City Council/Public Finance and Economic Development Authority/Parking Authority - Regular Meeting

I'll call a closed session to order.

Okay, agenda item A, closed session roll call. Councilmember Dupont.

Present.

Tao.

Present.

Harris.

Present.

Smith. Zhang. Mayor Pro Tem Boyle. Here. And Mayor Serrato.

Here.

Okay, council will go into closed session to discuss item B1. And just for the record, we have no registered speakers for this item.

Starting in 30 seconds, 30 seconds.

All right, good evening, everyone. I wanna welcome everybody to the July 6th, 2026 meeting of the Merced City Council. We're gonna begin with an invocation from Pastor Joel Dorman, Summit Church in Merced. And after that, Pastor Dorman, if you could be so kind to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, sir.

Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for this beautiful day that you have made. We thank you for the reprieve from the heat that we've had the past few days. And yes, we are still grateful even though the heat is coming, for we are grateful in all circumstances, if for no other reason, the fact that summer doesn't last forever. We thank you, Lord, also that you have provided this form of government that we have to be engaged with. We thank you for the 250 years that you have blessed our nation with. We think that even though we may disagree, we still have the freedom to disagree.

And we can even express that forcefully. We thank you for that.

We also pray your blessings on those who keep us safe. Police, fire, rescue, our military. May you bless them, bless their families as they serve our communities, as they serve our nation. And we thank you for our city council. We thank you for the city employees and those people that work so hard to make our city a better place. And may we all as citizens reflect the name of our city. May we be people of mercy in the city of mercy. In the name of Jesus, my savior, I pray. Amen. Would you pledge allegiance with me? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

All right, thank you, Pastor Dorman. Shannon.

Okay, agenda item D, roll call. Council Member Dupont.

Present.

Tao.

Present.

Harris.

Present.

Smith.

Present.

Zhong.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Boyle. Here. And Mayor Serrato.

Here.

Mayor, I'd like to remind the audience that if they wish to address the City Council, they may submit a request to speak in one of the following ways. Complete a green request to speak form available at the back of the Council Chamber and submit it to the Deputy City Clerk before the item is called, preferably before the meeting begins. Scan the QR code corresponding to your preferred language, English, Hmong or Spanish located behind the seats in the council chamber and follow the instructions and submit a request or submit a request to speak online by visiting publiccomment.cityofmerced.gov. And individuals participating virtually by phone must provide a valid phone number so staff can identify the caller during the meeting. Please be patient as this is a new process and there may be some disruptions or issues. Staff will do their best to ensure everyone gets an opportunity to speak. Additionally, citizens can submit public comment to the city council electronically no later than 1 p.m. on the day of the meeting. Comments received before the deadline will be sent to the city council and will be part of the record and will be mentioned as part of the written petitions and communications portion of the agenda and will be posted on the city's website. Material may be emailed to cityclerk at cityofmerced.gov and any correspondence received after 1 p.m. will be distributed to the city council and retained for the official record. Also, for those audience members who wish to have Spanish among translation services, please let our interpreters know. If you are participating virtually by phone, please indicate that as you register to speak. .

Thank you. Okay, agenda item E, report out of closed session. There is no report out of closed session.

Agenda item F, ceremonial matters. F1, certificate of recognition to Brett Parker requested by council member Shane Smith.

Thank you, council member Smith.

Will the Parker family please come down. It is my distinct pleasure to present to all of you the most recent admittee to the United States Merchant Marine Academy, Brett Parker. Brett is joined by his mom, Kim, and father, Derek. His girlfriend, Cynthia, is standing in the back. And I also want to recognize Mr. John Larson, who's a retired merchant marine himself. He's now... john now patrols the waters of lake yosemite i understand i want to say congratulations brad on behalf of the council and the city he's going to be joining the merchant marine academy majoring in marine logistics and security i understand you have an interest in joining the student-led ems corps and that ultimately you hope to become a pilot Brett was chosen, or nominated, excuse me, by our Congressman Adam Gray. I understand there was a very selective process that included vetting by community members, by military leaders, and the Congressman himself. Mr. Kartik Prasad is here, and he can come up and say a few words. I think Brett made it really easy for the selection committee, and I brought up some notes. I want to make sure I got this right. OK, so he just recently graduated from Merced High with a GPA of 4.1. He was on the varsity football and track team, the president of the Digital Wellness Club. He attended Merced College during his senior year and became a registered EMT. Brett, our city is proud of you. I'm proud of you. I wish you all the best of luck. What you just did took a lot of courage, particularly in this world we live in. And I want you to know that not just your mom and dad, this entire city is behind you. So whatever challenges, I know you got it, all right? Congratulations.

Even everybody. My name is Karthik Prasad here on behalf of Congressman Adam Gray and for once I'm not here to speak on a whole bunch of legislative stuff. I'm here to talk about Brett's achievements today because holy moly, as Councilman Smith mentioned, the Congressman utilizes a committee of community leaders to help him select who we want to send to any of the service academies. And we want to be real sure that we're sending our best and brightest. And it was a really competitive application process with a lot of incredibly talented young folk. And it was very difficult for the committee to decide. But I can tell you, holy moly, Brett, just the resume on display, the amount of stuff you've done, It speaks volumes about our community, and we couldn't think of a better person that we could send, not just to succeed and do incredible things, but to represent our community at the highest level. And, well, as the councilman suggested, Merchant Marines Academy is a very, very tough job, and we couldn't be prouder of you. So thank you so much. Nick, say a few words.

It's your big chance. Come on.

I'd just like to thank everyone for all the help I've gotten from Congressman Evan Gray's office to everyone at the schools, at Merced College, Merced High, everyone that helped me, including Mr. John Larson, just my parents, everyone that has helped me throughout this process. I'd just like to thank everyone for it. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Dr. Smith.

Congratulations, Brett and Parker family, well done.

Jennifer.

Agenda item G, written petitions and communications. Mayor, the clerk's office received an email from Strong Towns Merced regarding agenda item I-4 and emails from Latonya Rashard, Ashley Marie Suarez and Strong Towns Merced regarding agenda item J-1. The emails were received by the 1 p.m. deadline. They were sent to council and posted on the city's website. Any emails received after the 1 p.m. deadline will be sent to council. Agenda item H, public comments. Members of the public who wish to speak on any matter not listed on the agenda may speak during this portion of the meeting and will be allotted three minutes. The mayor may propose a further limit to the time available for all speakers at the discretion of the city council in order to accommodate as many speakers as possible. State law prohibits the city council from acting at this meeting on any matter raised during the public comment period. Members of the public who wish to speak on a matter that is listed on the agenda will be called upon to speak during the discussion of that item. And Mayor, we currently have looks like three in-person comments.

Okay, are there any virtual comments?

As of right now, we don't have any.

All right, so you can call the, if anybody wishes to speak, general public comment, please fill out your request to speak card now.

Okay, if I can get Vincent Hamill, Megan Aponte, and Josh Perjozo to the podium, please.

Mr. Trammell, welcome, sir.

How you doing, Mayor?

Very good, good to see you. City Council.

I'm here to propose a motion an executive transit proposal. And so I'm gonna get right on it. So to establish a formal public-private partnership between the City of Merced and the Stagecoach Private Transport Services, this coordination will fill critical localized first and last mile transit gaps for everyday commuters by integrating an independent professional operator into the city's micro transit network under an existing municipal liability umbrella. Stagecoach Private Transport Services is currently established as a fully compliant independent sole proprietorship within Merced County. The enterprise holds a verified federal... employer identification number and operates under an officially filed fictitious business name. As a localized small revenue micro enterprise, all baseline legal structures are complete, allowing for immediate onboarding as a recognized city vendor or subcontractor. to operate a designated or a dedicated localized transit service legally and safely standard commercial auto insurance is required. However, for a targeted small scale startup individual, commercial livery premiums are restrictive. Traditional ride share platforms spread these massive premium costs across thousands of drivers via a corporate master policy for a localized single operator service dedicated entirely to Merced paying these high upfront commercial premiums independently blocks the launch of a much needed community asset. Instead of facing individual commercial insurance premiums, Stagecoach proposes a subcontractor coordination agreement under the city's existing transit framework, such as MCA or the bus, micro bus network. Operational structure is a stagecoach will operate strictly as a non-medical concert level first and last mile service for general passengers. It will not complete with specialized medical transport. or compete with specialized medical transport, but we'll instead focus on concierge or connecting regular residents from neighborhoods to- Mr. Trammell, I got the three minutes are up, sir.

I apologize. Still three minutes only, so I gotta stop you. But reach out to us. Feel free to reach out to me directly, reach out to somebody else and we'll continue the conversation.

Okay, thank you, sir.

Thank you. No, thank you for being here. Thanks for speaking to us.

I guess I did write that a little long, didn't I?

No, you did good. But yeah, reach out, we'll be in touch.

Thank you.

All right, next speaker, Mr. Ponte or Mr. Pedroza.

Right, hello. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council members, city manager McBride, Chief Stanfield, Chief Wilson, and members of our Merced community. My name is Megan Aponte, and I'm honored to represent the Merced Police Canine Association here tonight to invite our entire community to participate in the inaugural Merced Paws on Patrol Fun Run. I'm asking for you to please mark your calendars for Saturday, October 17th, 2026. It'll be at 9 a.m. at Lake Yosemite. This event is much more than a fun run. It is an opportunity for our community to come together in support of our dedicated men, the women, and canine partners, the Merced Police Department, who work every day to keep our neighborhoods safe. Our police K-9 teams perform extraordinary work. They help locate missing children, vulnerable adults, they track dangerous suspects, detect narcotics, recover critical evidence, and protect officers in high-risk situations. They are true public servants, both the handlers and their four-legged partners. The Paws on Patrol Fun Run has five important goals. First, it supports the Merced Police Department K-9 unit and the outstanding work they do on behalf of our community. Second, it builds positive relationships between law enforcement and the people they serve. Events like this allow families to meet our officers outside of emergency situations. They strengthen trust, respect, and community partnerships. Third, it promotes health, fitness, and family fun. Whether you choose to run, walk, jog, or simply just cheer from the sidelines, everyone is welcome. Please bring your children, invite your friends, and if you have a dog who enjoys morning walks, please bring them along too. Fourth, every registration, sponsorship and donation provides funding for canine training, specialized equipment, veterinary care after retirement, and the ongoing support these remarkable teams require throughout their careers. Finally, this event honors the dedication, sacrifice and commitment of both the handlers and their canine partners who serve with unwavering loyalty and courage every single day. I also wanna thank the City of Merced, our community partners, sponsors, volunteers, local businesses and community organizations whose support is making this event possible. I respectfully ask each member of the City Council to help us spread the word by sharing this event with your neighborhoods, community groups, social media. Together we can make this an annual tradition that reflects the very best of Merced. October 17, let's come together, celebrate, strengthen community, support public service, or correction, public safety, and have a wonderful morning at beautiful Lake Yosemite. I would also like to invite and see you guys October, or correction, August 4th at the National Night Out. Thank you for your time, your leadership, and your continued commitment to the city of Merced.

This is great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Megan, if you could email it to us or get it to us somehow, we can share it. Supervisor Pedroza.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council, city manager, city attorney, and staff. I just wanted to quickly update and remind people that we have a meeting tomorrow at 10 a.m. at the county chambers, 2222 M Street. We also did just recently pass our budget. It was a $1.2 billion budget, which focused a lot on public safety and the direction that we're headed I also wanted to thank the mayor and the Merced Sunrise Rotary for the flags put up around the city. I think that they did a great job of highlighting the patriotic efforts of the 250th anniversary of our country. And I also wanted to take the time to thank the city for their continued efforts on making Merced's downtown the best downtown in the Valley, really. My son does a lot of shows downtown, and I think that I've spent a lot of time downtown because of that. And I think that it's what you guys have done has really benefited. And I think it's only continuing to grow. Also, because I've been asked multiple times, I cannot reveal it. but we do have a name for the bear, but it will be mentioned tomorrow at our meeting. So because the rest of the board doesn't know yet, I can't release it today, but I will let everybody know tomorrow. But it was a- You can. I can, but I'll get in trouble. And it was a very good meeting. It lasted a little bit longer than I thought it would, but we were able to get the name hammered out and I think everybody will be happy with it. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me at 209-385-7663 or josh.padroza at countyofmerced.com. Thank you guys.

Thank you, Supervisor. Appreciate it. The election, we're trying to make the bear look presidential for the fourth too. Didn't take much. Mr. Larson.

Good evening, Chamber. It's great to be here. I just want to bring up the occurrences in the Pacific Ocean. There's a super typhoon that's going across Guam, Rota, Tinian, and Saipan. 180 miles an hour winds. We want to have thoughts and prayers for those people out there. It's really, really tough weather. 180 mile an hour wind, holy moly. All right, thoughts and prayers for them. And Brett, going to the United States Marine Academy is a lifelong career. I did 40 years. I went through Cal Maritime. Managed to get through there. Brett will do well. Thank you very much.

Jennifer, anyone else either online or in person?

Mayor, we no longer have any registered speakers.

On a consent.

Okay. Agenda item I, consent calendar.

Any members of the council wish to have any of the consent items pulled for separate consideration?

Mr. Mayor, with regard to item I-17, one of the approximately 50 contracts in that item involves a client of my firm. I will do whatever the city attorney prefers, either recuse myself from the whole item or just for consideration of that one contract.

Okay. think uh counselor dupont you have some potential uh conflicts as that item as well sir yes mayor on i-17 i'll pull that as well i have three um of the sub parts that i need to recuse myself as okay and counselor smith you indicated uh earlier that it's uh sub item l the central valley trucking park that is correct sir okay and customer dupont which ones do you have uh L-A-Q-N-B-N. Okay. B-N? B-N. Got it. Okay. All right. We'll, okay. All right. So we'll pull 17. And there's an email with regards to four, so we can, I'll pull four. Anybody else? Councilman John, is he reaching for the? Yes, I have four, five, and six. Say it again. Four, five, and six. Four, five, and six. Got it. Four, five, and six. Okay. Anyone else? All right, Jennifer, anything from the public?

We don't have anything for consent.

Okay. So we'll pull four, five, six, and 17. Discussion or motion with respect to the balance?

Motion. Second.

Boyle, I think you got us. Okay. Unless you want to concede.

I'll second it.

Harris-Boyle.

Okay, I have a motion by Council Member Harris and a second by Mayor Pro Tem Boyle. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. Okay, and the motion passes unanimously.

All right, I-4, this was, there's an email from, I believe, Strong Towns on this, and Council Member Zhang, also your request to pull it. Council Member Zhang.

Yeah, I just have a few questions on this one as well. Notice that the committee, oh, these minutes were for last year's standard practice for, or I guess have the bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee met this past year.

All right, Sam, welcome. You best suited to take these questions. And for the public certification, these are the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee meetings of February 25th, 2025, August 26th of 2025, and October 28th of 2005. On for information only, the minutes.

So the outstanding minutes that we currently have for BPAC would be for April of 2026 and June of 2026. The June of 2026, the reason why they haven't received them yet is because they'll be presented in August. The February 2026 minutes, there was no meeting. So that's why they weren't presented at the last meeting.

Okay, and then just relative to the February 2025, meeting is it typically a year over a year before minutes are finalized?

So those were finalized. That's what I'm saying. The only outstanding minutes we have were for 2026.

Okay, I guess I misunderstood how this item is listed here. I thought we were approving them here as final. And then a different note with regards to just the times in which these meetings occur, I noticed that quite a few of the committee commission meetings are between three to five. Is there, and it might come up later when we're talking about the appointments, are there a reason why we don't push it beyond 5 p.m.?

So that is an ordinance directive that we have them between four and five during business hours. That's per the ordinance chapter 2.52. Okay, awesome.

I think that's all I have for now. Additional questions from the council? Councilor Smith.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Shea. Just point of clarification. The minutes for the, excuse me, the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Commission, those are approved by the commission, right?

Those are right, yes.

Yeah. They're information only for us because we weren't at the meeting. So we're not in a position to make corrections.

Right, they're just being forward for you.

Yeah, okay. Just wanna make sure, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ruscha. Jennifer, anything from the public on this?

We don't have anything for this item, Mayor.

