver.

Thank you for sharing that story, and thank you for everything that you've done for this community, doctor. I know you have an amazing team and compadres backing you up here, but seriously, thank you. It's an honor to honor you today, and we are very grateful to have you here in our own backyard and looking forward to the continued impact you continue to make in our community. God bless you. I do want to read this last part of the proclamation real quick. Now, therefore, be it resolved that we, Mayor Jerry P. Dyer and the Fresno City Council do hereby proclaim Thursday, September 3rd, 2026 as Dr. Catherine Flores Day here in the city of Fresno. Congratulations. City Clerk.

Thank you.

If I may, City Clerk, before you start reading. Council Vice President, if I just may say a few words to Dr. Flores. You know, back in my Fresno Unified days, when I was an administrator there, I used to take my little one and I eat with me everywhere, including to school events and the Doctors Academy. And unlike me, she grew up seeing doctors around her as normal. And now she's in her final year at UC Davis in pre-med and getting ready for her own journey. So I want to say thank you to you and to the Fres Unified family and to everyone who helped her in her public education at Fres Unified and gave her an example of what is possible. Thank you, Dr. Flores, and to your husband. Gracias.

Whereas throughout her extraordinary career, Dr. Catherine Flores, guided by a profound love for the community that raised her, has served as a pioneering physician, visionary educator, and dedicated champion for the health and wellness of the Central Valley. And whereas born in Fresno into a family of migrant farm workers, Dr. Flores worked alongside her family in the fields and orchards from early childhood, witnessing firsthand how limited access to care could affect families like hers. This inspired her lifelong commitment to service and to helping others receive higher quality, more compassionate care. And whereas after graduating from Stanford University and the UC Davis School of Medicine, Dr. Flores returned to Fresno and through her bilingual family medicine practice provided care and healing rooted in respect and cultural understanding, becoming known for the kindness, professionalism, and fierce advocacy that made her patients finally feel heard. And whereas believing that the future of healthcare should reflect the people it serves, Dr. Flores also devoted her career to cultivating a more diverse, culturally responsive medical workforce for the Central Valley. And whereas, as an Associate Clinical Professor at the UCSF School of Medicine, Assistant Dean of the UCSF Fresno Medical Education Program, and Director of the UCSF Fresno Latino Center for Medical Education and Research, Dr. Flores expanded access to medical education for students historically underrepresented in medicine, transforming opportunity into real generational change. And whereas drawing upon her own experiences, Dr. Flores established the Junior Doctors Academy and Doctors Academy for Local Students, programs that provide mentorship and academic preparation to prepare young people to pursue careers in healthcare and one day serve communities like their own. And whereas Dr. Flores carried the Central Valley's voice into state and national efforts to further diversify medicine, helping establish the National Hispanic Medical Association, co-founding the California Health Professions Consortium, and serving in her advisory roles, including her appointment by Governor Brown to the California Health Care Workforce Policy Commission, using her community experience to champion change in health policy. And whereas for her work addressing inequalities in educational opportunity and access to care for Central Valley students and residents, Dr. Flores received the 2010 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award. And whereas Dr. Flores begins her well-earned retirement, the City of Fresno celebrates the living legacy she has created through every patient and family she cared for, every student she inspired, and every pathway she built for those who will follow in her footsteps. With profound gratitude, we honor Dr. Flores for a trailblazing career spent caring for and advocating for the people of the Central Valley. Now, therefore, be it resolved that we, Mayor Jerry P. Dyer and the Fresno City Council, do hereby proclaim Thursday, September 3rd, 2026, as Dr. Catherine Flores Day in the City of Fresno.

All right, fantastic. Our next proclamation is sponsored by Council Member Perea. It's gonna be presented by the mayor today. And that is a proclamation for International Green Building Week.

Come on up here. Come on up here. Moses, you can come up here, man. Stand with us. I'm proud to stand with you any day. Well, thank you very, very much. I'm going to have the city manager, Georgianne White, speak to most of this. But, you know, it is so important that we recognize the fact that we are a growing city. And with that, we are building. We're building homes. We're building affordable housing, market rate housing. We're building parks. We're doing so much in our city. But it's not necessarily whether or not you're building. It's how you're building within your city that matters most. And it's important, especially in a place like the Valley and Fresno here, where the temperatures exceed triple digits frequently, that we build smartly. And that involves urban greening and making sure that we are putting ample tree canopy within our city, making sure that we're providing shade for folks at parks and those that are on trails, as well as those that are in neighborhoods. And so we want to recognize the International Green Building Week because that's exactly what we're doing. And I'm going to turn it over to Georgeann White, but I want to I want to thank first and foremost Council Member Perea, who could not be here this morning. Unfortunately, her twins had a rough night. But I do know that this is deep in her heart, and that's why she is recognizing International Green Building Week today. And also want to recognize Council Vice President Maxwell, because he came up with an initiative a few years ago when he and I came in together to plant 1,000 new trees in our city every single year. And I have honored that within my budget, and he's made sure I honored that within my budget. But every single year in this city, we plant 1,000 new trees. That's not replacement trees, but new trees in our city. And we're trying to green our city

as much as we can we're building parks we're building trails and we're putting an incredible tree canopy throughout fresno so with that i'll turn over to my city manager for the details thank you mayor i was going to mention the thousand trees as well so it's your budget so i'm glad that you were able to do it i think to the point of what the mayor is saying i think international green building week is gives us the opportunity to be able to acknowledge what is going on in our community and as the mayor stated, how we build in the city. We as a city have made a number of commitments to building green, whether it be solar at all of our facilities. We actually just, the council just voted a couple of meetings ago, our next wave of solar projects that are gonna be going on within our city buildings. We have one of the largest municipal solar displays out at our wastewater treatment plant, and then really also at our airport as well. And so we're very proud of our contributions. The mayor did not mention the US conference, the mayor's award that he just recently was able to receive on behalf of the city for the sustainability. It was the mayor's climate protection award. And Fresno was the only city recognized in the nation. for all that we are doing with climate protection. And I know obviously it's important, Council Member Perea, coming from a planning background, likes to talk about how we build in the city and how we hold to the standards as a city. So I think we continue to want to focus on making neighborhoods stronger and committing to neighborhoods. We don't think that growth and sustainability compete with one another. I think as an administration have always been that it's not an either or, that we have a lot of smart people and there's a way to be able to do things collaboratively to do things both as kind of a little bit of our theme. So Laura obviously is the executive director of the U.S. Green Building Council Central California chapter. I'm guessing these are other members of the chapter that are here today. So I think before we have the clerk read the proclamation, I'm going to hand it over to Laura to say a few words.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the proclamation. My name is Laura Gromis. I'm the Executive Director of the U.S. Green Building Council, Central California. We have 501c3 nonprofit organization located here in Fresno serving the San Joaquin Valley. I appreciate celebrating for the first time International Green Building Week here in the city of Fresno. And I appreciate Council Member Perea and the Mayor and City Manager for sponsoring the proclamation. I appreciate all of our members here that took the time out of their busy schedule to make it today. What I love most about our members that they really are really diverse and there's not a lot of duplications in professions. uh... he at present actually we do have to architect but everybody else is a representing something else so uh... bb have architect uh... uh... contractors uh... urban plan as uh... transportation uh... professionals uh... real estate professionals non-profit professionals energy professionals and uh... really that that is representing our organization we come from different perspectives and point of views all working towards excellence in designing, building, and operating buildings. And I think if we are looking at sustainability, it's really this drive to want to do better. My friend Moses likes to say, if you get the bug, you have the bug, and you always want to do better. So if you're starting to build better communities and better buildings, you're really striving to outdo yourself because it's all a journey. It's not a stable thing. If we would be able to build communities that are ready for climate change and we know how to do it, it wouldn't be difficult to do. But we are on this journey to trying to get to this idea to have buildings and communities that are better for the environment, better for our health, and leave less impact and lower our operational cost, right? It's always hard to pay for operations. This year, the motto of the International Green Building Week is to hashtag build it ready. Build buildings and communities that are ready for anything. And we know with the signs of climate change, right, we have to build better buildings that protect us, that protect us in the future. And that can withstand the risks of climate change and that can take care of all of us. in a stable environment that we need inside. We spend about 90% of our time indoors, so it really matters how we build our buildings. I hope to see the city continue to be on that pathway to get towards excellence of building better buildings, better communities. It's great that we have all the investment in solar energy here in the city. I know you guys are working on the city facilities. You see all the bills, right, that are coming in for buildings that are inefficient. So let's work together on this pathway of building better places, better buildings, better communities. And thank you so much.

Thank you, Laura. And thank you very, very much. And I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the transportation since Moses is here as well. Transportation's a key part of building green in a city. Having intermodal transportation, making sure that we're building smartly in our city, but providing public transportation. And I hear a lot of people say that we're trying to force people on the buses. that we're trying to force people onto bikes and that's simply not true but what we are trying to do as a city is for those people who choose to take buses and perhaps for whatever reason can't afford a car or insurance or gas which hardly anybody can anymore in this nation but we're we're trying to make sure that they have a reliable convenient public transportation to get them where they need to go, whether it's shopping, to work, to school, to a medical appointment, whatever it is. And certainly public transportation is a part of that. And secondly, we're not trying to force people on the bikes, but we are trying to make sure that when people choose to ride a bike, whether it's to get from point A to point B or for recreational purposes, that they can do so safely, that we have bike lanes in our city that are protected. and that we have safe routes to school and the like. So that is important to us. So I want to read this last part, and then I'll turn it over to the clerk to read the entire proclamation. But it says, for its continued leadership and dedication to building a healthier and more sustainable Fresno, and do hereby proclaim the week of September 7-11, 2026, to be International Green Building Week in the City of Fresno. Congratulations.

Thank you. Whereas World Green Building Week is an annual global observance recognizing the important role sustainable buildings and communities play in conserving resources, addressing climate change, and improving quality of life. And whereas green building practices help reduce energy consumption and environmental impacts while creating healthier, more resilient, and energy efficient communities for current and future generations to enjoy. And whereas the U.S. Green Building Council, USGBC, Central California chapter is a Fresno-based non-profit serving seven counties throughout the Central Valley and providing education on sustainability, or excuse me, sustainable building and community design. And whereas USGBC Central California brings together architects, engineers, contractors, developers, educators, residents, and local leaders to strengthen collaboration and advance sustainable building practices throughout the region. And whereas USGBC Central California supports projects and initiatives focused on reducing waste, strengthening climate resilience, expanding multimodal transportation and urban tree canopy, and increasing access to healthy and sustainable spaces. And whereas the city of Fresno recognizes the importance of partnerships with organizations such as the USGBC Central California in creating a greener, healthier, and more energy efficient and environmentally responsible community for generations to come. Now, therefore, be it resolved that we, Mayor Jerry P. Dyer, Council Member Annalisa Perea, and the Fresno City Council members proudly recognize the U.S. Green Building Council Central California Chapter for its continued leadership and dedication to building a healthier and more sustainable Fresno and do hereby proclaim the week of September 7th through 11th, 2026 to be International Green Building Week in the City of Fresno.

All right, fantastic. We'll move on to our council member reports and comments. I'll come from my left to right. Council member Carbasi, do you have any report this morning? Come back to me, please. Okay. Council member Richardson.

Yes. Good morning. It is a beautiful day in District 6 this morning. A couple of things. We have this coming Monday, which will be Monday the 7th. It is Labor Day for a lot of folks, but there's going to be a fantastic and very historic event. and historical event going on at the Morocco Dhamma Center down on Kern, downtown, as part of Chinatown. Big Buddhist celebrations, fantastic. They're going to have all kinds of food and activities and a lot of meditation out there, if that's your thing. You're in luck. Again, if you want to see 1,500-year-old statues and artifacts and all kinds of things, they're going to have those on display. A lot of good community activity taking place over there. Another thing I'd like to bring up is if you are a veteran or you have a veteran in your family with whom you're close, we have a fantastic opportunity for you all. It's Veterans Smile Day 2026. This is taking place on September 12th. It will be at 1101 East Cambridge Avenue, just a little bit northeast of here. I will say this again, and you can look forward to graphics being put out. What is it? It is screenings, cleanings, fillings, extractions, and oral health education for veterans. For those of you who don't know, veterans don't have a lot of resources when it comes to dental care. For example, my family and I, we have TRICARE, which is very commonly used here at the military. It's great for medical. It's great for surgeries and all kinds of stuff. No dental. So as veterans, if you're listening out there, It's all free. Go get your teeth checked. Go get a checkup. Go talk to a dentist. Go figure out why that molar in the back of your mouth hurts. Whatever you need, a great free resource. Expect that, again, we're going to be pushing more information out on that coming soon. That is, I think that's all I had, Council President.

Thank you. Council Member Vang? Thank you very much, Council Vice President. Just a few comments to make. It is 9.45, early in the morning, and if you are on the eastern side of District 5, the Dutch Brothers, located at South Phillips and Kings Canyon, that's just east of Close Avenue, today is their opening day, and so Dutch Brother is opening today, and if you are near, on the eastern side of District 5, please swing by and grab a cup of coffee. And also, this year's District 5 Blitz will be happening on September the 12th at Winchell Elementary in partnership with Beautify Fresno. So if you are free that morning, please come out and join us to help clean the Winchell Elementary area. And that's located at 3722 East Low Avenue, 93702, I believe. Yes, it is. And again, that's September the 12th. See you then. Thank you very much, Council Vice President.

Thank you very much. Council Member Carbasi, are you ready to give some remarks?

Yeah, sure. Real quick. I just want to say, it's only been a week, so I do want to thank the Parks Department, Aaron Aguirre, for your quick response on the field lights. I mean, super, super fast, super professional, Aaron. We always appreciate you, and the residents of Northwest Fresno are truly grateful to the Parks Department for being so responsive. I do... want to, well, I don't want to offend our city manager, but I do want to thank Scott Mosier for his many years of service to the city. Scott has been a terrific advocate for transportation and for access. And in fact, Veterans Boulevard, the project that is the overpass in Northwest Fresno over the 99 that really brings West Fresno into the city of Fresno. Scott has been a part of that for pretty much the beginning. And he's a big reason why that happened. So thank you, Scott, for your service. and wishing the best to Brian Russell. I'll let you, I didn't say the announcement, I just, thanks Scott. And I do wanna also congratulate, I saw a video of the mayor at Seland Arena, great work, Mayor, it's exciting. All the investments we're making in downtown, great job. Thank you for your service, Mayor. And that's my report, Council Vice President. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Council Member Arias. Thank you, Council President. Scott, where's Scott at? Did he leave the building already? Oh my God, Scott. Just my express, I want to express my appreciation to Scott Mosier. In my tenure here, he's been always a guy that gives you a direct and honest answer and a really unbiased assessment of what the challenges are on any infrastructure project. And for far too long, you know, it's been difficult for us to rebuild our older neighborhoods. But Scott has taken the bull by the horns when we've allocated the money, and he's gotten the projects on time and under budget. So I appreciate Scott's tenure with the city and I'm confident as city manager that you guys have found a good replacement. I appreciate the succession planning and I expect things to be smoothly in that transition period. Lastly, council, I wanted to bring to your attention that I received some complaints and concerns from the public around the possibility that a contractor under city attorneys AUTHORITY HAS BEEN USING PUBLIC FUNDS FOR CAMPAIGN ACTIONS AND CAMPAIGN ACTIVITIES WHICH IS A CLEAR VIOLATION OF USE OF PUBLIC FUNDS. I'VE ASKED THE CITY ATTORNEY TO PROVIDE THIS COUNCIL AN UPDATE ON THE VENDOR AND WHAT ACTIVITIES HAVE BEEN PUBLICLY FUNDED BY THE CITY WITH THAT VENDOR. I'M STILL WAITING TO HEAR BACK FROM THE CITY ATTORNEY. I KNOW HE'S ON VACATION THIS WEEK BUT I DO EXPECT AN IMMEDIATE RESPONSE TO THE COUNCIL ON THOSE CLAIMS. WITH THAT THANK YOU COUNCIL PRESIDENT.

Thank you very much. I'll give a couple updates myself while we're waiting for Council President to return. I want to thank Fresno State leadership for having us out there last week for the first day of instruction. We were able to greet hundreds of students back with city resources, internship opportunities, job opportunities with the City of Fresno. and some agua fresca. So welcome back, Bulldogs. Looking forward to a great year ahead. I also want to thank the children's movement for inviting me to speak at their state of the children's breakfast last week. The city in this year's budget was able to set aside $2 million for a pilot program to support local families and child care providers. And I was happy to share that news at the state of the children breakfast last week. Yesterday, we also had our inaugural commission meeting on family affordability and childcare access. This is a brand new commission to the city of Fresno and we have 11 commissioners serving on there that are subject matter experts in their respective fields. And we came together the first meeting and it will be over the course of the next year, we'll come up with proposals for this council and the mayor to adopt tentatively on ways to improve child care access and affordability here within the city of Fresno. So I want to thank all the commissioners who have agreed to serve and spend the next year of their lives researching that effort. And I encourage anybody who lives in the Thomas Elementary School neighborhood in our district to show up for a community meeting, which will be Wednesday, September 9th at 530 p.m. We'll be joined there by my team and some city staff from the Fresno Police Department, Parks, Heart, and Code Enforcement, and Fresno Fire Department to talk about issues that matter to you in your neighborhood. So we hope to see you there. That'll conclude my remarks, Council President. Yes.

All right. Thank you, Council Vice Presidents. You know, I'm happy to report to piggyback off of that. We did appoint the new members to the Family Affordability and Child Care Access Commission this week. So it was our first sort of full meeting. And it was great to have this group of very experienced individuals in early childhood development and looking forward to the course this new commission is going to take. And thank Council Vice President for his leadership on spearheading that initiative. Additionally, very excited to attend the Fresno City College's State of the College this Friday as the council member representing the campus, but also as a teacher there. Proud to be connected to the college in both ways and looking forward to seeing some of the great work highlighted by faculty, staff, and of course our students. So looking forward to seeing that tomorrow morning. Keep my report short. Everybody got an opportunity to speak? Fantastic. Mayor, any report?

Well, thank you, Council President, and just to piggyback on what Council Member Carvasi said, I know that Council Member Arias, Council Member Richardson showed up for the big festivities that we had Tuesday evening at Selen Arena, but the return of the Fresno Falcons is something near and dear. It's been near and dear to this community as many of you know they started here in 1946 unfortunately for financial reasons and about 17 years ago they left and it was a a major coup to be able to get them back to Fresno and we're very grateful for them and I got to tell you the the excitement there that uh on Tuesday was incredible. Ticket sales are significant, and there was a lot of excitement in the community on Tuesday night, and there has been since we announced the fact that the Falcons are coming back. And we co-announced the fact that we have our new Jumbotron that is now at Sellen Arena, thanks to a visit of Fresno County. And quite frankly, Ruthie Keene, our assistant city manager, had a lot to do with making that happen. But a $625,000 Jumbotron to replace our other scoreboard that, quite frankly, was not operating most of the time. So it's going to be a great season for the Fresno Falcons and other entertainment venues there. I had the opportunity last night, along with Councilmember Perea, to speak at the charter ceremony for the Soroptimus Club in Fresno. It's an international organization. Unfortunately, we haven't had one for probably close to 50 years within our city. And they empower young women and girls, give them training opportunities, and really get them into our workforce and help them to be sustainable. And they have a focus on domestic violence and females who have been trafficked. And then this Friday, myself and Council Member Esparza will be over at 41 and McKinley at the Peace Garden, something, a partnership between Caltrans, our Parks Department and Metro Ministry, and it will be a garden that's right there on the on-ramp of 41 and McKinley, and it's part of the State of California's Clean California grant. And then lastly... Go Bulldogs. This Friday, they will be taking on USC Trojans in Los Angeles. And I'm proud to say that I will be there supporting our Fresno State Bulldogs. And this is their first year in the Pac-12. And I look forward to them being very, very successful. I had the opportunity earlier this year to speak to the team. And they are an incredible group of young men, very, very respectful. And we know that we have a great coach, Coach Entz. And we have a great athletic director, and we have a great university, something we should be very, very proud of. So that's it, thank you very much.

All right, thank you, Mayor, City Manager.

Yeah, I think obviously a few of you alluded to the announcement that we made yesterday that Scott Moser is retiring after 24 years with the City of Fresno. So Scott has served this city well faithfully and has been responsible for a lot of the success of the city and projects so we wish him well in his retirement but obviously we've been doing some succession planning for a while and so we've got Brian Russell obviously a longtime city employee who has worked his way up in the organization who will be stepping in as Director of Public Works. And Scott is leaving November 2nd, but Brian's starting October 5th. So we will have almost a 30-day transition period where they will be able to work side by side. Obviously, I don't think anybody can step into the shoes of Scott in a number of areas, but having that transition period is very much a luxury that we are usually not afforded. So I'm very grateful to Scott for his willingness to stick around and give us a little time to transition. Also just want to call to your attention a train memo that went out a couple days ago regarding citations that have been issued on the breeding ordinance that you all did and highlighting the number of citations that have been issued. I know you guys were very interested in that. So that went out on September 1st. And that is all I have, Council President. Thank you.

Thank you, City Manager. Okay, we're gonna go ahead and, okay.

Thank you, Council Vice President. Sorry about that. We were just trying to figure something out there. So we are going to have, at this point, we'll take on the SEDA workshop here soon, the public financing workshop. Let's see if we can, get through the, just the consent, not contested, but at least the consent agenda that's remained on the consent. So at this time, I'll go ahead and open up public comments or anything on the consent agenda, the contested consent agenda, closed session. I'll welcome anyone in the public to come up and comment either in the chamber or on Zoom. Yeah, and per the request from my colleague, this is not currently the public comment for the SATA workshop. We're gonna do that here very shortly. But right now, this is anything on the consent agenda or contested consent or closed session. Welcome.

My name is Brunette, and I'm with the Heat for Southwest Fresno Community. And we are objecting to everything that's from District 1 to District 7. having to do with federal funds and any projects that you have. You guys have something to say about District 3, so from now on, we want to know what's going on in your district. We want to have a say in what goes on in your district, and you're voting on it, so we want to know what's going on so we can participate in your business, seeing as how you're in Southwest Fresno community business. And not only that, we're going to object to anything having to do with District 3 so far as the item in 2F, We didn't have any say-so in it. We could care less how good the mayor feel, how good areas feel, and how good you feel about it. Our community do not have anything to say. You do not have community meetings for District 3. You're doing whatever you want to do. And it's a shame for you to do in a 2-H how you're going to take $9.7 million from the homeless housing and take it and put it somewhere else. You cannot use federal funds like that. It's against the law for you to do that. But you guys continue to do whatever you want to do. So we want to let you know we are in the process of holding you accountable for everything that you have done. what you voted on for District 3 because we've been here complaining and you guys have ignored it. You're following behind the mayor and areas and they do not have any community meetings in District 3. So we want you to be aware of that. We're objecting to any federal funds from District 1 through 7 from you guys because you haven't included District 3. You want to get in our business, once again, we're going to get in yours. So we're objecting to anything.

All right. I have a card for Mariana Alvaranga.

