City Council - Regular Meeting

Hello gator. Gator

throwing stuff at me. Yeah. You want it? Just kidding. No, I'm good. Thank you. You all dressed up. I want to look like this. Okay.

Okay. Good evening everyone. I will call tonight's meeting into order. The regular city council meeting for March 3 uh 2026. Let's stand together and proudly recite our pledge of allegiance.

I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Madame clerk, can you um kindly do roll call, please? Yes.

Council member Brando Cruz here. It's fine. Oh, here. Council member Melissa Lamatina here. Council member David Oro here. Vice Mayor Mark Joseph here. Mayor Pierre Washington here. Uh, and thank you, Teresa. Uh, there was no closed session, but I want to allow the city attorney to make any comments, uh, if she has any. Oops. Well, thank you, mayor. I don't have any comments this evening, but thanks for the opportunity.

You're very welcome. Uh, and like she said, we did not have a close session this evening. U, so we'll move on to our proclamations and presentations, which we actually have two proclamations. the first being the National Women History Month for March uh 2026. And I would ask all those that will be the recipient to probably walk up to the uh podium. I'll read the proclamation and then we have a short video and then we'll allow whoever wants to speak on behalf of with the women history month and then we'll take a picture. While you all gather, uh, I'll read National Women History Month, March 2026. Whereas since 1987, the United States has formally recognized March as National Women's History Month, setting aside March to inspire those globally to learn about women history. And whereas National Women's History Month celebrates the collective power of women and girls, paying paying tribute to their achievement and recognizing the remaining challenges to further efforts for women's rights and gender equality, encouraging and mobilizing all people to contribute to positive change. And whereas the city of American Canyon honors the accomplishments and visionary women and girls who have helped build our country, including those who whose contributions have not been adequately recognized and celebrated. And whereas the city of American Canyon pays tribute to the trailblazers from the recent and a distant past for daring to envision a future for which no past precedent existed and for building a national or nation of endless possibilities for all

its women and girls. And whereas currently women are serving locally in leadership positions, inspiring the continued work in advance of investment of rights, opportunities, and full participation of women and girls of all backgrounds. And whereas women in American Canyon have continued to transform and enhance our community in wide range of fields, including through elected and appointed public offices, city and county government, local businesses, military service, education, medicine, the arts, community service, and nonprofit organizations. And whereas American Canyon residents are encouraged to celebrate National Women's History Month and to educate and pass on learned wisdom regarding the extraordinary contribution women have made within our community and county and country and recognize that continued progress is still needed to reach equality. And now therefore, I Pierre Washington, mayor mayor of American Canyon, do hereby proclaim March 3, 2026 as International Women's Day and proclaim the month of March 2026 as National Women's History Month. Thank you. And I'm going to ask Miss Bit to get up there and stand with the rest of the ladies,

please.

Absolutely. Well, thank you. Thank you, city council, uh, for asking me to accept the Women's History Month uh, proclamation this year. It's always an honor to be here to accept this proclamation on behalf of the women in American Canyon. As I stand here, I know that I've been very lucky to have two wonderful careers. My first was in commercial insurance. I began as an underwriter's assistant and left the industry as a COO of a small alternative agency. In this field, especially in my later years, it was not unusual be to be the only female in the room. Insurance executives and boards were generally composed of all males. Luckily, I worked for a man who believed in me. He gave me opportunities to learn and respected my abilities. I was able to find success in a male-dominated industry primarily because of my upbringing. As many of you know, I'm the youngest of seven children. Out of those seven, five of us were female. My mother, though a traditional housewife in my formative years, instilled in all of us that we were not only capable, but could achieve absolutely anything we wanted as long as we were willing to do the work. She herself was just four units away from the master's degree when she wed in 1956. She never finished it, but that was not her goal. Hers was to raise a family. In my second career as a secondary teacher, I carried her lesson with me and tried my best to instill her lessons into my students. Experiencing the wide range of talents and skills young people possess led me to my firm belief that while an education is valuable, personal success is not necessarily dependent on it. It is personal drive and support from those around you that often make the most difference between success and failure. Growing up in the 1970s, I watched the women's rights movement and was one of the first to benefit from Title Nine. Recently, we experienced the very first Winter Olympics where women were almost

half at 47% of the athletes participating. So, it pains me to watch as young women today have less opportunities than I did. This is tragic, unfair, and actually pretty dumb as we as we look at it. I feel extremely blessed to live in a city, county, and state that believes in the abilities of women. While the old saying, "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world," is powerful and somewhat true, I was raised with women belong in the House and the Senate. In 2026, I'm a believer that Cinderella goes to the ball and takes it to the net. On behalf of the women of American Canyon, thank you again for recognizing that we are all capable of achieving our goals if given the opportunity.

Yeah, Mayor Washington and members of this city council, I'm too honored to have been chosen to accept this award along with Beth. On behalf of Seroptimus and women everywhere, I'd like to thank you um all for the Women's History Month proclamation. It began as a local celebration in Santa Rosa. Um and soon with the lobbying efforts of various women, President Jimmy Carter created this special celebration in 1980 on a national level. Um Carter highlighted in in the proclamation that from the first settlers, men and women worked together, but women's contributions were often ignored. Women's history is women's rights. Um Carter quoted from Dr. Ger Gerta Learner calling women's history an essential and indispensable heritage heritage from which we can draw pride, comfort, courage, and long revision. His 1980 declaration was a catalyst for what would later become Women's History Month. Each year, the National Women's History Project publishes a theme. This year that theme is leading the change, women shaping a sustainable future. With this theme, we encourage a long-term vision for a future where women's leadership is central to thriving communities and a healthy planet. In this pivotal moment of history, it's extremely important that women's rights as well as women's history take front stage in our nation as well as in the world. Thank you again for this special and muchdeserved proclamation.

This is so wonderful to have so many people here and so many gateway award winners here. I'm telling you, it's amazing. Um, Councilwoman Lamatina, would you please come and help me?

Sure. You all can see I'm wearing a pink shirt with writing on it. And I'm going to ask her to read it because I can't read it from here. Uh, but while she reads it, not only should you think about what women accomplished, but think about how long it took them to get those accomplishments. All right, reading off the shirt. 1900, women gained property and wage rights. 1910, women could wear pants. Yes. 1920, white women could vote. 1963, women gained equal pay rights. Still questionable.

Black women Oh, excuse me. 1965, black women could vote. 1969, women were allowed to initiate divorce from their husbands. 1972, women could get birth control without a man. Um, let's see here. 1974, women could buy a home without a man. That was 1974. 1988, women could own their own business without a man. That's in the 80s, late 80s. 1994, women gained legal protection against domestic abuse, and 2024, women can be president if you just vote for them. Thank you, Joan. I I hope I hope you've enjoyed this little bit of trivia, but you know, really think about it. It is a man's world. It's still a man's world, but let me tell you, women are on the march.

Yay. We have a video to go up. But before the video starts, I actually want to ask Jim Cherry, our city attorney, to also come up here in the front because these are different fields to show you how proud and how far in advance our women have become. And I'm proud of all of you and you need to be up there. Jim, Erica. Erica. Erica. Erica. Yeah. Get up there. Let's go. Angela's over there. Get on over there, girl. My best friend.

I have to run the computer.

The never sleep. And now to our deputy city manager month, a time to honor the women who shaped our past and continue to lead our future. Here in American Canyon, women have always been at the heart of our story. From the earliest days when our city's name was created around a dining room table to the years as a water district to incorporation and into the thriving community we are today. Women have helped build the city step by step breaking the glass ceiling along the way. They have served on our first councils. They have helped guide our city through our commissions. They have gone on to represent our community at higher levels. They have advocated for our schools, our business community, and our cultural identity. They have strengthened our community through service and volunteerism, working every day behind the scenes and on the front lines. They are leaders. They are teachers. They are veterans. They are engineers. They are police officers. They are public servants. They are advocates. They are American Canyon. To the women who paved the way. Thank you. To the women leading today. Thank you. And to the next generation of girls in American Canyon, your voices matter. Your contributions count. And your future is bright. This Women's History Month, we celebrate the women who helped shape American Canyon, past, present, and future.

Now, I'd like all the ladies to come up front so we can get a photograph, but I'm going ask um the city manager, Holly, to take the picture because I I don't want a lady taking a picture. And Teresa, you can come up for a picture. Squeeze it. Squeeze. Ready?

One, two, three. Happy Women's History Month. my sister.

I can make We all deserve it. Don't say we don't.

Yeah. Thanks, and Deputy City Manager Akita, thank you for that video.

That was amazing. I love that. I love that. Uh our second proclamation is acknowledging uh Holy uh March 4th, 2026. And the recipient, I'm sure, is Arvin. And do you have someone else coming up? Your lovely wife, Jod. You going to come up? Um I'll read the proclamation. I know that you have a few words and I know you have a a few sweets that you could talk about when you give a few words. But let me read the uh acknowledge acknowledging the holy uh festival March 4, 2026. Whereas the city of American Canyon recognizes and celebrates the diversity of its residents and the richness of their culture traditions. And whereas Holi, the festival of colors, is an ancient Hindu festival celebrated annually to mark the arrival of spring and to triumph the good over evil. And whereas holy is a time of joy, a community bringing people together through vibrant through vibrant colors, music, dance, and traditional food. And whereas the celebration of Holy promotes unity, inclusiveness, and cultural exchange, fostering greater understanding and appreciation among individuals of different backgrounds. And whereas recognizing and honoring cultural and religious traditions strengthens our shared community and reflects the city's commitment to respect, equality, equity, and the belonging. And whereas in 2026, Holy will be observed on March 4th and celebrated by the American Canyon community on April 12th, 2026 in Shannondoa Park in partnership with the Helping Hands Hindu American, a nonprofit organization. And whereas now and oh and and now therefore I Pierre Washington the city of American Canyon

on behalf of the American Canyon City Council do hereby proclaim March 4, 2026 as Holy Day in American Canyon and recognize it cultural, spiritual and community significance. I encourage all residents to learn more about and respect the se and celebrate the spirit of holy through joy, renewal, and togetherness that enrich our city. Thank you.

