City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

This is a public input test message to verify your connection.

All right, sorry for the delay. We are in recess and closed session. We plan to go back and if we have any reportable action, we'll come back and report at the end of closed session. So thank you for all your patience on that. Meetings either in person or remotely using the city's online public comment platform located on the city's website and instructions are included on the agenda. Main agendas and staff reports are available at the website cityofwriting.gov and also in the public view binder located on the podium on the north side of the chambers. All right, so let's keep going. We are going to call this meeting to order. And we're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. All right, if you all rise with me. Councillor Audette, would you like to lead us?

Ready, begin.

And we have our invocation by Jim McCloskey from the Reading Fire and Reading Police Departments. Thank you.

Good evening. Will you please bow your head with me? Heavenly Father, we welcome your presence into this gathering tonight. We give thanks for our mayor, our council members, our city leaders, and the citizens of Reading who have come together for the good of our community. We acknowledge their commitment, their labor, and their desire to see our city flourish. Grant them wisdom and steady guidance, for your word reminds us that those who trust in you will be prospered. We ask your special blessing over the men and women you have called to serve in public safety. We honor their courage, their sacrifice, and often unseen work they do each day. We pray your protection over all our first responders. Keep them in your care and shield them from harm as they serve the people of Reading. In all that is done here tonight, may we remember that every good gift comes from you. And may you receive all glory and honor. We offer this prayer in the name of our Lord and Savior. Amen.

All right, we'll start with the roll call.

Council Member Audette? Here. Danuka?

Present.

Munns?

Here.

Reznor? Present. And Mayor Lata?

Here. Comment for non-agendized matters within the city's jurisdiction pursuant to the Brown Act. The City Council cannot take action on any public or public comment items. And we have four speakers today. So we'll have Richard Wyatt, if you're here. Jacqueline Treadway, you'll go next. If you guys can make your way up there and we'll start with you, Richard. Richard, are you here? Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Either one. Most people speak up there.

I'm just... I'm currently a returned citizen. I was formerly incarcerated. And since I've been out, I've been homeless and I met, I'm at the lady I'm helping here. I volunteered to help her with the SB 634. And I know that if I lost my belongings, if there's a clean sweep and they came and took my belongings, it would be all my health care stuff, my medication, my ID, and all the things I need to survive. So all my stuff is in a couple of bags. That's what I have now. And if anybody comes and removes those things from me, it's more of a struggle. It puts me back into possible going back into drug addiction or any of those other things. With the current struggle that I'm already existing with, I'm not going to commit crimes or anything like that, but it's hard when you get all your stuff removed. You have to restart, and you're already kind of restarting. So that's basically what I wanted to say on SB 634.

All right. Thank you for coming, Richard. We appreciate your comments today. Thank you. And Jacqueline?

OH, THERE'S A TINY THING. HI. Several years ago, Reading started an experiment of trying to protect the public against the criminal element of the homeless, of the camping and street homeless, the criminal element, their drug addictions, the drug dealers. And they instituted an anti-tent, anti-camping ordinance. to discourage them from taking over the public areas of the parks and unpopulated areas. And they instituted, to enforce these ordinances, anti-camping, anti-loss ordinances, they instituted sweeps, which was the process of of trying to keep them moving along so they don't institute squatters' rights and claim a place on the streets in the public, and also so that the public is protected from endangerment of their drug addictions and unsightly trash and encampments. Enforcing those laws has become a very punitive process for people that are just trying to stay alive. extreme and destructive to both the survival of the homeless and to the possibilities of, and it also increases crime to replace the confiscated items that have been confiscated by the law enforcement and made almost impossible to regain. So it's loss after loss, not only of life survival equipment and fines and punishments for just trying to stay alive, but just being... Oh, I went fast. So anyway, my 501c3 has developed... Building communities through healing homelessness has developed a key to empowering the community, the Reading community, to be compliant to the new law, SB 634, with compassion and replacing those obstacles and those those punishments and punitive practices with practices that actually help people survive, help people regain their status in the community, and to address the chronic homeless crisis today in California. All right.

And this is the... Thank you, Jacqueline.

Okay.

All right.

Oh, okay.

All right, Shasta County Watchdog.

