City Council - Regular Meeting

Steve, Steve, you want to close out close session? There's no reportable action.

All right, great. Thank you. All right, let's get started. 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. City council will allocate up to a maximum of three minutes per speaker for each agenda item. Staff reports are available online at the city's website, city of reading.gov. Then the public view binder located on the podium, the north side of the chambers. All right, let's do the pledge. Ready? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Debbie Good evening. Would you please bow your heads and join me in a word of prayer? Father, during this busy time of year in preparing to celebrate the season, we thank each and everyone present here tonight for the gift of their time. We appreciate their active participation in making our community a safe one in which to live, work, and play. Thank you for bringing them here safely and we ask for continued safety upon their return home. For those serving in the military and unable to be with their loved ones for the holidays, we wish to express our sincerest appreciation for the task with which they have been assigned. Keep them safe out of harm's way and grant a peace beyond all understanding to their families here at home. We extend our thankfulness to those here in our community serving in public safety, law enforcement, fire protection, emergency services, and dispatchers who have become accustomed to working holidays and celebrating as their schedule sees fit. May we extend to others that which we have been blessed. In all things, we give you the glory and the honor. It is in the name of your precious son that we pray. Amen. Roll call. Miss Shar.

Council member Adet here. Dr. Denuka present. Latau here. Resner present. And mayor M here. Well, we're going to start off with uh 1D city council reorganization selection of the city of Reading Mayor, Vice Mayor, Mayor Prom, one year December 2 to December 126. We're all going to jump at once. Sorry. What? Oh, we're just We're working on 1D, selection of a new mayor.

Do you want to give some background to the community about what we do? Sure. Um, every year we at the first meeting in December, we pick a new mayor and uh, five of us vote. It's not a a public vote. It's just the five of us. So, that's what we're going to be doing here shortly. Anybody have any thoughts? Thoughts? Yeah. You want us to make motions? Sure. Go ahead. We can We could just leave it the same. You could You could

We could do that.

You could. Um Well, um I um feel like the last year has been uh difficult and there has been quite erosion of public trust. And so I am going to reiterate the same thing I motion I made at the beginning of this year as far as how I think we should um set up our mayor, vice mayor and mayor prom and that is by the vote of the people. And so if I go back to the vote of the people and who the people said that uh by their vote count of who the people have confidence in, then I would say that the order should be Dr. Januka, um Aaron Resner, and Mike Latau in that order because that is the order of the votes that they got. And traditionally, that's really how it's been um set up. we obviously had someone that uh resigned and so things um escalated up um and so having three new people that goes in that line. So um

but they weren't voting for him for mayor. They were just voting for him to go to council.

Correct. So, what I'm saying is I think since we've had such a disconnect from the public, it's probably best that we start prioritizing um the choices of the public. Um and as we try to rebuild and reestablish that trust through the year, I think that the public has said that they have a prepoundonderance of confidence in Dr. Danuka. Um he overwhelmingly got I think almost 22,000 votes, well more than everyone else. And so I think it's that that would be my preference. I made that same motion last year. And so um I'm just going to stick with that. I think that would be the best order for this year. Um so yeah, that that's my my rationale.

Anybody else? Um, I can see why council member, like she said, it is the same uh motion I believe that she made before um as someone who sat on council before when we um skipped someone out of rotation. for the public's um benefit. There have been lots of times and lots of reasons why we have skipped um various different people in rotation. Um, however, the last time that I was on council and someone was skipped, it had to do with a lack of trust amongst this group because as Mayor Muns said, it is this group that is picking essentially who it is that we would like to be mayor, vice mayor, and mayor prom. Um, so I think that my hesitation in seconding that motion right off the bat at least is that I don't have a lack of trust or um feel that there's any reason why in our current rotation um that council member or vice mayor couldn't do the mayor position. Um, and so my only um thing to consider or to say I have reservation about um has to do with um just that I've I've been here before and the reason had to do with lack of trust amongst the entire council. Um and so I just want to communicate that that I don't have a lack of trust in my in my

personal experience. Can I also just say I think the reason why um Dr. Janiko was not the vice mayor this year was because he turned down that nomination. So I it wasn't

I don't want to be negative. I just affirmatively would like to go back to getting it in that order to establish yes we do need to all trust each other. There are issues obviously um but that to me the trust with the public is the most important part and that's sort of the focus I'd like to have but also Dr. Dr. Danuka, is this a role now having had a year? If I had done that again, if I had nominated you last year, knowing what you know now, would you have said yes instead of saying no? Oh, like in hindsight.

