City Council - Regular Meeting

Persephone is going to record this.

Good evening. We have no ladies and gentlemen, but we have one gentleman. Thank you for coming. Because of a lack of council members tonight, we are going to ask the city clerk to call the roll so that there'll be a record of that.

Council Member Little is absent. Council Member Sander is absent. Council Member Polipotti is absent. Vice Mayor Budge? I'm here. Mayor Gatewood is absent.

We do expect Council Member Polipotti perhaps at some time.

Okay. So let the record reflect that we have one Council Member present and a second. Hey. who is just walking through our council chambers. Say here. Here. Siri Pulipati has called out that she is present.

Here, here.

However, we do not have a quorum of the council present for this meeting. Therefore, the city council is unable to conduct any business, and this special meeting that has been called for 3 o'clock cannot proceed. We will convene for our regularly scheduled council meeting at 5.30.

Wonderful. Thank you very much, Stacey. A meeting is adjourned.

Now we can go to the other room.

Can I get a roll call, please?

Council Member Little is absent, but we do anticipate his arrival shortly. Council Member Sander? Here. Council Member Polipotti? Here. Vice Mayor Budge is absent, but we do anticipate her arrival shortly. Mayor Gatewood?

Here.

Thank you.

All right. Can you go ahead and read our TV announcement, please?

Yes. The meeting of the Rancho Cordova City Council is recorded with closed captioning. The recording will be cablecast on Metro Cable Channel 14, the local government affairs channel on the Comcast and direct TV U-verse cable systems. The recording will also be video streamed at metro14live.saccounty.gov. Today's meeting will replay on Thursday, September 10th at 6 p.m. and Sunday, September 13th at 1.30 p.m. on Metro Cable Channel 14. Once posted, the recording of this meeting can be viewed on demand at youtube.com forward slash Metro Cable 14 and on the city's website at www.cityofranchocordova.org. Awesome.

I'm going to go ahead and have everyone stand and we're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance. And if you can, stay remaining standing as we call up Elizabeth Brick from United Methodist Church of Rancho Cordova.

council members and gathered friends. Wendell Berry is a rather famous person who died this week, a poet of renown. And I want to share with you some of his words before we pray. The painter Harlan Hubbard said that he was painting heaven when the places he painted merely where the Campbell or the Trimble County banks of the Ohio or farms and hills where he had worked or roamed, a house's gable and roof line rising from a fold in the hills, trees bearing snow, two shanty boats at dawn, immortal light upon the flowing river in its bends. And these were heavenly because he never saw them clear enough to satisfy his love, his need to see them all again, again. Our work paints heaven. Please pray with me. We gather this evening as neighbors and stewards of this community. We've celebrated Labor Day. a time to recognize the work of those who build, serve, and sustain our city each day. We are humbled by their service and grateful for their labors. Tonight, this council turns its attention to the infrastructures, neighborhoods, and future of our town. Your focus on our roads, our corridors, our climate resilience, and the stewardship of our public resources. Remind us that this work is not glamorous, but these are the works that keep our community in order and hold us together. As you deliberate and decide, I pray that you will have clear thinking and generous listening. May you weigh each matter with care, consider the voices of those whom you serve, and remember that good governance is built on integrity and transparency. These qualities we see reflected in your commitment to this work. We're grateful for all of the public servants who show up, who engage the details, and who remember that behind every agenda item are real families and neighbors who call Rancho Cordova home. Bless the work ahead. May it reflect our collective commitment to a thriving, equitable, and sustainable community. Amen.

Amen.

Thank you. Thank you.

That's awesome. That's the first prayer about roads. I like that. I'm gonna have you come to STA and do road prayers. All right. Public comment. We now move to public comment. Members wishing, members of public wishing to address the accounts for any matter not in the agenda may do so at this time. This public comment period is limited to the matters that fall within the city council's authority, known as council's subject matter jurisdiction. For items that are not 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 asked to keep their comments for three minutes or less and are asked to state the name for their record. Please, to submit a public comment, please give a speaker card to the city clerk. Raise your hand in Zoom by using the raise hand star nine feature. If participating by telephone, please wait to be called upon by the city clerk. under provision of California Government Code, the City Council is prohibited from discussing or taking immediate action on items not on the agenda unless an item is demonstrated to be of emergency nature or the need to take immediate action rose after the posting of the agenda. Stacy, can we have our first public comment?

Yes, I'll start with those interested in speaking in the Council Chambers and then I'll go to Zoom. Laura Cardoza, if you'd like to come forward, you'll have up to three minutes.

I have a couple of questions. I have a couple of questions. The first is I live in district The first is I live in district two. two. And I would like to know who And I would like to know who is representing district two is representing district two currently? currently? No one. No one. Okay. Okay.

You have full council You have full council representation but you have representation but you have to wait a few more months to wait a few more months before you actually have a

And is that because the districts were?

Just chopped up two years ago. And so you will have a district rep in about three years. I'm sorry, three months, three years. Dang.

I'm like, what?

It's a lot. Listen, we wait a long time to choose our council.

Yeah. Okay. My next question is about the, or questions, is about the Rio de Oro Industrial Park. I would like to know if the city has any control over the leasing of the sites once they're built. This has to do with the new build that just broke ground. WHAT THEIR PURPOSE IS WHEN THEY LEASE, WHAT THEIR PURPOSE IS WHEN THEY LEASE, WHAT THEIR PURPOSE IS WHEN THEY LEASE, WHAT THEIR PURPOSE IS WHEN THEY LEASE, WHAT THEIR PURPOSE IS WHEN THEY LEASE, WHAT THEIR PURPOSE IS WHEN THEY LEASE, WHAT THEIR PURPOSE IS WHEN THEY LEASE, WHAT THEIR PURPOSE IS WHEN THEY LEASE, WHAT THEIR PURPOSE IS WHEN THEY LEASE,

Can we keep her to plan?

We can find somebody here on city staff that can help answer these questions. Kind of public comment really isn't a back and forth. And so I think if you could get your questions out, then I can have the right team members. And maybe Darcy just walked in the back.

That lady right there, she's going to answer that question for you.

Oh, okay. What's number three? And this is also probably under the same line, but is there any correlation between Golden State Water Company raising their rates by 50% and the increase in these builds in the Rio de Oro area?

No. I get into that, no.

I said no first.

Sorry.

But for that second question, let's send you back to, Darcy, can you raise your hand? Can you help her answer some of the questions? She's our expert to answer those questions for you.

Okay, okay. So who do we, if we have issues in our district, specifically I'm concerned about the, I live on the street where Williamson Elementary School is.

Yep.

And I'm very concerned about the cars that are parked along the walkways for the children and the lack of marked crosswalks. And I don't know if something can be done there.

Send me an email. I'm the last of the council members at large, so I represent everybody. I'll take it on. But the guy that's going to be your council member that's for your district is Elliott Stevenson. But you've got to remember, like, Rancho Cordova doesn't care about districts. We care about that our community is well. So if you have questions like that, well, then shoot it to MICA. Like, we'll get the process started. Or if you're worried about, like, something with – policing, then we have Russ.

Oh, yeah, I've dealt with Russ before. This just has to do with the safety of the children.

We started there and we work our way through because that might have something to do with the school district, something to do with the city as a whole. We want to hear all about it. It's not like you need to go find somebody. Any council member will take your email. Shoot us an email. We'll talk about it.

We're all neighbors. Email all five. Screw it.

None of us, if Joe had something in his district, I would not go help his district out. That's still part of Rancho.

Well, I just don't know. I've never been to a council meeting. I just don't know how you guys work.

We're happy to have you. We're just part of the community. We all live in Rancho Cordova, so there's nothing except for this cute little dais we sit on. So in the end, shoot us an email. I want to hear your concerns. I always want to see if we can do something to better Rancho.

Okay, my last question has to do with the traffic impact of what's happening in Rio de Oro. Is that her as well?

That, yes, 100%. Okay, okay. And then, you know, keep us appraised.

Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you for coming. Thanks. All right, number two.

I have no additional speaker cards in the council chambers, and I'm looking at Zoom, and there are no hands that are raised.

All right. So we're going to move on to council reports. And I'm going to start with Joe. Joe, how have things been going over the last two weeks? Crazy.

