City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the July 21st meeting of the Red Bluff City Council. If you would all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance, please. Salute pledge. 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. Again, the instructions are given for you. If you can hear me on the TV and so forth through the Internet, for you to attend this meeting by remote through Zoom and by phone call, the city clerk has provided instructions. If you follow those instructions, you'll be able to access our meetings and easily able to – TO KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING HERE AT CITY COUNCIL. AND JUST A LITTLE BIT OF INSTRUCTION BEFORE KEN SPEAKS. THIS IS GOING TO BE CITIZENS' COMMENT RIGHT NOW. TIME SET ASIDES FOR THE CITIZENS TO ADDRESS THE CITY COUNCIL ON ANY ITEM OF INTEREST TO THE PUBLIC WHICH IS WITHIN THE SUBJECT MATTER AND JURISDICTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL. TO MAKE A PUBLIC COMMENT ON ZOOM, YOU MUST RAISE YOUR HAND. FOR ITEMS THAT ARE ON THE AGENDA, PUBLIC COMMENT WILL BE HEARD AT THE TIME THE ITEM IS DISCUSSED. If your comments concern an item that is noted as a public hearing, please address the city council after the public hearing to open for public testimony. The mayor reserves the right to limit each speaker for three minutes and one time speaking, and we will adhere to that. So with that, Ken, please.

Honorable Mayor Gonzales, it's good to have you here. You have been placed here by God himself, as each of you here on the city council, to do the work that he's called you to do. I appreciate the faculty or the staff that's surrounding us, and fellow citizens, good to have you here as well. In Pastor Scott's absence, let me have the honor of opening us in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the responsibility that you've given to these important people to lead as well as to serve. And just as through each of our lips, We pledge one nation under God. We recognize that we are under your care, your authority, your protection, and we say thank you. We ask your direction this evening, particularly on those of us who will be speaking. May each word be with kindness, with thoughtfulness, with clarity, and with wisdom. We commit this evening to you in the precious name, the powerful name of the one who once was dead but now is very much alive, Jesus Christ. Amen. This evening from the word of God, because in God we trust, our national motto, let me read from Colossians chapter 3. Where the Bible says, therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked when you were living in them. But now you also put them all aside. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another since you have laid aside the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him. a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, and free man, but Christ is all and in all. So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another, forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

Thank you, Ken. Anyone else?

I'm Robin Morris from River Oaks Senior Mobile Home Park out on Gilmore Road. And I'd like to request a red curb paint at 350 Gilmore Road. In the matter of safety for all vehicles traveling on Gilmore Road in the vicinity just prior to the Elks Club, we are requesting red curb painting at the entrance and exit of the River Oaks Senior Mobile Home Park. When vehicles are parked within 20 feet of our entrance and exit, drivers cannot see past said vehicle to check on oncoming traffic. There is a slight curve in the road from right to left that further impedes the view. We took it upon ourselves to paint the curb red, and to the best of our knowledge, River Oaks Mobile Home Park owns that portion of the sidewalk. I don't have any My blueprints don't show that we own it, but the tabs are clear out at the edge of the curb. So we consider it ours, and that's what everybody has told me. Our maintenance personnel had talked to the police department and the fire department, who had no complaints, totally understanding the situation. The police department did let us know that the red curb could not be enforced as it had not been approved by the city. A complaint was filed with the police department for vandalism. How is that possible if we own the sidewalk? And we're told to paint over the red and to seek proper approval for the red curb, which we did and are now pursuing. Enclosed are photos of the conversion van showing the issue, incident report number 26071-150027 from the police department and a petition signed by members of our park. Thank you for considering this letter in your decision-making process and hopefully get it on the agenda. And I have copies for all the council members here. Do I give?

Hand them to the city clerk, please. OK.

The top one is for the mayor.

It has the incident report, and I can't make do with it.

All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Thank you. Anyone else tonight? Yes.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council. Good to see you all. David Mung, your local government affairs representative with PG&E. And I just wanted to stop by tonight to tell you something that my team, local government affairs, has been working on diligently. And we're supporting and a part of a new coalition called the Wildfire Victims First Coalition. The coalition seeks to see language written to be passed by end of summer, end of session at the state level to basically protect wildfire victims. So it stands on three pillars. Those being, number one, to protect communities from wildfires, and that looks like greater funding from the state for land management projects and fire mitigation. Pillar two, making insurance available and affordable again in California, taking steps toward making that happen. And number three, protecting our wildfire victims, making sure that they get paid first, fast, and fairly, and protecting them from third parties who want to come take a piece of that pie. as those claims are paid out. So again, joining the coalition isn't support for a specific bill yet. We're waiting to see language written. But support for this would mean just greater support for getting those pillars included in a new bill coming forward or improvements to the California Wildfire Fund as it stands currently. So the coalition's open for the public to join as well. Of course, names from communities, organizations, and elected officials hold a little bit more weight in getting action to happen in that. So any support is much appreciated, either collectively or individually, from council members. The website right now that is live is wildfirevictimsfirst.com, and I can send you all an email with that as well, just so you can check it out. There's an easy join button right on there. And of course, as always, if you have any questions, I'm happy to jump on a call or meet sometime to tell you more about it. Thank you so much.

Thank you, David. Anyone else? Oh. That was a fake pass. All right, seeing no other hands, is anybody standing up? We will go on to announcements of correction agendas. Tom, anything?

There are none.

None, thank you, Tom. We'll go on to staff items, and also Tom Westbrook, please.

Thank you, Mayor, council members. Farmer's Market continues on Wednesday nights on Washington Street between Pine and Oak Street. We're about halfway through the season. additionally there is farmers market on Saturday in the parking lot at the river I'm also coming up on July 30th is a good morning rub bluff that will be at 7 50 a.m. at the spotlight cinemas the address is 400 South Main Street There's a backpack and resource fair on August 1st. The Tama County Library is sponsoring that. Their location is 545 Diamond Avenue, and that will be from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Then also just wanted to make note that the filing period for the Red Bluff City Council member seats that are up, there are three that are up, opened on July 13th. That is open until August 7th. However, it is extended by five days to August 12th if the incumbent does not file, if any one of the three incumbents does not file. And that's all that I have this evening.

Thank you, Tom. Scott Garrison, HR.

Yes, Mayor, members of the City Council. I just want to take a quick moment to thank the people that operate in payroll and human resources. We had our fiscal year changeover, and we implemented all the updates and changes to the MOU and agreement languages in the payroll system, and we ran a successful payroll. And so I want to thank Leanna Pearson, our Assistant Finance Director, and Casey Holland, our HR Analyst, too. Thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you, Scott. Beth Lindauer, Community Development Director.

Good evening. So just a couple announcements for new businesses that have come to Red Bluff. In the last month, we have approved 28 new business licenses. Some honorable mentions is DJ Sewing Machine and Clock Repair on Main Street. uh koloka's on the go which is the mobile vendor in front of home depot and an extension of the brick and mortar we have an upcoming uh pho bonza restaurant that is the old new asian restaurant and the bin store which is in the movie theater shopping center so a couple new places for us to visit and that's all i have to share tonight

Thank you, Beth.

Scott Miller, Public Works.

Thank you, Mayor.

A couple of quick things. Our streets have been busy getting prepped up for the school coming up in a few weeks by striping a lot of the crosswalks and stop bars, especially around the school areas, brighten those up. Also, there was a Herculean a big effort of our parks and streets staff to do repairs of all the vandalism that we had on the River Park bathrooms. We had about 10 guys in one and a half days just really crunching that out, getting it all repaired. It looked back up to almost brand new kind of status. And hopefully, we'll be able to close out that grant and get that money reimbursed into our needed coffers. Also, regarding with the River Park, Splash Park bids are due tomorrow at 3 o'clock. We'll be doing a bid opening for that, so hopefully they'll be coming in good and get going on the construction. Robin will have more on a part two of that item. Also, the Urban Water Management Plan update that we have to do every five years for the State Water Board, the hard copy draft is already out. We have one up at the front counter for the public review, as well as at the Tama County Library. And I'm not sure if they're up posted yet on our website, but if not, they will be up there shortly, and we'll have a public hearing on that coming up probably the next meeting. Also, some other exciting news is the new Madison Street on the jail project. Contractors should be dropping the temporary protective fences on that on Thursday. So at some point on Thursday, start seeing traffic resume under new Madison. And then if any additional information you need, the Public Works Activity Report on Agenda Item Number 8 has our last month's activities from all of our departments and divisions.

Thank you, Scott. Chief Bachmeier, welcome back.

Thank you, honorable mayor, members of council. I'm still doing my best to kind of catch up. The trip there was real easy to adjust to time. I've had a little bit of struggle getting back on a normal sleep pattern, but doing my best. I understand it got a little sporty maybe at some times on the 4th of July, which it does often every year. But it sounds like all those incidents were ultimately mitigated with no serious fallout. pun intended next week we will be doing an interview process for reserves we have five on the we have five reserves on our roster right now of which a few of them don't have a lot of time available to us so it's time to maybe bolster that rank a little bit we were very shocked and surprised at the number of applicants we received typically we might get three to five people we had something like 20-plus applicants, and I believe we have 17 interviews scheduled. So it'll be a little bit busy doing that next week. We'll also have to do a testing for full-time firefighter in the very near future, as one of our engineers has submitted his resignation to me yesterday. In two months, he will be leaving the department. He's a little heart sore about it, but he's pursuing a different avenue of life, moving all the way to Australia and seeing how that goes. Can't commute, huh? No. He does have a plan to come back at some point and is leaving in good standing and hoping to keep the door open, but there will be some movement going on within the department in the next two months or so. So thank you.

Thank you. Paul Young.

Thank you. The finance department is working on closing out the year end and getting ready for the audit. We will be accruing revenue and expenses until the end of next month. But the most significant item that we have outstanding is sales tax. We just received The May calculation from CDFTFA for our sales tax, both are more than the HDL projections, so they're looking good. It's about $25K more for Bradley Burns and about $21,000 more for the quarter percent sales tax. And the auditors will be here for their field work starting September 21st.

Thank you, Paul.

You're welcome.

Appreciate that. Chief Ortega.

Honorable Mayor and council members, on Friday, July 31st, at A&R Custom Butchering, which is at 1055 Main Street, the Tehama County Canine Foundation will be holding a fundraiser that will benefit all canines within the county to include the city of Red Bluff. That event will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., so if anybody's available, please head on out there to support all Tehama County canines. And then on Tuesday, August 4th, while we're all here, we are hosting, the Rebel Police Department is hosting National Night Out, which is a public safety day. So we'll have all public safety agencies from the county and some other entities there at the community center from 5 to 8 p.m. So we invite the community to come out and interact with all public safety and some other agencies that are going to be out there. So again, Tuesday, August 4th from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Rebel Health Community Center. Thank you, Chief.

Robin Kaufman, please.

Okay, to follow up on Scott's announcements, with the River Park splash pad phase one project opening tomorrow, we have not forgotten about the elements we had to remove, the urban greening items, all the stuff to get it within cost. We did receive notification through the pre-application process for the urban greening grant that Emmy submitted for us. We have been approved to submit the complete application in the amount of $1.6 million for that project. So that application is due at the end of August, and I will be assisting her in getting that together. And then for redundancy, just to cover our bases, we've also submitted the pre-application for the extreme heat grant also for the Phase 2 portion of that project in the amount of $2.2 million, I think is what we submitted that one for. So we're not giving up on completing that project in its entirety. So hopefully we get some luck and get some of that funding.

Thank you, Robin. All right. We'll go on to Commission's report, and I believe we have none.

There are none this evening.

Thank you, Tom. Tonight we have some presentations on longevity, employment here at the City of Red Bluff, and before Scott says anything, I want to say something. Really, we are honored to present these awards tonight, and truly we have a great staff. I know I've said that probably four or five times, but I'm not going to be holding back when it comes to the incredible people that we have working at our city and all the departments. And I'm glad that we can present longevity awards and we're not looking for people every year to replace somebody and everybody's leaving. There's such a work camaraderie and working together. And people work with leadership, and leadership works with people. And that's what makes a difference. We're working together to make Red Bluff a great place to live and a great place to do business. And before Scott comes, I am going to step down there. And we'll go from there, because I want to stay down there until all the awards are presented. OK, Scott? Here we go. Go ahead.