Well, hindsight is always 2020. I I want to just look forward. Totally. You know, I would like to hear everybody's thoughts.

Yeah. No, I appreciate what Aaron is saying. I would like to know what Jack and uh what uh Mike thinks. So, but there is I can tell you that whosoever does this job is in a heap of a trouble. So, what is whatever is going to happen in our city right now, we are on a kind of a crossroads. will whosoever is a mayor will have to run navigate the ship very carefully cautiously and it's not going to be easy for anyone of us to do it and uh I think whatever the council decides I'm going to respect that and honor that I'll be ready and willing but I would like to know what Mike has Aaron put already he is a vice mayor right now so it's I will defer to the council whatever you decide Go ahead.

Sure, I'll speak. Um, so I I just look back to when we were running I I remember a question that we got early on at many of the forums and people asked you and I directly um what would we do uh with a mayor whether when we select someone and we both actually said we just respect the process. We understand the rotation and um I do agree unless there's reasons why somebody really really shouldn't take that position then um that's how you use your vote to say no but um you know I'm confident in my abilities I think I am up for next rotation. I think I uh would do a pretty good job. Uh but from my perspective I don't think I've done anything uh this year to really anger the community or anger the council itself. Um and again I'm confident in my abilities to be able to lead. Well, I think there are challenges for for Paul. Um, he's a Paul is a wonderful, you know, probably the biggest heart in this room. Um, I'm just not sure that you're ready to take the ship over these heavy waves. Um, for what it's worth, there's just a a Yeah, I I could say more, but I'll choose not to. We can talk. Um, I am going to actually piggyback on what uh, Council Member Danuka said in terms of what we have lying ahead of us is a really clunky, potentially painful um, no, it will be painful um, process and I don't I don't want to communicate that there that this I don't want to communicate any longer from any of us that the five

of us up here can that there's a reason not to trust any of us. I I would like us to move forward um in unison as frequently as we can um and to hear each other out and all of those sort of things. And um I don't want to communicate to um the public that there's any reason or any turmoil amongst us or any of those sort of things. Um because I think that what we are facing budget-wise is going to um require us to um have the same priorities and speak highly of each other and be respectful. And not that that doesn't happen regularly, but I think that that's going to be of the utmost importance and I want to continue to make sure that we are communicating to the public that this is a body that respects each other and that we respect that order unless there is some reason why somebody cannot um be trusted at least amongst the five of us that we have some sort of like legal concerns. concerns. Um I'll I'll make a motion that we follow our current um trajectory um and rotation of of council member Latau as mayor. Um it feels weird to say myself as vice mayor feels really awkward and um council member Danuka I think is how that would go. um in mayor prom again I'm complete I understand that this is a very awkward thing that we do every year um because most of us don't actually like to talk about ourselves or toot our own horns um but that's where I stand on that

anyone so um I will be voting against that for absolutely trust issues and I we're not in unison up There is major violations of trust that have happened and um I was hoping not to have to have that um be discussed appear over and over or for ha to have to drag that through the press right as our as the leader of the council right

so it's for that reason that I make a mo that I make the motion that we actually make a decision that we should have made last year for an order um that is aligned with tradition which is highest vote getter and in that order um I think it does restore some level of trust and we're not in unison up here we will this will not be a 50- vote um and it's not like it's you know never going to work but I do think that time and rebuilding of trust can happen but it's not going to happen when there has been constant demonstrations of not allowing people to speak of um trying to shut down conversation. On several occasions I've been admonished up here that I shouldn't ask questions from this dis by council member Latau. So I don't think we're going to actually move into a new era where we're actually discussing more. We have more transparency. We have more questions being asked. we're actually encouraging um more participation from the public and we're rebuilding that trust that's been lost. I don't think that that's going to happen because it hasn't been demonstrated. So, I think um I'm going to reiterate that. I think that we should put the order in the order that it should have been from the beginning um and take the opportunity to take some time over the next year to just rebuild the budget and rebuild relationships up here. And I don't think that that's going to happen when you have the person leading who's been doing that very undermining thing these things. So that's my concern and I've had no indication apology or movement towards um moving towards more open discussion. That hasn't happened. So for that reason I won't be voting with that if that's the decision that you decide