Good evening, mayor, council members and friends. Thank you very much for this pro prohibition. I appreciate and uh really is a good event. We are celebrating for at this event for a long time and we encourage the residents to come over here and enjoy this festival. So this festival is very unique and everybody kids, elderly people, young everybody enjoy this event. So we use lot of colors in this one. So today I will going to show you the significance of these colors what we use it. We use red color, yellow color, green color, blue color, pink and purple color. So why we use these colors only? Why not the different other colors? So red color represent love, passion, energy and fertility. That's the that's the significance of red color. Yellow color symbolize happiness, prosperity and knowledge. The green color don donates peace, renewal and new beginning of the spring and blue color connected with the divinity and calmness often linked to Lord Krishna because he was blue his skin was blue. That's why we celebrated that one. Pink and purple represent positivity, joy and spirituality. So the what that's why we use all these color in this event and they are p powder colors and we it can be removed from your clothes very easily. It's not anything and we also provide food at that time because without food there's no any event

no celebration no celebration be before the food. So food has to be there. So that's why I brought today cake and samosas is Indian mainly food. So we samosas is a very very interesting and very tasty. When you're having a cup of tea with this one, do you enjoy it? We have a sauce and uh anything more you want to add it?

I just want to tell everybody to come and join us. Uh uh we have seen people are we just want the people to come out of the house and enjoy the life enjoy the spring uh because you're going to see a lot of flowers uh in the nature right so nature is also spreading the colors and uh celebrating the holi right so we want everybody to come out of the house and enjoy with us and play with the colors uh the colors are skin uh you know friendly uh organic colors they are make with the cornstarch or rice starch, you know. So, they are very uh friendly colors. So, you can come there if you don't want to play with the color, you can just sit there and enjoy uh the music and the dance and everything.

So, we just want everybody, we are inviting everybody, we want to see all of them over there. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. We have the flags over there. We're We're going to take the picture with you and then we're going to take a 10-minute 10-minute uh recess to enjoy some of the refreshments that you that you brought. So, we'll take the picture first.

Thank you. is so shy. He always help us so much. I don't know why. This is a party. We are bringing people from We're going to take a 10-minute recess and then we will rejoin in 10 minutes. Thanks for being here.

Delighted. Good seeing you.

All right. No, I'm going to leave that one. And actually ready I'm gonna put it on our website. careful.

I tried to call you. I'm not surprised. I didn't have an address.

I know. They're doing fine. I do the jewelry.

Are you doing

tomorrow? Oh, that's right. Where did we go? Are down there.

Yeah. Well, I'm just outside. 1965 years ago some of them We had freedom after

disgusting. Me too. Me too. tell you more first Could you remember?

I don't know. Foreign It wasn't until There was a law You were sitting

Are you drinking coffee? You knew building. I have to touch. Legend. sneezing

little.

Thank you. trying to remember. I ask you whatever. Oh yeah,

you have You got enough cake? I got some more right here. Over here. No, you don't.

You ready? Ready. Okay.

Okay. I will call our regular meeting back into order and then we will go to public comment. And at this time I would like to open public comment. The floor is open for comments that are not or for items that are not on tonight's agenda. So if you have something you'd like to speak about, you have three minutes. The clerk will time you. Um and we will start with the first uh speaker card. Okay, I'm gonna call Cherry Tennyson.

Good, good afternoon or good evening. I'm Dr. Sherry Tennyson from Napa Valley College and it's my honor to be in front of you tonight. Happy spring. That's all I can tell you. The reason I'm up here is I wanted to share some wonderful events that as a college we're co-sponsoring and I want to make sure you know about it and you could join us on uh March 21st. We are hosting our mariachi event up at the college as always. It's a fantastic event. There are going to be two seedings. I have flyers for you that I could share. Um, let's see. What else am I up to? On

on March 26, 3 to 6:00 p.m., we're going to be co-hosting the fourth annual Napa Climate Summit. It's called Resilient Napa. We're partnering in Napa Climate Now. Super excited to be co-hosting this event. I think in colleges and any educational institution, the whole goal is to make sure that we are studying the trends and making sure that we are upfront. So, this is really important for us. On April 23rd, we're going to be hosting our career fair. Last year, we had over 100 plus employers and we're opening this up to the community. I do have flyers for everyone. And then, of course, the last but not least, as I say, I want to make sure that we're we're on top of what's going on in our community. Um, as you all know, there's been tremendous loss around funding for folks with disabilities at the state level. Many of our partners are struggling. So, we are hosting the Napa County Committee on Disabilities, which I right now chair, is having an event on March 27th. Flyers are already done. I'll just have to send it to you. March 27th from um 9 to 12:00. We're partnering with Redwood Credit Union. And most importantly, it's working with the employer community and our service providers and our leaders to figure out ways that we can help folks with disabilities get jobs. It's super simple. We know the facts that most times children that graduate from high school do not graduate to a job if they have disabilities. They graduate to the couch. And that is why these events are super super important. What I'd like to do is just leave some flyers here for you. If you want me, I could send it. Melissa, you're nodding. Can I send it to you and then and you could pass it on?

You sure can. No problem. Please note these events are open to the public. Please note again the whole purpose of these events is to make sure that we are coming together to work with each other and to really tackle the issues that are happening in our community now. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Tennyson. Katherine Bit Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Washington and members of the American Kayan City Council. My name is Katherine Bit. I'm a senior at ACS, student body vice president, co-president of Napa Schools for Climate Action and Youth Commissioner serving on the OSATS Commission. And before I started, I just wanted to recognize the National Women's History Month proclamation that was just given out. I just thought it was really inspiring, especially as a young individual myself, a young woman. Um, I'm 17 and I'm getting college decisions back already and things like that. And so, seeing my dreams and plans for the future slowly come to reality, I just thought that recognition was really inspiring and empowering and it motivates me to continue working hard and advocating for my voice. So, I just wanted to shout you guys out for your hard work and also the city council for that proclamation. Thank you guys. And then for what I was actually here for tonight, I wanted to address a previous meeting. On February 3rd, my teammates and I came before you from Napa School for Climate Action to explain why climate restoration at this late stage is now a critical factor and how we will end the climate catastrophe. If we just reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by the 2030 net zero deadline or later, as the international community pro proposes to do, what do we do with the existing heat trapping pollution that remains? This is where climate restoration comes in as its reliable, scalable, and durable sequestration methods can lock existing excess carbon dioxide away for millennia. Knowing that climate restoration can take us to a world of complete sustainability has been an incredible light of hope for me, alleviating my climate climate anxiety and motivating me to work on such an incredible project such as House Resolution 1563, introduced by Rep. Mike Thompson in Congress in 2024 and now House Concurrent Resolution 46, which he introduced in the 119th Congress last July. Last month, when we asked for a resolution endorsing Congressman Thompson's House Concurrent Resolution

46, you listened and responded. At the end of the meeting, Vice Mayor Mark Joseph made a motion to have staff to come back with the resolution to support Representative Thompson's resolution. The council voted yes unanimously in favor. last month when we or thank you for listening and showing how much you care. Your climate leadership extends beyond our city's borders and your resolution endorsing the congressional resolution like those recently passed by Napa County RCD and Napa County Board of Education speaks to your serious, thoughtful, unreserved commitment that goes beyond a statement of support or a proclamation. We would be extremely appreciative to have the resolution on the agenda by the end of this month. As time goes by quickly, our current seniors, including myself, who have worked so hard on this initiative, would be grateful to see their efforts come to fruition. And it would inspire our younger members of Napa Schools for Climate Action, who will use their positive experience in American Canyon as they go to other cities, towns, and counties to ask for resolutions like ours. Please continue this positive momentum. In doing so, you will help us realize our dreams of a safe and healthy world for many generations to come. Thank you. Thank you, Katherine.

Janelle Celich.

