City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good morning to everyone. Welcome to City Hall. I'm going to ask if you're a council member, please come on up to the dais. We're going to get this meeting started. We're going to get this meeting started here at 9, 11 a.m. Clerk, if you'd go ahead and please call the roll. I think I saw all the members here in the room.

All right, thank you, clerk. Next, we're going to have the invocation. It's going to be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. So I'll ask if you can stand to please stand. Our invocation this morning will be by Deacon Nancy Key from St. James. Welcome.

Councilor Radius, will you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Ready? Salute. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

All right, we'll move on to the approval of the agenda next. Clerk, do we have any announcements, changes, items removed, et cetera?

All right, Council Member Arias, do you have any other changes? No, thank you. Council Member Perea?

Council Member Richardson? No changes. Okay, great. All right, I don't have any additional changes. I do wanna, I'll go ahead and do a disclosure. I think now would be the time. Item 2J, I'm required to stay on the record. I'm employed by the State Center Community College District, but do not have an interest in this agreement pursuant to Government Code 1091.5. All right, I'll entertain a motion. We have a motion, we have a second for approval of the agenda.

Council or President? Yeah. I'm sorry, I did have one disclosure. For item 2H, per recommendation from the CAO, my property is within 1,000 feet of this intersection. At that distance, pursuant to the Political Reform Act, so long as this does not impact, this project does not impact the income-producing potential of this property, then I do not need to recuse myself. So I do not have a conflict. I just wanted to disclose that I do own a property within 1,000 feet of the Clinton-Van Ness intersection.

All right, Council Member Richardson, you recognized? Yeah, I'd just like to register a no vote on Item 2D as in Delta.

That was D. Clerk, got that? All right. Sounds good. All right, we have a motion, we have a second. Is there any opposition to approving the agenda? All right, seeing none, agenda passes six to zero. We'll move on to the fun part of the meeting. The reason I suspect most of the crowd is here today. We're gonna move on to our ceremonial presentations. celebrate different folks and groups here. Our first proclamation on the agenda for this morning is a proclamation for the Valley Volleyball Academy, and that's sponsored by Council Member Vang.

Testing. Testing. Hello, hello. Okay, there we go. I was on recess. Good morning, everybody. Can I have the 2026 AAU 15U VVA National Champions come up here along with the players and coaches. Please come up, guys, and give them a round of applause. Over here. Again, these boys are the 2026 AAU 15U National Champions. This past June and July, they went to Orlando to compete in what I term the Super Bowl of club volleyball. There were over 6,000 teams in a period of four weeks. Over 100,000 players, coaches, and parents attended this event. And this is an annual event. And so these boys represe

I'm Cameron Vang, and I play outside hitter. And of course, these boys were able to achieve this championship not by themselves, but because of the coaches. Coach Taylor and Coach Tyler, the mic is yours.

To paraphrase soccer mom, we do have a volleyball mom on this team, and I'm going to hand the mic over to her.

And most of these players will return as 16 under. And their defense of their national champion starts this weekend. And so good luck, boys. I just wanted to read two paragraphs from this proclamation, whereas the Valley Volleyball Academy boys team stands as an inspiration to young athletes across Fresno and the Central Valley. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that we, Mayor Jerry P. Dyer and the Fresno City Council do hereby proclaim September 17th, 2026 as Valley Volleyball Academy Day in the city of Fresno. Congratulations, guys. Thank you. Clark, could you please read the proclamation into

Clerk, anything to read into the record? No? All right, for our next proclamation, sponsored by Council Member Perea, we have California Native American Day.

Okay, where's Roman? There you are. Roman, go ahead and invite up whoever you would like to join us today, please. We'll make room. Where'd you get that shirt from?

