City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. Thank you for being here for the Plymouth City Council meeting of February 26, 6:30 p.m. I can get a roll call. Council member Bottomley absent. Council member Cranford here. Council member Dell here. Vice Mayor Hornish here. Mayor Nun here. Thank you. We have a quorum.

Everyone stand for the pledge of allegiance, please. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for its one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. On approval. Well, First off, anybody have anything they want to pull or I just uh I don't want to change anything on the agenda, but I want to say I'm on call for work tonight, so my phone is on, so on the off chance it goes off. I apologize in advance. Okay, anyone else? I think we all understand. All right, I want to pull item 10.1. Which item? Pull it out for tonight. Why

you want to postpone? I would like to postpone it. What do we do? Do we have to vote on that? If you guys don't want to discuss it tonight, that's up to all of you to decide. Yes. Wouldn't be my recommendation. I think it'd be a good idea. I mean, can you give more clarification so we can make an educated decision? Do that later. Huh? I think we can do that later. If you pull 10 1.1, we're can't talk about it. Exactly.

Well, I made my statement be to discuss it in close session, but up to you. I made my statement. I like pull the damn item.

Okay, let's pull it. I mean, I'm here to support my fellow council members. You need all of us to say what we want to do or vote. I don't know what we're supposed to do. If there's consensus to not discuss that tonight, we don't have to discuss it tonight. That's fine. wants to pull it.

Before we move forward, I just want to say we're not going to be able to discuss why you're pulling it. Right. I understand that. Okay. Okay. So approval of city council regular meeting agenda February 6 26 2026 with the amendment 10.1 the regular minutes of today with the amendment uh the agenda excuse me

I'll second the motion Council member Cranford. Hi, Council Member Dell. I Vice Mayor Hornish. Hi. Mayor Nun I. Thank you. Motion passes. At this time, we're going to open this up for regular meeting public comment. Robert, longtime resident.

So, I got a few items. So, one is the road signs down here that saying Bush or Empire is not uh to the casino. The other night they had red and blue flashing lights. That's illegal. Those are only meant to be on emergency vehicles, law enforcement, not on roadway signs. Also very distracting. They are. And that's what the issue is. They cause they cause that distraction. But they're not supposed to be on on roadway signs. I don't think they're turned on anymore. Just so you know. The ones at Bush Street. I I'm telling

I came back up there from today. So, but the other night they were on flashlight. Yeah, they were I got I did get flashlight this morning. I mean tonight coming here. So, I I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know if they're turned off or not, but you you can't have them on on that signs. Second one is, are we for sure the casino that they're hydrants? They're not connected to any of our water systems. Correct. Well, the reason I asked is because they have a hydrant up on top up there that is hooked up to nonpotable water that will be crosscontamination for the city if they are tied in to our lines. Wait a minute. What do you what do you clarify that more with the the hydrant that they move

every all their irrigation is purple which means is nonpottable water and it's tied into a hydrant. So non-pottable should be on a different line but we'll ask Chief to address that as she knows if if the hydrant is theirs and and it's off of their system. Yes. Yeah. Tied into ours down below the road there. there's a crosscontamination going on. I understand that if uh I don't believe that's going on, but I'm ask Chief if he knows. Just asking. And we can look into it. Non-potable lines are generally never tied to portable lines. Well, it's kind of a [ __ ] Non-potables are generally tied to a sewer system for

irrigation. The valve and everything coming up and out of the ground and tied into the fire hydrant. I haven't seen a valve like that. I'm not aware of it. I'll go and look, but it's all purple, which is Oh, you're talking up on their hydrant, not ours. Their hydrant up on top, which, you know, 100 yards down the road is our hydrant. Yeah, I I understand. As long as those aren't on the same line, everything's fine. And we'll ask the chief to address that or or we'll call the tribe and address it with them. Am I saying on the casino property up top there when we go into the entrance? It's all their system, a loop system all tied to there. So, it doesn't doesn't attach to the city. That's my understand.

And then my last one is the sweet pea trucks. Boy, they come off that stop sign and I I spoke with um 20 and 30. Yeah, I spoke with most the other day and we we we uh they it should have been addressed immediately by our public works superintendent, but if something continues, please let me know. Thank you for bringing stuff like that to our attention. Rosemary, come on up.

Rosemary Marino, Moody, Plymouth. Um, sweet pea, it happened twice today. Truck number 30. So, and yesterday, too. Truck number 30. after you told me to check for a truck number. Had to run out of my house. I barely got it, but I got it. And he was up trimming a tree and he saw it today. He calls me on the phone. It's truck 30. Tell Cameron. So anyway, thank thank you for that. Thank you.

Um I have um a concern about the corner of Locust and Empire Street. The hole in the pavement is getting bigger and bigger. there potential issues there. I see it every morning when I walk and it just seems like it's getting bigger. So hopefully someone's addressing that. Um and the last thing has you got any response? Have you reached out to Calrans on the walking path with the accumulation of water? Um have we heard anything from them? Are they going to fix it? Is this something I've got to live with for forever since I walk that path every day?

I'm hoping not. It's being escalated through Cal Tren right now because I didn't get the I didn't get a satisfactory answer at the lower level. Yeah, because even today it was still flooded. So, we're So, we're actually walking along the guard rail um to get around there because even to to try to jump over the guard rail, it's just wet all the way up that whole path. So, it's irritating. I've had to deal with it, too. Yeah. Thank you,

Stephanie Marino online. Hi, thank you, Stephanie Moreno. I just want to make sure you all receive my public comment that I submitted in writing um earlier today regarding um the possibility of the city applying for $10,000 in park grants and the poll that we took um to gauge some public interest. Thank you. Thank you. We do have it. And can I make a comment? Thank you so much, Stephanie, for bringing something like this to our attention. really appreciate that. Okay. Anyone else? Public comment, sir.

Yeah, we need you to push the red button and and turn the microphone. So, yeah, thank you about that. And you got to get pretty close, do you?

About that. Um, this is just moreformational. I happen to be president of the Burke Ranch Property Owners Association just off of Burke Ranch. Um, as of recent, um, perhaps a coincidence, but we have had two sheriff calls and some transit activity outside of our mailboxes. I've had to confront one of such um, whom was out of gas. Then I had to give her a jump. And I'll tell you folks, I hate to use the word, but very um physically alarming, if you will. Um, so I just wanted to inform the board. I know the sheriffs have been called out twice, so they responded, but unfortunately they've missed these individuals each time. But, uh, I just wanted to give you a heads up what we're facing. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else for public comment? Seeing and hearing none, we're going to move on. Um item 4.1, presentation by the Amar Fire District. While Jacob's getting that set up, if I could, I'd like to get through these slides. We have a real short video at the end. Once all that's concluded, then we'll certainly open it up for questions or comments or concerns. But I'd like to just roll through this if everybody's agreeable. And for those of you that don't know me, my name is Rob Wro. I'm the fire chief for the Amidor Fire Protection District. And I thought tonight it would be good for us to go through Are we good, Jacob? For us to go through what it is we provide for the city of Plymouth. And my clicker is not working, of course. You have any like willing talk?

No. I think there's an issue with the Zoom, right, Jacob? Where it'll mess that up?

