City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. Those of you who are here, after starting the closed session, we have no reportable action from the closed session. And we'll close the closed session now. We'll start the regular session now. So my fellow council, women have a lot of advice for me because this is my first time, so I appreciate that. Thank you.

You're doing great.

Okay. Call to order. We'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. First woman president, will you lead us?

I pledge allegiance

Okay, so we have Ms. Jen McCloskey, but she's not here for the invocation. Ms. Audet, would you lead us with an invocation, please? Sure.

Okay, well, please, by your heads, thank you, Lord, for bringing us all here safely. We thank you for the work that is before us. We pray for wisdom, guidance, and mercy on this city as we govern. So we ask also that you would be with everyone as they are racing to get out of work and vote this evening. We pray for all of those involved. May your peace cover all of us. Thank you and in your name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Roll call please.

Okay, we have Council Member Audette.

Here.

Vice Mayor DeNuka.

Present.

Council Member Munz.

Here.

Council Member Reznor. Present. And Mayor Lata is absent.

Thank you. So, public comments for non-agendized matters within the city's jurisdiction. Pursuant to the Brown Act, city council cannot take action on public comment items. The city council will allocate up to a maximum of three minutes per speaker for 30 minutes total at the beginning of the meeting for public comment for non-agendized matters within the city's jurisdiction. The mayor will determine the order of the speakers. If 30 minutes is not adequate to accommodate all of the individuals who have submitted their name through the electronic kiosk, the council will trail this item to the end of the open session agenda. The remaining speakers will address the city council at that time. And we do have public comments, right? So this is, where does this go? Okay, Mark Monroe, you're up. And Mr. Eddie McCluster, you'll be next.

Y'all can hear me? Hi, this is Mark Monroe again from Shasta Supermoto. We got some more challenges we need to get passed. We have provided the insurance that's been turned in. We have signed the agreement. But now we're having an issue with whose property is whose and who it belongs to and how we're going to control it. So we have a tower out there and they have a private vendor who's come in and he wants to use our tower. they actually went out and changed the locks on our tower and installed their locks so we couldn't get into it. It is in our contract that anything that is hard fixed to the ground is city property. Anything that is mobile or can be moved is our property. It's written in our contract that way. But the airport manager wants to take control of our asset, even though it's been sitting there for 40-something years. It's in the same spot. He deems, therefore, it is his, and he has control over it. That is not accurate. We also have this third party that he's invited out to let him rent the tractors next week and has brought in a mini excavator and is tearing up the front straightaway, and he's tore up the dirt section, which he said he would not do, which we have that in the email. But he's doing it anyway. I have video on my phone if you need to see it. When do we stop torturing us and just let us go back out to what we were doing? We have jumped through the hoop. We wrote a check for $22,000 for insurance. Everything we've done, we've tried not to complain, but him, meaning the airport manager, coming in and telling us he's going to take control of a piece of property that has been exclusively the cart people's control for many years. We're talking 47 years. They built it, they installed it, it's on blocks, it's not hard to fix to the ground, but he wants to take what's ours and let somebody else use it. We have PA systems, we have all kinds of camera, you name it, it's in there, computer stuff. We didn't give anyone authorization to do that. But they came out and unlocked it, or just broke our lock off and installed their own and said, they never told us about it. We went out there to do an inspection and we couldn't get in. So now we have our own lock on there again, But, guys, when does the city quit torturing us? We didn't do anything. We were uneven thought about until Tony got here, meaning the guy who rinsed the drag strip. 47 years, nobody bothered us. I've been out there for almost 13, almost 14 now. Nobody, we never got bothered. And now we're being micromanaged to death by the airport manager. Could someone please slow him down? Thank you.

I would ask you to get in touch with the Assistant City Manager to address this further. Eddie, you're up next. And to some of you who may not know Eddie McCluster, he has been a citizen of here for the Reading and long time activist, community builder, has respect of pretty much everyone in town.

Good evening, City Council. Good evening, members of the community.

