City Council - Regular Meeting

Alright. Hit hit some buttons.

I am here.

Meeting to order and ask for roll call.

Council member Little is absent at this time. Council member Sander?

Here.

Council member Polipotti? Here. Vice mayor Budge? Here. Mayor Gatewood? Here.

Okay. So can I go ahead and have a playback schedule?

Yes. The meeting of the Rancho Cordova City Council is recorded with closed captioning. The recording will be cable cast on Metro Cable Channel fourteen, the local government affairs channel on the Comcast and DirecTV U verse cable systems. The recording will also be video streamed at metro fourteen live dot sack county dot gov. Today's meeting will replay on Thursday, March 19 at 9AM and Friday, March 20 at 6PM on metro cable channel fourteen. Once posted, the recording of this meeting can be viewed on demand at youtube.com/metrocable14 and on the city's website at www.cityofranchocordova.org.

Alright. Good. Great. Let's stand for pledge allegiance. Alright. Pick me a kid to come up here and do the pledge. Yeah. Who wants to leave the pledge? Okay.

Yeah.

Come on up.

Yeah. I can go there. Sure. Yeah. Thank

you for making space.

Yes. Be on camera.

You got this.

I pledge of allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Good job. What was your name? Madhu. Nice job, Madhu. All right. Let's go ahead and have our chaplain up here for invocation.

Thank you. Dear God, thank you for the goodness and the mercy that we receive every day. We thank you that we have found employment. We are here today to discuss topics that will move this establishment forward. Come and take center stage in this meeting. Give us new ideas to be able to stand head and shoulder above our competitors. Grant us the wisdom to make this meeting productive one. Remove any distraction that will make this meeting unproductive. We start with you, and we will end with you. Thank you. Thank you for heavenly father. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Alright. Alright. Let's go ahead and move on to are we doing this presentation?

Yes. Because I don't

have any

And we have a public comment for item 5.1.

Okay. Presentation for the community enhancement investment fund on literacy programs and recognition of literacy month. I don't actually have anything to give.

They're just presenting.

Got it. Randy, do your

thing. Good

evening, mayor and council. Thanks for letting me come today to share some incredible news with you. Through the generosity of our incredible partners at the Community Enhancement Investment Fund is happy and proud to share some information about programs in honor of National Literacy Month. As you know, literacy is important for communication skills, reading, learning, and helping our young people learn to succeed in school and life. And in Rancho Cordova, we are so lucky to have so many incredible partners, some of them here in the room tonight.

Thank you, Kiwanis. So just a few stats and some important information about our literacy efforts. This year alone, more than 4,000 books have been placed into the hands of our Rancho Cordova youth, thanks to the Kiwanis book buddies alone. That's over 2,000 of them. And then also, through our book recovery program with Folsom Cordova Unified, more than 1,700 books have been put onto the shelves of our schools, and students are accessing those right away.

Folsom Cordova is also implementing a community reader program that is going to help benefit our students as well. Also, there's some upcoming book giveaway projects through our culturally relevant book program where more than 600 students will receive over 3,000 books. Awesome. This will take place at Abraham Lincoln, Cordova Meadows, and White Rock Elementary Schools. And all of you have been invited to participate, if you can come on out.

Also, we'd like to recognize the work of United Way through the Dolly Parton Imagination Library Program. At this point, more than 400 students have been served, and they have been able to receive books to have them in their home and accessible to them. We also have some longtime partners to consider for their incredible efforts. Nine sixteen Inc. Has helped students publish their own writing and they've done over 23 anthologies since 2017.

This is a really important way to help build their confidence in writing and storytelling and to grow in their reading experiences. I'd also like to recognize the Rotary Club for their work in doing the dictionary distribution project. And we have adjacent literacy programs such as Suvita's speech and debate program that helps our students with public speaking and confidence building and critical thinking. So we have lots of literacy events coming up for you to, partake. We have a book vending machine ribbon cutting with our Kiwanis partners.

That's on March 30. You'll get a Friday memo about that. We have the book giveaway project, which will also be in the Friday memo. And a, adjacent program is our college esports gaming program because that is a different type of literacy. It's a digital literacy experience. So together, these programs and events really make Rancho Cordova special, and we couldn't do this without our community enhancement and funded grant funded partners. So thank you.

Thank you very much. All

right.

We do have a public comment for this item.

Do you do public comments for presentations?

Why not?

Uh-oh. Go ahead.

Must be Larry. Larry Ladd.

Larry.

Larry, you'll have up to three minutes.

No comment. That's what I

love about you, Larry. Boy.

So win.

Listen. So I just Don't even start that. Good job, Larry.

I appreciate you. That's my problem. Randy Kaye, I just really want to say that I have participated in several of those events. And you're absolutely right. This is the kind of thing that really enhances the learning experience for our kids. I am privileged to have been read to by my parents since I was about six months old. I actually did a video about this one time. My dad read Tales of the Arabian Nights and King Arthur. And Larry knows what I'm talking about. But this is so incredible.

I love the fact that the Bay Street Theater goes over and helps the kids learn to write. I love to give out dictionaries with the Rotary Club. This is so important for our children. And everything that we do with our community enhancement fund like this that benefits our kids is exactly why we incorporated Rancho Cordova to begin with. So thank you very much.