Well, good evening now. Well, something brought me here again. Something that Mr. Kevin Cry has been talking about on the radio. And it's very disturbing what he's doing. I'm not going to even mention the city manager's name because I think it's very... disrespectful to use his name and to use it for their personal gain. Kevin Cry is kind of throwing his name around, hence making some comments in regarding that maybe there was a possibility that maybe somebody did something to him. Maybe somebody basically took him out, killed him or something. And I think it's very wrong for him to make those allegations in trying to muddy his name, the city manager, who was whatever he was working on, and for Kevin Cry to try to take his role or try to say he's going to expose everything he might know. And, you know, I think it's very sad that someone like Kevin Cry is going to try to muddy this city manager's name. And my other thing I have is Ms. Vanessa. I understand that you are friends with Kevin Cry. So I think you need to be very careful with hanging around with him and being his friend because it's going to reflect on you. And there's a lot of people who actually basically said, since you're friends with him, they're not going to even vote for you. They don't even like the idea. You can smile all you want. I really don't care, but I think you should care because you think – Here's the thing, Kevin Craig, actually, I have documents here that he actually continued to take COVID-19 money, and he talks about staying away from government, and he's actually taken over $25 million. Every year from COVID-19, from all the schools, because he made a contract agreement with all the schools, which we all know, it's a conflict of interest. Prohibit laws. And these laws also, I mean, these funds that he's been receiving, it's not just state, it's federal. So when I spoke to the FBI, when I told him about this, and he said, if he's receiving the ELOP, then he says, bring them to us. Because actually, they will take on those kind of cases. So I think you need to be aware who the people you hang out because you said in the past that you had some things that you wanted to expose. Well, the person who you're being friends, he's also corrupt. He's stealing money for the citizens. So I think people need to pay attention to you if you want to vote for somebody who actually really is going to be in the side of the people and we're not hanging around with somebody who actually is part of corruption. So, I mean, like I said, I don't care if you think it's funny because that's what Kevin Cry does. He thinks everything's funny that people say about him. When I have the facts, I got the evidence, I got received public records from all the schools.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Leslie, hi.

Do I get to let her know? I'm about as close to Kevin as William Tarbo was to Kevin Cry.

I don't think you need to justify anything. People see the fruits of your efforts. You bear good fruit. So I want to be very positive today. I got a chance twice to see our community come together and do great things. Saturday night, a friend of mine and I hosted an adult prom. There was no mission. There was no political affiliation. There was no fundraising effort. It was just adults in our community that wanted to have fun and dance like it's 1999. And it was so fun. And our community came together, and we saw people that we didn't know interacting together, and it was just a really cool thing. I then saw the same thing happen yesterday in the Target parking lot when a bush caught fire. And I'm telling you, it was something of biblical proportion because this lady comes running across the parking lot and she's on the phone with a redding fire and she's got a life water bottle and is like going to put it out with a life water bottle. Wow. So I pull up. I had just bought two cases of waters. And we are opening waters as fast as we can, trying to get it on there. Lumber liquidators sent out three fire extinguishers. This bush took three fire extinguishers from lumber liquidators, one from a passerby's car. So four full fire extinguishers kept coming back. I'm telling you, it was like the burning bush in the Bible. It was hilarious. But the community was just gathering around. Everybody that saw it was like opening my water bottles and dumping them on there and So Redding Fire showed up. They did a great job. They were super professional. They thanked everybody that was there. So shout out to Redding Fire. They did a great job. They got there quickly. They actually got it out, but it was kind of insane. So public service announcement, don't throw your cigarettes or pot or whatever you're throwing into bushes because it burns. But yes, they were great. On to the next note, we are having a large legislative event in Sacramento on the 18th and 19th of this month, where the first day we will do training and explain to people how to advocate for their rights, and the second day we will be at the Capitol. lobbying the legislators, and we actually have that entire west wing, or west steps of the capital for different vendors and booths, and it'll be cool. So if anybody's interested, I would love to get you more involved with what's happening at our state level, because all of that trickles down and affects us here. And then also tomorrow night, there's the meeting on the alternative custody program at the board chambers. And I think that everybody should know so that they can be involved in government because that entire situation has gone to meetings here. It's gone to meetings at the Capitol. And unfortunately, the news wanted to cover people sitting down and throwing a fit rather than that being discussed originally. And so this would be a good chance to get everybody on the same page. Thank you.

All right, thank you for coming, Leslie. Thank you for helping put the fire out. And are you sure those weren't water bottles of gasoline? Yes.

Okay. All right.

Good. Great. All right. Thank you for everybody that came and spoke today. We're going to move on to our 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. It shall be the prerogative of any council member before the consent calendar is acted upon to one, comment on an item, two, respond to any public comment on an item, three, request the record to 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 delivery of a staff report and or an extended discussion or deliberation. That was a lot. Okay. I see one speaker here for consent. And welcome back, Shasta County Watchdog.

