City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Visayas City Council work session. We're going to go ahead and get started. We will start off with citizens' comments. So 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 behavior in our meetings. This council meeting is considered a limited public forum, which means the council can regula

Colleen, so these are just examples, but for example, the karaoke and DJ hosting could end at 10 p.m. is what I'm hearing?

And just curious, how did we come up with 10 p.m.? I know we've discussed it in the past, but can we go over that again?

I think Barrel House right now on Fridays and Saturdays is open till 11, right? Or are they- open till 10, 11. So, I mean, and have we had any issues with Borough House? I mean, that's.

Would it be crazy to not require this until 11 as opposed to 10? Or should we do this just for that one hour?

A question real quick. When you say bans with amplification, Sometimes you have a guitar, like an acoustic guitar playing. Is that considered under bands with amplification?

Can we just change that to any... instrument? Because, I mean, you have mariachi, you have guitar, you have violinists. I mean, you have different instruments out there. Wouldn't it be more of a broad instrument?

Thank you very much. Council Member Nelson, we'll start off with you with any questions or comments. I'll wait for public comment. Okay. Council Member Poochigan? I'll wait. Everyone okay with just waiting? I'll wait, yeah. Okay, perfect. Let's do that. So let's go ahead and open this up to the public. Anybody who is present in this room who would like to speak on this item, please come forward and speak at this podium over here. I'm going to start with your name and city of residence.

Yeah, so all your questions, we'll go ahead and get those answered when everyone's done with public comments. But, Jeremy, real quick, so are you saying specifically, like, you know, you had the wrestling event last year that I attended. Are you saying, like, would you need a specific one for that, or would all of them fall under one?

Anybody else from the public wishing to speak? Okay, seeing no one going up there. City Clerk, do we have anyone online who wishes to speak?

Okay, so we'll go ahead and close public comment then and we will turn it back over to council. Actually, before we start with our comments, there was a few questions. Would you guys mind answering those questions for us?

But their conditional use permit that they have now may be more restrictive, is that the idea?

And would that be the same process for whether it's a high impact or low impact change? So like for example, you have a DJ which would probably be like a higher impact as opposed to maybe, I don't know, a violinist.

So if I came in and did an entertainment fee for DJ, bingo, line dancing, whatever, one and done?

How much work would it save you if we changed this to 11 p.m.? And I'm only saying this because I saw the breweries are open until 11 now, and I noticed those are a lot of good actors that we have in downtown, unless that's changed recently. But I noticed just from historically speaking and looking at the times of the shootings and where they were at, 11 seemed like a good cutoff time. Would that save you guys any work if we moved that?

I attended one of the outreach meetings, and there was five or six different businesses represented at this outreach meeting here, and the consensus was 10 o'clock, because nothing good happens after 10 o'clock. And I think what we could do is ask Visalia PD, if not at this meeting, at a future meeting, give us statistics showing what goes on before 10, what goes on after 10.

So to be clear, they can shut the music off at 10 and then close at 11 o'clock, correct? Oh, yes. So let me clarify. Thank you.

And you see that in most places now with the cooling off hour where they shut off the music, last call, and then clear everything out. It's kind of no one just shuts off the music at 11 o'clock and says get out, you know? So I'm told, I don't know, it's been a while.

We'll turn it back over to council for further questions. Great, thank you so much. So we'll start off with Council Member Nelson.

Any comments or questions? Well, first of all, I want to thank Colleen. I actually listened to the outreach meeting because you covered everything. And I appreciate the outreach that the staff did at various businesses and get their input. And I think the thing that I heard when I sat at that outreach meeting was ease of application. There was a lot of confusion on do what I have to do and how I need to do it And I appreciate the fact you're making that's more simplistic Yeah, I think at some point I think it'd be good to have a report on statistics So the council's more knowledgeable what you

Okay. Again, a great report, very thorough, and I appreciate it. So thank you. Thank you. Council Member Pritchett again.

Colleen, great job on the report. I think it's great that the city is working with our business owners. I just have a couple quick questions here. The time restrictions, so we're not allowing anything before 11 a.m.? We have to come back and get a separate CEP, correct?

