City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon and welcome to the Visayas City Council work session. We're going to go ahead and have our roll call. Council Member Nelson is out today and then I think we are expecting Council Member Soto to be here shortly. We are going to start this meeting by actually having a special presentation. So can we have our speaker come forward please?

So I may look a little pregnant and ratchet. I'm sorry, guys. But I've got important things to say. I had asked Ms. Kavalia if I could have my two minutes of time. And I'm going to try to do it without crying. Don't look at me. I just want to let you guys know that when I was in high school, you started with the city wing. So . Oh, can you hear me better now? So when I was in high school, I watched my mom make a total career change. She went back to school, she got a college degree, and she became the best version of herself. If my dad was here, he would be up here giving a funny speech and making you guys all laugh. But I have watched my mom start as a 1,000-hour employee with the city of Visalia. which is huge because I also was a 1,000-hour employee back in 2008 for Visalia Police Department. And so I know how it is to live off that minimum wage and the hours that the city gives you just to make ends meet and to do that with a family. I was a kid. She wasn't a kid. She was a grown woman with almost grown kids. But I've watched her transform her life from yard sale signs to... Shopping carts, which I've been personally victimized by the shopping cart ordinance Let's talk about don't park in front of Iarta on the north side of the Target shopping center Because you will not get your shopping cart back But she has done so much that goes to show me as a young adult Was a medium age adult That if you put your mind to something you can really do it. I watched her develop the sweep team. I watched her take over and fill in for some Parks and Rec and some other nonsense that I didn't quite understand. But nothing makes me more happy to go see her live the rest of her best life. She is going to become Vacation Barbie. She is trading in her shopping carts and her yard sale signs for suit cases and passports. And I know she's sad about leaving, but I've learned a lot from her. I know my brother has. You've got two kids that have been part of city government because of her. And I'm gonna step back right now, because I promised Leslie that I would only do two minutes, and now it's Garrett's turn.

All right, so my mom, Tracy, is retiring this week. She's been in public service longer than I've been alive, which is not that long. specifically she's been with the city of Islay since I was very young decades later I can look back and see the impact that my mom has had on the city of Islay I have not been directly impacted by the shopping cart ordinance but I do hear apparently it's a thing I am a public servant myself I've worked in multiple cities and what I can tell you about working in all those places that no one I've ever crossed paths with is cut from the same cloth as my mom so She's an innovator. She thinks critically. She's done multiple programs in the city that have led to blight reduction and increased safety and overall improved life for everyone who lives in the city. My mom's a leader. She's looked out for her people, led by example, and committed herself entirely to her career. She's extraordinarily intelligent. I can tell you that to this day as a grown man who supervises his own people that she proofreads multiple documents for me because no one does it better than she does. Visalia will not be the same without her. And I know that you all will have trouble replacing her, and I think you know that because she is impossible to replace. No one will do her job better than she does. My mom loves this city and all of you that she's worked with. If you see her, please congratulate her on her well-earned retirement. And from all of us who have lived in this city during their lives, thank you, Mom. Thank you.

My turn.

Good afternoon, Mayor, council members, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ruth Belmonte and I am with the city of Kermit, but also a board of directors. Can you hear me? But also board of directors for region three for the Code Enforcement Association of, excuse me, the California Association of Code Enforcement Officers. And it is my pleasure to recognize Tracy, neighborhood preservation manager, as one of our officers of the month. But not just that. Tracy has been an outstanding person in leadership, dedication to code enforcement for I'm sure more than 20 years as long as I've known her. I've known her for quite a long time. One of the things too that stands out with Tracy is that she's always helped me in time of need when I needed some questions answered or maybe a form, she was there. Her commitment extends way beyond the city of Visadia. Tracy has been a KCO member for almost 18 years, has served incredible 14 years with KCO Board of Directors, which again, region three. And region three has nine counties, so there's a big spread. This is a little excerpt that she gave me some time back. When I first started my career in SCACIO and KCO, SCACIO standing for Southern California Association code enforcement officers, and CASIO, again, California Association of Code Enforcement Officers, just recently merged. And CASIO was in its infancy stages of establishing itself as an organization that it is today. I have witnessed the organization grow, unify, and become recognized as a leader in code enforcement profession. I have been honored to work besides some trailblazers. This gal is a trailblazer herself. many times in the industry who tirelessly worked at the local and state level to make sure that code enforcement officers across our state are well represented. Throughout her career, Tracy has been a leader, a mentor, an advocate for code enforcement professionals. She has watched our organization profession grow over the years. And more importantly, she's been such a big part. And again, without her, I mean, she's served so many different committees in our organization. So as Tracy prepares to retire, we want her to know that we appreciate all the time, knowledge, and leadership, friendships she has shared with so many among us. And knowing Tracy's retirement, she probably won't stay away from KCO. but we never know. So on behalf of our KCO president, which is Jamie Lennos, who couldn't be here today because she also had a city council presentation, and our board of directors from region three, and our other members, thank you, Tracy, for all the work, for all your commitments, and all your service that you've done for our organization. So today, I would like to present you with a plaque from our organization, and it says, in recognition of your many years of dedication, service to code enforcement professional, your commitment, leadership, and contributions have made a lasting impact on the profession and the communication in which we serve. So Tracy. So if you don't mind, I'd like to take some pictures in front of the council.

Oh yeah.

See, I'm all done crying so now I can speak. I just want to say that in 20 years I've seen some things. And I've worked with and for a variety of leaders. So I've seen some changes. But what has not changed is the support from this community, the administration, and council members for over 20 years that they've given to neighborhood preservation. And that's not how it is in all agencies. It's just not. But this city has embraced it, has encouraged it, has built it from when I started three people to 20 in those 20 years. So thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it. It's very hard for me to leave, but...

Thank you, Tracy, for your many years of service. I appreciate what you've done Anytime we had anything, you came and you were on it. So the city will miss you, staff will miss you, and I hope you enjoy your time off. Please don't worry about any of us.

We got it. I will still always answer.

Yeah, I do have your cell phone number. but thank you for your leadership, for your vision for this position, and just for all, you've set the bar high, and I think we need to keep that in front of us in Visalia, and just because of you, it's a great place to live, so thank you so much.

Thank you, Tracy, for your service. I mean, you answer emails so quick, especially when I have a complaint and how quickly the case has started against somebody and that problem is solved. I mean, like I said, you set the bar really high. I always say you and the fire marshal have the two toughest jobs in the city of Visalia. You probably are the two most popular people because, but you guys are the reasons like problems get fixed and we're gonna really miss you and I wish you the best in retirement.

Tracy, we are very excited for you. You've done a great job. I've known you for a long time. We've gotten to work on a lot of projects. I was writing some of them down. Sign ordinance, shopping cart, sweep, mobile vendor. You're the walking encyclopedia. Anytime I call you, you immediately know it. You don't have to go check. And honestly, I was kind of loving the fact that you were getting a little flustered over there i've never seen you like that i mean you deal with some pretty tense situations and i've never seen you turn red before um and as a councilman was saying uh typically when they're calling you they're not very happy so you know you've uh you've done a great job representing our community We're appreciative of everything that you've done. And she is fantastic at what she does. She's given me a few fines, so she's very even on finding everybody. I've gotten a few water fines. I got a fence violation one time, but she's always been great and she knows her role and we appreciate all that you've done. We're excited that you're gonna go off and tour the world. You have earned it and you have definitely set a very high bar for our community. So thank you, Tracy. All right, next we're going to go on to public comments. Citizens are now invited to comment on issues within the jurisdiction of the Visayas City Council and items listed on the closed session agenda. The council asks that you keep your comments concise and positive. Creative criticism presented with appropriate courtesy is welcome. The city does not tolerate disruptive behavior in our meetings. The council meeting is considered a limited public forum, which means the council can regulate the time, place, and manner of speech. Speaker comments during public comment must be limited to matters within the council's authority, generally referred to as within the council subject matter jurisdiction. If a speaker comments are not related to a council subject matter jurisdiction, the presiding officer will rule the speaker out of order. A speaker will not be ruled out of order because of disagreement with the content of their speech. Please step up to the podium and or the line. And for those calling in, raise your digital hand and dial nine on the telephone to indicate you wish to speak and star six to unmute yourself. You may begin your comments by stating and spelling your name and providing your city of residence. Each speaker will have three minutes to speak. We'll start off with anybody who wishes to make comments that are in this room to start.

Good afternoon, Jim Reeves, Visalia. Recently, I had cause to be looking through the police department's policies manual, and I noticed some things regarding the automated license plate reader data system that we have, the flock system. Section 428.7 on releasing ALPR data says the data may only be shared with other law enforcement or prosecutorial agencies for official law enforcement purposes or as otherwise permitted by law using the following procedures. The agency makes a written request for the data that includes the name of the agency, the name of the person requesting, the intended purpose of obtaining the information. The request is to be reviewed by the operations support division captain or the authorized designee and approved before the request is fulfilled. And then the approved request is to be retained on file. Well, with the public records request I did, I got data back for May of this year, a 30-day period. Listed on the transparency page of the website, it says 258 California agencies are authorized to access the flock data that Vice City collects. In that audit, 309 agencies were identified as having access data. and those agencies access the data 507,696 times. I really don't think we have 507,000 written requests for data sitting over at the police department. Certainly don't have the time for anybody to review them and approve them. So if we're gonna continue with the flock system and operate it the way we've been operating it, I think we probably should update the policy manual to reflect the way we're operating and make it reflect reality. Thank you.

Anybody else wishing to speak who's in the room? Do we have anyone online or on the phone? All right, then we will go ahead and close public comments and we will now turn our time over to the work session and action items and we'll start off with item number one, which is a park and recreation master plan presentation.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council Members. Tonight we're doing a presentation on the survey findings of the 2026 Visalia Parks and Recreation Master Plan and Needs Assessment, and we have Mike Setz here from PROS Consulting, and he will be doing an overview of the presentation.

Thank you very much, Jason. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members, I appreciate the opportunity to share with you kind of a milestone related to the Parks and Rec Master Plan. We're not necessarily at this point trying to lean into recommendations, but really just kind of wanted to provide an overview of the information that we've heard from both park assessments as well as mostly from your community. So having lived on Jason's side of the table as a recovering Parks and Recreation director, I find this information always to be very, very fascinating and I'll do my very best to try and connect the dots along the way. So let's see. Again, we'll just kind of hit a really quick five point overview of where we're at with the master plan. As mentioned, we'll talk about a little bit about park assessments, community engagement. We'll spend a lot of time on the statistically valid survey and I'll answer any questions around the methodology associated with that. And then we'll try and tie it all together so the information doesn't feel like it's sitting in a vacuum. In terms of the master plan, we're kind of in the middle. We spent a lot of time getting the key findings. Now we're starting to strategically integrate that information before we dive into improvements and funding strategies. In terms of park assessments, this was done by Four Creeks, and they did a great job in terms of assessing every park in the system. Long story short, I won't belabor you with a whole bunch of data and figures. There's an entire report that will explain all of that. But for the most part, you scored pretty well in terms of the assessments. There are opportunities for improvement, in particular around primary assets such as fields, courts, playgrounds. But in looking at it, you generally scored pretty well with regards to these assessments, always recognizing that the application of generalities associated with facilities and amenities within a park system certainly need to be, you know, have the onion peeled back a little bit and looked by park by park. So the strengths of your system generally look at it's overall in good condition. Your mini parks your smaller parks are strong and very consistent You have very good support features and landscape conditions scored really really well We'll see that in the stat survey and strong parks do exist across your system Cleanliness and tree quality are also very very solid from the park assessment perspective

In terms of the... This is a public report. Can you just, for the crowd, explain the difference between a mini park and a strong park?

