City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay. It having reached the hour of 05:30, I am calling the 03/03/2026 Modesto City Council meeting to order and ask the city clerk to call the roll. Council member Alvarez? Here.

Council member Ricky? Here. Council member Bavaro. Here. Vice mayor Williams.

Here.

Council member Wright. Here. Council member Scoutier Brayton.

Here.

And mayor Zwolland.

Here. Will everyone please rise for the pledge of allegiance followed by the invocation from Mike Gunderson with city city ministry network.

Thank you for the opportunity to pray. Heavenly father, I come before you tonight grateful for this city and the people who call Modesto home. I thank you for the responsibility you've entrusted to these council members, staff, and public servants to seek the good of the community, especially when the work is hard and the outcomes are not simple. Your word tells us that wisdom is a gift you delight to give. So tonight, I ask for wisdom that is clear headed, courageous, and compassionate.

Grant discernment in decisions, patience in dis in disagreement, and humility in leadership. Where there is tension, bring understanding. Where there is weariness, bring strength. Where there is division, plant seeds of peace. I pray especially for those in our city who feel unseen, the struggling family, the unhoused neighbor, the elderly resident, the young person searching for hope.

May the choices made in this room reflect a genuine concern for the flourishing of all. Lord, you taught that those who lead are called to serve. Shape our leadership by that truth. Guide every conversation, every vote, and every plan with integrity and love. I entrust this meeting, this city, and this year ahead to you. Amen.

Amen. Thank you. Does the city clerk have any announcements?

Yes, mayor. Just a couple of announcements. Item 13, the hearing to consider an application for rezoning 1.35 acres at 3213 Coffee Road has been requested to be continued to the March 10 council meeting. The council will take formal action to continue this item when we reach that point in the agenda. Also, please note public comment is three minutes, and there are speaker cards at the entrance of the chambers. In addition, a Spanish interpreter is available if you are in need of assistance. Thank

you. Thank you. Do any of the council members have any conflicts of interest? Seeing none. Next on the agenda is acknowledgments and presentations.

Item one is a presentation by Stansela's Council of Governments regarding '20 26 Regional Transportation Plan Sustainable Community Strategies. And welcome, if you'll introduce yourself.

Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Michael Schmidt. I'm with Kimberly Horn and Associates, and I'm here to speak about the Stancog regional transportation plan. Thank you. So great. The next few minutes, I'm gonna provide an overview of the regional plan. I'm gonna talk a little bit about where we're at in the process. I'm gonna talk about how it connects to some very special focuses related to land use and transportation that we're currently undertaking. I'm gonna talk about how to participate, and then I'll update you on the next steps with the with the project. So what is a regional transportation plan?

It's essentially it it reflects the shared vision of the cities and council or county through 2049 for transportation and land use. It includes all transportation modes, so bike, walking, driving, and aviation. It reflects how land use drives transportation. We recognize that that's an important part of the plan. It documents essential compliance with both federal and state requirements, and it's a high level planning document.

So it covers the entire county and all of the cities with a real focus on those larger regional connections. So there's several things the plan must do. First off, it needs to prioritize those transportation projects. Second off, it needs to be fiscally constrained, which means the amount of money that comes in over the next twenty years needs to match the amount that's planned to be spent. It also needs to meet the federal air quality requirements and several title six and environmental justice requirements.

It also needs to meet the California targets for greenhouse gas and the California Environmental Quality Act. So there's a lot of things that this plan actually has to do in addition to just laying out a good vision for the future. I just want to touch on a few definitions before I get further into the presentation, and it's just a few more slides. First of all, there's been a change in how we look at transportation. We're now very focused on measuring it in terms of vehicle miles traveled.

And that's really simply just the distance that's traveled times the number of vehicles. So and that's really the way we've changed the way we look at transportation impacts in the state, and it's how the California Environmental Quality Act and this and this program looks at it. There's also a focus in the prior plan and in this one as well in looking for what we call middle housing. Housing. So So that's that's kind of between single family and apartments and looking for opportunities to construct more of those types of housing within the communities.

So the first thing we do when we start a regional transport regional transportation plan is we get a demographer. And in in this case, we got the University of Pacific to essentially say, what does growth look like for the next twenty years? And so for each one of the the cities and the county, they essentially make an estimate. And as you'll see, they made an estimate for Modesto, which my eyes aren't about 15,000 new people are expected to move to Modesto or be born into Modesto over the next twenty years. And there's about an expectation about 11,500 jobs.

And we use that with the other information from the other cities to essentially make sure that we're building a transportations plan and providing housing and other opportunities that make sense in that context. So where we're in the process is we're actually in what we call scenario planning. So it's essentially where we do outreach with the community and with stakeholders and the cities and councils and the Board of Supervisors and other boards to essentially ask, well, what do we want that future to look like? And in that process, we go through what we call scenario planning. So we lay out a couple of different outcomes and basically ask for the different groups to coalesce around what's the right vision, how do we wanna develop.

And along with that, have some guiding principles that we make sure we follow as we do that. The first is we really want to make sure we have a jobs housing balance, which means we really want to focus on having enough employment locally that folks don't have to travel great distances to have jobs. We also want to focus growth in those low VMT areas, so those areas which already have, you know, housing and shopping and schools and other opportunities. We want to increase the access to opportunities, so we want to be thinking about opportunity for all. We want to preserve essential farmland, and we want to grow in infill areas, particularly with middle housing.

So these are just I'm just going quickly touch on there's four scenarios that we're asking the public to focus in on. The first one is really what we call business as usual, which is the last plan's adopted one. And that really, if you kind of look and you can kind of see where the reds kind of focus, that gives you a sense of where we're kind of imagining concentrations of housing. And it really that's about, again, promoting that middle housing, which was the focus of the last one. The second scenario was a mixed use with increased transit.

So it's a little more focused in areas around transit. The third one is actually a mixed use with a jobs focus. So trying to put more of that mixed use. And mixed use is basically where we put residential and shopping and housing, like all in the same locality. And then finally, the last one is really a focus on increasing accessory dwelling units.

Along with each one of those, we have different focuses with transportation. They all include the voter approved major roadway improvements, but there's variations of differences between bicycle pad and what we call bus rapid transit. So this plan has a focus on increasing transit opportunities, and particularly those those buses that come about every 15 or 20 minutes. So there's a real interest in trying to provide that kind of service to the community. So along with this study, we've got a couple of key focus areas.

One of them is called the community enhancement zone plan. And it's actually a pilot project that includes two areas within the two areas, in particular, McHenry Corridor and Paradise Corridor, where we're really kind of zooming in and looking at considering issues around providing this type of development, how feasible is it, what transportation improvements would have to go along with it. We're also looking at how do we further reduce vehicle miles traveled, and that's in service to meeting the greenhouse gas reductions and air quality requirements that go with the plan. And then we're doing a very specialized update to the non motorized plan, which is basically looking for bike and pet connections across the county. Plan's got a lot of opportunities for input, which is key to its outcome.

We've got essentially a steering committee, which is called Valley Vision Stanislaus, and that includes all of the counties and the county and the cities. We're doing a similar presentation to tonight's at all of the city councils and the board of supervisor. We do have met with city county planning staff. We've got several focus group meetings ongoing with community based organization, business leaders, different language groups, and we have a website where you can find out more information. And then we'd love if everyone would take a moment to go there.

