City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. David. A few things going on. There was a great pancake breakfast for Cordova High football kickoff on Saturday morning. I was there. That evening, Linda and I were at the Sun River Neighborhood Association 25th anniversary. And that was a pretty cool event because there were people who had been active in the incorporation of the city 25 years ago and people who were key to the founding of that organization celebrating 25 years of it. And all of them were incredibly positive about what the city has accomplished in the interim. And they all wanted to tell Linda and I about how great they thought that was. It was one of those rare events where no one brings you, like, a concern. They all brought you plaudits or, you know, old stories, fun things to talk about. Laurieann was there supporting us, so thank you. Thank you, Laurieann. That was a really cool thing. National Night Out was a great success. I visited, I think, three sites. A fourth may have been canceled or something as I recall, but I don't know if we had record turnout that night, but it sure seemed like it based on the sites I was at. There were a lot of people out on National Night Out. Of course, that's sort of a neighborhood watch based idea. I think it's migrated past that in some ways. I heard that night that some states have moved National Night Out. So National Night Out is the first Tuesday in August, I think, is how it's always been set. It's been that way for about 60 years. Obviously, that is usually a hot as heck night. It often is here in Rancho Cordova. And so some states, I think Texas was the one that someone mentioned. has moved it to October or something.

What a great idea.

In response to that. And I sort of think if that would not do us damage in some way by missing out on some national night out stuff, that might make sense. I do think it is an interesting and positive measure of how we're doing in terms of connecting citizens with the city and with each other. And that the bigger those events are, the more it reflects on the health of the community, so. I don't think that's a fake thing. I don't think it's a niche thing. I think it's one of the general measures that we can rely on. I want to congratulate transportation staff. I'm not sure. Albert's not in the room. He was just in the room.

He's watching.

We have had some great funding outcomes at SACOG. I'm not gonna brag about it specifically here. I just want council members and anybody listening to know we have had some great success with grant writing.

Well, tell us the flex, come on.

It might make some of our peers a little jealous.

There he is. Come on, we're talking about you.

But we're having great success with our grant writing and transportation, and so I just wanna give plaudits to the staff here at the city who are getting that done. Very, very good work.

You're not going to tell us what it was?

No, because it's not final yet.

I've got to vote on Thursday. Oh, that's such a tease.

There's a series of them. The latest one is coming.

I know. Did you hear that? He's like, yeah, we've got a lot of money. I'm previewing it. I'm not going to tell you about it, though. Previewing it.

Yeah, you've got to come in the next meeting to hear about it, I guess. All right. I also met with some youth mentorship providers and some potential providers and some special needs programs for kids providers. including Coach Ross, who some of you may remember from years ago, the program he was doing at Cordova Meadows, which involved an after-school reading program, and if you really did all your work in the after-school reading program, then you got to go play football. So it was a football program masquerading as a reading program, which was actually a reading program that kind of looked like a football thing, but their test scores went up, and it gave a lot of positive activities for kids to do after school. So it's called, the organization's called Playmakers. It's evolved a little since then. I think there's a potential to have them fit into our youth mentorship roles that we're boosting and taking up here at Rancho Cordova. Finally, we had a Sac Valley division meeting and had a great time at that. Learned a few things about fire protection and fire ratings in communities that I didn't realize before. And it's heartening because we're in better shape than some of the stats might have you believe. Particularly compared to lots of other fire-edge communities in the state. I know people worry a lot about, you know, every neighborhood is highly flammable. But when you look at the actual numbers, there are entire towns that are highly flammable. And there's nothing in the Sacramento region or even maybe surrounding counties that hits that same standard. So we're in pretty good shape. That's my report. Oh, and I would like if we could adjourn tonight in honor of Steve Nelson. I don't know if Linda was gonna. Steve Nelson is Maureen Nelson's husband. He was very active in the VIN stuff with Maureen. She was obviously a huge community volunteer here. She was active in VINs and code enforcement and at every community event for a good decade plus with her husband, Steve, who was always supporting her. So if we could adjourn in his memory tonight, he was an electrician, an inventor, a father, a husband, a mentor to many, many young people, and a veteran. He was just a truly great guy. So if we could adjourn in his memory, that would be great. All right.

Satosh.

Thank you, Mayor. This is Siri Pulipati, Council Member. So I attended National Night Out and I agree with Council Member Sander. It was a pretty hot night. In fact, we did have the discussion at one of those neighborhoods in front of the homes that actually had a really big tree and it was cool out there, but we couldn't step out of that tree, so all of us were huddled under that shade of that one tree. We should also maybe follow suit like our State Fair and move it to a month where it's cooler and more neighbors would come out. But we had more neighbors do it in different places and some that stepped back this year, so it was a different mix in my district. Also attended the AI and robotics kickoff that happened also under the shade of trees right here opposite City Hall, so that was a cool one. What else? Attended the Independence Day event at Folsom High. Attended the farewell right here for consulate the Indian consulate general was Leaving going is not going to be the ambassador for cutter So he was leaving and the farewell was done here City Hall. I attended that event and Oh, yeah, and then I was there for the unveiling of the nature would wheel which Linda will go more on and That's my report You get the wheel it's a water wheel who doesn't know that commercial I

Linda.

So, yes, National Light Out was really nice. There were a lot of new locations, and we lost some of the old ones, but that's fine. And I had the opportunity to meet a whole bunch of all those new people who were moving into Rio Del Oro, which was really cool. The AI event was really too funny. I shook hands with a robot dog. OK. So it was a robot dog. Nature Wood was terrific. It got great coverage. Both the bee and the grapevine were there. And somebody has provided me with this lovely outtake from the bee. We had several of us, Micah and staff, and I attended the SB 802 event to kind of try to bring the community together, bring the region together to see what could be done about creating some sort of coordination for homeless individuals and all we agreed on was that we would all vote in favor of continue to talk. Right?