Good evening everyone. Um Janelle Celich, executive director of the American Canyon Community and Parks Foundation. Uh I was here tonight. I wanted to share a couple updates on foundation activities as well as ecology center update. Um first I want one of our favorite programs that we do every year is called Teen Wild. It's a teen leadership program. Um we take um 25 to 30 high schoolers from throughout American Canyon, Napa County, and even into Solano County each year. They come and work with us. These kids are phenomenal. Um they lead uh environmental programs. They mentor younger students throughout summer camps in uh nature programs and they learn all about the watershed and nature. and they most importantly they connect with each other. So it's a phenomenal program. It's open to any entering 9th through 12th grader again throughout the region. It's free uh thanks to some great grant funding that we have from generous partners like Redwood Credit Union and Nap Valley Venters. They get to do some really amazing trips as well including kayaking on the Napa River. Um some other field outings. So great program. I have flyer for it. Um we encourage any interested teen to apply. Um, it's great for building the resume as well and a lot of fun. Uh, in addition, I wanted to take a moment and just thank the city. Um, as you may have heard recently, uh, the, uh, we were awarded a $2 million federal grant for the Napa River Ecology Center. Um, that was in partnership with the city of American Canyon to get that grant. So, I wanted to just say thank you for all of your support in that. Um in addition um about a week later the foundation was awarded a um $2.7 million grant from the state coastal conservancy. So together these two grants push us um closer to groundbreaking which we're hoping hoping will happen here um this spring or early summer. So, wanted to thank um all the city staff from um gosh, the the sewer guys, um Chris and uh Nolan and Mark, um

Erica, everybody, the whole team, Jason, we get so much support from city staff with this project. So, we really appreciate the partnership. Brent is always real supportive as well. So, thank you all. Um city council, we're really looking forward to um next steps with this project. So, thank you. Thank you. and Janelle, we appreciate your leadership and your mentorship. Ann Payne,

thank you for giving me the opportunity, Mayor Washington and city council members. Uh, one of the hats I wear is I'm on the advisory council for the area agency on Aging and we have two open slots coming up for Napa County. So, I just wanted to encourage you to um talk to friends, family members, caregivers um and encourage them to apply. Um, if you just go to www.a.org, you can find the application online. That link is really easy. If that's not doable, I can Melissa has my information so you can reach out to me that way. The count the advisory council is 20 members and we serve as adviserss to the AAA the area agency on aging and we support all of the providers in both NAP and Solano County that gets funding through the older Americans act to ensure that they can continue to provide the services that the elders need and that their caregivers need. And I have to say this is a pretty incredible council. We've really gotten some amazing things done. Um, one of our initiatives last year was just to go to all the congregate meals sites in both Nap and Solano County and try the meals. And because of those visits, um, we were able to um, get a new contract for the meal preparers and now the food is much better than it was. and the congregate meal sites are an opportunity for seniors to socialize and get together and that's just one of the programs that the AAA has. So, um, thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Thank you, Ann.

I have no other speaker cards and and no one online. I have no hands raised online. Okay. Uh, I'll close public. Oh, okay. Sorry, sir. I'm also getting some hands raised online now, too. Okay. Okay. Steve Harris, please. Good evening, Steve.

Good evening. My name is Steve Harris. I want to thank you very much for letting me speak here tonight. Uh, I'm going to be commenting on uh the sites reservoir. It's a project labor agreement is being negotiated between Bernard's construction and the building trades council for sites reservoir. The uh carpenters union has not been a part of any of the negotiation as stated in last month's council meeting. The carpenters will not sign a contract that has not been negotiated with. As you are likely aware, Bernard has a history of uh cost overruns and project delays, and multiple awarding bodies have selected Bernard and for projects only to be awarded to other uh pro contractors later on down the road. Bernard has no ties to local community or its workforce. Before the contract was awarded, Governor Nuome submitted a letter to the sites authority board expressing his concerns. The California Water Commission has required site staff to appear at the last two meetings to provide project updates due to their concerns. State elected officials have recently submitted letters to Santa Clara Valley Water District expressing concerns with Bernard pertaining to their own $2 billion dam project. Zone 7 Water District recently reduced their stake in the site's reservoir by 50% citing that since 2023 their capital cost have doubled due to the estimated cost of the sites currently being 7.5 billion in 2024. Funding the sites reservoir has not been finalized. The water right permits have not been granted. As stated by the VO uh vice chair of the sites board, Jeff Sutton, every month sites is delayed. It

costs $20 million. And a reminder to the body, the American Canyon City Council, the carpenters will not sign a PLA on the site's project as is currently stands. Negotiating without representation is unacceptable. Please reach out to the site's representative and reach out to the carpenters so that we can be a resource and we can save the site's reservoir together. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Harris.

I have Justin Hamilton Hull.

Go ahead, Justin. Oh, good evening, Mayor and Z counseling. I'm just going to say I'm so proud that um we a good team. Um my name is Justin Hall. I am live in Mary K for a long time. So I I want make a little comment of what Dr. Shing doing. I I'm very helping her um setting up the uh job fair and all this stuff. I'm going to you I think all know on April 10th I am a part A client client of FER North Bay in NBRC and we're going to be hosting on April 10th at 11 to 12 1:30. Um, I think all I think Melissa this is a paper sheet. So, please come and listen in. I'm be there and I'm be I'm be be over there to study up. Please listen in and um please come to April 10th. Thank you.

Thank you, Justin. And Justin, if you're still there, I have the flyers and I will get them all to uh all the council members. Okay. Okay. Uh there I have no other hands raised online. Okay. Uh Beth, good evening, Beth. Marcus, I'd want to say this before Mark jumps on this. Um this Saturday, so everybody knows, we have our Kuanas crab feed. It's at the Boys and Girls Club. It starts at well VIPs come in at five

um 5:30 sorry it's a Benton way uh for those of you who don't know where the Boys and Girls Club if anybody wants to help us like you know wash dishes or anything we're more than willing to let you come in and help us but anyhow I just want to let you know it is the crab feed this weekend. Uh lots of good crab, lots of good auction items. The auction items are online right now. And that's that's it unless Mark wanted to say something else. Thank you, Beth.

So, no one else in the room, nobody else online. I'll close um public comment and move on to agenda changes. Are there any agenda changes? Uh hearing none, I'll accept a motion to accept the consent calendar. So moved. Second. Thank you. Okay, we have a second. Can I get a roll call, please? Madam clerk.

All right. Council member Cruz, yes. Council member Lamatina, yes. Council member Oro, yes. Vice Mayor Joseph, yes. Mayor Washington, yes. Okay, we'll move the public uh to public hearing. We actually do not have anything on public hearing items for this evening. So, I'll move the business items. Uh, first business item. Item number five, zone five, water pump station project WA25-02000 project budget increase. Um, public works director Erica.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. I'm Eric Almond Smithy's public works director here to talk about the budget increase request for the zone 5 water pump station. This project was originally estimated uh within a $2 million range uh project budget. This is before we had any final design. It was just a estimate based on other projects that we'd been aware of but not refined um design. We now have the final design documents and the estimate for construction is approximately 5.5 million. Um this is a project that will support residential growth for the Promonatory and Canyon Estates. It will actually be located within the residential canyon estates. Um and it's part of the lines of the city council priorities for maintain systems that support sustainable growth and um the project is funded 100% through water capacity fee funds. So the request is not coming out of the rateayers enterprise funds or general fund. Um each new signal family approximately pays 24,000 in water capacity fees and the residential approved residential planned units is 245 units. So approximately 230 new units will pay for this $5.5 million project. So if there are additional costs needed when we actually go out to bid and advertise, we'll bring that the time of contract award like to go out um we're very we have 100% plans in hand. We're find we're reviewing the final specs and plans to make sure they're appropriate for bidding and uh can be out as soon as two or three weeks and um out to bid and bring back to a council award in late April likely probably early May or the second meeting in May. So very exciting project for the city.

Very um is that it? That's it. Okay. Um are there any clarifying questions from council? Seeing none, I'll take this time to open up for public comment on item number five. Are there anybody in the room that have any questions or comments on item five? Seeing none in the room. I have I have one online. One online. Okay. Thank you. Okay. It's Justin. Hi, Justin. Justin, uh, go ahead. You're connected.

Thank you. Um, Erica, um, where, um, where is the um, where going to be at? Is it going to be on a hill or going to be closed down here? What we're going to be? Thank you. It's a very good question. I probably got a little nervous there and jumped ahead. So, Promonator and Canyon states on the eastern hillsides of the the city of American Canyon um jurisdictional edge north of American Canyon High School, east of New Drive and Promontory is going to be the northern end of the additional um extension of Newual Drive and Rio Delmare. So, it's along the eastern edge and the higher elevations of um the hillside there.

Thank you, Erica. You're welcome. Thank you. I'm sorry for I skipped ahead. Anyone else online? That's it. No, I'll close uh public com on and return to council for additional questions. Uh vice mayor, just a clarification. I think Canyon Estates as part of their entitlements had to put some money aside for the pump. Is that still available or was that used for design purposes or is that before your time? A little bit of both, but I'm not I prefer I'm looking at our city manager. It was during

No, it was um Yeah, thank you for the question, Vice Mayor. What they did dedicate was well did it a couple of things. Um first, they dedicated the land where the pump station is. So, it actually will sit inside on a small parcel uh inside the subdivision. Uh and they actually installed some of the pipelines that currently go up what is a essentially utility driveway. So, they put in those improvements and then as each of their units come in, they'll be paying uh water capacity fees. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions? Seeing none, I'll accept a motion.

If there are no other comments, then I'll make a motion that we adopt resolution number 2026. Next in order, a resolution increasing the zone 5 water pump station WA25-02000 project budget from 2 million to 5.5 million and appropriating an additional 3.5 million of fund 520 water capacity fee to the project budget. I second. Thank you. We have a second. Madam clerk, may you mind doing a roll call, please? Council member Cruz? Yes. Council member Lamatina? Yes. Council member Oro. Yes. Vice Mayor Joseph. Yes. Mayor Washington.

Yes. Uh moving on to the second business item. Item number six, building e- pump station improvement projects WW26-02000. You're back up.