We've got a survey, an interactive map, and a lot of great resources to further understand the importance of this project. And we actually have a table set up in the lobby too if you had a chance to stop by. And finally, in terms of next steps, we're gonna continue outreach. The goal is to select a preferred scenario that we can all coalesce around. It is our future vision. And then ultimately, that will become an approved recommendation for a plan in about June, which will be formally approved in August. So that's the presentation. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much for being here this evening. Are there any comments from council members? Council Member Bavaro?

I do have a question, Mary. Thank you. This is the first I've seen your PowerPoint, this information. Is there a reason why you didn't present this to the council before tonight's meeting so we'd be able to review it and digest it and ask questions?

I'm I'm sorry. I'm I'm not sure I understand the question.

I This isn't I have not seen this information before.

Right. This is

a presentation, but is there a reason why we didn't have it in our packet? So we can review it?

That wasn't by design. I apologize if that was the case.

Okay. And you I'd have to really read it and kind of digest it. But the question that comes to mind is, you mentioned job focus. Sure. When you talk about job focus, what type of what type of jobs are you talking about? Are are you talking and are you talking about living wage jobs? Are you talking about skilled labor jobs? Are you talking about minimum wage jobs? I mean, we're

A variety of jobs, to be frank. You know, there's there's obviously a lot of different needs. And part of that is really just a and like I said, the University of Pacific is is the one we bring on board to do that. So independently, they go through and take a look at what do we think the future jobs are gonna handle, what do we think the potential opportunities are aligning with the workforce that is here, and where do we think those are gonna go. So it's more of a a market driven assessment, not necessarily intent tended to be really just like what would we like. It's more aligned with what we think we can actually achieve because really, the point of this plan is to provide transportation to accommodate that. It's not necessarily supposed to say, this is the jobs we would like. It's the jobs that we think will likely happen. So we ask for a professional's opinion on it. That's that's where we work from.

Today in the Modesto Bee, or at least on their website, they posted a calculator, a living wage calculator prepared by Massachusetts Institute of Technology for Stanislaus County. And they're talking about looking at their scale here for living wage jobs for a family, two adults, and that are working in the household and two children. Living wage is $30.30, or probably an income of roughly about $93,000 So hopefully, we are going to be looking at jobs that that you mentioned that are going be able to afford to buy the homes that you're talking about, that will also be able to provide that type of skilled labor because if not, none of this is going to work. Cannot survive on living wage alone. I mean, living wage is is basically the basic essentials of food, water, and shelter.

Anything over that would be disposable income by which you convince dispose of that disposable income in the economy, which builds the economy. So my point is, you need to be looking at skilled labor jobs, be able to bring people, attract people to those type of jobs so they can afford to live. And that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. Council member or vice mayor Williams.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you for your presentation. Can you go back to the QR code? Because I was not able to ship that. And that's all I

Actually, I don't have the

you ask him if he wants to before I go

to the council? Yes. I didn't ask him.

Everything you spoke today is on that QR code. Yes?

Yes. There's an extensive website. It really has a lot of information I couldn't possibly get into. But there's it was a great interactive map where you can, like, also put comments and give us information to share. We're really in that that period of time where we're trying to get as much information from the public as we can.

And I will say that these there's also handouts that we had in the lobby with QR codes also as well.

Are we able to go back to the screen for the QR code?

We're looking for it. Oh, looking for it.

It's like the third one from the last.

There

it is.

Alright. Thank you.

Uh-huh. Council member Ricky?

Thanks, mayor. How did you go about computing your growth expectations?

So that's a great question. So there's a little bit of complexity in that that actually the Department of Finance, so the state of California, actually makes the determines the actual total amount that's being gonna happen within a region, and so they set that number. And then, basically, our focus is the demographer comes in and really takes a look at what's going on. And we met with each one of the cities in the county and said, what are your plant growth plans? And we shared with the demographer shared with them what they thought was likely to be allocated to it based on what their plans were, and so that's how we distributed amongst the community. So every every city and county planning manager was met with to have that conversation.

It's a little confusing in your slide. And and like like council member Bavaro said, it's kind of hard to tell what you're talking about really without reviewing it first.

But Sure.

Were you saying that it's 15,000 through 2,049?

That

that's the expectation? That's correct. Because it seems like that number is pretty low based on what we've approved in terms of housing just for the inventory we have right now. I mean, this council's approved 6,000 additional units already. And the general plan is going to be approved, which probably will increase the areas that will develop housing. So I just those numbers just don't seem to add up to me.

Right. I I will say that consistently, the state has so the the the these, what we call sustainable community strategies, has started in 2009. And every four years, we go through this cycle along with the regional transportation plan, and we update these forecasts. I will tell you with each successive round, the state has said the number goes down. And so with each one, we've been lowering and lowering, and this was no exception where the growth forecast twenty years out, the state is is essentially set a number that's lower, and we're bound to that by state law or essentially the process that we're going through. We have to we have to add up to that total at the regional level.

So it sounds like what the state's doing is force the numbers down, which forces the budgets down, but it's not based necessarily on the reality of what the growth is.

I'm not sure what I I just know that that's their forecast. They have a set of demographers who they enlist to, like, come up with what they think the projections are based on birth late birth rates, migration, and other patterns.

Okay. Thank you.

Alright. Council member Scoutier Brandt, did you have a comment? Okay. Alright. Well, this is a presentation only. Thank you for being here. And this is the way I understand it as much for us on the council as it is, it's for everyone that's here with the public to become engaged in this process, to get public input surrounding this plan. So I'm glad that we've have people here tonight. As you said, you have a table set

up. Yes.

Where people can get more information. So thank you for sharing this with us and for being here this evening.

And thank you for your time and all the great comments.

You're very welcome. Next is item two, a proclamation declaring March 2026 is National Women's History Month. I will read the proclamation. First proclaimed in 1987, Women's History Month recognizes and celebrates the vital role of women in American history. From catalyzing women's rights to creative innovations that have transformed society, women continue to overcome and lead the way to progress.

The 2026 theme for National Women's History Month is leading the change, women shaping a sustainable future. This theme recognizes the commitment women have made towards creating a sustainable society and celebrates their dedication towards change and innovation. Through activism, aspiration, and ambition, women are working to improve lives by developing green technologies, advancing economic justice, strengthening education systems, and by inspiring and leading others. Women continue to advocate for communities built on inclusivity, support, and inspiration. By honoring women's achievements, struggles, and contributions, we better understand our collective past and can advance towards a brighter future for all.

Now therefore, I, Susan Wallin, hereby proclaim March 2026 as National Women's History Month in the city of Modesto and urge all residents to recognize and celebrate the contributions of women to our society. Let us especially honor the women both past and present of our local community who have led and continue to lead efforts to ensure a more fair and inclusive world world for all. Accepting this evening's proclamation will be Lourdes Ironday, executive director and founder of the Be Anything Museum. And please step forward. Welcome.

Thank you. Uh-huh. So good evening, mayor, council members, and members of our community. On behalf of the Be Anything Museum and Business Resource Center, I sincerely thank the Modesto City Council for this proclamation recognition recognizing March as Women's History Month. It is truly an honor to accept it tonight, not only on behalf of our organization, but in recognition of the countless women whose strength, courage, and perseverance have shaped the opportunities we have today.

