City Council - Regular Meeting

Alright. Stacy, we're gonna go ahead and start in a minute now that Linda Budge has arrived. The meeting can start. Right? Alright. Let's go ahead and call this meeting to order and ask for a roll call.

Council member Little is absent but on his way. Council member Polapotti? Here. Council member Sander? Here. Vice mayor Budge? Here. Mayor Gatewood?

Here. Stacy, you can go ahead and read the cable television announcement.

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 metro14live.sackcounty.gov. Today's meeting will replay on Thursday, May 21 at 9AM and Sunday, May 24 at 9AM on Metro Cable channel 14. 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.

Excellent. Thank you. I'm gonna go ahead and call on Joshua Junior, and he'll come up and do the, the pledge of allegiance. And then the invocation will be stay standing for the invocation by father Antonio Gutierrez from the Saint John Vianney Church, and we're so excited to have you here. So Josh, come up and do the pledge

of allegiance. Would come up as well?

I'm not gonna make her come up as well.

This is Would you, please?

This is the younger one.

Thank you. Scott this. I know. He's 19.

He's so old, wasn't he?

Good evening, everyone. Can everyone please face the flag? Please put your right hand over your heart. Ready, we go in.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of The

United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. May be seated.

In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, may the lord who went about doing good be with you all. Let us pray. We stand before you, Holy Spirit, conscious of our sinfulness, but aware that we gather in your name. Come to us, remain with us, and enlighten our hearts. Give us light and strength to know your will, to make it our own, and to live it in our lives.

Guide us by your wisdom. Support us by your power. For you are God sharing the glory of father and son. You desire justice for all. Enable us to uphold the rights of others.

Do not allow us to be misled by ignorance or corrupted by fear or favor. Unite us to yourself in the bond of love and keep us faithful to all that is true. As we gather in your name, may we temper justice with love so that all our decisions may be pleasing to you and earn the reward promised to good and faithful servants, you who live and reign with the father and the son, one God forever and ever. Amen. Amen. The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

May almighty God bless you, the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.

Amen.

Stay in peace.

Well, that was awesome. Pastor from Saint John Vianney, thank you so much for being here. Alright. This is great. Alright. I'm gonna call on Steve Ramos for the presentation on our annual mosquito and West Nile virus update and by the Sacramento Yolo Vector Controls. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you for having me. Raise that up so you can hear me. Perfect. Okay. Well, thank you. I'm sure everybody arrived just to hear this presentation this evening. So my name is Steve Ramos. I am one of the assistant managers with Sacculo Mosquito and Vector Control District. You know, there's about 60 special districts like us up and down the state of California that, you know, typically are around urban areas.

And our main goal is, of course, to control the populations of mosquitoes and other vectors that can affect public health. So we typically start out the presentation by just talking about our mission, which is really to provide safe, effective, economical mosquito and vector control. Really, what that means is we want folks to be able to enjoy their life where they live. Enjoy your evenings in the backyard, having barbecues, enjoying time with your family, you know, using the many trails and parkways that are in your neighborhoods. And honest even more importantly, we don't want anybody to get sick from, you know, the diseases that these vectors can transmit.

And we operate and do that under the California Health and Safety Code. So the reason we're doing these presentations now is this is timely for us. Mosquito season is here, here in May. We just got done with some rain. We had a lot of wind today, but temperatures are warming up. So there's lots of standing water out there in people's backyards. I myself was walking around my backyard this weekend and found buckets that I had missed, full of water and actually already had some mosquito eggs that were developing in there. So it's really good timing right now to get out, check your own backyard, walk around your neighborhood. If you see issues, give us a call. We can come out and help with that.

West Nile virus continues to be the main threat, the main concern for us as far as public health goes with mosquitoes and vector control. But we are seeing an increase in dengue fever. With the invasive mosquitoes that are in the area now, we're seeing a lot of travel related cases of dengue fever. But we are getting some more locally acquired cases as well. So this slide here just talks and shows really a lot of the different habitats that we have.

Our district, Sacramento and there's a combined district, right, both counties. So we we cover both counties and our district is really considered a rice district between Sacramento and Yolo County. We produce anywhere from 40 to 50,000 acres of rice every year. That's a main mosquito breeding habitat. Very easy for us to see, have an understanding of where they're at, gigantic fields that are green and full of water. We know there are mosquitoes there. But in areas like Rancho Cordova, we don't have those rice fields. We have more of the other, pictures that you see there, like those buckets, the bird baths, the tire swings, those things where stagnant water will tend to accumulate. And that's what mosquitoes really need to breathe. They need stagnant dirty water.

They don't like flowing water. If you have a fountain that's flowing or moving, probably won't have an issue with mosquitoes. But if it sits there for a while, they will lay their eggs. Typically, a female mosquito can lay anywhere from about a 150 to 200 eggs at a time in a raft. That's one type of mosquito that we have here. So you can see as those mosquitoes break out of those eggs and go through their life cycle, which takes anywhere from five to ten days depending on temperature. The cycle perpetuates and goes very quickly. Those populations rise really fast. So to control the mosquitoes, we use an integrated mosquito management approach. First, you know, tactic that we use is public information.

We just wanna get the word out there that we actually exist. There is a district that is, you know, paid for through tax dollars to help protect the public health, by controlling and managing mosquitoes. We do that through our billboards. We do that through our TV ads, our local radio ads, but we also wanna get into the community too. We do a lot of local events with the community.

We'll try to get out into as many schools as we can. We have a school education program that goes out and talks to elementary and middle school aged children, letting them know about the life cycle, what they can do to protect themselves and their families when it comes to mosquitoes. Surveillance would be the second arm of what we do, and that's really, I think, have the best surveillance, I would say, in the state, honestly. We put traps throughout both counties and we're monitoring for mosquito populations all over the place. Of course, in every urban area, like Rancho Cordova, we're trying to see, like, what the rise of the mosquitoes numbers looks like on a weekly basis, on a daily basis in some areas.

And then we bring those mosquitoes back and we test them. We test them for viruses like West Nile, dengue, those other viruses that mosquitoes can carry. The other part of surveillance that we are looking for is dead birds. So West Nile virus primarily is a bird disease. So the birds are the reservoir. Mosquitoes, especially the ones that are local to our area, prefer to bite birds. They'll pick up that disease from that bird and then they have the possibility of biting the human and transmitting that disease. So if there's dead birds in the neighborhood or someone sees a dead bird, we ask them to call us or they can go to the dead bird hotline and call that in and we'll go out there, actually pick that bird up and we test it for West Nile virus. And it gives us an idea of whether or not the virus is active in an area. So that way we can control our response better.

Biological control is our fish. That's really one of the most major things that we do in communities like Rancho Cordova. As folks call us, they love our fish. You know, we have so many more issues, I would say, within the last, you know, five to ten years with green pools popping up in people's backyards. Maybe a pump breaks down or maybe they just can't afford to, you know, keep the chemical maintained right now and their pool turns green. Very quickly, mosquitoes will start laying eggs in those pools. And you do not wanna live next door to a house with a green pool. It really will affect you and the neighbors within that neighborhood. So they can call us. It's a part of the service that we do.

We go out there. We actually provide mosquito fish. We can put them in that pool, and they'll control it throughout the season and and really for many years to come. Those fish, they are always hungry. They do a very good job of controlling mosquitoes. And we can put them in many habitats like pools. We can put them in ponds, in different areas like that where water is gonna be stagnant and we know mosquitoes will breed. Our ecological management arm is a department that we have that helps public and private landowners with mosquito issues they may have on their property. Maybe they have water that they can't drain or they don't know how to drain or there's just an issue that they've been trying to solve and they don't have the equipment to do it. That's part of what ecological management can do.

They can go out there, work with those landowners, try to figure out a way to work together to move that water or help drain it properly so we're not creating mosquitoes in that area. And, you know, future plans too for planning developments. They look over development projects and also make, comments on whether or not mosquito considerations or public health considerations have been taken into account. And then control operations is really, it's anywhere from our boots on the ground, our staff members that are out there checking these sources, in your neighborhoods, treating these sources, giving out education, all the way to our aerial functions, which we have a larvicide function that, we treat like many of those rice fields through the air. We have an adult control operations through the air as well.