Honorable Mayor, members of the City Council, tonight we are here to formally recognize employees for their length of service. Certificates of appreciation will be presented to the employee if present or their supervisor if not. Employees are recognized for the length of service in five-year increments on a quarterly basis. Tonight we are here to recognize people for the second quarter ending June 30th, 2026. Tonight, we have nine employees to be recognized. And so we're going to start with the five-year mark. And so to start with that, we have three employees in our Public Works Department that have completed five years. And I'll state their names and hand it over to the Public Works Director. We have Brandon Stewart in our Wastewater Collections Department, Randy Raglin, also in our Wastewater Collections Department, and Tristan Dunn in our Water Department. And with that, I'll hand it over to Scott Miller.

Thanks, Scott. We'll just keep the Scotts rolling here. To mirror what the mayor has said, just on this one agenda, I want to point out that members of the council, with our department that we've got right here that we're being presented tonight, three-quarters of a century of experience and dedication to the citizens of Red Bluff and performance of their duties. That's with just six people. That's 15% of our department. is three-quarters of a century of dedication. So as the mayor said, Macon had a great place to live. So I've got a few of them here in person, and they're smirking at me right now. So, hey, you get grilled a little bit later. They love their leadership. Upward leadership. First off, yeah, Brandon Stewart in our wastewater, he's not here today, but if he is listening, I'm not around Brandon too much, but every time that I do show up on the project, he's a man of little words, mass action, busy getting the work done, so appreciate his task. His supervisor, Dusty, said he does meticulous work, and we're happy for that. The next one is Randy Raglin. He's not here either. I've had him busy on a couple of projects. I think they may be resting up. Randy has a mischievous smile to him every time I show up. He's always like he's up to something, so I'm not sure if I want to pursue that and ask what he's up to, but each time he's doing it, he's doing some good work while doing that. He has brought a couple little tricks to the trade that I've seen that he brought from outside of stuff using it that I'm adopting in other trades too, so it works both ways. The next one is Tristan Dunn. He's a senior water operator. He's not here either. He has a brand new baby, so he's on baby duty right now. Duty. Tristan is one of our transfer people. So we have many people in our departments that have transferred to the different divisions, which we have like seven divisions in Public Works. He started in the spicy water department in the wastewater. Now he's in the sweet water department. He's pursuing getting his certifications up so he can continue helping and assisting deliver good, clean, potable water to our citizens. So one thing I do know about him is that even though that he has got great culinary skills, sometimes they are a little bit subject. I heard he had one that kind of put him in for some food poisoning for a little bit. So I'm not going to try his lengua tacos. So if he offers lengua tacos to you, Mayor, pass, pass. And I think that wraps up on my five.

So sticking with the five years, we will move to police. And we have two five-year recognitions in the police department. Jeffrey Mayberry, a police officer, and Zach DiRego, communications dispatcher. And I'll hand that over to Chief Ortega.

Thank you, Scott. Honorable Mayor and council members, neither employee was able to be here today. We'll start with our police communications dispatcher, Zach Durago. Zach has 20 years experience in law enforcement. For the five years that he's been with the city of Red Bluff, he's been part of our peer support program. He is a drone pilot and he's also our communications training officer. So he trains the new dispatchers that come in. So we're very excited to have his level of experience with the city and we're just excited to have him as part of our team. The second employee is Officer Jeff Mayberry. He has about seven years of experience in law enforcement. For the five years that he's been with Rebel Off, he is an impact weapons instructor. He's one of our school resource officers, and he's a field training officer, so he's one of the officers that trains new police officers that start with our department. So we're excited to have Jeff with us, and both of our employees are dedicated members of the department, and we hope that they have a long and serviceable career with the city.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Honorable Mayor and council members, just to say a little bit about Scott, it was my honor to hand over the interim public works director position to Scott as a permanent employee. I had worked with Scott here at the city for nine years and then numerous years before that in his other place of employment. Things I can say about Scott, he demonstrates a strong work ethic, is committed to the city and the residents. As we're well aware, public works emergencies don't happen between the hours of 8 and 5. But no matter when they happen, Scott's always here with the crews, working through a solution, trying to do his best to make sure the community's not impacted by whatever that emergency is. He leads by example, is always the first person to lend a helping hand when it comes to coworkers, staff members, the community. Scott's always present when those events happen. I just appreciate working with Scott and another 10 years, Scott. I'd appreciate another tenure, Scott. And then I'm gonna hand it over to Tom so he can finish.

Yeah, thanks, Robin. I just wanted to mention a couple of things about Scott, too. I appreciate it, because you know Scott oversees many departments within the city. And I appreciate the delicate way that he delivers bad news to me sometimes when he comes to my office door. But I most appreciate the calls on Sunday afternoon when he delivers that same type of message. But thanks, Scott, for keeping me informed. And hopefully you can make another 10 years.

And next we have Fire Division Chief Justin Kingsley at 10 years, and I'll hand it over to Chief Bachmeier.

There we are. There he is. He's hard to see. He fits through the door nicely. Justin's a local kid. I don't know how that reflects on our community. We'll figure out as time goes on. But grew up here in Red Bluff, went to Red Bluff High, went to Shasta College. Worked a few seasons for the United States Forest Service, all the way up to and on Hotshot Cruise, if I remember correctly. And then he also worked with Cal Fire for a couple of seasons. Justin, your academy was the last one we actually did, right? In 2014, when their curriculum at the State Farm Marshal was different, we did our own in-house fire academies that we got from local pools here in town. After the completion of that academy, Justin joined as a reserve in 2015 and then became our only, the second full-time firefighter to be hired by the city of Red Bluff in 2016. In 2018, partially my fault, I had come back from Redding and then I promoted up and then Justin had the opportunity to take my spot as an engineer. We were lucky enough, I was lucky enough to be a shift partner with him for a while. In 2017, Justin also won the Firefighter of the Year for our department, and that's when I realized that I used to be one of the young people here, but now I was old. I think it was about 1 o'clock in the morning, one day we were on shift and writing incident reports, and I think we were listening to 80s rock music, and I said something about the earthquake that happened during the World Series in 89, and Justin said, yeah, yeah, I've heard of that. I think I was three months old. So in 2021, Justin then promoted to fire captain, and then we were very fortunate in 2023 to receive the Cal OES Jump Start grant funding, which provided us the opportunity to create a division chief, chief resilience officer position, which Justin filled that in September of 2023. In addition, Justin was also named the Firefighter of the Year for our department a second time in 2019, and he's cut off from it for the rest of his career. So with no further ado, I'd like to congratulate Justin on his 10 years of service with the City of Red Bluff.

All right, we have two more employees to recognize tonight. We have, they're in our public works department. We have Rick Laura with 20 years experience, our public works maintenance supervisor, and Ken Garner with 30 years experience, our public works electrician. And with that, I will hand it over to Scott Miller.

Thank you, Scott. Rick is another one of those. I like that he's looking the other way now. Rick is another one of those transfer guys. He was in the water department before, kind of learned some bad habits, and now kind of corrected them, getting them into the street stuff. But one of the things I really enjoy working with Rick is he's so easy to get to start twitching. because all I got to do is say, hey, Rick, so I was on a walk, or hey, Rick, I was on a drive, because usually I've spotted something and provided a new assignment for him to fix, do, or something. And luckily, I don't get to say those too much, because he's taken great... measures to actually anticipate some of those things and get those done now. So now it's like, hey, I saw something. He goes, yep, already got the crews coming. They're already on their way. So he's already getting ahead. He's tired of hearing me say that stuff, so he's doing an excellent job. His job in the department has been just paramount, turning it over, really increasing the work ethic as far as these guys in his parks, streets, crews, and facilities management. Basically, their quality work that they're churning out is now quite exceptional. They got a little bit of a way to go, so you got a little bit more to, you know, learn and kind of thing. But, so yeah, his, let's see, probably another thing, yeah. He's just moved incredibly as far as that department to where we don't get, I don't want to encourage anybody as far as complaints so much on it, where we get more and more compliments now, either on emails to me, which I go ahead and send up to the food chain where everybody sees it. Or if you see him, he's the new celebrity on a lot of the social media stuff. So, oh, Rick Lara is this. Rick Lara is that. Good job over there and just that he has a great boss that he looks up to with endearing eyes each morning for his assignments. What more can I do for you and the citizens of Red Bluff today? So with 20 years, thank you, Rick, for taking care of our public out there and getting the guys lined up the best that you could do. So thank you, sir. And now, like I mentioned, we have Ken Garner, 30 years. He's also our local historian. So if we ever got a project, hey, in the park, we think that there is a sprinkler valve. Hey, oh, yeah, back in 1975. We had this guy put this in over stuff. So he's able, like a bloodhound or witching sticks, goes over there and finds it, lets out, and helps the park guys out. He's also busy in all of our departments, as far as our water department and sewer department, has various electrical issues responding to. Set up a lot of our communications, AV systems in here and wiring, redoing lights, PDs had them out on multiple things, fire department, multiple items. So, I mean, from anything that flows, electricity or sprinklers, I mean, he's pretty much our guy. You see those red lights flashing on the traffic control, he's usually out right away getting those repaired and back up into proper operating things. or cruising out and getting either my runway lights or the street lights done. So 30 years, that's a lot of effort. Thank you for putting up with me and a lot of the stuff and changes and with Rick and such. So with that, thank you very much. Ken Garner.

All right. So I would like to ask council now if there's any conflict of interest on any item on the agenda.

No.

No. No. No. No. OK. Thank you, council. None for me. So we'll go on to the consent agenda. And I will read the items that are on there. Approval of minutes, June 2nd, 16th, and 9th. Three, resolution to accept government Department of Highway Patrol's cannabis tax fund grant program award. Number four. Open market purchases, 2,000 more. And contract awards. Number five, approval of warrant list. Number six, quarterly settlement report, workers' compensation claims against the city. Number seven, quarterly report, liability claims against the city. Number eight, public works monthly activity for June. Number nine, code enforcement activity report, June 2026. Number 10, grants management update, second quarter of 2026. And number 11, second reading adoption of ordinance 1099 and amendment to chapter 24, section 24.23 relating to the water system cross connection control. And I would ask the public if you need anything changed from any of these items and brought to regular agenda, you can bring it up now or members of the public or council.

Just asking for clarification on number three, the resolution to accept the Department of California Highway Patrol's Cannabis Tax Fund Grant Program Award. What is that?

That can be brought up and be the first item on the agenda. All right. So we'll do that. We'll make that item number... You can just pull it. We'll just pull the item? Yeah. Okay. We'll pull that item. All right. That's the only one. Thank you. OK. If there's not anything else, do I have a motion to accept items 1 through 11? And as I said, taking out number 3 and placing it on the first part of our agenda, regular agenda. 2 through 11, thank you. Appreciate that, Council. I put my page down, and thank you for that correction. All right, 2 through 11. I motion. Motion made by Mark Clement. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Pat Hurton. Anita, please take the roll.

Councilmember Pope? Yes. Councilmember Hurton? Yes. Councilmember Deiters?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Clement? Yes. Mayor Gonzalez?

Yes. Motion passes. Thank you, Council. So we will hear that on item number two. Three.

Thank you. Now you're just addressing items pulled from consent agenda. Okay. And that's item number three.

Thank you.

Chief Ortega, do you want to take this one?

Thank you, Tom. Honorable Mayor and council members. So the California Highway Patrol Cannabis Tax Fund is a grant that is provided for local law enforcement. That grant would provide us the ability to do traffic enforcement, community checkpoints, saturation patrol operations, training for officers in impaired driving detection, providing a traffic enforcement motorcycle. So we'll get a brand new motorcycle from this grant. and provide community education events. The amount of money that we will receive will let us provide all those services to the community, and it's a year-long program for us to be able to do focused cannabis interaction through the City of Red Bluff and the community.

Thank you. Any other questions? Council? Anything else on that? I'm sorry?

It says in the breakdown of this that there's reimbursement. Is that reimbursement to the city or back to other funds for the police department? I'm all for what the police department needs to keep us safe and keep themselves even safer.

The reimbursements come from any overtime that we spend to conduct these operations, and those funds will come back to the general fund for the city.

Thank you. Any other questions?

So the award's already been granted. It's just that the California Highway Patrol URA requires us by resolution to make a resolution to accept the money, right?

Correct. So the recommended action is for the council to approve the receipt of the funding because it has been awarded.

Anything else? Any other questions? Any hands, Anita?

No hands are raised.

No hands are raised. Do I have a motion to accept agenda item number three? I have a motion. Motion, Mark Clement. Do I have a second? I'll second. Second, Cassie Poe. Anita, please take the roll.