Hello. Good morning. My name is Mariana Alvarenga with Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability. We are encouraged to see the City of Fresno present today's resolution to prohibit data centers anywhere in the city. Data centers have significant negative impacts on the environment and nearby communities. For example, data centers can use about 360 million gallons of water per year, leading to groundwater depletion, which will contribute to more residents' wells going dry in the region. Data centers also contribute to air pollution that lead to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Fresno already experiences poor air quality that will only be exacerbated if data centers are approved. Lastly, the energy consumption is massive. One data center alone uses enough electricity to power about 100,000 households. For these reasons, it is critical that the resolution includes strong, clear definitions and a comprehensive language to ensure that all harmful data centers' development is effectively and permanently prohibited without loopholes, that could allow similar facilities or projects to move forward. Therefore, we respectfully urge the council to revise the resolution to permanently ban data centers development anywhere in the city, and bring back the text amendment for a final vote within the next month. Thank you.

Thank you. Kaswer Kabasi, had you punched up?

Very briefly, we do have Brian Russell in the house, our soon to be director, and Scott gets to be here so we can thank him properly. But I do want to say city manager, great hire. someone from within who came up and he's very local and he'll do a great job. And thank you again, Scott.

All right. I'm going to go over to a zoom, but again, if there is anyone in the chamber who would like to speak with respect to the consent agenda, contest the consent or a closed session, you'll have the opportunity. But on zoom we have Lisa Flores.

Good morning, City Council. I hope everybody's having a beautiful and blessed day. I come before you to talk about the data center. One of the things that you guys are not, that you need to add to any sort of motion that you're going to be doing is the barring you need to you need to make sure that city council members their staffs are far from signing any ndas and also to once you served your time that there is a anywhere from a three to four year ban on you going to work for any one of these uh data centers Post serving your time at City Hall. Those are the two glaring things that I think that are not talked about is there's a lot of NDAs that are signed off in other communities and no one knows about it until they're constructing these things. So that is just a little something, something. I forgot there was one other thing I wanted to mention. No, that's it. I thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Lisa. Next, I have Anisa Seha on Zoom.

Hi, good morning, honorable city council members. My name is Dr. Anissa Seha, and I am also here speaking in opposition of the data centers like the woman who spoke previously. There are both environmental and health impacts that would negatively affect our communities, especially if these data centers are placed in areas that already have disproportionately high levels of asthma, of cardiovascular disease, and other things that are in the literature associated with backup generator air pollution, which is the best supported data center specific pathway that increases our negative health outcomes. There is also facility and cooling system noise that can be associated with increased cardiovascular disease, mortality, blood pressure, diabetes. And these adverse outcomes are something that our community is already experiencing at a higher level and as a doctor. I definitely urge you to vote to pass this proposition to ban any data centers in Fresno. I really appreciate whoever brought this forward and thank you for listening to our public comment on it.

Thank you. Next on Zoom, I have Christina Soto.

Hello.

Yes, welcome.

Hi. Christina Soto, District 3. I wanted to speak on a few things. One was my appreciation for the motion that I brought to ban data centers in Fresno. I think that it's very important to say no not only to data centers, but also to CETA and losing any more of our agricultural land, our water in a time where we are being warned about oncoming food shortages, water shortages. I think this is the minimum that we can do to help protect the community and the citizens of Fresno. I'd also like to just, again, strong opposition on CETA and wasting any more of our resources on unnecessary sprawl and focusing our resources and energy on existing communities, which brings me to the last item I wanted to speak on, which is EAAC funding and the fact that so many organizations that were awarded money have still not been paid by the city, including a project which was done focusing on African American history. I'm very concerned to hear that the organization that brought that forward, which I believe was Dakari Cleveland with Wellness in the West and Ally in the Valley. Artists did the labor and did the work and still have not been compensated. We kind of ran through the next cycle of these awards and it's just, you know, very disappointing to see again, small organizations being, you know, overlooked and the fact that they can't even get a response from the city, I think is just really shameful and embarrassing. So I hope that council member Arias and the city can work together to make sure that the people who have already done this work are properly compensated. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Next speaker on Zoom is Brandy Nusviegas.

Thank you. First, I know that many people have already spoken in countless comments online via e-comments and email, and will be speaking today regarding data centers and have vocalized concerns. regarding impact in ways that I do not necessarily need to repeat because, but certainly something that I'm glad is being addressed. I think that it's really important as well to have education to recognize that when we are hearing people say, well, we've had data centers before, that AI data centers and a lot of the modern ones take significantly more resources than some of the older traditional ones. And that is a deep concern. That has been addressed by other people. I do want to add that I understand that I know that in some of the news things I've read that there's the idea of mistrust. And I think that it is valid for a community to, in order to build trust, to not only see words, but actions to build trust. And that is reasonable practice. without that to have concerns and mistrust, especially if they have seen actions that have affected their trust. And I hope that you see the concerns in good faith. I'm concerned that there are statements that groups are using this issue to build opposition to other issues instead of those who are raising is having legitimate concerns as for the wellbeing of the community, like the rest of our community that need to be addressed and backed up. So yes, I would support this as well for 2H. I want to note that with this funding that we do need increased shelter space as we build and we need more permanent housing. A lot of our community members are struggling to find a safe place and we need to work on finding safe places for people, especially as people are being arrested for simply being somewhere where they have no choice to be. And I want to suggest the idea of safe lots for those who are For those who have vehicles and trailers, this summer I've dealt with people who needed to have their trailers moved or be towed, and that is their only home. And losing a car or vehicle definitely makes it more difficult on their feet, as well as helping someone who did have their vehicle towed because of registration that they didn't know because they were out of state. It was a whole situation, but there's people who need that. as well as seeing about working with the state or any other entities about helping people with their registrations, but also a place where people can safely keep.

Next, we have Joseph Rodriguez.

Hello.

Go ahead, Joseph.

Hi, thank you. Hi, Council. Joseph Rodriguez here. And I just wanted to address you guys again. wanted to talk about 2N and supporting the ban on AI data centers. Thank you, Council Member Richardson, for introducing this proposal. We're interested in seeing where the council decides to go on it. We really wish everyone would support it. It's a very important topic. A lot of our friends and constituents, they support the ban. We even started a petition on change.org, Fresno Data Center. And we're up to already over 600 signatures. We're really excited to be on the same side with you guys. And we just want to let you know that, you know, we're all on the same team. We're rooting for you guys, even though it may not appear like it sometimes, but we really want the best for our city and for the people, for our communities. And, um, you know, we, uh, encouraged people to e-comment. Uh, the e-comment went down for two N it's kind of a odd situation where we were, uh, not knowing what was going on when it came back online. Um, there was over 111 comments. Uh, it was, uh, reduced back down to six. So I don't know what happened there with the e-comments, but we do hope you get everyone's, uh, voice. Cause a lot of people were voicing their opinions and, um, Thank you to everyone who emailed and called you guys, because we've been putting the word out to our community to let you guys know what we want and our opinions. And you guys represent us. So you're our elected officials. We do wish you guys the best. And thank you so much for your time. All right. We'll hopefully see you guys in person soon. Take care.

Next, we have Des Martinez.

Hello, can you hear me? Yes. Oh, hello. I know you guys missed me. So I thought I'd hear today. I wanted to talk about the 31 million dollars in public funding going towards Parkway and Valley and project. I believe the public deserves to know the answers about the track record of the people in the companies receiving these funds. The city's own records show that the valley and has already received twenty seventeen million dollars in twenty twenty two of the home key funding. The city's record also showed that the current Homekey Plus application involves Parkway Prime LLC, previously identified as Fresno Prime LLC. So my question is, what due diligence has the city performed on the developer and its principles before putting another $31 million of public resources behind this project. Have you reviewed the developer's history with other properties in Fresno? Have you examined the Radisson Hotel, which has reportedly been vacant since December of 2022? Have you examined the mobile home trailer park property that has also been reportedly remained vacant? And most importantly, have you asked what happened to those properties, why they remain vacant, and whether their unresolved obligations are performance issues or other concerns that should be considered before you guys gave $31 million committed to this developer. I'm not saying that anyone should be denied the opportunity to develop. I'm just saying that public money requires public accountability. If a private developer has previously been connected to properties that have remained vacant for years, then the city should be able to explain to taxpayers why that history does not concern them. We have people sleeping in our streets. We have people being displaced from shelters. We have seniors, disabled people, families, and veterans desperately needing permanent housing. And the only money you're offering from these veterans and everybody else at the Valley Inn that you're currently kicking out is $1,500? $1,500 you guys are bribing people to move out? What is a vet gonna do with $1,500? when it costs over $2,000 to rent a motel room for a week. So when we hear $31 million, I want to know exactly what the city is buying, who is responsible, what the performance requirements are, and what happened to the project if it's delayed, what protections do the taxpayers have if the developer fails to deliver and does the exact same thing that he has with other previous properties that he has here already in Fresno, California. So if one of you guys can email me back and let me know why we're giving $31 million to an LA developer that already has vacant property here in Fresno for several years. Is this money really gonna go to building affordable housing at 30% or less on Parkway? Or are we gonna just stay committed?

Next we have Lori Garcia.

Yes, I'm here to discuss 2N. Just wanted to point out that Fresno County, as you know, is sitting at the heart of the Central Valley. It is celebrated as a core part of the breadbasket of the world due to its multibillion-dollar agricultural output. Fresno is a rich, fertile, beautiful land, our home, the place we choose to raise our families, educate our children, and invest our hearts and souls in living our best possible lives. For this reason, I vehemently oppose AI data centers in our backyards. Our families deserve to know all of the facts and have the final say over any proposed data center projects. Both our city and county elected officials must let our community know their stance. We, again, have 628 folks from the Fresno community that oppose data centers and support the ban. Thank you.

There are no more speakers online.

Thank you, city clerk. Next in the chambers, we have Zahra Marin.

Good morning, council members, residents of Fresnos, and members of the press. My name is Zahra Marin, campaign director with Power California. As a District 7 resident born and raised here in Fresno, I've spent significant time growing up and experiencing life in each of your districts and have had the opportunity of experiencing life there. This city is my home, and I deeply care about its future. Across our entire community, from working parents, elders, young families, and many of us are already struggling with the rising cost of living, trying to afford basic necessities like groceries, gas, healthcare, and housing, while searching for jobs that pay livable wages. We are demanding relief. Instead, we're hearing that Fresno has become a target for massive data center developments. We are collectively outraged and rightfully so. AI data centers pose severe threats to our water supplies, our agricultural roots, and our public health. Fresno ranks among the five most polluted metropolitan areas in the nation. A data center will set us back even further. The rapid push to expand data centers while our communities are waiting too long for relief should outrage all of you. While a 10-year ban is a start, it is not enough. AI data centers will raise the cost of our bills and fill the pockets of corporations, and the solution is not the solution that our community wants, needs, or asks for. Real economic opportunity must never come at the expense of our air, our water, or our health. For these reasons, Power California demands a permanent ban on data center developments in Fresno. We call on this city council to lead with courage, stand up to big tech, and protect the families and communities you you were elected to serve, thank you.

Thank you, next speaker's gonna be Brenda Dominguez.

Good morning, my name is Brenda Dominguez and I'm representing the future here with me this morning. We've already had a lot of people share really good stats of why we should ban data centers here in Fresno. I guess I'm just going to just read a brief reminder. As a good steward, because that is what the city council representatives are, you are good stewards of the city of Fresno, and as a good steward, you have to think of your constituents, the people that you represent, to steward the land well, and steward well the livelihoods of those that you are representing. When I go into my children's schools to advocate for better structures or better programs, I go in representing not only my children, but I think of the rest of the school's children as if they were my own. And therefore, I advocate on the behalf of them as well. I ask you city representatives to think about all the children in Fresno as if they were your own. What kind of future are we giving our children in the city of Fresno if we approve a data center that is known for creating environmental havoc? Throughout the news, we are hearing reports from residents that live near AI data centers and discovering how much water it takes to cool down the centers and the pollution that it's creating in the air and drinking water and the noise pollution as well. AI data centers and AI in general are not benefiting our communities If anything, they are weakening our communities. Please oppose data centers being built and say yes to our future, huh, Alina? Say yes to our future and not to dismantling it. Thank you.

Next speaker is going to be Arianna Martinez-Lott.

Buenos dias, Council. Arianna Martinez-La, longtime resident of District 7. And I am here in support of 2N to ban data centers. I applaud Councilmember Richardson's actions on this item, but I am asking for strengthening the enforcements under this resolution. Because given the continued lack of transparency with data, the details of this resolution still leaves the city of Fresno vulnerable to data centers. This resolution is to initiate the process for a text amendment and has to go through various city commissions and this ordinance does not have a timeline on when this process needs to be completed by or even brought back to council for an update. I urge the City Council to make an amendment to this resolution, making it an immediate, temporary ban while this lengthy text amendment process takes place. And you can do so under the City of Fresno's Emergency Ordinance under Fresno-Munich Code Section 603. at that states any ordinance declared by the city council necessary as an emergency measure for preserving the public peace health or safety and continue a statement of reasons for its urgency may be introduced adopted and be kept effective at one and the same meeting if passed by five council members without this immediate immediate emergency band data center investors could technically obtain vested rights Under existing regulations, such as the director's determination for similar land use exemptions, if you want to look at some other cities that have taken advantage of this emergency ordinance, I encourage you all to look at Coachella, who has recently enacted a temporary immediate ban while they look at the long-term process. And again, I appreciate Council Member Richardson's efforts to rebuild public trust given recent news headlines. As an engaged community member, I would also support you all initiating a public input process to take this text amendment ban on data centers and present it to the voters in 2028 to ensure that future council cannot overturn this ban on data centers. Thank you.

I'm going to go back to Zoom. Again, we're currently on public comment for the consent agenda, contested consent, or closed session. The next speaker I have on Zoom is Alfred Aldredi.

Good morning, City Council. How are we doing this morning? Minus Mr. Mike Kiyokarbasi. I'd like to start by thanking Mr. Richardson for his efforts in trying to re-strengthen the connection with the community and taking on item 2N, which I support. But on the flip side of that, I just want to let you all know that the community does see all the other politicians that are suddenly jumping on the bandwagon. Jerry Dyer's cronies, Navgurm, and Rob Fuentes all coming to the same script and saying no to data centers. Listen, this is something that the community has been speaking out against for a very long time. It's the reason why a lot of us were concerned with CETA, where Mr. Carbasi mentioned that we were misinformed and spreading misinformation because we had concerns and questions regarding the particular areas of the CETA developer's concerned with lands for development of these AI data centers. And I'm going to go ahead and second what Arianna Martinez-Lott said and urge you guys to go back and re-look at the language, restructure it so we have an immediate temporary ban on these things until we can get everything sorted out and cleared with the public. We demand more public forums around the future of data centers here in Fresno. Obviously, we have spoken. The community took to eCommon yesterday with over 100-plus comments in support of 2N saying no to data centers, and it mysteriously went down and was wiped from the servers for a minute there. We noted we have been speaking out against data centers for a while, and we are going to continue to have you all hear us and represent us and our concerns. So all of you with your constituents in the different districts, please, I urge you to continue to hear and reflect upon the wishes of these people. Power to the people. Thank you guys for my time.

Thank you. Next speaker is going to be Liz McElvain. And again, we're on public comment currently for consent agenda or contested consent or closed session.

Good morning. Can you guys hear me okay?

Yes, we can hear you.

Again, hi, my name is Liz Sandoval McElwain, and I am a small business manufacturer located in Cahua. I came to this country from a very poor family. We didn't have much. What we did have was the belief that hard work and opportunity could change everything. That's exactly what Fresno gave me. Over the years, I have been able to build a business that now employs people who, like me, have struggled. People looking for a steady paycheck, dignity, and a chance to take care of their families. About 80% of our team lives in South Central and Southeast Fresno. These are my neighbors. This is our community. Some of our employees, especially those getting their first chance at a meaningful career, actually bike to get to work. There is no way they would be able to do that if we were located in Visalia, where all the big projects and companies are investing. And right now, we are running out of room to grow. There simply isn't enough industrial land close to the people who need the jobs. That's why I support South Cedar. Salceda is projected to create thousands of construction jobs and roughly 24,000 permanent ones. Many of them, the kind of the middle income manufacturing and technical positions that let families stay and build wealth right here. it will also deliver new homes closer to those jobs and the city's own analysis shows that the project pays for itself and can generate surplus revenue that can help existing neighborhoods liz uh let's start to interrupt we're we're um we're not on the sata item quite yet uh okay i apologize i will wait we're gonna be doing that soon uh thank you so yeah we'll circle back around to that shortly

I don't see any more speakers on Zoom. Anyone else in the chamber who would like to speak again with respect to the consent agenda or contest the consent or anything on closed session? Seeing none in the chamber, seeing none on the, we have one, actually we had one on Zoom. Go ahead, Brock.

Good morning, honorable council members. Thank you. This is Elisa Sims. I've called in before. I hope you're all doing well. I'm calling in today just to relay some of the things that I have heard here this morning. Apparently in District 3, they're not having meetings. So I just want to emphasize that. We hear you. We also want to say no to the AI data centers. I personally have a coalition of people who are against this. And for all of the same reasons we just heard here today. We don't want the groundwater depletion. We don't want the air pollution. We don't want them using up the amount of water that we could be giving to 100,000 households. Let's see. We also would like a lot of transparency. Apparently there's NDAs being signed behind closed doors to silence people. That's an issue. What else do we have here?

We're not talking about that right now.

Oh, I wanted to bring up Alley in the Valley and the money that was meant to go towards Alley in the Valley and Wellness on the West. I'll be honest. I don't know exactly what's happening there other than what I've just heard here this morning. But I I stand with them. I stand behind them. I back them on that. There's no reason that people should be getting grants and then not hearing about their money. Like we need transparency. We need to know where this money is going. Otherwise, we have an issue. And then also thank you, Mr. Nick Richardson for hearing us out on our reasonings against this data center. But again, we need everyone to pay attention. This is just one minor step. 10 year ban is not enough. We do not want to give anyone else the opportunity to bring this back to the table. We're standing here now telling you this is not what we want. We don't want 10 years from now people to suddenly have their minds changed about this in some way. But anyways, I'm here speaking super unprofessionally, and I apologize. I am not educated on certain topics, but what I'll let you know is that I'm a regular person. I'm listening. I hear the complaints and the concerns of my community. Sorry, that's my child. And I'm here. I'm here to support. I'm here to support the cause. We don't want AI. We don't want data centers. We don't want Flock. We want you guys to hear us. So if me getting up here, if I have to take notes just to see what's going on, I'm here to see what's going on in my community, honestly. I'm here to figure out what the issues are. So I hear the issues. I know you guys hear the issues. So if you guys could please help out District 3 with what they need help with. We if the people that are oppressed are not getting the help that we need, we're all we're all going to sit here and keep struggling. So if we can see who the most oppressed people.

Thank you. Next speaker on Zoom is going to be Shelly Spencer.

Hi there. I'm trying to unmute. I don't know if you can hear me.

We can hear you.

Great. I had some questions about the resolution. I've heard a lot about data centers that make me very concerned regarding the large ones for supporting AI. And in the resolution, it sounds like the decision today would be pending until there's feedback from the commissions and a final city council vote after that. I have some other questions too. I don't know if you want to answer any of them now. I'm wondering if we could encourage the County Board of Supervisors to adopt a similar resolution for the entire County of Fresno so that a decent study can be done. So we're not just operating off of the concerns that we know of, but we can see that a study shows what the real issues are. HOW DO WE DISTINGUISH BETWEEN DATA CENTERS THAT EXIST ALREADY AND THE ONES THAT ARE BEING REFERRED TO WITH THESE MAJOR ONES FOR AI TRAINING, MAINTENANCE, AND DEVELOPMENT? I'M WONDERING HOW THIS WOULD IMPACT THE POTENTIAL STATA OR SOUTH STATA PLAN OR CENTRAL SOUTHEAST PLANS. WOULD THIS APPLY TO THOSE? IF THOSE WERE APPROVED, WOULD THEY BECOME PART OF THE CITY OF because there's things like research and development in the state of plan that are we we aren't clear on whether that relates to data centers um i'm also curious if any of your constituents have asked to have a data center a major data center like centered near their neighborhood we aren't finding anyone that wants that i don't want that in um district five and i don't I think I've heard of anybody who is in favor of it being in their neighborhood. Obviously, people are in support of them for things like jobs. There's a lot of people who are not in support of them because of the concerns about water and energy and waste and noise. But I haven't heard of anybody that is interested in having one in their neighborhood, and I'm wondering if you have heard of that. Thank you.

Thank you, Shelly. City Clerk, you were punched up.

Yes, thank you so much. And thank you for the opportunity to talk to some of our members of the public about how the public comment and e-comment system works just to deal with any of the concerns that people had. We do receive public comment in e-comment form prior to the city council meeting. The deadline to submit e-comment is 9 a.m. the day before the meeting. So we receive e-comment in two different ways, one through Granicus. Granicus will show a running total of the amount of e-comments that have been received up until 9 a.m. the day before the meeting. At that time, Granicus will shut down the e-comment per the rules and procedures of the city council meetings. The clerk's office will continue to receive public comment through the clerk at fresno.gov email system. Those comments are received as a late public comment and those are provided after the meeting. All of the public comment that is received up until 9 a.m. the day before the meeting is put together and put out in a packet to all of the council members. We did submit over 150 public comments that were received in the Granicus e-comment system as well as the clerk's email system prior to that 9 a.m. deadline. We have received additional late e-comment through the clerk's email box. Those items per the council rules and procedures will be provided to the council members in the record at the end of the meeting. So all of those public comments that were received have been provided to the council members and they have not been in any way removed from the system. the tally just doesn't show up after the deadline of 9 a.m. the day before the meeting. So rest assured the council members have received your public comments. In addition, you are able to continue to submit late public comment or to speak on Zoom or in person. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, City Clerk, for that clarification. Let's give one last call for any public comment with respect to the consent agenda or contested consent or the closed session agenda. I don't have any more cards. I don't see anyone on Zoom. We'll go ahead and close public comment on the consent agenda. I'll entertain a motion. We have a motion and a second for approval of the balance of consent minus what was taken off for contested. Is there any opposition to approving the balance of the consent agenda? Seeing none, that passes 7-0. We'll circle back here to contest the consent later on, but I think we have a lot of people here right now for the public financing workshop regarding SEDA. So we'll go ahead and proceed with that item.

