City Council - Regular Meeting

I'm asking you to announce the meeting and video recording playback.

Tonight's meeting is being recorded and will be available on the city's website within 48 hours following adjournment. Live captioning is also available through Zoom and can be enabled by individual users through the captions feature.

Public comment. A special meeting for citizens wishing to address the city council for any matter not on the agenda may do so as discussed under provision of California government code. The city council prohibited from discussing or taking immediate action on the agenda. To submit a public comment, please submit a speaker card. to the city clerk, raise your hand on Zoom by raising the hand feature or press star nine if participating by the telephone and wait to be called on by the city clerk. Speakers are asked to keep their comments three minutes or less and asked by stating the name for the record. Do we have any public comment?

We do not have any public comment and I'm looking at Zoom and I do not see any public comment there either.

All right, I'm going to go ahead and adjourn this meeting to closed session. Are there any public comments related to closed session item today?

There are not.

All right.

Really?

Recording stopped.

STACEY, THIS ONE, STACEY, THIS IS YOUR ONE-MINUTE CHECK. ONE MINUTE.

IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE TWO MINUTES.

YEAH, BUT THE ONE MINUTE GOES TO TWO, TWO GOES TO THREE, THEN IT'S SEVEN. All right, let's go ahead and call this meeting back to order and do a roll call.

Council Member Little. Here. Council Member Sander. Here. Council Member Polipotti. Here. Vice Mayor Budge.

Here.

Mayor Gatewood.

Here. Adam, would you like to read out of closed session, please?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This evening, the City Council met in closed session at 4.45 p.m. to take up one item of existing litigation Verdun versus the City of Rancho Cordova, received updates from and provided direction to its litigation council.

Thank you very much. I'm gonna go ahead and adjourn the meeting and rejoin the meeting for a regular meeting. Stacy can roll call again.

Yes, Council Member Little. Here. Council Member Sander. Here. Council Member Polipotti. Here. Vice Mayor Budge. Here. Mayor Gatewood.

Here, can I go ahead and have Stacy read the television announcement.

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 TVU-verse cable systems. The recording will also be video streamed at metro14live.saccounty.gov. Today's meeting will replay on Sunday, September 27th at 12 p.m. and Tuesday, September 29th at 9 a.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.

Excellent. Thank you very much. I'm going to go ask Darrell to come up and give us the Pledge of Allegiance. And then after that, you can stay standing for our invocation from the BAPS charity.

Please rise. Salute. 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.

And my call on Sani. Yeah, because you're just going, we're going to have that. That's not raising that name up. There we go.

Sonny, Gashuela, and Umika Patel.

Nailed it.

Namaste. My name is Sanehi, and I would like to lead in a peace prayer. Om Shanti. Shanti Shanti Sushantir Bhavatu Sarvaarish Shantir Bhavatu

I will now translate the prayer that was recited. May there be peace in the heavens, peace in the sky, peace on earth, peace in the waters, peace in the plants and herbs, peace in the trees and forests, peace among all divine beings. May all beings experience tranquility. May there be no fear from any direction. May all creatures live in peace and harmony without fear. O God, may you remove all obstacles and difficulties, and may all that is good and auspicious come to us. Om peace, peace, peace. May there be supreme peace, and may peace be everywhere, free from all troubles and dangers. We thank you again for allowing us this wonderful opportunity to recite the prayers.

Thank you.

Excellent job. Now I'm going to have the doggies up to the front. And that's Jody Groves, who is a volunteer with Canine Companions. All right. We're going to do this thing, and then we're going to have you talk because the puppies like to talk. This proclamation is given on National Service Dog Month. Whoever wants an amazing dog, you get to take one home tonight. So that's free. And I will be taking home this guy. Whereas there are 70 million adults and children in the United States that live in disabilities, while only approximately 1,600 service dogs from accredited training programs are available nationwide, demonstrating a growing need for valuable partnership. And helping meet these needs is Canine Companion. It's a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing the lives of people with disabilities and providing expertly trained service dogs ongoing support at no cost to their clients. Through the specialized training and continued support, Canine Companions and its service dogs help individuals with disabilities accomplish everyday tasks, live greater independence, and safety with more fully participate in the communities. The City of Rancho Cordova recognizes the important work the Canine Companion has in expanding its opportunity for people with disabilities and raising awareness for meaningful roles in service dog lives. During the National Dog Month, the City of Rancho Cordova encourages residents to celebrate service dogs, respect their rights, and protect service dogs and their handlers. I have signed my seal, and what an amazing guy. Great job, guys. This is for you. You know what? I'm going to hold it right here. Picture and let me get my counsel up. Come on, guys. And we'll have them talk up and we're walking and we're walking. Oh, and and and we have another dog who is also another service dog coming up. Our service dog. Here he comes. Service dog. Listen, he's a super duper service dog. And does she want to talk to Mike? Oh, you do want to bite the mic. You wanted to bite the mic. Oh. God, golden retrievers are the best dogs. I can't. How am I going to talk to my wife and let me have one? All right, everyone get in close. And look and smile. And smile again. All right. There you guys go. Congratulations. And the mic is yours. Do you want to say something?