All right. Good morning, everyone. Council Member Perea, and it's an honor to welcome you all here to City Hall to recognize California Native American Day. For me, today starts with something very simple, and that's respect. Respect for Native people who were here long before Fresno even had a name, long before we even had a city charter. Respect for the elders who spent their lives teaching our younger generations about the history so that it wouldn't be forgotten. And respect for tribal communities and families who are here today and who continue to make their voices heard throughout Califo

I want the audience to take a moment to understand how important today is. I know certainly I've never been in the presence of so many tribal leaders, but a few of them spoke about how rare this is. So this is a big deal that you all took the time to come here today, so thank you. Now, therefore, be it resolved that we, Mayor Jerry P. Dyer, Councilmember Annalisa Perea, and the entire Fresno City Council proudly recognize and celebrate California Native American Day and honor the Native peoples whose ancestral homelands encompass Fresno, Fresno County, the Central Valley, and lands throughout

That's wonderful. So wonderful. Excuse me. A mountain lion.

The chihuahua will scare off the mountain lion next time. Okay, I'm gonna stand over here, that way I can just, you guys can all stay where you are. I don't see Council President, but the next proclamation is gonna be Orange Shirt Day. Today's recognition carries a responsibility with it, and for far too long, The experiences of Native children and families were left out of stories we told about our history. And that message has been repeated over and over again already this morning. But history does not disappear simply because it's difficult to talk about. History does not disappear simply b

I want to thank you all again for sharing your time and your stories with us and I want to thank everyone for taking the time to listen and hopefully learn a little bit more. All right, so now, therefore, be it resolved that we, Mayor Jerry P. Dyer, Councilmember Annalisa Perea, and the Fresno City Councilmembers encourage residents to honor survivors, remember the children who never returned home, and recognize the enduring strength and resilience of Native American and Indigenous peoples, and do hereby proclaim Thursday, September 17th, 2026, to be Orange Shirt Day in the City of Fresno. Con

All right, great. Our next proclamation is going to be for Constitution Week. That's sponsored by the Office of the Mayor and the City Manager.

Mayor, if you don't mind, can I make a comment real quick? Absolutely. So declaring independence as a nation is great, but that's like jumping off a cliff. The Constitution is the parachute that allows us to safely proceed into the future of our country. Just declaring that you're independent is fantastic, but that's gone quickly if you don't have a set of rules to dedicate yourselves to. Every single one of us up here on the dais, every single elected official at the federal level, every military officer, every person enlisted in our nation's defense takes the same oath to support and defend

Yeah, so his next proclamation is, again, celebrating the Babs Swimmin' Out the End of the Era of Fresno and presented by both the mayor and Council Member Richardson.

So this is not today a recognition of the global BAPS charities. Although the work they do is important, this is specifically recognition to the impact that BAPS here in Fresno has had on Fresno. The BAPS that's over there in District 6 on Maple and Neese, a few things are true. When you leave there, You will never leave bored, you will never leave lonely, and you will never leave hungry. Just things that are true. Now the very first public event that we had when I came into office was a trash cleanup. And that trash cleanup, we had a ton of people show up and volunteer and get out there early

All right, great. Our next proclamation for this morning is going to be a proclamation for the Fresno State Bulldog Marching Band Centennial Celebration. That's sponsored by the Office of the Mayor and City Manager, as well as Vice President Maxwell.

All right. All right. Second to last proclamation for the day is going to be a proclamation for Dolly Parton Day. It's sponsored by Vice President Maxwell. I'll be filling in for the Vice President. So I'll welcome down our friends from First Five and the Dolly Parton cutout. Look at that. That's incredible. And while we're on the topic of Vice President Maxwell, he did inform me that he has a family emergency and we'll count that as an excused absence for him for the record.