So for me, I would get rid of the morning restriction. You know, I think about a lot of different places. I see Sam back over there, so I'll probably pick on like the Hyde. The Hyde's a breakfast place. If you want to do breakfast activities, you might have a DJ in there playing, nothing crazy. You know, some places might do events in the morning. I would say anything up to 10 p.m. and get rid of the early restrictions because I think you're putting the breakfast establishments Kind of behind a lot of times are gonna do bingo in the morning get people to come in or different events like that I

I see Renee nodding her head back there. Someone say yes.

Because if everything's transferable and nothing's changing, I don't know why we're making it more difficult. we can do a fee or something on that because it should be easy, like, hey, we're keeping everything the same, we're making no changes. I don't understand why we can't just transfer that over.

All right, perfect. Yeah, great report. I'll be fully supportive, minus the change on the time restrictions.

Council Member Soto. Thank you. Question. Are we going to – so a business that wants to open or have entertainment until 11 p.m., are we going to treat them the same as a business that wants to do the same thing but until 1.30 a.m. as far as them having to go through the process? So you're saying if the business wants to offer entertainment to 11 o'clock p.m. Are we going to treat them the same and make them pay the same fees as a business that would open to 1.30 in the morning?

Okay. Yeah, I'm okay with the change for the morning, taking that restriction down. I'd be supportive of everything here. I guess the only change is I would probably want to see a change maybe in the fee structure for someone who's opening till 11 as opposed to someone that's trying to open till 1.30. Again, just looking at some of the major crime that we've had, it's been more after 12 a.m., and again, I've just noticed with the breweries, a lot of times, I know they stop playing music at around 10.30, but generally, I haven't heard of anything bad happening there, and I hope it stays that wa

A couple questions. If we drop the start time, Does it revert back to the noise ordinance start time? I mean, I don't want to see them starting at 4 a.m. in the morning. I mean, I know Sam's breakfasts are good, but come on.

I think it's 6 a.m. And then the weekends it's 9?

Yeah. I would ask that staff meet with our planning commissioner, Miss Beatty, there to clarify that. I want her to make sure she has full understanding. If it's not clear to her, it's certainly not gonna be clear to me. She's better at this than I am. And then on the security, because that seems to be probably the biggest issue of all, it says, it talks about them being licensed. But it can be owner, operator has licensed security. It doesn't have to be a privately licensed firm, correct?

Okay, so then when code enforcement or PD does the check, they have to have their guard card on them, right? That is correct. And then it talks a little bit, did we talk about the queuing instances we've had in the past? Is that clearly stated? On the sidewalk, yeah. I saw a little bit, but I thought probably maybe clarify that as much as possible about what is and what is not allowed.

Okay, yeah, I'd love to see that. And that's all. Thank you for your work, and thank you, I assume, since not too many people spoke out, I guess business owners feel like you've done a great job with them, and I appreciate that you listened to them, and we want to support our chamber and keep our businesses healthy and make it as easy on them as possible. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, I wanna thank the staff, our local businesses, Planning Commission, for all those who helped put this ordinance together. We appreciate it, because we've heard from our community that we wanna make sure we're protecting our downtown, that we're keeping it safe. And when we were first having these initial discussions, it was hard to create policies that were lumping nightclubs with someone who was just playing a violin. And so the way that you guys were able to put this policy together really shows you put a lot of effort into thinking about all the different possibilities. And I know tha

I move to direct staff to begin drafting revisions to chapter 17 zoning based on the information provided in the staff report and direction provided during the work session presentation.

I'll second. Thank you. I have first and second. All those in favor, please vote. And item passed is 5-0. Thank you very much. All right. Next, we're going to go on to our inclusive park project.

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

Thank you for the report. Exciting that this is coming along here. One question, the turf lawn on, I believe it's the north end, is that big enough for practice? I know you might have folks come in and do practice softball, soccer. Is that a big enough space for that?

Council Member Pachinko, any questions or comments?

Yeah, great presentation. I was talking to Council Member Nelson earlier. We talked about this six years ago. I'm glad to see it's coming to fruition. I'm really glad we listed the neighborhood's concerns and then worked with them and kind of, because obviously it's coming right next to their homes. They were concerns. I'm glad that we listened to them and addressed those. So great job. I'll be fully supportive of it tonight.