And we're even using more and more drones nowadays to treat a lot of mosquito sources that are just dangerous for, to send people into, and that are hard to treat. So these drones are becoming very useful, and the technology of drones is rapidly increasing very quickly. So here's one of the most important, slides of the presentation and that's the city of Rancho Cordova. And what you can see there is we did have some positive West Nile virus mosquito samples within the city limits. Last year, we had five positive mosquito samples.

So I would really like it to be zero, but five is not too bad. What happens when we get those positive mosquito samples? We update our control. We do more surveillance, more trapping, and we increase treatments in that area too to, you know, make sure that we're responding correctly. The yellow boxes are West Nile virus positive dead birds that we found. We found one within the city limits of Rancho Cordova. But you can see right on the outskirts, we did have a few more birds that are out there as well as mosquito samples. And birds are tricky because you may find a bird even in your city limits or outside, but they can be sick for a while before they succumb to the disease, if they succumb at all. So it's, kind of an indicator for us, not necessarily pinpoint. That mostly comes back to the mosquito samples.

And then, of course, for the human cases in the state of California of West Nile virus, we had a hundred and thirteen last year, which is down, which is a good thing from down being down from twenty twenty three where we had a tremendous amount, four hundred and twenty eight. However, one thing we'd like to point out on this slide is that West virus is severely underreported. So CDC estimates for every one neuroinvasive case, there are thirty to seventy West Nile cases that go unreported. That could be something like West Nile fever, where someone just gets sick in the summer, they don't feel well. And we always recommend to folks, if that happens and maybe you're out, you know, late at night or you're gardening and you got bit by some mosquitoes, that's probably something that you should mention to your doctor if it's, you know, kind of odd that you're feeling this way in the middle of the summer.

Something that is becoming more and more of a concern, here in Sacramento County as well as Rancho Cordova is the detection of invasive mosquitoes. Now there's two main culprits, the, Aedes aegypti, and Aedes albopictus. Aedes aegypti seems to really kinda taking center stage here. We haven't found albopictus in a couple of years. But you can see within the city boundaries, Aegypti are very much a growing infestation within the city limits. And these ones are a concern for a couple of reasons. One, they're an extremely aggressive day biter. They don't wait for dawn or dusk. They will bite you in the middle of the day. And they prefer to bite humans.

They are really inherent to urban areas. They're not so much an agricultural mosquito, but they prefer, more cryptic sources in backyards. They can breed in something as small as a water cap that's holding water. So it's very hard to locate these mosquitoes and very hard to control. So, of course, they are very aggressive biters, so they can ruin a picnic or ruin a backyard barbecue.

But they're also really good vectors of more exotic diseases like dengue, chikungunya, Zika. Last year in California, there were a hundred ninety three travel related cases of dengue. We had six that were locally transmitted. And once again, the travel related cases are a concern because if we have the vector here in the state or within the city limits, someone travels here that is sick, it can now pick that, you know, that disease up from that person and then transmit it to somebody else. So that's a main concern for us.

And you can see right outside of the city limits of Rancho Cordova in the area of Rosemont is really a very high infestation and continues to be growing. So something that we're doing and we tried last year is sterile insect technique. And it's new to us as a district, but it's really been around for sixty years or more, and they've done this with MedFly. And what we're doing is we're releasing sterile male mosquitoes. So male mosquitoes don't bite.

They don't have mouth parts, So there's no concern that they will transmit any diseases or cause an itch. These sterile male mosquitoes will mate with the local females and once a female mates with the male mosquito, she won't mate with any other male mosquitoes. She will basically have that one interaction and then all of her eggs will be laid from that sterile male mosquito. So she will lay eggs, but they will not hatch until she, you know, it dies. So for us, we tried this, technique last year for the first time in a small area in South Natomas and had extremely good results where that was an area that we saw increasing numbers year after year since 2019, and last year was the first year that we saw a gigantic decline in that area.

So we're going to be continuing this SIT strategy, moving into 2026 season, and we are actually targeting the Rosemont area to see how we can do this. We're growing the area that we're doing it, more trapping, and more follow-up to see how well it's working for us. So moving forward, we'll continue to expand the sterile insect technique. We're always looking at the areas that have the high populations of invasive mosquitoes. Like I said, Rosemont is probably the number one target for us right now, but there are other areas within the both counties, both Yolo and Sacramento Counties that we're keeping an eye on.

Our surveillance and control efforts will, of course, always continue. That's really our main target. It helps kind of point and direct us if we're doing things correctly or if we need to amp it up. We're always looking for more outreach opportunities in communities. So if you'd like us to come give a presentation to any clubs, schools, or any groups that you have within the city of Rancho Cordova, please reach out. We love those opportunities. And of course, we encourage the public to report day biting mosquitoes. That's really a big help for us. You know, we're a small district that covers two large counties, so we're less than a 100 people, a 100 staff full time, less than 70 staff full time. So it's a lot of area for us to cover.

So when the public actually does that and helps us by calling in and saying, hey, I'm being bit by mosquitoes. They're here. I'm being bit in the daytime. It's a really good indicator for us as where to go and start seeking these mosquitoes out. And of course, for any other information too, we always encourage folks to go to our website at www.fight.bite.net.

That will give us that will give those folks that sign up for updates, all the information that they could ever want, mosquito control related. So it'll talk about where we're doing our treatments, the days that they are planned, the what, the where, the why we are doing those treatments. And, of course, they can also turn in those dead birds that they may see around their neighborhood for that too. So, very helpful, and and, we just ask the public to do that as well. And that's all I have for this evening. Thank you very much for having me.

Thank you for coming. Appreciate it. Alright.

It's alright. Go ahead.

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

We have two speaker cards. The first person first speaker will be Helen Willem Bashaw and James Garcia. You'll have up to three minutes.

Right. Greetings. Hi, Helen. I'm Helen Bashal. I'm from the Tiffany area.

This weekend, I spent two days with, Betsy Whelan, and she is dedicated member of SARA, Save the American River Association. That association was founded in 1961 to protect the American River Parkway. They were able to acquire a lot of land up, along the American River Parkway. They go from the Nimbus Dam to where the American River Parkway, the American River meets the Sacramento River. And if you ever see the two rivers as they get together, you have the clear river of the American River Parkway, and you have the dirty sludge from Sacramento.

Why was I involved with her is because we tabled an event down in the Elk Grove area called Walk on the Wild Side. Happens every year. They bring in, a lot of environmental people, the the, highway patrols there. They bring in a variety of animals and different activities. And they walk on an area that's not normally open to the public.

And they have a lot of wetlands and things like that down there. So after that event, we went to attend it day three of a convention being held for two of the three days here in Rancho Cordova. It is the California Mermaid Convention. Can you turn this thing on for a minute? Yeah.

Oh, no.

Okay. So, here we go. So I've gotta get it. Can you get it? It's not on. What's happening?

It's coming.

It's coming. Okay. Okay. Our projector needs to warm up.

Everybody laughs about this, but this group is around, and it's been it's worldwide. The largest concentration of the mermaids is in China. They are an environmental group. They show up in Rancho Cordova, and, it's not only mermaids, but there are mermen, if you see them. There they are.

They spend the two days over at the pool getting into their costumes. They have six fins on that one. And why are they important? They when they show up to do their cleanup, they are wearing costumes similar to mermaids. They take their their buckets and their their pinchers, and they clean up the river. There is a 12 year old girl from this area that's been a mermaid since she was two. She's 12 years old now. She is certified by Patty. Patty is the, certification for diving. She's certified for caves.

She's certified for open waters. And the reason I'm talking to you about this is she gets involved with the cleanup. Her parents drive the boat. She gets on her tanks and cleans under the water. Please wrap up your comments. So that's good enough for now. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our second speaker is James Garcia.

Hello, James Garcia, resident of Stone Creek. I just wanted to kind of do more of a couple of PSAs. Don't forget to go out and vote because that is coming up here really soon, as well as the schools are starting to come out. They're going to be ending their session here towards the end of the month for Elk Grove Unified and also Folsom Cordova Unified. So that means there's going to be a lot more kids out there on the road that you're not used to. Hopefully, the people out there listening will actually realize that and not run them over because they're normally in class. Now they're going to be out there in their neighborhoods playing around. Sac City, of course, gets out in the June. So don't forget to watch out for the kids. Look out for them. You're not in that big of a rush. Slow down. Watch the kids. Thanks. And vote.