All right, that works. Good morning, welcome to City Hall. Great to be here with you all. This proclamation's very timely, given our loss of Dolly Parton just last month, less than a month ago. We're here today to honor her legacy. She founded the Dolly Parton's Imagination Library in 1995, marking this year as its 31st year. And that's still a shorter time than when the mayor was at her concert here in Fresno, 41 years ago? 1985, he went to the concert. He was telling me about it a little earlier. So this is something that Vice President Maxwell is very passionate about. He's leaned very heav

Well, you know, we'll let the clerk read it to the record, but I did just want to read this last part that, therefore, be it resolved that we, Mayor Jerry P. Dyer and the Fresno City Council, encourage residents to carry forward Dolly Parton's extraordinary legacy by reading with a child, supporting literacy efforts, and helping place the lifelong gift of books, imagination, and opportunity into the hands of every child. And we do hereby proclaim What would be with a little early Friday, September 25th, 2026, as Dolly Parton Day here in the city of Fresno presented to our friends here at First

So last but not least, we have last proclamation of the day. It's going to be a proclamation for the Fresno chapter of the Hmong Nurses Association. And this is sponsored by Council Member Vang.

Thank you very much, Council President. It is my honor to recognize the Hmong Nurses Association Fresno chapter with this proclamation. Can I have President Julie Tao and members of the HNA come up here, please? Now this is the Hmong Nurses Association Fresno chapter. They started this organization eight years ago. So in terms of nonprofits, this is at the infant stage. And two years later, as you will recall, we had COVID. And so it was at the right place at the right time that we have the Nurses Association Fresno Chapter going out there, educating the community about the dangers of COVID. A

To put the number into perspective, there are over 35,000 Hmong who call Fresno home. And here in the county, I believe there are over 55,000 Hmong. And so that is a population that is greatly in need of your service. And I appreciate your dedication. Also, they have provided 78 scholarships to nursing students. And some of those have completed their nursing programs. and are coming back to the community and contributing to the community here in the city of Fresno. So thank you very much for what you've done the last eight years, and I wish you the very best for the next eight years. Thank you

Fantastic. That'll conclude our proclamations. Only an hour and 22 minutes. Not too bad. Council Member Vang, before you leave the chamber, come back up to the microphone here. I was given a tip to ask you from our first proclamation, who was the MVP of that tournament? Yeah, someone told me to ask you that, little birdie.

Hello. I didn't want to bring that up, but we had two who made the all-tournament team. That's Evan Yang and Dominic Browning. And the MVP for the 15-under at the AAU Orlando National, his name is Marshall Vang. And, yes, he is my youngest boy.

Congratulations. Thank you very much, Council President.

Thank you very much for that. I'm very proud of him.

All right, we're going to move on now to our council member reports and comments, and we'll just come down the line here. Council Member Perea.

Thank you, Council President. These comments will be brief. Just want to let residents know that we have movies in the park coming up. It's going to be every Friday at Trolley Park over in the historical Fresno High neighborhood. I want to thank everyone who's taken the time to attend one of our movies in the park. It's brought out hundreds of people to our little neighborhood pocket park, and so I want to thank also Lee's Plumbing Ice Cream Truck for their partnership and handing out the free ice cream. Beginning Friday, October 9th, Movies in the Park will be at Inspiration Park. So we're go

Thank you, Council President. Quick reminder, Fiestas Patrias is officially going to occur this weekend on Sunday, the PARADE WILL BEGIN 11 O'CLOCK BY THE TRADITIONAL GRITO AND THEN FOOD AND LIVE MUSIC THAT WILL GO TO APPROXIMATELY 10 P.M. ON SUNDAY. SO I INVITE EVERYONE TO ATTEND. A COUPLE OF THANK YOU'S TO THE PUBLIC WORKS TEAM FOR THE REPAVING THAT'S BEEN COMPLETED ON MLK. I KNOW THE MAYOR AND I WERE OUT THERE FOR THE KICKOFF IN THAT SUMMER HEAT. THE PROJECT IS COMPLETE NOW AND EVERYBODY IS APPRECIATIVE OF THE SMOOTH ROAD THAT WE'VE REPLACED AFTER DECADES OF A CRUMBLING STREET. Additionally

Thank you very much, Council Member Iris. By seated procedure, in the absence of Council President and Vice President, I assume the President will, in this case, Council Member Richardson. Do you have any comments?