Alright. Let's go on to 5.2. Stacy.

We have an introduction of new employees, and I will let you go ahead and call up Jacob Nunez, who's going to

Jacob.

Introduce our first

Come on up here. Yeah.

Alright.

Hello, council members. Just like to say I stood here about a year ago when I was introduced by Michelle. Remember being full of optimism and ready to give the most opportunity I was given. After experiencing a single audit, annual audit, w two processing, I can say that the honeymoon phase of the job has passed, but the vibe stands strong and the operation is flourishing. The experience of working with Erin these first few months is is a significant factor in this.

Erin brings to the Citi team over twenty years of payroll experience in the private sec private sector and has already demonstrated her expertise by quickly learning our payroll process. She has seamlessly picked up on the great work Diane provided to the organization prior to her retirement, and I look forward to the two of us continuing to identify effective and efficient practices practices within the operation. Erin is here with me now, and we'll say a few words.

Hello. Just wanna say that I grew up in Rancho before it actually was officially this incorporated city. So I'm excited to be here to be a part of the growth and the great things that are happening in the community, and I appreciate it. Thank you.

Welcome back to the chill. Alright. Thanks.

Alright.

I'm gonna go ahead and call on Kim. Is

it

is there no one else? Margarita. Oh, I'm gonna do go in order. Margarita, can you come up and introduce your new employee? No. Not doing that. No.

Good evening, honorable mayor and city council. My name is Margarita Dronov. I'm a certified floodplain manager and licensed professional engineer working in the public works department since 2020. Rancho Cordova is ours to protect. Waters in street gutters and outdoor drain inlets all flow to creeks and rivers without filtration at a treatment plant. So it's important to have only rain down the drain. Our stormwater team works to safely convey runoff, protect the environment That's a great and way to get promote economic development within the city. We are happy to introduce our newest member, assistant engineer Dang Bui.

Thank you so much for the kind introduction, Margarita. Happy to be up here. I, unfortunately, am not a resident of Rancho Cordova yet, but hoping to be.

Good. Good. I break it.

That's fine.

You can break it down. Go ahead, Santos.

But I feel like part of my story of why I'm here with Rancho Cordova is through one of the city's core vision, creating vibrant communities and cultural places. Being mostly living in SoCal most of my life, briefly moving up here for college for four to five years, and moving back up here for pursuing further career opportunities, I feel like I've never got back that sense of belonging I had when I was in college with my friends who unfortunately moved back to SoCal when I moved back up here. Through fortunately, through my passion for video games, I was able to connect with a group here in Rancho Cordova in the Labyrinth Park community. And they exhibit that vision of building a vibrant community. And it is some that was one of the first time where I felt a sense of belonging up here in Northern California.

And now being part of Rancho Cordova, I hope to continue that vision and continue to serve as a piece of Rancho Cordova. Thank you. Awesome. What video game? Pokemon, unfortunately.

Are you trying to judge me? I will be throwing balls the whole time. Go ahead. No. No. We appreciate you. Great Gavabast.

Thank you.

Alright. Fun. See? I like my clan. My nerd clan's back. Boy, we're coming in hard. Alright. Kristen.

What's her last name? Courtney.

Courtney. Nailed it. I appreciate you.

Good evening, mayor, council, members of the public. My name is Christine Courtney from the public works department. I am excited here to introduce Cynthia Meyer, our newest, assistant engineer in the capital improvement project group. Cynthia graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a civil engineering degree and comes to us with lots of transportation and project management experience. So I'll let Cynthia introduce herself and a little bit about our ties to the community.

Great. Hello. Good evening. Thank you for the warm introduction, Christine. As she mentioned, I am a fellow resident of the city of Rancho Cordova for over twenty three years, a fellow marauder, lancer.

Oh, cool.

Yeah. And I can't quite remember what I was at Riverview Elementary. Oh, thank you. But, yes, it feels very full circle moment now to be a homeowner and now be able to continue my career and grow here at the city of Rancho Cordova. I feel very privileged and excited to be able to be a public servant and help my community as they've helped me the past twenty three

years. Thank you. Lancer for life. Yes. We'll see you at homecoming.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Alright. I like I like seeing generational people coming through the city because it means you did a good job, Linda.

Alright.

Public comment. Members wishing to address the council for any matter not on the agenda may do so by submitting a speaker card to the city clerk for items on the agenda. Speakers will be called on by the mayor at the point on the agenda when the item will be heard. Speakers are encouraged to keep their comments to three minutes or less and state the name and the community of residents under provision of California government code. The city council is prohibited from discussing or taking immediate action on any item on not on the agenda unless it is demonstrated to be of emergency nature or the need to take immediate action arose after the posting agenda. Stacy, do we have any public comment?

Yes. I have three speaker cards. We'll start with Larry Leroy Ladd. Whoo.

Come on, Larry. Bring it.

Yes, mister mayor. My talk is entitled as if it were a Chinese slogan, like, out of Mount's Little Red Book. So it's two books, four chemicals. Alright? So the two books refer to book experiments, answering David Sanders' call for all mad scientists to experiment in Rancho Cordova to see we can do different things. And then, mister Gatewood, you like to refer to me as the canary the Superfund canary in the coal mine. And I would like to point out that how you learn from a canary in a coal mine is that it dies. So, yeah. It asphyxiates. So I prefer the obnoxious, noisy terrier that limps at people's heels.