Awesome. Good morning, Council President, City Council, Jennifer Clark, Director of Planning and Development. Also with me is our consultant who prepared the economic analyses report, Amy Lapin, Principal with Economic and Planning Systems. Finance Director and Public Utility Director are also available if questions arise. So let's get into our presentation. So the purpose of today's workshop is to introduce the SETA economic analyses report and discuss key findings. I will be providing a background and an introduction of these results. Amy will be providing an overview of the public financing analysis, the fiscal impact analysis, and the community benefit analysis. Returning to city staff, we will cover how we have funded similar prior projects and conclude our presentation for your questions. On December 18, 2026, the City Council held a public hearing and deliberated on the SATA-specific plan. In those deliberations, the Council selected the Consolidated Business Park Alternative from the EIR and directed staff to update the plan in EIR to reflect this selection. Additionally, City Council requested certain analyses to inform decision-making. These analyses included cost estimates to construct pre-development infrastructure, funding requirements and repayment schedules for pre-development infrastructure, net fiscal impacts of development at build-out, and evaluation of an EIFD or similar mechanism to benefit existing residents and neighborhoods. Lastly City Council directed phasing to be incorporated into the plan Which would and the the current plan which will only allow development in the area known as South Seda phasing is described on the following slide South Sata is generally known as the area south of Jensen and east of Temperance. On this map, they are described as bounded on the west, east of Temperance, bounded on the west side by Temperance, on the north and east by the Briggs Canal, and on the south by Jensen. South of Jensen is bounded on the west by Minnehwawa, on the north by Jensen, on the east by Temperance, and on the south by North Avenue. The South Sata area is slightly over 2,000 acres, 2,000 47 acres, which is less than 20, sorry, 2,017 acres, which is less than 25% of the entire SATA area. South SATA total developed land is 78 acres, which is 4% developed. Whereas all of SATA is 9,000 acres, 1,663 acres are developed, which is approximately 18% developed. All of the land uses that currently exist in the entire SEDA footprint would be allowed to exist in perpetuity. In addition to the motions that the council made regarding selection of the consolidated business park alternative, there were additional motions related to phasing. And these included before development can be permitted in a future reserve area that 75% of the residential land uses in the current phase must be developed and occupied. and it shall be measured by 75% of the total acreage dedicated for residential land uses in each phase in addition to the available occupancy rate. Once the 75% of the residential is developed and occupied, a new supplemental EIR and financing analysis will be required to analyze future environmental impacts and costs associated with the development in the next identified future reserve area. The area would be initiated by and at the responsibility of the council at that time. Selection of the boundaries for the future reserve area would be identified after that supplemental EIR and fiscal analysis were completed. So I just wanted to highlight the key findings, right? So what were the key findings that were identified in this report? First is under public finance that South Sata can pay for itself. The second under fiscal impact is that South Sata actually has a net positive general fund impact. And third, this net general fund impact can be used to benefit existing residents and neighborhoods. And we'll describe that a little more in future slides. I think I skipped. Sorry. As stated earlier, the Consolidated Business Park Alternative was selected by City Council with some modifications, such as phasing and buffers. As directed, the economic analyses are broken into the two areas described as south of Jensen, which is primarily employment uses, including flexible research and development. This area contains 3 quarters, 75% of the land, at 1,547 acres. East of Temperance, which is primarily residential uses and supporting neighborhood retail and office uses, this area is a quarter of the land, approximately 25%. at 467 acres. The area south of Jensen has the capacity for more than 18 million square feet of employment type uses and could result in over 8,600 direct construction jobs. and over 23,000 permanent jobs. The absorption rate of nine to 36 years for flexible research and development was really based on two potential absorption rates, the rate at which development will use the available land. The first rate comes from CoStar, which is based on current available land, so it reflects a low absorption rate, because within the city of Fresno, we have a low amount of available land for this type of use. The second is based on reasonable assumptions in comparable markets, such as Visalia, which regularly absorb two million square feet or more, as well as assumptions built from inquiries to the Economic Development Department for companies that wished to come here. The area east of Temperance has the capacity for over 10,000 housing units and approximately 225 permanent jobs in neighborhoods serving retail and office. Approximately 1,300 direct construction jobs and a conservative absorption in 17 to 18 years. This is based on our market demand analysis, which we prepared last year, which looked at actual demand over the past, current demographics, and the realistic number of units which could be built in a calendar year by our current available construction industry. The land uses in this area allow for a broad range of housing types, so this reflects a capacity, like the general plan did, based on gross of land available since there is no way to predict which type of housing would be built on which parcels. In 2014, when the general plan was adopted, the capacity for SEDA was assumed to be 14,900 by the year 2035. This rate assumed just under 1,500 units of capacity per year. The capacity studied in the analyses that is in front of you is approximately 10,000 units by 2047. This rate assumes a little under 600 units per year, which is approximately 40% of the general plan rate. And this generally aligns with the population rate that we're seeing today. After selection of the consolidated business park alternative with modifications, the pre-development backbone infrastructure was identified. The only pre-built infrastructure by the city, so the only infrastructure that is pre-built by the city is the sewer trunk main. This main will serve the areas south of Jensen with three quarters of the land area and east of Temperance with one quarter of the land area. The construction that's identified here is a potential, or today's dollars, $65.9 million to construct the sewer trunk main. And in 2029, we anticipate that that cost would be escalated to about $72 million. So that's after design, what we anticipate the construction cost to be. As stated previously, three-quarters of the land, which is south of Temperance, Would be responsible for fifty three point seven million dollars and east of temperance Which is about a quarter of the land would be responsible for approximately eighteen point three million dollars Other infrastructure such as streets sidewalks lighting and intersections are Constructed by development as development happens and will be included in an impact fee program. It is required that as development occurs, does not need to be built prior to development. At this time, I will turn over the presentation to Amy Lapin, and she will describe what she was asked to analyze, and additionally, the findings of the study. Thank you.

Good morning, council members. Again, my name is Amy Lapin. I'm a principal with Economic and Planning Systems, or EPS. We're an urban economics consulting firm. I'm based in Sacramento. And I've been working with the city of Fresno on South Sata economic analyses for several years now. So this current iteration that we will be presenting to you it covers the scenario that Jennifer just outlined. And we were asked to prepare several specific analyses. The first analysis was the public finance analysis. So Jennifer mentioned that sewer infrastructure was identified to be needed prior to any development occurring in Salceda. So we first looked at land secured financing mechanisms such as a Melrose Community Facilities District or an assessment district. This often represents a financing tool commonly used for public infrastructure improvements. However, it cannot be used at the outset to fund these pre-development sewer improvements. Lenders and investors typically require a value-to-lien ratio of at least three to one.

Excuse me. Excuse me real quick. Council President, I missed the instruction portion. Would you like us to do questions while they're speaking or after they're done? Yeah, I didn't give instructions.

I think just for the sake of letting them get through it, we can get through it, and then we can do the Matlock cross-examination. Thank you, Council President.

Thank you. meaning the assessed value of the property in the district has to be worth at least three times the debt secured against it. A more conservative ratio may be required, and the actual value to lien threshold would be set in consultation with the city's municipal advisor, bond council, and underwriting team. So currently South State is largely undeveloped with a limited assessed value. So that test, that three to one value to lean ratio cannot currently be met. THE CITY ALSO ASKED US TO LOOK AT STATE PULLED PROGRAMS. YOU MAY HAVE HEARD OF THE STATEWIDE COMMUNITY INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM CALLED SKIP OR THE BOND OPPORTUNITIES FOR LAND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM CALLED BOLD. THESE ARE ALSO NOT WELL SUITED BECAUSE THEY'RE ALSO LAND SECURED FINANCING MECHANISMS AND THEY'RE SUBJECT TO THE SAME TEST AT THE INDIVIDUAL PROJECT LEVEL AND GENERALLY financing at or near the building permit stage, not at the pre-development stage which we were looking at. So I just want to note that bond financing could be available later as development in South Sata continues to grow and values rise. So instead, the city could rely on a revenue-secured financing tool to fund the pre-development costs. So revenue-secured financing is repaid from an identified revenue stream rather than from land value. There's no value to lean test. So two options that make the most sense for the city include an enterprise revenue bond repaid from utility rates and surcharges, or what's known as a certificate of participation lease financing, where the city would identify an asset that they would want to lease. They would get upfront funding from investors and then repay that lease payment through the general fund. We ended up moving forward with modeling an enterprise revenue bond. So we also considered and identified that a public-private partnership could also directly address this upfront funding gap. And the city should pursue such opportunities to the extent possible. In a typical public-private partnership, the private partner may finance, design, build, operate, and maintain a facility while the public agency retains ownership and ensures the project continues to meet public needs. Alongside whichever financing tool is selected, the city could form an infrastructure CFD or community facilities district. The CFD levies an annual special tax on private residential and non-residential development Thanks. The CFD levies an annual special tax on private residential and non-residential development as it occurs. And that revenue could reimburse the enterprise fund, the general fund, or a private partner, depending on which tool is selected. Council may wish to set a minimum development threshold as a benchmark for reassessing this financing approach over time. Once enough development has occurred to meet the required value to lien threshold, a land secured bond through an infrastructure CFD or pooled financing program could serve as a takeout bond and refinance the original financing. So we looked at issuing a bond to match the escalated construction costs in 2029. The bond would be sized at an amount higher than the amount needed to construct those improvements to cover the costs of issuance, one year of capitalized interest, and sorry, I'm blanking, basically a contingency fund. So if each sub area finances the pre-development costs for that area only, we estimate the bond size is 64.2 million for south of Jensen, and 21.9 million for east of temperance or 86.1 million if there was one bond issuance. So these figures reflect preliminary bond term assumptions and actual terms would be determined through discussions with the city's municipal advisor bond council and underwriting team. So as mentioned, an infrastructure CFD could be formed to impose annual special taxes on private development as it occurs in South Seattle. And the resulting special tax revenue could be used to reimburse the city enterprise fund for the debt service payments. We determined that in the first several years, there's not enough development on the ground to generate sufficient special tax revenue to cover annual debt service. So a subsidy would be needed to cover the shortfall. Once development catches up, the special tax covers debt service in full and the surplus above that repays the accumulated subsidy amount. So a subsidy is needed to cover a portion of the annual bond debt service in the initial years. Individually, the south of Jensen sub area requires a subsidy of 4.4 million to 21.5 million and becomes cost neutral after two to nine years, depending on the absorption scenario. Private development would then repay that subsidy through the special tax revenue over an additional three to nine years. East of Temperance requires a subsidy of 3.2 million and becomes cost neutral after three years with private development repaying the subsidy over an additional four years. If both sub areas are combined, the subsidy ranges from 7.1 million to 19.5 million with cost neutrality reached in three to six years and repayment of that subsidy over an additional two to five years so i just want to point out that financing the two sub areas together requires a smaller subsidy the sewer mean is sized mostly for south of jensen so that sub area accounts for about three quarters of the bond debt but it produces about half of the annual special tax revenues once it's built out east of temperance is the opposite It accounts for a quarter of the bond debt and just under half of the revenue and builds out sooner. So combining these two sub areas allows the surplus revenue from East of Temperance to be applied to the south of Jensen debt. So the city advances less and gets paid back faster. So the second analysis that we looked at was a fiscal impact analysis of development on the city's operating budget. We also looked at a few revenue and expenditure items outside of the general fund. We looked at both build-out conditions or impacts, and then we looked at... Thanks. We looked at impacts in those initial subsidy years. And I just want to mention that the results that I'm sharing with you today are obviously sensitive to various assumptions in the analysis, including the development plans, the assessed evaluation assumptions, municipal service levels, and current state and city fiscal practices. So any changes to that would change the outcomes of these results. So at build out, we estimate that Salceda would generate $45.1 million annually in general fund revenues. The two largest sources are $23.7 million annually in property tax revenue and $4.7 million annually in sales tax revenue. The balance of the revenues come from other general fund revenue sources, including property tax in lieu of vehicle license fees, Proposition 172 sales tax revenue, business license tax, franchise fees, and other taxes and fees. On the other side of the equation, the project will require municipal services, including public safety and other general fund supported services. At build out the project is estimated to require approximately 27.9 million in total annual general fund expenditures of which 16.4 million is annual police service costs and 4.4 million is annual fire service costs. Project would also generate a need for other general fund expenditures, including expenditures related to general government, planning, public works, parks, among others. By sub area, south of Jensen is estimated to generate $19 million in annual revenue and require $9.7 million in annual service costs. And East of Temperance is estimated to generate $26.1 million in annual revenues and require $18.1 million in annual service costs. Netting revenues against service costs. Build out of the project is estimated to yield an annual net fiscal surplus for the city's general fund of approximately $17.2 million. South of Jensen accounts for 9.3 million of that, and east of Temperance, 8 million. The early years of development in South Sata will also generate an annual net general fund surplus. By the end of the second year of development, the net fiscal surplus is estimated to be $1 to $2 million annually, and by the end of year five, it's estimated to be $4 to $5 million annually. And then as I mentioned, we looked at a few other, we looked at Measure P revenues and then we looked at comprehensive street maintenance expenditures on an annual basis. Both of those are outside of the general fund. And we estimated about 1.8 million would be generated at build out in Measure P revenue and 7.1 million would be required to fund comprehensive street maintenance expenditures under current service levels. The final economic analysis that we evaluated was the community benefit analysis. Council had asked whether an EIFD might be feasible. And an EIFD, for those who aren't aware, is an enhanced infrastructure financing district that captures the growth in assessed value in a district boundary and then allocates that growth into a separate fund. And revenues from an EIFD can be used to bond against that revenue stream or it can be used on a pay-as-you-go basis. So we found that an EIFD would be highly feasible for Salceda. Over a 45-year term, which is a typical EIFD term, beginning in fiscal year 2930. We estimate that it could generate up to $1.6 billion in cumulative revenue in real dollars, with just over $1 billion derived from the east of Temperance development and up to $595 million from south of Jensen. So those figures assume that the city is the sole participating taxing entity and would contribute 100% of its property tax increment. So these results would vary if there were other taxing entities that participated or the percentage being allocated was something less than 100%. So EIFD is a viable tool for either financing improvements through bonds or funding them on a pay-as-you-go basis, as I mentioned. Eligible investments could include infrastructure and affordable housing, both within the district or outside of the district, as long as there is a tangible connection to the district. An EIFD is governed by a public financing authority which is a separate five-member body made up of three council members and two members of the public who live or work in the district. And there is a trade-off, though, in that EIFD revenue is property tax revenue that would otherwise flow to the general fund. So the net fiscal surplus that I mentioned earlier assumes that no EIFD is in place. And so that would be reduced if an EIFD was put in place. And now I will turn it back over to Jennifer to continue the presentation. Thanks.

Continuing on in community benefit analysis, many of you have heard the mayor talk at various presentations about his support for the creation of a community benefit fund. A community benefit fund could be established as a separate segregated fund from the net fiscal surplus generated by South Sata. The types of uses are more flexible to support reinvestment in existing and established neighborhoods, including CFD-like services such as street repaving, sidewalk repair, landscaping, such as the city's existing residential infill program, and even items such as assistance with residents in SATA who are required by the city to hook up to sewer or water. It can also support the policies in the general plan and in the SATA specific plan. Additionally, a community benefit fund can be targeted in a way that benefits are existing in established neighborhoods as reflected in the general plan. The infill opportunity zones, which are the darker yellow in this slide, are considered established neighborhoods in the city of Fresno. The Community Benefit Fund could be available for these neighborhoods that are not currently covered by a CFD or a similar mechanism like an EIFD. The Community Benefit Fund again could support CFD-like services, street and sidewalk repair, landscaping maintenance, infill housing, While there's currently a million dollars annually dedicated to assist infill housing with off-site improvements the community benefit fund could increase this available funding. As this relates to prior sewer projects, I want to note that the fiscal study described by Amy initially contemplates bonding and repayment from the reserves until the project is cost neutral and repays the utility reserves. It is not from rate payers. The city in the past has funded major sewer trunk main projects in a very similar manner for the west of 99 area following Grantland and the central southeast corridor in cooperation with Clovis, as well as the wastewater reclamation facility. These were all funded through a revenue bond mechanism, and development was repaid through impact fees as development occurred. So slightly different than what is being contemplated here through a CFD. With that, I just want to restate that we did evaluate as we requested a separation between east of temperance and south of SATA. And we have, as a general rule, found that south SATA can pay for itself. South Sata will have a net positive general fund impact, and the net positive general fund impact can be used to benefit existing residents and neighborhoods. Thank you. I'd take any questions.

Actually, Director, so I do have some members punched up, but I think we'll take us last. I think we'll go to public comment at this time and hear the input. So at this time, we'll take public comment on this workshop. We got to see the slides here and hear from the presenters. So we'll do public comment both here in the chamber and on Zoom. So if there are folks who would like to comment on this particular item, now would be the time. You can fill out a yellow card or come on down. Yeah, we'll take public comment, and if we're not done, we're gonna break for lunch around 12, but yeah, come on down. Patience.

Do I have to give you a card?

No, no, yeah, come on down. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning, thank you. This is a pleasant surprise. We all came expecting to have to remain mum this entire workshop, so thank you for giving us an opportunity to comment. Just a few questions. Oh, Patience Melrod, thank you. Lawyer, Tower District. A few questions. One is this fiscal impact analysis applies only to South Sata. It does not, cannot underpin adoption of the entire 9,000 project, 9,000 acre project, just FYI, put a pin in that. Not to be resolved today, but you should think about it before you actually hear the whole thing. What about the other CFDs? Are those, there are a number of those CFDs that could potentially, from which rate payer money could be used to subsidize SEDA until the development becomes significant enough, the absorption becomes significant enough it can pay for itself, supposedly. Where are we aware of other places where there are 400 acres of 20 dwelling unit per acre single family homes? I mean, I know of one. Thank you, Council Member Richardson. Somewhere over by Clovis. It is not how developers are used to building around here. And those of you who've been here for 20 minutes know that what happens is the annexation is approved, the entitlements are approved, and then the developer comes in and says, you know, that's not really what my pro forma looks like. I want to build bigger houses. I want bigger lots. And, like, can't we do the density more at, like, 7? 12 that is going to happen and inquiring minds want to know what happens to the all of these very elaborate and thank you Ms. Lappin really impressive spreadsheets what happens to those when the uptake both for the developers and then for the buyers is way reduced is way less than what this very optimistic 10,000 unit projection suggests. I'm also curious, like why 10,000? I mean, according to the mayor until 20 minutes ago, it was 4,800. that residential area that was what was expected what was it that motivated the decision to make it 10,000 which is wildly crazily optimistic I mean if you were building in the tower district at that density it would be ambitious so I would I would like to see how does it pencil out if you've only got 4,800 units So those are just a few of the things that had occurred to me, not expecting to have to speak with you. So ask the hard questions and get good answers.

Thank you. Thank you, Patience. Any additional public comment here within the chamber? I don't have any yellow cards. Come on down.

Thank you. Thank you. I just want to say... a very good presentation on SATA, and I'm not against it. My thing is that we're spending a lot of money on a lot of projects in the Fresno general area. By the way, my name is Hester Hensley. We spend a lot of money in areas to build up our town. My concern is that Southwest Fresno is still getting left out and put aside and overlooked because we're not developing in that area like we should be. There's a few things have occurred, but I'd like to say that most of the money that came to Southwest Fresno is built on necessity things. Like for instance, we put a bike trail over in Southwest Fresno off of California and Thorn, but it was built in a field that's straight down the field with weeds and stuff. Nobody could ride a bike. Matter of fact, no one ride bikes in Southwest Fresno. So the bike trail was unnecessary and we spent a lot of money on it. Also, you're building up downtown, you put garages, apartments, And that's not benefiting Southwest Fresno, but that money should have been coming to Southwest Fresno that's been spent unnecessary. Those apartments and the garages that you're putting, I guess they're using, but you don't have any place down there for anyone to shop. Nothing for anyone to do in that area. You have a lot of open buildings like J.C. Penney's, Scott Charleston. lot of buildings that's been vacant for years uh pennies maybe like 40 years but we can up that by doing things that's necessary unnecessary money like spending money on the street signs that was unnecessary um spending money on what he said the The state's flags that's flying around all over town, all the way out on Herndon, they go all the way out to Clovis. Southwest Fresno, they get not one flag. And you keep saying one Fresno. Southwest Fresno would like to know, are we still a part of Fresno? Because you're really neglecting us. And so when I see all the flags that you install through the town for the 250th year, Not one flag came to Southwest Fresno. It stopped as soon as it come down Fresno Street. It stops at Broadway before you go on the other path. On Ventura, it comes all the way down to... On Ventura, it comes all the way...

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Esther, we're gonna have the next speaker come up to speak. Thank you, yeah, appreciate your comments. Esther, I'm asking you to, yeah, we have the next speaker coming up. Will the next speaker come on up?

Good morning. Thank you. My name is Helen Ramming, and I'm one of the residents in the area that's being affected. And one of my concerns is when they keep telling us that there's going to be a community benefit fund available for us, I'm really concerned. The wording is always could be, shall be, something in the future. which means it's not locked in. And then when I saw the list of all the things that this would benefit, and we were on the last of the list, we're the ones paying the highest price for this whole thing. This is mind-boggling what this community benefit fund is supposed to cover. It's mind-boggling and yet it's not in the plan, so it's not guaranteed. We're the ones in the residents who are paying the highest cost. Unfortunately, we are the ones that have no representation because we're counting. You guys are making decisions for us and yet we're the ones paying for the hookups, we're paying for the sewer infill or whatever you call that by California standards. We're the ones paying for the schools, It just does not seem very fair to us that we do not have representation that will back us and say this is not right. And this community benefit fund, it's so wrong the way it's put in the future. Anybody could stop it at any time if it's not in guaranteed writing. We live on a farm and we know we will be forced out if anybody around us, if my husband sprays or if dust is raised, we know that the development around us would stop us from doing so and we would be forced out. And I can tell you that at a workshop at the planning staff in one of the schools, that was affirmed by one of the staff members said, yes, there's no way we can implement guaranteeing that you would not be forced out. So I mean, we can add the list that our farm is going to be taken from us also along with everything else. So this just does not seem right. What also I very much feel is that if this is passed, it's an open checkbook. It's basically, we've heard this before on the federal level. If you just pass it, we can look at it later and analyze and go step by step. That is just so not right. It's so not right to us. It's so not right to the public. But that's the implication we're getting. Just pass it and we'll work through every detail as it goes on. An open checkbook, it just does not seem right. I just am concerned also all of the bonds that are being tacked on and the taxes that are being tacked on. And maybe it does pay for itself, but it sure does not seem on the outset that this is fair to the public of Fresno. It's not just us, it's Fresno as a whole. But I do know we're saying from our standpoint, we wish we were represented. We're part of the county, we are not part of the city, and we don't have a real say in this. So I thank you.

Welcome. Morning members of the council Dylan savory and the executive director of the 4 County union labor Council 1, 2, 2, 0, East Sussex. Um, there's a couple of poison pills here and things to talk about the, um, council member Prairie mentioned, uh, last year sometime asked the planning staff why we're using the projection numbers from 14 years ago is general plan for this specific plan, but the projection numbers for the central South specific plan. We're using updated numbers. So there's a clear fundamental maneuvering from the city planning staff on how to doctor the numbers here. to make us get to this point where we can finally see that this plan, even if it happens to pay for itself on the best of forecasts, actually doesn't produce that much economic benefit, harms our children at Fresno Unified, doesn't, you know, we can't magically produce jobs. I'd love to see the jobs analysis on this. Twenty-something thousand jobs. We know that when we, you know, adopt new land, jobs just don't come. A few years ago, Keith Berkhold and I were sitting with the mayor in one of the conference halls in the back, and we were talking about how we can get solar energy into the city. And he said, I'd love to do that because we have 90-something businesses that want to move to Fresno right now, and PG&E cannot supply the power. I'd like all of you to think about, of all of the different ways we're doctoring the numbers, how are we going to power any of this? We may be able to supply the water, but PG&E is not going to give us more power. The lines, the grid is locked up, and solar has come to a halt as much as we want to build it. So we don't have the energy supply. It's harming our students. I think Council Member Vang was going to check with Sanger Unified to see if they could take in more students. This doesn't, as the young people in my office would say, the math ain't mathin'. This does not add up. And even if the best of forecasts do, and I think $40 trillion in federal debt means that the forecasts in the next 30 years are not gonna all go as swimmingly as the city planning staff has told you they are. Additionally, This was 4,000 houses, as Patience mentioned. It's two and a half times. Why would that suddenly go up when the land can't actually hold that many houses? Doesn't that seem like a way to doctor the numbers to all of you? I'm excited for Councilmember Arias's questioning, because I know he'll get to the bottom of this. I'd encourage all of you to be as particularly detailed as possible, because some of these things, the ball keeps moving on all of us. And why would that be? I have my conspiracies that I mentioned last time about the city manager having worked for Ed Cashin and all of his development in this area that would be the boom of the new town. Every time there's a new restaurant or a new thing in Fresno, we all rush to where it's at, and then we abandon it later. So I'd encourage you all to think about the net benefit, but the harm to our students and the harm to our existing communities. Please ask the right questions on all of our behalf. Thank you.