Yeah, I have a headache today, so I'm going to keep it even shorter than short usual. But the one real memorable one that comes to mind since our last meeting was at the youth basketball camp at Rockball, which is right off Sunrise and Folsom. It was an anti-gun violence camp. And I think you were supposed to be there, but you couldn't go. And so I got called up from the bullpen. And yeah, it was cool. The Chiefs already heard this joke, but I got to warm up with all the kids. So they saw me building a brick house with all my missed shots. Had to say the joke again. But yeah, it was a good time.

That's awesome. All right, David.

Lots of fun little things going on. I have had a couple of really interesting meetings with some people interested in developing property in Rancho Cordova. That's been a pleasure. I met with one of our old friends, Coach Roz, last week. I don't know if any of you actually remember Coach Roz. Coach Roz did a youth program at Meadows Elementary for us. It was sort of an after school football program, but it was really a reading program disguised as football. In other words, you had to do your extra reading stuff. You had to do your reading evaluation. You had to sit with your tutor or the person who's reading with you and do some reading before you got to play football. And he actually moved the dial on the reading program back then. He is back. He is interested in special needs kids. And he is offering us sort of a partnership in which he is fully funding it. He needs us to establish a presence perhaps, help him knock down some barriers that are in the way. But what he has laid out would be a weekly event at Cordova High that would bring special needs kids in every Saturday morning to do some sort of an athletic activity. The athletic activities would be mentored by Cordova High athletes and potentially athletes from other local high schools as well working with our athletes. So there's several different levels in it. It's a very interesting concept. Jason Harper and I took that meeting, and I think we'll probably be hearing more about that, but very, very interesting idea. Let's see, Sacramento Sewer District has met. Nothing particularly of great interest there. Air District has also met. SACOG Transportation has met. I think there are three or four other meetings on this calendar I won't mention. Other than that, yeah, it has been a very busy couple of weeks. Awesome. Siri.

Okay, I'll go over my highlights as well. Attended the elected officials' reception hosted by the Chamber of Commerce. That was a very well-attended event at a really good location, the Maither Jet Center. So this was the Labor Day weekend. I did receive a lot of complaints and even posts on social media regarding kids and their use of e-bikes. More so on the e-bikes in our peer cities, but in our city I heard a lot about kids going about doing Ding Dong Ditch. Apparently it's a TikTok trend that's going about. But I wanted to make sure that Rancho Cordova gets ahead of the e-bike issue before it hits it gets worse like it is in our peer cities and make sure that we have some sort of a What do we do if that gets to in that kind of a situation or even prior to that? What is a city going to do for that? And other than that was a glorious good weekend.

Thank you All right I'll jump to me and I'll jump back to our illustrious mrs. Budge I met the owner of Pizza Guys, which I didn't realize that corporate pizza guys is in Rancho Cordoba. And they actually have built a small pizza guy in the office. So you go in and you actually see this thing. So I heard a long time ago, I worked with a group that was helping out round tables. I heard the cheese was like, when they're doing it on TV or pizza places, they use like glue and stuff like that. So I asked guys like, hey, What's your secret to make your pizza look so good online? And he's like, if I tell you, I have to kill you. But if you ever want to know, I can't say it because I was sworn into secrecy. But now I know the tricks to make your pizza look shiny and delicious. Congratulations to Rancho Cordova and the STA. because they chose us as their number one funding project and that would be our backside road with our connector. So that means that they're actually going to be kicking in and we're one of one. I'll take it by default, that's called a win. No one cares how you get there, people. It's just about the win in the end, because that could mean millions upon millions of dollars are now gonna be funded for the backside road and the connector in Rancho Cordova, which is the big piece to kind of alleviate some of the stress that's on Sunrise Boulevard. Thank you to the Chamber of Commerce. You are amazing. Thank you for the list. It's great hearing, having all the politicians. I still remember when we did our first one with the elected officials and there was like 10 people around a pizza. And luckily a couple council members that are in this room came. Last thing is I met with the German consulate. They're impressed with how well our education and our idea of the ecosphere decay to career. They're very enticed by that. And they said if Germany win, they move over to the U.S. is looking for more quality of life. So they really like the decay to career and they really like the rivers and all the roads you guys built for biking. That's it. Micah, or I'm sorry, Linda, what's going on in your life?

You don't want to know.

Well, you know what? Tell us what we can. Yeah, tell us the good stuff.

All right. I'm making this up on the fly. So we all had to learn about financial management today. But we had to learn about it from the state of California, who doesn't seem to do very good in the world of financial management. And the chamber's elected officials reception was just delightful. There is no question about it. I know that the Sacramento Valley Manufacturers Association met here at City Hall. And I was not able to attend that one. So the only other thing I can contribute to the party. Georgia beat Tennessee 63 to 3.

A good day for you.

It was a good day. And you all are going to the Notre Dame game, and I'm happy for you. So that's my report. Micah.

Thank you, Mayor. Not anything else to add other than the only thing that kind of we did is host our candidate member orientation a couple weeks ago with all those interested in running for city council seats, which was well attended by all the new candidates who are interested or who are now running for the different seats. So that's it for me. Thank you.

Excellent. So just so you know, if you guys didn't know this, we're going to adjourn this meeting in memory of Ted Smith. He was the pastor of River City Christian, our first covenant. He passed away, leaves thousands upon thousands. He's the one that created Bayside Church. He actually went out of the state, found somebody, and then grew the Bayside into what it is. All those years ago. Yeah, it actually just comes from Rancho Cordova. And so what's fun about that church, and God bless him because I know he's in the right space, it's an old Swedish church. and he had to talk them in to stop doing church in Swedish so he could reach more people to Christ, because they thought that that was the big change that was gonna ruin everything, and then they ballooned and now they're just really, have put their foot on the community and really being part engaged in one of those really good partners, our community. So we're gonna go ahead and adjourn in his name.

David will remind me, but in 2008 or 2013, We celebrated their 150th anniversary. I think it was 150. It might have been 200, but I think it was 150.

It was. That Swedish congregation you referred to was very old. It's been in Sacramento a very long time.

Yeah. They used to be over on Howe Avenue.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, we're gonna move on now to consent calendar items. Consent calendar items, consistent matters deemed routine and non-controversial by staff, unless a member of the council wishes to pull an item. For individual consideration, all items may be approved with one motion. Are there any items the council wishes to pull? Seeing none, I'm gonna ask the clerk, is there any public comment related to consent calendar items?

I do not have any public comment for items on the consent calendar, and there's no hands that are raised in Zoom. There we go.

Then I will move approval of items 13.1 through 13.7.

Roll call.

And the second was by Little.

It was.

Council Member Little.

Second.

Thank you. Council Member Sander. Aye. Council Member Polipotti? Yes. Vice Mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood?

Yes. Motion passes. Excellent. We're going to move on to consent public hearing items. Consent public hearing items consist of matters deemed routine and non-controversial by staff unless a member of the council wishes to pull an item. For individual considerations, all item may be approved in one motion. I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing item very quietly and ask the clerk, is there any public comment?

I do not have any public comment for the consent public hearing calendar.

Go ahead and close the public hearing and ask, are there any items that council wishes to pull?

No, and I will move approval with the comment for the staff that are in the room that this 14.1 is one of those kinds of things that we talked about today in talking about fees and bonds and that kind of thing.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Can I get a roll call, please?

Council Member Sander? Aye. Council Member Polipotti? Yes. Council Member Little? Yeah. Vice Mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood? Yes. Motion passes.

Excellent. All right. Regular calendar items. Discussion and direction on Growing Strong Neighborhoods Commercial Corridor. Receive a report on possible of establishing a commercial corridor improvement program provided staff feedback direction on corridor selection and or request additional information to be brought back at a later meeting for further discussion. So brought back later for further discussion. Stacy, can you, oh, I did, I announced the subject. Darcy, can you go, Darcy, Russ, staff report, please.

David, do you need to leave? Oh, good.