Am I good now? There we go. So, the objective tonight is to give you a broad overview of the services being provided to the city of Plymouth. Give you a simple breakdown of what those cost, what you pay, what Amodore Fire pays with respect to station 122 and what we provide here. want to discuss the mutual benefits of this agreement and then just I just want to reiterate or reiterate rather how important I think this partnership is for the city. I believe you're going to see that the conclusion of this that this gives you the ability to provide a fully staffed fire department here in Plymouth for a for a pretty low cost relatively speaking. I've been in the fire service for 35 years. I have a beautiful wife, but the photo with my wife and I and my daughter, I don't care for the way I look. So, I voted for this photo. Uh, in any case, been doing this for 35 years. 25 of those years I was with Calire and I rose through the ranks from firefighter to division chief.

Um, yeah.

And then, uh, have all the qualifications that come along with, uh, being in the fire service that long. The mission of Amodore Fire is not unlike a lot of fire departments. We protect life and property. We take that very, very serious. Our vision is to not only protect life and property, but to be leaders in emergency response. And I just want to point something out. In this particular photo, you'll notice that gentleman to the left of Sergeant Girtton there in the yellow jacket. That's one of our battalion chiefs. This is during the Tiger Fire, which we had last summer. That's Aaron Watkins. Aaron Watkins was selected to serve as the operation section chief on the Tiger incident. That's a big deal. That's a big vote of confidence for our organization. That's a testament to Chief Watkins. The reason I point that out is when I talk about our vision, it's not just words on paper. It's something we try to demonstrate and we try to live. Our values are pride, accountability, and respect. I think all of those rest on my shoulders. I take a lot of pride in this organization. I want to have an organization that we can all be proud of, including the city of Primouth. Accountability comes down to me holding myself accountable, holding our members accountable, being transparent with the community, and finally being respectful. I always always preach that we're humble. We're confident, but we're humble confidence, right? Not arrogant, not untouchable. If the community needs something and we can produce it, we're going to do that. We're here to be public servants first and foremost. As some of you know, we were formed in 1990. We were organized as what's known as a dependent special district. That seems to confuse people sometimes, and quite frankly, before I got involved here as fire chief, I wasn't real clear on it. But there's actually a lot of benefits to that. As being a the fact that we're a dependent special district, one of the components of that is we share a governing board with another another uh form of government, if you will. In our

case, it's the board of supervisors. This form of governance provides a lot of oversight, a lot of transparency. It'd be really, really hard for me to hide money or spend money inappropriately because it goes through so many different hands. I have to present a balanced budget every year. If I'm going to touch reserves or, you know, anything we do goes through our board, the auditor, those are all elected positions. They're like you, they're all dyed. Uh, so I've learned it's actually a really good system. Does it have there's pros and cons to it? of cursor is just like anything else. But I think the biggest pro is the amount of oversight that comes from that form of governance. Here's a list of our predecessor agencies. These were all the or not, this didn't all happen at once. Lockwood is the last one to join Amodore Fire. We merged that district into us. I don't know now, maybe two years ago, something like that. I show you this side just to slide just to show respect for our predecessor agencies, but I also want to say this. I'm not a believer that bigger is always better. You know, you always hear comments like, "Well, the whole county should be one fire department." That'll probably maybe happen someday just out of necessity. But if I'm being honest, that's not always the best answer. I think there's a lot to be said for local control, you know, smaller organizations. The challenge becomes the whole economy of scale being part of something much larger. And I think Plymouth uh will demonstrate is a good example of that. We have nine fire stations districtwide. Uh station 122 is here in Plymouth. 121 is in Willow Springs. Those are both staffed fire stations. Then 123 is in Fiddletown. We do have plans to start staffing that station as well in the near future. Um I don't have a set date yet, but we are planning to do that. All that area shaded in blue is our jurisdiction. We organize the district. We follow a

chain of command. There's several reasons for that, but these are three of the big ones. The first one is unity of command. For any organization to be successful or be effective, everybody needs to have one boss, right? We can't have multiple bosses. Um when we start doing that, things break down. So we follow that. We stick true to that fundamental in our chain of command. And then next one is span of control. It's just like it sounds. How many people can one person effectively supervise? And then finally, all of this provides for effective communications up and down the chain. Here's what that looks like on paper. Those colored columns on the left, the red, the blue, and the green, those are shifts. Um, only one of those is on duty at any one time. You'll notice in Amodore Fire, we don't have assistant chiefs or deputy chiefs or any of those things. It's me and three shift battalion chiefs. The reason we we organize the district that way is we want our money, our resources to go to people on fire engines, not a big topheavy administration, right? Certainly, we have to have some administration and you'll see that on the right, but for the most part, every dime we get goes to serve in the community and I'm a huge believer in that. We staff seven engine companies every day, 24 hours a day. We have a battalion chief on duty. Battalion Chief is backed up by what we call a duty chief. Most of the time that's me as fire chief. Should I leave town, one of the battalion chiefs will fill that role for me. Um, we have a prevention officer, our public information officer, fleet manager. Our fleet manager works full-time station 115. Serves dual function, if you will. First and foremost, manages our fleet. Mechanic, keeps our stuff on the road. And secondarily to that, he staffs our our water tender 5190, which is a 4500gallon water tender. Super valuable resource. And then certainly last but not least is

our volunteer personnel and our career personnel that come in off duty and they're available for additional staffing. An example of additional staffing would be your Fourth of July event here in Plymouth. We don't we don't pay a ton of overtime for that. We bring in our volunteers. We staff up additional companies and we make sure we're prepared so you guys can have a good safe event. And that all comes at zero extra cost to the city because of those people willing to volunteer their time, which I think is wonderful. We'll talk about that. I'm a huge believer in the volunteer fire service. I do believe it's alive and well. You'll hear a lot of fire chiefs say, "Well, it's getting harder and harder to get volunteers." And there's certainly some truth to that, but I believe it comes down to leadership and the commitment of that leadership. It's a lot of work to maintain an effective uh volunteer program. An example of that is I personally need to be at training nights, right? I'm asking people to volunteer their time. They're working full-time. They're busy. So, I can't tell them, "Hey man, I worked all day. I'm busy. I won't be at drill tonight." I can't do that. um you know, they've got needs like any other member of an organization and you got to take those serious, right? We don't treat our volunteers as if they're not as valuable as any other member of the organization. We all have a very important role to play. I'm careful who I let volunteer, and it sounds kind of rude. I don't mean it to, but we we adhere to what I call the no a-hole rule. You're either here to be a public servant, you're here to be part of the team, you know, part of the amor fire family, or we don't have a spot for you. That old adage, you know, one bad apple ruins the whole bunch. And unfortunately, that's true. So that's something we have to keep an eye on. And then last but not least, we don't want to waste their time, right? Everybody's time is our most valuable resource. No question about it. So if we're going to ask you to come to training on a Wednesday night, training is going to be

