Tax Transparency Commission - Regular Meeting

We'll go ahead and start the Finance and Economic Development Subcommittee meeting. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Agenda item B, roll call. Mayor Pro Tem Boyle. Here. Council Member Tao.

Present.

Council Member Xiong. I would like to remind the audience that if they wish to address the subcommittee, they may submit a request to speak in one of the following ways. Complete a green request to speak card available at the back of the council chamber and submit it to the clerk before the item is called, preferably before the meeting begins. Scan the QR code corresponding to your preferred language, English, Hmong, or Spanish, located behind the seats in the council chamber and follow the instructions. Submit a request to speak online by visiting publiccomment.cityofmerced.gov. Individuals participating virtually by phone must provide a valid phone number so staff can identify the caller during the meeting. Please be patient as this is a new process and there may be some disruptions or issues. Staff will do their best to ensure everyone gets an opportunity to speak. Additionally, citizens can submit public comment to the subcommittee electronically no later than 10 a.m. on the day of the meeting. Comments received before the deadline will be sent to the subcommittee and will be part of the record and will be mentioned as part of the public comment portion of the agenda and will be posted on the city's website. Material may be emailed to economicdevelopment at cityofmerced.gov. Any correspondence received after 10 a.m. will be distributed to the subcommittee and retained for the official record. Also, for audience members who wish to have Spanish or Hmong translation services, please let our interpreters know.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Agenda item C, public comments. Members of the public who wish to speak on any matter not listed on the agenda may speak during this portion of the meeting and will be allotted three minutes. The subcommittee may propose a further limit to the time available for all speakers at their discretion in order to accommodate as many speakers as possible. State law prohibits the subcommittee from acting at this meeting on any matter raised during the public comment period. Members of the public who wish to speak on a matter that is listed on the agenda will be called upon to speak during discussion of that item. We have received no emails before the 10 a.m. deadline. Any emails received after the 10 a.m. deadline will be sent to the subcommittee. Subcommittee members, we currently have no registered speakers. Should I close public comment? Agenda item D, action items. Agenda item D1, discussion on the roles and duties and setting reoccurring meeting dates and time for the Finance and Economic Development Subcommittee. There are no registered speakers. Would you like me to close the public comment?

OK. And we're available for discussion now.

Okay, council members, I'm going to start this one off, if you don't mind. Obviously, this is a very new process for us. I want to thank the staff that have been working so diligently to be able to get to the point where we are today to have this meeting. As you know, there are other subcommittees made up by the city council members. We do have a goal to have all five meet before early October, so that might be a little ambitious, but that's kind of the plan that we have. And so the group, the departments that are going to be clerking, staffing, and working on these all have to get training in the whole process. And so you're going to see Amanda and even... Venus here, they're not normally clerks. They don't normally staff meetings. So they've had to go through the clerking training and the AB 707 training, which is normally just for our clerk team. But not only that, before you get today, there's also the formatting of the agenda, publishing it, all the steps that have to be gone through. Essentially, this is just like your council meetings. With that in mind, we can only have the meetings here in this one room. That's where the technology is. You see Jeff in the back. We're also being televised and pushed through social media. I'm sorry, through our internet channel, so to speak. So again, it's just like your normal council meetings. And having said that, you're going to have meeting minutes like you do for your council meetings. You'll have to take action on the future meetings. So those things won't change. And of course, the public participation is there both in person and virtually. One of the things that was not discussed when we created the subcommittees with the resolution is some of the responsibilities, some of the specific areas. I know Jennifer has some things that she wants to bring up, and so I'll defer to her. But one of the first order of businesses that we have is really setting reoccurring times and dates because all five have to meet in the same room because we've got other competition for this room and we need to arrange interpreters and other staff, we do need to come up with a schedule, and that's got to be blessed by the city council before it becomes effective. But I know there's other things that Jennifer wants to get through, so I'll kind of curtail my remarks for the time being.