Okay, nothing further from council. Turner City Attorney, do we need a motion or do you, because it's information only, would you like a motion to receive or?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, I think a motion to just receive and file the information.

It would be helpful to have the notation that they were received. Is there a motion to that effect? So moved. Second. Council Member DuPont and Smith.

We have a motion by Council Member DuPont and a second by Council Member Smith. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. And the motion passes unanimously.

I five, bulletproof vests, Council Member John. So for both five and six, I could just take them together unless there's any other discussion, but just one separate consideration.

Okay, yeah, up to you if you just, any comments, questions? So we'll take I-5 and six together. Five is the approval of a purchase of bulletproof vests, the amount of 61,000 plus dollars. And six is a drone system. Motion to approve the slate of I-5 and I-6. Second.

Okay, I have a motion by Council Member Smith and a second by Council Member Dupont. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. Okay, and the motion passes with Council Member Zhang voting no.

Okay, on to I-17. What if... Okay, so we'll first remove items, sub items L, AQ, and BN. And will Jennifer, anything from the public on this?

We don't have anything for that one, Mayor.

Okay, we'll entertain discussion or a motion with respect to the balance. Move to approve. Second.

Okay, I have a motion by Councilmember DuPont and a second by Councilmember Smith. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. Okay, and the motion passes with Councilmember Harris abstaining.

Okay, so we'll excuse Councilmember Smith and DuPont. mayor i also have to recuse myself from item aq okay all right harris will go on we're gonna do uh we're gonna do l first bring you back in then we'll do the other then we'll do aq and then we'll bring mike back in then we'll do the end now we can Yeah, we'll bring, Councilor Harris, we'll bring Councilor Harris back in. Welcome back, sir. All right, we're taking up I-17L, which is the Central Valley Trucking. purchase of up to $100,000 of Central Valley Trucking through June 30th of 2021, offering public works to make those purchases. All right, any discussion or a motion?

Motion.

Second.

We have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Boyle and a second by Council Member Tao. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. Okay, and the motion passes with Council Member Smith and DuPont recusing themselves. Okay.

Thank you, Jennifer. We'll excuse Council Member Harris. We'll bring Council Member Smith back in and we'll take up I-17AQ. This is approving the purchase of up to $90,000 with Macaulay Motors through June 30th of 2027, allowing Public Works to make those purchases. Discussion or a motion?

Motion.

Second.

Okay, I have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Boyle and a second by Council Member Smith. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. Okay, and the motion passes with Council Member DuPont and Harris refusing themselves.

Thank you, Jennifer. We'll bring Council Member Harris back in and we'll take up. and this is approving the purchases up to $250,000 with Schettler Tire through June 30th of 2027, allowing Public Works to make those purchases. Discussion or a motion?

Motion.

Second.

Okay, I have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Boyle and a second by Councilmember Tao. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. Okay, and the motion passes with Councilmember DuPont and I think it's just Councilmember DuPont recusing himself.

Thank you, Jennifer. I think we're through. Mr. Mayor, before we leave the consent calendar, it could just be me. I'm getting to that age, but when I called for the motion on I-5 and I-6, do we allow a moment for public comment before we took our vote?

Maybe we could, I think we did, but we did at the beginning. If there's any public comment, we could redo it.

I think you asked for those before we took the vote.

You probably did. I just can't remember.

We don't have, we don't have anybody remote or registered for any consent as of right now.

Okay. All right. Then that's fine. Thank you. No, I'm definitely pass it. Forget all that stuff. All right. On to our public hearings.

Agenda item J, public hearings. J1, public hearing to approve a resolution rescinding resolution 2010-17 and updating the administrative citation schedule of fines to include repeat housing code violator program fines pursuant to section 1.10.050 of the Merced Municipal Code.

All right, thank you, Jennifer. City Attorney Cornwell.

Mr. Mayor, council, stakeholders, Craig Cornwell, city attorney, we are here to discuss repeat housing violator program fee survey to assist with the item that's on your agenda for this evening. Our office was tasked with identifying survey penalty amounts from other cities with similar rental housing inspection programs. So what we try to do is find other cities that try to identify not their basic fee, but an accelerated fee because our program deals with repeat violators. As a preliminary matter, no other city has adopted the exact model that Merced has. We are aware of other cities that have implemented proactive rental inspection programs similar to the model the city initially considered. The structure of these programs is relevant because their fee schedule typically include reinspection as well as penalties for noncompliance. We have identified Fresno, Sacramento, Berkeley, and Long Beach programs that we're gonna present for your review. The program does not independently, our program does not independently establish an inspection program, although the city has the authority under Merced Municipal Code 1.13.10. Instead, it creates a registry of property owners with multiple unresolved housing code violations. Property owners placed on the registry or repeat housing lists must provide notice of the designation to tenants while the city is responsible for posting and publishing information of the violator and violations on its website. We are proposing a fine that is incurred when you are placed on the repeat housing violator list of a thousand and a proposed daily fine until violations are cured of 500 per day. These numbers are placeholders for today's discussion. and council should feel free to discuss and propose alternate amounts. Fresno, Fresno provides for proactive inspections. Their baseline is similar to our baseline of $100 Penalty in subsequent offense is 250 per unit and late registration for their inspection program is up to a thousand per property. Sacramento has a intricate scheme, provides for proactive inspections and authorizes misdemeanor enforcement, administrative penalties, injunctive relief and property liens for unpaid fees and penalties. There is a level A violation of 5,000 to 25,000. That's if the violation, if it's reasonable to result in death. Level B violations are 2,500 to 4,999. That's for violations that are reasonable to result in serious harm. Level C, 1,000 to 2,499. That's for violations that result in harm. So it goes death, serious harm, harm. And then any violations that don't come under the top three are $100 to $99, $999. Berkeley provides for both compliant driven and random inspections. First re-inspection is 400 for outstanding violations. And then second re-inspection is 600, all other re-inspections after the second one is 800. Long Beach. Inspection fee 290 to 360. First re-inspection is $265 per unit. Non-compliant penalty is the misdemeanor up to a thousand and or six months imprisonment. And each day constitutes a separate violation. Same for the other cities. The law on this matter is that the California constitution as well as the US constitution prohibits excessive fines. The way Merced's ordinance is tailored because it's dealing with repeat violators, habitable violations, violations that deal with habitability and that they have been given multiple attempts to cure. By the time we get to this program, I'm comfortable with how we have outlined the penalties. I think it would... withstand judicial scrutiny. And I will turn it over for the discussion regarding the actual amount or we're gonna go to audience first.

Audience first. Thank you, Mr. Cuomo. We'll have questions for you, if any, and then we'll open up a public hearing and then we'll come back for discussion. Okay. All right. Any questions for our city attorney? All right, seeing none, this is a public hearing, so we'll now open public comment for this agenda item. Jennifer, anything either remote or in-person?

Mayor, we do have one participant via telephone and also one in-person.

Okay, we'll call the remote speakers first. Sure. And again, before she does, if anybody would like to speak on this item who's here, please fill out a green request to speak form and turn it in as soon as possible. Jennifer.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. Can you guys hear me?

Yes. You are our first remote speaker under the new law.

I'm Daisy Ramos Acosta and I am a Merced resident. I'm hearing in strong support of item day one and I stand alongside the tenant movement demanding real accountability for repeat housing code violators. My staff cannot continue treating unsafe housing as a paperwork issue while families aren't the ones forced to live with consequences. I speak from lived experience. My family experienced unsafe and uninhabitable housing conditions, and I witnessed firsthand what happens when enforcement is delayed, minimized, or applied differently depending on who the landlord is. In my case, the landlord was a public housing agency. If even a taxpayer-funded housing authority can avoid meaningful accountability, then our enforcement system is not protecting tenants the way it should. This resolution must be more than a fine schedule that looks good on paper. A landlord should not be able to ignore violations, delay repairs, and continue collecting rent while families are exposed to unsafe conditions. Accountability requires consequences strong enough to create a compliance. For repeat violators and serious housing code violations, I support meaningful daily fines of $1,000 after correction deadlines expire. Fines must be high enough that landlords cannot simply treat penalties as the cost of doing business. The purpose is not to punish violations after harm occurs aided to prevent tenants from being pushed into crisis displacement or homelessness. I support proactive rental inspections, transparent public tracking of repeat violators of strong enforcement, deadlines, and accountability, without exceptions, whether the landlord is a private owner, a corporation, or a public agency. Fine revenue should go back towards solutions for the people harmed by these failures. Relocation assistance, emergency housing support at independent inspections, and legal resources for generous living in unsafe conditions. Housing is not a privilege. Safe housing is a basic responsibility. No landlord should be protected while tenants are left unprotected. I urge this council to pass the resolution, strengthen its protections, and enforce them without exception. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Jennifer, any additional remote speakers?

As of right now, Mayor, we don't have anything.

Thank you. We'll call the in-person speakers.

Can I get Ashley Marie Suarez?

Good evening, Ashley.

Good evening, Council, Mayor, City Attorney, City Manager. Firstly, I did want to make a comment regarding the item, but I did want to bring to your attention something that I'm projecting here as well. On April 24, 2026, Leadership Council submitted a comment letter regarding the, um, I'm sorry, we submitted a public records, um, act request regarding any habitability records that the city of Merced may have. Um, we shortly after received a few batches, I'm sorry. Oh, We shortly after received records from late 2025 and early 2026. And from those records, my team currently looked into, there are a few findings and concerns that we wanted to share, one of which is being projected. This case here says that this item, it says that this property was red tagged because it was a garage. This was actually done, so I believe it was April of 2025, if I'm not mistaken.

Mayor, I have a clarifying question. Yes, sir. If we could, we could stop the time real quick. I have a question as to the comment that is happening currently in relation to the agendized item.

Okay.

And I need clarification if this should be a public comment or if it's okay to be commented on this item as a fee schedule.

City Attorney Cuomo.

The subject is the fee schedule. So if you can conform your comments to the fee schedule.

Yeah, it'll be tied to it. Or did you not want me to refer to this? I don't have to speak on this and I can continue on with the rest of my comment, but it would be tied to it.

Okay, if you could make the link quick.

So, because this is a red-tagged or the notes here say that it is red-tagged, I did want to highlight that the very end it does say that there is a follow-up inspection to be done. There were various inspections that took place and it is unclear if the citations or any violations were recorded, if any administrative fee was assigned. And the reason that I'm referencing this is because the comment that I'm going to be making ties to programs that residents would like to see. So aside from this, From cases opened between the third quarter of 2025 and January 2026, a lot of the common recurring violations include dampness of rooms, faulty weather protection, dilapidation, improper maintenance, and infestation of pests, including other things. There is also a handful of cases between October 2025 and January 2026 in which at least one of the violations was resolved. between 44 days and 156 days after the initial inspection, which many of these cases are still open. And lastly, from the few administrative citations that were included in the batches that were provided in the PRA request, there are a handful of cases that resulted in several hundreds of dollars to literal over $1,000 per citation. But where is this money going? If the city truly wants to make sure that landlords take the repeat housing code violators policy seriously, the city must increase the fines. $100 for the first violation, $200 for the second, and $300 for the third are insufficient. As evident by some of the cases that I actually wanted to present by projection, the city must increase these fines because they're simply insufficient. These landlords continuously get second and third violations or citations rather than addressing it with these base prices. The city must increase these fines to 100 respectively for the first, 300 for the second and $600 for the third. in addition to an $1,000 administrative citation for the designation of being a repeat housing code violator and another $1,000 daily fine until all violations are corrected. Furthermore, to ensure that the city can support further tenant protections, such as in the case of code enforcement posting notices to vacate or red tagging, as I previously showed, there must be an effort to ensure that owners provide entitled benefits to eligible tenants as required by California state law. And in the event that the owner doesn't comply, the city is allowed to advance those benefits. Therefore, it's critical that the city increases the fines to not only discourage these horrible practices, but to hold that negligent landlords accountable and make it right. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments. Jennifer, do we have any other speakers?

Mayor, there are no more speakers for this item.

I will close the speaker registration and then also close the public hearing, bring it back to council. Back to council for additional questions for our city attorney or other staff or discussion or a motion.

Councilor Jean. A question for, technically two questions for our city staff here. Could somebody remind me how much, the finest relative to an RV parking and also with regards to truck parking, I just want to make sure that they, the numbers are somewhat relative to these numbers.

RV parking. I actually got a call on that today. It was chief one 50, maybe there.

I think it's the 100, 200, 300 for the RV parking. Yeah. Okay. And the other question comes from John, it was the, uh, the fines for the, and for the trucks, the multiple axle trucks, the base levels are the city's administrative fine schedule.

Okay. For the trucks, we increased that. If we increased it to chief, do you top of your head?

I would have to look, I'd have to look them all up. I wasn't prepared to link those. So I don't know off the top of my head. Um, I know we have a new RV ordinance on the books and, and I mean, I think this supports the argument we're trying to do here. We have some outdated policies we're trying to update. So to council member John's point, uh, we need to get with the times and start looking at our older policies like city attorneys trying to do and update them. Um, you know, 20 years ago, a $50 fine probably meant a lot more than it does now. So let's look at what we're doing and let's, let's make the fines equivalent to what labor is to deal with the issue and the cost to deal with the issues and the administrative time that we spend into them. So I think whatever the fines are, you know, we just have to be reasonable as a city attorney said, we just have to set a reasonable fine that, um, doesn't spark that issue. So we get a lot more, housing issues and I do RV parking issues in my office. If, if you understand what I'm like, we don't get a lot of those, but we get a lot of what we're talking about right now.

Does it seem to your, to your point that when we increase the fines a few years back for the RV parking violations, that seemed to, yeah, it seemed to work for sure. Okay.

And then same with the commercial vehicles and residential. We, we, we very rarely get complaints on those anymore. We do, but they're rare.

Yeah, I mean, that pretty much answers my question. I was thinking one, two, 300 is pretty low. If we tie it to some of the things we've been updating, I think it makes more sense to be a bit more, to consider higher values to ensure that we actually deter folks from getting violations. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem Boyle.

Thank you, I found it. The fines and penalties start at 150 and up to 500, including being subject to towing per California vehicle code 2265K. That's all.

Thank you. Anyone else? Further discussion, question or motion? Council Member Smith. Thank you.

I have some specific comments on the, repeat housing good violator fine schedule. But I think just a question for our city attorney Cornwell. My understanding is we're only here to talk about the proposed fee schedule for the new anti slumlord ordinance, not to reopen discussion about the code enforcement or code violator fee schedule in general.

That is correct. that the information I presented is just a repeat housing code program. The resolution includes both fee schedules, but I'm trying to add repeat housing code violator fines to that resolution.

So the existing 100, 200, 300, like the U2 song, that's a carry over because that's in the existing provision that you proposed to amend. Okay, so focusing my comments, I see two areas that I'd like to have a discussion. One is the amount of the fee and the other is the standard by which the fee holiday is judged. So I think a thousand dollars, if an owner lands on the list, they get the three strikes. That seems appropriate to me, $500 a day. You know, I could see starting a little bit lower. You know, if somebody intends to comply, maybe they're now gonna get the message. Let's not drown them a thousand dollars a day. I would like to see an escalator if, If the standard of progress is not being made within 30 days, I'd like to see the daily fine go up to a thousand from the 500 at the start. That's point number one. Point number two, good faith progress, that does not seem to be a stringent enough standard for having the fee allocation abated. I'd like to see something closer to what I see all the time in commercial and residential tenancies when it's the burden on the tenant to make a repair, which is reasonably diligent efforts under the circumstances, which is a mouthful. But the under the circumstances part doesn't have the seven of us thinking we know what the fix is for every single time out of the gate. But reasonably diligent means you can't just tell the code enforcement officer that GI made a phone call trying to get parts. You have to have demonstrable progress. And I do wanna hear from the chief of the department about whether that's enforceable. But I'd like to see something more than good faith efforts without going all the way to best efforts. you know, if an owner is on this list, we're now serious and let's continue to be serious. And the standard by which the penalties are abated should reflect that. So just again, I think after 30 days, if there's no, no progress that meets the standard, the daily fines should go up to a thousand and the standard should not be good faith, but something higher, reasonably diligent efforts under the circumstances.

All right. Thanks. City attorney Cornwall. If I can get a clarification.

