City Council - Regular Meeting

Mhmm. I'm gonna go ahead and call this meeting to order, ask for a roll call.

Council member Little?

Here.

Council member Polipotti is absent at this time. Council member Sander is also absent at this time. Vice mayor Budge? Here. Mayor Gatewood?

Here. Can I have the playback schedule, please?

Yes. This meeting is being recorded and will be posted to the city's website within forty eight hours of adjournment of this meeting.

At a special meeting, citizens wishing to address the council for any matter on the agenda may do so at the time the matter is discussed. Under provision of California government code, the city is prohibited from discussing or taking action on any item not on the agenda. Do we have any speaker cards?

We do we do have speaker cards for both items three point one and three point two.

You wanna just do them when we go through?

That's your call?

Yeah. Let's just do them when we hit them. That way we can organize them better.

Okay.

And let's start off with, 3.1. Oh, they're coming up. Hurry up.

I'll go ahead and I'll read the Ross Moore, Bar Trail Enhancements Planning Project Update.

Oh, excellent. Good evening, mayor and council members. Albert Stricker with the public works department. And the city of Rancho Cordova has one of the most beautiful segments of the American River on the entire stretch of the Lower American River. And the city has made a lot of great accomplishments in connecting to the American River, including the recent award winning Chase Drive corridor improvements, which has been a a ten year effort. And this project is a planning project to make significant improvements in the Rossmore Bar area of the American River. This is in the planning stage, and Jesse Yabez is going to give us more information on what this planning project is.

Honorable mayor Gatewood and council members, I'm Jesse Abbez with Public Works, and I'll go through the presentation for us. Our goals for this presentation are to give you all project background, and we'll discuss our environmental approach. We'll review the trail concepts. We'll share with you all some community feedback that we received through some online surveys, and we're recommending council provide input on the existing paths in the proposed trail plan. City Branch Cordova is the lead agency, and we are the main project proponent.

We are the lead agency doing the environmental research and clearance, as well as the preliminary design and funding of the project. We're sponsored by California Wildlife Conservation Board. They're a granting agency in the state of California. Our project partners include Sacramento County and specifically the regional parks department. The city of Rancho Cordova is also supported by Mark Thomas and LSA.

They are design environmental consultants. And following this presentation, Christine Anderson with Mark Thomas is available to help answer any questions. Purpose of this project is to enhance existing paths into the formal pedestrian trails in Rossmar Bar. Some other goals include increasing connectivity to the natural resources within the parkway, improve accessibility in the parkway where feasible, as well as enhance aesthetics in Rossmar Bar. This project really started back in 2022.

The American River Parkway Advisory Committee conceptually approved the project. In year 2023, city staff has worked closely with the wildlife conservation board and formed a partnership. And by the 2023, we're successfully granted $597,000 for the planning design of the project. And so for 2024 into 2026 is that portion of this project. This is the first of its kind partnership and funding source between agencies.

The key tasks that we'll be discussing tonight between within the grant agreement would be the concepts and alternatives as well as our environmental review. The WCB and the American River Parkway Advisory Committee have both found that this project is consistent with the natural resource management plan as well as the American River Parkway plan. These are the two documents that guide policy and as well as environmental goals within the parkway, and this project will help meet many of those objectives. As the lead agency, the project team conducted environmental, cultural, and biological studies. And in that process, the team have found no new or significant increase in the severity of previously identified impacts.

And so the staff is proceeding with an EIR addendum to the American River Parkway Plan Update EIR and the American River Parkway Natural Resource Management Plan subsequent EIR. Mitigation The measures identified in those documents will be implemented in this project. These next few slides will be going through the proposed trail plan. We're starting here with the base aerial imagery of Rossmar Bar. Just to give some context, the main points of access into the parkway are Rossmore Drive and El Manto Drive, just north of Ambassador Drive.

This slide shows the existing trails that have been mapped out in the Rossignol Bar Parkway area. This group of trails includes pathways along existing firebreaks and maintenance roads, as well as the unofficial pads that have been created over time by users creating detours of their own, self guided exploration. Those particular trails are unofficial in nature, and they're not recommended for users of all abilities. Are some challenges with traversing the terrain, and they may also lead to unknown pathways. And also, and creation of these pads may create habitat degradation and also prevent vegetation regrowth.

Same slide, but overlaying it is the system of proposed trail enhancements that we're recommending on this project. Trials are along known pathways that connect users to known features and popular features in the area such as river access as well as the dredger mine tailings, which is kind of in the dead center of this river parkway area. The intended use of these trails is for walking, hiking, and trail running. These trails are not intended and discouraged to use them for bicycle riding or cycling. This map shows a group of proposed trails that we're recommending for decommissioning.

The intention is to increase the restoration of the parkway, as well as keep users on the intended pathways. The team is proposing to use logs and other natural resources, as well as temporary fencing and signage to keep users away from these closed areas so that they may be revegetated and improve the aesthetics and habitat in the parkway. And this is our proposed trail plan. This includes a proposed multiuse path adjacent and parallel to Ross Mart Drive. The intent is to make this accessible where feasible and to provide users a pathway from Ambassador Drive at the Parkway entrance all the way up to the river access.

This proposed trail plan also includes wayfinding signs at each trail intersection. And the goal is to help users have a better time and easier time navigating the trails. Information such as distances and topography as well as directions for their destinations will be provided on the trail signs. And the goal, again, is to improve users' experience. Some other proposed enhancements that we're recommending include wayfinding signs, a dirt and gravel trail surfacing or pardon, decomposed granite trail surfacing, trail delineation using natural materials such as cobbles.

We're also considering installing concrete benches adjacent to trails where it's feasible. Informational kiosks adjacent to the dredger mine tailings. This is a goal that's identified in the parkway plan. And we're also looking to improve trail accessibility on particular features where it's feasible to do so. In 2025, city staff conducted an online survey, and we asked participants to rank their priorities for trail enhancements.

These results show the percentage of participants who ranked each of these in their top three. So for example, vegetation management, 74% of participants included this in the top three, and users ranked all five of these options. As a follow-up to that previous question, we asked participants which other enhancements they would like to see. And according to the results, benches and picnic facilities was the most popular option. This next question, we asked participants to state their preferred trail naming theme.

And the project team thought to ask this question of the public because we really want Rossmar Bar to have a unique sense of place within the parkway. And we thought by giving the trails names, it would add character to the improvements that we're making in Rossmar Bar. And according to the results, floor was the most popular trail naming theme. We're open to input the county partners as well as stakeholders and city council. And we can conduct more public engagement for more preferences on this question.

And so finally, our recommendation to counsel is to provide input on the proposed improvements to the existing paths in the proposed trail plan. Following this, our next steps will be to incorporate council's feedback and finalize our trail layouts. We'll follow our environmental document, and that will also include our final trail layouts. We'll complete our preliminary design. And finally, we'll pursue grants for final design and construction. And as a visual aid to our conversation, I'll bring up our proposed trail plan for further discussion. If there's any questions from council, we'd be glad to hear it.

I have a question.

Do you wanna do a

public comment first? No. Okay. Go ahead.

Linda has a question. Hold on one second.

So you talked about a variety of organizations that have seen this plan and and approved it. And this is an addendum to the Parkway Plan. So where will it go for final approval?

So as I indicated in the slides, our approach to environmental clearance is to pursue an addendum to the environmental impact report, just to clear the the proposed improvements. Ultimately, the county will have the final say as far as approval of the project. City staff will also present our our final design plans to the American River Parkway Advisory Committee, the Recreations and Parks Commission. And if approved, I believe the regional parks will be presenting a area plan amendment to the parkway plan for board of supervisors approval prior to construction.

Okay.

Let's go ahead and get some public comment.

We'll start with Ross Johnson. Following Ross Johnson, our second speaker will be Ken Press. Following Ken will be Tim Baill and Tom Bigelone. If you'd like to come up to the podium, you'll have up to three minutes to speak.

I

have been involved in this project since we moved here in 1974 because we lived on Georgetown Drive, and we always ran down to Rossmore Bar. This is a phenomenal habitat area. We talk about trails, but there are so many animals living there. And this plan is outgrowth of what has been planned for years to have a place you can go and birdwatch, see the animals still run rock drive. And I'm fully supportive of this plan. And, that's for decommissioning trails. Some of the trails were commissioned by people like me who didn't stay on the trail. But this would be a beautiful way to bring it back to safety, and it's just part of the entire parkway. But I'm support totally supportive of moving forward on this plan. Thank you very much.

Next speaker. Next speaker is Ken Press.

Hey, everybody. Good to see you all. Ken Press, director of SAC Fit and the parkway race director for Parkway Half Marathon. This project is near and dear to me, as you guys know. I run on the parkway every day, and I've run probably every single one

of those trails.

I helped do the survey for the trails for your review and recommendation to go forward in this project, and I just want to say I fully support this project. This is incredible and is a testament to local government being responsive to its citizens who see some things that could be done, some interesting ideas that, when thoughtfully presented, you guys take the consideration of it and move forward. So thank you so much. Next.

Thank you for your input from the beginning, by the way, gentlemen, both of you.

Next speaker is Tim Valle. Following Tim will be Tom Biglione.

Good evening council members, city staff, guests. Forgive me. My only complaint about eight years Rancho Cordova is the allergies it brings back to me. I'm the founding board member of the American River Bike Patrol. I live on the corner of Sun River Park, and I'm also on the SARA board, the Save the American River Association board.

So that's my reason for being here. I probably know the bike trail in that area and many of those side trails better than most of the people in the room. And I live a mile and a half from that area, so I know it pretty well. Our concern primarily from the CERA board is, and I'm unclear from what I've seen so far, whether these trails are proposed to be open to mountain biking or whether they're handicapped access people and horse trails. So that's where I wasn't clear.

We would be alarmed, the CERA board, if it was proposed to open up all those trails to cycling. The biggest problem on the trail right now, I think, by both CERA board and the American River Bike Trail board is unchecked speeding both on the paved trails and on some of the side trails, often exacerbated by youth on electric bikes and electric cycles. So I want to clear as to what the proposal is for use of those trails on the nice projector I saw. So I'd I'd just say from the bike trail or the bike patrol, we'd be happy to be part of the discussion process as this moves down the road. If it's proposing mountain biking and electric biking on those new trails, I think you'll find the CERA board would be firmly opposed to that, and it's against the current plan for the parkway.

So I appreciate being able to weigh in weigh in tonight even though my voice is not carrying well. So thank you.

Next speaker is Tom.

Could we give the staff some time just to respond to that? My first question is clarification.

We can't hear you.

Sorry. I'm Tom Baglione. I live in Midtown Sacramento. And I'm a volunteer in the American River Parkway. But my first question is, could we have some additional clarification on the because I'm pretty sure from having gone through the PowerPoint presentation prior to the meeting and and reading through it and reading this, I'm pretty sure that it's just pedestrians and wheelchairs on any of the green trails.

So Is that Talk up here. We're gonna write it down, and I'm having to do it all at once. So write down all your

Okay.

What? Just talk to us. Ask us questions. We'll write them all down, and then I'm have them answer at the end after we have everyone

Oh, Super.

Get their three

minutes in.

Oh, all right. Anyway, that's that's my my first significant question. The second one is, are you familiar with a very large BMX trail that's existed in the wooded area right uphill, upslope from the Claybank Swimming Area? There's about a two acre BMX track well, track. It's about two acres.

It's between the two parking areas on El Manto Road and between El Manto Road and the river. I know it's been there six years and maybe have been there longer. And then I'd be very curious as to do more specifics on the techniques of closing off the social trails. It's a tremendous challenge to do that, we know, from lots of work in other parts of the parkway. Otherwise, I was thrilled when I first saw the grant come in for this, particularly for Ross Moore Bar.

And I hope that there'll be an adequate amount of budget spent on the invasive plant removal. There's quite a bit of yellow star thistle by that northern parking lot, and as we know, throughout the parkway. But overall, like some of our prior speakers, I'm very pleased to see that this grant has happened. And I'm just looking for clarification just so that we know for sure what exactly is is intended. Thank you.

In addition to the public comment that we just heard, we also received public comment via email from Betsy Wyland and Warren Truitt, which have been distributed to the city council, placed on the city's website, and is available for the public in the back of the council chambers. Thank you.

So, Albert, did you take some of those questions down? Can you address those just so we have them up here when we start talking? That'd be great.

Yes, mayor. Thank you. And I'm now going to ask Jesse to start us off, and I'll add if necessary.

Hit it, Jesse. Yep. Is this your first time? Yes. Okay.

Thank you for

having me.

Listen. Listen. Focus, man. Energy.

First question regarding the the use the intended use, that is a policy decision of the trails. However, this project is proposing trails of use for a walking, hiking, and pedestrian use only.

So no electric bikes or mountain bikes?

That is correct. Okay. The intent is to maintain the consistency with the parkway plan

and

its policies. Excellent.

Second question. Oh, BMX.

Where's the BMX bike thing? I've

To be to be honest, I'm not exactly I'm not certain that that falls within this parkway or I'm sorry, within this project limits. However, we would defer to the county for policy decisions regarding its closure.

Yeah. There there is no legal BMX

Yeah.

Facility out there. It's just a pattern of use by BMX enthusiasts create one. There have been such facilities, guess you would say, in Riverbend Park as well. I'm not sure they're currently in that much use because after I walk out there, I don't see that much erosion and tire damage as I used to, not nearly as much. So I suspect it's moved elsewhere. So it might be at Rossmore.

