City Council - Special Meeting

Good evening. I'm going to call to order special meeting of Plymouth City Council, Thursday, February 5th, 2026 at 7 p.m. We can get a roll call vote. Council member Bottomley here. Council member Cranford here. Council member Dell here. Vice Mayor Hornish here. Mayor Nun here.

Thank you. We have a quorum. That's stand for pleasure. approval of city council special meeting agenda February 5th, 2026. Can I get a motion? So moved.

Second. Council member Bottomley. I. Council member Cranford. I. Council member Dell. I. Vice Mayor Hornish. I. Mayor Nun I. Thank you. Motion passes. This time we're going to open to public comment for special meeting. Do we have any comments?

John Cover in Plymouth, California. Uh, one of the issues I have is, uh, you know, that I was city manager when I was 16 years old here and, uh, they paid me a dollar a year and they never ever uh, terminated me. So, you people owe me $70. Yeah. If we offer to let you come back, are you going to do it for a dollar one? Is everybody else asking for one hell of a lot more and we're broke.

So anyway, a couple things that I had on my mind. Of course, you know where my position is on the casino and has been and we're we're still involved in federal court. Um, and it's we don't know what's going to happen with that. But anyway, uh, what I would like to count uh to to caution the council about any relationship you have um with the tribe in regards to any use of the loop road there behind the trail station. Uh that was a matter of the court case that with the county act and the no casino sued the city of Puma and there was a court action on that. Uh the MSA previous MSA was thrown out because of lack of environmental work and no negative decoration none of the environmental stuff was done on that street. There's very stiff opinion on that and it's the city is is tied to that that decision. So, you need to get your attorney to look at it and before you get involved with any uh maybe change in heard a rumor that they were asking for to change it to a one-way street, but that evidently is not going to happen now. But any uh use of that street actually an encroachment permit for use for uh for eress or ingress out of there uh would be affected by that court court thing. So you need to be very very careful in in making any ties that obligate the city in any way because of of that court decision and and you need to have your attorney take a very close look at that. And uh one of the things the reason that it concerns me that it is here, you know, it's going to be here for a while. We don't know that

the the total outcome of it. I believe personally that our case that we have in federal court is is so strong. The feds keep asking for a deferment. They've had almost a year's deferment now uh on the original action and that was before they almost before they turned a shovel pull a dirt out there. So it's delay delay delay but what we need to know to to if we're going to deal in good faith with them we need them to deal with good faith with us. the the properties. The the attorney reviewed the the decision by the the the Department of Interior that they are required to pay um for the loss of taxes on the properties they took in trust and for the loss of of revenue from those properties. And um that has been determined that that is the actual case, but they have decided not to do it. And the Department of Interior is the one who's responsible for enforcing that. They're not. So it's money they owe us that they're not paying um in good faith. And so um in just tax money, that's over $100,000. And the TOT tax, that's another um three or 400,000. So we need to get on a level playing p field. I hope that our case um that that we can get to the point where we can ne negotiate a u making them release their sovereign immunity so that we're all on the same playing field right now. They can sue us

and we can't sue them. And u any agreements you make with them are not enforcable. So be very very very careful and think we understand we're going to have to start wrapping it up though John a couple minutes past and anyway I'll be uh I'll be still standing on on Pacific Street and that's my address is box five and that's where you can send a check to for $70. Thank you John. How many years are we behind on that? I love you guys and I love the job you're doing actually. It's wonderful, wonderful job. In many cases, it's thankless, but thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Stephanie, we have one online. Um, all right, Stephanie Marino online.

Thank you, Stephanie Moreno, city resident and small business owner. Um, first of all, I'd like to reiterate what John just said about thanking you for a thankless job. Um, I I think this is one of the best city councils that we've had in a long time and I appreciate your service and doing that for the city of Plymouth. Um, I want to bring up two things. One is in the interest of transparency and accountability of people live here. I would like to know what the traffic plan is for the opening of the casino. Um, the city hasn't shared anything. Um, it seems to think that it's not their problem. Um, but it is their problem to make sure that the residents in town are safe. And so I'm hoping that they will um because the casino is supposed to open this month that they will get it together and announce what the plan is so um we know that people are protected u from a public safety viewpoint um with the additional traffic on Highway 49 and through town. Secondly, um with the recent national news that a local uh Northern California police chief discovered that flock cameras had overridden their u privacy and security settings in order to share their city's information in some cases statewide and other cases nationally. I'm asking again that the city council take this issue up as soon as possible. Cameras in town were installed without the required city policy. Um, the city is at risk of potential liability if somebody gets wrongfully arrested or hurt in town as a result of flawed data in the flock system. Um, the city is the one that's going to get sued. Um, and they can't say that they didn't know that it was wrong because they have been advised that they're um that the installations were not per state law. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have anyone else?

Briano. Yes. Um, you're looking to hire a city manager. I would say, you know, um, I I would hope Cameron Begby would be one of your finalist. Um, I think he's ran a good business. He's got a good reputation in the community. Um, I think he's worked hard for the city and um, I know before he came there was a lot of issues and I think he's been working really hard trying to repair them and um, just kind of saying I think he'd probably do a very good job and also he's a local person and I see it in the county sometimes you you hire Superman from Mars and you know they're 8 feet tall and they run a 100 yard dice in 7 seconds and you know they're They're like this terminator, but it's like you look like, well, is a terminator gonna stay in Amler County or in the city of Plymouth when they get a little little higher offer somewhere else? The answer is no. They leave and then you got to try to find somebody else. If you get a local person, you're paying them a good salary, they're happy, and a lot of times they'll you'll have them as an employee for 10 or 20 years, and they do a very good job. So, that's all I had to say. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Do we have anyone else saying uh hearing no one, I'm going to go ahead and close close public comment at this time and we will be moving into close session. Yeah, thank you. Um any public comment on close session? Public employee appointment city manager Seeing and hearing nothing, I'm going to close public comment on the city manager public employee appointment. And at this time, we will go into close session and at 7-Eleven be reporting out when we are finished.

Okay. So, the council had discussions in close session over the appointment of a permanent city manager and the council has voted unanimously to offer permanent position to the interim city manager Cameron Begby and to start into contract negotiations with him. At this time, we're gonna end this meeting limit city council at 7:42 p.m. February 5th. Meeting adjourned.