City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, welcome everybody to the Selma City Council regular meeting. It's March 17, 2026, otherwise known as St. Patty's Day, and it's 6 p.m. in the Selma City Council chambers at 1710 Tucker Street, Selma, California 93662. Teleconference phone number is 301-7158592. The webinar ID is 891-6864-50005. When on the phone, if you wish to address the council during the public comment part of the agenda, press star 9 to raise your hand and we will select you from the meeting queue. Press star six to unmute and mute yourself. Notice to meeting attendees, members of the audience, shall not engage in disorderly or boisterous conduct, including the utterance of threatening or abusive language or other acts which disturb, disrupt, or impede or otherwise render the orderly conduct of a city council meeting impeasible. Before we start tonight, I'd like to have um a moment of silence for two folks. Uh, one for Juliani Moreno who was killed tragically in Parliier on March 10th while crossing the street and Sam Eastman, proud veteran and member of the American Legion. Could we all please bow our heads? I'm sorry, Sam Israelian, uh, proud veteran and member of the American Legion whom we honored just a year ago in Veterans Park. Could everyone please bow your heads? Thank you for that moment of silence. And now we will move on to our invocation. Minister Leonella Robas representing Eglacia Antiochia is here tonight. Welcome.

Mayor Cedo Council members, it's a pleasure to be here. So you guys can please join me in a prayer. Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we thank you, Lord, for allowing us to be here tonight. Lord Jesus, I ask Lord that you fill us with your Holy Spirit, heavenly father, and that you lead and that you guide the governing members that you've appointed here over Selma, Lord, and that you just edify them, Lord, and that you just fill them with your Holy Spirit, heavenly father, so that they can continue, Lord, leading and doing the will that you have uh put upon them, heavenly father, for here, for the city. And in the same way, Lord, we pray over those families of the people we lost, heavenly father, that you strengthen them, heavenly father, and that you just give them peace during this time, Lord. In the name of Jesus, we thank you. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Everybody, please stand for the pledge. Leading the flag to the flag of the United States of Americ.

Council member Avalos here. Council member Osagera here. Council member Trillo here. Mayor Promgera here. Mayor Robertson

here. Potential conflicts of interest. Any council member who has a potential conflict of interest may now identify the item and recuse themselves from discussing and voting on the matter. Agenda changes or deletions. To better accommodate members of the public or inconvenience in the order of presentation, items on the agenda may not be presented or acted on in the order listed. Additions to the agenda may be added only pursuant to California government code section 54954.2B. City attorney, do we have any such changes or deletions tonight? Nothing to add or to delete, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, city attorney. That we will move on to oral communications. At this time, any member of the public may address the city council regarding any item on the regular meeting agenda over which the council has jurisdiction. No action or discussion will be taken on any item not on the agenda. Issues raised will be referred to the city manager for review. Members of the public are asked to limit their remarks to three minutes. Do we have any oral communications at this time? We have anybody online or on the phone with oral communications? Mayor, I see no hands raised at this time.

Thank you. With that, we will move on to our special presentations of which we have two tonight. Our first one is the California Parks and Recreation Society District 7 Outstanding Program Award for Selma from 2025 and California Parks and Recreation Society District 7 Outstanding Program Award for Cool Kid Players Program. Director Fletcher.

Yes. Good evening, Mayor and members of the council. It is my honor to have our department staff here today um in front of you guys all um being recognized for the hard work that they put in day in and day out um into our community. And so through the California Parks and Recreation Society um we are part of District 7. So District 7 ranges everywhere from Madera to Kings to Tallery to um Fresno and then um I believe that's kind of the gist of it. Um, and so we're kind of a wide range of communities that all come together and volunteer on this District 7 board. And so we um attended a dinner last month and we were recognized for two different awards, two different outstanding program awards um that were a competitive process for us. And so um it is an honor tonight to receive these awards and and show you guys the hard work that our staff has been putting into this. And so the first award that we did receive was um the outstanding program award for our first ever senior prom. And so I wanted to congratulate staff and um acknowledge our staff and present this to our staff today. And we actually have our prom king and queen here with us tonight as well. And so if I can have everybody come up, I would love to get a picture with everybody um presenting our award. Yes. The staff as well.

Do you guys want to come up here and we'll take a picture? And I was at the senior prom and the prom king and queen did a great job pictures. Oh, here we go.

Is coming down three. One, two, three. If you would like to say something, go ahead.

I appreciate the seniors workers here. I'm going to cry. Um, I never had a prom and thanks to them today that I feel so proud and happy. Uh, they made our day and our night and a memory that we'll never forget. And I say thank you cuz they worked so hard and made it so beautiful that I had never seen nothing like that before. Thank you. That's what it's all about right there.

We're going to do it all over again next and it's going to be even nicer. The second award um I would love to present to both Nicola and Sammy for um all the hard work that they do with the cool kids players program over at the Selma Arts Center. So this last show they had so many kids they had to divide their cast into three different um performances. And so that is you know quite uh um just just quite an honor to to be able to provide art and culture to our community and the neighboring communities that we serve as well. And so thank you guys for all your hard work and your dedication. And I know that, you know, some of the other volunteers may have not been able to be here tonight, but they are just as important to our program. And so I thank you. And so this is for you guys. Yes.

Oh, we have some cool kid players here, too. Yes. And our head of our CKP parent club. And the head of the CKP parent club. Thank you for coming. One more. One more. Get in there, Tene. like

got it down. He's got a nice journalism right there.

All right. Congratulations to these great groups making Selma proud. Thank you. Now we're going to move on to our second special presentation of the evening. This is going to be anformational presentation regarding potential measure C replacement measures from fix our roads and better roads safe streets. City manager.

Yes, thank you. Um two presentations tonight. Um, these are both uh citizen initiatives to potentially replace Measure C. And so we have both of those initiatives here uh to present tonight. And we'll go ahead and start with better roads, safe streets. And if we can um we can have them do their presentation and then uh ask questions afterwards.

Sounds good. Come on up. I did this for like 15 years and I still can't remember that. Right. It's great uh for me to be in Selma tonight. I'm a Selma native. So, it's always special to come back to Selma. I took a few minutes before the meeting and I drove past one of the houses I was raised in on Dockery Avenue across from the Beth Lutheran home. Always great to see my oil stomping grounds. Um I'm here tonight to present on the behalf of a citizens initiative called Better Roads and Safe Streets. Um it is a transportation measure built to replace um what was known as Measure C. And many of you know what Measure C was. It's been a part of our county for decades and decades. And so it's a half cent sales tax where we tax ourselves on every soda that we buy and every car that we buy. We tax ourselves. The good thing about this tax is we don't send it to Sacramento. We don't send it to Washington DC. We keep it all here in Fresno County. Improving our roads and other transportation issues in the city of Selma and all the other 15 cities that make up the county, 14 cities and the county itself. So about a year ago, everybody realized, oh my gosh, measure C is coming to an end. It it um ends this year at the end of the year. So a replacement had to be formed. And so the council of governments, Mayor Robertson, you serve on the Fresno Cog, that's a council of governments, took up this work to find an extension of measure C wanted. The goal was just to extend it another round. And so they created a steering committee and um all the people that were on the cog, the city of Selma had a member on the steering committee and gave direction to begin that work.

So there was at the same time another group called transportation for all that was also working on a transportation measure and the question from COG was can both groups work together. So they asked for us to all get in the room and see if that work could be done together and the answer was yes. So that was a good start. And so at that moment the steering committee um added members from transportation for all created this massive body and the work began and the work I guess continued at that point. Lots of debate uh lots of ideas thrown out. Every recommendation to pass the steering committee had to reach 70% approval. So many good ideas and thoughtful ideas didn't didn't quite make it, but a lot of great stuff got done. Uh in the meantime, um thanks to COG doing some of the meetings and transportation for all, there were dozens of community meetings, thousands of surveys done to community members all across Fresno County and surveys and polling and all kinds of stuff that informed us that the number one priority for everybody uh was generally um fixing our local roads. Measure C in the past has had other major priorities. Many of them many times it started off being a very regional thing and and so 41 was built out, 168, 180, these types of things. But now everybody was screaming we want our local roads fixed like the road out in front of this building, the roads in front of your homes, the the roads in front of my home. And I live in North Fresno now and um it's kind of a downgrade from Selma, but I live in North Fresno now and my roads need help. At my main intersection of Aluvial and Maple, there's a pothole with literal weeds growing in the pothole. We all see that. And so that was the impetus for

all the work to be done. Unfortunately, after that body created their final product with 93% approval rating from over 30 people on the steering committee, Fresno County made it clear from several distinguished supervisors that it was dead on arrival. So, at that moment, the Fresno Council of Governments put all that work in a folder and set it aside. And if anything was going to continue to improve our roads and other transportation issues in our county, it was going to have to be taken up by citizens. And so that's when our work began. So we took that work and it wasn't it wasn't it was final, but it needed some eyes dotted and tees crossed. We did all of that additional work and um are now have a entire campaign to make sure that we continue working on our own roads. And um so that is what I'm here tonight representing that campaign and it's called better roads and safe streets. And to any of your citizens that want to learn more about it, we're simply better roads and safe streets.com. You can find the entire plan there. Anybody can read it. Anybody can submit questions, statements, concerns. It's entirely there. We're a a very well-funded campaign. We're in the field right now gathering signatures on a daily basis. We are taking this very seriously. We cannot afford to watch our roads denigrate faster than they already are. We can't take off four years. We can't take off two years. We have to continue. So, Better Roads and Safe Streets is out there right now making sure that we're going to get this approved at the county clerk's office and then put in front of the voters in November. Now, if you notice, I didn't go down into the weeds of our measure because that's not me. Uh, but I've got a great team and two of them are here with me tonight. Veronica Geray and Andy Lavine. And I'm going to ask Andy to come up and begin to tell

you a little bit more about the nuts and bolts of our measure. Thank you.

Good evening. Let's see if I can make this work without embarrassing myself here. Good evening, Mayor Robertson, Council. Thank you all for having us tonight. Great to be back in Selma. Um, as Steve said, my name is Andy Lavine. I'm representing as well the Better Roads Safe Streets campaign. Steve uh got a little ahead of us on the presentation, so I'm going to breeze through a couple of slides that I would have otherwise touched on. But as as he shared and as you you all well know, um this 40-year um once renewed halfcent sales tax known as measure C is set to expire uh next year, June of 2027, which um leads us to the moment we're in now, leads us led us to the process that Steve touched on. Um that a a broad-based coalition um that I'm very proud to be a part of. um conducted listening sessions all over the county in um almost every zip code of the county. In fact, if you could skip ahead two slides um you know, Steve shared the the history of Measure C. Uh I I didn't honestly know myself until doing the research that the very original Measure C in 1986 was a citizen-led initiative. So very proud to be standing in that legacy. And Measure C has done a lot of good things over the years, but because of the investments and priorities of Measure C over its two iterations, we do leave our find ourselves in situation of having an estimated $5.4 billion dollar of deferred maintenance and needs to get our our local roads to get our roads up to good um condition. So, it has the the priorities have come at the expense, which is why we've heard very clearly uh across our community. Uh a few of you came to I think one if not more of the sessions we held in Selma. We intentionally held listening sessions all over the county in kind of um center central areas around the county online opportunities and in the end not just on transportation I think just in general a pretty historic unprecedented um result in having 40 over 4,500 people give us their needs their problems with transportation and their vision for what they wanted to see for transportation and despite it having 34 meetings and

town halls representing 72 almost all zip codes of Fresno County it was actually pretty powerful and telling that we heard almost almost across the board the same things the same top priorities as Steve shared uh if you can go to the next slide we we heard a number of priorities but overwhelmingly and why you'll you'll see in our expenditure plan in our in our overall plan overwhelmingly the response was fix the roads in front of me fix the roads in front of my home in front of my school in front of my job help me get to the places I need to get to without having to have potholes without having to have other issues Again, that's not by accident. It's because of a a reflection of the priorities uh the last 40 years. So, people were loud and clear and um and and really universal in we want the priority to be on our local roads. We also want to maintain and improve our public transportation services. We want to have u better options for uh active transportation. We want to be able to have regional connectivity. We want to see balance across the board. But again, we want to see the top priority being improving our existing neighborhood roads, not new roads. the roads right in front of us right now. Which is why the slide you see in front of us, it's by no accident that our plan, the better roads safe streets plan, would uh commit uh 65% roughly 2/3 of the measure, almost $5 billion out of the 7.4 billion estimated to be generated over the next 30 years in existing neighborhood roads. You're going to hear in a minute about uh a 66 number from the other measure. I would I'll get I'll get to this in a little more detail in a moment. Um if you can go to the next slide even um the the administering agencies of course as you know Selma and the 14 other cities the county the three transit agencies and the Fresno Council of Governments. Next slide please. So this this top priority the overwhelmingly largest category in our expenditure plan 65%. I want to really emphasize this is a flex

this is a flexible thought pot of funds for all 15 jurisdictions in the county. You're going to hear in a minute a 66% number. I would really encourage you to look at the details of that. I would argue with uh research behind it that 16% of that is really what's flexible. The remaining 50% in the other measure is actually the lack is is is the opposite of flexible. It is actually very well prescriptive. Our our measure, this category, the allocations to the city of Selma and the 14 other cities in the county of Fresno provides maximum flexibility. You'll hear in a moment some very clear performance metrics for the county overall. Um that is also important. Voters deserve to know that if they vote for this, they're going to get some specific things out of it. So, it's a it's a mixture of some some clear um outcomes that are expected. And with that, every jurisdiction, including the city of Selma, will have maximum flexibility to be able to spend the allocation they receive each year for the next 30 years as you all see fit. really improving the neighborhoods and the roads that are that are the most in need in your jurisdiction, including fixing potholes, damaged roads, building sidewalks and trails, protected bike lanes, um re reducing emergency response times for first responders, and important safety enhancements around bumps, lighting, signage again, in the areas that you see fit because your jurisdiction, you are the leaders of your jurisdiction, and you know what you uh your community needs to be prioritized. So, next slide, please. We wanted to be sure to give you we have a breakdown of what this looks like for every single jurisdiction in the measure, but obviously I would assume you all are most interested in what is Selma going to receive. Um, and so we wanted to give you a breakdown in the current measure C over the last 20 years. This is we say this is estimated because it's not uh definitive until the end of the the measure um early next year. Um, but it's estimated that the current measure C in in the current measure C, City of Selma has received uh a little over $12 million over the over

the last 20 years. In our measure, in the proposed breakdown over the next 30 years, it is estimated the city of Selma would receive over $111 million over the next 30 years. Again, reflecting that you all and each city wants to see the majority of the money going to allowing you to to fix and improve the roads in front of you. Next slide. So, as I said earlier, this it is intentionally meant to be a mix of maximum flexibility so you all can spend the money as you see fit and collectively as the county as a whole and specifically you'll see in a couple of areas um there are specific performance metrics for the Fresno Clovis area and then from there there are overall uh performance metrics for the rest of the county for the county itself and anything the city of Selma does within a couple of areas counts towards those requirements without a specific requirement for you as the city of Selma in these areas. And so a couple of those that the the requirement for every jurisdiction um is because people want to see their neighborhood roads improved, there is a requirement to to get all uh to get the average PCI which is called the shorthand for the pavement condition index up to 70 for every jurisdiction which is what is considered a good road. So an average of 70 um for for uh for every jurisdiction. And then as I mentioned the two other um performance requirements in this area are overall over the next 30 years 120 protected bike lanes andor trails built andor maintained over the next 30 years. Um the way this breaks down is the Fresno Clovis area would be responsible for 84 miles and the rest of the county would be responsible for 36 miles again of class one class 4 protected bike lanes and trails. Anything that the city of Selma does counts towards the county of Fresno's 36 mile requirement, but there is no specific requirement for the city of Selma in this area. Similarly, um I am an educator. This was one that is near and dear to my heart. It is historic that this would require and uh