That's the metaphor I prefer. Okay. The books. This is not city money. When I promote these books, this is for, like, late elementary school. This is for early secondary. And the experiment is to offer when when the kids go on a field trip, like, to splash, you give a copy of this field guide from the American River Parkway to the room, and then ask them to write letters to business leaders to buy them a home copy of the book. So the first school I tried that out, got 22 kids. The Danzell family has just paid for 10 of them. So that's the experiment there.

This is for they say the gold ceiling between genders has to if you use college level math at the job, then there's no gender difference. I don't know if that's still true or not, but that's what they say. And when they say college level math, they mean calculus. And so this is a book I've over the last couple of decades, I've given several young people before they take calculus to understand, what the the worst thing about calculus is they start with limits, which is this arcane way of explaining why we're dividing by zero when we say we can't divide by zero. So I think it's best for young minds to ponder zero.

Okay. Now the four chemicals that we watch. TC, Indium A, P ethos, and perchlorate. All right. So probably the overriding superfund issue right now is who's going to be running the superfund site? With AE and, L3 Harris, multibillion comp you know, AE is gonna take the nuclear rockets. Does that mean they clean up the radioactive waste? So that's an attorney's question. You might wanna track how those negotiations are going. But now, perchlorate hey, we're at war.

So there's perchlorate flying all over the place in The Middle East. We'll be looking for outbreaks of gram negative stuff. TC no. NDMA and PFAS, Neural tube defect not neural tube defects. Yes, neural tube defects are a warning sign. There's a new treatment for that with stem cells while the child's still in utero. So the risks from personal injury litigation keep getting reduced as the medical system has better detection and treatment. Please wrap up your comments. Right. Perchlorate, NDMA, PFAS.

What was the last one? Anyway, there's a lot going on. Oh, I know. TCE the liver damage from TCE involves something called B cell lymphoma two. So in terms of litigation for lymphoma, it's like a wide open door. I only focus on what all the way through the chain of causation happens. So it's vagueness, but that's the new science. Thank you.

Thank you, Larry. Next.

Speaker is Similee Robinson. Following Similee will be Denzel Hari. You'll have up to three minutes.

Good

afternoon, everyone. My name is Semele Robinson. I am a Rancho Cordova resident, and I've lived here since 2009. I live in Anatolia. And the reason why I'm here today is because the other day, I was driving through my neighborhood, and I noticed some new equipment on light poles in my neighborhood as I was driving out, and they looked like FLAC cameras.

So as I was driving through my neighborhood and driving through Rancho Cordova, I noticed more FLAC cameras that were new on large intersections such as Sunrise And Douglas and Sunrise And International. And they had chains around the poles and, I guess, cords. So they seemed like they were new. I definitely had not observed them before. So I'm here to express my concern about illegal surveillance without a warrant.

I would like some transparency from this council as to why those cameras were put up, and now they're gone. The larger intersections still have those cameras, which I could understand is to monitor for large accidents and whatnot. But for them to be in the smaller neighborhoods is an area of concern due to a lot of the issues that these cameras have presented to people throughout the country for illegal searches, stops, arrests. So I have several examples, if needed. But I would like to know who funded these cameras, where did they come from, where did the money come from.

I would also like to know, you know, why were they removed? Is this some type of experiment, or was it some type of, observation? I think there's some transparency is, you know, owed to the people of Rancho Cordova to know whether or not they are being surveilled. And these cameras are flawed. They have a lot of problems with the license plate readers reading license plates incorrectly, resulting in unlawful arrests.

There was an example of a man who was arrested for a stolen vehicle due to a license plate reader misread, and a canine dog was sicced on him, he was attacked by the dog. There's another example where a grandma in Tennessee was arrested for bank fraud in North Dakota, even though she told them she had no way of being in North Dakota, and she was recently released. However, she lost her job, lost her home, lost her benefits. So, you know, mistakes on these particular items is very common. And for these things to be in our neighborhoods, I would like to know where they came from, why they're there, and why we don't have more transparency on this, and why the citizens of this city were not able to vote on whether we want them here or not.

I'm

I'm done. Thank you. Thank you.

Alright. Next.

Next speaker is Denzel Harry.

Denzel. Alright.

Hello, everyone. My name is Denzel Harry, and I've been a resident of Rancho Cordova for pretty much my entire life. Nice. I'm here to make a comment and ask for help from one or all of the council members on an unfortunate situation that occurred recently. At the January, my dog was killed by my neighbor's two dogs on my property. Oh. Animal control came and did an investigation that day. I can't say I completely agree with the way they've handled the matter. My mother was the only witness at the time of this event taking place. My neighbor who owned the the two dogs had no idea this even happened until after my dog died.

Animal control is allowing the neighbors to keep the dogs with restrictions, even creating restrictions based on statements from my neighbor that aren't even the truth. Not only that, but they verbally modified those restrictions since completing their investigation. Seem to be very lenient. I've seen multiple violations of these restrictions since the time they were communicated to both me and my neighbors. I brought these violations to animal control's attention, and they don't seem to be concerned.

We, however, are very concerned about safety as there's a huge risk moving forward. My mother is a licensed day care provider at the address this took place at. We have plenty of small children in and out of the house at all times. We're concerned about the safety of the children on-site. These same dogs attempted to attack another neighbor's dog two days prior to my dog's death.

