City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, we're back from our closed session.

defer that to my departmental report in the open session meeting if that's agreeable with council everybody good with with that deferring it okay great with that we will defer the city attorney's report until our regular meeting departmental reports and we are going to close out this special meeting and adjourn it and we will be back in a couple minutes for our six o'clock regular meeting

All right, good evening, everybody. We're back for our regular meeting. It is 6.03 in our Selma City Council Chambers. It's at 1710 Tucker Street, Selma, California, 93662. Teleconference phone number is 301-715-8592. The date, by the way, is August 18th, 2026. The webinar ID is 891-6864-5005. When 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 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 disord

Everybody stand up with the flag salute, please.

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 this evening? Nothing to add or to delete, Mr. Mayor. Thank you,

Thank you for your comments. Anyone else with oral communications? Come on up. Make sure your microphone's on, sir. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you for your request. Appreciate it. He's legendary in this community. Thank you for stepping up.

We did the plaque on our building at 1948 when they had that mural. We did a commemorative plaque. He's on there. He's one of the names on there.

It's an agenda item. Yeah, we'll get there.

Anybody else with a comment? Anybody in the chat with a comment?

Anybody with a comment online or on the phone?

Okay. Now we're going to move on from oral communications at this time to our one and only special presentation tonight, which is a special presentation to Renee Garza, former commander for the Selma PD. Chief Alcarez.

I'm humbled. Thank you so much. Great. Why don't you come on up, Chief, and we've got a recognition for you. We'll get a picture with the city council.

All right, we'll move on from our special presentations to our consent calendar. All items listed under the consent calendar category 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 an item or items they would like removed tonight?

All right. And I would like to take off item 2-6. Is there a motion to approve items 2-1 through 2-3, 2-5, and items 2-7 through 2-9? I'll make a motion.

Yes. Item 2-4. Okay, Item 2-4. The reason why I pulled it off, this is for the Selma School District, for the two service officers that go on the campus for the high school and the elementary. When I look at the budget, It's only 50%. I like since the cost is everything is going up and as far as our wages and our fuel costs, I like to see it. I like to see an increase of 60%, you know, 10% more if the school is willing to make those adjustments because of what's happening in the economic situations.

So you want the school to pay for 60% or you want the city to pay for 60%.

Well, right now they're the school. Yeah. I want the school to pay 60%. They're only paying half right now. They're only paying 50% right now.

Council have any input on the percentage that the city is paying as opposed to what the school is paying for the community service officers?

I mean, honestly, Chief, I'll be straight with you. I mean, I mean, I want them there. Don't get me wrong. I want the service officer on the campuses because it deters the crime stats. It's a proven fact. There's no doubt about it. It's just that there's a current cost, what is happening now, you know, between the fuel prices going up and the adjustments that we have to face as a council up here, you know, and I know that the school gets funded by the state, you know, allocated. for their students. So it's a different dynamics and economics there.

Yeah, because this is a contract involving two parties. We can't just say 60-40. They would have to agree.

Yeah, that's at the table. I agree. We have to go back. We'll see if my colleagues agree to this, okay?

I can tell you when I started, when I first saw this SRO come back with the school, it was the city paid 100% and the school district paid zero. So we're doing a lot better than we were before with the 50-50. The question I have, clarification is, Do these officers, they don't work 12 months a year at the school. They work, what, about nine months?

Yeah, I'd like to comment on that. Previously, we were paying 100%. We took them to the drawing table, but at the same time, you know, this community, the kids after 3 o'clock, prior to 3 o'clock, they're our kids, the safety of our kids. And we all know that in this nation, there's just... random shootings, there's things that go a rot. But at the same time, and we don't need to get into this, but I would think that... I think the police department will get more intel from these youngsters and with an officer in the school districts, finding out what goes on in our community versus it from th

I'll be straight up, you guys. They're at baseball games. They show up at baseball games, all events. These officers, like Renee said earlier, they put their uniform every morning. And, you know, fire, fire and police every morning and they go out there, you know, patrolling, saving lives. But the issue is they're there. They're, you know, they're protecting the kids at the school events. They're there. baseball games or football games, they're there. Parades, any activities, big events that they have at the school, basketball games, they're there. So the question is, you know, at what price t

All right. This is a, now an agenda items, public having the input on this before we bring it back to council, anybody in the chat, any comments?