A mini park is a pocket park, and the other park is probably a neighborhood park.

Thank you. In terms of the opportunities for improvement, reinvesting in existing infrastructure such as courts, playgrounds, paths, Harold's Grove and Seven Oaks definitely deserve quite a bit of focused attention. Improved planting and more shade in parks to allow them to be a little bit more usable during times of year of heat. Looking at differences across community parks, you don't want them to all feel the same. and then obviously continue to focus gaps and fix gaps. Reinvesting in parks is a never-ending job. We don't get to just do ground breakings and ribbon cuttings and leave them go. They are always in a state of potential investment and reinvestment. In terms of the overall community engagement, there were over 120,000 touchpoints just through the different e-blasts and web emails and web viewing associated with the master plan. over 420 statistically valid surveys, 182 people participated in either original public meetings or focus groups. We had over 672 social point website contributions. So just specific to this Parks and Recreation Master Plan, there were that many contributions. And then there were outreach in terms of plugging and playing into other events to try to solicit information. So all of that information kind of rolls itself up into, hey, when we think about this information, we think about that we asked information from staff, from the public, from general stakeholders, All of these viewpoints were represented and pretty consistent across the themes of your parks and recreation system. So we have really strong community partners here. Parks are really supportive of recreation culture events and bring an identity to the city. Staff are very focused on practical implementation. And so when we think about then some of the opportunities for improvement, you start to see some commonalities between what we saw in the park assessments and what the public said. Protect and reinvest in the existing park system. Make sure that we think about operating costs any time we do a capital improvement because that is something you have to invest in every year, every two years when you do your budgets. You know, making sure that we close those park trail indoor space and athletic field facility gaps, align programs with participation, affordability, and space, and then really look to kind of use data to help strengthen funding for parks going forward. Um, next portion here is a statistically valid survey. So it's a statistically valid survey, uh, which was ministered by ETC Institute, uh, has to be, um, you know, demographically, geographically representative of your community. Um, long story short, if it doesn't meet those criteria, If we don't reach people that live in all parts of the community and all walks of life, the results are not valid. If you did this survey 100 times, you would get the same results 95 out of 100 times within a margin of error of about 5%. To give you some comparables, we have 420 household surveys for a community of about 150,000 folks. Just finishing a Parks and Recreation Master Plan in the city of Phoenix, it's about 10 times the size of your community and the number of surveys that they received to get statistically valid results was about 1,000. So the 420 households represented here is a really, really strong number for your population. I always like to kind of say, you know, if you were to Google it and say, what's the statistically valid survey? You can ask Louisville, Kentucky, every resident in Louisville, Kentucky, whether or not they like chocolate ice cream, vanilla ice cream, or Neapolitan. If you got good demographic and geographic representation in response to that one question, you would need 375 responses for it to be statistically valid. Happy to share with you a lot of the science behind the methodology, but we feel very confident with regards to the data driven results of this survey. In terms of demographics, just to kind of help prove that point, in looking at age distribution, so, you know, the orange is the survey respondents. The blue is where the Environmental Systems Research Institute, who updates their numbers every year, kind of landed. You can see that there's really strong alignment with regards to what that estimate is and what the survey respondents are. every one of those bars kind of falls within that margin of error. Same thing when we think about race. Race and ethnicity are two very different things, but in terms of race, from white, Asian, black, American Indian, Native Hawaiian, you all have really good alignment. Hispanic population is an ethnicity. And so again, you have really good alignment here. 55% is estimated in your community, about 53% is represented by the survey. I'm not going through each and every question. I will just kind of dive into kind of some of the key themes. So advocacy. This is really important to kind of understand foundationally where your community's at. We ask all of these different questions as it relates to the potential benefits of Parks and Recreation. They center around crime. They center around economic development, health, general quality of life, and so on and so forth. Everything that's in blue and green means people strongly agree or agree with these statements. That red or black horizontal vertical line down the middle basically is your 50% breaking off point. So you have basically with every one of these statements, your community either strongly or agrees or agrees at a rate of 50% or more. That's a good jumping off point for you. People believe in Parks and Rec. If you had to ask them what their two most important, there's four of them that jump out. Improves physical health, improves mental health. So people see the value of health as it relates to parks and recreation, more so than they even just see it as a quality of life thing, though that is on there. It also helps to reduce crime. So we think about health and we think about safety. We know that these are two very strong pillars of strong communities. People feel very strongly that parks and recreation contributes to those two. And when we think about, however, people's level of satisfaction, The national benchmark for very satisfied satisfied is 63 percent. You're at about 42 percent. So we have some work to do. Strong advocacy but people want you to do better. So I will try to help explain why we think that that number is a little bit lower as we go through this. So park visitation. This is important. You have high levels of park visitation. 93% of your community, 92% of your community is using your parks annually. That is much greater than the 81% that we see nationally. That means that the answers that we're about to see specific to parks and programs is very well informed. Not only do you have people using them, you have people using them at a frequent flyer rate. You have over 60% of your community that are using parks and facilities at least once a week. And you have close to 43% of your community that's using it more than multiple times a week. So not only high usage, but a lot of usage on top of that. In terms of what people do when they go to a park. So sometimes we get caught up on recreation programs and services and events, but most people use parks and recreation for self-directed activities. The number one reason, which explains why people will park around the side of a road and go walk around a path in a basin in your community is walk for exercise. It's actually the number one way in which people engage in parks and recreation across the country. Your community is very similar. Play in a playground is number two, use athletic fields three, walk dogs, picnicking four, ride a bike is five. So that just kind of gives you a sense that a lot of people are using it very specific for self-directed activity. In terms of barriers to use, lack of restrooms. It's a basic function. If we are encouraging folks to use a park for more than an hour and we don't provide restrooms, we're kind of defeating the purpose of them being able to have a high quality visit. So when you think about lower levels of satisfaction, not having restrooms at parks that people use frequently is potentially one of those reasons. Lack of amenities they want to use is number two. Nothing keeps us from using parks or using them more often is number three. And then don't feel safe is number four. So those are kind of the barriers in your community to using parks, I would say, more often than what we see at a national level.

Can you go back to that slide real quick?

Yep, absolutely.

You know, it's pretty interesting that the national average is that recreation facilities is 42% too far from your home. but in our city it's 6%. I mean, it's pretty interesting. So basically we have recreation facilities pretty close throughout our community, correct?

Correct, exactly. And that is going to be something that we prove through a level of mapping in terms of proximity as we move into the next phase. But that is definitely something that you're seeing pretty well. People do not have a barrier to having parks and facilities that are close to them.

Perfect, thank you.

Great, thanks for pointing that out. in terms of park and rec facility maintenance. So same kind of slide as we said regarding the benefits, very different result. In terms of people's levels of satisfaction with regards to park maintenance, the four things that kind of align with higher levels of satisfaction Greater than 50% are all green infrastructure so mowing tree maintenance athletic field maintenance and landscaping everything else is really about maintaining your built environment. And sometimes people look at that in terms of need for a replacement as opposed to just maintenance. What you see down at the bottom, at the very, very bottom is restroom maintenance. So we ask people the question, what's most important to them? At the top is restroom maintenance. So park lighting, which leads to safety, graffiti removal, vandalism, which is also a safety issue, playground safety issue, trash, litter, waste pickup, and then of course landscape care. So it's just important to recognize that when people are asked of what is most important to them, it's also the areas that we're seeing the lower levels of satisfaction, which also in turn helps tie that back to why the overall level of satisfaction might be a little bit lower. In terms of program participation, right on the money. What we see in terms of, you know, where people participating in programs and events is right at what we see national benchmark. I find this actually phenomenal. And the reason I say that is you don't have great facilities. in terms of indoor space. You have facilities that do need some love. And so the fact that the Recreation Division is doing such a great job in terms of getting people to participate in programs is actually pretty good for your community. Again, when we look at excellent or good rating, you're slightly below the national average, but again, certainly nothing that is creating huge barriers to people not participating. In terms of who people use, so when we think about people participating in programs, their go-to is you. And that's important. People are not using other facilities. They're not using churches. It's not to say that they don't go elsewhere, but the number one place that they go for recreation programs is you. In terms of barriers, I don't know what is offered as number one, but it's actually below the national average. Program times not convenient, fees or too busy not interested in program not offered. Those are the other ones that are kind of a little bit above the national average. However, knowing that I don't know what is offered is the highest, and it always is, no matter what community, we ask people how they would prefer to hear about programs. So this gives you a sense of if you're going to have a communication strategy around informing people how to use or about parks and recreation. Facebook, city website, Instagram, and email are your top four. So if you're going to put time and energy into getting people to understand more about what's going on, those would be the four modes in which you would want to do that. Interestingly enough, all four of those are digital. And And it's less expensive in terms of the actual output. It still takes time, especially when you think about Instagram and Facebook, because that's social media, which people respond to social media daily at a minimum. So it is time intensive to think about. In terms of priority, so I'll go really quickly, what you're going to see is you're going to see parks, you're going to see programs, you're going to see aquatics. And so when we think about Tier 1, we think about Tier 2, we think about Tier 3, and we have broken this out across different household types. We've broken this out. across the community and found a lot of consistency. When we say priority investment, we're saying what people find important, what they find needed, and also what they have a high level of unmet need for. So all three of those kind of go into determining tier one, tier two, tier three. So when we think about tier one, there's a wide variety of different types of investments. So indoor walking, jogging track requires a facility, but picnic areas, open space, indoor fitness centers or spaces, swimming pools, playgrounds, outdoor exercise. So you have this combination of the built environment related to pools and recreation facilities but people also want you to invest in some of the basic stuff such as playgrounds and making sure that you have open space and or picnic areas as well. So it's kind of a little, I don't wanna say a hodgepodge. Another thing to just kind of point out is you get down to the medium, your community's gonna continue to grow, so people are going to need more of that. It means you kind of have it right-sized right now, the tier two. Tier three, does not mean that people don't find these things important, but they're very, very hyper-focused in terms of either an age group, a skill, or a special interest. So you're not gonna have 55-year-olds or 60-year-olds out there on skate parks, but it does have a very specific need. It's not to say you discount it, it's just to say that you have a very target market that wants that. Same exercise for programs and services. A smaller tier regarding tier one, community special events, fitness and wellness programs, water fitness. So this all ties back to how do people feel like they benefit from your parks and recreation? Health was a big deal. Two of your top three in which people want out of programs and services are tied to physical fitness. In terms of aquatic amenities, A lot of tier ones, only two tier threes, which are very special. Hot tubs, spas, and diving boards, which are kind of taboo these days when it comes to aquatics. But you have a lot of tier one and a lot of tier two priorities as it relates to aquatics. We think about programs and services for aquatics. A lot of tier one swim lessons active older adult aquatic programming fitness programming warm water wellness special aquatic special events and you get into birthday parties swim teams pool rentals and dive programs are tier three. So a lot a lot of support a lot a lot of red for aquatics on your from back from a community's perspective. So let's talk about support. if people were going to what they support you to do the most of. So again, this is, let me just make sure I have this right. So this first one is about investing or reinvesting in your system. So you see a lot of folks either very supportive or somewhat supportive for most every one of these activities. And the number one thing in which that had the highest level of support, of very supportive, was improved restroom facilities. In terms of building new, improved community special event spaces, indoor gymnasium spaces, a new aquatic center. The new aquatic center was the number one priority in terms of being most supportive. We put them together and we asked people if they want to fund it. Now this is where it becomes a little bit different, right? So the number one thing in which people said that they were most willing to fund was take care of what you already have. And they break that down based on making sure that you have more and more and more walking paths in your parks. Number two was around general repair increase. Number three was improve restroom facilities. Number four is when you get into building new and it's the aquatic center. So this just kind of gives you a sense of if people were going to put their money into this or ask you to put money into it, it's where they would, you know, ask you to do so. So key findings integration just really quickly. The next two slides are going to be very similar. But what's the theme? Parks are essential infrastructure to your community. Strong advocacy. They just want you to do better. Reinvest before expanding. That's number two. Comfort drives everyday use. So restroom facilities, shade, what makes an experience of using a park better is important to your community. Make sure that you understand and continue to make sure that as your community grows that you don't forget about parks as part of that growth plan. Programs need a little bit easier access. There was that awareness issues, some schedules and right sizing of spaces. And your implementation must be realistic because people are not off the charts supporting just throwing tons and tons and tons of money at Parks and Recreation. Same kind of thing here priorities. I won't repeat this. It's a very similar message just a different way to look at it in terms of the themes and then how you prioritize in terms of specific projects. So if you were to take all of this and boil it down to where you were going to invest in certain things trails loop walking paths restroom improvements general repair maintenance indoor walking recreation a new aquatic center. And then the last one is very specific, but we did ask questions about the Plaza Park Raceway. It has very low levels of support in terms of investing in it and is really, really low in terms of people willing to fund it. So these are just kind of some of the takeaways that you're hearing from your community that sets us up for our next steps, which is really around the level of service. We will do that in a couple of ways. We'll map it. but then also make sure that we tie it to a numerical value of how many acres you need per thousand folks. We are gonna work through operational assessments. There's a lot of information in here about the day-to-day operations and how your community responds to that. We need to make sure that we're thinking about both what you do day in and day out versus what you have to do it in. And so that's a part of this. And then we'll get into cost estimating and prioritization with capital improvements. funding and revenue strategies including park impact fees. So at this point I'll take any questions. Tried to get through that as quickly as possible. Maybe not as quickly as everybody would like. Thank you very much for the report.

