City Council - Special Meeting

We're going to start our meeting now. Everybody welcome from your Labor Day weekend to our Selma City Council special meeting. It's Tuesday, September 8, 2026, and it's 6 p.m. in the Selma City Council Chambers at 1710 Tucker Street, Selma, California, 93662. The teleconference phone number is 301-715-8592. webinar id is eight nine one six eight six four five zero zero five one on the phone if you wish to address the council during the public comment part of the agenda press star nine to raise your hand we will select you from the meeting queue press star six to unmute and mute yourself notice

Thank you, City Attorney. 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? That we will move on to our public hearing. This is our one and only item tonight for this special meeting, and it is a consideration and ne

Point of clarification, city attorney, thank you for that report. Did all of the affected property owners receive notice that this declaration of necessity was going to take place tonight at the council meeting?

So next week, if Mr. Alple didn't show up, it would be up to the council to decide whether to take the matter under submission again and continue that by a fourth-fifth vote or to stop it there and say that's it and declare the resolution of necessity and take the vote for that, which would require four out of five votes. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. So tonight we have the people here, the landowners here. So we'd love to hear from you folks, and we're going to open the public hearing and take your input. One difference between tonight and other public hearings is usually oral commun

Opening the public hearing, and now the stage is yours.

We had a special meeting tonight, sir. Special meetings, we don't do the Pledge of Allegiance. Or departmental reports.

Okay. So we'll add Mr. Alper and Mr. Singh to the list of potential speakers for the next meeting. Yes. Okay. Would anybody else like to be heard on this?

Number D. That's D. Yeah, letter D. Does that give you enough time to sign the docs? Okay. All right. Anybody else?

The resolution of necessity applies to those now three properties that haven't communicated back with the city. How many offers has the city sent out so far? The initial appraisal and then I believe it was six or seven.

And then that leaves three left. But it's only been one offer that's gone out. Right from the city. Okay. Anybody else? Okay. We will close the public hearing with that and bring the matter back to council. City attorney, is it your advice that we take this matter under submission and continue it until the next meeting?

And describe what happens after that declaration of necessity is voted on by the council. If that passes, what would happen from there?

So what this does is it allows the city to move forward with something the city has needed for many years, which is a four-way stoplight at Dinuba and McCall. while the property owners are still able to negotiate either with the city or with a trier of fact in terms of what that value really is for that land. Is that correct? That's correct.

After the resolution of necessity is declared, can the city move forward with our city engineer policy? to move and whoever is doing, working on the engineering for this project, to move forward with plans and to get this out to bid. That allows the city to move forward. So I think this is an issue where the interests of public safety are paramount. They outweigh the interests of individual landowners to get the particular price for their land, which is determined by appraisal. However, their rights are never set aside. They are simply put in another venue while the city is able to pursue this

And city engineer, what are we looking at in terms, city manager, what are we looking at in terms of timeline if this moves forward after the next meeting? Do we have a timeline here of the process from here?

Are we potentially looking at end of the year or first quarter of next year, if all goes smoothly?

Because this is a top priority for the city and we want to make sure we put every resource we can towards it. It's just a huge public safety item. We've waited five years already and we need to move forward as expeditiously as possible on that. And I think everybody here understands that. But we just need to keep following through like we are right now with this resolution of necessity. Do you have a comment?

Okay, so can we take a vote to take this matter under submission until the next city council meeting in one week from tonight, during which Mr. Alper and Mr. Singh will be invited or able to give their testimony if they would like at that meeting. Is there a motion? I'll make a motion on that issue. Is there a second? I'll second. Call the roll, please.

Yes. And since this is a special meeting, we don't go through a lot of the other parts of the meeting, nor all communications. We're just going to adjourn the meeting. Wish everyone a good evening, and we hope to see you a week from tonight at 6 p.m. Thank you.