We'll bring that back to the council. I'm looking at this and it's a two-year contract. Councilman Avalos, as we've heard tonight, it's a little late because the school year has started. What if we went with the 50% for this year and then revisited it next year for the renewal of percentage? Would that be amenable to the council? Okay. We have consensus on that? Yep. Okay. Do you have a motion? Okay. Is there a second? I'll second. Call the roll, please.

Yes. Okay. Item two, six. I pulled this off, um, tonight. We've got our, uh, replacement city engineer, Mohammed over there. I don't know if you're prepared to talk about this, but the reason I brought this, pulled this off was I just wanted the community to be aware of all the changes that's going to happen at second street, $3 million grant that the city's received. And it's coming just a couple of highlights, vehicular over crossings, non-vehicular pedestrians and bicycle over crossings and bridges and We've been hearing tonight about safe routes to school and about crossings. This will imp

Everybody stay tuned. Second Street is going to look so much better and it's coming soon. Do we have any council comment or any public comment on this agenda item?

I'd love to comment on that. I think when you start talking about infrastructure projects, you talk about what this administration is doing, what we're doing. As an elected official, you realize that you can have... projects that are just bottom feeders that just occur from one week to another, or you can have projects that are actually well-groomed, well-established. And if you think about it, this project is something that was two, three years ago, right? Past administration brought this, applied for it, got it, but now we're going to bear the fruits. That's the way projects occur for munici

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to mention really quick, We, the council, in the past couple of years, also, on Second Street, took the hard look, and we seen signs, and we had them removed. And we had people come and tell us, hey, you can't do this. But it was part of that picture. We had some dinosaur signs that were standing up. And when we would turn in, and we got yelled at, and we got told. there was a vision and the vision was to remove the old and bring in something new. So I credit the council decision-making and, and Stan and standing stern on what we have to see. And we have a vision. So for th

Yeah. You know, we just have to keep moving our city forward. and taking these opportunities where we have it. There are always going to be issues in terms of how you allocate resources. In this time, this was a grant, so it's more of an allocation of city time and professionals who went forward with this grant to execute it and made sure it went forward. But this is bearing fruit, and it's happening now, and it's really an exciting time in Selma for this to be happening now.

On another note, this new council is very, I want to say, very energetic and moving things forward very fast and forward. And the contacts and actually the grants are very important for every city, not just City of Selma. You know, police department, fire department, any building roads and infrastructure and all these, these are very important items, tax dollars that are coming back to your city, making these things happen. And you're seeing it happen now. We're seeing some things happen very quickly. Atwood Project, we have the Casita Project is moving along here pretty soon. We have another

Call the roll, please. Oh, did we do public input? Oh, go ahead. Public comment. I thought we did it already.

So, you know, this is... the agreement that had to be signed before the grant could be implemented. So that is the nexus between the $3 million clean air grant and this agreement. So just spelling that out for you city manager in terms of the additional costs with Caltrans and the maintenance agreement. I know there's been, quite a bit of back and forth with Caltrans over this agreement and who maintains what as folks are in the city at this point.

Will the city be paying cash, making cash payments to Caltrans that's part of this agenda that I missed? No. According to the speaker's question. Okay. So there's no cash that the city's going to be paying Caltrans to to take care of maintenance. This will be in line with this agreement.

Got it. Thank you. It's a great partnership.

Come on up if you have a comment. What's your name? It is. Thank you. What was your name again? Just give us your name. Thank you for your comment. Yes. City's not billed for that. No. Okay. Call the roll, please.

Yes. Okay. Moving on to departmental reports. This is city staff and contract employees present will be. recorded in the minutes after they make their report. City Manager.

Right. Sounds good. And speaking of, Mr. Mantanga, very good to meet you. Are you ready to deliver your report?

All right, Director. Glad to have you. Thank you very much for coming to Selma. Yes, welcome. Okay. Community Services Director.