account for 150 safe routes to schools projects to be built over the next 30 years. The breakdown for this one based on just the for the population breakdown is 105 safe school projects in the Fresno Clovis area, 45 safe school projects um in the rest of the county. Again, any safe school projects the city of Selma does in collaboration with Selma Unified and uh other school districts in uh in your case Selma Unified goes towards that 45 uh site require project requirement um but is not a specific metric that the city of Selma's held accountable for. Next slide. Again, we heard that people wanted to um at the very least maintain existing public transportation services um if not also aspirationally. And we are hopeful and confident in our measure that you'll see an improvement in public transportation services. And people were clear that doesn't mean just the 40 foot buses that I think we commonly uh associate public transportation with. They wanted to see an expansion of ondemand services, microtransit services, helping people that are transit dependent. 80% of transit riders in President County are transit dependent, helping people to be able to get to where they need to get to. Um, and making that accessible, affordable. Um, you're also not going to hear in the other measure a commitment and a guarantee that they would be able to maintain existing public transit services. Ours would lead to uh a maintenance and an improvement of public transportation services, requiring all all three transit agencies to develop a public transit improvement plan by 2029 and six very specific performance metrics and requirements on improving public transportation services as well as keeping uh fairs low and in fact free for special populations. I'll get to in a moment. For seniors 62 and older, uh people with disabilities, students, children, veterans, and active military personnel, which we were people were very clear they wanted to see public transit uh uh maintained and affordable

for those specific populations. So that's why we have uh commitments and plans in our measure around those very same things. slide. Uh this one is a combination of this is where we have the guaranteed free fairs for those special populations again seniors 62 and older, people with disabilities, children, students, veterans, and active military as well as a competitive pot around innovation around the future of transportation that some of which we know of, some of which we, you know, this is a 30 30-year measure. Technology is advancing very quickly. there will be a competitive pot of funds to be able to um have jurisdictions access um funding in these areas. Next slide. We people also wanted to be sure make sure there was even though there is intentionally and rightly and loud and clear people told us they wanted this a commitment and a prioritization to local existing neighborhood roads, there is still uh a commitment and uh investment in regional connectivity, helping people to still be able to get from city to city and across the county. um and allowing again enough funding for the ability to to match funding and to be able to secure the funding we need to continue to expand our regional projects over the next 30 years. Um so you'll see in there some of those things that um would allow for in this category. Next slide. And I apologize I'm trying to don't want to take up your entire night. I'm trying to breeze through the rest of this presentation a little bit here for you. um as is with the current measure uh a a um administration u category to allow people were also very clear they wanted to see accountability. They wanted to see oversight. They wanted to make sure that the money if they vote yes on this that the money is going to be spent the way that is intended. And so there's very clear accountability metrics in here around a citizen oversight committee. Any suspected misuse of funds um are to be referred to the district attorney and the attorney general. um required annual audits, but but also the council of governments to provide assistance for some of the smaller cities to do some of

those things. We recognize that um you know, not everyone has the same capacity around some of these things. And so making sure we're providing support and accountability because again, people want to make sure that this is as Steve mentioned, this is a local tax. This is a a tax that doesn't go anywhere but this but the Fresno County, doesn't go to the state or anywhere else. People want to know that it's being spent in the way that it intended. So we've allowed for 1% um of the plan roughly 7074 uh million over 30 years would be invested in the staffing and other components needed to u make sure that there's clear rules public oversight and accountability in our measure. Next slide. Um and again this is a kind of a breakdown of the clear reporting and performance metrics and requirements in our measure annual financial audits. um uh uh required um by 2029 and every years every five years therein updates on active transportation, safe routes to schools, public transit, the PCI for every jurisdiction, local hiring goals, complete streets and disadvantaged uninccorporated communities. You're also not going to hear from the other side a commitment to uh specific metrics in these areas. In fact, when it comes to trails and bike lanes, from what we've read, the only ability for jurisdictions to be able to build bike lanes and trails in the other measure would uh only come after they've received a match up front to be able to do so. So, ours both allows for active transportation requirement uh active transportation projects and has very clear metrics around these areas. Um comprehensive review every 10 years, the ability, again, a 30-year measure. There are things that are going to change over the next 30 years. And so it comes with an expectation that every 10 years there is the opportunity and need to review this plan with community input and the guidance and oversight of elected officials across our county. Um that's all for that slide and as uh Steve said we invite you to learn a lot more. We have the full text of the initiative on

our website as well as people that are supporting our plan. We just last night I'm excited to share we got the the support officially of the city of Clovis's uh city council. We're building support every day from elected officials, um, agencies, community groups, um, all over the county that are excited about this plan, are signing our petition. Uh, I would say the 45 plus hundred people that gave their input and opinion um, on what they wanted to see for transportation in our process over the last year, that's not just good policy, which it is, that means that we actually are really building out what people need, but it's actually good politics. I would say it is there's a reason why people are really um eager to sign the petition and eager to walk for us, eager to make sure that we get this passed in November because this is a communitybuilt and informed plan. So invite you to learn a lot more about the measure and the campaign and stay involved. If you want to sign the petition, you can get all that information at bettersafe streets.com.

Thank you. Great. Thank you for your presentation very much. If you want to stay up there, we'll open it up to the council if the council has any questions. And and I'm so sorry, mayor. I meant to ask, are you going to allow for public comment after the two presentations? Sure. We're going to do it right now, then we'll we'll allow for it at the end of both presentations. Council have any questions for Mr. Lavine or Mr. Brando or Miss Garave? Yeah. This time? Yeah. On this particular measure, uh I was reading it now. Who would be responsible? But you said these entities here, these public uh I want to say committees. I guess you're I'm assuming policy people.

Yes. Uh I mean the other issue on that particular committees do they have experience on this field like because I didn't I didn't see uh when I was on your presentation I didn't see the um trans authority being a part of that.

So so the administrative agency in our measure is the president council of governments. Yeah. Um that puts us in line frankly with I think the vast majority if not all other self-help measure uh in this case our measure C across the state that is that is common practice and really what I would say this is just my opinion on this one other benefit and advantage of that one it's less bureaucracy we should actually have one streamline authority for this to go through and the COG different from the current administering agency FCTA the COG guarantees representation of every single city and the county um uh through the COG policy board. So to guarantee that the city of Selma continues to have a direct say and oversight over the measure. And to your question, Council Member Avalos, um our measure also continues um the the the citizen oversight committee that is in the current measure C to have that representation.

On that note, on this oversight committee, are they be paid staff or volunteers? It's a combination. It's a those are I mean will there be a that that's the other issue I'm going to ask you there. Okay. On these paid What are you looking at these salaries? I'm sorry. Paid for a paid staff. What are you looking at? How many people you looking at to operate this this measure as far as if it if it goes into play? So, it it wouldn't be new staff per se. It's the staff from the Council of Governments.

Uh, other words, you wouldn't uh how I say you wouldn't be uh working together. you would you'll be I what I'm looking at it looks like you're creating a separate entity you know on this measure. So yeah thank you for the question. This this is really streamlining

streamlining but at the same time you know I don't see you know your the plan as far as expansion of roads or freeways just bike lanes and you know and you know and other issues but not it doesn't I I don't know I it seems like different. In other words, in other words, the the existing plan that you had before over 40 years, you know, the freeway 99, 180, 168, you know, 41 and, you know, and also going to, you know, all these going to the casinos, all these roads. I mean,

it was a the plan worked. I I don't you know, you know, it's an old saying, it ain't broken, don't fix it. you know, uh, but you want to deviate here a little bit on trendy.

If I could say on that, I I hear you loud and clear and I I you know, I think the priorities of Measure C and it two iterations over the 40 years have left us with deteriorating local roads. I think it's just it's it's hard to argue against that. And it's done a lot of good things. It's built out our freeway infrastructure to your point, Councilman. But because that's been the priority over the last 40 years, we have $5.4 4 billion in deferred maintenance of our local roads. And that that's so that's come at a cost. You're right. And so that's why I mean I think we're unapologetic. This measure does commit twothirds of the overall funding, the overall $7.4 billion generated, the almost $5 billion to fixing our local existing neighborhood roads because that's what people want to see and that's what's not been invested and prioritized. I mean over the last 40 years. It looks like it's this this committee that you're talking about. You agree that you're they're taking I mean the city doesn't really have a say. I mean local government officials don't have a say in it.

Hi, good afternoon. I'm happy to answer it. My name is Veronica Garibby. I'm also a proud resident and voter in city of Selma. Um so I'm happy to be before my own city council today. Um to answer your question about the committee, the administration of the better road safe streets would be overseen by the Fresno Council of Governments. Every mayor, every city, and the county board of supervisors, the chairman or their design sits on that policy board. In terms of who administers the actual dollars, it is not the citizen oversight committee as you're mentioning it. The Citizen Oversight Committee exists because taxpayers are entrusting a local government to be good stewards of our hard-earned dollars. The Citizen Oversight Committee and our measure exists as it currently exists today, 11 members appointed by the Fresno Council of Governments to represent the entire county and help oversee the measure. with respect to who will oversee and that determine how the dollars are spent. That's you. 65% of the funds in our measure, that's $4.8 billion. That's $111 million over 30 years for the city of Selma. You will decide how to allocate the $111 million for the city of Selma for taxpayers. That money will come directly to you once it is collected by the county just as it is today as a tax that we all pay our taxes. It gets deposited into a county account. Those dollars are then moved to the jurisdictions. Our plan allows you to establish a basine using your active transportation plan or if you are part of the council of government regional transportation plan which I don't believe the city of Selma is. The city of Selma's last ATP plan was in 2018. You get to decide where and what to fix first. What matters the first in our

city. You're currently deploying a series of pilot projects in Selma, the Selma safe street plans that has been wellreceived by taxpayers and voters in our community around making our school safer. So, vicinity around our school safer so our kids can walk safely or they can bike safely. Our plan allows you to use those $111 million to fix the road, fix the potholes, fix our streets, repair our streets, add new sidewalks, add curb and gutter, add crosswalks, I high add higher visibility signage to make it safer for pedestrians, for bicyclists, for people who are driving, for public transportation systems, and future ondemand transit services or microtransit services in our community. You decide that. You develop the plan. You update. That's 65% of the pot. 25% of the pot goes to the three transit agencies in the same way that it does today. That is the Clovis Transit Agency, the Fresno Area Express Agency, and the Fresno County Rural Transportation Services. They provide transportation to the city of Selma. Today, that's the um the 25%. Then there's 5% for the regional connectivity project. That category, unlike other projects, unlike the previous measures, is an open solicitation which allows the city of Selma through a public process to make a case for projects of regional significance that will benefit and connect us to the rest of the county through a public process where the projects are ultimately selected by the Fresno Council of Governments, the mayors that sit on that board. that gives our direct representative the opportunity to fight for Selma in that seat and make sure we get our fair

share. Then there's 4% of the category that is um that pot of funding provides zero fairs for people with disabilities in our community and it reduces the age to 62 and up. So our seniors 62 and up can ride at no cost. People with disabilities can write at no cost. Our students can write at no cost. Wouldn't it be great if our students in Selma could get to Fresno State at no cost and not have to worry about transportation? So my the reason why I'm going through this and then the rest of the uh the rest of the funds in that category are a competitive process. So our staff, your city managers, our public works staff can compete for funding for projects that are important for Selma and apply for that. And the Fresno Council of Governments, again, the mayors who sit on that board get to decide where those dollars go through a competitive public process. And that makes sure that there is transparency, that we are accountable to taxpayers, and that every taxpayer knows where every single dollar has gone. If you ask the Fresno Council of Governments or the Fresno County Transportation Authority today, show me where every dollar has gone in the last 40 years, they cannot do that. They can tell you the major the big projects that the measure has funded over time, but they won't be able to give you the details. Our measure requires a public database. So, if anybody in our community wants to see the progress on projects and how every dollar has been spent, the public will be able to see that and that's important to taxpayers. So, I wanted to raise that um because it's really important.

We let some other people have input, please. Thank you. Council, did council have any other questions? Anybody from the public have any questions about the first presentation tonight? Okay. Anybody online or on the phone with questions about Better Roads, Safe Streets before we move on to the second presentation and then we'll have questions again. Mayor, I see no hands raised at this time. Yep. Go ahead.

My name is Nick. I'm just having questions on these public uh the better roads and safe street. $111 million not going to do that much compared to 40 years ago 1986 when they start this 40 years and now they're doing it again same thing that cost of living and everything has gone so much up this with 111 million our population back in 1986 was 10,000 now is it 25,000 and this money what they are talking about is not going to do that many roads in my knowledge and um Um I think uh I wish that a government could increase that the half cents to something else to be have more our roads get repaired. Our roads are so much broken here in the city of Sama and I don't think the 111 million is going to go that far next 40 years. I'm not going to be that's going to be very very small fixing roads. That's my just thank you for that mayor. I will say that the breaks down to about 3.7 million uh per year which is about 2 million more than what um the city currently receives under the existing measure C.

Thank you.

Hi Teresa Solos. Um I think what Councilman Avalos was referring to was measure C now funds big projects like he said um the highway the freeways of 4180. I don't see I think it falls under regional connectivity here. There's not there's a drop in the bucket compared to yes, we're going to fix our local streets, but we need to be able to have that transportation, have the streets, have the freeways that connect the whole county. And I don't see that in this proposal. um that kind of money that we need to finish 41 or take these bigger streets out to the outlane communities where right now they're little two-lane roads or whatever. I'd like to see some of those expanded to make that process easier, the transportation between communities, not just in our community.

