City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, we are coming out of closed session. And out of closed session, we have no reportable action out of closed session. So we're going to close that meeting. And we're going to open our next meeting. We'll say if anyone wishes to address the City Council on any item considered at this meeting before or during the Council's consideration of that item, Please enter your name in the electronic kiosk located in the lobby. The City Council will allocate up to a maximum of three minutes per speaker for each agenda item. Staff reports are available online and also at the City's website and also in the public view binder located in the podium at the north side of the chambers. We're going to call this meeting to order. We're going to start with our Pledge of Allegiance and then after that will be our invocation by Mr. Singh from the Ski Center.

Thank you so much. Thoughts of inspiration from the Sikh religion. Let's all close our eyes, or one feels comfortable to connect with the almighty Lord when we all talk about our communities. Oh, great master of the universe, loving God, you have spread your powers in all four directions. You are our Lord and Master, and to you I offer this prayer. This body and soul all belongs to you. It's all your property. Oh, great Lord and Master, you are our mother and father, and we are your children. In your grace, there are so many joys. No one knows your limits. You are beyond limits. Oh, highest of the high God, Most generous Lord, the whole human creation is strong on your thread. That which has come from you under your command, you alone your state and extent. Your name brings prosperity and welfare of all mankind and provides spiritual energy. Remembering your name balances all five elements and synchronizes body, mind, and soul. Oh great Lord and Master, I offer this invocation. to shower the glance of your grace on our elected officials and guide through to make fair and equitable decisions for our citizens. May I offer this prayer, members of the public, law enforcement agencies, firefighters, medical teams, public health departments who carry a great burden on our behalf. May all be blessed. Under your name, I recognize the whole human race as one, amen.

Okay, we're gonna start with a roll call.

Council Member Audette? Here. Vice Mayor DeNuca?

Present.

Council Member Munz?

Here.

Council Member Reznor? Present. And Mayor Littal?

Here. We have a very busy meeting. Welcome to City Council. I trust all of you guys have read the whole 1,500 pages of our council packet today, come in here today. It's going to be a very eventful night. How fun. We do have a couple presentations as we start our meeting today. So we have a presentation by Danny from Visit Redding's Tourism Marketing Director. And he's gonna be providing a semiannual report regarding the tourism marketing and promotional efforts for the city of Redding. So where are you Danny?

There you are.

Sorry, awesome. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. I wanted to thank you guys for the opportunity to come up here and present today. In the last three quarters, so I have my notes here just to make sure, before I get into the nuts and bolts of the presentation, I wanted to briefly highlight an important step in the future of our local tourism industry. For the past two years, RTMG, also known as the Reading Tourism and Marketing Group, has supported Visit Reading's leisure tourism efforts through the funding of leisure marketing campaigns. We're now taking that partnership even further by aligning our work under one single public-facing tourism brand, Visit Reading. To share a little bit more about what that looks like in practice, I'd like to invite Jennifer Johnston, CEO of Reading Tourism Marketing Group, to say a few words. Sorry, I got so happy I forgot to go to the next slide. Or so nervous, one or the other. I don't know why you guys make me nervous.

I'm a little shorter. Hello, everyone. Like you said, I'm Jennifer Johnston from the Reading Tourism Marketing Group, and I'd like to update you on some exciting changes that we've made recently. Just in April, our Reading Tourism Marketing Group board approved a new strategy to further align our tourism efforts here locally behind the excellent destination marketing work that Visit Reading and the Chamber is already doing. We believe visitors, meeting planners, event organizers, and prospective residents are best served when they encounter one tourism brand, one website, one primary social media presence, rather than multiple organizations competing for attention. Our TMG will continue investing TBID funding into meetings, groups, events such as Iron Man, bringing those to our city, while also supporting and strengthening Visit Reading's leisure tourism marketing efforts. This approach allows both organizations to focus on strengths that we've had as far as groups and events for Reading Tourism Marketing Group and leisure marketing for Visit Reading, and to create a more coordinated, effective tourism strategy for Reading, excuse me. I'm grateful for my board's support of this new strategy and excited to work more closely with the Reading Chamber.

We've worked well in the past, especially after previous budget cuts. The goal is not to shift the responsibility, but to strengthen the system behind Visit Reading so that the city's investment has a greater impact, and we feel as if this will do so under the one brand. Awesome. Thank you. Perfect. So today, sorry. Today I'll be kind of covering a few different topics, but here's a little bit of a table of contents. You guys can read it. I can go through it if you'd like to, but I see the smiles. smiles is all that i need that's perfect um as you guys see here um this is our our last 10 year for um tot overall um what you'll notice and um i'm kicking myself i forgot to put it on there but 2018 and 2019 that was a result of the car fire so you see that bump up in that year and then you've been able to see that we're maintaining the growth that was sustained after um after covid In this next slide, you'll be able to see, this is our projection for the year. We still haven't got the latest TOT numbers, with June being our last month in this fiscal year. But we're projected to increase over last year and the year prior as well. So a good year for tourism overall. Across industry, we're seeing it is more towards that K-shaped economy, where you're seeing a lot more visitors going after luxury travel, and then a little bit less in the budget travel. For us, where we strive, of course, as you guys know, is the outdoor adventure and just our authentic community. To show a little bit about the partnership with Choose Reading, sorry, Reading Tourism and Marketing Group and Visit Reading, as well as Cool April Nights, I wanted to show you guys the next video. And this one will be released for a commercial coming up with Cool April Nights, but I can kind of show you guys a little bit of the work that we've been doing.

Cars have always been a big, big part of America. We started this car show in 1990, and there was a whooping 67 cars.

Now we're up to 2,600 cars, but it still has a hometown feeling. You get all the folks that come in from a lot of different areas.

This is my first year at Cool April Nights.

10 years we've been coming up here. I built this. I built that truck. I built that truck.

Awesome people, cool classic cars. This is my heaven.

It just is. It's ready.

For that piece, overall, we try to focus our energy on individuals and how those individuals relate to the car and that car culture overall. So how can we kind of build on that spirit? I don't know if you guys have felt the energy lately, but I've definitely felt it just around our city with the rodeo and with Cool April Nights. I feel like these past few years, it's been changing a little bit to just people looking into those authentic selves so like with some of the people that we chose for that we wanted to be mindful to invite more people in and so that's why we had people whether it's their first year or 10 years or been coming since the very beginning and excited to see that grow and also multiple events growing in the future to talk a little bit more about growth from our hotel data we've been able to see what we call is demand but it's also room to book of rooms booked so we saw an increase in rooms booked by three percent that um contributed to the revenue increase of 4.7 percent. And this is from July 1st all the way to April 30th. We did see an increase in supply, which is great that we're able to hold that supply and demand and that increased occupancy as well. The revenue generated so far from the hotels was $63 million. On this next slide, you'll see the short-term rentals data. So the revenue there is the $8.3 million, so it's a lot less. So we're seeing a little bit of decrease in or even maintaining flat in some of the short-term rental data we're noticing people are starting to shift back to hotels how we saw before covid so some people want that experience and others want to be in the hotel where it's a clean bed and you have a spa and those things overall so we're seeing a little bit of shift but we're just monitoring that market from the visitors spending standpoint we noticed an increase in card spend by 1.4 percent 3.7 more transactions overall. And then as you guys see, maintaining flat with the average spend per cardholder and then the average spend overall. Our website traffic, our website's kind of our baby. Overall, it's where we send everyone back to from an ad or social media or for them to find out more information outside of different publications or from social media. Overall, you'll see right around a half a million views with 388 key events and a typical user using right around two pages. We see a lot on our community events calendar, so that's why you'll see Redding up on the top looking for that information. You'll also see top markets with Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Jose, San Francisco, and then this was more an anomaly. That's why I put the top six on there. It just means that the location data is not on, so we can't track exactly where that individual came from, but there is a heavy amount of users on that category. Overall, our community calendar is something that we take a lot of pride in. We just transferred it over to a new system. So on here, you'll see February 1st. That was when that new system switched over. It's an app. It's called Cruncho. They've done things with the Olympics and other large credible events in the future we can even sell tickets if that's an option for us but what we're utilizing it for now is mostly showing online events and the things that jump out to me on here are the organizers there's over a 111 organizers just starting to submit their events so there's a lot of traction was organizers are anywhere from Waterworks Park, Cascade Theater, Viva Downtown, Cool April Nights, Reading Rodeo, Asphalt Cowboys, the list goes on, on all the different contributors to our event calendar. And we just love being that local source for people. Overall, our marketing mix, we haven't changed. We have an organic side and then a paid side. So organic is going to be those things that we're not paying for, such as the blogs, the newsletters, and print brochures. Like we're paying to acquire that consumer. Whereas paid, we continue to do our funnel approach. So you can kind of think about a funnel or a pizza, a slice of pizza. So like that crust is going to be the top of the funnel. Whereas that top of the funnel marketing is going to go into more of a meta or YouTube, things of that nature, whereas the very bottom would be more TripAdvisor, those who are in the niche markets. We've continued to utilize partnerships with Visit California, utilizing their newsletter with over 60,000 subscribers, and then also partnerships with Visit California on co-ops to make the money stretch even further, where you see some of the visual creatives that we work through them through TripAdvisor on that right side. What's great about TripAdvisor as a whole is you're going after that consumer at the right time in their visitor journey. So we understand, hey, they want to book a trip. Maybe they don't know where they want to go yet. But overall, we had a $31,000 investment, which contributed to... About a third of a million back in visitor spending, and then about $11 return on ad spend, which is great for us. You'll kind of see throughout, there was the impression piece, and then it actually goes down to how many visits were here. So from that campaign, which is great, it shows the A to Z. So there's over 1,100 trips and 1,600 visits. A total roommates booked from that not every platforms going to give you that accessibility, but that's what's great with trip advisors are able to see that cell phone that saw the ad and then watching them coming to destination we're still getting data because 90 days after post. Post campaign. We've also had multiple influencer partnerships. On the very far left one was a creator out of Chico. He did a FPV flight for Cool April Nights, and that viewership is over 1 million views with over 100,000 likes. So it went off from a viral perspective. Also done things with Outdoor Wise Living, where you can kind of see on the stats on the very bottom, as well as Vine and Vineyards. So we're hitting different target audiences and different individuals' tastes. Here's a brief snapshot of some of the larger publications that we've been able to land in this last year. Free Hub is a magazine that's highly focused on mountain bikers, which was great that utilized our photo and our quote. Sunset Magazine, as you guys have heard of, USA Today, and then also The Travel. Things that are coming up next, I'm really excited, especially with that partnership with RTMG. We've been able to help create marketing assets for Ironman coming up in August. So we're able to, on the right side, show a little teaser about some of the welcome video coming up this August, as well as some advertising for this year, as well as next year and years to come. And then here was just a quick small snapshot of what's expected. Currently, right now, it seems like we're right around the 1,500 Mark, so that's great to hear, and we still have time before the big event. So really excited to partner. And I've got the privilege to check out other Ironmans around, so getting firsthand marketing insight to make sure it's successful here as well has been really cool to visit with the team. That is what I have for my presentation today, but more than happy to answer any questions you guys may have for me.

Are there any questions for Danny? Oh, thank you.

No problem.

Thank you, Danny.

Awesome, thank you guys.

Thank you, Danny. All right, our next presentation is by John Truitt from Viva Downtown, Reading Executive Director regarding the unique overlap of the officially designated Main Street District, California Cultural District, and the City of Reading Entertainment Zone. Hi, John.

Good evening. Thanks for having me. I'm John Truitt, Executive Director from Viva Downtown, and I'm here to talk about three districts that we have going on in our downtown that are creating some amazing opportunities. We've been accredited again for the 12th year in a row as an official designated Main Street organization. We also have a designation from the California Arts Council as a designated cultural district, and the city has... put in an entertainment zone, which I understand you'll hear a little bit more about tonight. My graphics are not nearly as fascinating or interesting as Danny's are, but they do the job. That's downtown Redding right there. You can see the railroad tracks going on a little bit of a curve. We occupy about 16 blocks. Like I said, we're a Main Street America designated district, a California cultural district, and a downtown Redding entertainment zone. So what exactly does that mean? Well, an accredited Main Street organization is nationally recognized economic and community development model that helps strengthen downtowns through coordinated work in four areas. Those areas are economic vitality, so we do things that support businesses, investment and district growth. We concentrate on design, improving spaces and district appearance. We also concentrate on promotion, building activity, identity, and visitation. And importantly, we also concentrate on organization. That is, the work that's not so obvious, that doesn't look really great in pictures, but it's coordinating partners, volunteers, and projects, holding a lot of meetings, talking with a lot of people, being on the phone, answering a lot of emails. That's important work, as I'm sure all y'all know. Viva Downtown serves as the coordinating organization that helps align partners, projects, and investment within the district. Now California Cultural District, that's a little bit of a different engine, okay? This is state designation from the California Arts Council that recognizes communities that have significant cultural assets and creative activities. We were one of the 14 original districts designated across the state about six years ago. The whole idea is to strengthen arts and creative economy, support tourism and place identity, and to encourage partnership and investment. Redding's Cultural District positions our downtown as a regional creative center. And if you've been downtown over the past couple of years, you've probably noticed that there's just more and more and more arts and culture groups and activities happening in downtown Redding. It's not by accident. It's because we have this designation. Now the entertainment zone, I'm gonna let the folks from the city explain that a little bit more to you later tonight, but the entertainment zone is a city policy tool designed to support walkability, hospitality, and business activity. So we encourage people to explore on foot, We encourage them to support restaurants and venues, and also the idea of the entertainment zone is with the walkability and being able to go inside and outside, it extends the customer activity downtown. So the entertainment zone was designed to support a more active, walkable, and economically connected downtown experience. So what each district contributes is Main Street, that's the coordination and implementation. And I want to thank Council Member Reznor and Mayor LaTaw. You've been good representatives to the district. You've gone to downtown business groups. You've been at our downtown collaboratives. Thank you, Erin, for attending our recognition, which was held just a little while ago. So thanks for showing up and appreciating the people that do great things in downtown. Our cultural district, that's about identity and creative economy. And our entertainment zone, it's all about activation and hospitality economy. So why does the combination matter? Together, these frameworks create the conditions that support investment, activity, and visitation, along with community life. So each designation is a different tool. The three districts actually reinforce one another. They're shared partnerships and improved efficiency. There's public and private investment that can become more effective. And so this combination makes downtown Redding one of California's more strategically positioned downtown districts for coordinated cultural, civic, and economic development. And I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I'm pretty sure, pretty sure, like 99.9% sure, that downtown Redding is the only place that has all three designations, has a Main Street designation and a California cultural district and an entertainment zone. So this represents some great opportunities for us. So what does this look like in practice? Well, what it looks like is First Fridays. If you've had a chance to come to the past First Fridays, you can see there's just an amazing amount of activity that's going on during First Fridays in downtown Reading. Cultural district programs, like I said, arts and culture is thriving. Entertainment zone activation, I've seen a lot of people enjoying the entertainment zone. Some of our coordination examples, like I said, with that organizing, it's very important. We have our downtown collaborative. That's all about placemaking and multiple uses. We've got our downtown business group, which is about business and city collaboration. I want to thank you folks that work with the city, attending downtown business groups, talking to people, making sure that everybody knows what's going on. The whole idea of all these different districts and all these meetings is to reduce friction, and it's doing a good job. We've got Partner and Community Groups Initiative, we've got Juneteenth and Pride coming up this weekend, and Work Plan Integration. So the districts provide structure while remaining adaptable to future opportunities. So we've got our Main Street, we've got our Cultural District, and we've got our Downtown Entertainment Zone. And these districts are, they're not really three versions of the same thing, they're solving different problems. Main Street organizes and supports implementation, it gets people together, it gets people talking. The Cultural District creates identity in a creative economy And the entertainment zone supports activity and hospitality. So what are the opportunities ahead? We want to strengthen coordination with all the different groups and also new groups and interested parties that are moving into downtown. We want to build on existing investment. Some great public investment has happened in downtown Reading, as you know. We've got great sidewalk streets. We've got a new park. We've got a stage. We've got all kinds of great things that we're using. We want to expand cultural activity. We want to encourage walkability and hospitality. And we want to continue improving our downtown experience. And if you're interested, I know that you showed 1,500 pages of reading, but if you'd like to see our Main Street work plan, you can go onto our website, vivadowntownreading.org, and take a look at what we've got planned for 2026. It's a pretty good work plan. And one of the people that put together the work plan, Blake Fisher, is our Main Street coordinator over there. Did you know that Blake is also the state president of the California Main Street Association? So we've got kind of a big deal in the room right now. Want to thank our 2026 partners. We work with a lot of different organizations and a lot of different organizations are coming together to make a great downtown. So we want to thank all of those. Each group brings a great set of talents and a great set of individuals that really are making our downtown a fantastic place. Any questions?