to second. Are you willing to entertain any other combination? It's true. Um, are you willing to I'm now going to play a game of Disney yachtsy. Um, because the g the gentlemen have few words tonight. Um, but are you willing to entertain other sort of another sort of makeup? So whether that's La Denuka Resnner or whether that's uh Resner LA Danuka or whether that's uh I should have taken the time to write these out before I thought about all of the ways you could combine our names.

Um I'm the reason that I am nominating basically for me the options are Mike or Dr. Paul because that's exactly who I had nominated the first time. So, I'm being consistent with the order that I think should be there based on vote getting. I did it the same way before. So, my my um I think that should have been set. And since if you're not running next year, that moves Mike back up. That means he's the mayor next year. And I wouldn't object to that. But I don't think that this year for what we have to do. Um, I just believe that for the public's sake, for our sake, we we need leadership that's going to let people speak, especially up here. And he's shared in being shut down the way that I've been shut down in these discussions and in these debates on very, very important issues, specifically the budget, which we will be doing all year. And so in an effort to just do a better job of actually getting to solutions, I think we should have somebody that isn't going to demonstrate that. And so I haven't seen Paul do that. I've I've seen the, you know, so that's why I'm putting that forward. Whether or not you want to be the mayor prom or the vice mayor or vice versa, I mean, I'm open to whatever. But either way, it does make Mike the mayor next year, which I would not object to.

Okay. I have, again, this is going to feel slightly awkward. Um, if your concern is making my the mayor next year, you could hypothetically put Paul and I in either of those situ in either of those spots. So, in either of what spots? In either mayor or vice mayor spots. and LATA in uh mayor prom spot.

I've already my my recommendation is is Dr. Januka yourself and then Mike. So I'm not I don't follow what I guess I'm saying is there any other combination of that? I hear you saying like I'll entertain some would I make you the mayor? Is that what you're asking? Yeah, that's super awkward, but I'm attempting to get any sort of feedback on any of the combinations that I am writing out. Um, no, I would entertain Dr. Danuka. That's that's it. Yeah. Yeah.

For the reason that that's also what the public has endorsed. That's also what the public has said that they want and that's sort of where trust is right now. And we do need to build trust back with the public. We're going to be making very difficult decisions and we're going to need them on board with us and we're going to need them to participate. And I do think that we will draw more people on both sides of the aisle with Paul leading. That's what I believe and I've seen it and I I believe that and I think that's what's best for the city in this next year and he's up for it. So,

are you willing to So, uh, what I heard you say is that you're only willing to entertain Danuka as mayor. The other the other combination is LA as mayor, Danuka as vice mayor, me as mayor, prom. Yeah, I I didn't know what I Well, I didn't know if you were gonna I didn't know what you were gonna do if you're gonna throw Jack back in there because, you know, he's Okay. You're not a bad idea. What? But I wouldn't vote for that either. So I I I honestly like this is this is the this is what the public

this is what the public voted for. This is I and I think since we represent them I and when all else fails and when things are astray, I think we should go back to what is going to engender trust with the public. And so to me, if you're the vice mayor, yeah, do any of the gentlemen have any sort of because what what ultimately it feels like at the moment is I don't have a dog. I don't really have a dog in the fight. You're not attempting to advocate, but we are discussing some sort of like Well, you are attempting to advocate, I suppose, but I would like to hear from the gentleman rather than

Sure. you and I trying to figure out where you and I can compromise, right? Go ahead, Paul. You say anything more?