Animal Control is aware of all of this Given the close call given the close call two days prior and the day care we have, I'd hope Animal Control isn't waiting for another incident to happen. That's why I came here to address it, and I was hoping one of you would maybe do something or escalate it or get a different set of eyes on this matter because none of this sounds right. At the very least, we would just want these dogs rehomed. Would like to prevent another incident from happening, not react to one after it has happened. Given the lack of concern for following restrictions by my neighbors and animal control seemingly allowing these violations, there's no doubt another incident is bound to happen.

I know a gentleman whose dog killed another dog three years ago. This also took place in Rancho Cordova. The same department took his dog immediately, no questions asked. They didn't give him the opportunity of keeping his dog with restrictions, much more for him to break those restrictions and still keep his dog. I checked the municipal code and nothing has changed since then. So looks like the code is being applied differently in identical situations. And in his case, there was less future risk involved such as the daycare and no prior incidents or close calls he had with his dog. I'd hoped that the code applies the same to all individuals. So I'm not sure how they came to their conclusion with him. I was hoping animal control didn't have a bias that they operate with when handling matters like this.

Unfortunately, a quick Google review on the department led me to believe a bias such as a racial one wouldn't be out of the ordinary for them. Given the severity of the situation and the risk it presents to the community moving forward, I hope the city will show concern and hold all parties accountable so nothing like this happens again. That is my comment. Thank you for your time.

Brother, can you, talk to David? David, can you grab him real quick? We're gonna work this out.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you, bro. Appreciate you.

Right. Is that it? That's all the public comment.

Great. Let's move in on. Council reports. Joe.

Not too much. Toured George Washington Carver and talked to a lot of people there about all the issues going on with the potential closure. We got a all of us got an email from a gentleman who calls himself the prince of time, so felt blessed to be honored by that and nothing else to report.

Siri.

Continuing Women's History Month, I attended an event at Sacramento History Museum by the Women's Commission called Celebrating Centuries of Leadership by Sacramento women, and the keynote address was given by congresswoman Doris Matsui. Had a lot of other electeds in attendance. I attended the Sac Valley division, a board meeting where they gave an update on the Cal cities. Chico gave an update on their homeless and affordable living situation. I attended the Iftar party that was hosted in Kabbalah Ranch Park by our planning commissioner, Rehanah Rahman.

This is one of those celebrations where this is the month of Ramadan where Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, where they do not eat, drink, or even swallow their own saliva for from sunrise to sunset, focusing on being good and not having a negative thought. And then they break their fast with a date at sunset. And a lot of planning commissioners were in attendance for the Iftar evening dinner, a Sunday night. Was that yesterday? Yesterday night. And I also attended the whole event, which is the festival of colors to welcome spring at the Hagan Community Park. Thank you.

Very excellent. Sir, sorry. Linda.

Several of us were invited by the city of Folsom to celebrate the birthday of, excuse me, the birthday of Theodore Judah by taking a commemorative train ride. It actually started down at the Sacramento Valley Station and rode all the way to historic Folsom. And some of us picked the train up at Mill Station. And it has to do with the opening of the Sacramento Valley Railroad on George Washington's birthday one hundred and fifty years ago. And we had a great time.

Got to turn their incredible turntable, which is it looks intimidating, and it looks as though it would take a million people to turn it. But it turns out that the mechanism is now able to be moved by only one person. So that was quite an experience. Little League had its opening in Rancho Cordova last Saturday. We have one of the largest Little League organizations in the entire region.

And then, of course, Friday night, had the volunteer awards at the Cordova Community Council with a group of extremely dedicated participants who make Rancho Cordova what it is today.

Thank you.

Alright. I will run through the list. Met with senator Padilla about Horn Road. That is looking well, we're just really hopeful that he can go get some money for it. There is some money in that to finish that off. Met with downtown Dova Group for just a, you know, pulse check on how they're doing. Everything seems to be going in the right direction. Still no change of June or July groundbreaking in my eyes. I just put lots and lots of pressure on David Quan because if he doesn't get it done, it's basically his fault. I'm just joking, David, but it is.

Mills Crossing Station, the people that are trying to find money for housing, they are going out. Hopefully, Linda has had a chance to meet with them to tell them how to look right because most importantly, it's not about making a hood, it's about making a neighborhood. Quote from Linda Butch. Met with Sherry from Mobile Country. If you didn't know this, we have an agreement with all our trailer park homes that they keep a certain quality of standards up rather than put in rent caps on what they have doing and what was going on.

So they agreed to it. So every once in while, we meet with the constituents to make sure they're happy with how stuff's going. And because you gotta remember that a lot of our poor vets and and last step is when you leave a mobile park home, you go into poverty or into homelessness. It's seniors. So it's a lot of seniors. So it's critical that that when they do when they do raise rent, they don't raise it past what they get because it could cause problems. And so we wanna make sure we take care of it because those are the least of these. Those are the those are the people that are right on the edge that we need to take care of as a community. I had my memorial minute, which is always weird but fun. Thank you, my man, Maria.

Met with Metal Cloak. They're a big company in our area, and they're trying to expand and do awesome things. Red did the Red Across America with the children over I forgot what the the school is called over by the Starbucks over by the workout gym over here.