You did such a good job explaining things. Maybe we don't have any questions. Well, thank you.

I don't have a question. I just have a comment. I think as someone who grew up here, I've seen a lot of iterations of downtown. And I think that some people think that that's an overnight sort of success. And it really has taken decades worth of collaboration. And a plan only works if you work the plant. And I just want to say thank you so much for continuing to just carry that torch because I think that it's really paying off. And I think that young people and families and businesses are really excited about just the synergy that's happening in downtown. So thank you for your efforts.

That's the whole idea. Thank you. Thank you, John. I do want to acknowledge Blake Fisher. One time I saw them and the party was over late evening. He was still cleaning up the place and I was very impressed with that.

That's great.

Because that's rare, you know.

Just a real president.

Thank you.

John, thank you very much. All right, that was a lot of fun, very informative. We'll move on to public comment. It's for non-agendized matters within the city's jurisdiction. Pursuant to the Brown Act, City Council cannot take action on public common 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. We do have more speakers than time would allow today. So if you don't hear your name called today, we'll invite you to stay to the end of the meeting and make sure your comments are heard. So we're going to start with David. Are you out there, David? There you are. And then after David, we'll go to Caroline. And if you hear your name, you can line up on the side of the wall just so we keep things moving. And then after Caroline, we'll have Judy.

good evening mayor city council thank you for having me uh david mung local government affairs for pg e and i just wanted to stop by today to tell you uh about something that my team local government affairs has been working on it's a new coalition uh the wildfire victims first coalition uh it is what it sounds like to help wildfire victims first so it's kind of stands on uh three main pillars main priorities uh the first one is to prevent wildfires and protects people from wildfires. What that looks like would be better coordination throughout the state, requirements for land management and land mitigation, holding utilities responsible for their part. PG&E has made a lot of changes in the last few years in vegetation management, undergrounding a lot of new technologies to make our infrastructure safer. We exceed those requirements. That is not the same across the whole state. So making clear requirements for utilities in what protection looks like and then clearer incentives for landowners as well for maintaining their private property. So that would be the first pillar. Second one is one that we're no stranger to up here in Northern California, but improvements to our insurance system, making sure that insurance is available and affordable for all people. We've been relying on the Fair Plan for too long, so we want to see steps toward making a plan to improve our insurance availability and affordability. And then the third pillar for the coalition is making sure that wildfire victims are paid first, paid fast, and paid fairly. So putting protections around those claims, making the claim system simpler, but also making sure that third parties and lawyers can't come in and take their piece of the pie before victims get the funds that they need. so those are the three main pillars that it stands on uh right now there the website is up it's wildfirevictimsfirst.com we appreciate all and any support that we can get you can see a list on there of the organizations and government officials who have joined so far and we would very much appreciate any support from you all as well there's a join link on there to add your name to the list it is uh not language yet per se for any legislation but this is the first step in making sure that these pillars are addressed in legislation coming up in uh this session for this summer so again i'm your representative so always available to meet answer any questions feel free to call or reach out uh if you want to know anything more about it but thank you so much for your time okay thank you david all right caroline if you're out there there you are and then judy if you're here if you can line up so we keep the

Hi, thank you so much for hearing our public comments today. I really appreciate it. My name is Caroline Hickson, and I'm here to speak on the lease agreement between the city and the county at 7251 East Side Road. I personally do not live in that neighborhood. However, my husband grew up in that neighborhood, and now four generations of his family have lived there and still live there. His grandfather built one of the first houses in that neighborhood. So to hear that there is this lease agreement and the projects that are proposed on this land are very concerning. When I think about the projects that are being proposed there, I think back to my childhood. I'm not from here. I'm from Concord, California, way down south where our city manager worked. Hello. And I think about the childhood I have and that I don't wish that on another child because I grew up in a neighborhood that had rehabilitation programs in the neighborhood. i didn't play on the street i didn't know my neighbor excuse me i didn't know the neighborhood kids i watched every passing car and every person because i didn't know who they were or why they were there people are looking around i'm sorry if i'm if i may um mayor members of the council just to point a clarification for others in the audience who might be wanting to speak to this item as well this is on your consent calendar for consideration um tonight

It's not a non-agendized item, but I'd leave it to the council's discretion of when you wanna receive this information.

It would appear that she's just opposing the project as a whole, and that's not necessarily, the grazing is on the agenda. So maybe she can, is she allowed to just oppose it? Up to the council's discretion.

I mean, we'll let you finish. You're just here for a public comment.

Thank you so much, but I noticed my time was going. I'll try to talk fast, but am I okay?

You're okay, we'll let you go. Thank you so much.

Okay, I'll try to hurry.

Take your time.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

I didn't know the neighborhood because I didn't grow up playing on the street. I watched every car in person that passed by because the neighborhood wasn't safe. There was a halfway house around the corner. I grew up with an alarm system where I had to memorize the code at a very young age, and our alarm system was so elaborate that if somebody sliced a window screen, it went off. A window screen. That's how worried we were about safety. I do not wish that on the children of this neighborhood. This project, I know it hasn't been officially announced on anyone's agenda items. It was for a minute, and then it was redacted at the last second, but everyone knows what it is. It's being piecemealed through the various boards. It's been done in closed sessions, the lease agreement, and that hindered the public's knowledge of the full scope. and the opportunity for public to speak on it because we didn't know everything that was going on until it was too late. So on the agenda tonight is the grazing, but I'm asking you to take it a step further, and many other people are, and revoke the entire lease. It is not right. It is a well-established neighborhood. There are better places that are just being brushed over and nobody's explaining why. We're not using any other spot. Why this spot? Why next to this neighborhood? Why are you imposing this childhood that I had that was not safe on children of Reading. Thank you for your time, I appreciate it.

Thank you Carolyn. If we hold the applause, it'll help us save time as we only have 30 minutes, but we'll let Judy go and then Judy, after Judy will be Sabrina and then Tyler. So, hi Judy.

Hi, thank you.

I wasn't sure how many Judy's were here.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I guess I'm the only one that signed up. Yeah, I live on. Well, my husband and I and our pets live on River Crest Drive in the River Ranch neighborhood. We're here for now. And the reason we came is because of the wonderful river and fly fishing. We're very, very supportive, interested, involved in fly fishing. And also the wonderful wildlife. So I'm here to address the item 4.2 a the parcel for the jail complex. It's just really bad. It's bad because of the wildlife and environment.

Are you here on item 4.2? A We do have public comment just for anything non-agendized. If anybody is here speaking about a consent item, we prefer that. Wait until the consent item and then you can use your public comment.

Okay, well then just ignore that last statement. And let's carry on. I don't know the rules.

No, I'm going to let you finish. But for anybody else out there, if you're here for a consent item.

I'm not finished.

And I'm going to let you finish.

Thank you. You're welcome. So this parcel... for the jail complex is a really bad idea because of the wildlife and the environment, and also that we have a really established neighborhood of elderly people and kids. And it's not going to be safe if something is so close to the neighborhood. So my plea to the council would be a dramatic action of cancel the lease and just and this whole issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Judy. All right, Sabrina, hi. And Sabrina, I don't think you're here for a consent item. You're here for a film, okay.

Good evening. Mayor, council members, staff, and community, thank you for allowing me a moment tonight to speak on a very full agenda. After nearly 10 years serving as your film commissioner, I wanted to personally share that I am leaving the position with Film Shasta under the Upstate California Film Commission umbrella at the end of this month. Since I accepted this position in 2016, together we have helped grow film production in our region, strengthened relationships with the entertainment industry, and showcased our community to audiences around the world. We've hosted 426 productions, reporting over $18 million in local economic impact, returning $9 to $14 back to our community for every dollar that's been invested in the program. The support of our community members has helped create a reputation, a professionalism, hospitality, and collaborative spirit for filmmakers. I want to express my sincere gratitude to each of you for believing in the value of this work. Economic development through film production is unique because it not only brings direct spending to our community, but also showcases our region as a place where creativity, business, and community can thrive together. As I transition into a new role with the film liaisons in California statewide, helping promote California as a whole to the film industry, I remain incredibly passionate about the future of filming in our region. And I encourage the city to continue supporting film-friendly initiatives and the local film office efforts. I'm also excited to introduce Tyler Lockamy, who will be stepping into the role of film liaison for Shasta County. Tyler is an accomplished local filmmaker with firsthand production experience, deep community connections, and a genuine passion for our region. I've worked closely with Tyler and have complete confidence in his ability to continue serving filmmakers and strengthening the film industry locally. Thank you again for your support and for the trust that you've placed in me over the years. It's been one of the greatest privileges of my professional life to serve this community, and I look forward to seeing all that comes next.

All right.

Thank you, Sabrina. Thank you for all your contributions, Sabrina. We appreciate it.

Tyler. Good evening, Mayor Littall. Vice Mayor, Dr. Danuka, and members of the City Council. My name is Tyler Lockamy, and I'm honored to stand before you as the new film liaison for Film Shasta. First, I'd like to acknowledge Sabrina Juricich's work over the years, her dedication to building Film Shasta into a respected resource for filmmakers throughout California. She created a strong foundation, and I'm excited to continue that work. The transition has been smooth because promoting Shasta County through filmmaking is something I've already been doing for several years as a filmmaker and producer. I've spent much of my career showcasing the incredible locations and opportunities that exist right here in our region. I also bring a unique perspective to this role because I've experienced film Shasta from the filmmaker side of the table. As a producer, I helped bring the Dresden Sun, a feature film starring Christina Ricci, Steven Ogg, Meena Suvari, and Linus Roach to Shasta County. That experience showed me firsthand how valuable a film commission can be and the economic impact film productions have on local communities. Productions support hotels, restaurants, local vendors, tradespeople, actors, and crew members. While film is often viewed as an art form, it's also an industry, one that creates jobs, attracts visitors, and brings outside dollars into our local economy. communities that recognize filmmaking as a development tool, an economic development tool, often see the greatest returns. My goal is to continue building relationships, supporting local filmmakers, attracting outside productions, and helping more people discover what Shasta County has to offer. We have incredible locations, talented people, and tremendous opportunity. I look forward to working with all of you to continue growing filmmaking's impact in our community. Thank you for your time. All right. Welcome, Tyler. Thank you. Yep.

All right. I see three dualies. Are these the three boys in front? No? Okay. So we'll go A.J.

Dooley or... Let's try...

Let's go? All right. I'm A.J. Dooley. I'm a father. I'm a veteran. I'm a resident of River Ranch neighborhood, and I'm a pastor at Shasta Reform Church. Mostly motivated to speak here by the jail, but just some items in general. Romans 13 says, let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinances of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same, for he is God's minister to you for good. I believe in submission to authority, those in authority just like yourself, because God tells me to and because it's him who has placed you in that seat. But that is under the understanding that you protect me, my loved ones, and all law-abiding citizens in your jurisdiction by bringing fear upon the evildoer. It is to that end that the authorities of our nation have failed. This cowardly unwillingness to call evil out, to punish it as such, all for the sake of sinful empathy and monetary profit, has led to an increase in crime and the need for facilities such as this jail, where criminals are being welcomed in to set up shop next to homeschooling mothers and children's playplaces. Further, I've spent time in the Middle East. I've seen firsthand how this same cowardice not only encourages the weak and the evil to behave the way they do, to rob, to cheat, to steal, to parade sexual degeneracy in the streets, but also invites those who wish to end the American way of life, those whom I fought overseas, to waltz in and carry out their evil agenda right here in our homeland. If you think what you see happening in New York, Los Angeles, and other metropolises across the country is not coming to Reading, just continue to bend the knee and bow for pagan gods and glorify what the God of the Bible calls evil rather than bend the knee to Yahweh himself. I'll leave you with God's response to the nations who plot against him. Psalm 2. Now, therefore, be wise, O kings. Be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish in the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in him. That's all I have.

All right. Thank you. Kim, are you here, Kim Moore? Yeah.

The other point, we need someone to speak.

There's a lot of them.

There's five.