Women's History Month is more than a celebration of the past. It is a recognition of progress, perseverance, and possibility. History is not only written in books. It is written through everyday acts of resilience. It is written by women who built families and communities during difficult times, who opened doors when none existed, who led business lead businesses, served others, and created change even when contributions were not always recognized.

Because of these women, many of us now have the privilege and the responsibility to continue moving forward. Here in our region, women lead in powerful ways, as you guys know, every day as entrepreneurs, educators, caregivers, executives, public servants, and community advocates. Yet we also know that many women are still working to overcome barriers to economic opportunity and career advancement. That is why collaboration and access to resources remain so important. The Be Anything Museum and Business Resource Center was founded on a simple principle, but powerful belief.

When when when people can see possibility, they can become possibility. Representation creates vision, and vision creates opportunity. In that spirit, we're proud to host the Be Anything Museum Women's Expo and Job Fair on Thursday, April 2 from one to 4PM, and it's gonna take place at the Gallo Center for the Arts. This event will bring together women entrepreneurs, employers, workforce partners, and community organizations to connect individuals to careers, business resources, and pathways towards economic empowerment, especially at a time when families in our community are navigating workforce transitions and seeking new opportunities. So I'm glad you brought that up, mister Navarro.

There's gonna be a lot of job opportunities available. And as you guys know, we have some recent layoffs with some major corporations, and that's gonna be over 700 people. So we're really passionate about this job fair and hoping for for it to be successful. Tonight, I am especially honored not to stand here alone. The incredible women joining me in accepting this proclamation represent leadership, service, and collaboration across our community.

Each of them works tirelessly to uplift others, strengthen our workforce, mentor future leaders, and create opportunities that change lives. Their presence remind us that progress is never achieved by one person. It's it is built through collective impact. When women support women, communities rise, families grow stronger, economies thrive, and futures expand. Women's history is still being written in our workplaces, our small businesses, our classrooms, and our neighborhoods.

Every time we invest in a woman's potential, we help shape a future defined by inclusion, opportunity, and hope. Thank you again to the Modesto City Council for recognizing the importance of this month and for supporting efforts that empower women throughout our community. Together, we honor the past, empower the present, and inspire the future to be anything they dream of. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you. Please stay here for are there any comments from council members? Council member Scuti Brady.

Thank you, mayor. Mhmm. Beautiful words, Lourdes. Thank you for reciting those words. They they they were very touching. Everyone deserves to be recognized, and I'm just delighted that this month we have National Women's History Week. Modesto has awesome women. A lot of them are present in this room. But I just want to highlight some of the awesome, beautiful women that we do have in the city of Modesto. Without women, the success that we have in Modesto would not be to the depth it is.

We have 56% homeownership in Modesto is attributed to women homeowners. 49% of our registered voters are women. In other words, they're out there. They're being engaged with things that matter. In our county, approximately 1,400 women own small businesses. We are contributing to the economy. We're providing jobs. We are feeding our families. We have four Olympian women that live in Modesto. Is that not cool?

They have represented our nation at the Olympics and have come back with gold medals and represented us very well. We have a special woman, miss Ann Veeneman. She has served at the state level as a California agriculture secretary. That's a big deal. What's even bigger than that is she also served in The US as US Secretary.

She was born in Modesto, raised in Modesto, still lives in Modesto. So Modesto has wonderful women that contribute immensely to just the well-being of Modesto, and we should be so proud of them. I know for certain, I definitely, definitely am. Our women not only make our nation better, they make our state better, and they certainly make Modesto better. Lastly, I just want to thank the beautiful, intelligent women that I have the honor to serve with, not only on this council, but in this city. Again, we work tirelessly with our male counterparts just to make Modesto the best city it is. And I'm so pleased that we are able to recognize women this month. Thank you again. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. Vice mayor Williams.

Thank you, mayor. All that has already been said is wonderful, and I agree with that 100%. However, there is a quote from James Brown. Some of you I'm give you a second to figure out what he said. He said, it's a man's world, but it's nothing without a woman or a girl. Congratulations.

That's right. Thank you.

Council member Ricky.

Thanks, mayor.

Yeah. I think it it thank

you so much for coming here and talking about the achievement that women have made in our community and in our country. Modesto has so many famous women that have done so much from Trishnet, Charini, the famous soccer player to Ann Veneman to

Could it

be Channing to Peggy Mensinger to, know, Sue's Wellin.

Yes. You know? Indeed.

So thank you for being here and just making this happen today.

Thank Appreciate it.

Alright. Any other comments? Alright. Thank you so much for being here this evening.

Thank you.

I will now bring the proclamation down and present it.

And we could take photos? Yes.

Come back. Come on down, ladies.

Alright. Next on the agenda is public comment. Public comment tonight is in person only. Zoom remains available for viewing and for wordly translation. Thank you for joining us.

Excuse me. The city council meetings are a place where everyone is encouraged to share insights, listen and participate in the decision making process that benefits our community. To ensure a fair and respectful environment, the mayor is responsible for maintaining order and decorum is outlined in the city charter and the rules of decorum posted at the entrance of the chamber. I ask that we are all respectful of all members of the public, presenters and council members. Anyone who disrupts may be asked to leave.

I appreciate your cooperation as we discuss key issues and make decisions that affect our city. We will now open public comment for items not on the council agenda, and you have three minutes to speak. I will read, the names from the speaker cards as I receive them. The first is Milt Treeweiler.

Good evening, mayor, council, staff, community members. Milt Treeweiler. I'm a lifetime Stanislaus County resident. Some good good traits we should strive to develop in ourselves are curiosity, being open minded, and being rational people. We all know that we are responsible for our children and our descendants because they're too young or they haven't been born yet. It's our responsibility to take care of them, plant for them, and protect them. We need to understand the fact that our Earth is the same size it was when it was created. There's no new water, no new air, and no new land on our Earth since we arrived. There are many different environments and habitats on our earth. We have the frozen Arctic and Antarctic to the Hot Equator.

We have high mountains to deep oceans, and we have deserts to forests. The farmland around Modesto is a unique habitat not found anywhere else on Earth. As our public officials, it's important that you make sure that this land is protected for posterity. Since you represent all the residents of Modesto, you must make rational and reasonable, responsible decisions. You must look about this you must think about this carefully because the choices you make today will have an impact on the future.

Mayor, council, staff, you need to reject all three of the twenty fifty proposals as sprawl and come up with a new plan, a plan to grow up on the city's infill in blighted areas with high rise buildings. Modesto can build large numbers of high rise luxury condominiums and high rise luxury apartments in most parts of the city. This will preserve the footprint of the city, and you can utilize the current city water, sewer, and storm drain infrastructure. You may also use the current police and fire service protection by increasing the size of the stations. This will allow Modesto to grow without increasing the taxes and utility rates on the current and future residents of the city.

You cannot present another plan exactly like the 1995 plan, which was a total failure for the city of Modesto and its residents. Planning for the future is necessary if we love our children and descendants. I understand there are people who will disagree with what I'm saying. Just ask them to explain how a plan, which is a failure in 1995, will work now. The rational answer is it will not work.