Councilmember Pope? Yes. Councilmember Hurton? Yes. Councilmember Deiters? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Clement? Yes. Mayor Gonzales?

Yes. Agenda item three passes unanimously. Thank you, council. We'll go on to the regular agenda. So we will have item number 12, annual status report of vacancies for compliance with AB2561, Scott Garrison.

Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council, on September 22nd, 2024, AB2561 was signed into law to amend the Myers-Millius Brown Act and create a new obligation for public agencies to publicly address the status of their vacancies. AB2561 imposed three requirements. that at least once each fiscal year an agency's governing board must hold a public hearing and receive the agency's report on the status of vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts. Number two, during the hearing the agency must identify any necessary changes to policies, procedures, and recruitment activities that may lead to hiring obstacles. And three, the agency must allow recognized employee organizations for a bargaining unit to make a presentation at the hearing. Tonight's report on vacancies is for the 2025-26 fiscal year covering July 2025 to June 2026. The city had 20 vacancies this fiscal year, down from 32 in the previous year. Seven positions will carry over into next fiscal year with three of these positions slated to be filled with candidates in the hiring process. The remaining four vacancies left unfilled are for police sergeant, police dispatcher, and two police officer positions. The city continues its efforts to recruit and fill those vacancies as the budget allows. 10 of the 20 vacancies were in police of which three of the vacancies had carried over from 2024. The city has attempted to address the difficulties in hiring police staff this past year by authorizing a $40,000 hiring bonus for sergeant, which has assisted in filling a vacancy in this classification. The city also ran two successful recruitments for police officer trainee, which is a sponsorship program to the police academy. We plan on filling two officer vacancies with graduates from our sponsorship program at the academy this year. Other challenging positions to fill include the police community service officer and homeless liaison officer and communications dispatcher, some requiring multiple recruitments and interviewing efforts to select the right candidates. All other recruitments were successful and the vacancies filled in a timely manner. The city filled eight of the vacancies with external applicants. Five vacancies were filled with internal applicants. AB2561 also requires that during the hearing, the agency must identify any necessary changes to policies, procedures, or recruitment activities. Staff have not identified any necessary changes to policies and procedures that may present an obstacle. besides budgetary concerns the city continues to take steps in support of recruitment and retention finally staff reached out to all five recognized employee organizations at the city of rub bluff inviting them to attend tonight's public hearing none express any interest to attend and with that recommended action is to conduct the public hearing and then approve the annual status report on vacancies and with that i'd be available for any questions

Thank you, Scott. Before I open public hearing, do council members have any questions for Scott?

No.

No?

No. So I will open public hearing at 6.13 for any questions from the public. I know I'm supposed to wait a minute, but I don't have a good joke at this time. So I will close public hearing at, I will call it 614, all right? So any more questions? I'll open it for any other public comment. No, we can't have one because we had a public hearing. It was your time to comment. So it's closed. All right. Approval. So number one. Number two. We've gone through number one. Number two, approve the annual status report on vacancies as presented by Scott Garrison. Do we have a motion?

I'll motion.

Motion. Mark Clement. Do we have a second?

Second.

Second. Cassie? Pope? I need to please take the roll. Okay, thank you. I'm sorry. Councilmember Pope?

Yes. Councilmember Hurton? Yes. Councilmember Deiters? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Clement? Yes. Mayor Gonzales?

Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, council. Item number 14, request for council input and consideration of proposed water and sewer rate study.

Did I skip 13?

Don't skip 13. Don't skip 13.

Is that what you're here for, Ken? It's like a hotel elevator from 12 to 14.

Yeah, we're not supposed to have a 13, right? He got caught in the... I almost got away with it, right? All right, here we go. Direction to staff regarding Measure S, oversight committee, ordinance of bylaws, and application materials. And I will turn that to Tom Westbrook, please.

Thank you, Mayor, Councilmembers. As you recall, on June 2nd, 2026, the voters of Red Bluff approved Measure S, which was the Red Bluff Street Repair and Safety Citizens Initiative. Measure S requires the establishment of an independent citizens oversight committee. Measure S authorizes the city to adopt and implement ordinances, rules, and administrative procedures necessary to carry out the purpose of the initiative while remaining consistent with that voter-approved measure. to facilitate the implementation of Measure S. Staff has prepared documents for city council review and we're seeking direction. The first of those is a draft ordinance. As the council may be aware, currently we have a number of commissions at the city. We have a planning commission, a parks and rec and an airport commission. Each of those commissions has their own section within the Red Bluff Municipal Code. We believe that the Measure S oversight committee should have the same. And so a draft ordinance has been prepared establishing the Citizens Oversight Committee, in addition, which is an advisory body to the City Council and codifies the committee's composition, eligibility requirements, appointments, terms of office, removal provisions, duties, and reporting obligations. In addition to that, we've also drafted some bylaws. The Parks and Rec Planning Commission and Airport Commission have their own bylaws, and so we felt that the Oversight Committee should have theirs as well. Those are intended to align with the city's existing practices for advisory bodies while incorporating the unique requirements included in Measure S. Staff has also prepared a application, draft application and eligibility affidavit to assist the council in selecting and identifying qualified applicants for the Measure S Oversight Committee. So tonight, I'm really looking for direction on three items. One, the ordinance, which I believe the council could have some commentary this evening on the ordinance itself and the makeup. But ultimately, that ordinance would need to be brought back to the city council in a first and second reading before it becomes adopted. While the oversight committee hasn't necessarily been made up yet and they haven't been, applications haven't been received and they haven't been appointed, I think it's well within the purview of the city council to kind of just take the ordinance on your own. The bylaws are kind of the next step of that. I think that the bylaws are really something that the oversight committee, when they're seated, this is probably their first act, is that they would be running through the bylaws. to make sure that they are okay with the bylaws that will shape and craft their future meetings. So I think really the bylaws, we could have discussion about them tonight certainly, but ultimately the oversight committee should make a recommendation to the council. The council would ultimately adopt those bylaws as well. And then the last thing really looking for direction on is the application itself. As you know, the Planning Commission, Airport and Parks and Rec Commission have five members on those commissions. We believe the Oversight Committee, inconsistent with the approval of Measure S, does require five persons to be on the Oversight Committee. If the application is acceptable we could talk about a timeline on when we're going to submit that out to the public so that they can apply for Any interested person can apply for that oversight committee so really looking for three separate things tonight and you can have discussion and ask me all the questions that you'd like and I'm happy to answer them is really what to do with the ordinance. Is it something the council just wants to discuss and bring back at a future date for adoption? Direction on the bylaws and direction on the application itself. And with that, I'll make myself available for any questions the council might have.

Thank you, Tom. Any questions for Tom, please, from council? Chris, anything?

No, actually, I'd like to hear from the public first.

Okay, then I'll open up to council first.

Cassie, anything right now?

No. Right now. Okay. So with that, I'll open it up to public questions for Tom, please.

Or any comments they might comments you'd like to make.

Hi, Danielle, I stone city of Red Bluff residents. I just want to know when the applications will be available. Thank you.

Yeah, as soon as the council gives me direction, we'll make those available for the public to obtain and ultimately submit. Thank you, Tom.

Good. Good. Any other comments or questions from the public? No. Okay. Council, I'll bring it back to you. Chris?

Just looking at policy considerations, whether term limits should be imposed or not. This is a 12-year tax, if I remember correctly. And then it's staggered kind of like the city council is in one respect. Except for the terms clearly. So my only question about that is why we would have one person being appointed for just a one year term.

The rationale behind that is because they're going to be staggered at some amount, the commissions that we have, airport, parks and rec and planning commission, they're on a three-year rotating term, so there's one person that's only in one year and then it's two and two, and then it kind of rotates back through. The council could elect to say that you want two on a three-year term. I mean, you can make the orientation however you wish. When we're starting from scratch, I just felt that it was, you know, two would have an initial three-year term, two would have an initial two-year term, and then one would have the one-year term. That doesn't mean they can't reapply. I think the term limits was more of can you serve more than two consecutive terms, three year terms. None of the planning commissions or the other commissions have it, so it's certainly something that we can certainly just remove from consideration as well. And noting that the tax is only 12 years in length.

And I think the other thing too about term limits is this, is that there might be some really excellent people that you'd want to see on the committee for a 12-year period or even longer. Which also leads me to the question, if someone is not taking their responsibilities as a committee member seriously, what are the alternatives then?

It's simply crafted like the other commissions, that if they don't report for two meetings and they have two unexcused absences, then they can be removed by the city council members. Typically, if somebody's gonna be on vacation or they're not feeling well, they just call the chair of that committee and it's an excused absence. But if there were two consecutive unexcused absences, then that would be something that the council could elect to remove that person from the oversight committee.

And then there's under policy considerations, the frequency of committee meetings and whether the council would want annual or semiannual reporting.

I think that kind of two maybe two separate things one when the oversight could be Committee is established and when they have a meeting like your other meetings We would invite them to come to present kind of their meeting at the City Council This is more of kind of the kind of the fiscal component of it The annual report certainly is going to be one time a year. If you wanted more frequency of larger, more than just the somewhat simpler reports that they give after maybe their monthly meetings, because i would envision probably from the start that their meetings may be monthly just because there's probably a lot of things to cover but certainly not less than quarterly for the oversight committee but i think that's really part of the discussion that will be included in the bylaws for the oversight committee so i would expect that a member of the oversight committee after a meeting would be invited to come to the city council to give the update just like we do with the parks and rec planning commission and the airport commission thank you

So that was the bylaws that you're talking about now?

Policy considerations. I took all of this from under policy considerations. And also if you were looking for direction on those tonight. Yes. Okay.

Go ahead, Pat. I'm just confused. So we're talking about everything here? We're not going like the ordinance, and then the bylaws, and then the application? Everything's fair game right now?

Yeah, everything's fair game if you'd like. So ultimately, I need direction on the ordinance. If you want the bylaws, I mean, certainly if the council doesn't want to have term limits in there, we just remove that provision.

Well, Pat gets ready. Did you have a question?

No, that's okay.

Okay, ready, Pat?

So policy considerations in the staff report, the city council may wish to. So these things are not in there now, right?

In terms of the rotation of the end of the three years, that's already been included.

Oh, yeah. So whether term limits should be imposed at least there. Okay. I'm sorry, I did read this, but there was a lot of reading. Is there term limits in this, or is there not? There's not term limits. That's what I thought. Sorry.

Mark, anything?

So, Chris, you're not wanting the term limits, is that? I'm sorry? The term limits, you're against or against?

Yeah, so I was just going to say I think the oversight committee requiring at least one resident business owner and one property owner is terrific. I don't think term limits should be imposed. I got the answer on staggered terms. And I agree with the city manager they should be no less than quarterly.

Reporting?

frequency of committee meetings, whether annual or semiannual reporting to the City Council is preferred. I would prefer semiannual. So those are my thoughts on the policy considerations only.

Thank you, Chris. Yep. Cassie, do you have anything?

I actually don't. I read through it. I don't have any suggestions.

Okay. Very good. All right. Anything else from the public? I'm going to open it one more time. Yes, you do. Is it difficult for you to come? OK, OK. Well, we're patient. Don't worry. We got more time than money.

I have a couple of questions. maybe because I haven't been here before, but is this committee going to oversee what roads get done first or are they just there to make sure that the money taken in goes towards the roads?

There is an advisory committee, so they will make recommendations to the city council on the revenues and expenditures and which streets would have the priority. So they would make the recommendations for the council to have concurrence with.

So it's still up to the council what exactly gets done?

That is correct.

Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Anyone else? With that, Sophie, I'm going to ask you to kind of oversee this. How do we – there's been suggestions made, and did you kind of summarize – can you summarize what's been said so we can present to Tom?

Just real quick. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought we were done. Sorry, Pat. No, I'm just – okay, we've got an ordinance, we've got bylaws, and we're going to possibly approve them all in one lump shot or –

We're not going to approve anything. You're going to give me direction on them.

My question is, the policy considerations that were read said three-year terms. These draft bylaws say four-year terms.

Okay, that's probably an oversight on my part. I thought that I had the ordinance and the bylaws at three-year.

Okay, yeah, members, term of office, members shall serve staggered four-year terms.

Yeah, I apologize for that oversight. It was intended to be just like the other commissions, which were three-year.

Okay, gotcha. And then, okay. Okay, thank you.

Anything else, Pat?

Don't think so.

Let us know, Pat, when you're ready.

So these bylaws would have them meeting twice a year at least. Hold on. I just saw it.