If I can just add in that there is only going to be pedestrian uses only planned on the dirt and soil trails. However, of course, the multi use trail on on Rossmoor Drive, that will be a multiuse paved trail that will provide great access for people of all abilities, including strollers, to to visit the parkway. But outside of the paved parallel access to Rossmoor Drive, it'd be all bicycle and And we'll certainly be collaborating closely with the County of Sacramento and their parks team to talk further about the BMX Park, and if there's any opportunity for synergy between what we're doing and that park.

Okay. Excellent. Alright. Guys, what are we thinking?

Anything else?

Joe?

I think it's a great

plan, very comprehensive,

and I look forward to

seeing the final result. No constructive criticism or feedback other than it looks really great.

David.

I'm in favor of the overall plan. I think that was the kickoff meeting of the overall plan that we originally had. I guess any heartburn I have here comes mainly from closure of existing paths. I think as one of the commentators said, that's going to be extremely difficult to do and to carry out. I do like the additional accessibility that making the highlighted paths in this particular graphic more accessible.

I think that's a great trade off, but I think the closure is going be tough. One of the measures I like to look for is how easy is it to access this great resource from Rancho Cordova. And what I don't see in this plan is any sort of new ways of doing that with the possible exception of the paths that are very close to the neighborhoods. And the improvement of those may actually lead to a better connection to the neighborhood. Do any of those physically go into an existing opening, like a dead end street that the county left when they developed here, for example, in the neighborhoods?

There are existing accesses that you're referring to that are in between Rossmoor and El Manto, for example. And those the decommissioned trails, by the way, those were based on a lot of feedback from Sacramento County as well and on opportunities to improve the environment while still improving access to all areas. So you may see in between Rossmoor and El Manto, there's a trail that's highlighted in yellow there. It is not green nor red. And that trail halfway in between El Manto and Rossmoor, that is an existing, very informal trail.

Access is not really it's not a level or easily accessible trail. It had previously been recommended by the county to decommission it, but understanding the importance of connectivity to our neighborhoods, we have left left that open at this time. And we'd be be based on additional collaboration with the county and stakeholders, could identify based on in the as we develop design, should that be decommissioned, should it be improved, or should it be left as an informal trail?

The other thing I can say is, you know, some of these are sort of human trails, but they're also deer trails. You're not gonna close deer trails. If so, they'll just modify their deer trail. So to the extent the wildlife, you know, create and maintain some of these trails, those are those are probably there to there to stay. Overall cost, I apologize for being late for the for the presentation, overall cost here, I think I've been told it's between 3 and 5,000,000 as sort of the estimate of what this upgrade will cost. And we have in hand already one grant. Is that that right?

That that's correct, council member Sander. Our anticipated cost is roughly 3 to $5,000,000. It is pretty preliminary at the end of this this grant term. We'll have a a more of a design level estimate, somewhere in that range, hopefully. And as far as grants, we were awarded the $597,000 for planning and design. And we are pursuing federal funding. US Congressman Ami Barra did recommend this project for congressional direct spending. And so it is tied to a bill that's currently Budget. Yeah. It's currently tied to the current spending cycle on the transportation housing and urban development grant or bill.

So city staff will be tracking the legislative process on that bill. And if so, we may be awarded up to $850,000 for construction dollars. So it's a piece of the puzzle, but we are we'll pursue other funding sources at the conclusion of this grant term and before we get into final design.

And for my last question, for clarity, the proposed multiuse trail here is basically a class one off road connection. That's what I understand. It's it's following the path of Ross Moore Drive.

That's correct. This multi use path is proposed to be adjacent and parallel to Ross Moore Drive, but detached from the road for, yeah, non vehicle use. Good.

You know, my cycling out there in this neighborhood, I'd be cycling, not walking a dog. But you see dog walkers and a lot of people walking with kids on Rossmore Drive, and the cars are also on Rossmore Drive. So that is an uncomfortable thing to see, particularly when there are, you know, bends in that in that road. It's also true on El Manto, I'd say, to a lesser degree, but I'm really glad to see that going to a class one for safety reasons. That's it for me.

All right. Excellent.

So just a couple of follow-up to what David was talking about. So in terms of accessing this from ambassador, so right here in this corner, if there is a wayfinding sign there, then logically that could be one of those dead ends that David was talking about. But you'd have to call it up on an aerial to figure that out. And the same is true of the other one over here. If there's a wayfinding sign there, then presumably somebody has accessed that section of the trail from the neighborhood or might be on the bike trail and need to know how to get back into the neighborhood.

That would seem logical. I know that people who live in that area simply walk down and watch the deer many nights of the week. And obviously, whatever we do to facilitate that is a really good thing, because that's one of the benefits of living along the parkway. You get to see stuff like that. We had deer. We had coyotes. I actually saw a mountain lion one time, which was pretty cool, but and scads

of birds.

I understand the concern about how to decommission a trail that people have just made from normal foot traffic. But theoretically, it can be done. And especially if people prefer the nice new trails. And so maybe they'll stop using the others. When you talk about the class one on Ross Moore, is that available for bicycles to get to the parkway? And does the county allow electric bikes on the parkway?

Yes. Bicycles could be allowed as a acceptable use of the paved class one multiuse trail. As far as the use of e scooters or electric bikes, that's a policy decision from the county. I'm I'm not particularly certain what their policy is, but we can look into that and provide follow-up.

Probably somebody out there knows, but I don't know. So, yeah, I I think this is great. And I I have a friend over there on Ross Moore, and I've never heard anything negative from her about this.

All right. Final thing is love the project. Love the excitement of building this. I have no idea how you're going to stop people going down paths, but good luck to you. And good luck removing invasive plants from our community because the thistles don't care. They're staying. Oh. They're gonna stay. You're try to rip them out. They're gonna be back.

Star Thistle is a challenge. It's been a 50 project.

Makes the horses have upset stomach. It's a terrible thing.

Well, it's also not very pleasant to walk through. Yeah.

Only thing I would like is, since we're making this, like, I like to call it a historic trail for us, I'd like the names to be historical. I think it's important that we make brand them with the cool stuff we're doing in Rancho and where we come from. I don't wanna just make it a, like, the Lily Trail or Violet Trail or Rose Trail. I mean, those are cool, but in the end, there's so many cool things that Rancho Cordova has, and I wanna spotlight that through every construction piece because everything's a chance for someone to get a taste of what our city's about. So I'm really looking for something that kinda trends heads and and kinda goes with same themes we're trying to push out.

So let's look at that. Let's look at our history. Let's look at some of the cool stuff. I mean, we are a rocket. We we are the home of the rocket. So, I mean, it

rocket's back.

And the b 50 twos. Yeah.

The b 50 Twos. I mean, there's some cool stuff that's in Rancho Cordova, Liseldorf. I mean, we could have some pretty cool trails that up and down Rancho Cordova. So that's it. Do you guys have everything else you need? Thank you very much. Thank you, guys.

Right.

Let's move on to 3.2. And Stacy, can you read the subject, please?

Yes. Discussion and direction on the proposed relocation of the behavioral health continuum infrastructure program grant from Mills Crossing to the Wells Space Health location at 10423 Old Placerville Road.

Good evening, mayor and city council. I'm Stefan Heisler, housing manager with the city. I'll be presenting the discussion and direction on the proposed well, Stacy, you read the item. So I'm gonna call it the Beadship Grant because that's just a little bit easier. So our goals for the presentation this evening is to present the proposal to relocate the Beadship Grant from Mills Crossing to the Wellspace Health location at 10423 Old Placerville Road and then request feedback and direction from the city council regarding whether to reallocate the Beadship required 10% local funding match to this new project and new location.

To give you the background context for this proposal, as you know, we received the $7,000,000 Beadship grant for outpatient behavioral health services at the Mills Crossing project. This award requires a 10% local funding match and has an expenditure deadline of December year. The Mills Crossing commercial development is paused, and the Beadship grant would otherwise be terminated. Sort of in the wake of the conversations that were happening late last year, we looked at quickly to see if there were any other alternatives for this grant in order to keep the funding here locally in Rancho Cordova and be able to benefit from that grant as well as the services. So we reached out to and received a proposal from WellSpace Health to use the B CHIP grant at its current location at 1043 Old Placerville Road.

We believe this proposal is the best option for retaining these grant funds in Rancho Cordova to meet the expenditure deadline. There's quite a few strings attached to the funding. So we looked at some other alternatives, but very quickly this one rose to the top as the best alternative if we want to keep the grant here. So I'll quickly go over the project details on this slide, and then I have I want to bring up Ben Avey and Christy Gonzalez from WellSpace Health to say a little bit more in detail about what would happen here. And so WellSpace Health currently owns the building, and they currently operate both call center and primary medical and dental services at this location.

In order for this grant to happen here, the call center would be relocated, and then the behavioral health services would move into this location. They'd be renovated to create three group rooms and 12 individual rooms for outpatient behavioral health services. We did confirm that that proposed use would meet the current zoning where it's located and would effectively complement the existing services offered at this location. Looking at sort of the number of people that could be served by this proposal, it's very similar to the number that we were considering at Mills Crossing. On the Beecher grant, they used the technical term of slots, which is sort of like the number of possible maximum possible appointments that you could schedule in a year.

And so not that all of those slots would be filled 100% of the time, but we are looking at a very comparable number of people that could be served at this location compared to what we had at Mills Crossing. So at this time, if I could bring up Ben Avey, the chief public affairs officer, and Christie Gonzalez, the chief operating officer in WealthSpace, to say a few more words in detail about the project.

Thank you so much for having us. We are open to calling it the B-fifty two Health Center, if that pleases the council. I do want to say Doctor. Portia sends his regrets. He is out of the country. He did really want to be here, but he was unable to. So he did ask Christy and I to come on his behalf. As most of you know, WellSpace is a community health system providing comprehensive medical, dental, behavioral health, and supportive services to low income people across the Sacramento region. We have 1,100 employees. We have 35 centers.

And we actually serve about 1,400 people per day across all of our centers. To ensure patients have seamless access to care, we've built an integrated care delivery model that breaks down barriers to individual services, which allows people to access the care they need in their local neighborhood. You may hear us referred to as a FQHC, a federally qualified health center, a certified community behavioral health center, a mental health provider, a substance use disorder provider. We run nine eighty eight. We do all those things.

Because we realize when we create multiple models of care, it makes it easier to integrate that care. You don't have to go to five different systems of care to get what you need. When you walk in and say you feel sick, we can refer you to a friend. When you walk in and say you feel sad, we can refer you to a friend. We're not handing you a piece of paper and sending you across town.

Currently, our patients, if we give them a behavioral health referral outside of what's available within Rancho Cordova Community Health Center, they actually, by public transit, takes about sixty to ninety minutes to get to the nearest outpatient behavioral health facility. And we know for our patients that that doesn't work. If they want to access care in the local community, we want to make sure that it's accessible to them there. And Metro Cordova is a great place for that. In fact, that's where we announced that we were changing the name of our organization from the effort to WellSpace Health, because we were representing that broader array of care.

I think some of the council members here were at that ceremony, Madam Vice Mayor. Since the center has opened, about half of it has been a community health center. The other half has been a call center. We are planning to relocate the call center here within Rancho Cordova, take over the existing space, and license it specifically as a behavioral health facility, which would expand the scope of practice that we're able to have in that local community. We do anticipate it would probably be about a one for one on capacity, right?

Because the call center is a we have about 60 employees there every day. Within the behavioral health space between staff and patients, we'd probably have about that number or less at any given time to meet the requirements. And yeah, I'll leave it at there. I'll say the last thing is we did do an assessment of the area to determine whether the services were actually needed. We did look internally within WellSpace.

We do have a high number of people that need to access care in the Rancho community, and they currently have to leave the community to do that. And we also look to the 2025 Community Health Needs Assessment published by UC Davis. They actually called out that access to behavioral health services was the number two health care need countywide. But within that, they actually called out Rancho Cordova's 95670, 95827 zip codes as specific communities of concern where access to behavioral health care was an issue. There were other communities that were communities of concern, but they did identify this area as somewhere where we did need to grow our presence.

We've been proud to partner with the City Of Rancho Cordova for more than a decade, probably even longer than that when we get into our informal relationships. And we think that this is a wonderful opportunity to continue and expand that partnership, truly serving the people of Rancho Cordova, the folks that we both have dedicated ourselves to serving. Thank you.

Excellent. Stacy, do we have any public comment?

Oh, sorry, just a couple more slides. I apologize. So there's a couple pieces to this sort of relocating the grant. The first one is the Department of Health Care Services. The second one is us here locally at the City Of Rancho Cordova.

So we have been in conversation with DHCS over the last couple of months. We have received word that they are amenable to this grant relocation as well. And they're currently working on preparing an amended project funding agreement in order to effectuate that change. So now we need the second piece, which is direction from our city council on if the needed 10% local match funding can be relocated to the new proposed project. The grant overall is $7,000,000 The 10% local funding due to some other formula comes out to less than 10% of the total grant amount. So we anticipate that our 10% local funding match would be approximately 600,000 to $650,000

So it's not 10%? Perfect. It's government math.

Solid. It's state math. Solid. So, Okay, two two main alternatives. If we decide to relocate the local match to the new project, I'll work with WealthSpace Health, we'll work with WealthSpace Health and DHCS to prepare that amended PFA for formal council approval in the next one to two months.

WealthSpace Health will then expedite design work to begin construction as soon as possible, recognizing the looming expenditure deadline. And if we are not able to expend all of the grant funds in order to cover the project costs, Wolfspace would sort of pick up the remainder of the construction costs beyond what we're able to spend with the grant if we spill over to 2027. And then we expect that services would be available to the public in early twenty twenty seven. If we do not choose to reallocate the local funding match, then the proposed project will not move forward, and we will go ahead and terminate the B CHIP grant. So that's really it. That's what we're looking for council direction on this evening. And I'm happy to take any questions or comments.