This time, grow correctly. Grow up and not out. Make Modesto a great city. It's gonna take a lot of work, but we can do it, and you can do it, and it needs to be done. And I know that there are skeptics, but the truth is it needs to be done. Thank you.

Thank you. Next is, Teresa Gamboa.

Good evening, mayor, council, city attorney, city manager, staff, and members of the public. I just wanted to make an announcement that the Woodland West community is going to be having a neighborhood watch meeting on Wednesday, the the eighteenth. We'd love to have you join us. We're gonna be hopefully meeting our new area commander and discussing issues that are important to our people. Growth is one of those issues. I couldn't agree more with Mr. Treeweiler. We've got to preserve the the valuable, rich soil in Wood Colony. Enough of it has been built on. We can't build on it anymore.

It is a treasure of the globe. Nowhere else in the world is the soil like Inwood Colony, and we need to preserve it. And I hope to see you at our meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. Next is Pedro Mesa.

My name is Pedro Mesa Toscano. Antios, California. I live in the city of Antios, California. I would like to I came all the way down to Modesto because I wanted to tell you let you know that the corporation Safemard has contracted cleaning crew that does not is not unionized. I have cleaned the Safe Mar supermarkets for twenty nine years in the Bay Area.

I have worked hard and proud and I'm proud of my work. I would like for my work to have dignity. That's what I fought to have a union, to have a decent living for me and my family. But now we don't have anything. SafeMART has decided to contract a cleaning company without a union.

From one day to the other, they took away our union and our medical benefits. And they wanna pay me minimum wage. It is not just. During the pandemic, we were at the stores. We were valued as essential workers.

And at this time, they have taken away everything. We are here to ask you To please talk to Save Mart Corporation so that they can return all of our benefits. Yeah. I would like to say that a lot of people that were working during the pandemic that we lost during the pandemic end. Sheriff in the navy.

Working as a janitor, I have a son that is a sheriff, and I have another son that is in the navy. I please ask for you to help us for all of us that have lost all of that. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Next is Jesus Berrios.

Good afternoon, everybody. I am Jesus Barrios. And I'm from the city of Concord. Coming here to Modesto. To the same tell you basically the same that my colleague has already talked to you.

As a janitor. I have cleaned for Lucky stores for twenty five years. Supermarket. And the owners are the Safe Mar supermarket. During thirty five years, I have been fighting to better everything for me and for my coworkers.

We were asking for a salary of $30 But Safemark decided to go with another company with no union and took everything away. We would only have the right to minimum salary of $16.93. And the five days for sick sick days that law affords us. And if we take one week vacation a year, they will give it to us but without our salary. No holidays.

No no permission to not be at work for whatever other reason. There are three owners of the Safe Mar Supermarkets. They don't know the whole story of us, the janitors. In 2008, we got united in solidarity with other companies. We were essential employees during the pandemic.

Resting our lives and our health. And the health of our families. We were cleaning the stores during the pandemic. The risk of taking this virus to our families. Supermarket.

The current owners of SafeMar supermarket, they don't know this. And if they do, they pretend they don't. And from one moment to the other, they left us with nothing. We can't survive with that. With this same, they're taking us to a bad place.

The most respectful manner If you can. Maybe you can contact the other cities. Horrible thing that is happening to me my coworkers and all the other coworkers that are in their own homes right now knowing what what are we gonna do. Thank

you. Thank you.

Next

is Mark Charlotte. I prefer to go in the order that I've received. It's just works better that way. Uh-huh.

Good evening council members. I'm Mark Sherwood. I'm the vice president or one of the vice presidents of SEIU, United Service Workers West. We are proud to represent the janitors who clean the Lucky stores as well as other supermarkets, which I'm gonna mention in a minute. And we have a long relationship with these workers in particular.

I personally have known both Pedro and Jesus who spoke for decades, and they've been working to clean the stores. So Alex Garcia, who is going be coming up to speak when you call him, is going to make some more specific requests to the council. I'm just asking you to listen respectfully and do what you can to alleviate this situation. Save Mart is based here in Modesto, as you know. We want to express our great appreciation for council members, Ricky and Bavaro, who came to try to speak to Save Mart last Friday.

Unfortunately, Save Mart chose to lock the doors of their headquarters, so we were not able to get in and talk to anybody. And we're gonna be asking you per Alex Garcia's comments to take some more specific action, but this is a very serious issue that we ask you to take seriously. And two other things I wanted to mention, I'll be brief. It is possible to do better, including here in Modesto. Two miles from here, there is a Safeway store. We represent the janitors at Safeway. They still have their contract. They have a pension. They have family health care. They have affordable wages.

So it's not impossible to do better, not only in the Bay Area, but here in the Central Valley and all areas, and we think that Save Mart should do the same. The other thing I wanna mention is just a note from our communications department that they are working on a social media feed or post. I'm not big on social media myself. I was born a little bit before there was social media, but I know what it is. And I believe the intention is to send it to all the city council members so that you'll have it, I believe, by tomorrow morning. So thank you for your time, and we have one more speaker on this subject. Thank you very much.

Alright. Thank you very much. Next blue card I have is for Lydia and Lincoln Bertram.

Hi. We just wanted to come up real quick and introduce ourselves. We're from the Institute for Cultural Communicators, which teaches all about how to public speak.

We just wanted to say that we're excited and grateful for the opportunity to come and observe this city council meeting as one of our assignments for this group.

Thank you so much for your time.

You're welcome. Thank you for being here. Alright. Next is Alex Garcia.

Good evening, city council. Long time no see. I'm a resident of Seres, and you probably know me better as Magnifico. But today, I'm not playing a character. Today, I'm Alex Garcia, political organizer for SCIU USWW.

We represent over 50,000 janitors, security officers, airport workers, and stadium workers across California, and I'm here to speak about Save Mart Supermarkets. What once was a family owned supermarket chain for over seventy years founded in Modesto is now owned by a corporate conglomerate from Canada owned by a billionaire Jim Pattison. Despite that, the Stanislaus board of supervisors decided to declare them retailer of the year at the beginning of their meeting on February 3. Our members working at Lucky Supermarkets owned by Save Mart were earning $21.47 an hour and had health care benefits for themselves and their family members. Thanks to their collective bargaining agreement with King Janitorial, who has been who has contracted by Save Mart to provide janitorial services at their supermarkets for several years.

Save Mart has decided to throw that all away by racing to the bottom. They put out their janitorial contract to bid, looking to pay the least they could without caring for what the how that would impact the workers. They are now paying these workers minimum wage, which is currently $16.90 an hour, a far cry from the over $21 an hour they were earning up until today. They also don't provide any health care coverage. These workers live and work in the Bay Area.

Do you know anyone who can survive and provide for their families earning minimum wage, especially in the Bay Area? Several of these workers have been working at these grocery stores for up to thirty years. We're here today to respectfully ask you to speak with Save Mart so they may go back to a union contractor. A contractor who will respect the CBA that has been providing them better wages and benefits all these years. If Save Mart wishes to continue being a pillar of this community, they would ensure to do what's best for the workers who are keeping their stores clean. Before I go, I wanted to thank council members Chris Rickey and Nick Bavaro for showing solidarity with our members. Thank you for your time.