Okay, good evening, Mayor Gatewood and Council Members, Russ Ducharme, Neighborhood Services Director. I'm here with my team, Darcy Goulart, the Community Development Director, Amanda Norton, our Economic Development Director, and Edgar Medina, our Deputy Public Works Director. And as stated in the agenda item, we're here to give you an update on our commercial corridor improvement program and some of the developments we've made based on the direction that was given at the july 28th growing strong neighborhoods work session we sat as a group and started to identify areas where we could apply this program as a team we collaborated with us four as well as rcpd and our gis team to kind of start to really focus in on areas that could use the improvements to the corridor on top of what Public Works has already has planned and implementing. And that's through creative design, streetscapes, landscaping, wayfinder signs, sidewalk improvements to foster pride and better identity in these neighborhoods. And just for an update, that we adopted a council, a corridor enhancement plan back in November of 2024.

As Russ mentioned, we collaborated and really thought through our major corridors here in the city. We particularly looked at data first and focused on our traffic counts, calls for service, accidents. And then the really key part is we actually all got in a van and drove through the city to actually look at what was on the ground currently, in addition to the data that we had previously collected. And we also tried to take a lens of looking at our entry points, not only from a resident perspective, but also for visitors who would be entering into the city. And then we also wanted to marry that with some things that were already happening there in a positive manner. and that it would be either future or current projects that are undergoing, as well as any businesses and community relations that we already had established and we're working forward with.

So as Amanda was just talking about and Russ also alluded to, we're looking at a lot of different potential enhancements and treatments. Anything from landscaping to pedestrian crossings to median improvements. It's just going to depend on that corridor. So what staff has come up with is three potential opportunity corridors to start this process. We are recommending, which we'll hear more from Edgar, that Matherfield Road be the pilot program for this kickoff of this project. But again, we're also looking at two other specific corridors for this kind of first round. So the first would be Matherfield Road from Folsom Boulevard to Peter McEwen. Folsom Boulevard from Mather Field Road to Zinfandel Drive and Bradshaw Road from Folsom Boulevard to Old Placerville Road. Again, that would be the east side of Bradshaw. So Edgar's going to go into each corridor and some specifics about opportunities, challenges, city investments that have been placed into each corridor, whether that's past efforts or future funding and programs that we have. And then we'll do a wrap up and get council's consideration for which corridor to look at.

IT WAS EXCITING TO BE PART OF THIS TEAM, ESPECIALLY BEING THIS TEAM, ESPECIALLY BEING FORTUNATE TO ACTUALLY DRIVE FORTUNATE TO ACTUALLY DRIVE EVERYONE AROUND. EVERYONE AROUND. WE HAVE A LOT OF GREAT PROJECTS WE HAVE A LOT OF GREAT PROJECTS THE CITY HAS BEEN DELIVERING AND THE CITY HAS BEEN DELIVERING AND CONTEMPLATING AND PUTTING THE CIP. CONTEMPLATING AND PUTTING THE CIP. SO IT WAS EXCITING TO GO BACK We highlight Mather Field as kind of our top priority. As most of you know, we've been on Mather Field for the last year or so, trying to enhance the first phase of what is the Mather Field enhancement projects, which is really focusing the east side where we've done a lot of enhancements to the existing wall on the Cordova Town neighborhood. We're almost close to wrapping up, so it was really nice to kind of really focus in and take the group there because there is a lot of opportunities that were identified in the corridor enhancement plan that Russ mentioned that was adopted in 2024. So being able to expand this project into a larger pilot project, it was nice to take the group out to showcase some of the elements. Mather Field, one of the reasons why it's being prioritized or at least recommended as our top corridor for this pilot project is we have active projects out there. We have the first phase of the enhancement project that is what you see out there along the wall. We have the second phase, which is going to improve the fencing over the US 50. We're going to do some landscaping on the northwest quadrant. existing wood fence that's along the northeast quadrant that has the sound wall is going to be converted to Caltrans sound wall so there's a lot of enhancements that are active and designed and going to be either completing construction this year and or next year so we also have other phases that we have opportunities to beautify and really kind of identify as a entry point to the city so We have May 3rd field being one of the core entry points that provides service to the VA hospital, to the MAC, to the Folsom Lake or Los Rios Community College, the light rail station. There's a lot of things that are being fed off this one entry point. So we prioritize that as part of the corridor hassle plan, which is what you see now, and obviously an opportunity for this project to kind of expand on this. just as a side note, just because I like to, you know, we have done a lot of grant applications that have been successful on this corridor as well. So part of that, you know, $42 million and $10 million are all part of grants. Council Member Sanders mentioned SACOG. We've gotten grants successfully through SACOG to fund some of these elements. So Bradshaw Road is the second corridor that we're identifying as a potential pilot. As Darcy mentioned, some of the challenges that we see here is that the jurisdictional line between the county and the city goes down the center of the road. So while we control the east side, they control the west side, but we've identified as part of the corridor enhancement plan some of the improvement areas that could be done, some of which are actually being done now. Our stormwater group is doing some of the fence removal replacement along the canal. and then we have even some of the connection points that we're doing into the Lincoln Village neighborhood project which is going to be under construction next year so we have already existing projects that this pilot could feed off of and we have templates of what we could potentially use along let's say similar quarters like Sunrise where we could improve some of the look and feel of the median landscaping and some of the treatments along the sidewalk so We have good examples of how we could actually deliver this. Of course, this is another entry point to a lot of different businesses, both in the county and the city. You have still regional light rail along there. There's over 53 businesses along this one-mile stretch, so it is a key entry point and a great opportunity for us to do some enhancements. The last one is Folsom Boulevard, and we're really only limiting to the segment between Matherfield and Simphendale, primarily because we've identified a large grouping of businesses that could use some frontage improvements along the north side. As we all know, over the last 17 years, the city has invested over $42 million, whether through local funds and grant funds, to beautify to the streetscape that you see now. But some of the improvements on the north side were actually excluded out. So we actually are starting to go back and do some of the improvements with a project that actually you guys just approved a grant, a project, I'm sorry, a professional services contract on the agenda tonight to do the road rehabilitation along this segment. So this is another opportunity where we could actually key in some of the improvements on this pilot project as part of the larger project. Again, it's only a 1.35 mile segment, but there's over 65 businesses that could benefit from a pilot project along this way. Again, it just kind of reinforces the streetscape concept of improving the aesthetic feel over the last years of investing in this corridor.

And so with that, staff does want to recognize that there are multiple corridors within the city that could benefit from this corridor program. Other segments of Folsom Boulevard, as well as Sunrise. In looking at Sunrise, we were looking at north and south, so separating it by the freeway because the improvements that are needed along those corridors are vastly different from each other. So tonight we were looking for the city council to give us direction on which corridor we should focus on for the pilot program. Keeping in mind, it doesn't mean that we eliminate any other corridor we've talked about tonight or any other future corridors, it's just an initial pilot program. Next steps after that would be implementation. So we're gonna look at developing an overall corridor improvement plan for whichever segment is selected. We're gonna explore different funding opportunities, whether that's grants, CIF funding, our existing sign and facade program, looking at regional funding, partnerships with other entities, and potentially an opportunity zone. We'd also develop some sort of a community outreach plan on how to get the community involved as well as the business owners along those corridors to participate in the plan and see the overall benefit to the city. WE'LL DEVISE A TIMELINE AND THEN WE'LL RETURN BACK TO COUNCIL WE'LL DEVISE A TIMELINE AND THEN WE'LL RETURN BACK TO COUNCIL FOR FINAL APPROVAL OF FUNDING FOR FINAL APPROVAL OF FUNDING AND THE ACTUAL CORRIDOR PROJECT AND THE ACTUAL CORRIDOR PROJECT APPROVAL. APPROVAL. SO WITH THAT, THE TEAM IS SO WITH THAT, THE TEAM IS AVAILABLE TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS AVAILABLE TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS YOU MIGHT HAVE.

YOU MIGHT HAVE.

ALL RIGHT.

ALL RIGHT. WELL STARTED OFF. Because when I was out meeting with some of the CEOs and the business owners, they really had an opinion on corridors because they said they have trouble when they bring their business in about the look and feel of the corridors. And I didn't really grasp how important it is when you pull off a 50 and you start going down there, how that greets somebody. And I really think that if I was going to choose a corridor to start with that would have the biggest bang for the buck would be would be the 50 Sunrise, off of 50 Sunrise Corridor and that when you go in, you start to go back into the city of Rancho Cordova by the Staples and that entry point and how it looks and how there's big gates and if we could,

Which one are you talking about?