That's great, more talking.

Yes, we all voted in favor of continue to talk. That'll fix it. The Sun River event was so nice. Lots of people in attendance. And as David said, it was so cool to see the people who started that neighborhood association. Because it's not an HOA. It doesn't have the punitive aspect of an HOA. It's simply an organization of people who come together to support each other And Sun River is a total model. And I've said this to them and I'll say it again. If we all just had a neighborhood association where we all looked after each other and took care of each other and watched each other's backyards or backs, literally, we would all be much better off for it. And then this morning we had a HCP meeting that was probably the first time we haven't worked on any preserves that were part of Rancho Cordova. And I think that's it.

All right, moving on to Garrett. All right, so I get wrapped into lots and lots and lots of meetings. So I met with Dr. Cana. He builds housing and he's looking at Rancho Cordova because there's lots of places that you're building. What a lot of people want to know is what type of housing we're looking for. And I said, Rancho Cordova doesn't have a type. We want everything in our city. That way everyone has an opportunity to live in our city. I met the coolest company. called butcher power. Butcher power is, so unique and they based themselves in Rancho Cordova and they were like a brother sister that were like we're electrical engineers his sister was a person that does like art and make interior design and she used her interior design and he uses his electrical engineering to make a motherboard that looked pretty and now they're using it to charge everything and it's how all the power and infrastructure and data centers and technology centers are built. And it's all based in Rancho Cordova. They're moving their manufacturing, closing down in Sacramento and trying to move closer to Rancho Cordova. They're hoping that they're gonna create over five to 700 livable wage jobs in the city of Rancho Cordova. And they couldn't be happier to be here in the city. And it was cool to be juiced by a CEO that's like, yeah, we had like five employees, but Rancho Cordova loved us. And so we're never leaving. And so- Now they went into the clutch and just took the whole second floor. They're like, we'll just take it. The whole thing. They walked in that day. The cutest thing they said, though, but she has a dog she keeps with her at all times. And they had to change their policy because there are no animals. And she's like, well, that's a no-go if you don't give me the animals. So they changed their policy. So now there's a cute what they like to call the helper dog. and he runs around, and he keeps... Because it's a lot of very gruff people, yet very civil people, and so if they start to get... You need a dog. If they start getting loud, the dog runs over to check on you to see what's happening, and it calms everybody down. But they're doing like... hundreds of millions of dollars, and they're just based in Rancho Cordova, part of our AI ecosphere. And it's just cool to see another company coming to Rancho, growing, and they'll be looking for another manufacturing plant very shortly in the city of where they can put like 200,000 square feet or something like that. So that's dope.

Did you say the motherboard was pretty? Yeah. They made it look attractive. Is this supposed to be one of these transparent computer cases so you can have your motherboard lighting up? No, it's on the side of the wall.

It doesn't look like someone barfed on it. transducers onto a green pad. It looks like it's well put together, and I'm like, yeah, you're right. It is prettier than the other ones.

An IT guy's view of pretty. I'm just narrowing this down here.

Listen, I think all colors are pretty, especially black and white, because ones and zeros are the best colors out there.

And David wouldn't know because he can only see red and green.

Right. Damn it. This is crazy. KYA Services, they're another group that's moved into Rancho Cordova. Amazing construction company that wants to do business in the city, with the city, and around the city. Awesome. It was interesting because the CEO, they're a bunch of lawyers, and they just found a market they really felt they could come into, and they have landed in Rancho Cordova and just exploding all over the place, growing.

Now, wait a minute. You said it was a construction company.

Correct.

And then you said there's a bunch of lawyers.

The lawyers decided to get out of law and open a construction company.

To build what?

Everything. And so they worked their way around certain, they found ways to do certain businesses with cities and counties and stuff like that. And it's great. And it's interesting because the guy actually, the owner is South African. And so every time, and so when he's talking the whole time, all I heard was the guy from Die Hard That accent, I was like, that's fabulous. And it was cool. So very interesting people. And what's fun is due to the AI ecosphere or ecosystem we're building, more and more of these businesses are coming to Rancho Cordova, finding a place to land, and then building out in that area. And these are not small companies. These are big companies. But they want to call home Rancho. And I was like, this is so great.

Nice to see lawyers doing something productive.

Damn. Listen, I'm trying to keep him in the city. Why are you chasing him out of the city? We still appreciate you, Joe.

Lawyers and hammers and nails don't seem to go together.

That is interesting.

Listen, Joe also is going into construction now.

We're about to be the most represented profession on this dial.

That's true. The county opened new veteran services in Rancho Cordova. And it's just furthering the culture of Rancho Cordova. We take care of our vets. We always have. It's one of those things that is in our DNA. And so now we have a great place. If you're a vet and you need help, there's no shame in asking for it. And this is for all my city council members and all my constituents. If you need help, we have places for you. Mentally, physically. If you just need someone to talk to, I have family members that have gone through this their whole life. Being a Tuskegee Airman with parents of that ilk, you know, you run into this a lot. You're not in a closed room. Ask for help. If you can't figure out how to get through something, ask for help. And we have a service right here in Rancho Grover that you can walk into. And I'm actually hoping that some of my employees will go use it. I met with Girls for Black Code and AI training. They are coming into Rancho Cordova and seeing how they can help out with AI and AI training. A lot of people want to implement AI in their businesses, but it's hard to find people that are willing to sit with him to tell him where the next steps are. So it's awesome seeing that. National Night Out was too hot, and that is ridiculous. So walking around on the surface of the sun. However, I did find out that Albert is completely fluent in Spanish. And so he was there with me just wowing me with his Spanish, and luckily he doesn't know that I'm also understood what he was saying. Can't respond, but I can understand. So that's the good news. When you grow up in family, you can understand. You just don't know how to respond back in English, but that was cool. Walked around, saw all my citizens. Of course I did sing. No one caught it on video, so it will not be getting out, Lorianne. It will not. There's no need to put those out. I thought we were friends. Very cool. I met with the Sacramento Valley Korean American group. If you didn't know this, Rancho Cordova, the culture of Rancho Cordova fits great. With the culture of people that are coming from Korea, religiously, economically, community-based, they just fit really well. And so they're trying to find ways. They are really big in Lincoln Village in that area near it. I didn't know that, this group.