And that's all for community services. Director, thank you. Just an item on the animal services. Went to McDonald's last week, and the cats are back. So it's probably, I know it's private property. I don't know if they've reached out to animal services, but it would probably be a good candidate for the TNR program, the spay and neuter program. I don't know if we reached out. Maybe if you could check with Armando, the manager, and just see what the plans are regarding that, because there are a lot of them there. Yeah, I can follow up with Armando.

Good times. All right. Police Chief Al Perez.

Thank you, Chief. Thank you for everything. The PD did that on a really grueling, dangerous, busy weekend. Thank you. Public Works Director Hahn.

I have another question since you, you know, you know, I was, I had a phone call today, you know, regarding by church, the sidewalks, some of the sidewalks are lifted. and they need some assistance in shaving them. Can we find a way to assist them there in these areas?

Okay. What if they want to come in and do the work order? Is it possible to do it that way?

We do, and the council's never had a problem with that as long as those trees were replaced. We just have to follow through on that part.

Great. Good deal. Thank you. City Attorney, your report now.

Thank you, City Attorney. And this involves the stoplight installation, the four-way stoplight installation at Dinuba and McCall. Is that correct? McCall. You can't put the stoplight in until you acquire that land at the four-way intersection. Is that correct?

Great to see we're making real progress on the installation of those stoplights. Another project started earlier. This started in 2020, and we're getting to the construction phase now. Thank you for that report. And with that, we're going to take our traditional five-minute break at this point, during which citizens have a chance to talk with the department heads, and then we'll be back for the rest of the city council meeting.

To our public hearings, and we have none of those tonight, so we will move on to regular business. Our first item is an informational item. It's the presentation on the process and timeframe used in addressing municipal code violations and the intent into enforcing the municipal code standards with the city of Selma. Chief Alcaraz. Good evening, Mr. Members of the council.

Thanks very much for your reports. Council, I have comments at this time.

I have a couple of questions in response to that. The first one is, you know, finding that fine line between a building being blight versus, let's say there's a building being, has a for sale sign. And at the back of that building, there's all this trash and things like that, right? Do we still have the same, is there anything we can do about that or?

The other question is, so we have a lot of buildings. We have some buildings that have been getting or going through the prepare process for the last two, three years. And I like that saying that, you know, blight reduces crime. And I'm going to talk about that junior hire, that building right there on That building that might cross you from the park, you know there's in the back of that building the alley there's a lot of trash and stuff like that and and it's true trash. it brings people in. I don't know why, but it brings the people in there. Right. And in the alleys. Right. So I just, I, w

I think, um, you, you guys run a really fine line because you don't want to be overbearing and yet you want to do your job too. And, you know, we, We get responses from citizens all the time. Probably the biggest ones I get are overgrown weeds, you know, in, in yards and in next to buildings, you know, what's going on there. One about a fence. We hear about that a lot. You know, it could be a public safety hazard and also about boarded up houses. So it's, there are not as many things are looking better in Selma. It is looking better. And you guys are responsible for a lot of that. And we appre

It's like that house on Rosen Thompson as well, boarded up. It's like an invitation for people to go in there and squat there.

Appreciate how, you know, you work with Caltrans as well. You know, they just beefed up their road teams as well. They went in and they cut that tree back right there. I mean, that really dangerous condition there on that floral lawn ramp. That was another invitation that would have ended in tragedy and really could have. And I know our code enforcement work closely with with Caltrans, with our police chief to make sure that that got abated and cut back and look at it. Nobody's been there since then. And it's not to be mean and it's not be cruel. It is to promote safety, public safety. You jus

Thank you. Anybody in the chat on this topic?

Yeah, it looks like the process is complaint-driven. So if there's a complaint on it, it'd be interesting to see what that history is. It's the ex-PG&E. It's not PG&E anymore.

Yeah, someone out of town. And I don't think they've moved in. I don't think they've done a whole lot to it. And that's a good point. You know, the $3 million grant's going to spruce up 2nd Street. we don't need a property that's going to be absolutely other direction we'll uh we'll we'll like said it let me look at the history and where we're at on the process with that property and we'll I'll send that to the city manager for your information thanks very much appreciate that this is an informational item so we're going to move on from here to our next item however it is an informational item

Chair Merrilees, regarding the rbs like to change that agenda i'd like to change that ordinance put it on there to change that ordinance to approve rbs entry and campers in in driveways subject to public safety and aesthetic concerns, so we strike a balance there. Chair Merrilees, And do we have consensus.