Definitely a difference. Thank you. Okay, if no one else has any other issues, we will move on to our second presentation and then we will of course have public comment at the end of this presentation as well. Welcome. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Malcolm Doerty. Um I'm a in the private sector for a consultant over the last three years in the transportation business with leadership roles in California and nationally and prior to that uh was in the public sector worked for CALR for 26 years was the statewide director for seven years and actually the CALR district 6 director prior to that which covers Madera County down to Kern County. With me is Georgina Vivian. She's the president of VRPA technologies uh representing the fix our roads. Um, you're going to recognize a lot of commonalities uh between these two presentations. Starting with we both think Measure C is very, very important to the county of Fresno. It has been for 40 years. I won't repeat what was said about the others, but I'll add a couple of data points. Fresno County was the second county in the state to have a a measure. And Fresno County, I think we all would agree, has benefited uh over those last 40 years from that additional revenue. Um there are three things that we always say about the local sales tax measures uh that we get. We get additional funding that we control here in Fresno County. That local control allows us to to select the projects and then lastly that local money gets to leverage statewide money. So let me talk about some of the differences that you will see and I do have too many slides. The good news is you have those slides and the audience has access to those slides. So, I will move through the slides very very quickly. But some differences that you can listen for is we're proposing a 20-year measure as opposed to a 30-year measure. We don't think it's appropriate to levy

that long of a tax, which it is. It's an existing tax. It's not an increase as was stated, but we don't know what the transportation needs, the transportation system, the availability of technologies are going to be 30 years from now. The last two measures successful in Fresno County have been 20 years. We think 20 years is the appropriate amount. It's less of a tax burden at this time and we think it's a long enough horizon to be able to make meaningful investments in the Fresno County transportation system, urban and rural. Another difference that you will see between the two proposals is the regional connectivity. um we have a significant investment in regional connectivity which is really not non-existent in the other measure and we think that that's important. I will give you a little bit more detail um on that. That connectivity money is where you get the leverage of those dollars with the state and national. In the last 40 years, we have leveraged our dollars for an additional $8 billion on the regional programs. The other money comes by formula for taking care of potholes. There are very important dollars at the state level, at the local level, at the federal level, but it's those regional connectivity projects that leverage federal dollars. And we have gained 8 billion in Fresno County through that process. There is a big difference between the two proposals. Transit investment, we basically hold transit where it's at. It continues to grow as escalation of costs, but it's it's essentially status quo for this year. The first thing we want is a re-evaluation of transit. We need to improve the way we are doing transit. We all think transit is important. We all know transit is important. There are transit dependent. There are people who elect to ride transit. We want more people to elect to ride transit, but we're not doing it right right now. 2% of the population rides transit right now. That hasn't changed for a decade. We need to do it

smarter. First thing we do is reimagine transit. And we also evaluate the the opportunities in consolidating the transit agencies. That's another significant difference between the two proposals. Then accountability. We all want accountability. They spoke about accountability. I'll speak about accountability. The major difference in that accountability is we maintain the existence of the Fresno County Transportation Authority along with working with the Fresno Council of Governments along with the oversight committees, public oversight committees and those things. We think that it's important to maintain the existing of Fresno County Transportation Author Fresno County Transportation Authority. It is tried and true is an extra level of of accountability. The only item that I the only statement that I will quibble with that was uh that was made earlier was show where every dollar went in the last 40 years. Oh, I think we can show where every dollar went. We can actually also show what every dollar leveraged and brought into our communities. That's the only item that I would quiver with. All right, let me try to move quickly through these slides. There's a lot of information in here because it's also your takeaway so that you can go back and look at that additional information. Again, the import if you could go to the next slide, please. Again, the importance of measure C. We've we've talked about that very collectively between the two the two groups. The next slide. This is the detail about the additional $8 billion that's been leveraged uh in the local transportation improvements over the past 40 years. All of that leverage is from the regional connectivity program. We used to call the regional program, but it's the major roads program that's listed in here. Next slide, please. Again, critical mandate to continue local funding. We all agree that Measure C has been essential for our benefit um to our communities and the county and each of the cities over the last 40 years. We continue that and again obtaining matching funds and that multiplier of those dollars is a key

differential and has been it has played to our advantage in in the past. Next slide. These are some of the individuals that are next slide please that were on the steering committee and there's a lot of experience in here. Retired FCTA, retired Fresno Cog, retired CALR, uh local professionals, county supervisor. Again, these folks built the plan off of the 2022 Measure C that went out to the public garnered 58% support. Um, doing a public uh initiative requires twothirds and so it did not pass. We're all here because we know how important Measure C is. We just have a different perspective of how that Measure C should be extended. Um, and these are the professionals that we utilize to look into uh the 2022 plan to try to improve upon it and respond to two surveys that were done back in 2022 and 2025 by FCTA and Fresno Cog. And we reacted to those surveys to be able to um uh update the 2022 plan to the plan that you have now. Next slide, please. Again, a key an a key statement for all measures around the state is promises made, promises kept. And that's why the first measure was extended in 2006 because they saw what was completed. They saw what was promised to them if we passed it in 1986 and they said, "I'll do that again." And they gave them another list of projects and they said, "If you vote for this in 2006, we promised to deliver those projects." And we did. And now we're here. This initiative does have a regional program. It does have major improvements to the transportation system, the highway system, which by the way the buses use and there is a list of projects that's clearly articulated in tier one and tier 2 for rural and urban projects. Promises

made. If it passes, promises will be kept and we have two iterations of the measure C to um to show that we will follow through with those commitments. President Okcog, Fresno County Transportation Authority, and all of us will follow through with those commitments that are made. Next slide, please. And this is basically the blueprint for the Fresno's uh needs, Fresno County's needs. Targeted priority focused on better roads. We agree that the road condition is a highest priority for most uh people in in Fresno County and the cities. Um disciplined timeline, we think 20 years is more fiscally prudent at this time. the eight time financial um uh magnifier when we use uh regional uh programs and then voter pro protections built with rocksolid citizen oversight and accountability and that comes from Fresno Cog FCTA and the citizens oversight. Next slide please. It's a very simplistic chart of how our measure breaks down. 82% for fixed local road programs and 18% for transit reimagined. This is one of the the glaring differences between ours. they had 25% for uh transit. If you go into the 82%, there's 50% directly to repairing road repair and then another 16% for local transportation which allows flexibility within that 16% to invest in road to invest in the pavement condition but then other items which I will elaborate on and then the other 16% is the regional program the major roads program and that comes up to 82%. So the major difference is 16% for a regional program for us versus 5% for the other for the other program. Next slide please. This is where we break down the 50% for the road repairs and then the additional 16%. I think there was a comment about what that 16% can and can't be used for. uh additional road repairs, sidewalks,

better access for people with disabilities, bike, pedestrian and trail systems projects, public transit services, congestion relief projects, and safety improvement projects. That's an add that 16% has that flexibility based on your priorities. Some communities will put that all towards potholes, some communities will put that towards sidewalks, some communities will put that towards bike lanes. There's flexibility with that additional 16%. as is today in the in the measure C program. You have to define your plan. You have to provide that for to FCTA and Fresno Cog and you have to deliver on that plan. There's accountability on how those dollars are spent. Next slide, please. And then the additional 16% that goes to it is those regional connectivity projects, those major uh improvement projects. And we have urban priorities and rural priorities. This is a list of projects. I will name a couple that will hit close to home for the city of Selma. Two projects that are in tier one um are the State Route 99 and Dauba interchange and State Route 43 passing lanes. Both in tier one. There's a third project for the 9943 interchange improvements. Those are the types of projects that we'd get done in that regional program. Those are the types of projects that may cost $80 million and we may spend $20 million of measure C dollars and go get competitive dollars from the state or even get federal grants to augment that $20 million and we build in $80 million with $20 million worth of local local dollars. These are your projects. These are the projects that the cities and the county built through the measure program and they were in the 2022 plan. Next slide, please. I also won't spend too much time on this. This will you will get a QR code at the end. You can look it up on the program. This is a list of the projects in the actual local of those major street improvements for the urban projects. Next slide. Major streets and improvements projects for

the um rural um uh setting and where those projects are. These are all on our website and the list of projects is available to you and we will also uh again there'll be a QR code at the end of the presentation for you to reference. Next slide. Any major improvements say in the me in the Fresno metropolitan area are not by def by automatically uh highway widening projects. We have invested quite a bit in the expansion of our highway system. The first thing we need to do is maximize the operations of those freeway systems by making strategic improvements, not just widening them. And that's the uh the uh smart corridor program for the major corridors throughout the county. 41, 999, 168, and 180 will be treated as smart corridors and priority will be given to operational improvements before we get into any capacity expansion. And then the question will raise, what is that capacity expansion? Is it a general purpose lane? Is it a bus lane? Um is it a HOV lane? Who knows? But that's those are the determinines that we'll make such we can maximize the investment that we have been ma maximized the benefit of the investment we've made over the past 40 years. Next slide please. Transit reimagined smart affordable mobility. They they are we we are both talking about how important transit is. It's hard to direct 25% of these dollars to transit when we're not getting the benefit out of the existing system that we need to get out of the existing system. We need to make transit work better for the user of the transit system and before we make additional investments and we want to make sure that we maximize that opportunity to study how transit is being used. Next slide please. Two competing visions. one, we both agree that Measure C is important and vital to the state to the to the county of Fresno. We have a different way of going about it. Um, and I outline those

major differences as to how we would accomplish that. Next slide. On this, I we talked about our circle on the left, theirs on the right. I will say that that we adjusted theirs for apples to apples comparison to a 20-year version, and that's based off of what the annual allocation would be. And I invite them to fact check it and update it if there's any anything incorrect on there. But that one thing I want to draw to your attention is we compared them 20 year to 20 year so that you could see what it would be. But you can see the different investments between um ours and uh uh their proposal. Next slide. Again, the numbers um everybody's very interested in the numbers. Um, every city and the county will get more money for roads in our in our proposal. That's the punch line. Next slide, please. 20-year plan draws $3.9 billion out of our constituents over 20 years. A 30-year plan draws $7.3 billion out of our constituents and I think strives for a horizon that we can't predict. And so we think a 20-year uh a 20-year plan is the appropriate way to go. It's the proper horizon um and it's fiscally responsible. Next slide, please. The regional program and the major pro the major program allows for us to address any congestion issues that we have on our highways or our local roads. Um the the other transportation initiative really limits the ability to address congestion in their plan by design. Um and if you are going to address congestion, you do have requirements to meet before you're allowed to invest in that congestion relief. Um we think we

think that road pavement condition is the highest priority. We think sidewalks, ADA, transit are all priorities, but we also believe a priority is doing regional improvements to address the growth in our county, both in population and economic. Next slide, please. Funding guarantees, local flexibility. I think I articulated what is committed to what area and where the flexibility may lie um for the local uh the local communities. And so I'll move on to the next slide. transit, trails, and quality of life. We talked about the opportunity to invest in both of those. And I also talked about the opportunity to reimagine transit. Again, I think the investment in transit um it it really needs to be made in a way that is optimizing um the service to the individuals that are using transit. And hopefully we get to a point where we're actually having more opt-in riders of transit. Next slide, please. Accountability and track record. I think I've said that um pretty clearly. Main difference is we maintain Fresno County Transportation Authority. We think it's an additional it's a it's it's been a tried and true um and it's been there for 40 years and we think it's a along with the oversight committees, the public oversight committees and the Fresno Cog uh an important piece um and we think uh um yeah and the track record of the 40 years that we've talked about. Next slide. I've commented that I think 30 years is too long of a horizon. So, I'll leave those comments in your slide for you. Next slide. And we're all on the same road. We're all on the same journey. We're going to go down. We're we're registered to uh as an initiative. We'll be raising money. We'll be collecting signatures. We'll be qualifying for the ballot. And then we'll be putting it on the ballot in the same timeline in November. And the Fresno County voters will have a choice as to what they want to invest in over the next 20 years or the next 30 years. Next slide.

This is a slide just to call off for interest of those who want to help and there's different ways to do it and requesting a petition petition, volunteering, contributing and talking about it with your friends. And then the last slide is that QR code and in that QR code you will see the details of the implementation pro procedures as well as the expenditure plan and all the other charts and the numbers that I've presented to you today. Again, I very much appreciate the opportunity to share this information. Be happy to try to answer any questions you may have and I may call friend uh with Georgina. Um and I hope you have a a very happy state.

Great. Thank you. Don't don't go anywhere, Mr. Doggardy. So, did council have any questions for Mr. Doggery at this at this time? I do. I just want to

um state that, you know, measure C, we definitely need it, but we're looking at I'm looking at Selma, what Selma needs, and we have a major problem on Floral Avenue with the exit of 99 going for me. I'd like to know, I mean, if you're stating that for fixture roads would be more suitable for the city of Selma because it will include some type of alternative there because we do have a freeway, an overpass. So, are we saying that better roads and safe streets does not have that option? The regional program that we have has 16% and for projects like that uh it's a significantly higher pot of money to deliver those types of projects. The more dollars we leverage the deeper into the list of projects that we have. We have a tier one and a tier two for urban and for rural. It's the same that the last two measures have done. And the farther we can make that money go, the deeper we'll get into that list. Uh the other proposal has 5% and if you look at the dollars you will probably deliver one project a year maybe because it's not a lot of money for regional connectivity and major road improvements.

Thank you.

The um let's talk a little bit about the bank here. Um, in the past for the Measure C um, allocation of funding, it has been up to the Fresno County Transit Agency to our authority to actually spend that money. To my knowledge, I haven't seen any accusations of theft or misbeence or malfeasants. So, they've done a there's a track record there. um your plan, just to reiterate, does it does it keep the FCTA as the distributor and does the better road safe streets that changes it to Fresno Cog? I I know you're not representing them. I'm going to ask them, but why would the FCTA be retained to be the dist the overseer and distribution channel for those for those funds, those measure C the measure tax measure funds? Yeah, thank you for that question. Uh, it's not it's a partnership between Fresno Cog and FCTA more than it is one overseeing the other. And again, they have different roles. Those roles actually evolved in 2006 when uh the the measure was renewed in 2006. But to this day, they both play very important roles as far as a COG, a council of governments, a regional planning agency, and a FCTA who administers a a measure money, a measure program. But they work hand in hand and they're very important together. But it also gives you two boards and two staffs for accountability. Fresno County Transportation Authority has like one and a half people working for it. It's not a large organization, but it's a very important organization because they they monitor and and um facilitate a lot of the oversight committees and work very closely with Fresno County, Fresno Cog, and they have uh the board to re report to. Both Fresno Cog and FCTA have boards.

Okay. And to my understanding, the measure very clearly doesn't have anything to do with FCTA only COG. If the if the other measure prevails that we heard from first, you can ask their explanation that Fresno County Transportation Authority FCTA goes away and all the responsibility ends up on Fresno Cog. Okay. Anybody else have a question before we ask for public input

on that statement on the tiers? Yeah. You you say tier one and tier two. uh on the um on the allocations. Now you know you you know certain areas need you know people talk about roads. I understand that roads potholes and stuff like that but you know uh you know like us you know we have an area like back then we only had one road going to Walmart and we turn around with measure C money and fix it and made two two lanes on each side and that was in the past. I know that for a fact. uh but it still needs some factors. Plural exit is is impact for the future. And the reason why I say that my father actually built the this these bridges and these freeways. Uh and I look at it now as a young kid, you know, the impact what is now on this freeway and and I know on the committees, you know, back in the days 168, 180, the blueprint program and all that. I'm well aware of those things. I was a part of it and and I see the benefits. I look at the benefits on the measure C plans and in the 40-year plan, I see it. You know, you know, when you don't you talk about it now, but you look at the the benefits in the another 40 years, you say, "Wow, this worked out pretty good. It's not broken. Don't fix it." You know, and it was laid out. I I will grant you, you know, you know, both both parties, their intentions are good. I respect that. You know, uh they both want needs. That's fine. That's okay. But we have to look at the needs for our own city. You know, everybody's got their own needs for own city. And I'm not going to speak for Clovis Reedley or anybody. you know, I I I represent Selma and you know, and and I will speak for the needs of Selma, you

know, uh other issues and other towns have different needs and you and you did say the tears and that's a good point in the accountability and it hasn't been your accountability is hasn't changed over the years. I But I know the time frame is is ending. It's time to renew it. I understand. I get it. and a best of luck to both of you. Any uh public input on this one before we compare public input?

