City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. We're going to go ahead and get started and call this meeting to order. We appreciate your patience. We were checking out a new fire truck, or excuse me, a new trash truck. It's an electric trash truck. It's the first one that the city has. And then we're also making sure that all of our systems are up and running. Today's the first day that we're doing our new online call-in option. So let me go ahead and read the new word or the verbiage that's going to go along with that. Let's see. We're going to go ahead and start with public comments. Citizens are now invited to comment o

Thank you, sir. We appreciate your comments. Anybody else wishing to speak in person here at this time? Pay attention. Okay, seeing no one else who is here for in-person comments, City Clerk, do we have anyone online wishing to speak at this time? Okay, perfect. Can I ask a question real quick? Absolutely.

This is the first time we're doing this. Do people have to be in a waiting room by a certain time, or how is this working?

Perfect. Any other questions? All right, again, we appreciate everyone's patience as we kind of navigate through this new process. And thank you, Rena, for setting all that up. We got to come in a few days ago and practice everything, and it looks like it's working well, so thank you. All right, so we're going to go ahead and close public comments, and we are going to go ahead and open up the first portion of the work session, which is a proposed elimination of Transit Fixed Route 17. Staff report, please.

Question. Can we use any of the funds that we would save to subsidize microtransit? And that's a great question.

And folks can still use Dial-a-Ride or microtransit to get out there, right? Like currently, if this were to stop today?

On your vision for the Doe Avenue complex, do you see that in the future as like a major drop off point for a fixed route for everybody in the industrial park and then from there they get shuttled to their different employers? Is that what you're thinking about?

And the riders that you showed on there for 2025, because you said it was a pretty accurate figure, those are duplicated. So that could be one person riding.

Yeah, and that... That equals $260 per ride. Yes. That's not a real good use of tax funds. Right. So, okay. I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you.

John, why don't you, I got, I was fortunate to sit in two days of transit meetings, and why don't you explain the ridership from microtransit and why that's not the catch-all that people think it is, because the ridership is low on microtransit, I mean, per hour, and you still have the same fixed cost of a driver.

We were talking earlier, and it kind of grew a bunch of deep dive kind of questions on the different aspects of where transit's going. One quick question is, do we have any other routes that get this type of funding that we're now looking at that ridership, or is just the one we're looking at?

Yeah, great report, and the meetings were outstanding, so thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, great report. You know, I think back seven years ago to Council Member Phil Cox saying, I'm tired of staring at empty buses. If no one's running, let's eliminate that route, and I think that's what we're doing. We're making this more efficient. Are we looking at different spots in the city where something like this could work, too? Like, are there certain hot spots we're looking at where, you know, a lot of, this is a popular route, but from there, people disperse. Is that how we're trying to set up, like, maybe like a grid system or something like that?

Perfect. Like I said, I think it's great. Everything sounds great. You know, when you think of Visalia, it's kind of like Los Angeles, kind of the same way. Transit doesn't really work in those kind of places. You look at New York, Boston, even San Francisco, those cities were built on walking. So you have districts where people go in a district and get to disperse where they want. Whereas Visalia, Los Angeles, newer cities are built by automobiles where people drive everywhere. So finding those deficiencies and see how we get better served and better utilize the public's money, I think is fan

So I guess my only concern is the 60 to 100 people here that are going to lose the ridership out there. Is there any way we could subsidize a month or two after October just to help out extend that timeline with micro transit? Because I feel like, you know, three months is going to, it's coming up, it's coming up fast for someone to figure out, oh, I got to, I got to buy a car now or figure out how I'm going to get to work. Is that something we could look at?

Okay, that's why I understand why. I mean, you can obviously tell ridership is decreasing and it makes sense. So thank you for the report.

Thank you for the report and your workshops were really informative. I'm glad you've gathered that data. Because I mean, if you look at that, like a month, it's 240 riders, or riders that could be the same person, right? If they went to work 20 days out of the month, that's 12 people. And I think what Council Member Soto's talking about some sort of, maybe it's an income-based subsidy, but I'd also like to see, make sure that you talk to the industrial park folks about, you know, COS provides all their students Right? Maybe they could provide them with a split of microtransit fare or something

Yeah. Okay. So maybe something that would help cover that gap. But just suggestions. But you're right. I think you can use that money in much better ways to provide transit.