Thank you. The next speaker.

My name is Brunette Harris and it's, it's really a riot for people not to really understand what's going on. The city has a multi jurisdictional, you may as well say book, that they've already pulled in all of the county. You guys need to understand this. They've already annexed everything in. So this is about trying to be like LA and San Francisco. They're pulling in everything. They could care less what you say, but I tell you what, what you need to do, everybody need to get together and do a protest on the city of Fresno. That's what you need to do and get a multi, get them on television so it can get to Washington, D.C. Because what they're doing, they've been doing for years. They do not care nothing about what you say or how you say it. We got a mayor that gets together with Miguel and they decide what goes on. In Southwest Fresno, yeah, we are island to ourselves because they're basically doing whatever they want to do. They come in and put in bike lanes. Nobody ride bikes over there. We've seen a few homeless people on bicycles, and they ride in the rims of the bicycles that they've given them. It doesn't make any sense what the city is doing. They could care less of what you're saying and how you say it. Everybody needs to get together and do a protest, because they don't hear you. They do not care. You got your council members sit up and skin and grin in your face, and they really don't care, as long as they can do what they want to do. But they have a multi-jurisdictional book which you guys need to ask for. They refuse to give it out. We've asked for it, and they refuse to give it to us. If you're talking about federal dollars, you need to get in contact with HUD, because these are federal dollars that they're not supposed to use unless they have community meetings. They fail to do that, especially in Southwest Fresno. But they do what they want to do. They're putting in roundabouts. We got enough people doing those spins in the middle of the streets instead of you putting in roundabouts. You can't even control that. But it's ridiculous as to what they're doing. And like I say, everybody needs to get together in the county and the city and do a protest on the city of Fresno. They're not listening. Then you need to go to the federal and do the media thing and get them, every last one of them that sit here, the ones that's leaving, the ones that's been here, all of them need to be handcuffed and put in prison, not jail. They need to go straight to prison because they're not following federal guidelines.

Any bills, anybody else in the chambers wanting to give public comments, please come forward at this time. You'll have three minutes.

obviously need a taller bias. My name is Kaye Burtken, I'm with the League of Women Voters of Fresno, and I mostly have a question. The amount of acreage allotted for housing east of Temperance is already a dense pack. But I'm wondering if the amount of acreage over there accommodates for roads, for sidewalks, for plantings, for all the things that the SEDA plan is supposedly providing in that area, parks. If not, the number of houses that are being forced into that area cheek to jowl is not going to generate the sort of financial return to the city that's anticipated. And in one line of the financial plan, it suggests that that the value of the housing in there, the single family housing, is going to be something on the order of $600,000. And if you've got a tiny little house with no yard, with no plantings on the street, it's not going to be a particularly attractive neighborhood. And the amount of multi-family housing that's going to be squeezed into the small amount of area is also destined to be rather high rise. The sort of anticipation of housing over there, I think you better look at it really carefully to see whether already being accommodated is the sort of other build out, the easements that would have to be provided for accommodating those homes. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else in chambers wanting to give comment on the workshop that was just presented? Please come on forward.

Good morning. My name is Melissa Perry, and I work in Southwest Fresno. I'm the associate director for Generation Changers. I attend Image Church, which is located on Fresno Street. I work a lot with the Lincoln and Columbia neighborhood residents. So when I sit in the Planning Commission, come to City Hall, view it online, and I see the plan for SATA, the beautiful communities, the walkable communities. I think about Southwest Fresno, and again, mentioned we are left behind. We are not one Fresno. We don't have a pharmacy. I work with the seniors at Bridges of Florence. They have to get their prescription mailed to them. Complaint after complaint. I'm just here to say, taking consideration, if you would like to fund a plan, there's always a Southwest specific plan that needs to be funded. Just take that into consideration.

Thank you.

Anybody else in the council chambers? Good morning, Artie. I have three minutes.

Good, thank you. Artie Padilla, Southwest Fresno resident, director of the DRIVE Initiative. A lot of my community colleagues have shared a lot. I'm just thinking about, like, And I can't I wasn't a part of it. I'm too. I'm not smart enough to know all the finance stuff that was shared But I'm wondering if the conversations back in early 2000s when we were sprawling north had similar finance numbers and and I'm also remembering when we were almost bankrupt as a city and And like, I don't want to repeat that. So I'm always worried about sprawl. I know our leaders want to do the right things. Sometimes growing is great. And sometimes it's smarter to invest in what we have already. So I'm hopeful that as you dig into these numbers, you're looking at the long-term impact because I don't have kids, but I want all of your kids to have a financially sound Fresno in the future. Thanks.

Good morning, Mrs. Nahr. You have three minutes.

Good morning to all of you.

I wasn't going to say anything today, but I am from the northwest part of the city, and I have to tell you I've been watching quite a few council meetings in the last couple of years, and I have to say that I can relate very much to the people from the southwest and the frustration in general in the city of Fresno. It seems like over the years, the city has divided the city by saying that the north has everything and the south has nothing. And that is simply not the case. My particular neighborhood has been under quite a bit of attack the last couple of years. And our streets haven't been paved in 26 years, going on 27. The county has done it twice. in the part that overlaps my area in that period of time. I really relate to a lot of the things that need to be done all through the city. And it seems, in our particular neighborhood, it started in the late 70s. I think it consists, the main part, of 240 houses and it took a lot it took approximately 20 years to get those 240 houses there and the road infrastructure into the neighborhood was messed up a few years ago we've been putting up with that for 15 years so I think that we should really stop and consider I would also like to mention that in December We billed ourselves as One Fresno, and that meeting in December was truly One Fresno. There were people from every single area of this town indicating that they were not interested in having CETA. I also personally know some of the people in CETA And they're great people. And it seems that in our rush to get all these houses, we're attacking the people that do have houses. So I would really hope to say that we all have a lot more in common and that we should have considered what all those people that came out, what was it, eight days before Christmas and made their plans known. So thank you very much.

Hi, my name is Amy Gallagher. I live in the Tower District, District 3. I am anti-SEDA. Sprawl does not make a city great. One concern I have from this morning is that they discussed the amount of property tax that would be generated, but we know from the Fresno Unified School District discussions that it's going to be a lot of families who already live in Fresno that will be moving there. So we're not making more property tax, we're just moving it around. It might pay for itself, but it's going to be at the cost of the rest of the city. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments in the chambers before I head to Zoom? Good morning, sir. Good morning. Nice to see you. You have three minutes this morning.

Good morning, neighbors. Good morning, council. My name's Brett Thompson. I'd like to bring to your attention an infringement of policy HC 2.3, as noted on page 63 of the SETA specific plan. Under distribution of housing, IT SAYS TO PROMOTE AFFORDABLE HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES THAT ARE DISTRIBUTED THROUGHOUT THE SOUTHEAST DEVELOPMENT AREA TO AVOID CONCENTRATIONS IN ANY ONE AREA. ON SLIDE 32 OF THE WORKSHOP TODAY UNDER RESIDENT ESTIMATES, EAST OF TEMPERANCE IS THE ONLY SUB AREA WITH PROPOSED RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT AND IS ESTIMATED TO GENERATE RESIDENTIAL POPULATION OF APPROXIMATELY 29,800 NEW RESIDENTS AT BUILDOUT. So right there, we're concentrating all of the housing, right? This concentration of population density is proposed to be developed onto just 467 acres of land, while also concentrating 225 employees onto just 2.35 acres. That's a lot of people working on a very small piece of land. It's deemed for office and retail space. Also stated in SADA's specific plan, parks and other open spaces are essential elements for vibrant and healthy communities that promote a range of social, health, economic, and environmental benefits when integrated into communities. How many acres of green space were on the map? That's scary. How many acres of infrastructure, like roads, sidewalks, storm drains, storm runoff, parks, community and neighborhood town centers are proposed? The density numbers are flawed and do not account for infrastructure acreages, which typically cover 20 to 40% of a community. How can these figures be deemed healthy, beneficial or viable to this community? If I walked into a bank and said I wanted to build a house, and I told the loan officer, I'd like to build this house, write me a check. And they're going to say, how much? Well, I need $4,000 for toilets, is essentially what this financing presentation said. We're going to fund the sewer. That loan officer is not going to cut me a check for $2 million to build a house when I just tell him I need $4,000 to fund my toilets or my sewer. They're not giving you the whole package. There's way more cost than just sewer. And unfortunately, it looks like the rural residents and the city residents are going to front that bill. I urge you to not pass SEDA, please. Thank you. Thank you, Brandon.

Good morning. My name is David Ramming, and I'm a resident and farmer in southeast Fresno. I'd like you to consider one major factor. Where are all these people going to come from? A couple questions. South Sata assumes 8,140 single-family homes at 20 homes per acre, averaging 525,000 each. This will be one of the densest single-family home developments in the state, with likely average lot size of under 1,800 square feet. With Fresno's median household income around 71,000, what target demographic would want or could afford to pay so much for so little? The financing plan calls 29,800 people new residents. What percentage are actually new to Fresno rather than moving from existing neighborhoods? And what population forecast shows Fresno will add enough people to fill 10,070 South Seda homes while supporting all the housing infill planned elsewhere in the city? Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Any other speakers wanting to give comments on the workshop items specifically before we move on to Zoom?

How you doing? Mr. Tyler, I'd seen you in July trying to set up a meeting with you. You said you would, but it never happened. Is there any way I could have a sit down with you in your office? I'm talking about you making a promise to me.

This is an opportunity to speak on the workshop.

Okay, so you're not open for discussion on that? You're going to deny that? Real simple, can you set up an appointment? You're not going to respond.

Normally I don't respond, but you have been nothing but rude and demeaning and cussing at my staff on a regular basis.

I think this is yours up here. Is this your clicker? Okay, how do I set up a meeting?

Now is not the time to have this discussion. When is the time? When we have unscheduled communication, we will call you up. You're out of order. This is your first and last warning.

I'm just asking, we can't... This is your first and last warning.

You're out of order, sir. Please have a seat. Anybody else in the chambers wanting to give comments on the workshop that was presented? Please come forward. You will have three minutes.

Ron Wade, Southwest resident. How's everybody doing? Appreciate the time. Technically, I'm not even against SEDA. Y'all can have it. But why do the factories and all that pollution got to come to Southwest Fresno? If you're going to build something in southeast for southeast, take all the factories and pollution over there with that. We're already at a 20-year life of disadvantage in southwest Fresno. Pollution is horrible. And you want to bring factories where older people stay at next to the only clinic we have. As I said before, I've been there all my life. Got asthma since I was eight. Go to treatment once a month because the air quality is so bad. Why would you bring in more pollution right across the street from a senior citizen home on M, right next door to two more schools that's right in the area? If they want to build outside of it, that's cool. But give us regular people's stuff, a pharmacy, a bank, a decent grocery store, parks, green grass, just regular stuff that people want to live. We don't want nothing fancy. I mean, we ain't been getting anything we've been getting by. but don't add more pollution to what we already don't have. That's all I want to say. Thank you.

Any other comments in council chambers related to the workshop specifically?

That workshop has to do with the SEDA, right? Yes. Okay. So my only comment about the SEDA and all of this, we have, I don't know if you guys have been noticing, California is in a mess. So I don't know where you're gonna get the money to complete your job if you start it. So I think that perhaps putting it on hold for another five years would be a brighter thing to do and not have all of us taxpayers, which don't have many that have money, get them out of the welfare system, get them to work, and then let's talk about spreading. Why don't you go, My grandmother used to live over in Tulare, right by the old post office there. God darn, I can't think of the damn name. Willow, I think that is. Tulare and Willow. All of those areas were beautiful when I was growing up. There's no reason that it shouldn't look okay now. We need lights over there, plumbing, and as this gentleman said, have a property over in 706. And it's a mess over there. The people need help. You need to take your farmers, farm the areas you already have, grow them to make them look beautiful, and please, you're elected because we trusted you to do the work of the people. Thank you.

Good morning. Three minutes.

I hope this is loud. I do want to talk about CETA, but also... Oh, my name is Alyssa. Hi. I hope this is loud. I want to talk about CETA as well as something else a little small. But anyways, my stomping grounds is Belmont and Temperance. And I've actually been born and raised there. So I've actually witnessed, you know, growth and things that have been happening. And... It's not the most desirable, I'd have to say. There has been an influx of homeless over there, which is rather unusual for the area. I mean, it is. Because when I was young, that just never was a concern. But now with all the homes popping up that are brand new homes, really, really close, like very nearby, the traffic is insane. And so you have all these country roads where you're trying to pull out on them. And I mean, you have to wait quite a while just to get them to go by. And it's like, I know everything's gonna get developed and there's gonna be more roads and everything, but it's like, it's not quite why I moved out to the country. And I was horrified to find out that right next to my neighborhood, There's going to be lots of houses put up. And from the sounds of it, I'm leaning more towards it's going to be apartments, which really sucks. But anyways, I just wanted to say my piece on that. And I'm also here because of a written public comment filed with the city clerk. On behalf of Roof Over My Heart, it's a California nonprofit who deals with complex housing situations, including contractor fraud. And I'm not going to use my time summarizing it because I really need you guys to hear it. But I will say this much. It concerns a licensed contractor who operated here in Fresno, families across California who paid for homes they received, and a gap in- Point of order, Council Vice President.

I'm sorry. We have to be fair to everybody. Yeah.

If it's not directly related to the workshop, we're going to have to take it during unscheduled communication later on in the meeting.

Oh, bummer. Okay.

I apologize, but thank you for your comments on safety. Anybody else in the chambers? Seeing nobody at this, yes, got a speaker right here. Good morning, still morning, you got three minutes.

Hello? I'm Angel Hernandez. I'm president of District 1. I just wanted to comment about SEDA because I guess I've been watching from afar most of the time through YouTube, but it's really been disappointing seeing how people have been rejected in their comments. SEDA also feels like an escape from helping the rest of the city. It just feels like you guys are admitting that you're unable to develop the rest of the city like Southwest. Sorry, I don't have the confidence to speak for the full three minutes, but I really hope that at least my district will listen to me. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Anybody else in the chambers? If not, we're gonna head over to Zoom City Clerk.

First up, we have Deep Singh.

Deep, you have three minutes. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you, City Council, for taking and having this important workshop. I want to make a few comments and then end with a few questions that I hope you'll ask during your period of discussion. First is to really address why so many folks, especially those in the chamber, feels that there's continued corruption around this question around Zeta. It feels like a benefit to the developers and potentially linked to increased campaign checks for some candidates, but for all the residents, they see through it as a bad deal. It feels extremely rushed. It feels like whose opinions are taken into consideration? An authoritarian and corrupt administration forcing a plan that absolutely has no takers. There's nobody that really wants this. As so many of you are already alluding to, and so many of the residents, there's absolutely a twiddling going on. This is a master class in twiddling, which is when you turn up the knobs to show fictitious revenue and population numbers, and you turn down all the numbers that would show actual expenses. This is not a way to get accurate information and for the council, when we allow administration to do this, we are rewarding bad behavior and less accurate information both for you and ultimately for the residents of Fresno. All the while we're having this conversation, we know from the own report that we're going to skyrocket our city utility bills in the midst of an affordability crisis. that cannot go forward i ask you to ask at least a few questions i'm going to provide some page numbers so um hopefully that you can actually get information for the public the first one being on page 43 of the report it sets the bond at six percent interest over 30 years and calls these conservative assumptions But nowhere are stress-tested worst-case scenarios ever shown possible. If every assumption in this model happens to point to the same favorable direction, can staff walk us through what would happen to this analysis under a recession or a rate spike? Or was that scenario simply never run? Question two, page 23 of the consultant's report states EPS has not independently evaluated market support for these absorption scenarios and separately has not evaluated the feasibility of proposed land uses. If the firm you paid to build this case won't personally vouch for its central assumption, why should this council? Question three, page 24 says this whole pre-development cost only covers sewer trunk mains. Sewer tributary lines are excluded and pushed to a future nexus study that doesn't yet exist. before this council treats the 72 million figure as the cost of the project. We should be asking the staff, what are going to be the cost of the tributary lines and water mains? What will they actually cost? Or is that number simply not known? And finally, this report assumes a zero interest on enterprise funds. That's not a rate you've adopted. That's a modeling assumption. If you re-ran this analysis, even using conservative interest rates,

Thank you. Next speaker on Zoom is Liz McElveen.

Hey, guys. Apologies for speaking about the topic when it was not time to do it. But in any case, I call to express support. And then I just want to end with this. We should look at facts. You know, not all the political noise. Because for too long, decisions about our side of town have been made by people who don't live with the consequences. So Zeta is a rare chance to bring real opportunity to the people who need it the most. And thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker is going to be Lanisha Senegal.

Good morning, Council. My name is Lanisha Senegal, representing District 4. I just wanted to first off say thank you for the presentation. It's really refreshing to see that, you know, we are considering future investments that prioritize families and including, you know, the public and hopefully including the public in a design that prevents another tale of two cities. It was also refreshing to hear about the capital stack, which really does include some private investment, a large part of private investment, as well as the reimbursement that we can see over the next two to nine years that we will invest towards subsidies being repaid and seeing that cost-neutral effect. um, return on our investment within three to four years. And so that was also refreshing because it allows us to, as a, as a community to at least, you know, be able to have some, um, thoughtful conversations. I've been listening to both sides of this, um, of this, of this, of this data. project. And really everyone is saying the same thing on how we all can win. You know, I have 17 grandchildren. And when I think about when they are at that age, when it's time to own a home in the next 20 years, I want to, you know, ensure that they have a opportunity to be able to afford a home. I would love to be able to see our community ensure that our families have wages that we can pay be able to offer careers in which we'll offer a livable wage in which our families can, again, like I said, afford a home. If we're concerned about our schools Um, there here's an opportunity again for our communities to be a part of the design and build something that Fresno can be really proud of. And so, but we can't do that unless, um, we're, you know, ensuring that the decisions that are being made. Um, around, um, what these, this expansion looks like. Um, I know that growth is going to happen. I mean, especially when we think about how river park expanded Herndon in 99 is another great example. of how these expansions sort of take shape, but we really do have an opportunity to help shape those decisions now before everything is built. I can imagine, just imagine having a community-owned grocery store co-op model when we think about, you know, the disinvestment in like West Fresno and we attract these big retail chain models, but we really have an opportunity to create something that is really community and co-owned. I think about instead of attracting only big box retail, if we really prioritize our small businesses and ensuring that they have access to own the restaurants,

Thank you. Next speaker is going to be Joseph Rodriguez. Yes.

Hello, Council. Can you hear me?

Yes, Joseph. You have three minutes. Thank you.

Thank you. I just wanted to call in because I was listening to the workshop on Zoom. And I didn't really like the plan for CETA before the workshop. Now, after the workshop, I really don't like the plan. A lot of the cost is being put on the people and a lot of the people that are going to be affected in the area are concerned. So we hope the council really takes that into consideration. Wanted to bring up the fact that city wants to develop, you know, a new new part of this of roads and all this infrastructure. Um, but we're so behind on our sidewalks and roads with deferred men of, I think $1.3 billion, 300 million in sidewalk repairs that have been deferred and about a billion in road repairs. And I just wish the council would have maybe thought about some of this funding. Um, whoever put this plan together, you know, instead of rushing know tax proposals on 72 hours notice trying to get things passed now on the ballot certain measures measure d uh it really maybe could have been something you know helpful but now it's not and it's part of the mistrust when it comes to the community when you guys try to push proposals through on 72 hours with little information you know the planning commission passed this plan on to you guys without a lot of the information actually none of the information they had to just hope that this would all work out somehow. And I just want to say, you know, if, if it butts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a Merry Christmas. I know the council's smarter than just passing stuff, maybe like the commission without any information. And maybe they did have the information and they knew it was so bad that they had to push it through before the public got ahold of it. But come on guys, you know, really think about this. Y'all will be off the council when you guys time out, but the community is going to be stuck with this. And we're going to have to put up with all this development. And not only that, but everyone's talking about it. These numbers, they don't add up. So really, really, guys, ask the tough questions. If you guys just have a bunch of jokes about making some day, calling it Rocky Road within the city, like Mike Karabasi made a joke. You know he's going to rename it Rocky Road. You can name that today. There's so many roads that have potholes and need repair that haven't been touched, and that's just within the city. So I mean, $1 billion in deferred road repair and you guys are trying to put more tech.

Alright, thank you. Next speaker is going to be Bill Betts.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, welcome.

All right. All right, good afternoon council members. My name is Bill Betts, CEO of Betts Company, 158 years. one of the oldest family-owned and managed companies in California. Betts employs hundreds of people across our locations, a genuinely diverse workforce from entry-level jobs up through skilled trades, engineering, and management. I reviewed the wage assumptions in the economic analysis report against our own payroll. They are realistic. And actually, our Fresno operation already exceeds them. These are jobs that carry Fresno households with wages, healthcare, and paid time off. One member of our leadership team started with us as a temporary worker a couple decades ago, straight out of high school, no college degree. Today, he leads part of our manufacturing operation with leads under him, climbing the same ladder he did. That career came from a shop floor, and shop floors need shovel-ready land. I'll say that again, shovel-ready land. And the latter starts earlier than this first paycheck. Our engineering team includes engineers who began as Fresno State interns, and they're with us full-time today. During the school year, we host high school interns from Duncan Polytech and SeaTech. On-site internships with industry partners like us are built into their curriculum. Our team members study through programs with Fresno City College, and we bring in interns through Career Nexus for people even later in life, after high school, looking for a chance. One just accepted a full-time offer. And productive jobs don't come alone. They bring quality control, engineering, purchasing, scheduling, shipping, and receiving, customer support, accounting, safety, HR, IT, cybersecurity, and the local supply chain relationships beyond our walls. On August 28, a couple days ago, Governor Newsom launched Made in California, and the state's numbers say it plainly. Each manufacturing job supports three more. For a company to grow, it needs two things, a shop floor and an engaged workforce. Fresno was already producing the workforce. That's has moved before from San Francisco to San Leandro, then to Fresno. And we're not looking to move again. We want to grow here with Fresno talent and watch the next generation find opportunity in their own backyard. Housing without jobs does not lift workers. It displaces them. Sal Seda is a job creator. And this strategy is already, and the city's already executing on the housing piece. When the adoption vote comes, I urge you to give the next generation what Fresno gave Betts 30 years ago, room to grow. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Next speaker is going to be Christina Soto.

Hello.

Yes, welcome.