When a property owner goes on the list, they'll be charged $1,000 fine and they'll be given a timeframe to cure outstanding violations. Once that time expires, Currently the 500 per day kicks in. Are you requesting to replace the 500 with a thousand or 500 for a while? And then it jumps.

I'm suggesting that once the 500 per day kicks in the 30 days later, it goes up to a thousand. If they're not making the proper efforts to cure. I mean, we have to have a balance of being serious, but we want the property to be abated, not to drive revenue through fines. So I think your structure is appropriate. I would just have more of a kicker because at some point we lose patience.

Councillor DuPont. Thank you, Mayor. I would join in that request. I think given that we're, giving them time once that time is expired of when they're supposed to be making efforts, 30 days after that is really far beyond the time in which they should be curing the issue. Again, unless efforts are being made. I think I agree with the standard good faith seems somewhat ambiguous, but also very large of what that may mean. So if we could be a little bit stronger in language of understanding, but that would be the only change that I'd make.

So you're both saying 500 for the first month, and then after, say, days 0 through 30, 500, and then...

Yeah, because if you think about it, if you have 30 days to cure the issue, after that 30 days, the 500 starts is how I'm reading it. After the 30 days of when the 500 starts, you're 60 days of not curing the issue. Now, I think stronger penalties have to happen each day.

Additional thoughts, questions, comments, discussion, or emotions? Councilor Jean, you're thinking about it? Councilor DuPont. We're gonna wait, Councilor Jean has the, he's coming, but.

Councilor Jean. I could agree to 30 days after going to $1,000 per day. And that is, again, just reiterating here, 30 days to cure the violations. And then after that's $500 per day. And after that 30 days of $500 per day, which 15,000 or so, then we hit $1,000 per day.

Is that accurate? So I was using the first 30 days as an example, but it would be 500 days commence with the first day following the expiration of the owner's opportunity to cure. So if the city says you have 30 days or 60 days to cure this issue, depending on what the issue is, then after that has expired, the 500 starts. 30 days after that, that's when the 1,000 starts.

Okay, and then with regards to the violations up above, for the first violation is there a specific time frame in which the owner needs to cure that violation or is that independent of the 500 per day so i think this goes to councilmember smith's point earlier as to the scope of our discussion and decision i don't want to speak for councilmember smith

I can go to Council Member Smith if you want. Council Member Smith.

I don't mean to play code enforcement officer, but for any individual habitability defect, it's my understanding that code enforcement is gonna tell them the timeframe and what has to be fixed. The penalties kick in, cause you have to start doing something. So you land on the list, you got a thousand dollar fine. then there's a 30 day safe harbor to begin reasonably diligent efforts to fix. If they don't begin that after 30 days, they start getting hit with a $500 a day fine. 30 days after that, or 60 days after the owner lands on the list, they're getting $1,000 a day. So it's not, it's impossible for us to say that every single habitability defects, and we're talking about three of them in the same property at this point, will be fixed within a certain amount of time. That's not something that we can predict. That's we have to trust our code enforcement officers. But what we're doing is we're saying that you have to start making reasonably diligent efforts to cure and you gotta start doing it right now. And if you don't do it, you're gonna start the $500 fine 30 days later and $1,000 a day, 60 days later. I can see my colleague, Council Member Jean, he wants to say that you have to fix it within 10 days. And that's kind of what we all wanna do emotionally, but it's practically, I don't think that's enforceable. And like I said, we can't know. The water here has to be fixed as a different timeline and effort than the wall that has to be torn out to deal with the black mold or the carpet has to be changed, right? We can't know all that. We gotta trust our officers and make that judgment.

No, I wasn't thinking in that frame. I was thinking more of if the first violation happens and they're given 30 days to cure. It doesn't happen, second violation happens, they're given another 30 days.

No, you have to, the owner ends up on this, the repeat violator list, because they already have three and now all three need to be fixed immediately. Mr. Corwin.

The first three, dollar amounts, completely separate program. I'm only adding the repeat housing violator amount to the code enforcement program, administrative fine program. So there's not a first violation, second violation, third violation when you're on the repeat housing violator program. That's for the basic ongoing code enforcement work?

Yes, in the second half, we're adding. I understand that. But when we're talking about the good faith, or how much time we need to allow somebody to cure, and that's where the fine law starts kicking in. My thoughts are that these three violations beforehand, already giving the property owner time to cure. And so I'm saying we're adding more time as we do this, if that makes sense, in the overall grant scheme of things.

We're adding more time, more penalties and more money. It's $1,000 fine to be on the list. No opportunity just to be on the list is a grant. and then the other amounts higher than the initial, the regular program amounts kick in. Plus being on the list, plus letting the tenants be aware that you're a repeat violator. It's a different program.

And I understand. And that's where originally I was agreeing to 500. And then after the time to cure, it goes to $1,000. But I think I'm leaning more now that we just do straight up $1,000 per day after the time to cure the violations. And again, my thoughts is that we already given them three opportunity prior to being on the list. And then once you're on the list, I don't think we need to give them any more benefit of the doubt of fixing the violations.

I understood. I guess the counter argument, not, not saying it's the right argument or not, but, but the counter argument of that would be, you're still trying to get compliance. And if you just go straight into heavy duty fines, then you might end up, you know, you might end up driving away from the property in a way that at the end of the day doesn't benefit anybody because the owner's throws up his hand, says his or her hands and says, you know, these fines are too much. They walk away. And it, so, you know, which could happen. And then, and then everybody's out of luck in that instance. Chief, anything, either you or Captain Perez, anything from your perspective overseeing code enforcement?

Well, a couple things. You're all right. So we've already given several warnings to... These are the worst of the worst, right? These are our repeat offenders. And... Mayor, I agree with you. I believe in extending grace wherever I can extend grace, but there also comes a point where we have to enforce our laws and protect our citizens and our renters. And if a landlord is being abusive and taking advantage of our renters and they throw up their hands and say, I'm done, they want to sell the property to a responsible owner like a Robert Delano who wants to take over the property and then so be it. I'd be happy to let him go by the place and he can become a responsible renter where I don't have to go out there every other day for no hot water and black mold and all these other things. Right. So, um, we gotta remember we're dealing with the people that are repeat offenders and they're not first timers. And we've tried to do all the grace earlier and we've tried to work through repairs. And so at this point I'm prepared and my team and our team is prepared to support whatever the council wants to do for fines. I'll tell you from the police department standpoint, I don't care. I don't collect the money. It goes somewhere else in the city. It doesn't go into my wallet, but I just want the place cleaned up and I want people living in healthy conditions. So I don't know, I don't collect the money. That's Venus's department, so I never see it. But we are gonna hold the line when it comes to our landlords making our citizens live in deplorable conditions. We're not gonna tolerate it anymore. So the whole point of this is to provide something from this council where our team can go out and have some kind of penalties. And so we can enforce better living conditions and have responsible landlords here in our town. So we're, I know that's kind of a generic answer, but we're supportive of whatever you all want to do. Our team is in, we're prepared and we are ready to move forward to make rentals more desirable and hopefully stop some of this in our city. We're open to whatever this council desire is with the fines. I gotta be honest, we don't care.

All right. Thanks, sir. Mr. Cornwell, any thoughts on the proposed amendments? Your thoughts on the discussions?

As the person making the revisions, It's simpler if I just put a thousand where there's 500, we can move on. That's the only comment I can think of. I can come up with the other version. This program has several tools. We have misdemeanors, we have receivership, we have... the money is not the only tool for the city. So it's really just preference at this point. Okay.

Yeah. Adding another tool.

Whether we give them 30 days and 500, is that going to make a material motivation that a thousand is waiting on them?

Okay.

They're all good suggestions. Additional discussion, comments, or a motion? Councilor Smith and Council member Jean.

I guess just, well, we're talking about people are not getting the message. So I don't feel too badly about a thousand bucks a day, but as Mr. Cornwell said, you know, there's already an escalation in the non-monetary penalties immediately. including moral program and tenants being made aware and tenant relocation for as much as 12 months. I worry, I think the mayor raises a good point. It's hard for us to predict every single situation. I've said that during this whole discussion, I worry that, hitting a problem owner with $30,000 in penalties in the first month is going to be counter to the goals of the ordinance, which is to improve habitable conditions or living conditions. I think it's enough to step it up from, you got a thousand dollar fine. Now you're a known you're basically in the, in the stocks in the square and 30 days later, you're getting $500 a day and six days later, you're getting a thousand bucks a day. I mean, to me, that seems sufficient. That's a good balance.

Councilor Jones. I was gonna make the motion, but I think... Make a motion. Well, first off, I resonate with what... Chief Stamfield's mentioning here, these are repeat offenders that we have been working with repeatedly. We know who they are, right? And I think the fact that nothing has been done so far, and now we're going to say they're going to actually start fixing things within 30 days now. I think that's not realistic. And so that's why I... I'm in favor of upping that 500 to a thousand and ensuring that they do see that there's teeth behind this policy. And so that would be my motion to increase it to a thousand dollars. Okay.

So your motion is to approve as recommended by staff and the staff report by the city attorney, but instead of $500 a day, it'd be a thousand dollars a day. Correct. Is there a second?

Are we adding the standard language change to reasonably diligent?

Yes, I agree with that. Okay. So as recommended by staff with those two changes, $1,000 a day and reasonably diligent based on the circumstances, reasonably diligent effort based on the circumstances.

Yeah. Let me ask you a question. So I'm considering whether I should second, because I think there's a good compromise here. Are you saying the structure of the penalty is the same as proposed? Meaning there's 30 days with no fine. Then when 30 days are met, that's a thousand bucks a day instead of 500. Are you saying a thousand dollars right off the bat?

No, so my understanding with the policy is that once they're on the repeat housing co-violator list, they get 30 or however many days that's determined by code enforcement to cure the violations prior. Once that ends and then the fee starts kicking in and that's the $500 per day. And then, so I'm proposing switching that to $1,000 per day.

So you're proposing that subpart two, we're just striking the 500, making it a thousand and then changing the standard from good faith to a reasonable diligence under the circumstances?

Yes. All right, if that's your motion, I'll second. All right, a motion and a second. Is there any additional discussion?

Can I make a comment before we vote on this? I wasn't sure if this is part of the conversation to be had here or not, but are we at all open to discussing the use of this funding or where it goes, or is that for a different meeting?

I don't think we're agendized for that, but I defer to our city attorney shaking his head very vigorously. Okay, understood. All right, we have a motion and a second, no additional discussion. What's councilor, do you wanna just argue with yourself anymore? All right, we'll call for the question.

We have a motion by Council Member Zhang and a second by Council Member Smith. The motion will include the adoption of Resolution 2026-40, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Merced, California, rescinding Resolution 2010-17 and updating the administrative citation schedule of fines to include repeat housing code violator program fines pursuant to Section 1.10.050 of the Merced Municipal Code. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. Okay, and the motion passes unanimously.

Okay, thank you, Jennifer. All right. Thank you, Mr. City Attorney. Thank you, Council. Well done. On to our second public hearing.

Okay, agenda item J2, public hearing in consideration of Parks and Community Services fee schedule to include new rates for Bob Hart Square and Merced Open Air Theater and the addition of Ferens Park Disc Golf Course and Merced Regional Sports Complex and adoption of a resolution approving Parks and Community Service program and service fees.

Thank you, Director Jensen. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, City Council, residents of Merced, Chris Jensen, Parks and Community Services Director. I'm here to present a proposed update to our field and facility fee schedule for you. Just to lay the groundwork for why we're here, recreation facilities and programs are offered to residents and visitors as a means of increasing the quality of life in Merced. Our amenities that we do so through are paid paid for through several sources, including development, user fees for programs, and rental fees for fields and facilities. Parks and Community Services sets these fees through an analysis of market comparisons as benchmarks, cost recovery versus community access standards of practice, and long-term maintenance cost analysis. Some guiding principles that we try to follow when we do our facility updates for your consideration are to prioritize local recreational use. In our venues, we have private use, we have community use, we have competitive use and recreational use. balancing community access and revenue generation or cost recovery. Privatized competitive use typically would pay for the highest price as a result of the wear and tear on our venues. And we want to ensure that the city can cover operating costs and address long-term maintenance. A couple of facilities that were not addressed on our recently adopted field and facility schedule that you adopted this past December was Bob Hart Square. This is a relatively new facility that we've been piloting very successfully over the past several months, I'd say. And we wanted to bring back some consideration for you in regards to how to incorporate fees for this venue and the Merced outdoor open air theater at Applegate Park. The city operates two outdoor event spaces that have the capacity for overflow space for large scale events. The city invests in these spaces to ensure that routine use of other infrastructure are not overwhelmed by ongoing use of special event permitting. Historically, the open air theater at Applegate Park and most recently Bob Hart Square downtown have proven to be great community anchors for large community gatherings. The initial rates for use of Ballpark Square have been piloted over the past several months with general success overall. We did have some community meetings to gather feedback on how that process was going and in consideration of another policy to be brought back to you soon regarding special events in general. And two significant requests were brought forward by our users. One was looking at reduced rates over extended period of time. So the longer you use facilities, the cheaper it should be. And the addition of canal as an overflow event space for downtown events in Ballpark Square. We've been piloting both of those, excuse me, not the reduced fees or the block schedule fees that we'll show in just a second, but we have used several events, canal for several events, overflow space for several events downtown with really good success. We've had Lao New Year, which you see pictured here. We've had Hmong American Day. We've also had Mercado and the supermarket most recently. So the two revisions we're looking at to accommodate these requests from the community are one, a block rate schedule for use of Bob Hart Square. What that would do is give the $150 per hour rate for hours one and two, and any event that was hosted between three to six hours, a $25 reduction of $125 per hour fee, and hours, seven hours, or excuse me, events that were seven hours or longer, a $50 reduction at $100 per hour rate. The other thing that we want for your consideration tonight is expanded event space for each city block reserved in addition to Bob Hart Square, the applicable rental fee would increase by 25% of the base rental amount. So if there was an event taking place in Bob Hart Square that was two hours, the rent would be $150 per hour. And if they wanted one block of canal, that would be an additional 25% of $150 per hour. If, for example, on the other end of the spectrum, there was a large-scale event that used the venue for seven hours, they would get the facility for $100 an hour, and if they wanted two city blocks of canal, that would equate to $350 in additional fees on top of the $700 flat fee for the square. This is, for context, about a $200 difference above what we charge now if you were using two additional blocks for a seven-hour period. So you would get for $200 for the day, two additional city blocks for your event downtown. A caveat to this or an asterisk here is that street closures would only be permitted on canal when the event footprint cannot reasonably accommodate the event in Bob Hart Square itself. We've had several discussions with council and city management, as well as our planning department, public works teams, public safety personnel as well, about the need to try to establish Bob Hart Square as a routine event space. And we've done that pretty well overall. And what we don't wanna do is have Bob Hart Square be a option and routine street closures to continue to take on, be taken on as the routine event space. and lose the opportunity we've seen in bob hart square we have had several conversations with our downtown businesses on canal as a result of these events taking up that parking on canal the one that we were most concerned with was the cigar monkey and had discussions with their ownership this weekend and they said their their sales are actually up during events on canal not down as we anticipated so we've had a really good relationship with our vendors that have utilized this pilot over the past several months although there has been some reluctance to take on the new fees our vendors have done so and we've had routine vendors come back over and over including Mercado and the supermarket So just as an example of what this would look like, Bob Hart Square is the map on your left. This includes the darker green area, which is our event plaza with the stage outlet access for music and seating. And then we have the overflow space of what we've referred to as the common area or the old original Bob Hart Square area outside of 510 Bistro and Destinos. That in and of itself would be $700 at the new $100 an hour rate for a seven hour event. If you included the Plaza, Commons and Canal closed from Main all the way to 19th Street, it would be $1,050 for the event. This is again in line with what current fees are for the $150 per hour. But with the reduced block rate schedule, it affords vendors the opportunity to move and expand their facilitation of Canal Street as well. All rentals have a two hour minimum rental commitment. Only events that use Ballpark Square can use Canal as overflow space. It can't be used in isolation of Ballpark Square. And each rental would come with an hour free setup and an hour free cleanup, no matter how many hours they reserve the facility for. Some final thoughts about this amendment to our existing fee schedule. Again, we think that this supports our downtown business access and circulation, capitalizing on the infrastructure that you've invested in downtown and parking, one-way redirection, and the building of Ballpark Square as an event space. We feel that it encourages the efficient event layout going a lateral event operation instead of closing Main Street. and going against main street traffic. It encourages additional public space being used only when necessary and recovering the increased operational impacts of closing city streets. And it limits routine use of other spaces dedicated for separate but routine uses such as streets, alleyways, or parking garages. Before we move on, Mr. Mayor, I wanted to ask if there was any feedback or thoughts at this point of the presentation in relation to Bob Hart Square. Questions for Director Jensen on Bob Hart Square. Councilor Harris.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Director Jensen. Could you go back one slide?