Yes, sir. Um this is an item bringing back to council to amend um not to bring back but to introduce to council um amending the 202526 CIP budget um and appropriating $350,000 in the water capacity fee funds to the CIP budget for the building e pump station improvements. This is located at 205 wetlands edge, the formerly known as the corporation yard and future of the Napa River Ecology Center. Uh the building east station um as for folks that don't know history on it during major storm events, excess flows are diverted into the overflow pond located immediately south of the new ecology center. Um historically this has required temporary above ground bypass pumping. Um this was originally in the designs and they upgrade the building e pamp about 20 years ago. But for some reason this portion of the project of undergrounding the overline piping to the overlow pond was not installed underground. So at this point when we have a new public facing project that's going to break ground in a few months um we will need to accelerate this project now that they're fully funded and um get this project accelerated sooner than later and start the work now. Well, the the good news is the um we RSA that was hired by the American Canyon American Canyon Parks Communicate Foundation, that's a long one, ACCPF, um they're already on board and have um preliminary design for this project. So, it would been easy to wrap up with the help of the collections team and water operations team um in our audience this evening. Um it was a really a grassroots effort with their assistance to get this project out rolling and and um so we can now have a beautiful ecology center without over over and land pipes out at the center. It'll now be permanently underground and going to the overflow pond until some future project where we no longer need building. Um building is being incorporated as part of a viewing deck as part of the ecology center as well. So again the $350,000 we believe that's a good estimate. um should be a comfortable estimate once we go out to

bid. Um again, we'll bring that back to council um once we award. Thank you, Erica, for that presentation and update. Are there any clarifying questions from council? Yes, I do. Just to clarify, this was this is a capital project that you anticipated doing in two years. This summer, actually, this summer. So, it's going to be included in this year's CIP because we knew that the ecology center was going to start. Okay. So, we're just it it isn't a new project as much as you're accelerating the time frame. Yes, sir. In recognition that the ecology center got its funding sooner and is ready to rock and roll. Yes, sir.

Okay. Well, I appreciate it and and I appreciate the fact that we're adjusting to circumstances on the ground and it's a worthwhile project because it might be tacky to have overline pipes during the winter. So, Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Any other questions or clarify? I'll take at this time uh open it up for public comment. Anybody in the room for public comment on item number six? Seeing no one in the off in the audience. How about online? No one online. No one online. I'll go ahead and close public comment for item number six and return to council for u a motion.

Mr. Mayor, before the motion begins, I'd like to ask our legal counsel um a question. My wife actually works at the Napa River Ecology Center. She is employed by the American Canyon Community and Parks Foundation. Um until that happened, I was like, "Oh, we're voting on an infrastructure project." Until she me, you know, mentioned the parks foundation. I want to make sure that I'm okay to vote on this. It seems city related, but also adjacent to the ecology center.

I I would say that whenever in doubt, it's never a bad idea to abstain, but I don't see any grounds for recusal with that relationship being that it is a city project. Uh but it is up to you. You've certainly disclosed for the community for the potential of a conflict. I don't see a conflict. Nonetheless, uh, with that disclosure, if you would like to abstain, you may. You do not need to recuse. Thank you for the guidance. Thanks for mentioning that. So, I will still entertain a motion to accept item number six.

Okay. Well, I move that we adopt a resolution amending the fiscal year 2526 capital improvement project or program budget to include the building e pump station improvements project WW26-0200 for an amount not to exceed 350,000 and appropriating 350,000 from fund 550 wastewater capacity fee to the project budget. I'll second. Thank you. We have a second. Madam clerk, you mind doing a roll call, please?

Council member Cruz. Yes. Council member Lamatina. Yes. Council member Oro. Yeah. I'm going to vote yes with the recognition that this is a city project and not necessarily related to the parks foundation. Thank you. Uh, Vice Mayor Joseph. Yes. And Mayor Washington.

Yes. Uh, thank you, Erica, and thank you, Teresa, for that roll call. Uh, moving on to our final business item tonight, number seven, human resource annual presentation and vacancy report. Uh, looks like it's going to be Scott. Hi, Scott. Okay. Mr. Mayor and Council, and my name is Scott Corey. I'm the human resources manager with for the city. Um, thank you for this opportunity. I appreciate this annual opportunity to come and talk about our number one asset, which is our employees, and how HR helps support our all of our departments and all the services they provide by helping to select and retain our employees and take care of them. Um, I'm also happy to um to point out that with me this evening is our HR analyst, Cherry Flowers. um she is a a major contributor to what we've done and you'll see as I go on some of her contributions and um how essential she is to what we're doing in HR.

Um this evening I'm going to touch on five different areas. um uh how we've supported staff success, strong timely hires, advancing workforce diversity, uh maintaining low vacancies, and then a little brief on what's coming up in 2026 and some of the things we'll be working on um for the for that rest of this year. Looking back on 2025, um the human resources department um successfully deployed um some training and accountability platforms. The neo gov learn and perform modules are fully deployed now and being used across the organization. We're continuing to do needing to do some training and some updates and things um and to help employees become more accustomed to them, but they've proved successful at this point. Um, so far we coordinated u in-person harassment and ethics training with the help of our uh city attorney's office um which was a great event here in the city council chambers for all the staff involved with those required trainings. We relaunched the safety and risk committee. Um I had some very uh involved in advocating employees particularly in public works about the need to heighten our focus on safety. And so um during the COVID years this committee had sort of taken a little bit of a hiatus if you will. Um so it was time to get it reinvigorated and reformed and operating again. And we've had some really good meetings and that's been a really good experience as we've been doing that in 2025. Um we enrolled 33 employees through the um center for organization excellence. Um that's a regional academy program that has five different levels of themmies from uh the foundations and excellence clear up to the leadership. Um of the 33 employees we've enrolled them in all of the fivemies at this point uh for this year. So, um, that's proving to be really, I think we're in our second or third year of that and, um, it's really bringing back some really good resources to our staff,

helping build a lot of the soft skills for leadership, particularly that these folks have a lot of technical skills, but it's the soft skills that really help with the leadership. And, um, that's what this program helps do. Um, we've been navigating this year kind of what I'm calling a challenging economic environment. It's been just sort of odd. Last year, 2024, people were very comfortable with their employment. We're looking for new opportunities, were out saying, "Hey, I want I'm ready to move up to something else." And we were getting lots of applications based on that. This year, we got a different sort of mix of applications. We'll talk about that a little more, but it was just different. Um, we see some trends and go, "Hm, that's interesting." So, um, it's just one of those years. Um HR has been longtime responsible for staff parties and things. Um this year we created a employee engagement committee um with the sole purpose of running those um those gatherings and whatnot. Um we expanded the the membership of that committee. So we have a more um people from different um departments who are participating and scheduling these and hosting them and whatnot. Um Britney Barnett from the city banners office sort of heads that up and um so that's a new um addition we made this year to help invigorate those um events. So we talk about strong timely hires. Um we're going to talk a little bit about the recruitments. We did 14 total recruitments this year. We received 560 applications which is a very strong number of applications but it's about half of what we got last year. So to give an indication of the interesting economic times there was a dip in the number of applications. Um we identified that down to basically

two major factors. One was the um sort of the maturity of a career pipeline program we started working on past uh last year to hire part-time temporary staff particularly in office assistant roles and service worker roles and so they could work as basically extra help additional help in the office doing meaningful work. But when openings became available through the admin um family or in the maintenance worker family, we had an internal group of people we could do an internal recruitment from who knew us, we knew them, we knew their work habits. Really easy to recruit among those people. Um it was particularly important among the maintenance worker class because that one um was just a difficult process. It took a long time to get through that process to hire. So, we thought the service workers would really help expedite that process and it has. It's both of those have worked out very very well, very nicely for us. And um we're now we've I say used up all our service workers, but um we've we've um we've moved them into many of them into permanent roles. Um uh one young man went off to join the Marines. We couldn't compete against the Marine Corps. And um so now we're recruiting more service workers. So that that pipeline concept has really helped um cut down the amount of time and um small crews and short staffing in our maintenance crews in particular um that can that really have a difficult time bearing months of a process to um um to get a new team member. So that's been very helpful. The other dynamic of our seven full-time open recruitments this year was they were more technical and professional in in type. So, we're talking about a budget manager. We're talking about um Oh, I have my list. Hold on. I knew I forget my list. Um a

plant maintenance mechanic, environmental specialist, um accounting assistant, a communications and engagement supervisor, chief plant operator. Um these require specialized knowledge, experience, education, these sorts of things. So it's typical we would get fewer applications sort of as a whole going to those for those even for those recruitments we received more applications per recruitment than is our average. So we're still doing well in the marketplace. Um we're seeing more um federal workers looking for new opportunities um that are applying here. Um, we're also seeing people from a further um further a field applying here and taking jobs and you'll see in a moment um commuting some distance to come work for the city of America. So, um speed is important in recruiting. It's one of those things that's, you know, you can't take six months to fill a position. You need to get on this and get it moving and make it happen. Um, and it's one of the things that I talked to Cherry about when she came and joined HR and she was going to be running heading up the recruiting um, area and I said, "Well, this is our the measure we've had and our time to hire." Time to hire is defined as the time between the way we are using it, the time between when the requisition is filled out and the first day someone starts working. That's the period we're talking about. It's the period that HR can kind of has some control over from a process perspective and can influence to speed that along and to try to pair out anything that's excess process um that we can remove to speed things up. And so I told Sherry, we need to reduce our our number. We need to reduce our average. We need to be more efficient. We need to clear that up. and um I didn't realize at the time that Cherry's a little bit competitive

and um took that as like a personal like mission in life. So um um when we first started counting this in 2021, we were at 174 days per recruitment per full-time recruitment to fill from the time the requisition happened until the first day of employment. Um, in 2025 we're down to 61 days. Um, Cherry's target was 60, so she's off by one day. But that is more than half of what it was just three years ago.

And, um, I can't imagine, frankly, that we can reduce it any more just from a logistical perspective. Um, to put that in some perspective, 61 still feels like two months because it is two months. Um, NEOGV um, puts us in peer groups and gives us statistics based on other similar agencies. Our peer agencies for the same statistic take 234 days is their average to fill their positions.