Yeah, I just want to note a couple things as a resident of Selma and someone who also cares about the community and the neighborhoods here and I want to make a couple of points just as you consider. I know that there is no action today. you're not making a decision about which effort you um will support. But I want to make a couple things clear from a perspective of a SEMA resident. The slide deck that Mr. Dohy put up showed a couple of pictures of seven individuals. Fix our roads is a plan drafted by consultants for consultants. Read the in the plan itself. It allows for up to 5% of the funds for in program enhance program management enhancement fees for consultants. When you add that up, that's uh over a h 100red million for consultants. In comparison, the measure which I am a proponent for, I am a proponent of the better road safe streets initiative. Our measure caps all admin fees to 1% for 73 million over 30 years. 73 million over 30 years compared to over a 100red million over 20 years in their measure. Consultants are driving this and they're drafting that plan. Our plan does provide real flexibility. their flexible program that they talked about that 16% that's flexible that you could use for sidewalks for safe rest of school for projects that is 16% and what that means for Selma that's $14 million over 20 years you've currently received an estimated 12 million over the last 20 years so I need you to really consider the interest of the city of Selma residents as you think about that for any project a bike link lane, a pedestrian walkway, a safe rout to school project. The city of Selma would be required to obtain matching funds in order to use the local revenues to do

that. That's in the plan in the implementing guidelines of the plan that they have filed. Um the last thing that there's this big conversation around regional highways and the regional programs and I want to emphasize one thing. Council member Ggera, you asked about the floral exit off of the 99. That project, if I understand it correctly, is in the tier 2 list of the fix our roads initiative. That plan also says that there is currently no funding for tier 2. There is funding for tier 1. So that project would not be on the list. Further, our measure continues a program that you currently pay into called the regional transportation mitigation fund. That means that new residential, commercial, and industrial development pays a fee according to a nexus study consistent with state and federal law. That pot has generated over I want to say someone can correct me, maybe Mr. Dhy can correct me on this, but over 100 million um over the last 20 years in fees. That program continues in our measure. But unlike the current measure and unlike what the fix our roads initiative is proposing, those funds, those revenues could be used for any new capacity new uh capacity projects in our county. Their measure restricts those revenues only to those tier one tier 2 projects of which their plan says only tier one is funded. the floral avenue is on the tier 2 list. Um, and lastly, there's a lot about accountability and performance metrics. And the other thing about state, uh, I know that regional is important and connectivity is important. That's why we pay our gas tax. The state highway infrastructure, the state highways is the responsibility of the state of California. Why should Selma taxpayers subsidize freeways and highways when it is a responsibility of the state? And I hope that if we are

going to choose to tax ourselves as voters in this county, as voters in the city of Selma, that we're doing it for the benefit our uh our community. The better road safe streets plan is going to bring $111 million to you over 30 years, which you will decide how to use. fix your streets, fix the potholes, improve sidewalks, add bike lanes, add trails, you get to decide that and you get to update that plan every five years with clear performance metrics that are important for our community. So, I just wanted to say that while I understand you're not taking action today, I am happy to share more information and share the details because our plan is important. If you take a look at the fix our roads initiative, you'll also see language like performance metrics and criteria will be established after the voters approve the measure. So in a sense they're asking us as taxpayers and voters to trust them and say that they will develop performance metrics after we've given them the green light. Our measure doesn't do that. Better roads, safe streets is very clear and upfront. So I'll I'll stop. Mayor, thank you for the time.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Um, can we hear from the other side a response because that was a very long

uh the only thing I really uh our plan says on the active transportation and bike lanes that you'll active aggressively pursue matching funds because there's such an opportunity on the state level for but to my knowledge there's not a requirement for um for a 50% match on bike lanes. The other thing about the tier one and the tier two that goes back to promises made, promises kept. Every measure in the state outlines what they're going to build and then the voter can say I'll vote for that. And that's why there's a tier one and a tier two. Gives us the opportunity to have a second priority to get to if we find additional matching funds so we can go deeper into that list or else find um project savings. The other thing I want to talk about is this CALR state responsibility. None of the money in the past 40 years in the measure C has been spent on maintenance on the state highway system. That is the state's responsibility. None of the money in the last 40 years has been spent on maintenance. Now on improving the state highway system, Prop 42 30 years ago, as I used to say, we split the money right down the middle and we gave the local agencies, the COGS, 75% of the state transportation improvement money. That's the capacity expansion money. They gave it to the counties and the local RTPAS because they decided they could prioritize their regional projects better than Sacramento. Those dollars, the state transportation dollars are sent to you here in Fresno County. Measure C gives you more dollars to work with. Fresno Cog prioritizes the highway improvement projects in Fresno County. the this the reg this this the uh capacity expansion in the urban areas the inter regional like 99 between Fresno and Bakersfield that's the state's responsibility that's

what they use the 25% for so this thing about the state um the state's responsibility state's responsible for maintenance they have given the responsibility for prioritizing the regional projects to you all and it wasn't an unfunded mandate they gave you 75 5% of the state transportation improvement program. And I I will let the comment go about the consultants. I disagree with it. I am a consultant. I haven't done any work for Fresno Cog in 40 years. I'm a Fresno resident and that's why I'm here. I'm just going to let that comment go by.

Thank you. Okay. Um any other questions from the public? Anybody online or on the phone? Step up, sir. Good evening everyone. My name is Mandep Singh 100013 South Macau Avenue. Since we are talking about uh better roads and safe streets. So we recently saw like Golden Street Boulevard has been improved but uh exit from taking exit from Golden Street on front street. It used to be very safe but uh since it has been improved taking exit it's quite dangerous. Couple of times uh people have just uh had accidents over there. They were about to roll over. Even myself uh when it was first built up uh it was like taking exit was dangerous. So in winter in foggy days uh that place can be very dangerous and uh for the people living in Selma if they are driving it can be unsafe. So uh since we are talking about the better roads, can we think like if uh the uh project which was developed the Golden State Boulevard which was improved, if uh any party has done uh this improvement, can they make it safer? That's my request.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate your comments. Very important. These are all great comments. These are both good measures, but you look at the percentages we're hearing. We're one of the first few cities that we're getting this roll out contrast to. So, I know a lot of other folks will be paying attention to tonight's meeting. Um, just want to make sure this is citizen-driven and we get the citizen comments on this and want to thank um both sides of this for coming out tonight. Um, do you have a comment, ma'am?

I have a question. Joyce Kase, Dinoa Avenue, Selma. I looked at a bunch of pictures and this stuff. I've listened to it and I'm wondering, you know, our roads are a mess. And a bunch of these people, I saw their pictures. That's what they've been doing. They've been working on our roads. I mean, aren't you retired from that?

I wish. No. on. But I mean, our roads are a mess. Why would we depend on these people to fix what we got? Let's find somebody new, somebody new to distribute that money and to do the right thing for the taxpayers.

Okay. Anybody else with a comment? All right, bringing the matter back to council. Um, council is going to talk about this now and indicate we'd like a preference at this time or if we'd like to move this off to another time to consider it. Would council like to have some time to digest this and have a discussion have a discussion about it at the next council meeting? We've had a lot of information tonight from everybody. really good information. Thank you very much for both of you coming out and making it a very um tough decision. U but I think we need to kind of digest this now.

I'd like to table it. Okay. Yeah.

I just I just want to first of all thank both of you both sides that were giving us all the information. I think it's a lot of information to take in. Um basically the biggest dilemma is going to be the confusion when you get to that ballot. Who's going to vote for what? And I really I really ask both of you to come out and you know fight for what what is for the for the county of Fresno which is going to help us right and at the end of the day it's fixing our roads but we know that you know both sides you guys are going to have charges and there's going to be but at the end of the day it's fixing our roads. So the challenge for both of you is going to be to making the voter vote on your side and hopefully for us the elected officials and it is true it's us that are going to be the ones that end up voting and setting policy that makes our roads better, right? And we get the money but what do we do? We waste it or what do we do? So I congratulate both of you guys for having the the spirit of coming up and presenting us well but at the end of the day uh we have to do our due diligence before we vote. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. So consensus is to bring this back April 7th meeting. I think it's April 7th. First meeting of April, next meeting. Um for direction from council on which one to approve uh or not approve? Sounds good. Council good with that. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you again for coming out. Really appreciate it here. Have a good evening. And then mayor, before we move on to the next part, I just have a little bit of house cleaning uh regarding the close session that we had earlier. Um we didn't have uh staff in here for the uh recordation of the adjournment and the report out. I have adjournment at 5:38 p.m. for close session and would just ask um Neil to repeat the um closeout report. the the report was no reportable action. Thank you.

Right. Okay. With that, we're going to take a five minute break and we'll come back and get to the rest of our meeting. Mhm. I I just think one one of them one of them one of them's got to go and just go away and let the other one go because it'll pass. It'll pass. No matter what it is, it's gonna pass. But if there's two of them on there, it's gonna fail. They both

All items listed under the consent calendar are considered routine. The complete consent calendar will be enacted by one motion by roll call vote. For purposes of discussion, any council member may have an item removed from the consent calendar and made part of the regular agenda. The council can then approve the remainder of the consent calendar. Does council have any an item or items they would like removed from consent tonight? Yes, mayor. I'd like to pull 24. 27. Sorry. 27. Okay. And I'll pull item 22. Is there a motion to approve items 21, 23, 25, 26, and 28? I'll make a motion. Is there a second?

A second. Call the role, please. Council member Avalos. Yes. Mayor Promggera. Yes. Council member Oagera. Yes. Council member Trillo. Yes. Mayor Robertson. Yes. Okay. Item 22 is the check register. Uh looking at page 31, item 89163, South County Veterinary Hospital. Just checking on the $83 bill. I never heard back. Were there any euthanasia involved in that $83? Probably. Um that is correct. there was a euthanasia of a of a kitten that was found in really poor condition.

Okay. Okay. I just didn't hear back. That's why I was asking. Okay. And then on uh page 32 um item 89180 um HR internal affairs investigation $32,534. Is that for one one investigation? That's actually a six-month bill. Um those are IAS that are done through our police department and that bill um was presented to me about three weeks ago and that was from July until December. So it was a six-month bill and that was on two ite. Thank you for that clarification. Okay. Anybody else with any items? Um

no, they answered it already. Thank you. Public with any questions about the check register? Anybody online or on the phone with questions? Mayor, no hands raised at this time. Is there a motion to approve item 22? Second. Call the role, please. Council member Oera, yes. Council member Avalos, yes. Council member Trillo, yes. Mayor Promggera, yes. Mayor Robertson,

yes. Item 24. on 24. I just I pulled this one because I know I questioned in regards to the street signs of where we're at and you mentioned here that you guys are currently working on the six. You're on on six, right? That is correct.

Okay. But I just my question is are you replacing all signs or or just the signs that need to be replaced? So what's reflected in the staff report that's in your packet is just the street name signs. That is what we are working through in each district and the main reason for that is for uh fire safety. Um there were a lot of the street signs that a lot of new officers uh new personnel in the fire department. Um we were getting a lot of um um inquiries about getting those done first um because of officers and fire personnel needing to see the street names and the signs were so deteriorated that a lot of them you could not read anything on the sign. So currently we are working through the sixth district for street signs only.

Okay. How long does it take you to go through each phase? It depends. Um, we're averaging, each district averages per year staff report about 130 street signs per district. Uh, we've had a couple of the districts that were in excess of 150. Um, and they take anywhere from two to two and a half months to produce and install the new signs per district. Two to two and a half months. Okay. And you're on your sixth. So if you buzz through each each one from now on with no breaks, you'd be looking at maybe a year.

I'm Yes. Approximately a year by calculation. We're really shooting hard for the end of this year to finish the street signs. Great. And that includes the downtown bid signs, too. The the white on blue. Yes, it does. Nice. Yes. And I just would like to mention uh the efficiency of going to a fully functional sign shop. I put some numbers on that staff report showing basically what each district is costing us and I can tell you that we're saving $7,100 per district for just the sign uh manufacturing itself. Um so basically in 10 districts we're going to save the city almost $72,000.

Thank you for that. Thank you. Good. Okay. You making a motion? I'll make a motion. I'll second it. Call the role, please. Mayor Promggera, yes. Mayor Robertson, yes. Council member Avalos, yes. Council member Oagera, yes. Council member Trillo, yes. Okay, next item. Councilman Avalos 27.

Oh, I brought it up. Uh if this was part of uh this part of the measure s uh fund coming out of measure s fund. Uh this item before you is for the purchase of a uh command vehicle. Um the fund utilized for that is an equipment replacement fund. Revenues for that fund is generated through our participation in state fire suppression mutual aid response up and down the state of California. So not measure is not measure different fund different fund and local reimbursement funds. The reimbursement fund. Yep. Local auto dealer.

Yeah. Sales tax goes in the general fund. Yeah.

Yeah. And to the to the mayor's point, I just since this item was pulled, I just like to highlight that um the update to our purchasing policy that allows us to um go through a informal bid process. Um that allowed us the flexibility to reach out to local dealerships and to be able to procure from a auto dealer here in Selma, which is awesome and it really simplifies that process. And so um previously we had a threshold where we would have had to go to RFP for this type of procurement which is um costly um and time prohibitive and also it opens up the pool to anybody that wants to participate and so there's a chance there where those dollars could go to another u uh dealership you know anywhere in California or outside California for that matter. So, um, makes my job a lot easier and it keeps our tax dollars local, which

it does keeps those tax dollars local, goes in the general fund. It creates jobs and it's it's it's good for the whole community. Thank you. You want to make a motion to approve it? Yes, I'll make a motion to approve it. I'll second that. Call the role, please. Council member Avalos, yes. Mayor Robertson, yes. Council member Oagera, yes. Council member Trillo. Yes. Mayor Promggera. Yes. Okay. Moving on to departmental reports. City Manager Rogers.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Um, so I met with Fresno EDC to discuss EDA supplemental funding. Uh, this is federal funding, grant funding, um, that focuses on capacity building and strategic planning projects that help set the stage for future investment. Uh Fresno EDC has been successful in applying for this funding and is going to work with the city on identifying ways that we can utilize it and apply for it. I am reaching out to various firms for proposals for community development director support uh including in-house support until such time that we get a full-time employee. We've received one so far but have reached out to a couple other firms as well. and staff has also been working with LAR's contractors to ensure that they have proper encroachment permits and are providing notification to residents regarding the Amberwood project. I also attended a Fresno COG RTP roundtable meeting to discuss the regional transportation plan and sustainable community strategy plans that are being developed per state and federal standards. uh scenario was selected to be sent to the PO policy board on the 26th I think. Um and then I also attended the SKF chamber mixer and a Selma Arts Council meeting. Uh hats off to the Selma Arts Council where that was presented to them a little bit earlier, but I mean they are super involved in uh all the art stuff over there. Um, I also wanted to introduce our newest team member who slipped out somewhere. Uh, his name is Nibil. Um, you've

probably seen him over there by Patrick. He comes to us with a strong background in administrative coordination and organizational support. and he's going to play a key role in assisting with day-to-day operations uh council support functions and assuring effective communication between the departments and staff as well in order to support the broader goals of the city. Great. Thank you for your report. Community services director Fletcher.