Sure. Thank you to the... to Teens That Care, who put on a lovely 9-11 remembrance ceremony at Todd Beamer Park. Even bigger event than it was last year. Great opportunity for remembrance. We had a Sister Cities meeting this week. And if you're interested in Sister Cities, ask, I don't know, your council member. But my goal is to make the Sister Cities program something that economically benefits the city, right? I want the city to have something that we can take away, whether it's new jobs or new procedures, new ways that we can fast-track things to get Fresno moving based on lessons that hav

Thank you very much, Council Richardson. 988, Council Member Karbassi.

Okay, thank you, Council Member. Sorry for a moment. Okay, lots of activities in the last two weeks. I was able to attend with the Council President the City College State of the College event. where they highlighted a lot of the great contributions they make, a lot of livelihoods and these careers are started at our community college system. And Fresno City College is no exception to that. Thank you so much to the work they're doing over there. Happy Post-Labor Day, everyone. Hopefully everyone had a great time. And it was able to celebrate all the hard work done by the folks that literally b

Thank you. And I think the confusion is they're used to seeing construction vehicles park those areas and construction equipment versus passenger vehicles.

Yeah, thank you, City Manager, for reminding everyone about Greek Fest. It's a great time. I encourage everyone to get out there. One of the couple times I barbecue every, each year. Council Member Vang, you have not gone yet.

Thank you very much, Council President and Mayor. Thank you very much for your acknowledgement and your comments on the Hmong Nurses Association. It is due. Just a few comments from me. This coming Saturday morning, my office will once again be working with Beautify Fresno at Sanger West High School located on Jensen and Fowler Avenue. So if you are free this coming Saturday morning, come and join my team and the community and perhaps some of the Sanger West students to help clean the surrounding neighborhood at Jensen and Fowler Avenue. The big Fresno Fair is coming up and will start October

Great. All right. 1109, and let's get to city business. Everybody had a chance to give their comments. I've got a request from the city manager. We're going to do the, is it the 920, city manager? We'll go ahead and conduct the 920 AM item, a hearing to consider adoption of a resolution designating a property to the local register of historic resources, 207 East San Joaquin Street. We'll have a brief presentation from staff. Council Member Arias, do we need a presentation? Okay, presentation. Well, we'll go ahead and do the public hearing portion of this. I'm gonna open up the public hearing a

If I may be free to speak, Council President, I simply want for the public's benefit, this is a historic building. It's been here for more than 100 years. It's an active church. And the owners are requesting that we designate the property historic in nature, which I'm fully supportive of, especially when it is the property owners themselves making the request. So I'll hand it off to the church now.

All right, thank you. Any additional public comment from the chamber? Seeing none, we'll go to Zoom. We have one speaker on Zoom so far, Lisa Flores.

Yeah, good morning, Lisa. Yes, we can hear you.

Any additional public comment either on Zoom or in the chamber regarding the 920 AM item? SEEING NOW WE'RE GOING TO CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING ON THIS ON THIS ITEM COME BACK UP TO COUNCIL.

IF I MAY COUNCIL PRESIDENT BEFORE I MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE THE RECOGNITION OF THE CHURCH AS A HISTORIC DESIGNATION I DO WANT TO JUST SHARE WITH THE PUBLIC ONE FACT THAT RECOGNIZES THEIR PERSEVERANCE AS A CONGREGATION. YOU KNOW THE CHURCH WAS STARTED IN 1926. AND THEY EVENTUALLY BUILT THEIR OWN BUILDING IN 1947. ONLY TO HAVE THE BUILDING TORN DOWN FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE STATE ROUTE 99. EIGHT YEARS AFTER THEY BUILT THEIR CHURCH, THE STATE CAME IN AND SAID WE'RE GOING TO BUILD A FREEWAY ON YOUR LOCATION, WHICH REQUIRED THEM TO BUILD A NEW CHURCH IN 1955, WHICH IS THE CURRENT LOCATION. AND

All right, we have a motion. We have a second. Is there any opposition to approving the 9.20 a.m. item? Seeing none, that passes six to zero. Thank you.