organized. It's going to be taught by somebody that's credible in that skill set. And we're going to make sure we get you in, we have a good time. We have a little time to fellowship, have some fun, learn something new, and then we get you out of here and get you on your way. So, big big believer in that. We have no problem recruiting volunteers. I would say probably every week I have at least two or three come in the door and want to volunteer for us. And for the most part, we bring them on. Every once in a while, they don't they don't fit the bill. Here's a quick snapshot of our apparatus inventory. We have 15 engines. We just purchased a ladder truck. Uh we have on order a brand new uh 65- ft aerial from Rosenbower. It'll be here at the end of the year. We just purchased a used aerial that um we're going to put in service here pretty quick, too. But beyond that, that's our fleet. 15 engines, five water tenders, four specialty vehicles, and then seven command staff vehicles. We that is not our fleet manager, but that's the fleet manager's boss right there. And uh we just brought that on. That's a new addition to Amodore Fire. Having a full-time mechanic has been just a gamecher for us. Right off the top, we cut we have about a $200,000 maintenance budget. We cut 50,000 off of that right off the top. And quite frankly, we can probably cut a little more off of that budget next year just because we brought all that work inhouse. We're very very lucky. Um Chad is not only a an incredible mechanic, but he's passionate about he lives for it. The man literally is turning wrenches uh every single day. Can do anything. I joke we just did our our uh season our season 2 episode one podcast and I I referred to Chad as like a Swiss Army knife and that's the truth. He can do just about anything. He can fabricate, paint, wrench, you know, he

understands it. We just purchased three new command vehicles, Ford F-150s. There's tremendous cost that comes with outfitting those with a light bar and radios. It to be frank, it's absurd what companies charge to do that. They're they're truly they're gouging government agencies doing that. We kept all that inhouse. Took a little longer. It's one person doing the work for three vehicles, but we got that done at a very, very low cost and excellent quality. We just converted one of our squads to a type six engine. All that was done in-house at a much reduced cost. We run a little over 4,500 calls a year. The vast majority of those of course are medical related. We have a organized training program I'm very proud of. We put a lot of time and effort uh into that. For 2025 we did almost 15,000 hours of training. Every year we develop an actual training plan for the district. We send out what's called a training needs assessment to all of our members and we ask them what classes do you need and why do you need it? Is this career development? Is it you know required or is this something you want? Based on that feedback we get we develop our training calendar. Again trying to keep as much as we can inhouse save cost and it works very very well. All of our career members are required to be an EMT and firefighter one, which is kind of the minimum. And then on top of that, they attend an 8-week recruit academy. We host that here in Plymouth out of station 122. And they learn, they're firefighters, they've got the basics, we respect all of that, but they're coming here to learn how it's going to work in Amodore County. Uh how to operate on a twoperson engine company, how to use our hose loads, our ladders, our buildings. so on and so forth. You'll see them here in a few

weeks uh running around town in the morning. Here's some examples of our training. Um we have the chart on the left is our formal classes. We offer a lot of the the typical stuff that most fire departments offer. Sometimes we'll throw kind of a crazy Iman in there. This year we're doing off-road uh vehicle operations for fire apparatus. So everything from how to chain the rigs up to how to drive operate them in four-wheel drive, etc. And then we do less formal training like multi-comp drills. Every month every company in the district has to come together and meet that objective. So you can see for 2025 it was water supply in January and so on and so forth from there. Here's an example of our monthly calendars. Um the one on the right is what our staff companies do. The one on the left is our volunteer drill night. Our volunteer drill night, we use our needs assessment for that too. But we also have an annual meeting at the beginning of the year. We just kind of have a an informal dinner meeting and I just pull the group. What do you guys want to work on this year? What are we looking at? Where are we struggling? And that's how we build these quarterly schedules. I'm huge on community outreach. You know, no offense to anybody or any organization, but I think government is um just not serious about being transparent or customer service. Sometimes we don't want to ever operate that way. We are accessible. You have an event, a birthday party, whatever it is. If we can do it, it's legal and legit, we can do it, we're going to do it. And we're very, very committed to that. We participated in over 300 community events this last year. And this 2026 is shaping up to be even busier. I wanted to talk a little bit about our medical response. We have EMTs on all of our engines that operate at the expanded scope level. The thing examples of that is the CPAP, the EPI, we're doing drop

Ethium instead of EpiPens. We can administer Narcan and then the IEL advanced airway device that we utilize. Something unique to Amler Fire is we have a CQI program, continued quality improvement focused on our EMS. We're the only district in the county that actually has a medical doctor as our director. Frankly, when I first got here, I was kind of leerary of that. Do we really need a doctor? But it turns out we do. It's very, very helpful. And I want to keep pushing the envelope with respect to the skills we can the the services we can provide under expanded scope. So we adopted back in 2024 a CQI program where we identify certain call types and those get evaluated by our CQI committee. How did they go? What were the outcomes? Did we follow the protocol? Are there things we can do to improve so on and so forth and Dr. Sloan oversees that. He's an emergency physician with Kaiser and he does it uh he helps us out for very very little cost. So I'm very proud of that. We've seen a marked improvement in our EMS service delivery since implementing that. Our prevention officer, here's the workload specific to Plymouth. All any building construction plan review is done by the prevention bureau. The fire and life safety inspections, special event stuff, you know, you guys have little popup things or Airbnbs and so on and so forth. Prevention officer handles that. all your code enforcement, the home sale AB38 inspections, defensible space, any investigations that may need to occur, and of course, the good old debris burns. So, how much does all of this cost the city of Plymouth? So, that top number, that $751,000 is what it costs Amadore Fire to staff engine 5221 down there 24 hours a day with two people. That's just the cost

for that fire engine. That doesn't include any other costs for chief officers, prevention, training, our volunteer program. There's there's a volunteer programs aren't free, unfortunately. There's workers comp, there's safety gear, so on and so forth. So, of that 751,000, the city pays approximately 237,000. The reason I say approximately is the measurem number changes year to year based on different different um thresholds if you will. I broke that 237 down into three different categories. The direct cost that comes right out of your guys's budget is the $69,000 for our benefit assessment. The rest of those costs are more indirect in the sense that it's your portion of the sales tax for measure M and your portion that $8,000 is your portion of Prop 172. So just the staffing of the engine leaves a difference of $513,000 of which Amodore Fire pays that. On top of that, we pay the utility bills and we pay for some of the repairs. We kind of work with you on some of the repairs and maintenance to station 122. That's a quick snapshot of of what we've done, what we're doing. I want to talk about a little bit about what we're focusing on moving forward. First thing is our branding. Um branding, I think at first blush, you think that's just name recognition. That's not what it is. We're talking about, yeah, we want you to recognize who Amter Fire is, but we also want to have a good reputation. We want people to look at us like, hey, that's my fire department. They care about me. they're going to do the best they can for us. Second is our culture. Culture is probably a little less obvious. What I'm talking about there is what are we willing to tolerate? Are we going to tolerate a bunch of lazy people with bad attitudes or do we set a standard that hey, we want trained professionals that are ready to go to

work and ready to perform when the bell rings. And then finally is our team. Our team is who do we want to bring into this mix? I talked about the no a-hole rule with our volunteers. That applies across the board for any position. You've got to be here because you care about the community. You understand you're a public servant. You embrace service above self. All those things sound corny and cheap and like government talk, but we live that. I believe that. That's what that's what um gets me up in the morning is I want to be a good public servant. I want our organization to be a good service-based organization that takes care of the public and that's who we're going to bring on for our team. Lastly, I want to just kind of have something to kind of wrap this all up. That's our year-end video. It's three or four minutes long. Once that concludes, I'll come back up and be happy to answer any questions. Amodore Fire Protection District says he's going to hold down say an RV caught fire. We spoke with Kayla Dale from Amodore Fire

sent us these videos of a home on fire last evening. With more on the story, Amidor Fire Protection District Chief Rob Wro. without the vote. Do youare you down the Sunday you I'll see you and we down. way down.