You know how we make the 50, you're getting ready to go on Sunrise Boulevard, you make the turn off of 50, you're coming into the city.

You go towards Costco.

You go towards Costco and you have that, the light rail that runs through and, you know, that, if we could beautify that, that's like probably the heaviest, one of the heaviest, okay, not the heaviest, but one of the heaviest in and out thoroughfares. And if we could make that placemake a little bit or even talk to them about putting SIGNS UP. I DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE THAT I DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE THAT UNTIL ONE OF THE BUSINESS OWNERS UNTIL ONE OF THE BUSINESS OWNERS POINTED OUT. POINTED OUT. IT WOULD BE NICE IF THEY KNEW IT IT WOULD BE NICE IF THEY KNEW IT LOOKED A CERTAIN WAY AND WAS LOOKED A CERTAIN WAY AND WAS CLEANED UP. CLEANED UP. THERE ARE CERTAIN THINGS ALONG THERE ARE CERTAIN THINGS ALONG THAT CORRIDOR THAT LOOK OFF AND THAT CORRIDOR THAT LOOK OFF AND OLD AND DATED. OLD AND DATED. IF WE COULD FIND GRANTS AND IF WE COULD FIND GRANTS AND FUNDING AND WORK TOGETHER WITH FUNDING AND WORK TOGETHER WITH THE BUSINESS OWNERS TO And so, it was funny, because you guys brought this up, and I was like, wow, I never realized how important that was to some of the bigger businesses, because they're trying to attract people to come in, and that's one of the first things they see, because that's the big choke point in Rancho Cordova. Who else wants to tie? We'll go Linda. Linda, what you think? You're our planner.

I can understand you're making a case for that particular area. From my perspective, there is nothing that draws as many people to Rancho Cordova as the airship. And so I would personally support, and besides it's small and doable, and I would support their goal of using the Merthyr Field corridor first. It's got a couple of things in there that really need cleaning up. And it's also, unfortunately, a hub simply because of the bike trail. But any way you look at it, nothing else brings in 200,000 people, even though it's one event. It just strikes me that we have a huge opportunity for getting people off the freeway or off Folsom Boulevard and down to the airship.

David, what you thinking? Too many thoughts to be able to share in a meeting. But I can summarize. I think these corridors suffer from death by a thousand cuts. right, all these little things break. It's as simple as people don't get rid of weeds in their landscaping in their parking lots, so they don't paint the parking lot or reseal it, or they put duct tape up to make a sign instead of fixing the sign. It creates just an environment where other businesses may not want to locate or people may not want to shop because there are too many things that feel broken. Everything that feels broken is disorder. Like psychologically, that's disorder we experience, and we don't like that. That's a danger sign anytime we experience disorder. And we start to behave differently when we're around a lot of disorders. So if you get 1,000 cuts on one of these corridors, you kind of kill it. And you have to sweat the details, as you know, from a code enforcement perspective, to lift that back up, make everybody feel more comfortable, and sort of re-enliven the place. So Garrett, the examples you gave on Sunrise are good. That should be an attractive place. And frankly, that's probably cheaper to fix. than like a Maitherfield Road. It's also probably something we'll have to address with an arena project coming forward, right? We're going to have to do something there, depending on what the traffic pattern is and what their needs are, and maybe if there's development on the edge of that that starts to occur. That'll be like a continual focus, I think, for us, that area. On the Mather Field side, you know, you could look at a business like Straw Hat, which probably everybody's familiar with. It was the pizza place, you know, like in the 70s and 80s and 90s. If you were going to go celebrate something or literally were doing their sign-ups or girls' softball or birthday parties, Straw Hat was one of the main target places. What has happened to Straw Hat? Well, they've got Blight on one side with property there shouldn't be there. They have Blight in the back with a vacant lot. They have Blight diagonally with... RVs that are allowed to park and have people live in them, although they're not designed for that, but that's what's happening in that little yard there. And on the other side, you have a business.

Like Anderson Pacific?

No, no, no, behind them, diagonally into that neighborhood. There's like, you know, RVs parked where you should have mobile homes, but people are just living in the RV that's sort of falling apart in place. So you've got, I mean, this is sort of the surroundings. And then on the other side, you've got a business that's on that corner that's been a problem for a long time and has been under remodel for, I don't know, three, four years, something. Total mess, right? And homelessness is now very present in that neighborhood because of all these other little cuts that have happened. That trail is an absolute heartbreak that we put in, the Mather Heritage Trail. We won that grant. We put that grant in. We won awards for that trail. It was beautifully executed. The first few weeks that it was in operation, a few months maybe, I would be out there, because I can easily bike to that part of the city, and you would see strollers and people with dogs and little kids and elderly people with walkers and wheelchairs. All of that neighborhood was engaging in that rail corridor trail. Maybe six months after it opened, homeless individuals found that trail and started populating it. All that positive activity that I just mentioned went away like that. Unbelievable impact. But that's a disorder sign. You see homelessness, you see encampments, you see trash. Dangerous place, I shouldn't be out here with my kid. That's just how it is. So I think when we deal with these corridors, we have to think about You know, how do we deal with those cuts? Because if we just repaid the street, that's one big cut, right? But there's still 999 more we gotta worry about in that corridor. So how many of them could we knock down? How many of them could we knock down efficiently and effectively? That's the real question for this sort of a study. I think if I had to pick one, I'm a little bit uncomfortable picking one, but if I had to pick one for focus, I would pick Mather Field. Not exactly for Linda's reasons, but for the one I just talked about. It's the corridor that people always talk about, economic development potential on Folsom Boulevard. That's our old Main Street that still needs enormous help, even though we've plowed tens of millions of dollars into the infrastructure, we still have not sparked a renewal of economic activity along Folsom Boulevard. That remains a priority for us. So I think I could go on forever on this topic, but I think I'll just leave it with that.

Joe.

We're getting an Ethan Allen?

Did you mean Ethan Conrad? Yep. You know, this is, I don't think it's easy on any one of us to pick one for a lot of the reasons stated. The one that makes the most sense is the one we're working hardest on right now, which is Mather Field, although that long-term plan needs to have a plan for the liquor store and the blighted. I apologize, Adam, but we have to buy the thing because that corridor enhancement is not going to be complete without dealing with that mega blighted corner. We could have the prettiest wall, sound wall, the nicest shrubs, median with the red brick, but as long as that building's there, it's going to be all for naught, I think. I agree with the trail safety. I knocked so much. It feels so long ago, but I knocked a lot all around that trail because some of that's my district, and that was the common complaint is no one wants to go on it uh because it is and i don't know how we solve that without a literal bike cop that patrols and so that's a a huge you know another budgetary thing to say is how much do we want to invest to keep sure to ensure that you know our trails are safe and people use them because that trail is not getting used and it's beautiful

Well, and it runs behind people's houses.

Exactly.

Which is a safety issue.

Which is why it came up so much. I bet you a lot of the people that talked about it actually had no interest in using it, but it's there. And it's the same thing with Bradshaw, you know, these corridors, how much we're willing to invest in them and the things that they attract. So I would say finish what you started, Mather Field, but have a plan for the liquor store. I would say Bradshaw is going to be the most challenging, not only because it's a border street, but the need there is very, very high. So I wouldn't want to do a pilot for that. And, you know, maybe then we go to the back of the line and then Bradshaw's not touched for a while. I would rather have it done right when it's, you know, when we have the best plan and we can use the pilot opportunity to continue the good work on Mather Field. Sometimes I wonder on that Sunrise Folsom Corridor, I wonder if some of the business owners like that you know it's not the nicest part of the city because it sort of keeps the rent cheap so i do wonder if there would be some protest to be defying the area and that's just more of a joke um and then i would say as far as You know, another alternative to go about this would be if we don't want to do one place all at once, do we want to maybe take a step back and what are the lowest hanging fruit? What means the most to people? Can we do here on this corridor? Eh, you know, if we did the whole 100 yards, that would look great, but what if we only went 90? What if we only went 30? And how much would that compare to people's subjective enjoyment and appreciation of the improvements? So if we want to take a step back and look at more bang for our buck, I'm happy with that. And then a last point is the, I think it's good that the county is looking into this too. I don't know if that's, it can be good but you know how much we hang our hat on their effort is how much do we want to set ourselves up to be disappointed when they have I mean do we really take their corridor plan seriously when they're cutting you know sheriff services and DA services like do you really think we're gonna still be on the menu when things come around So, I would say, you know, while that presents opportunity for cost sharing and collaboration, that also puts us on a timeline that we can do better than. So, I would say just maybe approach that carefully.