Council President, I asked my staff to come out and get a contact number, but I would like to see what we can do to add some more bicycles to your giveaway. That way we can spread the love even more. So my chief is gonna come get a contact information from one of you. Thank you. Congratulations.

Great, fantastic. All right, thank you all. We'll move on to our 10 a.m. item at an appearance by Neil O'Brien. Neil, are you with us? Welcome on down. You have three minutes.

Thank you. All right, next item we're gonna hear is the 9-10 a.m. item to hearing to vacate portions of the city-owned right-of-way northeast corner of Milburn and Dakota for Dolores Huerta Park. Let's see here. No presentation, okay. All right, we'll go out to the public for the public hearing portion here. Open the hearing. Is there anybody who would like to provide public comment in the hearing on the 9-10 a.m. item? either in the chamber or on Zoom. Seeing none, we're gonna close the public hearing for the 9.10 a.m. item. Bring it up to the council.

Thank you, Council President. I was promised by our parks director that we're gonna be doing a groundbreaking by the end of this year for Dolores Huerta Park. Aaron, right? It's okay, you don't have to answer that. I know they're working very diligently to make sure we can do our best to hit that goal. But this is one of the last pieces that we need in order to help us get to that point. So with that, Council President, I'd like to make a motion to approve.

All right, we have a motion. We have a second. Is there any opposition to approving the 9-10 AM item? Seeing none, that passes 6-0. Great. For the timed items, that leaves us the 915, the Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation Report, the CAPER for HUD. So we'll go ahead and open the hearing on the 915 AM item. If there's any public comment either in the chamber or on Zoom regarding the 915 AM CAPER for HUD. I don't see any in the chamber. On Zoom, we have Brandy Nusviegas. Good morning.

Thank you, Brandi. Thank you. All right, do we have any additional public comment on the 9.15 a.m. hearing item regarding the CAPER for HUD? Consolidated annual performance. Okay, we're gonna go ahead and close the public hearing. Bring it back up to the council. I don't see anyone punched up right now. Does council have any additional questions? Everyone did their homework. Okay, all right. I'll entertain a motion.

All right, we have a motion. We have a second on the item. Is there any opposition to approving the 9.15 a.m. item? Seeing none, that passes five to zero. Yeah, five to zero. Okay, that's our timed items. So what we'll do is we'll move to the consent calendar. Before we obviously vote on it, we're gonna take public comments. So at this time, we'll open up the public comments for any item on the consent calendar, contested consent calendar, the closed session agenda, if anybody has public comment. With respect to those items, either in the chamber or on Zoom, you're welcome to provide input at

Thank you. Next speaker on Zoom is going to be Lisa Flores.

Okay, thank you. I don't see anyone punched up on Zoom. Council Member Karbasi?

We really do appreciate Lisa and everyone else that decides to, of course, be able to participate and provide their input. I do always get sensitive when I hear complaints about access and transparency. I would like the clerk to specify exactly how the process works, when the agendas are published, how the public, I get the agenda the same time everyone else does. So can you maybe provide some clarity on how folks can access the agenda, how it's available electronically? I mean, if you participate remotely, the agenda is also available to you. How does that work?

That's when I, as a council member, get access to the final agenda too, correct?

Is there additional public comment? There was no one punched up in the chamber or on Zoom. Go ahead and close public comment on the consent calendar, contested consents, and the closed session agenda. Let me see here. Before we vote on the consent calendar, I did have a last minute change. What I wanted to do was... table one of the consent items, item two U. Clerk, attorney, how would I go about doing that since we're kind of late stages here?

I'll make a motion to reopen the agenda.

All right, we have a motion to reopen the agenda and a second. Is there any opposition to reopening the approval of the agenda? I see none, this passes six to zero.