Thank you.

All right. Heard about mermaids. Joe, counsel report.

Had a fun time at the Children's Museum event this weekend and been busy a lot of other ways. Work's still crazy. I'm not counseling that much these days. I have my boring lawyer job. That's eating up a lot of time, but having a good time as always.

David. Got

a lot on my list for the past few weeks. Volunteer day was certainly great here. I assume someone else will talk about that. We had meetings for Rancho Athletic Association, Carovan Community Council, First Year Suburbs Council, the National Leagues of Cities. By the way, is everybody planning to go to Nashville in November? Annual meeting in Nashville. Don't wanna miss Nashville. Yeah. It's gonna be a lot of fun.

Joe.

A very good meeting for the National League of Cities. In the past couple times, I've been the only representative of Rancho Cordova, which is very unusual for us.

Joe. So

consider, please.

Of all places to go.

Yeah. It's fun. It's such a hard sell to Nashville.

I've been there. I toured Vanderbilt Law School when I got in, and I almost went. So been to Nashville.

Warning, if you do go, they have an indoor track facility, which I will be visiting. I might drag you along to it. Just fair warning. Yep. There

was a large contingent that the one the last time it was in Nashville and actually

Oh, I agree. A whole bunch

of this

wind in the car.

Really innovative Spouses.

They have, yeah, they have cool stuff going on in Nashville. We had a very interesting discussion at SACOG last week about transit reform, being that there's a financial crush coming on every transit agency in the nation, essentially, varying degrees. Certainly, it's impacting us here. And the question was asked at SACOG, what is SACOG's role in transit reform? And I expressed the view that it's very difficult for transit agencies to reform themselves because of all the pressures they're under, Pressures from employee organizations, pressures from their staff, pressures from the various jurisdictions.

It's everybody's second job to sit on regional transit. It's just not the most naturally innovative or reformed possible organization. So I argued that SACOG could have a role in that. We don't directly fund transit. We advise. We carry out the necessary processes for RT to get some funding from the feds, but I think SACOG could sort of act as a as a hinge, as a discussion based something for reform. And so I think I'm gonna ask for one of the items on our on our consent calendar actually to be briefly discussed in that same vein, talking about better ways to do things we've done before. Vernal pools. I don't know how many people did a vernal pool tour this spring. It was pretty outstanding out there.

My wife and I went and marched around. We were the only people out there. It was quite quite pleasurable just to see how many different species were in were in bloom and how many different other animals you could you could see besides just the flora and the fauna. I met with the National Park Service consultants. Linda and I did.

That was a great discussion, kicking off what our options might be there or what things might be worth pursuing. Had facility planning meetings with the school district. I'm still very happy about the Symphony to Oro concert that occurred with Rachel Barton about three weeks ago, getting positive vibes from that around the region. We we kinda made a mark. We brought in an Internet or probably an internationally known artist to perform here.

And at that same concert, we also had stuff that was designed specifically for Symphony D'Oro Rancho Cordova. So that symphony here in Rancho Cordova is performing way above what anyone would expect and I think is a rival for some of the best music in the region. Our community band is also doing a great job. I missed their concert this last weekend, but I heard it was great. There's a youth art exhibit at the MAC, which was great. League of California City's board meeting. And finally, we had a five by five by five meeting. Was that two weeks ago? Some Something like Yeah. Blended all in two weeks ago, where we talked about the CTE pathways, a continuing education or career technical education pathways.

And I think we made a request at that meeting that we all get a list of what programs are being offered at what high school sites and what middle school sites. Did we get a version of that? Yeah. So looking at what I received, it appears like there's maybe I don't know how to say this politely. Two different classes of programs that are offered.

One where you intend to be maybe college bound and it's more technical and another set where you're not so much. And it feels like Cordova has been typecast in that, and that's a very uncomfortable position to be in. I don't feel like our students are given the same options as they are to other high schools in the district. So I just wanna put that out there. I think that was a general conclusion in the room. I just wanna say it here and see if we get any feedback from you guys about that. That's how I felt about it. I think that's how school board members felt about it. I don't know if Folsom city council members felt that way about it. They may not have the same viewpoint that we do.

But I think that warrants our ongoing attention going forward, being sure that our students are offered everything they should be offered in our schools here in Rancho Cordova. That's my report.

Thank you, David.

Mister Mayor, if I can just part of that request could be asking the school district to come and present kind of the CTE programs to us individually as a as a body and get some feedback. So But I know there's interest for that to come in the future to come have them come and talk about their CTE to the full

council. Mhmm. Okay. Excellent. Siri.

Thank you. Thank you, council member Sander. You know kids are always on top of mind for most of council. And in that along the same lines, I would like to congratulate the city of Rancho Cordova for signing the MOU in collaboration with NVIDIA, Soladigm, FarmGPU, and other tech companies, HMCI, on creating these career pathways for our kids. So sometimes when schools don't do it, we step up and do it ourselves.

Yeah. Thanks to you too, guys. The Cal I attended the Sac Valley division board meeting, and they gave an update on what happened in Cal Cities and one of the conversations that they had is the fact that there's a sales tax measure on fulfillment centers on who gets the money with the sales tax revenue. Is it the place where the warehouse is existing or where the eventual product goes? And, you know, there are smaller cities that are taking a big hit on the sales tax revenue, but the Cal Cities Board did not take a position on it.

So I I this time, that's where the Cal City's board update was. The other update that we had was, again, with summer coming, there's this whole conversation about e bikes and kids on e bikes and what cities are doing about the security for that. I know some of the cities like Folsom and Lincoln are heavily invested in it and are seeing a lot more, and I think we as a city are. But I think Lincoln actually implemented a policy change giving officers some enforcement tools that they can implement on their end. And they were also looking to see if cities have implemented ordinances with regard to e bikes that we all can kind of standardize in sort of each city kind of making their own ordinance on that regard.

And that's my update.

Thank you, Zeri. Linda?

Well, it's really quite remarkable, the number of different areas that we're all involved in. I mean, has something different to say. Some of us went to a Safetyville anniversary the other day and managed to watch our own mayor become the honorary mayor of Safetyville for this year.

Technically not that's great. But technically not in city limits.

No. Is that an

annexation? Officially have annexation. Piece of the town. Excellent. Now are slowly creeping into other cities' towns.

Just sign something. Get that done. Because

AI is not my world, I was absolutely thrilled to see a presentation by people from HMCI all about AI. And they really explained a lot of things that are part of the standard lexicon in today's conversations, but which I knew nothing about. So I I really appreciated that. I Fest was as fun this year as it normally is, and it was very well attended. The international the international events that are typically there were joined by a new group of, Samoan wrestlers.

And it it it's like it's just like watching Hulk Hogan and all those guys from decades ago, except these people are twice as big, and they fall twice as hard. So it was it was really very funny.

Famous Simone wrestlers.

Famous Simone. Yeah. Including Rancho

from yeah.

Yeah. Rancho Dreau. They live in Lincoln Village, Joe. And and actually, their family tree includes Dwayne Johnson, The Rock. They big had board of family tree.

That was fascinating. So David and I attended a meeting of the SPTC JPA, which has to do with the transportation corridor from 65th Street all the way to Placerville. And the Western Railroad Association, which is actually an arm of the Eldorado County Library, made a presentation all about the programs that they do and the train rides that you can take, which is really lovely. Regional transit met. Regional transit is setting a bar for transit organizations around the country.

They have been masters at getting grants and various programs to fund not only expansions of the line and routine maintenance, but also to purchase all the new low floor cars. And today, it was announced that the the special dial a ride for elderly and handicapped is being extend expanded on Saturday so that you can if you are a qualifying person that signed up with them, you can call it on Saturday. The National Park Service kicked off a really great conversation that we're all working on. The Sacramento library budget was the only negative meeting that I attended because the split between the city and the county library systems is not sustainable. And Mike and I have been talking about and and, actually, Kim Duran, our finance director, attended that with me, and I was really glad she did because something needs to change there, and we're not sure what.