Good evening, council members, city employees. And I'd like to apologize to the community because this was something I wanted to bring up at the housing authority meeting to get it on the record. And when I arrived this evening, I learned that the housing authority meeting had been canceled. On the other hand, I thank God that there's so many important people in this room right now because I'm banking on the Holy Spirit. It needs to be on the record that Northern Raleigh Catholic Social Services is still failing at the Woodlands. They fail to handle the contracts properly, to abide by what's written in our leases. My biggest concern right now isn't just mold remediation that was completed by our on-site maintenance person versus using a professional to do it properly. I appreciate that our maintenance man was willing to go in there and do that job. At the same time, I don't think that he should have been subjected to it. There's Woodlands Phase 1 and Woodlands Phase 2. And in the government funding contracts, they stated that they were going to have on-site management 24-7. seven days a week. We haven't had a manager in Woodlands 2 for over a year. So all of the management responsibilities for both Phase 1 and Phase 2 74 units are placed on the new manager of Phase 1. And our tenants love her. This is the first manager, well, kind of second, but really the first one who's really shown us and earned our trust how much she really cares about the community and what her actions bring into our community. And I want to get it on the record that I believe that she's intentionally being sabotaged and that they're setting her up for failure and that they're going to fire her. I believe that with my full heart, and that's why I want that on the record. But more importantly... is that in the B4 section of Woodlands 1, there is a massive cockroach infestation. It's worse than the movie Joe's Apartment. And for whatever reason, as I've stated on the record before, that because it's Northern Valley Catholic Social Services, they get a free pass from HUD. When I went to HUD about the issues with the severe mold, it was shaken away. When we've got a three-bedroom apartment that has six children and three big dogs that are being handled by children and these dogs are... pooping all over in the landscape and then someone like me who's cleaning up that landscape asked them to go follow the rules and go across the street and use dog bags. Now I'm being intimidated and this is a person who has a felony conviction and beat a murder charge. And I'm not the only senior woman he's gone after. He's told me I need to move and go to a senior home. He doesn't understand the Mental Health Services Act money that it took to build the woodlands and why it is mixed low income and mental health. Please, we need help. We need a team of people to sit down with pivotal tenants and discuss it. Thank you.

Thank you, Kim. Mark Monroe, David Ledger.

Hello, everyone. My name is Mark Monroe. I'm the president of Shasta Supermoto, and we were blessed by the board in the city management to receive our key back to our track, and we are elated to be there. We are doing our best to reach out to the community, which we're doing, and we're getting a lot of response. We are at this time faced with a little bit of a challenge. We are trying to get back and forth from our track which is at the end of the drag strip and it's about a mile long from our track to the gate. And there is no more clear path from one direction to the other. We used to have a fence on this side, a fence on this side, and just drove straight back. not sure what we're going to do or how to work it out i've been talking with the city manager or the airport managers we think we got a plan but i i just getting some pushback really hard from the present tenant out there and i don't know what to do so i'm here to ask we do have vehicles that are 43 feet long pulling an 18 foot trailer makes you 65 feet and they want us to do a gigantic horseshoe thing around what used to just go straight through. And we got locked in. I had eight members get locked in behind the gate and could not get out until someone came in to unlock it with the key. We used to have combination lock and we would share that with our members and everyone could get in and out. But that also brings up safety. We can't have a locked gate if there's an emergency out there, the ambulance or medics or whoever need to get to us. If we have a locked gate, it's unfortunate, but they would have to either cut the lock or stand out there until someone was coherent enough to go get them and open it up for them. Again, it's a mile there and a mile back. We need your guys' guidance on how you want to handle that, but everything else, We're happy. I just want to say thank you and all of your guys' attention on that, getting us back out there. And if you guys get bored, anybody, come on out and watch us. Thank you.

Thanks, Mark. We look forward to going out there and watching you and riding with you too. David, are you here? David, yeah. And David, are you here for consent or are you here for public comment? You're here for public comment or consent? Public. I think everybody's gonna get in, so.

Good evening, council members. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you tonight. I wanna commend Erin Reznor for being elected for the Board of Supervisors, or actually, congratulator. I think it's a really positive move for the county. And also, I don't come to these meetings often, but I always learn something good. And I know a lot about Viva Downtown Reading and what they're doing. They've got some great, hardworking people on their committees. But why I'm here today, I'm not talking about the grazing permit that you have on there. Just kind of how the whole process was handled as far as the leasing the land to the county. Apparently there wasn't much notice about it. I never heard about it until afterwards. And so, and then when there was a meeting for the Planning Commission, and they were supposed to approve or not approve whether, you know, they should recommend to you whether you should approve this. There was a public minutes that came, not minutes, but agenda that came out. And then just before the meeting, they changed it And they were to approve or recommend the approval of leasing the land to the county for a jail. And that specifically had to be a jail. And then when we come to the meeting, and so that's like skipping over CEQA issues. When you come to the meeting before the meeting, in red, they've canceled out that it's going to be a project. they put up there that they're just going to lease the city is going to lease this property to the county for un kind of basically unknown reasons and so that's evading sequel you're changing the first lease agreement that was done in september so um i'm just was kind of surprised to see that because I've never seen that at a city meeting where the basic thing they're going to talk about is whether the city should go through with this lease of land and then eventual sale. And it seems to be piecemealing the project and evading CEQA. But that's all I have to say on that. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, David. Matt Montgomery, you're here. After Matt, Nick Gardner, if you're here. So if you can head your way.

I'm going to apologize in advance. Public speaking is not something I do often, but I was asked to do this on behalf of my community. Good evening, council members and mayor. My name is Matt Goring, and I live in the neighborhood south of Benton Air Park and Mercy Medical Center. Last Friday, my family was evacuated during the Linden Fire. Sorry. Sorry. My family was evacuated during the Linden Fire. We saw smoke before we got the watch duty alert. And even with the head start, the fire was close enough we only had a few minutes to gather what we could and leave. As ash fell in our yard and emergency personnel directed us to evacuate, I was convinced that our home was gone. The fire burned in the greenbelt behind our neighborhood and came dangerously close to the houses. After the fire, I walked through and found that the burn scar was three houses down from my house. That's pretty close. My wife wanted to be here with me tonight, but after watching how fast the fire moved, she no longer feels comfortable leaving our teenage sons home by themselves. First of all, I want to thank the Redding Fire Department, CAL FIRE, and all responding agencies. Our whole neighborhood is deeply grateful for every firefighter and first responder who stood between that fire and our homes. Because of their efforts, our neighborhood is still standing today. Many of us remember the Carr Fire. We watched it come off the mountains and we could see it. We had time to make decisions about what we were seeing. This wasn't like this. This wasn't like that. This was in our backyard. The Linden Fire happened less than a mile as the crow flies from where we are tonight. On one side of the green belt are neighborhoods like mine, and on the other side is Benton Air Park, Mercy Medical Center, and healthcare facilities that serve our community. I have no interest in blame or speculation of the cause. I'm actually just here to ask what comes next on behalf of my community. Who's responsible for managing vegetation and fuel loads in those greenbelt areas adjacent to the neighborhoods? What plans do we have in place to reduce the risk of wildfires in those highly congested areas? And how can residents work alongside the city and other agencies to help make our community safer? because I feel like we were fortunate this time the firefighters gave us that chance. I just hope that we can use this time that we have to prevent potential future incidents. Thank you for your time and thank you for your service to our community.

All right, thank you. Nick, you're up.

Mr. Tebow and Webb, I'd like you to pay attention to this. Probably 70 or 80 years ago, there was a ditch built called the Henderson Ditch. It starts about 100 yards west of Bocelli Lane and runs straight to the river. It drains probably 12,000, 14,000 acres, we'll call the Bocelli Basin. At the time that it was built, there was very little... Development along that and over the years it's built up to where there's probably less than 20% that isn't developed and that's because it's on a hillside and it can't be developed. The city. 100% of the water drains into that ditch is city water. And the ditch is overloaded. It's been overloaded for 20 or 30 years. This last big storm we had, when we had all the flooding and redding, It flooded out 12, 14 houses out of a small subdivision that's probably 25 houses. And it was negligence on the city because for years we have been trying to get them to shore up, to clean out, and make a bigger culvert area for this water to flow through, and they haven't done it. so now you've got the hillside plaza going in that's about the 400 block of hartnell and across the street there's another small development going in and all the runoff water from that is going to drain into this ditch This ditch is overgrown, it's a fire hazard, and there's a homeless camp in it right now. Periodically, I mean every two or three weeks, there are more homeless that move into it. And the police do a wonderful job of moving them on, but you just can't control it 100% of the time. When you approve something like the Hillside Plaza, it seems like you're being derelict in your duties if you don't at least clean out that ditch. It's overgrown. It looks like a jungle. And I just wanted to bring this to your attention because it's a liability to the city now, as far as I'm concerned. I understand there's a lawsuit coming from the people that got flooded. It was absolutely unnecessary. And it's been going on. The city's been aware of it for years. In fact, when Christian Schrader and Julie Winter were here, they neglected to clean it out, and they ruined my driveway by letting it get flooded. I had to threaten to bring in environmental services, California Water Control, before they'd finally clean it. insists Redding do its job. So I hope you people look into this and you're welcome to call me. I'll walk you through it and show it to you.

Thank you. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you, Mayor Littall.

Council Member Reznor.

I was just going to say I call this Nick Stitch. Nick, you brought this up years ago, right? You brought this up years and years ago and you said it was an issue for a very long time. And then I thought that eventually that the city came and said it was our issue and they cleaned it out. Did that not occur? I thought that you came and said thank you for that.

Excuse me. The thing is the county and city line feathers back and forth in it. Mm-hmm. And the city cleaned out their part, but they don't want to clean out the county's part. But the thing is, it's 100% city water. So why should the county clean out a problem that's created by the city?

Well, I'll talk to Public Works about it because he's new here since that issue.

Well, it needs to be addressed because there was major damage done this last storm. And this storm isn't unusual. We have a storm like that every three or four years.

Thanks for bringing it up, Nick. Thanks, Nick.

All right, we're out of time on public comment. If you didn't hear your name, you're welcome to stay to the end, and we'll call you up here. We're going to move to consent calendar. The consent calendar contains items considered routine and or which have been individually scrutinized by 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 kiosk located in the lobby before the consent calendar is considered. shall be the prerogative of any council member before the consent counter is acted upon to one, comment on an item, two, respond to any public comment on an item, three, request the record reflect an abstention or nay vote on an item, or four, remove an item and place it on the regular portion of the agenda for the delivery of a staff report and or an extended discussion or deliberation. We have numerous speakers today on consent. I'm gonna call your name if we can try to line up along the wall so that way we can keep moving things along. We have Kathy Milhouse, after Kathy Lewis, if you can make your way up there, Forrest, Seth, looks like Ivor, Kristen, that's Kristen Schrader, Christine Bagley, Michael Richard, Mike Michalik, And Kim Nelson, if you can all remember your order exactly like that. I do have two here without any names. So if you did not hear your name and you were planning on speaking on consent, you may want to go fix your card out there or add your name. All I see is 4.82. It's blank. And then I have another one that's blank with nothing on that. So if you really plan to speak, you're going to want to go fix that. Kathy, we'll start with you. Thank you.

Thank you. good evening my name is Kathy Milhouse and I'm a resident of the River Ranch community I am here tonight to speak on the inappropriate leasing of the parcel adjacent to our community with the purpose of building a 1200 bed jail and other facilities with absolutely no regard and for our community and no or very little notice or ability to speak or object. If you cannot understand an objection, please picture this. When you purchase your home, a parcel next to your home was in its natural state, wet line, homed birds, frogs, and other wonderful creatures, plant life and natural beauty. only to find out after it had been leased that the land would be used to build a 1,200 bed jail. If you cannot understand the inappropriateness and negative impact this would have on our community, I invite you to join me on a short walk with my dog, To the end of our street and back, please do not allow this. I am requesting that lease be canceled and the county find an appropriate parcel for this project. Thank you.

Mary, did you want to speak at all on the consent as far as just with our speakers here? Sure. Being relevant to the consent agenda items.

Mayor Littell, members of the city council, the item on your consent calendar this evening related to the lease with the county is rescission of the grazing amendment. The lease itself is not on the agenda, so up to the council's discretion on accepting comments that are outside of that. I would tell you that those are more comments that are not on the agenda. as to the previous speakers that spoke during items not on the agenda. So if speakers wish to speak on that, perhaps they can speak at the end of the agenda, but again, leave it to the council's discretion.

Okay. Yes. So just for clarification, what we're saying is on this consent item, 4.2 is specific to the grazing itself, not the lease itself or the extension of the lease, you should be here speaking about 4.2 on the grays in itself. Yes. Yes, so if it's not that, of course we have speakers that we can go to the very end of the meeting and speak after that. All right. So let's just keep it going. So is this Louis, is that right? Hi Louis.

Hello, my name is Lewis McDade. I live in the River Ranch neighborhood, and I would like to share my thoughts on the jail being built down the street from my house. First, I'd like to thank all the council members for taking the time to hear my thoughts. I know you all care deeply about the community and what is best for us. Erin Reznor, you have four children, and your campaign is based on public safety. Dr. Dunuka, you are a respected doctor and a friend of my dad, Seth Magaha. Mayor Mike, you believe in transparency. Tanessa, you say that you will win for us. And Mr. Munns, you have a record for fighting for justice. Now, please hear me out. I'm homeschooled and spend a lot of time outside. If a jail is built, I would not be able to have as much freedom and it would no longer be safe for me to do my regular projects that I enjoy so much. I have friends that live one house away that we spend a lot of time with, along with so many other things that I love about my home. Please choose another site for this all-male correctional campus and protect my future. at my childhood home. Thank you.

Good job. Thank you for being here.

Great job. That was very brave.

That was awesome. Forrest, are you here?

Hello, my name is force mcdade I am 10 years old and I would like to make it known that I do not want a jail built in my neighborhood I love the place I live in and I would like to live in as long as possible. This is my childhood home, the place I walk to the river to fish, the place I bike in the evenings, and the place I get to be around nature watching birds and wildlife. If a jail is built here, I am afraid we will have to move to a new house because I would not feel safe with a jail just around the corner. Do you care about the safety of me and many other people living here? Would you like it if someone more powerful than you decided to build a jail like this near your home? I hope you think about these questions and choose not to place a jail in this location. Thank you.

Very nice job. All right, Seth, right? Actually, yeah, there he goes. Oh, Seth, you could do it.

All right, I think I can do this. All right, hello. Yeah, the theme that you're hearing, I know this is about grazing. It's a really similar topic. You know, this kind of facility needs to be built in a non-residential area. I think anyone can agree that a jail belongs in a non-residential remote area. And this River Ranch Road property, it's not the right place. And I know that there's alternative places. The Clear Creek property has a lot of great options. I know that was on the list for considerations. I know there's power lines there, but power lines can be moved. If they can be built, they can be rerouted. If the city and the county really wanted to build on that property, they would find a way around those power lines. So I urge you to look at the Clear Creek property for the jail and the MCRP. That's really it. A jail does not belong in a residential area, period.

All right. Thank you, Seth. Ivor, are you here? Do we have an Ivor McDade? Yes. Oh, right there. Perfect.

My name is Ira McDade and I live in River Ranch Road. And I just, I don't want the jail bill in our neighborhood for a few reasons. I, for one, I hunt a lot in our forest and also watch wildlife do its thing. And I also play in our backyard with our friends that live a house away. And I wouldn't, like, it wouldn't be safe for me if a jail was built in our neighborhood. That's all I have to say.

All right, nice job. And I think he said this without any paper in front of him. Bravo, young man.

I think we had Kristen Schrader. We almost had the order perfect.

Oh, that's hard to follow.

Yeah.