Their community center is on Southport, which used to be the post office.

Right.

But yeah, 67%, when we incorporated 67% of the Korean-owned businesses were located in Metro Cordova.

I didn't know that.

Okay, well that makes sense. And I think it grew after BJ opened Coriana Plaza.

Well, and we have two of the bigger churches that are in Rancho Cordova and a school. So I just love it because it's also drawing the big, you know, Nvidia, Solidine, Korean-based firms that are all coming to Rancho Cordova and they're like, we feel so blessed that we're here and we're not afraid, whereas some of the states aren't showing the best. you know, resting people and resting poor guys. But it's been great to come into Rancho Cordova. So they said they love it here. They can't wait to help. The group now wants to shift to more of a community-based thing. So they want to help people with documentation and filling stuff out, help with the VA. And I was like, we would love to have you engage with our VA. It's one of our biggest prides. And that was it. That's what I have assigned. And then I'm very looking forward to opening some new schools coming up here.

How's your Korean?

Huh? Super good. Super good. I'm going to learn something.

Well, I get a newsletter from them every month, and I'm happy to give it to you so that you can see what they're advertising.

So I can see how not to say words? Perfect.

All right. Micah, what you got for me? Thank you, Mayor. I'll just, a couple of brief items. One, just to thank the team for putting together National Night Out. It was a little warm. I did make it to a record seven stops on National Night Out, but I was traveling with the chief, so maybe that was, you know, an advantage. And so, and I did hear a rumor that there, you know, for your song that you did was with our assistant city manager, David Kwong. So I'm still looking for that video of you in the duet. You know what?

The best part was he did backup. He just cut off like two-thirds of the way in. I know you're watching in the other room, David. I literally hear people laughing from here. But you were fired. Don't let anyone say that. Me and you on tour.

So I'm looking for that video to come. And then just want to, as we introduce some new employees with Jason and Ryan tonight, you know, I have the pleasure of kind of routinely go out with our new employees for lunch. You know, it's a way you actually just had lunch today with those two, which is great. But really, I get to do the fun part of not the whole HR process, but really to just talk about our philosophy and who we are as an organization. And so I had a good time with them and Christina, too, which is actually she's actually a boomerang. So you may not see her be reintroduced, but she missed the first go around of these new employee lunches that we do. So I really want to highlight that as a good time that we had. That's it. All right.

All right, we're gonna go ahead and move on to consent calendar items. Consent calendar items are deemed routine and non-conventional by staff unless a member of the council wishes to pull an item. For an individual consideration, all items may be approved with one motion. Guys, is there any items you wish to pull? Seeing none, I ask the clerk if there's any public comment related to consent calendar item.

I do not have any public comment for the consent calendar and there are no hands that are raised in Zoom.

May I have a motion?

Then I will move approval of items 9.1 through 9.15. Second.

Can I get roll call, please?

Council Member Little? Yes. Council Member Sander?

Aye.

Council Member Polipotti? Yes. Vice Mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood?

Yep.

Motion passes. Sweet.

All right. Let's see what's next. Oh, no consent public hearing. There's no public hearing. Oh, regular calendar items. We're going to have an update from our police chief. Stacey, can you go ahead and read the subject?

The subject is Rancho Cordova Police Department update.

Sean, get on up here. Wow us with your statistics and stats.

Hey, did anybody ask him how many he got to on National Night Out?

How many did you get to on National Night Out? Oh, he was with him. He was with seven. Seven.

Oh.

I actually did you in 2009. I had to go to two in the county.

That's okay.

I assume that wasn't lights and sirens.

Remember, he has more than just Rancho Cordova. No, he doesn't.

That's all I'm saying.

and Mayor Gatewood. Tonight we're gonna present some information regarding our traffic unit and our school resource officers, along with our Police Activities League. We're gonna talk about the traffic unit to start. Currently we have one sergeant, one detective, seven motor officers, one dedicated DUI officer, and I'll talk a little more about that DUI officer in a moment. We have two on-call deputies, which are retired annuitants that work our red light enforcement program. and two civilian staff, an analyst and a towing coordinator. All those folks help us keep Rancho Cordova safe with our traffic and everything else that we see out in the city. With the traffic unit, we talk about the three E's, enforcement, education, and engineering. The engineering piece is very important to us and we work very well with the city team addressing that stuff. Enforcement means addressing dangerous driving behaviors and holding people accountable. Our traffic, I'm sorry, excuse me. Education means helping drivers, bicyclists, students and families understand how their decisions affect roadway safety. These three components work together. Enforcement is not enough. Education alone isn't enough. We need all three. We'll talk a little bit about our statistics. The traffic unit from July of 2025 through June of 2026, Rancho Cordova recorded 739 collisions, including 233 injury collisions and five, unfortunately, fatal collisions. The leading collision factors for these accidents, 173 of those were unsafe speed, 153 were unsafe turning movements, 77 were right-of-way violations, and 74 were red light violations. DUI accounted for 58 of those. Those numbers tell us where we need to focus our resources, and when we see unsafe speed and unsafe turning at the top of the list, that reinforces why we do targeted enforcement and education and why they're so important. Let's see. During the same period, the department issued 4,535 citations with the traffic unit responsible for 3,293 of those citations. The most common violations included speeding, registration violations, cellular phone violations, stop sign violations, and insurance violations. The goal isn't to write tickets simply for the sake of writing tickets. The goal is to change behavior and prevent collisions in the future. So here's some of the trends we've seen for this fiscal year. Looking at the fiscal year comparisons, total citations increased from 2,992 in 2023-24 to 4,586 in 2025 and 2026. Over that same period, total collisions increased from 628 to 739. while injury collisions increased from 150 to 233, as I mentioned before. DUI arrests also increased from 113 to 149. And I know I mentioned the DUI car a little bit ago, but we have a dedicated DUI officer now focused on DUI enforcement within the city. Those trends reinforce the need for continue.