Spring service day was remarkable. Tons of volunteers fanned out all over the all over the city, did everything from school gardens to painting fire hydrants. And anybody who wants to paint the fire hydrant in their neighborhood should let me know. The police department's gonna do it on their street. Station sixty six and station sixty one are signed up to paint cute Dalmatians out in front of their stations, And you'll see more of them growing.

It's not just America Two Fifty, it's Rancho Cordova 250. David is absolutely right. The concert, Rachel Barton Pine, was just amazing. My sister-in-law today asked me if because she's moved, and she asked if I'd been to any concerts. And I was describing that to her.

It was, I've never heard and we go to these concerts at the symphony all the time. But I don't think we've ever heard a violin make that range of sounds before. It was really quite remarkable. And finally, community council on Friday outdid themselves. Our district attorney, Thin Ho, has written a book about the capture of the East Area rapist, and that man is a storyteller.

The audience of over a 100 people was enthralled. You could not have heard a pin drop that day. He really had us captivated with his discussion of how they tracked down that man that terrorized this region back in the seventies and eighties and and how they ultimately caught up with him. So, his book is for sale. He says you can get it on Amazon. So everybody should go out and support the district attorney and buy his book. Thank you.

Right. Luckily, there's sounds like there's nothing going on in Rancho. Quiet, fast. Alright. I'll try to be fast because lots of stuff to go over today. Thank you to Safetyville. It's great being the mayor again twice over. First time Safetyville has ever made the mayor an actual mayor of a city, so I thought I'd bring that out. I do have the key. It's in the car.

I was supposed to bring it in. I'll bring it in a minute when more of you guys are talking. Spring service day was amazing. Thank you to my impeccable staff. Thank you to the woman that created this, Sandy Runner, Jen Lorette, Laurie Ann, Shelley, John Perez, Dennis McNamara for being such an amazing partner, and for Atlas, a four promotions, RADS, and many others who support us.

What a great event. And it's just cool because you get to see us what Rancho's really about, which is helping out our neighbors. I mean, there's there was we ran out of shirts because so many new people wanna come volunteer. And when the first year, there was very few and a lot of staff, and now the staff are way outweighed by the amount of volunteers that show up. Children's Room, happy fifteenth birthday to the amazing children's museum. We're gonna be able to rebrand it, the Rancho Cordova Children's Museum as soon as the stadium gets built, and then we'll redo the name. But for now, Sacramento Children's Museum in Rancho Cordova. Met with KCM Properties. It was interesting because they gave me a lowdown. It's great.

I've been meeting with lots of CEOs trying to tell them how can we how can they grow in Rancho Cordova, making sure they feel loved. And they're a great group created in Rancho Cordova and looking to pick up more properties to kinda keep that going. This is truly and and and Siri brought it up to me the best is this is an answer to something that we promised we would do and not allow us this, but we have officially created a k to career AI ecosphere nucleus that's going to generate not only jobs, but also career in the city. So thank you to for SolidDigm, which is the 4,000,000,000,000 $6,000,000,000,000 grill in the room. Yeah.

I'm sorry. NVIDIA, SolidDigm who came from them, Sac State, SK Hynes, Folsom Lake College, Folsom Cordova School District, FarmGPU, SMUD for all being in the room and all be willing to sign an MOU and do something. It's the k to careers program that was invented, I would say, here in Rancho Cordova and now is going into the next level. That's amazing. I met with senator Ashby and talked about 08/2002.

People are really trying to figure out a way to fix the homeless situation. So I don't feel like anyone's sitting on the back end, but Ashley is trying to push the the city and the county in to making something happen. And so now the city and the county are actually coming to agreements. We don't know where Rancho Cordova is going to fall in this overall, how it is. We we want to control our own dollars so that we can help out homeless because I think we do a great job at it.

But it's interesting to hear all the people in the room about trying to get something done. Lastly, I met with Ami Volleyball. I didn't realize that's a business that was started here in Rancho Cordova. And and women's and men's volleyball happens to be, like, the third or fourth fastest growing sport in the region, and they're all based in Rancho. We have a bunch of really high end volleyball teams coming to Rancho.

It's another nonprofit, like the Sam Wells Soccer Club that started for profit, became a nonprofit, and now is doing stuff. They are gonna be engaging, hopefully, more. I told them I was like, get yourself in your butt into RCAA and figure out how you can teach my kids how to play volleyball because I figured if we have this style of volleyball, our volleyball team at Rancho Cordova High should be amazing. Just come start educating our kids. And that's it for me.

They also have basketball shooting lessons in that building.

And, you

know, I'm I did it for a few months.

I appreciate you pointing out the most important thing, which is basketball. Nothing matters more than basketball. And I thank you, Joe, for not letting me forget the most important thing in this world is basketball.

$60 a session, and my jumper is still horrible.

Listen. But now it goes in. But now the rotation's right.

A little bit more.

There we go. I'll take that.

This person leading.

Micah. Thank you, mayor. Just highlighting a few of the things talked about, maybe one or two more additional ones. Spring Service Day, really want to highlight the team effort that that is. Not only our kind of team working on the project itself with Lorianne, Carl, and Matt Buellen, but also all the volunteers from city staff that are out there that day leading projects, doing different things in the community really is a great day of team building for us as a city team, but also serving the community in various ways.

And so I will say the good news is or the bad news is we ran out of shirts. The good news is we ran out of shirts. And so that's part of the challenge of a growing event that's just getting more and more volunteers, which is the whole point. So I really wanna thank the team for delivering that great day. Highlighting again the AI and robotics ecosystem effort that is underway, the career announcement, which really is a kind of first of its kind combination of all the way from kindergarten through higher education between Folsom Cordova Unified through Folsom Lake College to Sac State, all being in the room with our industry partners like Solodime and Nvidia and HMCI is a unique experience and something that we will continue to highlight and lean into for our community.

The other thing around Safetyville that was not talked about is there will soon be a building, a city hall building in Safetyville. So continuing with the effort to expand into potentially outside of our normal city boundaries, there will be a new city hall in the future in the big little city of Safetyville. And so Rancho Cordova will be represented as the only city hall in Safetyville, showcasing the the importance of a city hall in his little city. So we look forward to seeing that come to fruition. And then the last thing is just wanna highlight the Greater Sacramento Economic Council annual dinner or annual event that took place where we just by sheer kind of numbers, thinking about that the GSEC represents six counties, 22 communities across the region, Three out of the four winners of the GSEC annual celebration were Rancho Cordova companies.

So with that kind of competition, to take three out of the four, you know, events is something special. And so I think something to congratulate the team's effort in in working that through. Okay. Got some. Just last just this week, Wednesday, we have the ribbon cutting for the Ranch Cordova food hub at Wednesday at 10:00. So really excited about bringing that new adventure and unique experience that will be the first of its kind way to delivery food into the community, and so something that will be celebrated this week as well. So that's it for me. Thank you.

And, honestly, quick word on that is that's it's food with dignity, and it came out of the Catholic church from Saint Giovanni, which is almost it's almost kinda fortuitous that the guy that was here was the group that basically created this new type of food structure. So we're gonna move on to consent calendar items. Consent calendar items are consistent matters deemed routine and noncontroversial by staff unless a member of the council wishes to pull an item for individual consideration. All items may be approved with mow motion. Are there any items the council wishes to pull?

We pull a nine point eight and nine point twelve.

Okay. Pulling 9.8 and let's see what that is. And 9.12. Do I have a motion for the remainder of the things?

If we don't have any public comment, then I'll move the balance of the consent calendar.

Second.

Do I have roll call, please?

Yes. Council member Sander. Aye. Council member Little. Here. Council member Polipotti. Yes. Vice mayor Butch. Yes. Mayor Gatewood.

Aye. And then do we wanna what was it? Nine point

Nine point eight.

You wanna go over in nine point twelve?

And I'd just like to mention we did not have any public comment in response to your question.

Okay. So do we wanna pull 9.8? 9.8. Which someone wanna read me what that is, please, Stacy.

9.8. The agenda topic is, resolution adopting a list of projects for the fiscal year 2026 through '27, funding by senate bill number one, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017.