I'm here on item 4.4a, and that is the grant application to Department of Justice for tobacco ordinance enforcement. And I'm appreciative that the code enforcement has put together a grant application seeking your approval, but we also, I have been working with other community members and Shasta County Public Health and a former council member, Mark Mazzano, and we are asking that you bring an item back soon to give an update to the council on where things are with the implementation of the tobacco ordinance license enforcement. It requires hiring someone, which is to be in revenue neutral position that when fully enforced would actually potentially generate revenue through fines that would be issued during citations that could be processed by the city attorney's office rather than the district attorney's office. So we really want to urge you to bring an item back soon to have a fuller discussion about the status of the enforcement of the tobacco ordinance license. Thank you.

Thank you, Kristen. Christine Begley, did I pronounce that right? Correct me if I'm wrong, so.

Erin, first of all, I want to congratulate you on your vote. I think that's going to be a great addition. And I am also a resident of River Ranch subdivision. I've been down there for 36 years. I've been blessed to have a house on the river. It's taken many, many years of saving pennies and dimes and whatever else I could scrape together to buy that house. I want to give you a little history. when you folks gave that property or sold it for a dollar to the county how many of you even went down there to see if there was a subdivision there i've heard one thank you well that's not very good you know i would think if you're going to slide a jail next to the sacramento river which is beautiful and put it next to a subdivision you would have done some homework And the second thing is, is when we came to a city planning commission meeting, not one of those people knew anything about this. It was obvious they were angry. And we were angry because this had been a backdoor deal since January of 25. And we found out about it. It was shoved through January 2025. We found out in October. And I am really disgusted with Sheriff Johnson making a snarky comment that, what do you expect us to do, go door to door? Well, I expect you to do your job. You know, I live one house away from that jail. You know, it's your job to protect your citizens. I'm a constituent. I was born and raised here. I taught school for 35 years. You're going to deplete my home. There's already been two homes sold down there. One was sold for $30,000 less, and the other one was sold for $80,000 less. That's what this is doing to our community. There's 100 homes down there. And I'm sorry if I'm pointing the finger, but I'm passionate about this. This is my dream home. I plan on passing it down to my children. My children don't want to live there if there's a jail there. You're making my property pretty much useless and very dangerous. This is a wonderful little community. We all love each other. We all work together. And you have got to find a different way to build this thing somewhere else because it was backdoor done and it was underhanded. And frankly, I'm disgusted with the way it was done with the planning commission. You know, with you guys, I'm sorry to say, because if it was next to somebody's, if it was next to your house, you would expect due diligence done. And it was not done. So I'm pretty much begging you to locate this thing somewhere else rather than next to a community of constituents that you're supposed to protect. Thank you.

Thank you, Christine. Michael, you're up. Michael, if you could let us know what item you're speaking on as well. 428. Thank you.

Good evening, thank you for your time. Aaron Reznor too, congratulations. I want to help take credit for that because of our neighborhood, even though you're not our district, we pushed a lot of our friends to vote for you because we pushed Cry Out. We also pushed Kelstrom out. So I just want to give you a heads up. That's what you're ahead of. We're going to look for you to be on our team. I don't know if that's doable, but that's what we're after. On your 42A, the common sense exemption pursuant subject, because it can be seen certainly there's no possibility that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment. Where does that come from? Has anybody seen the wildlife down there? Has anybody seen the water that flows through there? They won't let anybody else in there but theirs, and then they're not going to tell us and they're going to exempt it. there's there's just no way the infrastructure to build it down there can't even handle it the the street going in there is going to need lights it's going to be turn lanes it's adjacent to the railroad the railroad is god if you don't know that where the power lines go along east side road there's no expansion room to widen the road there Everybody else has said it. What the kids are doing, I don't know how you could go any farther with little kids getting up here saying something like they did. But I just want you to remember, like everybody said, it was a backdoor deal, and you guys are all elected officials, and you want to remember that the next election. We will have an effect on that. Thank you. All right, thank you.

Mike and Caleb, if you could also let us know what item number you're speaking on today.

Thank you. My name is Michael Michalak. The last time I was from the City Council was nearly 50 years ago when I asked Maurice and the rest of the City Council to let me build my fly shop along the side of the freeway. Since then, that business has become the second largest business of its kind in the world. Listen to TOT numbers and all of this stuff. As far as I'm concerned, most of these people are underachievers. You know, our... My postage bill is $375,000 a year. My postage bill for sending out hundreds of thousands of catalogs. If you pick up your phone anywhere in America and type in fly fishing, try it. The fly shop, Redding, California comes up first and I don't pay for that. It comes up first because it's the most used. We bring I have 15 guides that work on that river every day. 15 guides, two people in the boat, you do the math. We guide probably on an average of 260 days because our climate is so wonderful. We've got 260 days a year. We put somewhere between 8,000 and 9,000 bed nights in Reading. We bring 53,000 people online. to our website. It's a single most active website in the entire world of fly fishing. I have 153,000 names on our e-list. And if I was to, and I'm not gonna do it, there's a reason for that. If I was to drop a message to these people and tell them that after devoting my entire life, more than 50 years, and trying to make that river one of the most famous rivers in America, one of the most famous fly fishing destinations on the map, if I was to tell them that you people are advocating putting a jail, a jail alongside the Sacramento River, all hell would break loose. Councilman Reznor has seen the recent letter from Caltrout. Caltrout's the second most significant environmental proponent or advocate in the state of California, okay? I stand there along with the rest of the people here. This is the wrong place. This is the wrong place. There are other very, very suitable alternatives, including all of the property that's adjacent to the Clear Creek Water Works. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of acres away from these residents and not adjacent to the Sacramento River. This is a dumb idea. You know, this is going to be your legacy. Thank you, Mike. Do you have any questions?

No. Can I? Just one question. Somebody has also brought up this. I'm sorry. I'm an old man. You got it. Somebody else also brought this up earlier about Clear Creek. Seth, I believe you did. And I asked the question to Seth directly also. The Clear Creek suggestion that he's making is upstream to the east of. Right. One quick question I have is, have you guys discussed this with Sheriff Johnson?

You know something? That's a really good question. The fact is, is that as one of the other people that spoke, Sheriff Johnson should have spoken up. She misquoted him. She says, what was I supposed to do? Tell them about the place. Tell them about what our plans are. This guy wants nothing more to do than have a second story. office, you know, the Red Emerson office on the bank of the Sacramento River. This is going to be his legacy. What are we giving criminals? You know, I could go into the MCRP, I could go into the jail, I could go into the whole thing. I don't care about all that. Actually, I do care about all that stuff. What I really care about is this is the wrong place. This should be another Bend, Oregon. This should be, you know, we should be looking. We've got one one restaurant in the entire length of the Sacramento River. Part of your agenda tonight is to look at what's the other thing, you know, the people that wanted to, you know, the Sacramento River corridor people.

Michael, I'll talk with you more about it later, but I just wanted to ask that question. Thank you for that. Thank you. You're welcome.

After Kim, if Victor can come up and mark. Those are our last speakers.

Hi. My name is Kim Molson. I also live in the River Ranch area. And the grazing, the reason why this grazing proposition or issue is on the ballot is because we've had, we've been fighting to try to get this whole thing stopped and we've had multiple roadblocks put up in front of us and this is one way that we're trying to keep this going is that we've done this, we've put forward this grazing issue trying to keep this going in our favor. We keep getting roadblocks, things keep happening, and they're doing things to keep us, they're trying to break us down. We're investing our own money trying to keep this whole project stopped. So there are other places. There's the Clear Creek area. We already have a place where the sheriff's office launches their boat down there on Bonnevue. Why can't they build a substation at Bonnevue where they already put their boats in? There's property there for them to do that. They just built a house there was a big thing. It was one of those 3D printed houses. They have now a watch person there. Why don't they build an area there for them to store their boats so that they can actually be right close to the river and not have to transport their boats anywhere. Putting them in this one section on the river is going to, it's already made a problem for us in our homes as far as our equity in our homes is definitely taking a downturn. and the safety in our area. I have a very small dog. I'm thinking about getting a large dog if this thing goes through. They said, oh, don't worry. It's a 30-year project. This was actually their words. Don't worry. This is going to be 30 years out. I'm like, no, we have to actually tell people that this is going in. Why wasn't this brought up to the public to tell the public that they want to build a 1,200 bed jail as also all those other projects that they're going to be doing in this facility? Why weren't we told as a community and been able to vote on it ourselves so that we could say whether or not we wanted a 1,200 bed jail put in our community? This is going to bring in all their friends, their families. When they built the prison over in Susanville, it pretty much destroyed Susanville. So we need to think about that. We don't want this large jail in our area. We need a new jail, yes, but do we need 1,200 beds? I don't believe we have 1,200 inmates that we would need to house at one time. I don't want these day program people walking through my community because they have no place else to go. Thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you, Kim. Victor?

My name is Victor Inouye. I'm a resident of the River Ranch area. We moved here, my wife and myself, Judy, moved here to retire, to enjoy the outdoors, fishing. I was actually even an employee at Mike's Fly Shop there. I've known Mike for 30 some odd years. Anyway, this whole jail project has been a backdoor shavesty. I mean, this has just been ridiculous. No one has told us about this. If they said they sent flyers and told us, they must have threw it in the garbage on the floor. outside our houses because nobody had any recollection of anybody coming to us to find out what was going to happen. If this was something that we knew about, we would have been here earlier to plead with you folks to not put this jail where it's slated to go. There's other places that are more suitable that are not near a residential area that are not. on the river to give our sheriff a million dollar view and our prisoners that are going to go in there. From what I understand, a lot of the money that's being funneled into this project are coming from an outside source. That outside source is gonna populate that jail with probably 80% of people not from our area. What's that gonna do? All those people, their relatives, their friends, their gangs, whatever, are going to come up to visit and maybe move in. Do we want that in the Reading area, in the Anderson area? I don't think so. If any of you had this project coming up next to your house, do you think you would be... walking them that with open arms? I don't think so. You'd probably stop it right with a flick of a pen. This is ridiculous. It's stupid to have this jail put on the property that's next to our residential area and next to the river. All the backdoor politics and crap that's been going along has just been pushed away. No one wants to take responsibility for it. I think it's just absolutely stupid. And I think I can't think anymore. It's just frustrating me to no end. You know, we're going to have these people walking around our streets once they get let out. They have nowhere to go. There's no transportation. There's no road system there. They're gonna come into our little residential area. It's not good. I plead with you to squash this project now. Thank you.

Thank you, Victor. Mark. Then Mike Quinn, you're laid out, so go ahead and head on up.

Hi, I'm Mark feedback. I live on River Crest in the River Ranch area. I'm here to talk about 4.2 a and if you just bear with me just a little bit, I'll tie into how this is related to this subject on social media, which I'm not a big fan of. I got into a discussion with gentleman is I'll just say his first name. It's Mike. He says, MCRP is a great program. I did it in Butte County at Tri-County Treatment. People make mistakes, and this program introduces many resources such as employment, mental health, and chemical dependency treatment. My reply to Mike was, I commend you and thank you for sharing. My issue is not with the MCRP. My issue is with Shasta County is doing and how they are cramming this down our throats. A small MCRP with only people from our community might be OK if it's located in the correct location. I would bet you are an exceptional to the average inmate. Are you not? Obviously, through your own admission, you have spent some time in confinement. Do you believe this 1,200 to 1,600-person incarceration facility should be located within a few yards of a peaceful neighborhood, or should it be located outside our community? Again, good job, Mike. Your input is valuable and appreciated. Mike replied to me, and he says, Mark, thanks for responding. I also agree with you. I was born in Shasta County and they have many sites that would be better for the community. People get released several times daily and those individuals would be in those neighborhoods causing havoc, theft, assault, drugs, etc. Now I ask you, would you like this in your area or would Sheriff Johnson like it in his? You guys have the power to stop this. You can cancel the lease at any time. And I encourage you to do so. Also, I'd like to congratulate Aaron Reznor for your election. And that's only the beginning. We're going to vote out Chris. Yeah, Chris Kellstrom. And anybody else that doesn't support us, we have a strong voice, and we're going after this, and there will be a price to pay if this goes forward. I guarantee it. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Before you go, I was just going to check. The two people that signed up for public comment, you might have been here for consent. I'm just going to check. Is Beau Dooley and Gus Dooley for consent or for public comment? I don't know where. Those are the two boys there. They're waiting. They're waiting for their turn patient. We're going to let them polish it off and wrap it up and finish. You're next after him. So you'll be next. Get ready.

Thank you. I did try to enter out there, but I didn't have my grandkids to make sure I did it right. I'm talking about 4-2-A. We spent $1.2 million to study the Sacramento River and what we wanted going through the rodeo grounds and Turtle Bay and down along Park Marina. Why wasn't this included in that? Because it is on the Sacramento River. And if it was, what do you think the response would have been? The same thing they found out when they said, well, we don't need the rodeo and stuff like that. That turned out to be a little bit of a disaster. Why wasn't this included? It's on the Sacramento River. I can tell you exactly what would have happened. You would have gotten 120%. It would be like voting in Florida. People showing up to say no. It doesn't belong down there. I know what it's like down there right now. Radio Lane runs through that area, through the county buildings. It's called Radio Lane because I own the radio tower at the end of that lane. And I carry, open carry down there Because there was a pack of dogs for a while, 18 wild dogs running down there for years that they finally got rid of. Our building's been broken into. The truck yard that I work, Reading-Lubber Transport, they have constant problems down there. That's what you've got now. Can you imagine what it's going to be like? So put this to the people. Instead of spending 1.2 million, let's say $1.2. And we'll put it out to the public and say, do you want this? Because I guarantee you what the answer is gonna be. Same thing they found out about the rodeo in Park Marina. Thank you. All right, thank you. Bo.

And then after Bo, Gus. Bo, we have a stool there if you'd like to pull that out and stand on it, so. Everybody wants to see your face, so there you go.

Jack Mons, you state, I'm running for city council to make a difference. Redding's economy, housing, and jobs have declined for years, while homeless crime and drug alcohol abuse have increased. We either live in the past or we choose a way forward that leads to a future of hope. How will building a jail add to value to the riverfront homes by my neighborhood? Mike Litutawa. states in your bio excited to serve the local community solve community problems and work equally with all people how can you help us solve this problem with wanting to build a jail in our riverfront homes Mrs. Reznor, you're a lady who obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a minor in Environmental Science. I'm sure you know the importance of conducting a CEQA and Environmental Impact Report. So why is it that a jail was approved to be built in our neighborhood without the following assessments? Tanesa Audet, you are a mother of three and California native. You state that you're committed to protecting our God-given rights, and restoring excellence in limited government principles. So why is it that the government wants to reconsider zoning to build this jail in our neighborhood? How is it that the city lease agreement for this 90-acre site is $0? Dr. Paul Hanuka, you say we can make Reading an inspiration for our next generation and a destination for our nation. How will that be if the city is agreeing to build a mail correctional campus in a viable riverfront neighborhood? Thank you for listening.