Item 5-2. This is another discussion item, and this is on the sign ordinance, feather flags, and banners.

Thank you, director. Appreciate your report. Does council have any questions for the director or any topics they would like to raise before we get into this item?

Yeah, I have a question. You know, when you said grand openings, synthetics and stuff like that, was, okay, the question is, when grand openings take a place, everybody's got balloons, banners, and let's say the, I'll use a car dealership. Okay, this is the annual 25th thousand year celebration. We're going to put the banners on on these cars down the car lot. Now, how long can they keep them there? That's the question.

But do we have it in, do we have it in play as far as a temporary, um,

Thank you, Ms. Mora. They'll come over tomorrow and meet with you. Are you going to be in tomorrow at Rodolfo's?

Yep, they'll be there at 9. All right. They'll go over there and consult with you, okay? They'll be there at 9.

Thank you, Jesse. And then since you are downtown, you're part of the Business Improvement District, you pay a little bit extra for that right now. It's the same as your business license fee. That will be coming back to council to kind of look at that because it's gone this way for a couple years. That might, you know, the council should review that in the future. We'll get there. That's not going to be this meeting. But That being said, as part of the business improvement district, you do have certain rights as well in that. And one of them, one of the benefits that you get from being part of

you know, one of the units with three urinals, eight toilets, seven sinks. Then you've got the other unit with three urinals, 10 toilets, seven sinks. Are those going to be modified for the ladies restroom?

from mobile modular as is, as is correct. And then the same figure out how to modify it.

Yeah. On that particular item, like the plumbing, would it be modernized as far as easy access cleaning and all that and flushing the lines out?

Okay. And the other, you know, like they have a plumbing problem, would it be easy access to those things?

This is such a move forward. I mean, this is what we're going for. It's exciting to staff too. Everybody has to be really excited about this.

Plus you incorporated the city council goal of going through a local business to provide this product as well. So that's, that's really important too, because the first schematics you brought us were potentially, you know, constructors from out of state, out of town, but you found one local. So thank you. Thank you for that. And, and you know what I'm going to ask next, what's our timeline on this?

public information officer, our comms director, and I believe Diaz de los Muertos is coming up. When is that scheduled, director?

And Mike, I just want to tell you thank you for all the hard work you guys are doing. It's really important. You know, a couple of years ago, we brought probably about 6,000 people to this park. And it cost us a pretty penny to bring a stage and all the restrooms. And we did this a couple of times. And one of the main reasons why we haven't come back is because of that, the restrooms. And so I'm really, really happy because, you know, our community, we're Hispanic descent also. They want Mexican music too. And American country. So this is going to really help the community to come and have the

Yes, ma'am. Okay. Investment. This is bringing our downtown back. Isn't this what we've been talking about the last couple of years? It's why I ran again. I wouldn't have bothered, but we got on, we got the right people on our council and we've been moving our city forward. And this is another step in that direction. Yes. It's not without risk, but it's a step we can't afford not to take. This is what's going to propel our city forward. It's a game changer. If it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. But we tried. What do I hear when I talk to people? Hey, you know, what's going on in Selma? I m

But this is the largest rink we can get with Ice America, is that correct? This is the larger one?

On that, how many on the staff training, how many would you need?

Okay. That'd be on the staff training. And also when it's closed down at night, you'll need, that'll include the staffing at night as well?

Security we have to get up. Okay. All right. So on that note, how many security people you think you need? Two?

And it's next to a police station, you know. You know, that's what I'm asking. Okay, so you really need, okay, staffing-wise, okay. Will there be volunteer staffing? Let me ask that question.

So we're doing this for 2 weeks right correct.

And will be every day we can close a couple of days.

Good. You know, so let me, you know, I'll get the elephant out of the room. Um, I understand that, um, different councils, different seasons come and the majority of the council wants this. So it's going to happen, right? The only, the only question I have is that in two weeks we're looking at, he just said 70, 70 people you're saying, are we going to do eight hours, 10 hours?