You're welcome. Alright. Is there anyone else that's wishing to come forward to speak under public comment for items not on tonight's agenda?

Mayor, city council. Actually, I wasn't gonna come out and say anything, but thanks to, councilman Rosa Squirtier Brayton, she asked what was going out going on out front at that little table, and I was like, well, I didn't know. So I'll go find out. So I did, go check into it, and it was what the gentleman spoke about earlier about his presentation. So I did fill out the questionnaire, and I do think it's very helpful and educational, and I would recommend everybody to look into it.

It does focus about not so much about urban sprawling, but maybe more focus about building ins more about building within the city and out. So let's I'll give an example. Like, a lot of the, buildings that we have currently in Modesto, Turlock, Ceres that have been sitting for the last twenty years, well, maybe they could be utilized for apartments or building up like, the, the old courthouse that's not far from here that, people have suggested to turn into upscale apartments above and, businesses down below, things like that. It's more focused about, incorporating, more better living and, more affordable housing, which I know that's used very loosely nowadays because,

I don't

know about affordable housing when they're throwing about $708,100,000 dollar homes compared to years ago. It used to be 2 to 300,000. So, I would recommend to look into it. I did fill out the questionnaire and it gives you four options to go with. I went with two of them. I thought it was probably most appropriate for this area, and, I recommend everybody that's here tonight to go back out when they walk out to, look into it. I think it's a really useful tool. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments? Public comments at this time. Alright. Will the, city clerk please read the consent items? Yes, please. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I have a statement. Next on the agenda is consent items. An item may be removed from consent and discussed at the request of a member of the public or council member. Is there anyone on the council that would like a consent item removed for further discussion? Seeing none, is there anyone in the public that would like an item removed from consent for further discussion or comment? Seeing none, will the city clerk please read the consent items?

Yes, mayor. Item three, consider approving the minutes for the 02/24/2026 council meeting. Item four, consider approving the updated city council district map to include annex territory known as Founders Point East to District 5 pursuant to California election code section two one six two five a. Item five, consider directing staff to prepare and file the fiscal year 2026 2027 engineers annual report for City Of Modesto Landscape Maintenance Assessment District Number 1, Dry Creek Meadows, Subdivision Numbers 1 Through 6. Item six, consider directing staff to prepare and file the fiscal year twenty twenty six twenty twenty seven engineers annual report for the City Of Modesto Landscape Maintenance Assessment District Number 2, Dry Creek Metals Subdivision Number 7 Through 10, Creekwood Metals Subdivision, and Yosemite Metals Subdivision Units 1 And 2.

Item seven, consider directing staff to prepare and file the fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six engineers annual report for city of Modesto Shackleford landscape and lighting. Item eight, consider

Excuse I was just gonna mention that. It looks like it says year twenty twenty six, twenty seven.

Okay. Apologies. Yeah. Consider directing staff to prepare and file the fiscal year twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven engineers annual report for city of Modesto Shackleford Landscape and Lighting District. Item eight, consider accepting the monthly investment report for November 2025.

Item nine, consider accepting an informational report for the December 2025 accounts payable payment register and void report. Item 10, consider accepting an informational report on the November and December 2025 grant applications and awards. Item 11, consider approving the community special event and programs grants providing 2,500 in kind support and $5,000 in grant funding and authorizing $5,000 in in kind support and $10,000 in financial funding support through the city's cosponsorship program for events and programs planned in the second half of fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six. And item 12, consider approving a memorandum of understanding between the city of Modesto and Santa Claus County for the provision of Rockwell maintenance services at Charles m Sharp Park, 1812 Torrid Avenue, Modesto, California.

Alright. Do I have a motion to approve the consent calendar? Motion. Second. Motion by vice mayor Williams, second by council member Scooby Brayton. The clerk please call the roll?

Council member Alvarez. Aye. Council member Ricky. Aye. Council member Bavaro. Aye. Vice mayor Williams. Aye. Council member Wright. Aye. Council member Scuthia Brayton.

Aye.

And mayor Zwollam.

Aye. Carries unanimously. Next on the agenda is council's comments and reports. Do any members have any comments and reports? Vice mayor Williams.

Thank you, mayor. In light of the celebrating woman's week on the twenty sixth of this coming this month at the Doubletree Hotel is women in construction, and we have been invited to that. Look forward to being there and celebrating a lot of the women in construction that have done wonderful things in our community. One particular one who is going to be celebrated is missus Carroll. She has they have over sixty years of business as a woman owned business, and I applaud her.

And also due to the fact that it's Women's Week, I give honor to my wife who I have been married to for forty years.

By the way, it's an entire month. Yes.

Okay. Month. Yes. Sorry. I I heard somebody say week earlier.

I yes. I've heard that. Okay. Let me bow.

But My apologies. Just wanted to clarify. But still forty years of marriage.

Long. We can hear about this.

Alright. House is all year long.

Hopefully, next twenty years.

I don't think we wanna

That's concluded. Here we go.

Thank you. Alright.

Council member Ricky.

Thanks, mayor. I've been hearing a lot of talk around town about the shutting down the left turn from Carpenter And Briggs Moore onto 9th Street. And I kinda get that it's a pain. Modesto undeniably has an accident problem there right now, and this intersection has just been a real issue for a lot of years. So the easiest way around it is to just go around the block or I think Jared Winter said it best when he said four rights make a left.

Okay. Next up, I was it's it's really disappointing to me that Save Mart is reducing their new contract with the janitors. They've reduced this contract so much that it reduces their wages by almost $5 an hour. It takes their healthcare. It eliminates their ability to earn a pension. It's unacceptable. It's not how we should do things, and it's not too late to do the right thing. People deserve a living wage and they deserve benefits. And finally, bike takeovers are an issue that residents around here are really concerned about. I've seen them in my district and in my neighborhood.

It's dangerous. It's scary for drivers and bikers alike. I'm hopeful that the city is able to learn from our neighbors that have already addressed this issue, especially Manteca and Seres. And along those lines, we've also seen a pattern of e bikes injuring pedestrians on our trails. And as e bike use continues to grow, we need rules or an ordinance to keep these trails safe for walkers and riders alike. Thanks, mayor.

Council member Babarro.

Thank you, mayor. I have three items I'd like to bring up. First of all, my advisory committee in District 4 toured the real time crime center this last week and was able to have a briefing from the police chief and would like to thank the police chief for taking time out of his busy schedule to spend a good two and a half hours, I believe, with with the people from District 4. I've been receiving a lot of emails and texts with regards to the complaints on these e bikes. And I know that the city manager, city attorney, and the police chief are in front of this right now as we speak and are looking at ways on how we can deal with this issue.

But it is a real problem, especially in my district where we have Dry Creek. And we have a lot of people who elderly people that are doing their daily walks. Just yesterday, we saw in the news, what happened in, the city of Davis, where there was a e bike that collided with a regular bicyclist. There was a fatality there. And let's, and I know that the city is is is looking at this as on their on their list, but we certainly don't wanna have that kind of issue in Modesto.

And I know that the city management will be able to rectify this issue. And and the third thing I wanna do, talk about is in just general terms. I'm in the employee benefits business. I've been there for, like, thirty five years. And in general terms, employers that I work with value their employees by not only providing them with a good wage because we all shop at the same stores, providing them with a good wage and benefits and a retirement plan.