Ryan, thank you for being patient. Let me work through all that. Be happy to answer any questions you might have. That's a hell of a video. Very well done. Good deal. Good job. Uh, I I don't have a question. I just have a comment. First, thanks so much for all your guys' service and everything that you're doing. Sure. Thank you.

Second, I'm feeling like this is a little bit of a setup for asking for more money. And uh third, just really appreciate everything you guys do here and and being part of our community past just what you do, taking care of people and protecting people, but all the things you come to and events I see you at and your family and stuff.

You bet. Thank you. We're honored to be your fire department. We want to do a good job for you. If we're not, tell us. We'll fix it. And I want to say this. Yeah, that's a hell of a deal for Plymouth, but it's also a hell of a deal for us. It gives us an engine here in the north end of the county. We can cover those areas around Plymouth. So, it's mutually beneficial in that respect. And otherwise, we just like being part of the program over here. I love Plymouth. I'm at the station all the time because I love it so much. So, we're honored to be here. I appreciate all the kind words, but uh we do take it serious and I and I mean it. If we're missing the mark, tell us. We'll fix it. All right. So chief, could you tell me

how many calls both code two code three combined do you run out of station 122 in a year? Do you know that off top of your head? Ballpark. You don't have to have it down there. 400 maybe. 167 in the city limits. 167 calls. Yeah. 167. Yeah. So out of the station though covers the whole north county. So basically down the Sacramento line and not anymore river pines we're staffing 121 and then of course we'll be staffing 12 but historically sure I don't know what that number is but sure I was I'm going to guess around 400 total something like that so it's gone down a little bit actually seems like we used to run 400

guess so do we still have all the responses going into Delorado County that we used to have no I shut that down okay we'll go there when it's needed but they were sending us that wasn't being reciprocated ated. We weren't always the closest to stuff we were going to and it was it was mutual aid is just that it's mutually beneficial and that that wasn't unfortunately. Certainly we'll go help them if they need our help but yeah I noticed that when I was there years ago that wasn't mutual. Yeah. Yeah. Um well I you know I'd reiterate what the other is saying and you do a wonderful job for Plymouth. We appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. We're proud. Understand that we get a good deal.

All right. And uh so um I still have never made it down to check out the station after all the work was done. I'm hoping to one of these days I'll walk down there. I'm 500 feet away yet I don't get over there. Um but it is looking good. It is. It's beautiful. Very very grateful for that. Appreciate the city stepping up and doing all that work. It's made it a lot more comfortable for the troops and uh we love it. Do you see long term? Do you see that station working out or is there going to need to be expansion on it or we used to have three pieces of equipment in there. I notice that you still have two, but I don't look in the side very side.

Yeah, this side got converted to a gym. There's a there's kind of a balance there. You know, I I struggle with that sometimes, but at the same time, we want our folks in shape and it's got to be healthy for them, too. But I would say the only limitation there maybe is adding another bay. But I but frankly I do I think that station will serve us well for a long time. The fact that 121's so close by that's three bays there. Um you know Fiddle Town's not too far away. That's three bays. So I think we're okay here for a good long time in that fire station. Yeah, for sure. That's good to know. One other thing I noticed I watched your meeting um what was it in January or whatever? Our board meeting.

Yeah. I was looking through that and I noticed that on strategic plan you had the city listed as the Amadore Fire District and that's not exactly accurate. What do you I'm not sure. What do you mean? Well, it was when I was looking at it had the city listed which some people might misunderstand that the city contracts to you. The city's not actually Amodore Fire District. It operates on a contract. Yeah. So, you're saying that wasn't called out? Yeah, it showed it as to my understanding and maybe I was misunderstanding on here is from our strategic plan. Yeah. It shows the city as a separate color. Okay. When I was reading it, it just looked like that. So, I was just wondering because a bit of a misunderstanding for some people. Sure.

That we do contract for your service. Yeah. But just so you know, we treat it like it's our own. Yeah. I know you do. You do wonderful for us. I was just pointing that out that some people might misunderstand that the city actually had a fire department. Now we just contract those services just kind of like what we do with the sheriff's office. Sure. Okay. I certainly understand that. Yeah. Well, I know you understand it. I for some people might not understand. Sure. So, I appreciate it. You're doing a wonderful job. You guys are always on it. Thank you. Um, I like, you know, been a lot of improvements uh in the years since I've, you know, in the time I've left and uh, looks good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other questions?

Okay. Thank you guys very much.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. All right. So, we're going to move on a 5.1 correspondence. We do have correspondence here from Stephanie Marino regarding the grant. Have we put in for that grant? Are we putting in for that grant? Oh. Oh, I'm sorry. Go to the consent calendar. Um, on the consent calendar, approval of consent calendar. I just wanted to bring up we had a correspondence. Um, approval of the consent calendar. Oh, comment on the consent calendar. Seeing hearing none. Get a motion. Make a motion to approve the uh consent calendar.

Second. We do. Council member Cranford. I, Council Member Dell. I, Vice Mayor Hornish, Mayor Nun, I.

Thank you. Motion passes. Okay. Item six, public hearings. We have none. Item 7.1 accept the city of Plymouth Community Facility District's ditch repair project. City manager Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, the contractor, Phase One Construction, which was hired to uh complete the work in Simdale Ridge, has completed all contract terms of work for the project. All work has been completed in a substantial compliance with the plans, specifications, and codes and standards of the city. Um, project cost. Uh the original contract was for $46,333 or 33 yeah correct $46,330. Um there was one change order um that had to take place that was approved um by CFD at their request and it was for an additional $1,800 for a total of $48,130. The recommendation is to adopt resolution 2026 TAC02 accepting the work on the project and authorizing the city the city mayor to execute the notice of completion and cause it to be filed with the Amber County Recorders Office.

Thank you. At this time we'll open up for public comment item 7.1. Anyone for public comment? Look like we have Stephanie Marino online.

Thank you, Stephanie Moreno. Um, uh, a couple of things. One, regarding the change order, um, it's not included in the packet, so I'd like to know what the change order was for. Um, also, um, the city manager just said it was approved by the CFD. You are the CFD. you are the board of the CFD, so I'm I'm um confused as to who approved the change order. Um and then I'd like to know who inspected the work to ensure it was completed as bid, if that was a city engineer, if it was some other city staff member, uh who it was and what constituted the inspection. What did they do to inspect that all the work had been done? And then the um final thing is that I understand there was a problem with at least one homeowner that lived out there with their personal property being removed um without permission. Um and I understand that's been resolved, but I wonder if the I'll wait till you're through talking so can all hear me.

We can hear you. Go ahead. Okay. Um I I'm wondering if all of the residents out there were noticed that you were planning on closing out this project so they had adequate time to submit any concerns before you close it. Um it seems to me that um it's it's uh CFD money is being used that you should make sure that everybody out there is content with the work and has had an opportunity to submit questions if or concerns if they have them. Thank you. Yep. Can All right. Thank you. I was going to ask uh discussion in the back. Can we move it out side? No.