Quick question, moving forward, can we just, is there a way you can have the age for these DUI?

I'M SURE WE COULD COMPILE THAT INFORMATION FOR SURE.

THAT WOULD BE GREAT. IT WOULD BE GOOD TO KNOW.

ABSOLUTELY.

THANKS.

THOSE TRENDS REINFORCE THE NEED FOR CONTINUED ATTENTION TO TRAFFIC SAFETY AND FOCUSED ENFORCEMENT. SOME OF THOSE THINGS THAT WE UTILIZE FOR ENFORCEMENT ARE OUR GRANTS. WE LEVERAGE OUTSIDE RESOURCES INCLUDING THE OFFICE OF TRAFFIC SAFETY SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT GRANT AND THE CALIFORNIA CANNABIS TAX FUND GRANT PROGRAM AND THAT ONE YOU WILL SEE COME BEFORE YOU HERE IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS. These grants support training, equipment, and enforcement operations, and that allows us to expand our traffic safety efforts while being responsible stewards of public resources. Some of the special events that we participate in throughout the year, the air show, obviously, 4th of July, and our holiday events, and along with that is National Night Out. Our traffic unit and motor officers were out there pretty heavy on National Night Out, as I'm sure most of you saw. Shaking hands, talking to people, and actually hearing their concerns face-to-face, and I think that's very important.

And letting little kids sit on the motorcycle.