Should it be a pension or a four zero one k plan? And in the case that we heard tonight, if these employees are going to lose their benefits, then what is happening is it's going from the private sector employer sponsored plans, and that is going to be shifted now to the public sector to the taxpayers who are gonna pay for the benefits through Medi Cal because that is where they're gonna go. If the employer is not if the employer is not providing benefits for their employees, that is where they're gonna go, or they're not gonna have insurance at all, and they're gonna end up in the hospital at the emergency room. And I'm sure the mayor can probably attest to this issue on how many people that would show up to the emergency room without insurance. So that is a real problem in my eyes.

I mentioned that today in the Modesto v, I I saw where there was Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Living wage in Stanislaus County for one adult with zero children is $25.20. And we have one of our largest employers in this town that now wants not only take away benefits and the pension, but also put them on minimum wage of $16.90. My goal as being a council member is to try to get people off the streets as homeless people living in their cars or in their vans or on the streets. They may have a job, but they just can't afford the rents and they can't afford the food.

So this is where they end up. I know this because I'm on the streets myself many times with my cart. And we talk to these people, and they tell us with their situation. So, you know, if you have two adults and both are working, you know, you're going to have to have an income of $30.30 just for the basics. And so hopefully, people in Modesto that are in business will reconsider the value of their employees and reconsider that stores that are once were owned by families that valued their employees are now being bought up by private equity funds that don't have that value.

And hopefully, they'll have a change of heart because we're not talking left or right. We're talking right or wrong, and this is wrong. Thank you, mayor.

Uh-huh. Council member Alvarez.

Thank you, mayor. I'm gonna piggyback on that. I have several things to talk about, but I wanna start there. I you know, oftentimes, look at us, and then they think, you know, we we're up here by magic or whatever reason, but I forge unfortunately, don't have the luxury of being wealthy or retired. In during the pandemic in twenty twenty to twenty twenty three, I scrubbed toilets and cleaned medical offices and rooms at Kaiser here in Modesto and Manteca and Tracy just to put myself through my master's.

So I empathize with you all, and I understand what you all are going through. But I wanna highlight this for the record. A city generally does not have legal authority to stop a private company like Save Mart from switching from union to nonunion workers. Labor relations are generally governed by federal law under National Labor Relations Board, which you all know, which limits government involvement directly. The city only really has authority if public contracts are involved, the public funding subsidies are involved, or land use approvals or or development agreements are involved.

With that being said, I'm gonna pivot a little bit and highlight the fact that Save Mart is not a small business struggling just to survive. The Save Mart companies generates over $4,000,000,000 annually and operates hundreds of stores across the West, I believe 200 or north of 200 stores, with the estimated value likely in the billions of dollars. So when a company of that scale chooses to reduce labor standards, that isn't that decision doesn't just affect workers, it affects our local economy. As my colleague, council member Vavallo, just mentioned, lower wages mean reduced means reduced consumer spending, weaker sales tax generation, and potentially greater reliance on public services. Those impacts ultimately shift cost back on to taxpayers.

So this isn't just a labor issue, it's an economic stability and tax base issue for our community, and I would urge the leaders at Save Mart to acknowledge that and do what is right by our larger community. With that being said, I'm gonna switch over to on a more positive note. Last week, we broke ground on 7th Street Village, a mixed use affordable housing project located at 7th And Jay Street in downtown, located in the heart of District 2. The project comprises a 5,000 square foot commercial and office space on the bottom floors and 79 affordable housing units with a mix of one bedroom, two bedroom, and three bedroom units. This project reflects smart growth, walkable design, and strong partnership with the visionary homebuilders, and Modesto is not just building housing, but opportunity and long term community strength.

Once this project is completed, the 7th Street Village will boast numerous amenities, including a head start and day care facility through a partnership with Sandsall's County Office of Education, a computer and technology lab, and two playgrounds, and 7th Street Village's assets will also be energy efficient. The project is also in close proximity to the Modesto Transit Center and other public transportation resources, making walking and biking to and from work or grocery stores a reality for our community. The total project cost is approximately $68,000,000 is being funded with a mix of federal, state and local dollars. This project is expected to be completed and ready by late twenty twenty seven. In the vein of construction projects underway, Dryden Park Golf Course Clubhouse renovations also reached its construction phase, marking an impact marking an important milestone for the District 2 community in the West Side.

This project replaces the former clubhouse which burned down with a new modern facility relocated to the top of the River Bluff safely outside of the one hundred year flood zone, ensuring long term resilience and smart site planning. The new clubhouse significantly expands recreation recreational and community opportunities, including a new golf pro shop, a full service restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating, dedicated private event space, a new putting green, modernized restrooms, upgraded lighting and improved parking, and fully inclusive universal ADA accessible improvements. This investment is about more than rebuilding a burned down clubhouse. It's about elevating the experience for our residents and attracting new visitors and strengthening one of Modesto's signature recreational assets. The project reflects strong fiscal stewardship, leveraging a diverse diversified funding strategy that includes funds from local or the city's local park funds, American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA funding, Golf Improvement Fund and Measure H Resources, among others.

When completed, this facility will serve as both a recreational hub and a community gatherings place positioned for long term sustainability and public benefits. And finally, I would like to end my my comments tonight in memory of Basilio Basil Amiskita Junior, who passed away 02/14/2026 at the age of 77. Basil was born in Turlock and was a proud United States Army veteran who served in the Vietnam War from 1969 to 1971. During his service, he received multiple commendations, including an award for heroism. He was deeply committed to supporting fellow veterans and was an active leader in several organizations, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars post 3199, where he served multiple terms as a commander, as well as the American GI Forum and the Stanislaus Veterans Committee.

He also served with the Joint Honor Guard alongside members of the Modesto VFW, Series American Legion, and Series VFW, ensuring that veterans were honored with dignity and respect. Basel was known as a dedicated advocate for veterans and the Chicano community, a devoted family man, and some who quietly stepped up someone who quietly stepped up whenever help was needed. So on behalf of the council, we extend our deepest condolences to his wife, Francis, his children and grandchildren, and all who knew and loved him. May he rest in peace, and may we honor his legacy to service to serve our our country and our community. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Wright.

Thank you, mayor. You know, our police department has done a great job on on reducing crime here in Modesto, and and my hat's off to them. I've noticed our traffic officers have been out in force lately. I used to get complaints of people wanting more traffic cops. Now I'm getting complaints that we have too many.

So I think that's a good thing. But one of the key things that we've done here lately is the traffic lights for running red lights, which will really help help with fatal accidents, hopefully, in Modesto. I've had two of my clients have died on our intersections. One on a motorcycle, one in a vehicle due to someone running a red light. So it's a good start.

It's I think they're up and running thirty day. You will get a warning for the first thirty days after that. You will get a nice fine. So thank you to our police department for thinking ahead and really trying to make our streets a lot safer. And on a second note on talking about adding more housing and transportation, it's great to know that we have looking for the future to making sure that transportation is affordable and also it's helped clean up the air.

But what comes with new housing is jobs. And this council and all of us need to really look at how do we bring quality companies to Modesto so that people don't have to drive to the Bay Area or to get a good job, but they can get a job here. So that's something that this council is really concerned about, making sure we have the quality jobs here. And with that, I think I'm done. Thank you, mayor.