All right, very nice job, Bo. Gus.

And Bo, I would like to sit with you some time to answer your questions and ask you some answers.

This isn't just a piece of land off of Eastside Road. It is 90 acres of city-owned Sacramento River property with a great view of Mount Shasta that the city would like to give to criminals. The most recent sale of the nearest one-third acre lot was 1.4 million, what are you all thinking? Come walk in our neighborhood and see for yourself before building a jail. That's all I have to say.

All right, good job. All right, we got all our speakers in today and I think all the children and the kids did a really, really good job. Thank you for coming and participating.

I just want to mention that I had offered, I was planning to meet your neighborhood people last Sunday and Seth had arranged that. However, I was told that your neighbors decided to cancel the meeting because of the pending litigation. So just wanted to let you guys know that, that I was willing to meet you last Sunday and I'm still willing to meet anytime.

Okay, all right, that's all the comments we have. We have our consent calendar. Are there any councilor comments about either pull an item, comments on an item, a motion? I see Councilor Odette, so.

I just had one comment about item 410. I had mentioned it before that we're setting a public, it's in consent, so we're setting a public hearing for a schedule of fees There are 35 new fees and about 33 increases to fees. So I encourage the public to look through this. All the fees are listed in this staff report. And when we actually do the hearing, July 21st, will be your opportunity to speak about your opinion on those fees. Speaking of filming, there's now a charge to film or to do still photography that is listed here. So you might have an opinion about that. So I would encourage the public to read through this list of fees and add any feedback at the next, at the July 21st meeting.

So you're asking for participation. That's very good. We do want people to speak up and it's very important to come and attend and participate. Thank you, Councilor Odette. Mayor Pro Term, Reznor, I see you up.

I have two comments. One on 4.2A, which is the East Side Road property. I think there was a lot of back and forth that made me some confusing about what this item was specifically about. I would just like to say that I have lots of thoughts about the jail and such, but this is not exactly that specific item. This is about whether or not we are fine returning grazing to the property. And as somebody who does care about fire mitigation and those sort of things, I do want cattle grazing and eating down all of the vegetation on that so I just want to make that clear that that is specifically what this this specific topic is about. I've spoken with multiple people I think who spoke this evening and if you have any further questions or want to continue to talk about that topic at a different time or item Erin at erinresner.com. I'd love to chat with you. And then item 4.4. A is the Tobacco Department of Justice Tobacco Grant Program. And that sort of sparked in my mind that we haven't had an update of everything that is currently going on with the TRO, how that's going. as far as code enforcement, as far as law enforcement, and so I'd love to bring that back to council, just what the status is of that, because it's been a significant time. It's a little bit of item 12, but technically I don't have to say it on item 12.

Go ahead. I think we could bring it back to item 12 later, but I think I agree with Councillor Reznor here that we should have had it updated. We hope to see it come back.

That's it.

That's good.

And then I will make a motion to approve consent. I'll second.

All right, we have a motion, a second, and I'll just make a comment also on 4.2. Just to echo Councilor Reznor's comment is what we're voting on in the consent item there is really just help continue the grazing. The grazing is really important. It keeps the property safe for wildfire mitigation. It's a really important thing that I think we should continue on that. So we do have a motion and a second. We'll take a vote. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. All opposed? No. And that posts us. All right. So we will move along into our agenda. It's going to be a long night. We've got a lot to get through. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to start off with our appointments. 5.1, going to consider the mayor's reappointments and appointment of the city of Reading representatives to the Economic Development Corporation of Shasta County Board of Directors. It's my recommendation to approve Heidi Pond and also Garrett Brown to the Board of Directors of the Economic Development Corporation of Shasta County. to each serve a four-year term beginning July 1st, 2026 and also ending June 30th, 2030. And number two, to appoint Board Member Stephen Williams to serve a four-year term effective July 1st, 2026 and expiring June 30th, 2030. I'll entertain a motion on that.

I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed? I don't have a vote.

Oh, yeah. We all were voted for.

Voting against or not? You guys are doing great. Pass 5-0. Let's move. Let's see where we're at. Okay. We're going to keep moving on. We get public hearings. These are always really fun. I get to hit the gavel. I'm looking forward to that. But a court-challenged action taken by the City Council on any project or decision may be limited to only those issues raised during the public hearing or in written correspondence delivered to the City Council during or prior to the public hearing. We're gonna start with 6.1, Public Works. It's a public hearing to consider the resolution approving the City of Redding's Capital Improvement Plan for fiscal years 2025-26 all the way to 2030 and 31. So, Michael, is this you? Or no, it's, I'm sorry. It is, okay, I see two people wanting to speak. Is your microphone on, Michael? I think I got it now.

Good evening, honorable mayor, council, community. This evening, Public Works will be presenting the 25-26 through 2030-31 capital improvement plan. I'm gonna hand it over in just a second to Assistant Director Josh Anthony, who's going to run through the projects that are included in the CIP, why we have a CIP, what's happened with the CIP to date. And then, of course, Mr. Anthony and myself will be available for any questions afterwards. So with that, I'm gonna hand it over to Mr. Anthony. Thank you.

All right, good evening, Mayor, members of City Council, staff, and community members. I am Josh Anthony, Assistant Director of Public Works. Tonight's item is a public hearing on the City of Redding's capital improvement plan for fiscal years 25-26 through 2030-31, with a request that the City Council adopt the resolution approving the plan following the hearing. Tonight I'll briefly cover the background and purpose of the CIP, how it is funded, the key project changes since the last plan, and how projects tie to the general plan, and then the recommendation and next steps. So what is the CIP? The CAP is the city's five plus year projection of infrastructure needs and the funding necessary to meet them. It's a planning and coordination tool that helps us schedule multi-year projects. It works to avoid conflicts like paving the roads one year and then trenching into them the next year with a water project. And it identifies the public facilities that are being built utilizing development impact fees. State law government code section 66 is 002. requires that a CIP containing development impact fee projects be adopted annually by resolution of the legislative body and following the notice of a public hearing. The Planning Commission also has a statutory role in this process. On May 26, 2026, the Planning Commission reviewed the plan and made the finding under government code sections 65103C and 65401 that the CIP before you tonight is in conformance with the city's general plan. So you're wondering, how was the CIP developed? The CIP starts with the community needs expressed through the general plan, through specific plans, through department master plans, nexus studies, public outreach events, and the biennial budget. Departments then coordinate with the public works to identify, consolidate, and describe projects and the funding sources. And then finally, the planning commission's conformance and finding in the council's resolution completes the process. Projects are prioritized based on public safety and emergency repairs, regulatory mandates, assessment asset condition, and strategic growth. The total plan is valued at $751 million across nine city divisions that are included projects within this year's CIP. The largest programs are streets at 193.5 million, water at 131 million, wastewater at 111 million, airports at 92 million, REU at 88 million, and community service at 76 million, with the remaining balance being made up of the fire department, solid waste, and the storm drain divisions. The funding comes from 48 different sources, broken down into roughly 10 categories. The largest category, which is grants, which is both secured grants and anticipated grants that staff intends to apply for in the future, total $289 million. The utility rates cover $246 million, and the impact fees cover about $77 million. A state revolving loan is being pursued for the Pump House 1 replacement project, which accounts for $50 million, with the general fund... local streets and roads, airports, developer contributions, and park and loo fees making up the balance of $88 million. Of the $751 million, approximately $500 million of it, or 67%, is funded and supported by reasonably anticipated sources. The remaining 248 million, about 33%, represents needs that are not fully funded, concentrated primarily in streets at 78 million, airports at 59 million, water at 50 million with the SRF loan, fire at 32 million, and community service at 28.2 million. Inclusion of these unfunded projects, however, does not commit local funds, but it positions the city to pursue competitive grants and loans. Since the prior plan, several projects have been completed, including the stretched ribbon bridge art, the Trinity Street sewer project, several street projects, including Liberty Street and Old Alturas improvements, just to name a few. Additionally, a small number of projects were removed or deferred to a future time beyond the five-year window of this plan. These deferred or future projects will be those like the Foothill water treatment plant flock basins and pump house to project and numerous airports projects that were moved to the future projects list located in section D of your plan. Additionally, a few projects were added the future projects list because they address needs identified in the general plan or have an impact fee component but fall outside the current five year horizon. To illustrate the general plan linkage, here you'll find a sample list of projects and their corresponding general plan goals. This conformance reinforces the projects in the plan address the needs of the community envisioned during the general plan creation process. Section A of the plan contains a full matrix of goals and policies by program area updated with the 2045 general plan. Staff's recommendation tonight is that the City Council conduct a public hearing, and following the close of that hearing, adopt the resolution approving the City of Redding's Capital Improvement Plan for fiscal years 2526 through 203031. This concludes staff's presentation. Assistant City Manager Webb and I are available for any questions you guys might have.

Okay, we're gonna open up for public comment. Or a hearing. There's been a lot of comments today, so. There are no speakers here, so we're gonna close the public hearing. And I'll open up to any questions from the council. Okay. You want to make a motion? I'm sorry, what?

I just wanted to reiterate. I know it's not going to change anything, but the Redding Fire Department things with $34 million from general fund is not even remotely possible. The fact that it's in here does not mean we're obligated to be pursuing those things. We obviously don't have the funding for that type of stuff. How often do these change?

These are, so we adopt one plan and then we update it annually. We have been on a track record to adopt a new plan every single year. And our plan is to bring forth a more robust plan the next time, so next year. And at that time then, I think we'll move more towards just a every year annual update of the list of projects. But every annually is the answer.

I think sometimes maybe the reference is that plan feels like something that we're implementing versus like dream case scenario.

Yeah, I just feel like maybe some priorities have shifted and the process for evaluating the CIP, when do you begin going through and evaluating what you plan to put into this other than just bringing it to us? When do you guys start going through and reviewing this?

I mean like if you want to go ahead.

Yes, a good question we start essentially. Pretty much the beginning of the new calendar year generally we work with each department within the city that has capital infrastructure work with them to identify what their needs are. So that would be obviously the fire department, as you picked up, the police department, parks, all the divisions within public works, the electric utility, all of them. And then those needs are compiled and then put into this document where they see fit. And as Assistant Director Mr. Anthony pointed out, a number of the projects that are included in here aren't necessarily within one of the five-year windows. A lot of them are out beyond that, which means essentially a number of things. One, they very likely do not have a fully funded financial plan, which is why they're sitting out there. And two, I don't want to say they're not a need, but they may not be a need yet. And so it's unclear whether or not they will be a need if they will win. But those types of projects tend to live in the CIP in the outer years, as Assistant Director Anthony pointed out, to give us options so that in the future, if for some reason they do become a need, we have them in there and then that makes us eligible to apply for grants or other funding to future study them and figure out essentially what their better cost estimate would be for that project so that they could move forward into the five years of the document.

Do they have to be in the CIP in order to be eligible for a grant?

A lot of times that's one of the primary checks that the granting agencies are looking for. And so there is a benefit and it does behoove the city to have those, I would call them potential needs, out in the further years in there. It keeps the options and doors open.

Okay. Can we delineate between the ones that are more pressing and the ones that are further out? I didn't see that. like we say the fire department would be five years out couldn't we kind of state that or these projects are more in the future if we need to keep them on the cip it'd be nice to know which ones are more pressing and we have funding for which ones are further out in the future yeah essentially the document does do that um unless assistant director anthony needs to correct me but

Essentially projects that Council Member Audet is bringing up are out there in the further years. They're outside typically of the five-year window. And so typically they live there until what I may call with the staff, a true blue need is identified and we've studied it enough to where we have an accurate understanding of what the scope is, the cost and the schedule, and we can move it forward into the five-year window. I would like to point out to Council that The first two years of the CIP, in my opinion, most of the time are the most important because that means that we're really starting to think about this as being a real project, and it's probably very likely either in the budgetary documents or will be very soon. So in my mind, there's the out years, which is beyond the five-year, then there's years three to five, and then there's years one to two. And that would be kind of how a project would move through the documents. very likely there would be a number of projects that would live in the beyond five year window for a number of years, because obviously we don't want to tie up funding or move projects along where there isn't a true need, but there may be projects that sit out there that could be needed in the future, but really depend on when and if development occurs and where it occurs and what it looks like. And so again, I believe it behooves us to have those out in the further years in the event that something happens and we're mid cycle with a CIP, and we would like to pursue funding opportunity to study it further.

Thank you.

Okay.

Good. All very thoughtful questions. That was great. Do we do need a motion to approve that?

I'll make a motion to adopt the resolution approving the City of Redding's capital improvement plan. I'll second it.

All right. Motion, second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Nobody. All right. You want to roll? Let's do another public hearing, 6.2. Public hearing to consider the resolution to adopt the City of Reading 2026 Water Shortage Contingency Plan. All right.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Council again. So this evening, we're going to have two additional public hearings. This is going to be from a, these will be provided by Assistant Director Bailey. One will be the 2026 Water Shortage Contingency Plan. And then right after that, he will have the 2025 Urban Water Management Plan. So without further ado, I'm going to hand the floor over to Assistant Director Bailey. Thank you.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Honorable Mayor, members of the Council. My name is Ryan Bailey, Assistant Director of Public Works. As Mr. Webb mentioned, tonight we have two items for you. Water storage contingency plan will be our first item. Water shortage community plan, it was established in 2015, required by the State Water Resources Board, is a requirement that every five years we bring this document for adoption and public hearing. If you recall, last month we brought the ordinance change, which is essentially part of this document. We updated... A FEW MINOR EDITS IN THE ORDINANCE, ALONG WITH MAIN ITEM WAS MORE WATERING FOR DAYTIME HOURS, WHICH I'LL TOUCH ON HERE IN BASIS IN A SECOND. IN GENERAL, THIS PLAN IS AVAILABLE ON THE CITY'S WEBSITE AND PUBLIC LOCATIONS AND WATER UTILITY. So water shortage community plan, essentially just kind of a reminder of what this document is. If the city comes into an emergency mandated by the state or drought, this plan lays out six stages of water conservation. So like I mentioned the last month, what we came in front of you for the ordinance update was the watering hours. So based on public input and our watering hours were essentially from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. or excuse me, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Short time period for folks that don't have automated waters. If they hand water, it didn't allow for a lot of watering time. So we expanded that watering time to allow for a little bit more watering time during daylight hours. THAT WAS THE MAIN CHANGE OF THIS ORDINANCE AND THEREFORE THE PLAN ITSELF. A COUPLE MINOR AUDITS. It's really in general, no new regulatory requirements from the state in the document itself. We changed the watering times. Like I mentioned, that was the main change, a few minor edits. And this document every five years is when you readopt it. And the document is part of the urban water management plan, which will be the next item. But this item is required to go first adopted and then it'll be included in the water or in the urban water management plan that We do need to conduct a public hearing.