Council Member Nelson. You know, I appreciate the effort in putting this proposal together. I appreciate the amenities that you've decided to put into the park. I think it's an excellent location. I think it's a great amenity for the neighborhood. I think you've addressed every concern they have. I think some of the concerns were overinflated. But, I mean, that's fine. I'm not too concerned about having a play field for youth sports, because I think this park is designed for people that maybe aren't in youth sports, but they need the amenity. Maybe they want to do something. And I think if you

Yeah, I just had a couple of questions. The number of handicapped stalls in the parking lot, is that just at the standard, or did you add more because of the inclusivity?

And then following up on Council Member Nelson's, has this been all approved and the change and everything's already at the state level for that grant we received?

If you're working with the state, steamrolling is not a word to use.

Okay. And then the hours of the park. I know that was a concern for all of us, I think, not just the residents. But, Jason, are you going to limit that? I would hate to see that open until 10 p.m.

And then I like the elongated drive approach and stuff. And there's enough room, I assume, if the gates are closed, they can back out and turn around? And thank you. This is a nice design, and I'm glad to see it coming and would agree with Council Member Nelson. Let's get this going. Thank you for your work.

Yeah, we really appreciate it. So I also had a few questions. So any anticipated date when we're expecting that the state would approve this? I mean, did they say, hey, by the end of the year, by 2027? I mean, what are they saying?

If you need some extra pressure, let me know. I'm happy to make some phone calls.

You know, I think we can make that a, if we decide to move forward with this, we can make that as part of the approval process. So perfect. Whoever's going to make the motion, take note of that. So, um, so next, so if parking, so from my understanding, there's not going to be any parking allowed along McAuliffe. Is that correct? Like it just won't be physically possible to park along McAuliffe. I think that is correct. Yeah, that would be correct. Yeah. Okay. But there would be parking along Mill Creek and Manzanita.

Okay. So how confident are we that the parking that we have there would be sufficient for the folks who are going to be going there?

Perfect. That's what I was going to say. I mean, you know, Honestly, it's kind of weird just to have a little green space right there. I'd rather just have parking, you know, just more to mow and more just to – I mean, it will look really pretty, but I'd rather make sure that we're not having people parking out in the neighborhood because that was honestly the biggest concern from folks apart from just unwanted visitors and doing illegal activities, you know, so – The gate, the entrance gate, is that going to be an automatic gate or is that going to be like a chain? To the drive aisle? Yeah, t

A manual gate over there. Okay. So is it going to be like an actual gate or just a chain gate? Going up right there.

To match with the gating that's going to be up there? Okay. And then the only entrance to the park is going to be .11, correct? Correct. Okay. I'm asking that because it helps to explain to people that most people aren't going to be parking way on the north side of Manzanita and then walking all the way over there if that's the only parking. So we're not inviting people to come in in different areas.

Correct. Okay. OK, yeah, then my next question was going to be about when we're planning on starting construction. But I guess we need to find out when we're getting the money from the state. So yeah, wonderful. I really appreciate it. I was over in the neighborhood, and I was talking to some of the folks over there who live right there. And they said that at first they weren't really thrilled. But once they talked with staff, they were actually really excited about it. And I think as council, we were looking at this kind of odd pie-shaped lot. And I was kind of skeptical if that would even wo

Thank you so much. All right, let's go ahead and close public comment and turn it back over to council with a motion or any discussion.

Oh, wow. Okay, I move to receive a presentation on an authorized staff to move forward with the updated concept layout to prepare design and construction drawings prior to state approval.

Fantastic, we have a first and a second. All those in favor, please vote. And the item passes five to zero. Thank you so much. Thank you, council. We're excited. All right, next we will go on to work session item number three, which is a stormwater master plan update.

So when you're looking at Burke Park, would that be one you would retrofit to become better recharge basin where you dig that part of it out deeper?

Would developers have the option to dig that out themselves at a lower cost?

Do we know when the Nexus study will be done? Is it in the next six months, a year?

What do you think? Is this master plan, what's it supposed to be good till? I mean, is this like a 10-year, 20-year, 30-year, or is it just based on growth?