Thank you. Thank you for the honor.

Of course.

I want to have a dog with me. We can talk after the meeting.

There you go. You want me to hold the dog?

Oh, he'll get your suit on.

All right, I want a dog.

So there's a really long wait list for the graduates that are on the wait list to get one of these wonderful dogs to help their independence, completely free of charge. And we're always in great need of puppy raisers, which is what we are, and breeder caretakers. So if you ever want to, especially you students here, it's a great community service project that looks really good on college applications. So if anybody's interested, please contact us and join our wonderful group of puppy raisers and volunteers in this area. We're actually the largest group of volunteers in the nation right here in Sacramento. I guess I've lost my dog. They're right around two years old. They stay with us puppy raisers about a year and a half, 16 to 18 months, and then they go off to professional training. We say they go off to college. And I've been doing this for almost 35 years. This is my 32nd puppy. I started doing it for my children. I promised my husband I would only do it once.

And Mayor Gatewood, just real quick, I work for another municipality and I raise puppies while I work for the city of Sacramento and it's very doable in the service world of government. So think about getting a puppy. We can have one to you next week maybe.

I don't know if I have a house to go home to. That's because he loves me. I'm a dog person.

All right.

Now, just as good, but not as fun as dogs, let's talk about prostate cancer. All right. Come on up. That was the best transition I could do. All right, sir.

I promise not to look you up.

So this proclamation is near and dear to my heart. I have many a family member that has suffered from prostate cancer. So it's Prostate Care Awareness Month, September 2026, whereas prostate cancer is frequently diagnosed in men and second leading cause of cancer deaths in men. This year approximately 300,000 men have been diagnosed with prostate cancer in the United States. Roughly 36,000 will die this year from the disease and every 15 minutes a man is diagnosed with prostate cancer. African American men are the highest at risk of prostate cancer with a rate of one in six. Incidents of 70% higher chance of black men than white men getting this disease is estimated over 32,610 men in California will be diagnosed with prostate cancer and an estimated 4,200 will die from this disease. And I'm just glad that I can be one of these ones to get out there seeing that over a quarter of my family has been diagnosed with prostate cancer so we all get our checks every year and it doesn't now you don't it's not as scary it's literally something you put in a box there's really absolutely no reason to do it anymore sir congratulations thank you for what you do thank you mayor and city council and i guess a special shout out in this case to the

clerk's office, Rachel and Stacy, for putting this together year after year. And I just, I guess unfortunately, looked into my records, and this is something like the 13th year the City of Rancho Godova and I have gotten together. So Linda and I have done this I don't know how many times. It's a special thing. I don't know how much longer I'll be at this little game called prostate cancer, thanks. I was a very fortunate, fortunately diagnosed at an early stage, got good treatment, and this has been some 30 years now I'm a survivor. So a lot of guys recur, I've been fortunate, but I also preach, as the mayor said, you get tested. You get tested regularly. If you haven't started, get started. There's no time that's too early. As the Mayor Gatewood has said, it's in his family, it's in my family. So my kids get wrapped on constantly. Did you get your test? Are you checking? So what happens these days is there's a ton of treatments, and if you get tested early, you're early stage, your chances are you're going to get treatment, you're going to get tested from there on after, and you're going to be a survivor. So if men don't know, you talk to your GP, you talk him in, they can get tested. They're going to refer you to a urologist. They're a surgeon. Get a second opinion. That's a radiologist. And pay attention. It's not that difficult. I've had a lot of good experiences with the guys that I work with in my group in Cameron Park and also in Sacramento. So it's doable. So other than that, thank you, members of the council. Appreciate your time and efforts, and it's nice to see Linda again after all this time. Anybody's got questions, holler at me, and who do I give this mic back to?