So this is about a $2,300,000 annual appropriation we get as a result of SB one. It comes from gas taxes, car tax, maybe. I'm not sure. Multiple tech or car related sources, anyway. And we have been on a a series of neighborhood repavings. And as I understand it in reading this, I'm guessing our next three are Countryside, Lincoln Village Mhmm. Stone Creek. And some of those we've been to before, which means we're at the point where we are if we paved everything in Rancho Grenova and we're flipping over into the second round of fixing all of our neighborhood streets. Is that a correct assumption?

I don't think we've paved everything. But for instance, Lincoln Village was almost twenty years ago.

Yeah. It's been done, but it's been a while.

Councilmember Sanders, absolutely, you're correct that the funding does come from the state. We haven't quite reached the point where we're getting back to neighborhoods. We're actually at the very tail end of getting to all of them. So Lincoln Milledge is one of our last community neighborhoods that we're going to be repaving, as well as one over there further. The next one is actually over there by Simphendel, Folsom Boulevard, Cordoba Lane, which is also a neighborhood that hasn't been touched. So we're very close. With within the next three years, we will have touched we have rehabbed everything.

Good. So you picked these three because there isn't identified funding for them yet, or you just want some flexibility in how you spend these dollars?

Yeah. So, it is part of it's the flexibility. So for the countryside, that's under construction. So if you're gonna spend any of the SP one funding, we have to, do the expenditure reporting for the state. And then right now, we're actually out to bid on the Stone Creek project, so that will be done this summer. And then with Lincoln Village, that plan is to work on that one next summer. So we're kind of phasing the different projects.

So we cut the city into neighborhoods. We do this neighborhood by neighborhood. What's the neighborhood cost roughly? Just give us a rough dollar figure. Is it a $5,000,000 or $10,000,000 or $2,000,000 They vary because of the size, I know.

They do vary. I would say that they're probably closer in the $10,000,000 range on average. If we look at the first RCO 2, which is over there by Mills Ranch area, that was closer to $20,000,000 because it's such a large neighborhood. So we try to combine some of the service areas. I would say if we had a rough number, it would be closer to $10,000,000 range.

Yeah. So this just gives you an idea. If we're getting money from gas tax, money from SB one, dollars 2,300,000 a year sounds like a lot. Until you're here, it takes $10,000,000 to do one of our neighborhoods. And how many neighborhoods do we have?

Lots.

Twelve, fourteen? We have quite a bit Pieces like that. Right. So it's it's a huge project, keeping all of our roads up to date, but I just wanted to sort of call out. You also had Sunrise, White Rock to Grand Line list on there. That's

Yeah. We just finished the last phase of Sunrise, so it's just so we can kinda close out that for the final, invoices. So it just allows us the flexibility when we're closing on a project.

Very good. Thank you.

Do we wanna do nine point Okay.

Nine point twelve? I I will highlight, just, you know, because we're still on the topic for a minute too is it's, this is a small portion of the amount of funding going to this. And so, whether it's our measure h funds and other funds that the council has committed to this out of kind of our ongoing general funds to make sure these rehabs continue Which our is big which is in Measure R and all the others.

Yeah.

And I would encourage people to use our app online to report potholes. I live in Lincoln Village. We're waiting to get redone, and they pop up really frequently. And you just go on the app, and it gets fixed within a week. The city will come cold patch it. So I know I'm the strongest soldier on my street keeping it alive, but as we eagerly await. But thank you guys for all you do.

Alright. So could we go ahead and we're gonna move 9.8. Do I have a

So moved.

So second, first public comment.

Oh.

We should ask for public comment. And there is no public comment.

Did you not have public comment before it was removed? We did.

But, generally, when we pull an item, we ask for public comment.

Public comment on the public comment when there was none? I really appreciate you.

You're welcome.

Alright. Can we go ahead and have a first? Do we have our first?

So moved.

We have a second?

Yes.

Roll call.

Thank you. Council member Little? Yes. Council member Sander?

Aye.

Council member Polipotti? Yes. Vice mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood? Yes. Motion passes.

9.12. Stacy, can you read the subject?

A resolution authorizing the city manager to execute contract number 2026Dash78 with fifty Corridor Transportation Management Association in an amount not to exceed $2,282,984 for transportation demand management services for fiscal year 2026 through '27 through 2028 through '29 for the encouragement and education of sustainable transportation within the city.

Alright. So this is a three year contract. I don't think we've done it quite that way before. 760,000 a year, roughly. It looks like it's funding a Sunrise Douglas shuttle that gets Sunrise Douglas students to Albioni Middle School and maybe some high schools in the Elk Grove District as well. This is not Cordova van funding. So I I have that correct?

Councilman Sander, yes. You have that correct. This is not the funding for Cordova van. This is in addition to.

So I'm curious of the ROI with this TMA because I don't know when we last sort of had them in front of us to talk about what their program is and what they do.

Sure. We would

be happy to do a a fuller presentation at some point in the future. Historically, we've done one year agreements with the fifty corridor TMA. And in the past couple of years, their budget has increased because we have the opportunity to try and fill a gap where there's some school bus challenges that that don't provide a great mechanism for getting students from the southern part of our city to the Elk Grove schools, the middle school and the high school. So it's a 25 mile trip, round trip to get there. And so we're able to fill three different shuttle buses, shuttle vans, of middle school and high school students from our neighborhoods down to Elk Grove schools.

Are they actually filled? I guess that's the question.

They are. Are.

Because you can't say that about the Cordova van. I wanted to be sure this was another version of the Cordova van.

So this the Cordova van numbers are trending upward, but you're you're exactly right. The there's actually a waiting list for students on these shuttles right now.

It's actually really, really wanted in our area. It's hard, and that's a long trip, and there's not and the buses show up and they go or the kids wait in the rain. Luckily, the clubhouse lets them go in while they wait. It's bad.

How much of the $7.60 a year is for the shuttles?

About 50%.

About half of it?

Yes. The TMA has some interesting programs going on, though. And David, I will say that the cordovan, our cordovan, is the most heavily ridden of the small neighborhood shuttles that Regional Transit runs. It has been historically. But the TMA has started an interesting program where they pick up this is something economic development and I've been talking about.

They pick up employees from one area and transport them to someplace else and then take them back to where they came from in the daytime. And the reason I know this, across the street from me, in the office building, all these people gather out there at 09:30 in the morning, and there are several just normal vans that come and get these people. They take them off to someplace else. And then at 03:30 in the afternoon, they bring them all back again. And there's a specific name for it, and I don't I didn't bring that piece of paper with me.

Amanda and I have talked about it. It it everybody got a card, a postcard in the mail. One of those things you would typically throw away. So don't throw it all out. But but, if you I don't know where they go. I don't know where they come from. But they all get moved around the city somehow, somewhere, so that they all get to work in the morning.

Well, those are the kind of topics I think are worthy of us taking a look at now and then. And as I said, I don't know when we last looked at a TMA operations plan or what we're actually funding.

Probably when Rebecca left.

Could be.

And that's a long So time

do you want us to do you wanna move this and then have them come do a report for us? Probably. Alright. So let's go ahead and there any public comment?

Thank you for asking.

No. There's no public comment. Right? Alright. So moved. Set second. Roll call, please.

Council member Sander. Aye. Council member Little. Yes. Council member Polipotti? Yes. Vice mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood?

Yes. Alright. Moving on. Nothing on consent roll, consent public hearing items. Nothing on public hearing items. And let's do regular calendar items. Stacy, can you go ahead and read the subject, please?

Twelve point one, the discussion of the Brown Act updates under s b seven zero seven and a resolution authorizing the handling of disruptions of telephonic or Internet service during council meetings.

Adam, run this thing.

Thank you, mister mayor, council, members of the community, and staff. I'm pleased to be teaming up on this, presentation with the city clerk, and a quick thanks to members of our staff, Persephone Riley and Arianna Johnson in our office who worked hard on this item together. This item follows the update that we gave to all the counsel at the beginning of this year on the new laws and told you at that time that one of the new laws that we dwelled on a bit in that presentation was the significant updates to the Brown Act in SB seven zero seven, and we said we'd be coming back to you here to further implement that. Really implemented in two phases. The first phase, which went into effect in January 1 and has been underway, and the clerk will, has done quite a bit of work on that.

And the second phase is really the focus of our conversation here with you tonight. And one of the things that we do highlight is that there are now a distinction between eligible legislative bodies and not eligible legislative bodies. So, for the first time, you may see some distinction between the rules under the Brown Act that you follow and the bodies that you serve, as Rancho Cordova's representative or also between the city council and the planning commission, And that's a result primarily of that eligible legislative body distinction.