Hi. On your consent item, I appreciate that you guys are allow the The citizens are able to pull an item and speak on it. It's not like the Board of Supervisors. They don't care what we have to say. But anyways, some of these items, I am concerned, just like I do with Board of Supervisors, because they actually rubber stamp everything under consent item. Even if you try to tell them, hey, there's a contractor. His license has been expired. He's under an investigation with the state government. Contractors License Board, they don't care. Multiple times they have rubber stamped that and they just, they still voted on it. So I recommend that when you do look, put these contracts on the agenda to look and see if their license is still active because I found some they're not active. And so and there are some of their under investigation. So I recommend that you kind of look at that because when I see items like this or any items, I go through it really quick. But I didn't have much time today. But but I did look at some. So my concern was that the expiration on it. So. I'm just saying if you approve something that expires, then it actually falls on you liability, and then there's nothing you can do, especially if you're going to give them half a million dollars, you know, and then what are you going to do? You can't take it back because you already voted on it, and then they do the construction. Then, you know, how are you going to go after somebody who actually has their license expire? You made a contract, so then you also got to consider if you decide to sit down with them and ask them, why did you put a bid on it and knowing your contract has been expired, then it's a breach of contract. You can't even do that because it's the council who actually will be at fault for not doing the homework. So just kind of letting you know that that's something to consider to look at. All right, thank you.

All right, actually, thank you for pointing that out, but can I ask the staff that you guys, when you bring this, you have screened these contractors for a good standing license, right?

Yeah, that is correct, Councilmember DeNuca. As we award contracts, either for professional services or to construction contracts for contractors, We look at licenses, bonding, insurances, and all the requirements, and they go through a pretty rigorous process. And in fact, there's a number of times where we actually delay the award of contracts to make sure that we get the proper documents from those individuals. So I can certainly make sure that we didn't miss anything on these specific agenda items, but I would frankly be surprised if we did.

Thank you. But I would encourage public, if you do notice somebody's license is expired and they are on the agenda, please let us know so that we can also look at that. Thank you.

All right. As we prepare to not use a rubber stamp, let's use a self-inking stamp. So we have a... opportunity to take a motion and take a second here. And unless somebody would like to make a comment.

Motion to approve.

I'll second. All right. We have a motion and a second and ready to self-ink stamp this. All in favor? Aye. All right. That passes. Very good. Okay. So we're going to move on to our one agenda item. We're going to go fast so all of your Ironman runners, swimmers, cyclists can get out there and start training. It's a little cooler out there. So we and

One's super moody in here.

Really dark, and I cannot read, so we're just going to turn it over to you.

Well, good evening, Mayor, members of the Council. My name is Jason Jablisco, Management Assistant to the City Manager, and tonight I'll be presenting on the City Cost for the Ironman event. So on February 17th, I presented to City Council an MOU with Choose Reading that divided the responsibilities to be able to host a successful Ironman event. And that MOU was adopted by City Council. Part of that item was also a budget resolution that describe the cost for the event. That budget resolution was not adopted and the direction from City Council was to bring back the item at a future meeting with alternate costs or alternate funding sources. So we do have over 1,600 participants registered for the event. We are expecting an increase of over $160,000 from TOT and sales tax for the week of the Ironman event. Updates since February, the bike and run courses were changed. Those have been updated. Public Works and our community services staff were able to absorb the cost of maintenance and prep work. So those courses are race day ready right now. We also have been able to work more closely with Ironman staff and Choose Reading regarding the specifics of the event. We have also been able to work more closely with our staff here to find alternate funding sources so it is less of a fiscal impact on the city. So here we have our city costs. We do need additional police and fire staff. And we are gonna be responsible for shuttling participants from the Civic Center to Whiskey Town. So we are working with a charter bus company to do that. And they're gonna start picking up participants at 3 a.m. on race day. We are gonna be sending out mailers to all neighboring businesses and residents that are on the course. And that mailer's gonna include the estimated time I also included a contingency cost. This is just in case if we need a shuttle to stay a little bit longer or if we need an additional solid waste container. And that brings our total to just over $50,000. But being able to work more closely with REU and our solid waste division, REU is able to sponsor the event for $15,000 from the community sponsorship fund. And also with council approval, Solid Waste is able to donate the five needed drop boxes. That's an estimated value of $2,600. So that brings down our net fiscal impact to just over $35,000. And that brings me to our recommendation. So staff asks that you approve the following, adopt the budget resolution for just over $35,000 for Ironman this year, authorize REU to sponsor the event for $15,000 annually, authorize the solid waste division to donate the required drop boxes, and find that the drop box donation supersedes council policy 214, given the scale and community benefit of the event. With that, I'm available for any questions.

And we have light back. All right. Thank you, Jason. So we have one speaker here. Tim, you want to come on up and speak and tell us how great we are.

I need more than three minutes then. Awesome. All right. Good evening, City Council. My name is Tim Bauer. I'm with the Reading Sports Commission, also working with the Reading Tourism Marketing Group. This is going to be my last presentation before next week officially kicks off race week for Ironman 70.3 Northern California presented by Dignity Health. We are thankful that they came on board and they'll be the presenting sponsor of a race this year and also our medical sponsor.