All right, thank you for everything you do. The more people that know, the more people you've survived. All right, we're now gonna move to public comment. Members wishing to address the council for any matter not on the agenda may do so at this time. Public comment is a period is limited to the matters that fall within the city council authority known as council subject matter jurisdiction. For items that are on the agenda, speakers will be called by the mayor at the point on the agenda when the item is heard. Speakers are asked to keep their comments three minutes or less and are asked to begin by stating their name and record. To submit public comment, please submit a speaker card to the city clerk, raise your hand by using raise hand feature or pressing star nine is participating by telephone and wait to be called on by city clerk under the provision of California Government code, city council is prohibited from discussing or taking immediate action on an item not on the agenda unless it is deemed to have demonstrated to be emergency in nature or need to take immediate action arose after the posting agenda. Stacey, who do we have lined up for public comment today?

We have Helen Whalen-Bishaw. Helen, if you'd like to come forward, you'll have up to three minutes. All right.

Greetings, I'm Helen William Bashaw, and I'm from the Tiffin area. On Sunday, the PAR, which preserves the American River Group, hosted its seventh annual Family Fall Festival. This year we served, it's a four hour event, and we served over 500 meals to those that came to our event. We are promoting the American River, preserving it, we're affiliated with SARA, which is Save the American River Association, which was founded in 1961, and the reason we have that gorgeous parkway is because of SARA. In addition to that, I'd like to tap on an area that's near and dear to my heart. Pet owners, you need to spay and neuter your animals. Whether they be dogs or cats, they need to be spayed and neutered. Rancho Cordova has an excellent program, Whisker Warriors, which helps with cost. The reason I say this is a few weeks ago, my neighbor contacted me because the feral kitten that they had been feeding Deposited eight kittens at her house. We believe she died We called around and everybody said we'll take your eight kittens But we're going to euthanize them because they're too small. I have been raising all eight kittens at my house. I Believe that the mother brought the kittens to a safe house Because she wanted them to live I take all the expenses, I pay for them myself. I will be adopting them out, every one will be spayed or neutered. I will vet the people to make sure they can afford the pet and to make sure that they will be a good companion, partner with that pet. So I think the city of Rancho has done a great job with Whiskey Warriors. This is the third time I've had feral cats at my house, kittens. And with all eight of them, they're handfuls. They have a kitten treadmill. They drive me crazy. They're expensive to raise, but they will be great companions. The minute I walk into the room where they are, I have eight purring kittens trying to climb my legs to get first dibs at the kisses and the hugs. So again, spay and neuter, I'm really big on that. And I also commend the people that do the companion dogs. My brother had a dog with a group called, a group that does the airport terminal B, where they bring the animals out, they go to nursing homes, and I got him a dog that somebody was disposing of, and it became an excellent service dog. The dog was bilingual, Russian, English, and doggy sign language. Thank you.

Mayor Gatewood, there's no additional public comment.

All right, let's go ahead and move on to Council Reports. Joe.

Yeah, the prostate presentation Just wanted to share that my dad he's been he was diagnosed with prostate cancer last summer And they had it he's 73 now. I just turned 73 and they removed it all Surgically and then it all came back and so he just this past August and into September went through radiation and chemo and And he's completed both as of about a week ago. And he is already back playing softball, running bases, whatever. I was never really worried because he was still so active. He was like lifting weights during his chemo, which is insane. But yeah, so, you know, it affects all of us. I always make sure my mic's on. what else i went to good neighbor day great job lorianne and staff really excellent time in countryside park i get to see a lot of my constituents they don't see as much over there in countryside um and i'd like to uh in this meeting in honor of, if we can, during our last meeting, we lost someone in the Lincoln Village community who was a big volunteer, a married couple that was a pillar in Lincoln Village for some time. And it's been great seeing the community come together to support the family, but it was tough. And so I would like, in memory of Robert Bejarano, If we could do that tonight, that would be excellent. And his funeral services are tomorrow or Wednesday.

Bevarano?