Sorry. There's meetings. There we go.

Not less than quarterly, but shall prepare an annual report. Were you good with that, Chris? I'm sorry. The bylaws, as they currently sit, say that they should prepare an annual report. You're OK with that? Yeah.

And again, I think that my recommendation is that the council would move forward and bring back the ordinance at a notice public hearing and you could have some additional dialogue just about the ordinance itself. My recommendation would be that the bylaws would kind of just suspend and wait until the committee is formed and then they would have some recommendations that would come back for formal adoption by this council. and then the application process, we just need to talk about timelines and when you want to get that submitted out to the public and when you wanna have it back for a due date and then ultimate council meeting for a selection.

John, approximate timeline applications being available, Tom?

I wanna ask the Deputy City Clerk, Anita, generally we have three weeks for people when we submit for, is that when we submit for the Planning Commission applications, how long do they have to submit? Okay, I don't know if it needs to be that long. I would say probably at least a three week time frame, but it's a number that the council wishes to do. If we had a three week time frame from tomorrow, then conceivably we could probably have this item at your August 18th meeting. So you have the applications? Is that what I'm hearing? The application is part of this packet. So we would go ahead, if the council wishes us to, we could go ahead and get those distributed tomorrow. And we would do at least a three-week time frame so that people have enough time to get the applications and get it returned to the deputy city clerk. And then that would also give us enough time to bring that forward to your meeting on August 18th.

I'm good with the application process.

Yes, to drafting the ordinance. Yes, to the bylaws being something that are established with the committee so that they're familiar with the bylaws and how to conduct themselves. And yes, to opening applications ASAP so that we can get those going.

Okay. I'm good with that. Is everybody good with what Cassie just stated?

No, she was facing that way.

I said yes to drafting the ordinance.

I thought you were facing this way too Chris.

Yes, to drafting the ordinance and bringing it back at a future meeting. Yes, to the bylaws and putting them out there but allowing for the committee to review them so that they are familiar with what the bylaws actually state and what their codes of conduct are and what is expected of them. And yes, to opening applications ASAP so that people can apply because they're eager to be a part of it. Perfect.

Good. Thank you. All right. So that's a recommendation. Anything else from council? No.

So I'm sorry, just one clarification. Would that be leaving the length of the term up to them? If they're setting their own bylaws, are they going to set their own length of term?

The term's going to be set in the ordinance.

in the ordinance, which we're gonna bring back.

Which we'll bring back, so the council will have that. Probably how it's gonna work is that ordinance, just being the noticing requirements we have with the daily news, most likely the ordinance, the first reading and adoption of it, or the first reading will probably be on that August 18th meeting. So you would have the ordinance and then potentially be selecting folks for the oversight committee.

Ideally, in my personal opinion, we should have the oversight committee well intact before we start collecting money on it, just for the matter of public opinion. It's just my personal opinion.

Yeah, if all things work as we believe the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, the soonest that that could be considered is October 1st before they would start collecting anything. So I think there's time for the creation of the committee before October 1st.

Thank you, Tom. Thank you. Anything you need to add, Sophie? No, thank you. Tom, you have direction?

Yes, I do. Thank you.

Okay. We'll go on to the next item. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Council. And thank you, public, for your input. Appreciate it. We'll go now to item 14, which is request for Council input and consideration for a proposed water and sewer rate study. Robin Kaufman, please.

Okay, honorable mayor, members of the city council. I do have one correction. There's not four options tonight under the recommendation. It's three. Item one has been split between one and two. So I just, the return button got hit when we were posting it.

Can you say it again, which ones are? I'll explain them right now.

So the three options tonight for council to provide direction is the city council can direct staff to move forward by selecting a rate plan option as presented, formalizing the new rates as proposed. The rate consultant will then draft the rate study report describing the rates that are proposed and begin the Prop 218 process. So that's option one, selecting from what's presented tonight, giving us direction, and then we'll move forward from what's selected tonight. Option 2 is the council can direct staff and our consultant to make the changes or make changes to the rate plan options. After that we will then bring back those proposed changes for your guys' authorization to move forward at the next council meeting. This could delay the process of getting the rates implemented before January 1 or on the January 1 date. So just keep that in mind. We have gone through many options and we'll explain those as we present tonight. The third option is the council can choose not to move forward with any of the new rates for water or sewer. And this would require adjustments for us as the city to either make operational cost cuts or change the way we operate or cut capital improvements which could be a detriment to our system. So those are our three options tonight to receive direction from you. Either approve one of the rates that are presented and we'll move forward. ask us to make a change and then we will make that change, bring it back and then you guys can direct us to move forward after that or choose to not move forward on anything at that point in time but that would require some significant changes to the way we operate our water and sewer systems. A little bit of a summary. I'm going to hit on a few of the key points, just things that I think the public need to know, we need to remember. And then as our consultant presents tonight, she has some of these items and we'll go into further detail in them as we go through tonight. We're being asked to review the draft water and sewer rate study recommendations and to provide direction to the new sewer and water rate schedules. The information will be presented by our consultant, LT Municipal Consultants Sophia Mills will do our presentation tonight and can answer a lot of the questions with support of city staff. We need to be aware that the city provides water and has approximately 4,600 active water and sewer connections within the city. Water and sewer services are funded entirely through the monthly rates paid by the customers. They're enterprise funds. Those rates go into those accounts. That's what operates our accounts or operates our systems and pays for the capital improvements of those systems. A little bit of history, rates have not been adjusted for water and sewer since 2012, July of 2012, with a one-time increase, not a five-year anticipated increase like we're proposing tonight, just a single one-time increase. Prior to that, rates for the water system had not been increased since 2008 and the sewer rates had never been increased prior to that since their establishment in 97. So we are very far behind. Just some information to think when you're seeing numbers, we're operating well in the past on our rates. Our consultant used projected operation costs, capital improvement plan projections to develop our five-year rate structure that would support the needs for each utility. and maintain adequate debt coverage to qualify for future grants. That is key. We currently have a very large grant that we've been given the thumbs up to submit for our secondary clarifier at the wastewater treatment plant, but until we get our rates to show and meet our debt covenant, we don't qualify for that grant. So we're sitting on the submittal of that grant application until we hopefully implement some rates, rate increases and we can show our financial documents meet the requirements of the state to be qualified for that grant. In additional operation costs, the city must fund the capital improvements. We're currently doing that to the best of our ability which has brought our accounts down very significantly and we need to make sure that money is there to keep our systems operating. Without those funds, without those improvements, we're going to be playing the catch up game every time there's a break. We're going to hit the general fund to have to fix those if we don't have the money in those accounts. so i'm going to hand this over to sophia she has a presentation it is lengthy because we are going through water and sewer rates we're providing three different options for each rate a combination can be put in place between the different options so if you have questions we can answer that tom scott Myself, we've sat on numerous meetings. We've adjusted these. We've gone back and forth on looking at what the best options are for the city. These are not just first drafts, throwing them out there, seeing what you guys want. We've tried to do our due diligence to get our rates where where we can sustain but not significantly impact the community more than we have to.

One of the things I want to mention before Sophia Mills gets started is Robin mentioned a kind of key component regarding our rates and making sure that we're meeting our debt requirements. The state revolving fund is what we've applied for the grant. That's specifically for the second clarifier at the wastewater treatment plant. That's about a $6 million cost. That cost is not included in the proposed rates and the capital costs that Sophia are going to cover because we believe that if we can get our rates up to a a threshold that we cover the debt, that we would be successful in obtaining that SRF grant from the state of California, that it wouldn't necessarily impact our rate payers. So that $6 million cost for just one piece of equipment at the treatment plant is not even included in the five-year program that we utilized for this rate. So with that, I'm gonna introduce Sophia Mills with LT Consultants. She's been aboard helping us with the rates. She does have a PowerPoint presentation You can see it on our screen. So those at home can also see it on zoom and with that Sophia I

Thank you, Tom and Robin. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of city council. My name is Sophia Mills with LT Municipal Consultants. Just to give you a little bit of background on us, we are an independent consulting firm, and we specialize in utility rate studies. So we help cities of your size and other cities all throughout the state to do what we're here to talk about tonight, which is rate studies. So the goal of tonight is just to give you some background on where we're at in the process My colleagues and I have been working closely with city staff for the past several months now And we believe we have some good drafts to present tonight. We have three options each for water and sewer rates The goal of our rate study is to set rates for the next five years So what we've done is we've worked closely with staff to review the city's budget projections capital improvement plans and Then design rates that fully comply with all legal requirements for both systems So Robin went over a lot of this already, so I'll just give a brief overview. We are kind of playing catch up here since the city's rates have been in place since 2012, so 14 years. Both the water and sewer funds are independent enterprise funds, meaning they're operated similar to a private business. They're separate from the general fund. Each customer pays rates that represent their share of the cost to operate and maintain the systems. However, because rate increases have not been implemented for so long, both funds are in a significant deficit, meaning that the rates that each fund is taking in are not meeting costs. The sewer fund in particular has fully depleted its reserves and is now at a point where other city funds are covering those deficits. And it's estimated that without water rate increases, the water fund will be in the same position in about three years from now. So our rate study process is guided by the legal framework that's established in state law as Proposition 218. So to give you an overview on how the rates are set, so we have to follow all requirements of Proposition 218. The main ones that you'll see tonight is that this allows us to set rates over a five-year period as a maximum. The other main requirement is that those rates, which we can set over five years, cannot exceed the cost of providing service. So that's why we have so closely gone over the capital improvement plans, projected operating expenses, and debt requirements to calculate what the cost is. And then the next requirement of Proposition 218 is that those costs must be allocated to each customer class proportionally to how they use the systems. So you'll see there are some adjustments that are proposed to how each customer will be billed to increase proportionality. The other process that is set out for us by Proposition 218 is how once the rate study is concluded, there will be a public outreach process that the city must follow in order to adopt the rates so tonight is just for background and to get input but eventually when we have a rate plan that is approved by the council what the city will do next is mail out a notice to all customers of both the water and sewer systems and from there customers will have the opportunity to provide input and they can protest the rates. If 50% or more of customers protest, then the city would not be able to adopt those rates. Otherwise, the council will have the authority to vote on them. So just for some background on the timeline, the other requirement is that once that notice is mailed, the city must allow a 45-day waiting period during which customers can protest before a hearing is held to adopt the rates. So our target is to get rates adopted by January 1st, which would mean that we would need to mail the notices in the fall. So to give you an overview of our process, tonight I'm going to go over the first two phases of the rate study, and the third phase, public outreach, will be after a rate plan has been approved. So the first phase of our process is the financial plan. So what that does is helps us to determine the total amount of money that must be recovered by the rates. The second phase is rate design, and that's where, as I mentioned, we must allocate that total amount that we want to recover between customers proportionally to how they use the systems. So the main considerations to go over tonight for the financial plan, the main focus of each scenario has the goal of reversing the deficit, meaning that we want the revenues coming in from rates to fully cover expenses. The second main goal of the rate study process is to finance the capital improvement plan. So the capital improvement plan was originally developed last year as part of your master planning process. And you'll see tonight that for each utility we have three different financial plan scenarios because the city does have some amount of discretion, as Robin mentioned, in how it can conduct capital improvements. What we've done is we have three different scenarios that will allow various levels of capital financing. The second main consideration is the rate design process. So for all of the scenarios presented tonight, the rate design philosophy is the same. So there's three differences for each utility in the financial plan. But the rate design is the same regardless, and that is where we have made some adjustments to increase the proportionality. And I'll go over that briefly as we get to it. The third consideration, like I mentioned, is that we have a goal of implementing rates January 1st. So now I'll go over our analysis of the water system. So to give you an overview of the city's current rates, there's two components of the rate structure, which is not proposed to change. So the first component is the base meter fee. And throughout the presentation, all the rates are shown monthly here. So each customer is billed monthly. The majority of the city's customers have a three quarter inch meter. So pay about $15 per month. The base meter fee is intended to recover the city's fixed costs that do not vary with the amount of water that is consumed. And this is not proposed to change. It is proposed that there will continue to be a base meter fee for all customers by meter size. The second component of each monthly water bill is the consumption rate So I have the city's current consumption rates on the screen here These are proposed to be adjusted so the city currently has what's called a declining block structure meaning as you use more and more water you'll notice that the rate actually goes So, you know, most customers who are using the lowest amount of waters are paying 79 cents per unit of water. But then higher users, you'll see as you use more and more, the rate per unit goes down. So this is no longer common and under Proposition 218 is not recommended. So what we're proposing is that all of these tiers be eliminated and all customers will be billed just a single uniform rate per unit of water used, which is recommended based on current case law surrounding Proposition 218. so just to give you an example of where we're starting from so since we reviewed your city's recent water use and billing data as part of the rate study process an average customer uses 16 units of water per month so at the average meter size of three quarter inches the Current, typical customer, so this would be like one single family home. The average customer is paying about $28 per month for water service. And at those rates, you'll see here this chart shows the past five years of revenues compared to expenses for the water fund. So you'll see that the fund has been operating in a deficit for all five of those years, and that has grown more and more. So the green line here shows revenues. They've been trending. Slightly downward. Again, the rates have stayed the same, but they are variable based on water use, and the trend has been water use has gone down slightly. The bar charts show expenses. This year, the fund has $6 million of expenses projected compared with revenues of $2.36 million. And you currently have remaining about $5.6 million in cash reserves. As I mentioned earlier, without a rate increase, it is projected that it would be about three years before those reserves run out. So going forward, over the next five years, the city's capital improvement plan, if you were to fully finance a capital improvement plan, the goal is $19 million worth of projects total over the next five years. This number was determined based on funding all of the high priority projects that were identified the master plan. Another priority for the city is to fund pipeline improvements, in particular old steel water pipelines, which are failing or near failing. In conjunction with road work improvements that are already planned through measure s So the goal is to have rates in place to support some of these critical capital projects Other important infrastructure needs on the water side are improvements at the wells for instance at well six mitigating chemicals emergency chlorination at all of the well sites and installing generators and So now I'll go over the three options we've developed on the water side. So all three options will allow the city to cover operating costs by the second year of the rate plan at the latest. the main difference between each option we've developed is the amount of capital improvements that can be funded and also the mechanisms through which they are funded so the first scenario represents the highest cost scenario so that would allow the city to in the first year meet all operating costs and over each of the five years, finance the full proposed CIP all in cash. So the rates would generate enough money in cash to fully finance a CIP without any debt. Under that scenario, it's also estimated that the city would end the fifth year of the plan maintaining more reserves. You wouldn't have to spend down much of your existing reserves to finance those projects. Scenarios two and three were developed to create kind of a medium and low rate impact option. So the second scenario, the medium option represents about half of the CIP financed through cash generated from rates. and then half financed through debt. So as Robin mentioned, once the fund begins covering its operating costs, the city will have opportunities to apply for loans. So in the second scenario, The second scenario reflects the financial picture where rates could be kept a little bit lower in later years if the city takes on a long-term debt financing for about half of the project costs. The third scenario is the option of phasing in the rates. So as I mentioned, the Water Fund does have some existing reserves. Under the third option we've developed, some of those reserves would be spent down to keep rates lower for customers to the extent possible. However, rate increases are still needed, and I'll show you here a comparison of where the average bill ends up under each scenario. So you'll see here the first option in green like I said, is the highest rate option because everything is financed in cash. For both the first and second scenario, we designed the first rate increase so that in the first year, the city can meet all operating costs. To do that, the average bill would need to increase to about $59, as shown on the chart. If rates were phased in and the city spent down the reserves it has available, that is shown by the blue line here on this chart. So rates would increase initially to $42 per month. However, you'll notice that in the blue scenario, by the end of the rate plan, it does pass that second scenario because... you don't get the benefit of the earlier you raise rates, the more revenue you collect over the five years. I want to point out also that only the green and pink scenario one and two would fully fund all projects. Under the phased-in scenario, only about half of the goal capital plan could be financed. So here's a comparison of if rates were increased on January 1st, where the city would end up in comparison to some of your closest neighbors. So you'll see also, I'm sorry it's a little small, but in parentheses by each agency, that shows the date of the most recent rate increase. for each agency. So you'll see that Red Bluff's rates have been the same at the bottom of the chart since 2012, and all other agencies have increased rates this year. So if you went up to $42, you'd still be very low on the chart, and the same scenario if you went to the $59. Here's another chart to kind of show the impacts here of where we're coming from, not having raised rates in a while. So you'll see that if the bill had been increased by inflation over the period since the last rate increase, it would be at about $41 per month, which closely compares with the phased-in scenario. I do want to point out However, that this is just showing general inflation, whereas a lot of the expenses that the city incurs have increased above and beyond the general CPI, especially in recent years, such as power costs and also construction costs are increasing much higher than inflation. But this, I think, just goes to show kind of where we're at. So that's what I have for water. Would it be helpful if I pause for questions and comments now before we move to sewer or would you like me to go straight to sewer?