Four hours a day. I thought it was eight hours a day.

Because at eight hours a day for eight hour days of 70, that would be 560 people times 20. We charge that's $11,200 a day at 14 would be 156,000. So, and, and, and I agree with the majority of the council saying that it's not the volume of the cost, right. If you're going to enter something and, and, and, um, you know, uh, be aggressive and want to turn and change the community. I'm a full, full believer in, in things that for the kids and the investment, right. That's one part of me and, and recognizing that the majority of this council wants it and is going to just going to do it. The concer

What do you have? What's your average? What's your two-week average for four hours a day? Your total revenue?

That's what I was saying. Okay, so 84,000. And for me, and I speak for my district, my representation, who I see, right? And I'm not bashing it because I'm going to prove it, but my concern, again, goes back to this. We just told our staff, you can't hire, you can't bring people in. You've got to go back. And, yeah, okay. We're going to use our money that we sell this property that we had no clue what we're going to use. But we did have, we did. That's what municipal governments do. They buy purchased land and they build. They think of future. They think of what's better for the future. I'm no

So let me ask you a question. Deputy city manager, HR director. How many layoffs have we had? How many layoffs has the city made for this budget? How many layoffs? Okay. How many people got lower salaries? How many people got salary cuts in our city? How many people got salary cuts? So we've not laid off anybody and everybody's making what they made before or more. In our city, in our society, it's really tough right now. And people are not making a lot of money. People are out there in the private sector without the pensions and without a lot of benefits.

Are there questions on this? Anybody in the public with a question on these EIFDs? We'll bring that back to anybody in the chat question. Mayor, I see no hands raised. Okay. Then we'll bring it back to council.

I'll make a motion. Can I say something really quick? I want to say that, you know, we don't, we really don't, um, I guess I don't want to use the word understand this, but if you look at it and I say this, I say this very freely that this is the step in the right direction for future growth and for thinking of master sewer plan, master street plan, master. This right here actually guides us and is actually putting us in the right direction. So I'm really happy we're doing this.

Me too. Great. This is definitely helping us, giving us another tool in the box to develop Selma and move forward with these projects. There is a motion. I already have a second. Call the roll, please.

Yes. Item passes. Moving on to item 5-6, which is an overview of thrift and resale store regulations in the city of Selma.

Thank you for your report. Any questions for the community development director at this time? I have a question.

Do thrift stores pay sales tax? I know the answer. They do, yes. And why do I ask that? Because we've had an influx in thrift stores. And I'd like to, I mean, if we're going to maintain and we're going to bring these thrift stores, I'd like to know what their impact in our city. I'd like to know if they're really following the guidelines. And I state this because many years ago, we had an issue here in Selma where restaurants the sales tax was down and we brought in an individual that brought in a card processing machine. And that ability gave the restaurants the ability to pay their sales tax

We had somebody that came in and appealed for waiving the CUP, and then we had someone else that came in and appealed for waiving the CUP. And one of their claims of fame was they don't sell much used. Like a lot of the one was we don't sell a lot of used, a lot of it's new, and a lot of it's unique and gently used. And the other one was a similar argument. But I think, did you have a comment, Pony?

How about some of these that are operating without CUPs right now? What's the statute on that? Can code enforcement go in and say, looks like you're selling more than half of your items are resale. You need a CUP.

You know, here we are talking about how we're moving our city forward. We want to bring people downtown. And thrift and resale shops don't necessarily discourage people from being downtown. But too many of them is not a goal that the city has had or any city council, in my opinion. And we go down Van Ness and look at all those thrift shops on Van Ness and the city of Fresno. It just contributes to the blight. of an area. And I don't think, you know, having one, two, three, four, five, six thrift and resales shops is something that is particularly planned in a town of 25,000. And especially in

If it was a future agenda item, we could ask for that to go to Planning Commission as a text amendment to change that distance and number requirement. Obviously, the ones that are in are grandfathered in, but for any new thrift shops or a draconian measure of no more thrift resale moratorium until we reduce the numbers. I think that's for the council to decide. But tonight, I think we can move. We're paying attention. I think we can move it forward.