Absolutely. Sometimes I consider myself a little kid because, as you know, I got back on the motorcycle. Right now we're going to talk about an emerging challenge. I think we've all seen it throughout the communities that surround us and the challenges regarding e-bikes and e-scooters and e-motorcycles. This area is receiving increased attention and it's the use of e-bikes, e-scooters and motorcycles in our communities. This is particularly important when we're talking about young riders. We want young people to enjoy these forms of transportation and recreation, but we also want them and their families to understand the rules and the risks. This is where our school resource officers come into play. They play an especially important role when it comes to education and talking to our folks. And I'll touch briefly on this photo in front of you. These are some of the illegal e-motos and e-bikes that we've towed or impounded over the last six months. I think we've done about 78 of them. And that's just the enforcement component. We've been able to get ahead of it a lot with the education component within our communities for messaging with the media team and our local school resource officers, as well as our officers in the field. Our school resource officers, as I stated, play a vital role. We currently have two officers, Emily Ball and Norm de la Pena. They work within our community at the schools. And the role of an SRO is about much more than responding to incidents, as I'm sure a lot of you know. I know a lot of you are very well involved with the schools. Our SROs work directly with the school administrators, the students, parents, and the broader school community to identify problems and develop solutions. Our SROs have been meeting with FCUSD administrators and students to develop comprehensive strategies around e-bike safety. FCUSD is putting out a e-bike guidelines for the schools to all parents and students this year. I believe that's already occurred. We've been in regular communication with the school district. They've also participated in community events such as the Sunrise Elementary Bike Bus, which promotes safe bicycling. I think the mayor was there for that one. Safe bicycling, healthy lifestyles, and positive relationships between law enforcement, students, parents, and the community. These opportunities are for our officers to interact with young people before there's a problem rather than only after something goes wrong. So here's some of our examples that we talked about. In one instance, an officer saw a student riding an e-bike without a helmet. Rather than simply taking an enforcement approach, the officer provided the student with a helmet and used the encounter as an opportunity to educate. In another instance, an officer saw a student cross against a red light. The officer followed up at the school, discussed roadway safety, and also recognized the student for doing something right, wearing a helmet. That's an important part of our philosophy. Accountability and positive reinforcement can exist together. Our officers have also educated students about mini bikes, e-scooters, e-bike classifications, of which there are various, and I'm sure you've all heard that in the news, helmet requirements, and the rules governing where and how these devices can be operated. So I'll get into our Police Activities League, also referred to as our PAL. It's really big on building relationships. You see them at just about every event. We have two full-time PAL deputies and one full-time civilian PAL coordinator. And PAL's a 501 nonprofit that builds relationships between RCPD and young people through programs provided at no cost to families. Each year, PAL serves more than 3,000 youth in our community. That number is significant, but the relationships behind that number are even more important. The Ranch Cordova Youth Center is something that we are really proud of with the partnership with the city. Through our partnership with the Ranch Cordova Youth Center, PAL provides opportunities for young people to stay active, engaged, and connected to their community. Programs include activities such as kickball, soccer, obstacle courses, and Summer Water Wednesdays, which I've heard are a great hit. These programs give officers an opportunity to interact with their young people in a setting that has nothing to do with law enforcement at all. We want our kids to know that our officers are people. They're mentors, they're coaches, and members of their community. We also have the Adventure Club. The Powell Adventure Club is another example of how we build relationships through shared experiences. It provides free monthly outings for Rancho Cordova youth ages 10 through 17. Young people and police officers participate together in activities such as paddle boarding, bowling, boating, which they just did a few weeks ago, rock climbing, zip lining, top golf, sporting events, and hiking. These activities promote confidence, teamwork, leadership, and healthy lifestyles. Perhaps most importantly, they create opportunities for officers and young people to get to know each other outside of your typical police interaction. The PAL Bike Rodeo, which has been going on for many, many years in the city of Rancho Cordova, combines two of the themes we've discussed today, youth engagement and traffic safety. It teaches bicycle safety, helmet use, and riding skills through interactive activities. In 2026, more than 300 helmets were distributed and 100 bicycles were raffled to local youth. And we're continuing to evolve the program. In 2027, PAL plans to launch an e-bike safety pit stop, providing youth and parents with education about safe riding, helmet use, and California e-bike laws and guidelines. This is exactly the kind of proactive approach we want to take. We want to identify an emergent safety issue and engage the community before it becomes a larger problem. And I think Rancho Cordova did a very good job doing this the education component on the front end before taking action with enforcement. And it was great working with the Folsom Unified School District, Folsom Cordova Unified School District, to make sure that our parents were informed prior to the school year starting. We also have the Powell Junior Giants. The Powell Junior Giants provides a free eight-week co-ed baseball league for Rancho Cordova youth ages five through 18. It serves approximately 250 to 300 youth each summer. But it's about more than baseball. The program incorporates character building, leadership, teamwork, confidence, respect, literacy, and anti-bullying activities. Free uniforms and equipment help ensure that cost isn't a barrier for participation for our community. This is what the community policing looks like. when you invest in young people and give them opportunities to succeed. Christmas in Cordova, always a big hit. This is another Powell project, for the most part, that works with the police department and the city. In 2026, Powell will celebrate its 16th annual Christmas in Cordova. The program serves approximately 150 Rancho Cordova families and more than 350 children each holiday season. More than 10,000 toys have been donated over the life of the program. This isn't something the police department does alone though. It's made possible through residents, businesses, sponsors, volunteers, community partners, and our PAL team. It demonstrates something very important, that public safety is a community responsibility. Am I working here? We'll talk about the PAL Holiday Run. Did I miss that? Oh, there we go. The PAL Holiday Run brings the entire community together around the same mission. In 2025, more than 650 runners participated, making it the largest run in PAL's history to date. The event includes a family fun run walk, 5K and 10K. And most importantly, 100% of the proceeds support PAL programs, providing mentorship, recreation, leadership, and all of the other programs that we talked about that PAL supports. So in closing, what all this means, if you look at these programs individually, they may seem very different. Traffic enforcement, school resource officers, bike safety, baseball, youth programs, you name it, all the community events. But there is a common thread connecting all of them. It's that we're trying to prevent problems before they happen, educate our community, build trust, and create positive relationships. When a traffic officer stops a dangerous driver, we're trying to prevent a collision. But when an SRO talks with a student about wearing a helmet, we're trying to prevent an injury. When a PAL deputy coaches a child on a baseball field or participates in an adventure with local youth, we're building a relationship that can last for years. Some of which I have been able to encounter myself throughout my youth and growing up in the community. Developing those relationships early I think is very important. And when our community comes together for, I'm sorry, I lost my place. My apologies. This requires enforcement when enforcement's necessary. It requires education when education can make a difference. It requires partnership when no single organization can solve a problem alone. And it requires relationships, especially with youth in our community. That is the work being done every day by the men and women of the Rancho Cordova Police Department. And we appreciate you. That's all I have. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to take them.

I do not have any speaker cards. I am looking to Zoom, and I do not see any hands that are raised.

Any questions, guys?

I don't have a question. I have a comment.

Go for it.

I mean, this is a good one. When we started with the red light cameras, and of course, I mean, there's a lot of people who still disapprove of the red light cameras, and I understand that. But our initial statistics were something like, I mean, there were like 400 or some odd red light camera violations recorded, and something like 300 and some odd of them turned out to be valid and got tickets. And today you only have 74?

I don't know if that was the violation. That may be for the crashes caused by red lights, running red lights.

Yeah. Okay, so it makes it sound like nobody's running red lights anymore.

They are running fewer, but we do, I mean, if you look at the statistics, it definitely shows an increase in collisions, but I think that's also due to the increased population of Rancho Cordova and the businesses that are coming here.

Oh, believe me, I couldn't agree more. And besides, I mean... In these last few weeks, I know that all of us have noticed how much more traffic there is on the streets as people are actually willing to return to their offices.

Yeah, it's definitely a vibrant city.

All right. Moving on. Thank you, Pete.

I've got a few.

All right, go ahead, David.

I thought the images you showed of the secured e-bikes, which I think were all the dirt bikes.

Those are the e-motorcycles?

Yeah, that are basically not legal on road or on sidewalk, right?

Correct, or county parks.

So you can take them to the OHV and that's about it?

That's about it.

Is how that lines up? Yes. But you do see those guys riding around town, so... We do see them occasionally.

We have seen a huge decrease. Oh, good.

They're getting smarter about it.

Yes, since we started a good messaging campaign through the media, and I think all the cities have done that. We have noticed a decrease. I have talked to some residents that are very happy with what they've seen, so...