Thank you. Uh, anyone else public comment on this matter? Hearing none council discussion on it at all. I am also curious as to um what the change order was for what. Uh, so the change order was in response to um, as Miss Marino stated, somebody's somebody had put down rock um in the ditch. That rock based on the plans that CFD approved was removed. The homeowner wanted to put back, so the HOA and CFD decided to place it back. That was the additional cost. Um it was uh looked at by the engineers, the HOA, CFD, and we ultimately went ahead and went on with it because it would be a lot more expensive to wait for a council meeting um and bring all the equipment back out and all that stuff. It was something that had to be done on site while we had them. Um and our city engineers who uh are the ones that inspected it. So,

is this the same contract that we uh didn't grant to Shannonoa excavating because it was $69 difference and now here we are at $1,800 more. Imagine that. Yeah, that's correct, ma'am.

No further question. Bet Jamie and Ron would have done it for free. there were anything? Nothing. No. Okay. Um All right. So, do we need to take a vote to approve this? Yeah, we're looking for a vote on the resolution that's finished. Anyone?

Yeah. I'll motion to to accept the city of Plymouth uh community facilities district ditch repair. What what is it called? I lost my page. I was flustered. Uh thank you. Yes. Accept the city of Plymouth Community Facilities District 2016-1 Zinfendal Services District Ditch Repair Project. What Hogar said, I lost my paper. Sorry. By approving resolution 26-02. Yep. that. I'll second. Council member Cranford. I. Council member Dell. I. Vice Mayor Hornish. Hi. Mayor Nun. Hi. Thank you. Motion passes.

All right. On to item 7.2. Approve the first reading introduction of an ordinance adopting a procurement policy. City Council 45. City Manager.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Government code sections 54201 through 54204 require local agencies including cities to adopt policies and procedures including bidding regulations governing the purchase of supplies, equipment and services. The city requires materials, supplies, equipment and services to carry out its mission and provide services to the public. To ensure that public funds are expended responsibly and in compliance with applicable law, the city has prepared a comprehensive procurement policy entitled procurement policy CC TAC45. The procurement policy will establish efficient pol efficient policies and procedures for the procurement of public works projects, general services, professional services, maintenance services and materials, supplies and equipment at the lowest possible cost. Commenserate with quality and need. Such policies and procedures shall clearly define authority for the purchasing function and shall ensure compliance with all applicable laws in a professional and ethical manner. The procurement policy applies to all city departments, officials, employees, and others participating in the city procurement activities. Plymouth City Council previously considered resolution 2023 TAC 40 on October 12th, 2023, opting the city into the California Uniform Public Construction Costa County Act governing the procurement of public works projects. This policy effectuates the adoption of that resolution and the requirements of the act. The policy includes a local business preference for goods, supplies, equipment, and non-professional services excluding public works providing a 3% differential to qualified local vendors consistent with applicable law. The fiscal impact the approval of this ordinance adopting a procurement policy will not result in any additional fiscal impacts to the city as it is intended to standardize the city's procurement process. And attached is the ordinance 2026 TAC02 procurement policy CC45

and resolution 23 or excuse me 2023 TAC 40. Thank you. At this time, do we have anyone for public comment? Stephanie Mario.

Thank you. Um I I I'm hoping that you'll grant me a little bit more than the three minutes because I found a number of errors in there. Um if not that that's okay too. But I will first suggest that um this policy is not yet ready for adoption. There are significant issues with it. Um the biggest one of which it does not accomplish what you said you wanted to accomplish which was to offer local biders preference for um local biders like the one that um council member Cranford just mentioned mentioned and while it's true that public works projects cannot have a geographical local pre preference they can have other kinds of local preference such as for small businesses which most of the emitter county businesses do fall in that category. So I would say that the first major issue is that it did not accomplish the purpose that you intended it and that is to provide a way for local contractors to have a better chance of competing against the out of town consulting and contracting firms among some of the other. It it really looks like someone cut and pasted uh different policies together without ensuring internal consistency um uh and removing redundancies. Um some of the definitions are in the definitions section three. Some of the definitions are in the policy itself and are not listed in definitions. Um the they have there there's a a gap here where they allow a department head to expend 50,000 or less um on their own in the event of an emergency and they do not have to bring that to the city council for approval later. Um normally the the city manager has 25,000 and has to bring it to the city council afterwards. So, there's a little bit of a gap there as to why you would allow a

department had to spend $50,000 and not have that reported to city council. Um, under soul source standardization purchase, um um that that looks like um um it it needs to be flushed out a little bit better to meet legal review. I think um the there's a discussion of doing RFQS in advance of RFPs and the purpose of which is to make make sure there's fewer responses to the bid which does make no sense to me that you would want more bids in order to be more competitive. Um, so that that in itself seems to be for the purposes of making it easy for staff rather than the purposes of making sure the city's spending money wisely. Um, it has a very strange definitions for when RFQ would be used that I I'm not familiar with those being used. Um it does not it it talks about shall award the contracts to the highest ranked proposers and doesn't work the local bid preference for non-public works supplies into the language. It puts it separately. Um it requires only a public notice for RFPs um uh which the city traditionally puts at the post office um and sometimes on its website. But then it has something called an invitation to bid which requires a newspaper article. And I don't even know what invitation to bid is as different from an RFQ. And that's where I think that different terms are used in here um coming from different places. Um it allows informal solicitations up to $25,000. Um, and but then also talks about purchases up to $250,000 under the informal

solicitation section. I don't know if that's a typo. Uh, it it says that um the city does not require competitive solicitation for procurement of professional services. Um, when prudent, the city will use the RFP process. Um, and then and professional services are like planners and building people and engineers. And it seems to me that those are areas that you want to make sure that you're showing the public that you did a good job of getting the best price and you're not just you don't have, you know, the good old boy um network in action. Um and and then it goes through a whole section of informal bidding up to 220,000 which is highly unusual for an entity of this size. Um and then one of the other major issues is that the law allows you to go up to 7% for local biders and they've chosen 3%. Most of the other cities that have it in Amodore City and surrounding areas are between four and five and those were adopted before the law went up to seven. I have no idea why staff would choose such a low percentage for local biders when they can go up to 7%. So I'd like to encourage the the council to um you know obviously provide your comments after your review, but to not adopt tonight to give time for this to be repackaged. Oh, one final thing. Um, it says that the Oh, two final things. Sorry. Exhibit A, the policy is a reference to the to the ordinance, but the city does not put its ordinances online. So, it hi it will hide the policy so nobody can see what the policy is on the website if they do this as an exhibit rather than adopting it as an ordinance in its entirety. And number uh the other thing is that um the federal

federal grants you cannot use a local bidder's preference for federal grants and that's not called out in here leaving the policy to have a little bit of risk to the city. Thank you for your indulgence in letting me make Thank you Stephanie. Anyone else? Okay. No one else for public comment. We're close this. go to council discussion. Uh Wendy, you want to start?

Yeah. Um I actually have the same concern Stephanie. Well, there she shared a lot of concerns, but um the 50,000 or less for the department head, we don't really have that kind of cash hanging around.