Council? Do you want to keep going or do you have questions for now?

I mean I have questions but we can go through it. It doesn't matter whatever everybody wants to do with it. Let's go with water first.

Yeah, that way we can keep it in perspective. Yeah, go ahead.

Okay. All right, I'll take

No, it's okay. I know it's a lot to take in.

I noticed between the actuals, I'm the newest council member, which you probably aren't familiar with, so I probably am also the most unfamiliar with them, but the actual for 2324 on page 126, which I think is slide 11 for you, I just was curious. We went up from $22.23 million, $0.4 million in total expenses. Looks like under categorically the other operating costs. Then again in $23.24 to $24.25, we went up $0.4 million. And then we see a huge jump from $23.25 to the $25.26 of $2.9 million. What is that?

so are you referring specifically to the other operating expenses category or just all expenses well i just noticed it's the biggest one on the graph oh yeah um so in the past two years the city has been spending more on capital projects that's the biggest difference the other operating expenses that includes essentially everything else required to maintain and operate the system besides staffing costs. So captured within that is some of what I mentioned, like the power cost to run the system. Any cost, like the cost of supplies and materials is also in that. And then the capital, the purple portion on the chart, that represents just one-time projects. So in recent years, the past two years, well, the last year on the chart is the budget for this year. So that has not been extended yet.

The difference is between the 24-25.

Yeah, the difference between the 25-26 is primarily because of the higher capital spending. So some of that is like one-time emergency repairs, but also other projects that have come up that have come out of reserves.

Because I noticed that the salaries and benefits, the staffing stayed the same pretty close. It's pretty even all the way across the board. So that was my question for water.

I can kind of answer that. Last year we did the Elva water line project, replaced that entire portion of the water line. That was a capital improvement cost that we had been pushing out and we finally got spent. We've projected and split between 25-26 and 26-27. The Carmel Water Line project and the cost for that is included. We've had to implement the emergency chlorination systems. So that's been going on. Some of the PFAS stuff, pipeline repairs. There's just been a lot of capital improvement projects that staff has been pushing forward. Flow meters, as required by the state. just just all the little pieces have finally finally added up and we have staff and engineering staff that have been pushing those projects so that's a good question it depends on which scenario would be selected so I

under and i have the detailed rate plans attached at the back of the presentation if you want to go over it's a lot of just straight numbers but for scenario one and scenario two in the first year it would be two dollars and forty two cents per unit of water used um and then in the lower rate scenario it would be one dollar and sixty seven cents two dollars and forty two cents

Up from 79 cents a unit on average.

Yes. That's per unit. Yes, that's correct.

And to clarify, a unit's 748 gallons. It's not a single gallon. It's not 100 gallons. It's a significant amount of water.

Right, yeah. But that's a significant hike.

It's a significant hike, yes. But it is, yeah, it is over, yeah, about 750 gallons. That's the price.

So that number would be, if I'm understanding this, so the $59 hike for each year, I mean the adjustments for each year, that is counting the?

the two dollars and that's correct yes so the fifty nine dollars is calculated as the proposed base fee which um under that scenario where it goes to fifty nine dollars is about twenty one dollars per month so from fifteen to twenty one dollars as a base charge and then the two dollars and 42 cents um multiplied by the 16 units puts you to 59. yeah that's just an average That's just an average, yes. On water, every customer's bill impact is going to be totally dependent on their individual consumption patterns, yes. But the typical home in the city uses 16 units per month, which would get to that $59.

But that's not the base. That's the total bill, right? That's the total bill, correct. The average total bill now is 28. The average total bill would be about 59. Correct.

And, yes, the bill would be, yeah, so lower water users are going to have, you know, their bill will still increase, but it will be to a lesser extent.

That's on option one.

On all options.

Yes. On all options, the bill is going to vary for each person because it's based on the actual metered water usage.

Okay. But the first and second one would be the 262 and the third option would be the Lester?

Yes.

Chris, anything?

Any further questions, Cassie?

Questions from the public then on water?

hi danielle eyestone city of red bluff resident um just because and i don't envy you guys in the slightest with this um because of what the county is talking with groundwater and they were talking about a pass-through bill and they're just talking about increasing what we're going to be paying for city residents not just the county residents they're already talking about increasing the cost of the wells there and you guys are talking about increase all this needs to look at to see the make sure you guys aren't breaking a city like i i was on the council when we did the 2012 raise maybe another one this one just seems astronomically high and we potentially got whatever that lovely groundwater group is doing too thank you

This is directed to Tom Westbrook. You mentioned that potential $6 million grant that's in holding. Is there a sunset date on that, or will it always be available?

It's available when funding is available through the state. So the sooner we get our application into them, and that's really relative to the sewer cost, not the water. But the sooner we get our application into them, the sooner we have the possibility of being funded.

Is there a chance that we could lose that?

if the state runs out of funding or does not fund the program, then yes.

Thank you. Council, any other questions or citizens?

Okay.

We live in a mobile home park where we all own our own property. But we all, our sewer line and our water line are shared by 112 bucks. And they are all paid as one. So we have been probably on your low tier because of the usage. So it's gonna be more than $57 for us. It's gonna be a big increase. And we're in a 55 and older, park where many people are living on fixed income. So I'm estimating that our increase is going to be probably double what you're at 57 because of where we've been in the year. And I just think But there needs to be some adjustments. I'm not sure that across the board it's going to work for most of Redline. Apartments, mobile home parks, like in our case where we're all on one bill. It makes it very hard for us to budget. So I would like to see something else in your option.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Mayor Gonzales, City Council. Diane Davidson. I'm just a little confused with what's going on. I think Danielle said something about it with the well increase that's going on in the county, which is not just Red Bluff. Is that the same? Like the wells would go up and... I mean, I'm kind of confused as to... the rates it would be in addition to if you own your own well plus i don't understand i don't think that yeah this affects city of uh red bluff residents none to do with the wells

What we're talking about tonight is the city of Red Bluff's charge to the customers. We're not talking about anything that the county is doing. OK. OK. I was confused. I got it. This is just simply for the city of Red Bluff for our water and sewer customers.

Robin, did you have something else to add?

Yes, I want to bring up the mobile home in the senior community. We have to remember that they have a larger meter. They have a 4-inch or a 6-inch meter. And looking at the proposed rates, those increases are not proportionally the same as just a single 3-quarter inch. There's different factors we've looked into that. Just in general, the current rate for a 6-inch meter is $454 base rate. It's actually proposed to go down next month or in the next one to 437 because we're looking at that proportionality. And then increases beyond there do go up, but it's not as significant. So we just – it'll be split more ways but not go up as much. So those things are looked into in this factor, so.

Thank you, Robin. Okay.

Arguably, scenario three is the gentlest phasing in for the consumer, correct?

That's correct.

Okay.

And it will still get us some capital improvements without cutting that off completely, get us set up for future five-year projections to be more palatable.

If we're not operating in a net positive, we can't apply for the grant. Correct.

Correct.

even if we're operating in a trend that will be net positive in two years?

We can show that you have a rate schedule proposed for those two years, because that one does show two years where we're operating net positive. Because we have some reserves, we can show that through our financial documents. Correct me if I'm wrong, Sophia, but I think that's the case.

Yes, that's correct. On the water side, that is correct.

So we can apply for the grant because we have that projected and imposed plan. But our grant is for sewer. Sorry.

But if other grants come up for water, it does give us the opportunity to apply for those and still qualify. Yep.

And one of the things I'll mention that was included in this rate study, while the formulation of the rate study, we got into that class action lawsuit regarding the PFAS. Part of that cost was built into the rate structure. So if we can secure some funding through that, that would reduce the burden on the rate payers. So that process is ongoing. And we're kind of working through that process as we work through the rate study as well.

Because that would ultimately decrease the capital improvement costs.

Correct.

Any other thing? Council? Okay, good. We'll go on to sewer and then we'll give you another question time in sewer. Go ahead. Okay. Let's go to sewer.