Um, we are doing significantly better at 61 than at 234. Um, we saw 174 and said we think we can do better and we got down to 61. So, um we're moving very quickly through that process and um and making that happen for um our departments without um giving up any part of our process or making it any not skipping over important things. Um all the things are still happening that need to happen. As we look at workforce diversity, um, uh, I like to look first at our applicant diversity because you can't have a diverse workforce if you don't have a diverse applicant pool. This is a chart that shows, um, the um, ethnic associations of our applicants going back to 2017. Um, there's a lot of lines here, but the big things to keep mindful of is we've seen a significant increase in the number of Hispanic applicants. That's gone up consistently. We've seen an an increase in the number of black and African-American applicants. That's gone up consistently. And we've seen a decrease in the number of um white or Caucasian applicants. Um so, um uh that's moving things in the right direction. Um we also like to look at where our people are coming from. And I mentioned earlier that the economy sort of driven people. We're getting commuters now to American Canyon as employees here. Um, and so we still have 84% of our employees who live in Slano or Napa County. And American Canyon is still the top residence location of our employee base. They're at 37% of our full-time employees. So, we're still very locally oriented, but you may notice there's now more pieces of pie up there that have different colors that are more remote. And um so we've always had some from Sonoma and some from Contraosta, but the

ones over in uh Plaza, Sacramento, Santa Clara, Yolo, those folks are relatively newish in our dynamic. And um so um it's just just a sign of of the economy and the way things are working. As we look at our um our actual employees, this is what's this is the changes that have occurred since 2020 over the past five years. So, this is a five-year look. Um, the number of Hispanic um employees have gone up by 12%. Number of African-American or black employees have gone up by 11%. And the major mover on the reduction side is a number that identify as white or Caucasian. That 11% reduction brings down brings to 42% the number of white or Caucasian um employees that we have. Um so, we've uh last year we broke just below um 50%. We move we moved on down this year to 42%. Um just a sign of our community. Um the workforce is reflecting being more reflective of the community as these numbers shift this way which is something we've been trying to do. Um and we accomplish this by the quality of our comm the work we do in the community, our reputation in the community and our outreach through various tools through NEOGV to get out all of our announcements as broadly as possible. and we are competitive with benefits and pay and all that good stuff. We're a good place to work and people want to come work here. Um, we also get a lot of good word of mouth from our employees who refer people over, even family members they refer in to apply for jobs. And if you have employees who are recommending their family members work at the same place in a different department, you're doing something right. Something's going pretty well there. Um we're going to shift now to the um the idea of vacancies. This is a report

that uh was mandated by the state legislature starting last year. Last year was our first one of these and this year we're merging it in with this presentation rather than doing a separate presentation. And um they directed that we look at the number of vacancies. The legislature determined that um local governments maintaining a high number of vacancies is a threat to public service and so they require all local agencies to give this report every year and to identify whether you're over 20% of any bargaining group that is you're having vacancies in. So you can address that with the bargaining group. So um for this is done on a calendar year basis. So, we currently have 89 um budgeted authorized full-time positions. We do a whole range of work here for the city of American Canyon, as you know. Um everything from water treatment, wastewater treatment, streets, parks, um financial management, public safety support, um communications and outreach, HR, administration. It's a um pretty full service type of organization. On a monthly basis, we averaged about 7% vacancies. um on a monthly basis. The lowest month was 4.7% and the highest month was 9.5. Um this just for everyone's information, the staff report which is available online has a lot more detailed information than what I'm presenting here and the interest of time, but it's all in the um written staff report which is available online. Um the recruitment process as I mentioned before when I was mentioning the 61 days and we weren't skipping any steps. These are the steps in the recruitment process and um one of the ways we um help achieve that all in 61 days is a lot of advanced planning and coordination with the departments. The better the coordination at the front

end, the better the result at the at the hiring end of things. Um, and we very much encourage our new employees to give the traditional two-week notice to their current employers because if they don't do that with them, we think that sets us up as probably a bad situation for us as well. So, um, we respect that u very much. We talk about we talk about the recruitments and how we filled our vacancies this year. Um, one was from an existing eligibility list. Seven were from open recruitments and 17 were from internal promotional activities. This reflects that I mentioned earlier about that internal pipeline particularly in the office assistants and the service workers. Um we were able to move folks pretty quickly through that process and into those positions. Um the legislature also would like us to uh examine what obstacles there are to hiring and what we could do to improve them. So we identified, excuse me, we identified um three potential obstacles. Um one was the process of evaluating organizational efficiencies and staffing pivots. Whenever a vacancy appears, many departments, most departments take a beat and think, okay, so this person has left and oh, thank you, Mark. Appreciate that. Um, we have a person that's retired, say, um, and they've been with us for a long time. How do we think we should fill that spot? Should we fill that spot with an internal person we have? Should we do an internal recruitment? Should we do an external recruitment? What should we do? Should we fill it with this same position at all? Do we need to split into two jobs or do something different?

So that process takes some time. Um it's important that there be timely communication between departments and HR. Um sometimes um we each assume the other are doing something that neither one of us is doing and that can be a problem. So um that's that can be an obstacle from time to time. And then um occasionally departments um don't have a full understanding of their full options available for filling a spot. they may think that there's some budget issues, some budget restrictions, some other classification things, other things are going on. So those are the things we identified. The actions we've taken to address um some of these obstacles. Um we have Cherry Cherry Flowers. We've assigned an analyst whose primary key responsibility is recruiting. That's her main focus when it comes to those things and getting that 61 days um accomplished. We've also improved significantly the frequency and quality of um hiring discussions with the departments. Um not so long ago, HR would wait for the department to send over a requisition and then we'd grab the requisition and do our thing, right? Because um we thought that the departments were deliberating, we're being responsible with their budgets, we're being careful, we're considering their options, whatever. Um so we after having had some discussions about that and some experiences um we decided it would be good idea if HR reached out to the departments and initiated the the uh requisitions particularly because we had a relatively new requisition process in NEOGV and so to help sort of spur that along if they needed time they just wouldn't approve it. they'd just sit there until they were ready to initiate it and move it along, but at least it would be started and that has shortened up that time, that time delay significantly. Um, so the remaining challenges, um, I don't quite know how to get around the organizational assessments the

departments do. I think it's reasonable. I think it's responsible. I think it's something you should do. It just takes time to do it and I don't really know how to get around that other than HR checking in with them on a somewhat frequent basis weekly every couple weeks to see how things are going, make sure they're aware of what's happening and things are moving. Um, and then sometimes departments need time to assess the desired recruitment type. So, occasionally they'll say, "We have a part-time person who we think would be really good in this position, but we've never really tried them out in that position. let's give them a month or two to actually we'll give them some more assignments and some more work and see whether they have the capacity to handle that well that takes a month or two to do that process right so um that's a delay as well that can happen so um these I don't see as hugely significant problems they're more just operational problems that um I really feel more I want to be supportive of you know careful deliberation all that kind of stuff um than something that we need to fix particularly because our we don't really have a significant vacancy problem which we'll see in a moment. Of the 18 vacancies that were created this year, um 11 were through a voluntary separation, 39 were through staff growth, which are essentially new positions. 28 are from internal opportunities and 22% are from retirement. That is four employees who retired this year getting us to 22%. Um, in the next five years, a third of our full-time our current full-time staff will become retirement eligible.

Currently, as we stand here today, 13% are ready are eligible to retire right now. The average age of that group of people is over 60. They were retirement eligible as classic employees at age 55. So, they've worked five years beyond their full retirement age according to Kalpers. And several of these folks are working right into Medicare age, working into the 65 age. So, um I'm expecting some retirements this year. Um I'm expecting things to um continue to happen with that. We held some classes recently. Kalpers came and talked to our employees and we had a really good attendance um with that. People very interested in what was going to happen. Um, we're having another workshop that's scheduled where they'll come and help us fill out the forms. I'm nervous about that one because I'm worried about how many people are going to show up and start pencil to paper filling out forms. But, um, but at the same time, they've earned all of this and this is what they've worked their careers for. And so, from our perspective, it's just a matter of being aware of that, preparing for succession plans. Um, I've had some conversations with some departments about the numbers in their departments and pointed out that their succession plan A is also retire is also retirement eligible and B could be if they wanted to be. So, you know, we have some work. We're we're working on that. We're focused on that. We're having those conversations. Just sort of a general heads up um about retirement and how that's coming to our doors.

Um the bottom line with vacancies is by bargaining unit. We have a really low vacancy rate. Um, for the general unit, we're at 3.6%. That's two vacancies for 56 budgeted FTEEs. Um, one of those positions is chief plant operator, which has been difficult to fill. We've recruited for that thing three times and it's been very difficult to fill that. Um, we're now in the process of underfilling it with a PL with a regular plant operator because the water treatment plant needs additional folks that need to get up to full staff out there. So, we're going to take a pause and come back and circle back and figure out what we're going to do about the chief concept at some future date. Um, the other position there is a um engineering tech in public works that they've been going through the assessment process and figuring out how they best can use this and what employees internally they might be able to put in there, that kind of thing for some time. So, um, we expect that to resolve u in the relatively near future. for the mid management unit which is the other bargaining unit we have zero we have zero vacancies for 19 um budgeted FTEES which is below the clearly below the state threshold of 20% per bargaining unit so we're doing really well when it comes to that all right for 2026 um I already mentioned the targeted on-site employee training programs through Kalpers and Kaiser so we have both of these organizations coming on-site doing per training where employees can ask questions. There are like two and three hour workshops where the employees can ask whatever they want. Kaiser is going to be talking specifically about Medicare and what Medicare looks like when you ret, you know, as you're getting that age and how that works and all the pieces, the ABC, all this stuff. Um, and um, supplement plans and all that. Um, this year we're going to be centralizing employee training records in NeoGV. We do a lot of training in NeoGV, which is great as a repository. There's also trainings that employees do through other organizations, live

trainings they do in their departments, um off-site trainings they go to, conferences, all that stuff. All those records we need to keep track of because the state this year clarified with another law that we're supposed to keep track of all those in one spot. So, um we're going to be we're going to be using NEOGV as that repository. It allows the employees to see all their training records, their supervisors to see all their records, the manager, the department head, everyone in their chain of command can see all their records. so everyone knows exactly what they've been what they've been accomplishing. Um, we're going to start working on updating city policies to reflect legal and operational changes. Um, this is something that now that we are fully staffed in HR, we have some time to be able to work on this. It's been on my list for a while now, but for a while it was just me in HR and I couldn't do everything. So, um, so now we're in a position to be able to do that. We have some policies that um were were nicely written by uh the vice mayor in his former role here that we're still holding on to. They're well-written policies, but they're might be a little dated. So, um

I'm a little dated, you know. So, we might have done some operational things differently since he wrote those. Um, and then we'll continue to support and work with departments on um, I'm saying employee employee accountability efforts has to do with performance evaluations, applying rules, being consistent, all that kind of stuff. Training up supervisors more on they can respond better to events as they happen, that sort of thing. Um, which is something that HR focuses on as well. Um, and with that, that concludes my presentation for this evening. Thank you, Scott. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to take a shot.