Eddie, would you please bring it closer to your little bed? Oh, okay.

There we go. Okay, thank you, Dr. Nenuka, for allowing me the opportunity to speak on Juneteenth, the holiday day, which is federal. The federal holiday is Friday, June 19th. Juneteenth is the celebration of not being someone's property. Juneteenth is a celebration of the freedom of being enslaved. Juneteenth is freedom to live the American dream. You all should have a handout of the official red, white, and blue Juneteenth flag. For those in the audience who can see this far, it's a picture of the flag, red, white, and blue flag. The flag was created in 1997 and revised in 2000 from community input. The red symbolizes the bloodshed and the struggle from slavery and connection to the American flag colors. The white star, a five-point star represented the Texas Lone Star State, where Juneteenth was first celebrated. The Nova verse represents a new beginning. and the starburst is a new era. The blue symbolizes the blue sky at the beginning in reference to a clear, open future of opportunity. Juneteenth celebrated, was in 1865, which is 161 years old. When General Granger went to Galveston, Texas and announced the federal order, to the enslaved people that they were free. The federal order was the Emancipation Proclamation issued in 1863. It took two years for the word to get to the slaves that were in Galveston, Texas. The federal holiday was signed into law in June 17th, 2021. I personally have been celebrating Juneteenth for over 30 years in Reading. This is the third year that Juneteenth has been celebrated downtown Reading in what they call the public market area. It's in the cultural district, which is an appropriate place to have a celebration of freedom. Thank you.

Thank you, Eddie. Moving on to consent calendar. The consent calendar contains items considered routine and or which have been individually scrutinized by the city council members and are anticipated to require no further deliberation. If a member of the public wishes to address an item on the consent calendar, please enter your name in the electronic chaos located in the lobby before the consent calendar is considered. It shall be the prerogative of any council member before the consent calendar is acted upon to once, comment on an item, two, respond to any public comment, three, request the record reflect the abstention or nay item, nay vote on an item, or four, remove an item and place it on the regular portion of the agenda for delivery of a staff report and or extend discussion on deliberation. Having said that, we have the consent calendar for your review. Does any council person have any comment or wanna pull any item?

No, I don't have any comments or desire to pull, but I'll make a motion to accept.

I'll second.

All in favor?

Aye.

So it passes. Wow, I think Mike will be very envious of this.

He let me know that you've gotta really make sure you've got your jokes.

That I cannot compete with. So Mike is known as a fun guy.

Clown.

I wanted to say that. That should not reflect on the record, okay? The regular calendar. Reports and communication of departments, boards, and commissions and committees. So we have 9.5A, electrical utility. Consider authorization of issuance of electrical system refunding revenue bond series 2026 to refund the remaining running joint power financing authority electric system revenue bonds 2015 series A.