Thank you.

No. It's just it was a preschool. The one over by Denny's.

Another preschool with National Denny's?

Anyways, that was a lot of fun, except for the books have gotten ridiculously hard to read when you read across America. Because I wanted to do Doctor. Seuss, you know, Green Eggs to Ham. They gave me a book that says it was it was crazy. They're like, there's lots of jobs that you can be, and here's the jobs from a to z. And one of them was JavaCoder. The second was neurobiologist. And I was like, what are these? See, we are shooting for the stars. No firemen, policemen, none of that stuff. Nope. Nope. Chemical engineering to work in. Like, I'm like, wow. This word is hard to say.

Do you guys know what this is? And, like, one of the kids was picking his nose, and I'm like, I don't even I just do you see the pretty picture green? Yeah. You like green, don't you? So it was funny because one of them was just enthralled, just eyes locked. And I was like, I know he's not hearing a word I say. I could I should just say ball a lot. Ball. But it was fun. Congratulations to our chief retire.

I see we have our new guy here. Thank you for showing up. You're required at every meeting, every single meeting. Didn't get to go to the group I'm in charge of, but got to do a fireside chat talking about how amazing Rancho Cordova is with the now Folsom Cordova Tech Week or Folsom Rancho Tech Week. They haven't quite figured out the name, but they're gonna combine us together because we're doing as much or more technology than them. So that's awesome. Then I watched Rancho Cordova, one of their nonprofits, the San Juan soccer club with a bunch of kids go beat up on a lot of kids from outside the country. It was great because they have our logo on it. So when we won, I got to point out and be like, yep. He lost to Rancho.

Always winning. South Conservancy Agency, there's not a lot to do there, but it's critical on the to protect Lower Basin and wildlife. And so we're trying to make it easier for us to build, and luckily, Lynn is there who basically created it and helped me champion it through.

It was also the shortest meeting on record. It's, like, thirteen minutes.

Yeah. You know, I'm I'm sure we could beat it if we try. Then I had my GSEC orientation, which is always interesting, hearing about how some of the stuff that's going to happen. It's not looking good for a lot of pieces of Sacramento, but it's really looking good for anyone with an r in their name.

Good.

Rancho, Roseville, Rockland, killing it right now. Don't know what it is. And then last, so I like to go to a lot of tech conferences that have to do with cities because I wanna see what everyone else is doing and steal from them. So I went to a place called Austin, Texas. I went to a conference called South by Southwest. And so when I was there, I got to be around all these other mayors. And first they took me and it was fun because, one, it's a bunch of technology. So we went into Google's headquarters, they took us up the stairs, they showed us all the coolest technology, coolest stuff I've ever seen in my life.

I

have They left us alone with their newer AI bots. We grabbed two budgets from a city, had them tell us a quick synopsis on the budget, and then do a podcast with different voices discussing it where you could ask questions and it would answer it. And I switched it from American to English to Spanish while the podcast was happening. I was like, blew my mind. This this is out there. This is to I was like, do you know how much work that would have been? And there were different voices. And they're like, oh, Garrett, I asked a question about the Park District. I was like, hey. You know, it looks like the Park District needs this, this, and this.

They're like, well, you know, the city doesn't actually run the Park District. I'm glad you asked it. There's Rick Sloan and da da da who have been on the Park District. And the technology went to the Internet, found those people, inserted them in the conversation, and then applied it to our budget. Whew. That close to having a robust takeover. So that was amazing. And then I sat with all the big mayors, and I asked them what they're doing on their technology side. And we are leaps and bounds in front of them. And because we're using our education piece to kinda play with the AI piece to kinda get jobs and education in, that's like the critical piece that everyone's trying to do and put together.

But it's nice to see in all farming a nice circle. So it makes me feel like we're not only are we in the right spot, we're we're, like, maybe six steps ahead. And, honestly, you wanna be the first one to this battle to be able to to have the most amount of effect. So it was amazing. Got to do that. Learned all about so I'm not a huge college fan football fan because I went to the great state of Chico State. And, yeah, we had a couple games before they got rid of our football program. We we tussled with Humboldt. Whoo. Those those lumberjacks took them down. Yeah. You know what I'm saying. Thank you. Got was gonna play football, but then, of course, we lost all our football sports. It was sad.

But that being said, they showed me the Tennessee Titans where I learned how to do this. I didn't know why this is important. This is not okay.

Not Tennessee Titans.

What is it called? Tennessee something?

Texas Longhorns.

Yeah, knew that. Same thing, right? And then I learned someone told me roll tide. I was like, what are you rolling to? And they're like, no, that's a thing we say. And I was like

Alabama.

Yeah, didn't know that either. They were all the SEC mayors were there, and they were all talking smack on each other. I was like, whatever, Stinger's up. You guys don't understand. Stinger's up. Where are you guys at? So great trips. Glad to be home. Excited about all the opportunities we have. Micah?

Nick David is on the line.

Oh, David. Voice in the cloud.

Yes, mister mayor. I am here. My only report is that I'm in NLC. I am now the past president, and my schedule is still packed with meetings from dawn to dusk. So that is my report.

Thank you, Voicings Cloud. I appreciate you.

Well, unfortunately, the poor thing can't talk about Notre Dame very strongly right now. So

Did they lose too? Did they lose in basketball or football? What happened? Oh, that's a shame.