Council Member Pachigian, any questions or comments?

Yeah, I mean great report. A couple takeaways that I took. I'm saying park up keeps something that I spent a lot of times in parks. I got two young kids and I've been up and down the state from baseball fields to football fields to soccer fields. I've been, I've seen it all. Northern California to Southern California. Where I've been saying is I feel like our upkeep's been kind of lacking a little bit. When I was saying our mowing and maintenance levels could improve, that's the number one complaint I get on our open spaces. especially around like January, February, we switched from twice a week mowing to once a week mowing right before we'd make that switch. I get a lot of complaints. I get the grass is too long. I hit a baseball and it dies in the grass. And I get it right before we make that switch. I've consistently said that where I see the most use in all our recreational facilities is our walking paths. I'm glad that this shows that because I think that's what people want most, especially in their parks. I might have even seen Jason Glick walking around the park in our neighborhood a couple times. We did the new sports park over there on the east side and we started with the basins and the walking paths. I think we all thought, we'll put the walking paths in because we've got the grant and it's part of the whole grant process, but no one's gonna use it. And my surprise, personally, when you drive by, you see people driving out there consistently, walking continuously. So I think that's what people want a lot in our community. For methods of communication, I agree with you. Social media is probably the source where people get most of their information. My son wanted to play basketball this year, so we're gonna sign up. And I was told that you need to sign up at Sunday at 10 o'clock or you'll be on the waiting list. So for a month, I was like, I'm going to sign up at 10 o'clock. Well, we get on Sunday and you do something else and all of a sudden it's 10.30 and I didn't sign up. And I'm sitting there looking up Facebook and all of a sudden what popped up on Facebook? Basketball signups. And I clicked a medal. Well, I better do this real quick. And I got them signed up. So I agree with you that. I agree with you there that I think you save a lot of money by doing this. And this is what people see every single day on their phone. You know, it was pretty interesting in the report when you talk about an aquatic center. A lot of people wanted an aquatic center. It didn't seem like a lot of people really wanted to fund it, but what was really interesting was I've been hearing competition pool, competition pool, we want a competition pool. When you look at the report, it's not a competition pool most people want. It is a recreational pool, something that most people could use. I found that interesting. And also a lot of indoor athletic spaces, kind of, or recreational space I could see. I think there's a lot of synergy in an indoor facility because you can do a lot of different things from volleyball, basketball, indoor walking track. Really, I mean, even like athletic facilities in there. There's a lot of things that you could do indoor and it's used 12 months out a year where you do a lot of open space. It's great, but it gets cold during wintertime here and that's one of those big issues. I've been saying for a long time, open green space, multi-use things that people could do multiple different things on. I think this first part of this presentation has shown that. People want something that we could use for multiple different things and get our most use, especially when we're talking about public funds being used for something. I think you got to try as much use as possible out of that facility of what you could do. I understand that restrooms are the number one complaint. I get to get up and down the state, different sports facilities. What I've noticed, if it's an open public restroom, it is always dirty. I've not been to a public park where they're like, oh my God, this bathroom is so clean. Don't touch anything, kids. We get in and out. Where I found the most clean bathrooms is when the facility is a, I don't want to say a private use facility, but somehow there it is used for competition only things. And it's not open to the entire public. And that's where you see the most, clean restrooms. Any time it's open 24 hours a day or during the park operations, I have never seen a clean sanitary bathroom up and down the state. And I understand why people aren't happy about that. And I don't know what there is to do. We've tried multiple things to keep the bathrooms clean how many times the lock has been broken off because we try to lock it up at night to keep it clean. So I agree with people, but there's also ways that we have to do that is kind of close things down and only open up while the parks are in use. But I think this is very informative. I'm waiting to see our implementation plan is where we go forward to. But my takeaway, main takeaway from this Is do a better job up keeping our facilities and it's hard because you know sun's beating down all day. It's 100 plus degrees here Me and council member mayor taylor. We have young kids and then when we first got on council Remember it was shade. We need shade on our play structures I think we've done a pretty good job providing shade on the plate structures Because I remember having a three-year-old that we had to go to the park at eight or nine o'clock in the morning Because of you went after that my kid was going to Burned his butt going down the slide right there or anything like that. So we've made a real big push on shade structures on everything. But very great report. Great to see our implementation plan. But upkeep and multi-use facilities. And really not really specialty facilities, something that you get multi-use out of is kind of what I took from this presentation. So I'm looking forward to where it goes.

GREG BRUDNICKI. Council Member Rosado, any questions or comments?

GREG BRUDNICKI. Yeah, no. Thank you. Thank you for the report. Um, I don't have much else to add besides, uh, you know, of course we can always do better and, and I'm happy that we're, we're at least at the average, you know, close to the average overall score overall. And, and, uh, um, yeah, I mean, I, I just hope we can prioritize some of these things that we need to work on and, and, and that we can get this number above average and, and, and, you know, make myself a better place. Thanks. Vice mayor. When,

Yeah, I agree with Council Member Pachigian. As a former sports child chasing parent and now grandparent, you're exactly right on the restrooms. I worry about the safety of the restrooms, not just in Visalia and other facilities that I've been at as well. They tend to be abused. and I'm just not sure what we can do with that. I mean, we could have full-time monitors, I guess, but I'm not sure people wanna pay for that or we have the budget for that. I am really interested in the indoor facilities, of course, but we brought that up as a council already. We brought that up last year, and so Jason's been given a budget to make some improvements, which we desperately need, but I think another indoor facility somewhere in town is important, and I look forward to seeing that in your future. your future report and also the, and I had asked that too, what are the normal acres per capita, you know, for parks? And I think we're close, but we're probably not there yet. And as homes get crammed together smaller and smaller, I think that outdoor space is really important as we see by our survey. I think our people, recognize that and need it as well. I was interested on some of your, when I was looking through this the other day, there's something about Harold's Grove, which we just opened that. It's been like a year maybe. I don't want to get into the weeds here. I know this is not the place, but I would be interested in finding out what the comments were about those places, those two oak tree preserves that we have with exercise equipment and walking paths.

Yeah, there's a lot of transient activity in that park. We did install new fitness equipment. It's been about a year, but we do have a lot of unhoused activity specifically in that area.

Okay, the restroom issue as well, yeah. Okay, I am excited to see the results of this, the rest of this report, and I think we'll all get prepared because we're going to need to beef that budget up.

Okay.

Yeah, thank you very much for the report. For community, a few months ago we were looking at potentially putting in a sales tax or a bond measure or do some type of park funding mechanism. And, you know, we kind of put the brakes on it because we didn't see this data yet. And so this is going to help us plan for the future. It's going to help us plan for our new east side regional park. And then also the other parks are, you know, we're going to be building. We have been a little slow on building parks in the city of Issa over the last decade or so. And we definitely need to step that up. And so I'm excited to be able to use this information to build an actual park. plan to move forward. I mean, the Eastside Regional Park, it's 200 and something acres. I mean, it is gonna be an amazing park and we're gonna be able to build what our city actually wants rather than just what we want as a council. So I appreciate the information. Let's go ahead and open this up to the public. Anyone from the public wishing to speak on this item, please come forward and state your name and city of residence. Seeing nobody wanting to speak. Is there anybody online? No one online, all right. Then I will entertain a motion to accept the presentation.

I move to receive the presentation of the Visalia Parks Recreation Master Plan and Needs Assessment.

I second. We have first and second. All those in favor of accepting the report, please vote yes. And item passes 4-0 with Council Member Nelson absent. All right, so we're going to go ahead and adjourn right now. And we welcome everyone to come back to our regular scheduled session at 7 PM. And we will go ahead and adjourn. Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the Visayas City Council meeting. We're going to go ahead and get started. We'll start off with a Pledge of Allegiance led by Council Member Soto, and then we will please remain standing. We'll have an invocation led by Pastor Renteria, Heart of the Valley Christian Fellowship.

Everybody please stand.