Do we have any public comment?

We have one public comment. It was emailed to us by Jim Garcia. It's been distributed to the council and to the public as well.

Excellent. Question for Will Spaces.

Go ahead.

So For you guys. Do you all require that people getting service live in Rancho?

We do not. As a part of our federal mandate, we provide care to anybody that needs care. What we know from our health center is the people that access care predominantly come from the communities that we serve. And we have seen that with our Rancho Cordova Community Health Center. We're anticipating that here as well. There's definitely enough local community need to fulfill the requirements and the needs of the care capacity.

How do people hear about you?

I like to say that we are the best kept secret in health care, unless you're on Medi Cal. If you're on Medi Cal, you know us very well. We do provide the preponderance of Medi Cal primary care within the region, so it is referral based. In this case, you may be referred by your managed care plan or other service providers seeking out care.

Interesting.

Joe? Okay.

I'm I'm in support of it. I think it's

a good use of our money to get more money from the state for the community needs. So no questions or comments from me. Just you have my support.

David? In favor? Honestly, guys, you're one of our best kept secrets, and we need to change that. Getting a $7,000,000 grant is amazing. We have a lot of growth going on in the city, and I I know personally a lot of high school students that wanna be able to go to that. So once we get this kinda lockdown for everything 18 and up, I wanna be on the sit I didn't realize this, but they David will call it the roundup. They'll go to our schools and do health checks so the kids can play sports, We haven't been using them yet. I just think it's one of those untapped resources that we don't that you're an amazing nonprofit. You're in our city, and we need to lean on you more to help out our community. And this is I think this is a great start.

So excited about this. And at that point,

what

Just direction and recommendation.

Just direction. We're good. Go do it. Alright, guys. Congratulations. Thank you. Alright. At this point, I am going to go ahead and adjourn this meeting, and we're gonna go and start this back up at 05:30, Stacy?

Yes.

Recording stopped.

Stacy? I'm gonna go ahead and call this meeting to order and ask for roll call.

Council member Little? Here. Council member Sander? Here. Council member Polipotti?

Here.

Vice mayor Budge? Here. Mayor Gatewood?

Here. Stacy, can you read the meeting playback schedule?

Yes. The meeting of the Rancho Cordova City Council is recorded with closed captioning. The recording will be cable cast on Metro cable channel fourteen, the local government affairs channel on the Comcast and DIRECTV U verse cable systems. The recording will also be video streamed at metro14live.sackcounty.gov. Today's meeting will replay on Thursday, February 5 at 9AM and Friday, February 6 at 6PM on Metro Cable channel 14. Once posted, the recording of this meeting can be viewed on demand at youtube.com/metrocable14 and on the city's website at www.cityofranchocordova.org.

Alright. Pledge of allegiance, can I go ahead and have the most amazing mister Tim Murphy with the VIA and the Rancho Cordova Capital Air Show?

If you'll join me, please place your hand over

your heart and give it up for me.

Pledge allegiance 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. Awesome. Alright. Can I go ahead and have apostle Martin McGaian from the city of the Glory Church that will give our invocation? Alright, brother. Okay.

Alright. I'm Apostle Martin and I'm going to be giving the invocation today. Almighty God, we come before you as your people with hearts full of praise for your majesty and glaze. We humbly ask that your holy spirit guide us in this meeting, illuminate our minds to understand your truth and open our hearts to receive your wisdom. Thank you for this dedicated group of people who have been chosen to to serve our great community in this city.

As we begin this meeting, I pray as commanded in the scripture of first timothy chapter two verse one to two to pray for all leaders and all those that are in authority regardless of agreement and I declare that your purposes will prevail. I pray for wisdom, discernment to guide their decisions and understanding. I also ask for integrity, moral courage and humility to serve others selflessly. We seek the guidance of your spirit for just just peaceful decisions, choices that promote common good and peace. I pray for every council member for their strength, resilience to handle pressure, perseverance with the ability to do what is light even when it is difficult.

Thank you for your protection of our community, your guiding presence and provision to serve this city. We thank you, and it's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Now

those of you here with Tim Murphy, be sure he doesn't take that title on permanently. We'll just leave it where it is.

The great and powerful Tim Murphy. Alright. Let's go ahead and have our first presentation. It's going to be from the Rancho Cordova Capital Air Show presentation. And I got yeah. Every time. And I'm gonna have a Darcy. I mean oh, yep. Darcy Brewer come up. Darcy.

Oh, all of us.

Oh, the whole crew. The great and powerful Tim. Great. And, of course, the most wonderful, miss Terry.

I I do wanna note that in the fifth grade, I did play the wizard of Oz in a story.

Me you. Nailed it.

So mayor Gatewood and members of the council, thank you very much for allowing us this opportunity to share the impact and future of the California Capital Air Show. As you mentioned, I am the great and powerful Tim Murphy.

I am fortunately Fabulous.

I am fortunately not here in my professional capacity, but instead, as a member of the board of directors of the California Capital Air Show, I am joined here today by our fantastic CEO, Darcy Brewer, our amazing director of operations, Angela Terry, as well as a large number of our air show's phenomenal board members, Terrence McNamara and Steve Clark. We have Michael Runner, Shelley Blanchard. We have Sam back here, who I think you all know. And I don't know if Mark Zaposnik is here, but Mark is usually here. But he's also a member of the board.

We are thrilled and proud to once again partner with the Rancho Cordova City to produce an event that's not just an exciting aviation experience, but an enduring force for community impact in the region. With that, I will kick it over to Terrence McNamara.

Thank you, oh great and powerful Tim. So a little bit of a recap from 2025. We had just under 150,000 Darcy likes to put the exact number on my points. It's 146,872

spectators.

Saw our unforgettable weekend featuring the Blue Angels, the F-thirty five from the US Marine Corps, and the Air Force F-sixteen Viper demonstration team, as well as a number of other fantastic world class performers. Our twenty twenty five air show was completely sold out for the first time ever, both the premium venues and the general admission. And that's really kind of an amazing milestone for us.

Thank you.

Thank you. The point of the show is that it's a powerful tribute to the rich history of American military service and pivotal moments in our global history. We honored the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the US Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Army, recognizing their enduring contributions to the nation's defense. We also featured a poignant Warbird tribute to the eightieth anniversary to the end of World War II, highlighting both the victory in Europe and in The Pacific. But the impacts are not just emotional.

They are economic. We generated about, we'll call it, dollars 10,700,000.0 in direct economic benefit to the region, including $6,200,000 in direct spending in the Rancho Cordova area to those businesses by our visitors, exhibitors, and our direct spending as well from the event. Local business partners, including some of the largest regional employers, are our sponsors and participate with us. And we accounted for more than 1,700 hotel nights booked directly due to the air show from people not just around California but all over the world.

Community engagement fantastic.

Over 200 acres of exhibits and displays, including Travis Air Force Base, Beale Air Force Base, the California Air National Guard, local and state law enforcement, and STEM organizations. We had more than 1,000 volunteers that showed up to make the show go. Many of those are longtime volunteers. Many of them are residents of Rancho Cordova and have been a part of this show since its beginning. And then I would also like to mention that a little over a week ago, Darcy Brewer was honored by the Sacramento Metro Chamber with the Al Geiger Memorial Award.

And that's due to the impact that Darcy and the entire airshow team have on our community. And it was really excellent to see that work recognized in our region. And now, Stephen Clark.

All right. Mayor Gay Wood, council members, great to see you all. I think it's really easy, as we talk about the weekend of the air show, to sometimes forget that the air show for us actually lasts far longer than just the weekend. And so actually, after all of the aircraft had left Mather, the team actually jumped right back into year round programming, where our mission continues to be to honor, inspire, and to give back. And to date, that giving back has netted more than $600,000 in STEM scholarships, which has been awarded to more than two eighty students.

And that scholarship program is actually open right now for students to be applying for. But more than just scholarship programs, it's youth programs that have engaged more than 3,500 students from our region every year. It's these free educational outreach programs that introduce students to aviation and STEM careers and include hands on workshops, mentorships from industry professionals, and interactive STEM exhibits serving local schools, many of which are obviously here in Rancho Cordova. Destination Aviation and the ACE Academy, which are held in partnership with regional schools and industry leaders, connect thousands of students with career pathways in aerospace, engineering, and aviation technology. As a father of a 13 year old girl, I think one of my favorites and one that I know several of you who've actually attended yourself, was Girls in Aviation.

And last year, we had more than 500 young girls join us for that event at Mayfair, which was our largest Girls in Aviation Day event. And it's done in partnership with Women in Aviation International and seeks to introduce girls of ages of eight to 18 to careers in aviation. It's that collaboration with local schools and youth organizations to provide these immersive experiences where they really have an opportunity to take a look at simulator training, piloting drones, and getting to hear from guest speakers with military and civilian aviation, getting them more interested in what's going on, careers all across aviation and STEM. But it's more than just these opportunities of coming in and hearing about speakers, putting hands on simulators, or even flying cool drones. It's actually partnerships, and Terrence was just talking about that.

He mentioned our nonprofit partners. In this last year, we partnered with more than 30 of them. And they actually benefit from that partnership. In fact, last year, we partnered with them in revenue sharing. And that revenue sharing totaled more than $105,000 directly benefiting them.

In addition, the California Capital Air Show provided more thousands of free tickets to Title I schools, youth groups, families of active duty military members, and veterans organizations, ensuring access to educational and inspirational aspects of our air show. It's these partnerships with local educators to ensure aviation based STEM experiences go well outside of just the classroom, in reinforcing real world applications of math and science, while sparking students' interest in high demand careers like, I don't know, working for the airport or anything else. Might know a little bit about that.

It's a

pretty good job. Anyways, I think the biggest point here for you all is just to know that these efforts really ensure that the air show's impact and the city's investment in being a partner with us goes far beyond just an air show weekend. While that air show weekend is immensely important, it is those programs that extend all twelve months of the calendar that are so important in inspiring our next generation of innovators, engineers, and pilots while making sure that our collective community is strong. Angela?

So I get the fun job and I get to That's a thing that we talk about is the fun job. I think it's the fun job because I get to tell you all what's going to happen in '26. By the time October comes around, we have not had an air show in the skies of Rancho Cordova or Sacramento County in eighteen months. So everybody's itching. You can feel it now in our emails for after insider posts. People want to buy tickets and they want to come to the Nair Show. So with that, after eighteen months, we're gonna make it big. It's gonna be all out. So the United States Thunderbirds will be back to celebrate America's two hundred and fiftieth birthday. Get ready to party, because everybody in the nation will be partying, and we're going to do it here at Mather Airport.

We're excited. Our friends from the North, the snowbirds, will be joining us as well. So two jet teams, we like to call it the rock concert and the ballet, will be at the show October. If you're an air show insider, you might have seen an email that came out last week announcing we're bringing back the night show.

Yeah.

So, yeah. It was a hit in 2024 with Freche Tricholori and the Thunderbirds. And we're really excited to celebrate California Capital Air Show's twentieth anniversary really big with that night show. So we want to give you a taste of what you're going to expect in '26.

If you're watching from home, turn up your volume.

Yeah. Loud.

All of you.

And there you go.

I know we've exceeded our number of minutes, but I want to take our last minute to say none of this happens without the dedication of more than a thousand passionate volunteers who give their time and hard work to make this event possible. But it's not just the amazing volunteers and our very hard working board that make the airshow possible. The city of Rancho Cordova's continued support allows us to honor our past, celebrate our presence, and inspire the future of aviation and aerospace industry professionals. Part of this support includes the support of city staff working very hard for years on end on our board. And we'd like to take a moment to thank Kim, Jeron, CarraGiorgio for her years of service as a member of our board of directors and her deep commitment to our year round student programs.

There's really cool stuff in there. You're gonna have to ask her to see. The Blue Angels also asked us to drop by and thank the council for their warm welcome to the city and generous hospitality for the week they were here with us with a couple of personalized mementos. The one on the left is our poster last year, but each of the officers of the team signed it. And there's a note for you on the back. And then they left you their signed poster as well. And I want to thank you for your time and support in helping us to make magic in the skies and on the ground for our community. Thank you for letting us be here tonight.

Thank you.

So really quick, you guys do amazing work. You are truly one of the heartfelt pieces of our community and really have made us special. And so every time, are 100% with you. We love seeing especially bringing back the night show. For all you don't know, it's a 100,000 degrees when it's not a night show, and that's why it's so critical that I can show up without burning and going red. So very excited. Thank you for everything you do. I know it's tons of hard work, and I know my community isn't always the nicest on a hot day. But we appreciate you, and we love that you are in our city. And and you guys are amazing, especially Angela.

May May may? Very much.

Alright. Go ahead, Siri.

Yeah. I'd also like to say congratulations, Darcy, on your award. If you could hear from the back, it was me and Amanda cheering for you. So that was us. You know, you guys make magic in the sky. It's, of course, it's pleasing to the eyes. I wouldn't talk about the years at this point. But it's such a great thing that you guys are bringing to the city, especially the STEM for girls. That is one thing that I think is very unique in the entire region. So thank you for that.

And Stefan, I know he is so passionate about planes at every point. I know we were flying one time and he was telling us, you know, where to sit and you know, where all everything about the plane. So everybody was amazed with your knowledge. So thank you for that. And you know, it's it's very rare to find somebody who's so passionate about their work and loves talking about it even after work. So you have a great team that's going for you and we really look forward to October.

Thank you.