Um, this is this is going to be difficult for whosoever does it. As I said earlier, I'm happy and ready to do it. But I at the same time I do want to make sure that uh we we we have a lot of you know there is no perfect decision anyone no one has a crystal ball so I want to make sure that we have as much if not unanimity at least as much support as we have possible. So I would say that clearly uh Tennis I really thank you and I respect your uh nominating me for mayorship and I honor that and I really thank you for that and I'm willing and ready to do it. But at the same time I do see that uh Jack and uh Aaron want to make sure that it's Mike's vice mayor being vice mayor is his turn next year. So, I'm sure he will do a good job also and I'm completely fine with that. Perhaps we can compromise with, you know, it's it's your call. If you want to do this, it's yours. If you want me to do it, I'll do it. I'm talking with Mike.

But if you do it and I can be the vice mayor and uh Aaron can be prom, that may be a happy compromise for most of us. That's my take on this. Mike, it's up to you.

Can I ask a couple of questions? I'm really sorry. I know I said I wanted to hear from you and now I'm interrupting. Um, so I'm going to acknowledge that. Um, do you genuinely feel like you have the time to be mayor? Because I understand that you make time for the things in which that you care about. So, let me acknowledge that. But I also want to say that even Jack I think a year ago when he was put into mayor position did not know oh darn I'm getting all of these extra meetings which have been a thing in which that you've communicated I think to all of us how difficult that is in your schedule to have meetings in the middle of the day or to um it is usually a difficulty to be scheduling all of our extra meetings or additional meetings and budget meetings around your current calendar. And so I agree with both of you. Whomever sits in this position is going to need to allocate extra time and direction. And I hear what you're saying about public trust. Um but I also think that the mayor's job is to conduct a meeting to know when we're opening a public hearing and when we're closing a public hearing. it is to know what uh the rules of order are and who goes first and who goes second. And we have incredible help all of the time because sometimes like we will see later when we have ordinances and we open and close public hearings, we need guidance. But if I was to say a member of the council, not whose heart was necessarily the the best, but a member of council who had the most amount of time to give to this, that isn't Dr. Danuka, who I think that

he probably is self-aware enough to be able to like say that. Um, and so I want to make sure that whomever we pick. Jack's retired, so maybe I should have said Jack again. Um, but I want to make sure that we're picking somebody who can lead a meeting because as a person who's experienced lots of different types of mayors, those mayors that can be efficient and lead a meeting really well and understand what is happening and moves to make really is just helpful at moving the process along. Now, now you could speak. Sorry. Go ahead, Mike.

Do you want him to answer? Oh, about the time. Oh, time is not an issue because uh as a doctor, I've been trained to work 24/7, 48 hours. And I know, but you can't schedule you can't schedule a surgery.

But but time is not an issue. I make a commitment when I I only make a commitment which I can keep. That is not an issue. But it's completely Mike's call and I will defer completely to Mike and and and I can tell you that I absolutely will support in if if I'm if Mike is mayor and I'm vice mayor, I'm completely support him in making sure that this meeting is run in a very different way. I I mean looking back over the year, I would say looking at all five of us, all five of us are very qualified. We're talented. We bring things to the table of different perspective that um and I've enjoyed every bit of the conversation, even in the contention and the disagreement. Um regardless of what happens today, who's chosen, I think there's a common theme that we do want to build back trust. And I can say certainly I've said things over the past year that I didn't always feel good when I went home. Um, I think we've all done things and said things that um just felt ugly at the moment. And uh I'm always committed to trying to uh bridge the gaps with relationships even when they feel ugly, they feel messy. Um you know, it's it's important to me to keep working on that stuff. And I think uh for the whole council here, we should all be working towards that with each other. Uh even in moments of disagreement when uh it just feels like we really can't get along. and I'm committed to continue to do that and uh apologize when I'm wrong and um and just be open to any conversation as we do have a lot to work on as a council. So, uh moving forward, my perspective is if if you're saying it's my call, I'm ready. I willing to do this. I feel confident in my abilities. I think we're all capable and um again, if we're all committing forward to work on improving relationships and to work together even in disagreement, I think that's just an important theme that we should all be focused on regardless of how the decisions made today.