If you would like to join with me this evening in prayer by bowing your heads as we give reverence to the Lord. Heavenly Father, we come before you tonight. We thank you for this opportunity, the liberties that we have to gather in meetings such as this. We pray that you would just lead our conversation tonight, God. We also ask that you would lead the council, give them wisdom, and just lead them in decision-making tonight, Lord. Would you bless everyone in this room? In Jesus' name, amen.

Thank you very much for that opening prayer. Now we're going to go on to public comments. Citizens are now invited to comment on issues within the jurisdiction of the Visayas City Council and items listed on the closed session agenda. The council asks that you keep your comments concise and positive. Creative criticism presented with appropriate courtesy is welcome. The city does not tolerate disruptive behavior in our meetings. The council meetings are considered a limited public forum, which means the council can regulate the time, place, and manner of speech. Speakers' comment during public comment must be limited to matters within the council's authority, generally referred to as within the council's subject matter jurisdiction. If a speaker's comments are not related to the council's subject matter jurisdiction, the presiding officer will rule the speaker out of order. A speaker will not be ruled out of order because of disagreement with the content of their speech. Please step up to the podium and or form a line. And those calling in, please raise your digital hand now and press star nine on a telephone to indicate you wish to speak and at the appropriate time, star six to unmute yourself. You may begin your comments by stating and spelling your name and providing your city of residence. Each speaker will have three minutes to speak. So anyone wishing to speak at this time who's in this room, please come forward. And for those, we've had a few people ask, if you want to speak on data centers, you wouldn't do it during public comments, you would do it when that item is pulled. So anyone wishing to speak who's in this room, please come forward.

Irene Lampin, Mycelium. It's hard to imagine that 20 years ago gang graffiti were the city's worst problem, at least the most noticeable one. But the city, businesses, and residents worked together and got the worst part under control. These days we have all kinds of crime. It's not the city's fault either, though I'm deeply concerned about runaway growth. But I'm convinced the growth in crime has been a result of the passing of California Proposition 47 in the year 2014, which, as I'm sure you remember, mandated the early release of inmates due to prison overcrowding, along with the reclassification of certain felonies as misdemeanors. Today, we're seeing the result of that trickle of so-called nonviolent offenders who are now living among us. And guess what? Many have turned into violent offenders. They probably choose to live here because there are more amenities for them here, things to steal, people to rob, and more places to hide. Which leads me to the 100-person brawl at the 559 MMA fights here on August 22. A lot of conjectures have been flying around where about where most of the participants came from frankly i don't care and i have no faith in the promoters who claimed that it was an isolated incident and that they were from out of town anyway who's going to believe them it was sickening to hear that two of the three injuries to our police officers were concussions but astonishingly that department brought it under control quickly and flawlessly The brawl made a mockery of our town in all the media from north to south and comments in the social media branded us as trash and ghetto. Not one excused what took place. Many residents were saying, we can't go anywhere after dark anymore. People were reminded of the recent buffoonish events at the White House. So I ask you, why tempt fate to ruin what's left of our image? Leave the fights to the gaming casinos who have their own in-house security. Last, I emailed the general manager of the convention center, which, as you know, is owned by the city, to ask on what basis events are approved and the level of security that's required for each. But I never heard from her. Not long ago, I talked to her by phone about an unrelated issue. I'll hold my tongue about her level of professionalism. Be that as it may, in light of what happened on August 22nd, I strongly recommend that she be terminated immediately and that no fight events be allowed there in the future. I'm told she was appointed by the city manager. Otherwise, if we keep going in this direction, we're simply asking for trouble. Thank you.

Okay, seeing no one else, do we have anyone online who wishes to speak? Okay, then we'll go ahead and close public comments. Does the council have any items of interest? I have one item I'd like to propose. I've had two churches reach out to me about temporary parking. and they've asked that we put this on a future council agenda item, so if you guys would be okay with that, I would like to approve having the discussion of temporary parking on a future agenda. Okay, perfect. We'll go on to the consent calendar. Council Member Soto, do you have any items you'd like to pull from the consent calendar? No, thanks. Okay. Vice mayor, do you have any items you'd like to pull? No, thank you. Um, do you have any items? I know items. Okay. And I have no items, but before we do that, let's go ahead and open this up to the public. Right now it's a consent calendar. This is a time for members of the public to provide public comments on items on the consent calendar. Comments will not be taken individually by the public if an item is pulled by a council member. Each speaker is allowed up to three minutes and a timer will notify you when your time has expired. Please begin your comments by stating and spelling your name and providing your city of residence. Does anyone here wish to speak on an item that is on our consent calendar? Okay, seeing no one, we'll close. Do we have anyone online wishing to speak? Okay, perfect, so with no items being pulled, I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar.

We'll make a motion to approve the balance of the consent calendar.

I second.

We have first and second. All those in favor, please vote. And the consent calendar item passed 4-0 with Council Member Nelson absent. Now we're going to go on to regular items in public hearing. And item number one is a proposed elimination of a transit fixed route 17. Staff report, please.

Good evening. I'm Angelina Baker. I'm the transit manager for the city of Visalia.

Caleb Bowman, management analyst for the city of Visalia.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, members of council, John Lawless, assistant city manager.

So if you guys recall, we were here in July and we talked about the route 17. and we asked council to consider opening public comment so that we can discuss possible elimination. So just to review, this is a grant, it was a grant funded route that we started back in 2021. It has experienced very low ridership, significant operational costs, and we've exhausted those grant funds. So we brought this here to talk about eliminating it and using those funds for something more effective. So this is just a revisit of that timeline. We were here on July 20th. We got council's authorization to start engaging the public, which we did so the next day on July 21st. That brings us to September 8th. Now, since July 21st, we have been collecting public comment in various ways. If approved by council tonight at council's direction, the route could be eliminated at any date designated by council. We had suggested October, but that date is at your discretion. Just some of the outreach attempts. We published in Visalia Times Delta to engage the public. We pushed multiple posts out on social media to engage comments and interaction. We posted flyers at the transit center and we also handed over flyers to our bus operator to post them on the buses as well to engage the public that rides our buses but doesn't come to transit. This went to our TAC, which is an ad hoc transit advisory committee. And then, of course, we also did a presentation at the Visalia Economic Development Corporation.

So in totality out of the public comments that we received during the public comment period, we received a total of 14 comments, nine of which were opposed to elimination, two that were supportive elimination, and three that were neutral, just speaking to transit in general. So in comments request, there was one comment that requested that bus stop locations be more thoughtful and to be pedestrian friendly. And you may recall that that was one of the complicating factors of Route 17 is that it serves exclusively the industrial park and is not pedestrian friendly given that sidewalks aren't part of the design standard in the industrial park. We received two comments specifically stating that they utilize Route 17 to go to work. Amazon Distribution Facility was one of them that was specifically named. We received multiple comments recommending changes to Route 15, which serves the community of Goshen and parts of the industrial park. And lastly, multiple general comments in opposition to the elimination without providing detail while others comment that the industrial park is growing and there will be a future need for such. So given the comments, limited comments received, staff's recommendation is that Route 17, that the City Council approve the elimination of fixed Route 17 in order to commit resources to where they can be utilized more effectively and efficiently. and happy to answer any questions as well as at the conclusion of questions to open the public hearing for public comment.

Thank you very much. Do you guys have any questions or you want to hear from the public first?

I just have one question. Could you talk a little bit about the Visalia Economic Development Corporation's response because that is all the industrial users out there?

Correct, so we took the opportunity to propose to them that we had very low ridership and what kind of feedback have they received from their employees relative to that and it was their perspective that some of the largest employers just didn't feel that they had any employees that were using the fixed route system. We found a number of, you know, their comments reflected those that carpool together, just drive their own vehicles. They did feel, and in that same presentation was a presentation on the Cross Valley Corridor and what we're planning for a transit hub to be established in the industrial park to then have connecting microtransit services in there which they felt would be much more efficient and instead of a fixed route system that isn't going to be door-to-door isn't very convenient and it would be better to have some type of a microtransit circulating system within that area.

Thank you.

Any other questions from council? Okay, let's go ahead and open this up to the public. Oh, I'm sorry. Councilor, so did you have a question? Route 15.

I did notice that you can request a by-site airport stop. Would we potentially be able to add this as a potential stop by request only? Or would that be something that we couldn't look at? Since we only have two people that reached out, I figured it probably wouldn't be... often that it's requested?

I apologize, I had to step out. Are you referring to Amazon?

Yeah. Yeah, the extension of Route 15?

I think the proximity would make it difficult, but we can definitely take that back. And we're coming back here on the 21st with our SRTP consultant, and that's something that we could discuss at that time as well.

And if I may, we did reach out several times to the individual. There was one particular individual which had not been trying to reach out. We wanted to understand their circumstances and how we might be able to better assist them with other alternative means and hadn't heard back.

Perfect. Any other questions? Okay. Let's go ahead and open this up to the public. Anybody from the public wishing to speak on this item, please come forward and state your name and city of residence.

Good evening, my name's Maria Guillen. That's G-U-I-L-L-E-N, accent over the E. And I am a Visalia resident. In regards to this batter and what I just heard, I have a couple questions. Regarding public transportation, something I think that's really vital and within Vaiselyev with it being such a large city now and lots of folks depending on public transportation that don't have cars. I'm concerned. I'm concerned about whether this route just serves the industrial park, just serves bringing workers to Amazon, or does it also provide transportation for people working in other other work sites in Visalia. I have a concern that Amazon already, with all its many, many employees that have cars going across town, putting fuels in the air, parking there for their jobs, Also have lots of vans going through the city, right, bringing us all our many packages. I have all this concern about all of the fumes of the air that are going into the air, but I still get packages, sorry about that. Anyway, I'm concerned about whether or not there are just regular families that are going to need this transportation to get their kids to particular schools or to particular parks. I think I heard something about the fact that this would be the only route that would go close to the sports park. Riverway Sports Park. I'm not sure if that's true or not. And if you're talking about microtransit, I was thinking, wow, that would be great if it served regular folks. But if it's just in terms of, again, feeding workers into Amazon. I'm not saying that I'm against workers getting to their jobs. What I'm saying is, how much is Amazon putting into this? You talked about a grant being eliminated, and this money could be used for other things. I'd like to know what those other things are, who will be served with this particular funding that now is supposedly not there. I don't get it. I guess there was a city meeting too. Anyway, turns out, I guess what I'm really asking is just some more clarification. I'm sorry I wasn't able to attend any of the earlier meetings, but I just wanted to. I'd be remiss not to at least raise these concerns. Thank you.

Hi, Eric Elliott, and I live in Visalia. And it was one, the item was discussed was the microtransit alternatives. And I'm really interested to know more about the kind of plans that has Visalia has for microtransit and where I can find more information. It does seem like We have large capacity buses with a handful of people, and it seems that a more effective way of transit might be useful in learning what, if any, plans the city has in that direction.

Anybody else wishing to speak? Okay, seeing none. Anyone online wanting to speak? Perfect. So we'll go ahead and close public comments and turn it back over to staff. So they're asking about ridership. If I remember correctly, there was on average one rider every three hours on this route?