Thanks. Alright.

Thank you guys.

Thank you. Thank you. And

I get a ride in the Blue Angels this year. I promise I won't throw up like last time. I got this. Alright. Next up, employee milestones. Brenda. Alright.

So following the good work at city staff Stewing, I'm here to honor two of our team members who have reached significant years of service milestones with the city of Rancho Cordova. It's a pleasure to recognize their contributions this evening. And following the presentation, I would like to ask city council to join us on the floor so we could take a commemorative photo of the event. So first off, I'd to recognize Esther Panola. She joined the city in January 2006 and is celebrating twenty years of service with the city.

While she is unable to join us this evening, we do want to honor her longstanding commitment with the city and the community. As an accountant in the finance department, Esther has played a key role in maintaining the city's financial health with integrity and professionalism. And now we have Stefan Heisler. He joined the city in October 2015 and is celebrating ten years of service. Serving in the role as a housing manager in the community development department, he has supported housing initiatives that have helped strengthen Rancho Cordova neighborhoods and expand housing opportunities in our community.

So joining us this evening is Stefan, and I'd like to invite him to share any additional comments.

Just a few words. This is my most difficult presentation tonight. There's something wrong with my eyes when I start thinking about this presentation. So let me get to it. We'll get through it. They say the journey is the destination, and I think in some cases, that's true. Ten years ago, I arrived at my destination, which is to say that I started my journey here with the city of Redshakornova. And now ten years later, we're still here on the same journey. Some things are different. For example, all of us look a lot younger than we used to. We found the fountain of youth. Give him a raise, Micah. Race. But some things haven't changed. What what hasn't changed in Rancho Cordova is that we still have the best opportunities in the region and the resources to do it.

And just about more than just about any other city in California, we still have the privilege of being able to dream big here. And I thank you for allowing me to share share that opportunity in this journey. So I'm excited to keep journeying along with you and see where we go.

Thank you, Stefan. I know we kept you busy over the weekend, but you do have a hot topic.

So, yeah, mister mayor real quick. I just wanna, know, as we honor these individuals, it's really, I think, important to kind of think about the commitment that they've made to be a part of our, you know, team here for these many years and really wanna congratulate Stefan and Esther, who I know loves not being up in front of people. So I'm not surprised she decided or, you know, decided to not take the honor today. But I really appreciate the work that they've done over these many years as as we continue to build out the culture and the kind of as we continue to grow and add staff members. Some of these key individuals that continue to be here as part of our journey for a long time are really important. So congratulations, Stefan and Esther. Thank you.

And I would just add briefly. Stefan followed extremely experienced mentor in his area and I think is a great example of people really coming up through the ranks, getting great colleagues and mentors who help guide them into an area, and has really stepped into an incredibly complex, dynamic part of the state practice and local practice. And also, like so many other employees, is very active in the community in different ways and participates in different events. So I think, you know, we talk a lot about the professional work that people do here, but many of the employees you see honored in this way have very meaningful extracurricular private contributions that they make to the city in their private time, and and he's one such person.

Thanks, John.

Alright.

Awesome. We're So gonna do some public comment. Members of the public wishing to address the councilor for any matter not on the agenda may do so at the time by completing and submitting a speaker card to the city clerk. For items not on the agenda, speakers will be called by the mayor at the point on the agenda when the item will be heard. Speakers are encouraged to keep their comments to three minutes or less and state the name and community of residents.

Under provision of California government code, the city is prohibited from discussing or taking immediate action on an item not on the agenda unless it can be demonstrated to be of emergency nature or a need to take immediate action arose after the posting of the agenda. Stacy, do do we have any public comment?

Yes. I have six speaker cards. We'll start with Larry Leroy Ladd. Following Larry will be Scott Craig, Peter Friedrich, Pleasant Grove High School soccer. Hey. Michael Harris and Helen Wayla Beshaw. Larry, you'll have up First to three

comment is hooray for the air show. I'm imprinted on airplanes. I grew up next to an airport. I love airplanes. That comes from I was half blind for seven years, and my parents had a mobile of birds. So I spent seven first seven years of my life trying to figure out what birds look like. And then when I got my glasses and and they took the patch off the good eye, a Fairchild boxcar flew over the turned over our cornfield, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world. So in my core, I love airplanes and birds. Alright. So my topic is today is Groundhog Day.

If you've seen the movie, that's when you do the same thing over and over and over again. And on Wednesday, the federal government is going to present on what the safe level of perchlorate in drinking water is for the fifth time. So I've had plenty of practice in this. So I thought it was a good opportunity to explain to you guys what that number means. Basically, it's a scientific number.

Basic the the one sentence summary is, if they change it by a factor of three, it's scientific and toxicological. If they change things by a factor of two, it's legal, political, economic. And so the numbers coming out this time are 20, to let people know it's there, and that's 10 above that's a factor of 10 above Massachusetts' two. So there's a scientific argument. But after that, it's it's you have to shut down the water at twenty, forty, or 80, so factors of two.

And that comes from messy scientific processes having to have a legal level where this is safe and this isn't. That's the way the public looks at it, but as Doctor. Sander knows, and you engineers know, it's a fuzzy world in science. But if it's in the press at all, we'll see what happens. I'm expecting the first presentation is not with the EPA, it's with the Small Business Bureau.

And in the first five minutes, I'm going to know where this is going. If if they are giving talking points to water purveyors about how to kill this legislation and distributing pitchforks and torches, I know that's where this is going. But if they're sitting down in a presentation and saying, okay, this is how you're gonna adjust to this upcoming regulation, then then it then as far as I'm concerned, it's a good thing. Rancho Cordova is at four. That's partly because their assumption is there are other contaminants. So after the conference on on Wednesday, I will report in to you guys again about what happened there next time you meet.

Excellent. Excellent.

You didn't mention Groundhog Day, said another six weeks of winter?

Oh, my God, she gave me a scientific question. And Larry will run down this field. I think we're done with rain for the year. It's a La Nina year. Everybody's saying, we need more rain. I need need more rain. But it's like, hey, it's a La Nina year. Just be patient. Wait for El Nino. So that's what I think. I'm counting on being able to go up and down the mountains all the time now to get rocks for the the, May 8 Riverview STEM, science fair, where I've been assigned to really jazz up the first grade lesson on the rock cycle.

Oh, that's great.

So I plan to get a whole bunch of rocks in Nevada for these kids to play with.

Good evening, mayor, city council members. My name is Scott Craig, and I live in the Cordova town area of Rancho Cordova. I've lived there for almost nineteen years. I was gonna ask the air air show staff to fly low over my roof, but they've left already. I'm here today to speak to you about a potentially unsafe intersection in Renter Cordova.

On Tuesday, January 27 at 3PM, I witnessed a serious car accident that involved a vehicle fire and significant injury at the intersection of Mill Station Road and Rudiere Road. A small sedan heading southbound attempted to turn left onto Mill Station Road directly in front of an oncoming large full size pickup truck. The neither vehicle slowed slowed nor braked, and the resulting collision left the small sedan on fire in the shoulder of the road. I immediately called 911 and clearly communicated the accident location, the presence of injuries, and that a car was on fire. The accident happened immediately in front of me as I was stopped on Mill Station Road, getting ready to turn left onto Rutier going to the schools over Highway 50.

I thought they were gonna hit our car, and we narrowly avoided any contact with our vehicles. I'd like to share an observation or two about that intersection. I'm concerned that this intersection has design and safety issues that may contribute to collisions, including limited sight lines, inadequate signage, and a high volume of traffic. I frequent this area, often picking up children from the schools down there, and I am familiar of how busy this intersection can be. As you're aware, there's limited avenues over Highway 50 and around Cordoba, and that adds to more traffic in this area.

Additionally, vehicles turning eastbound onto Mill Station Road have a limited reaction time because Routier crests over Highway 50 as it's coming toward us. There is approximately one tenth of a mile distance between the crest of of that road and this intersection. And additionally, there is no signage at this intersection for the north and southbound lanes and little speed limit signs in the area. I respectfully request that the city council consider directing staff to review this intersection to evaluate possible safety improvements. From a simple layman's perspective, it seems that putting in a three way stop and some simple signs could be a very easy and cost effective way to mitigate future accidents in this area.

Thank you again for your time tonight. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Hey. Did you get that? Did you write that down? Sorry.

I've talked to

the staff. Albert, did you write that down?

Yeah. Okay. Cool. I would just say, you know, if you wanna check-in with our public works team, Albert, there will talk to you about those things.

Thank you. Thank you.

Next speaker is Peter.

Peter Friedrich, Sacramento. In September 2024, someone vandalized the Baps Temple here in Rancho Cordova. Your police department investigated it as a hate crime, which was the right response. But I want to talk about what happened next and who showed up to help. Eight months later, last year, the Hindu American Foundation, HIF, organized a temple safety and security conference in Sacramento, and got your police chief, Chief Tomayo, to deliver the keynote.

On the surface, that looks like a community safety partnership, but HAF is not what it presents itself to be. Al Jazeera, The Intercept, and the Quincy Institute have all documented HAF as an apparent lobbying arm for India's ruling party, Prime Minister Modi's BJP. Last year, the Fremont Gurdwara Saab filed a formal complaint with the DOJ accusing HAF of operating as an unregistered agent of the Indian government. And when activists sought email correspondence between the Indian embassy and HAF, the embassy refused, stating that disclosure would breach a fiduciary relationship. That seems to be precisely the kind of relationship which would trigger a foreign agent registration obligation.

So here's the hypocrisy. HAF showed up in Rancho Cordova after a hate crime, but that same organization led the lobbying campaign that killed SB five zero nine last year. SB five zero nine would have trained Californian law enforcement like Chief Tamayo to recognize and respond to transnational repression, The harassment, intimidation, and assassination of Americans by foreign governments. It passed the state senate 38 to nothing, the assembly 47 to nothing, was endorsed by the California Police Chiefs Association, and then governor Newsom vetoed it. HAF celebrated calling the veto a victory.

A victory for who? The US DOJ has has indicted a former Indian intelligence officer for directing a murder for hire plot against an American citizen on American soil. The FBI called it an attempt to assassinate an American for exercising his first amendment rights. And 30 miles from where we're sitting, in Woodland in August 2024, on Interstate 505, someone shot at a Sikh activist who was a close associate of the man that the DOJ says India tried to assassinate. He believes it was transnational repression, and the FBI is investigating.

An organization, DHAF, that claims to care about hate crimes in your city, worked to kill legislation that was designed to protect Americans from being murdered by a foreign government. That is not a civil rights organization. That is a conflict of interest at best. Council members, mayor, I'd ask you to look carefully at who your police department and the city in general partners with, and whether or not those partnerships serve the safety of your residents or the interests of a foreign government. Thank you.

Next speaker is a representative or representatives from Pleasant Grove High School, Carl Stocker.

All right, come on up guys.

You'll have up to three minutes. Good

evening, mayor Gatewood and council members. My name is Zaina Chaudhry. I'm a junior and one of the captains of Pleasant Grove's high school girls soccer team. I'm here with my teammates tonight to say thank you.

Hi. My name is Emma Buettner. I'm one of the captains of PG women's soccer team. I would like to sincerely thank the city council for your guys' generous financial support for our team this year. Your contribution helped our fund our recent trip to woah, to LA, where we had the opportunity to compete at a high level against top ranked teams from Costa Mesa, Santiago, and Hawaii. Those games challenged us and helped us grow as athletes and gave us experiences we'll carry beyond the season.

And this year, we're proud to announce that we are Delta League champions again heading into playoffs stronger than ever. It feels good to be part of a community that shows up for us. Not just sports, but girls sports too. We don't always get the same visibility and support, so your investment and care means more than you probably realize.

Hi. My name is Lee Hatler. These opportunities and accomplishments would not have been possible without your support. On behalf of my teammates, thank you for investing in student athletes and for continuing to support youth in high school sports in our community. We are truly grateful. Just to know, all five of us play at San Juan Soccer Club, and we are deeply rooted in the city of Rancho Cordova.

Hi. My name is Adeline Ali. I'm also a captain on Pleasant Grove women's soccer. As a small thank you, we brought you some PG swag. Consider yourselves honorary eagles. We're proud to represent Rancho Cordova. Thank you for believing in us.

Now you gotta come up here and get a picture with us. Because we're gonna take a picture of the championship team.

Yes. Yes.

If you guys didn't know that, that lady right there, I knew her when she was a baby. Her dad basically runs the little league baseball program and the soccer program and RCAA. Hal Butner is is that and his mom. And her mom makes the best chili in Rancho Cordova. Alright. Come on up, Let's take this picture. Number one again, champions rancho people.

The next speaker for public comment will be Michael Harris.

Good evening. Good evening. It is

a

very distinguished privilege to say happy one hundredth anniversary of Negro History Week and fiftieth anniversary of Black History Month. And, you know, I I was just blessed because I had a history teacher. She said, you have your a, you get to read, From Slavery to Freedom, but John Hoe Franklin gave me oral reports in the

back

because back in those days, it was like she would have been fired for teaching or even bringing that book to school and handing it to me. And so, when I met Doctor. John Hoefrege, probably the most esteemed historian in America. You know, some of you all know about what happened in Oklahoma, you know, Black Wall Street. Well, his father was a lawyer for Black Wall Street.

So, the history is deep there. But the idea that here in Rancho Cordova, I talk about it a little bit every now and then, there's a highway sign out there that mentions Mr. Leidsthorff. When you say the first public school in California, well, he was the financial capital for that, and he was the president of the school board in San Francisco. His steamship is on the state seal, agricultural export.