Yes, sir.

Clear something up for me. At the bottom right is Bob Hart Square in the common area?

Correct.

$700.

Correct.

The next one up would be canal street from main to 18th street.

Correct.

And the top one is,

18th to 19th.

Maine, is it just 18th to 19th or is it Maine all the way to 19th?

We're not closing any east to west streets. Those would stay open. So just the north to south route from Bob Hart Square Common on Main Street up Canal to 19th.

So your 1,050 here says... Both the Plaza and Commons plus Main to 18th and 18th to 19th.

Correct.

Could you go back to your fee schedule?

Yes. Oops.

Here we go.

So actually the Main to 18th plus Bob Hart Square is actually 875, isn't it?

Correct. So this here that we referenced, it also includes 18th to 19th.

Okay.

So two additional city blocks as the reference.

So there's one in between there that's just not on the sheet.

Yes, sir. I apologize for the confusion. Yeah. Bob Hart on its own in this case, the event space on the left would be your $700 area. The event space on your right is the maximum we would charge for an event that's seven hours. And that includes two additional city blocks.

Okay. My next question may not be addressable by this item, but do we have any type of requirement if the event lasts over two hours for any kind of restroom facilities to be provided?

Yes, we are looking to include that. We're making that as a request in our facility use application when we work with the vendor to plan the event and the site plan. But we are asking for that consideration as part of our special event permits as well.

And are you going to require it from the vendor or is this something we would provide in charge for?

Unfortunately, we don't have that resource right now. So we would require that they meet the application through an outside source.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Council Member Harris. Additional questions on Ballpark Square? Seeing none.

Excellent, thank you. Yeah, feel free to proceed, sir. One additional amenity that we wanted to bring to your attention is our beloved Ferens Park disc golf course. So if you live in District 5 or District 6, I believe, it's kind of the border there along Buena Vista, you know when there's tournaments being held at this facility. There is a lot of parking on Buena Vista. There is a lot of use in foot traffic in the park. And right now we don't have a fee set for the use of Ferens Park Disc Golf Course. What we're looking to do is make sure that we can acquire enough fees to help with the continued development of the facility. We've met with Merced County Disc Golf Club, which is at this point the sole organization that utilizes routine playability of the site. They do a good job of working with our public works department when there's maintenance needs or some of our community organizations such as Bear Creek Yacht Club or Merced Walks to do some routine cleanups of the area. But the area is not fully developed. has been dedicated, but we have a lot of irrigation, plantings, additional baskets, parking, restrooms hopefully down the way that would actually help substantiate this being a tournament level that's expected and desired by Merced County Disc Golf Club. The interest in the sport continues to grow. We have visitors from all over that come to Merced, specifically our fall through spring season. This is one of the most desirable disc golf courses in the Central Valley. Our eucalyptus grove and our creeks and waterways in that area make it a gem in our park system. When private organizations collect registration fees, sponsorships, merchandise sales, and other revenues while utilizing city-owned facilities, it is reasonable that a proportion of that goes to help offset the costs incurred by the city in providing and maintaining that space and also future development. What we're looking for in relation to Ferens Park Disc Golf Course is to add the course facility reservation fee schedule specifically for tournaments. These are the big venues that incorporate competitive play as mentioned earlier on our opening kind of standards of practice or guiding principles. And what we have for your consideration in regards to this venue is a one, two and three day fee schedule, one day tournament of $200, two day tournament of 350 or a three day tournament for $400. League play, which is considered weeklies is typically public and small scale. At this point, we do not see any need to charge for those uses. Mr. Mayor, any concerns or comments related to Ferens Park Disc Golf Course? Questions on Ferens Park Disc Golf Course from the council?

All right, seeing none, Mr. Jensen, please proceed, sir.

All right, Merced Regional Sports Complex or project referred to as CP42 over the past several years. This is a multimillion dollar investment that a lot of our American Rescue Plan Act funding and other resources have been dedicated to developing the past few years. It is looking to offer soccer, football, basketball, pickleball and volleyball to local and Regional Community visitors the venue will serve three primary purposes as a form of function to provide local recreational program space offer local clubs home field Advantage and game site then a game venue and to serve as a regional Market asset for big tournaments a little bit about the revenue strategy overview. We did want to make sure that community use was offered at this site during the weekdays, looking to implement free programs through parks and community services. We've been able to do that the past couple of years now through sponsorships about outside organizations that are investing in our youth sports. Local club use as a base revenue stream for season rates. So this would be soccer clubs or football programs that pay a seasonal flat fee. There's a scheduled use each week that helps us keep the facility used with the appropriate uses and revenue coming in routinely. Daily rentals providing flexible revenue for specific fields, courts, or other amenities there. And then tournaments, and these are the big primary revenue driver where we're bringing in visitors from outside area that provide a transient revenue. They don't stay here and utilize our streets and street lights and waterway sewage on a routine basis. They come, provide revenue, and leave. For regional comparisons or baseline, we looked at three areas of the Central Valley. Fresno City has passed a local recreation special tax. So this was the lowest cost. Their fields are as cheap as $30 an hour. They have the highest community program use or subsidized use, and it is paid for in general with a special tax, not private rental fees. Turlock, which was our closest comparison and who we want to be lock and step with here. They have mid-range fees that were adopted. It is heavily used by community clubs, but they do have annual tournament hosts that come and expect to stay in their hotels, eat at their restaurants over the weekend, et cetera, as a result of those tournaments. So that's the market analysis that we want to follow there. Ripon has the highest fees. It is the best kept facility, but there is almost no community use and it is highly tournament focused. So a public facility that has taken a extremely privatized use function. The proposed fee schedule that we're looking at here is in line with our revenue projections for next fiscal year, which was approximately $140,000 in revenue. What we expect with this pro forma is a fall revenue of $40,000, a spring revenue of $53,000, and a summer revenue of $53,000. Conservative estimate would be about 130 for the year. A fully optimized facility would bring in about 178,000 a year. Our field schedule fee to the right includes a reservation fee if we take the facility off the books, whether you cancel or hold your event, we need to make sure that we recuperate the cost that we eat by taking the venue off of the reservable list. Security deposit, staffing for the season, season rates, is the equivalent of $45 per hour. And this facility would be dedicated solely to games for our local sports programs, not a practice facility. We have other venues for that. We wanna maintain the quality of experience here at the Regional Sports Complex for games. Daily fee of $65 an hour. Tournament use would be $2,500 per day. Parking fees would not be allowed to be collected. For a tournament of five fields or more, eventually we plan to have six here, they would have parking fees be allowed to be collected. So as you enter the facility, the way we built this site is we have an external gate, but we don't have field gates. So some venues you approach, you might be able to access the parking lot for free, but you pay to get into the actual field that your team is playing on. In our case, we built a facility gate, but not field gates. So we would allow clubs that are hosting tournaments or tournament directors to charge parking fees for the day that they're having large scale tournaments. That's very common with these particular types of venues. A five-day rental would be $85, excuse me, two-day rental would be $85 for all five fields, and that would get you the entire facility, pickleball courts, football courts, parking, concession stand, shade structure, volleyball court, and basketball courts. We also have a field light fee of $15 per hour. This is in line with our current rate schedule for McNamara Park and the Ninnies Sports Complex. For futsal, we have a $30 an hour rate that we're hoping to adopt tonight and a season rate. I apologize that some of that got cut off in the presentation there, but for $2,400, you would get access to four days or nights a week or 96 hours a season over 12 weeks at $25 an hour. For pickleball, we have hourly court fees of $10 per hour per court or a season rate that's available for $4,600 again for 12 weeks, which would be $8 a court per hour. And then we have tournament half days, full days and two day rentals available as well. Some final thoughts on CP42 and all of our fields is that we have a very rich history of local programming. Historically, our venues have relied on in-kind services to be kept, maintained and operated. We are at a scale at this point with most of our venues where we can no longer rely on solely in-kind services, but have to adopt fees that keep us in line with our expenses so that we do not defer maintenance on a regular basis, but on occasion. We feel that this fee schedule supports that ideology and that our field maintenance staffing and long-term sustainability in this fee schedule presented allow us to maintain a quality experience with our fields and facilities. So tonight what's on the agenda is to revise the existing fee schedule with the addition of Bob Hart Square and the moat fee that includes a block rate schedule and a reduced or excuse me an additional fee for use of canal to add Ferens Park disc golf course for tournament specifically and to adopt Merced Regional Sports Complex user fees.

and I'll open it up for any more questions. Thank you, Director Jensen. Any additional questions before we open the public hearing? Council Member Jean.

Thank you, Chris. I might've missed this because I stepped out, but with regards to CP 42, I noticed that there was hourly rates on there as well. Correct. Is the facility open for community members to use without reservations?

Yes. The facility is open weeknights. Weekends are dedicated to games. We do have an operational schedule that we want to implement that would close the facility completely over winter, three-month period, to make sure all the fields are rested and can rebound for the spring season.

Okay. And then just making sure I repeat that again, because I might not remember, but weeknights is when it's open.

Weekdays and weeknights. Yes. Uh, we do have our programs, which are the community focused programs that will be available to, uh, participate in during the weeknights as well. Um, but organized recreational use would need to go through our office, but routine community access of the amenities there are first come first serve basis. weekends would be geared towards season use or reserved use. And one weekend out of the nine months that we wanna have the facility open will be dedicated to outside tournaments. Okay, and then for those weekends,

Are there, would there be instances where if there's no events, would it still be open to community members or?

That is the goal. Yes. To have staff there that can manage the facility, make sure people are using the park appropriately. They're safe when they're there. What we want to make sure that we do though is cover the operational costs that we've projected. So we're banking on the facility being used, but in lieu that it's not, dedicated to a specific purpose, we would open it up. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.

Councilor Schmidt. Thank you, director Jetson for the presentation, all the work and a lot of thought went into this. I just want to wind back to the beginning and make sure I understand. So you're proposing fee increases for downtown, the mode disc golf, CP 42 to recover your department's costs. So the operational facility, field maintenance, maybe a little bit of admin. And that's, you're thinking about those costs when we get to these proposed fees.

in addition to some of the additional maintenance costs. So what we projected was based on the city managers adopted budget, which included our sports facility maintenance or preparation costs, which is in the parks and community services department. There's also a park maintenance costs affiliated with tree pruning, replacement, things like that. Court resurfacing, basketball hoops go missing. Some of the things you guys often get phone calls about that public works ends up addressing on our behalf. Those costs were projected in the city manager budget and these should be covering those as well.

Okay. What about things like police and fire coverage for events? So from a practical perspective and then Bob art square, the city is still co-sponsoring to provide.

If police or fire were necessary, yes.

What are the circumstances in which that's necessary?

Typically, when we have a live music situation, whether it's in Bob Hart Square or a community park, we run that application through the police department. If Chief Stanfield sees any necessity to up staff his his command and his patrol as a result of that engagement, he will let us know or he will let the vendor know accommodations that they need to make or revisions that they need to do before it's approved. Like a vendor has to provide private security or something?

Mm-hmm. Okay. When we're staffing with our own officers, is there a provision to increase the fee?

To cover that additional cost? We could. I think that that for us, we're specific just to recreation facilities. Sure. My guess would be that that would be something we could take on in the special event permitting process because that would cover all city property as a result instead of, as opposed to just recreation facilities. Okay.

I appreciate that input. Thank you. Sure.

Additional questions?

Councilor Jean. Would there be a website or a calendar of events that's available to the public to view?

Yeah, good point. So there's a couple of things, and it's based on the venue. For the Merced Regional Sports Complex, last year we adopted a goal of updating a web track system where people could register for our programs or reserve facilities online. That's been, I wish I could say it's been implemented without any glitches. We've had glitches, but for the most part, it's been a really good success. and registration, our flag football, we have two divisions that just opened a week ago, it's already full. Most of about 80% of our registrations are online right now. So programming people can schedule online, event venues, depending on the scale, usually people end up coming in person. As far as promotion, if it's a city sponsored event, like our concert in the park series we've been doing in Bob Hart Square, we do take care of the promotions and try to advertise those. If it's a private reservation, whether it's a public event or a private event, we put the promotion of those on the user. typically the first few i think we really honed in on trying to promote the events um to the general public because we wanted to get people aware that bob hart square was reservable there was events going on downtown i think we actually used the kind of tagline, there's nothing to do in Merced. And then we listed all the stuff that was going on in Bob Hart Square that weekend. So we really wanted to change the perception that there wasn't things going on. But depending on what it is, we do promote it or we have a calendar where people can look or at least go online and see if it's available. Okay, awesome.

Yeah, because kind of going back to CP 42, my thoughts are, let's say a family just want to go there for the day, would they be able to find that information like on the website and just see a it's been reserved for this week, or this weekend, and they can't go there. And so it sounds like that's available online, from what I'm hearing.

Yeah, that's a really good point. I think that's a gap in what I just described. What we don't do right now is announce if something's full for private use. So that's a really good point. We'll bring that up with our vendor rec track and see if we can accommodate that.

And then kind of going back to my original question earlier. So two fields are reserved. community members are still allowed to go use the other fields. Is that correct? Yes.

Okay. Yes. As long as it's not organized recreational use. So if it's games that has to go through our office, if somebody just wants to go kick a ball around for, you know, practice with their family and things like that, that's fine. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

Anyone else? We'll open the public hearing. Jennifer, do we have any requests to speak either remote or in person?

We have no public members that are registered to speak for this item.

Elysium, this is the time now, it's a public hearing. So if anyone would like to be heard on the item of the reservation fees for ballpark square, the moat and Applegate park, Ferris park disc golf course, and a regional sports complex, AKA CP 42. Now's the time. Okay, seeing none, we'll close the public hearing and bring it back to council for discussion and action. Further discussion or a motion?

Motion.

Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Pending discussion, Council Member Jean. Just another question for Chris. Maybe I could chat with you offline, but with regards to CP 42 and the lights for the field, What's the standard hours operation?

That's a really good point. Right now, all of our parks operate kind of a dusk till dawn general rule of thumb. We do have ordinances that dedicate specific timeframes that changed with daylight savings time. But we would only use field lights when the fields are reserved. So our regular park hours would be what's implemented for this facility. Unless there's a private reservation at that point, we would use the field lights to accommodate that. All right, thank you. You're welcome.

Chris, when do you anticipate cutting a ribbon at CP 42?

Man, I'm hoping August 1st, but I don't know. We got some finishing touches we gotta work through over there. I appreciate council's persistence and patience with it and the community's interest. I know it's been a long time coming and we're extremely proud of what we're gonna open here for our region to participate in active sports and recreation. just need probably about a week or so before we can put out a formal save the date. I've seen drove by when they saw some informal community use already ongoing. Yeah, fencing is one of the things we're a little short on with the funding. So yeah, we're adding it.

You guys have done a phenomenal job. Thank you.

All right, Council Member Smith.

So I fully support this. I appreciate all the work that's been done. I think it's a huge innovation from where we were. So I'm gonna vote yes. I would encourage, Further thought though, it's great that we've got close to cost recovery for the Parks Department, but we need something that looks like cost recovery for the city. And if we're not gonna do that, then we should just all know that events downtown mean we're talking about police and fire over time or public works. But for today, I'm fully in support.

All right, thank you, sir. Four great facilities. Okay, seeing no additional comments, I'll call for the question, Jennifer.

Okay, I have a motion by Councilmember Harris and a second by Councilmember DuPont. The motion will include the adoption of Resolution 2026-39, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Merced, California, approving parks and community service program and service fees. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. Okay, the motion passes unanimously.