Thank you, Scott. Um, real quick, when you mentioned about Cherry being competitive, if you ever see her play softball, you you would have known that she's pretty competitive. I watched her out there, so I won't mess with her.

Um, I noticed that you didn't mention anything about uh employee surveys at a faction. And I don't know if that's something that you're supposed to be bringing up or not like that, but I was able to get a briefing from the city manager and I was really impressed with the fact that how satisfied people are who are working here and to me that's a key to the leadership of what's going on here as well. So I think that that has a huge uh contribution to why you don't have that much turnover. So I think that's really great and you've answered actually most of my questions. I was going to ask you about the um retirement and uh preparing for the next three to five years, but you you you hit that on the nose already. So, I want to thank you for that. And also, another thing that people take for granted are those um appreciation lunches that the city manager and staff do uh for the team. And I know that that's something that most workers are are appreciative of. So, I want to thank city manager and and the leaders of American Canyon City staff for what you do for the employees as well. Um, with that said, I'm going to open it up to uh the council for any uh questions. Starting with the vice mayor, more of a comment. Uh, first of all, thank you for the report. I appreciate um your approach, which seems to be, you know, you know your stuff and you're kind of explaining where we're headed. Um, and the fact that it does look like we're about ready to walk off a cliff as far as retirements, it's better to know you're heading towards the cliff than wondering why you feel like you're falling. So, it's a good thing.

Uh, and then the second point of course is I think it was Brand Silva who did all the all the HR policies and not me. Uh, and that's why they probably lasted 20 years. If I had written them, it would have been, you know, wing it and see what happens is generally my approach. So, credit goes to her. But thank you for the report. Council member Lamatina, thank you. That was a great report. Really appreciate it. I have a question. If someone leaves the city, whether they're asked to leave or retiring or a different job opportunity, do we do an exit interview? Okay. I wasn't sure. So, I think those are important.

We give them a um a written questionnaire and then provide them the opportunity to have an in-person interview if they wish to. Um so, yes, we do that. Thank you, Scott. Council member Brando Cruz. Hey, Scott. Thank you for that report and Sherry, good job on cutting it down from 100 something to 60 days. Uh question. How many FTEEs do we actually have for the city roughly? Um, I used to say 85, but it looks like it's closer to 89. 89. And you mentioned there were trends. You had a bunch of folks that were applying not too long ago. I don't know when that was last year, two years ago. What are the trends why people less people are applying?

Yeah, it's it's um it's always a little challenging to to you sort of read the tea leaves with that. Um and um when we had more um applicants last year, they were for more general jobs, that is jobs that don't require specific um training, specific educational pieces, um even some specific certifications. And we had an environment where people were looking to get a better job. I'm comfortable with where I am, but I want to it's it's a um they're looking ahead to improve themselves. And so they're throwing their hat in the ring. I'm just going to give that a shot. And so we got lots of applications for those those positions. Um when you're looking at, you know, why do we get so much fewer? It's you sort of have to read the tea leaves a little. Uh when you see a lot of federal employ applications suddenly from former federal employees and you know that they've laid off a bunch of folks in the federal government, it's sort of like, aha, well I can see how that's working. Um, you know, we we've seen some um very unscientific um trends when it comes to surnames and certain positions we recruit for that typically have lots of certain surnames when the federal government's doing immigration enforcement and you begin to say, hm, I wonder if that had something to do with that. Um, so it's just you sort of like I said, you read the tea leaves, you sort of see the environment and say, "Okay, what what could explain this?" Um, normally, for example, for service workers, we'll get 50 applications in two weeks or more. Um, I think we got 20 this past goaround, which was a significant decrease, and that's 20 that wanted to work part-time. A lot of the folks who applied for it wanted full-time work at time one and a half times the pay we we had. So they were looking for something just different than what we were offering in that role. Um but we were still seeing a

significantly smaller number than we normally do and you just sort of it's hard to say exactly. Gotcha. Thank you. Sure. Thank you, Scott. One quick more quick question for me. Um does the clock start the day that the person puts in the twoe notice or the day of the termination? The clock for for putting in the wreck. Oh. Um the requisition happens when the person actually leaves. Okay. Um because they can change their mind during between the notice and the other one. Um we usually start talking with the departments though as soon as we get their notice and begin to sort of try to explore. So what are you thinking? What sort of options are we doing? That kind of stuff. We try to get a jump on that as quickly as possible.

Thank you Scott. Okay. At this time I'd like to open up for public comment for anybody on item number seven. Anybody in the room? I think everybody in the room is employed. Anybody online? I have no no hands raised online. Okay. I'll return to the council for um further discussion and or a motion. I think it's file. Correct. Oh, it is a receiving file. Okay. Yeah. Then we will receive it and file it. Thank you, Scott. Perfect. Uh now we'll move on to the management and staff oral reports. Mr. Holly.

Uh, yes. We have our, uh, assistant public works director, Norm Woods, and an entire crew of employees to give an update on our utility system. Happy employees.

Good evening. Norman Woods, assistant public works director. Um, uh, Mayor Washington, city council, uh, staff and residents. I'm always uh humbled to be up here and then I'm always thinking about when I think about my team and the team that I come from, the executive staff of like if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with your team. And that's typically why I like to bring these guys. I'm so honored to work with them. Uh I walked into the room and they were already there. And I couldn't have been more blessed to walk in and the managers you have right here, they care. It matters to them and the work really matters to them, their staff, everything. And I like to give them their flowers publicly always because it really really matters as well as my executive team. Thank you guys for all you teach me. Got a couple of workers in the back that I got to recognize. The wastewater collection supervisor, Chris Morris, who's still here in our facility, maintenance mechanic over at the water facility, Mark Wrinkle in the back. Thank you guys for being here. I didn't deliver on the pizza tonight. I fumbled the bag somehow. So, I'm either on the hook for some burritos or some gift cards or some pizza. I will square that though as you guys

take advantage of the samosas too. Yeah, I was going to say take credit for the holy festival man. Could have claimed that for yourself. Wait, that stated it. I'm waiting for our presentation to come up. Oh, kind of

the top there. All right. I kept clicking the one that said presentation on it.

All right. Uh, as I stated, my name Norman uh Woods, assistant public works director. This is a public works department water wastewater environmental services distribution and collections update. with me. I have a manager uh Don Patrick of the water systems manager. Pam uh Phillips uh the environmental services manager and uh Nolan Garcia our recently promoted interim uh wastewater manager here giving a presentation. Um I could give the presentations for them if they put them in there but them doing the work. So I really like them to come up here so you see the work and the quality that they're putting in here as well as they're all excellent presenters too. So I don't think I could do any justice to it that they don't already do. So, with that uh with that said, uh Dom, you're up.

Good evening, Mayor and Council and members of the public. Uh my name is Dominic Patrick, water systems manager for the city of American Canyon. We're going to start off with water division. We have two teams, our water distribution team and our water treatment team. Uh we responded to 1,649 service calls. Uh we also repaired um four water manes and we also uh repaired 22 service connections. These are the uh connections from the water man uh to the water meter. Um for the water treatment plant, we made enhancements to our safety and security. Um our emergency response plan and evacuation plan was updated. You can see here in our image and the larger image. Um to the right of that we also have our uh enhanced and improved uh security surveillance system that monitors the water treatment plant 24 hours a day. And uh I also wanted to uh share that we updated our safety data sheets online uh program which was uh helped uh by support and guidance of the environmental division. Uh the SDS is very important to the water treatment plant because of all the chemical uh handling and storage. For the water treatment plant maintenance, um our team is led by Greg Day who is our uh water plant mechanic at the water treatment plant. He also gets support from Mark Wrinkle who is at the WRF as the plant mechanic and the water treatment plant operators and Brian Anderson also help support a lot of Greg's u preventive maintenance and projects. For example, uh he repaired uh nine chemical and water leaks at the water treatment plant. uh four pumps

replaced at the conventional water treatment plant, one uh replacement for the membrane plant and then also uh Greg and Mark tackled um a project at the backwash um check valves which uh saved operations budget roughly 10,000 by performing this work in house versus a contractor. Uh for treatment reliability uh projects uh we had an electrical load analysis. Um we have an an annual electrical cleaning and inspection as well. So this is where we hire certified electricians to go through the electrical enclosures. Uh they inspect and clean uh the enclosures and also make any repairs. um our water quality instruments were uh were calibrated and um one of the our biggest projects this year is going to be the water treatment plant SCADA upgrade. Uh I have a lot of team buyin. We have uh folks anywhere from taking on roles such as designing screens um programming alarms and uh just overall enhancing the system and the monitoring and control that our operators have. Uh we also uh implemented automation to our water treatment plant tank uh allowing for optimization to fill and draw the tanks which give uh fresher drinking water to our consumers. Additionally, we uh automated our conventional plant uh sludge dewatering process. Um, as a part of our electrical improvements, we also added roughly 200 uh feet of conduit, which is a roughly