Thank you. So, Christina, so again, I have, and I apologize, I've missed a lot of the public comments because I'm at work. because unfortunately these meetings always happen when the community, most of the community is working on a weekday, although I do appreciate the ability to participate on Zoom. It feels like the plan that I did here was based a lot on speculation and conjecture. There's a lot of could, would, might. There's no real hard numbers or, you know, evidence cited as to the the jobs how how they were created what types of jobs i mean we're throwing out engineers but how many and how much of that workforce is actually going to come from fresno and how much of it is going to be sata again attracting people from the bay from la to move here that is going to further displace people further cause rent and utilities to go up Because as clearly stated in the report, this project does not fall under the value to lien requirements, which would, it sounds like, and again, this is just based on my notes, which would require revenue secured most likely through utilities, which again, which means that taxpayers are footing the bill for this. So to say that it pays for itself is completely misleading. We have existing communities that could use this investment. The city can't even pay the bills it currently has. Again, when we have things like Measure P, which is being misappropriated and mismanaged, and we have people doing work that aren't even getting paid. There are people that already live in Fresno, already work in Fresno, are already a part of this community that are being neglected and being overlooked. And I just don't understand why we continue to push this, why we continue to push Zeta. Nobody wants this. We are not LA. We are not the Bay Area. We are the Central Valley. We are the food basket of the world. And I don't understand why this administration keeps trying to emulate or model itself against these cities, which we, Fresno is its own, we're our own identity. We have a different culture. We have, a different history in the, again, in the face of resource shortages, food shortages, we should really invest back into our roots and, you know, wasting valuable, irreplaceable agricultural land for a pipe dream is extremely short-sighted and very irresponsible. And it's gonna have detrimental,

Thank you. Next speaker is going to be Lisa Flores.

I'm going to talk really fast because I have a... Hi, can you hear me first off?

Yes, Lisa, you're with us. Thank you.

Okay, I'm going to talk really fast because I have a lot of things to say. First off, Fresno needs to realize that we are still an agricultural-based community. Ag wins. Most of our work, our jobs, are ag-based. My first question is, is Measure D and S, if they're passed, Will the city use Measure D to fund SATA? You have multi-jurisdictional representation issues here based on taxation and failure to outreach to the county residents in which you're going to be affecting them. And you need to look at your liability and litigation. And have we also to your analysis of 22,000 jobs, what sort of jobs are those and what are the level incomes? Are they going to be part-time baristas at a local Starbucks or who? The housing that I picked up was 550K. Who can afford that in $71,000 a year? Nobody. So by the time these houses get built, they're going to be more about 600 to 650. And once again, who's going to be able to afford that? You know, who's going to be able to afford that? The people that are coming from L.A. and the Bay Area. So why are we creating housing for Bay Area residents and L.A. residents when we should be taking care of our own housing for our own people that have lived here generations? Your project is not complete based on housing and traffic. That is just going to be a nightmare. And also to you can the plan lacks a couple of major things, and it's been mentioned here a couple of times. Where's the nearest pharmacy? Can anybody name a hospital that is West of Fresno community? Not everybody could go down the corridor of Herndon. Because if you take an Uber like I recently did to a doctor's appointment and my doctor's office is close to where I live, that was a $50 experience for one doctor's appointment. Also too, where's the low income housing and the diverse housing pricing in this plan? Or are you going to allow just building high end homes and not have a diverse community? and if you can't fix the pothole and you can't install enough trees in town and you can't make the current footprint of fresno super livable and walkable you got no business expanding also too president really needs to look thank you lisa next speaker i have is mike betts

Good morning. Can you hear me?

Yes, welcome.

Well, good afternoon members of the council and our community members. My name is Mike Betts, former CEO of Betts Company and a member of our board. Fresno took a chance on us twice. In 1996, we invested here and brought our operations from the Bay Area, including our people. In 2007, we invested again, hundreds of jobs, millions of dollars flowing into local suppliers, local paychecks, and local causes. We came because the city partnered with us. Shovel-ready land availability and a genuine welcome. That formula with economic investment and matched with local talent is a winning formula. Proof is in the pudding. It worked then, it works now. The only question is whether the next companies get the same chance we got. And the talent is ready. Fresno Unified and our other education partners run some of the strongest career technical education programs in the country. More than 12,000 students in over 80 pathways, a 99% graduation rate among pathways completers. Nearly 3,000 industry certificates earned. I've watched the industry partners help drive those programs, and I have called career technical education the game changer, and I meant it. Right now in this city, we are training welders, machinists, builders, and technicians. What we cannot do is guarantee them a Fresno employer. That takes employment. Without it, we train the workers and export the jobs. SADA has been debated to the nth degree. Years of hearings, revisions, and public input. And the plan is better for it. I respect everyone who is engaged, but deliberation must eventually become a decision. And not moving forward comes consequences of its own. Consequences that could set this community back for decades. My hope is larger than one plan. If we get SEDA right together, we can show our community and this state that Fresno is a model city of positive growth. Truly one Fresno. I believe everyone in this chamber wants what's best for Fresno and our families. Let's come together for the betterment of all. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Next speaker is going to be Brandi Nusviegas.

Thank you so much for your time. I mostly was here to listen to the presentation discussions by the city as well as the community and the city council. And I know that you are listening to those as well and making considerations and questions. And I'm thankful for the community members who have spoken up and shared their insights such as patients on this. I appreciate that there was also in the map showing the area for infill and do believe that we need to invest to see that addressed. Continue to be addressed. I live near the Arthur and in other areas in my district where I've seen infill housing and is encouraging. We need affordable housing. We do need employment opportunities. But I also hope that we are, there are also concerns that I raised here that wants to highlight. And that's, but in one sense that, I mean, one of these cases that there are people who are living in this area who don't have a representative on the city council. And so as a representative, I wanna stand with the resident that came who said that she doesn't have a resident a representative here as a member of District 7 who have concerns about their farm and their livelihood and hope that that is as what I believe Lisa mentioned also taken into consideration of it is a serious consideration of of that of the livelihood of those who spoke in December and at the planning commission um as well as you know listening to those in district five who live nearby here i'm also have concerns regarding uh the the plans impact uh with as we are looking at mostly the this um the south of jensen though the impact on those as far as leaving uh taking any resources and focus that is already uh that people have already been says lacking for Southwest Fresno and areas like West Fresno where near Highway City where people are has expressed concern about the lack the needs that they have and want to the council to to to take consideration what impacts from that what impacts to Fresno Unified to the to the existing ones and what we can do as I know that Arias had mentioned about All the land we do have for businesses that can be done that can be used existing to be able to ensure that the communities parts of the community that feel neglected are. Addressed that we do get affordable housing and that. And that none of the parts of our community left behind and very quickly want to mention that we do need to have consistent. understanding of when public comment is i know that in the past workshops did not have public comment knowing ahead of time that there would be would be very helpful and to make the to make the process of community engagement more accessible all right thank you

So it's 1215. We're going to, at this point, break for lunch. We'll be back here in the chamber at 145. Council Member Perea, you're punched up.

Yes, thank you, Council President. I do have a family emergency, and so I'm going to be taking off, but I do plan on hopping back on over Zoom so I can continue to participate. I'll just be from another location.

And per the rules, policies, and procedures for the meetings, we do believe in consultation with the city attorney that this qualifies as good cause because it is a medical emergency, and we will be following the rules, and she will be appearing via Zoom in the afternoon. We do need council approval to do that.

Okay. Do we do that now?

Yes.

Okay.

Do we need it?

A motion by Council Member Broaddus, second by Council Member Vang. The motion is to approve the good cause given the medical emergency. Is there any opposition to approving the motion? Seeing none, that item passes 4-5-0. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be back here at 1.45.

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© transcript Emily Beynon

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Resuming session. We left off, we're doing some public comments on the workshop regarding the public financing of SATA. We're gonna go back, continue on with Zoom. First speaker is going to be Pete Weber. Pete, are you with us? Let's move on to Natalie Ortiz, we'll see if we can come back to Pete.

Can you hear me?

Yes, welcome.

Hi. Unfortunately, I had to leave your meeting early this morning and missed public comment on data centers. That's why meetings on controversial matters like this should be late afternoon. Our home is located in South Sata. No one who lives in Sata wants Sata. You have preached that SEDA pays for itself, then developers will pay, and now today it's something else. You are taking from one community with a much greater need to move forward with SEDA. Of course, it'll create jobs, temporary jobs. When the building is done, so are those jobs. But guess who loses jobs? Our farm workers, those who pick the food we eat, which is important, especially today.

Okay.

Farmland, the most current SEDA, according to your own maps, who pays? Southeast property only. When annexed, then South SEDA will become city. 10 years will go by, and when it's ready, council will vote to do away with the ban. Vanter Creek's development took over 20 years from birth to the public benefiting, and it's still not done. Vanter Creek was what, only 95 acres. SEDA is 9,000 acres. And like Azadorian said at the last planning meeting, this isn't new. This isn't something new. But yet you guys can't figure out where the money's coming from. You don't have the numbers finished. And you're trying to play hide the ball with the public when you know that a data center is going in somewhere within SEDA. I find it ironic that that resolution to pacify and appease the public, oh, it's a ban. It's only a ban in Fresno. It's only 10 years, and the end of your resolution says it can be amended, which means you can withdraw it. 10 years for SEDA, 9,000 acres, is nothing. You don't have the money, and there's other neighborhoods, southwest, northwest, that have a much greater need. No SEDA, no data centers. Thank you.

All right. Next speaker is going to be Dee Barnes.

Good afternoon, Council. Please do not continue making the same mistakes that have been made during the last 100 years when it comes to sprawl. We moved to Fresno in 1977, have lived in central Fresno near Clinton and Millbrook for the past 47 years, and I worked downtown for 40 years. I witnessed firsthand what happens when developers have too much influence at City Hall. I remember Operation ReZone and I see how campaign contributions continue to provide access and influence. Developers make more profit when they build new houses on 30 acres at the edge of town. And who doesn't want to move into a new house in an area without dilapidated infrastructure and vacant buildings? But growth projections are changing and what happens when all we accomplish is more families moving from the core of Fresno? More blight and future school closures. If you currently live in Southwest Fresno, where do you go to buy towels, toasters, and clothes? We need to invest in our current neighborhoods. Council Member Arias' recent PowerPoint presentation showed that we already have lots of available commercial space and anyone that drives around Fresno south of Shields can see how many vacant lots and empty or boarded up commercial and residential properties we have. Patience Milrod already raised the issue of the unrealistic density numbers used for the report. I worked at the City for 27 years, was an accounting technician and union president for 10 years, so I know how staff can manipulate information and play with numbers. Jennifer Clark does not have a great track record when it comes to truth and accuracy. We already have unfinished development in Southwest and Northwest Fresno, so why are we starting another? I was a Fresno City Employees Association president during 2009, 10, and 11 layoffs when over 300 non-supervisory white-collar employees lost their jobs due to the recession and the general fund cost of providing core services to our continued sprawl. The developers never cover the true cost of expansion and the city is not going to have the resources to provide fire and police to an ever-expanding city while having to deal with the problems created with even more blight in our core. We had a sinkhole open in the middle of Olive Avenue near First Street last year because we are so far behind on current maintenance of our aging infrastructure. I think SEDA is Mayor Dyer's legacy project, just like Trump's ballroom. And we do not need this. It will be bad for Fresno, for the current Fresno. We need to invest in what we have. Thank you.

Thank you, Dee. Next speaker is going to be Kimberly McCoy.

Council President, if we can make a quick record, please.

Oh, yes, clerk. Sorry, you're punched up.

Thank you. Council Member Perea is joining us via Zoom. She is being broadcast in council chambers and over the digital platforms. Council Member Perea, do you have any other adults in the room?

I do, City Clerk. I have my spouse, Gabriela Gonzalez Perea, and I have Angela Gonzalez with me in the room.

Thank you. And for other council members, I've been informed we do not need roll call votes for this portion of, or for the rest of the meeting due to the remote appearance.

Thank you for the clarification on that. Yeah, there's no vote on this item. This is just a workshop and public comment, but for the remainder of the voting items. Okay, so resuming back to public comment, Kimberly McCoy, who'll be next.

Good afternoon, council. Thank you, city council president, vice president, and all the council members in attendance. I'm coming before you today to be in opposition of SEDA. We heard from so many people, especially people living in that area that do not want SEDA. I think it's time for our council to listen to their constituents. SEDA is going to be a financial burden, infrastructure costs, schools are going to be impacted. growth management, water concerns, traffic and congestion, and a fiscal responsibility. It does not bring jobs into the community. We all know this. We have been through this for a long time now. And instead of trying to push something on the community that they do not want, like the previous caller said, let's invest in our existing communities. You guys all have the power to stop the Elm Rezone. You guys all have the power to allocate funding to the Southwest Pacific Clan so we can really start seeing the transformation of Southwest Fresno. Southwest Fresno only has one grocery store. They're just now starting to get bike lanes and Roads are starting to get fixed. So it's piecemeal approaches being done to our low income communities. But SADA is still being pushed on to the city of Fresno. And it has been stated over and over again that this is something that they do not want. You guys have all been elected by your constituents to be in those seats and represent your constituents. And I think that you would be doing justice to them if this is not approved. Thank you for your time and have a blessed day.

Next speaker on Zoom is going to be Pete Weber. Pete, are you with us? Clerk, is he unmuted? Pete, are you with us? Let's move to Shelley. Spencer will figure that out.

Hi there. I'd like to speak to some of the arguments that I've heard in favor of SEDA. Often, we have been at these hearings where Like 95% of the room is explaining all the problems and there's just a few people speaking in favor. And then it always comes back to, but we have to control our own destiny or, but Clovis is going to develop there or those kinds of statements. And I would encourage the council to consider making a. Plan for SEDA, sure, the city of Fresno needs to have one, clearly, but it doesn't have to be the one that's before you because of the problems that have been explained about the financing and the agricultural land and the... need for investment in West Fresno and just the problems in our own city that need attending to. So I understand that a specific plan needs to be adopted. That's fine. But just adopt one that addresses these concerns, please. Thank you.

All right. Last speaker on Zoom I see is again, Pete Weber. I'm not sure if the microphone's working. We'll give one more shot before I move back to the chamber. You're muted. Yeah, I'm muted, clerk. Okay. Probably technical difficulties. Okay, well, we're gonna come back to the chamber if there's any additional public comment in the chamber on this SEDA workshop, the public financing. Now would be the time. Seeing no more speakers in person or on Zoom, we'll bring it back up to the dais. I know the mayor had asked to round out the presentation, and we'll come back up to the council members here for our discussion and questions.

Thank you, Council President. And I wanted to begin by complimenting our consultant, Amy, thank you for all the work that you've done, for the number of meetings that we've had internally, for clarifying things for us. We appreciate it. And Jennifer, thanks to you and your team for doing an incredible job, not just today, but throughout the process. But I did want to just kind of surmise some of the things that we've talked about today to somewhat simplify, because I know there was a lot of complicated data that was thrown at all of you. But I'll try to just kind of highlight some of the things that are important, in my opinion. And, you know, we're talking about 9,000 acres of Seda. And we know what that boundary is. But we're only, we're really talking about 2,000 acres for South Seda. And that's 1,547 acres that are south of Jensen between Maniwawa and Temperance. And 467 acres that is east of Temperance, north of Jensen, bounded by the Briggs Canal. We highlighted the importance of phasing because we know that's been a concern with could not expand beyond the south state of boundaries until there was a 75% of the residential is built out and occupied and It was accompanied by a supplemental environmental impact report for any further Development and there was an updated fiscal study to be completed And mind you, this is the first time in our city's history that we've ever done a fiscal analysis for any of the project developments in our city. But I do think it's going to be the way of the future. Within the South Seda, the 1,500 and, I'm sorry, the 467 acres that would be for housing, that was for 10,070 units. And I know there are some discussions about whether or not that density could be reached. And I think at some point our planning director will talk to you even about even if half of that density was reached, it would still generate a substantial fiscal surplus for the city. And I don't know that there's been any discussion about south of Jensen, whether or not that is a realistic projection, but we believe it is based on a number of factors, and we'll be happy to share that as well. 80% of the residential units would be single family to promote more home ownership within our community. We hear that concern frequently that people cannot buy a home or own a home. And then 20% would be multifamily. Again, we know there's certainly a housing supply shortage, which ultimately ends up escalating rents. and the ability to purchase homes. It would create 225 permanent jobs, primarily in the retail, and 1,300 direct construction jobs. And we anticipate absorption occurring by 2047, and probably the 75% threshold would be hit somewhere around 2042. South of Sata, in the South Jensen area, this is really the job generator. And we know it would generate 23,700 jobs at full build out, plus another 8,600 direct construction jobs. That's a lot of jobs for our community. And again, I've heard for many, many years, what we need is good paying jobs in our community. And that's what we're trying to provide here is good paying jobs within the flexible research and development area, which would allow for advanced manufacturing jobs. There's a difference on absorption rates and how long it would take before we hit our full capacity out there, somewhere between nine and 36 years. And I just want to give you a comparison. Our low end was 500,000 square feet per year. The high end was 2 million square feet a year. Visalia is currently achieving 2 million square feet a year. So our numbers that we provided in terms of the return on investment have been conservative based on that $500,000 to $2 million. I believe it's going to be well over a million square feet a year, and that we'll realize that in 18 years or less. In terms of the key takeaways, I think we were able to show during the financial analysis that Theta can not only pay for itself, which means it will fully, and it will also be able to fully cash flow its debt and repay any subsidies that we contributed as a city. There's been a lot of misinformation about what is the upfront cost to the city, and the upfront cost to the city in today's dollars, 2026, is $65.9 million, but we know construction wouldn't start until about 2029, so the reality is it's $72 million in upfront sewer cost. Whether those monies are bonded or how we're able to pay that back, we know that there are a number of financial opportunities to be able to do that. And in terms of the neutrality of the return on investment, we know that if we began in 29, by 2030, the east of temperance would become cost neutral in three years, meaning that we were able to cash flow the debt at that time, and then it would take us another four years or so to be able to pay back that subsidy. The south of Jensen. It's a little bit more of a variable because of the absorption rate on on the industrial development But anywhere from two to nine years We would be able to cash flow and then repay the subsidy in three to nine years. I Want to state this publicly as I have in the past I Too was an anti-theta person when I came in to the mayor's office for a couple of reasons I Number one, we were going to start SATA on the northern part, which was going to increase our investment as a city substantially. And we were under a tax sharing agreement with the county that allowed the county to get 62% of all property tax, and we got 38%. In my opinion, that project would not have penciled out had we started on the north end because the return on investment would have taken too long. But when we flipped it upside down, and so we're going to start development on the southern part around Jensen, it significantly decreased the amount of money we had to invest up front as a city. As I said, $65.9 million in today's dollars versus what it would have been before. The second thing was a game changer for me, was the agreement that Council Vice President Maxwell, Annalise Prey, and Mike Carbasi negotiated with the county, where they took that tax sharing agreement that was 62% for the county, and now it is 51% for the city, 49% for the county, within the SATA only in Fresno. So this makes financial sense to develop in that area. And so that all changed. The other thing that changed when I became the mayor, we did not have a CFD 18 for police and fire. We do have a CFD 18 now for police and fire. And that goes along with our other CFDs that we implement within new growth areas or new development areas. And so I wanted to state all of those things. And then the most important that I think, because I met with a community group yesterday, one of the ladies that has not been very favorable of SEDA, South SEDA, said this. When I mentioned the community benefit fund, she said, Mayor, that is a game changer. Because the truth is, what we wanted to know as a community is how will this benefit the inner city, the core, infill opportunity zones, how will that benefit? Now we have a financial way to benefit those existing neighborhoods in the city that is not covered by a community facility district. And in fact, any neighborhood built before 2008 did not have a CFD. All the ones built after that have CFDs, which mean that we have a funding source that People who own or operate in those areas pay an additional property tax that then go back into street maintenance, tree trimming, and the like. So having a full build-out, $17 million annually, and I believe that's a conservative number. And even if we wanted to reduce the density within the housing piece, we're still going to have at least well over half of that that we'll be able to provide as a community benefit fund. So I think when I look at all of this together, for me, as a mayor of this city, I think it is a fiscally prudent thing to do in the future. It's smart growth, it's not allowing for leapfrog development, it is planned growth, and we have presented a financial picture that not only says that South State is going to pay for itself, it's going to cash flow, a fiscal surplus that we can then put back into the infill opportunity zone for infill housing, for street repair, for sidewalk repair, for tree trimming, for all those things that those neighborhoods have not necessarily had for past years. So thank you, Council, for your dedication in reviewing this, and look forward to whatever questions you might have for my team. Thank you.

All right, we're going to come back up to the dais. Council Member Vang is punched up, followed by Council Member Richardson.