Jack. Yeah. Well, I'm ready to vote. Yep. Well Well, I'll make the motion of Lat Duka and Resner, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Mayor Prom. Well, I will make my motion for Danuka Resnner LA. Okay, the last one first. No second for that one. Well, we take the last one first, so we Well, you don't have a second. Yeah, I'm sorry. Um, there I haven't heard a second so far to any of the motions.

Well, we were going to Well, I made a motion and she made a second motion, but we didn't get a second to your motion. We didn't get a second to her voting. Yeah. So, we need a second on one of the motions. to either one to both either.

Can I Can I repeat what I believe the motions have been? I believe that Tanessa made the first motion of Paul Denuka as mayor, Aaron Resnner as vice mayor, and Mike Latau as mayor proempor. Um, I believe the second motion was Aaron made um to have uh Mike Latau as mayor, Aaron Resnner as vice mayor, and Paul Denuka as mayor prom. But none of those had seconds. None of them have seconds. And so then Jack made a motion to have it be uh Mike, Denuka, Aaron. No second. No second for that one. And I made the same motion again

because I like to repeat myself and be consistent. Mr. Mayor, if I can, just for the purposes of order, I would suggest um rather than having the motions come quite so quickly after each other, um maybe pause and make sure whether or not you have a second to one of them before you move on to the next. We'll do. Yeah. So, I'd be willing to second Erin's motion just because I said earlier I respect the process and that's really um what I committed to a year ago and it's nothing to discredit anybody and their capability up here. But I would um one of these I would second your motion just to respect the process and that was Can can you repeat what my motion is

because I have all of I have all of the combinations right now. What I have is your motion to have Mike Lata as mayor, yourself as vice mayor, and Paul Denuka as mayor prompor. Okay, we have a first and a second. Do we roll call vote or what do we do? Do we have a second motion also then? Yeah, we do. Who seconded it? Mike seconded his own. No, Mike. Erin's the very first one.

That I made first one. My motion which I'll make for the third time as the second time for the third time is to have Paul Tanuka as the mayor, Aaron Resner as the vice mayor, Mike Latau as the mayor prom. Is there a second? No. Can I make a motion in that case and see if Oh gosh. Yeah. Yes, you can. Um, Mike as mayor, me as vice mayor, and Aaron as a uh prom. That was Jack's motion. Yeah, I'll second that one. I'll Jack I'll make sec second Jack's motion. Which one do we vote on? There was

So, we had a first and a second here. Yeah. And we're we're getting a little bit confusing in terms of of order and procedure, but I think the second motion is the one that was the mayor's motion. um which as I understand it again was um uh Vice Mayor Latau as mayor um uh Dr. Dunuka as vice may uh vice mayor and member Resner or Vice Mayor Resnner as mayor prom. I'll second that. That was mine. Yes. Can I change it? You can withdraw the motion if you so desire. Well, if we're going by protocol, then it should be Mike Vice Mayor. No, it should Aaron. That's my opinion. Well, just don't call.

It's not yours. So, you're wanting to third Yeah. Sorry. My original motion. Yeah. Yeah. And just for process, Mr. Mayor, are you withdrawing your original motion? Yes. Okay. I'm making a motion for Mike to be mayor. Aaron, it was already It was already done. The motion is that that is the motion on the floor at this time. So, well, so you're withdrawing your motion. Yes. And we'll put you as he's with this one. You as mayor pro. Would you be willing to consider that as me as a vice mayor as a compromise or not?

Yeah, I that's why you seconded that one. I don't have a dog in the fight. I But he said he's withdrawing this one. Okay. We should all have a dog this one. So if you make a motion like that, more of the same. To do that, learn the lessons, guys. You know, we have our opinions and you have yours. I know, Jack. You've been shutting people down all year. All year. And look where it's led us. So, it's not a good plan and and you have and you've endorsed the same behavior again. So, it's a problem and we're going to continue to have it be a problem. It's going to be a problem. And I was right. So, you should have listened. I'll vote for it. You should have listened.