The warehouse in San Francisco. So, down in San Francisco, they're doing, after all these years, finally doing some nice things for William Leidenstorff. And his 35,500 acre ranch here, we've been at it, tweaking it. Now that I'm semi retired, we're going to focus on the agricultural here in Rancho Cordova where his farmhouse was back in 1844. So, the idea that know, Black History Month, which is now Well, beginning it was Negro History Week, now it's Black History Month, and so this whole idea of Africana, like the young ladies, they play with teams from all over world.

There's people of African descent all over the planet, And it's not black history, and it's not just American history. It's wherever we happen to be on the planet and wherever we might happen to go around the earth, you're going to see black folks who speak in all kinds of different languages. And it's Africana studies. Now, my teachers, that's what they teach, Africana Studies. They help create it. We have Kwanzaa here, every TV station, town, a couple of newspapers. But the founder of Kwanzaa is still living, and he teaches Africana Studies. Well, says he's retired down at Long Beach, but this year will be sixtieth year of Kwanzaa. We're going to do it again here. But Black History Month will be Friday, right here.

And hopefully I don't know. I'll make sure that we don't disturb folks because they'll still be working. But we're going to have the drums blazing outside and it's a taste of Africa. When I say blazing, they're going to be it's going to be loud, and it's going be some real percussionists that know what they're doing, crisp sounds. So I'm going leave some flyers, and I'll leave some in the back. But everybody's welcome. Black History is not just for black folks. Hopefully, you know, that infinity sign, the launch might be the seventh. We'll see, going back to the moon. And it's a black man, Christian man, who's flying the Orion back to Earth.

And they wrap it around the moon just like that Orion sign up there. Thanks.

Next speaker is Helen Whalen Beshaw.

I'm Helen Whelan Bashaw, and I'm from the Tiffany area. Tonight, I'd like to bring up something I consider, like, housekeeping. I was at the planning commission meeting last week on Wednesday, and I mentioned that we couldn't hear them. Could they please talk into the mic? After the meeting, the person came over and talked to me and said, I want to apologize.

The audio was out. So what I believe, which should have been the proper etiquette, is at the beginning of any meeting, when you have an audio problem and you know you're not going to be able to hear things because the speakers are down or the different cameras or TVs are down, you need to tell the public. Because they never opened their mouth after I made the comment. They continue to talk, and it seems like they're talking amongst themselves. It does not feel like the Planning Commission engages with the people who show up to talk about the issues.

And I feel that maybe you need to train them, and that in the beginning of every meeting, if there's going to be an audio problem, you need to tell the public. Because to me, I felt like they were disrespecting me intentionally. And it was after the meeting I find out you had an audio problem. Just like how long was this TV out? Like, months, if not a year. So that's all I've got to say. Thank you.

In your gate, well, that's all the public comment that we have.

Alright. Let's go on to council reports. And we're gonna

start We have the youth council. Don't we need to acknowledge?

Oh. Hey. Youth council. Come on up. Come on up here. Come on. You can't just walk out and sneak out. I see what you're trying to do. Hi there. It it was late. All right. Go do your city manager report right now. Talk about it.

No. I was gonna say this for my city manager report, I didn't know Nick was leaving with the crew. But just acknowledging our pro youth group cohort that is here that is the annual or semi annual tradition of having the team. So I really appreciate them being here and and participating, and thank Nick for bringing them and celebrating tonight.

So Thank

you for being here. Go ahead. Please. Speak? Oh, yeah. Of course.

Thank you. Yeah. Thank you guys for making the space. I apologize that we were about to dismiss our program in just a few minutes. So I wasn't sure what we lined up with respects to the meeting agenda. But I do wanna extend a very gracious thank you to our city staff here. I also would like to show some extra appreciation for the CEIF team. Also, Randy K. Stevens, if you're listening to this, congratulations on the new title. I'm very excited.

Again, as Michael put it, a semiannual program where I teach youth about how to engage with local politics. It's a pleasure of mine to also have all of you showcase, you know, what's going on in the city, what they can learn from your leadership, your guidance, your experience. Mayor Gatewood, I'm excited to have you present to my group, actually, next Monday.

Next Monday?

Yes. Yeah. Excellent. So thank you for your confirmation of attendance. And Whoo.

And also to city manager, Michael Renner, also for, you know, making time to speak with us by the end of the month as well. But to all of you, thank you for creating the space, for all the work that you do in the community. You guys are doing amazing, expanding the city, its services, making sure that, you know, all of the population here is listened to. And, you know, thank you once again to everybody in the council, and within the building. So with that, I'm glad to be here. Have a wonderful night, and I'll be seeing you guys a few more times in the council meetings.

Alright. Alright. Excellent. Thank you. Have a wonderful one.

Joe, what you got going on?

Finally have my voice back and I

he's alive.

Hey, everybody. I just report back from my exploratory mission to Oahu where I got sick. They have highway warning signs there like their version of Caltrans that say like, you know, slow down or whatever, but they post them in pigeon like Really? They have official from the state, but it's all just completely very funny. Broken English and stuff. That was very interesting. And a lot of graffiti. It made me appreciate how clean our city is. You spend a lot of time outside of Rancho and there's a lot of graffiti everywhere.

It's not something we would have here.

But that said, nothing else. Happy to have my voice back.

Yeah. There he goes. David.

Thank you, mister mayor. I just returned from Washington DC where I met with the National League of Cities executive committee. As past president, I'll be doing that for a for a few years. Got some in-depth reporting on mayor Gatewood's activities at the US Conference of Mayors meeting. All positive, I would have to say.

Whoo. Full of them all.

All positive. Just there's a there's a reporting system in place though, Garrett, between the two of us now, so this is gonna be interesting.

Ah, dang it.

The I also met, of course, with the Air District, SACOG, Regional Sand, probably a couple other responsibilities. I'm not calling up at the moment in the past week. Nothing of particular interest to the city in those. However, I did spend some time with our new basketball coach at Cordova High School. Coach Chris Collins, really great guy. And they beat Kennedy. Oh. Last week. So that's, I think, last Tuesday, if I remember right. Very exciting to see that happen. Very exciting to see them there. I think there's a lot of growth potential with this coach and that position. So I'm excited about them. I'm excited for our kids.

That's my report. Alright. Siri.

So one Saturday, I had to attend the kite festival at Spotter Park, and it was a really good breezy day. So I was celebrating spring, celebrating a community. And actually, was one of those festivals where you have to be outside, and the windy day really helped. So if you find kites somewhere near Stone Creek Park, know that it was for good cause.

There was there kite fighting?

I think so. Love that.

I think there was because I saw the whatever the the spool, the thread that they were using to fly the kites, it cut something people's hands. So I think it was really sharp. So maybe there was some kite fighting. Because myself and mayor had to go to another event, which was a cricket tournament where they I'll let the mayor talk about that. He had to But leave

in Rancho.

He had to leave and I was there handing out awards at their cricket tournament, so that was good. The mayor, city manager, and staff, we attended the Metro Chamber annual awards where Darcy, as you heard, got the Al Greager award. So it was a pretty fancy event, well attended. And I was out of town last weekend, so that's one week. Thanks.

Linda?

So the routine meetings these past couple of weeks have been regional transit and the library and this morning's habitat conservation plan. This morning, we actually discussed a project here in Rancho Cordova, Taylor Morrison Homes out East of Rancho Cordova Parkway, North of Kiefer, and South of Chrysanthi. It's kind of going up into an area of town that has not been developed before. Council also had a special meeting to talk about a specific housing project. And I'm not sure we've had a meeting to congratulate Garrett on a really dynamic speech at the luncheon.

I mean, Garrett brought the house down. Actually, he jazzed it up with the cheerleaders, then he brought the house down. And incredibly dynamic speech. He really deserves all sorts of congratulations. And yesterday afternoon, I took my sister-in-law to a concert at a very unusual place at the Moose Lodge. There's a gentleman over there who has a beautiful voice, And he sings Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and Neil Diamond. And everybody had a great time. There was audience participation. And it went on for like three or four hours. And we just all had the best time.

So I want to congratulate the Mooses on that. That's one of those things where you don't realize how many cool things are going on here in Rancho Cordova for people to go attend, until you just get out and go do something like that. And we also want to congratulate our Animal Services people. On Saturday, they did another free totally free clinic for dog lovers. Vaccinations, chipping, and licensing, all right here, well over at the Animal Services Center, and all of that happening on the spot at that time.

And he didn't need to make several trips or anything, and it didn't cost people a penny. There was even a gentleman from the who came over from Mather Veterans Village and brought his doggy. And they they had almost 150 people. And it seems like they you think they would run out of of animals to vaccinate. But it turns out every time they do this clinic, it seems like the same number of people show up again. So we wanna congratulate animal services. And that's my report.

Alright. Alright. I haven't done anything this last two weeks, but it's this list, this list, and this list. Everyone get comfortable because I had to do it so you get to hear about it. So I met with the CEO of Tritle, fascinating individual.

I know There's so many different CEOs of different companies in our city. You don't realize how many, but it's huge. And so we had an amazing discussion about CNC operators and how if the school district put something together, a CNC operator is one of those great blue collar jobs that could come out of our city and you could go right from high school and they would be hired immediately to go work at those jobs. And not to mention, if they wanted to extend it and keep going, there's even more opportunity for that. So I'm working with the school district now.

There's a way to get our hands on curriculum. The only issue is the Folsom Cordova School District, instead of building the machine shop for CNC machines in Rancho Cordova, which would have made sense, they built it in Folsom. So now what we're going to have to do is work with some of our partners like Tri Tools to build these new organizations here in Rancho Cordova, which they're willing to do and help us to get curriculum if they can guarantee some some some worker bees will come out of it. And I know that my citizens would love that type of job. First to second generation, work with your hands, great money, great retirement, just an awesome opportunity.

And I'm gonna do more of this because I I wanna see I wanna hear and see from our CEOs. The only problem they have is a little bit with a recycling place. But besides that, we just need to really that that's just there's so many opportunities for Rancho Cordova to just keep going in the right direction. If you haven't sensed the energy, I'll bring it up, and I'll I'll save that. We're gonna talk about 10. Number 10, Maimea. It starts with a b. We're gonna bring it up in a minute after I finish. Keep going. Second thing, Rancho Cordova business outlook.

Thank you so much to Diane from the Chamber of Commerce. It was amazing. I got to speak at it. It's funny because in our region, if you went back and they start talking about, they say the economy is getting better, but they say Rancho Cordova is overcoming all the numbers that are supposed to happen for small cities. And it's like we're we're we're polluting ourselves into such economic goodness. It's it's amazing. And they just saw all these numbers and all the trending, and everything's going up for Rancho Cordova. I went to the US Conference of Mayors. So if you guys don't know this, you go there and you meet with all the different mayors in the entire US and the world because some of them flying from other countries. And so found it fascinating.

Met Elizabeth Warren, talked to the mayor of LA, Pittsburgh. Oh, what's his name? Dearborn, Michigan. Like, all the ones that you see on TV in Eclipse, I met all of them from the crazies to the non crazy, the two the two the ones that are crazy online, but the minute you meet them, they're quiet and soft spoken and they just have a character they play. Fascinating.

And but I did come home with about, I think about 900,000 of potential grants that all we have to do is fog a mirror, planning grants. A lot of people won't change the the way they write the grants. And so the government said if you change the way you write it, you can have the money. But they have such big chunks of money that no one's applied for. So we like planning grants for roads. They so much money at the Department of Transportation. They said I've never heard them say this. They're like, please apply because if not, we don't have a use for the money because it's just gonna get rolled into next year. And I'm like, that is crazy. Whereas when I first got on council, it was so impacted that you couldn't get squeak anything out.

And now they're like, here's it. I brought home all the documentation. I gave it over to Albert. You scan it and you literally put the documentation. And we have a bunch of stuff that's ready to go. And if you didn't know this, if you can get a planning grant, the planning grant is where you get your funding grant from eventually. So we should go and get all the planning money because no one seems to be stepping up to get it. And then never go with your friend to a press conference if you don't wanna be pointed out to talk on international news. So it's not my fault. And, Cheryl, I apologize because I promised I wasn't gonna be on national TV.

But what happened was is I was next to the mayor of West Sacramento because she keeps getting bullied by bigger people. And she said, hey. Can you stand there and swell up so I cannot get punched out of sight? Not a problem. I stand next to her, and, you know, you do the nod thing where people talk. This is oh, yes. And then you because they want all the mayors behind them. Right? And I was like, alright. I'll do that.

So I was nodding, and I was agreeing with them. And they got done saying some talks and being really, oh, gung ho. And then a couple of the the news the oh, what is it called? Political stood up and was like, hey, heard a lot of bad things about data centers and wanna know what the mayor conference really thinks about AI and AI technology. And so the head of it looks around and says, that's great.

He's like, Garrett Rancho, you do AI. You're the city of AI. Come on up here and talk about it. And I slid in and I had to explain to them that AI technology is not a lose for a community. It's literally the most amazing advancement in the last sixty years when it comes to technology and it's just gonna be this thing that keeps growing. And you need to be on an adoption of how to adopt it and make it work and not be afraid of it. You don't wanna be on the the end of this technology. You wanna be on the front, but you wanna make sure it works for your community. So a lot of people are like, oh, I'm scared of data center. Well, make the data center work for you.

If you're scared of power stuff, have the data center pay for the power and the water on its own because they make about $700,000 a day. And they could help out with the community. And if you get a good it's like any business. Make find a good business partner and work with them and you'll get what you want. And so it it was crazy. I got to get up there. I talked to a bunch of cities. They're all very impressed with our small city. I had seven to 10 of them ask us where we were, insulted. And then they asked us, your Rancho Cucum I was like, I swear if you finish that. Cordova. Thank you. And it's went to the BIA installation dinner. Amazing. Went to the after school AI program.