So once NEXUS study is complete in about a year or so and Prop 218 goes smoothly, when would rate payers potentially see that increase? Is that like two years from now, maybe?

Thank you very much. Council Member Soto, any comments or questions? No, thank you for the report.

I definitely learned something new, and I hope the rate increase is for, you can hold back as long as you can.

The bigger the hole we have to dig out of.

I know. Good report. You know, I hate to see people pay more, but things need to be done. Things need to be fixed. I'm not a big fan of the basements. The more we could hide that so they're not in, people see them. I hate driving in the neighborhood and you see this big hole in there. So the more we can do to block that out for people, the better.

Yeah, very thorough report. Glad we got it early. A lot of reading, but very good. I think it comes down to a general plan, growth, because we have to be strategic in where we locate these ponding basins. I mean, just to put a ponding basin in to say you did it and it doesn't really serve a purpose is ridiculous. I appreciate your comments, Chris, that I think this should be a partnership. I think it should be a partnership with developers, letting them do most of the work, because it's going to be cheaper than if the city does it. But I think it's a two-way street. But excellent report. Again

Yeah, just a couple of clarifications maybe for the public and myself. The fees that the Nexus study will bring up, those are development fees, right? They're not monthly fees that are going into our city bill.

And then I just want to clarify, the last time the storm drain fees to development was updated, are they updated on a regular basis based on COLA? Or is it, right?

It's my understanding that these basins are going to all have walking paths around them and landscaping, correct?

landscaping and trails around every basin thank you yeah thank you very much for the report i mean this is the important infrastructure projects that we are working on that nobody knows nobody appreciates but it's what allows our city to be successful and so i appreciate you guys you know doing all this work i've always i remember when i was younger i would be driving around fresno and i would see their their ponds would have water in them year round and i thought man we're so much smarter we turn ours into parks And now as things have changed, we're now having to look like theirs. And I'm gla

Okay, let's close public comment and I'll entertain a motion or additional comments.

I move to receive the presentation update on stormwater master plan and authorize staff to circulate the proposed stormwater master plan update for public comments.

Second. Fantastic, first and second. All those in favor, please vote. And the item passes 5-0. Thank you very much. At this time, we're going to go ahead and adjourn into closed session, and we welcome everyone back at our regular scheduled meeting at 7 p.m. Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the Visalia City Council meeting. We're going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. We will start with the Pledge of Allegiance offered by Council Member Soto. And if you would remain standing for, we'll actually do a moment of silence, and after that we will have the invocation by Pastor Unrau

Okay, so we don't have any special presentations tonight, so we will start with our public comments. Okay, 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 behavior in our meetings. The council meetings are considered a limited public forum, which means the council can regulate the time, place, and manner of speech. Speaker commen

You can go ahead and speak of that during consent calendar. This item is not on the consent calendar. Okay, great. I will do that.

Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak? OK, is there anybody online wishing to speak, city clerk?

City Clerk, is there anyone else wishing to speak at this time?

Okay, thank you. So we'll go ahead and close public comment period and we will go to items of interest. I'm sorry, we're gonna skip over items of interest and go straight into the consent calendar. Consent calendar items are considered routine and will be enacted in one motion. This is a time for members of the public to provide public comments on an item that is on the consent calendar. Comments will not be taken individually by a public By the public, if an item is pulled by a council member, each speaker will be allowed up to three minutes, and a timer will notify you when your time has exp

Okay, seeing no one else. Is there anyone online who would like to speak?

Anybody else online wishing to speak at this time? Okay, then we're going to go ahead and close public comments, and we will turn the time over to Council Member Soto. Do you have any items you'd like to pull?

16. Council Member Puchigan, any items you'd like to pull? Yeah, item 16 and 17. 17. Council Member Nelson, any items you'd like to pull? No, I'm good. Okay, and Vice Mayor Nguyen, any items you'd like to pull? Okay, and I have no items I'd like to pull, so I'll entertain a motion for the remainder of the consent calendar.

I'll make a motion to accept the balance of the consent calendar as presented. I'll second.