All right, thank you very much, Council President. First, I want to thank the director for this presentation. Again, it's very thorough. And also, members of the public for your comments. Those who are here, thank you very much for taking your time to be here. Some of you have been here since 9 o'clock. I appreciate that. And some of you will continue to be here until this topic is over. And also to those who provided comments online, I listen intensely as much as I can. And for those who provided comments via emails, to let you know that I review those as well. And so I appreciate everyone who has a voice in this subject matter and in this process. Thank you very much, and I am appreciative of the arguments and counterarguments for and against SEDA. Last December, this council was promised a financial analysis of SEDA before SEDA can move forward. What was presented today is a list of financial options, at best and at worst, it failed to take into account the worst case financial situation, not only two years from now, but 30 years from now. So we know that the general fund dollars are likely to subsidize South Seda in the early years, but what we don't know is what's gonna happen after that. What about year three, year four, year five, year six, et cetera? And we owe the public that answer. Not just the upside of the project, but also the worst case scenario. And it is our responsibility to have the information in front of us to make a determination that will impact not only the people in District 5, not only the people in the City of Fresno, but Fresno County in the next 30 years. I just have a few points to make with regards to the general fund and what it looked like over the next several years if SEDA is approved? Are we counting on new revenues? Are we planning to cut programs? Are we planning to increase utility rates or of the above to ensure that SEDA is sustainable in the future? If this depends on revenue growth that has yet to happen, what is the backup plan if that growth do not become a reality? It's very difficult to anticipate what the financial future will be like. Again, an NSRO is difficult. Also, what I like to see is a year-by-year projection of the general fund for the next 10 years, comparing what SEDA is and without SEDA. Also, if development is slower than projected, And yet at this point, we do not and we cannot have an accurate projection into the future. But at this point, if growth is slow in the future, are we going to stop? If there is a dollar amount or the number of years where council can say, this is working, when are we going to walk away? Are we committed to subsidizing this indefinitely? no matter what happens year two or year 10. And also with regards to fire, I lived in Southeast Fresno. Station 15 is within walking distance to my house. Can Station 15 absorb additional 29,000 new residents without a new fire station? They are. burned out as it is, they are stretched thin, as it is, when I have conversations with the firefighters there. And is a new fire station, which will be perhaps 14 to $50 million, do we have the funds for that? And so there are a lot of questions that I do have, but there is one number that I wanted to point out. And to be very conservatively, there are about 10,000 units housing. Of that, 1,930 will be multifamily units, 8140 will be single family units in an area of 467 acres. Now, to make it very simple, let's just put the number at 10,000. and not include schools, surface area, infrastructures, green space parts. So let's just say 10,000 units in a 467 acre. If my math is correct, that comes down to a little over 2,000 lots per house. I know this is simple. We can go into the details if we'd add streets We can go into the details. We'd add parts and schools. So it's 2,000 square feet per lot. And so imagine that. Just imagine how big 2,000 square feet lot per house of 10,000 house. And I did a very rough estimate. So counseling chamber here, I believe from side to side and from where Bernard is sitting to the back, That's approximately two lots. Now, I compare that to two developments. One is the Sunnyside Heights, Bonadeli on Armstrong and California Avenue is being built right now. Their standard lot size is 4,500. That's about quarter of a mile, half a mile where the Temperance Avenue is. Another comparison in District 5, the DeYoung Smart Home on Armstrong and I believe Belmont Avenue. Again, the lots here ranges from 5,000 to 8,000 square foot lots. And the lots where I live, which is California Avenue and Fowler Avenue, is 6,000 to 7,000. And that is the average lots in that area that's being developed right now, west of Temperance Avenue. And so I imagine myself, if we were to put 10,000, 10,000 homes into 467 acres, It would be a drastic contrast in terms of lot size east of Temperance Avenue and west of Temperance Avenue. Just imagine that. What would happen to the quality of life if you were living in one of these homes? I mean, the lot itself is 2,000 square feet. So the house, if you want to build a 1,500, 2,000 square foot home, you're going to have to build upward. two stories, but perhaps even three stories to have 2,000 to 2,500 square foot house in a lot of 2,000. And so I asked myself, is this number real? Is that a standard growth, a natural growth east of Temperance Avenue? Now, I live in District 5 for the last 17 years, and the growth started around Peach Avenue, and Jensen, and now is heading towards Temperance Avenue. So from Peach to Jensen to Jensen and Fowler, or in this case, the two examples that I gave, Armstrong in California, Armstrong in Belmont. The lot size of these homes have been consistent. If you drive through, you would not notice that you are coming into a different neighborhood. But if the plan here becomes a reality, you are going to notice the density east of Temperance Avenue. That would be so dense that you would say, what is the quality of life of these new people? Yes, I understand we are in a housing crisis, but at the same time, are we going to create another crisis east of Southeast Fresno? And so when I ask myself that question, these numbers are mind-boggling to me. Forget about the financial part of the first two years or the next eight years. Forget about how we're gonna fund fire and police or the infrastructure. At the end of the day, my responsibility is to the people in District 5. And for the last two years, I had the opportunity to talk to hundreds, thousands of them on this particular subject matter when I ran for city council in 2025 and again in 2026. And based on my recollection of the people who sent me here to represent them, they were loud and they were clear that they are against SEDA. And so I am in a position to, yes, look at the interests of the city and how the city will grow. Growth is inevitable. I understand that. But at the same time, I have the responsibility to the people who send me here. And yes, it will impact people beyond District 5. It will impact people beyond the city of Fresno, even the county of Fresno. But at the end of the day, as I heard from a few people who made the comments, represent your constituents. And I find myself, it's not a difficult situation. Not only from the people who made the comments about SEDA, I listened for the for and the against. And I shop near where I live and people come and talk to me about various subject matters, including SEDA. and also having the opportunity to go door to door, to talk to voters. And for the last two years, beyond your typical subject matter of public safety, planning, homeless, Seda was up there in Southeast Fresno when I hit the campaign trails two years ago. And so this is a very hot subject matter, and it should be, because this body, if it comes to council for a vote, will determine the direction of Southeast Fresno, in this case South Sata and Sata, for the next 50 plus years. So this is a decision that I don't take lightly, and at the end of the day, For me, the bottom line is I represent those people who live in District 5. And in this case, I've heard loud and clear from them, and they do not want SEDA. But I am open to other ideas, other ways of trying to perhaps find financial means to move forward. And then we look at other possibilities. Now, people ask, What are the other options? Now the term piecemeal has been thrown around. That, oh, if we don't do this, we're gonna develop at piecemeal rate, at snail pace. And then I ask myself, what is wrong with that? Isn't that how the city of Fresno has grown in the last 100 years? And so if it's not broken, as I said, why face it? Another point that I wanna make is, If I am lucky enough to be here for the next eight years, somebody else is going to sit here. And do I want to tie that person's hand for the next eight years after me and the next person and the next council member? I think this project here is too big and the impacts are too much of an unknown for me truly to be here in eight years to make that decision. that will impact a part of the city for the next 50 years. So I find myself looking forward, not only eight years, but 50 years on what Southeast Fresno would look like. Also, my last point is we have a responsibility, I believe, to ensure that the next generation has a great quarterly of life, perhaps even better than our generation. And we have heard loud and clear from not only the mayors of the city of Clovis, but Sanger, that they don't want SEDA in their town. Not only that, the school districts. Fresno Unified, obviously, is losing student populations and they don't want SEDA. Now, I live in Sanger Unified, And I have experience through the school district. It takes at least 10 years from discussion to reality to build a school site. And right now it costs over $50 million to build one elementary school. And yes, Southeast Fresno is growing. We can see that in the build of Sanger West High School and JFK Middle School. We can see that in the belt of Sanchez Intermediate and also Clovis South. And that area will continue to grow if my projection is correct. But at what rate can these school districts in particular, we're saying a unified, can they accommodate the growth of student population? Now the numbers that I have is, For one new home, produces 0.47 new students to a school district. So if there are two new homes, you look at one new student. And so if you do the math, there's going to be 5,000 plus students in Sangin Unified. And for the record, South Seda is 100%. within Sangin Unified. And I just wanted to quote what the superintendent of Sangin Unified wrote. Sangin Unified is currently opposed to SEDA in its current form as the area surrounding Long Star is not conducive to an educational environment. And what that means is, yes, we look at North of Jensen Avenue. That's where all of the homes are gonna be. There'll be zero new residential or multi-family homes south of Jensen. Now, Lone Star is a unique elementary school. It has a great history and a great culture going back hundreds of years. There are five, 600 students. And if we do not consider each student as special, then we're risking the livelihood and the learning ability of these students at Long Star. Not only today, but in the next 50 years if SEDA as it is becomes a reality. And so I am in a position to look at this plan from the perspective of the people who I represent. And for me, they have made my decision if and when SEDA comes before this body of government. And so we are looking at a moment in time where if not only South SEDA, but whole SEDA. And before I leave, I wanted to say that I drove the 9,000 acres from north to south, east to west, multiple times, to actually feel the size and impact on a physical level of this on me. And also, I drove west of Temperance, approximately covering 9,000 acres, to see a reflection of what it looks like if 9,000 acres is built out. When you hear the numbers, 9,000, or you hear the numbers, 140,000 people, and that was the initial numbers that was presented to us, those are huge. But it has a realistic impact on you when you drive around 9,000 acres and to see the people who live in this area. And so I hope that I have done enough homework, but I will continue to look at new options, new ideas, and new statistics and new ways to ensure that growth in Southeast Fresno is growth smart and not growth in the dark. And I will finish my comment that council president, thank you very much for the opportunity. Again, thank you very much for those who provided comments. Really appreciate them. Thank you. Council member Richardson.

Yeah. Could we, could the city manager skip ahead of me? I can go after her. That's fine. If you want to. Yeah. There's no one else much that.

I just wanted to ask Council Member Vang if I understood him directly. You know, of course, I read the wordly because I'm hard of hearing. You mentioned general fund dollars used as a subsidy. Did I hear that correctly? You have to scroll back on your notes.

Yes. Hold on, please. Yes. General fund dollars are likely to subsidize South Seda in the early years.

Okay. We'll clarify that later, but that's an incorrect statement, but we'll address that later. Thank you.

Councilman Richardson. Okay. With most of the concerns I've heard about this pretty much fall into three categories. One, there are other parts of the city who are upset that development is, or that planning, a plan is to take place in a different part of the city. And I got that. The second is from the folks who are specifically those who I think are in the county who are concerned about quality of life, whether it's their livelihood, the way they get their water, the way they grow their crops, the way they, if your husband livestock, whatever else. And that's kind of a different category. And the third is the one I'm going to focus on today because this is, it's a financial workshop. So I'm not going to speak too much or ask too many questions about the first two. I do want to focus on the financials if you don't mind. Ms. Lappin, first of all, thank you for being here. I'm not going to haze you, but if you wouldn't mind answering a couple questions when the time comes, I'd appreciate it. You don't have to get up right now. I'll let you know. So a couple things. Mayor, I'm not going to make you come up and speak about this either, but the quandary of a new fire station out there, given the heavy workload of Fire Station 15... If I'm not mistaken, and I will iterate if your head goes north, south, or east, west on this, for those who are not familiar with CFD 18, this is why CFD 18, which is a community facilities district, was established. It's not necessarily like some of the other CFDs that directly go in that area to the upkeep and maintenance of landscaping and curb gutter sidewalks, things like that, but specifically it is to pay for not just emergency services broadly, but the expansion of emergency services to places in the city undergoing new development. Is that correct?

So CFD 18 pays for police and fire personnel and cost of equipment and so forth. Not 100% of it, but incremental due to having to police in an area that's further from the core. But we also have police and fire impact fees that also pay for facilities.

Okay, is it, now I understand this is difficult when you're looking at a zoning map, because generally when you're looking at city zoning maps, there's like a blue, it's a little bit lighter than those chairs, that refers to institutional land. You can see things like the wastewater treatment facility that are like this, schools, I think City Hall is. Some of those little blue dots out there are those allocated to be namely fire substations. I don't think we have a plan to reroute the five policing district plan at this point, but Is it the interpretation of the city, and Jennifer, you can speak to this if you'd like, Director, that one of those would indeed not just be cramming more firefighters into an existing station, because that's a method that doesn't work and any firefighter will tell you that, but actually a new fire station somewhere in the development, I would imagine, upon occupancy at least in the South State area.

So the institutional land that's identified, the blue boxes, could be a fire station. The city has not said specifically we need one in a specific location. We do know that once the plan is adopted and we start looking at growth, we would have to identify exactly where and start planning for that station and when it would need to come online. Just like we're doing, there's a station along Armstrong that's planned, right? So the land's been set aside. Eventually it will become another fire station. And as growth occurs, the impact fees are collected, and then that is used to build the new station.

That fire station that's planned along Armstrong, would its jurisdiction cover any of the proposed SEDA area at any point?

Not in the southern portion, no, but it could reduce demand on the station that exists south of the 180. So once a new one goes online, it kind of adjusts the boundaries of how those service areas occur.

Okay. Then obviously it's too soon to talk about which one will be which, but is it fair to say, and is it objectively correct, that one of those blue institutional squares over there would reasonably be a first response, an emergency services location?

Yeah, it absolutely could be, yeah.

Well, one of them would be. The W and the C carry a lot of weight here.

You know, I think... We don't own the land. Right. So we plan for one in the area, but we don't own the land. So I can't say that that exact location... is going to be, but we've planned for a fire station in the vicinity and if the plan is adopted, then we need to go look for land in the vicinity to do a station. We don't go buy land for fire stations in advance of a plan being adopted.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I'd like to speak a little bit about the uptake and absorption rates, which honestly, before coming into this job and before this year, didn't know what those were when it came to residential development or industrial or commercial for that matter. I wanna talk about these for a second because one, all of these things are really based on and contingent upon whether the person who owns the land, wherever the piece of land is, wants to sell it in the first place. At that point, it would have to be purchased by whoever's going to build. Is that fair?

Absolutely.

Or develop and then build. Okay. Now, can you speak a little bit to where we got the numbers or these projections? And I understand the Visalia model, and we talked about the 500,000 on the conservative side, 2 million on the large side. and we've seen proof of that in Visalia, so another kind of valley comparable market, if you will. Can you talk to where we got this number for roughly the 1 million? Is that just a we think, or is that based on specifically transportation corridors, what Fresno brings, things of that nature?

You mean the difference between the 500,000 and the 2 million square feet? Yes, ma'am. Why we're saying we think maybe it'll be somewhere in the middle?

Specifically with the FR&D, the South of Jensen portion.

So, you know, I would say that every year absorption will be different. So while you may have a low year of 500,000 square feet, you may have a high year of 2 million square feet. You are going to end up with an average of a million square feet. And so that, but the range that's listed in the plan is completely based on the low and the high.

Okay. And then outside of Icelia, are there any comparable markets, whether it's Madeira or otherwise that we looked at to kind of compare what our absorption or uptake would look like? Or was that kind of the golden standard there?

Sure. The Economic Development Department has looked at a number of different jurisdictions. I can't speak to their specific competition that they looked at.

They consulted with the Economic Development Corporation, who I understand is finalizing a report that is going to be submitted hopefully soon here. But Economic Development Corporation, which is basically, that's what they do, is market the county for that type of development and have a number of experts, of real estate brokers, of developers who are in the business on the ground every day. And that is who helped come up with those numbers. And they have done a study, commissioned a study that I believe verifies those numbers and I think shows that they might be a little bit on the low side, but I will get an answer for you here in a moment as to when you'll have that study.

I appreciate that. I was going to ask to see if someone could send what those inquiries were that went to the EDC. I'd be curious to look at those. If they're preparing a report anyway, then I can wait for that. I would appreciate seeing that. I think other people would as well. And this is just a... We're going to spend some time talking about density. Overall, not that it matters because we're not really voting today. I'm not a one or a zero on this. A lot of times we think about this in very binary terms, but I'm going to analyze. I'm going to ask a lot of questions. I think you know that we've had a lot of meetings about this stuff, and I've had a lot of meetings with the community, and some of these conversations I think are best had in public. On... slide 12 of the presentation it talks i won't make you go back to it but essentially under the eifd um portion of that it says an eifd would be feasible generating up to one point i got it second bullet says assumes 100 allocation of city of fresno property tax increment now does that mean 100 of the 51 that we would be getting in the city county tax sharing agreement

that what that means the the property tax increment so it would be a hundred percent of the increase in value from pre-development to post-development correct so that's why we we have looked at the additional option of the community benefit fund because it wouldn't reduce our in uh our tax revenues right um the same way that uh any ifd would

Okay. And then one of the concerns brought to me by a constituent of someone's here, I'm sure, yesterday, was the market demand study for the residential was done, but we hadn't seen one or someone hadn't seen one on the industrial area. But it's my understanding from the presentation earlier that was done last year. And I'm guessing that's where we base some of the absorption rates on.

So the residential was done last year. This year, again, our economic development department ran the numbers based on current. We have a program that we use in-house, COSTAR, based on current demand, and that's the 500,000 based on what land we currently have available. We know there's a demand for 500,000 square feet a year. The $2 million is based on because we don't have more land, where do we look, right? So who has more land? And that was the comparables that they have independently verified, Visalia, right, competitor just right down the highway, as well as additional conversations with the EDC.

Okay. Last two questions, I think, for you, Director, and Director Amico, you're here as well. I appreciate that. Are you willing to field some questions about water? Okay, I appreciate it. Last two questions I have for you, because we're about to do Nerding Out with Nick here when it comes to density and all that. Can you speak a little bit to the difference between net and gross when it comes to housing units and acreage?

Sure. So net density is the density, the number of units per acre after you take out dedications.

Infrastructure, roads, sidewalks?

Some infrastructure, not all infrastructure. But yes, that's when you take out those things that are physically dedicated to the city, like a park. Got it. So that's the net density. the gross density is the total number of acres.

Sure, square.

And the total number of units, right.

Got it. So, okay, so what we're looking at with net density, you're looking closer to the actual acreage of houses, not acreage of just a residential area. Is that broken down a little more simply?

Units to the land that's left over, yes, after dedications.

Okay, I appreciate that. With the... Not going to get into the water questions. I do kind of want to move into density. So I think that's all I had for you right now. Yeah, thank you for your answers, Director. Awesome. Director Mika, if you don't mind, just one or two. And then Ms. Lappin, if you don't mind, you're going to be next. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. So looking at, and because of the data center item, which I'm sure is going to be just a riot in about an hour and a half or two hours or so, looked a lot at water consumption lately, water consumption of local crops, water consumption of residential areas, industrial areas, all kinds of stuff. Can you speak a little bit to the water requirements? You can touch on the wastewater side, but I'm mostly worried about the freshwater side. For the specifically, not the residential, but the flexible research and development and kind of what the brackets are on that left and right.

As in the numbers, the detailed numbers is what industrial versus an agricultural use might have? Correct.

Like what's their water consumption roughly right now, knowing that it's overwhelmingly agricultural? What is that water consumption set to look like with... Again, a window is fine, but with this flexible research and development.

If I could ask, I'm going to need to retrieve those numbers. I didn't know I was going to have to have those, but if I could come back and answer that question after. Sure, I sprung this on you. Okay, yeah, that would be helpful. I don't want to misinform you on that.

Okay, water's important. I'm concerned with it. Very much.

That's the one question I have for you. Okay, perfect. So if you want to curl somebody about numbers, then I can do the other one. Okay, appreciate that. Please.

Bernard, do you still have the slideshow available? Would you mind going to, in that slideshow, just for reference, slide, in the supplemental packet, it's slide five of 126. It's slide four in the presentation, if that helps, whichever you prefer. It has a map on it. That one. Okay. So when we're talking residential here, I think we've probably beat this dead horse, but we're talking about the portion that's east of Temperance, just north of Jensen there bounded by the canal. With that area, the number was thrown out. I know this number has gone up from previous projections from somewhere in the mid four digits to roughly 10,000. Now we've looked at what that means, 10,000 houses for that was 467 acres for that area. I believe it was ballpark. Yeah. Um, so for that, I believe, uh, my colleague over here to my right has pointed out that, Hey, that means 2000 square feet per per lot. Now it's my understanding. Um, that our goal is not necessarily to cram 10,000 houses in here. So potentially there's a lower number of houses we would be willing to accept there. And perfect, Dr. Clark, you can answer the second part of this. So with this, we've got a balance, right? When it comes to these homes, that you're gonna have a lot of houses and if they're really small and really packed together, no one's gonna buy them. If I'm a home builder and that's my plan to pitch a bunch of tiny little houses that are stacked on top of each other, no one's gonna buy them, the bank is likely to know that and not give me the loan in the first place and I'm pretty unlikely to build the houses. However, I think there's a sliding scale here where we can build fewer houses, sell them at the comparable rates that we've compared this. I think there was a $550,000 number that was sent out there earlier, all the way down to some point at which we no longer make a surplus. Do we have figures on what that number is, either on the number of houses or on the cost of the home?

Yeah, so I do think that we should first address density, right? So if you take the number of acres... And to make that into square feet and divide by the number of housing units, yes, 2,000 square feet. But that assumes that we're going to divide up the entire area into 2,000 square foot lots, right? And the plan has a variety of housing unit sizes that range from eight units to the acre and up. right, so an average density, some are gonna be apartment units, some are gonna be, or not, but some of your 10,000 housing units are gonna be multi-family units, some are gonna be attached town homes, some are gonna be individual small lot homes, and so it, I think it's, we definitely want to make sure that it's not every single lot is going to be a single family home on a 2,000 square foot. piece of property.

It's an average, I would imagine.

It is a blend of lots of housing types that are suggested in the plan.

Okay. And again, that's assuming this 10,000 number. If that number were reduced to say 5,000 houses, is there any way, any cost of those homes that would still result in a surplus? Or if we slash that number in half, are we now automatically in the hole?

So you can push different levers, obviously, in this analysis when you're assuming economic analysis. So the surplus for the east of temperance area at full build-out, assuming 10,000 units, is $8 million a year. Is the surplus from... Yeah, it probably is. If you cut that in half, that number would be cut in half. So it would be a $4 million surplus if you build 5,000 housing units. Again, housing units, it's a variety of different housing types. Could be single-family attached detached condos townhome like a whole range of things. So yes, it still Produces a surplus so the city's total surplus instead of being seventeen point two million dollars would be thirteen point two million dollars okay, so instead of ten thousand which as we heard from earlier is a

is tight, if that number were slashed down to a more realistic, reasonable number like 5,000 homes per that size, it would still, the number being 5,000 wouldn't drag us down out of surplus range?

No.

Okay. Now with the 20 homes per acre, those are small. Any of the math will show you, however, We have urban neighborhood, which I understand that low density, medium density, and urban neighborhood, these are not single family or multifamily necessarily. It's just a density of domicile units. Is that correct?

It is a capacity, a land capacity, just like the general plan has a land use capacity. It's based on the number, the maximum number of units. per acre that can be constructed. So that is a capacity number. Each of the different types of land uses have a range, a low and a high. And so it would be a blend, not every unit is going to be 20 units the acre.

Okay, and for the urban neighborhood, capacity that we have in most of the planning documents that we receive, it shows 16 to 30 units per acre as that density. Yeah, 16 to 30 right here in urban neighborhood. and it's characterized in most of the land use maps as brown. I don't see a, and tell me if maybe this isn't the right step, I don't see in the proposed land use map that was shown by Bernard a few minutes ago on slide four or on the printed copies we have here, it's hard to draw that line to see which is what And again, maybe it's not time for that yet. I don't know. You can speak to this. But we see most of this as neighborhood residential, mixed residential, circled around the little residential town centers. Are one of those intended or is this kind of like the fire station thing where we don't know exactly where it's going to be yet, but some of that 16 to 30 unit per acre density is likely to be planned given the averages we have to maintain there?

so there there are a number of square footage per type of land use from neighborhood residential to mixed residential to neighborhood town center etc right so each one has a range of unit sizes that will be adopted as a part of the development code when it is adopted so the maximums are listed in the plan so mixed residential maximum of 25 units to the acre neighborhood residential 20 units the acre so those are maximum so the capacity which was identified in the plan what is that capacity to for housing units is identified in the plan, and that's obviously a wide range of housing types. So yes, they are identified on the land use map, which shows that there's some mixed residential, a predominant number of neighborhood residential, and then there's community town center, which also has residential capacity.

Okay. With the median home price in Fresno right now, most recently calculated, I'd imagine you're coming in somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000. Single family home.

That would include all single family homes existing or new, right? Is that what you're saying?

Yes, just your median home price in the city.

Okay.

If you have numbers for new builds, I would take that as well. That's...

Yeah, so in the financing, in the economic analyses, in the appendices, there's actually a list of comparables for both multifamily and single-family new construction really to get a valuation to understand like what would the property tax be what would that tax share be to ensure that we're assuming those values so looking at Multi-family comparison, sorry, I had the wrong one up. So single family comparison, we have a wide range in Fresno and Clovis that really looks at what is being constructed today, anywhere from properties that are 2,400 square feet up to 8,000 square feet types of property. And that's on page 3E2. Thank you, Mayor. And it gives you kind of a weighted average of what the size and the number of units, the valuation. So the weighted average is about a 4,600 square foot lot size. 2,200 square foot home and about a 525,000 square foot new build price. So we're looking at new build and that would include, right?

That's not just the home. Correct.

That's not just the home, right? So that's the sales price, which would include impact fees, et cetera, right?

Got it. With that, We talked about the builder having to go and get the loan in the first place from the bank to be able to sell these homes. What analysis have we done as far as the price point? How cheap, in theory, could those homes be? Because we've got a lot of demographics in the city, and you can ask the housing element. They're telling us you've got to have medium high income, medium income, medium low income, low income. You've got to have the spread. So what is the average home price that it could drop to, in essence, instead of that $550,000 number, that it could drop to to still result in a surplus to where this is still, quote, unquote, paying for itself?

At a very high level, and we would have to go back and remodel if we were going to do that. But at a very high level, the breakeven point is somewhere in the $350,000 sales price range.

Okay. And a builder is not selling a house, a new home for $350,000. It's going to be higher than that. So in theory, again, fingers crossed, in theory... a realistic price that a builder is going to sell a house, which would be over 400 kids, not going to be 350,000, you know, be honest. Not you. I'm not saying you're not. So if they're going to sell that for 400,000 or more, whatever else, as long as they're above that $350,000 per home median average, that would still land us in a surplus as well.