Please. Thank you, counsel. Joe Bowers, assistant electric director over the resources division. My pleasure to present to you a proposal to, in the municipal bond world, we call it our bond world, we call it refunding, for everybody else in the world it's called refinancing. So the summary here, the financial impact is we're proposing about $1.5 million of gross debt service savings at an interest cost of about 2.81% with zero years added to the life of the bonds. Just some background, in 2015, we issued the 2015 Series A bonds. It refunded or refinanced some bonds from 2005 and also took out new money for some projects in 2015. It was for the building acquisition at Avtec and also some capital improvements at the power plant. And now in 2026 here, what we're doing is every 10 years, municipal bonds can be called and they're priced to call, meaning that if you do not call them, you pay a higher interest rate on the remaining years. So these became callable in December. We started the process, they're priced to call, so we're proposing to call them today. If we did not do that, then we'd continue to pay higher interest costs. High-level overview here, there's about $23.75 million remaining with an average life of less than five years, the final majority in 2035, and an interest of 4.28. The proposal here is to issue a little bit actually less because we're going to, not to get too much into the mechanics of it, but we'll still have a 5% probably coupon rate, but the actual interest cost will drop down to 2.81%. Just three big things here. It's uniform savings across all years. We're not extending the debt. This is the fiscally responsible thing to do. We're not kicking the can down the road and taking 10 years and stretching it out 30. There's about 10 years left. We're gonna finance it for another 10 years, and we're gonna go with fixed rates, meaning we're not gonna have any exposure to variable rates. The legal framework, and these are the attachments in the document. There's an indenture, purchase contract, official statement, and continuing disclosure. These are totally standard across all municipal deals. The indenture is just a legal framework. The purchase contract is the underwriter, J.P. Morgan, actually purchases all the bonds and resells them. So there is actual purchase contract. They're underwriting and making sure that the transaction is complete. The official statement background has bios of all of you as council members in there, information about the city. And then the continuing disclosure agreement says how we will, every year for the life of the bonds, share our financial information with bondholders. Timeline to execution, so we're here tonight asking for approval to proceed. Shortly after this, I believe next week, we'll have a meeting with Fitch Ratings. We'll go through a presentation on this on our financials and get a rating for those bonds. We'll mail the official statement, which is the background on the electric system and the city later this month. And then in July, we'll price issue, and we say implement savings, but just close so that we're paying the lower interest costs. So the recommendation tonight would be to adopt the resolution to authorize us to refinance these bonds. Again, it's just capturing lower interest, keeps the same maturity, does not add any principle to our outstanding debt, and captures about $1.5 million in savings. So with that, I'll entertain any questions.

We have Doug Hillman, if you would please step up to the podium. Doug Hillman? No? Well, okay, we'll move on. Any questions from the council person? May I do this a little bit differently than we have done? How about if we go one by one, everyone has an opportunity to speak, and then we can go back.

Just hit the buttons and they speak.

Yeah, and then just to give everyone an opportunity.

Everybody has the opportunity.

Yeah, so, I'm sorry, do you have anything? No.

Okay. Nope. I'll make a motion that we approve

Second?

You know I'm going to say all in favor.

Everyone in second? No, who's second?

Oh, I thought you were seconding when you said second. Yes, I will second the motion that we adopt resolution following items one through four, as suggested in staff report.

Everyone in favor? Anyone opposed? Nope. So passes. Moving on to 9.12C. Great job, Joe. Thank you. 9.12c. So this is an item to consider report regarding impacts of Senate Bill SB 707 regarding updates to the Ralph M. Brown Act effectively, effected July 1st, 2026.