No. They got they got shut out of the playoffs.

Micah. Sure.

We we

are. Just just for the record, Notre Dame is ranked number one by Vegas and by most of the odds makers at this point for the next season, Linda. We'll

see. That's what matters. Next season.

So is next season.

All right,

thank you. You, Mayor. Just a few updates for me. One, I had the opportunity on Saturday to speak at the region builders' border retreat and had an interesting conversation with them about Rancho Cordova and and why they're thinking they think we're doing a great job, which was great to hear, and sharing what we're doing with some of the other communities that that are out there in the region as well. So that was great.

And then I was able to participate in the volunteer awards and go to that the other night and Friday night. And so that really was a feel good opportunity to see all the good volunteerism that's happening in our community and the different things that are supported by not only by the city, but by the community. And so that was really a nice time to see that. And so and the mayor made reference to Chief Hampton in the back and what I'll actually ask Chief Hampton we have also another employee to introduce maybe on the fly which is our assistant new assistant chief for Molley. So maybe a quick introduction for our new assistant chief and No.

We're not interested. Sit back down. No. I'm just joking. Go ahead.

No. I'll be quick. This is lieutenant Keis Vermoli. He comes to us, obviously, from the sheriff's office. He's been with the sheriff's office for about twenty six years. I've worked hand in hand with him in many assignments and actually selected him in my last assignment as a captain of security services. He's worked the South Area, pretty much all over the county, primarily in the Pop Pop area for problem oriented policing in South Sacramento. He worked in homicide, internal affairs, child abuse, and was the commander of the Folsom Dam and the regional transit contract. So Cool. Good evening. Excited to

be here. This is my second week, so trying to figure out how things go around here and very excited to be here. When do you

move to Rancho Cordova?

I'm sorry?

When do you move to Rancho Cordova?

Well, I grew up at Rancho Cordova. What?

Your Lancer? Hey. Got another one.

I graduated in 'ninety seven. I know that seems like a very long time ago.

Why are dating us? Stop that. You're you're yep. I feel so old when they do this.

All right, go ahead. In the last two years, I've been in security services in charge of regional transit in the Folsom Dam. I always say that my job was safety and security and keeping the water on the right side of the dam. Nice. Everyone, you're welcome. Thank you.

It's very good to meet everybody. Alright. Thank you very much, guys.

We'll see you at homecoming.

Right. Another Lancer. Boy, we're bringing it in. Hey, Joe. Are you ready to meet about the school district stuff? Because they're ready to meet with with the, like, the other side about bringing it over. We should probably make some movements on that.

I think everything's on the table.

Yeah. It's gotten desperate. Alright. Moving on. Consent calendar items. Consent calendar items are deemed matters routine and non curse controversial by staff unless a member of the council wishes to pull an item individual consideration. All items will be approved in one motion. Does council want to pull anything? Seeing none, is there any public comment?

Yes. I have public comment for items nine point two and nine point three. Would you like to hear those? Yes. Alright. Larry Ladd, if you'd like to come forward.

Larry. My man.

We'll start with 9.2.

What? I didn't distinguish in my mind which is nine point two and nine point three.

The resolution to change the city of Rancho Cordova of the California Freeway Agreement for US Highways 50 to reflect construction of the Zinfandel bike bicycle and pedestrian over crossing project with US 50.

I have no comment on that.

Okay. Next one is resolution authorizing the acquisition of properties at the 10744 Gold Center Drive, Rancho Cordova. APN number 0720610090. Authorization, execution of a purchase and sale agreement certificate acceptance recordation, and grant deed.

I don't think I have a comment. My comment was on the Anatolia item, but that's not part of this?

That's not part of this.

Okay. Then no comment on that as well.

All right. Thank you, Megan.

Hearing none, I will move approval of items 9.1, 9.2, and 9.3. Second.

Roll call, please.

Council Member Little? Yes. Council member Sander?

Aye.

Council member Polipotti? Here. Yes. Vice mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Alright. Moving on to consent public hearing items. Consent public hearing items are items in case of matters deemed routine and noncontroversial by by staff unless a member of the council wishes to pull an item for individual consideration. All eyes may be approved in one motion. I'm gonna go ahead and open this public hearing. Is there any public comment?

Yes. Larry Ladd.

Larry.

Alright. I do have a comment on ten one, and it had to do with a question I asked Micah. When the city first started out, there was litigation about vernal pools and trying to stop the building in Anatolia. And as the city was just starting out, I said, oh, boy, a nice juicy science thing to study. What defines a vernal pool? And then literally perchlorate blew up, I didn't have the bandwidth to deal with those kind of questions. But I still this is not advocacy. This is merely curiosity. I asked Mike you know, there were two puddles, where that's going in. And I said, what's the criteria for deciding that is or is not a vernal pool?

I don't need an answer now. But again, it's just curiosity on my part. I was all set to study the bees in vernal pools. And then, like I said, percolate, were up, and I haven't, again, since.

But

sometime, come by your guys' office and find out what the criteria is in the city for what constitutes a vernal pool. Awesome.

So I think we can tell, Larry, that the criteria is not established by the city of Rancho Cordova. It is established by the Corps of Engineers defining what constitutes water of The US. And it has changed numerous times over the last twenty years. Interesting.