That's correct.

So I mean, it's just not being used. And then I believe there was two questions. One, if we could talk a little bit more about micro transit. And the other question is, where does this route specifically serve?

This current route specifically does serve in the industrial park. It connects at Visalia Medical Clinic where it meets with several other routes that also connect there. So basically other routes connect to Visalia Medical Clinic and then the Route 17 can be picked up there. So lots of routes feed into that transport spot at Visalia Medical Clinic, just not a lot of people then get on the Route 17. During surveys, when we started talking about possibly eliminating this route, we had staff go out and ride those buses to talk to people in real time. Our staff only came across one individual on the route who wasn't even interested in taking the survey. So as John mentioned earlier, with the public feedback that we received virtually, we did try to engage some of those folks, at least one individual who expressed a need. and we are waiting to hear back. And we'll continue to engage that individual when we hear back from him and see if we can't find alternative methods.

And so we were spending $800,000 to give one person a ride every three hours?

Yes, sir.

Yes. All right. Any other questions or comments from council?

Yeah, I do. This one would be confirmed because I think the comment was made. This route does not serve the Sports Park area, correct?

Correct. This is the North Industrial Park of Visalia.

And doesn't serve any educational facilities either.

Perfect. And you want to give a little snapshot for our micro transit. Here's your chance to give a little plug to the gentleman that asked.

Yes. So Visalia connect is our micro transit service. You can download the Visalia connect app out on the app store for apple or Android. Um, it's $5 per ride anywhere in Visalia. You just get on there and book it like Uber, log in your bank card or your debit card, credit card, whatever you have. And you just book a ride the same way you would any other, um, on demand service.

Great job. All right.

It's really neat.

I've used it many times. It's like an Uber ride share.

And it's been a very popular service, too. And it's just not Amazon, but within the industrial park. And I would say in... Angelina previously mentioned this. So at your next meeting will be a presentation on not not what the final plan is, but the approach to the short range transit plan, which is looking to be more efficient and increase ridership by in the analytics that show where people are wanting to go and actually increasing headways up to 15 minutes in large part to getting people where they're already taking public transit to and then in those areas that are not as high of ridership micro transit serving as a last mile or lifeline connection. And ideally what you would have was in the call to pass through fair. And this is something we'd have to talk with the council about through rates and fees, which is a singular fair that would between microtransit and the nearest transit stop to them and how they would connect to public transit. And so not just what, what is considered to be a premier service, I guess you could say, where it's door to door, similar to like Uber, but where it's actually providing connectivity where there isn't a nearby transit stop and essentially working in a specific area and getting people connected. And so looking at what would be a combined fare between fixed route and that microtransit service. Perfect.

And Maria had asked about the grant funds. The grant funding is over, so to continue this route would come out general? to fund transit funds, is that correct?

Yes, so the grant dollars that we specifically used can only be used for three years of a startup. It's like pilot money. We used and exhausted those funds. So to answer the question, those funds would then go back to support our very, very expensive system as it sits today. And I just wanna note that city dollars are never used for transit. Transit is a full enterprise fund operated only by transit dollars. No city funds ever go into transit.

I'll codify that by also, so not general fund, but certainly local transportation funds. Given that we want to ensure that transit needs are met first and then look at other transportation needs across the city. What I would also say is that TCAG, in conversations with TCAG, looking at what's called SB 125 funds, those are specific state funds that have been set aside, one-time monies that are, right now we're operating our Visalia Connect underneath those one-time funds, looking at how we can begin to implement microtransit in support of the industrial park, just as I described.

Any other questions? Yeah, I mean, I appreciate the fact that we originally opened this route up because in theory, we have an industrial park that's growing. There's thousands and thousands of people that are working out there. And so in theory, you would think people would be using it. So if they're not, let's not waste our money and let's give people what they actually want and not try to just spend our money. So I appreciate you guys reviewing all the different routes, making sure that they're worth our time, and then also providing great products like the Micro Transit that are a little more efficient. And it seems like people are very thrilled about that. And it gives a more direct-to-consumer, similar to rideshare apps. So I appreciate you guys doing that.

Could you please tell me when the, could you just remind us again when the next presentation will be to council on your study?

Yes, so we'll be here September 21st. We'll be here at work session with our consultant who will engage a full presentation and then we will be here again that same evening for a public hearing and then there will be several workshops that week with our consultant here at various locations where we will continue to engage the public.

And I'm your transit rep for Tulare County for the city of Visalia and I will tell you that we are working seamlessly with the county and to make transit much more viable and affordable and just seamless across the whole county. So if you wanna go from Visalia to Larry, Visalia to Exeter, back and forth, they really have a great plan in place and I really commend the staff for working so diligently to make sure that we are covering public transportation and getting rid of those greenhouse gases, Maria. Thank you.

All right, I'll entertain a motion at this time. I make a motion that the city council approve the elimination of fixed Route 17 in order to commit resources to where they can be utilized more efficiently.

First, do we have a second?

Second.

All those in favor, please vote. Item passed is 4-0 with Council Member Nelson absent. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council. All right, next we're going to go on to item number two, which is a 2025 public hearing and CAPR approval. Staff report, please. Your microphone's not working.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the Council. My name is Margie Perez, City of Visalia Housing Specialist. I will be discussing the program year 2025 CAPER, also known as our Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report. The caper's purpose, we annually report to HUD on CDBG and home expenditures and accomplishments for the prior program year. The caper requirements requires a 15 day public comment period, approved report by resolution, and is due to HUD by September 28th, 2026. Our federal funding includes our community development block grant, also known as CDBG, that benefits low to moderate income persons or areas. Our home investment partnership program, also known as HOME, which provides decent affordable housing. Our fiscal year 25-26 CDBG resources include our grant allocation at 1.1 million, prior year resources at 767,000, program income at 63,000, for a total of 1.9 million. Our fiscal year 25-26 CDBG expenses and accomplishments include admin is capped at a 20% at 237,000. Public services are capped at 15%, which includes the Kings Torrey Homeless Alliance for 20,000. They conducted a point in time in January of 2026 that counted 476 individuals experiencing homelessness within the city of Visalia. Family Services, which did a permanent supportive housing voucher case management program at 50,000, assisted 13 previously homeless individuals. CSET conducted a fair housing education program that provided tenant protection rights and first time home buyer assistant workshops at 20,000 and assisted 84 individuals. Kingsview provided housing flex funds, which includes security deposits, first time rental, and emergency rental assistance at 45,000 and assisted 49 individuals. Eden House, which is a transitional housing bridge project, utilized 45,000 and assisted 93 individuals. Our total public services totaled 180,000. Our minor home repair program in partnership with Habitat for Humanity utilized $9,900 and assisted two households. This is a minor home repair that is no more than 5,000. This is for emergency and ADA improvements. Our single family home repair program, in partnership with Self Help Enterprises, utilized 71,000 and assisted, I apologize, three single family homes. This includes roof replacements, electrical repairs, floor repairs, and plumbing repairs. Our senior mobile home repair program in partnership with Self-Help Enterprises utilized 112,000 for three mobile home repairs. That also included roof replacements, ADA improvements, electrical floor replacements, and plumbing repairs. Code enforcement at 200,000 conducted 394 citations. 355 of those were corrected. And Lincoln Oval Park at 16,000 assisted will assist 1,700 individuals that reside around the Lincoln Oval Park area for a total of 828,000. Our fiscal year 2526 resources include a grant allocation of $426,000, prior year resources at $45,000, program income at $268,000 for a total of $741,000. Our fiscal year 25-26 home expenses and accomplishments include our home admin is capped at 10%, which gives us 55,000. Rancho Calejo was our home project. It utilized 358,000. It did have 11 home units set aside for a total of 413,000. Rancho Colegio was our home total project that completed in January of 2026. It included 80 units, one, two, and three bedroom units for households 50% of the area medium income or lower. It does have a one manager unit on site, so therefore 79 units are subsidized. It includes 11 home assisted units, 20 farm worker set aside units. The project includes a community center, computer lab, a laundry room, playground, basketball court, and courtyard with barbecue grills. This was done in conjunction with Self Help Enterprises. This is a great picture of the grand opening that occurred earlier this year. As you can see, we have our city manager and several of our council members. Our 15-day public comment period runs from August 21st and concludes today on September 8th. Public notices were posted in the FISA Times Delta on August 18th and 21st. City online posts on the city social media channels and website. Email list serves on the Kings Story Homeless Alliance, Community Care Coalition. We also had city posting at several city locations. Our public meetings included RCIC on September 3rd and tonight's public hearing. Action tonight, staff recommends conducting a public hearing, approving the program year 2025 CAPER and authorize submission to HUD.

All right, any questions for Margie at this time?

Thank you, Margie, for keeping track of all this. There's a lot of regulations and red tape, but you're doing a great job. These are a great number of units that are being assisted.

So I had a question. On a few of these, did they use the full amount of funds that we allotted them, like the mobile home repair programs? Was that the total amount? I thought it was higher.

It's actually $100,000 per year. They did have some rollover from the prior year. As projects, if they don't complete in the one fiscal year, they carry over into the next fiscal year. So that's a great question. You can see with the senior mobile home, they had $112,000 because there were prior year resources. Okay. And the single family did not utilize their full $100,000. But there are also, I believe, two units still underway.

Okay. How much is being rolled over for the 2026 project?

The difference of 100,000, so right under 30,000, about 29,000.

Okay, very good, thank you. Any other questions for staff? Thank you very much for your report. Let's go ahead and open this up to the public. Anyone from the public wishing to speak on this item, please come forward and state your name and city residence. Okay, and seeing no one, anyone online? Nope, we will close public comments and I'll entertain a motion.

I move to adopt resolution number 202658, approving the program year 2526, consolidated annual performance and evaluation report.

I'll second.

We'll have first and second. All those in favor, please vote. Item passes 4-0 with Council Member Nelson absent. Thank you, Margie, for the report. Next, we're going to item number three, which I believe you're also doing, which is a pro-housing public hearing.

Good evening, Mayor. So I'm Brandon Smith with the Planning Division, and Margie is joining me for this item. We're coming back to City Council to talk about the pro-housing designation. We'll start with an introduction slide. The State Housing and Community Development, or HCD, offers a pro-housing designation program to incentivize jurisdictions that go above and beyond and use innovative ways to increase housing opportunities and incentives are available for jurisdictions that are compliant with state housing element law and have enacted a minimum number of pro-housing policies. The pro-housing program is totally optional and offers non-competitive funding to jurisdictions that could be used for housing, which we will explain here. The Vice City Council, that is you, did provide direction back in March to proceed with the application process after conducting a work session. And staff is now in the middle of a 30-day public comment period, which started August 21st. This meeting is the first public hearing at the City Council level of two public hearings.