Bevarano.

Bevarano.

Okay.

David.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well, aside from the routine monthly meetings we all attend, for me, it's sewer, air district, um sacog a couple of other things of uh of interest cordova football team is now three and oh beating rio americano at rio americano except they don't have lights so they had to play somewhere else but they beat them uh 27 21 unfortunately it was out of town i didn't get to go to that game but um People who saw it said it reminds them of the Cordova teams of old, where they may not be the most talented kids on the field, but they are definitely the most tenacious.

Gung ho.

Absolutely. So congratulations to them. If they stay on this path and they get another win or two, they will earn a playoff berth, which is pretty exciting. That hasn't happened in a couple years. So that would be a nice accomplishment for this year. They play this Friday somewhere in the East Bay, I think. and they are projected to win that one as well, so we'll see, we'll see. But we should be very proud of what they're accomplishing over there this year. I am chair of NLC's Suburban Municipalities Council. That used to be the First-Year Suburbs Council. The mission hasn't changed, the name has, to better reflect what they do, but we are doing a reboot, basically, of that organization, and that's gonna happen in Nashville at the NLC meeting. I don't know how many of you are going, to that particular meeting, but this is a really good meeting to go to for NLC. You could be part of this reboot, but also it's Nashville. It's a fun place to visit and the educational program there is looking outstanding. I attended Club Rush at Cordova a week and a half ago. That was a really interesting, it's sort of like during lunch break, they set up a whole bunch of tables and all the clubs are trying to get students to sign up for them. And I will say that our mentorship organizations were very successful there in getting lots of kids interested. So we have, you know, two or three, depending on how to look at it, there are two or three service clubs in addition. All of those, to my eye, looked really healthy in that environment. I got to talk to them, talk to a lot of kids, talk them into signing up for things. It was a very good event. I would encourage you guys, as you're able to attend that sort of event, they do that, I think, four times a year. or a version of that club rush. I have been traveling to Notre Dame to see a football game, and I did a tour of Michigan with my wife and some friends. My poor wife, the tour of Michigan ends up being a tour of cities, which ends up being a tour of museums, concert venues, sidewalks, public art, performance venues, parks, all those things for which she is also at some point now an expert. gave me lots of inspiration about what small towns can do, particularly around things that we don't see so much in California. One example would be an alleyway in a city that was filled with art, and the art was umbrellas hanging overhead. So you can imagine an alleyway maybe not such a nice place to be, but suddenly a multicolor umbrella's hanging over your head, the length of this alley, and it was... And we've got a bunch of alleys in Capitol Village. It's really cool. That could use art. And it's not, I mean, that's not expensive, it's not hard to do. It just takes a little organization and thought about what can we do in creating senses of place, right? Yeah, there were other examples of that. I was particularly interested in the small history museums we saw. Like, what can you do with 1,200 square feet to have your community's history in it? Some of these places had very rich history that they were focusing on, but not all of them. So it may have looked like a vacation, and it actually ended up being like a work tour. So apologies to my wife Maggie. But hey, Notre Dame won in the end, so that was important. Let's see, we have a new athletic director at Cordova High School, Michael Llorente, we should probably have him introduced here at some point. He comes to us with an absolutely stellar resume. He is the kind of coach and the sort of leader we probably haven't had over there in a while as athletic director. He's extremely high energy, he's high skill. He is very motivated and determined, and he has extremely high expectations of what kids and coaches and the public and the school system should be doing to support kids as they develop. That is a rare combination. We are really lucky to have landed him. He sees opportunity there, which is why he's willing to do this job. And I just think we ought to probably celebrate that. There's another new coach of that, I don't know if we've mentioned before, Coach Nakagawa, who now has a partnership with our Rancho Cordova Basketball Association to, in essence, do kindergarten through high school basketball league. It might be in three different parts or two different parts, depending on how you look at it. But for the first time, we would have that sort of opportunity for all the kids in Rancho Cordova, boys, girls, from kindergarten to 12th grade. It's only possible, really, when you get the right person at the high school at one end and you get the right youth leadership at the other end. And if you can connect those two, this is a really big bang for the buck. And this just gives me another opportunity to say, you know, Rancho, one of our standards is good enough ain't or good enough isn't. We should strive to do things well. These are examples of doing things well. Hanging umbrellas in an alley is doing something well. It doesn't have to be expensive. You just have to aim high. Thank you.