Correct.

Okay. Alrighty. The, We talked about that. We talked about the plan changing, talked about the density, how that density could alter itself. What outside of the 10,000 number that we were given, what are the realistic densities are we planning for in there? And here's the reason I ask, and I don't know this. So teach me when something comes to, when an application comes to the city and nominally probably makes it onto some agenda during the consent calendar and And someone says, I want to build these homes out here. It's a lower density than the average we're trying to maintain for the residential area itself. Does that get automatically ministerial stopped with you? Or does that come to us? And then we get the determination, the recommendation by you guys.

So a development application, a map for a subdivision, the final map always comes to the city council. The tentative track map goes to the planning commission. The final map comes to the city council. They can never go below the low density and they can never go above the high density, but they can go anywhere in between. It's their choice. It isn't up to us to say, you have to go higher, you have to go lower.

Okay. And the reason I ask is because 16 years from now, when there's a council comprised of entirely different faces up here, except George Ann will still be here. Yeah. I want to make sure that they're not here for this conversation. They're not having this, right? They don't have this concern about the density and the home prices and how many lots per acre. I want to make sure that instead of something slipping by that drops us below the density that's been promised and thereby not maintaining that surplus, that we're able to hold that honestly, that we're honestly able to hold that number in perpetuity, not just now. but for future councils as well. So that application process, again, ministerially, when it comes to you guys, it is not, it's not ministerial. Sorry. I'm not saying ministerial approval, but I'm saying in the administration, in the planning department, when that application comes to you, they are bracketed by what that land is zoned for, for their max and min capacities. And they have to meet that. And if they don't, then it's, it's a, pretty quick refusal of their denial of that application.

They want to go outside. If they want to go lower than the range or higher than the range, it would require a rezone. So general plan amendment and a rezone, it would come to the planning commission and the city council for approval.

Got it. So that density is based on specifically how it's zoned and is not really up to the interpretation of a future council or a future this or that, or a future planning department employee. They are bound by the zoning and any breaking of that is going to require a significant votes choices recommendations things of that nature yes okay um that was a concern so i appreciate that um at least knowing that that there are elected officials or appointed officials who can be held responsible for that in the future um i think we've covered the update and the absorption um i just want to make sure that we don't go to somebody else and then i remember a late thought um We talked about the city repayment plan and the one-year and the two-year figures and all that. So CoStar analyzed the absorption rate for, final question, they analyzed the absorption rate for the residential, not the FR&D or the FR&D- No, flexible research and development.

The housing market demand segmentation analysis was provided a year ago by Clarity.

By Clarity, that was the name I was missing. Okay, do we continue to work with Clarity?

Not on SEDA.

They're done or?

They're done. The SEDA plan is done. We haven't asked them for additional information from SEDA.

Got it, okay. That was one of the answers I was looking for. Okay, Council President, I think for now those are all the questions that I had. Thank you to the three of you for coming up and answering the questions.

I think Paul is ready to answer your question to the best of his ability on water.

Thank you.

I wasn't quite ready for that one because that's an EIR question.

I gave an on-the-spot homework assignment. That was on me.

So here's the challenge with it. Flexible research and development, 1,700 to 2,400 gallons per day per acre. Okay. So that's what the current, that's what the projected water use in the EIR is. The challenge with saying it's going to be more or less than what it is today is we don't know what people are farming.

Yeah.

We don't know what people, right, because somebody could be, they could have almonds or they could have their land fallow. So we just don't know right now. Okay.

Okay. I think that's fair. And again, all of these things are contingent upon whether or not the person who lives there wants to stay there. Correct. Correct. Okay. Thank you for crunching those numbers. No problem. There probably, I'd imagine there wasn't, so... Math for Marines here. Acre foot of water, roughly what, 336,000 gallons? 326,000 gallons. 326,000? Yeah. Okay. So let's break this down. We're going to go 326,000 gallons divided by 365, so that's per day. Okay, so that's 890, it's one acre foot of water. That's 893 gallons a day, which is about a third of this. However, if my memory serves me correctly, one acre foot of water is fine for some crops, but not a lot of crops. from my research before, looks like corn. And again, correct anybody in the audience who actually grows any of these things, correct me, because I pretty much just eat them. Corn, we're looking at three acre feet a year per acre. Tomatoes, two and a half. Grapes, one and a half to three. Alfalfa, four and a half to five. Rice is a lot more. And then data centers are 10 to 40, if anybody was curious. Is that all checkout, roughly? Okay.

I think that's a little bit out of our area of expertise.

I was mostly looking at the gentleman behind him just to give me a little north, south, or east, west.

Oh, you're looking at the red shirt people. Okay, got it, got it.

Just comparatively. I just wanted to see, hey, comparatively, what's this going to do in water requirements versus something else? So, okay, that was the clarity I was looking for. No pun intended. Council President, that concludes my questions for now.

All right. I don't have anyone punched up right now. Question for the consultants or whoever might want to oblige, you know, in speaking to some of the community members and their concerns. These numbers, you know, these numbers look great. I mean, the numbers that's presented, they pencil. But I think there's concern with just sort of, the methodology, how these numbers were arrived at, some of the assumptions that were behind it. And so I won't nitpick at any one specific component, but for the benefit of the public and transparency, would you mind elaborating on the different methodologies and such in which we arrived at these sort of the high level, the most critical numbers that are listed in the report?

Okay, I can give you the five-minute version or the hours long version.

Hey, Amy, lower the podium. There's a little switch up in the left hand. Thank you.

I don't want the five-minute. I don't want the one-hour. Give me something in between to help folks understand, again, these numbers look good. How did we get there?

OK. So for each analysis, there's a different answer. For the public finance analysis, we first relied on the pre-development infrastructure cost estimate, which was provided by city staff.

Sorry. You don't have to answer her.

Go. OK. Then we also assumed the absorption schedule, so the land use plan and the absorption schedules, which were also derived from information provided by city staff. We evaluated feasible special tax rates based on existing taxes and assessments and determined capacity for an additional CFD to be applied to private development, where we targeted a feasibility threshold of 1.7% of total taxes and assessments as a percentage of the home sales price to allow for additional capacity. There's a guideline in the state of California, so it's not a rule, but a guideline that says taxes and assessments should be no more than 2% of the sales tax price. So we took existing taxes and assessments, including the assumption that all development would annex into the existing citywide CFDs, 9, 11, and 18, depending on the land use type, and then solved for the capacity. So that's how we derived the special tax amounts that would then be applied to determine how much revenue could be generated to offset debt service. So for determining debt service, we estimated the infrastructure costs in twenty twenty nine dollars using an escalation factor equal to the long term average inflation rate of three percent. So we annualized the increase from $2026 to $2029. So that's when we assumed that the bond would be issued. We identified a reasonable conservative interest rate. a 30-year bond term and then reasonable rates for the reserve fund one year of capitalized interest that would allow the deferral of debt service or would be paid through by the interest in time for the gap between the bond issuance and development to occur which we assume to occur in fiscal year 2030. So we have a cash flow table in the economic analysis where we show debt service and then the special tax revenue over the years. again, according to absorption that then offsets that debt service, which is how we determine a total subsidy amount. So the gap over the years until a special tax revenue is adequate to completely fund debt service is that's the subsidy amount. And then the surplus of special tax revenue above and beyond debt service would then fund or repay the subsidy. So I'll stop there. That's the public finance analysis. Is that an adequate level of detail? Do you have any questions?

I think for a public meeting like this, yeah. Obviously, I think there's a deeper level we could go. I'm not sure it's necessarily helpful in this forum. But I appreciate the kind of overarching. To kind of go back to the beginning as you were listing off some of the assumptions and what you utilized, the mayor kind of alluded to this as well when he was speaking. but I mean, what, I guess I would ask, what independent evidence gives us confidence that the city, the Fresno can absorb the total square footage of the dwellings and the industrial? I know there was some allusion to Visalia and the comparison there, but I mean, I guess what independent evidence gives us a certain level of confidence? And I know the lower estimate rate was 500,000. What was the basis for that starting there? And then what gives us the confidence?

Yeah, as Jennifer mentioned, there were two studies that were conducted, not by EPS, but by other entities that informed the absorption analysis. It was not part of EPS's scope of work to independently evaluate the absorption schedule as part of this analysis.

Sure. And then, this is more of a physical question, maybe for you, maybe for your admin. But at Build Out, we're seeing this $17.2 million surplus.

Yes.

But notice in the report identifies about $7 million in additional street maintenance costs. Yes. Does that $17.2 million surplus account for that cost already?

does not it's separate so the 17 million is purely general fund impacts the 7.1 million in comprehensive street maintenance are above and beyond those general fund impacts there are a variety of revenue sources that fund comprehensive street maintenance general fund may be one of those sources but it's not all of it sure so you we would theoretically be relying on another source and the 17.2 would

Special revenue like measure C, SB1.

Gas tax revenue.

Gas tax, ABX 186 I think is the number, but those would be the ones.

Yeah, just trying to get, you know, make sure it's an accurate number. We're not supplanting it or, you know, overlooking, right, what the ultimate net effect would be. Okay. I'll leave you there for now. Okay. I'll give my colleagues an opportunity here. Council Member Arias.

Thanks.

Thank you. City Manager, do you want to take a stretch before we start?

Okay. I'm going to need to bring my heating pad out from my back.

I wanted to point out, City Manager, I know you have a little bell that you ring whenever you disagree with my statement, so I got a bell, too, that I will ring whenever you provide me a response that's not supervised evidence or whenever you guys answer a question without answering the question. Yes, that's a different conversation.

I zipped it, I zipped it. I know you did. I zipped it.

So in all seriousness, this is the most expensive decision that I will be a part of as I depart and complete my tenure on the city council. So what I am gonna ask of staff is that whatever questions I pose, you just give me a direct response. And if the response is we don't know, we'll get back to you, that's fair too. But not to give me a long-winded response that doesn't answer the question, because everybody's tired, I'm exhausted already, and this is a super complicated matter. So I'm not trying to do gotcha questions. I'm trying to understand a 150-page report that I got two days ago. that has billion dollar implications in multiple facets of city's business that it's a very serious nature. So that's my gentle request. It's okay to say we don't know and we'll get back to you. I'M ALSO GOING TO ASK THAT GIVEN THE COMPLEXITY OF THIS SUBJECT MATTER, I'M GOING TO BE SUBMITTING SOME WRITTEN QUESTIONS TO STAFF OVER THE NEXT COUPLE DAYS. IT WILL PROBABLY BE A FEW DOZEN QUESTIONS AND I WOULD APPRECIATE A WRITTEN RESPONSE TO ALL THOSE QUESTIONS PRIOR TO THIS ITEM COMING BACK FOR ACTION. I HAVE RECEIVED A TON OF QUESTIONS FROM THE PUBLIC ON THIS ECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND FRANKLY I DON'T HAVE ANSWERS FOR THEM BECAUSE WE GOT THE STUDY A COUPLE DAYS AGO AND HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO assess the potential responses to their questions. So I will compile a lot of my questions and submit them to you guys in writing. And I do wanna make sure they're part of the record so everybody sees the responses, not just myself or my colleagues.

What do you mean by part of the record? So do you want us to send responses out in like a trade memo that goes to everybody?

Yeah, that would be good work.

Okay, no problem.

Yeah, a trade memo that we, of course, trade memos are public so that people see the actual responses and we're all operating under the same assumption when we get responses to questions. So if I ask you the cost of a trunk line is a dollar, then everybody should know that the cost of a trunk line is a dollar. That way there's no misunderstandings. And prior to my questions, I wanna just start off with this. We're all temporary caretakers of this city. And I think our hope is always that we leave this place better than we found it. And I think this council and the last few councils and the mayor have done that. Our fiscal standing is better. you know, bond rating is way better. Our reserve has been the highest it's ever been. Unlike other municipalities, we didn't take one time money and hire a bunch of people with ongoing costs and had to go into layoffs. So I wanna keep that streak where we are rebuilding and reinvesting existing neighborhoods and not putting us into a path of potential bankruptcy. So I'm going to kind of cover these questions with the following framework. WHICH IS I THINK THE FRAMEWORK THAT WE USE ON ALL MATTERS THAT COME BEFORE US. ARE WE RESPONDING TO REQUESTS FROM RESIDENTS? BY RESIDENTS, CITY RESIDENTS. ARE THEY ASKING SOMETHING OF THEIR CITY AND THEREFORE US WITHIN OUR JURISDICTIONAL AUTHORITY? TWO, IS THERE A MARKET DEMAND FOR WHAT'S BEING ASKED? IF SOMEBODY IS ASKING FOR FOOTBALL COURTS, IS THERE DEMAND FOR FOOTBALL COURTS? If we're proposing basketball courts when there's no demand for basketball courts, probably not the best use of our resources to spend there. Third, can we afford what is being requested? We ultimately can out print money, so we have to be thoughtful whether we can afford what's being requested by the public. And finally, who pays for it? It's our task to authorize expenditures, balance a budget, and to assess where the money comes from. Is it coming from the general fund? Is it coming from higher water and sewer rate increases? Is it coming from corporations? And over the years, I've been very clear that I don't believe this city should be in the business of subsidizing corporations and that our taxpayers should not be in the business of subsidizing corporations. So I'm gonna look at it from that framework. So let me start off with some of the questions. The specific plans that I have approved as a council member have all been at the request of residents in those areas. The west area residents wanted a specific plan. The southwest residents wanted a specific plan. The tower residents wanted a specific plan. Downtown folks wanted a specific plan. The southeast residents wanted a specific plan. The south industrial area wanted a specific plan. In this case, all I'm seeing is the residents from that area don't want this. And I'm unclear on why we're here if the residents of the area are not the ones making the demands for a specific plan. So if you can answer the question, who specifically is requesting SEDA as a plan and who are we trying to satisfy?

I think between Jennifer and I. Yeah.

Yeah. And usually when we hear items, Director, as you know, we have an applicant. Either a development permit, somebody's applying for it, there's an interest, or the residents are pushing their council members to adopt a specific plan for their area to preserve neighborhood characteristics. In this case, walk me back through how we got here. Who exactly is requesting SEDA as a specific plan?

So when the city adopted its 2002-4 general plan early in the 2000s, there was a great debate and discussion as to where the city would grow, where it would add areas to its sphere of influence. And at the time when it was adopted, SADA was shown as an additional, a new area in the sphere of influence. For the city to grow into that area it is required in the LAFCO resolution that for the city to annex any land there's a series of things that we have to do but the most important and the first thing we have to do is to adopt a specific plan it's very clear in the LAFCO resolution and the city started that right away and obviously it was put on the shelf in the in the recession and But that is the reason we are doing a specific plan. For the city to grow in this area, we have to have a specific plan.

So when we put it on the shelf because of the recession, the housing burst, everything else, at what point was the decision made to reignite this? When did we make that decision that we wanted to proceed with SETA again?

So a number of things precipitated that, and I I won't remember specific years, but the city was starting to do specific plans for its neighborhoods that had traditionally had community plans. So these were updates of community plans that were becoming specific plans. pursuant to the general plan. At some point in time, I believe it was somewhere in 2016-ish, there was a resolution at LAFCO to remove a portion of the city sphere, which essentially was all of the area south of the 180 from the city sphere of influence because we had not proceeded. And at the time, The city council adopted a resolution that identified the specific plans and the other plans that were in its queue and when this would come forward so that we could reassert our plan to do a specific plan. It wasn't going to be a forever kind of sit on the shelf sort of thing. So that was adopted by the city council. There was a funding opportunity that we took advantage of. in 2019, COVID, slowdown. So that's where we are today. So it is the result of two primary actions by the council. One was the adoption of this area into the city's general plan, resulting in the LAFCO resolution. And the other was the resolution saying that we would do these specific plans.

Thus far, have we had any residents from the SATA area expressing support or interest or advocating that we proceed with this specific plan?

There have been property owners in the area that have met with us who have expressed interest in development and just learning and understanding when they could move forward, what they could do, what did the plan do. One of them spoke at Planning Commission. Another one spoke, well, actually two of them spoke at Planning Commission. There are residents that have said, hey, I want to move forward. But I'm kind of in this limbo, right? I can't move forward in the city because you can't annex me. Therefore, I can't have the kind of development that I'd like to have.

So in your recollection, there's two property owners who express interest in Zeta moving forward.

Those are ones that I can think of off the top of my head. There may have been more, right? But those are ones specifically that have come to us. There have been others that are, there's a school, there are other properties all along SATA. But in particular, there's two very larger property owners that would like to move forward with development and they just are kind of stuck in limbo.

So can you put this on the queue of items that I would like? Can you provide me a list of property owners within the SATA area that's being proposed? that have requested that this plan move forward and that have development plans for their property. And as well as any residents from that area who have expressed opposition to CEDA moving forward. I want to understand, is it 90% of the people opposed to it or is it 90% people in support of it? And I'm talking property owners, because again, most of these folks are not our residents, they're county residents. So I'm trying to be thoughtful of if we're going to spend CITY OF FRESO RESIDENT MONEY ON NON-RESIDENTS, WHY ARE WE DOING THAT IN THAT PATH? AND THEN, DIRECTOR, DO WE HAVE THE PERCENTAGES OF THE BUILDOUT OF ALL THE SPECIFIC PLANS? FOR EXAMPLE, HOW, WHAT'S THE PERCENTAGE OF THE BUILDOUT FOR THE WEST AREA PLAN AS OF TODAY? 90% built out, is it 50% built out?

We would need to get that for you.

Can you get that for all the plans for me, including for Copper River? I don't know if there's a plan in Northeast Brazil.

It's not a specific plan.

Okay, if you can just get it for me for Copper River specifically. Because as I recall, these areas require 25 years before they're fully developed. And I think Copper River is around that 25-year mark, and I don't believe it's fully built out yet. So I'm trying to assess this process, if I recall, was initially discussed on, we have a housing crisis and we need more housing inventory. Now it seems to be to transition to, we want research and development, therefore we want research development you know, section. So I'd like to understand what is the percentage of the build out of all the specific plans and of all our housing that we have already approved and it's in the queue. Speaking of which.

What was that last part you said? Was that part of your question, a percentage of what housing?

the percentage of the built out of the plans that we've approved.

Okay, I heard that. I thought you said something after that that I missed. That's it. Okay, I got that. Thank you.

Sure. And also, and this may be a question for you, Director, or for the City Attorney, have we ever denied a development permit based on the area not meeting a certain growth benchmark? Because I think what I've heard today is a phased-in approach that we would put into this data And I'm trying to understand, have we ever done that before?

Yeah. The mayor was just mentioning the Loma Vista project in Clovis. I would have to research that because I'm not familiar with any, but there may have been that preceded me.

Yeah, and the reason I want to understand that is, I know this body ultimately has authority to grant waivers and exemptions of all city policies and make findings that ignore the stated city policy or the adopted city policy. So one, I'd like to understand, have we ever done that before? And two, WHAT ABILITY DO WE HAVE TO TIE A FUTURE LEGISLATIVE BODY'S HANDS TO NOT SIMPLY GREEN LINING A DEVELOPMENT EVEN THOUGH THE BENCHMARKS ARE NOT MET FOR SPECIFIC GROWTH IN THOSE PHASES. THE, DO OTHER, I WANT TO KIND OF GO INTO SOME OF THE COST. THE HOUSING. Is there a, the density housing, and keep in mind, math was not my strongest subject in high school, nor in college, so I'm not gonna get into the numbers as far as Member Richardson did, but help me understand, visually speaking, the density that's being proposed in SATA. Where does it currently exist in the city at the same level of density?

There are some projects, not a master plan project, but there are some development projects that have a mix of higher density residential and lower density residential. I need to give you, we've done that analysis in the past and I don't have it here.

Can you provide me a neighborhood, whether it's Fresno or another city, that matches the same proposed density that's being recommended for the financial analysis that you guys utilized?

Didn't we look at the one development in D5, Jennifer? Are you talking about like the 2,000? I'm sorry. You're not talking about lot size. You're talking density. Sorry.

So if you can show me a neighborhood of 10,000 homes in about 400-ish acres anywhere else in the state that I can drive myself and see what that looks like and feels like, that's what I'm interested in doing. Okay. I actually like showing up and experiencing things directly to see what that would look like.

So I can tell you on 3E3, or 3E2, you have some that are in the 24, 2450, 28, 28, 2400 square foot lots. Oh, you don't, you mean? Density. Gotcha, yeah.

You're looking at the overall then? I'm looking at it. Are we talking San Francisco? Are we talking LA? Are we talking Spicellia? Like, show me a neighborhood that has achieved that level of density that you guys utilize for your financial analysis to suggest that this would be a revenue generator to a city if it hit this benchmark. So... 450-ACRE SITE WITH 10,000 UNITS. I'M LOOKING FOR THAT KIND OF LIKE EXAMPLE. IN CALIFORNIA, I DON'T WANT TO TRAVEL OUT OF STATE. YOU CAN JUST LIMIT THAT TO THAT. THE STUDY, THERE'S BEEN A LOT OF REFERENCES ON THE STUDY THAT I READ ON AREAS THAT WERE NOT ASSESSED BY THE CONSULTANTS. CAN YOU WALK ME THROUGH SOME OF THOSE AREAS THAT WERE NOT ASSESSED? THERE'S A LOT OF REFERENCES IN THE STUDY ON THINGS THAT WERE NOT CONSIDERED BY THE CONSULTANTS. Can you speak to?

Can you give an example?

Sure. EPS has not independently evaluated the feasibility of the proposed line uses as part of this study.

Right. So we asked them to do very specific things based on these assumptions. What is the fiscal, the ability to cash flow to finance the revenue or the infrastructure? What is the impact to the general fund? And what is the, you know, whether or not an EFD or similar mechanism was feasible? Those are the three things that they were asked to do. So by giving them that particular analysis and bringing in other independent analysis like demand studies and absorption studies, then they're not doing all of them, right? So there is a little bit of check and balance there.

So how many anchors do you propose in a research and development?

The area south of Jensen is generally about 1,500 acres, but not all of that is research and development.

So let's say 1,000 acres is research and development. To understand what you described on what portions a consultant did not study, the consultant did not assess whether Fresno, whether there's even a demand for 1,000 acres of research and development. They simply assumed that there is demand. the acres that you asked them to bake into the formula, correct?

Right, because our economic development department ran the numbers via CoStar and looked at our comparable competitors in the market, right? So what is a reasonable assumption of demand absorption?

So it was our economic development department determined that there's demand for 1,500 acres of research and development, is that correct?

There's demand for an absorption over time of anywhere from 500,000 to two million square feet of research and development, which includes a number of items. There's also the associated commercial and retail that will support them, right? So not every single acre would be absorbed by research and development.

So who in the economic development department could answer the question on how they came to that conclusion?

So what we can do is we can get back to you on that. I don't know that they're here in the room.

That's a fair answer. Same thing on the housing side. How did we come up with 10,000 houses being the magic number? Did we essentially identify the cost of infrastructure and then backed up that by saying this many homes are needed to cover the cost? Or did we determine that 10,000 houses are needed based on us being at 90% fill rate on the existing inventory that we have.

It is housing capacity. So number of acres of each land use times the maximum density equals capacity. So housing capacity is 10,000 units.