Thank you, Joe. Siri.

Well, really good comments by my colleagues, and I agree with all of them. My vote, though, if I had to pick one, was on Folsom Boulevard, because from the day I started on this council, we've always been looking at how to revitalize Folsom Boulevard. What do we do to make our face, our entry to the city better? What can we do to make sure that when the Uber drivers come, when everybody goes to the city, that statement remains that this is a great place to be, but the roads are also really great. So, you know, especially with the Mayter Airshow, people come in. We have 65 businesses that will be impacted if this is better. And there's many things that we could do, you know, make this a little better, make that a little better, but this is our main thoroughfare, and so that would be my vote, the Fulton Boulevard.

Can I add a couple things?

No, that was it. That was the end of it. Go ahead.

Joe had some really good points, especially about the county.

The one negative thing I say, and you have to say that's the best point.

What about the positive comments? It's really something that's important to remember.

No, let's all focus on the negative.

Because David and I will remember from the chamber days when the county did a commercial corridor study for the entire north area that was about four inches thick, and it sat on a shelf, and it's still sitting on a shelf. So they never put either the time or the effort or the thought into it that we wanted them to. And they actually, Folsom Boulevard was one of them, which is part of why it was so difficult to get started on Folsom Boulevard. But we also have to remember, again from the chamber days, Between Rod Beaudry and McGregor, there are 278 individual parcels on the north side of Folsom Boulevard. And the majority of them are no more than 50 feet deep. And an awful lot of them have been owned for decades. And so the chamber ran into a huge hurdle trying to get people We did this commercial corridor revitalization project in 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, and nothing ever happened. We tried so hard. The only thing we ever actually got done was to go over to where Mountain Mike's is located on Folsom Boulevard and replant the landscaping. Well, plus, we took down 240 small billboards. I mean, that was a huge accomplishment.

Think of that number, 240 billboards in that stretch.

Four by eights. But nothing else ever happened. And we still have a lot of that dynamic that staff would be up against, all those little parcels. I've actually worked for some developers who are really good at assembling parcels, like at the intersection of Stockton and Fruit Ridge and building a Rite Aid. And you can't do that when you've got a string of little parcels that are only this deep. What do you do with it? So anything that we try to do on Folsom Boulevard is going to take an awful lot of really deep thought. consolidation of parcels, figuring out what to do about it, and how to do it before we even start to come up with the money. So I just, from my perspective, it just feels like Folsom Boulevard, I understand the comment about Bradshaw, but it feels to me like Folsom Boulevard is the biggest challenge of all. And we really would need to go into it with a lot more preparation.

Well, it sounds like, guys, that your direction was for the Mather Field Corridor. You have three votes to do get that one started. I would also like to caveat, because Folsom Boulevard, like Siri, I agree with that one, entirely important because it is where the DOVA project does come in and where the people are going to see it, the DOVA and Sunrise. But I actually like Joe's idea is that whatever we put in place, we probably should look at the safety side LIGHTS, HAVING A BIKE COP DOESN'T SOUND LIKE A BAD IDEA TO ME OR MAYBE JUST SEEING WHAT THE COST WOULD BE BECAUSE IT'S ONE THING TO CLEAN A PLACE UP. I KNOW THAT TRAIL WAS VERY, VERY NICE AND THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN ALL THE TOOLS THAT WERE HOOKED UP TO EVERYTHING ALL OF A SUDDEN GOT LEGS AND DISAPPEARED. You know, the place you could go and repair stuff now became the place you could go and rip stuff off and keep the tools. So that makes sense to me to see if we can, while we're cleaning it up, see if we can put some security features in place. Cameras, lights, police, whatever really makes the community feel safer. So they'll reinvest and start to go in that area. And I think that would be, so Chief, we're going to need two more bike cops every day, up and down. The area, but we wanted it for affordable. So we want these cops at the cheaper rate, not the expensive rate.

Could be at the drone rate. I mean, we could contract one of the downtown SACCHP bike co-ops they have from Procter & Noble City.

I think our motorbikes work on those trails, too.

Not for you to ride. Not for you. We've seen that. Now, horses up and down would really... I don't know what that's going to cost.

So, Mr. Mayor, can I say a couple of things? Just we never really enjoy trying to make you pick, you know, priorities because that's not something that is always easy. So we appreciate, you know, kind of the conversation. But we want to kind of start somewhere with exploring some ideas And I think there's a couple of principles in this that you know kind of thinking about one is And you talked about some of the corridor pants in the past and different items is focus on implementation and not just planning You know kind of approaches, so I think something is when we talk about. This is not really a I don't even really want to call it a corridor plan.

No, I don't think we want to plan it anymore. Correct.

And I think so this is really about implementation and testing different activities and different investments that we can think about from this corridor. It's an implementation plan, not a streetscape plan or some of these other things. So just keeping that in mind. The other thing is I think we've done really good on the infrastructure piece over the years. where it's been a tough road in some of the private sector places and on these corridors participating in this process. you know, future. And so I think when we talk about this implementation, it's not just focused on, you know, what different, you know, public infrastructure can be done, but also how do we find partnerships with the property owners and with different programs or new tools that come along with what the ideas will come with this kind of pilot project to see how do we engage with the private sector, what works and what doesn't work, and engaging not just the public inside of it, but also the private side. And then the third thing I just will say is thinking about it too for programmatic solutions, not just, and that comes with the, you know, kind of bike officers and other things. What is the ongoing things to not be a death by a thousand cuts or these different things, but what's the ongoing investment that's needed from a maintenance standpoint? So it's not just make some improvements and they happen. But what is the thinking about the ongoing maintenance that's required to make sure it stays at a certain level? And so I think those are just some of the principles that I think we're thinking about in this effort as well. And so just kind of want to make sure that narrowing this conversation. This is not a big corridor plan. This is really just piloting some ideas and seeing how it can then translate to maybe some other corridors. Will be some lessons learned. There'll be some different things. Some corridors are different than others, clearly. But this helps us kind of start that conversation with engaging with not just the public right away, but also the private sector conversations as well.

You know the big lot between Harbor Freight and Pet Boys? Chamber staff actually went down and knocked on the owner's door, and nobody would answer.

As a long-time owner, has no interest in developing, just pays the taxes and holds it.

But you know what you get good? You can go down there and get tugboat, and it's delicious. You can get tugboat. It's the only place you get, like, fish and chips.

Yeah, tugboats are supposed to be really good.

So I appreciate the Mather kind of...

loose you know direction i think we are thinking about that three people to say yes to mather you're good all right because there's a grants here involved would you like to go ahead and get a motion on the table sure helpful just to memorize that direction all right approval of the recommendation that um we need to we need public comment first please oh sorry do you have any public public we do not have any public comment but thank you for asking the lord have mercy

I have one last comment. You said partnerships were sort of buried in there. I think we really need to focus, like in all things at Rancho Cordova, we focus on what partners can we bring in to be the most efficient, make the bucks go the farthest. The Chamber has been a great partner in the past. on trying to figure out how to revitalize corridors. So trying to figure out partnerships. Maybe there are partners that can do things as well, like almost in a public works kind of area or adjacent area on private property.

You mean like bulldozing?

Yeah, like work on private property that's harder for the city to do. No, no, no. Or bulldozer accidents in strategic locations. No, what is happening? Arsonists.

David would be happy to drive.

The other comment was maintenance of effort, which I think is a really important concept. Because in most jurisdictions in California, you'll see a new roadway or something built. The landscape is going to be great. It'll be alive. And then about a year later, you realize they didn't put in any irrigation or something like that, right? Or it failed and they didn't fix it. So great, you just spent millions of dollars on new landscaping and it's all kind of dead.