Siri.

Thank you, Mayor. I remember reading about this hanging umbrella in the alleys. I think it started in Portugal in the early 2000s, and then it took off from there.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah. Well, again, that's all I remember from that piece of it. Yeah, from my update, there were social engagements. I've been there. You've seen me there. The one thing I want to point out is on the STA meeting that I attended, So as all of you are aware, the Grant Line Road is a dangerous road. And a few years earlier, we'd received, the Rancho Cordova segment of the connector had received 25 million as part of the TCEP award. And last week, we were hoping to get prioritized by the STA board to get another $25 million. And we got approved.

Woo! $25 million!

The fun part is, or the part is, you know, every time when we approve this amount, grand dollars, grant dollars, it's just something that we approved. But this time I knew that when we were approving this $25 million, we were literally going to save lives. So six people sitting on a podium, we were out there saving lives. So that's what we do. Thank you.

Wonderful. Linda? So it's all about the money. I attended a couple of pretty routine money-type projects. Regional Transit is still trying to settle funding with SACOG. The library staff is still trying to deal with the the imbalance between the city of Sacramento side of the budget and the county and city side of the budget. SACOG, I attended the SACOG meeting for David, who was off having a good time with umbrellas in alleys, and their action, they took action on a federal funding cycle item that ended up giving, ended up prioritizing preservation of projects as opposed to simply performance of projects. On Friday, 9-11, we had a really lovely commemoration ceremony out front here of City Hall. Raised and lowered the flags in honor of the events of 9-11. attended the Rancho Cordova Sports Hall of Fame, which it was a hoot and a half. David, all those programs that you're talking about should result in another 10 years of people deserving of awards. One of our county supervisors, Pat Hume, spoke at the community council luncheon and gave a really marvelous talk. And not to make Notre Dame feel bad, but Georgia's on its third football game that they've been winning by scores like 70 to 20. So they're number two. That's it.

Number two versus number three would be a heck of a game. Although I'll warn you, the last time those two teams met, it didn't turn out well for Georgia.

No, you're right. I remember that. Donald never let me forget that one. That was a long time ago.

Pre-Kirby Smart. Great job talking at the whistle stop and everyone that came. Thank you for my Chamber of Commerce and Kirby Community Council. Throwing that, Joe jumped in the dunk cake at Lincoln Village. Everyone had a bunch of fun with that.

He was in a suit. He did and tried to hug me after. And I did hug them. If you see a photo with me like this, it wasn't because I didn't want to stand next to you.

It was hurtful. But I was soaking wet and these kids had the best time dunking their mayor in a suit. My wife was not happy because the suit is now officially stretched.

That is just a great precedent to set, too, let me tell you.

Yeah, and it's fun because, like... Who's going to be mayor next? Yeah, whoever's mayor next...

Always seem to wear the wrong clothes to the wrong event. You wear your white and your designer clothes to the holy event.

Yeah, I didn't know that. That was your fault, and you're, like, dressed nice, and then they're like, cool, I'm going to splash you with color, and... REC three suits, that's how we do it. Diane's 15 year, so congratulations to our Chamber of Commerce. You've been an amazing partner of the city. Let's see, what else? Great job on the 9-11 event, that was fun. Got to go down and be with GSEC. They are planning out interesting stuff they're trying to do. They're trying to sign three year contracts instead of just going year by year and other weird ways to try to get money from people. And I was like questioning it, so. Don't think I made any friends there, because I spoke my mind. Great job getting $25 million. You know what I'm saying? Winning big. That's $50 million in the bank. Rancho Cordova is the best at getting money for roads. I think we're number one. We get grants. Went to the Hall of Fame. Got to see everyone there. And then lastly, which is the most important, Two things, one, happy birthday, dad, amazing father, first black teacher in the San Juan School District, amazing world model, couldn't have done my life without you. Number two, to my nonprofit partners in soccer, the San Juan Soccer Club, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for solidly trouncing Folsom in U12, 13, 14, 16, 17, and 18. So a huge sweep, and on the front of our jersey, It says Rancho Cordova. So there may be someone in the stands that was yelling, that's how Rancho does it, as we walked out of the stadium. And we were at their Sierra College, but great job San Juan Soccer Club. Put it to them, and that's the most important thing, because we are becoming a soccer first city, which I thought was awesome. All right, and now I'm gonna hand it off to Micah. What can you add to this?