Thank you to the Suvita Suvita Foundation. We're doing AI in our high schools already. They built an AI bot to put on our website. And so, when you go to our website and you type some information in, the AI bot will actually work with you. Very cool. Went to the third annual state of public protection address by our DA. Very interesting. Went to the Sacramento Chamber of Commerce, their dinner. Went to Causepure. Met with them.

You know, you guys heard downtown Dova. Dave and I are working with them, hearing about how it's coming. They it I see the finish line. It's gonna be a lot of hard work as the community as we go to this, but it's something that's gonna really benefit our community, and it's gonna be so nice to have entertainment after 06:00 at a restaurant. I'm tears. Did this thing called the RC monthly luncheon. Thank you, Shelly, for planning. It was great. I mean, it was fabulous. You did everything fabulous.

Records, playing, dancers, me singing. I mean, you can't beat that. I don't know how the next mayor, Linda Budge, is going to upstage me and what song you're gonna sing. But we're not that big of a fan of country, so I don't know what you're gonna roll with. Phil, the mayor minute, that was fun.

Okay. So Siri and I went to the SCCL, which is the cricket finals. And in Rancho fashion, they got in a big old fight, and it was hilarious because we show up, and it and we were supposed to start really quick. And then, like, the I didn't know cricket. You fought over, like, points, and I guess his ankle was in when he caught it, and he didn't get the six he wanted, but he's supposed to get a three. And that was about an hour and a half discussion. And I was sitting there being like, in any other sport, don't you get a foul and you just move on? They have to negotiate with both coaches. So what do you think? Do you think you wanna take the eight? No. How about you? You wanna take no? You want a three? Hour and a half.

Super supportive. I mean, it it was crazy. Because I like I like because because I am so the one off sports that come into the community, I am so excited. Our Indian population loves cricket. Not likes, loves. And when we have a professional cricket team, which we're gonna be one of those crazy seasons, but have that, we're gonna draw the entire Asian Indian community into Rancho going over to watch the championship cricket team. Still going. That's why I said, I just wanna bring this one thing up because I think it's amazing. Congratulations to SolidDine. If you guys didn't see this, they got $10,000,000,000 to come into the city of Rancho Cordova.

That is amazing. And the fact that they are now been given that money to set up an AI company in the city of Rancho Cordova is exactly the kind of energy we're bringing in. Along with that, we got the metaverse to work with Sac State and bring in $50,000,000, which is one tenth of what we actually brought in ourselves. Let's not focus on that. Let's focus on the fact that AI is alive in the city of Rancho Cordova and our surrounding areas, and it's turning us into the place you wanna be for this kind of technology.

Robotics, engineering, they're all kinda starting to come into our city. And what I think is just our our identity popping back up again because I've always said, we're just the place where rockets were invented. We're the rocket scientists. Now we're going to be where the AI scientists come out of and have invented. It's just amazing to see the cut the city go back into what it was always.

Alright. Now, good evening, everybody. As mayor of Rancho Cordova, is my honor to recognize Black History Month, a time to reflect on the contributions, resilience, and leadership of black Americans who have helped shape the nation and the community. Black history is American history. It's the story of perseverance in the face of injustice, innovation born of struggle, and a progress driven by courage.

From civil right leaders who have challenged the status quo to everyday community builders who have opened the doors to the next generation, these contributions continue to move us forward. And as the city of Rancho Cordova is the strongest when we celebrate diversity, stand with equality, and create opportunity for all, this month and every month, us commit to learning, listening, and leading together. Thank you, and happy Black History Month. We I have never been in a city that I feel more welcome, more understood, and safer than Rancho Cordova. We are one of those cities that you see every race, every culture when you walk outside your door.

And I think that's our military beast, honestly. It's basically led us to have all the same community, and we know how to live, work, and play together. So now I'm gonna read off all the very cool thank you. I'm just gonna give a special shout out to Maria, to my amazing Mac, Cheryl, I see her in the back, for having these events. Because when I first started in Rancho Cordova as the first black person to be elected here, not the last, we didn't have any events, anything like that.

And so now I mean, our city was literally started by this I'm a butcher's name, Lisedorf. He basically started Rancho Grosso, which is funny because that means our city was started Folsom and Rancho Grosso were started by an African American man that actually became a Mexican citizen so that he could buy land from the Mexicans consulate. Long story, but at least he got it. So cool events that are going on for this month. The, MAC is hosting Black History Month. So we're having the voice in the thread and exhibit featuring Social Justice Sewing Academy, And I'll do a welcoming. This exhibit empowers young people to express themselves, create a change through sewing and textile art. If you didn't know that, that's sewing. Sewing. Not sewing.

Anyways, moving on. Social justice education, community quilt workshops, and art quilt programming are SJSA core activities to help the middle and high school students grow as critical thinkers, artists, and advocates. That is that is right now. Ancestry and Alchemy, a sacred of black women, a solo show by Yana Evans. Nailed it.

Got it. I was gonna nail that anyways. Inspired by her ancestors, her art represents the sacredness of black women through spiritual imagination and intuitive process. Her artwork work reflection of herself and her inspirational women in her life and that magical journey of transformation and creation. Then we have a concert.

Don't miss the concert. Sabrina is a songstress. Sabrina and her fabulous trio will perform some of the greatest hits from the HR era, including recordings by Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and I know those, and Sarah Vaughn, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, and more. I nailed Nat King Cole. They will bring the artists to life in their dynamic sounds, beautiful arrangements, and historical accounts of their lives of these legends.

Awesome. And that's on February 20 at 06:30 to 08:30. I think these are all gonna be on the website. February 6, the 05:30 to 07:30 is for the Yana Evans, and then the other one is going on right now. It's January 15 to February 21.

From Rynew Imagination Studios, that that renew, Black History Month art show, Imagination Studios is hosting a special art show celebrating Black History Month. The show will run from Saturday, eleven to 4PM, eleven to 2PM on Sunday from February 7 through the twenty eighth. An artist reception is set to take place on Saturday, twenty first from four to seven. Don't miss it. And then my friend is already gone to Michael, but let's talk about this one.

Hidden pioneers. Join a lifetime presidential gold medal award winner, c I CSI Bill Montgomery. Now it's awesome that he's actually coming to Rancho Cordova. So you don't wanna miss this because his life story is amazing. For a special presentation, exhibitation exhibit commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the Negro History Week and the fiftieth anniversary of Back History Month, Montgomery leads the organization Hidden Pioneers, which carries on a legacy of his cousin, Katherine Johnson, who was awarded the presidential medal of honor by Barack Obama for her role in compute in the computing of NASA.

Go figure, AI city, AI, Black History Month. Here's the story. It was told in 2016 film hidden figures. If you guys remember, it's the lady that wore the glasses that did the calculations on the rockets by hand, which is nuts because that's how they had to do it. And that's like using an abacus to figure out rocket directions. But it's it's crazy because you watch her do it, and they had to fight that while at same time she had to walk

four

hours to go use the bathroom because she wasn't allowed to use the people of the non colored bathroom until that guy got really annoyed by it and just knocked it down and said, I'm I need to get my numbers done, which efficiency at all times. Mangari's special exhibition will be in Rancho Grosso City Hall on Friday, February 6, beginning at 05:30. Looking forward to all that. Thank you for all your time, and I'm sorry it took so long. I'm a leave this on to Mike Renner. Good lord. That was that was a week. Right. Oh.

Thank you, mayor. Appreciate it. I did get a front row seat of the mayor luncheon and the dancing, so I did appreciate that view. But really just one thing, just wanted to recognize our public works team. They did win a women's transportation Sacramento Chapter Award this last week, and so celebrating the work that was done on Chase Drive. And so I want to just recognize Christine and Edgar and Albert and that congratulations on that award that they received this last week. So with that, that's the end of my update. Thank you.

Alright. We're gonna move on to consent calendar items. Consent calendar items are deemed routine and noncontroversial by staff unless a member of the council wishes to pull an item for individual consideration. All items may be approved approved in one motion. Guys, do you want to pull anything? No? Is there any public comment?

There is no public comment for the consent calendar.

Seeing none, then I will move approval of items 13.1 through 13.7.

Roll call.

Council member Little? Yes. Council member Sander?

Aye.

Council member Polipotti? Yes. Vice mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood?

Great. Alright. No public hearing items. No consent public hearing items. One or two. Two. Three. Three. Four. Let's start with 16.1. Stacy.

The item for 16.1 is a resolution authorizing a funding commitment of $5,000,000 to Rancho Cordova, owner LP for the Astoria Flats affordable housing development project.

Stefan, hit it.

Good evening, mayor and council. Stefan Heisler, housing manager for the city. I'll be presenting the item. And we also have representatives from Lincoln Avenue Communities here in the room. I'm going to call them up for a few slides, and then I'll finish off the presentation. So our goals for the item are to provide details on the Astoria Flats affordable housing project. We will present and discuss the developer's request for a $5,000,000 loan, and then requesting direction to staff regarding the funding commitment request. Oh, yes. Sorry. I'm sorry.

So at this time, yeah, I'll call on Brandon Hodge, vice president from Lincoln Avenue Communities. And he'll be presenting more of the details on the project this evening. Just for context, this project has received entitlement approvals already. And this item is really focusing only on the funding request at this time, which we'll get into details as well. Go ahead.

Good evening, Mary A. Wooden, members of the council. My name is Brandon Hodge here representing Lincoln Avenue Communities. As Stefan said, I'm a vice president and project partner with Lincoln Avenue, lead developer on on this opportunity. Before we dive into specifics, I wanna give you a little bit of background on Lincoln Avenue. So we are a California based, mission driven, affordable housing developer. We're active in the Sacramento area. However, we have a nationwide footprint. We've got extensive experience developing affordable and workforce housing, currently own 170 properties, which services serves about 30,000 households across the country. Our mission is to provide high quality, sustainable, resilient housing.

One really important piece I do like to note is we're long term owners. Some a lot of times in multifamily, you have merchant builders and merchant developers who will, you know, develop a community, and once it's constructed, they're selling and they're out. We're long term owners. We're involved for fifteen plus years, so we are extremely invested into these communities, you know, more than anyone else. And so when we design those decisions we make, you know, we we're very incentivized to ensure that we're providing appropriate amenities, high quality, durable construction materials because we live with those decisions for fifteen plus years.

Moving on to an overview of the development. So it's about an 11 just over 11 acres located at the Southeast Corner Of Sunrise And Chrysanthemum Boulevard. Currently proposing 236 units, which is a mix of one through four bedrooms, which will, you know, house working class families. You have individuals can live in one beds up to larger families in the four bedrooms. It's ten three story garden style buildings with a standalone clubhouse.

The clubhouse is directly in the center of the site, and so when you're coming off of Chrysanthi, the entry point, that clubhouse is that first building you'll see. The square footage of those units ranges between around 700 to 1,400, you know, from a one bedroom to a four bedroom, respectively. Community amenities, we've got just around a 6,000 square foot clubhouse just south of that clubhouse. You have a pool. You have lounge areas.

You have outdoor grilling area with a few pergolas. And directly west of that, two playgrounds, one a tot lot as well as a playground for older children. It's just a really nice space for residents to come out and gather and connect. The development the goal of development is to provide workforce housing for working families in in the city. You have essential workers, health care workers, people in the industrial field, people that need access to high quality attainable housing, and that's the goal of Astoria Flats.

In terms of the development AMIs, which is area median income, that is the 30% to 70% is where the incomes that this development will serve, and those AMIs are set annually by HUD. So those change annually, and those change as wages change, and average incomes within the county change. And so that, numbers wise, is around 30,000 to 105,000. I know that's a pretty wide band, but that is that band from 30% to 70%. Other details, 460 surface parking spaces, 100 of those spaces are covered, and then we'll also have 46 EV charging stations.

So here are a few photos of this is a development we recently completed. Just wanted to give you a a real life example of, you know, what what a stereo flats would look like. So that first photo in the upper left hand corner is of the the pool area. You have the clubhouse just directly, you know, behind the pool to the left. This was right prior to the pool furniture getting delivered, so there is,

you know,

gonna be a little bit more going on on the on the pool deck. That upper right hand corner is the clubhouse, and so that is one of the gathering areas in the clubhouse. And then you can kinda see in that back right hand corner, there's an additional room there, which is there's a kitchenette, another gathering space for residents. The bottom left hand corner is it's a unit. You have high quality cabinets, solid surface countertops, resilient flooring, stainless steel appliances, and then additionally in the bottom right hand corner, a photo of the same unit.

That is just the living space. They're they're designed to be modern, indistinguishable from marker rate developments. They really take that approach within the units as well as the exteriors and amenity spaces. One other really important piece is obviously developing a high quality high quality development, but we understand the ongoing maintenance and management is equally as important. You know, these are large investments, and we take a lot of pride in ensuring that we have the right management approach because that really strengthens the communities.

We hold all of our residents to the same standard. We prioritize timely response for maintenance and as well as preventative maintenance to ensure that fifteen, twenty, thirty years down the road that these developments are still gonna be still really high quality. So here is an aerial rendering, and so this viewpoint is looking south, Prasanthi Boulevard at the bottom of the screen, so that would be the main ingress, egress point. And as I said previously, that you kind of drive in. The clubhouse is directly in front of you with the residential buildings kind of spread throughout.