So, um I am actually a little concerned about that too cuz uh then the city manager has 50,000 to $100,000 authority. Um, and then it says 100,000 or more city manager upon city attorney or mayor. So I uh would agree that this is concerning. Um, I know that's emergency, but what constitutes an emergency, I guess, would be my question. Does that mean if OES is called in, does that mean I guess some clarification around that would be good. Um, I'm not currently worried about our department heads or city managers, but we put stuff in place for the foreseeable future in case there's people that we do have to be concerned about. Um, and then the I was unaware of the 7% law that she just brought up. Do you have any clarification on that?

3% is what my public works people are telling me is defensible. There's different amounts in different parts of the state. What do you mean by defensible? As a preference that you can adjust, an amount you can adjust by. In places where there's higher local taxes, more money is seen as lost to local sales taxes if you go with somebody outside of your area. I was informed by my public works experts that 3% would be appropriate for this area. Well, that would be an opinion of theirs, but what is the law for what we could get to? I can go back to them and ask them for clarification on that.

Yeah, because we want law, not opinion of a person of a person. Well, I I'm just wondering why there's differentiation between the percentages, I guess, is that's why I'm asking. So, let me make sure percentages have been struck down by courts as not being appropriate under the public contracting code. So, in other words, public purchase, let me run a scenario. ABC Construction who is out of Plymouth applies for something for one of our projects. We have this 7% deal say in our policy. Another construction company comes from out of Sacramento. They both put bids in.

So just to be clear for public works projects when you're talking about construction that's expressly prohibited. The local I know I'm not talking about public works. I'm talking about like the project we just did. I'm just trying not to use any specific names of any current local people. It's just when you're talking about construction like the prior project that wasn't a public works project. That was a public works project. I thought that that was outside of the scope. So because the home what we did on the park

the that utility act that that was adopted years ago allowed us to would have allowed us to go the other route if we wanted to. The local preference can apply to that project but the act would have allowed us to we found out afterwards go with the other company. So the the city had opted to go through this uniform cost accounting procedure act a few years back but never fully implemented it. That's part of what's necessary to do that is adopting a policy. Okay, that had never been done. We found a draft policy on the on the city system. We started with that but that had never been brought forward. I'm shocked by prior administrations. So part of the cleanup that we're doing now,

is to do that, to implement that, give the city a little bit more latitude in how it procures public contracts, okay, for up to larger amounts. That's why you're seeing much larger amounts for public works projects than you would have perhaps previously thought possible. But the dollar amounts that are in there for public works projects are tied directly back to that Uniform Cost accounting act, which does not allow us to give local preference. No, but it does allow you to do informal solicit informal bids up to a much higher amount.

Okay. So, when we're talking about the giving local preference that only applies to what? I don't know. For example, I'll use Lava Dog if that's all right. If we were to come do a CPR class for the city and it was going to cost a certain amount of money and you got other bids, that 3% would go towards Lava Dog being here locally versus a county somewhere outside the area. So if your bid was 3% higher, I would get 3%. You would get the bid because correct, you're local.

The state the state in some instances for veterans and small businesses does 5%. um but they have a little bit more money. So the larger percent means that the city's also paying a little bit more you know for the services. I mean it's good for the business but it's not good for the city. I my my suggestion would be give the 3% a try and if it doesn't prove beneficial then then we readress it later. The biggest category where that local preference kicks in is when you're talking about goods and services. For example, if you're buying a new vehicle or you're buying some equipment and somebody sells it locally, they could be 3% above some bigger outfit out of Sacramento or Stockton.

Okay. So, we could actually create a problem if we go too high because then we're allowing local businesses to gouge us. Yeah, that's the concern, particularly Lava Dog. Yeah. So the the the public policy behind the local preference is really to try and keep the tax dollars more local on the theory that if you're spending that locally, it's going to benefit your local community more. Okay, thank you. All of that makes more sense. And I apologize to people who in the room in the room who understand math. Um I do not. So I have to have the elementary level of conversation.

Okay. smoker or excuse me, Deborah.

So, I went down a rabbit hole and started looking at some other um purchasing policies. Amater counties is 4% local. Um Elorado County is 5% local preference. And then I looked at City of Jackson and City of Setter Creek. They don't have specific amounts, but what they do is they allow you to deduct the tax from your bid. And let me see if I can um if the bid were awarded to such local bidder as a condition to the deduction of such tax from a local bid, they must submit uh They must upon submission of his or her bid provide the amount of tax to be rebated to the city. So they allow you to deduct an amount that would be the sales tax that would go back to the city. So just there is some that are higher than the 3%. I don't think I don't know uh why I fully trust certain staff members and including you uh the city manager um in case of emergencies you know there's a huge water issue and we need to take care of it ASAP there um I want to future proof this a little bit more and I think The city manager should probably have certain jurisdictions and higher allowances specifically during emergencies. I'm not

sure about a department head per se. Um, and I would love to see the 3% at least move to 4%.

Yeah. So, I have several concerns on it. um even if we had a water mane break or something and within 24 hours you're not going the the money expended in 24 hours isn't going to exceed or get to $50,000. You know, we all live here in town. 24 hours to call an emergency special meeting. So, I'd have some concerns with that. Um, honestly, I between looking at this and hearing the concerns raised, um, and I'll be quite honest, I haven't had enough time this week with some things that have gone on to really look at this enough and give it thought. I wouldn't be comfortable voting for this tonight, but I'd be comfortable continuing it because there's several things brought up, several issues have been brought up, and I would like to have another couple weeks to look at it and consider it. So on the emergency spending authority, it sounds like there's kind of universal support for taking away a higher amount into

I don't know that yet. I'd like to think about it. Okay. Are we able to table this and send in recommendations of monetary? Sure. You you could send me your recommendations. Try to piece together another draft. Yeah. So, why don't we do that in by Thursday of next week? Sure. Does that work, Debbie? That works.

I I would like to I would like to have one council member kind of compile from whatever we discuss here tonight, send it to Andreas in a very clean, simple way. It costs us money to have him redo this. So, I would rather we discuss it what we want changed, maybe table it without sending him anything. Bring it back, discuss what we want changed, have one council member contact Andreas, say, "Here's all the things we want changed after we've discussed it publicly." and go that route so that we're doing the work and we're just kind of

So, how do we get around the Brown Act on that? No, right now I'm telling you. Oh, tonight you made over the next week.

So, like we take this tonight, we all go home, we commit to reviewing it and making the changes we want to make. We put it on the next agenda just as it is tonight. We say all of our things that we want changed and then one person either emails Andreas or you take the notes from that. However that looks. What my my entire point is let's reduce the amount of time our attorney is spending rewriting things and getting information and guessing at what we want and then comes back and we're still not happy. And honestly, I I'm going to just kind of um on myself included. This is on all of us. We we really should have all of that together now. That's why we have packets, right? Like we've already had this information. We should have reviewed it. My bad is included in this. Um so maybe that's something this council can can get better at is making sure we check those things. I know that we've had emergency stuff. Don's been out on all of that, so it's been a little sticky, but um and maybe Stephanie can email her thoughts to one of us.

I would be happy to be the um bridge or go-to person for that. That would be awesome. Thank you, Hogar. So, can we table it tonight, bring it back to the next meeting once we've all submitted our comments to Holar or No, we can't do that. Sorry. Sorry. So, we we're going to have to table it until the next meeting. We can't share the comments. Yes. So, to be clear, you guys shouldn't communicate with each other between meetings about I know I know that was a mistake on my part. I'm sorry. Everybody calm down. Nobody get their panties on a wad. We'll at the next meeting that we will then tell Hogar all of our things that we will then communicate.