There are no speakers. Amazing. We had a lot earlier. And we're going to close the public hearing. Any comments from council? Any questions? Or we would entertain a motion if there's nothing left.

Motion to approve. Second.

All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? All right. We're doing good. Let's do another public hearing. So Public Works 6.3, public hearing to consider resolution to adopt the City of Reading 2025 Urban Water Management Plan. We're talking about water again, here we go.

All right, Urban Water Management Plan. This is a, essentially this plan is for the water utility. It's a long-term resource planning document. It too is required by the state to be adopted and updated and adopted on a five-year basis. This document is a requirement for the water utility to have to be eligible for loans and or grants. For instance, Director Anthony mentioned we're right now pursuing a $50 million loan from SRF. This is one requirement to be able to be eligible for that loan is to have this urban water management plan. So again, it ensures water supplies in normal and drought years, kind of elephants both. And this, again, this plan is available on the city's website for the water utility for review and whatnot. Just a quick, recap review so our service population we have about 90 000 folks and just want to make it clear so our service the water service population is slightly different than the city's population the water service area is not constrained to the city limits so we do serve folks outside the city in the county partial portion of it and there are also bella vista water district Senator bill to a little very small amount with bell this the water district does support and provide water to members of or folks in the city limits so it's it's very close but not the same as far as the population goes. On the document we projected about two twenty fifty about a hundred and four thousand roughly it's about a point six percent. year growth now i know that 0.6 percent is a little different than what we see and there's a lot of discussion i think it's the actual number probably right now is closer to a quarter percent and i think that's what we've been discussing however that number comes from a couple different places one it's in our water master plan which was developed about four years ago it also is a number that's established through the department of water resources while in working through the urban water management plan so they have agreed to that number it's based on a calculation of how many water meters we have times a time it's a basically a factor of 3.1 ish number based on folks in the household so it's not a exact number we do feel comfortable with a 0.6 though for this type of document because essentially what we're looking at is making sure the city has enough water to provide its customers in the future so it's a little conservative but we believe that's okay in this type of environment Three sources of our water, just review. We have Sacramento River, Whiskeytown Lake, and our groundwater basin for our wells. We have about 55 million gallons a day capacity currently. And so kind of overall, the document basically what it's showing is, so here's a graph for our demand versus supply. For some reason, the state likes to use million gallons. I know a lot of times we use acre feet, but essentially 2030 to 2050, as you can see, so our normal year supply, we're a little over 12, 12 and a half million gallons. excuse me, 12,000 million gallons. So yes, it's about 12 billion gallons of water on an annual basis. Single dry year, we're closer to 11. So a drought, we may, you know, we'll have a reduction in water use and whatnot. And then right, so our actual demand year currently, so you'll notice it kind of dips down and then back up. And so what that is in year 2040, California is a con... California it's a conservation is a way of life so that's the regulatory mandates whatnot we're looking at right now so currently we are reducing our water on an annual basis about a one percent reduction every year from what we've been using so we believe that so we will continue to reduce our water until 2040 that program ends and at that point in time we're believe the forecast will start creeping back up for population growth and whatnot. But as you can see, our supply far exceeds our demand at this time, and we believe it will continue that way into the future, into 2050. So really, with that, that's it, and I'll be available for any questions.

All right, we're going to conduct a public hearing. There are no speakers. We're going to close the public hearing. I'll have a motion to approve it.

I'll second.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Very contentious item. Thank you.

Thank you. Water shortage.

All right.

That's good news for once.

We're going to move on to fun stuff now. Regular calendar reports and communications of departments, the boards, the commissions, the committees, the city manager. 9.1E. Sounds fun. Considered downtown entertainment zone update. So...

Well, good evening, Mayor, members of the council. My name is Jason Jablisco, management assistant to the city manager, and tonight I'll be providing an update on the entertainment zone. So just in case if anybody's unfamiliar with what the entertainment zone is, is it's a designated space where individuals aged 21 years of age and older can go into a participating bar, restaurant, order a drink, and take that drink outside and enjoy it on the public right away. And we have that established downtown. We adopted our ordinance on August 19th of last year, and it went into effect on December 4th of last year. It is seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and it's in operation 365 days a year. So this is the map and boundaries of the entertainment zone. We have approximately 24 businesses, and you can see where they are laid out on this map. This map is also on our website, so if anybody wanted to check it out, maybe go to a participating business, you can go to our website and find it. And as part of the six month update, we wanted to make sure that we had Reading Police Department's input and feedback. So they confirmed there's been no increase in calls and no significant issues to report on. They do remain in support of the entertainment zone. And of course, we wanted to have feedback from our participating businesses. So we conducted an online survey that was done in early May, and we also worked with the Chamber and VIVA downtown in holding an in-person stakeholder meeting. So the overall feedback was consistent in both the in-person meeting and online survey. Businesses are happy with the entertainment zone and report no significant issues. BUSINESSES DID REPORT THAT DURING EVENTS, THEIR BUSINESS DOES SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASE. SO THAT IS GREAT. IT WAS SUGGESTED THAT IT WOULD BE HELPFUL FOR ADDITIONAL EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS REGARDING THE BOUNDARIES AND RULES. SO WE'RE WORKING WITH THE CHAMBER ON THAT. AND WE ARE ALSO WORKING TO ADD MORE OR ADDITIONAL GARBAGE CANS IN THE ENTERTAINMENT ZONE. BUT OVERALL THE FIRST SIX MONTHS HAS HAD A POSITIVE IMPACT ON DOWNTOWN. and there's no major concerns to report. And that does conclude my presentation. We are required to do an additional update in two years, as required by the legislation. I'm available for any questions. Also available is Chief Barner. Thank you.

All right, this is not a public hearing, so, but we will, Councilor Idette, I do see you here, so.

Do you have an update about how it went along Hilltop for Cool April Nights, having the temporary entertainment zone?

I have a small update. They do have some suggestions for next year that worked out well from what I heard, but that's really all I have on it.

I want to talk to Ed, and Ed said it went very well. I'm sure you probably talked to him as well.

When could that, I would assume that if they're working on it with you, you'll bring it to us or communicate with us? Yeah. What's the update for that?

It may need to be another item 12 again.

Do you need to do that item 12 today? I'll do it.

Do you have something to actually report to us? Or would you want to wait? What's a good time?

If we're doing the hilltop update, that would need to be another time.

That's, yeah. When do you think you would bring that back?

I can do it any time. How about tomorrow? No, I'm just kidding.

I'm just wondering when that would be appropriate.

Yes. Probably later this, maybe August.

Okay. Yeah.

When this update comes back, are we still exploring being able to expand to the full parade route, which includes feedback we gave for Dana Drive, Churn Creek, and part of Cypress?

With that, yeah, we can take suggestions, and I can work with Reading Police Department on their input.

Because that was the feedback we last provided that said we'd like to explore involving all the businesses that would like to participate in that along the parade route. If it went well on Hilltop, then let's just go big.

Perfect.

Okay, thank you.

You want one of those long straws, huh?

What's that?

You want one of those long straws? Do you need a vote on that? A long straw, yes. Information only? Yeah, just accept the report. We accept. We accept.

We accept. We really do. Okay, moving along. We're almost through 1,500 pages. We're getting close, so we have... if you're following along in your binder like us. City Manager 9.1F, we're gonna consider updates to the Ready Municipal Code Chapter 4.1 to the transient occupancy tax to update and modernize the tax administration of transient occupancy tax. I'm so excited to see this come back. Michael, is this you?

This is, and good evening again, Honorable Mayor, Council, community members. So what you have before you here is an ordinance amendment, essentially, surrounding the short-term rentals, specifically Airbnbs and VRBOs. As Council may require, or excuse me, recall, last year Senate Bill 346 was approved, which essentially gave additional tools to local agencies such as ourself to require the short-term rental agencies to track, collect, and then remit to us the TOT. So what we are simply doing through this ordinance this evening is requesting that we update READY MUNICIPAL CODE CHAPTER 4.12 TO BE IN COMPLIANCE WITH SENATE BILL 346, WHICH WILL THEN REQUIRE THE SHORT-TERM RENTAL COMPANIES TO COLLECT, TRACK, AND THEN REMIT THAT TO US. AND I'D BE HAPPY TO TAKE ANY QUESTIONS THAT COUNCIL MAY HAVE.

OKAY. WE DO HAVE ONE SPEAKER. WE HAVE HOPE HERE. I'M GOING TO HOPE IF YOU'D LIKE TO COME UP. IT LOOKS LIKE THE CHILDREN WENT HOME, SO IT'S JUST YOU.

We got it, we're just getting tired.

Hi, Hope.

Hello, good evening. Bear with me, please. I'm not used to doing this. I had someone else that was gonna be here and had a family emergency. I believe I'm here for the right code and the right place. I am here to allocate for the tax to be put back. So, we have had the closure of our civic auditorium. It used to, when City of Reading used to run it, 50% of this tax, the transient occupation tax, under former city manager Kurt Stammen, the city took all of it back, and so now that building now lacks the funds to keep it open. Auditorium has provided many jobs to our community. It gives 10 million to the community for the revenue of our businesses and everything else. And with allocating and going through the tax now, I just would like you to think about giving back that tax to the purpose of putting on the entertainment and keeping our community alive with part of that tax.

Hope, thanks for sharing that feedback. That's feedback I share with you. I know once we figure out our general fund someday that we get our cash in order, that's hopefully something we can revisit to be able to distribute some of that DOT tax to the Civic Center, the Riverfront, and other things. And I'm sure that might come back in the future once we figure out our budget stuff. But I thank you for making that comment to that.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right, council, any comments or we'll entertain a motion to this.

I just had a question.

You had a comment, okay.

I just wanna make sure I understand that the term facilitator, we're using that to mean Airbnb or VRBO. That's what a facilitator means, not like a manager of an Airbnb. Facilitator is, this will allow us to collect directly from Airbnb's and VRBO's companies?

You are correct.

Okay, I just want to make sure. It's a little vague. All right.

Motion to approve.

Well, I just have one more comment. Do we have on the next six months agenda bringing back anything regarding short-term rentals? Just like changing it? Yeah, just any sort of changes.

I would love some changes.

and what specifically what sort of changes or i'm just wondering whether or not we haven't we have not looked at short-term rental matters in quite some time probably three-ish years maybe four years um and so not urgent and important but maybe in the next six months is that something that we could entertain sorry i'll bring that back into nine actually i'm fine with you bringing that i mean we can accept that recommendation now we can bring it back I thought about it when we were doing this. We also have an update in terms of any short-term things.

Okay, let's bring it back. Do we need to bring that to line item 12, or can that come as a recommendation for staff at this point?

Mary? You can do it now.

We're going to do it now.

We did some heavy.

Sorry, we're paying you the big bucks. Thank you. We should revisit. Yeah, okay. Thank you for that feedback.

Did you have a second?

I don't.

Okay, I'll make a second.

Felt like you were going to do it. So we have a motion, a second. There's no other feedback. Let's take a vote. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Passes, 5-0. Great.

Mr. Mayor, apologies for interrupting.

Yes.

Just to be clear, so you have introduced the ordinance in the packet and moved staff's recommendation, correct? Correct. And with the additional direction to return in a future meeting with a report on the TOT. That's correct.

And short-term rentals.

Short-term rentals. Sorry. Short-term rentals. Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Moving on to Assistant City Manager 9.2B, they consider the update regarding the City of Redding's membership on the County of Shasta Air Pollution Control Board and budget resolution. All right. Michael, is this you?

Yes. It is, but I believe, did we skip 9-1-G?

Or did I miss one? I did.

I really don't like audit committees, so.

Okay, maybe one more space next time in that agenda, so it's.

I believe that one is me as well, so.

That's okay, we'll just double space that next time, so, okay. Let's go back. 9.1-G, update to provide information for a card in the City of Reading's Financial Advisory Committee and City of Reading Audit Committee.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So before you this evening, what you have is what I would describe as an initial baseline cadence of meeting schedules for both the financial committee as well as the audit committee. I worked with Director Robinette and City Manager Tarbeau and put before you what we felt like was a good baseline. with the financial committee meeting quarterly and having a initial kickoff meeting here in July. We also included within the staff report what we thought were a reasonable general scope that that committee could expect to discuss and contemplate. And of course, as the committee meets and they can adjust their own schedule, and of course, as well, council could provide direction to them as well. And then similarly with the Audit Committee, we felt like a decent cadence baseline would be twice, once for the aquifer at a minimum and then a second time mid-year. We felt like that was a good spot to start, again, with a kickoff, but with the same perspective as the Finance Committee that obviously that group could decide if they wanted to increase the cadence and what topics they should look at and or obviously take direction from this bottom here. I believe this was an item that's been requested a few times to come back. So I'd be happy to take any questions or receive feedback that any of you have.

Council Member Audette, questions?

I just want to make sure that we, this doesn't have to be the schedule, that the committee's actual, I mean, the kickoff, obviously, starting in July and August is fine by me. But I feel like the committee itself should, then approve whatever schedule that they're gonna have. So as long as this doesn't set it in stone, I think that's fine by me.

My intention was certainly not to set it in stone, but to provide a baseline cadence as I described. You might see as you look through the cadence there that we ramped up, we assumed a ramp up of meetings when we got closer to budget prep. And so we took our best guess at what the committee would likely want, the cadence they would likely

meet at certainly that could be adjusted by them or yourselves absolutely they should feel free to adjust it check with our schedule we're on that so make sure so we got to be there so okay that was good question there any other comments from council no but I'll receive that report we just have to accept the report

I accept it. Do you need us to vote on that or just accept it?

It's an informational report. I accept it.

Acceptance is perfectly acceptable. Accepted.

Great. All right, now 9.2b. So consider the membership on the County of Shasta Air Pollution Control Board.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council. Michael Webb here, Assistant City Manager. So what you have before you this evening, is a recommendation to adopt a resolution for approximately, if I recall correctly, just under $183,000 for the current fiscal year and then $87,000 in the upcoming fiscal year, which would be the 26-27 fiscal year. Approximately two to three months ago, Director Robinette and I were approached by staff from the Air Pollution Control Board indicating that they They needed to sit down and chat with us regarding an invoice that we had received for revenue shortfall for the board, at which time Director Robinette and I spent quite a bit of time with staff walking through the numbers, asking questions. We consulted with legal regarding all the options and came to the conclusion that it is in the best interest of this council to adopt the budget resolution and pay our share of the revenue shortfalls with the understanding that we're gonna work with the Air Pollution Control Board and help them solve their revenue problem. I'd be happy to take any questions that the council has regarding this item. With that, I'll hand it back to you, Mr. Mayor.