Good evening, mayor, members of the council. I have a lot of events to update you on. a lot of good things happening in our community community within the next month. And so I'll try to keep this quick. So, um, the Selma Art Center is opening the act that goes wrong this Thursday. And they also have tickets available for special seating in the front that allows you to be interactive with the with the show at an additional cost. So, um, should be a really good parody play over at the art center opening on Thursday. On April 4th, we're going to be having our spring extravaganza over at Pioneer Village, which is a free Easter egg hunt for the community. Um starts at the gates open at 11:00 and the egg hunt is going to start at 11:30 with an adaptive portion and then 11:45 for um all ability levels. And then um on April 11th, we're doing our pet vaccine clinic with Valley Oak SPCA. So, over at the Selma Animal Shelter, um you will um be able to come in and get um reduced cost vaccines for both your cats and dogs. Thumb Alive is taking place on April 10th on downtown Selma on High Street. So, make sure you bring your boots and bring your chairs um for a good night. Um there's going to be a beer garden, live music, line dancing, all that good stuff. On April 22nd, we're celebrating Earth Day um at Lincoln Park, a tradition that we've um taken on for the third year in a row. We're partnering with Sama Home Depot. Um so there will be a plant planting station and we'll have some um free shaved ice while supplies last. And then last but not least, we have the Selma Art and Culture Fest taking place on April 24th, which is a Friday night downtown Selma. And so we're going to have some live performances,

um, some cultural booths and a beer garden as well. And the last thing that I did want to just update you and the community on is that our T-ball registration closes next week on March 27th. And we are offering um afterhour registration over at the senior center for those that want to come in and register um their kiddos for T-ball. And we're going to be doing that on Thursday the 26th. Um staff will be available till about 7 o'clock at the senior center. If anybody would like to come in and register for T-ball, ages 4 to 6. And last but not least, just to wrap it all up, all this information can be found on the city of Selma's website along as um along with our civic w page, which is our community services website and our social medias. So that's all I have to report.

Great report. Thank you. Communications director Moreno. Check. Check. Mayor, members of the council. Um, yes, like Director Fletcher said, um, I've been spending time adding all the events to our event calendar and Patrick will be calling up the website right now so I can review it. Um, if I invite all community members and council to visit the city of selma.com, you will see the event calendar updated with all of the events we have going on. So, no one can ever say there's nothing going on in Selma. There's two pages of events right there. You'll see uh with all the details. So, I invite community members if they want to know what's going on and all the details, they can visit city of selma.com and click the events tab. Um, if you click that events tab at the bottom right, it'll take you to the calendar that shows all the events on a on a calendar. Um, you could clearly see all the events and if you go to April, there's plenty of events coming up in April as well. So, again, I invite the community to visit that website. Patrick, if you can go back to the homepage. Uh the other item that we've been working on and rolling out is the clean and clear um campaign. You can scroll down a little bit more. A little bit more. One more. A little bit more. Let's keep Salma looking its best. Um it's a reminder to properties to clean up their weeds. Uh they have until April 1st to to clean up their properties. Then code enforcement will um start the weed abatement process and they have 14 days after that to take care of it. Uh we've been rolling this out on social media. Um there has been letters handed out to to those folks who need to take care of their weeds. Uh again, the goal is not to sight folks, but to make sure that Selma's looking its best. That's kind of the goal of of the campaign. Um and I met with community um code enforcement today and casually he said it's working. It's working very well. They're notifying uh community members to to take care of this. So we're putting this as a constant reminder to please take care of

your weed weeds before April 1. And if you can go back to that homepage, uh Patrick, the last item I have is today the you can scroll down a little bit more. The safe streets project uh report was provided to me today from our consultant consulting. Um the entire report can be found on the website and now we are in the public comment phase of it. So if you have public comment just follow the directions on the website. um email our city clerk. You can review the report um about the four sites that they developed um temporary projects on. There's a lot of great information in that in that report if you want to click that link, Patrick. Um so I invite our community members to visit our website for the hub for everything you need to know about Selma. All the information um all of our events is on this website. So please visit city of selma.com.

Great. Just uh reiterating that safe streets studies. So, encourage everybody in the community to go on that and leave their comments. It's really important about the measures that the city's been employing out there in the community, the speed cushions, the speed buttons, the wiggly lines. I mean, it's all in an effort to make our streets safer. So, please weigh in on that. It's it's so important to uh to get that feedback. Thank you for your report, communications director. Really amazing what our website has has become. It's really informative. All right, police commander Cannon.

Mayor, members of the council, I just want to highlight some uh training recently that our department hosted. Um, we teamed up with Apex Training Solutions on March 6th and 8th and did some active shooter response training here locally. It was for our entire department. We split it into two days so we get the entire department through the training. And uh it was lifelike scenarios uh loud distractions, sirens, noises to get a real life feel for active shooter response for our team. And uh just wanted to uh thank the S fire department for letting us uh use our training facility for a portion of that as well as SA Unified School District for letting us use Abraham Lincoln Middle School. And that's all I have.

Great. Thank you for that. Also want to thank the uh police department for putting that speed indicator on Thompson or my colleague over here maybe may be mentioning that. Um did you have a comment on that? Yeah, the the speed meter um I got a call from the person that actually reported, you know, the fast cars going through there, but he was saying that it's too close to the stop sign. By the time they see it, they're already slowing up because of the stop. He was wondering if it could be moved maybe closer to the cemetery. Um is the uh just affirming that's south of park is the area he's more concerned about. Yes. Street in Thompson. Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Public work.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, council members. Uh just a couple of things to update you on today. Um, we are working uh on a getting a quote together to finish the High Street beautifification and that would be the uh parking lot uh planner island on First and High Street. So, we're getting that uh put together so that we can provide the city manager with a cost for us to actually do the rock uh new plants, new drip for that location. Um, the other thing that we're working on currently is, uh, we purchased a new scoreboard for the Babe Ruthfield last year. That scoreboard stopped functioning. Um, we'll be starting the installation of that tomorrow. Last week, we actually started um, painting the bathrooms, the snack bar, and the scorekeepers booth at the Babe Ruth Field. We're trying to get that uh, finished up before triyouts start. Uh we should be finishing painting the orange trim and the doors sometime later this week. Uh and the last thing that I had was we're uh actively working on getting quotes for the recarpeting of the art center. We have our first contractor coming out tomorrow to meet with us to start getting some quotes together on that and we will bring that to council as soon as we uh get those quotes together.

I also want the the painting city manager. Will we be looking at painting or that be in the budget for the next budget cycle the painting of the exterior

being in the either in the next one but we we can look at that as well on on getting those costs together as well. Um, I also wanted to point out too that um public works staff uh went out did a good job over at Pioneer on uh shaving down some of those tripfall issues and then sealing them. So, you got nice smooth surface out there. Um, Director Han sent me some pictures and so I'll send those out to council so that way you can see that as well.

I have a question real quick. um to the public works or to I don't know who to direct this um these last three months and it's funny that we're talking about um the these last three months they've been dealing with the both buildings of mine. Have you guys noticed that they've been leaving couches and the alleys and TVs and tires? And I think I I think I um I've collected a whole a whole barrage of things on both my buildings and I actually paid for a fence to be put up. What I'm just wondering if public works what what what is the course on that? What what what do we do when things are left in the alley? So, it's a combination effort between code enforcement and public works. Um, if our staff and public works are working in a location where they see dumped items, as long as they're not uh any biohazard, we will pick that stuff up and we will take it and get rid of it at our yard. Um, but we get most of those are through uh open gov work orders through code enforcement because they're out there driving all over the place and they see those. So the ones that are not biohazard or encampments, they typically will send us a open gov work order and then we respond to that work order.

I was just wondering because I'm just wondering if you guys have no have you noticed have you noticed a high high

we have Councilman Truillo and I can tell you that one of our biggest um concerns right now in the city limits for the dumping is actually at Valley View Basin. Uh and unfortunately we have an encampment that is on the county side of the South Branch Canal immediately adjacent to Valley View. We've been monitoring that on a pretty much an every other day basis. Um they've cut through our fence. We've had many cuts in our fence out there and I can tell you in the last two weeks they have dumped so much stuff in that basin um that we're going to have to get out there and get get after cleaning up. We've been restricted a little bit because of the weather we did have. Valley View was pretty flooded and unsafe to put heavy equipment out there to remove that stuff, but uh we were just myself and my uh supervisor were just discussing that today. So,

yeah, just just just uh recently last week uh somebody decided to leave about 12 pallets behind my building. So, what I did is I put a new fence and I put a camera but and that's my building, but at the restaurant uh two weeks ago they left a couch and a TV. So, you know, my I have a trailer full of stuff, but you know, I just I just wonder what what what if that's happening, what else is happening out in this community.

Yeah. So, we've noticed since this heat we've had the last couple of weeks, there's a lot more activity. And I can tell you that um Councilman Trillo, please feel free to reach out to public works like other citizens do when they have dumping in their alleys behind their build. A lot of times that's how we find out about it. uh code enforcement can only cover so much and our guys only see what they see while they're doing their regular daily routine. So, we encourage the public if there's illegal dumping to please reach out to public works or to code enforcement and that we will take care of that. Additionally, contacting um city hall directly, our staff can put that uh request in.

No, I we we did it ourselves, but we we fixed it. We got fence and cameras. one pickup a year, bulky items, two pickups a year for Mid Valley for bulky items.

So, yes, good. I'm glad you brought that up, Mr. Mayor, to remind the citizens of Selma that Mid Valley does provide an annual uh one-time bulky item pickup. You can call them, it can be a refrigerator, it can be a large couch, a bookcase. They will come to your resident and they will pick or your residence and they will pick that up one time a year for free. But I want to remind everybody coming up here in just three and a half weeks, four weeks, we are going to have our bianual uh um I'm sorry, not bianual, our uh spring citywide cleanup event with Mid Valley. We will be hosting that again at the lot on McCall and Nelson like we did in November for the fall cleanup. And since I'm talking about that real quick, um there is 40 um tons of compost right now that is sitting on the corner of that lot that we had dumped on Saturday that is free to the public. It's part of our SB1 1383 requirements for procurement and anyone that is not a landscape contractor or a commercial business is allowed to go out there. One load per resident and you can bring a truck or a truck and trailer. You have to load it yourself with shovels. So, bring some friends with you. But that is out there and we encourage the public to please consume that because we have requirements by the state through that bill that we have to procure a certain amount. So, we are providing that to the public for free for your landscape and your yard.

Sounds good. I think you're going to have a lot of takers on that. Good job. All right. With that, we're going to move on to our first item of the evening, our public hearing item, which is a second reading and adoption of ordinance 2026-02 amending the Selma Municipal Code 573 relating to special event permit processing timelines. City Manager.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor and City Council. This is the second action item uh related to this ordinance. On February 17th, council introduced and waved the first reading to amend the municipal code to establish expedited processing pathway for minor low impact low impact special events. And this is the public hearing in order to adopt that. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Great. Thank you for that. This is our second goound here. Does um council have any questions before we open up this public hearing to the public? No, this will help us streamline some events, you know, and it'll create more revenue for the city of Selmo.

Thank you. With that, we'll open up the public hearing. Does anybody have any comments for or against this public hearing item at this time? Anybody online or on the phone with a for or against comment relating to this public hearing item tonight regarding the special events ordinance? Mayor, I see no hands raised at this time.

With that, we will close the public hearing and refer the matter back to council. I got a question for the city manager. Um I think this is really very uh timely in terms of um changing the timeline on this um you know with some some events are less administrative intensive than others. Um, and this really, I think, gets down to those smaller events, and it really helps our citizens to be able to have these types of events um for themselves, their businesses, and to really bring people um to Selma, make Selma even better place. A question on the parks is um the cost I I was getting some some feedback from citizens on the cost to reserve the park for a day or two. We used to have some popup events. We don't really have those anymore. Have we changed the cost to reserve the parks in a while? And if not, should can we look at that again in future agenda items? We can absol absolutely look at that as a future agenda item. Uh this one didn't do anything related to costs uh on that. So it's it's something that we can easily bring back.

Thank you for that. Is there a motion to approve this public hearing item tonight? Motion. Is there a second? I'll second. Call the role, please. Council member Avalos. I. Mayor Promgera. Yes. Council member Oagera. Yes. Council member Trujillo. Yes. Mayor Robertson.

Yes. Okay. Item passes. We're moving on to our regular business agenda now. Item 51, consideration and necessary action on resolution 2026-26R, electing to become subject to the California Uniform Public Construction Costing Act, otherwise known as the CUPCCAA, and adoption of resolution 2026-27R, amending the city's purchasing and contract procedures policy to conform to public contract code 22032. City Manager. Yes. Thank you again, mayor and city council. So, this is kind of a cleanup resolution in reviewing the city's purchasing policy. It references the California Uniform Public Construction Costing Act or what we like to call CUPKA. And um we notice that while it's in the city's purchasing policy, the numbers that are listed uh the threshold amounts aren't correct, don't match up with CUPA. And when we went to the state website, we found that the city had not completed a resolution and submitted to the state in order to be eligible for that. Uh so this will bring us into compliance with that. Otherwise, we have to default to the state public contract code, which means that any projects exceeding $5,000, including done by staff, uh would have to go out to uh full public bid. And I think our fire chief alluded to this earlier. we would have not been able potentially to get that um fire unit through a local auto dealer if it would have been put out to bid and someone from outside of Selma might have been a little bit bid on that. Is that correct?

So, it's important to have this for many reasons. Yeah. And this doesn't affect uh the overall purchasing. So, if we're going out and purchasing goods, it's not related to that. But as far as going out and and getting contractors to work on jobs, the thresholds of when we have to go out for an RFP, when we can go out for an informal bid, um are set by the state. Otherwise, we're subject to that much more restrictive $5,000 limit for um public works projects, including maintenance projects,

which we've been doing anyway, but now we're kind of formalizing. Yes. what we're doing, which is a more common sense approach, the CupKa approach. Okay. Are there any questions from council? Anybody from the public with questions about this purchasing policy? Anybody online or on the phone? Mayor, I see no hands raised at this time. That will bring the matter back to council. Is there a motion to approve this item? Make a motion. Is there a second? A second. Call the role, please. Council member Avalos. Yes. Council member Oera. Yes. Council member Trillo. Yes. Mayor Promggera. Yes. Mayor Robertson.

Yes. Item passes. Moving on. We are moving on now to the item 52 of the regular business agenda consideration and necessary action on resolution 2026-28R. accepting the clean California community cleanup and employment pathway grant authorizing execution of the restricted grant agreement with the California Department of Transportation and amending fiscal year 2025 2026 budget.