We can compile it and communicate with Andreas Cameron on that and then sorry Cameron too. Yeah. So, I'm understanding and I think I like your idea. It's just that we're all going to read it a lot more careful, do our own research. We're going to have written down our change order, you know, on this thing. Yes. And then bring it back at the next meeting. Okay. Yeah. We'll bring it back at that meeting and we'll all have our change orders cuz I know literally like a list. Okay. Here's all my things. It's Stephanie if you wouldn't mind start emailing me um you know your two cents, best practices, change orders, all those things. Sure. Sure. Um does that work?

That works for me. And I've got to be honest, I've got to apologize to the council and and the public. Um we've been on 716s since last uh basically since last Tuesday. So, I haven't this is the first time I can honestly say I walked into the meeting without reading a packet in in the time I've been on here. I haven't had a chance. So, it happens. This isn't any of our full-time job. We all have busy schedules and we're all doing our best. That's how I feel. I think this council gives their all and um we you know, we're all doing our best. So, I don't but I don't want to I don't want to spend any more of the city's money having our city attorney Yeah.

come up with an idea that then is going to get shot down again. Yeah. All right. So, we'll all write down our ideas table till the next meeting. Do uh we need to I don't think we need to do anything on that or we need to take a Okay. So, we're just going to table it till the next meeting. All right. So, Item eight, city manager report.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, since we last met, we met with uh Amler Water Agency, myself and Frank from WGA. Um, just talked to them, wanted meet the team. Um, also we we're going to start cleaning up some of the amendments. Over the years, there's been multiple amendments. Some of them, some of the information in the agreement don't really apply to us anymore. It needs to be updated. Um AWA is going to work on that, get it back to us and we'll bring it to you guys. Um they're also helping us facilitate acquiring some more water storage for the city and working with different um community partners that we have um to see what we can do about getting that um rectified. And also um not only will the water storage and and the cleaning up of our agreement um it'll also help keep Grey Lanch project going and they're they're moving along and excited to start you know getting that ball rolling for them. Um we've received some complaints about traffic issues and traffic issues uh especially along 49 with the opening of a Cornidge casino has been a concern before their opening um actually but um a citizen pointed out uh some changes to a law a law here in California and so we started looking into that to help ease um the city's burden or CALR's burden in lowering some of the um speed limits around down. Um it's not as easy as just going and changing signs. Um there are still traffic studies that we're looking into. Um there's so there's a lot of criteria such as that we have to articulate engineering and traffic studies. We have to um be able to justify that there's been an elevated number of serious crashes or fatalities along the corridor and understand concern. Uh but this is not it's not a fast evolution. So, I'm asking for patience as we kind of work

through this with uh with our partners. Um, but that is on our on my desk. Um, I attended the uh California League of Cities City Managers Conference um two weeks ago and it was I mean, especially as a newbie, it was very informative. Um, I got a lot of good information out of there, a lot of good contacts, people I've um been able to reach out to and just ask questions as we navigate um what we're doing here. It was nice to kind of hear that our problems aren't unique. Um some cities are dealing with it on a larger scale. Um but we all have a common goal that's to serve the cities that we represent. And so it was a neat it was a very neat conference. Um Kim Puit from Congressman Mcccleintoch's office uh met with me, introduced herself, offered the congressman's office um to you know anything the city needs as far as like help writing grants or you know they'll write a lot of support letters for us. Um, but it it was nice to put a face to the to the name and and start working with her. Bradley Booker of Amateur Trail Stewardship, which is a local nonprofit, uh, met with me and, uh, he wanted to explore options, uh, for youth activi activities, um, such as bike tracks, you know, um, in the city or or different activities for the youth and also activities such as hiking and trails and stuff like that. So, um, I'll probably be talking with Bradley over over the over the next few months and trying to see if we have any land suitable for for what he wants to do. Um, but he's very energetic and it was kind of neat to have some fresh ideas. Uh, they built a bike track in Jackson off of Jackson Gate Road. Um, and I drove by it the other day and it was it was pretty neat looking. So, if we can find somewhere to do that, um, they work on the grants and and facilitate that. Uh, met with the auditors. Um, a city accountant, Richard Van Djk, has been on top of it. Um, getting them to things they need. That's going along nicely. Um, I mean, I don't think a day goes by

that an email goes unanswered by them. So, I think they're pretty appreciative of how the city is responding. So, that that's going along. I also received uh the 20 the January 2026 summary reports from the sheriff's office for calls for service. There was in January there was 134 total uh incidents in the city, three alarm calls, one animal which doesn't specify what. Uh they did 65 different business checks and that's when the deputies are in towns. They might park in front of Pokerville or on Main Street and you know they might put 10, you know, 1063 city hall and that's just them kind of checking the area. Um they responded to three different be on the lookouts for suspicious persons or vehicles. They conducted 33 car stops, which I think um has been noted by a lot of our citizens. Um three citizen assist calls disturbing the peace. One um extra patrols where a citizen might call and say, "Hey, I'm on vacation. Can you patrol our neighborhood or we're having some some hinky stuff going on?" So, they give a little extra attention to that area. Follow-up investigations for um they assisted with multiple medical calls. Uh they were out with suspicious people vehicles. Um and then they had two custodial arrests. One for possession of controlled substance for sales of methamphetamine 113778 HNS possession of controlled substance with two or more priors. Possession of drug paraphernia and operated vehicle as an addict and also a violation of probation warrant. So um the sheriff's office is is down here doing some work and um we did have Acorn Ridge open up last Tuesday. Um, I don't know if it was good traffic control or whatever, but it didn't seem like the city was impacted too much. There was once once or um, we had some GPS issues with people taking, you know, going into a local neighborhood. So, we do have our sign out there and I'll address the red and blue lights. Um, I I thought they were

addressed, but if they weren't, then we'll make sure. I I'll double check. They were off tonight. Okay. When I came home from work, they were off. Okay. When you're addressing that, as I came home tonight, I saw the school bus, for some reason, maybe this is regular for them, try and turn onto Empire, right? Turn on to Empire going northbound off the highway. The bus turned, looked like it had to actually back up just a little bit because where you guys or you have that sign sitting, it was very tight for a 40ft bus. So maybe move it a couple feet over or something. Okay. Yeah, we can we can do that. Okay, that's Bush Street, just so you know. That turn right there, that's Bush. Empire's down the other way. It's down further.

I'm talking where Empire goes across 49. Isn't that Empire 49? Right across from the 49er RV park. Oh, there's no sign there, though. There was earlier. Yeah. Oh, there is one. It says no casino access on Bush Street or something like that. Well, I didn't even see the one on Empire. Yeah, there was one. It looked like an electronic one and it was right there. So, the bus turned and then it had to looked like he had to back up a little bit which causes a bit of a hazard if his rear end is a good observation. Okay. Oh, we'll adjust that, sir. Yeah. I mean, he almost made it. So, if you just move it over a foot or two, maybe they're all right. Or she, excuse me. I don't know who's driving.