I'll make a motion to table item two U from the consent agenda.

Okay, that's unilateral, I believe. All right, so item two U is tabled in addition to everything else that was prior tables. All right, I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as it is. Second. Without two U. All right, we have a motion, we have a second. Any opposition to approval of the agenda? Revised? Oh yeah, everything, yeah, your registered no vote stands. Everything that we did prior still stands. We just did this one amendment in addition to the previous changes. Okay, all right, great. So we have approval of the agenda again. Let's go back to our approval of the consent agenda.

Second that. We have a motion, we have a second to approve the consent agenda minus the removals and minus the contested consent items. Is there any opposition to approving the consent agenda? Seeing none, the pass is six to zero. We've got some time here, let's dig into the contested consent items. I believe we have two of them, both pulled by Council Member Arias, and we can begin with item 2L.

Thank you, Council President. I just want to thank the administration for the very thorough update on the second round of the cultural arts grant awardees. I did want, for the record, for them to tell us a couple of additional points of information. One, can you provide us a list of all the grantees that declined their award? Do you have it now that you can give it to us on the record?

And my other question for the record, Director, is this agenda item request that we authorize the city manager to approve certain contracts over her limit, I know there's only three of them, right?

So for the record, can you tell us which three are being recommended for approval? Absolutely. By the city manager?

Thank you. And again, thank you to your team for this extremely thorough memo that gives us the status of each of these round two awardees. I appreciate the time and the effort you all put into this. So with that, I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second. So we have a motion, we have a second. Is there any opposition to approving item 2L? Seeing none, the pass is six to zero. And we'll move on to item 2M. to Amazon McGill.

Yes, just a simple question, Director. I know that there's been references to the second unit of bathrooms being damaged from an accident. What's the status of the second unit, and when do we anticipate it being back online?

What does that mean to the schedule and the availability of public restrooms?

Okay. Thank you for the information. Motion to approve, Council.

All right. We have a motion for this item and a second. Is there any opposition to approving item 2M? 2M is in McGill. Seeing none, that passes six to zero. You know, despite spending an hour and 20 minutes plus on the proclamations, it moved pretty quick through the public agenda. That leaves, I believe, only unscheduled communication for the open session today. And so go ahead and move open to unscheduled communication. I did have one card that I received, but if anyone in the chamber or on Zoom would like to speak with respect to unscheduled communication, now would be the time to punch up

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate the comment. The training is important. I think some of us have been in that situation before where we're trying to figure out what to do. We want to get that paper, if possible, Council President. Council Member Karabasi, you want the, yes.

Yeah, I'll be very frank. I have a member of my family that suffers from seizures. I thought I knew what to do, and now I'm questioning myself, so we'll take the paper just in case.

We can get a copy of it and get it back to you. You want it back, sir? No, I think he said we can have it. We can have it? Okay, great. Thank you. We'll get copies of that for everybody. Thank you very much.

Okay, great. Anyone else in the chamber who would like to speak with respect to unscheduled communication? Okay, all right, we're gonna move on to the Zoom speakers. We have a few. First speaker's gonna be Joseph Rodriguez. Joseph, are you with us?

All right, great. Our next speaker on Zoom is going to be Nikki Real.

All right. Thank you. Next speaker is going to be Alfred.

All right, next speaker on Zoom is gonna be Crystal Rocha.

Any additional public comments, Zoom, or in the chamber? We're on unscheduled communication right now. Seeing none, we're going to go to close public comment, close unscheduled communication. That is going to conclude our open session for today. Still got a lot to do in closed session this afternoon. City Attorney, can you please go ahead and read off the closed session agenda? And Council will be back here about 1.30, 1.45, but it will be in closed session that we return.

All right, thank you, city attorney. Thank you to everybody who participated today, and I'll see you in closed session, counsel.

Thank you for joining us today. Council is adjourning from closed session at 325 p.m.