So good afternoon. It's almost a good evening. I'm used to saying good evening. The purpose of this particular item is to kind of establish the roles and duties of this particular subcommittee. That way everyone understands what the purview is, not just us, but the public as well. And then also, like city manager stated, is to try to figure out like standing dates that we can hold these meetings. So in the packet, I did provide a calendar. Now it's only like September through December. And that's just because there's no need to do a whole year. It kind of gives you the gist of what those kind of months look like. So there's some boards and commission meetings that meet every other month, like every even number month, every odd number month. You have the tax transparency that meets quarterly, which is February, May, August, and November. Then you have planning commission that meets twice a month. You'll have recreation and parks that meets every fourth Monday of the month. And personnel, I believe, meets every second Tuesday of the month. So this kind of just gives you an idea of what the calendar looks like. as we have it already between council meetings, all of our boards and commissions, and then you can see what dates are potentially available still. So I'll leave those two things up to you guys for discussion. And then the idea is whatever you guys give as a recommendation, we'll put it into a resolution to bring to council for final approval. So then it's more on the record of how these meetings are going to be structured.

Do we use our request to speak button? Okay. I guess a few questions I have is how often, or not how often, how many items do you think we're going to be needing to look at for the remainder of the year and looking at next year and thinking of what those items could or could not be, whatever it could be? I think that really should determine how often we meet. Do we need to meet monthly? Is it bimonthly? Is it quarterly? I mean, I don't know what items are going to be put on the agenda, so it's hard for me to determine how often we should be meeting. When we had the old subcommittees, it was just as needed, and I felt like it was almost either quarterly or every other month, if that.

To answer your question, we don't know. So I think monthly is too often, bi-monthly is probably too often. I think quarterly is good, and you can always have special meetings if we need to.

Okay, then I motion for it to at least be quarterly. Or three times a year. Yeah, I'm fine with that too.

Yeah, I'm good with three times a year.

Because you said there was five subcommittees that have to schedule? Correct, yeah.

So we have five subcommittees. We have council. I think we have a total of, I just did the math earlier, I want to say close to 15 different committees between councils, subcommittees, and boards and commissions. I will say, though, that the majority of our boards and commissions, with the exception of three, happen after five. So Arts Commission is at 4, Recreation and Parks is at 5.30, so it's still close to 6, or actually after 5. And then you have Personnel Board that's at 4, and then I think BPAC is at 4 as well. So it's really kind of trying to fit in certain days, times. I mean, if you guys want to do early in the afternoon, kind of how we're doing it now, that actually wouldn't help in the scheduling portion of it. But it's really up to how you guys want to structure that.

I'm open to same time and pay today up to see Council Member Boyle.

I mean, personally, I'm taking work off right now, so it doesn't really work. It was just kind of, hey, this is the only thing that was offered. So it is what it is. But we even have a council member that's not here today. And I don't know if it's because of work, but I know that he works as well. And it's not just for us that are here today who's going to be here in the future. Yeah. And what's their schedules going to be like? I don't mind meeting like at 4 or 4.30, even though, because I mean, even looking at the items after this, I feel like they're going to be quick meetings. I'm not saying that's what it's always going to be like. But just for scheduling purposes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I look at this. We decided to make, and sorry if this is going off topic, we decided to make these subcommittees not realizing what SB 707 was going to entail, and here we are. Yeah.

So you want to do three times a year? I'm fine with three times a year. Is there like certain months? If you want to start narrowing it down, you want to do like first of the month or first of the year, middle of the year, and then at the end of the year or close to the end of the year, something like that?

Sure. Well, I'm just even thinking, say we do three meetings and every other subcommittee does three meetings. There's 15 meetings right there.

Yeah. And it starts to get trickier as we move along. Are we the first to meet?

Yes. Oh. Well, we better say what we want now before anyone else takes it.

So, I mean, we can look at like the calendars where like, so like this one, what is this one? October looks a little bit more open. So we can look for more months that are a little bit more open and then maybe kind of schedule around those. That might be a little bit easier.

I was just going to ask, do you think that we're going to have to meet again the remainder of this year, this calendar year?