Correct. Thank you.

Any other public There's no additional public comment.

I'm go ahead and close public hearing aids.

And I will move approval of ten point one and ten point two. Second.

Roll call, please.

Council member Polipati? Yes. Council member Sander?

Aye.

Council member Little?

Yes.

Vice mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood? Yes. Motion passes.

Alright. Public hearing items, we have none. Regular calendar items, we have one. Stacy, can you go ahead and read the subject, please?

Yes. A resolution authorizing the sitting manager to execute a memorandum of agreement with the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District related to planning entitlements and land transfer to fire station sixty one.

Sounds good. Hit it.

Good evening, mayor and city council. Stefan Heisler, housing manager with the city of Rancho Cordova. I'll be here, presenting the Fire Station 61 replacement project. I know there's a lot that can be said on this historic property, so keep my presentation brief, and then I'll be a little bit disappointed if I don't hear one or two stories about this site. But the the goals for this item are to provide an update on the Fire Fire Station 61 placement project, partnership between a metro Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District and the city, to present the conceptual replacement station site plan and to receive direction to execute a memorandum of agreement with Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District or Metro, as I'll say, going forward, to move this project forward.

So a little bit of background here. Station 61 located on Folsom Boulevard was originally built in 1956 and serves most of the northern neighborhoods of the city north of Highway 50. It is one of the oldest fire stations within the Metro Fire District, and it needs replacement, not just because it it it sort of served its useful life in some ways, but also to support the continued revitalization of Folsom Boulevard and sort of the anticipated redevelopment that we expect to occur on the boulevard. And so Metro Fire has several parcels there at the location. The city owns a couple as well surrounding it.

The city staff and Metro Fire have been collaborating the last couple of years on different kinds of site plan concepts that would make the station both more fees or the replacement more feasible and provide the city with additional development opportunity. And then with the passage of measure o in November 2025, Metro Fire now has sufficient funding to move forward with the replacement project. So we're proposing a memorandum of agreement to keep that project moving forward. The next steps for the project include planning entitlements, the design package, and then a land exchange. The entitlements needed are a general plan amendment and a Folsom Boulevard specific plan amendment just to deal with the parcels that would be moving sort of within the Folsom Boulevard specific plan, tentative parcel map to sort of recreate the boundaries of the parcels, and then CEQA review.

Metro Fire will begin project designs once CEQA review is complete this summer, And then Metro Fire and city staff are proposing to share the cost of these entitlements as the city would be the primary beneficiary of the zone change to create a sort of more developable 1.8 acre corner parcel on the corner of Aramont And Folsom Boulevard. And the proposed city costs for these activities is not expected to exceed $53,000. So just to give you a quick diagram of the site, and I should also, say that we have representatives of Metro Fire here in the room this evening if there are any questions or comments on the presentation. So here on the page, can see the currently owned parcels by Metro Fire highlighted in red and the current city owned parcels highlighted in orange. And then the distinction there, the blue dotted line on the top, is parcels that are outside of the Folsom Boulevard specific plan.

And then the black dotted are the ones that were within the Folsom Boulevard specific plan. So what we hope to accomplish here is roughly something on this diagram, which is all of the parcels are now within the Folsom Boulevard specific plan. That's the general plan amendment and the Folsom Boulevard specific plan amendment. And then also to exchange the lots. So the parcels would be redrawn with that tentative subdivision map, and then Metrifier would have the resultant parcel roughly there highlighted in red, and then the city would obtain the the orange parcel there.

This is a this is a conceptual diagram of the site plan that city staff have been working with Metro Fire. In conversations with Metro Fire, the mid block location does make it a bit easier for fire truck egress onto Folsom Boulevard. And then this diagram, the goal is to maintain a rear access off of Ribear Way, which is what Metro Fire had originally intended with its earlier parcel acquisitions. So we're maintaining that and also kind of keeping a mid block egress onto Folsom Boulevard. This would also yield that valuable corner acre parcel for future city redevelopment.

The existing fire station is shown there in the dotted line in the middle of the page. So with this site plan, there is there is potential opportunity for the existing station to continue operating while the new station is under construction. Although the actual site plan that Metro Fire will be moving forward with will vary slightly from this concept or will vary some some little bit from this concept. But generally speaking, we're looking at Metro Fire staying kind of taking one parcel in the middle and then city taking one on the corner. So the next steps, the staff recommendation is to adopt the resolution, which would allow us to execute the memorandum of agreement.

That would kick off work on CEQA review CEQA review, excuse me, project entitlements and the land exchange. Design is anticipated to be completed by April and then construction of the new fire station shortly thereafter, 2027. So that concludes the presentation. Have you take any comments, questions, and I'm hoping for a couple of historical stories.

So you want Linda to talk?

Linda. Well,

hold on. Before I'm sure Linda has historical stories, but my question is why is this on the agenda? Isn't this be within the city manager's budget to approve or reject?

It certainly is. It it's a it's an item to sort of, highlight some of the positive redevelopment that we're doing on Folsom Boulevard, working with our partners in the region as well. And

I'm sure

It's there's a couple really interesting FYI for us versus anything.

Doctor. Mainly.

Doctor. Okay.