We have rules about that.

Yes. And finally, you talked about the doorstep and how important it is. The one that's not really here but it is a corridor in the same sense as Highway 50 and the interchanges. Our interchanges look awful. Terrible. How do we get that much litter on a daily basis into those interchanges? I do not understand.

Because that's where I camp at. That's Rancho Cordova camping areas. It's called the corridors.

I mean, just coming to City Hall just now, off 50, off Zinfandel, exiting at Zinfandel, look to the right. I mean, that's a trash truck load that is spread out there over that stretch. It's just ridiculous amounts of trash. You behave. You behave. Ridiculous amounts of trash. We have to find, that's our doorstep. I mean, somebody comes to Rancho Cordova, the first thing they're going to see, I'm exiting here. Oh my gosh, what is all this trash doing here?

Well, it's side, side, front.

And why is there graffiti patches on the wall here? I mean, all that little stuff. Why are there weeds growing up through this chain link fence? It's just all that little stuff is going to matter.

Hopefully when we have the new art walk and all that, people feel less bad throwing trash there. I would hope. I'm not being funny. Maybe you'll be like, oh, this is not a trash can, so I won't throw my trash here.

Yeah, because that broken windows theory always works. It gets nicer. You don't want to be the person that makes it look worse. So you're like, cool, I'll just go down. I won't do it there, but I'll do it on Hazel.

But that presumes a litterer is a rational actor. So I don't know if that's the case.

No trying.

All right.

So, Linda? Yeah.

Yes, we were making a motion to recommend that staff pursue as an initial corridor revitalization project the Mather Field Road corridor from Folsom Boulevard down to at least the intersection with International or all the way to Mather.

Peter McEwen?

Yeah, down to Peter McEwen. Perfect. Works for me.

Great. Do I have a second? to have a roll call.

Council Member Sander? Aye. Council Member Pulipati? Yes. Council Member Little? Yes. Vice Mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood? Yes. Motion passes.

Guys, one last thing. There's a lot of people that are coming into Rancho Cordova now that want to invest in Rancho. We need to have packets and ability for them to invest in Rancho. So I know people that are coming in that are millionaires and they want to be engaged because the ecosphere and all this stuff is happening. This is an excellent chance for them to be like, buy this piece of property. And the city wants to come alongside you and help you to make it successful. Because they're just looking at places where they can invest their money. And that land is very affordable right now. So if you're talking there's a troubled area that doesn't need to be bulldozed, but could use some money, let's give them the opportunity to buy the pieces of property and be the investment that we need. That's it, thank you. Thank you. All right, next up. Stefan. Stacy, would you like to read the subject instead of me?

Sure. Discussion and direction regarding a transformative climate communities grant application.

Stephen. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I'm Stephen Heisler, Housing Manager for the city. I know I tried to copy Edgar Medina's look tonight, but as hard as I could try, I couldn't match his handsomeness. So you have a little bit of a discount assistant public works director tonight with your housing manager.

Can we just have him? He's right there. Can we just swap?

Maybe, Edgar, you can stay during the presentation so they can at least look at you. So following up from our Growing Strong Neighborhoods workshop in July, we had a little bit of a conversation about this TCC grant coming up. And now we have this opportunity to do a deeper dive into that application. I'll be presenting and discussing or presenting for discussion the proposed components of around six transformative climate communities implementation grant application. I'll introduce the program, explain the proposed implementation grant application, review proposed projects and partnership. We'll have an opportunity to discuss anticipated community benefits and outline the application timeline and next steps. And we'll be taking Council comments and feedback. We can kind of do it along the way. I'll pause a couple points, but we can also save it to the end as well. So just to give you a quick overview of the TCC Implementation Grant Program. It is a grant program administered by the State of California Strategic Growth Council. It supports comprehensive community-driven projects that deliver multiple benefits, and it is highly competitive. They anticipate awarding only three communities across the state with up to $27.5 million per awardee. So TCC looks to invest in sort of a coordinated portfolio of projects that all work together in conjunction to transform a neighborhood. So these include a number, a suite of different sort of project areas including affordable housing, active transportation and complete streets, transit improvements, urban greening and tree planting, renewable energy and energy efficiency, workforce development, community facilities, food access and urban agriculture and others. The core program and objectives are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve public health, environmental quality, advance equity in disadvantaged communities. There's a big focus on disadvantaged communities in this project, which I'll highlight on the next slide. Increasing climate resilience, sort of the whole laundry list of good strategies to improve disadvantaged neighborhoods. So the project areas that they require jurisdictions to sort of focus on with this grant, in urban areas, they're limited to up to four square miles. And at least 51% of the project areas have to be within CalEnviroScreen eligible census tracts. And those are highlighted in yellow on the map. So the eligible CES census tracts are those scoring in the lowest 25% statewide for factors including income, educational attainment, schools, climate, and other environmental factors. And then the remaining areas within the grant must be within designated low-income census tracts, and those are the areas checkered and purple. And so you can see on the right here, this is sort of the draft proposed project area that we would serve. Again, we have to have at least half of the area within the yellow census tracts, and then the remaining 49% can be in those checkered areas. So we are somewhat limited to focusing on the Folsom Boulevard corridor, but from the conversation tonight, it is a corridor that we want to continue focusing on. So it does present a good opportunity to go after some additional grant funding to work on that effort. Happy to take comments and feedback on this slide now, or we can kind of wait till the end again. So like I mentioned, I think, oh, go ahead.

So what's the... So they think Capital Village and Prospect Park are in a low-income census tract.

I agree with you. Some of this data's a little bit questionable, considering the Cordova Vineyards is not in there as well. Kind of leaves a hole in the middle of the map.

Prospect Park, nobody lives there. And Capital Village does not look low income.

Yeah, it might depend on the census tract boundaries and what's in it and what's not. They all include some commercial in the census tract boundaries. So just because there's commercial in some of these census tracts doesn't mean that they're disadvantaged or going to qualify in any way.

Right. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure where their data is coming from. Yeah, with Prospect Park, which may stretch to Olsen Island, but north of Folsom Boulevard is that whole yellow census tract, so...

That's definitely within there.

That makes sense, sort of. I think people who live there would be insulted, but it makes sense. I doubt seriously that the people who live in Mills Ranch think they qualify, but I guess nobody asked them.

I certainly hesitate to use some of the labels that the state is putting on our community. It is uncomfortable.

Yeah.

All right, sorry.

Keep going.

Boo. So fortunately at least, there is alignment with some of our community priorities. So this wouldn't be a presentation from your housing manager if I didn't say the phrase revitalize Folsom Boulevard. So one of our priorities that some of this grant could cover would be to help continue that effort as well as enhancing adjacent neighborhoods, improving workforce opportunities, and creating public open space. So I'll go over some of the proposed projects in a moment, but the investments would sort of focus around urban greening, active transportation, opportunities for affordable and market rate housing, workforce programs, and clean energy projects. with the community outcomes, the goal being to create new growth and development, healthier neighborhoods, housing stability for our low-income senior homeowners, safer mobility, and a more educated workforce.

Mr. City Attorney, I didn't realize you're a left-handed batter.

I am indeed, and I think there was a stagger in.

Yeah.

Yeah. You were driving the large vehicles.

There was a vehicle involved, yeah. And as I remember, my very small son at the time attacked that wall with a hammer.

I probably did it after watching his example. Hilarious.