I mean, get some back history, and I see Councillor Munns, you wanna speak as well, but myself and Councillor Munns, we have been on the airport pollution, I'm sorry, the Air Pollution Control Board, and I mean, there's not a lot that happens in that. I think that this was the biggest thing that probably hit us that was of any really importance. But it was very, very disappointing to find out how much money was being asked of the city of Reading to pay. Shasta County, in collection of everybody else that have served on that board in the past, they just didn't really do a good job looking at the budget. We have a shortfall because it really just wasn't looked at over the past five, 10 years or something like that. And so as they did an audit of that, you know, they were able to come back and say, we're short on money and now we need everybody to pay up. And we just didn't think that was very fair. As much as I objected and Councillor Munns objected, in fairness, you know, we had people that served on this Reading City Council that were part of that air pollution board as well. And so we do carry some responsibility with that. And I think we gave some guidance back that said, you know, we need to tighten things up and really make sure that it's not fun to have to come back and ask us to write a check that we didn't expect for. And this is a really big hit to our general fund at a time that we really don't want to be paying for that. As far as consequences, we could actually say, no, we're not going to pay for it. But there's probably very much value to say being a team player because when you look at the Air Pollution Control Board and the value we get with that is if we're not serving on, if we don't pay up, we're basically saying we don't want to be members of that too. And we lose a voice to be able to come back and say, well, we have an airport here and there could be punitive consequences to our airport because we don't have representation from this council to be able to serve on that. So it's very uncomfortable to vote and say yes to this. But I feel like we really, really have to because we need to continue representation on their air pollution board. And this just comes as a, it's a gut check. It's not fun to write this. I don't know if we have any other options to be able to spread out the money. And we made a request to the Shasta County, say can we spread this out over five years or we just have to really pony this up. But that's just my feedback. I wanted to give some back history on why we're having to pay this money and how we got here. But we don't expect to do this in the future, so. Councilor Muncieva.

We brought this issue up a year and a half ago. Why wasn't it solved maybe even longer? I don't know. I've been on the board since like almost four years. And honestly, it's a very, I'm challenged as to the value that we, I mean, I agree with what Mike says, but it's a, our meetings generally last two minutes. We've had minutes, we've had meetings that last under a minute. And you know the longest meeting is like our last one was always 20 minutes, maybe you know, and so I struggle with the value that you know, maybe the value is that the county can't. dictate what happens in our airspace you know, there is some value there, I think, but I would like to know further what the value is and i've asked that question before and. and of other people and didn't get much of an answer. But I still, we asked this question, I did, a year and a half ago. And I don't think we're obligated to pay that. I mean, I'm inclined to go with Mike, but I'd like to hear Tanessa's input and your guys' input.

And it's very unfair that the city of Anderson removed themselves from this board, so therefore they don't have to pay a dime. And also the city of Shasta Lake. also remove themself if I stand correct. So we are the only ones that are having to contribute to this because everybody else got out, but it feels like we're kind of staying because we have an airport. But counselor, sorry, you're up next.

I'm also, I've been on there a couple times in my four years, and when this did get brought up, Yeah, it was probably about a year and a half ago. Yeah.

As soon as we got on.

I think the first thing I explored was just removing ourselves, because the amount was actually higher than this. And so we sort of, the first request was, do we need to be on the board? What is the value? Why should we be on this? And then can we refuse to pay all the things? We sort of went down all of those roads. And legally, we are on there. We're obligated to pay it, which doesn't feel good, but that is our obligation. And then our only option maybe for the future bill would be to remove ourselves, but we have something to lose by not having representing the city and our people by being on it. So this number is reduced from what they originally had asked us for. So if that's any consolation, but Yeah, it was, they've actually been trying to collect on this for a little bit of time. So it's actually added up.

And it should be very minimal because this is almost like back paying like 10 years or something like that. It is a back pay of several years. It's an enormous amount.

Yeah.

A very enormous amount. So in the future, our contribution should be very minimal. But Vice Mayor. Why do we have to be on this board?

We don't. I mean, what's the benefit to the city?

Can you please repeat your question?

What's the benefit to the city to be on this board?

The benefit to the city is that two of you sit on the board. And this is a board that works on the permitting process, the fees, the fines, the penalties, and all of that. So it gives the benefit, if this board decides, to sit on there.

Which permitting fees and fines?

We're talking about air pollution, so it would be generators. I objected to them adding three dots.

adding 50, well, it was 100% increase to the current, what they charge. And if we're not there to do that, it just goes through.

Yeah. I see because I can understand because a lot of those economic activities would happen within the city limits.

Yeah.

It can affect our cost of permitting and all that. For the largest customer, yeah. So you can see the value in that. We are paying to play.

To your point, Dr. DeNuca, staff and I did run through it. And I do want to stress that We were initially provided with some language that cited statute that essentially, and I'll defer to Mary in case I use the wrong terminology here, but essentially statute that says that local jurisdictions that make up the board by statute can be charged the revenue shortfall. And so we ran that to ground, for lack of a better term, with the legal team and we were able to confirm that that in fact is accurate statute and that this amount before you this evening for the current fiscal year the Air Pollution Control Board does have the ability to essentially charge us.

I can see that happening, but if we want to be on the board, we have to pay up.

But we also have a legal responsibility means we probably have to pay it anyways and then choose to get off it. Right, right.

Right now we have to pay this amount. That's fine. We don't want to spend too much of our legal fees on fighting it. So it's okay to approve it. I'm just looking for the future.

So you do have the option as a few of the council members have described. You could certainly direct us to move forward with paying this year and investigate what would be the soonest time that the city could

I think we should stay on this. We have the airport. We have a lot of things happening in the city. We should stay on that.

So you're volunteering to be on it next year?

No, I didn't say that. I didn't go that far. It's at 8.30.

I'm going to write it down. He said he'd be there.

I'll make a motion.

Okay, we'll need a second to that, or did you second?

He just said he seconded.

You seconded? Okay, just making clear. All right, we have a motion, a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. That was contentious, okay, that was fun. All right, we are moving along to electric utility. 9.5B, consider the Reading Electric Utilities REU implementation of the Public Safety Power Shutoff Program and adopt budget resolution.

Yes, thank you.

and how convenient the lights just dimmed as you came up. So that's.

It's like you need to walk on music. Thank you, Mayor, members of council. I know that the evening is running a little late here and there's been a lot on the agenda, so I will do my best to be.

We're actually doing really good.

Brief but thorough, this is a very important, that our staff has worked very diligently on the past year to pull together. This is not pleasant, I'll be frank with everyone. The utility business has spent the last 125 years doing everything we can to never have the power go off. And this is a recent phenomenon that has entered our world in the last 10 years as a last resort tool that none of us are comfortable with. But given the risks that we're managing, I'll get into that in a minute. Unfortunately, we are here. So agenda, just quickly, we'll go over background, state mandates, what's going on at the statutory level, what have we done so far? Then we'll jump into the purpose of public safety power shutoffs. I think we know what that is. We won't spend a lot of time there. We'll jump into program design, and then we'll talk about how we're going to minimize customer impacts, what we're doing to support our customers that will be impacted by this potentially if outage were to occur, how we're going to communicate, and what my recommendations and next steps are. So quick background, the city council approved public safety power shutoffs to be added into our used wildfire mitigation plan last year in May, 2025. In 2018, Senate Bill 901 was passed requiring utilities to have a wildfire mitigation plan and submit those to the Wildfire Safety Advisory Board as part of the state. It was amended the following year to include a code section that required not just investor-owned utilities, but publicly-owned utilities like Redding to include de-energization protocols. It's a fancy word for public safety power shutoffs, in addition to customer notification, communication, and restoration procedures. So they put a little bit more teeth into it. San Diego Gas and Electric started this in 2012. Of course, PG&E picked up on it. Southern California Edison's picked up on it. To date, I was reading a study from Pacific Northwest National Labs. Over 4.5 million Californians have been involved in a PSPS outage since inception on this. So this is a big deal. There's 92 utilities in the West that have wildfire mitigation plans that include PSPS in them. And I want to say 13 of those have actually activated that so far. So this isn't just a California item. This is growing across the West. And of course, our primary objective to our approach is use data, be surgical and protect our public safety so that we do not ignite a catastrophic wildfire. So you quickly, the purpose is, I don't want to read this to you, but really here's the purpose is wildfire risk from an electric utility is what we would call an asymmetrical risk, meaning it's very unbalanced. It's totally unbalanced. We have very limited upside to cap that. We do what we can. But if there is a fire that starts and it does go catastrophic, it is unlimited downside. Mostly due because in the state of California, in the Constitution, there's inverse condemnation laws that confine a public agency or public utility like Redding negligent even if say we didn't even start the fire which then snowballs into lawsuits that are virtually uncapped with punitive payouts and damages and bankruptcies and whatnot that's the legal liability side this the real concern is the safety side and keeping our customers safe in our town safe right under under weather conditions that are just unmitigatable How did we get here? What we spent the last few years is really diving deep into historical data. We've engaged with a consultant, EDM International. They're pretty hot on this space. We're further engaged with another consultant, Cloudfire, to dig deeper into the models, but using some pretty advanced climate modeling, looking at what our risk factor inputs are, fire danger indicators, fuel dryness, these are all standardized items that are now out there and available. And thankfully they're public and they're free. And then putting this into, I would call it a homegrown model that we built using AI resources and some machine learning. If you start pulling this in and give us a seven day forward rolling forecast of when we might be looking at a PSPS condition, And it's all driven on data, which is, like I mentioned, culmination of wind speeds, fire potential indices, burn data, fuel dryness, fuel loading, suppression capability. And there's more to it. I don't want to get too far. But essentially what we were able to do is narrow this down to less than 5% of our customer base would be exposed to a PSPS area. It was very helpful working with the Redding Fire Department. Our staff went out with their experts and we walked these areas. We went on foot patrol and we learned a lot as an electric utility of what we thought would be a high fire threat area where we would need to shut off or where we say maybe we didn't think it was, and we learn from a suppression standpoint what they see in the real world if a fire starts at wind speeds of say 20 to 25 sustained, 45 to 50 gusting, what they're gonna be doing. That was an invaluable experience. We've talked about this with the Wildfire Safety Advisory Board. We hosted them a few weeks ago here at our AVTECH building and then took them on a tour. They think the combination of the modeling, but the real world experience with our suppression team, the Redding Fire Department was very much invaluable for us. Quickly, criteria that would trigger this, this is pretty normal now. It's gonna be your weather and fuel conditions, your local field conditions, and then what's going on with your public safety resources at the time. So in our model, what we have incorporated is as the fire departments, both Redding Fire Department, CAL FIRE get more taxed in a fire situation, we may lower our threshold to trigger a PSPS because the suppression resources are already busy. If they're not busy, we have a little bit more tolerance of risk, right? So we can attenuate that to the live situation. Again, this is a last resort option. This is not the first resort in the tool belt. This is not the medium resort. A lot of really, really bad conditions have to present themselves for a six-hour period before we start really going through this process. I just wanted to put this map up. And of course, this is all public. It's on cityreading.gov slash PSPS. It's a fantastic webpage the staff put together. It's very comprehensive. There is a live map that's here. There is also an address lookup tool. So if you're looking at the purple and you're wondering, do I live there? You can go onto the webpage, type your address in the address lookup, and it'll tell you if you're there or not. But essentially breaking this down, we're looking at Tierra Oaks, Bear Mountain Road area. Tierra Oaks is undergrounded, but the feeders that go up there are not. They run through some very high fire threat territory. Lake Boulevard, we're talking kind of a buckeye heading up that way. That's a very, very dense interface of vegetation. That's a very high fire threat concern to the fire department. PG&E serves just outside the city limits. They've undergrounded most of that already because it was a very high fire threat area for them. sunset terrace that's also fed by overhead through a fire threat area and then we've got the kind of the brandstetter heading out towards the texas spring substation and then what we i think it's called the ranchettes it's off canyon there south of the the reading rancheria if you drive in there and you look around it would be very apparent why these areas are are going to be on a psps in scope So about 88 commercial customers, mostly residential, 1,866. We have identified 134 of those customers are enrolled in our low-income programs, and 19 are medically vulnerable. So as we segment this out, it's very important to us that when we make contact with these customers, especially medically vulnerable customers, We're going to go to their doors. We're going to place door hangers on all their doors. We're going to make contact by phone, by email. Any information in the account that we have, we're going to make contact. This is not, this is different than being a utility with a million customers in scope and a hundred thousand medically vulnerable customers. We can be very targeted with this and we can be very hands-on. And I think that's a benefit of being a small utility with an excellent staff that we have is we can really dive in and make sure that we are working through this communications plan. There's two parts to it. Part one is being prepared. What's the routine? Frequencies twice a year. We're gonna reach out to the customers. We're gonna double check contact information. Do you still live there? Did you move? Did somebody else move in? Do we have, are you medically vulnerable? Did you have a change in your condition? We need to know about what's going on, right? So we'll check in on that. This is just to remind customers, if you live at this service address, you are in this PSPS InScope area. And these are your tools and resources that you have. Right. So I'll get to a little bit about rebates and whatnot and make sure that they're offered those. When we move to an event, this is different. Right. So we have a seven day forecast tool that rolls every hour updates. We will be alerting as soon as we know they're going to know. that you may be possibly experiencing a PSPS event starting this hour and what the forecast looks like extending this far, right? So I think that that's important that you give as much leeway as you can, as much as you can, right? Looking at a seven day forecast, we know the weather, it can change. So giving a heads up, I know it can somewhat start a panic a little bit. It does when any other utility does it, but I'd rather know it was potentially gonna happen four or five days out than not know. And then as we move closer to the event, we will keep updating. The weather can change. Wind patterns die down. It does happen. It could be called off or it could be moved up. The goal, of course, is just advance notice. And then especially if we get into an event during the event and then after the event, making sure we're sending the all clears and that the customers understand when they can expect restorations. This is probably the most important part. It's kind of why I'm here tonight is what I'm looking for is a budget resolution for funding to provide customer support initiatives. So this is a, it's actually an AI generated picture, but these are actually real things in real life. So what we're looking to do is provide up to a $500 rebate for customers only in the PSPS impacted area. We have a rebate system we use already. It's called Neighborly. It's a service that we use. If a customer buys a generator, if you go to cityofredding.gov slash PSPS, it's already live. There is an application for a rebate. It's already live. You can click on it. What we will do is look at your invoice or your receipt or whatever you have. It's not going to be super formal. We're not the IRS. We're not going to shake you down for it. We'll just confirm that you're in an impacted address, that it is a generator, that you did spend the money on it. And then through Neighborly, you will receive a check in the mail, right? What's been recently come to market in the last few years is a backup power transfer meter. So if you see the meter hooked on the wall, PG&E worked with Tesco to develop this meter where you take a standard residential meter and then they put a backup power transfer switch on the back of the meter and that whole thing plugs back onto your panel. This avoids the customer having to pay an electrician to come out and wire a backup generator wire to the house. And honestly, those can be anywhere from, I would say, $800 to $1,200. You need to get a permit. Sometimes it can be even more intrusive, depending on where your panel is. This is very simple for the customer. It's automatic. And what we will do, if a customer applies for a generator rebate, we, Reading Electric, will automatically go out and install this meter on their property. They don't have to pay for this, right? So what happens is when we have the outage, when we initiate the power outage for PSPS, this meter will sense that it has lost power, and the backup transfer will enable your generator to start when you're plugged in. And then it will feed the entire property. Very, very handy. This way, if you're medically vulnerable, even if you're not medically vulnerable, you don't have to make the decision, do I plug my generator into my fridge? Do I plug it into my CPAP machine? Do I plug it into my TV? No, it just powers the house. My understanding is these transfer meters are not powerful enough to probably power a large air conditioner for a home. What we're planning to do is not have a PSPS so long that you start to have air conditioning issues, right? It's probably going to get uncomfortable. My experience looking at the data, most PSPS events happen in October, later in the fall. Most PSPS events here in the Redding area don't happen when it's really, really hot because when it's really, really hot, it isn't really, really windy usually in the fall. I'm not going to make that guarantee, but just looking at the data, that's been a correlation where most of our PSPS events around here have been in the 80s or maybe the low 90s temperature for a little bit, mostly in the 80s or 70s, which I found interesting. If we were to have a shutoff, what we'd like to do is offer the customers $100 inconvenience credit. We will just apply that to all customers. We would not ask if you need it or not. We're going to operate under the assumption that if your power gets shut off, you're having to put fuel in your generator. You may have to go out to dinner. You may, I don't know, you're going to spend money, right? Unless, I mean, there's no... these events usually cause you to spend money you may have some food spoilage things like that so we'd like to offer 100 convenience credit and lastly we have worked with uh director many in his team to come up with some safe locations to charge devices they will have air conditioning access supplies and we're working with raba if folks need a ride from their home or their business to these locations raba and are you teaming up to provide that that service So in summary, what I want to leave the council with is this a very rare last resort measure. They're expected to be rare, only used when they're absolutely necessary. They're highly targeted and we are working with a consultant cloud fire to do our best to reduce this scope even more. and or look at the triggers that would cause you to have a PSPS event, right? So this is not perfect science. This is everybody learning at the same time doing their best. So we're refining this even further. We wanna be proactive with our customers. Our customer service team is ready. They have door hanger bags. They have brochures ready. They have contact information. They have everything they can start going with this tomorrow. Actually, they have 2000 brochures printed and they're ready to get going with it. And our goal is to be transparent and have ongoing communication. We know from our experience that we need to have five different communication paths to reach out to a customer, whether it's phone, text, email, in-person. It's hard to get everybody's attention in this world. It's hard to get our attention. I don't blame anybody. So our job is to get out there and make sure that they know what's going on, they have awareness, and we've made as many contact points as we can. So with that, I would ask that the council approves our PSPS program and customer support framework, approve the attached budget resolution appropriating 250,000 for program implementation and authorize the city manager designee to execute future agreements. Those future agreements would mostly be with community benefit organizations. So think say Salvation Army or United Way or others who they also have some resources to provide food vouchers and things for these types of programs. With that, I take any questions.