Alright. Councilmember Scuti Braaton.

Thank you, mayor. Tomorrow, I will have the opportunity to be in Sacramento advocating along with other elected officials throughout Central Valley, the eight county eight elected officials from eight counties in Central Valley in Sacramento with what is called Valley Voice Sacramento. And we will be meeting with over a dozen assembly and senators to on issues impacting air quality challenges and opportunities. We will be discussing leveraging state funding to address safety, good movements, and mobility. We will also be addressing transit funding, which has been addressed quite a bit today, it's so important for our livelihood here in the Central Valley.

And we will be addressing passenger rail. Those are just four of the many topics that are very relevant and pertinent to Modesto and Central Valley as a whole. So we will go as a delegation, again, from council members and mayors as well as supervisors from various counties. So wish us well. We'll represent your best interest the best we can. And hopefully, we will get resources, attention, and much needed funding to benefit Central Valley. Thank you.

Alright. For my report, I wanted to mention the third annual Black History Month celebration that was put on by the Cesar Chavez community celebration committee last Wednesday. It was the focus was black history in ministry, and it was a really delightful celebration. On Monday, I had the opportunity to attend the Larry Dean Crom End of Watch Memorial flag raising, which is a

an

event flag raising, very sweet, very simple, but an event where we honor those police officers who have died in the line of duty. And I remember when officer Crom was injured. I was a sophomore in high school, 1970. And I knew at that time that it was a horrible injury, and he lived with the results of that head trauma and those injuries for decades and died, but now we still celebrate his life. And it's interesting that 56 later, I was honored to be there to still remember him and what he did for our city.

Several have mentioned tonight about improvement in traffic safety. And I'm only one, and I can only speak for myself, but any complaints regarding the changes that we've made are heard, but they are to save lives. As we know, there was a change from McHenry Village. Now we can just turn right on the north of McHenry Village onto Briggsmore. As Chris Ricky mentioned, where I usually always come off of Highway 99 and make a left turn off of Carpenter, We will not be doing that anymore, and we experienced that.

So in the emergency medical system world, with law enforcement, with fire, we no longer call collisions accidents. That terminology is gone. They are almost a 100% preventable, and they're called crashes. So I want to reemphasize that there will be more changes, there will be more enforcement, and I'm there for it. So, people can express their feelings, but I have seen way too many tragedies and results of these horrific crashes in my life.

And believe me, no one wants to experience that. So I'm grateful for our law enforcement officers, for our firefighters that respond to these horrific incidents, and they will never forget what they see. But we will be having more enforcement, not less, and I support it 100%. That's it for my comments. Any more comments or reports?

Seeing none. Does the city manager have any comments or reports? None at this time. Next on the agenda is hearings. So item 13, a hearing to consider an application to rezone 1.35 acres at 3213 Coffey Road, West Of Thorson Avenue from professional office zone to medium density residential r two zone. I will turn this over to our city attorney, Jose Sanchez.

Thank you, mayor. Staff is actually requesting that this item be continued to the regular meeting of March 10. That's our next meeting. And because it was noticed in the paper, it does require a motion of the council in order to continue the the public hearing there.

Alright. Thank you. Does council have any questions from staff regarding this tonight? Seeing none, any members of the public regarding this change? Alright.

Milk Tree Water. Yes. I saw this. I was gonna speak on this tonight, and then I realized it had been pulled. And I thought, well, I'll look at the background to see what the background says about what was going to what's going to transpire when this comes before you and there was no information.

So then I have to go on assumptions, and the assumption is that I'm gonna go on without knowing what it says is that someone is objecting to this because you're converting a medium the professional offices to r two zoning, which could be two or three story apartment complexes, which is exactly what we need in Modesto and all the cities in Stanislaus County. And the first thing you do is you start hearing about the neighbors complaining about these things. I don't want this kind of building in my neighborhood. That is a a three story building is only 35 feet tall, and you can put trees around your house, and in three or five three to five years, you won't even see the building. People come up with the worst excuses for wanting to stop us from growing up so we can do what we need to do, and, you know, you've gotta you've gotta contend with that.

You have to just say, it's gonna be done, and stop trying to get satisfy everyone. They will be satisfied when they see that it doesn't cause any problems for them. Maybe that's not what it's gonna be about, but I wanted to say that anyway. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other members of the public to comment on this item? Seeing none, comments from council members? I need a motion to continue this item to 03/10/2026.

So moved.

Moved by council member Ricky.

Second.

Seconded by council member Wright. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council member Alvarez. Aye. Council member Ricky. Aye. Council member Bavaro. Aye. Vice mayor Williams. Aye. Council member Wright. Aye. Council member Scuthia Brayton. Aye. And mayor Swalen.

Aye. Carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Next is new business. Item 14, consider consider accepting the enterprise risk assessment report due to 01/05/2026, and we will have a staff report.

Alright. Good evening, mayor and council. Colleen Rosales, city auditor. We're here tonight to present the results of our enterprise risk assessment. This is a really important project that we do every three years. It helps to inform, first and foremost, the internal audit work plan. It also gives council and management a citywide view of where the city has opportunities to improve from a risk performance and controls perspective. So I'm gonna hand this over to my colleague, Maria Straub, who led the analysis to give you a presentation tonight. Thank you. Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, council members. Good evening, mayor. My name is Maria Stroth, and I'm pleased to present the results of the enterprise risk assessment. An enterprise risk assessment is a broad assessment that look is looking at all of the city's functions and operations to try to identify, categorize, and evaluate all the different risks facing the city.

When we think about risks in an assessment like this, we're thinking about any event or action that could potentially interfere with the organization's ability to achieve its objectives. Colleen mentioned this a little bit, but the role of an enterprise risk assessment is there are several different roles here. It's useful for city leadership to understand greatest areas of uncertainty for the city. It can also help to establish clear priorities for management and support resource allocation decisions. It also provides you insight into the city's greatest risk areas as you're thinking about policy and investment decisions, and of course, it informs our internal audit plan.

So we use the results of this enterprise risk assessment to inform what are some areas that we might wanna look a little bit deeper at over the next few years so that we can support the city in reducing risks and continuing to improve operations. The approach to the enterprise risk assessment covers four phases, planning, fact finding, analysis, and reporting. The key activities that inform the enterprise risk assessment, we do interviews with management across the city as well as key staff. Again, this enterprise risk assessment really is encompassing of all of the city's operations. We look at 17 different categories of risk.

So we wanna talk with folks in all of those different areas to make sure we sort of understand what those key risks and challenges are across the city. We also speak to council members as part of the assessment and we do an all staff survey. That all staff survey is an opportunity to get broader input from the greater city's workforce to understand what are their perceptions of risk. And then we also do a really extensive document and data review. So we request a number of documents from the city so that we can inform our assessment with that information.

Overall, this is our risk assessment framework. So we're looking at these different elements of risk. Again, I mentioned we're thinking about risk as a negative event. So what could go wrong? And when we think about those things that could go wrong, we're gonna look at the impact of it on the city's strategy, people, operations, resources, and overall your ability to meet your mission and objectives. Also thinking about the likelihood of each risk. What's the probability that the risk is occurring? And then we're looking at the preparedness of the city. So what sort of controls and activities does the city already have in place to help mitigate a particular risk? Policies and procedures, adequate staffing, having plans in place, that sort of thing.