So I guess, you know, you're asking about how many items. I think maybe the items actually are important. So what should come to this group for discussion and feedback and maybe direction? So, you know, I would envision that this is where we talk about things like draft budget. We talk perhaps about audit financial statements. Today you're talking about a land use lease. There might be other things that you think are important to discuss with that, but those are a few things that we came up with. So obviously, if we're going to talk about budget, it needs to be early enough in the process before it gets to the full council in May. So that may be one of your later-in-the-year meetings. Aminus, I don't remember. The audit schedule is usually... Audit schedule. Yeah. Yeah.

Much. Okay, it's on. Audit schedule, usually we're done, it kind of depends, but February through June is usually around the financial statements are complete.

Okay, so those could overlap. So I think those are some of the things that we would envision that this subcommittee would be involved in.

I think early December would be a good time to have the next meeting.

Early December? Okay.

For finance?

So if we did it December every year, what would be the other months?

A month before budget or a month or two before budget adoption.

So May usually includes tax transparency, right? So we're usually presenting some version of the budget to them for Measure C and Measure Y. So if you wanted it before or after that, it would either be late April or late May. But you're also, first budget session to the council is for second meeting in May, right? So those kind of get, the timing gets a little odd.

So would April be better for us to see it?

I would agree with, I think every three months, so like December and then skip January, February, March, and then we do early April. Then we got May and June for the budget, and then July, and then we'll come back in August again, the first meeting of the year.

So April, August, and December? Yeah? Okay.

And then if you want, we can kind of plug in what days those fall in in those months. And then we can figure out, would you guys prefer after 5, a little bit before 5? Kind of get an idea of a time that would work best.

I mean, typically, I'm off work at 4. But I do have some meetings that start at 4. So yeah, it just really depends on the day. OK.

5.30? I'm okay with 5.30.

Yeah, I mean, after 5 works too. Okay. Okay, so we'll shoot for, was it April, August, and December? We'll find dates in there to plug those in, and those will be like a standing meeting dates. And then the time will be about 5.30. Then we can start plugging them into this calendar. That way we can kind of see if that's going to work. Okay. And then it'll be good when we schedule it. You guys will already have it in your schedules knowing that those dates are a meeting date. And if we don't have anything that needs to be agendized, we can always cancel it. Right. So there's that option as well. Now, as far as like roles and duties, I know we kind of touched on it a little bit. I think this will kind of help when we're adding items for a subcommittee or if council is going to direct staff to take it to the subcommittee. And I think it'll also help the public understand like kind of what the subcommittee is about. If we can have some sort of like framework as to what you guys want to focus on. I think that would be helpful for kind of all of us. when we put these meetings together. Okay. So I think it's, I know we got the finance part down, right? That one's fairly simple to narrow down on what that scope would be. I think it's more active. So I can refer to Frank if there are certain things that he thinks should come to the subcommittee and we can kind of frame it around that.

I can read from the policy. There's some broad strokes in the policy. Okay. City budget review, retail and commercial business outreach, job creation and retention, community development and coordination with parks and community services, Arts and Cultural Commission and when applicable, Council's representative to the Merced County Local Agency Formation Commission shall be a member of the Finance Committee unless otherwise directed by Council.

Yeah, that works for everybody.

If I may, please. We also need to remember that in economic development, the umbrella includes parking. So there may be a time when we need to bring downtown parking. And although we can discuss at this meeting, but for example, we have a request for parklet. to go on Main Street again. We also oversee the airport industrial park, so there may be improvements, land sales, or other infrastructure that needs to be installed that we would need to discuss. Airport items, while we have the commission, not everything goes to the airport authority. And sometimes we just need direction. So that may be something that may be brought up here. So economic development is a little broader than your traditional business retention, expansion, and recruitment efforts.

So if you guys are okay with kind of what both Craig and Frank said, we can put something together and bring it to council for a final formal vote. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, because I think it's already stated in the policy CA of what this subcommittee is supposed to focus on, and then we can have what Frank just said on it.

Okay, perfect. All right, thank you guys.

Agenda item D2, recommendation for proposal selection to the city council for the sale of city-owned real property at 626 West Main Street, APN 031-134025. And currently we have no registered speakers. Should I close public comment?

Okay, ready?