What is pro-housing? The pro-housing designation was created by legislation in 2009 through 2020. Receiving a designation offers two primary incentives. It gives us additional scoring points when we are applying for competitive state grants through HCD, which is also known as State of California, and to help support projects like the lofts at Fort Visalia Rancho Colegio that was recently developed in January, and Crescent Meadows, a senior housing project that's currently underway. And in addition, the second is we would access pro-housing incentive program funds, which is also known as the PIP, that would help assist jurisdictions with implementing pro-housing policies. Available through the PIP is a base amount of 750,000, a bonus award up to 500,000, depending on our application score for a possible amount of 1.25 million. Surry County was recently awarded 1.1 million in PIP funds. Affordable housing projects that can be funded with PIP include affordable housing development, navigation center operational assistance, transitional housing operation assistance such as Eden House, emergency shelter operational assistance such as our warming center, and also the development of an emergency shelter as well as operation and tenant-based rental assistance. City activities that can be funded with the PIP also include updates to general plan, updates to zoning ordinance, environmental analysis that eliminate the need for project review, local process improvements that expedite local planning and permitting.

The Pro Housing application requires a few different components. One is a resolution that must be adopted by City Council. A draft resolution has been provided to you in your packet, and we're not asking for you to adopt that yet, but to adopt it at the second public hearing in two weeks. Then the demonstration of pro-housing policies and programs with the self-scoring sheet, and this is the largest component of the application that I'll We'll explain in more detail as to ways that we are complying with the pro-housing programs and policies. There is a statement of practices towards homeless encampments, which provides a summary of how the city is using best practices related to the treatment of those who are experiencing homelessness, and those best practices are practices which we are already conducting, and there's no change to that proposed. And then finally is the public participation period that we have to demonstrate and make a record of how we have gone out to the public. So the scoring, We came to council in March and believed that we were able to meet the 30-point threshold. As we looked further and had a meeting with the state directly, we found that there are other items that we can comply with already. And so this list that I'm presenting, that we are presenting, does include additional items that were not previously discussed on March 2026. So we'll just briefly, very quickly go through these items that Visalia is in compliance with. The first category is favorable zoning and land use. Item 1H is zoning to allow for residential or mixed uses in one or more non-residential zones. 1I is the modification of development standards to promote greater development intensity. Under category two, which is the acceleration of housing production timeframes. 2A is the establishment of ministerial approval processes for multiple housing types, such as single family and multifamily. 2B is the acceleration of housing production through the establishment of streamlined program level CEQA analysis and certification of specific plans with the company EIRs. 2C is documented practice of streamlining housing development at the project level. 2D is the establishment of permitting processes that can take no more than four months. 2E is the absence or elimination of public hearings for projects consistent with zoning and general plan. 2F is priority processing and reduced plan check times for homes that are affordable to lower income households. 2G is the establishment of consolidated permit processes. 2H is the creation of objective designs and development standards. And 2I is the establishment of a one-stop shop permitting process. 2J is priority permit processing or reduced plan check times for ADUs and JADUs. 2K is a standardized application for all planning entitlement applications. And 2L is publicly posting status updates on project permit approvals on the city website. Category three is the reduction of construction development costs. 3A is the waiver or significant reduction of development impact fees. 3B is less restrictive requirements for property owners to create accessory dwelling units, or ADUs. 3D is innovative housing types, such as manufactured housing. 3E is reducing the cost of transportation related infrastructure or programs that encourage active modes of transportation. And 3H is the adoption of ordinances that reduce barriers for development of affordable housing And category four is providing financial subsidies.

Category four, demonstrating financial subsidies. Demonstration of regular plans, regular use of funding, for example, federal, state, and local funding that will preserve assisted units at risk of converting to market rates and conversion of market rates. Also prioritizing local general funds to accelerate the production of housing, affordable housing projects for lower income households. For example, we did utilize general funds to purchase two lots on Northwest Fit to develop five single family homes that were utilized with home funds. Direct residual redevelopment funds to accelerate the production of affordable housing such as our RDA funding. Development and regular, at least, use of housing subsidy pool, local or regional trust funds, or similar funding source sufficient to facilitate and support the development of affordable housing. 4K, providing operating subsidies for permanent supportive housing, prioritizing local general funds to accelerate the production of affordable housing. 4L, providing subsidies for affordable housing to extremely low income households. 4M. Other policies not previously described that quantify, promote, develop and leverage financial resources for affordable housing and Visalia affordable housing developments promote, develop and leverage financial resources in our annual action plans.

So to summarize, all these pro-housing policies, there are 26 listed and that Visalia already complies with and that provides the city with a score of 38 points on the application. Also there are enhancement factors which were not directly discussed with council on March 26th But these are basically bonus points that show that the city, that certain items are in alignment with the state's planning goals. And we found that compliance with the enhancement categories give us an additional 18 points. So for a total of 56 points that we currently have on the application that is being submitted to the state.

Public participation, it does require a public participation period. It's currently running from August 21st through September 21st, and the following outreach were conducted. We emailed directly to over 100 housing stakeholders, informational tables at this previous Saturday's Multicultural Festival, this Saturday's upcoming Visalia Home Expo, and an upcoming Farmer's Market. in-person meetings included the CAC that was recently done this last Wednesday, a planning commission that will take place on the 14th, and two city council meetings today and a possible adoption on September 21st. We did have a city press release through city social media channels, legal advertisement in the Visalia Times Delta on August 18th and 21st in both in English and Spanish. And staff will, next steps. Staff will respond to all comments. Any changes to the application will be reposted for a minimum of seven days on the city's website. Following submittal, state evaluation and determination, it's expected to last between three to six months.

Thank you very much for your report. Council Member Pachigian, any questions or comments?

No, my only concern about this are we, I see that we have to do this and we're going to probably want to get future grant funds. It's one of those things are, Not mandatory, but kind of is mandatory if you want any kind of funds for future grant projects. If you don't do this, you won't get any of that. My only concern is are we tying our hands on future items?

I believe most of the things that we identified were things that we were already doing to meet our minimal threshold of 30 points.

We have one item that we have stated that we are going to be presenting to council later. That is a housing element program related to a multifamily and raising the number of unit counts. But even if that does, even if council does not direct, does not act directly upon that, we are still well above the, the minimum point threshold to meet the pro housing certification. All right. Thank you.

Council member Soto.

No, thank you for the report. It's nice that we'll be able to potentially get $500,000 more for some of these projects, because I know it's definitely necessary to keep them running, so thank you. Vice Mayor Winn.

I just wanna confirm that the 56 points, we're getting that with what we're already doing, what we already have on the books, right? And then the list of projects that you had up there suggested things that we can use the money for, those are just suggestions, we're not tying ourself into any of those, correct? Correct, those are projects that we've already provided funds for. Yeah, that was it. Thank you.

Great job. Mr. Mayor, if I could just also address a point that Council Member Petigian made is we are already starting to see grants come forward where they say that they will only consider people who are agencies that are pro-housing. And so that's already beginning.

It's not mandatory, but it is mandatory. Yeah, right.

Do you want the carrot? You got to do what we say.

It's nice we already do it, though.

Yeah, I just want to say thank you for the report. It's nice, you know, as everyone knows, we are in a housing crisis here in California. We're not producing enough housing for our people that live here, for the kids that are being born. And it was nice to get a phone call a few weeks ago from Cal City saying that we were the second best community in the state at producing enough housing for all of our of all of our kids, that we actually have a housing element that requires that we have the potential to build enough housing for the children that are born, for the people that live in our community. So I want to say thank you to our planning and our engineering staff for what you guys are doing. What I heard was that you guys were clearing out, you guys were removing all the red tape and making it more efficient and quicker to be able to build housing, which is what we need. So thank you guys for doing that. Let's go ahead and open this up to the public. Anyone here from the public wishing to speak, please come forward and state your name and city residence.

Irene Lappin again. I wrote a message to the Facebook page administrator, and she referred me to the housing department, and I did write. I emailed them. when we go to pro-housing designation application, it's visible at only 50%, that's what I wrote. In other words, it's illegible. If we attempt to enlarge it, it's steadily moved to the right of the screen until it disappears. The document is 450 pages long. Please know that when public input is called for in a government project, to be fully transparent, it needs to be available in readable format. Please advise. I never got a reply.

Anybody else wishing to speak? Okay, if you guys could fix that on the website and make sure it's readable for our community, we'd definitely appreciate that. All right, any other comments from council? Or I'm sorry, anyone from online wishing to speak? Okay, wonderful. Let's go ahead and close public comment and bring it back to council. Anyone from council have any questions, comments, or a motion? No motions required, perfect. All right, well, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Next, we're going to go on to item number four, which is the urgency ordinance. And this one, we're going to be limiting the speaking time to 15 minutes on this issue. So anyone who's wishing to speak, there will be a limit of 15 minutes. So please attempt to not repeat the same things that other people have said. Staff, report when you're ready.

Yes, good evening, Mayor, members of the Council. I am Paul Bernal. I am the Planning and Community Preservation Director and with me this evening is Jim Coons, City Attorney. And the item before you, again, just kind of in summary, is per Council's direction at your last meeting, It's the first reading introduction of a proposed interim urgency ordinance, which is seeking a moratorium on data center development processing. And before I begin getting any further into presentation, I do want to state for the record and for those in the audience, City of Visalia has not been approached nor has an application been submitted for this type of use. So again, based on council input at your last meeting, this city is being proactive and putting kind of a pause, requesting that council consider putting a pause on this type of development as we further research this. So in doing so, your staff went back just to kind of double check our ordinance just to make sure that we had everything covered, given that data centers is kind of a newer trend, newer type use. And during that process, your staff did note communications equipment buildings was also noted in your staff report. Although your staff believes that is not a data center under today's terms, it would be best advised that we also lump in that use, which is listed in our ordinance currently. So again, the request would be to place the moratorium both on data center development, which is defined in the urgency ordinance before you this evening, and to include communication equipment buildings, which is defined in our ordinance, although your staff believes it's not a data center, just being protective and proactive, lumping in there as well as part of this request. And again, just in summary, moratorium or interim ordinance, if adopted this evening, would be in effect for 45 days. However, your staff can come back and request an extension based on the provisions under government code section that's listed to extend it. Your staff has outlined what that would look like if we need to come back as we further analyze this type of use.

We got a question, Paul. Is 45 days enough time for you and your staff? I know you guys are busy already, as I'm sure you would agree with. Is that enough time? Do we need to come back? Should we just extend that a little bit more now?

So no, right now the way the government code section works is that you will adopt for 45 days and then within that time frame, if your staff feels like we need more time, we will come back before the end of that 45 days. I would also state, council, you've done urgency ordinances in the past, smoke shops and massage establishments, although they weren't moratoriums to ban the use outright, they were done under the same provisions that limited where they could go. This request is different in that we are requesting a moratorium on accepting any of these types of uses that we defined in the ordinance before you.

And how many times can we redo the moratorium?

Twice. The first time, we can come back within 45 days and request an extension for, I believe it's 10 months and 15 days, and then you can request a second extension for an additional year. Perfect, thank you.