Thank you, Director Jensen. We'll go on to our action item,

Okay, agenda item K, action items K1, approval to submit census tract 06047001801, 06047001301, 06047001302, and 06047001603 for the Opportunity Zone 2.0 submission form to the Governor's Office of Business Development.

Thank you, Chair. Council Member Harris, she didn't quite hear that, so we asked if you could repeat those memories again. All right, Ms. Williams, what say you about census track 0201?

A lot. Good evening, Mayor and Council. The following request is approval to recommend four census tracts for state consideration in the next Opportunity Zone term, also known as Opportunity Zone 2.0. First off, the reason for the Opportunity Zone Program is to ensure investment in economically distressed areas that are determined by the federal government, meaning these zones allow for these tax incentive programs to occur and allows for deferred, reduced, and excluded capital gains in exchange for long-term investment in these areas. And as a note I have, it's not a grant source as well. These benefits also help our community by assisting in the defined economically distressed areas. It accelerates or encourages development and redevelopment or vacant areas and can help businesses to expand or increase their workforce. This slide defines the process outlined before federal designation on January 1st. Currently we are in the application step where staff has participated in GO-Biz's webinars and has discussed with other consultants and partners to ensure that the sites we have identified will be competitive as only 25% of the defined tracks will be recommended to the federal government. Our sites were evaluated based on the following criteria given by the state, and that includes the verified economic need, infrastructure readiness, shovel readiness, economic impact, and the ability for local jurisdictions to attract investment. It is also important to note that our local recommendations do not guarantee inclusion on the final tract map. So based on these requirements, these are the following sites that we are requesting approval on. First is downtown west along Bear Creek and west of M Street. It remains competitive through our historic use of public investment. Three RHNA sites established, totaling 237 residential units and over 15 shovel-ready sites identified. Downtown east, east of M Street to G Street. Same thing, there's public investment that is prominent. There is an established arena site and shovel ready opportunities. After evaluating these two available tracks, we also noted that the following downtown tracks are the most dynamic from a land use standpoint. They hold no parking requirements to developers and are home to two transit centers. Staff also noted the recent arts and culture designation, the UC Merced extension, and the established P bid as additional forms of opportunities and current investments in these tracks. In South West Merced, it remains competitive through our history of public investment on childs as well as the grant funding secured for childs and canal. There is one RHNA site totaling 43 residential units and four shovel ready sites identified. In comparison to the other southern tracks, this is the only track that has an industrial site opportunity and has experienced several hundred housing permits in the last few years. It also holds a development opportunity for a grocery site in this established food desert area. And lastly, the tract 801 in North Merced holds public investment on Bellevue Road, Lake Road and through well site number 22. This area also holds planned development for residential, commercial, open spaces and schools. This coupled with the UC Merced designation supports the narrative that this expansion will not only be beneficial to the track, but the greater Merced area. And with that, is there any questions?

Okay, thank you Ms. Williams. Any questions?

Councilor Dupont. Thank you, Amanda. Can you go back to the timeline of when we need to make determinations?

Of course.

So July 25th is when we need to put in for the application?

Is yeah, the time that local jurisdictions need to submit their form.

How many opportunity zones do we currently have within the city?

That I am not, I want to say it's six, but it's all in South Merced currently. This new track that's shown on this map allowed for opportunities all the way through to UC Merced.

If you want to call a friend or use a lifeline, the two back there might be willing to help.

Oh, it's seven, not six.

Can you explain to me the differences between purple and pink on this map, because there's some areas in my district that do not qualify or not purple, and I need to understand why.

So the areas determined in purple came from the federal government. So they decided that the purple can be used as consideration. Anything outside of that in that pink orangish color does not qualify for an Opportunity Zone.

So we do not make that determination on if it qualifies as Opportunity Zone or not?

Exactly.

On the seven opportunity zones, you may not have this information that we currently have. Do we know if there's a net benefit or a net positive that has been created to the opportunity zones?

There is not a fulfilled story that I am aware of. There has definitely been interest due to the opportunity zones, but this would have been the first term within the 10 years and it's created impact, but I don't know how well they've used the funds or the tax incentive program.

When you say first term, does that mean one year, four years?

So the program started in 2017, so it was a 10 year term.

Okay. No further questions at this point. Anyone else? Councilor Smith.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Councilmember DuPont asked a couple of my questions. Just want to make sure I heard correctly. So of the existing opportunity zones in Central and South Merced, we don't have any data as to whether or not the fact that there was an opportunity zone there actually foster development.

We can say that it helped to express interest, but because it's a federal program, we're not exactly sure on like the data of the reporting, but we can try to find it.

Yeah, well, I'm not trying to look for some kind of quantitative measure. Like there hasn't been a developer who talked to you or Mr. Quintero and said, you know, hey, I was gonna bypass Merced, but there was an opportunity zone. I'm oversimplifying, but I mean, just even colloquially, Do we have experience the last 10 years? This has helped.

It has helped. And we've had conversations, but it isn't only in specific to opportunity zones that they did the part of the mix.

Okay. Um, I struggle a little bit with the suggestion of doing opportunity zone in Northeast Merced, um, which is huge part of my district, a little bit of district six. Um, I mean, we're talking about a tax shelter, right? That's basically what this comes down to. Um, One of the classic concerns with opportunity zones is that they actually create disincentives to invest in other parts of town. And we're not able to write in requirements that say there actually be job creating activity. I struggle with the justification to come up with an opportunity zone in a place where the market has already said that it's going to be developed. And we don't have a chance to change the tone or the type of development. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that, I don't know, I don't quite see the justification for us to come in here and change the market dynamic in Northeast Merced. I'm concerned that what we're doing is we're gonna incentivize bigger builds by bigger investors, right? The value of the tax credit is proportionate to the capital gains generated by the property. So it's actually more, there's a bigger incentive to build a luxury hotel than there is affordable housing. So I understand putting an opportunity zone in the Central and the South, just like we have for 10 years. If it kind of comes down to the, now is the time to submit the application and these are the tracks that qualify, kind of wanna help me, you know, I'm struggling, help me a little bit, understand a little better why. We wanna alter the marketplace at Northeast Merced.

As of now, one of the main priorities with the governor's office is those shovel-ready sites. So this is a great example of all the opportunities. That does include the housing component that is a larger component of why they want these opportunity zones. And again, in our narrative, it allows for growth outside of that tract as well. Also, because it is a 10-year term, there is the capability of using the funds within the 10-year term, how the Northeast is planned for now.

Okay, well, what are the four shovel-ready, I think you said four, what are the four shovel-ready sites in Tract A, Northeast Merced?

The shovel-ready site would be actually even more, it's the, let me go through this. It's considered that planned area, oh, wrong one. The planned area, so those acres of residential, commercial open space in schools, because it's planned, it's the closest to shovel-ready for that area. There's also Bellevue and Cardella, there's an area there as well.

So the shovel-ready projects are residential and commercial, like we're already under discussion in the annexation and pre-annexation applications.

Yes, and then there's also some that have already been annexed and included in this.

Okay, I appreciate the extra info, thank you. Councilor DuPont, questions?

No questions, further question, but maybe a suggestion is, I feel like I'm lacking information on the current opportunity zones of, um getting to a nexus of how opportunity zones bring a benefit to those areas within the city and so i i think i'd request given it's not the deadline doesn't come up till July 25th. We have a council meeting July 20th is to get more information on these opportunity zones. So we can better make an informed decision. If it's a term for 10 years, it does have tax implications to the city. So that's what I would request currently on the opportunity zones and would defer this question until the next meeting.

Okay, additional questions? We'll take public comment first before giving direction if we do. Mr. Bright, anything to add, sir, from the city manager's desk?

Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of things. This is a federal program that's about capital gains. It doesn't affect local property taxes or sales tax. And so those are really your revenue sources that you see that affect you locally. So I think you heard Amanda mentioned that we don't really have a quantitative way to express what's being claimed because it's on tax returns. There might be a way for us to get that, but we haven't done that so far. As far as what the information is, it's out there. The state does a nice job with GO-Biz on a little packet with regard to the program that we can definitely share. And if council's desire is to, provide some feedback tonight, bring it back on the 20th. It still gives us time to submit it by the 25th. I think we can respond to any questions you might have as well.

Mr. Quintero, if we could call you up, sir, anything over the past 10 years or so, sir. I think there's one to the point Amanda made too. you know, in that Northeast census track, the Cardell and G area, there's a lot of opportunity coming there. And then around the UC as well, all those projects too. Some of those seem to be struggling a bit to get off the grounds. Mr. Patera.

Yes, sir. Your thoughts, sir. On what's been proposed, they've been evaluated by two different consultants. And following, we participated in three of the governor's office workshops on these. And these were the closest that really fit not only what the governor's office suggested, but also following just some of the general guidelines from North Valley Thrive on areas to include in your opportunity zone. Past opportunity zones, there was investment, but in housing. I can say that we had commercial inquiries, including the Hilton Garden Inn area, which is now not part of the opportunity zone number 2.0. right on in terms of South Merced site focusing on the food deserts. Central Merced, the thought behind that was assuming that we may not have a station in the downtown area, we needed something to stimulate opportunities that may be lost. And we felt that the Opportunity Zone would provide that. North Merced, the catalyst is really focused on the investment that would be needed in order to get infrastructure, not necessarily on public streets, but within the developments in and of themselves.

Additional questions from council. Jennifer will turn to the public. Any comments either remote or in person?

We don't have any registered speakers for this item.

Would anybody like to be heard on opportunity zones? Okay, seeing no one, I'll bring it back to council for additional discussion.

Councilor Jean. So I share some of the same concerns as council member Smith. I do worry that this is going to incentivize folks to invest in that quadrant, Northeast Merced. And this includes VST, if I'm not mistaken from this image as well. I believe that if we're going to propose these census tract to essentially be used as tax write-offs, I think it should include areas in which we need more development. and that are not already readily available. So I think I agree with the South Merced one. I think we as a council need to continue to incentivize a grocery store to be developed in South Merced. And I think this is one of those steps. Considering that High Street Road is thinking about moving to Southeast Merced, I think it's important to think about the two, I think it was B and C, since it's tracked here as well. So I'm not in favor of A with this Northeast Merced portion. I think that's going to divert investment from where it's really needed.

All right, additional comments?

Councilor Smith. Thank you. So we're at that point in the discussion where I should state my position. I kind of come down for today where Councilmember DuPont is. I don't have any problem with the opportunity zones in the Central and South of Merced, which is traditionally what we've been doing. I'm not all the way there yet with the Northeast Merced parcel. I'm not a no. I would disagree that it's a lack of a tax credit that it may be slowing the development of that part of town. I think there's some other practical reasons why there's a bottleneck there, but I'm probably what I need to do is schedule time with Mr. Quintero and Ms. Williams in the next two weeks and educate myself and see if I get that information I'm looking for. Cause I'd like to be able to draw the lines. I mean, anything that makes Merced more attractive for investment, I'm into it. But right now I just see us, modifying the marketplace in a way that I don't think is necessary. And it could potentially boomerang on us if it ends up disincentivizing investment elsewhere. Those are my concerns. So I would be in favor of a motion to table for two weeks.

Questions or comments? All right, I'm generally supportive. I think there's each area of these four has different development needs, different development realities as well. There's specific needs in all four of them. This is an economic development tool that, and we're all supportive of economic development. I think everybody in this council has made that very clear. And this is one tool, certainly not a magic wand by any stretch of the imagination, but a tool that makes us more competitive relative to other areas as well too. Council Member Harris, your thoughts, sir.

Thank you, Mayor. Do we have the ability to adopt a motion to go ahead with zones B, C, and D and come back in two weeks with a separate item for A with more detail?

I don't see why not. Mr. Cornwell or Ms. Williams, is that?

Mayor, if I may, I think a wonderful suggestion, sir, because this is competitive. We are competing with the other cities and other communities in the state. And although they're due on the 25th, they're encouraging us to get the applications in as soon as possible. So even if we're working with three out of four, that would give us a little time to prepare the packets for these necessarily three census tracts.

And so by getting them in, there's no guarantee that Correct. That will be accepted. What are the, how many of those are being accepted or what are the criteria to you?

I'm gonna turn that one over to Amanda. Ms. Williams.

So the state is allowed to recommend 25%. So out of the 2,600 tracks, it's like 618 that they're allowed to recommend for the whole state. And those are also not technically, what's the word? That doesn't mean that they will actually even be federally designated as well. That's just their recommendation.

So the state looks at everything we send them, the state, and what kind of criteria does the state look at?

It's the one that's listed right there. So it's that economic need, the readiness, the economic impact, and the investment that we already have in those areas that they're looking at.

All right. And those are recommended to the federal government and the federal government.

Exactly.

Those are the federal government. They'll designate it in January. Mayor Pro Tem Boyle.

Just wanted to say that on Stockton City Council, they have the same agenda item tonight as well. So they're discussing this probably at the same time that we are.

Councilor Harris.

Thank you, Mayor. Subject to further discussion, I would move forward with a motion to move items BC or areas BC and D forward. and table A for two weeks.

Okay, so the motion is to approve B, C, and D and to have A come back on July the 20th. Correct. All right, is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Okay, hearing none, Jennifer.

We have a motion by Council Member Harris and a second by Council Member Smith. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. Okay, the motion passes unanimously.

Thank you, Jennifer. It's 8.11. If we take a short recess, we'll come back at 8.20 to resume with our business items.

I wouldn't have the panic in my face.

All right, it's 8.21. We'll reconvene, bring the meeting back to order. Jennifer will take up agenda item L1.

L1, approval to authorize outreach efforts, including but not limited to a module on Engage Merced to share activities relating to the high-speed rail project.

Thank you, Jennifer. All right, Deputy City Manager Quintero.