So we want to go over and highlight some of those, distinctions that are going into effect on July 1, which is not too far away, six, seven weeks away. And then we'll touch on some of those items that have gone into place, effective January 1. So effective July 1 year, the city council will be required, because you are an eligible legislative body, to allow for remote public comment, either, via a two way telephonic service or a two way audio visual platform, through 01/01/2030. We will be utilizing technology that staff and the public and the council are familiar with, a technology that we successfully implemented during the pandemic and that is already integrated into the council chambers and in the American River rooms.

So one of the changes that the new law makes is, it requires you to adopt before July 1 a, technology disruption policy. Rancho Cordova, because of its outstanding facilities and technology and commitment to technology, has had a very stable technology platform. So we hope and expect to not have to use this. But the gist of the law is that if and the policy that's in front of the council is that if there is an interruption in the technology that prevents folks from being able to participate, techno by remote means, that the city would pause its regularly scheduled that it's open session meeting, it would make an effort to reestablish and do a series of specific things that are described in the policy to get back online. During that time, you have the option of adjourning to and taking up if you have a closed session at the end of the meeting.

You can take up that item of business and go do other work or take care of your own, you know, affairs while we get get back online. But we will have a series of things we need to do to get the system back up and running. And only if those things are unsuccessful and we can document that they're unsuccessful, And after working on them for an hour, would we be able to come back and proceed with the meeting without the public participating by those electronic means? So, in general, we hope and don't think that we'll have to use this. We have a great IT department, and, of course, we've had a very stable system over the last number of years.

And the council's been very proactive in helping get the technology disseminated throughout city hall.

A third ask of this SB707 that goes into effect on July 1 is also we need to encourage participation in public meetings, including underrepresented and non speaking communities through a series of activities that the clerk's office is working on in collaboration with the communications department, the facilities department, and the IT department. Some of those things and it's not limited to these things require such things as maintaining a web page dedicated to public meetings that includes a general explanation of our public meeting process, including the public comment procedures. So it's not just on our agenda, but it's also on our website. We need to provide Is that your baby?

My god. Sorry. This giant child just walked in the size of three of us, and I was like, that Siri, does your son just come in the room? Is that his friends right there? Apparently. Yeah. Hey, guys. Alright. Go ahead. Please.

We also need to provide a direct link on the city's primary page explaining how to request materials and to be able to access our dedicated web pages. We need to be able to provide a space in a freely accessible area to add an additional posting board so those who want to translate our agendas in another language have a place to do that that is freely and accessible to them. And there's a few other activities with regards to reasonably assisting members of the public who wish to translate a public meeting if we need to be able to provide access for translators or interpreters also in the council chambers as well. In addition to that, with regards to SB seven zero seven, it also requires eligible legislative bodies to translate the meeting agenda with regards to remote joining instructions and posting of the meeting into applicable languages that are spoken by 20% or more of the population, provided that 20% or more of the population that speaks that language speaks English less than very well. So there is a formula and the American Community Survey that allows us to be able to see that data.

We don't meet that 20% threshold as of now, so therefore we do not need to translate our agendas as a requirement in another language besides English.

Makes sense. So lastly, highlighting a few of the things that we've already been doing since July 1 to comply with the new laws. Reminder that there is an indefinite social media exception that restricts communication outside of a meeting on Internet based social media platforms to just answering questions or providing information. We're soliciting information from the public and members of the bodies. Can't use social media to discuss among themselves or respond directly to anything, that another member of the same legislative body posts, regarding the agency business.

So just a reminder At the meeting? To be careful. You can't use social media to respond among among

majority of the council You're not the meeting.

Or or outside of the meeting on in places that that the majority of you are on the online.

So we used to unfriend ourselves of all the counsel?

You can do it in a you can you can do it in a number of ways.

This is a backhat.

The the laws are reaffirmed and and restated slightly the authority to remove physically disruptive participants. The reality is the bar is pretty high to be able to actually

Let me ask this because I I know you're gonna go into this, and I I totally understand all this. So two things. One, Micah, I need us to switch out of Zoom and go to Teams. We're a Microsoft shop. So down the road, I would like you to start as we implement this type of technology.

Don't have

a panic attack. It's easier than Zoom. Trust. We're a Microsoft shop.

The only time I've done Teams, it inhabited my computer and refused to go away.

Listen, they all it is not. It's the best product out there. We're a Microsoft don't make me bring James Garcia up here. I'm looking at you, James. And so, the second thing

Mister mayor, I appreciate the suggestion. We're gonna continue to use Zoom until it doesn't work. We'll continue to maybe explore Teams in the future, but we're gonna move forward with Zoom in the future.

Very much. We appreciate that.

Listen. You guys don't You guys aren't techies.

So so counsel

Which one of you has a tech degree besides me up here and Siri?

Mayor, may may

Go ahead.

My understanding is it's the more widely used tool. And Compared to what? Teams. Teams is more like

on the work front.

Teams is Teams is what is the most widely used for cities.

For for a lot of residents don't have Teams.

They have

to download it and You

always thought it'll like it'll view in your browser?

And there's no good backgrounds on Teams. Oh.

Should I just get beat out by backgrounds?

Yeah. Okay.

Second thing. So remember the guy that came in and started slandering us and saying a bunch of, like

Okay.

Where the I wanna know. I'm right here. Stop it. No. If that was you that sent me the book, that's hilarious, Joe. Stop it.

No. I wanted to talk

wanted to talk about Going that

forward, since we can't block by IP, correct?

You can't block IP. Yes. No. You cannot block

by IP. So if the person on the IP is the one that's cursing at us, a blue streak can start saying defaming languages. And I know Zoom doesn't do this, and I know Teams does. This is why I'm bringing it up. Can we block that? Are we only saying by email account? Like, what's our process now? Like, and I know, are you trying to kick them off and then they can join back in again? Are

we There's going to have a very specific paragraph about that. Because, see, I was really concerned when it said technology disruption policy, that they didn't define disruption. But then when you get down further, reaffirmed authority to remove disruptive participants. It explicitly includes teleconference meetings and members of the public participating in a meeting by a two way telephonic service or a two way audiovisual program. And that's what will allow us to kick that person off The year David was mayor because he recognized the voice.

Yeah. But you could just switch. It's AI now. I can switch my voice and switch and join back in. So are we now once this starts, do you do we have to, like, lock meetings down to be like, we are going to be taking public comment for fifteen minutes from 06:45, 06:50 to 07:00? Like

So what what we'd like to do, what the city manager and the clerk and I would like to do is is answer this question for you generally tonight, and then, meet with you offline, as the chair of these meetings to be sure you're comfortable with and have all of the details and training about. And if you think after that conversation that there's any details that you're uncomfortable with or want to discuss more with the full counsel, absolutely happy to have another item to go through, that exactly. And at a very high level, I think you should be thinking about the rights of the public to participate remotely and your rights to stop them from participating when they're remote as being similar or nearly identical to those if they were here in person. So, in general, that is a pretty high bar. People have a right to say things that are offensive.

People have a right to say things that you disagree with. People have the right to be flashy or have a sign. They don't have a right to stop you from doing your business. And before you cut them off, you need we're gonna work with you to to walk through the the number of specific steps you have to do. Because in reality, you know, stopping someone from engaging in a with a public body is a is a meaningful disruption in their rights. So the Brown Act has sort of solidified the steps we're gonna have to do. So, Mayor, we'd like to just meet with you and train a bit more on that. And then any remaining questions that you have that you wanna talk with your colleagues about, we're absolutely happy to to come back to another session.

Yeah. And I'll just emphasize, this isn't just a technology solutions. This is a people and process solution, too. So I think you can't look at it as just a technology solution, but this is about people and process as well. And so I think you just can't capture it in its all of its options as far as the different things that can happen. I think we're prepared and preparing for those conversations if they do happen. This just gives us the framework to be able to handle those things when they come if they come to fruition.

And Adam's right that the bar is really high. Remember city of Sacramento a few years ago? They had a guy coming to every meeting and spouting off a bunch of anti Semitic stuff, and the council would just turn in their chairs and not face him because they had no legal ground to kick him out of the meeting. I mean, maybe kick him out of one, but he can come to the next one.