All right, I'll jump right into it. Francisco Mendoza with Economic Development. The item that you have before you provides an opportunity to continue the transformation downtown and the enhancement to the arts and cultural district designation. The task will be to look at three proposals, three development proposals that are triggered by the sale of the city property at 626 West Main Street. So citywide context maps, you can see here through the gold star, the subject sites located in central Merced. Here's an aerial image that provides a little bit more context. Subject sites located south of Main between M and N Street. It's the parcel that's outlined in yellow. Some of the major landmarks in the area include to the north, El Capitan Hotel, and the northwest, Mainzer and Tioga. If you were to look at this site from Street View, it would look like one large undeveloped parcel, but actually it's four parcels. And the other three parcels include the two to the left, 640 and 636, which are owned by Hopeton Properties, who submitted a request for a proposal. And then the other parcel shown on the right, 620 West Main, is owned by the Larson family, who also submitted a proposal. So 626 West Main, again, shown here in yellow, its original intent was really to provide access from the parking lot to the south to Main Street, so it creates a direct access so that folks don't have to walk around the block. So 626 West Main Street, it's about 2,500 square feet in terms of land use. It has a designation of regional community commercial and zoning of central commercial. So essentially what you see in downtown, that same land use is very, very flexible, allow things like restaurants, retail, multifamily, things of that nature. Earlier this year, in January 5th, 2026, council directed the initiation of the sell of the site for future development. which then led to the releasing of the RFP, request for proposal. And the cycle for that lasted between June 3rd to June 30th, 2026. The RFP disclosed the appraised value of the 2,500 square foot lot, which came in at $55,000. It also requested a few things, which included three references, disclosing any litigation with public agencies over the last 10 years, and also requires construction within 18 months of closing escrow. So from that period, that review period, the city received three proposals. Here is proposal number one. It's known as the Porch on Main, submitted by Caleb Medafin, Hopeton Properties. And the sell price that they're proposing is $25,000. Here is the project area. Each one of these three options is going to have a different project area, different sizes. This one has a minimum and a maximum. At a bare minimum, you'd be looking at the green area, which would be three-fourths of the undeveloped area. Since they have so much control of the parcels adjacent to the west, at the most, they would actually develop the entire vacant area if they can enter into an agreement with the property owner to the east. Site plan, as you can see here, is a very dynamic site plan. It has a lot of activation going on, kind of working our way from the left to the right, starting at the top left, which is closest to Main Street. There'd be some flexible seating, which includes picnic tables and then some smaller seats as well, smaller tables. Below that would be a stage for live entertainment. Seating capacity would be between 1,000 and 1,500 people. Below that, closest to the alley, would be a beer and wine station, some restrooms, some storage space. They'd be using containers to help build the facilities for that. Right down the middle is what they call the mobile vendor zone. The mobile vendor zone, the surface would be redone. It would include stamped concrete to look like stones. There would be some movable planters, and there would be enough space for eight to 10 vendors, and that includes food vendors, arts and craft vendors, just a whole variety. Then on the right-hand side would be the recreation area. The recreation area includes bocce ball courts, fire pits, game areas, and the surface of that would be the composite granite. Here is a conceptual rendering of that project, gives you a sense of the scale and the massing and the infrastructure improvements. And this rendering here gives you an idea of what the finished product would look like. On the top left would be the most visible aspect of the project, which would be the main entrance. And so you can see here the entrance on the top left. The bottom left would be the stage area, kind of has that country rustic style aesthetic. And then on the top right would be the food truck corridor. This is a night rendering, which mostly illustrates the recreation area. So you can see the bocce ball area, the fire pits, and the recreation space. A couple of details about the proposal. The proposal would include 23 to 55 jobs. That includes part-time jobs, full-time jobs, and seasonal jobs. In terms of experience, This applicant, he has Caleb Metaphines. He's local off of Snelling, and he works with managing Restore Merced, and he has done other projects in the Southwest, including a convention center in downtown Phoenix, and also an 18-story hotel in Arlington, Texas. In terms of capital investment for the improvements, you'd be looking at somewhere between $450,000 and $550,000. Proposal number two. Proposal number two is Merced Commons Plaza, and this was submitted by John Martin and 626 West Main Street, LLC. Purchase price is $65,000. The scale