Council members tonight staff is compressing nearly 12 months of high speed rail activity into a few slides. The press, social media and other outlets are providing their interpretation of what has occurred. But one thing is certain that is council Our stakeholders, the subcommittee and staff have been working with high speed rail protecting the city's position with the authority. The city subcommittee on transportation and other stakeholders have consistently reached out to high speed rail staff on a range of topics from funding, timing, legislation and of course station location. There have been several virtual meetings, in-person meetings, and travels to Sacramento for board meetings and meetings with staff and those who understand the high-speed rail world. The city, along with our lobbyists, CPPG, are watching legislation that may change Merced's position as previously granted through Prop 1A, Prop 198, and the recently proposed SB 168. There's been leadership changes also at the top where before we had strong support from former director, excuse me, former chair, Tom Richards and vice chair, Nancy Miller. There have been changes also bringing in our state Senator as one of the ex-officio members. so tonight we're going to speak a bit how did we get here also the status of ace and amtrak the 2026 business plan won't be speaking much but one of the more telling things when you look on the high-speed rail site is to look at the ceo monthly reports because that's really where you're going to see the backbone of what is the thought and what high-speed rail is needing to do At the conclusion, we'll ask you for some direction in terms of outreach, looking at two forms of outreach. One is public outreach about what has happened within that compressed 12 month time. The other is with the cooperation of High Speed Rail doing town hall meetings and speaking more about the station in and of itself. So how did we get here? Back in September, 2025, we received information that high-speed rail was considering bypassing Merced from Madera and going to Gilroy. Not necessarily taking us out of the high-speed rail program, but it could have been anywhere from 10, 15, 20 years where we would have seen high-speed rail serving Merced. We definitely gathered our supporters and went up to the state and submitted in our letters, did public testimony and coordinated a number of meetings with high speed rail staff. We were able to preserve Merced standing in segment one and also phase one, but it did come at a price. Our partners have included Merced County, Merced County Association of Governments, of course, staff and council on the subcommittee. Subcommittee has been very, very active. With high-speed rail contacts, at first we have five meetings from September to December, but keep in mind, those are actual formal meetings. There were a number of phone calls, there were a number of board meetings that staff attended and that council members either made comments in, in person or via online. We had a number of meetings with CEO Ian Choudhury. Staff members came and addressed council, the subcommittee, as well as staff. And we had one-on-ones with board members along with other stakeholders. Probably something that's not discussed much in our circles and at least within the community is what happened to the Altamont Corridor Express, also known as Ace Train and Amtrak. When it was announced that there would be three trains going into one station, that was really our marketing tagline, three trains, one station. However, there were funding struggles. Those funding struggles resulted in ACE suspending its expansion really past series and not having a timeline of when it would reach Merced. Subsequently, Mitzi also had funding issues. Mitzi was going to bring you down the BNSF track, down Highway 59, and then connect to the Union Pacific Railroads. It was the best of all worlds for Merced and for downtown Merced, where again, three trains, one station, we would have been the hub of ACE, Amtrak, and High Speed Rail. Unfortunately, with the funding struggles, we lost two of those three service providers. Subsequently, Amtrak is now being hubbed at the Madera Station. When I said it came at a price, there was the discussion of relocating the station. First of all, the station originally was planned from MLK to G Street along 15th and 16th streets. Then after discussion with high-speed rail staff, we then had it moved over to O Street to R Street, again, 15th and 16th streets. No longer were we going to be looking at an at-grade system, but it was gonna be through a viaduct, so it was gonna be elevated. That would help us to make sure that the city wouldn't be split and divided. We already have a number of natural features, highways and railways, which somewhat bifurcate the city. We didn't want high-speed rail to do that, plus, G Street is an important arterial to us, so it was critical not to see G Street closed down. Putting pieces of the puzzle together, we then learned that the station was being proposed to be moved down to Highway 99, Mission Avenue, pretty much adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad. Again, we sent letters to High Speed Rail and not only us, but we were also supported by Merced County stating that as long as we had a seat at the table and we could talk about those things that the city would have interest in, water, sewer, emergency services, fiber, all the infrastructure, and then a study of South, I'll consider that Southwest Merced portion pretty much from Highway 59 to Highway 99 using Mission Avenue up to Child's Avenue as a study area to see how we could grow that area portion of South Merced with high-speed rail serving it. Excuse me. There have been robust meetings and strategic outreach. We weren't through. There were two council meetings in 2026 and five additional meetings, again, where we were actually with High-Speed Rail staff. I think what was very key was in March, about March 11th, March 12th, there was a meeting which we call the High-Speed Rail Lobby Day. There were seven meetings with legislators and the governor's office staff. discussion came out and we had a little more direction, but we still didn't get those solid answers that we were looking for concerning high speed rail. Then on top of that, we were also at the time reviewing the 2026 draft business plan. So there was a clock on that. It was issued on February 28th with a public comment period closing on the 29th. The board itself heard testimony on the 29th, postponed a decision to June 1st, which it was adopted. That plan identified for the first time through one of their supporting documents that the platform itself would go down to one platform, two lines, and basically the picture that was painted would be something that would be as was characterized to us, like the rail station that was in Daener, just someplace where people would stand outside and be served by high speed rail. But again, we needed more definition on what was being proposed. The key points of the letter again was discussion, or excuse me, on the business plan that we had focused on the station relocation. Many meetings, but nothing was solidified on what was going on between the city, the county and high-speed rail on defining the land area, defining the design, defining how eventually we would transition from downtown to Mission and 99. Also, there was the loss of opportunity that needed to be considered as we were relocated with the possibility of relocating to the down, excuse me, Mission Avenue. There was a question of SB 198, and that was our stance of saying that the city was guaranteed to have a station in the downtown area served by not only high speed rail, but by ACE and Amtrak. Due to the funding woes that both have experienced, that language will eventually have to change. Also in the business plan, it was identified that there was a thought or proposal to create tax increment financing districts roughly within a half mile radius of the station, something that not only the city of Merced, Merced County didn't support, but the League of California Cities did not support either. And we became part of that group, that co-op that has continued to oppose the idea of such. Land use control. Typically zoning is administered at the local level. Although the station currently as proposed is within the county jurisdiction, most are anticipating that eventually it would be annexed in. Again, high-speed rail has proposed in their documentation that land use control within half a mile radius of the station would be under that of the high-speed rail authority. They see that as a way to help with operations, maintenance, and a way to generate revenues that would be able to do so. There's timing on encroachment permit processes. That didn't create as much heartburn as the others, because we too have to issue encroachment permits, but still we want to make sure that should lines be extended, should services be extended, we want to make sure that those are protected and we protect those through the encroachment process. Also at the time, we didn't understand what was the shared benefit costs, which subsequently we did receive some proposed language that utility agreements and community agreements would be part of the program. If you just look at the cross section of the original station, you could see that the aqueduct would be, or excuse me, the viaduct would be serving high speed rail. And then on the bottom lines, you would have ACE train and you would also be getting served by Amtrak or Gold Runner as it's called today. Again, council moved forward and gave the city manager and staff direction to prepare a letter, which we did submit. And we also testified not only on the 29th, but also on June 1st, considering adoption of the business plan. Other factors to consider. technical the technical side of things we lightly touched about the infrastructure we touched about storm drain fiber there are many things and many questions that still need to be answered on if this transition takes place what are those things as a city we are going to need what are those things as a high-speed rail service provider are going to be needed questions about last mile connectivity between downtown and the high speed rail station. We're in the midst of undertaking a general plan amendment. And right now it does not include that area. So one of our asks would definitely be that we would get some funding to expand our study area for the general plan update and also have the ability to perform a South Merced study incorporating high speed rail and its potential benefit and economic and serving as an economic catalyst. We've been talking about potential annexations in the facilities and improvements. Fire service and emergency service, police services, all those would have to be extended to the proposed station location. Funding and agreements. There's not a committed source of funding right now for the downtown area. recently at a meeting where CEO Chaudhry was there with another staff member from High Speed Rail. And a question was asked by a member of the public who is in the business community. Is downtown out of the question? The response was no. Is funding guaranteed for downtown? The answer was no. A follow-up question was how long would it be before we would see funding for the downtown? It was unknown. Now, if you've been reading or listening to different social media outlets or watching it on YouTube, generally that range has been anywhere between 20 to 30 years before if we decide to go downtown, that's where it go. There is secure funding because the same questions were asked. concerning the location at Mission Avenue and Highway 99. There is secured funding for that and it can be built and it would keep us in phase one, segment one of the high speed rail project. There are still some unknowns. While we were grateful that this information was shared at that same meeting, and that's the front and back of the flyer that was provided to us, which basically outlines why a Southern Merced location and how it protects downtown Merced, the questions still are there concerning the design, what the platform would look like, the building would look like the land area and capacity for solar power would that power then be retained in batteries and also capacity for a data center. Right now data centers don't have the best reputation, not only in the state of California, but across the country. And that is something of concern that we've heard from the public and also from staff regarding the use of resources. The next steps we are requesting are, first of all, we would like to get a module up in Engage Merced. And then after that, with your approval, we would like to go out to the community and do media briefings, do op-eds and engage more on social media on what has taken place, is taking place, and what we anticipate will take place in terms of working with the High-Speed Rail Authority. We would also like the opportunity to work with the High-Speed Rail Authority on holding town halls. And that was one of the strengths when we worked with Foster Arup, Foster and Smith, and Stantec. We held about three town hall meetings and we got a lot of information out of it. And the proposed station, that you saw on 16th between O and R Street was a result of that. The land uses were a result of that. The idea of a park strip underneath the viaduct and as such were all results from having those type of workshops. It would also provide us an opportunity to talk about and to give some ideas about the design of the station and platform. Also ask questions about solar generation and what's the purpose and real intent of the data centers and are they something that would truly be viable for high speed rail? With that being said, council, are there any questions of staff?

All right, thank you, Deputy City Manager Quintero. Any questions for Mr. Quintero? Mayor Pro Tem Boyle.

Thank you. I just want some clarification. When you say the word module, is that in reference of a website page or what do you, what does the word module mean in regards to this?

So in Engage Merced, there are different, um, if you want to call, I still refer to them as mall modules where it may speak about, um, general plan update, streets, et cetera. Each special project is created in a module. It does, it's a website in and of itself, but then you just click on the one that you're interested in and it would take you to that particular module.

Perfect, thank you for the clarification.

Councilor Harris.

Thank you, Mayor. Your report, mentions other outreach efforts besides Engage Merced, but the recommendation for us is to adopt a motion authorizing the creation of the module and not mentioning those other outreach efforts that you want us to authorize at the same time the ones you went over? All right, thank you.

Councillor DuPont.

Thank you, Mayor. A couple of questions. You talked about robust meetings and strategic outreach. Can you tell me some of the outcomes that have come from those meetings, if any?

The outcomes have been limited. Unfortunately, our desire was to get a definite description of the land area, the design of the station and understanding what high-speed rail would need of the community and vice versa. While we finally got an understanding of the location, those other main key points weren't answered. The other areas that we were trying to focus on were with the money that was left over from the high speed rail downtown station planning grant to be able to use the remainder of that money for perhaps an opportunity loss study in the downtown area. Unfortunately, again, that was one of those items that we did not get answered. So while the discussion, it was robust, it was strategic, we didn't get fully the answers that we were looking for.

Since the February letter, when we requested a collaborative review of the move to Southeast Merced, have there been robust discussions on the outline of city letter of comments, key points in your slide number eight, those were some of the things that we talked about from the very beginning. Has there been robust discussions on those key topics?

So the discussion that was robust was first, we had a joint meeting between the city and the county, and that produced a list of items that are going to be asked. We did end up having two meetings with high speed rail staff, subsequently two meetings with two different board members. It did generate, discussion and to the point where we were able to identify that perhaps the high speed rail staff was a little ahead of its board members on items that were being discussed.

Slide eight, if you could turn to slide eight, please. These are some of the issues that we've talked about from really that February letter. To date, have we talked or had any robust discussions with High Seed Royal on updates to SB 198?

There has not been, let me rephrase that, I'm sorry. There's been discussion about SB 198, but in terms of sitting at a table and proposing language, that has not occurred yet.

So in February, when I asked Peter Whitby, who I believe is no longer with High Speed Rail, about coming to the city about language and having a discussion on the language of SB 198, that still hasn't happened today.

Correct. Some discussion was generated, I'm sorry, I'm forgetting. I want to say it was AB or SB 1411 that came out. That began to open the doors, but it never got us fully through the door.

Has there been any discussions on the high speed rails thought of tax incremental or taking tax, the incremental tax from a half mile within the high speed rail station and having local control? Has that discussion been had with the city from high speed rails?

There have been some discussions. There's the high speed rail authority has not made a commitment to pursue it, but there have been discussions about it. And I believe that because there was a coalition of other cities involved and with it being led by high speed, sorry, by the league of California cities and it being questioned at one of the subcommittee hearings that it came up more of a forefront than anything else. Thank you.

Can you turn to slide 811, please? So you stated that there hasn't been a robust discussion on the design and what the station is going to look like. Is that correct? Correct. I'm quite concerned because in this flyer, it looks like a station. that is different from the downtown station? I don't disagree.

It does look like a station.

Okay. I'll reserve any other comments for now. Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Council Member.

Any additional questions?

On the 14-11, Frank mentioned some, but two, there was the League of Cities did a lot on the tax increment financing. I think, and we had, when we went to Sacramento too, we all had meetings directly with legislators as well about that. Just to add that. All right, Council Member Smith.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Quintero for the presentation.

You're welcome, sir.

Driving the discussion out here. So correct me if you have a different observation of where we sit. About nine months ago, it was sort of leaked that the new authority or the folks of the newly staffed authority were looking at changing our station location from downtown to the Southeast Merced. And then since then, both in conversations with authority staff, reading the draft business plan and other releases to the press from the authority that it seems pretty clear that their intention is to build a station in southeast merced by the by mission avenue 99 would you would you agree with that yes i would agree with that and you've sat in the same conversations as i have with the authority team the county and others Would you agree with me that all things equal, if the city of Merced still wanted a downtown station, the authority may keep it on the table, but there's gonna be no timeline and no budget attached to it?

Correct.

So would you agree that the question for the city of Merced right now and this council is whether or not we wanna be a part of the first operating segment in the near term or hold on to the idea of a downtown station?

I do agree with that. I look at it this way. Do I wanna see the first show or see a shovel of dirt turned at Mission 19? Or I don't know if I'll be around to see the downtown station.

Me either. I mean, so I see two problems, right? And this is why we wanna have this conversation in public. I don't know that our community is up to speed as we are about what the reality is and the authorities thinking and the budget. I think it's fair for our community to tell us they want us to fight for downtown. And I think there's good grounds to do that, but I also think the community needs to know kind of what the realities are so that we can understand as policy makers, what our task is right now. I read the communities being a little bit divided, but perhaps also not having all the information and thinking that somehow we have a choice. I think the state is in a position where it can and will do what it's going to do. The model is more of the COVID shutdown. And I think people need to understand that. At the same time, I have been a voice for not wanting to acquiesce to a Southeast Merced station until we know what the authority wants to do. And just candidly, we don't have an answer nine months later, as Council Member DuPont said. I think some of it is on us. You know, we've had umpteen million meetings and the stage is set, but what the city of Merced needs out of a Southeast Merced station is up to us to communicate and to go get. It's not gonna be communicated by the authority. That's ridiculous. We're their negotiating partner. They've got an incentive to build a station at the lowest cost most efficiently, right? It's our job to be the stewards of the community, not to stop at being partners with the authority. So I think, you know, the budget's already passed. We're running out of time.

I don't know why we waited this long, but we did. Before we get into comments, we'll do public comment first, just questions right now.

Well, I'll continue my thought. I think we need to take your suggestion and do some robust community engagement immediately. You know, engagement said, okay, that's good, but your other communication tools, you know, we need to be looking at an op-ed to get information out, press conference. You know, we can't wait for town halls in my view. We've got about a 30 to 45 day window. Governor Newsom is gonna be leaving office. On the other hand, you know, I don't know if, this is the feedback you're looking for, but we need the city and the committee that's tasked with dealing with high-speed rail issues to start talking to the authority immediately about what does a Southeast Merced station look like and to make the ask that we need to ask. So, I mean, that's what we should have been doing starting way back in September, 2025, in my view. But I think you're correct, Mr. Quintero, to make this request now because we're already in stoppage time and I think we gotta get going.

I believe we have a draft communication plan, excuse me, plan that our public information officer has put together. I think it's a solid plan and it will accomplish that which you have described.

Thank you. I'll pause there now. Additional questions from council, councilor Jean.

Frank, can you remind me how long has this been the works, like the whole high-speed rail station in Merced? How long has that been?

Do you want me to go back to 1994 or when we started in the technical planning in 2010? However you want to describe it. So really, Merced got more involved, I would say, about 2008 to 2010. OK. So about 20 years or so?

Correct. Okay. And then have there been any, has the high speed rail authority reached out to the city with regards to doing community outreach within like the past nine months?

Other than the meetings that they've held here with council, there have not been any discussion of having community meetings.

Do you know when was the last time they hosted a town hall here in the city?

I want to say it was two Decembers ago. Okay. That's all I have for questions. And I will state, sir, that this administration or Mr. Chaudhry has probably met with us more than probably the two administrations combined. But again, even with you add all those meetings up, we're still at a loss in some areas. Thank you.

Yeah, Prop 1A was in 2008 and that admission were set in the ballot language as well in 2008. Anybody else from the council for questions? All right, Jennifer, anything from the public?

We do not receive any registered speakers.

Okay, do we have any, no remote and no speakers in person?

Correct.

Okay, bring it back to council for further discussion and direction. Dr. DuPont.

Thank you, mayor. So I think we've seen a pattern, a pattern by the high speed rail authority. And I'll just say from February 2nd, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt of when we talked in February 2nd, sent our letter of having a collaborative review of a Southeast Merced station. We've seen a pattern pattern by the high speed rail authority of continuing to put information out that was never discussed with our subcommittee and a business plan and a technical report. We talked about it 2008, 2009, maybe 2010, Merced had an important role and has an important role on an initial operating segment. But time and time again, the High-Speed Rail Authority have made decisions behind closed doors, without our representatives, without discussing the issues that impact Mercedians, and they're going to continue to do the same thing. You see it in the State Assembly that just passed a bill that provides the ability for the Inspector General, if there's an audit or report that is not beneficial to the project, the inspector general can keep that report or audit confidential from the public. This is the authority that we're dealing with. Secrecy and non-transparency. Merced cannot be pushed aside for the benefit of the high speed rail authority. Our community deserves a real voice at the table, not a courtesy meeting after decisions had already been made. We have to have that standard. The station location cannot be another backroom deal by Sacramento. We have real issues and real concerns in Southeast Merced that need to be discussed and put forward by this council, by our ad hoc committee, to High Speed Rail, ensuring that we are telling High Speed Rail what we want. And High Speed Rail needs to be on the other side of the table, willing to be what they've called a partner. For far too long, the High Speed Rail Authority has thought communities like Merced and in the Central Valley would just go along with what they had to say, with what Sacramento had to say. They need to restore the trust and the public trust. And I have some expectations in the next 30 to 45 days. CEO Ian Chowdhury needs to come to the August 3rd, 2026 meeting and discuss the project with a full council. We're no longer playing these games of this meeting or that meeting. And before that meeting, the Heights View Rail Authority needs to hold a public town hall within the city limits. And after that meeting, they need to hold another public town hall Our public and our residents of Merced deserve at least that from the high speed rail authority. And my last request, the ad hoc committee comes to the city council and presents on what they believe are the needs of our community and infrastructure needs to make a Southeast Merced station viable and start that negotiation process with the high speed rail. because I'm tired of having these meetings over and over and saying a different outcome is going to happen. That's just called crazy. So again, I'm going to say, I don't trust the high-speed rail authority, but we need to start requesting that they do something within our community and not just stand on the sidelines.