Next slide. So that would be the outdoor amenity renderings. That would be on the south side of the clubhouse. That upper right hand corner is some seating areas with pergolas and the grills that you can kinda see. You've got the pool with lounge areas and some shade as well as directly west of the pool area, a few different playgrounds.

So it's it's a space we designed to have residents utilize and, you know, connect and gather with each other. So this would be final rendering. This is that same viewpoint looking south off of Krasanthi, just more at a street level, so robust landscaping, really something when you're driving in, you know, it's it's got a really good entry feel directly into the clubhouse, and so that gives you a little bit better idea of of what we're what we're proposing. So shifting focus to the request, we are requesting a $5,000,000 development loan from the city, which will help ensure that this development moves forward as designed today and helps us, you know, meet our upcoming state deadline here in June. We wanna develop something that the city and the community are proud of, high quality housing that's gonna last.

We understand, you know, we know this is a fast growing area. This is a highly visible corner. Again, we wanna design something that is and build something that the city is really proud of. The project's ready. We're fully entitled. The financing is largely in place. This is just the last piece. And so we look at this as an opportunity to turn, you know, a long bake long vacant site into a lasting community asset, And so we really appreciate your consideration.

Thank you, Brandon. I'll cover just a few sort of example projects of sort of comparable size in other jurisdictions, and then we'll wrap up. So kind of looking at where these projects end up, I think we've had previous discussions about different kinds of affordable housing projects. This is what you would probably see more on the large unit bond funded projects. So we are seeing them across Sacramento region.

There's been several recent examples in Elk Grove. So one of them here was Gardens at Quail Run apartments that was built in 2023. It included sort of a larger number of units. But you can see from the aerial here kind of coming in within already established single family neighborhood. Similarly, on a nearby lot in a not very far location from the last slide is also MOSA, which has also built Elk Grove very recently here in 2025.

I think that was done in a couple of different phases for the full number of units. But that one also similarly sort of a large unit bond funded project going into existing neighborhoods on sort of pre identified high density housing sites. And then also there's been a recent example in Folsom. You can see here the Granite City Apartments, which was built in 2013, included 81 units. It's kind of similar amenities across all the different projects that we would be seeing in Astoria Flats.

So looking closely at the loan request and our staff evaluation, as we've mentioned, the developers are requesting a $5,000,000 loan. This city funding would cover development and construction costs, ensuring the project meets the state's June deadline to begin construction. Most often, see projects coming to the city prior to applying for state funding. And we've sort of made funding commitments in the past sort of in order to get state funding. In this case, that hard part has already been completed.

So the state funding has been received, but there's a project need in order to sort of complete the project financing. And in my fourth bullet here, what would happen if the project is not funded by the city? Funding will need to come from another source. So that could be private capital. That could be harder to find.

It could put the project at risk of a shortfall. And also could require the project to make scope or design changes to bring the project in line with the available budget. So the per unit subsidy requested here is much lower than our average project per unit subsidy on our other projects that we funded, as well as the developer has already sort of done quite a bit on their end on the financing side to heavily defer their project developer fee in order to sort of make the ends meet. I'd also note, too, that they've also worked with other partner agencies in the region to help lower some of the fees on that side as well. So we aren't the first agency to be being knocked on the door for funding.

So a lot of the work has been done already. So getting to the alternatives and staff recommendation, the resolution before you, if adopted, would essentially effectuate either option A or option B. The difference here is sometimes or oftentimes, we make funding commitments, and we don't plan to come back for council. Option B would be slightly different in that staff will work with the developer, and we'll kind of stay tuned for basically the final construction costs once those are bid and all of the costs are known. And if there's any opportunity for project savings, we'll work with them and potentially see if there's an opportunity to reduce the amount that the city loan needs to be in this case.

And then option C as well is to not provide the funding commitment. So our staff recommendation is option B this evening. And that concludes our presentation, and we're happy to take questions and comments.

All right. Let's go ahead and go to public comment. Stacy.

Yes. We'll start with James Garcia.

Hello, James Garcia, resident of Stone Creek. I also like the idea of option B. I'm actually one of those weird ones that kind of supports some of these projects on occasion. I like the fact that we have two thirty five units, and we're at four sixty car parking spots. We're almost at two to one. I really wish we could push it over the edge and go to four seventy, I mean, just so we can actually finally meet that, because there's an awful lot of two car families that need housing. And most projects that we've had presented don't have nearly enough. They're like at 1 and onefour per project, and that's it. So this one's close to two to one. So I really like that option there.

I like the idea that it is a loan as opposed to a handout pure handout. So a little bit of that. Don't know what the terms of it, though, and how long we'd get that money back. So that's only other concern and question, though, on that. But I'd rather go with option B. So

thanks. Next

speaker is Chris. Chris, I can't read your last name, so I'll let you introduce yourself.

Hi. I'm Chris Osana, president of Cavallo Ranch. I have some generalized questions. I know we're a little bit past that on it, but was wondering kind of what the completion date was, estimated completion date.

Mhmm.

And then also for everyone in our area that is concerned about schools and how it'll impact them, make sure we get that to Elk Grove School District as soon as possible because Totally agree. We don't wanna hear from, you know, all them again. And then I am in support of option b on it. I think he brought up a good point as far as parking. Just knowing that area, it is pretty traffic. There's not gonna be any street parking. Like, it's just not realistic with the Anatolia Clubhouse right next door. Chris Anthony already is pretty busy, and there's no way to park on Sunrise. Yeah. I think that's that's pretty much it as long as it makes financial sense for the city and, you know, get a decent interest rate on it.

So Thank you.

Additional public comment came in via email for this item. Those individuals are the following: Marshall T, Karola Valdez, Pham Soichao, Ashna B, Keith and Carrie Peacock, and Annie Luwiniu. Alright. Thank you.

So when do you think you'll get it done?

So so the project would begin construction in in about June. That's under a strict state deadline to start construction. And then about an eighteen month window for construction. So

three to

four months before the end of construction, they'll begin pre leasing and hopefully open the 2027. Feel free to correct me if

I'm wrong.

It's close. Yeah, it'll be about a twenty four month construction schedule just due to the size of the site.

All

right. Hang out. Hurry.

For B.

David? Sorry. There was another question on schools. Like, do which school do this housing goes to?

It it would that we'd have to bring it up with the school district. We just

I know. But do we have

Sure. Where does

it fall under?

Yeah. Think we we know the the answer to that, and I think we can happy to provide that answer. And I actually think we did get a letter of support also for this from the school district itself on this project, but I think you guys have the answer for that.

Yes. So we have a yeah. We have a letter from Elk Grove School District. It would be in the attendance boundaries of Robert J. McGarvey Elementary School, Catherine L. Albioni Middle School, and Pleasant Grove High School.

I will say that is subject to change as the schools continue to build out and move and build new elementary schools that are already under construction and planned for, you know, that community and also additional middle schools and high schools. So subject to change, that is where they go today.

Sounds good.

And Mr. Mayor, if I could, just one quick comment in response to the public comment on parking. I I think it might help set the stage for future discussions. Parking is one of the places where the state has put enormous pressure on local governments to be responsive to limiting parking standards, very significantly preempting local control over parking standards, in part in recognition to the fact that the extra land costs associated with providing overabundant parking is a major driver in overall housing costs in the state. So I think here, these these numbers are actually very generous compared to overall state standards and kind of the general direction that we see in the industry for for particularly affordable, but really all infill kind of housing development, if you have any comment on

that.

Yeah, that's correct. Oh, go ahead, Brendan. Oh, sure. So, yeah, this project does meet all of the minimum requirements for parking without any reductions or concessions or waivers. So it does meet our code requirement.

And it is one of the most common places where you see developers asking for concessions to be able to compress more more density into a particular landmass.

Yeah. David. Same.

Excellent.

Don't we need a motion?

No. No. I gotta get

hold on.

No. You I think we can make a motion to adopt the resolution and then go yes or no.

Did you did you get do you guys wanna say anything? You guys good? We're good.

Option b. Linda?

Don't we need a motion?

A motion.

Yeah. I

just Then I will move approval of staff's recommendation option b. Second.

Can I get a roll call, please?

Council member Pulapati?

Yes.

Council Member Little?

Yes.

Council Member Sander? Aye. Vice Mayor Budge?

Yes.

Mayor Gatewood?

Yes.

The motion passes.

Alright. Let's move on 16.2. Stacy.

The Zinfandel Drive bicycle and pedestrian over crossing an art walk presentation and resolutions authorizing the city manager to approve artist contract numbers 2026Dash82026Dash9, 2026Dash10, and 2026Dash11.

Good evening, mayor and council members. Albert Stryker with the public works department. The Zinfandel Bicycle And Pedestrian Overcrossing is going to be an iconic bridge that connects many of the many the amenities that we enjoy in Rancho Cordova. The bridge is going to be an incredible piece of art in itself, but we've also identified additional opportunities for art installations along the corridor. And Edgar and Christine are going to tell us more about background of the project and the art itself.

Thank you, Albert. Good evening, mayor, council members. Edgar Bedina, Public Works Department. As Albert mentioned, the Symphodel Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing at Art Rock project is truly an opportunity for the city to have an iconic structure and art walk element that has an opportunity to be place making and really kind of set the stage for a branding opportunity and really more of the start of maybe a future art walk for the city. The intent of tonight's presentation is to kind of go give you an update on the status of the project, the goals, the vision, the overall aesthetics that we're proposing for the four locations, and also kind of talk about steps after we receive input from counsel from towards the presentation in different locations.

As background for the goals and vision, the Art Walk really is going to be an opportunity to enhance the overall multimodal trail. The trail in and of itself is almost threefour of a mile, starting at the south end at White Rock and Sinfidel and ends at the light rail station at Sakarti. It improves safety through the elimination of conflict zones at the westbound and eastbound on and off ramps. It eliminates well, it'll improve bike and pet access along the way to different connection points at different points at the loop, at the north end, at Olson Drive, on the west side of Simphendel Drive. There's a lot of opportunities for this to provide some better connections for bike and pet, and also provide some of the support of the overall goals for enhancing some of the art elements throughout the city.

One of the other things that we are excited about this is it also has an opportunity to support the economic development side of the city. Now that you have additional bike and ped access from one side of the highway to the other, there's an opportunity for it to support each other. As background for the overall project, the project cost for the infrastructure is $35,300,000 In total, with art walk, we're just shy of $37,000,000 We're very fortunate to receive two grants, one federal, one state, just totaling about $23,000,000 One was for design and one is for construction. To date, we've received approval of the environmental document, the project report, and we're approaching the 100% design of the project. One of the key elements or phase that we're in right now is actually the right of way acquisition.

So we're working with about 12 property owners to acquire property, fee title, and temporary construction easements. If everything goes accordingly, we intend to start construction this summer and then end in 2028. With that, I would pass it on to Christine to kind of talk about the art plan and the proposed locations.

Thanks, Edgar. Thank you, mayor, council members of the public. My name is Christine Cordy. And tonight, I'm excited to go over the art plan and proposed artwork. On 08/05/2024, the city council approved an art plan for the Zinfandel bicycle and pedestrian over crossing that include four large public art pieces, in addition, community signage and wayfinding signage for the project.

The artwork is supposed to be a gateway for this project and connected to the city of Rancho Cordova community. As part of the art plan, the process included developing an art review panel. This panel included representatives from the city of Rancho Cordova community. Shelly Blancher and Cheryl Gleason from Cordova Community Council served on that panel. And in addition, there were art professionals, educators, practicing artists, and public art professionals that also served on that panel.

Within the art plan, there was a selection process outline that we followed. The first part included an RFP, where we are request for qualifications for artists to submit their credentials. The art panel met and reviewed the credentials and experience of all the artists and narrowed it down to six artists for each site. And then they developed proposals, and then those proposals were then submitted. And those are the proposals we'll be looking through tonight.

So as mentioned, there was a robust art selection process. We had two different panels, one for what we're calling our three d sites, which are more structural or sculptural elements. We had 90 applicants. And for our one two d site on the wall, we had 85 applicants. So the panel met and reviewed the experience of all those artists and recommended six artists to submit sculptural proposals and six artists for proposals on the wall.

Those panels then convened, reviewed the proposals, and provided some feedback to the artists. We work with the artists to refine the feedback. And three of the art locations are in Caltrans right away, so we had to work on some applications through Caltrans to get their feedback. And then we're here tonight to present those proposals. So tonight, we'll be going through the concept proposals for the four sites.

The next step in the process is for the artists to continue their work on the design and prepare their engineering of the final artwork designs. So as a reminder, we do have four locations on the proposed art walk. On the left side of the screen, site one is at White Rock And Zinfandel. It's just a sculptural piece. And that is the one in the city right of way on the newly acquired parcel.

Site 2 is just ahead of the under crossing at Gold Center Drive, which is a wall. Site three is in the loop ramp north of Highway 50 after you cross over the bridge. And Site 4 is another sculptural piece to serve as the northern gateway of the project. And here's an overview of the Caltrans right of way and the three art pieces that we'll have to go through their art and transportation permitting process. So for site one, this was a sculpture and had a budget of $200,000 The goal of this piece was to mark the south entrance of the trail.

This is in the city right of way. And with acquiring that property, we have the opportunity to make this like a trailhead, a nice entryway that showcases the art and is an entry point into the trail. The artist recommended for this installation, her name is Sheila Wine out of Anchorage, Alaska, and she's been working in public art since 2006. So here are a few samples of Sheila's artwork. The two on the left are an installation in Anchorage, Alaska, and the one on right is in Florida.

Sheila's proposal for the site is called Tree Walker. Her work is a large tree sculpture made out of corten steel that's about 25 feet tall. The figure on top would be made from colorful, retro reflective material to stand out from the tree.