Thank you, Mayor. So last week I had the pleasure of joining other city managers for the City Manager Innovation Council. And unfortunately it was the same day as the Good Neighbor Day because I would have been first in line to throw balls to dunk the mayor in the dunk tank. So we'll have to work on the schedule for that. But this is actually an interesting group of managers from across the country coming together to talk about innovation and I really appreciate the council's willingness for me to participate in some of these things and I think that partly shows the thought leadership that this city has not only in this but in other areas and participation in NLC and League of Cities and all the different associations out there is important for us to continue the good work and know what's happening in these different places and thought leadership to make sure we're doing all the most current and necessary things. Three of the main topics that kind of came up in that group were, surprise enough, artificial intelligence, trust, community trust, and infrastructure. So I think that kind of highlights the three areas that are really on people's minds at this point. And then last, I will just apologize, and maybe it's the local government nerds of families who have to travel with us, but I imagine, I concur with Council Member Sander that when our families travel with us, they get to look at all sorts of different and unique things in communities that they probably didn't sign up for. So I concur with Council Member Sander on those vacations, so thank you for that.

Two, consent calendar. Consent calendar are items deemed routine and non-controversial by staff, unless a member of the council wishes to pull the item for individual consideration, all items will be approved in one motion. Stacy, are there any, oh, council, is there any items you wish to pull? Is there any public comment, Stacy?

Do not have any public comment for the consent calendar.

Online either?

Online either. There's no public comment.

I may have a motion.

So hearing none, I will move approval of item 16.1 to 16.13.

Can I ask for a roll call, please? Second. Second. Second. Roll call, please.

Council Member Polipotti? Yes. Council Member Sander? Aye. Council Member Little?

Yes.

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

All right, let's go ahead and move on to public hearing items. No, consent public hearing items. Consists deemed, 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 in one motion. I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing. Stacey, is there any public comment?

I do not have any public comment for the public hearing items.

I'm going to go ahead and close public comment.

I'll move items 17-1 and 17-2. Second. Do I have a roll call, please?

Councilmember Sander?

Aye.

Councilmember Little?

Yes.

Councilmember Polipotti?

Yes.

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

Excellent. Stacey, you can go ahead. We're moving on the regular calendar. There's no public hearing items. Moving on to regular calendar items. Stacy, can you go ahead and read us the subject?

Yes, and you closed the public hearing, correct? Yeah. Okay, thank you.

That was the extra. Thank you. That was the extra. I'll do it again.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Regular calendar items. We have a resolution authorizing the issuance of special tax bonds for and on behalf of improvement area number four of the City of Rancho Cordova, the Ranch Community Facilities District number 2021-1, approving and directing the execution of a fiscal agent agreement, approving the form of preliminary official statement, approving sale of such bonds, and approving other related documents and actions.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, Michelle Menge, Assistant Admin Services Director in Finance. The item before you this evening is the issuance of special tax bonds for improvement area number four in the Ranch Community Facilities District 2021-1. the CFD was formed in 2021 for the purpose of funding infrastructure and infrastructure related impact fees within that development project. The financing related resolution before you this evening approves a sale of bonds in an amount not to exceed $11.5 million. It's important to note that this is not a It is not a levy imposed on the city's general fund. It is collected through special taxes located within that district. And with that, I will open it up to any questions that the council may have.

Is there any public comment?

There is no public comment for this item.

I'll move the resolution.

Second.

Roll call, please.

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

All right, let's move on to 19.2.

The subject for 19.2, a resolution authorizing the acquisition of the property at 10845 International Drive, 10875 International Drive in vacant parcel north of the buildings fronting Zinfandel Drive. There are a list of three parcel numbers there. And authorizing execution of a purchase and sale agreement and certificate and acceptance of recordation of a grant deed.