The first and second. All those in favor, please vote. And the remainder of the consent calendar passed 5-0. Thank you very much. Let's go ahead and pull item number 16 first. And Council Member Soto and Council Member Pachinkin, did you guys want to report or?

I don't need a report. I asked to put this on the agenda. You know, water and electricity are things that we struggle with here in the city of Visalia. I heard a lot of people say Tulare County, we're in control of what we do with the city of Visalia. So we've got to focus what we do here. And groundwater and electricity are things that we struggle on a daily basis here. Projects come and we don't have the power to support high producing job creators. A data center is not a job creator and it's going to use so much groundwater and so much electricity. We always pride ourselves on very good Pla

Thank you, Councilor Soto. Did you have any additional questions or comments?

Yeah, I don't need a report or anything, but first off, I wanted to thank Councilor Pachigian for putting this on the agenda. I agree with him. I would like to ask for one change in the wording, if we could put and or at the end, because of the closed loop system and how that's not a high water usage, but it's still very detrimental to the environment. So at the end where it says high intensity uses with significant water net loss and electrical demands, if we could put and or. That's okay. Yeah, but I'm not going to repeat what he said. I don't think it's good planning here in the city of Vis

All right. Council Member Nelson, did you have any questions or comments on item 16?

No, I think it's a good idea to bring this forward and have the discussion. I look at the City of Isaiah, I pride ourselves on the fact that we examine and study potential opportunities that can come to the City of Isaiah. We've looked at other high-end users of water, not a data center, but they're high-end user of water, and we've not allowed them to come to the City of Isaiah. I pride ourselves on listening to our constituents. Yeah, I don't think having a data center is a deal breaker one way or the other, but I think it is a breaker when it comes to usage of our water and our air quality,

Yeah, I agree with all the comments made to date, and... I think we're proactive, and I applaud those who came and spoke for us, and I hope you'll keep that up. We are in our little bubble in Visalia, but you have a voice that you can hear throughout Tulare County and the state, so keep up the good work.

Thank you. Yeah, I echo all my fellow council members' comments, so I'll be supportive of putting this on the future agenda. Can I say one more thing? Absolutely.

You know, City of Visalia is the seat of the county. We're the biggest city in the county, and I think we need to send a message saying that We're going to set the precedent here that we're not going to allow data centers here and be the first one in Tulare County to say no to data centers. So with that, I will move to approve the request by Council Member Brian Pachigan, which is myself, to place an item on future regular city council meeting agenda to discuss a moratorium that would prohibit the development and approval of data centers and similar high-intensity use with significant water an

I'll second it. Thank you. Thank you. First and second. All those in favor, please vote. And the item passed was 5-0. Thank you very much. Next, we'll go on to item number 17, which is pulled by Council Member Luchigan. Is there a specific report you wanted or?

I don't need a report. So this is my third time up for a re-election. I didn't have an opponent this time. I do think it's good that people have the right to cross off their elected officials. That being said, it is a $20,000 expense. And that's why I want to say, you know, You can't even have a write-in campaign, from my understanding, correct? Because you have to be a qualified write-in.

But if they do do that, then someone still has a write-in option, right? If we don't approve this tonight, then they have a write-in option?

I would really like to run against Mickey Mouse if possible, but that being said, I wouldn't want to take anyone's options if they want to become a write-in candidate at this point, so that's why I'm not going to be supportive of this tonight.

Can we bring it back at a later date, once that due date?

I like the $20,000 savings, Brian, sorry. No, I understand.

I completely understand that. I just don't want to say that we took anyone's option away for running for office. That's why I asked the question, because if someone does want to run a rioting campaign against me, they have the right to do that, and I don't want to take that away from anybody. That's why I'm not supporting this today.

Oh, there we go. Try that one. I move to adopt resolution number 2026-61, providing for the appointment in lieu of election to the office of the city council member for District 3 pursuant to California Election Code Section 10229 and canceling the November 3rd, 2026 municipal election for that office.

We have first and second. All those in favor, please vote. And the item passes three to two. Thank you very much. Okay, so that is all the items on our consent calendar. Do we have any closed session report?

All right, and that will be the end of our meeting today. We welcome everyone to come back at our next meeting, which will be Tuesday, September 8th, 2026.