Good evening, mayor, members of the council. Uh this item before you is a resolution accepting a grant that was awarded to the city. Uh the application for this project uh was submitted to California under the clean California project. Uh city of Selma was awarded the $300,000 from the state uh for this project. Uh you're aware of the clean California project that's currently in design and ready for construction once CALR approves it. That's from State Route 99 along Second Street almost to the railroad. That's a clean California project. That was a $3 million uh award. This application and award for this project continues uh closer to downtown. So, we're still looking at Second Street uh as you get into downtown towards High Street. So, there's uh there's no restriction on the area. The application talked about Second Street, downtown revitalization. Uh it's based on uh litter cleanup, graffiti removal, beautifification. Uh it's it's pretty broad on what uh can it can be used for. The U Selma beautifification committee or the club uh helped uh submit a a letter of recommendation. They will be included in um the process of determining what we can actually use this money for and what would be used for downtown. So, this is a continuation of uh the money that we're getting from Clean California to help continue improving that corridor as you uh approach downtown. Uh there is a match that's required. Uh it's a it's a onetoone match, but the match includes inind type of services. So part of the the grant is to encourage volunteering work, encouraging

uh local committees or volunteers to be able to help with the beautifification. We can actually count the time that is spent with their volunteer hours. There's actually a dollar amount that we can show the state that that's a match. So that's in the staff report when you see inind that's part of what it's t talking about. Excuse me. So tonight before you is just the uh the council agreeing to accept this the funding. Uh we need the resolution to be able to send back to CALR. Uh this is authorizing city manager to execute the agreement. Uh and then be able to move forward. There is a timeline that we spend the money by November of 2027. So there there is a process that we can we have time to work through the details and then be able to start spending the money. So, happy to answer any questions, but I'd ask for approval so we can continue moving forward.

This is a pretty easy one. Um, so what the timeline on the $3 million grant to have that concluded is 2026. Is that correct? Right. Like October or something. I'm not exactly sure on the month, but it is 2026. Uh, the consultant, they've been working through CALR approval. Uh, city staff has been helping and working through that. Once CALR approves the encroachment permit within state rightaway, they'll be ready to go out to bid. If you go by Farmersville, you look at that exit off of there. There looks like something similar to what we'll be doing in Selma. Is that another

California? Yes. I don't know where they got funding, but that's a similar approach to what you're going to see on right there at the at the exit. Looks very, very nice. Will this be able to be rolled in to that grant? like whoever I'm I'm assuming they're going to be directing this and pick will the city be awarding this job to one single contractor who will do the job for the north of the tracks and then south of the track

I it does it's not restricted to that so I think it really is going to come down to what what improvements the city wants to spend this money on uh in that downtown section a project could be created there you you may have to get a contract contractor or uh there may be funds spent that public works can use to improve the area of downtown that you've already established in the master plan. This is just the beginning step of accepting that grant.

Yes. And a a big portion of it as well is uh kind of that community engagement, volunteer approach on beautifification and so on, which is why they specifically have that match component that allows you to count volunteer hours for that because they want to encourage that and um um really get buy in from the community on doing that. That's really important. you know, just had someone coming to Selma who said they want to have their group, their church group, um, help to clean up and do some volunteer work for downtown. So, that'd be such a great segue right there. And could count their hours towards that match, it sounds like.

I have a quick question. Okay. Does this include parking lots or cement work? uh we can look at it potentially as far as how that improves it or if it it's part of beautifification for the downtown and cleaning up and and the litter removal that those are all pieces of a down a parking lot improvement.

Okay. And then for the volunteer participation in the community, would that include the um members or the participants at the CBT training center? Could that include them? I think if it's a volunteer type situation, I know when we applied for the grant, there were multiple um groups that we were considering and trying to to see how that would apply. So, it's not a restricted requirement for specific volunteers. It's just like the city manager mentioned, trying to get community engagement. So, I think we're going to want as many as much help and as many groups as possible to help with a defined beautifification and cleanup of scope. Okay. Anybody from the public with a comment about this grant accepting this grant money? Anybody online or on the phone with a comment or question?

Mayor, I see no hands raised at this time. Okay. Thank you. With that, we'll bring it back to council. Is there a motion to adopt this resolution? Is there a second? I'll second. Call the role, please. Council member Avalos? Yes. Mayor Promgara? Yes. Council member Osagera? Yes. Council member Trillo, yes. Mayor Robertson, yes. Item passes. Definitely. Okay. Moving on to item 53, consideration and necessary action on resolution 2026-29R, approving a request by Selma Chamber of Commerce for financial assistance for the July 3rd Independence Day celebration fireworks show. Director Fletcher.

Yes, Mayor and members of the council. So what you have before you is just the SA Chamber of Commerce is requesting assistance to pay for half of the invoice for the pyro technician for July 3rd. So their um their new invoice came in at $23,000 and they were requesting for 50% um assistance with $11,500 for July 3rd. And then we do have members of the chamber here for any questions. Thank you guys for coming out tonight. Do you guys want to say anything before we get started on this?

Hi, good evening uh mayor and council members. Um president of chamber of commerce. Um we're just here to be this is community events on 4th of July that we do every year and last year the city helps us out too on the fireworks. So we are here again. This is event is very um important events that our kids and everybody enjoyed it. So we are here to be looking at help from the city again for the half of the cost is the total cost is 23,500 which is the half off is uh like 11,750 or something like that. I'm here to answer any question.

What last year how much did the um did the city contribute? 1100. Yeah. And does any of this go towards the band? Do you guys have a band for this year as well? Like last year, the city, my special events budget pays for the band, the stage, um the kids entertainment, and the sound. And the school does not charge rent, right? They don't charge anything. They do. They did bill us last year for the usage of the stadium. Will they be billing the city for the use of the facility this year? I believe they build us about $1,200 for staffing. I'm meeting with the superintendent next week. I can bring that up with them. You're looking at a schoolboard member right there in front of you, too. I'll talk to them, too.

Yeah, that's a good input there. And then I noticed that the parking revenue is off the table this year. What What happened there? One more time. The parking you can't charge for parking. You don't get any money from I I think is the parking um they don't have um accept that only on the on school on the high school side of it. And um yeah, I guess the city has to work out with the with the superintendent. People can only park on the streets.

So that that's most likely going to be the case. So right now we're running into the um the development of the new fire station um EMS annex that they're doing. And so typically what the chamber would do is they would um we would allow work together and allow vehicles to park on the corner of Thompson and Huntsman. And so with potential construction going up, that's most likely not going to be available to us this year. So it will most likely be street parking. Some high school eliminated um allowing us to use their JV softball and um JB baseball field a few years ago for parking and so that's no longer an option either. Why is that no longer an option?

Um they they let us know that it was um causing a lot of damage to their fields. They spend a lot of money on redid that holds uh the baseball. Yeah. I have a question. What about what's our property? The property that we just spoke of the fire department because of that whole area is going to be used up for construction. Um I mean that's a huge area. You're only

Yeah, there'll be probably half of that field more on the western edge that we can look at as a parking option. What we're unsure of at this point is the staging of those modulars and the timing of how that's going to work out. Um so as we get closer to the date of that, we'll have a better idea of what portion of that facility there's if there's vacant space um that we can accommodate parking.

Yeah. Can we can we come back? Can we put and come back and maybe we can work it out? I think that I think that area is so huge that we would have we would be able to use we'll be able to use half of it at least. How far along is the fire department on construction there getting the EMS facility going at that location? So, the the portion that we're at, we're finalizing the site review before that goes to bid. Uh we receive shop drawings for the EMS for the module facility on Friday afternoon. Um so I'll be meeting with Mobile Modell to to kind of finalize those construction documents and then they're full steam ahead. And so, um,

we're pretty close then. We're getting much closer every day. Yeah. And so, the, um, we have an actual, um, construction timeline of that. And the, um, that project has kind of a tenative end date around October. And so, we're getting there. Sounds good. Which is coming up quick. M. Mr. President, um, put your school board hat on again if you don't mind. Um, how about the parking for the high school? Is that on the table or will that gate be closed because there's a lot of parking at over there as as well? Yeah, we could parking be directed towards there because it's asphalt.

Yeah, I I I think so. Uh, we could ask superintendent and see what their plans. To my understanding that's closed because of the it's part of the fall zone of all the firework debris that comes down. So that is not open to the public even with the solar plates on top there. That was the recommendation that we received. Yes. But we can we can look at various options on figure out some other option for parking. Yeah. Thank you. Any other comments? Public have any comments about this? I had a comment there. Scott, Councilman Avalos?

Yes. U Nick. Okay. on the the total cost and everything was what on the fireworks again. How much was it? Was the same as last year? Let me ask you that question. 23 thou 23,500. 23,500. Yeah. And it'll be the same again or a little more. Every year it goes up. Everything about 27, right? About 27. Went up about $750 or so from last year. Last year then he did 11. This year it's 115. Gas is 115. Okay. I I just contemplate him here. Okay.

We'll be happy to take more money if you want to say something. Yeah. Go ahead. I just want to say that, you know, I'm I'm uh definitely for uh sponsoring the uh fireworks and if it's uh something that's going to be gradually going up, we should probably talk about it during budget so we can factor it in so it doesn't affect our general fund and we can already have it factored in. I agree. This event will be after fiscal year expires, the current fiscal year. So would we be 73? the the the VIN will be in the next fiscal year but the cost will be in this current fiscal year because it will be ordered under that's accounting question

matching the revenue with the expense or the expense with the product order. Another one is if you're h if it's affecting some of your event, it probably should be brought up at the time that we're doing our budget because if it's affecting part of your budget that you're doing the the band, it would be helpful to talk about that during our so we can probably up that finance also. I believe we're having a budget meeting too in April. So we can bring we should can and should bring this last three years is when thousand dollars up every year. So something to look into it. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody have any other comments? Is there a motion to approve this expenditure? I'll make a motion. Is there a second? Call the role, please.

Councilman Triel. Mayor Promgera. Yes. Council member Trillo. Yes. Council member Avalos. Yes. Council member Osaggera. Yes. Mayor Robertson. Yes. Moving on to item 54, consideration and necessary action on resolution 2026-30R, removing a member of the Selma City Planning Commission from office.

Mayor, members of council, let me preface my report on this item by pointing out that the recommendation you see in the staff report removing Lewis Franco from the planning commission is my recommendation and mine alone. but that I went to the council in closed session and I received the majority's approval to place this on your open session agenda before I actually did it. Um, you have a planning commission that performs the very critical function, the statutoily prescribed function of approving literally every type of development that goes on in this city. They either recommend approval of it or they outright approve it, subject only to an appeal to this council. They wield a great deal of power and 99.9% of what they do on the planning commission is always done in connection with a quai judicial or adjudicatory proceeding that involves a public hearing. They are required to be impartial. Um, you appoint all of the members of the planning commission and the power to appoint includes the power to remove. And with a planning commission member, you're not required to have any reason. You're not required to have uh notice or an opportunity for them to be heard. You can just do it for no reason at all. As long as that reason is not illegal,

but as I know, and I think as most people know, this council doesn't do much of anything without a good reason. So, I'm supplying you with reasons for my recommendation. And I would submit to you that Lewis Franco uh by his conduct has disqualified himself from serving on your planning commission. Reason for that is that Lewis Franco has twice, not once but twice filed or caused to be filed false and malicious complaints to the State Bar of California against me alleging misconduct for which I should be disciplined. That is a crime. The first complaint was by Lewis Franco's daughter, who used the name Lauren Edkins to conceal her true identity. In that complaint, Ms. Zedkins alleged a vast variety of things, including that I represented a uh entity that had a active lawsuit against the city at the same time I was representing the city and in fact I never represented that entity. So that was a false claim. She also made a series of other false claims relative to my representation of Mr.

Avalos in an election contest. Charging that created a conflict of interest, which it did not. The city of Selma has no interest in an election contest. As a matter of law, they're required to be neutral. and I wasn't serving as city attorney at the city of S at that time. There are numerous other complaints about uh my conduct made by Ms. Atkins, most of which relate to what occurred uh on December 12th, which you're all aware of, 2024, uh which she wrongly characterizes as an illegal meeting, and that my participation in subsequent meetings after you had appointed me as your city attorney was somehow improper. Much to my surprise, the state bar actually investigated this by sending me a summary of her complaint and asking me questions. I couldn't respond to any of their questions because, as they know, I'm a lawyer. Everything I learn from a client, everything I say to a client, everything I hear from a client, everything I do with a client in any respect, I'm required to keep secret unless my client approves the waiver of the privilege. So, my response to them, and by the way, I've attached the entirety of my communications

with the State Bar in response to these two very frivolous complaints, very malicious complaints in their entirety. You can see in minute detail exactly what Lauren Edkins was complaining about with respect to me and you can see my response to the state bar which pulls no punches by the way. I think the state bar is acting as an accessory after the fact to the commission of a crime by even investigating this. What they should do is they should immediately refer it to the district attorney or attorney general for prosecution of the misdemeanor that is clearly committed both by Lewis Franco's daughter and by him in submitting these complaints. But you you can you can read it for yourself. All the detail is there. There's nothing in those documents that is in any sense privileged. This is just me communicating with the state bar and telling them these complaints are false and malicious and this investigation should not be occurring and actually accusing them of acting as an accessory after the fact to the commission of a misdemeanor. which is something that involves moral turpitude for which I'm complaining to the state bar about this particular state bar attorney because that's a violation of the the ethical rules. Exactly what uh Franco and Franco's

daughter have accused me of. And it's all absolutely false. So they they investigated that. I sent them one letter in response. I sent that letter in mid-March of 2025 and they sat on it and they sat on it and they held it until September 30 when this same attorney wrote me back saying, "Well, there there's this this doesn't warrant any further investigation and we're closing this case after sitting on it for seven months." And in the interim, I gather that uh Ms. Franco uh posted this stuff on uh on Facebook and used it to undermine not only me but this entire council. So, I received a second notification from the State Bar, this time about a complaint filed by Lewis Franco. This complaint alleges one thing and one thing only, that I failed to disclose to this city council a conflict of interest I had with respect to a particular case to which the city is a party. The case is Highland Rose LP versus City of Selma. So they asked me, did you represent Highland Rose against

the city of Selma? And did you disclose to the city of Selma that you had a conflict of interest and received their consent? I responded by telling them that I couldn't answer their question, which they already knew. I'm an attorney. I'm not allowed to tell them if I disclosed to you the conflict of interest unless you choose to wave the privilege. I have no reason to ask you to do that. because that complaint is on its face false and malicious. Lewis Franco does not sit on this city council. Lewis Franco is not privy to anything I say or do with respect to this city council. and something like disclosing the existence of a conflict of interest. That is necessarily something we would discuss in close session if at all. So, I refused to answer their questions. And I again accuse this same attorney of not just being an accomplice after the fact to a crime, but of being blatantly incompetent and just flatout stupid, asking me questions that he knows I can't even answer.