So again, the government code section gives cities enough time to really work and analyze and look at this going forward. But how do we get here? And I think it's pretty clear and evident if you've watched the news or read the news, this is a growing concern both across our state and nation. And I'm not gonna get into the details. I think it kind of covers it on the slide before you and it's in the staff report. But given this use, there is concern that there's significant impacts that aren't thoroughly being analyzed. And again, this request affords the city more time to really research it to determine what are the next actions going forward before your council makes a decision on this type of use. So we're doing everything in our power to get to that. where we could come back to you on a recommendation on which way to go going forward. But again, as Mr. Koontz noted, there is mechanisms put in place to ask for additional time if need be. So again, what does the urgency ordinance do? It gives us enough time to really thoroughly analyze this. We do have to make specific findings given under the threat of public health, safety, or welfare. Staff believes those findings have been made in your ordinance before you given the concerns that these types of uses are kind of being noted as they're being developed in other parts of our nation. Again, data centers is fairly a newer topic or newer use. Our ordinance was adopted prior to this type of use being contemplated, so therefore it is not defined as I already stated. We do have a definition of communication equipment buildings, which we believe should be covered as part of this, although we don't believe it really matches the definition of a data center, we just felt they would be appropriate just given the definition provided in our ordinance. and again, as we stated, can be extended beyond the 45 days. And really, I think I kind of covered this, as I stated, ordinance doesn't have this defined. However, as part of the urgency ordinance adoption, we have defined data centers. Within 45 days, if we believe that definition needs to be expanded, we can do that if we come back for an extension request, but we believe, as defined currently, it kind of covers us based on what we're seeing out in publication of what these things look like and how they operate. And again, the timeframes that are identified under these provisions, I think it gives us enough time to do the critical research, conduct stakeholder interviews if need be, to come back before we formulate a position on what council should consider going forward. So again, findings to support the adoption of this ordinance are provided, and with that, staff would recommend the council conduct a public hearing, and after taking public testimony, move to adopt the urgency ordinance as defined before you. With that, that concludes my presentation. I look forward to any questions or comments that the council may have at this time.

Thank you so much for that report. Council Member Soto, do you have any questions at this time?

No, I don't have any questions. Thank you for the report. I would just ask that we don't limit it to 15 minutes to allow the public to speak.

Council Member Pichigin.

Great report, Paul. Like I said, I asked to put this on the agenda and I think the council supports this because we want to set a record that we don't think this is a good fit for our city and we want to be the first municipality here in Tulare County to kind of say we don't want this in our community. I don't think it's a good fit and that's why I think this is a great way to get this accomplished and a great job to your staff.

Vice Mayor Nguyen.

And no comment, I'll wait.

Perfect. I just had one question. We met with some folks who are proposing the one at the fairgrounds in Tulare. And they kind of told us about what theirs is, and they're saying it's different from a data center There's data centers that are, you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of square feet, and then there's some that are smaller, you know, C-train or portable, movable. But an equipment building, let's say the hospital or the sheriff's 911 operating center or our 911 operating center, if we needed to put in, like, an equipment building with all the servers and everything in there, would that be considered a data center according to this, and would that ban it?

No, I don't believe the data center definition we've prepared covers that. I'm sure there are a lot of private industry that has a server or an area dedicated in their office complex that's dedicated to server equipment. That's not the intent here. So no, I think the definition as defined with the help of the city attorney making sure we kind of cover our bases, that's not really what we're trying to prohibit.

Wonderful, yeah, we wanna make sure we're not, prohibiting those uses from our hospitals and police and fire and everyone else. Okay, so let's go ahead and let's open this up to the public. You can come up to the podium and speak. We don't take questions from the audience. Ma'am you can come up to the podium we're opening up public comments at this time.

I want to also bring up the point that council member Soto brought up earlier. You have stated that you're going to limit the public comment on this issue to 15 minutes. I respectfully ask that you reconsider. There are folks here that have come to provide public comment. I hope that you're not saying you've heard it all or you already have your mind made up, because public comment is our opportunity to express ourselves, right? And so we've been talking for as long as I've been coming here, that we want people to come forward. We want to hear from our public. I know you're tired of my old wrinkled face. There's new people here that want to talk, so can you please extend the time so that people will have an opportunity? Who knows? Maybe they won't use up the 15 minutes, but I just want to stand up and say that I think it would be of utmost importance to show that courtesy. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Charity Payanes. I am a citizen and born and raised in Visalia, California. I love Visalia. I am very involved in my community, my job, and afterwards my own personal time giving back to my community that I love. I am very against this, any type of data center for many of the reasons that all of the citizens have brought forth in Tulare meetings, Visalia, Hanford. I know that everybody is very educated on this as that's the reason we're here and I just want to give my voice that I am also against the data center and even putting on pause we don't want it on pause we don't want it reconsidered we already know we don't want this here so thank you for your time

Good evening, Visalia City Council. My name is Jordan Hegaretta. I'm a resident of Porterville, California. I'm also a student at UCLA and a member of the nonprofit Power California. I'm standing today in solidarity with the people of Visalia. I'm here supporting the adoption of urgency ordinance 2026-10 as a temporary moratorium on the acceptance, processing, approval, or issuance of permits and entitlements for new data centers developments within the city of Visalia. I was born and raised in the Central Valley and I'm very concerned about the possibility of an AI data center being built in my backyard. Adding a data center in the surrounding Tulare County cities pulls from the same electrical grid, raising rate payer bills and setting a precedent for further data center investment. I will not sit by as our county devolves into some billionaire tech bros playground. The working families, here in Tulare County are already struggling to make ends meet. Costs of gas, rent, utilities, and groceries have us living paycheck to paycheck. Now we're threatened with the rising utility costs from data centers. Over the summer, I spoke with many families across the county. Many are in debt to companies like Southern California Edison and PG&E. Data centers drawing from the surrounding grid have the potential to increase all of our bills. On August 21, 2026, the American Planning Association held a convention. This three-day retreat's main topic was the proposal of data centers in the Central Valley. Companies like Southern California Edison where they're selling investors on data center implementation, an industry primed to make them millions. A PG&E spokesperson recently also talked at the Fresno Rotary Club, claiming that data centers would actually lower rate payers' bills. I'm here to tell you that I do not believe them, and I don't think you should either. We deserve cities that hear us and bring us in on quality of life matters. Opening up the discussion today was a great first step, so thank you so much. So firstly, I'd like to thank City Council Member Brian, is it? Cheegar. sorry, as well as council members Soto and Nelson. From what I've read, you guys were supporting this ordinance. If there's anyone here today that also supports it that I didn't mention, I'd also like to thank you. We know you've all seen news footage of the fairground meetings. The people of Visalia and its neighboring cities do not want data centers. My ask today will be directed towards Council Member Brian Pichigan. Since he seems the most supportive of our cause, I hope you understand we share your concern with data center implementation. Council Member Pichigan, stand with me and the rest of your constituents to one, move the City Council to extend the moratorium on data centers. So I know today we mentioned that you can extend that twice absolutely do that And then to call for an outright ban on data centers in our city, but the same time is up.

Thank you Okay for the record real quick. It was unanimous the whole council supported this to be put on the agenda Okay seeing if there's anyone else who wants to get up there go ahead and form a line, please I

Hello, Visalia City Council. My name is Paul Arista. I reside in Visalia, California. I'm here on behalf of the Central Valley Democratic Socialists of America and as someone who has been born here, lives here, I've been here all my life. I was born in Cuyahoga Delta Hospital. I'm here to voice my support of the adoption of Ordinance 2026-10. because the Central Valley is known for its agriculture. There are approximately 150,000 jobs in the dairy industry here, and there are approximately 400,000 jobs in farming here in the Central Valley. Data centers consume about 100 million gallons of water per year and 300,000 gallons of water per day. That amount of water would threaten our farming and dairy industries here. My father himself is employed in the dairy industry, and that would threaten his job and my personal well-being since I rely off of my father to help me go through college. And not just that, but those data centers, they're loud. Okay, they can reach up to 90 decibels of sound, and they don't shut off, you know. They keep going and going, and I don't think any single one of us here would like to hear that 24-7 when we're trying to get sleep from a hard day's work. And that's all I have to say.

My name is Joan Cuadra and I live in Visalia. So first of all, thank you City Council that we all agree on something. That's pretty exciting that all of you were for this ordinance and hopefully, like another speaker said, there would be a ban on any type of AI centers for the rest of our lives. I live in Visalia, and one of the reasons, one of the things I love about Visalia is that it's quiet. I live in a quiet neighborhood, and I can hear the birds and the bees and the cats, and I can hear everything. And the idea of having to hear... If there was a data center placed near my home, the sound of a leaf blower 24 hours a day, one, it would drive me nuts and it would ruin why I live by Celia. I'd never be able to sell my house, which has happened to many people on the East Coast in Virginia. They can no longer sell their homes because of the noise. They're stuck there. And obviously, I'm just not thinking of myself, but the whole community in terms of water and energy. And to keep our What do they call it? You know, our, Visalia is a nice place to live. And hopefully, you know, we can draw other people that like quiet areas and areas that don't support data centers. So AI data centers. I love AI, but I'm willing to give it up if it meant just having to live near these centers. I just like to make dumb things using it for dumb things. But it's fun for an old lady to use. But I certainly wouldn't want to see a data center here for any reason forever, forever. So I hope this is not a 45-day ordinance, but it turns into a forever. Thank you very much.

Hello, my name is Rita Henry. I've lived in Visalia for many years. Both of my children were born in Visalia, and I currently divide my time between Visalia and Simi Valley. I support, I'm really excited because I was going to start my speech with I support a moratorium, but even more than that, I support a total ban on these data centers in Visalia. Our community needs water, a quiet, healthy environment, and a future we would be proud of to pass on to our children and grandchildren. Thank you very much.

Hello, my name's Stephanie Thiessen, T-H-I-E-S-S-E-N. I'm a 35-year resident here in Visalia. I've worked in the farming and dairy industries here in Visalia, and we really depend on clean water, and I would hate to see that being used for data centers. So I really am supporting your ordinance and hope that when the 45 days is up, that you'll consider a total ban on AI and data centers here in Visalia. Thank you.

Good evening, Council Members. My name is Ashley. I'm born and raised Viselian girl. I just want to, first I want to thank all of you, especially you, Mr. Bertugian, for bringing this to the table and having such support out the gate of just outright stating we should put a moratorium. I think it's really important that we keep Viselia for what it's known for. We're known for our agriculture. We're known for our scenery. We're definitely not known for our air. We can improve that. But we want to keep that small-town feel, and this... This has, this reeks to me of venture capitalists just trying to come in and extract from our communities. I know it's just been discussed in Tulare, but that doesn't mean they couldn't come to Visalia. So I support this and I thank every single one of you for taking the time to put this on the agenda and now vote for it. Moving forward, let's continue to extend it so that we don't to have an AI data center. There's no reason for it. We have brilliant creative minds in this town that can do a lot of these stuff these data centers are doing. That's it. I yield my time. Thank you.

Okay. Seeing no one else, is there anyone online wishing to speak?