Doctor. So, yeah, and I mean there are opportunities that are going to be conversations that have enough public interest or enough public discussion opportunity that will probably, you know, at times bring things that maybe something could have been approved, but there might be input or things wanted or desired from the council on some of these items as well.

And so Stories. So actually, Siri Rancho Cordova has been working with Metro Fire for a very long time on remodeling, replacing the station. It's part of the reason that we were it was one of the motivations behind demolishing the Grandee Apartments, aside from the fact that they had like two fifty six calls for service during the year. The little chunk on the Extreme East is actually part of the Mills Fire Department, which was the oldest fire department in the county and has its roots to 1920. What's really missing in this, the conceptual plan, is the fact that we have talked from day one about doing something like Folsom did in one of their firehouses, which was having a room that the Mills one fire truck could be displayed in.

And the site plan, as shown here, does not provide that space. We really need to work on doing that because right now Mills 1 truly doesn't have a special place to be displayed. And that's important. I think the fire truck is nineteen thirty two. But what they do in Folsom, it's my understanding, is that their historic fire truck, and it's it's I'm not it it might be Glen Drive. I'm not sure which street it is. Yes. Glen Drive? Great. Thank you.

So it goes from Prairie City up to East Bidwell, And then the one side of it is this beautiful little glassed in area that has the fire truck. And then when they need to use that for meetings and whatnot, then they can move the fire truck out and put people in there. So we really need to allow enough space to make something like that happen. I think, you know, obviously, Station sixty one has the most calls or one of the highest volume of calls in the entire Metro Fire District. So there's not a good reason to not provide a lot of room in here, not only for the fire apparatus but for other uses.

Alright.

So I'm willing to vote for the item. But over time, as as this evolves, we just need to make sure that the design change changes.

Excellent.

And David's got his hand up.

Before we do that, any public comment?

There is no public comment on this.

David, what you gotta say? Anything?

I concur with with Linda's point about Mill 1. You know, ideally, it would be lit in a way that it'd probably be seen from the street at night, you know, on some sort of, like looks like a little fire engine on display, you know, out front. I think that'd be a very cool thing. Talk about the history of the fire service here in in Rancho Cordova. The other thing about this station that I've always hoped for and we've certainly expressed in the past is that it would be as urban as possible in this location.

And we previously, Linda, we had a we had a design here that I would I would sort of suggest was, like, preeminently suburban. There's a huge lawn out front and the trucks are set far back, that kind of a design. So this is better, and then it's closer to the street, but it's not. I don't know how far we're pushing actually into sort of the the urbanness of this. We have to think of, you know, Folsom Boulevard is is a zone that's in transition.

Things are changing here. One story buildings on Folsom Boulevard, that's kinda the old way. Two or three story buildings, that's probably a better way, including housing. You know, denser housing is a good thing. And when we put public facilities in this space, we have to be sure that they stimulate that kind of environment around them, that kind of change because that's the it's the real successful economic future of Folsom Boulevard is a densification of, a variety of living, arrangements that are possible for people, whether it's townhouses or affordable housing or apartments or condos.

I mean, whatever whatever options we can make available, you know, for sale or for rent. And in this particular case, you know, I've been kind of enthralled with the idea of affordable housing, particularly affordable housing for seniors and meshing that with a a fire station. Because I've I've heard at the national level about this being done quite often in different locations, and it seems to be sort of a natural a natural nexus. The seniors who live in a in a place like that feel very safe because there's an ambulance nearby, and it doesn't really impact, you know, in a negative way on the on the fire station. So I'm wondering if there's a design that we explored here that sort of merged the future use of this parcel on the corner and the fire station in such a way that it would look like a more urban block, you know, maybe a three story tall three story tall building that had a fire station in it, on that end, but sort of, you know, made made a more continuous structure or what appeared to be a series of closely aligned structures that could create a more urban feel along Folsom Boulevard.

Yeah, David really has a good point. The original design that we saw, and this is going back probably twenty years ago.

That's a lot of years ago.

Yeah, it was really suburban. It was more like a of a big one story house. It definitely had a residential feel to it. So you look at what's around here, not too far away is the apartments that we built that are two story apartments. So you can truly justify that kind of urban feeling in this location.

All right. Excellent. Joe? Siri? It looks like a fire. All right. I'm going to ask for a motion.

So I'll move approval of the staff recommendation, just with the caveat that we obviously want to keep track of the project design as it goes forward.

Excellent. She will listen. Everything goes through her. You hear what you're saying? Alright. Do I have a second?

Second.

Roll call.

Council member Polipotti? Yes. Council member Little? Yes. Council member Sander?

Aye.

Vice mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Alright. And we're gonna go ahead and adjourn this meeting to closed session.

Before we do that, item number 13 Recording in progress. Request for future agenda items?

Any future agenda items?

No. All right.

And before we do that, there's no public comment on the closed session items.

Recording stopped. Recording in progress.

Thank you, mister mayor.

This meeting back to order and ask for a report out by Adam.

Thank you, mister mayor, members of the council, and community. This evening, the city council met in closed session, shook up two items of anticipated litigation, received updates from and provided direction to its litigation council. Alright.

Siri, you wanna, adjourn the meeting? Any women from

Give me one.

Oh, one of those women? Yeah. Linda Butch.

We'll adjourn this meeting in order of one of our favorite women, the the mother of Rancho Cordova, Linda Butch.