I'm sure. And as I said, I' I've got the complaint and the uh response to the complaint in addition to a response to a a very ludicrous follow-up letter from this same attorney. And I I'm just not pulling any punches. This this is extreme and outrageous misconduct and it's important to Lewis Franco's uh position on the planning commission. I as your city attorney am required to advise, assist, provide legal work for and I often do provide legal work for and recommendations to your planning commission Lewis Franco. Apparently, I'm I'm not I'm not about to speculate about his motivations, but apparently the man has some undisclosed personal animosity for me that causes him to go to the extreme of committing what he knows to be a crime. That isn't the kind of person you want sitting on your planning commission. Number one, you get recommendations and rulings by the planning commission. You depend upon each and every one of those planning commissioners being honest,

trustworthy. Somebody who files a complaint with the state bar making false allegations against an attorney for the purpose of getting the attorney's license pulled is neither honest or honorable. Doing it through your daughter is particularly cowardly. As I said, the planning commissioners are often involved in quaijudicial matters as opposed to quai legislative matters like setting policy. In fact, that's almost always the case. They're required to be fair and impartial. Lewis Franco's has demonstrated that his personal animosity for me is far and away more important to him than giving the people that come before him a fair shake, a fair hearing, being impartial. the the fact that I am involved in making a particular recommendation to that planning commission can very easily translate into a situation where Lewis Franco is subject to being disqualified from hearing any particular matter that I've had any involvement in because you can't trust him to do to judge judge the case on its merits because he's just blinded and

overwhelmed by his personal desire to injure me for no good reason at all. He has a conflict of interest. He is personally embroiled in a dispute that he's conjured up for reasons I'm not going to speculate about between me and him. He's demonstrated that he is just out to get me. I may not even be his real target. Who knows? Like I said, I'm not going to speculate about it. I do know the man is prone to making outlandish accusations in the course of the many political campaigns he's conducted. He's untrustworthy. He's dishonorable. He's a coward. the way he should have dealt with that. If he had a problem with me, who should he have come to? The state bar and make allegations that he knows nothing about. No, he should have come to you if he had a problem. You're the one that has the control over me. He's not going to get himself anywhere filing false malicious complaints with the state bar other than sued andor criminally prosecuted. So I'm recommending to you that you remove Lewis Franco

from the planning commission. I learned after I prepared this material that Lewis Franco is also on the uh the measures uh s committee which is a committee that is that comes in here and uh they review what you've uh spent the measure s money on and they come in here with an opinion as to whether or not you properly conformed to the requirements of Measure S uh not as an important function of uh as as being a planning commissioner, but certainly an important one and one that requires you to repose trust and confidence in the person making the report. Lewis Franco doesn't satisfy the qualifications for sitting on your planning commission. He cannot be fair and impartial. He has a built-in automatic conflict of interest. He's prone to dishonesty and apparently prone to committing crimes. So, I would urge you to remove him and I would urge you to adopt the resolution as it's been presented to you that does exactly that. And I would ask you to follow that up with a minute order removing him from the measure S committee for the same reasons. That's my report. I'm happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you for your report. Appears we have um planning commissioner Franco in the um

public tonight. Would you care to stand up, Mr. Franco, and address the complaint by the city attorney? Yes, I would. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, with that, I have some documentation for the city clerk to be entered into the record under the minutes as well as for council's review in a brief statement and then I'll let you get on to your business.

Hi, thank you very much for your time. I just want to say u this resolution represents what I believe to be harassment and attempt to damage my ret reputation by the city council and the city attorney. It appears to be an effort to create a false narrative in order to deflect from the attention from the actions of citizen of the city attorney Neil Castanzo. In my view, this resolution is clear retaliation against my daughter and me for raising concerns with the California State Bar and the state of California regarding Mr. Cassando's conduct. My daughter, as a private resident, has every right to voice those concerns. I, as both a resident and a commissioner, have that same right along with protections provided under the California whistleblower act. But rather than focusing on issues that are facing our city and governing with transparency, the council has chosen to spend t staff time and taxpayer resources pursuing a resolution. To my knowledge, a resolution has never been required or used to remove an individual from a commission. The fact that Mr. Castanzo is allowed to bring a resolution forward naming my daughter in it who has no ties to the planning commission or city staff is alarming. These actions appear to be designed in attempt to protect the attorney and preserve council abilities to justify decisions through questionable legal interpretations. So for the record on submitting these documents for your review and for your consideration uh before you you'll have a document uh one is the California code of conduct rule to the document we're all familiar

with Mr. Castanza's uh employment contract dated January, excuse me, apolog 17. The second document you will see the contract dated with the city of S for Mr. Transanzo's recent employment for January 21st, 2005. The third document, you'll see a lawsuit filed against the city of Selma by Neil Castanzo on behalf of the Highland Rose Corporation dated for January 29th, 2025, 8 days after signing the contract. Uh you also see a Secretary of State verification of the business address of Highland Rose Property. And then you'll see a uh something called a response to order, show cause dismissal. Basically, it's Neil stepping down.

Hold on, Mr. Franco. Council allow the speaker to go over his three minute usual time limit to answer these claims. I'll be brief if I'm already over. Few more seconds. Keep going. Proceed, Mr. Franco.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The fifth document is a response of order to show cause. Basically, it's Neil submitting the reason why he's stepping down. Basically, nine months after filing a lawsuit, eight months for the city of S uh for Highland Roads against the city of Selma and being an attorney on record for both and the final documentation is when the action became final and there is no longer a a conflict. So to say that there is no conflict uh is false uh and it's concerning. So uh those are the reasons. These are not malice accusations. They're factual. And the council, you're welcome to make a determinant at your own risk. But thank you for your time. You guys have a good evening.

Thank you. Um point of clarification, city attorney.

Oh, absolutely. If if if I may. Um I I never once said there was no conflict. Obviously there is a massive conflict of interest. See my my conflicts are very very different from the conflicts of interest that you folks have. I'm required to do one of two things when I have a conflict of interest. And I had this conflict of interest because of the representation of two people uh at the same time in a lawsuit. That's not a waveable conflict of interest. I can get the client to wave the conflict of interest, but that one is not a waveable conflict of interest. What I'm required to do in that situation is I'm required to go to the court and get an order withdrawing me from the case and I'm required to or I'm required to go to my client and get my client's consent allowing me to withdraw from the case. I can never withdraw from the case or even make that application or make that request for consent unless and until I've taken all necessary steps to prevent foreseeable prejudice befalling my client from whom I'm withdrawing my representation. So I'm allowed to take certain steps to extricate myself. In fact, I'm required to because if I abandon a client, that violates a different ethical rule. So obviously there was a a conflict of

interest. That's not why I'm saying the complaints they filed were false. What I'm saying is the complaint he filed absolutely false because he's saying I didn't disclose that conflict to the council. Now you can see from the documents that he provided you that I ultimately withdrew and that through the entire what what he's pointing you to are things that are available at the court website. Okay. So I to to prevent reasonable for pre prejudice from hitting Highland Rose, I helped Highland Rose get a new attorney. Knowing that I couldn't represent you in this case because my former client was your adversary. you appointed a different attorney to represent you in that case. So, I'm completely out of it. I've done exactly what I'm allow.

Question city attorney. What takes this uh beyond frivolous and makes it malicious according to my reading of the documents is the fact that Mr. Franco made his complaint after you substituted it. another attorney after you mitigated the perceived conflict of interest. Absolutely. So if you know that there is a conflict that has been removed and you still make a complaint to the bar, does that make the claim malicious?

Malice, malice is a state of mind. Malice uh mean you you are presumed by law to intend the natural consequences of your actions. The natural consequence intended by anybody who files a complaint against a lawyer with the state bar is to see that that lawyer is disciplined or disbarred. In order to to take that action, you got to have some legitimate reason for doing it. and the reason he gave for doing it. I failed to disclose this conflict to my client, which is belied by the fact that you appointed a different attorney to represent you in that case. It's just a flatout lie.

So you're saying he's pursuing Just one second. Say attorney. So what I'm hearing is Mr. Franco has left the room now went over the line and instead of just accusing you just coming to a council meeting say there's a conflict here or meeting with you like you said meet with me manto man instead he went through all these legal machinations to pull your license so you can't work anymore and earn a living and put food on the table.

That's correct. And when those charges are malicious, it raises the malice or the legal remedy for those charges to a lawsuit by you and to action by the city council because he sits on a board which assumes his responsibility and assumes that he's not going to take actions such as that for frivolous and malicious reasons. Is that correct? And am I also correct in saying that as a city attorney you would be working with the planning commission on which Mr. Franco currently serves as a planning commissioner and you're saying that shouldn't happen. You would have an issue with that. I'm saying it's not even possible because my involvement, just my involvement alone, gives rise to at least the perception of a conflict of interest because Frank is going to be torn between adhering to my recommendations or evaluating my recommendations on their merit and wanting to injure me because of his personal animosity for me. So, he can he can have all the the concerns he wants about a conflict of interest. What he can't do, and what the law flat out prohibits him from doing is to file a complaint with the state bar that is false. Anytime you base anything on a false claim, you're necessarily acting maliciously because you don't have any legitimate reason to be claiming what you're claiming.

I'm sorry. The red address for that is a misdemeanor which is punishable by jail time and by a by fines or both. Is that correct, city attorney? Misdemeanors are always punishable by up to a year in jail or a fine or both. Okay. Is there anything you wish to add before we open this to the council?

I I didn't hear anything from Mr. Franco that uh uh requires any response. What I I'll just note that what he's giving you is um rule 2.7. And you can review that rule, by the way, and you can see that what I had is an unwaveable conflict of interest. And you can see that what my obligation is once I have that conflict of interest, which was created when you appointed me. Thank you, sir. My obligation is to take the actions that I took. Thank you for your coun and that's pretty much it. Council have any comments at this time?

I have I have a question. I have a question. Um, I'm not, you know, I'm not I I know you're upset and and I just and I want to make sure, first of all, I want to make sure that everyone understands this room that we all represent this we all represent a district. We all represent the city of Selma and my uh full oath is to make sure our city is solvent. Um, keeping in mind that we're going through a lot of lawsuits right now. Um, Mr. Castanza, the only question I have is, you know, you came here and you're directing and asking the council to full out take him out of the planning commission. Do you not think once that's that's going to be called retaliation?

Do you not think once it's going to be called retaliation? Well, it is. Yes and no. Because because we're going to go a long ways. And here's here's the other question. Here's the other question I have is you don't have any right to commit a crime. Let let the man answer. You asked him a question. Answer city. You don't have a right to commit a crime. You don't have a right to slander a person. You don't have any of those rights. And if I were to retaliate against Lewis Franco for doing those things, by suing him, for example, by doing anything to him, keep an eye on the

by by by seeing that he gets removed from the planning commission, for example, is not legal retaliation. Legal retaliation, that's good. Applies to an employee and an employee only. That's a good answer. We're good. We're good. But here's the here's the question I have. As an elected official, keep in mind I'm asking this question not as attacking you. Not as I'm saying, okay, so you said that it's you as our legal adviser. We're not going to be retaliating. He's not going to sue us. We're fine. Okay, that's good. The other question I have is is there an actual open case with the bar against you or not?

Apparently. Okay. So that so and another one you you you stated a lot of things against a citizen of Selma saying that he's this he's that he's that. Um where do you get that finding? Where do I get it? Right off right off his document and I'm just just take a look at his complaint. So that's what just says that's all I want. That's all I want. So, so I want to I want to understand my basis because again and and and you know, we all have we all have our strengths. We all know what we're doing. The only thing is is

I I just want I just want to make sure that you guys understand what we're doing here. We're crucifying a a citizen of our community and it might end up costing us. And you feel you feel you're our city attorney. I'm leaning on you saying you're 100% everything you're saying. You you're 100% accurate and you're good. If you're good, then that's where we're going to go. Um, everybody can have their comments, everybody can have their judgments, but again, um, we're going through a lot of lawsuits. A lot of department heads are here got to feed their family. So, decisions we make here, um, can either make us or break us, and we may make decisions. These are the decisions we we base them on. So, I'm not here to pick fights. I'm not here to pick sides. I'm just here, you know, enjoying the the event. And but you're telling me that everything's good and what you're you're basing everything you said about a citizen on this report on your report on the report you gave us.

Basing everything I said you sent the memo about Lewis Franco on the documents that are attached to my staff report and that's it. Okay, that's it. Thank you, Mayor Pro.

Okay. I just want to say you mentioned a couple of things. You're absolutely right. Franco Lewis Franco is not on the council. Okay. So, what you've done and what you've said to us in close session, that's between us in close session. He doesn't know that or he shouldn't know that unless someone's told him. Okay. Number one, we have a code of conduct. We have a policy and procedure. Mr. Castano is staff. He is staff considered our staff. No one should be treated this way. This is harassment. Harassment. Like they stayed like he stated. If there's an issue, he could have came to one of us. As a matter of fact, he's in my district. He could have came to me, but he didn't. So why power? Probably a coward. I don't know. But anyways, this is this this is horrible and I strongly believe that it's dishonest. You don't go and hurt somebody this way, but that's his character and we know that for a fact. So, I'm very disappointed and Neil, I feel so sorry for you for what you have to go through. But you know, as far as I'm concerned, I don't want somebody like that in our in our commit our committees. Sorry. You should have the decency to be honest. If you're a man, you go to that person. You could come to anybody's and complain. As a matter of fact, he could have came and complained at Trilio if that was the case. And this could have been handled so differently, but it wasn't. So now we're going to take stands. So

Councilman Avalos, did you Yes. Thank you for attend.

Yeah, we you know looking at the assess well situation here, you know, overall you know he can be dismissed under the actions that was taken by Mr. Franco. um you know you know on this lawsuit what he he talked about and and uh and there was not it was change you know technically basically stepped aside brought someone else in so that's legal uh and once again Franco's actions uh and his daughter was involved so that's an you know when you have a family member involved. You know, it don't, you know, common sense tells you it don't take it don't take much to figure that out easy. You know, uh there if there's any retaliation, it's it's against Mr. Neil Castanza, you know, and these actions are taken, we you know, we can make these u these these uh necessary resolutions to uh remove them under that under that criteria. Right. Thank you. Um, any comments from the public on this?

Anybody online or on the phone with a comment at this time? Mayor, I see no hands raised at this time. We'll bring it back.

Stella Ramirez, I'm a resident. I want to say that um, this is pretty frustrating because this isn't the first time that we've gone through this. The first time that we went through this was during election time when our mayor was running to get reelected. He um he was uh Lewis Franco was so well the POA was endorsing him. So they went and they opened a case connection. POA was endorsing Louisis Franco. So they opened up a case and that work didn't work out. It was thrown out. That didn't work. Then after our mayor got elected, won fair and square, took the oath, not once, not twice, but by a board member from Fresno County. Lewis Franco ran, went crying to the DA, opened up a case, and that didn't work. So now Lewis Franco is coming after our attorney, city attorney and he ran to state board, went crying to state board to open up a case against our city attorney to bring him down to destroy him to take away his license to destroy his career. So, the reason he's doing this is comes down to just he didn't get elected. He's he's ticked off. It's been going on for months and months and months. We're almost in the next election and he's still he's still dwelling on the past. Like you said, city attorney, I don't know what's what's going on with him. He lost. He needs to accept it. He's showing that he is a sore loser. He's showing that he is he's bad

sportsmanship. He can't accept the loss. And he's saying when he's running for mayor that he's honest. This is honest. No, it's not. So, the only thing I can I can say is that's what I that's what I'm speculating because it's it's been this way for a long time. What else can what other reason can it be? So, with that being said, I just do want I want to say three thing. I mean, want to say three words to Lewis Franklin because I know he's listening. I want to say get over it. Get over it because look where look how much time we're spending on this our city, you know, we got to focus on that. Taking our time from a city attorney to work with our leaders to in a positive in a productive way, productive way. And we're spending too much time on this man. So, you know what? I too say, you know what? You if you you guys are up there, you're chosen and elected by our citizens because we believe in you. We feel that you're honest. And when you have someone like that, no. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, Brian RmIrez. I'm not going to speak about the decision that you're going to make about Lewis Franco because I currently serve on the planning commission. So, you do what you think is right. I am going to talk about Luis Franco's actions. And just for the record, in case anybody doesn't know this, my cousin Leonard Cabera is married to Luis Franco's other daughter, Erica Franco Cabra. So, there is a connection there. But, you know what? I'm not going to base off I'm not going to go base off that because that's not that's not what I'm about. I could have gone the other side and voted his way. I still don't vote for that man because I don't agree with obviously his mindset, the way he thinks. Obviously, he's very dishonest. When I read that report, I read it from beginning to end. I could not believe it. Two years ago on in 2024, I seen so much stuff behind the scenes that people don't even know about. People don't even know what happened, things that were said, things that were done. It was it was it was it was it was yeah it was something else. Um to Neil on behalf of the the city of Selma that voted for this council, I'm so sorry. What a waste of time. What a waste of energy. This meeting could have ended at 8:00 and we're all still here. people could have been home with their families already getting ready for the next day, preparing for the next day, and here we are. I I I agree. Just, you know, it's just disheartening. So, I'm sorry. Thank you.