or the project area is smaller than the previous project, so you'd be looking at 7,500 square feet or about a third of the undeveloped area. This is a site plan. So the site plan is a lot more open than the previous one. It includes landscaping along the perimeter and also within the interior. This project also includes a stage, which would be located closer to the alley. And then there would be a gate with a pergola and also some shaded cells that would tie everything together. This slide here shows essentially what the project will look like at street level. Again, you can see the pergola, the shaded structure, and also the stage. Jobs generated and capital improvement costs, those were not provided. Those are still to be determined. Experience with this developer with similar projects, they actually have a lot of local experience. They've done some projects across the street, which include the Al Capitan Hotel, Main Street Theater, and Tioga Apartments. The third and final proposal includes the Main Street valet lane and parking improvement project submitted by John Larson and ERE Construction. Their proposed purchase price would be $25,000. This project area is the smallest of the three proposed. It's a lot more constrained. It would only be limited to the city property, so it wouldn't include any adjacent parcels. A site plan. A site plan was not submitted. Renderings elevations were not submitted as well. Project details. So this would be really just utilitarian. It would serve one function, which is to provide parking for the hotel across the street for El Capitan Hotel. It would create between seven and 10 parking spaces, and it would help with the late parking and also short-term parking. In terms of jobs generated, it would be between five and nine jobs, part-time and full-time. References were not included with their submission. And in terms of capital, you'd be looking at somewhere between $175,000 to $250,000. Staff did evaluate the proposals committee from three different departments Committee of four and the three departments for the city manager's office economic development and planning It was very broad open-ended discussion But it also included a few topics that helped guide the discussion and those topics included the quality of the project So the architecture and landscaping the community benefit such as the job creation the flexibility of space It also included economic value, maximizing the site's potential, and also the experience and qualifications from the developer. So one project stood out above the rest from staff. That project that really stood out is the porch on Main. And a couple of things that helped it stand out included just the overall family-friendly design of it. It included just additional aspects such as the recreation area, the fire pits that kind of make it a more welcoming space to people of all ages. Job creation was the highest out of all the proposals at 23 to 55 jobs. Capital improvement was the highest as well at $450,000 to $550,000. The scale of the project was also the biggest out of all the three, which included somewhere between three quarters to the entire site, undeveloped site there. Staff also liked the business incubation opportunity, which would essentially allow for micro retail businesses to test out the market here and eventually maybe graduate to a physical building, sort of like Joy Tea Bar, which started off doing pop-ups and now has a physical location here in town. And the last thing we looked at that really helped it stand out was really just its activation. It has the ability to draw between 1,000 and 1,500 people to the west side of downtown, further, again, enhancing it as an arts and cultural destination. There's ample parking to accommodate this capacity. There's a parking lot to the south, as I mentioned, and two other parking garages to the north that are underutilized during the weekend. And so those are some of the things that really help this project stand out compared to the others. So that's the recommendation from staff. Obviously, the subcommittee can make your own recommendation to city council based off of your assessment. There's obviously three options here, Porch on Main, Merced Common Plaza, and then the parking structure. We know it's difficult to have two people agree on three different options. So you also have the ability of making recommendations, even if they don't align, and we can still move it forward to the city council. All of the applicants have expressed interest in kind of keeping this project moving. So even if you don't agree, you can still move it forward if you desire to do so. So that concludes the presentation. I'm available for any questions.

I have no questions.

I don't have a question for the staff. OK, thank you.

I will make a motion recommending to City Council to select the Porch on Main proposal submitted by Hopeton Properties LLC for the purchase of 626 West Main Street.

Second.

And we will make note of the recommendations. We don't need a formal vote for this subcommittee.

Thank you.

Agenda item E, business. Agenda item E1, subcommittee comments. Is there any comments the subcommittee would like to make at this time?

No comment from me.

No comment from me either.

Agenda item E2, request to add items to future agenda. Is there any items that the subcommittee would like to add to the future agenda? None for me.

None for me too.

Agenda item E, adjournment. All in favor?

Aye.

This meeting is adjourned.