Well, I think you were looking at increasing the. on your heavier use fixed routes, which I think will make those even more popular if they're coming every 15 minutes rather than every 30 or every 45. So I think you have a good plan. It's gonna take you a while to get through it.

Yeah, I was running the same numbers as Vice Mayor Nguyen was running. $266 to get them to work, $532 to get them there and back. So unless they were making $66.50 an hour, it was costing us more money than probably they were making. That's $2,660 per person per week to get them to work, $11,000 a month, and $138,000 a year to get one person to work is what we were paying. I appreciate you guys saving the city money. We can definitely use that in other transit routes. I know the Vice City Connect has been wildly popular. I get a lot of people stopping me, telling me how appreciative they are o

Okay. We'll turn it back over to council then, and I'll entertain a motion.

I move to authorize staff to open up a 30-day public comment period to receive feedback on a proposed elimination of Transit Fix Route 17 in the service of the Visalia Industrial Park and schedule a public hearing for the city council meeting of September 7th, 2026 for council determination.

I'll second that. We have first and second. All those in favor, please vote. Item passes 5-0. Thank you very much for your report. Thank you, Council. Appreciate it. All right, next we're going to go on to work session item number two, which is City Department 4th of July post-report.

Real quick, are the nonprofits required to be local within the city of Isiah nonprofits, or can there be nonprofits from outside of the area?

That's why I asked the question. I did notice that, and it just kind of surprised me that we had to. So it's within the Visalia Unified School District boundaries? Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Urban, any issues with the call system? I had one resident reach out saying that the call system wasn't working.

But besides that, no other issues there?

Hey Viseya, welcome to the third annual Independence Spectacular. We are about ready to have a great time watching our fireworks and celebrating America's 250th birthday. This is an amazing crowd and we're excited for this year's event.

Great. Thank you so much. Council Member Soto?

I know last year, I believe you guys had someone up in the air on a plane helping out. Was that plane up there that was flying around also helping out this year with fireworks? Just curious, because I did see it. I was out there just hanging out.

I'm just curious. Yeah, people will join the fireworks from above.

The drone, okay. Yes. Got it. Thank you.

How did the park and ride go? Was that well received, well used?

When I left, I walked, too, and there was a lot of pedestrians. Great venue and great area. Good job. Thank you.

So on the fireworks. Me personally, I felt like there was less fireworks, especially around our neighborhood. I always say, like, on the 4th of July, you expect to hear things go boom and bang. But on the 3rd, 2nd, 1st, or after that, you don't. And I feel like we heard a lot less this year. According to the numbers, it was a lot lower. So I think hopefully the message is getting out about the fireworks. So you guys did a great job. On the 4th of July, I did have one complaint. There wasn't enough porta-potties. Someone shot me a text message that day, so maybe next year more porta-potties. I

Question, was there any, because I didn't really see any reports, was there any illegal fireworks confiscated before the 4th?

Within the city limits or within close proximity?

I was wondering. I agree with Council Member Pachigian. My neighborhood, first time ever, had zero illegal fireworks going off, except for one guy, and that was a short timeframe. But other than that, it was great. I've heard great comments on the event. The only negative I heard was the impact of parking in the vicinity. Very impactful, especially if you're in a neighborhood. Yeah, if you're having a party and there's no parking in front of your house. I heard that comment from a couple of people. But otherwise, great event.

Yeah, I want to say thank you to all the city staff who was there for the call center, you know, because that's like an army of folks who volunteer to be there to take those calls. You know, it's really amazing that they're willing to do that because instead of being out with their families, you know, celebrating on the 3rd and 4th of July. They're out there working on our citizens' behalf to make it better. I felt like this year, I mean, in my neighborhood, there's always illegal fireworks. My dog absolutely hates it. We have to bring her in for about a week straight because she'll just bark

Perfect then we will go ahead and. Say thank you guys very much for your report and we'll look forward to next year. I think we're gonna have to plan to even open up more park space for events because it was just people everywhere. It was great.