But once they renew their license, we can catch what they did. Can we catch it once they renew their license?

So I think what we're trying to do here is just address the increase in the number of thrift and resale businesses, and we want to make sure that that's looked at in the future. And we want to have a proper vetting process for that so they can't get through.

So we'll do it in the future. Can we do that here? Do we have consensus to add that?

And look at the number of. and look at the space apart, the distance apart, potentially bringing that back. I know it's gotta go through Planning Commission and all that. Do we have public comment on this?

Just FYI, the restaurant will be opening soon.

Anybody online or on the phone with comment? Mayor, I see no hands raised. Okay. Bringing the matter back to council. So did we get consensus to add that as a text amendment? All right. With that, we will move on to... Our next item, which is future agenda items. This is council requests for future agenda items not subject to public comment. Items require a consensus. Councilman Avalos, you're up already.

Okay, I'd like to bring back, this is a very serious item here, is the emergency action plan for fire and police in our city in case of a national disaster. How do, the power's out, no water, how do you stabilize the city? And how many, you know, fire and police, how will they communicate, keep the city intact? And that will be cooperation with Cal Water and probably SKF as well. I need the water and the sewer operation up and running.

Thank you. I'm good with that. Everybody good with that? That's my trio.

Do you have items? Do you have any items? Future agenda items? Do you have any future agenda items? Any future agenda items?

I'll go. Okay. I'd like to, I think we already talked about changing the text in the ordinance on the thrift and resale. I'd like to follow through on that ordinance, changing the downtown storefront program. I think we still have it in the form where it's $10,000, but you got to get somebody and they have to be prevailing wage. I'd like to put something in the ordinance that says, and the city will provide a list of potential contractors, not necessarily the contractors themselves, but the city will, because I think that's what we're working on right now. Approved list of contractors who do p

You know, I'd like the bid. They provided some really good discussion last night at their meeting, and they came back to, well, if we got to put it on the ballot, it's going to be, you know, all this, it's going to cost thousands to put it on the ballot, then forget it, let's not mess with it. If not, then, yeah, I mean, it seemed like the flat fee was... Director Moreno, you led the meeting last night. What was your sense of where the bid went with the fees?

They're the ones with the expertise on this. Let them set the fee. All you got to do is approve the fee they've set by adopting a resolution that

City Council. It'll still say one times the business fee or. whatever the resolution says by the city council, will it have an or in there or how will you know?

okay so you don't you don't touch you don't even need to touch the ordinance you just adopt a resolution that says from now on the bid amount's going to be x after the next bid whatever whatever they said they'll decide and then they'll send it over to city council to review so i don't think we need it as a future agenda item i think it's we're working working through that so that's good uh let's see okay um i'd also like to um I may have mentioned this or it's been a long night. Change that ordinance or look at that ordinance regarding boats and RVs and driveways. Okay. All right.

We'll move on then. All right. On to council reports.

Unfortunately, I attended a funeral. One of Sarah's mothers and one of the members of the family, the Galero family, a funeral. It's sad when you have your colleagues up here and their family passes away, their mom, especially their mother. Jason was there. It's sad when your mother passes away because She's the one that gave you life and taught you things in life, you know, what not to do. But all I can say when they pass, they're at the gates waiting for you, so you better be good. If not, the gate ain't going to be open. That's all I got to say. But also, I attended SKF, updating SKF. The C

Thank you for coming back with that. Councilman Trio.

Yeah, first I'd like to thank our city manager for helping me and assisting me with the church that I brought with you. Thank you for that. and be talking to you in the future to make sure we complete with that. The other one is you can get a lot of calls. It's interesting, you know, just to give everybody the information. I've gotten at least 10 calls from 10 different restaurants in Fresno, Visalia, and here. So I'm really happy that people are wanting to come to Selma and bring restaurants here. So just to give you guys a heads up, I'm happy about that. That's it. That's mine.

And then I went to the business improvement district meeting, which was very good background for tonight's meeting, but that will move on to our last oral communications. Anybody have a comment at this time?