No, we don't listen to you. All right. Well, that's my motion. We have a first and a second. So, no. Yeah, I already made I already made this motion. So, if you would like to make I believe the motion on the floor is the one made by Aaron, which was um made by Aaron, seconded by Mike Latau, and that is to make Mayor Latau mayor, Aaron Resnner as vice mayor, and Paul Danuka as mayor prompor. So we and you also have my motion next which is uh this is the only one that has well no Mike Latau then this is the only one that's been you seconded Jack and Jack withdrew so you'd have to make your own.

Yeah. Yeah. And I I think what Dr. Duka is saying is that he decided to make that motion after the mayor withdrew the motion and was waiting to see if there was a second on that one prior to the vote. Right. Okay. That is Mike Latau as mayor. I'm as vice mayor and Alan Resnner as prom. Do we have a second for that? So So we need to find out if there's a second to that. Am I what are the legal bounds if I've already made a motion? You can withdraw the motion. It doesn't make Did you not mark Mark Mazan? He vote against his motions all the time. Makes no difference. Did he?

Yeah, you can motion. You can second. Okay. You're not prohibited from seconding the alternative motion. Correct. Well, without withdrawing you. So, you can continue to have your motion on the floor. Second the alternative motion and then um the uh the second one would be voted on first and then your motion would still be on the floor if the second one does not pass. That feels like a compromise. Council member Odette. Does that feel like something you would What's a compromise? Having more of the same getting shut down in all these meetings. It's not a compromise. So, what are you Do you feel like that the two of us regularly listen to you? Because that would be

you're not in charge of the meeting. So, you can be vice mayor, you can be mayor prom. It won't make any difference. The meetings we will be shut down again. I will not be able to ask questions. I've he's they've done it multiple times. So, I'm I'm concerned that the process is going to be stunted again where we can't ask questions, can't actually um get things done, can't do presentations, can't it's going to be more of the same. That is my genuine concern, which is just going to continue to erode trust in the public in the most difficult budget season we will ever have. And so, I don't want a repeat of last year. I would like something different, which is why I'm asking Dr. Januka to be the mayor. Not because it's doesn't need to be a punishment, but it does need to be about leadership. And I do not trust the leadership of either of these two to do it. And I've asked Dr. Danuka and so that's that's who I think can do it.

Yeah. Do that.

So I would say Tanessa clearly, you know, they want to respect Mike's position. So I can if I'm a vice mayor I can work with uh the mayor to put a structure in place that gives my suggestion would be like everyone gets a certain time allocated to speak when no one interrupts each other and then you have when the rotation is over then everyone gets one to two minutes more for rebuttal. So I can work with Mike to ensure that process in the next year and then when I become mayor next year after that I will absolutely follow that also. So that process will be fair, transparent and will not shut anyone down.

You have no control over that. That's why I'm asking you to be the mayor for that reason right there because that's your plan, right? You have a plan but you need three votes for that. So that's why I'm saying that maybe a way to do that will be that I as a vice mayor will work with the whoever not that's just not how it works. So that you have no control over that. So I'm sure I'm sure we can I would like us to be if I thought that were possible then that would be great. But I know that it isn't. So I'm just concerned that we're just going to have more of the same again for a whole another year

where it's already going to be really painful for everybody. I'm confident we can make this happen that everyone will get like 3 to 5 minutes to present their case and uh we rotate we don't interrupt anyone and then later on one to two minutes for rebuttal. So that may work very well. So if you do that

can I ask a question? I'm going to ask you the same question one more time so that it's on the record. Apparently I also like to repeat myself. um you feel like you have the time to to do that and to lead a meeting and that you will take promise the public that you will take the time to meet with the community not with the community with yes with them but with directors and to read your staff reports and to make sure that you're going to before you come to the meeting.