She

envisions the tree walker walking down the trail and having coordinating landscaping as if it's walking through the trees down the trail. Site two is a wall as you go under Gold Center Drive. It's about 100 feet long and ranges from five to 12 feet tall. The proposed design included some type of mosaic, and it was envisioned as an intermittent installation, but that was recessed into the wall. The artist recommended for the site, her name is Adrienne Siegel from Alameda, California.

She has a Bachelor's of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts, and she is also a professional there. And this piece is also in the Caltrans right away. Here are some examples of Adrienne's work. She likes to incorporate data into her installations. And similar with this project on Lichen Crossing, Adrienne proposes she perform research on iNaturalist to compile citizen science observation of fungi and lichen in Rancho Cordova.

And this work would include hand sculpted ceramic tiles along the wall. A quote from her proposal, she says, The artwork reflects the natural curiosity of the people of Rancho Cordova to a monumental scale, highlighting the collaborative community of organisms living together here. So this is just a zoomed in area. So for site three, this is on the loop ramp on the north side of the freeway. The original in the art plan, we originally discussed doing a poem for the site.

However, with Caltrans art in public places policy, they do not allow text in their installations. So as the committee was reviewing the different proposals, they recommended a structural piece be included at this location. So the artist recommended for this location is Matthew Mazzotta from New York. He has a Bachelor's of Fine Arts from Chicago and a Master's from MIT and is currently a lecturer at MIT. Here are a few samples of Matthew's artwork using fiberglass, and he is proposing a similar method of installation at this location.

So Matthew is proposing an oversized great blue heron, and his proposal is called Passing Through. What he envisions as Passing Through is a story of traversing the city of Rancho Cordova streets, sidewalks, and paths while connecting it to its wildlife and natural landscapes. The city has a beautiful balance of urban and rural wildlife, and it's not uncommon to see all these altogether. So this is a location, a vision, a view of the Heron from 50, and you can see there. The last location is Site Number 4, and it's meant to be a gateway sculpture piece on the north side of the trail.

It has a $200,000 budget and is also in Caltrans right away. Artist selected for this installation is Aaron Stevens of Portland, Maine. He has a Bachelor of Fine Art from Purchase College, and he has been a professor in the field as well. Here's an example of some of his work, and he likes to use ordinary objects and interesting public art installations. His proposal for this site is called Cascade.

It's a cascading feature of lights at the northern entrance. A quote from his proposal, cascade is designed to pull our attention to the entrance point and create a welcoming transition. And the light features will feature our grapevines on the ornamental brackets. And this is a view as you're coming out of the under crossing, you can see the lights. So here's an overview of all four pieces together.

And as Edgar mentioned, we're still finalizing our project design and anticipating to start construction this summer. So while this project is under construction, the artists will work to finalize their designs, working on fabrication, and the artwork installations will be towards the end of the process in 2028. So tonight, we have before you, we are here to receive an impact feedback on all these proposals so that the artist can incorporate anything into the final design. And there are resolutions and agreements in the packet for council consideration tonight. The next steps, once we work through everything, we will be providing all this feedback to the artists.

And as mentioned, these are concept designs, so there is the opportunity to incorporate any feedback or input to the artist. So with that, we welcome council feedback and comments.

David, did you have any comments or questions?

Should we take a brief break? Should we take a break?

I'm coming. Is there any public comment?

Yes. There's public comment. Cheryl Gleason, if you'd like to come forward.

Good evening, Counsel, Micah and Mayor Gatewood. I want to say that I've had a bit of experience in working with being on a panel. I am the chair for the commission in West Sac, the city of West Sac on arts, culture, and historic preservation. I want to commend our staff on an excellent job in public works and how they executed this, and the hiring of Shelley Willis, who's got an amazing amount of experience with public art. This is a huge project.

I sat on all of the panels, along with Shelley. And there was I think through the process, it was great having Shelley and I, because we could, having been here I've been here in Rancho now for 20 almost twenty years, since 2009. And I almost feel like I'm a part of the fabric of this as well, spending eight years at the MAC and really being able to talk with the public about the art. This will be a destination for people to come see Rancho in an amazing light. And the thought of the process with starting to walk through this trailhead, all of the images on the lichen wall came from residents here in Rancho Cordova posting to iNaturalist.

Interpreting that, I think the artist did great. We've seen actual physical mock ups of what that will look like, and they're amazing. I'd like to take a couple home and put them on my walls in my house. And then as you get closer towards going towards the river, you see the blue heron, which we see blue heron all the time at the river, and then ending up with the lights, which you probably couldn't tell, but they have grapes on the lights, which harkens to our agriculture and our beginnings in the wine industry here in Rancho Cordova. I think this is going to change how people view Rancho Cordova artistically and as a city.

I think that the bridge itself is a beautiful piece of architecture. But I think the staff, Edgar and Albert and Christine, working with all of the different types of people she had to go through and work with, because artists are not the easiest to deal with. We think differently. They did such a great job, and I think this is going to be an amazing project. Thank you.

Next speaker is Larry Ladd.

Larry LeRoylette. I'm not clear on the I haven't seen a presentation on the whole project. But if this is a walkway over the highway, is that correct? And there's arches on it? Or it looked like, at least artistically. And I just want want to point out that Chuck Meyer and I, Shelley sent us to go, wine and dine the B editorial staff and assure them about the ethical level of discourse in Rancho Cordova. Chuck's passed away, but he was a city planner from Gilroy. And he was really big on arches as part of the archway. So if you guys choose to do that, he will be very happy. Now, on the topic of all this artwork, I already told you where my prejudices are.

I also Cheryl and I had grand fun doing fungi at the Mac for the school kids. But birds, you know, I'd be interested in looking to what birds are selected and why. And then statuary. It reminds me, back in the incorporation committee, we used to talk about, where are we going to put the statue of Linda Butch? And one possibility was with Art Linklinder in front of the Alacante in the original post office. I was kind of fond of her being on top of the pillar to the Pony Express at Mills Ranch. But you might consider that.

Next speaker is Chris Osana.

I only have one comment. On the number three item, I feel like that could be taken as a good opportunity to make a statement for the city just as it'll be visible on Highway 50. Yep. So I feel like there should be a emphasized importance on that because it's gonna be one of the most visible parts to identify the city given the location. Does

it? Thank you.

Mayor Gatewood, that's all the public comment.

Alright.

Could we could we look through the slides again?

Get it.

The one that showed for Larry's benefit, the one that showed it was your first slide, maybe, or your second slide. The bird? That sort of backed up and showed the whole bridge with the spiral.

Yeah. My only comment about the blue heron was to make sure that the colors accurate because every birder in the world will complain if it isn't.

So I do the the the mock up.

Go back. Go back.

That one? That's close. Keep going all the way back so we can see the bridge. Where's the bridge?

So weird.

I think we missed the bridge.

The oh. There it goes. There.

See there you walk across

can see the lower right of that image is you're approaching the back of like I don't know. That's a Chevron station there, I guess. Right?

Mhmm. Yep.

You walk underneath the on ramp and exit ramp to Highway 50. You do the little circle. The bird is gonna be right there at that the intersection of those two. Then you walk over. Then you make your way north. You go under our ramp that connects oh, what's the street right behind us here?

Gold Center.

Gold Center to Zinfandel and then you make your way down to the next intersection. So that's almost half a mile. So point four miles or something?

In total, it's about three quarters of mile.

Oh, three quarters of a mile in total length. Okay. Yeah. So, Larry, that's the

That's what we're sending it to.

Yeah. And you're yeah. It's by Zinfandel. You're crossing over Highway 50, so the arches are right there over Highway 50. Couple of questions. Now, we're just sort of limited here to the art, but I think we have to talk about like use of the facility a little bit to make sense of like the art. So my comments are gonna veer a little bit from just the art. So I noticed in this image there's fencing along this path. And I can certainly understand it like on the bridge parts. And I can understand a fence that separates people from being able to run onto Highway 50. Right? That makes sense. I don't know if it needs to be right at the edge of the path. That bothers me a little. That sort of feels too channelized.

And I don't know if you need it on the inside of the loop, This loop that we're looking at here.

Counselor, 100. This is an older image. There is no fencing on the inside of the loop

right now. Okay. Good. Because one of the goals we talked about when this first came up, we talked about could we turn this into a linear gallery, this three quarters of a mile facility, right, or a portion of it. And what I mean by that is you've got relatively controlled access from, I guess, just, you know, by Gold Center up there all the way back to what's gonna be close to Zinfandel as it comes up towards Olsen. There's not is there any other way to get onto that loop? Like, from Zinfandel, are you gonna be able to get directly onto it? At the top, or is that are they separated?

Councilmember, you you may be able to get onto the loop from the Zinfandel Drive. Okay. So at the street level, you there's connection to the trail should you wanna get on or off at the at

that point.

So there'd be another there'd be a control point there as well. But I'm thinking, Cheryl and Shelly, we've got event genius and artistic like event genius here. Is there a scenario in which we would want to have a linear event along this facility? And if so, what what do we need to plan for in order to do that? These pieces would sort of anchor it. They would be permanent. But I'm thinking about temporary installations. Like, if you've got three of these pieces here, could you bring in another 15? I don't know what the number is. 15.

Now you've got a temporary exhibition of a bunch of stuff that is gonna make people wanna walk through not only permanent, but the temporary ones. And what would we need to make that work? Would we need electricity along here? Would we need different lighting? These particular items that are gonna be permanent, how should we should we worry about the lighting of those? I don't have any criticism of what was chosen. I think it's probably fine. We could discuss those in a little more detail, I suppose. But I'm really thinking about the big picture of how we can use this facility. And I know, I don't know, it's not in today's presentation, Albert, but you're working within Caltrans guidelines for lighting this.

We're trying to see how aggressive lighting of this we can be. If there's any, you know, stuff that can be projected. There's for example, there's a wall over here on the right side of the circle when you're looking down on it. It's relatively large. It's got City Of Rancho Cordova written on it with backlight, I think. So that would sort of set an evening appearance of it's a City Of Rancho Cordova backlit. Pretty giant actually on that wall. So would you like the bird at night, the heron or the fungi? We talked about that in my in my pre meeting with you guys. I think there you can see City Of Rancho Cordova on the right side of it.

So I think there's some questions about, is this a usable facility? Is it worth the investment to make it a usable facility? What would that mean practically? And then how do these artworks fit into it? And I'd actually like to suggest, Cheryl or Shelley, if you have any comments off the top of your head about that, I'd love to hear the thoughts you may have. You have to come back up. And the real question is, could you use this as a facility? Is it worth trying to make it a facility? Do we need more time to look into it? Or can you think of other examples around that have done something like that?

I think this could be used in that way. First of all, when we were going through the process, all of the both underpass and along the way is going to be lit. So when you start from the tree walker, the tree walker is made from reflective street signs. So there will be uplighting to hit him or her, they. And so that'll be really beautiful at night.

The tree, you won't see the corten except for right through the middle of it as quite as much. But because of the and there'll be different local plantings in that area, there's easily ability to put some electricity along there, to where we could do some things. Now, don't know what the width of the walkway I

think it's mostly 10 feet. Is that

10 feet's 16 a lot. Feet.

Oh, 16 feet.

16 feet's a lot. So as long as the railing along the bridge itself is structurally safe, you could hang temporary art off of that with pretty ease, with pretty you wouldn't be able to light it

So like safety fence keeping you off the freeway. That's like a gallery wall.

Yeah. Interesting. And you could do that with metal artists. You could do that with wood artists. You could do that with just as long as it was think about what type of thing you would want to potentially hang there or have there that the span encourages the weight of, say, mosaic being the heaviest of those, right?

Because corten steel doesn't really weigh that much when you're only talking about an eighth or a quarter inch. But a mosaic would be probably the heaviest that you could do as a temporary piece. It could rotate out and then be someplace else. So I think that would be easy for our ACE team to do. Lighting might be a little bit more difficult, and I don't know what the lighting spec on the bridge is, but I do know that it is all through the walkway.

I see a potential for the bridge itself to be a light show. If you were to install the proper whatever, you know, it could change colors or create images just with light. So we didn't really even talk about that, but that has great potential. A lot of the was a little bit eye opening when we were discussing the location of some of this art. It's kind of steep on some sites.

It's not real flat where you could set up a band or something like that, if that's kinda what you're thinking. That didn't seem likely in most of those locations. To me, it was important that we tell a story that Rancho Cordovans could identify with. And sort of taking a walk and seeing natural lichen and having you know, seeing a bird that they are familiar with, that seemed to be sort of a nice story that you could jump off an event. In fact, some of the discussions we had were having I think the artist suggested, you know, putting QR codes next to all the lichen of where you could what it was called and where you could find it in Rancho Cordova and have a real natural experience there that now, gives birth to another art experience, right?

But the short answer to your question is, yeah, I think that we've shown over and over again that everywhere in our community is a stage, if we see it as such. And we can do some wonderful things. The other thing is, now that you own the property at what I would call the trailhead, where the walker is starting out on this journey, there's a potential there for a small plaza probably, because you own the property, that could lend itself. I mean, it's heavy traffic. You know, there's noise, that sort of stuff.

Cost? Yeah, all of that. And I don't know if Caltrans has rules about what you can light on the side of the road. I have no knowledge of any of that. But the short answer is, yeah, there's potential everywhere here. And I do agree with Cheryl that I think it'll be a really spectacular moment for Rancho Cordova when it's all complete.

So if you did set up more pieces, you could have an event where people show up and get on a scooter, A scooter tour of the art or a bike tour of the art or whatever.