So what keeps us from saying instead of 10,000 units, we want 20,000 units?

Those are the maximum densities. So you would have to rezone all of the parcels to a higher density range.

But those areas are not zoned yet.

Correct. But in the plan, so the plan, we would have to say instead of being community town center, it would be regional town center, which has a higher density.

So we could also say we only want 2,000 homes by changing the zoning to... many mansions on two acres?

You could do that. It's going to change a lot of assumptions in the study, right? It's going to change the value, what is the value per property, what is the revenue generated.

Okay. I want to shift to some references about Measure P in parks. Did I understand that reference to suggest that it's going to generate an additional couple million for Measure P, or is it gonna require Measure P funds to build parks?

So there is other revenue impacts, right? So there is additional revenue generated to Measure P when the development is built out. There's also additional costs on the CSM. So it is based on the report, it would generate additional Measure P revenue, not that it would absorb additional revenue because that's up to the council as to which projects are selected.

So you're suggesting in the study that 10,000 new residents would essentially generate more sales tax that would equate to about one point something million in measure P funds?

Right. And not just residents, right? But there will be some sales tax generated in the flexible research and development, office, commercial, right? I have to buy office supplies. I have to buy, right? So it's nominal, but they're across all of the land uses. There is revenue generated through sales. sales tax, there is a special sales tax, right?

We can't count it in the general fund, but there's a special sales tax that just measure P. What I'm struggling with is it would make sense to me that we would generate more sales tax if we were locating distribution centers there. Because that's, you know, point of sale, generate significant sales tax. But if we're generating, if we're creating office space and manufacturing facilities, we don't get sales tax from those operations.

But if they buy things at Office Depot, or they buy things like, I need to put all new tires on my fleet, or yeah, they would pay sales tax to do that.

Where in this plan do we identify the amount of parks that would be needed to accommodate and to serve 10,000 new residents?

So that's in the plan. And as you recall from last December, we had originally had parks and trails identified in the plan and they were exceedingly unpopular. And so we said, you know what, we will take them out now. We will come back with a master parks and open space plan for the area. but the policies are identified in the plan that identifies what kind of open space and parks that are required.

So who would pay for those parks?

So there are a couple ways that parks are paid for. So if they're the park within a subdivision or within a neighborhood, those are paid for by the development. There's a certain number of acres of parkland that has to be dedicated and constructed based on the number of units. If it is a community park, that would be a park impact fee, right? There's different levels of parks, so it's either a park impact fee, so the development would have to pay for those parks as it occurred.

So in my seven years, the subdivisions have been required to build parks as part of their plans. We have either granted them exemptions not to build the 10 acres that they were SUPPOSED TO BUILD. WE HAVE ALSO GIVEN MEASURE P FUNDS TO OFFSET THE INCREASE IN COST FOR DEVELOPMENT OF THE PARK. WE HAVE DEFINITELY USED MONEY FOR THE OPERATIONS OF MAINTENANCE OF PARKS SO THE CFD'S HAVE NOT FULLY PAID FOR THE PARKS THAT WERE APPROVED AS PART OF THAT DEVELOPMENT AND THEY DEFINITELY DID NOT FULLY PAY FOR THE OPERATIONS SO ARE WE ACCOUNTING FOR MEASURE P FUNDS

Existing measure P funds being redirected to build and maintain some of the parks that would have to go up No, so the the CFDs for each neighborhood would be risk So there there's two different things at play here, right? So there's the impact fees and making sure that impact fees to cover the true cost of the park or the trail that is required So that when the developer builds it impact fees come in they're reimbursed for their share that they paid over and above what their requirement was and then there's the operations community facilities district and that would pay for the operation so ensuring that when the plans come in You have this many benches and this many slides and this many trees, right? That's calculated in the CFD rate and Scott can probably help me if I go sideways.

Are you guys proposing a new CFD in this area or the existing CFD to cover it?

So it would go into our existing CFDs each would be annexed now 18 is public safety so each then again each development would have a specific assessment based on their specific amenities it goes into a segregated pool and that pays for that amenity and that maintenance.

If I could get it, Mrs. Moser. It would be CFD 11 and 8, right, for maintenance?

Right.

Something similar to or those?

Yeah. Right now, there is not a presumption that we would create a new CFD. It would be the same CFD.

Mr. Mojave, I may remind you you're under oath and you're about to retire, so you're free to say anything you want.

This is your opportunity, Scott, to say whatever you want to Miguel.

Especially the truth, even though he looks at you, you can speak the truth. Scott, what, Director, what I'd like to understand is, Does the current CFD fee structure that we have cover the full cost of maintaining all the existing obligations that we have? And when was the last time we made that adjustment? I know that some of them are grandfathered, where they're stuck at whatever amount. Some have escalators. Where are we at in the world of CFDs?

All right, so Council, in the area of CFDs, They've all had escalators since 1997. Prop 218 froze the old landscape lighting and maintenance district. Those were formed back in the 80s and the early 90s. And those only, the old ones from the 80s and 90s, they only included the buffers around the outside of subdivisions. So that remains a challenge. But for the CFDs that have parks within them, those are fully funded by the CFDs. They have escalators on all of them. And generally, the escalator actually has done very well. So the maximum amount the city could charge is actually greater than what we're having to assess. We're able to cover the costs. just because in some cases we've gotten great competitive bids, we've been able to keep the cost down for homeowners. So good examples of parks fully funded for maintenance by CFDs, just starting construction right now in District 1, the Park West neighborhood park, We have developments in, I mean, southeast Fresno, we have northeast Fresno, Copper River Park, that's 100% paid for by new development through impact fees, 100% maintained, not $1 of general fund, not $1 of measure P, go into those.

Which ones, so under the currency, if there's,

Development occurs they would have fallen to the new CFD with escalators automatically That is correct, and there are two two real ways the city has done that Either annexing into the the normal ones that come before the council typically every meeting one or more items single family goes into CFD 11 Multi-family developments go into CFD 9 And then at times, we've had master plan developments. A good example is Copper River. We have a district for Copper River West, west of Maple Avenue. That's CFD 12. And then east of Maple is CFD 15. So in those cases, that's a separate CFD just for that area, but it fully covers everything that 11 does.

Walk me through the public safety CFD. Where do we stand on that, and what does that cover and pay for?

All right, so the council as a policy elected to impose CFD 18 on new annexations into the city. And essentially the nexus, the way the CFD 18 was analyzed was does new development generate sufficient property tax and sales tax and such to cover the cost of public safety services? And we hired a consulting firm, put that together. There was an update, and then an update made to keep the cost current. So those are being implemented. And generally speaking, where it was critical to implement it is where, as the mayor spoke earlier, we had the 62-38 split, where for new development, the city of Fresno was only receiving 38% of the revenue, so therefore, The amount of property tax the city received to provide those services was inadequate on its own to fund public safety. CFD 18 was adopted to bridge that gap. So then if we talk about SEDA, that analysis would be customized to SEDA.

When did we adopt 18?

I believe, Council, I would need to double check. 2022, was it?

If you remind me and maybe the administration can, the last couple of fire stations that we've funded. 12 and 18. I recall impact fees were not sufficient to cover the cost. We have put in third party funds for that. We borrowed for some and then we put federal dollars for others and general fund dollars for others. Do you guys, can you guys get back to me on how much we spent and from what sources on the last two or three fire stations that we built?

We can. I can speak, Council, briefly to Fire Station 18 on West Shaw. So just to provide accurate information on the record. So the city, at the time when the station was needed, the city did not have sufficient funds in the accounts to pay the full cost of that station. It's somewhat of a chicken or egg situation because The city cannot spread all those costs just to the early developers in that area. The ultimate cost, 100% of the cost of that new fire station is paid for by 100% of the new development it serves. So what happens when you're only 50% developed? You need a fire station at that time.

And historically, Director, as I understand it, the city did not borrow money up front to build the stations. They were collecting money as they go until they had sufficient money to build the station.

Yes and no on that. Just to clarify. So with fire station 18 the council approved an inner fund loan. So the city did not physically borrow outside money in that situation, but the city had a sufficient larger fund balances for other types of infrastructure. It's allowed under the Mitigation Fee Act to borrow from one account to the other. That was done. Council approved a five year loan consistent with the Reserve Management Act. That, as I believe, that has now been fully repaid. The fire department's been administering that, been fully repaid. And the cost of that, where did the revenue come to repay it? All from fire impact fees from new development.

So is it fair to describe the fact that we as a city are obligated to build fire stations at times and maybe police stations prior to the full build out of the area that fully funds that public safety service?

And I'd have to defer to the fire chief on a lot of that, but it may not be that you need that ultimate fire station immediately so long as the adjacent station can serve that area and provide sufficient response time.

I recall numerous instances on the council where we've been told we're no longer approving occupancy permits for houses that have been built because we don't have sufficient fire service coverage. Hence why we had to borrow from Peter to pay Paul to complete the fire station because those stations are based on full build out of that area. So everybody pays their fair share. But the fire service is needed way before the full build out occurs.

That's correct. Similar to in the late 2000s, the city was interested in developing the west area. and needed fire station 16, which is at Clinton and Polk, and needed fire station 19 near Belmont and Marks. The city bonded for both of those stations. As developments occurred, the developers paid their fire impact fees, so those loans were fully paid off through the fire impact fee funds.

Let me, if I can add just briefly that I think part of the issue has been historically there's been Not this administration, but I can say past administrations where developers have come in and asked for a fee impact fee waiver. And as you know, those were being granted frequently for parks, for police, for fire. And then this council made a decision to say no more fire impact fee waivers. And unfortunately, I mean, I guess if we'd have done that 25 years ago, we would always have sufficient funding to build fire stations and police stations. And so now we're playing catch up. But I can tell you, since I've been the mayor, we have been very reluctant to waive any type of impact fees. And as you know, we... PROVIDE THAT INFORMATION TO YOU ON A QUARTERLY BASIS.

I REMEMBER WHEN I RAN FOR OFFICE, I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND WHY WE WAIVED FIRE, POLICE, PARKS, ROAD FEES FROM AMAZON. THEY PAID ZERO FEES WHILE EVERY SMALL BUSINESS HAD TO PAY ALL THEIR FEES. AND SURE ENOUGH, THEY CAUGHT UP WITH US AND WE HAVE TO SPEND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS AFTER THE FACT BUILDING A BUNCH OF INFRASTRUCTURE THAT THEY ESSENTIALLY DAMAGE BECAUSE THOSE ROADS ARE NOT BUILT FOR TRUCKS. And I remember this council passing a policy, no more waiving fees for public safety, because we're all declaring that we don't have enough money to build fire stations. But that also brings me to this basic conclusion, Mayor, that I may trust this council because we have not granted waivers. I may trust this mayor because he has not granted waivers. But the fact is this body, five years from now, two years from now, still has the authority to waive future requests and therefore create the same problem that we have today, which is having to provide public safety services in the form of buildings, fire stations, and police stations without having the funding. And then we have to have other pots. borrow or loan zero interest loans for years before it gets paid back. So thank you, Director Moser, for your responses and congratulations again on your retirement. If we can spend a little time on sewer lines, I'd like to understand a couple of things from our folks. Director, could you remind me Back to this conversation on what I would have called deferred maintenance and deferred capital improvement projects, which has always tends to be a challenge for the city. In the last few years, we've had a couple of major main breaks of sewer lines. My recollection is the main sewer line broke in front of Chachance Stadium. You know, after a few years of it was open, I think that was 2019, there was a massive break there.

I thought that was a water, I thought that was a water main, but.

Water or sewer main. Yeah, I don't recall.

One of those two.

I don't recall. Olive and First Street, was that water or sewer? Sewer. Sewer. And then there was a major break on McKinley and Golden State. And I think we ended up with litigation because there was like, was it our fault or high-speed rail? Right. Turned out that the thing was 100 years old, so whatever vibration occurred broke it. And I also recall being told numerous times that we don't have the money in the Enterprise Fund to proactively replace all these mains. So we are relegated to having to wait for them to break to do the emergency fixes.

Not entirely accurate. We've been being more proactive about our trunk sewer rehabilitations and replacements. The most recent failures in my work with the collection system crews occurred under a very specific circumstance where someone had come in after the fact and cut in a manhole and that disturbed the original pipe. And that's where we've been kind of tracing that back to those situations. But we do have, we're completing a collection system master plan right now that identifies, and we've got a number of different projects that are programmed.

So try to keep this on basic English without the technical language of sewer lines. If you were to give a percentage of the network, how much of it has been productively upgraded of the existing network for the existing city residents?

I would have to pull that number, but it's been to the 10% to 20% range. Okay. But I'm going to have to follow up with the exact number on that one. That would be helpful. Okay.

We can do that. Where would you put the cost on us fixing a broken sewer line when it breaks, an emergency scenario versus a preventative cost?

I would estimate it's probably 20% to 30% higher than what we would do if we were in a bidding scenario.

Okay.

Okay.

And does the current system allow us to say this proposal is asking us to borrow nearly $100 million for a trunk line? Could we easily borrow that money to simply replace existing sewer lines and upgrade them?

Are you asking the financing mechanism for fixing sewer lines? Is it the same financing mechanism? Yes.

So if we could bond out for new trunk line on Jensen, we can easily bond out to fix an existing trunk line on Blackstone.

I wouldn't characterize it as easily. It's going to require... Within the rate plan, we have to account for that, and then we would have to program that into our budget.

But it's not whether or not we can bond against it, how that revenue gets paid back. Correct. A new development that's paid for by new developers under an existing sewer line, it's borne by the rate payers. By rate payers, correct. Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah. But the same mechanism exists. So it's a matter of what you want to prioritize. Well, it's about where the revenue comes from. So walk me through why we wouldn't want the developers to pay for that upfront.

Why we wouldn't just simply ask developers to pay for the trunk sewer?

Correct.

Because we don't exactly know where the development is going to occur. Some developer may end up wanting a development in the east end of SATA, and then they would be responsible for the cost to extend that sewer main all the way to their development. And then they would have to then in turn go back to the different users of that trunk sewer and establish the fee themselves to go pay for that. Other than that, it wouldn't pencil out. It would not be a good business decision for them to do it. because you have to build sewers from downstream to upstream.

That could work if there was a master developer of a large, huge area where theoretically they controlled large swaths of most of the land, that could definitely work.

The Copper River. Yeah. In South Sata, there's a developer to that own nearly 1,000 acres, if not more. Would that be sufficient for that developer simply to come in and say, I have enough land? I want to go ahead and pay for the upgrade myself. I don't need the city to borrow on my behalf.

We would have to look at the numbers, but I mean, theoretically it could, it could, that could work that way. Okay.

Um, if you can get back to me on the, EXISTING NETWORK AND HOW MUCH OF IT HAS BEEN UPGRADED, THAT WOULD BE HELPFUL. THE OTHER QUESTION I HAD IS THIS ONLY REFERS TO A SEWER TRUNK LINE. I'M ASSUMING PEOPLE ARE GOING TO NEED WATER TOO, RIGHT?

CORRECT.

SO WHERE IS THAT IN THE ANALYSIS?

In this particular financing analysis, it didn't include water because water is extended in a different way. A lot of times what we do is, or in most cases what we do is if a development wants to come in, we'll condition that development to extend water mains to it. And then the development fees pay that back to the fund. So it's built in a much different way than a sewer is built.

But we could use the same model for the sewer, can't we? Condition the development on them, paying for the sewer extension?

The difference is that sewer is generally the first infrastructure that goes in because it's the deepest. It flows by gravity. You can't extend a pipeline from A to B under pressure to serve some development away from the trunk. So we build the trunks. We want to control the construction of the trunks and put those in first because, again, they're the deepest and the first things that normally go in.

Do developers build their own water lines? Don't we do that?

Some do. Within developments, they build their own water lines, and then a lot of times we condition developments to extend what we call grid mains, or the larger diameter mains that go along our half-mile streets. We'll condition that to have the developer install that when they do the development.

Irrespective of whether they do it or we do it, they pass as our inspections, correct? We control the quality of construction?

That's correct, yeah.

So we could easily condition a development for them to put their own sewer line and make sure it meets our standards.

We do that in portions of the sewer system, but not the trunk sewers. The trunk sewers, again, because those go in, they're a much longer timeline, they're the deepest infrastructure, and they flow by gravity, so we need to control it. And they're always built from downstream to upstream.

I noticed that when it comes to sewer lines and water lines, are they on the same physical space?

They fit in the street. The sewer is generally in the middle, and we offset the water line to one side.

It would also require the city to buy right-of-way acquisition, right? Or you spend rights?

It depends on where it is. I would have to look at the specific area to determine where the city. But generally, the sewer line, if we're talking about the trunk sewer line in this case, it would be built with an existing right-of-way.

So we have existing right-of-way on Jensen for a new sewer line?

We don't have the county, it's county land at the moment.

So we would have to obtain right-of-way acquisition?

We are in a cooperative arrangement with the county. It's an encroachment permit with the county on how we construct them.

Do we have to have any right-of-way acquisition of private property owners that may be in the vicinity of the project?

Not to my knowledge. To my knowledge, most of this infrastructure can be installed within the right-of-way. Within the right-of-way?

Is there any above power lines on that right-of-way?

I would need to look, I would go, I would need to drive it and take a look and see what crosses that. I certainly would be.

Paul, you meant north, right? Not Jensen. The trunk on north.

On north, yeah. Yes. Yes.

You said, he said Jensen.

Oh, north. Well, it's been referred to as a Jensen truck line.

I believe the trunk line was in North.

The sewer trunk. The sewer trunk to serve South Sata and then to serve the eastern portion of South Sata goes from Peach and North over to Temperance and then up Temperance.

Do we have already rights to all that right-of-way?

It would be a matter of getting an encroachment permit from the county to construct the sewer. How long does that take?

months i mean it's a it's part it's through the design process of the of the sewer does this study assess any underground utilities that may exist there i know now pg e requires us to underground above power lines whenever we do work that would not be in the scope of what we did in public utilities we just looked at sewer costs has anybody looked at that cost and who would pay for that

All right, Scott Moser, Public Works. Council on utility undergrounding, that's a standard city condition of approval, and that is all paid for by the developer. That's not part of our city reimbursement process. It's not part of the fees, and that's done on a project-by-project basis. The city does not pay for undergrounding of utilities in that area, and that's consistent with how other areas of the city have developed. Thank you, Scott.

IF I CAN GET BACK TO THE ACTUAL POWERPOINT ON THE PUBLIC FINANCING ANALYSIS ON PAGE 8, IS IT MY UNDERSTANDING THAT THE CONSULTANT LOOKED AT LAND SECURE FINANCING IN MALAROUS? I KNOW OUR FORMER COLLEAGUE MEMBER CHAVEZ KEPT TRYING TO CONVINCE US THAT MALAROUS WOULD SOLVE WORLD HUNGER AND SATA IF WE JUST DID IT THAT WAY. BUT IS IT YOUR CONCLUSION THAT THAT IS NOT A VIABLE OPTION? NOT THAT I DON'T BELIEVE MEMBER CHAVEZ BECAUSE HE CAN ALWAYS LAND THE PLANES.

So to clarify, to clarify, infrastructure CFD Melrose bond is not feasible at the outset. Forming an infrastructure CFD within South Sata would be feasible and you can start charging special taxes, you just can't bond against it until you meet that value to lien threshold.

Is there any mechanism in which development or corporations are the ones that take out the bonds and the debt to get us to a feasible approach?

No.

Why not?

Municipalities need to issue the municipal bonds. Is there any way that they could- Private developers can offer up their capital, private capital, but they would not be the ones issuing a bond.

So can they, in any of these proposals, does it include private development offering of capital towards the financing structure?

We did mention the possibility of a public-private partnership that the city should explore. However, you know, the cost of the sewer infrastructure, pre-development, that's a very, very sizable cost. So that would be a lot of capital to ask of a private developer.

Why would it be a lot for a private developer and not a lot for the taxpayers? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ask you that question. It's not a finance question. But it's fair to say that that is possible. If we had a developer who owned 1000 acres, had tenants had interest, that developer can bring forward capital, which would help offset any potential taxpayer subsidy.

Yeah, absolutely. If they could make their project pencil with that initial capital outlay, then that would be feasible.

And I'm assuming for them to pencil, a probably third-party banking financing institution would have to confirm that it pencils out for them.

Probably.

Unless they have independent wealth and they're putting in their own money.

Right. I think in that instance, what we're referring to, it would have to be a public-private partnership because those thousand acres that you're referring to that that developer owns is further to the east. And we would still have to build the sewer infrastructure all the way to our connection. He just couldn't build his and then the left, it has to go flow somewhere. So we'd have to build some of it. But I think in this instance, what we talked about was doing a revenue bond for the initial. And then after some development occurred was to be able to transition that bond over to a land secured bond with lower interest.

Thank you, Mayor. Director from utilities, thank you. I may have some more for you. Isn't there an alternative where the developer can build their own standalone facility? versus requiring the city to connect our infrastructure?

As in a package plant, a local, small package plant? Is that what we call it, a package plant? That's what we'd call them, yeah. Not preferred if it's going to end up being part of the city. It's better to treat the sewage at the regional facility than it would be at a small package plant, particularly in this area.

Correct.

they still need a sewer because they have to be able to dispose of the solids because when you treat sewage, you remove water from solids, they still have to go somewhere with that. So they would have to have solids handling facilities and other ways to haul those solids off.

Yeah, and what is the current capacity status of our existing sewer facility? Because for the public's benefit, we have a couple of facilities that... clean water, but only one facility that processes sewer. That's correct. Happens to be in my district, the whole city, and I think Clovis, we get some other stuff in our facility too. We do. So what is the current rate of capacity there now and when do I anticipate mean the next threshold with that facility has to be expanded irrespective of SATA or not? Irrespective of SATA.

So the current capacity of that plant is controlled. There's two different capacities. One's controlled by the ponds, and the other one is controlled by the actual physical tankage of the plant, how much wastewater goes there. We currently project that we're at about 60% of the capacity of the plant at this point in time from the last expansion was done 30 years ago, and that's for all the infill development and growth that's occurred.

So when do we anticipate having to expand the plant again, whether a SATA occurs or not, just naturally?

Well, that projection was done based on a master plan that was prepared back in 2015, and it did include SATA. And so those are the numbers that I'm using right now when we do that because we in the utilities business have to be forecasting out to the lines. If all of this happens, if everything builds out the way that the general plan projects, we project that we would be within 80% of our capacity in the next seven to eight years. But a lot of things would have to happen for that to be true. And that's a trigger for expansion. That's a trigger. That's when we have to write a letter to the Regional Water Quality Control Board and tell them that we're working on it, that we're doing a more detailed plan to expand the plan.

And since you use a general plan as kind of that capacity threshold, how many homes did the general plan assume in SATA at that time? I don't know the... 25,000 homes? 45,000 homes. 45,000 homes? And so, but the SAL SEDA is only 10,000 homes? Okay, thank you. On the second option of a revenue secured financing, why was that not an option, a feasible option for us to consider?

That is the option. That would be bonding. That would be a municipal bond.

So that's the version that you guys are proposing that would require surcharge for us to fund?

A surcharge? I'm sorry, what do you mean by a surcharge?

It references an enterprise surcharge.

When we drafted the report, we said that typically revenue bonds are supported by utility user rates and surcharges. However, my understanding is that there's enough in the reserve fund to cover debt service so that additional rates.

In the reserve fund of the utility department?

Correct.