Wonderful. Thank you. All right, we're going to go ahead and adjourn into closed session, and we welcome everyone to come back at 7 o'clock for our regularly scheduled session. So we'll go ahead and adjourn at this time. Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the Visayas City Council regular session meeting. We're going to go ahead and get started. We'll call this session to order. We will start by having our Pledge of Allegiance offered by Council Member Nelson, which, after that, we will have a prayer offered by Paul Passon from Gonzales from Neighborhood Church.

Thank you, Pastor. We appreciate your invocation and information. All right, we're going to go ahead and start public comments. We're now doing public comments in person and also online. So we have a new script that I'll be reading tonight. So it says, citizens are now invited to comment on issues within the jurisdiction of the Visayas City Council and items listed on the closed session agenda. The council asks that you keep your comments concise and positive. Creative criticism presented with appropriate courtesy is welcome. The city does not tolerate disruptive behaviors in our meeting. This

Any best wishing to speak? Okay. City Clerk, do we have anyone online wishing to speak?

Okay, let's go ahead and close public comments this time. Any items of interest this time? You don't have any items of interest? No? Okay, let's go ahead and skip that and we'll go on to the consent calendar. Consent calendar items that are considered routine will be enacted by one motion. This is the time for members of the public to provide public comments on an item that's on the consent calendar. Comments will not be taken individually by the public if an item is pulled by a council member. Each speaker will be allowed three minutes and a timer will notify you when your time's expired. Ple

Okay, so let's start off with Council Member Nelson. Any items you'd like to pull? I have no items to pull. Council Member Puchigan? No items to pull. Vice Mayor? Council Member Soto? No items to pull, thank you. Okay, and I have none, so I will entertain a motion. I make a motion to accept the consent calendar as presented.

We have first and second. Please vote. Consent calendar items passes with a five to zero vote. Thank you very much. All right, now we're gonna go on to regular items of public hearings. We'll go on to item number one, which is an ordinance adoption.

Thank you so much. Council Member Soto, any questions or comments?

One question. After the five-year mark, let's say there's multiple businesses and one buys out the other. Are we going to require that community benefit for each location or is it just one for the whole, regardless of how many locations they own?

And each location would be its own license, right? Correct. Got it. Thank you.

Council Member Nelson, any questions or comments?

First off, I agree with you, Paul, very thorough. staff report, we crossed all the T's, all the I's tremendously, so I appreciate that. I think the only thing that I looked at, and I look at other municipalities that have cannabis sales, not only Tulare County, but other areas, I would ask that we look at that minimum annual payment. I think it could be higher without negating the interest in trying to open up retail stores here in Visalia. But I think we're, you know, I think there's a range. And in my review, I think we're on the low end, and I'd rather see us in the middle. I'm not saying w

Yeah, so this will probably be the eighth year that I've said this, that If we're not gonna allow marijuana in the city, we need to have something on the books so the state doesn't come in and says, you have to allow marijuana and the money needs to go to this. That's why I've been saying that at least we now have an ordinance in place so no matter what happens, we should be covered. But you did a fantastic job on this. I think you listened to us thoroughly. You put everything in here. I do kind of agree with Council Member Nelson. We're kind of on the lower end on the community benefit portio

Yes, thank you for your thorough review of all of our comments and all the notes and all the time you've put in on it. I know it's been a long process. I would agree with my fellow council members that perhaps our community benefits should go up to maybe like $75,000 minimum, 1.5%. And I've been just looking at others.

What is kind of a more mid-range? I don't know. Are you guys aware of anything?

The ones I looked at were like $100,000 minimum. So that's why I split the baby.

Okay. Yeah, appreciate you guys' report. Let's go ahead and open this up to the public. Anyone from the public wishing to speak on this item, please come forward and state your name and city of residence. Okay, seeing no one. City Clerk, do we have anyone online wishing to speak on this?

The tension's really building on this online one. We keep saying no, and I'm just waiting for one person. I keep waiting for one person.

Okay, let's give it just a second to see if anyone decides to raise their hand.