Yeah. And and I agree with you. It's like, I'm okay with that, but the person kept coming back the same meeting on the same item because you can't tell. I'll just jump to another computer and jump to another computer and put in another name. At least if he's in person, you can be like, okay. You got your three minutes. You know, let the person say crazy, crazy stuff that no one's listening to. That's fine.

That was going on. But That was what was going on except that David recognized the voice.

Right. But if but we also we can't be a 100% on that. Like, did David recognize the voice? Right? Because that legally won't hold up in court. So I'm just saying, is there do we have the process and procedure down? I know Zoom doesn't have the technical skills to be able to do it. And if we find that the person that's on the IP is the person that's doing the problem, can we block it by IP? Is it by domain?

Can we make the person come on camera?

No. Really? Can't make oh, yeah. Because if they wanna testify by phone.

Yeah. Can why can't we have that as something our city needs? Like, if you're

coming to to work with you more on this topic as we start to implement the the next step in the disruption.

Yeah. And and I think I'd wanna be careful with planning for the worst scenario and making the experience difficult or not accessible to everybody because of potentially bad behavior. So I think we're all going to balance some of these things moving forward. I And can tell you right now, we're not going to have every solution for you that could happen. We'll have a framework and how we'll address it. And if things come up and we run into problems of people calling back in or doing some things, we'll figure out ways to solve for those problems as they come. I think what we're talking about is a general framework and process and a procedure we have to approve as part We of our will continue to work kind of with you as we we figure this out moving forward, but I think this is kind of the the framework by which we'll

be operating from. When I when we do the and I'll let one sec. When we do this, I wanna have tech in here because right now, there's no one tech that's in here. You know what I'm saying? So we could

because Yeah.

I mean Because if I say static IP, DHCP, DNS, I wanna block those things, and no one knows what you know, like, because I'm hoping that I can help a little bit because it was bad. Like, the la it wasn't like, if they're going to do it, they have already done this to us. And so I I

think this is something we don't have to have a conversation at the dais about, that we can dig further into this, the technical solutions, as we move these conversations forward too.

There are

there are also many cities that are still doing teleconferencing. Persephone and I and our city clerk team are on roundtables every single month, and we have jotted down all of their best practices. There are some that are still being disruptive, but we are and they're using Zoom, so we have jotted down all of their best practices. And we can discuss those with Adam and Micah and

And you.

Yeah, we really want to work with you to adapt the policy as much as we can. And then the remaining suite of issues, or perhaps no issues that are unresolved, we can come back to the council and talk about separately.

Go ahead, Linda.

So we skipped over a paragraph that I thought was really important, the one called reporting requirements regarding compensation. So when it says compensation decisions for not just a local agency executive, but also a department head or other similar administrative officer of the local agency, I read that to mean that the legislative body has the ability to dictate to the city manager what level of compensation he or she should have for employees, for department heads. Yeah. Page three, Micah.

So we talked about this, and we highlighted this. I skipped over it tonight because, in part, because we talked about it when we talked about the new laws update. I highlighted it then as an important change. The the Brown Act is a reporting is a reporting and transparency law. I don't think that we would find other agencies that have read that as changing the city manager form of government. Of course, a a cornerstone of that is that in in your structure, the city manager is the person who is the employer, is the boss of the employees except for the city attorney. You hired the city manager directly and the And city

you.

Right. Directly.

Yeah. And

we we see this as a as a public noticing requirement, as a reporting when we you will see this start to come when we do our annual salary serve salaries salary schedule approvals. Just like you do for all of the positions across the city, you approve a salary schedule. Just for certain positions, it'll be a little more specific about what their salary is based on their level of and so you'll see that come in the near future when we do the salary schedule as well. I mean, it's just the reporting standpoint, not a decision making.

I would say we already report out everyone's salary. Do we really need to do this? You do.

With the new law, we do.

Yeah. But we already

we we we approve a range, typically. And so what this is saying, you have to actually say the specific amount for each of these different department heads.

Department like that person? Correct. Like what?

Like what we do for for me and and my position annually. You actually have to report the specific amount.

It's more specific and timely.

Isn't that

With additional things from Adam.

Can you or In the same way, please report ours too and compare it to our peer council members.

Well, yeah. We're about to be having longer meetings now.

Yeah. So question as we're moving on, as some of us are starting to go through this. The just cause for us to meet remotely

That's where

It looks like it's expanded quite a bit. Is that right? So family illness, we're allowed to be out. Mhmm.

We're we're

When does this go into effect?

That's the that's the next item up. That's in effect now. Just kind of continuing on, if that's a good segue to just finish up these items. The expanded teleconferencing options for remote participation remain in effect. Just Cause is expanded to either five or seven meetings a year that you can miss for Just Cause.

That's going to vary depending upon how many special meetings you end up having. You've averaged enough special meetings, that you've scheduled ahead of time that will likely be at the seven rather than the five per year. So so in general, if you're going to have an absence, you know, please talk to the city manager, the city clerk, and in rare circumstances, meet directly, and we'll help figure out whether this is something that we should be putting doing traditional teleconferencing to put the the the address on that you're gonna be, or if this is just compensation. We haven't yet had a new exception that's emphasized in the materials is the disability. It now permits a member with a disability to appear remotely as a reasonable accommodation.

Seems like a very positive, logical change in the law. So, again, we'll work with you any time. You might have a just cause, and we've described and explained what just cause is. But it's there listed on page five of the staff report. It means childcare giving. It means a contagious illness, a need related to a physical or mental illness, travel while on official business, and a immunocompromised family member who you with who you would be caring for, a family medical emergency, and military service.

So just to reiterate with this one, if a family member I have to take care of, technically, we do about two meetings a month. So right now, we're up to seven. So about three months worth of being able to miss meetings.

Yeah. It'll again, it'll be between five and seven. Right. Because you've been having a third special meeting, adding a third, we think you're comfortably at seven. We certainly want to be conservative in that legal analysis.

So does this do I still do I still say where I am with this? Or is this I just say that my my parent is not well, and then I can And You know what I'm saying? Yes. And get is this the one that I have to tell you where you're at still to?

So I can provide you with those specifics. You'll still have to identify if there's somebody in the room that's over the age of 18.

Right,

right. What they did was they combined emergency cause and the just cause, and they put those together and just made it one. There are still some stipulations as to things that you'll need to report out, but you no longer have to ask your colleagues permission to join the meeting, for example.

Got it.

But I will be happy to share those with all of you.

How much longer do you think before they let us start doing council sessions from home?

They've already Another pandemic. Effectively let you do two two months of council meetings from home.

Right. But I'm thinking, like, they're getting closer and closer. If we can have people test coming in by remote, there's really no like, we're probably pretty close to the day going back to the COVID ways where we could just do meetings by by remote.

Do you still have to have the majority of the council in the council chamber?

Now. Listen. I'm a just pointed out.

So far Keep going. Yeah. The the legislature has fiddled with these laws just about every year since since COVID, so we, stay tuned. Okay.

It's okay. They're still fiddling with state employees' days in the office too. So, you know, what's new? So we're down to implementation status.

What's the latest? Stacy.

So while there are a number of things that we have done to meet these requirements of SB seven zero seven. There are still a number of things that we need to do in the coming weeks ahead to be able to meet the requirements for July 1. Tonight, we're asking that the City Council move the recommendation to adopt the outlined resolution to be able to handle disruptions of telephonic or Internet service during public meetings, including our council meetings.

Alright. Do we have any public comment?

We do. Excellent.

James Garcia, if you'd like to come forward.

Knew it. Get up here.

They had to call me out. Okay. James Garcia, resident of Stone Creek. Some of my comments, there's just you can't block by IP. You know that. No, no. Think of it. You have people out there that might be in public places, and they share a public IP.

If you're at a house?

JAMES Again, that's too much. Again, you cannot do that. So that's why. You have people in Starbucks, at the library, anywhere else. They could be jointly communicating somewhere. They could be on a you can't block by domain either. Again, think about it. You're going to block all Gmail users? No. You're going You to can go across the wire. You can go anywhere. It's not going to be worth it. It's going to be too dangerous, too technical, not ready for prime time yet. But I would love to block these idiots out there, because they are. But we can't.