OK, so on the sewer side, the scenarios we've developed are similar, with scenario one being kind of the worst case scenario. Everything is financed through cash, so the highest rate increases. And scenario three is the lowest rate increases, but also the lowest amount of capital projects that the city could complete over the next five years. So to go over how the sewer rates are billed now and how they're proposed to be billed under each scenario, I have here the city's current rate structure. So all residential customers are billed fixed rates. So unlike the water system where your rate has both a fixed component and a component that varies with your metered water usage, The sewer rates are set based on average estimated wastewater flow for residential customers, which is not proposed to change. The only change proposed for residential customers, again, the rates will go up, but in terms of how they are billed, Currently, different types of multifamily dwelling units are billed at different rates, with condos and townhouses in particular billed the same rates as single-family residential customers. We analyzed the city's billing data to estimate sewer flows. And we found that on average, all multifamily customers use about 75% as much water as single family customers. So going forward under each proposed scenario, all multifamily customers, and we did not find a significant difference between different types of multifamily units. So it's proposed that going forward, there will be a single family fixed rate and then one multifamily rate for all types of dwelling units listed here. So that would include apartments, mobile homes, condos, and townhouses. For commercial customers, their build, it's actually a little bit similar to the water rates. So for commercial customers, there is a volumetric component to the rates. So each customer has a base fee that includes a different number of units of usage. Again, one unit is that about 750 gallon amount. And then any usage above that is considered excessive usage that's more costly for the city to treat. So above that minimum amount that's in the base charge, each commercial customer pays per unit of additional use. So it's proposed that that kind of structure will continue, but we are proposing, and this has been done, we took a careful review of all commercial customers and worked closely with city staff on this, So it's going to be proposed that customers are reclassified. Right now there's one rate for bakeries, one rate for restaurants, and then one rate for everyone else. It's proposed that there will be three different rate categories, low strength, medium strength, and high strength. Within those categories, each customer will be billed a fixed charge for the minimum usage of seven units, and then usage above that will be billed the volume flow rates. So the reason that we're proposing to change this is because it reflects that In particular, on the commercial side, the cost for the city to treat each customer's wastewater varies widely depending on the type of business and what they're discharging into the sewer system. So for instance, restaurants, that are doing a lot of food preparation are dumping a lot of fats, oils, grease and other pollutants into the system. So it's proposed that they be billed higher rates. Whereas we're proposing that other customers that have a lower strength, in particular like retail shops that may, you know, a small retail shop that only has one bathroom and is preparing no food, the sewage that they're just charging into the system is much less costly and much easier for the city to treat. So that's what the proposed rate changes reflect. So here's just a summary of what I just talked about. Again, for residential customers, there's limited change, and all customers are proposed to continue to be billed fixed rates per month, which is an industry standard. And then all non-residential customers are proposed to be divided into low, medium, and high strength categories. So now to get into our financial plan scenarios. First, similar to water, here's a look at how the sewer fund has performed over the past four years, and then also including the budget for this current fiscal year. As I mentioned earlier, the sewer fund is in a worse financial position than the water fund. It currently has a cash balance of negative $2.8 million, so that's what to date has been covered by other city funds. And you'll see that, again, similar to the Water Fund, the past two years expenses have increased dramatically, mostly because of capital spending. But all operating expenses are increasing. And you can see here the green line showing the city's revenues. Revenues have not covered the city's expenses to operate the system for any of the past five years. So going forward, the goal is number one for the sewer fund to cover its operating costs. The second goal is to cover some of the major infrastructure needs that the sewer system has. So most of these were recommended from the master plan, but based on our discussions with city staff, The critical improvements to be funded ideally in the next five years are about $16 million total worth of projects. And as Tom mentioned earlier, that does not include the $6 million project for the second clarifier at the treatment plant. And this rate study would allow the city to obtain financing for that project. So on the sewer side, we have three scenarios, similar concept to the water fund. However, I want to point out that on the sewer side, because of the deficit that the fund is in, the lowest option reflects low CIP, very low capital spending. But it is not recommended to do a rate phase in because of the extreme deficit of the fund. So all three scenarios were designed in this draft such that the first increase allows the city to cover operations. To mitigate rate impacts to the extent possible, it's assumed that under each scenario, the capital financing won't start until the second year of the rate plan for any new projects. So the first scenario reflects beginning in the second year, financing over the next four years the full $16 million directly with rate revenues. The second scenario reflects taking out a loan to finance about half of the projects in the later years of the rate plan, again, once the fund is meeting its operating expenses. And under the third scenario, which we worked to, again, this is designed to mitigate rate increases to the extent possible. the third lowest option would allow the city to finance about two million dollars per year in capital projects um once the fund meets its operations so it's eight million total over the five year period again compared to the goal of 16 million that's about So here's a comparison of the average residential bill. So again, unlike the water fund, this does reflect the bill that each single family residential customer would pay. There's not a variation depending on usage. So in order to fully cover operating expenses, the bill would need to increase from the current bill of $34 per month to $86 per month. And then future years, you can see how under each scenario there's a different rate impact depending on the level of capital financing. So here's a comparison of how that looks compared to your neighbors. Again, the city is the only agency in the area that has not raised rates recently. And here's how it compares to inflation. So again, I mentioned this earlier, but the current bill is about $34 per month. If it had been inflated by general inflation since 2012, it would be at about $50 per month. So not necessarily reflecting kind of some of the more extreme cost increases that the city has faced in construction and other operating costs. Just for some context. And then this chart here shows the impact. Again, this reflects only an average single family home. But here's the impact of the financial plan options on the combined monthly utility bill. So currently, the average single family customer in the city pays $62 per month for both water and sewer service, which is well below the median cost in the region. And then the two options here reflect a total of $127 per month under the phased-in water scenario, compared with $145 per month if the non-phased-in scenario was adopted. So under this draft, there is a high sewer rate increase, but When we look at it on a combined scale, you would end up about in the middle compared to surrounding agencies. And compared to past inflation, here's a look at where each option puts you. So I'll just wrap up here with a few comments about where we can go from here and schedule, and then I'll take questions and comments. Happy to take any and all direction, and we'll revise. Again, this is all in a draft. phase right now. Based on your feedback tonight, the plan regardless is to return on August 4th with updates. If you like these scenarios, the What's reflected on the chart here is kind of the most accelerated schedule. If you decided that you wanted to select tonight one of these scenarios, what would happen is that on August 4th, we could authorize the final notices to be sent out to customers. Otherwise, we can return from there with updated drafts and go from there, which would, again, as Robin mentioned earlier, it might push the schedule back a little bit since we do have to have a full 45-day waiting and noticing period from when the final rates are adopted.

Very good. Any questions, Council, for Sophie? Yeah. Okay, very good. I have two selfies.

I'm a little concerned about the restaurants because they've quadrupled in the last few years in prices, and any more hits is just going to be, I think, devastating. And to judge that on the grease, I know there's a lot of extra stuff that goes in, but I would have to think in apartments and stuff, we don't know what goes into our sewers from anybody in town. So I kind of... Not sure about the raising the rates on the restaurants, just because that's gonna go right to the customer. I know this needs to happen, but these are drastic changes and drastic raises on any level, and it's going to, I think, devastate some of our citizens out there, to be honest, because I know a lot of them aren't making it now, and this is really, really gonna push them over the top. So it's going to be a big discussion for sure.

I have a question on your proposed sewer customer classes. It's on your slide 19. When you're talking about high strength, medium strength, low strength, you have quite a bit in the medium strength. And, you know, assisted living facilities, you're talking about laundry and food. And I can understand because we don't meter our sewer facilities. it's based off of the water that goes in. So the sewer is proportional to that, correct?

So just to clarify, so for sewer, yes, that is one component. And this is a bit confusing, so I'll go over again. So the strength does not actually refer to how much is being used. It's more the quality of what is being treated. So these are based on... Yes, it's correct that the city does not directly meter sewer discharge, but there are industry standard measures of the concentration of pollutants per business type, which is how businesses are categorized here. Yeah, one confusing aspect is the amount of usage is not tied to strength. So that will be billed. So there is a volumetric component, right? So they are billed based on the amount of usage, but the rate per unit, that's what's based on the concentration or strength of pollutants.

So my question is, Medium strength, you have listed in here. A lot of these make sense. Some of them don't. And so my question is, how is a gym, which operates 50 showers at a time and ample cleaning supplies, a low strength, but a church that operates one day a week is in the medium strength for pollutants? So I'm trying to understand the classification of how did the medium strength tier get established as far as how you classified each one of those, because some of them don't seem to fit.

Right. I understand your confusion. And yes, a gym, it is true, is probably using a lot more water. However, there's no food prep on site, whereas it's typical that churches may have some amount of food prep or other, you know, if they're serving... luncheons, coffee, that kind of thing is really what pushes them into the medium strength category. Again, this is based on standard measurements, whereas the typical gym has only showers, sinks, and toilets.

Robin, on the graph again for capital improvement, We went 0.4 million from 22 to 23, or 22, 23 to 24, and then 0.6. Is the 2 million increase from 24, 25, and 25, 26 the same 2 mil we kind of see in the water? No.

Different projects. We currently are estimating in that 5.17 and that 6 million budgeted, the lift station for South Jackson Street. That has to go in for Palm Villas to be functioning, and that's Over a million dollar project so that that's our big push right now plus an item later tonight We have an emergency repair of a line that's already in the capital improvement plan for the next year We're just gonna have to fast-track.

Why did our revenue decrease? Between the two years if our rates didn't go up they definitely didn't go down water uses gone down

And it's based on the water usage. And we have also been working with the schools and commercial buildings to get landscape meters on their irrigation, separate water meters, so we're not charging the sewer rates for irrigating. So we've been making that push with the schools and some of the larger commercial users that are irrigating their landscape. They shouldn't be paying sewer. It's not going into the sewer. So we've been working with them to get them switched over.

Because the state is requiring us to do water conservation measures I which people are doing, that's why the revenue is lesser.

Yep. And it doesn't usually recover after a drought. It usually stays consistently lower, even drops. People change their landscaping on residential. They put different fixtures in. They do everything they need to do as required by the state, or new housing is required to have low flow, shower heads, all of that, and that affects our rates. I'm assuming that we would see a lot more brown yards after this or pools being converted to yards and not pools those types of things desert landscaping yes zero scape okay I will open it up for questions from the public

First of all, thank you, Sophia, for your work on this. I appreciate your expert opinion and your crunching of the numbers. This is a double or a triple increase, and the natives are, Mark, like you said, are not going to be happy with this. And it's been sweet the last 10 or 15 years, it's like having gas at two bucks a gallon in Red Bluff all the way until the current time, and then all of a sudden, kabammo, we drive it to $5 a gallon, people are gonna say, we can't handle this. And we can say, well, we have been giving you a gift of the last 12 years, are you not happy with this? And they're gonna say, no, we don't understand this. You're not gonna do, we're gonna let our lawns go dead. Now, I'm a friendly taxpayer, and I know that we're going to have to pay the cost. But there are people who are unreasonable, and the howl from the public is just going to be enormous. And I don't have any idea what you're going to do to try to cover the mess. But we've done them wrong. We should have increased it a little every year so that it would be palatable, acceptable. So I'm watching all this happen thinking, I don't envy you people, I am happy that you're addressing these issues because we gotta pay the price. But getting the public to understand this and to accept it and to pay it is gonna be a messy situation. So I'm a praying man. I will pray for all of us. And those of you who know how to pray, I suggest that you do likewise. And Pastor Scott will be back here. But this is not just a financial issue. This is an emotional and indeed a spiritual issue too. So we are in trouble. But we're all in it together. So let's don't give up. So thank you for doing what you do. And thank you for biting the financial bullet. Here we go.

Thank you, Ken. Anyone else?

Robin Morse again from River Oaks Homeowners Association. From somebody who sits on a board, I thank you for contributing your time, your efforts. It's a thankless job, and I understand, and good luck.

Thank you. Anyone else? OK. No hands. Back to count. Yes. Go ahead and speak from there. It's OK. All right, he's got a mic for you.

I guess what I'm questioning is why is this just a five-year program? In other words, had these rate increases been happening every year, we wouldn't be in this situation. So why are we only planning for five years and not ten to push it out there?

Thank you.

I can answer that. So the requirements, the legal maximum period over which rates can be set at any one time is five years. So that's the maximum we're allowed to look out.