You're doing that, Brett. If we make a motion, do you want to include the increase in the minimum? Yeah, now's the time to do it. I think that would be the best time to do it.

Okay, I'll be okay with that. All right, anyone?

I was going to mention, was it $75,000 or $100,000? I mean, I'll go with this.

Anyone raise their hand yet? Okay, then we'll go ahead and close public comments, and we'll turn it back over to council to entertain a motion or any further discussion.

I move to introduce the first reading, Ordinance Number 2026-05, adding Chapter 4.04, Commercial Cannabis Activities of Visalia Municipal Code, rescinding Chapter 5.66, amending Chapter 8.64, and approving Zoning Tax Amendment Number 2026-01 and adopt resolution number 2026-42, establishing the application selection process for both storefront and non-storefront retail cannabis business, license applications, raising the minimum community benefit to 75,000 and 1.5%. I'll second that. Thank you. First and second.

All those in favor, please vote. Okay. Item passes 5-0. Thank you, guys. Appreciate that. All right. Next, we'll go on to item number two, which is appeal of the Planning Commission action. Staff report, please.

Any question on that? So they do that, do we reimburse them?

They kind of knew that one was already coming in, it was already kind of in the pipeline, right?

And Paul, is there a sunset on these areas of benefit? Because I want to make sure if we do this, the developer gets repaid.

Perfect, thank you. Do you guys want to ask questions now or wait for the public? Yeah, wait for the public. Okay, you guys okay with that? All right, let's go ahead and open this up to the public. Anyone who's here in the council chambers who would wish to speak on this item, please come forward and state your name and city of residence.

Anybody else wishing to speak at this time?

Steve, real quick, are you representing the D.R. Horton tonight? Yes. Okay, as the applicant who appealed this, we will allow the applicant to speak for more than the three minutes, so if you need a few extra minutes.

Thanks. Any questions for the applicant? Okay, thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak at this time?

Anybody else wishing to speak? All right, so none moving. Is there anybody online wishing to speak?

Okay, so let's go ahead and close the public comment portion, and we'll turn it over to Council Member Puchigan with any comments or questions.

Yeah, so I'm going to break this up into a couple different sections here. We have design standards. I didn't like the design standards. I didn't vote for the design standards. I passed it anyway. I believe this applicated everything in the design standards that we went over with all the different builders, correct?

Okay. And then on Lovers Lane, Here's my show Lovers Lane. We're saying they need to put in a sidewalk in the city would reimburse them. That's one thing that we did. We've done that further.

So where I really struggle is we're having this developer, because it's been hard to develop on the southeast as well. It's taken a long time to get a lot of projects out there. And now we're requiring this developer to develop a sidewalk along Lover's Lane on property that he doesn't own, that he's not going to get reimbursed for however it works out. But then, you know, as soon as he gets done, he's going right back to dirt anyway. That's where I struggle with. Also, that we're adding cost to this, you know, with affordability in homes, and we're adding more cost to this, and costing houses

First of all, I appreciate the Planning Commission doing the deep dive on this and their recommendation. I think one of the things I look at is the city council talks about and touts about bikeability, walkability, our trail system, walking neighborhoods. Just because it's a gated community, I don't think it needs to have a special deal where we don't have to have a sidewalk. I think that's important. I think the area where I'm concerned as well as Council Member Pachigian is When you're asking a developer to swallow $500,000 and hoping I get reimbursed within 20 years, that's a tough pill to

Council Member Soto, any questions or comments?

Thanks for the report. Um, I would agree with council member Nelson on walkability connectivity of a neighborhood with, with the inside of the neighborhood. Um, um, but I, again, just very similarly, I do have a problem, I guess, with not having a connected sidewalk, it's just 250 feet. Um, I, I mean, I myself would probably walk across the street on levers lane, uh, on the east side there, uh, you know, for safety. And then, yeah, again, having them wait up to 20 years, if that. I guess we don't have any plans of that property being developed anytime soon, right? There's no, that owner's not,

Yeah, so yeah, very similarly to Council Member Nelson, I would say inside the neighborhood, I would vote in favor of the Planning Commission and for the Leverage Lane, I would probably vote against.