Yeah, I think a lot of parents or grandparents or whoever just purchase those thinking, boy, that looks cool. It does. But unfortunately, not legal on the road. So yeah, that's a huge learning curve here. So I appreciate that. And you guys did some enforcement at schools, I know, as well, like issuing tickets, I think, last fall, maybe. It's been a while. We did.

And our school resource officers are doing a good job messaging. Our motor officers have been out since school started, just kind of letting folks know, hey, slow down, school zone. We have seen some violations with folks passing buses in front of the school zones. And fortunately enough, we had officers there to take enforcement action.

Cool. School resource officers, you mentioned we have two. We used to have three. Any interest at the school district in returning to three? Because that would allow us to have sort of one at the high school and then two others that floated.

I'm sure the school district would love that. I would love that. I don't know the reason that kind of predates my time here.

I think it was budget on the school district side.

Yes.

And a worry about law enforcement over presence or something in schools.

I think we've built upon that relationship a lot. The school district is very happy with our two officers, Emily and and Norm, I'm constantly receiving feedback from community members and members of the school district supporting that.

We've had past conversations with the school district about bringing back a third that has started and stopped a few times, but we can reengage with the district to see where they're at from a participating standpoint.

And I've witnessed the rapport that they can build with students, particularly at Cordova High is where I've witnessed this. It's amazingly... positive and productive and in the off chance when something challenging happens there those relationships not only sort of long term in the life of the kid but in that moment are really important you know because we have had situations where there's been a police response to corova high particularly when they reduced this from three to two and there was no school resource officer available that day one was in training and one had a day off kind of situation right And you had just line officers responding to campus. And when someone said, it's over by the amphitheater, line officer has no idea. Like, where is that? I don't know who any of these kids are. I don't know who these teachers are. They're just in a complete foreign environment versus someone who's been there all the time all semester and knows, oh, it's this kid and that kid again.

Yeah, the school resource officers can direct other officers when they're responding if they're not on site because they know those campuses very, very well.

Such a valuable thing. The accountability and safety angle I really like in terms of talking to kids about not just issue them a citation for what they do. It's kind of like what we do in code enforcement, right? You've got this problem. Let's figure out a way to solve it for you so you don't have this problem anymore because we don't want you breaking the rules, right? That's a very positive way to handle it. It's sort of like in society we talk a lot about freedoms, but we don't like to talk so much about our responsibilities. But you can't have one without the other. So the accountability is absolutely necessary. So I like the way you folded that in there. That was well put, well executed. And then on PAL, I have been, I used to be on the PAL board years ago, and I'm very interested in growth of PAL. Back then I went to a PAL convention and I saw just amazing things being done by PAL organizations. We've got a strong one from what I can tell, but I always feel like there's more opportunity out there. And I'm just wondering what you think about our current structure, you know, of that board, how we function in the executive director role, you know, should that be a civilian or maybe ex-law enforcement come back to be an executive director as opposed to, you know, current sworn or, you know, we've had that model before too. I'm not exactly sure how you're operating now.

We have a very diverse mix right now.

But it seems like there's, and then community volunteers or civilian employees as part of PAL and a real effort to go out and find grants. And I'm always, back then I was always concerned that we took the badge and we had the badge go to Walmart and buy the food for the snacks, right? And it was just like, no, let's not do that. Let's get the badge in front of the kids. interacting with the kids where it's to the greatest benefit, and have somebody else go and buy the snacks.

Yeah, I can speak to that. This summer, some of our PAL events, being fairly new back in the city for my third tour here as police chief, I was very impressed with what I saw. Some of the events and some of the engagement that our team participated in. I mean, we rented boats and took kids out on Folsom Lake that would never have that opportunity. We took them paddle boarding out on the lake. A lot of the events that I saw this year in the summer impressed the heck out of me.

So I think it's great, everything we do. I'm very impressed with it. I'm a growth guy, so I'm always thinking, well, how could we get twice this big? What would it take to be twice this big, touch twice as many kids in a positive way? For example, we had a boxing idea once upon a time. I don't know if we still own that equipment or not.

I heard about that.

But there's other opportunities of things. You know, it doesn't have to be boxing.

Adrian did boxing.

I'm just using that as an example. It's very effective in some other jurisdictions, I know. But it seems like there's a lot of opportunity there, and I'd love to see like a growth plan of how we're going to go out, capture some more money from grants out there, leverage what we've got more efficiently, effectively, and get more kids engaged.

Yeah, we're certainly going to look at that, and I'll be happy to provide you an update when we get some more information.

Yeah, and I think something we could look at as a strategy document of some sort, I think is an opportunity to kind of lean in a little bit and do some sort of documentation strategy of what does the right function and form look like. And I think a lot of the, when you talk about the badge, I think we do have a records officer who does most of the administrative work now as part of that role. But as something I think we could think about like a strategic plan type document for PAL that actually we could talk about and present in a future meeting.

Yeah, we're an innovation city, and we've had a great history of innovating on that front. It's just there's more potential.

So David, let's talk about education. There have been so many articles in the paper and elsewhere about the difference between the e-bikes and the e-scooters and the e-motors, whatever. So how are we getting that information out to the schools?

So we've been in regular communication, the city's communications team, our traffic unit, and the Folsom Cordova Unified School District. We've had numerous meetings about this before the school year started this year. But we were able to get ahead of it in the media as well and address it head on. And we're not seeing in Rancho Cordova a lot of the issues that other small cities are seeing. think we're blessed for that at the moment but we have done a great deal as far as the education component and the school was able to message that to parents prior to the school year starting and even after and they continue to and our school resource officers also carry that message and I will say and this wasn't in any of my talking points but we have not seen knock on wood major accidents with children riding e-bikes and e-scooters and e-motos in the city. We have had four in the last six months, all involving adults, unfortunately.