Yeah. before that you come into a meeting and uh mayor mayor job is a lot of shaking hands and kissing babies and like leading a meeting and then ribbon cutting. So I it and you don't get paid any extra. I know that that $600 a month. Well, this is a civic duty. Uh this city and this area has uh given me a lot. I'm blessed to have the public support, but also they have really been very good to me and my family. this is my civic duty to do it and I take it very seriously. In fact, I have had uh lot of public meetings. I have arranged coffees and all that

during this year. So, it's not an issue. That's not an issue, but I want to make sure that uh it's speaking time. I'm sorry. Will you speak to speaking time also? You promised that. Yeah, speaking time I I know that's how the process should be that every one of us should get three to five minutes for a uh first speech and then second on rebuttal. But only thing I'm saying Tanessa is if we set that process it doesn't matter who is the mayor. What's more important is we follow the transparent fair process which is the way to build public trust. It doesn't really matter who amongst us is the mayor. Then

it does and you don't that's not how it works. So you don't have that kind of control. You can recommend that, but that mayor gets to control the meeting the way you want. Mike, would you commit to that kind of process? I mean, my perspective is I'm I'd love to learn from everybody. I don't think of the right answer to every perspective. I think it's great to value everybody's opinion. I think everybody should get to speak and absolutely. So, all right. I'm going to second your motion, mayor, vice mayor, mayor pro Tim. So, are you asking him that because you're considering making him the mayor? Well, we have a first. Why did you ask him that? I'm sorry. Was there a second to Dr. Duka's motion? Yes. Okay. So, then so that's now the motion on the table.

So, can I make a third motion? Can I reiterate my motion again? Uh well, mayor's discretion if it's already failed to make Paul the mayor vote, Aaron the vice mayor, Mike Latau the mayor prom. Yeah. Does anybody want to second that? Mark, no. All right, let's move. What? Let her speak. No, we're I mean we've been going on this for

Let her speak. I I think that it is really important in my opinion that we um have an honest conversation and that we um continue to build trust and I want us in all honesty I would really love a 50- vote on this which is why it is that I'm saying I don't have a dog in the fight and I'm willing to entertain a lot of different makeups. Um, I'm willing to I'm willing to second that motion. Um, if Paul promises that he has time for that and he promises to let everybody speak, then I appreciate that and I'm okay with that. Um, and if council member Latas says that, I also am okay with that. So,

well, the motion I'll seconded also. I can retract mine. We have mine already failed second. So we have my first and the second. I don't know. All right, Char, you're in charge. Who's on first? We'll do the last one first. So the motion on the table is the motion most recently made by Tanessa. Um Tanessa made the motion, Aaron second, and that is to make Paul Danuka as mayor, Aaron Resnner as vice mayor, and Mike Latau as mayor. Prom.

Yeah, we can vote. I'm a no. An I. Yes, I'm a no.

Did you vote? Paul's going to abstain. He can't abstain. He routinely abstains. I can make a joke about Paul abstaining. He routinely abstains. That was one of my concerns. All right. Well, let's Did you vote? No. Well, let's take up the take up the next one. Well, he got a vote. Sorry. What was What was Dr. Duke's vote? He hasn't voted. He has to vote. Are you abstaining? You get to make whatever decision that your heart feels. And we don't get to kick or scream about it. True.

And do not let anyone pressure you. You get to say whatever you want. We will all look. Silence is a yes, by the way. So if you say nothing, it's a yes. What's that? True. Yep. Yeah. So your silence is a yes. There is a second I I would suggest you clarity. Yeah. Yeah, for for clarification, I I think that that rule exists primarily for the situation we're unable to record a vote. Um, but it's clear that a motion has passed. This this I would recommend some clarification. There should be a vote. Agreed.

So, what's the order right now? Well, you either vote. You have to vote. This is uh this is the order that we're taking a vote on. This is the second that we're taking a vote on. Don't No, you have to make a decision. That's what they elected you to do. And I believe the entire council knows this, but just to be clear, um, uh, an abstension would effectively be the same as a no. So it would cause the motion to fail. Say that one more time. And then we would take up,

uh, if if there's an abstension, the motion would fail. And what's the second motion on the table now after this? Uh, the motion that came I'm sorry, I'm going to look. Just know there will be no unanimous vote tonight. There will be no unanimous vote. Mayor Proin I can go ahead. I was just going to say I He's gonna vote. Oh, Paul, he's gonna vote. You were going to speak. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Okay. I'm going to decide based on not who the person is, but what the process should be. The most important thing here is to build the trust in the public and I entered this office with that trust. It's a heavy burden. I do not have the crystal ball for the future. It's important for us to lead with uh integrity but at the same time some tough decisions need to be made. I have full faith in the process. If we put in place, it wouldn't matter as much who the mayor is. I would go with Mike as a mayor and me as a vice mayor.