Yes, good evening, Honorable Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. Before you tonight is an informational report outlining several major updates to the Ralph M. Brown Act enacted under Senate Bill 707, which Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law in October of 2025. These changes represent the most significant... modernization of the Brown Act in decades, and agencies must comply with the new requirements by July 1st of 2026. The most significant changes in SB 707 will apply to an eligible legislative body, which is defined as any of the following. One, a city council of a city with a population of 30,000 or more. Two, a board of supervisors of a county or a city and county with a population of 30,000 or more. A city council of a city located in a county with a population of 600,000 or more. And or a board of directors of a large special district meeting certain thresholds based on boundary areas, population, number of employees, and or revenues. So we are considered, City of Reading is an eligible legislative body. Unlike earlier versions of the Brown Act, the new law now requires eligible legislative bodies to offer hybrid meetings. This means the public must be able to participate through a two-way phone or video platform unless the technology is not available at the meeting location or the meeting qualifies for an exemption, such as an off-site tour. On or before July 1st, 2026, an eligible legislative body must also approve in an open session a policy regarding disruption of the above mentioned services or platform and efforts to restore service. If a disruption prevents the public from attending a meeting, the body must take a recess and try to restore service for at least one hour or until telephonic or internet service is restored, whichever is earlier. Afterwards, it must adopt a finding by roll call vote confirming that good faith efforts were made to fix the issue and that resuming the meeting serves the public interest more than delaying it further. This is included in the resolution and policy that is before you tonight. Furthermore, this bill allows a legislative body or its presiding officer to also remove or limit participation from individuals engaging in disruptive behavior regardless of whether the individual is attending in person or via two-way audio-visual or telephonic services. We have contracted with the company Public Input to help manage the two-way audio telephonic services and expect to go live at the July 21st, 2026 council meeting. We will allow citizens who are appearing in person speak first, and then we'll hear from citizens participating remotely after. Some of this will be subject to change, of course, as we work through the process. There's always some hills to climb. This bill will now require eligible legislative bodies to take specific actions to encourage residents to participate in public meetings, including provide a system for electronically accepting and fulfilling requests for meeting agendas, have an accessible internet webpage dedicated to information concerning public meetings and how members of the public may participate, including a link to the page on the agency's homepage, and make reasonable efforts to invite groups that do not traditionally participate in public meetings to attend those meetings, such as providing outreach to media organizations serving non-English speaking communities or civic engagement organizations. The legislative body has broad discretion to implement these efforts. So eligible legislative bodies must also translate the agenda and instructions on how to participate in meetings into any language spoken jointly by 20% or more of an applicable population that also speaks English less than very well according to the American Community Survey. We don't have a language other than English in our community that meets this criteria. Provide reasonable, eligible legislative bodies must also provide reasonable assistance to members of the public who wish to use personal interpreters, such as arranging space for interpreters and allowing extra time for interpretation. The new web page requirements for web pages dedicated to information concerning public meetings must be translated into any language spoken jointly by 20% or more of an applicable population that also speaks English less than very well according to the American Community Survey. Again, this doesn't pertain to us as our community doesn't meet this criteria. And eligible legislators must also make a physical location within reasonable proximity to the location where the agenda is posted freely accessible to the public so the public may post additional translations of that agenda. We have installed a public posting board with magnetic fixtures for opening, closing, for posting of any of these translated agendas. on the outside exterior wall of the chambers so anybody can post what they want. And then we have the ability to take down anything that's not appropriate or is not a translated agenda. Please note that some updates to the Brown Act under SB 707 became effective on January 1st, 2026, while those specifically applying to eligible legislative bodies will take effect on July 1st, 2026. Further, some provisions of SB 707 will expire on January 1st, 2030, unless later extended by the legislature. So the action before you tonight is to accept the informational report regarding the impacts of SB 707 relating to the Brown Act, and to adopt a resolution creating City Council Policy Number 223, Technology Disruption Policy, pursuant to the requirements of SB 707. I'm available for any questions or comments.

Thank you, Ms. Tipton. Do we have any public comment? Do we have any comment from the council?

No, but I'll make a motion that we authorize and approve items one and two as stated by staff at the dais.

Do we have a second?

I'll second it.

Before we all say aye, I just want to thank you, Charlene, because you are one silent pillar of our city council and city office, city staff. You always work silently and always keep us in order. So thank you so much for that.

Thank you. And I had three reports on tonight.

So aye. Everyone in favor?

Aye.

Nobody opposed? So passes. All right. Mike would be envious of this, for sure. Next, council travel reports.

None of us are traveling right now.

No travel reports. Item 12, suggestions from the council members relative to potential topics of future city council meetings. Anyone?

I mean, I would be interested to, again, if necessary, outline the council's wishes on what happens out at the airport property. So if that has to come back... to closed session or whatever, this is just becoming, yeah.

Absurd. We both agree with you.

So whatever that needs to be.

Can we bring this to the closed session, please, next time? Absolutely. Thank you. Good, thank you.

And then I also would like a date for when the Audit Committee and when the Finance Committee are actually gonna meet for the first time. because we've created these bodies, but I haven't gotten a single date on when they're going to actually meet.

Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Any plan? Do you have a date in mind already?

I have the dates right in front of me.

Within the next few weeks, few months, few years?

Within the next few council meetings, we should have the information to you to get those started.

Okay. I'm just trying to joke like Mike Littow. I know they'll fall flat.

You're doing an outstanding job.

Good luck. Okay. So if no other matter, then this meeting is adjourned. Thank you and vote.