We're looking at the trajectory of the risk. So is that risk going up, down, or staying the same in the current environment? And then we also provide strategies for reducing risk for each of the categories that we identify in the assessment. So you'll see that throughout the report as a way to support management in continuing to mitigate risks across the organization. And then we have residual risk ratings as well in our report.

Ultimately what this means is that if city management implemented all of those risk mitigation strategies that we list, what would be that remaining risk thereafter those were implemented. This is the city's risk profile that you'll see on the slide and that you can also see in more detail in the report. Overall, the city's risk profile aligns with industry norms for city governments who are navigating complex fiscal and operational environments. This is in line with what we see in other cities with some of these higher risk categories being pretty common. So things like asset management, IT, public safety are commonly at the top of the list.

One thing you'll notice here in this risk profile is that there aren't any high risk areas identified. So we have a five point scale. It goes from high to low risk and you'll see that there aren't high risk items here which is relatively uncommon and that certainly represents city management's efforts to reduce risk in these different areas. We saw throughout this engagement lots of different activities going on to reduce risks, which helped to reduce those levels overall. There are still key priority areas for the city to focus on that are represented in the moderate to high risk categories that you'll see in the assessment.

Again, are common areas for many cities and these are priority areas of focus for the city and for resource allocation moving forward. One thing you'll notice on this list is that the risk trajectory for all of these items is either flat, meaning it's stable or it's decreasing. What that represents is that's a good sign that management is acting to reduce risk in those areas and it's really important for those activities to continue to continue to see that risk reduction in those areas. Asset management and capital programs is one of the areas here that you'll see on the slide and key drivers in this area are significant deferred maintenance and replacement needs in key areas like the fire department, parks, forestry and sidewalks as well as overall facility needs. These deferred maintenance challenges can increase risk related to asset failure, higher replacement costs over time as well as safety hazards.

Measure h funding, of course, is being used to mitigate some of these risks where possible. But again, this is a continued priority area for the city. Human resources is next on the list. Policies and procedures in this area are outdated, and processes need to be modernized. There are also challenges related to the timeliness of employee relations investigations, And all of these challenges increase risk related to employee labor compliance, employee morale, and the city's overall effectiveness in managing its people resources, which can overall affect the ability of the city to meet its mission.

So this is a priority area for the city moving forward. IT's policy environment is a work in progress, and this is a really important priority for the city in terms of improving its security posture. This is something that the city is working on actively, and there is an internal audit engagement in this area as well. Public safety, there has been progress in this area. Of course, this has a high impact as you'll see on the slide.

There has been progress in that crimes have decreased in recent years, but, of course, public safety issues like homelessness and traffic safety, which has been mentioned tonight, continue to be priority issues for the city, which is why this landed at the higher risk level. And then the last one here is the city's risk programs. There were increases in general liability claims for the city largely due to auto accidents that is expected to stabilize, but that was contributing to the higher risk profile in this area. And then there's also opportunities to improve planning in this area. So disaster and emergency planning and continuity of operations planning to reduce risks in this area.

The next slide shows the moderate risk categories for the city. I won't spend time going through each of these, but just wanna highlight a couple of things here. So you'll see on this list in the preparedness column that for all of them, the preparedness is either moderate or moderate to high. This is a good foundation for the city to build on. Essentially, what that means is that the city's preparedness activities have a pretty solid foundation.

There's opportunities to improve to continue to reduce risk in those areas, and you'll see what those areas are listed in the report as well as the mitigation strategies for those areas. But there's a solid foundation here to continue to reduce risk in these areas. The low to moderate risk categories listed here on this slide as well as the low risk categories on the next slide are strengths, areas of strength for the city that I want to highlight. So the city has a strong governance environment. The leadership team is stable, and there's a strong leadership team in place.

Those two things are really foundational to effective operations in any city as you know, so that's certainly a strength for the city and something to continue to focus on. The city's reputation and public perception is also a strength for the city. Of course, the city is focusing on with measure h funding being able to demonstrate key performance indicators and the accountability and transparency of that funding to the public, which will be important to continue to see that in the low to moderate risk area or lower. The city's low risk categories are also areas of strength. The city has a strong ethics, fraud, waste, and abuse program and also has a strategic plan and other supporting plans that support the city's planning and strategy efforts and reduce risks in these areas.

That completes the presentation. I'm happy to take questions.

All right. Thank you for your presentation. Any questions from council members? Council member Babarro.

Thank you, mayor. How do you measure the high risk versus medium risk versus low risk?

Absolutely. So we use that risk assessment framework where we're looking at those different categories. So we're thinking about impact, how impactful would it be on the operations if something did go wrong in that area. We rate that on a scale. We also rate likelihood. What's the likelihood or probability of the event happening? We rate the preparedness level. So that's where we're collecting documents from across the city doing interviews, trying to understand what kind of controls do you have in place here, what kind of plans, staffing, policies, procedures, etcetera. And then we have a rating scale for that as well. And then we look at trajectory.

Again, so is the risk going up, down, or staying the same? And and then all of those measures come together, and it sort of puts out a quantitative analysis that we can then use to get an overall risk rating.

So do you take all this information, put it into some software program on a scale from one to 10, and then it kicks out high risk, medium, and low?

A really fancy software program called Excel. Most of this is we use qualitative and quantitative data. It's a little bit less scientific than that, I would say. So we're pooling together a lot of information. As you can imagine, every city is different. There's a lot of different factors and nuances to consider. So it's sort of a mix of a quantitative and qualitative process where we pull that information together and then are able to produce a result, in that way.

Thank you, mayor.

Any other questions? Alright. I'm very curious how you assess the governance component. Yeah. What are the what are the components to that? Absolutely. When assess.

When we're looking at governance, we try to understand what's the structure of governance at the city, both from a city council and city management perspective. We wanna understand is that structure working for the city in the particular environment you're operating in? What is the relationship like between council and management? How effective is that? And then we're also looking at the operations. So do you have bylaws in place? Are those bylaws working effectively? How are the meetings running? Are the meetings effective? You know, we see some city councils that have seven, eight, nine hour meetings, certainly not an effective thing. So we sort of have a variety of different things that we're looking at to understand is the communication working effectively, is the strategy working effectively, and then is the operations working effectively.

Alright. Thank you. Any other questions from counsel regarding this item?

Alright.

Alright. We will thank you very much for your report.

Thank you so much.

We open this up to the public. Any members of the public regarding item 14 that would like to speak? Seeing that, I'll bring it back to the council. Seeing no comments, I need a motion accepting the enterprise risk assessment report.

So moved.

Moved by council member Wright. Seconded by council member Alvarez. Will the clerk please call the roll for this item?

Council member Alvarez. Aye. Council member Ricky.

Aye.

Council member Bavaro. Aye. Vice mayor Williams. Aye. Council member Wright. Aye. Council member Scoutier Brayton. Aye. And mayor Swalen.

Aye. Carried unanimously. Thank you. Are there any matters too late for the agenda? Seeing none, I'm calling this meeting of the City Council to be adjourned.