What I will say, kind of working off what Sophia mentioned, I couldn't determine any time in the past that the city ever considered a five-year program like this one. I don't think it happened. I think they simply raised the rates based upon a need, and then they tried to use the Consumer Price Index, also known as the CPI, to make adjustments after that. The intent here would be is that if the council moves forward with adoption of rates, whatever they are, in year four of that program, we would be doing this process again, taking another look at the need, capital improvement side, operations costs, et cetera, and kind of doing another five-year program. Most cities that are on the charts that have been analyzed that you see here, they have five-year programs. So their adjustments are kind of built into their five years. So they could be in maybe year two or year four, but they're in a program. And so that's what we're looking to get the city of Red Bluff on, is that we would be consistently looking at the rates kind of on a four- to five-year timeline moving forward. Thank you, Tom. Anything else up?

I just had a question again, sorry. Arguably looking at that CPI, the average being a 2%-ish projected increase each year for the last 12 years. We missed it, but if we would have done it, it more closely resembles scenario three in both of the option packets, correct? We would be most closely to that number.

That's correct.

Correct, okay. Thank you.

Chris, anything else?

I just want to say something about it. I have a couple questions for Paul real quick, though. Do you know how many shutoffs we have for nonpayment of water bills on a monthly basis or quarterly basis?

I know it's gone down recently, so I believe before – About 25 a month. Go ahead.

25.

Since moving on the system and it has gone down, part of that, I believe it was around 100 usually.

Tom? Yeah, I was just going to say specifically, as I walked into the meeting, our account clerk said that we have 25 shutoffs for this month. But Paul is correct. That number used to hover around 100.

Chris, go ahead. I just wanted to mention that staff report page for this agenda item. It talks about this was supposed to have happened back in 2008 and 2009. I don't know why it didn't happen. I'm just kind of talking to the public. I suspect I know because there was a pretty severe recession going on at the time, and maybe that's one of the reasons that they chose to delay it and then there was the CPI increase and then that got delayed and didn't happen and then the last thing it says is 2012, staff got direction to collect the CPI. I don't really know if that ever happened. And I don't even know if that was just supposed to be like on an annual basis, you know, what that even looked like because that was 2012. Nobody has to answer that. I just wanted to say here we are. And I, like Councilmember Clement, is I'm very concerned that some people can afford this kind of an increase. We've talked about this before, it's a poor city, it's a poor county, people are having issues and a lot of us in this room are lucky and we don't have them. But a lot of people do. At the same time, you know, we know that we have to do this because we all like to make sure our sewer system is working and we have some water, you know, when it gets turned on. I appreciate your conversation, ma'am. I understand. And I wish I could go back and fix some decisions made or not made by previous councils, but we can't do that.

It was a long time ago.

So thank you for your good wishes. And you're right, it's a hard job, thankless sometimes. Robin, I'm just gonna ask you, my first term was starting in December of 2018. My memory banks get a little cold sometimes with city council things. Do you recall any of this being discussed maybe in that?

Yes on the sewer side Water was never addressed that I know of a rate study was initiated But the capital the master plans the capital improvements when they got to that point It appears that from what I can see, because I came in right at the end of it where it was talk, but wasn't, there wasn't clear direction on what capital improvements needed to be done, so they were rolling everything into one big lump sum, and there was no way to prioritize those items. There was no capital improvement plan on a yearly basis, on a five-year basis, so I think Don't hold me to this number. We were in the $20, $30, $40 million of capital improvements with no priorities to be able to isolate. And I think that's when we took the step back, change in leadership happened, and then we went down the correct process of the general plan amendment, the housing element, the master plan studies to really isolate what our priorities are as a city to get the numbers where they needed to be. Thank you for sharing that. I think that's my knowledge. But water was never looked at.

I don't recall water ever being worked out. So those are just my thoughts. Thank you, Chris.

Anything else?

Pat? I mean, Chris? Mark? Yeah, so with everything, every aspect, and this is probably a little bit off topic, but every aspect of life has gone up in the last five or six years, right? Drastically. So, and I know this has to be done, we have to do this. This is not really negotiable, we have to do this. And in four years we are gonna negotiate this again to raise rates again. So can we, would it be feasible to make this into a 10 year by doing a lower rate process now and in four years we adjust again to ease the pain over a longer period of time to our folks. I know it's gonna keep us from getting grants and stuff, but it's also gonna keep maybe a few hundred people from not being able to pay their water bill versus 25 this month, or 100 last month. Because I would hate to see senior folks who are on a fixed income, or even folks who work but just can't afford life, and we have 500 people who can't afford their water and sewer bill. So to lengthen that out, because we are going to and will raise the rates again in four years, four to five years, we'll be doing this exact same thing to just ease that pain a little longer to the folks out there. Is that something that's feasible, something we can rework to bring to the next meeting? Because I know this needs to be done. We have to do it by January, and I'm all for that. But we really need to not have potentially 1,000 people not getting their water bill paid because this is such a drastic hike. Just a question. I don't know if it could be done, something we can do or think about.

Is there something you can answer, Sophie?

Well, I can answer part of that. I think it would be up to staff to comment on some of the, so in order to phase in the rates more gradually, again, the sewer fund has no cash available, right? It already owes money to the rest of the city. If the rate increases were lower, the city would likely have to drastically cut the number of capital projects that it completes because, you know, day-to-day operating costs are not going to go down. So the main option to keep rates lower is to not complete capital projects. In terms of a 10-year plan, um the city could do a forward-looking plan but it is limited to only adopting rates over a five-year window and i do i do want to clarify that during that five years the any rates that get adopted no matter which scenario is selected those then become what's your legal maximum rate so if you got to the third year of a rate plan and you end up getting a lot of grants. You could elect from there, years four and five, to adopt lower than what was originally proposed. But within that five years, you are bound to those rates as the maximum.

So let's say we work on the sewer, but we manage the water a little different. Is that a possibility?

That is what we're proposing in option three is the lower capital.

I mean, it is significantly lower for sure.

It is significantly lower. Yeah, it's hard because I mean, I'm looking at tables on page 11 for water and then I was looking at the table on page, sewer is my concern. I'm looking at page 20, even without, Just next year, our operating costs and our salary and benefits that go along with those operating costs and including the transfers out for multi-unit, I mean, we're already over 5 million and we're only bringing in 2.85. So that's an increase. That's just our operational cost. That's not even looking at our capital improvements.

And we get that up here. I'm concerned about our customers.

Yeah, no, I get it. This has been difficult conversations for all of staff.

Yeah, and I totally get the sewer part. The water part is the one that I'm more concerned about. I get the sewer. We need to do that, especially with the roads coming up and being able to do that. underground stuff as well with that situation. I'm just throwing it out there for ideas on all these topics.

Other than the grant for the additional clarifier, there isn't any other grant in the current scheme of plans that we're projected to even apply for?

No, there's not. However, Emmy Westlake, our grants administrator, scours what she can to try to find opportunities for us. And so if we can't find opportunities for infrastructure grants relative to water and sewer, then we were certainly going to be exploring those options. And we have been since she's been aboard. But Mark is right, Sophia is correct in saying that the only real way to reduce some of the expected cost would be to defer or delay some of those capital improvement projects that have been included in the rate study. So if you were gonna look to go beyond some of the options, that's the only thing that you can do is really take some of those projects out, just move them into future years. That's kind of why we did it in the sequence that we did, the general plan update, the housing element was kind of factored in there as well. But then again, the water and the sewer master plans, it was really important for us because those documents were 20 years old when we started the update so that we could have the current information. And so the numbers that we're proposing here have been refined to kind of the needs of the city's system. So in a perfect world, could i say that well no it's probably easy enough to just kick those down another 10 years probably not some of those improvements need to be done sooner than later but really the only thing you can do for some of those fee adjustments would really be looking to reduce that capital cost number robin is correct we need to make sure that we have our operating costs dialed in so that we can be eligible for that srf grant for the second clarifier at the wastewater treatment plant

Looking at our capital improvement plans, we have a list based on our master plan and, I mean, We have a $2 million SCADA replacement. That's emergency. We will need that. That's how we respond and monitor our systems. Everything else under the well improvements are all under $500,000. There's just a bunch of little pieces that go along with it. Tank improvements are all relatively small, under $500,000 each. The big Factor when we we look at this is what lines gonna fail those emergency repairs If we can be proactive on those that is where where our costs are gonna go We're estimating between two and three million a year on water line repairs Carmel just different steel lines projects within our city streets that are under measure s that we don't want to tear those roads up so that's why we made focus on those items specifically in the items that we were funding because we have that street moratorium We need to get those lines in before we do the roads. We have to do it as part of those projects. If not, we're cutting into those roads and it's defeating the purpose of our Measure S that just passed. That's my concern as I look through these. I wanted to make sure we were focusing really on those projects and not a new well or something I could defer to something later. But it's getting those in. like Montgomery and Franzel and Franklin and Walton, all of those roads within those areas that we've isolated and located, those are going to be the things that we focus on first. So that would be my concern.

I think we'd be facing further backlash if we dug up a street and all the people would say, why didn't they do this before they built this street? And that's something that... this council, I probably will not be here at that time, but my point is that they don't want to face that issue when it comes around. It's better to be ahead of the game than behind the curve, as they say. so I think we're all it's a great concern that we're looking at making this as as easy as possible for our citizens and I think everybody's talking about may option three which I agree is the easiest one to implement still meeting our goals that to me having the secondary clarifier is really really important because if that first clarifier fails and we've done a lot of improvements and so forth with that particular clarifier. However, people do not want to see sewer in their houses or in the river and that would be an environmental disaster and we would literally be underwater there.

It's already happened. Yeah.

So anyway, we need to make some difficult decisions, and we've been called for this time to do that. And so I think we've heard from the public, we've heard from council, and any further questions? Pat, do you have anything? no so right now I think we need to hear what I believe what option we have and I think we've clarified that option one two is now one and option three is option two and option four is option three am I correct so we need to counsel what would you like to make a motion on

Yeah, this is really direction.

No direction, okay. Council, do we have a recommendation? I would say myself, well, no, I need to hear from you. Anybody make a recommendation?

I'm sorry, what's your recommendation?

For myself, option three, because I think we've reached a consensus that it would be easier on our citizens and we would still meet our goal of reaching the necessary funding for our grant that the state requires. Am I correct?

So option three on the water rate, scenario three of the water rates. OK. Yeah, that was my question.

We're talking about water now? Yeah. Because now, yeah.

So I think maybe a clean way to address it is which scenario for water and sewer, if those are acceptable each, that's then that would be option one if You don't like any of the scenarios for water or sewer and you want us to look at a different scenario That would be option two or option three is not do anything and we make significant cuts citywide Okay

With option three for the water, is half capital improvement capital, is that going to be enough? Are we going to be okay?

We will be okay because we do have some cash reserves. We will be looking at the four-year, five-year of what that looks like. Water may go up a little bit more than sewer in the following five-year cycle to be able to recover and get back up to those capital, but we could be okay with the $5 million reserve we have right now.

I mean, these are big increases, no doubt. But I mean, if I'm reading this right, and I wrote down so many things. So slide number 26, the difference between the high options and the low options, even though it's a huge increase, no doubt, basically comes out to $18 a month difference for the average customer, either $127 or $145 for the average bill. For that first year, yes.

the first yeah yeah and then it it lowers the following years um it studies out but we have that difference is the capital funding and getting us to our debt threshold that first year and our first is just breaking even

Okay, so we're looking at what, option one and two, is that correct? Robin?

Okay, so let me just, all right. Just off the top of my head, it sounds like maybe option three on the water, but option one on the sewer, because it sounds like the difference between option one and option three on the sewer is less drastic in those differences, and the sewer is in a lot more drastic position. Correct. There were a lot of meetings and we stepped back multiple times.

I'm sorry I know it's a lot.

You really have presented it pretty clearly and narrowed it down pretty darn well so thank you for all those meetings.

option three in water or scenario three in water was not a scenario originally and staff asked to bring something back that was a little more palatable to accommodate for sewer so what are we doing so option two and sewer wasn't that fairly close to option one

But the option two is all involved debt. Do we want to do that? No. That's kind of my inclination. I kind of just ruled out the option twos to be honest with you because of the debt.

Yeah, I don't want any debt.

I agree. Unless somebody sets me straight. That's just kind of my own opinion.

Right now I'm working with other districts that are taking out loans and the interest rate is not great and we don't know where that's gonna be in three years either. So that's a risk when we're looking at the debt side too.

I agree.

and in terms of the water clarifier in our capacity that also plays a huge role in potential economic development and any additional infrastructure we would add to that system so in the next five years if we want anything of substantial amount that would require water treatment wastewater treatment wastewater treatment we need the second clarifier in order to even come in yeah yes

It's for that, what you just illustrated, but it's also for redundancy of the system.