Yeah. And I I think the sheriff's office planned on being out there long lot longer than they were and kind of disrupting traffic a lot longer really were than they weren't. So, it's nice to kind of keep the city moving. So, that's all I got. Thank you. Thank you. So, council member reports request for future agenda items. Oh, I can. Debbie, you want to go first? I don't have anything to report. Um, but I was wondering when we were going to get a budget update. That'll be our next meeting. Uh, I'm sorry. I take that back. Our second March meeting. Andy's scheduled to be here.

Wendy.

Yeah. Um, so I have a report. I attended the Golden Acorn Award dinner in Jackson at the Jackson Rancheria. Um, John Coburn, who's a citizen of Plymouth, everybody knows, was awarded that award. It goes to two citizens a year. and Susan Manning, who run runs Tri uh Tri County Wildlife and used to own the feed barn a few years back. They were both awarded the Golden Acorn Award. It's basically a community award that is what I would have likened to a citizen of the year type award. So, they both received that. It was a beautiful dinner and there were some um Amodore County ambassadors that were acknowledged and my elementary school principal was awarded the uh one of the Amador County um ambassador awards. So that was pretty cool and it was a really lovely dinner. Lots of great people there and I just thought that the city should know that he was given that award since he's from our town. Oh, and agenda items. The 49er, we've talked about that in the past multiple times. Um, if we could get an update on what's happening with that. Plans, I don't know. I don't even know how to word it.

Erica is working on that, but I think we can work on an update for for the next meeting. Okay. I'd love an update. Is that it, Wendy? Or

uh where do I start? Um as far as traffic goes to the casino um on Tuesday, excuse me. Um during their opening or on their opening day, I took 49 to head to work at 9:15 a.m. And I will say that sheriff's department was out there in full force. uh tons of cones um directing traffic. I expected more traffic like people already waiting in line, but it was pretty well uh clear and suited. Um I then again took 49 to head into town at 12:15 p.m. against expecting some sort of traffic hop up in N. So kind of pleased about that. Um, we received several I received several um kudos and yays for appointing Cameron uh as a city manager. I would like to give Cameron kudos myself on the speed and thoroughess of your communication. It is amazing. Um my question to you guys is do we have any new business uh proposals applications? What is the update on the uh restaurant across the street and the fire station plaque with the renaming? That would be my uh future ask. Thank you. Thank you. I have several things here to bring up. Um, one thing that's always bothered me and I've noticed is we're the only incorporated city in the county that I'm aware of that does not have a city Christmas tree and a Christmas tree lighting event.

And I am 100% behind you. I would like council disc I I

I would like to have a council discussion in the future of having um public works build some kind of a place in the park area over here or you know we could take input from the public if that's not where they want it but I would like some type of a structure put in the ground where we could put a large tree you know um and the reason I say a structure is in my former duties I had to help stand those trees up for Amodore city and and Sutter Creek. And if you don't have something actually built, yeah, it's not it's not a pretty site. So, this is something that can be done relatively cheap by city staff. And then I would propose that like the first Saturday following Thanksgiving every year that we would have a city event for Christmas tree lighting. And uh so that's one thing I'd like to propose. If you want to say something, you can. I was just going to say I think that's when we do our Christmas market. So I think combining it in with the Christmas market would be brilliant.

So without getting into too much discussion about it right now, but yeah, definitely put that on a future.

I would like that on agenda. Um I would like uh city excited about festivities. Sorry. I would like the city manager to reach out and look at possibly from here on um asking that we just get these numbers on police activity in the city and fire activity and it's just automatically added to the consent calendar. Say first meeting of every month. It's in the consent calendar so the public can just look at the agenda and see it from now on and have that done on a a monthly budget if the under sheriff would agree to that. And I'm sure Chief Wro will Cameron. Is that doable on your end with with that sort of timeline?

Um I mean it doesn't have to start right away. It could be in a couple. No, no, no. But like for every first of the month maybe the

Well, I I'll check with the under sheriff. Um, you know, he he knows that we I do want up monthly stats. I just got to make sure he can get them done. You know, sometimes our meetings are pretty close to the first of the month. Well, yeah. So, at least on a monthly basis while it was open for Another thing I'd like to consider, um, with uh other restaurants opening in town, more people coming into town, parking is going to start being a serious issue. Um, I know we don't have a lot of money to work with, but there's grants available. Um, we've had residents and other people bring up possibly moving the pop-up plazas slightly. I mean, keeping them having them there. But one thing I noticed, I brought it up one night to the city manager is if we could possibly move the entrance, we moved those and we moved the entrance over to the parking lot there and actually paved the parking lot at angled spots. We could put a lot of cars in there and then somehow make it to where cars go out on the land room. We would have a lot of parking and I don't know if that's something we want to entertain, have a discussion on trying to do. Um I'd like to have it on agent at least talk about it. Maybe get some proposals from local contractors what they would think it would cost us to do that, you know, estimates. And so that would be another thing I'd like to see. Um, another thing that's come to light, um, with the water and sewer bills, like to have a discussion on lowincome assistance. And I know we believe we had something in place, but it's a little bit muddy water there on that. I would like to have a discussion and make sure we have something in place on low-inccome assistance and how we're funding it and who it's going to. I think it's going to be very important. So, I'd like that on a future agenda item. And that's what I have for tonight.

I'm going to get my bearings here. Okay. So, we're going to be going into close session. I'm going to call for um public comment on close session item 10.2, to conference with real property property negotiators. Oh, Stephanie Marino online.

Actually, Mayor Nun, I wanted to make a comment on your last item if that's possible. Um, sure. Go ahead. It is to respond to Council Member Hornish's question about the Amitter Fire Department sign because I can address that. That's on me. Um, it's my fault that it's um not farther along in the process. I talked to Cameron early on about putting the sign up. He gave me permission to contact Cam about getting some quotes. Um, I talked to Cam. We were thinking that we could just flip the sign that was there. Um, and just print on the other side what we wanted it to say to save some funding. Um, however,

public don't know who you mean by Cam. you by Cam Mlac atlac. Yeah. Sorry.

And then um um however, Antonio um um wanted to um make sure that it still says Plymouth Fire Department and that it talks about him underneath it. So, it would actually be two lines. Um Cam said we could put that all on this square, but it would be pretty small letters. And so, um, it kind of got stalled because I needed to get someone to help me go out there and measure, um, that side of the building to see what size sign can fit there to put all those letters in there. And I haven't got that done yet. So, I apologize for that. After pushing you guys to get this done, um, I haven't got that done. I was hoping that maybe when there was a slow moment at the fire department, maybe they could actually help me measure that. So, that's where that's at. I just wanted you to know it's not on Cameron um city manager. It's it's on me right now.

If if you need help just measuring or like you know light duty, I'm I'm here for you. So just let me know. Oh, thank you so much. We need to get up on I was hoping they could maybe they could actually use their ladders or something to get up there. Maybe we can measure from the ground if they have a large a large measuring stick. I don't know. Y but um but I need to have the the the height from the top of the doors up to the eve and then sideways too. Thank you so much.

Welcome. Thank you. Anyone else for public comment on the close session item 10.2 hearing and seeing no one I'm going to close that and this time council is going to go into close session. We will report out going into close session at 8:03. Thank you, Vice Mayor.

The council met in close session to discuss item 10.2, real estate property negotiations. No reportable action was taken. At this time, I'm going to adjourn the meeting at 8:44.