Oh, my word. So probably Sac City is the only one that's not covering that. City of Elk Grove has cracked down dramatically, according to the Elk Grove citizens. So we assumed that they would get that word out to their school district. But what about Sac City Unified?

I don't have information about Sac City Unified. I know that Elk Grove and Folsom Cordova have been participating in regular messaging. I mean, it's been all over social media, in the news media, and in the newsletters that go out to parents on a weekly basis.

Great. Okay.

Just on the, I'm sorry. Just on the traffic front, most of your categories showed increases. More citations, for example. Someone could characterize that, I suppose, as a negative. I would characterize that as a positive. because I think, I'll just make numbers up, but in our city we probably have a thousand, let's say, serious traffic violations a day. That's like running a stop sign or something like that. Some number, 500, whatever it is. And we probably give out 25 citations or something a day, right? So it's like there's a very big market and we're nipping at it, right? And the question is how much do you need to nip at it in order to drive the thousand down? Or whatever the number is.

Yeah, our officers do a great job. And fortunately, we have some very motivated officers, not just on the motorcycles, but in the patrol cars as well. But the patrol cars also have to deal with regular calls for service, right? But our traffic officers, our motor team, they're primarily focused on that, and they have been working hard, listening to citizens' complaints. We currently, when I got here, I noticed that there was not a traffic officer at our community meetings and our neighborhood watch meetings. And we had folks telling us about their traffic complaints at those meetings. So I changed that. We have either the sergeant or one of our traffic officers come to our meetings so they can go out and engage those problems as they're occurring and hear straight from the residents. So we're working hard to really drive home the education component's important, but also if people are out driving recklessly or running stop signs and red lights, that's something we definitely do proactively. Our motor officers are probably some of the Busiest in the region when it comes to that. I mean you can look at our traffic statistics and see But we are we are working towards what to see what we can do better and I think listening to our residents is an important key part of that and

I've noticed some drivers that sort of have a pattern of traffic violation that's really extreme. You can imagine a red light, and they're coming up to the red light, and there's cars in the two lanes, like on Folsom Boulevard. They'll swing into the left turn lane, slow down a little bit, see is anybody coming, and just run the red light, like from the left turn lane, and go straight. And they'll do that time after time after time. You can see them do it all the way down the boulevard. Or in a neighborhood. Just through stoplight after stop sign after stop sign after stop sign.

I love it when our motor officers are present when that happens.

Oh, wouldn't that be awesome? Yeah. I'm almost wondering if it isn't some kind of a thing that they see. Is there something trendy in social media where they show people driving like that? Because when I've seen that, it all kind of looks the same. I mean, the pattern of how they drive it. I don't know. Neither. I wish I did. No, I wish we could crack that.

David, I've just come to the conclusion that people are rude.

Real quick, I just want to say, from what you see, citations go up. And I think one of the things that when you see that, people think about money grabbing or doing something. But this is really about behaviors and safety. And so it's not an effort to necessarily issue more citations.

generate revenue but it really is about behavior and increasing the safety in our streets and in our community so there's a several hundred dollars speeding ticket and that's us about a buck 25 i'm not exaggerating right it's just a couple of dollars you're not you're not exaggerating yeah if anything at all joe

Two things. Yes, doing a great job. We have that flock dashboard that we had made, and I know it still exists somewhere, but it's not Google search searchable. I was looking for it. A constituent wanted to see more flock info, and I Googled Rancho Cordova transparency page, and it doesn't show up in the first result, so that could be good to get that there. And my second piece is a prayer, if they're listening up there. Josh Hoover and Roger Niello we need Legislative approval for speed cameras. There's five cities on the list in California.

I would love for us to be the six They're effective And we're not part of the club On the flock question there I think chief and Maria are meeting this week to talk about some of the messaging around the that issue. That's correct

All right. Lovely. Great job.

Thank you for coming. Thank you all.

Yeah, Donald Terry a long time ago said that he wanted to make sure that the thing we spent the most amount of money on, we actually have quarterly updates on it, and you're doing a great job. All right, moving on. Next thing. Who do we got? Stacey, go ahead and read the announcements.

The discussion and decision regarding the November 3rd, 2026 general municipal election with not more candidates than offices to be elected for the office of city council member district two that was to be elected at the general municipal election on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026.

Adam, what you got?

I can go ahead and get it started in this, okay. This item is before you this evening as it relates to the November 3rd general municipal election, which council previously called for districts two and district five on June 1st of this year through the adoption of a resolution. During the election cycle, there is a four week period of time in which candidates pull and file nomination documents. And this discussion relates to District 2, not District 5. So at the close of the nomination period, which was on Friday, August 7, only one candidate, Elliott Stevenson, qualified for the District 2 seat. Under the Elections Code, when there is no more candidates than offices to be elected, the election official has a responsibility to inform the governing body, that is you, that you may at a regular or special meeting adopt a course of action and we have prepared those courses of action to discuss with you tonight so that you can provide direction. For District 2, the City Council has two options this evening. The first is appoint Mr. Stevenson to the District 2 seat and cancel the election for that particular district. This would result in an estimated election cost savings of approximately $14,261 and some change. And Mr. Stevenson would also be refunded the $650 that he paid for his candidate statement. Your second option would be to proceed with the District 2 election as previously called. If Council chooses to appoint Mr. Stevenson, he would take office in December following the canvas of the election results and would serve his four-year term as though he had been elected. And staff is here asking for you to select one of these two options so that we can get in touch with the county to let them know how we are going to proceed so that they can move forward with their ballot production. So the city attorney and I are here if you have any questions.

Stacey, any public comment?