Okay, thank you, Council Member DuPont. Who is next? Additional speakers, comments? Discussion? And Deputy City Manager Quintero, for direction, could you go to the, I forget which slide it was, but. Yep, 12 right there, okay. So today looking for a discussion or direction on both of these.

On both of them, we see them as two different actions, although they are both outreach opportunities. One is telling the Merced story. The other one is bringing high-speed rail to Merced to conduct community meetings or town halls concerning the new station.

Additional, discussion or direction from council or a motion? Councilor Jean.

So to me, the issue is with regards to community, right? It is that High Speed Rail pretty much abandoned community at this point, right? I was there at these town halls in which community members came. They were excited to see the new station, right? They were excited to provide feedback on how it look. They wanted community engagement and it feels like within the past nine months, all that was thrown away, right? And again, not just for me, but from our community members, they feel like this entire process has just been, let's say slap in the face, right? Pointless, where they went through all this work and felt heard, and then it just pretty much vanished. And I think that's something that the high speed rail needs to answer, right? They need to let our community members know, and this is where I disagree with us doing all of this. We shouldn't be the one carrying water for them, right? We should be standing for what our community members want, what they expect. And this isn't it. I'll pass for now.

Councilor Smith.

So echoing council member DuPont comments. I mean, to be fair, I think the authority actually wants to engage with us to figure this out because we as a group are kind of paralyzed by the station location decision. You know, as I view it, we need to talk to our community. So feel like they understand that we are advocating for them and on their side before we're asked to make a decision right now, I don't think that's the case. I think people would be blindsided if we just decided one way or the other. Um, but I maybe disagree with Council Member Zhang. It's our job to advocate for our community. We have to quote unquote, carry the water because they're not gonna negotiate for our position. We've got asks and we've got needs and the station has to look like what we want it to look like in a certain respect. There's gonna be some gives, right? But they can try to convince us of their position, but if we don't respond and push our position, we're not gonna end up going anywhere. So we need to very quickly, in my view, communicate with our community, listen to what they have to say, give them all the facts that we have. And if they still want us to fight for downtown, well, that's where we're gonna be. But it should be knowing all the limitations and the facts on the ground that we've learned from the authority. And it's also not helpful that we don't have answers to basic questions like what's the real cost savings Southeast Merced versus downtown? Is it a billion or 84 million? Are we building data centers to drive revenue for the train or what? There's all these narratives that are not very helpful to us making what is really a discreet and narrow decision of whether or not we support a stationary location, what we're getting out of it. So, I think that we have been quote unquote partnering for a little bit too long, we need to drive this forward. We need to jump in there and talk to the community and in parallel, open up a negotiation through staff and the subcommittee so that we can come back and tell you in open session, this is what the deal looks like. Do we like it? Yes or no. And if we want there to be state appropriations in this budget here for the things we need, we've now waited nine months. This has to happen in 30 to 45 days. We need support from our local higher superior officials. it's gonna take time, we gotta get going. So, I mean, I think we need to stop playing nice and we need to get in there and do the work we should have been doing the last six months. We can also have town halls and things like that, that's important, but we need to go directly to the people. And to me, that means online, that means press conference, that means relentlessly speaking with groups, because we got a big lift now, we gotta do it by the end of summer. but I'm not gonna rely upon the authority or anybody else to do that except us. It's our job.

All right, thank you, sir. Anyone else? All right, so drilling down a bit with our outreach and our... messaging, um, any thoughts, comments on that? Um, have the, uh, subcommittee, uh, with staff, uh, work on outreach and messaging council member Harris.

Did I interrupt you?

No, I was actually, I was, I was stalling to get you guys to talk.

Thank you mayor. Um, Yeah, we need to let the subcommittee do its work and provide the information, but we need to acknowledge the fact that for at least six months, if not longer, we have not provided our asks. And part of that was because the station location question was in the cloud somewhere. It wasn't firm anywhere. Nobody said, absolutely. It's going to be Southeast. It was just, well, maybe it'll be Southeast or we can save a lot of money if it's Southeast, but that direction never came to us or to the subcommittee in a firm manner. but we need to acknowledge the fact that we sat around for six months and did not form a list of, well, what if it is Southeast? What do we want from that? And that's what we have to do now. That's what the subcommittee has to do and prepare for the public and for the outreach, what we want and what we're asking. from the authority because otherwise there's just one voice and that's the authorities. And that's all we've heard, but we've only heard it because they haven't heard ours. So it's time now for us to step up and have some discussion items. If we're gonna be a partner and we're gonna be more than a partner, but a negotiator, then we need to have the items that we wanna negotiate on. So I support tasking the subcommittee to come up with that list and doing the outreach as quickly as we can.

Okay.

Thank you, sir. Frank, we have a pretty well-developed list. We do, sir. That's been provided to some of our state and or federal representatives.

I know our federal representative, I'm sorry, I don't know if it's been provided to the others.

Thank you. Some mention of trying to work with authority to have town halls or some sort of community meeting, thoughts on that? Mayor Pro Tem Boyle.

I think having the town halls are pivotal. We've been asked by the community of some kind of information and to not do something is a missed opportunity for us. And also for high-speed rail to come and talk about it. I mean, council member DuPont was talking about on one of the items of the potential station, to be honest, I don't even know if that is potential station. That's the first time we saw these renderings three weeks ago. And we were told this is what staff just put together for the meeting we were at. So unfortunately on our end, I have not seen any renderings. I have not seen any maps, seen something about data centers. I mean, that concerns me. There's a lot of unknowns. I will say hearing that if we want to advocate and keep it downtown, we don't know when we will see it. If we want it in Merced at a time that we might all see it, it would be in Southeast Merced. But I think the down halls give the opportunity for people to ask questions and get more information even in 2024 when they came, just seeing the renderings and being able for the community to see it themselves, it created excitement. And now we have a wrench in our plan, but I think it's up to High Speed Rail and us to provide that information, whatever we have available to the community so that they can ask the questions.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, I think it's such a big decision because high speed rail in so many ways will you know, dictate the future of Merced in a big, big way. You know, whatever happens with high-speed rail will have a big, big say in what Merced's going to look like 20, 30, 40 years down the road. Big decision, you know, the downtown versus southeast. We've talked about it for many, many months now. Pluses and minuses to both. I think by no means is it an easy decision. By no means is there a perfect answer either way. There's You're kind of weighing the virtues of both. On balance, I've been, my belief has been on balance for a variety of reasons. The Southeast location is better, but it doesn't mean it's not a close decision or a difficult decision. But again, on balance, I feel that's better. And we just need to, but as has been mentioned, there are big infrastructure needs to make a Southeast location, which is currently in the county, unincorporated county, which obviously a county will have less infrastructure than a city. So we'll have to bring everything up to potentially city standards. So there's big infrastructure needs. That said too, there could be significant infrastructure needs that we've kind of glossed over, haven't talked too much about with the downtown station as well. If downtown you're packaging a lot into a small space and especially those early renderings, that was a train station for three trains. So that station and those diagrams were gonna be bigger, you know, more elaborate than a station just for high-speed rail. But, you know, with ACE and Amtrak kind of falling off and high-speed rail being the only one that's really left, I think, you know, certainly important to work with them, but we got to be strong too. And we got to say, look, and working with them, working with our state and federal partners to say, this is what we need to make it work. Again, big infrastructure needs in the Southeast. I think everybody's well aware of that. Everybody's been clear about that. And again, a lot of unspoken needs downtown as well too, potentially if, you know, having to having to improve infrastructure, especially that aging infrastructure downtown, um, and relocating key city facilities, which would have been extremely difficult as well. All right. Um, so with, uh, I'll give you a second, one second. Um, yeah, we're getting coordinated. I'm in favor as has been stated of, uh, hopefully being able to schedule at least two town halls, um with the authority as we've done in the past um and uh us working too on our outreach as well and i think again has been stated a big piece of data and we've we've mentioned this the authority as well too we've had this discussion big pieces of information we need are one um And again, we've said this multiple times to the authority, what support are we gonna get for our infrastructure needs, especially if it's in Southeast Merced? And then two, what's the station and the area around it gonna look like? We still don't have that answer. He's heard different things, heard different rumors, been presented that flyer at a meeting roughly a month ago that Supervisor Pedroza organized, but we don't have any firm ideas exactly on what, essentially, what are we signing off on and what Southeast Merced, if we're going there, what's that gonna look like? Council Member Jones.

Yeah, I just wanna add that, Again, this has been 20 years in the making and to jump for the next nine, this past nine months, I don't think is reasonable. I think that we are, we have FOMO, right? Fair Missing Out. And that's where we are right now, right? That's it. We're not actually planning for the betterment of the city. We're afraid that they're gonna leave us behind. So we're gonna do what they want us to do. And I don't think that it's in the best interest of the community. This station is gonna be here for many, many, many years. It's gonna be long. We're gonna be all long gone while it's still here. And I think it is really bad planning to circumvent 20 years for nine months of planning and say that this is now the best option. This is what's best for the community. This is what's best for the city. I just don't agree with that. With regards to engagement or what community needs are, there was that UC Merced study, right? It talked about community engagement, what folks like to see, what they need. If we talk about the town halls, right? I wanna see it come from High Speed Rail, not us. One, it takes our money to fix their mess. But two, I want them to actually put in the dedication to our community to show that, hey, this is what they actually want, rather than us saying, hey, you gotta come in and talk about these things. They need to actually want to fix stuff. And so that's why I'm saying it shouldn't be a burden on our city to do this work. They should be the ones wanting to engage our community.

Okay, thank you, Chair. Council Member DuPont. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Chong. Yeah, I mean, it is their burden. They have lost the public trust within Merced. They need to restore that themselves. You know, what you bring up, you know, making sure we make the right decision for the long-term benefit of Merced, Southeast versus downtown. One question that has been running in my mind over and over and over again is. You know there's still a plan to go to Sacramento. What does that mean? If they go to Sacramento on the UP line, they still have to go downtown. Are they going to answer that question of is that in their plan to really go to Sacramento 3040 50 years down the line? you'd have to still tear up downtown. And at that point, we then have downtown even more robust than what it is now. This is not a decision that should be made in a vacuum of what is in 2026. This is a decision that should be made with a broad scope of what is the betterment former said for the future, not just today. So with that, I will reiterate high-speed rail needs to come to the table with town halls. I expect to see CEO Ian Chowdhury on the August 3rd meeting to discuss the high-speed rail. with the full council on issues that we should have been discussing since February. And I tasked the ad hoc committee to go out and negotiate. Let's figure out what our community wants and let's start to negotiate. I think we need to do the community outreach. We should have done it. three months ago, because we are not carrying our message as a city, we're letting other people do that. So I'm in support of carrying our message as a city.

All right, thanks sir. Councilor Smith.

Yeah, so I completely agree. This is about local decision-making and preserving this as being our decision. And if the authority doesn't like every town on the line doing it differently, that's just too bad. But to the point I think council member Zong was making, maybe council member DuPont too, I think that what I envision at least that ad hoc committee with staff doing achieves that goal. We're not gonna ask anybody to come up with millions of dollars of plans, but we need something that looks like a sketched out deal or a term sheet. Excuse me, what does the Southeast Merced station look like? What does the downtown station look like? We can ask these questions. would a Southeast Merced station be quote unquote temporary? I don't know really what that means, but they're talking about building a station now in Bakersfield and another one in 20 years, right? I share your concerns, right? The path to Sacramento still goes through downtown. So, but I look, I think on a very boring process point, I don't see it being that difficult to come up with a fleshed out, but still summary form set of understandings and deal points that we can then discuss with you guys in public. and then we'll have a much better, we'll be in a much better position to say whether or not one path or the other is the one we wanna walk and our community will too. So, I mean, I think I'm kind of hearing direction to begin some robust community outreach, both using tools that happen in the immediate term, but also a town hall or two with the authority and also tasking the committee and staff to start basically a negotiation.

That's what I'm hearing too. All right, anybody have further comments, discussion, or is there a motion along the lines of what Council Member Smith has outlined or a different motion? Mayor Pro Tem Boyle.

I just want clarification. Are we going to be doing the media briefing, social media posting on Engage Merced, op-eds, all of that?

So ultimately, and that's Mr. McBride's call, but I think we need to have a committee discussion with Ms. Flackman, who's the expert, and then come back with a proposal. But I would say everything's on the table. All right, so moved. Is there a second?

Second. Additional discussion? Last chance. All right, seeing none, Jennifer, call for the question.

I have a motion by Council Member Smith, any second by Council Member Dupont. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. And the motion passes with Council Member Zhang voting no.

Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you, sir. All right, thank you, Mr. Deputy City Manager. All right, on to L2.

Okay, agenda item L2, Mayor Serrato's request to discuss bicycle safety.

All right, thank you, Jen. All right, this was agendized some time ago. Discussion was... with regards to bike safety, I'm sure as everybody's well aware, the ride outs and street takeovers, those have become a big issue here, but in other cities as well, other cities such as, and this is including the agenda packets, such as Ceres, Oakdale, Manteca, they've responded with different ordinance, other cities as well have discussed the issue. So, What one part of this is seeking direction to have either staff or subcommittee work on potential ordinances that could help address that issue better and give police better tools to confront that issue. I'm sure we've all seen numerous videos on social media, got complaints as well about a lot of those issues. So some cities have tried to have enact ordinances to give their officers better tools to enforce. And that would be the request for me to, have staff and a subcommittee work on some sort of ordinance along the lines of some of the other cities. And then there's, I believe Mayor Pro Tem Boyle and Council Member DuPont also had other things, similar bike and vehicle safety issues that they wanted to raise and obtain direction on as well. So I'll turn it over to either Mayor Pro Tem Boyle or Council Member DuPont.

Thank you, Mayor. One thing that I think we've been actually doing a good job on is the e-bike scenario. I think there's also discussions throughout not only California, local jurisdictions on e-bikes. I think the state is also starting conversation on e-bikes. we've put out some social media posts on e-bikes. I included the city of Carlsbad who's taken up this issue with an ordinance actually banning those, under 12 from driving e-bikes within the city so also want to discuss that to see if there's you know it's really an understanding if you know police department needs any more tools than what they already have to help them enforce um rules, policies, and safety within the city. So I just bring that issue to raise it. I don't want to discount the benefit of e-bikes within the city. I think it's an alternative mode of transportation for those within the city, but the state has clarified different classes of e-bikes and the difference between e-bikes and e-motorcycles. So ensuring that we have the tools in place is important. Okay. All right, thank you, sir. Mayor Pro Tem Boyle.