Correct. For our current users. This is focused on the current users. Any new developments, I just want to set this clear, they will be paying development impact fees that will help negate their portion of the impact on the system. They pay into that and that's how our development impact fees are calculated and how they work through and we're also working with Sophia and her team on those development impact fees for future meetings. those those are for development not our existing users so so what is your recommendation three in one scenario three scenario one i

I'm inclined to three on both. I know that they were desperate, but I can't help but think of the consumer. I like option three on both.

Chris?

Pat, what was your scenario?

Even after listening to all this stuff, don't consider me an expert because this is still. My first recommendation was three and one as well, three and one. I kind of like that recommendation.

So scenario three for water and scenario one for sewer.

Yes, that's what I heard. Is that what you said, Mark? Okay.

We'll just go with that.

All right. Well, I mean, three and three is. we're looking at option one scenario

Scenario three and sewer would still put us okay with that grant?

The grant is not, yes. Scenario three would still put us okay with the grant for sewer. On the second year, right? On this.

It has to be before end this year.

The thing is, if we're showing that these are the rates we're proposing, I think we're okay. So correct me if I'm wrong on that, Sophia. I think we're fine.

Yes. If that's the case, then I think option three on both of them would be the safest economic route, in my opinion.

Least impactful to the customer at this point in time. Still providing some capital improvements.

And it still gives us enough funding for the clarifier?

It's a grant.

I mean, the grant?

Well, it'll put us in the debt cabinets for the grant application.

And, of course, we're hoping for grants to come in over the next five years and readjustment for the following five years. Absolutely.

So are you changing to three and three?

We're changing to three and three. Pat?

You talked me into it, Cassie.

Well, looking at option three versus comparing one and three on the sewer, even though what I was comparing was an $18 difference in year one, that gets more drastic if we choose option one for the sewer. That becomes more drastic because I'm looking at five years. Option one would have somebody's just sewer being $131 versus $106. Slide 23. Yep, correct. All right. And if it'll make us okay, I'm good with three and three. I think I'm good with three and three.

So we've got three, three, and three. So Chris, anything you want to add?

Listen, I mean, listen, I like all your wisdom, so give me wisdom. I mean, Chris, Cassie, Mark, I like all your wisdom. I'm good. I think I'm good with three and three. All right. It'll be the most powerful.

We'll go with three and three.

So the direction is for scenario three for water and scenario three for sewer.

And bring those back for approval and starting the process at the next meeting. Okay.

Okay. Correct.

Okay.

very good thank you we have a good team here no thank you for those options that was really obviously very well thought through very thorough very informative appreciate it very good all right we'll go to number 15 which is a resolution of city council of the city of red bluff confirming an emergency that required immediate repair of the sewer main located behind the thai house restaurant 248 south main street scott miller

Thank you, Ronald Mayer and members of city council. I didn't get enough fill of as far as sewer and water. Here's another one here. Unfortunately, this one was kind of planned, but planned a little bit longer down the road. And unfortunately, we did have a blockage on June 29th. During our routine maintenance check, we noticed that one of our manholes had been backing up. We pumped that down and then started our standard rotting procedure. During that rotting procedure, that rod did get snapped off and was unrecoverable in that sewer main. We enlisted the help of are in our horn contracting that's doing a nearby project for us because they had emergency equipment there just a couple blocks away low mobilization to try to help sell recover that and restore those for restore those flows unfortunately as we're in the process of getting that that line goes underneath an existing structure of a local business in town and as we're approaching that structure and the deep line, we encountered a lot of unstable soils. We were getting some cave-ins, and we didn't want to compromise the integrity of that existing structure. We stopped at that point to regroup to try to find a little bit more better engineering methods to either repair or address that. We listed as far as called in the city engineer for that. We're looking at different measures to that. But because of the project, we're still at this point having city crews every single day, including the weekends, have to pump out that line because that line is still blocked off. we still have an emergency situation for that. As we're pursuing to get some more solutions in mind, still want to keep that as far as resolution set as far as an emergency moving forward with that. I know I kind of rambled a little bit, but I can hopefully answer any questions. I know a couple of you have either been to the site or we've had discussions on that and available for any questions.

Thank you, Scott. Questions, counsel, for Scott?

Is it just a shoring issue right now?

What's impacted? Yeah, right now we have four connections that are impacted on that, which is Kevin's Donuts, a couple of the Mexican restaurants, and the Thai House. So far, those are the only structures that are impacted. Looks like we may have a little bit with the hotel that goes underneath. What we thought was cleared line may not be the case. We had some new information show up yesterday. We're going to be looking at that more tomorrow. As of right now, because the line is so deep, there is a lot of storage capabilities which minimizes any sort of chance as far as impact and backing up into those structures. As of each time that they've gone out to pump it, it's still been well below the levels, but they check it periodically throughout the day and then Definitely go in right about three o'clock in the afternoon and pop that down So we have the maximum storage overnight should they have additional water sewage concerns Open up their public for questions Hello

I'm a little, I guess, ignorant on how things work.

The lady submitted a proposal to have the street painted red. That's not the issue right now, sir. Oh, I'm sorry. No, that's OK. That was for consideration and public comment. Thank you, though. Appreciate that. Anyone else? Nope. all right counseling for the questions all right so we have uh it's recommended council action number one adopt resolution uh 19-2026 and declare emergency uh regarding the obstructed sewer main behind the thai restaurant 248 south main street The need for immediate repair, number two, authorize a project-specific supplemental appropriation fund, 4744-760220-0102, wastewater collections, capital outlay, sewer line repair replacement to the amount of $27,863.70. Do we have a motion for that as read?

I motion.

Motion made by Mark Clement. Second?

to keep Kevin's Donuts operating, I'll second.

You want to keep this sweet, huh? Motion to second, second by Pat Hurton. Anita, please take the roll.

Councilmember Polk? Yes. Councilmember Hurton? Yes. Councilmember Deiters? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Clement? Yes. Mayor Gonzales?

Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, council. So we'll get on to the last item on the agenda, number 16, resolution of the city council, the city of Red Bluff. Number one, calling for an election on ballot measure to ask voters of the city of Red Bluff, California, whether the offices of the city clerk and city treasurer shall be... Number two, requested that the Board of Supervisors of Tehama County to consolidate a municipal election on local measure with other elections to be held on November 3rd, 2026, consolidation election date. Number three, requested the Tehama County Board of Supervisors permit the Tama County elections official to render election services to the city and for approving the proposed measure. Recommendation is there. So council, do we have any questions?

Sophia is prepared to.

Sophia, go ahead.

It's exactly what you just said in all of those words. We did this a couple of meetings ago for the open council positions and asked to consolidate the election. This is the same process for the process of having the election of the clerk and the treasurer. move to appointed that the council directed us to put on the ballot. So it's the exact same process. We've got the language there for the measure. We just need to send it over to the elections and let that happen. Once it goes over there, you will have the option to submit an argument if you want to do so in favor of or opposing, which I would think you would do one in favor of because it's your measure. But, you know, and we go through the process there.

Thank you, Sophie. Any questions for Sophie from council on this? No.

Pat?

So we would be allowed to be in favor of it, I guess? I'm sorry, I'm just confused of when we can be in favor of something and when we can't, or when we have to just state the facts or something. But we could actually be in favor of this.

So in a municipal proposed measure such as this, we can do a argument in favor of. if you choose to do so. If the city council chooses to do so. You don't have to. If somebody else does in the community, another organization, whatever, it's just if you have, you kind of have first go at it. If you choose not to, then somebody else in the community can do it, or nobody can do them. And there's for and against, and then the election clerk goes through the whole process to pick which one they want to put in there. There's only one allowed of each.

Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? Council? Chris? I'll open it to the public for any questions from the public for Sophie. Anybody shaking their heads? No. All right. We have it. So.

You can do this all in one.

All right.

If you want.

All right. Let's do it all in one. Council, do we have a motion?

The motion would be to adopt resolution number 21-2026. Okay.

Thank you, Tom. Appreciate that. Also moved. So moved by Pat Hurton. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Cassie Pope. Any other please take the roll.

Council Member Pope. Yes. Council Member Hurton. Yes. Council Member Deiter.

This is the same process as the last time, no.

Mayor Pro Tem Clement. Yes. Mayor Gonzalez.

Yes. Motion passes 4-1.

Thank you, Council. Committee reports, council comments. Number one, Antelope Water Sewer District. No meeting. No meeting. Chamber of Commerce. As Tom stated, great markets, things coming up. And we had a great ribbon cutting at the amazing Grace home on Sherman Drive the other day. It was just a really, really nice time. Chris, we didn't have anything for the ad hoc, correct?

Yeah, we have it.

Okay. Community action, Chris?

All my meetings have been canceled, and this was one of them.

Okay. Downtown business? No, they're not. Executive committee, Tehama County Solid Waste Management Agency.

August 6th is what I wrote down. Our next meeting is scheduled for August 6th. Thank you, Pat.

Local LAFCO, we had no meeting. Tama County Community Center Commission.

August 20th.

August 20th. Tama County Air Pollution Review, no meeting. Chris, there was no meeting. On the next one, right?

The next one will be first or second week in August.

First or second week in August, okay. Tama County Solid Waste Management, Cassie.

Yes. We met on July 6th. That was our last meeting. I was there. We had a couple people who usually take notes who were not there. So bear with me because I'm not usually the note taker. There were two items on the agenda. It was pretty quick. It was a really short one. They went over the fiscal year 24-25 independent audit. The outcome was pretty good. Otherwise, it was pretty unremarkable other than the fact that they had one correction in regards to landfill liability and the classification of that on the budget. They did have a couple monthly updates. Per Christian, the Tehama County Solid Waste Management will have a booth at the Saturday Farmer's Market by the river on August 1st and August 8th. And then they're participating in the RebLuff, Library backpack giveaway that Tom mentioned earlier and that's on August 1st as well And then the next full board meeting is on October 5th Thank You Cassie Tama County Transportation Commission is scheduled to meet on July 27th Thank you additional council comments and other meetings attended I wanted to say thank you to Scott Miller for my extensive Public Works ride along. Bless his heart. I had the privilege of riding around with those guys all day. A couple last week, a week before last. And I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for all that you guys do. I did get to witness the whole Thai House thing firsthand. Yeah, we had a great day, but thank you for all that you guys do, and thank you guys for taking the time to ride around and show me all the things.

No, thank you. You had a lot of good questions regarding the systems of the city, so it was my pleasure. If you need a follow-up, just ask, as well as the offer is still available for everybody.

Yeah, I'm still interested. I realize I went on vacation, right, as you were emailing. You went on vacation, and I went on vacation, but I'm still interested.

Yep. All right. Any other council members have anything?

Did you say something, Chris? Oh, no, you didn't. Okay.

I just want to give everybody the opportunity. I've debated whether to share this or not, but I'm going to. That way everybody knows and that some people know and some people don't know. I've been diagnosed with cancer, but... I'm going to live. That's why I'm going to look at it. So don't look at me any differently, because I've been going through treatments. And if I can't handle my position, I will let you know. But I've already started. It's been one month. And I will go through another month and a half. And supposedly, I will live for another 10 years. According to my doctors and everybody that's on my team, If I hadn't doing what I'm doing, I would see Jesus in about six months. So I'm going to be here, I guess, for 10 years.

That way you can run again.

I'll run if you run, okay? So I just want everybody to know, and you don't hear it sporadically, and that way everybody knows. So thank you. It's a pleasure being on council. and it gets interesting up here after you've been through a treatment to do this, but I appreciate all the help, and council members know, and they kind of encourage me along, so thank you, council. Future items by consensus of council, and I, go ahead, Lucas.

What can we do to get there? Curb painted.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.

I would have to look at that with staff. I think there's a process that has to actually bring something, a resolution for approval to the council. Is that correct, Robin?

We need to look at the current laws and requirements. There's been some change in red curbs around returns and in that general area. So let's public staff.

So what I would suggest is let's just let staff look at it. We can reach out to Mrs. Morris if there's a potential option. If there's not an option through the means that Robin mentioned, then we would bring something back to the council at a future meeting.

Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you.

thank you i just i hopefully you didn't think it was rude of me to cut you off but yeah but i i knew we'd be brought up at this particular time so thank you perfect thank you we don't have a closed session tonight and so council i want to thank you we will adjourn our meeting at 8 21.