Thank you for asking I do not have any speaker cards I'm looking at zoom and I do not have any hands raised there either all right Move option one Second no Elliot wants to be elected.

He doesn't want to be appointed. It's messed up Did a bunch of work he wants to go on the ballot and be clicked off on by let everyone in the community see his name I

When we had Dr. Sander run, were you the only one?

It's because there wasn't a meeting in time to keep it off the ballot. We have to act quickly under state law. That's what I was explaining because I had the same question.

Yeah, I think we missed a timeline. That's probably the right people.

It was a very heavy travel month. We tried very hard to get a meeting for the council, and we just didn't have time to do it, so we proceeded with your prior direction.

Okay.

And you do just point of order. You have a motion and a second on option one. You can discuss.

Yeah, that's what I'm doing.

I mean, we have precedence and, you know, with Dr. Sanders, sorry, Dr. Sander. And either we follow that or we start a new one.

Yeah, I'd rather let the community vote, but I think it is a little awkward. As a candidate, I mean, you're sort of of two minds. Yeah, I'd love to have people check the box and ask for my name, but at the same time, as a city, it makes us look slightly odd. Why'd you put this on the ballot when there's no election?

Well, I mean, you go around and look at it. The thing is the community wants to see the person. I want to give that district, that's their person that ran. He's the only person that stood up and did the ballot statement, all that stuff. He wants to have his name shown that the community has someone from his area. That's the whole reason we do this. And next time he's going to have competition and they'll get to see his name and someone else's name. So I think it's only right, since he took the time to raise the money, get ready, get all the stuff in place, that he should get his name on the ballot and get a chance for everyone in the community to vote for him. Do we have a desire from the candidate?

I have not heard from the candidate about his desire one way or the other.

The candidate would like to be on the ballot.

I think it would be difficult to make that decision for him without him being here.

Call him.

Anywhere you look at it, it's an opportunity for us to do exactly what we've been talking about for quite some time, which is to grow a stable of people who might like to sit in these chairs. And Elliot, bless his heart, has been serving on the planning commission. He has learned a lot about the city. He grew up here.

Is he our first vet?

On this body, yes. Bob McGarvey? Oh, Bob. No, Bob. But Dan Scoglin was his soccer coach.

And Dave Roberts. And Dave Roberts.

And this is a gentleman who has grown up here and lived in Rancho Cordova forever and bless his heart. He is now JAG and is serving his country also. And it just seems to me that he has earned a right to be here. And there's no reason to encourage him to spend money or the city to spend money for something that's going to happen anyway.

Right, and it does seem like we're using taxpayer candidate to promote a specific, even though he's unchallenged, it does seem like we're using $14 we could spend on something else for the benefit of a political name recognition.

Absolutely.

I think we have 75 days to decide. Do you want to do this?

No, no, no.

It says if by the 75th day,

Only today or nothing.

No person has been appointed? Isn't that what it says on here?

Yeah, the county elections has pressed very hard for this decision as quickly as you can make it.

What does this mean, though, if by the 75th day?

The 75th day before the election.

Yeah August 20th, so doesn't that mean we have 75 days 75 days before is that is today's So this Thursday would be the 75th day, okay Well, it looks like from one point Councilmember Budge mentioned that if what the candidate would like to do and looks like the mayor has spoken to the candidate and his preference is to be on the ballot and he's the one that's losing that $600 and he's okay with it.

But he's incurring $14,000 from the taxpayer.

Fair point. But what if somebody wants to write in their name? We're denying those folks the opportunity of doing so.

Right, that's good. That's actually the point. I mean, has there ever been a successful write-in candidate in a municipal race?

It is, but you always give folks the option of being able to write in.

Good point. Except for the senator from Alaska once, I think. There was three people. In that situation, I think, Borkoski. That's the first one. Not many write-in successes, yeah.

But I think that's right. I think we should give everyone the opportunity. And that under-ballot always be taking a lot of votes. All right, call the question. Call the question.

The motion is number one? Right.

So I'm going to do a roll call?

Do a roll call.

Okay.

Oh, we just, yeah.

For the next election, the one four years from now, would that mean on the ballot that Mr. Stevenson would be referred to as an appointed city council member or an elected city council member?

Just incumbent.

He would just be incumbent, but he wouldn't have to put down appointed.

Yeah, if he did, he wouldn't get to put down that he was elected. I don't think that there's a point. I don't think there's a difference.

If you're appointed, you have to indicate that you were appointed. I knew. We'd be happy to answer that question.

Go ahead. We did look at this, and if they were appointed by the normal process during a term, they would not have the same designation as the incumbents. But this is different. This is essentially, and we did look at the relevant section, and they would not have to identify themselves as being appointed.

Because that's a significant change in running for office. So thank you.

All right, go ahead.

So roll call. We'll start with council member, and this is for... Option number one, which is to appoint Mr. Stevenson and cancel the election. Council Member Little?

Yes.

Council Member Sander? No. Council Member Polipotti?

No.

No? No. Thank you. Vice Mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood?

No.

The motion does not pass.

I would like to move a motion that we go ahead and put him on the ballot.

Option number two.

Option number two. Second. Roll call, please.

Council Member Sander.

Aye.

Council Member Little.

No.

Council Member Pulipati.

Yes.

Council Member Budge. Vice Mayor Budge. That was a no. No. Mayor Gatewood. Yep. Motion passes with a 3-2 vote to proceed with the District 2 election as previously called.

All right, now we're moving on to future agenda items. Anyone got anything they wanna talk about? No. Then lastly, I'm gonna adjourn the meeting in the name of, and I lost this. Steve Nelson. Steve Nelson. May he rest in peace. Meeting adjourned.