You cannot give up that freedom of speech, unfortunately. Just like Adam said, there were a lot of things that we'd love to do. I love the fact that David cut these idiots off when it happened. But unfortunately, the detriment of it is it did curb our participation in this community. We had tons of people. We had a lot of elderly. We had a lot of people that had child care issues like you're talking about yourself. You need to be able to stay home. People need to be able to participate. And by having this open forum remotely, we'll help engage the public again.

So I also recommend that you bring forth more effort, announce it before our July 1. Even though you did it back in for our January 1 new rules that were going to go into effect, pop it out there on the website. Hey, don't forget, we're going to be able to have remote participation here very soon again. We're implementing it to come July 1. Get the word out there. Have the communication. Have Maria community engagement out there. Do that. Please just because people want to come back, but they can't. There's an awful lot that can't. So think about that. I would love to block them, but you can't. And as far as Zoom Zoom's out there still. Teams is out there. I deal with both.

I've done them. Zoom is still out there more in the public sector, and that's what's out there. They want that. They need it. They don't want to have to download in other teams because some people don't want Microsoft taking over their world. So just like they don't want Apple

or That's what it

did to me.

I'm going to let

you know that. We

own in the world.

I know we already own it. And we already have the license for it. Yes, you would have to go with a Teams Room to officially do it the right way. It's another added license that you're not paying for right now anyway. So the room's already set up. Go for it. So that's what I'm saying.

I agree. Thanks.

Anyone else? Wanna nerd out with us?

That's all the public comment that

we have. All

right. So let's

Then I will move approval of the resolution. With the comment never mind. No. I think part of the answer to the question of how this gets distributed is the fact that everybody else's agency is doing the same thing. We just adopted all this at RT the other day. And so as everybody's as this becomes widely used, everybody will know they can do this.

Great. Do I have a second?

Siri? Second.

Alright. Roll call, please.

Council member Polapati? Yes. Council member Little?

Yes. Although, I just wanna thank our legislature again for making our lives more convenient and fun.

It's so good.

Council member Sander?

It's true. Only in their vast wisdom could they come up with rules like this. We clearly could not do it for ourselves. Aye.

Thank you. Vice mayor Budge? Yes. But at least it's something besides the blueberry committee that Arnold got after them about.

Mayor Gatewood.

Why? Why are you but, in all seriousness, Stacy, grab the the new app that that piggybacks on the back of Zoom. It'll translate our our language into 42 different languages, And you can just put the plug in, and it's literally a click.

You know, mayor, before you say yes, I'm wondering if this is for a vote. We could always know what no. Right? I'm just wondering.

The attorney general is now suing.

Why do you even have it for a vote then if we have no choice? It's one of those paper pushing things?

Yeah. But we gotta put the ordinance in place. Yes, by the way.

Yes. You. A policy that's what senior

The motion passes. Thank you very much.

Thank you. More to tell them about technology. All right. Read subject 12.2.

Resolutions related to the time and location for regular city council meetings and establishing rules for the meetings.

Thank you, mayor, members of the council and community. This is a much simpler item. We just needed to make a few updates to the old ordinance, that established the time and place for your meetings. Nothing much to highlight here at all. So we're continuing your existing practices. We're continuing your existing locations, and, there are, straightforward, procedures and practices. We are leaving flexibility with respect to the exact order of proceedings and the flexibility allowed by law. So we don't think that this is an item that requires a detailed staff report.

Excellent. Actually, looks like all you really did was add in all of this remote public participation that we've just been talking.

We we exactly. We we conformed it and made a few other small updates.

Stacy? Any public comment?

There is just one additional thing. Our city attorney mentioned ordinance. These are two resolutions.

Yes. I

just wanted

to Resolutions.

Shannon, you're in.

And there are no public comments for this item.

Excellent. Staff, you got anything? Council, anything?

Move approval. Toll point two.

Do I have a second?

Okay. But do we need two different motions?

You can move the staff recommendation.

Okay. I'll second it.

Roll call, please.

Council member Polipotti? Yes. Council member Sander? Aye. Council member Little? Yes. Vice mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood?

Yep.

The motion passes. Thank you.

Let's move on to twelve point three travel and tourism business improvement district. Stacy.

A resolution of intention to modify the Rancho Cordova tourism business improvement district.

Amanda, go ahead and what?

Amanda is joining us remotely. What?

Yeah.

What is she using? Zoom or Teams? Amanda, I need to know.

Mister Mayor, I am currently using Zoom.

Boop. I meant that's great. Such a great option.

Good evening, mister mayor, members of the council. I'm Amanda Norn, the economic development director. Tonight, we are going to be discussing a resolution of intention to modify the Rights Record of Improvement District. Next slide, please. As a little history, the RCT bid was established originally in 2010. And in 2021, the management plan was renewed. Tonight, we'll be hearing a modification. So renewals have a certain window and, items they need to go with them such as the additional years of being active. But tonight, we're just going to be proposing a modification. Next slide, please.

So for this modification, there are two main points that are important to note. One, the current TBI covers the entire city boundary. You'll see that in yellow on the map to the left. And we are now proposing the Dova Zone, which will be the green area that you see in the center of the map that is loosely bound by Folsom Boulevard to the North, International to the South, Sunrise to the East, and Prospect Park to the West. The other additional, addition that's very important is that the assessment rate will be different in each zone.

Currently, the assessment rate is 4.5%. That will remain within Zone 1. However, in the Dova Zone, it will be increased to 6%. Next slide, please. As part of this modification process, there are very specific steps that are in the code, the state government code that we have to follow.

Tonight, we are discussing the resolution of intention, which starts the process. Then later on this week, there will be a notice that is submitted to all business owners where this will be impacted by, so all the hoteliers within the city. Following that, there will be a public meeting, so we will allow for all public testimony on June 15, followed by a final public hearing that will be held on July 6. Next slide, please. So in wrap up to tonight's resolution of intention, if the council chooses to approve it, what this resolution of intention does is really initiate the proceedings that would consider the modifications to the management plan, and those two modifications were discussed previously.

So following this meeting, really, the next steps will include the public meeting and the final public hearing. It will allow for public testimony and also require business owner protest period, and then no final action will occur until after that public hearing on July 6. That ends my presentation. I'm happy to, follow-up with any questions, and we are asking for approval of the resolution of intention for this evening.

There

is no public comment for this item.

Counsel, do you have any questions? Seeing none, can I have a motion?

So moved.

Do I have a second?

We good.

Second.

Roll call, please.

Council member Little?

Yes.

Council member Sander? I. Council member Polapotti? Yes. Vice mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gittwood?

Highway to the Dova Zone? Yes.

The motion passes.

Alright. Future agenda items. I think we heard one. We wanted to talk about the TMA. The TMA. So you heard three of us on that. And then you said you had something else, Dave, that you want to talk about?

Just the CT programs from the school.

Oh, the CT programs. We want the school district to come and present this. Bye, guys. So can I get do you want me to get three

Sure?

Just to

make sure? Sure.

Do I have three that wanna have the CT guys come and talk to us about it for the schools? Okay. So you got three of us.

We're still working on Prospect Park.

X. Oh, are we making any progress?

Not yet. Okay. That's alright. But we're still working on it.

Yay. We're still it's still moving forward, technically. Okay. I'm gonna go ahead and adjourn this meeting into closed session. But before I adjourn, are there any public comments, Stacy? Look what you put in there.

There's no public comment for, the closed session item that you'll be discussing, sixteen point one.

Alright. Meeting adjourned in the closed session. There is pelvis. Yeah. So now he's in a whole folktome.

So he walked over, snapped his leg. And then when this thing broke out, because he had nothing to hold it up, no muscles left, he fell down. And then his pelvis snapped in two. And I was like, when did you turn 83? You should've

done it in our

parking lot. Yeah. In fact, he did. Alright. I'm gonna ahead and call

this meeting back progress. In

And ask Adam to go ahead and read out.

Thank you, mayor. Members of the council this evening, the city council took up one item of, existing litigation, DPML of Stone Creek versus the city of Rancho Cordova received updates from and provided direction to legal counsel.

Thank you very much. Go ahead and join this meeting.

Recording stopped.