Go ahead. So Mayor, Council, I think this is a moment that we have chosen to put this on a regular calendar. A lot of this discussion happened at our last workshop last month in the kind of direction to move forward with the purchase of these former VSP buildings. 150,000 square feet, 18 total acres for 11.5 million for the sole purpose of a continuing conversation of creating a community place. This is future community center around learning, around arts, around innovation. Really we just want to highlight this as a, we could have put it on consent as a continuing item, but chose to put it on as a regular calendar so that we can kind of take a moment and celebrate this moment of moving forward with the potential purchase of this building. and the beginning of many conversations around the design and the future look and feel of this new community asset that we'll have. And so with that, I think we ask for your support in approving the resolution. And if Mr. Rand doesn't have any other comments, we'll leave it to the council. That's it.

Stacey, is there any public comment?

I do not have any public comment for this item.

Council.

I would just say I think this is probably the most significant project we've undertaken as a council. Maybe you would put the remodel of Folsom Boulevard up there on that level. but this might be more impactful than that in the long run. Virtually every resident in Rancho Cordova could be positively benefited by the sort of activities that will happen here. It's focused on doing this the Rancho Cordova way. This is not government doing everything. This is government providing a place where residents can do things to pursue their own passions and their own interests and improve our community. And that's where government can really leverage our limited resources to the greatest extent is by helping the public achieve their dreams. And this is going to be that place as a community center in Rancho Cordova. So I am incredibly excited about this. We are pushing 25 years as a city. And I think for most of our history, we have pursued this sort of an idea at various levels. And this is the latest and perhaps the ultimate expression of that interest. So stay tuned. This is going to be really exciting. And I want to thank staff for their good work on it so far.

It's a good example of not having settled for something less and just having the good sense to hang on until the right piece of property came along.

Right. I mean, in the modern sense, we were looking for independent theater space or independent veteran space. We thought Mills Crossing, we could do big public space there and kind of community center kind of activities. We thought remodeling the mine shaft might provide the other part of that. We looked at another building. We have a partnership with the community council looking at this. How do we best execute this kind of a plan for the city? I don't think anyone had decided this was the spot until we were undertaking all of those looks, all of those steps got us here. So I'm really happy about this. Excellent.

So since David didn't, I will move approval of the resolution to approve.

Second. Roll call, please.

Council Member Sander.

Aye.

Council Member Pulipade.

Yes, if you call it after me.

Council Member Little. Yeah. Vice Mayor Budge. Yes. Mayor Gatewood. Yes. Motion passes.

Hear, hear.

Right. 19.3, Stephan.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Stefan Heisler, Housing Manager for the City.

Thank you.

Here just to provide a brief update on our work to apply for the Transformative Climate Communities Grant. based on the feedback that we received at the last council meeting, just wanted to highlight the couple of edits that we've made to prepare the final application, take any additional feedback, and then request the authorization to apply. So following feedback received, we've removed the Mills Crossing components of the project, and we've made a little bit of small tweaks to the project area. And then this evening, again, is the request to adopt resolution authorizing application. So the project area, we were able to expand it just a little bit. We still have that sort of doughnut shape in the middle, unfortunately. This is about as big as we can make it, as big of an eligible area as we can make it, but not significantly changed from the last presentation. And then wanted to highlight the final proposed project list with the suggested amounts incorporated there. We do expect those funding amounts will shift just a little bit before the final application. But these are sort of the numbers that we're working with. So again, on the list is the Horn Road light rail station, improved pedestrian crossings, a couple of fast electric fuel charging stations, some work with soil borne farms with waste reduction and community food education, I'm sorry, I should say the Cordova food community food hub on there. But looking to build a community resource and resilience hub, working with rebuilding together Sacramento to expand their low income homeowner resilience and repair programs, working with Folsom Lake College to expand promise program and outreach to enroll more students from Rancho Cordova into sort of high need degree programs, and then ongoing community engagement, displacement avoidance, and then grant evaluation. So again, here just for reference is our application schedule. We're working towards the full application due date of September 30th next week, and then we wouldn't probably hear back until sometime early next year if we're a finalist, and then spring for the anticipated award notifications. And so moving on to our staff recommendation, happy to take any feedback or questions or comments from council tonight, but also the recommendation here is to adopt the resolution. We'll make final edits to the application and submit it by the deadline. And like I mentioned before, we do anticipate some of the funding amounts will shift a bit, but overall that's what we expect it to be. Thank you.

Stacey, any public comment?

There is no public comment.

All right. Council, any questions, comments? Sounds good.

Then I move that we adopt the resolution to go forward with the application for the Transformative Climate Communities Grant Program.