uh roughly $40,000 saved by doing that inhouse by the plant mechanics. Also, uh we added two pre-treatment chemical pumps to the conventional treatment plant. Furthermore on that um we use those pre-treatment chemical pumps uh to help um help enhance our coagulation and get rid of the suspended solids. Uh we also found that we have a an enhanced coagulant option. These two uh coagulants are our ProPac 9890 and 9800. Uh it's uh locally manufactured. It's uh it removes suspended solids as good if not better than uh any other coagulants that we've tried. Uh we have an im we have an image. I'm a slide. We have an image here of our jar testing which is several jars. We do different chemical doses with different chemicals and we found that the 9890 and the 9800 were uh our our most um effective uh coagulant to use. uh utilizing this uh enhanced coagulant and pre-treatment process, we've reduced other chemical uh consumption and um with the chemical pumps and this coagulant, we are able to readily use this in quick response when water quality conditions change from our source water. So in a storm event, the pumps are readily readily available. uh the chemicals readily available and can um mitigate anything uh that's too high for our uh our most popular coagulant which is our alum which is low in acid and our propac 9890 and 9800 is neutral and doesn't uh decrease our pH which in uh return um

reduces our sodium hydroxide uh when the water uh has high um organics uh or high in suspended solids. In the past, we've had to uh turn to imported water. In December of 2024, we imported more water because we hit the wall and we were limited on our resources. Well, we've enhanced those resources and in December 2025, we have not imported any water because of water quality. And that goes to be said for January and February of this year as well. Uh we did a cost analysis with uh more than one chemical. Um the one I'd like to point out here is that the ProRac 98.90 um is roughly $658 per acre foot of water treated. Uh which is significantly um smaller than the amount of money that costs to import water. uh we produced uh 2,207 acre feet of portable water. Because of multiple wet years, we're uh we had the liberty to transfer over a thousand acre feet of water. Um in an earlier slide, our water distribution team was using a backho to remove solids from the water treatment plant. This is this is a continuous process. Um this last year removed over 400 tons, which is equivalent to roughly $1.2 $2 million for a contractor to haul off. And uh I want to tip my hat to the water distribution team for helping the water treatment plant um get those solids out. Um we also implemented the CMS system along with the other divisions in the department. Um uh we also even presented um a PowerPoint presentation led by Greg Day, our plant mechanic, um who has uh

extended experience in asset management and programming. Um the 2025 uh water quality report and the 2025 urban water management plan uh are both in progress and you'll see both of those by this summer. Um academic and uh promotions. We had Frank uh Teodoro who uh received his water distribution grade one certification and he was a service worker that has now been promoted to a maintenance worker one. Uh Daniel Finnegan um received his water treatment grade three certification. He was PL uh he was promoted to plant uh operator two. Greg Day received his mechanical technician certificate grade one. He passed his water chipment grade two certificate and his water distribution grade two um and was promoted as a full-time employee as the plant mechanic one. Nicholas Raldis received his water treatment grade three and uh his water distribution grade two certification. And now I'll turn to our waste uh wastewater manager. Uh Nolan Garcia.

Good job. Good job, Dominic. Thank you, Dominic. Good evening, Mayor Washington Council members, my colleagues, and citizens left in the room. Hope everyone's doing well. As uh Dominic and Norm said, my name is Nolan Garcia. I'm the interim wastewater system

and I'm going to give you guys a look at 2025 in a glance here and what we got coming up here. So, uh at the WRF, we had a another good year. No violations, which is always great. We brought in a total of 62 million gallons coming down from both of our domestic and industrial lines. Uh 58 of that we sent back out to the Napa River. We made 152.5 million gallons of recycled water which is up from the year before which we expect with the growth growth in the city. Um to a few of the projects that we started on uh we replaced two trains uh worth of membranes which is great. We're going to continue on that. Um we did start land preparation for the future high strength waste facility and our skater replacement uh project like the water plant we started ours end of 25 and it's going along really well. All right in 2026 what we have projected um we're going to continue obviously the membrane replacements. We have two trains left hoping to get those completed late August. Um SCADA upgrades. So we are actually installed and testing. We're running them side by side right now and everything's looking really good. um the company Telstar that was out doing they were out there actually today training the operators. So um that's going along really well. Um our bioolids removal project is slated to start April 15th. Um that was approved late last year and we ran out of time with the land application that's needed for that. So we pushed it to April and that's going to get done here this spring. Um we are also looking at doing a recycled water tank rehab. Now this is for the tank that was purchased on site in 2015. We purchased a used bolted steel tank. Um, and it's 10 years of us using it now prior to its use where it was before. So, we're looking at doing the rehab. And then, of course, our high strength waste facility planning. I'm still moving forward with that. I'm looking forward to that one. At the reclamation facility, we also have the collections team. We had uh two new collections team members come on this year. Kelly Lockheart and Manny

Ramirez. rounded out the total group to four workers and our supervisor Chris. Um, and I'm happy to say that they won the CWA Redwood Empire Small Collections Team of the Year for 2025. Good job, you guys.

Their 2025 was also very busy. Um, I'll just highlight some stuff here. They cleaned over 100,000 feet of sewer mains. Um they did CCTV inspections, Vintage Ranch, Napa Junction, Donaldelsson, the Rancho Demar areas. Um repaired three L uh three laterals, Jazella, Nightsbridge, and Landana. And they uh completed the a new SSMP, the sanitary sewer management plan, which was written and adopted. 2026, we're looking at the uh installation of a spill simulator at the WRF. This is a good one here. Chris actually brought this to me last year. Um and we we started talking about it. And what this is, it's not only just for in-house training for um our collections team, but uh on call staff when they come up to a manhole with water coming out of it, something that they can go, okay, they can recognize and learn, hey, this is this many gallons. And it really helps for the reporting. Um, but it also gives us the uh the opportunity to invite other municipalities and districts to come train at our facility. So, I think it's a another hat tip there to Chris. Great job. We're looking at installing two more smart covers. Those uh in environmentally sensitive areas. So, what those are is the manhole covers. It's actually a sensor on there that lets you know we got a backup. Water's coming up. And the ones that we have installed now have already saved a little over half a dozen sewer spills this year or last year for 2025. So, a great investment and a good job on those. And then we're also going to be doing some manhole codings and rehab. Um, very important. Uh, all of a lot of manholes, I guess I should say, leak a little bit of INI. And there's a good coding system that we have in place that we're going to have in place to help us reduce ini. And with that, I'll hand it over to Pam Phillips, our envir environmental services manager.

Thank you, Norman.

Good morning. Oh, sorry. Uh, good evening, mayor, council members. We do present nicely. Um, as a team. Um, so yeah, I'm in charge of the environmental services division. Um, we do a lot of programs. I'm not reporting on all of them tonight. Just some highlights from, um, what we have been doing. Um, as Nolan mentioned, uh, we had no violations at the WRF this year, which was, you know, for,900 compliance samples taken and nothing came back, um, out of compliance. Is, uh, hats off to the operators at the plant who can control our plant and make sure that all the water going out is, um, in compliance. Our permit is up next uh, in August in 2027. However, we have started the renewal process. Um and what we have started is what they call the uh toxicity species screening. So what we have to do quarterly is send water samples away and then they get tested on invertebrates, fish and uh plants and that test will come up with the least the most sensitive species um that our effluent can be tested on on a regular basis. Um, so we're hoping they they're looking for things to basically die to so that we can test our water on and making sure that our water won't kill those things.

It's probably the easiest way.

Um, we so we're doing that each quarter for the rest of the year. Um, and then like I said, we'll also be doing our renewal process for our permit um, in the upcoming months. We also implemented the SDS um online system like uh Dominic had mentioned our safety data system or safety data sheets. Um every facility in the cities are required to keep their SDS's. Um the plan itself had three binders of SDS's. So uh we were able to get an online program. It goes online. Everybody can just look at the QR or you know scan the QR code, get their SDS. It automatically uploads um or updates all the ones. SCS's are constantly getting updated. So, this updates it without us having to go in and print out the SCS and then put it in a binder. So, that was a that was a really good thing for us. Um, we're also in the middle of implementing a data manage. We have a data management system. We're uploading or we're um updating it to be cloud-based. So that way the operators can take their paths out into the plant and collect data from from out on the plan instead of writing it down on a spreadsheet, coming back and inputting it into um our system. Uh as you can see, the pre-treatment staff was super busy with inspections and NOVs and warning letters and um same with the recycled water staff. she went out and actually were able to um inspect all of our recycled water users this year. Solid waste was really busy as well. As if you remember, we use our Zavo program. Our Zavo program is a um is a software program that the inspectors can use on their phones. They can lift a lid and then they will put their phone over the lid and it just pulls out all the contaminants. It it brings out the contaminants. So, what this graph is showing is the three of the most contaminants per container type. So in the landfill we have paper towels, food and cardboard. Those are all either recyclable or bio or compostable. The