Good evening, Visalia City Council. I am Tobias. I am a resident of Visalia, born and raised in the Central Valley. I do want to start off to Council Member Brian Poochigan, who represents my district. I thank you for, and for everyone who is part of the City Council, to continue putting this subject onto the agenda. Oftentimes we have seen attempts with other councils and either other government positions to avoid the whole topic of AI debt at centers. So I do thank you guys for giving consideration to continue this conversation for the conditions of Visalia. Visalia continues to grow as a city in the Central Valley, and I believe it will continue to do so. even though regarding that we are still under a moratorium, but also to still keep in mind that to input a dentist center would regress the growth of Visalia as much it will try to guise that it will benefit Visalia's community, but it's shown to be the opposite of what a lot of people who have attended here has said. And a lot of us do have expressed that we have struggled with the cost of utility bills and the concerns if we were able to access water with the current drought of the Central Valley. And for sure, we don't want people who are currently growing in the, who are still growing in this area to even dread it. They have to sacrifice their needs to these data centers. Even with that in mind, even the question still was brought up, would this be profit in either what has been said and what everyone has regarded? But I do want to bring up, based on recent publications from Business Insider and from Arcs Technica and Yahoo, if looking to the profitability for the city, like what I mentioned, if Google, if using AI, I'm sorry, let me retweet. I'll repeat that. Based on recent publications from Business Cider, Ars Technica, and Yahoo, Google, who is using AI, Their very own parent company, Alphabet, has reported on there has actually been a negative cash flows because Google overly depends on AI infrastructure. This has cost about $5.6 billion loss from their investment. So that does lead also to another question. Now that we know that even a more high-tech company is actually starting to lose profit from their overlaps in AI, what does that lead to, not just in Visalia, but for the Central Valley? So if it's the future that Bisellius seeks, then AI Dentist Centers, as we know, will only serve as a blind spot. As we know, AI Dentist Centers need liquid cooling to operate. However, yet we as a whole are just as independent. Our farming stock is just as independent. You need farmers to be hydrated to also help to work with your stocks. And you also need stocks hydrated so that they can also be provided for families. And the thing is, where is our liquid cooling? With the heat waves that we're going through, it would be beneficial for us that we also do get our liquid coolants, and especially because not a lot of people are having struggles with breathing. So believe me and would hear, even though I know you guys do, that we do not want data centers, and we want them out of our home. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have anyone online who is wishing to speak at this time? We've already gone past more than our 15 minutes.

actually only had 13 minutes i've been keeping track so we have two minutes if we're going to keep the 15 minute limit okay is there anyone online yes we do hi caller named joe delgado your line is open you have three minutes

Hi, Joe. Can you hear us?

I'm wondering if you can hear me.

Perfect. We can hear you loud and clear.

Wonderful. As the other speakers have said, thank you for bringing this issue to the table. Definitely, thank you so much. Council Mercedo for calling out the truth. Whenever these kind of issues come up, and this is clearly an issue that more than a small segment of the community cares about, we can't be limiting public comment. That's a part of our democracy. And I know it's inconvenient to sit through and have to listen to people, your constituents talk, but let's be fair to people who are coming out of work to come and address you so that you can hear their opinions. on the moratorium i i commend you all for going forward with this moratorium vote today and and i'm hoping that it passes um i'd like to say to take it a step further community has asked for a permanent ban and i think that's important as well passing a permanent ban is what community clearly wants And to just go one step further, the county is considering a moratorium completely as well. A 45-day moratorium is already in effect. I think cities like Visalia who are taking these first steps should also take the step to say, on behalf of my community and my constituents, we are hoping that you guys vote for a permanent ban as well. Thank you.

Is there anyone else online?

Mayor, I see no other hands raised at this time.

Okay, we're going to go ahead and close public comments, and I'll turn it back over to Council.

Excuse me, Mayor?

You already spoke, ma'am.

I spoke as a point of order, not to explain that to you. I've already closed public comments, thank you. That wasn't going to be my public comment. That's extremely unfair.

We've closed public comments, ma'am.

You could have been clearer, sir.

I'll turn it back over to Council with any further comments.

Like I said, I think everyone's I'm pretty supportive of this. I'll make a motion. I move to adopt Orders Number 2026-10, an interim urgency ordinance placing a temporary moratorium on the acceptance, processing, approval, or issuance of permits and entitlements for new data center developments within the City of Visalia pursuant to California Government Code Section 65858. Second.

We have first and second. All those in favor, please vote. Item passed is 4-0 with Council Member Nelson absent. Thank you very much. Next, we're going to item number five, which is a public hearing on development of the five-year PLHA plan. Staff report, please.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the public. Margie Perez, housing specialist. Okay, I will be discussing the five-year permanent local, I apologize. Okay, a permanent local housing allocation plan proposed five-year plan. These are state funds issued through the California Department of Housing and Community Development, also known as HCD, to support affordable housing and homeless activities. This is based on a $75 recording fee on real estate documents. Therefore, funding each year fluctuates. The funding process. Each jurisdiction is required to create a five-year plan, which we are developing tonight. establishes activities and projects to fund over the next five years, which ranges from fiscal year 2526 through 2930. We will require amendments to appropriate any unspent or additional funds received or changes to the plan that would have to return to council for approval. If there are no amendments, staff will not be returning during this five-year plan and does not require an annual action plan. The process summary. Tonight, staff is seeking direction and comment on the draft five-year PLHA plan that runs from fiscal year 2526 through fiscal year 2930. The public comment period will begin on September 11th through September 21st. A final public hearing and council adoption will be conducted on September 21st. Eligible POHA activities include rental housing, which includes development or rehab of rental housing, a housing trust fund to develop rental housing, home ownership, which is development or rehab of single families or ADUs, also a down payment assistant program. Homeless activities include rapid rehousing, rental assistance, case management services, navigation center or emergency development or operational costs, permanent or transitional housing development, rehab or preservation. Please note that PLHA is the only non-competitive funding source without a homeless operation cap. Rental and home ownership are eligible under CDBG and home funds. We did conduct a PLHA survey which asked which target population in Visalia do you feel is in most need of housing resources? The majority were homeless and at risk of homelessness. followed by seniors and unaccompanied youth. The full survey results are included and attached under attachment C. Proposed PLHA funding by percentage, the state which is HCD is requesting that the five-year PLHA plan be submitted based on percentages to prevent future amendments since future allocations are unknown. It does limit administration at a 5% cap. Therefore, 95% does need to go to eligible activities. Staff is proposing operational funds for the Visalia Navigation Center at 65%, operational funds for a temporary emergency shelter, also known as a seasonal warming center, at 15%, and operating funds for a bridge housing project for Eden House at 15%. Staff is estimating PLHA funding by activity. Years one and two amounts have been released. You could see for years one, we did receive $442,000, and years two, $474,000. Years three, four, and five are estimates based on years one and two allocations, and you could see in the table that administration is capped at 5%. The navigation is expected to receive year one, 287,000 operational for emergency and emergency shelter and Eden house at 66,000 for year one. Our total estimated five year allocation is 2.29 million. Our fiscal year 25-26 PLH accomplishments include the navigation center did assist 244 unduplicated clients and 299 duplicated clients. The duplicated clients are those that were returning clients probably from the fiscal year. There are some that they chose to leave for whatever reason and then came back. Operating funds for emergency shelter, the Warming Center assisted 727 individuals during the fiscal year 25-26 winter season, and operating funds for Eden House, which assisted 93 homeless individuals. Accomplishments were for July 1st, 2025 through June 30th of 2026 from our fiscal year 24-25 PLHA allocation. ACTION TONIGHT, STAFF RECOMMENDS A PUBLIC HEARING TO RECEIVE PUBLIC COMMENTS, PROVIDE COMMENTS AND DIRECTION ON PROPOSED CHANGES. NEXT STEP, STAFF WILL RETURN ON SEPTEMBER 21ST FOR A SECOND PUBLIC HEARING AND FOR POTENTIAL ADOPTION.

ANY QUESTIONS?

COUNCIL MEMBER PETRICHIN.

MARTHA, YOU HAD A BUSY NIGHT TONIGHT. GREAT REPORT, AS ALWAYS. YEAH, NO QUESTIONS. I'LL BE SUPPORTED TONIGHT.

Council Member Soto.

Thank you, Margie, again. And of course, more great projects that we're working on here in the city. Thank you.

And Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Margie. You're wonderful.

So Margie, I did have one question. So these are obviously organizations that we've been supporting in the past. But in the survey, in the top categories was senior housing. Were there any options for senior housing to be able to assist with senior housing?

It is eligible, however, currently we are utilizing our home funds for senior housing, for the development of senior housing. We dedicated one million of our home funds to the development of Crescent Meadows, which is for housing for ages 62 and older. And that's currently underway. Ground breaking took place in spring and they're anticipating by winter of 2027 to be open.

And the homeless, If they're a homeless senior, they're eligible for those as well, correct?

Yes, it's not a requirement though. It is 80 units. One on-site manager, it will have 75 units. Only 24 are dedicated for homeless and at risk of homeless. The remaining units are for seniors 80% of the area median income or lower. So therefore, low and moderate income seniors.

And do they have any specific to veterans? Was that the case?

Great question. The 24 units have a veteran component as well. So 24 are dedicated for homeless veterans or at risk of homeless veterans, seniors.

And seniors and veterans are all eligible for Eden House Navigation Center, right?

Mm-hmm.

So how did they end up on this list. Did they request to receive these fundings. Did you assign them on there. I mean how did we end up with the three navigation center emergency shelter in the house.

These are our homeless activities or projects that we have within the city of Visalia, and it's the only funding source that doesn't have a homeless operating cap. Our public CDBG only allows 15%, which is very limited. It's at approximately 180,000. It's usually very sought after, and home funds do not allow for operation of homeless shelters at all. Therefore, it's their only funding source that would allow for the ongoing sustainability. Also, please note that because these are temporary emergency, there's no lease. They can't charge any rent, so they rely 100% on grant funding to sustain.

So the only way that they'd be able to receive funds from us would be through the PLHA? Yes.

POHA, this is the only non-competitive funding source. Unless we are awarded competitive, we have to apply for grants. A pro housing, for example, that has a PIP, but we have to apply for it. It's not given.

Okay, wonderful. All right, let's go ahead and open this up to the public. Anyone from the public wishing to speak on this item, come forward and state your name and city residence. Seeing no one, we'll go ahead and close. Actually, anyone online who wants to speak on this item?

Mayor, we have no hands raised at this time.

Thank you. We'll go ahead and close public comments and we'll turn it back over to council with any further questions, comments, or a motion.

I move to proceed with proposed activity allocations for the five-year PLHA plan for fiscal year 25-26 through 29-30 and direct staff to return with the plan to council on September 21st, 2026 for consideration of adoption.

I second.

I second.

Go ahead, first and second. All those in favor, please vote. Item passed is 4-0 with Council Member Nelson absent. Thank you very much, Marjorie. Appreciate it. Any closed session report items? Nothing to report this evening. Wonderful. We're going to go ahead and adjourn, and we welcome everyone to come back at our next meeting, which will be Monday, September 21st, 2026 at 7 p.m.