So the proposed vision for the TCZ grant application is here and we can kind of continue to tinker with it. But essentially the Folsom Boulevard corridor would become a connected climate resilient and opportunity rich community where residents of all incomes have access to safe and affordable housing, nearby transit, opportunities for higher education that lead to family supporting jobs, healthy and stable neighborhoods and vibrant public spaces. So then we kind of get into the proposed projects that would sort of fill out this suite of neighborhood improving kind of portfolio. So the first one proposed is the Mills Crossing Plaza and open space construction. So we're already in progress with the affordable housing project with related housing on that site through this program. we could have an opportunity to pursue funding for the construction of the plaza and open space. And also in this proposal, which I'll go to in a couple of slides, we have an opportunity to sort of leverage maybe additional mixed use or market rate housing in addition to this so that we kind of complete at least the frontage of Folsom Boulevard. The second project would be to augment the Folsom Lake College degree and English as a second language programs. The opportunities that we're looking at with Folsom Lake College are to expand the city's promise program to residents within the proposed project area to give them access to the different degree programs. Also to get grant funding to drive enrollment to the existing AI certificate program and improve access to allied health degree programs. The third one would be to support SACRT's efforts to construct the Horn Road light rail station. So that is an important transit project that could also be funded through this grant application. We could get a slice for that project as well. And then number four would be to improve a couple of the pedestrian crossings on Folsom Boulevard. The first one is the existing Mather Mills pedestrian crossing. That one could be improved, kind of leveraging the first project on the list. And then the second one proposed would be to create a new crossing to reach the new Horn Road light rail station. Number five would be to create a couple of new public fast charging electric vehicle charging stations along Folsom Boulevard or in the vicinity within that project area. And then number six would be to work with a couple of community partners, which I'll highlight on the next slide, to do food waste recovery and or community education around agriculture and food and food prep. And then number seven would be to expand what we're currently funding our existing critical systems repair program through our CDBG program. And this grant would give us an opportunity to expand that to additional low-income senior homeowners within the project area. which kind of make up a considerable amount of our yellow census tracts which are several mobile home parks which we kind of hear frequently are in high need for these services. Number eight is required community engagement through the grant program. They do require you to stay engaged with the community. So that would get funding through this application. And then nine, we're looking at some of the potential overlap with the commercial corridor work from the presentation we just heard. So maybe opportunities within that Mather Field corridor to add funding within this program. So the community partnerships that we're looking to work on with this grant application, the City of Rancho Cordova would be the lead applicant. And then as I mentioned before, looking to partner with Folsom Lake College, Sacramento Regional Transit, Rebuilding Together Sacramento, who does our critical systems repair, Soilborne Farms, which could do some of those community outreach with schools, school gardens, improved maybe some of the facilities within Soulborn Farms, adding in Rancho Cordova Food Hub for some of the sort of programs that they can offer there at the food hub location. That still needs some funding to get built out. And then TBD still is, we're talking to SPUD, we're exploring if there's availability to partner with them on maybe some of the electric vehicle charging. But that one's still TBD. Some of the expected community benefits. So from urban greening and environmental benefits, the goal would be to create that new destination open space at Mills Crossing, including the plaza and Project Green, and then also improving food waste recovery and community gardening education. under transportation improvements, again, Horn Road Light Rail Station. On new housing, I'll touch on this in the next slide, but an opportunity to leverage 90 plus units of market rate housing at the Mills Crossing site. Workforce development and economic opportunity, again, expanding enrollment and options with Folsom Lake College. We think ESL classes opportunities would be such a slam dunk here, but unfortunately the state guidelines for this grant program make it quite difficult or tricky to include that in. So we're gonna thread that needle, but it's gonna take a little bit of work to figure out how we can include additional ESL classes in this grant application.

You know, Folsom Cordova used to do ESL. the adult education. They still do. It was in a little building on Rockingham. They still do. So maybe we should add Folsom Cordova.

We can talk to them for sure. Some of the complication is if you're gonna do workforce programs, they have to result in some kind of certification or degree. And ESL classes by themselves don't end with sort of a certification that can get you hired. So it's a little bit tricky. We're trying to figure out how to include ESL classes as part of outreach or as part of of implementation of the other projects that we have. So like some of the outreach with Soborn Farms or the Food Hub could also maybe incorporate ESL classes. And you're absolutely right, we could talk to FCUSD to see if maybe there's overlap there as well. And then last on the list is the health and quality of life outcomes by providing senior housing stability and home efficiency upgrades through our critical systems repair program. So one of the projects I wanted to kind of present to the council this evening, kind of coming back to Mills Crossing, we definitely heard the feedback last year of the project trying to do too much on too small of a site and costing too much to do it. So kind of receiving that feedback and kind of definitely in the context of the other projects that the city is considering at this time, This is a proposal that would sort of look to help finish off the site, maybe in a more economical way, but to build out still a use that would create a little bit of a vibrant public space on the site, adding in not just housing, but a little bit of commercial and retail at a really critical TOD site. one of our gateway sites as well, kind of the site that folks see when they drive up Mather Field and then get onto Folsom Boulevard. So what we're looking at here is on site two is the Mills Crossing site would be a market rates multifamily project including both sort of three to four stories of multifamily housing and then town homes. These could be most likely for rent but maybe for sale. And then also in the corner, sort of the bottom right corner of the plaza would be a small commercial component that would kind of create activity within the plaza. And we also have an opportunity right now to consider site three. which is the SACRT park and ride lot, which definitely hear comments about sort of, so there's eyesores and there's sort of a lack of activity, lack of eyes on the street, lack of positive energy within this corridor and intersection to kind of attract sort of a better positive energy. So this project would be, could be envisioned as artists live work housing, that would sort of line that parking ride lot to create more of a place. We do anticipate this would be a project, a little bit more of a long-term project to explore with SACRT. We don't own the site, of course. And then this one may require some additional subsidy. So we would anticipate coming back to the city council for further discussion on that one, but at least maybe want to get some feedback tonight to see if that's something worth pursuing. So I do have a couple of visualizations of what this could look like to help kind of understand the on the ground feel. So this is a look, kind of looking into the plaza. You can see the housing would sort of border the site, and you have that commercial component in the front. We do have some economic analysis of other sites along the corridor that suggests that market rate housing could be feasible with limited additional city funding needed, potentially as low as zero. But we are in the midst of doing a feasibility study for this site right now. We don't have the results just yet. And then this is another look at what the potential live work artist housing could look like on the park and ride lot. You can see the MAC there on the very left, and then that's sort of the transit plaza and the bus stop there on the right.

Oh, okay. Back to the other one?

Yes.

Where is that?

Go back one more. So if you're on the south side of Folsom Boulevard at the light rail station, and you're looking north onto the site, You see the plaza kind of opens up between the two rows of buildings.

Where's this crossway? That's Folsom Boulevard? Yes. All right, okay, now you went into the Twilight Zone. They're gonna have a small family walking their dog across Folsom Boulevard?

Yeah, right.

Okay, all right. All right, keep going.

The service animal?

Yeah, dodge. Dodge is like, watch out for yourself. It's crazy. One second, we're just gonna get this proposal and then we'll have public comment.

Well, it's about, we don't understand where this is. We have no idea.

Do you know where the, I'll tell you exactly where it is, just so you know. Do you know where the college is, Folsom Lake College? Yes. Right next to that. There's that big, you know the big piece of land that had the Mexican restaurant next to it? Got it. There you go. Yep, you nailed it.

Hit it. All right. Okay, so just to highlight a couple more slides here and then we'll open up for public comment and discussion. So the application funding request that we would put in would be for the full 27.5 million. There is a 50% leverage funding requirement. It's not a matching fund requirement. It's a leverage funding requirement. So leverage funding can come from other grants secured that support TCC projects in other ways or could include previous Council commitments to other projects that support the project area. So just off the top of our head, we know that we've committed close to $7 million between funding and land for the related affordable housing project. And we also know that SACRT has secured at least $6 million in grants. so that puts us at 13 out of a required 13.75 million we are sure we can come up with you know from all the other funding and investments the city is making into the project area we can we can find the leverage funding no problem and if we're able to sort of deliver on any of these projects additional leverage projects that would create you know a significant amount of other leverage funding that we could count towards the the project There's a shared governance and ongoing community engagement components required. So those would involve city and implementation partners and residents to conduct sort of shared decision making, sort of accountability about grant implementation. This really gets into some of the nuts and bolts on how the programs are implemented best to reach the intended recipients, how we're advertising and those sorts of things. And then the ongoing community engagement would also sort of help deliver the intended results of the programs. So the schedule that we are on, we've been working on the development of the grant application and refinement, coordination with community and project partners, and then looking to complete technical documentation and supporting materials all between July and September. The full application is due on September 30th. We would anticipate coming back to city council in a couple of weeks for full authorization or formal authorization to apply. And then we sort of go dark. We wouldn't hear back until about spring of 2027 for award notifications. And then if awarded, we would go into sort of a transition phase to execute grant documents. And then through the end of 2027 would be a pre-development phase to sort of finalize everything, really get the shovels ready to put them in the ground. And then over the next four years, so 2028 roughly to 2032, will be the full implementation of all the work plans and projects, ongoing community engagement and evaluation. All right, so now just, we have a few questions for council discussion and highlight some next steps. Wanna just make sure, I mean, just to kind of prime the pump for conversation, but does the proposed DCC vision align with city priorities and community needs? Are the proposed focus areas and projects investments consistent with council goals? Do we have the right project portfolio here? And then as I mentioned, next steps. Tonight we'll incorporate council feedback into our application strategy. We'll continue partnering with our intended partners, doing sort of that coordination and community engagement. And then as I mentioned, we'd come back to council with the final update and authority to submit the application in the next couple of weeks. And that concludes my presentation.