Those race stats are great.

We still have a week left before registration closes. Over 1,600 athletes, 48 states, over 20 countries represented. And what the more exciting thing is, we'll have dozens of pro men's and women's athletes competing for that $40,000 prize money. And so that'll be great. That comes with a lot of additional social media coverage. And we've already had a lot of outside news coverage interest in our race. So we're excited about that. For race week, starts next week, Ironman staff will be here, about 75 people, and they'll start constructing on the Civic grounds. So that'll be exciting to see. You'll finally start seeing the Ironman banners wrapped around the Civic, and they'll be doing all their due diligence to make sure the course is race ready. Well, one of the things we did for the public is we printed these. Pretty much this is the official race agenda for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Those are the peak days when all the community events are happening. So these are free. We're going to be giving them out to local businesses we think are going to be impacted. They're also available at the Reading Chamber. And so this also has the overall course plus race day traffic impacts. Nothing too crazy about some places will be about three to four hour delays. There's pilot cars and detours where we can have them available, but we're four hours max on some of these roads. And so we advise people to go to ReddingSportsCo.com or visit Redding.com slash Ironman to see the official course. I know City of Redding will start pushing that out more on social media so people are aware. So, with all that being said, we have some small fun events we want the public to know about. On Thursday, Fall River is doing a Hometown Heroes event, which is a meetup for all locals registered for the race. That's on Thursday at Fall River Brewing. Friday evening, we have the Reading Ranch Represents the Startline Social at Whistlestop Park. And that'll be the official kickoff event for Ironman Saturday morning. Visit Redding Presents Sunrise Yoga on the Sundial Bridge. And after that is the Iron Kids Race, which is open to any kid. And then Sunday, August 16th is race day. We're expecting anywhere from 6,000 to 7,000 people to be in the city of Redding next week. We want to be courteous and kind. Just remember there's going to be a lot more cyclists on the road. And just we really want Redding to shine. We're looking for Some really decent weather. Mid 60s. Most people should be done before it hits the mid 90s. So I'm thankful for that and looking for a great race. Thank you.

Did you really promise the mid 60s?

What was that?

Did you really promise the mid 60s temperature?

I prayed really hard for it.

It will start off in the mid 60s.

I have a question. Where can we find the most updated map?

So Redding Sports Co., we talk with Ironman daily, and so that's where the traffic impact map will be. So Reddingsportsco.com. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for doing this. We really appreciate you bringing this. And I cannot wait to get my $40,000 check when I win this event. And I'm looking forward to it, Tim. Yes. Yes. When you win it, get another $1,000 on me. Just $1,000. I announced that. It means you have a lot of faith in me. I do. Good. All right. Any comments from council? Entertain a motion. Motion to approve.

I'll second.

We have a motion, a second. Let's take a vote. All in favor? Aye. All right. That passes.

He didn't vote.

He did really good. Okay, moving on. Council travel reports, anything to report from anybody? Nothing. How about some suggestions from council members for future potential topics? Councilor Odette?

I just want to know if we have an update of when the RFP for the Civic is coming.

Director Manny will be up here in just a second to answer that. Thank you.

Thank you. Travis Whitney, Director of Community Services. The RFP has been out for almost a week, or I think a little over a week, actually, and we have our site visit tomorrow with prospective applicants for that.

So it's up, it's running?

Yes, ma'am.

Where would the public find that?

City of Reading Purchasing is the homepage for that on our website. So all of our requests for proposal opportunities are listed there.

Great. Thank you.

No problem. I have a question. There have been some concerns raised again about some of the motels being used for parolees. And I wanted to see if council would be interested in getting an update on the situation. The public has reached out for some of those concerns.

Yeah, I think they could make a presentation if they really wanted to, but they could probably send an email.

Okay, so if you guys could, you know, maybe next meeting. You know what I'm talking about?

Yes, Council Member DeNuca, one of the things that new interim police chief Hank Schrader and I have been talking about is looking into that and coming back with some information. Obviously, Director Pagan and his team and a few other departments are involved as well, as well as some of our local partners. So we are going to get some information, and we can bring that back to you either as an agenda item on the 18th or potentially – an off-agenda memo or something, depending on what's the most appropriate course of communication.

Yeah, it'll be good to bring something which we can share with the public also as an update. Yeah, thank you.

Understood. Last thought, do we have a timeline when the tobacco ordinance, or we're going to get an update when that is coming back? I think we talked about that at our last or previous council meetings in the past, but does that come in September or anytime soon? Or if you don't know, that's okay, but just want to make sure that's on our radar again, so.

Yeah, let me get with Director Pagan on that and come back to you with an update on where the tobacco ordinances and all those landed.

Okay, great. If you allow me, I would commend