Thank you. So for me, I see two issues, or I have seen two issues. You have the ride outs where you have groups of individuals, 15 plus bike riders, either going with the flow of traffic and slowing down traffic, or they're going the opposite direction and coming at you, ongoing traffic. And then you have individuals that are on e-bikes or e-scooters that are riding in the non-bike lanes with traffic as if they are a motorcycle. So there's a lot of issues that we're starting to see. There have been numerous accidents, very injured individuals. This has also been a topic out at UC Merced with their transportation of what they should be doing with the e-scooters, e-bikes. Kind of like what council member DuPont said, what are the tools that we need? What can we do? What are some of the policy changes that we need to look at? There are other city jurisdictions that have implemented changes and it can just be minor tweaks, but something needs to be done. Even today I had a constituent call me on a separate issue. And before we hung up, he said, by the way, what's going on with all these e-bikes and e-scooters? And then three hours later, he calls me again saying how he was driving around doing errands. And he saw someone just taking over the entire lane on their e-bike. And so we only see so much. I can only imagine what other people are seeing. Even one day, I saw a group of individuals, probably 15 and 20 of them, that took up both lanes down M Street northbound. And one guy got out of his car trying to confront them. And I don't want that either. So there needs to be something. I think education is another thing because I don't know if people realize that you have to have a driver's license, 16, I think for e-scooters, but there are laws put in place. And when I mentioned one of them, someone said, I didn't know that. So I think it's education on top of that. And I'm not sure what else is needed, but I think it's worth the discussion to have today.

Chief Stanfield, Captain Perez, anything from the police perspective on ride out street takeovers and e-bike behavior?

Yeah, I think for us, both of these issues, although they kind of run in the same lane, they're a little different, right? E-bikes and the bicycle things. We started seeing the bicycles start to become popular again during COVID. Everybody started riding bicycles again. So it's a newfound hobby and you don't wanna discourage youth from getting out and exercising and riding bikes. So it's kind of this fine line of discouraging healthy behavior, but you also don't want them getting run over and taking over roads. So... Lieutenant Haygood, who oversees our traffic unit, he could not be here tonight, but we met with him earlier today. He's fully prepared to meet with our public safety subcommittees, bring some ideas from the traffic unit. He also works collectively with Captain Tony Dominguez, who runs our local CHP team. We do a site team where we go from City to city with our traffic unit his traffic unit and we go help other jurisdictions So this is not a unique to Merced issue. We know this but we're gonna try to do what we can so He's fully prepared to sit down with the Public Safety Subcommittee bring some ideas on ordinances or some city policies that we can put in place that his team thinks could help I mean I can tell you that E-bikes is becoming much more of the conversation in my office. We are having to deal with a lot of confiscated bikes and to council member Boyle's point, you know, a lot of these are going 30 plus miles an hour. They require licenses. We have no helmets. It's not uncommon for me to get a phone call. We had a, you know, a solo accident where there's no traffic collision. It's a or an e-bike that took a curb too hard. And we have some dangerous accidents and you get 30 plus miles an hour on some of these and you take a tumble, it's dangerous. I mean, you could have some life altering injuries from some of these. Our team is fully prepared to sit down and bring some suggestions of ways that we think as a traffic unit and a department that we can better enforce some of these regulations. Obviously we've already reached out to our school partners with our SRO team. Education is completely part of what we wanna like to do out of this. So it's an all encompassing, not just an enforcement, but an education. and kind of a partnership with our community. And I think that that would be a prudent next step out of this item is giving our team an opportunity to bring some suggestions to the public safety subcommittee meeting, bounce those off the team of council members on that committee, get some feedback and then, I would say once that's completed, we could present something to council for some more robust discussions, but I'd like to run it through the safety subcommittee first and then have that discussion with that team, if you're okay with that. Okay, thank you, Chief. Jennifer, anything from the public?

We do have one registered in-person speaker.

Okay, we take that now.

Okay, can I get Joe Brucia to... Bicycles following high-speed rail. let's take a little break you guys are talking uh well how i've been talking oh wait don't start that three minutes yet i haven't started yet my gosh you know there are many cities that have fewer class one bike paths than we do but they also have great audiences and education programs, much better than we have. You know, we have an ordinance on bikes 1044 that doesn't even mention e-bikes. We're still talking bicycles and not e-bikes, e-scooters and e-skateboards. The teaching bike safety is not mandated in our schools. They don't have to teach that. But in these other cities that are so great, they have these programs in schools that are teaching kids how to ride safely and with etiquette. I was mentioning how many times you see somebody riding the bike going against traffic or bumping into you or whatever. My proposal, which I've given to you, and by the way, you have a list, a handout list that was handed out to you today that has a whole list of other towns that have beautiful bike programs already done. It's so easy to copy one of those and use them in our town. My proposal is very simple. It's to team up with the schools, have a designated planner from our police department, because we're talking traffic, have a designated leader go to our schools, get two or three teachers together, take a look at all these other places, and you can come up with teaching units from fourth grade on through high school. And kids that learn things in fourth and fifth grade, like etiquette, passing on your left, whatever, are gonna still have it when they get older. And we can hit the older kids right now also. And it's so easy. You do a little instruction in PE or in high school, they have a driver's ed. You can add a little unit to driver ed there, work down. So that's a proposal and I hope that we get working on it. We need the leader though. We need somebody from the department and Chief Sanford, I want you to pick somebody in your department and start going out to those schools and start working on those units. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, appreciate you hanging around waiting till now, appreciate your comments. Jennifer, anyone else?

That's all we had for registered speakers.

back to council for additional discussion and or direction. I think Chief Stanfield outlines a good course, refer both these topics. You got subject matter experts within the police department, Lieutenant Haygood, also Captain Dominguez at CHP would be a great resource as well too. And send it through the Public Safety Committee and see what everybody can figure out. Councilor Jean.

So I think it's important to really focus on the safety side, right? I feel like our discussion here has been, really about, or we come from it from a vehicle perspective. And I don't think we focus enough on bikes and pedestrian safety, like to them specifically having, and my thoughts are always, we don't drive change in habits simply through policing, right? We have to incorporate infrastructure changes. And so I'm not in favor of just simply writing an ordinance to to try to fix this. I think what we need are more dedicated, protected bike lanes, right? I think we need ways in which the city focus on encouraging young people to bike and also having them be safe. And I don't think that it's just simply by ticketing, arresting, finding, I don't know what that solution here is, right? But it's not simply through that because habit changes through infrastructure. And my first thought would be, this should be sent to the bike and pedestrian committee, advisory committee, rather than through the traffic and safety subcommittee. And so again, I'm not fond of just simply doing this. I think if we really think about protecting bikers, we should think about how do we make it more friendly to bike in spaces that are are going to protect them from vehicles. Thank you, Mayor.

I would say one of the things that city of Carlsbad did that when I was talking to one of their council members is any minor that got a bike confiscated, their parents and the minor had to attend a one hour informational education session. Cause some parents didn't even know their kids were doing that. um and i don't think playing chicken with a car is an infrastructure project problem that is a behavior problem uh so i think it needs to go to the public safety committee because we're talking about policy and ordinance which is created by the city council no other commission creates policy. So this is, it's appropriate to go to the Public Safety Committee. If that's the correct committee, Council Member Smith and our new committee system. Thank you.

I support sending it to the public safety committee first for discussion. I could see getting feedback for the bicycle or pedestrian committee as well before it comes back to the full council. But I think the right first stop is the committee.

Yeah, I think both can certainly weigh in, but yeah, sending it to public safety first, working on it, you know, if it's appropriate to take something to, the bicycle, it probably is to take it to the bicycle pedestrian advisory committee and then back to it. But we have two infrastructure problem is the infrastructure is being used. Especially with the bike riders, they're on the road, but problem is they're swerving at cars, going on the wrong side of the road. That's the big issue. I mean, it's not a question of being able to use the infrastructure in that instance, it's just using it in a way that's highly unsafe.

Well, I meant more like take them off the road, right? We only have two major bike paths in the city of Merced going east and west. So we have a lot more if we actually encourage folks to bike on these where they're not at all surrounded by cars. I think that's the proper approach to this. And I understand it takes a lot of money, but I think that's how we should build a city.

I don't disagree. I don't disagree with what you said. It takes a lot of money. you know, problems here. People aren't trying to stay away from cars. They're not showing that they're scared of cars. They're directly going at cars. But I'd be nice. We certainly, you know, we just had a big, the safe route to school program and some other programs as well that try to get grants to enhance our infrastructure. And I certainly agree that it just takes a lot of money to do it. All right. Anybody else on this topic?

Is there a motion? Motion to send this to the Public Safety Committee.

Second.

Okay, we have a motion by Council Member DuPont and a second by Council Member Harris. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. And the motion passes with Council Member Zhang voting no.

Council President, I look forward to hearing back All right, move on to L3. The first of, I believe eight items, which deal with appointments to our various commissions. Okay, first is our annual appointments to the Arts and Culture Advisory Commission We have district one, two, five, six, and three ex-officio seats as well. I guess we'll start, Jennifer, do we have anything from the public?

We do have one registered speaker. Okay. Miranda Griswold.

We'll start with that. Ms. Griswold. Welcome.

Thank you. So I'm here to talk about my application for the Arts and Culture Commission. So I applied to several boards in hopes to get one seat. And over the weekend, I worked the Playhouse Merced Fireworks booth. And by the way, Mr. Serato, we know you went somewhere else. So we'll forgive you. And I was just thinking about how much I love volunteering. My son does the Children's Conservatory at Playhouse Merced. So come see Lion King Jr. It starts next week. And I really feel like that's my jam. So I'm here to speak about that and hope that I get this appointment for District 5. I think that arts and culture are very important for a thriving community. And with the recent designation of the Downtown Cultural District, our city is poised to make a huge impact by supporting and promoting arts programs and events. I'm always the first parent to volunteer at Playhouse Merced. I've worked all the shows as the usher. This will be my son's second show with them. And I just think that it's very, very important to support programs like that for the kids in our community. And I do believe also my personal experience with community outreach and advocacy puts me in a great position to be able to serve on this committee. So thank you for your time. I don't wanna talk forever, but I appreciate your consideration.

All right, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. Did you, I just wanna, if I can call you back real quick. You mentioned, you also applied to the planning commission as well.

I did, yeah.

You mentioned you're looking for one appointment. Yeah. One and one only.

Yes.

Okay, thank you. I know it's good information to have, thank you. Yeah. Okay, Jennifer, anyone else on L3?

That's all we have for L3. Okay.

We have first with District 1, no eligible applications. Councilmember DuPont, I'll turn to you briefly.

Thank you, Mayor. I have reached out, seeing that I have nobody that applied. I did reach out to someone. They are interested in applying. So I just request this to be continued to the next council meeting, which is July 20th. We'll have them apply. We can take it up then. Thank you. Very good.

District two, Councilor Tau, Maria Del Zaragoza turned out and we have an application from Bree Wolf.

Yeah, since there's only one application, so I'll make the motion to appoint Bree Wolf.

Okay. Then with regards to District five, Mayor Pro Tem Boyle.

Thank you. So first I'd like to thank Ms. Griswold for taking the time to apply and for her willingness to serve the city of Merced. I truly do appreciate her interest in giving back to the community. Ms. Griswold has a strong background in public health, nonprofit work, community outreach and advocacy and those are valuable experiences. However, I reviewed the application alongside the proposed and qualifications outlined in the Arts and Culture Advisory Commission. I was hoping to see experience that more aligns with the commission's mission, such as involvement in the visual and performing arts, cultural programming, public arts, arts organization, historic preservation, or other related fields. Because of that, I would prefer to reopen the recruitment in hopes to attract applicants whose backgrounds more closely aligned with the work of this commission. I also noticed in her application that arts and culture was one of several boards she expressed her interest in. There may be future opportunities on other commissions where her background and community involvement would be an excellent match. I certainly hope she continues to stay engaged and considers applying for these opportunities as they become available And I'm happy to sit down with you as well, to look at some of those that I think that you would be better aligned with.

All right. So your request is to continue the next meeting as well. District six council member Shawn.

I would like to appoint Tommy Tran.

he finished his first term in district five. And then now given the boundary changes, this will be a second term district six. Okay, so with regards to those first four, we have a request to continue district one, district five to July the 20th. And then we have Brie Wolf in District 2 and Tommy Tran in District 6. Any discussion or a motion along those lines? Or additional discussion? Motion.

Second.

Okay, motion second. Any discussion? Okay, seeing no, we have motion and second. district one and five and point Brie Wolf to district two and Tommy Tran to district six.

Do you have a motion by council member Dupont, any second by council member Harris. Mayor and council, please cast your votes. Okay, and the motion passes with council member Zhang voting no.

Okay, and now to our ex-officio applications. It looks like we have three ex-officio vacancies, applications, from Anna Browning, Sabrina Bong, Anna Hita, I'm gonna miss pronounce her last name, Faruton. And then I'm not gonna say his last name, but Tom, Tom, Tom, oh, Olisansak was also in district six, along with Christopher Carter. I know Christopher Carter applied for several other boards and commissions as well. So I think it narrows it down to Anna Browning, Sabrina Bong, Anna Heta, and Tom. Discussion or only who makes, typically makes the ex officio motions. I can do it or else if somebody else wants to make it. Customer Harris, is that new or is that? That's new. Okay, go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. Again, I'd like to remind us that ex officio, I believe in the, Ordinance says that one shall be a member of the city council. And I believe we should follow our own rules.

Who's been, sir, were you on the, were the ex officio in the past to the arts and culture commission?

I was last term. Okay. Who is? I don't think I am now, so don't ask me. Okay.

So we need to appoint.

It looks like all the ex officios are vacant right now.

Okay. Jeff.

I believe that I think council kind of moved away from being ex officios on this. And it's just, we typically have three ex officios from members of the public. And then we used to have council come, but they weren't coming. So it kind of.

Yeah. Died down a little.

I think with all the subcommittees, I think it kind of went away.

Do those ex officios vote?

No, they are non-voting members, but they can partake in discussion. They just can't vote.

So it says the city council may appoint an additional four members to sit on the commission as ex-officio non-voting members. Said ex-officio non-voting members may be non-city residents who live within the city of Merced sphere of influence who demonstrate expertise in any number of art disciplines or other areas of expertise or knowledge. One of the ex-officio members shall be a member of the city council.

There you have it. All right, who wants to volunteer? Councilor Harris?

Sure, I'll volunteer.

All right, so Jennifer, that leaves us with two more.

Sure.

Okay.

All right, we have Anna Browning. I propose Anna Browning and Anahita Furutan. I would second that. All right. Is there a motion to second, additional discussion? There's Council Member Harris, Anna Browning, and Anahita. Okay, motion to second, call for the question.

Okay, I'm sorry, I didn't catch the motion in the second.

It's a motion, my motion and then Council Member DuPont. Okay, sorry about that.

I have a motion by Mayor Serrato and a second by Council Member DuPont. Mayor and Council, please cast your votes. And the motion passes unanimously.

All right, L4, Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission, Districts 2, 5, 6, and 2 ex officio. Jennifer, anything from the public on this item?

We do have one registered in-person speaker, David Chambers.

All right, Mr. Chambers. Okay. If there's any item you wanna be heard on later, just fill out the green request form. Okay, all right. All right, so any additional speakers? Jennifer.

That was all we had, Mayor.

Okay, 1st District 2, Council Member Tau, Dina Gonzalez. She's interested, she served a partial term and is interested in being reappointed. Is she acceptable to you? Yeah, I'll go ahead and appoint her. All right, District 5, Lisa Kaiser-Grant is termed out, no other applications. Council Member Boyle, Mayor Pro Tem Boyle, I apologize.

Let's go back out.

Okay, come back July 20, if that's okay. And then District 6, Council Member Xiong Arturo Martinez, his term is finished. He's not interested in reapplying and there are currently no more applications. Your wish, sir.

Similarly, extend it out, please.

Okay.

And then ex-officio, we have two spots. And we have applications from Amanda Estrada, Craig Hamelin, and Sabrina Abong. I see just noting that Amanda Estrada applied for other boards as well and could be useful in other spots. She's district one, so. No, we're on the same page. So I put forth Craig Hamlin and Sabrina Abong as the two ex-officio spots.

I would put forward.

Is that required again here?

All right. Mayor Pro Tem, what you were reading from, does that apply to all the commissions?

That was only the arts and culture. So I was gonna pull up the bicycle and pedestrian right now, see if I can find it.

As for one of them, I will put forward Craig Harmelin. Okay. I think we can vote on that one.

I'm not doing anything else. I'll second.

Dr. John. I know I brought this up earlier for the minutes, but just curious with regards to, is there any way to change the time of the meetings? so that folks are more available to go to these meetings. My understanding is this one's at four.

I don't think we're agendized to do that currently.

Let me rephrase. Is there a way in which we could do it next time? Like just talking mechanisms to do this. Not saying do it today.