Do I got my second?

Second.

Roll call, please.

Council Member Polipotti? Yes. Council Member Little? Yes. Council Member Sander? Aye. Vice Mayor Budge? Yes. Mayor Gatewood? Yep, go get money. Motion passes.

Next, who we got, who's doing this? Micah, oh. Stacey, can you go ahead and announce Micah?

We have a resolution to adopt a civility pledge.

Micah. Thank you, Mayor, for the wah-wah-wah. So the council, at a request for future agendas, asked that we bring back a conversation related to a civility pledge. Staff did take the initiative to draft a potential resolution capturing the intent and modeled after the National League of Cities framework, which they adopted earlier this year. The council has previously approved code of conduct in October 2025, governance structure on order and decorum in May 2026. This pledge will work in alignment with those previously approved resolutions. In order to be a trusted government, as I mentioned trust earlier in some of the previous conversations around city managers local government is too important to maintain civility and respect the draft resolution is before you in your packet for discussion adoption or other direction that you may have as a council with that we'll ask for your consideration there is no public comment guys anything you want to say

Be civil. All right.

There are some things around civility we could do at our annual meeting. There are ways of describing civil behavior or uncivil behavior or rating yourself for how civil you can be as a group. National League of Cities has done quite a bit with this in the last year. So I was happy to bring sort of this idea here and add us to kind of a national movement to try to restore more civility to government.

Excellent. Nice job, David. So you're going to move it?

So moved.

Second. Roll call.

Council Member Sander. Aye. Council Member Little.

Yes.

Council Member Polipotti. Yes. Vice Mayor Budge. Yes. Mayor Gatewood. Yes. Motion passes.

All right. There is anyone who got any future agenda items? I do. Oh, what you got?

So there's a lot of talk about having a data center. Recording in progress. And our residents are usually opposed to it. And I flip back and forth between having one from a perspective of revenue to the city and no from being a resident. But there seems to be a lot of pros and cons. And I've seen some cities use it for the benefit of the city. So I would like to bring... that topic with staff actually doing the due diligence. Maybe some of us visiting these data centers to see how it benefits our cities and what do the residents think of it and have this decision ready for us to go. So whenever we get a proposal, we have all of that. That's a great idea.

I like that forward thinking. You talk about it. I have a lot of good options for it and bad options. Well, some of them have done it really wrong.

Yeah, and being at meetings with constituents or public events with constituents around this issue has raised a lot. Most of them are kind of surprised to hear we're already home to five or six or seven or I don't even know what the number is, 11, already here. Yeah, not the modern mega form, but a different form. I think with our AI focus and our tech base, this is a different sort of an issue for us. I hope that this issue is turning a bit in the public mind, although I'm not sure it is. We're in a political season where that might not be in the interests of people running for office. But I've seen publications like The Atlantic run articles that say data centers, everything you've heard is wrong, right? Because there's a bunch of assumptions out there that are commonly now held by people that are probably not very accurate. So I would say, yeah, this is probably worthy of some sort of discussion.

I want to add, so, I mean, all companies, including the one where we are, we're pushing the need for more AI in terms of for optimization on all our software tools, and all of that requires data centers. So it has to come up somewhere, or we stop trying to, you know, use all those filters and look beautiful on Zoom. But so...

And again, these are good places on the agenda to talk about whether you want to talk about something, not your overall position as a council on those things.

So let's talk about our position right now.

No.

OK, so that's the topic.

So I got three people that like.

Yeah, I'm here in direction to have this conversation, and this is an appropriate time as we talk about leaning into some of these spaces. So happy to have that conversation come back for discussion.

Cool. All right. And now we're going to go ahead and go to closed session. Are there any public comments on closed session?

There is not.

Should I gavel out for the guy, or when I come back?

You usually, well, you... We do.

Alright, we're gonna go ahead and go into closed session.

Yeah, you usually do it at the end, the bitter end.

Recording stopped.

Closed session.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council and community. This evening, the city council met in closed session and after the meeting and took up one item of real property negotiations regarding property located at 2875 Kilgore Road, the city council received updates from and provided additional direction to its real property negotiators.

Excellent. I'm going to go ahead and adjourn this meeting in the name of Robert Bejarano. Good and faithful servant, I found you a way home.