Why don't you take public comment?

Let's go ahead and get some public comment, is there any?

I do not have any public comment and there's no hands that are raised.

Excellent, we'll move on. Planner, extraordinaire, Linda, bless us with your knowledge.

I have to say that the last two proposals don't do anything for me at all, period. Your housing concept renderings are beautiful by themselves, but they don't look anything like the project we approved over there. So how would you go about integrating the architecture that's been adopted for that project into something that looked like this? And then we really have to have a conversation. I mean, granted, We decided we didn't want to do all of that mixed use, but we haven't decided specifically what we do want to do at Mills Crossing. So it seems to me that we need a conversation about that first. Secondly, I am not a fan of putting anything into the Mills Station parking lot at all. Obviously regional transit would prefer that the parking lot is full of people taking the train as opposed to a bunch of buildings. And I know that there are homeless problems over there because Cheryl is constantly wagging people and shooing them away. But it seems to me that you should also discuss this with Cheryl and see what her feelings are about having something like this in the parking lot. You know, there's always the benefit of... People who live there coming and going but on the other hand I Doubt seriously that I Doubt seriously that at RT would like to have the parking light used up The only thing I did like about the proposal Goes back to the project portfolio and expanding the city's promise program, finding some funding for the Horn Road light rail station, and creating new pedestrian crossings to get back and forth on Folsom Boulevard. What we have out there now is something that we built simply because There's one up on Greenback Lane to get San Juan High School students across Greenback Lane. And that's exactly what we built down here. It's just a copy with a fence in the middle of the road and a street light that they can activate to get across from one side of the street to the other. So yeah, I can see that that might be a good idea to upgrade that. But if we did nothing but get additional construction funding for the Horn Road light rail station, that would be a really good idea.

Honestly, I think Linda covered all my comments. Good.

I DON'T HAVE ANY SPECIFIC I DON'T HAVE ANY SPECIFIC OBJECTIONS. OBJECTIONS. I CAN'T SPEAK TO THE DESIGN I CAN'T SPEAK TO THE DESIGN ELEMENTS BUT SOME OF THEM ARE I ELEMENTS BUT SOME OF THEM ARE I THINK PRETTY IN LINE WITH THE THINK PRETTY IN LINE WITH THE LAST DIRECTION WE GAVE YOU. LAST DIRECTION WE GAVE YOU. SO I DO THINK YOU DID WHAT WE SO I DO THINK YOU DID WHAT WE ASKED.

ASKED. DAVID? DAVID? I GUESS I ALSO IDENTIFY I GUESS I ALSO IDENTIFY WITH LINDA'S COMMENTS. proposed housing development there just gives me pause it's probably something we need to think more about um before committing ourselves to any particular path there that particular treatment of the edge of the parking lot at the light rail station has not occurred to me before so that's an interesting thing i worry about what impact it would have on the paucity of parking that we're already dealing with and sort of had an impact on our previous discussion of what to do with Mills Crossing. That would inevitably take more away from the overall site. I don't know if that would harm things that are happening at the MAC. Improving the environment around the MAC would probably aid in all the community building and artistic stuff and concerts and things that are happening there. So it might be six of one, half dozen of the other. But that definitely requires more consideration than just a go for it with a grant right now. Otherwise, I appreciate the work.

Well, the pictures are pretty.

All right, Steph.

Can I ask a clarifying question?

Go ahead. Obviously, we want to do everything right and take as much time as we need, but do we risk our competitiveness for grants the more we wait? I just want to know, I'm sure we want to know, is there like a timeline that we should be knowing about?

So for this grant purposes, I definitely think the artist live work concept is on a different timeline. That one probably would not fit within this grant application. So that one's okay. I think we can come back at a later time for additional council discussion on that concept if desired. or something within the conversation of what we do want to do with Mills Crossing. We definitely hear that comment. I think maybe the plaza aspect, it would be good to get direction on that piece of it specifically if we do want to include that plaza and open space within this grant application. I think that is kind of a bigger component of the grant proposal.

It looks like we need to come, sorry to cut you off, but I realize you put it up on the screen. It looks like we need to come back pretty quickly about this if applications do soon.

It is due soon, yeah. I mean, the housing piece on Mills Crossing, I think the market rate idea could come back again for that conversation of what we do want to do with the rest of the sites. And maybe what I'm hearing is that would also include that plaza and open space as well. So unless I hear otherwise, I would look to sort of probably not include those components in the grant application. So we would sort of shift to other projects within the city. And probably that opens up space for additional funding for the other partners, such as Horn Road Light Rail Station and maybe some of the other components of the grant application.

I think that's what you're hearing.

All right.

Cool.

I think demonstrating that for sale housing works on Folsom Boulevard would be a major landmark for us if that could happen. Certainly in Mills Crossing we saw an awful lot of challenges around trying to accommodate that or trying to allow that to happen. Just economically, I mean, even not rent controlled apartments were deemed not functional at Mills Crossing, right? Everything had to be subsidy. So, you know, for sale housing could potentially be that spark that lights other property owners up saying, oh, wait a second, I can actually make money with this parcel instead of sitting on it for the next 30 years paying property taxes, right?

Well, this is kind of a place-making question. You know, why would anybody want to live, want to buy a house on Folsom Boulevard right now? For all the reasons that we've been talking about all night with this commercial. Trick of the day, right? Yeah, with these commercial corridor things. You know, what have you got? A bunch of parking lots and, you know, an old veterinary and a gas station and used cars and a restaurant that changes hands every six months and so on and so forth. The only thing respectable out there is really the college. And actually the little lube thing across the street is pretty respectable too, but.

And the fire station?

Well, but that's a long way down that way.

Sayonara.

all right do you have advice you feel it yes i think we have we have good clear direction from the city council so we'll we'll we'll look we'll we'll remove the mills crossing components we'll we'll sort of shift the things the other funding opportunities around um put as much as we can towards the other components and sort of see how we can fill the gaps maybe with some of the commercial corridor work and uh we'll be back in a couple weeks for we are not making life easy for you guys with mills crossing

I just feel like it's a moving target, so I wish you guys best luck. All right, thank you.

All right, I'm going to go ahead and we're going to go ahead and adjourn this into closed session. Recording in progress. Before we adjourn into closed session, there are some public, are there any public comments on 21.1?

I do not have any public comments.

Do you want me to ask for future agenda items? Is there any future agenda items, guys? Meeting adjourned into closed session.

Recording stopped.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council and community. This evening, the city council met in closed session for a conference with real property negotiators on property located at 2875 Kilgore Road and received updates from and provided direction to its labor negotiators, the city manager and the city attorney and took no other reportable action.

I'm going to go ahead and join this meeting into the amazing Pastor Ted. Ted Smith was faithfully served for more than 30 years as Senior Pastor of First Covenant and River City Christian. Following these years as Senior Pastor, he continues serving the Rancho del Corvo community to its being an amazing pastor, gospel, developing Christian leaders, strengthening families, helping people become fully devoted followers of Christ. This amazing man actually helped when I was at a low point in my life to help me take on and become a council member here in Rancho Cordova. Matthew 25, 23 says, well done, good and faithful servant, and I hope he's in heaven today. I join this meeting in Pastor Ted Smith.

Recording stopped.