compost um had plastic liner bags, loose plastic film, latex gloves. And then the recycling had loose plastic film, compostable plates, and snack wrappers. Um this actually helps us look to see what we need outreach for in these different categories. We are um so we're trying to figure out, like I said, which which is the most thing people need help on. our annual report from rcology. Uh so uh single family dwellings has a diversion rate of 44% commercial has 20%. CND is 56 for 56% for a total of 42%. Um this is under our 50% diversion rate. So we are actually collaborating with recology to see how we can um educate people more or better um to get that diversion rate up. Uh, finally with the solid waste, we had a cow recycled beverage container recycling grant that we actually completed. Uh, we purchased and installed 19 of these concrete beverage container recycling bins that you might see throughout the city. We purchased and installed 13 outdoor water refill stations. Um, again, these are out a lot of the parks throughout the city if you see them. We purchased the hydration station. Hopefully, you got to see some of that out in the wild this past year at the Wala Hills. the magic of the season and the reindeer run. Um, we have saved over 600 plastic bottles being used to date. And actually, we're going to be going out this month. We're going to be helping ACCPF at their watershed explorers. We're going to have this out on the trail so that the kids have access to uh drinking water. Uh, finally, we actually purchased and installed the recycled water refill station. Um, it's a card reader, so it's set up and we're testing it. We have to make up accounts. We have to see how that's going to get build um and how the permitting will work. We're actually working on um a revised residential

application as well for that. Finally, our outreach and collaboration for 2025. Um we were at meet in the streets. We were at the watershed explorers with ACCPF. We were at the Donaldson Way government day that was held here at city hall. Um, this was a really cool event for us because we got to we got a new little small microscope that we actually plugged into a um, computer monitor. We brought over some of the bugs that we have at the plant and we were able to put the bugs in the in the um, on the microscope on a big screen and let all the kids see it. It's kind of bringing a little bit of the plant out into the public and kind of showcasing that. So, it was it was really a fun kind of presentation that day. We had compost classes with the community gardens. Um me and my colleague Melissa Guian um we actually presented at the C.WEA pre-treatment pollution prevention and stormwater annual conference on some fog software that we're actually starting to use. So that was fun because it was the first time I presented at a conference the first time her she presented a conference. So um it was a lot of fun. We learned a lot. In the month of March the WRF is hosting a CWA tour dinner and meeting. So three sections. the Sacramento section, the San Francisco section, and our regional section. We'll be touring the plant. Um, and then we'll be going over to Lstrada for dinner, and then Nolan and I will be doing a presentation to that group as well. Um, we are also participating in the Napa County Office of Education 8th grade career expo in March. Um, so with that, that is all I have. If you have questions for us,

thank you, Pam. Um, any questions from council? Very. Yeah, I I have a bunch of pseudo technical questions. Um, first of all, and they're not all yours, Pam. They they I've accumulated. Uh, I was going to be snarky and say, "What was your name again? I don't remember, but that's that would that's just inappropriate." Um, so the first question was on recycled water. Um, how are we doing on extending it out to Tower Road and scooping in the conduit, you know, the cement plant and all those guys that?

Yes. Um, so we have made it out to Tower Road, but I think uh a better update would come from our engineering division. Okay. All right. it. Yeah. I I just my recollection is there's there's a fair amount of well the conduit place could use a lot of recycled water on a ongoing basis. So it just seemed like it's a good customer. But so that's why I'm I'm picky about that.

Great question. Eric Almonds, public works director. As far as the connections, all we need is the service connections for those sites. So the priorities would have to be on our capital pro program and delivery. We'd have to probably move things around or maybe sustainability coordinator help us deliver the connections to those businesses because right now we're a little at a stretch. Okay. But um but that is always in the works. That's that's on our plate to do but um we haven't got there yet. Okay. Um and then another one I'm wondering on the bioolids is is there any application or can it be integrated with our composting efforts? Does it have any redeeming value for waste water?

Either well either one so waste so waste water makes more water would not be applied. Yeah. Uh but um I'll let Pan speak for WRF. Oh, so uh with the wastewater the bioolids we have they can get to class B, but you would need land application. We don't have land to apply them. So that's why the third party needs to come out because they have a bunch of land that they can apply to. Okay. Um and then I was curious, uh inflow infiltration years ago that was a serious issue. Is it still bad or is it getting better now that we're replacing lines and things like that?

It uh it is getting better. Uh we're seeing it we we're we're still seeing an increase. Um not I know a few years ago like 2022 I think was a very bad year for us. Um it was also the the amount of rain that we had but um over the last I think year and a half we we've started seeing a little bit of a decline. So the projects that are going forward are helping. Yeah, hopefully that's to me it's the return on the investment of replacing a lot of old pipes and things. And then

and I think to speak for water, we've seen a reduction and it's some of it is drought response and the conservation efforts that we continue to do, but I think a lot of it goes to the CIP projects that we've done repairing and replacing those water pipelines. So I think you could really see the difference in water reduction. Okay, great. And then the last one, Hugh Marquez isn't here. So on his beef half, uh, when the refill station is up and running, where is it going to be physically located so it'll be easily accessible by the public? That might be one for the city manager.

The new ecology center will also be the site of the recycle station. the site that's south of the recology center which is the still the city's be future parking lot overflow parking kayak launches etc that's being designed that's our next project come back to council but the recycle the recycled um water line will be moved over there once we knock down the um we already have that budgeted in our CIP but the site of the station will be at the edge of the parking lot which is if you seen remember the plans I know it's hard to be visual I'm a visual person there'll be like a turnaround parking lot where we'll come sweep sweep through the trailer and you can tie into it. Okay.

Um right now it's if you can visualize it now, if you're familiar with the corpyards, it certainly is. It's the old material bin area. It's going to be slightly in that area. Okay, great. Thank you. Uh any other questions? Seeing none, thank you Erica, Pam, Norman, Nolan, Dominique. Thank you all. We have one other update. Mayor Deputy City Manager Kea has an update for you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mayor. I will try to be quick. Um,

all of you should have all received the state of the city annual report in your mail. Um, and then last week we debuted the state of the city video. Um, if you have not done so already, I am encouraging the community to take a look at the report and our video. It is um out available in the community. Um, you can visit our website. You can watch the video. You can read the report, the electronic version. You can pick up a copy at city hall. We have plenty available um to have multiple copies at your home if you would like to distribute to your friends. It's beautiful. Beth is in there. If you want to see, she's on page Beth. Do you remember what page you're on?

22. If you would like her to sign page 22, she's right there. That's Beth's page. Um, but please uh take a look at it. It's um it's all of our accomplishments that we've done together as a community for American Canyon. Um and the best is yet to come for 2027. Um this weekend we uh have quite a lot going on here in American Canyon. We have opening day ceremonies for both the American Canyon Little League. They will be doing their opening day ceremony on Saturday at 12:00 at the Little League complex. And then on Sunday, Jack Jun Junction Valley Pony Baseball will be doing their um opening day ceremony at Shannondoa Park at 11:00 a.m. And then starting on March 16th, we are going to be doing hydrant flushing. So if you have not seen that, go out. It was in the city manager update on Friday. Um we did our first notification on social media this week. Um but we are starting with zone one on the 16th. We have a total of six zones and um all six zones will take about five to seven days. Um the full map is on our website at americanyon.gov/hydrant flushing. Um and it will the full zones will be completed on April 23rd. Um again, if you're experiencing discolored water, just turn on your tap outside for a couple minutes, go inside, turn your tap on for a couple minutes. If you're still experiencing trouble, um please contact us. we will come out and we will help you um um fix that issue. Um but again, you can um visit our website. We have all of our information out there, including the zones. Um we're here to be um able to uh assist you during that process, but this is our annual maintenance that we do every single year.

On March 28th, we have our bunny brunch. That's going to be at the Mologogic Center from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. And then don't forget our um annual community recognition dinner is going to be on April 25th at the Double Tree Hotel at 5:00. Tickets are still on sale if you are planning on attending. And then lastly, if you've noticed some construction on Melvin Road, that is okay. Um that we are going to be installing a crosswalk and speed table. Um and that will be completed here shortly. Thank you.

Thank you, Ally. Uh, anything else, Mr. Holly? No. Uh, then we'll go into our, uh, mayor and council comments and committee reports, starting with you, Vice Mayor Mark Joseph. Uh, well, I did submit a report, so that's got plenty of interesting stuff in there. But I do want to highlight not the crab feed since Beth covered that, but on March 21st at RD Winery from 1 to 6, the uh art foundation and the uh American Canyon High School uh is putting on their art music festival. It's free to the public and we encourage you to be there. We have over 50 entries of art, photography, ceramics, uh paintings, and so forth. There'll be music as well. So, that's the exciting news.

Thank you, sir. Uh, Council Member David Orl, I submitted a report. I have nothing else to add. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Council member Lamatina, I will be submitting the report. Oops. Okay. Council member Cruz. Uh, nothing to add. Thank you. Thank you. And I also have nothing to add. Uh we'll be moving on to our future agenda items and any items for the future. Vice Mayor, I have one. Um first of all, I think that the town hall format that we did last week was very good.

Uh I think the Canyon Oaks version worked better than the activity center version. But be that as it may, I I think it was a great way to get the kind of informal two-way dialogue that I think is so critical. And I would like to throw out for the council's consideration the idea that uh at our retreat we identified four key priorities for the year. And I'd like to get people thinking about how can we apply that town hall format to address some or all of those four priorities. and in particular um the east side circulation priority to see if if maybe having a town hall to kick around all the alternatives and pros and cons and how could it work and that kind of thing it it might be very useful and educational for the public and as a council and staff we might get some good insights as well. So I am throwing that out as a food forthought suggestion.

Okay, that's it. Thank you sir. Any other future um items for the agendas? Seeing none, uh then we have concluded our business for this evening. We are adjourned. Good night, American Canyon.