Vice Mayor Nguyen, any questions or comments?

Yeah, I agree on the interior of the subdivision Sidewalks on one side, I mean, primarily, if you're doing an HOA, I think sidewalks could hold up a lot better than your asphalt is, having experience with an HOA and asphalt. HOAs don't like to do their asphalt maintenance like regular streets. But also, I think for walkability of the neighborhood, and even if it's gated, you're gonna have those crazy prime and Amazon and UPS drivers tearing through the subdivision. I would not be in favor of the Lover's Lane, Couple of things that stand out. One is that the ditch is a big thing, so you're gonn

All right. So I have a few questions. So we haven't required sidewalks in private gated subdivisions and other places. I've personally never had anyone ever say that was an issue. Not one person in my life has ever said I've had a problem with that. But let's just say we said, hey, it's their own private streets. They're responsible. The HOA could add stripes for walking paths in their streets. They could put in speed bumps. They could do speed limits and different things if they thought there was an issue with safety and walkability. Would the HOA be allowed to put all that in there if they w

So if instead of just creating sidewalks, what if we just told them to paint a five-foot section on the road and say that's a walking path? I've seen that in Fresno where it's an asphalt walk path instead of concrete. And there's no dips and going up and down every curb every three seconds because these are tiny little lots. So you're literally just going to be doing this the whole entire time. So for me, it'd be a lot easier to walk on a flat asphalt that was just striped that said walking path or bike path.

Okay, so it's not panning down. Okay. Yeah. But I mean, would that be an option if we just told them to paint a strip on the, like a five foot strip rather than build sidewalks?

OK. So I mean, I just have a hard time that it's not in our standard. We just updated our design standards. I know we've asked staff to come back with new small lot standards. And maybe this is something that we put in there as something to talk about at that time. Because in my mind, I'm kind of annoyed that we've updated this policy. The folks who submitted these plans, they did everything they're supposed to. And now we're kind of just throwing more monkey wrenches for them. after they've already spent years doing this plan, probably millions of dollars getting it to this point, now we're j

Okay, so I'll go ahead and entertain a motion for the issue of the sidewalk along Lovers Lane. On Lovers Lane?

On Lovers Lane, yeah. Well, I guess the motion would be to decline the sidewalk on Lovers Lane and reimbursement policy.

Okay. All right. So we have first and second to uphold the appeal on the sidewalk requirements on lovers lane. All those in favor, please vote.

But it is for the motion of just the sidewalk along Lovers Lane. So you vote yes to the motion?

Okay, so that item passes 5-0. Thank you. And now I'll entertain a motion about whether or not sidewalks would be required within the gated subdivision.

I move to deny the appeal for the sidewalks inside the gated division.

Okay, we have a first and a second. All those in favor, please vote.

And the yeses pass with a three to two vote. Thank you very much.

So next we're going to go on to item number three, which is consideration of a general plan amendment pre-zone ordinance adoption and annexation. And I think it's all the same stuff.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU SO MUCH, COUNCILMEMBER NELSON. ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS?

Council Member Soto, any questions, comments? Thank you for the report. Vice Mayor? And I have none, so let's go ahead and open this up to the public. Anybody from the public who's present in this room and wish to speak on this item, please come forward and state your name and city of residence. Seeing no one jumping up there. Oh, go ahead. You're about a millisecond away. Sorry.

Anybody else wishing to speak? All right. Seeing none, anyone online? The clerk says no one online. So go ahead and close public comments, and I will entertain a motion.

I move to approve resolution number 202646, adopting initial study mitigated negative declaration prepared for general plan amendment 2504 and annexation pre-zone number 2504. I move to approve resolution. Do I have to read all that? Yeah, I move staff recommendations.

I'll second it. All right, we have a first and second to approve staff recommendations. All those in favor, please vote. And item passed is 5-0. Thank you very much. All right, do we have any closed session items to report? Okay, then we will go ahead and adjourn, and we thank you guys for attending, and we welcome you to come back at our next city council meeting, which will be Monday, August 3rd, and everyone have a wonderful evening.