These are permanently installed generators. These are not portable generators that they would get rebates on?

They'd be portable generators. Or, I mean, a customer could install, like, a whole home generator. We would offer a rebate on that, too.

But they could be portable. I'm thinking about accountability. If someone's in a zone, they could have a buddy say, hey, you're in the zone. How about you go get that generator, collect the rebate for me? But, like, where's the accountability to make sure that we're using these generators as they're supposed to be used? So if they're not permanently installed, so...

I mean, that would be a really big bummer if then... Well, I would think, why would we require them to be permanently installed or... That would be very expensive.

That would become very expensive. Permanently installed one can be super expensive.

Yeah, I think permanently installed generators range from $15,000 to probably $20,000.

Oh, gosh, okay. Yeah, plus the permitting and the installation and maintenance and regular testing. So they're very expensive. Councilor Odette, is he on there?

I just had a question for your commercial customers. We had gotten an email just about, I mean, obviously if it's a commercial building, it may need more than just a small generator. And I don't know what generators cost. Do you know what generators cost?

A large generator like that would probably run you about $15,000 or so.

Yeah, I mean, depending on the smaller building.

So not $500.

Yeah, I suppose it would. A 500-square-foot building would run about $15,000.

Yeah, we have one in our facility. I mean, they can cost up to $40,000 to $50,000 also, depending on the...

If you had a large building, for sure.

Yeah, so if you are a commercial... and you can get 500 towards that do would you connect whatever generator they do have or do you have to have this first can you just have the connection if they do already have a generator

If they already have a generator. So most commercial customers, if they have a generator, it's going to be permanently installed on their property, right? And it's installed by, it's probably going to be a commercial electrician installed it. Most commercial properties that need backup generation have it, right? So think hospitals, grocery stores.

They already, most of them will. If they require that kind of commercial generator, they would have an automatic switch off. I'm not aware of any who wouldn't.

Yeah, and we do.

Well, PSPs are. Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, I'm just going to. If you're in Reading, you've not experienced a PSP. So you may be here because you know that that's not going to be an issue for you. And so if you moved into Reading and then you happen to now be in this new zone that I'm just wondering what we do. There's 88 commercial. Have you identified any? Yes.

We've identified all of them. We are going to go out and personally meet with each one of them and see what's going on. I will say if there's some unique situation that they say have a backup generator, but it doesn't work, or if they, you know, some commercial businesses come and go, most of them are leases. They're not owned, right? So what we can do is our... account management team can go out and meet with them and work with ways that if they do have an outage, what would be the impact? Would they have to close? Do they have some sort of refrigeration needs? Can we help source other refrigeration needs with them? Whether it's portable refrigeration, things like that. So we do that a lot right now, for example, If we have to do some underground work or overhead work for, I think we did actually did a mobile home park up off Lake Boulevard and Caltrans was requiring it on a very specific time and a very specific day. I think Council Member Ardette, you might remember this was a few years ago and it was very hot. It was going to be 114 that day. We, Reading Electric, we actually brought in large trailer mounted diesel generators and our teams, fed the mobile home park because we couldn't have 300 plus of our mobile home park citizens baking in the 114 degree heat while we had to change this vault for Caltrans. So we do have some of that leeway and we do plan to get out there with the commercial customers because until you get there and you find out what's going on, you don't really know. So if there is a very extenuating circumstance, I will come back to the council or I'll put something on the consent calendar to reference this and if we need special funding for that. But I think it's manageable for sure.

We also, somebody else reached out, this last one, reached out and asked if they were near that area. Is there any danger that they could also, it could happen to them? No. I mean, I've actually seen a PSP. I've seen the demonstration, so I, but can you say it out loud so that?

Yeah, so if you're near it, near doesn't matter because it's your wires on your circuit. And our crews, to be honest, in order to make this happen in what we would call isolate or segment as small as possible, it's 180 distinct switching operations to make sure that people who are near it aren't part of it.

Okay.

Thanks.

I have a question. The question, Mr. Redd was asking about backup power transfer meter installation, right? I wonder if, is there going to be benefit of a program for a lower tier group people or the lower tier customers who are not at the highest risk but still have moderate risk? And if they install their own generator without any discount from you, without any rebate from you, is that option available to them or do you think there's any value in making that available?

You know, if we had more frequent outages, I think there could be some value there. But our outage data shows that they're so infrequent, we could install it. You may never use it in the term that you live in that.

And I'll tell you why I'm asking this. A lot of medical facilities are not in these tiers. And I have personal experience with that. For example, my wife stores some chemotherapy drugs. They can run into $50,000, $100,000. and that's not in the high tier, right? But still those kind of medical facilities do exist, which do use their backup smaller generators, but they may not really install this. So that's why I'm asking you this question.

The second part where you would do the connect, like I had that question of like, if it's just, you don't use the discount, do you not qualify for the connection? Or do you have to have the discounted rebate to get the connection?

Right now, what we're proposing is if you get the rebate, we'll automatically install one. But if you're in this PSPS zone and you reach out and say, hey, I already have a generator, can I get a backup meter?

We'll install one. Yeah, but my question is about the second tier, because I can tell you that there have been many times that power has been out for one of the reasons. And I'm not saying that it's very frequent, but still one or two incidences can be enough for some of these medical facilities. Smaller medical facilities, not the hospitals.

Yeah, they'll have to be smaller because these are really residential style. Right, right, right. What we would call like a 200 amp panel and smaller. But I think if there's a special circumstance like that and a customer requests it, they run about $2,000 is what the cost is. Yeah.

I mean, they're expensive.

They're expensive. But if you've got $50,000 worth of medicine and you're concerned about it.

That was just one example. I know that pharmacies and all those things do exist, which are in a lower risk tier, but they do provide an essential service. Something to keep in mind. Nice try.

Can I see any other discussion? Any other council members? We'll entertain a motion. I'll make a motion to approve it. I'll second it. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you.

Thanks, man.

You did a good job. You did good. All right. Our last item, almost through the 1500 pages, last set. Personnel, 9.15A, consider resolution recognized in the formation of the Reading Electric Professionals Association Management and Reading Electric Professionals Association Supervisory Technical and Professional Units. It's all you.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. My name is Carrie Kibler and I'm the Personnel Director. I know it's been a long night, so I'll do my best to keep this concise. Before you was a resolution which would establish two new bargaining units of management, supervisory, technical, and professional employees within the electric utility, which were previously part of the unrepresented group, and then would certify and recognize the Reading Electric Professionals Association, or REPA, as the exclusively recognized employee organization representing these new units. Earlier this year, REPA submitted a petition seeking to represent classifications within the electric department that are currently unrepresented. Per our employer employee resolution, I reviewed the petition and determined that it met the requirements outlined in our resolution. Following the 30-day open period for filing challenging petitions, the State Conciliation and Mediation Services conducted a secret ballot election among the affected employees in May of this year, and a majority of the affected employees voted for REPA to serve as their exclusively recognized employee organizations. The staff report includes a list of the affected classifications by unit. It's now recommended that council adopt the resolution to establish the new bargaining units and formally certify the winning organization, REPA, as the exclusively recognized employee organization to represent both units. Once an employee organization is formally certified as the exclusively recognized employee organization by the city council, the organization in the city will be bound by the terms and conditions of any MOU that was in effect At the time, in this case, the employees represented by REPA would be following the terms and conditions outlined in our employment and benefit policies for unrepresented employees until an initial MOU can be negotiated. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Very, very interesting. Councilor Reznor?

I know that you just sat back down in your seat, but I'm wondering whether or not City Attorney could let me know, what are our legal options here? Mostly, I'm just wondering, I'm hearing Director Kibler say it's highly ill-advised. to not recognize, but is there really an option to do that?

Do we have alternative actions we can take, which sounds like ill-advised, but if you can clarify that.

I have a government code section I can provide.

I'm sorry?

I have a government code section.

So my understanding, Councilmember, is that the appropriate steps have been taken for this bargaining unit to come forward. I can review. This is essentially ceremonial. That's my understanding. But if you need more information from my office, I can provide that. Nope.

Yeah. I had a thought about that also. But I think it's gone through the fair process as for the state laws. I mean, you could always fight it, but I would say that I don't even feel right.

That feels ill-advised.

Yeah, I don't even feel right fighting it.

Yeah, I hear what she's saying. I think it's appropriate. Is there one more?

She's answering.

What was the payment? Was it $40,000 or something?

So I can provide a little bit of information. I believe you're referring to the portion of the CalPERS retirement contribution that So in the unrepresented employees currently contribute an additional amount beyond the CalPERS mandated amount. So CalPERS sets the employee share of retirement at 7% for that particular group. There is a process which the city has engaged in where we've essentially negotiated, or in the unrepresented case, completed a lengthy CalPERS process which allowed the classic employees to pay a portion of the city's contribution for retirement benefits. For PEPRA members, it's automatically 50-50 split. But for our classic employees... we have to essentially negotiate. Because those employees were previously unwrapped, the classic members were paying an additional 3% of their retirement contribution. Once we recognize REPA as the bargaining unit representing them, We will not be able to collect that additional 3% until such time we can negotiate it with the union. And that's due to the CalPERS requirements regarding the employee cost share provisions.

That's once they become a union. Then we can start collecting it as we negotiate.

Well, then we have to negotiate to start collecting it.

But it's $40,000 to begin the process or whatever, right?

It doesn't cost any...

I thought it said it was taken out of our general fund.

The initial loss of revenue to the city from the cost-sharing provision is closer to 70,000 for the two groups. Let me pull the numbers.

There's no resolution for that, so are we just guessing that it will be that?

No, the... So let me clarify. The finance director estimated the potential cost. So for the supervisory technical and professional unit, it results in about a loss of $40,000. And for the management group, that estimate is about $3,000 annually. And that's an annual I'm gonna say lost of cost sharing. So those would be costs that the city would have to absorb until such time a successor or an initial MOU can be negotiated.

I think at this point they want to unionize and it's gonna cost us some money and that is fine. That's a part of doing the business. we just should go along.

I don't mind them going. I just don't feel like we have to pay for it. When they're starting up, I get it after the fact. But if they want to win, then they pay the price that they have to start up.

CalPERS will not allow us to collect this.

That's the thing.

It's a CalPERS regulation that... We don't have a choice. Yes, this is due to the CalPERS regulatory requirements.

Is this the cost, meaning like in the next budget? Like why is there no resolution for it? So what is the accounting on this? He's coming.

We spoke with, well, Greg and Nick and all stuff

So RU believes they'll be able to absorb that cost within their current personnel budget. They have vacant positions and the vacancies should be able to cover the loss of cost share from these positions is effectively how it'll be covered.

Okay.

And our hope would be that we can begin negotiating with REPA and ideally be able to not lose this cost sharing provision for an entire year. So it may not be that much.

Thank you for answering all of our questions. I'll make a motion that we adopt the resolution.

I'll second it. Well, you said ceremonial. I don't think we're having a ceremony on that. We'll have a motion, a second. All in favor? Aye. All right. that's pretty fast well we're efficient we're just getting more efficient by the day moving along I love it council travel reports does anybody have anything to report well I think you traveled this year so maybe you spent the rest of the budget or Okay. To line item 12, suggestions from any council members for any potential topics? Does anybody have anything?

I'll start with the entertainment zone to bring it back to expand the location to the full thing and maybe expand the hours as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

Mr. Mayor, if I may, what was the timeframe on that?

Oh, I mean, well, we got a whole year to wait, so, I mean, you can.

He did say whenever we want earlier, so. So, you know, I mean. It just helps for planning for next.

Wouldn't be a top priority, but I mean, you know, within a couple, three months or four months, whatever.

Jason's nodding out there, that works. Jason's bored, so he said he was ready. Jason doesn't do anything. He said he was ready next week. Any other items, so? Abel, anything else? No. We're adjourned.