That will bring the matter back to council. Councilman Osager, did you have a comment at this time? No, I just wanted to say that, you know, it's a pretty sad day that we have to go through this. Like some of the people in the audience said, we should be conducting positive business for the city. And um well, sometimes when you attack somebody's livelihood, um you got to pay the consequences and and here we are.

Okay. My comment is Mr. Franco has continuously gone over the line over the line of decency and respect and fair dealing and honesty and there have been no consequences. Mr. Franco thinks that the consequences apply to all of us but not to him. Well, I got news for Mr. Franco. There are consequences of harassment. harassing staff, harassing our city attorney, and harassing anybody, including the people he runs against. And one of the consequences he's going to face tonight, it's going to be my vote, my making a motion to remove Lewis Franco from the planning commission and the measure committee and any other public body he serves on as an appointed member for the city of Selma. I'm making that motion. Is there a second to remove Lewis Franco as planning commission member?

I'll second it. You call the role, please. Mayor Robertson, yes. Mayor Promggera, yes. Council member Abalos, yes. Council member Oagera, yes. Council member Trillo, no.

Item passes. Lewis Branco is removed from the planning commission. And I would like to ask city clerk to open the application period for Mr. the vacancy that Mr. Franco's exit leaves on the planning commission. Let's leave it open for at least 30 days for people to apply for that so the council can consider those applications at that time.

We'll do with that we will move on from this last agenda item to future agenda items. This is council request for future agenda items not subject to public comment items require a consensus. Yes, sir. Scott.

Oh, no. I I like, you know, this is the discussion I I want to bring back to the council uh on these flags that are downtown area. I know, you know, some people say it's not good and everything, but you know, I some of these businesses need a little help. These are tough time, guys. You know, uh, businesses are trying to, you know, make ends meet now because of the the situation in this country right now. You know, we have a lot of bacons in our downtown area, renters, we can't find them, right? Because, you know, the the the situation is not very good economically right now. And I want to revisit this, you know, uh on, you know, some, you know, as far as these flags and these businesses will allow them and maybe at at night time they can take them off so it doesn't look drabby at night. Okay. I just want to bring it back to the council

that the feather banners. Yeah. But it isn't that all written ordinance that they they're not Yes, it's within our ordinance. He wants to revisit to allow them. I want to revisit that, you know, policy. Okay? Because we have we we do we can make policy changes, guys. That's why I want to revisit this situation. Okay? All right. So, we're going to bring back the ban and sign ordinance if that's council's direction or consensus. The last direction at the last council meeting was to ban the feather banners.

Yeah. um which we already have in our ordinance. And so now the recommendation tonight is to revise our ordinance to unban them.

Oh, I didn't hear that. To revisit the ordinance because there's confusion about it because we never actually look at the ordinance. Let's look at the sign ordinance and let's review it and let's see that the feather signs are bent. Let's see how that's worded because I've gotten some input. We did. We want to actually look at it. So, let's let's look at it and then we can Scott. Is there consensus to review? I have. Yes. Okay. Yes. So, didn't we already bring it back? I mean, we're looked at.

We haven't looked at it. We just talked about well, it was already bent or it wasn't bent. Let's actually take a look at it. And and the other issue is uh to uh to look at the downtown area as far as uh downtown speakers. We look at the cost factors. We talked about that and but we never kind of followed through with that. You know, I mean, want to, you know, since we're spruce up the downtown area, I want to, you know, you know, bring bring it to shade of delight, you know, because music is is good. Okay. Isn't there a budget approved already for that?

69 in the budget for last year. It's been in the budget for like five years. Let's spend the money. I'll go shopping. It's the technology that's been an issue. I like to go shopping. Put in. Okay. Councilman Osari. Um, and there's I have consensus. I'm good with speakers. You're good with speakers. Okay. Speakers.

Um, the pay and neuter we've been talking about. I was hoping we get it on this agenda. Uh, but I want to bring it back for next meeting because we want to see if we can get some donations or whatever or maybe the city providing some money because we need to help our citizens. We agreed that we were going to put a 90-day hole on uh on that ordinance that we passed, but uh it's already been a while and we haven't even done anything for that. So, we need to I mean, if if we can't get it done, then we we're going to put it put it on hold again until we get something going because we got to help the citizens because I mean, I don't know if you know, but um city manager provided cost and some of those big dog, bigger dogs, they they they're expensive to neuter or space. So, I would like to put it on there. And I know there's some people that said they would donate. So, hopefully, uh, they can open up their wallets. Um, I'm waiting for Cal Water. They're supposed to give us some dinner, too. So, I'm waiting on that. And, uh, hopefully we can get enough money. Also, I would like to um put in the Oh, do we get a consensus for that?

Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you. You, sir? Of course. Councilman Trio.

Oh, no. We got one. I got one more. And also, um, I know this is down the road, but I would like to see some of our business partners, uh, get honored up here, uh, Calwater because Cal Water has been instrumental in for some live events. I mean, every time we ask for monies, they provide monies for entertainment, whatever we need. So, also, um, Mid Valley, uh, I know they're they charge the city and the citizens to do their trash, but you know what? They have gone above and beyond beyond the call. anytime we need uh trash cans or whatever for our events, uh they never charge us. So, uh we have a good relationship with them and I like to honor them to let them know that, hey, you know what, you're doing a good job and we want to keep you here.

Thank you. Okay, Councilman Trio. Uh Mr. Mayor, I do not have anything to to say in regards to that, but I will say that I will donate to the spade and neuter on behalf of my dogs, Max, Maddie, and Yes, thank you. And that was brought up at the last time on both of those and we've had staff looking at those costs and we just got some of those this week which I sent out earlier but it wasn't able to make it on this one because it was this week that we got those two. You can get it on the next one then. Sounds good. Mayor Pro Tim.

Okay. Um, I would like to get an update on the CDBG uh grant to see where we where we are, if we still have funding. And also, I'd like to know if that includes parking lots, repairs of parking lots.

Yes. Okay. And then um I'd like to look at the spayneuter vouchers. Um we're going to have an April 6th clinic I think at the animal shelter. 11.

April 11. Okay. So we'll have a council meeting before the the rabies shock clinic. So that's good because it'd be great to u be able to award some of those vouchers at that rabies clinic where people are coming out with their with their animals. I mean, it's kind of hard to have a spayneuter ordinance if you don't provide a lowerc cost spayneuter program. So, I think it's very important. Number two, um can just formally can we uh look at the special event fees, special events, we talked about that earlier. We did the notice time today, which was great. Public hearing item, we changed that to 20 days and city manager's discretion. So, I think that's going to help pre up some time there. Um, that will help encourage people to have special events. Um, let's see. And then, um, the parking lot that mayor, do we have consensus for that? Yes.

Are we good with that? Okay. And then the parking lot. We've talked about looking at the, uh, old police station, that parking lot. There's grass growing in the pavement now. What do we have? Can we get some costs to knock down that wall, move the items? And I don't What do you have to do? Put some

Sydney engineer Horn and I actually visited that site, I believe, last Friday, Thursday or Friday. Uh Mr. Horn is already currently working on a design for what it will take to take down the wall and the fencing and bring the parking lot and surrounding sidewalk and ADA ramp up to ADA compliance. So, we're currently working on that project. Do we have a timeline on when we're looking at that for for design? For design like you're going to get cost, you're going to get design, but how long is that going to take, do you think? I we were doing cost first because cost first needs to come back to council before we move. We're looking at that next meeting after that.

Yeah, we can we can get something uh next month.

Well, you know what? We're getting a $300,000 grant, so that should cover part of it at least. The $300,000 grant real quickly is to basically finish the project from the California uh the Clean California grant. That grant only goes from the offramps at 99 to West Front Street, stopped short of the rightway of Union Pacific Railroad. The $300,000 match grant that we that the previous assistant city manager applied for is to connect the rest of that project from Eastfront to where we did this the high street beautifification. So, it's literally was meant and intended for that section, trees, concrete benches, graffiti removal, like all the other things that are listed as part of the grant uh opportunities.

From what the city engineer said, it could be used for anything. There's no there there's several different things that they list that you can utilize that money for. Right. But he also mentioned that we use it on High Street, not just on Second Street, right? City city engineer. I think the staff report talks about Second Street to High Street, right? So not so High Street was not included I think in the application. Yeah, because we we haven't even used the other one. So let's get that project done because uh you know we don't want to end up giving the money back because we can't finish it. that the 3 point whatever million it is.

Yeah. And I know we have a park and ride that's coming in behind the the PD station. So that's good. But that's that's grant money. It's going to take a little while. Hopefully we can take a look at that old police station which is like parking right there right in front of us that uh we could do hopefully with a minimal cost and design. um we can make that happen for people who need that excess parking and maybe discuss a collaboration with u Fresno County Rural Transit Agency too to provide some transit for those folks that you know find that to be a a long way to go from Front Street to High Street or wherever they're going in Selma. Another kind of little park and ride um concept there and and I'm sure they would help too. Um then finally um the old high school building. Where are we on the costs on the to renovate that

to a to a rec center?

Reached out to architects and structural engineers uh asking that you know city managers asked us to look into that. So, I've I've been able to get some information. I provided some information back to the city manager of the in order to give you uh reasonable numbers and realistic numbers without uh any misleading uh hope that we could use the building when potentially you couldn't. Uh my recommendation to city manager is that uh we need to have some type of budget to have a a concept looked at with structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, architectural uh so that they can look at the actual structure of the building and what needs to be done uh just from uh code compliance, structural compliance and come up with a schematic design and a cost that's actually based on some real research. So the grants that that we're going after right now seem to include a planning component. We should talk to granted solutions and I think we have about turning something into a another use building into a rec center for public use. And there's money out there for that, you know, for the planning part. And I would think that's exactly what you're talking about, city engineer. We need some money for the planning part. That's my recommendation to make sure that we're not just either guessing without really looking at the structure because of the age of the building. I I want to be careful about any recommendations.

It's still on the market. I mean, it's still no one is really trying to buy this. So, I mean, I think we have the timing on it, but still we need a recreation center. I think everybody realizes the Wraid building would be just ideal, but the city doesn't have $4 million rolling around in the general fund right now. So, we have to look and tear our prospects and um and this would be potent a real potential for a potent a rec center, but we we got to get started somewhere. We've brought it up to our um grant writer uh granted solutions as a priority to look at for funding.

Okay, thank you. Okay, moving on to council reports. Councilman Trio, Councilman Avalos. I I won't have too much to say, but I actually I went to the SKF uh the mixer on on Wednesday. Very good turnout. Biggest turnout for a long time.

It's very impressive. Uh um and all and a lot of prizes were given out and also the next day I had the SKF meeting and they were still talking about the mixer and uh and no and on the SKF meeting updates uh they'll be coming around pretty soon to uh do some assessments on this on the sewer uh areas in our city. uh that that might need some uh refurbishment uh re redone but uh right now SAF is just uh trying to update their uh you know state requirements and everything right now and um and look and they're looking at the u energy operation from uh you know the transportation trans transit their solar operation you know state the arc uh and uh so it it's and we it's it's looking SKF is moving pretty good. the the board members are looking very good. Financially, we look we're very good and uh any assistance any city needs, just ask. That's all. Just ask. They're willing to assist and help and ask any questions. And Jason is the new vice chair now. Get the shoes running. He's

next week he gets a goggle. Councilman Oera. I also went to the SKF mixer which was like he said very well attended. Um I didn't win. No, did I? Yeah, I did win a prize. I thought my wife I won it but I won it. I think you all won. But but she kept it. But she kept it anyway. So you know how that goes. Um pretty much it's been kind of quiet. I was supposed to have a meeting but it got cancelled. So it's been kind of quiet on the on the home front. Yeah, I celebrated a birthday. I'm now 67 years old. Do you believe that? Old. I'm getting old already. Now you're catching up with other time. Happy birthday, Mayor.

So, that's it. Thank you. Thank you. I also attended the SKF mixer, which is like we've all stated, very u very well attended, and

I think everybody had a great time. I also attended the um at Wilson school I attended with the mayor the read across America and it was an honor to be able to sit in one of my daughter's favorite teacher Mr. Tango's class. So it was it was great to revisit. Um I also met um oh I went to another mixer today. It was the um St. Patty Day Mixer at the Rolling Hills Care Center and that was very nice. We got to see the remodel inside that area. So, it was um it was very well attended as well. Um also met with the city manager to review um just to go over some Selma how Selma is doing and how um what our goals are. So that was a a great meeting and um other than that I think that's it for me.

Thank you. Okay. I attended um that same St. Patrick's event at Rolling Hills convolescent home where Councilman Avalos was born a few years ago 10 or 15. Um we I saw their remodel. Um we had gone Rose and I had gone over there a year year and a half ago in July and it was steaming. People had called us and said, "Hey, you guys need to go over there." and they were working on converting their swamp cooler to central air. Well, they converted it. It's it's nice in there now. So, they've done a really good job over there. Um, I did ReadAcross America week. For ReadAcross America Week, I read to three classrooms at Jackson, Terry, and Wilson. Actually, three schools with more than one classroom there. But that was a a delight. Really appreciated doing that. And it was great to be able to read uh to my goddaughter too, Mayor Prom's daughter, Ed Jackson. So, that was a lot of fun. She didn't know I was going to read. She's looking at me like, "Think I know you. Are you Is it

my granddaughter?"

Oh gosh, that was that was a good one. Um I was a judge on Saturday with uh planning um Commissioner um Brian over there. I was a judge on Saturday at the Lions Club student speaker competition with um L Commissioner Ramirez. I stopped by coffee with a cop at Maiden Voyage. That was very nice. Um I was part of the grounds crew for the business improvement district. Um we um installed Easter decorations last Sunday. So hopefully everybody's enjoying those. is great to uh be able to have those tree wells and to put decorations in there. It's nice to see the buds coming back on those trees, too. So, that's very nice. I attended a bid meeting last Monday. I attended a Selma Chamber of Commerce mixer at SKF that we all talked about. Good stuff. Great. You know, just uh the numbers were were really nice and uh a lot of good good folks out there. Um the city manager and I met with a Park Street resident. Um as did Councilman Oera regarding issues that the PD helped to discuss city to to remedy and discuss. Um the mayor prom and I met with city manager Rogers to discuss uh city issues as she said. So with that we will move on to our last oral communications of the evening. Does anybody have anything they would like to say at this time? Anybody on the phone or online?

Mayor, I see no hands raised at this time. All right, everybody. Happy St. Patrick's Day. Thanks for coming out. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.