And you need to vote no on this. Yeah. And abstain or no? Aaron as a mayor prom. Mayor Proam. Well, you need to vote first and then we'll take that one up and vote on it. Why don't I live up to my reputation and abstain? Okay, that's fine. All right. So, he is abstaining. All right. So, the motion has failed and that brings us back to the second motion that was on the table. Um, and I believe that that was Mike. Um, Vice Mayor Aaron is Mayor Pro Tim.

I vote. Yes. Okay. So, the motion on the table now is Paul Denuka made the motion, Jackman second to make Mike Latau mayor, Paul Denuka vice mayor, and Aaron Resner as mayor prom. No, I I No. All right. Well, it passes four to one. Congratulations. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Tanessa. Thank you. I hope your speech for about you have a speech about I do not have to give you

Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

We'll move around then. Okay. Do we have an award to give our decision? I need to say we're going to give an award, right? So, yes.

Okay, for keeping score at home, this is an equally tough decision just like the city manager, but I'm sure the city manager will be equally as hard, but um that was 45 minutes in. We're not doing too bad. Um right now, we're going to give a presentation to Jack as the mayor. So, got to walk in. We're going to do that over there, right? Okay. Say something nice. What's that? Say something nice. No, you have to make it up. Do we have It's over there. I'm going to move all of your things. They did. They moved.

Okay. Just kidding. I'm not touching your testing

Jack. The first time I got to work with you really was in January when we went to League of Cities and um where I really felt we bonded was when we were in the car together with Duka and we survived that drive and um that's when we really got to laugh and come back here live. But um I want to say uh you've been a great mentor, a friend and uh I appreciate your leadership. Um your dedication and efforts have helped our community greatly and uh you've truly made a difference. Um, I'm grateful for your leadership, your unwavering commitment uh to progress and inspiring of all of us to be more engaged uh citizens and uh we are just really grateful for you. I don't know what number may or you are in the list, but um it's pretty special that you get to have your picture on the wall forever. But um this thing right here, I highly advise you put it on the wall at home and make your wife look at this every single day. So

Oh, yeah. Yes. Well, we have a couple rules at home.

Rule number one is my wife is always right. rule number two. If I'm if she's wrong, remember rule number one. So anyway, anyway, I just want to say thank you. I'm uh very grateful for the last year to have been mayor and uh got to have special meetings with all the directors and it's just been a great time and I'm very thankful for everything. So, let's move forward with the mic and uh see if we can do some good things for the city. Yes. Thank you. Okay. All right. We're going to move on to public comment. Um, I'll read the statement here. Uh, pursuant to the Brown Act, City Council cannot take action on public comment items. The city council will allocate up to a maximum of three minutes per speaker for 30 minutes total at the beginning of the meeting for public comment for non-aggendaized 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.

Is it under? Okay. So, we've got three speakers today and we're going to start with Margaret. Patricia, you'll be up next. And then Tonnie Good evening. So, I see that you're going to have a budget prioritization and modification session starting the 18th. And I see on the agenda of talk of a financial oversight committee. And I say those are steps in the right direction. So, but what I have also to say is this. City council members have a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interests of their constituencies constituents, which means they must prioritize the public good over personal gain. This duty requires them to exercise due diligent loyalty and obedience in managing public affairs, including overseeing finances, staff, and compliance with laws and ordinances. They are entrusted with managing public funds and resources responsibly and transparently,

ensuring that taxpayer money is used wisely with due regard to economy. Ultimately, the fiduciary role demands that council members lead with intention, ask good questions, and remain focused on the long-term health and resilience of the community. So, I'm still asking for an independent or forensic audit. It is my understanding that salaries were spiked in these last years. That means we, the citizens, are on the hook for millions of dollars in retirement benefits. An independent or forensic audit is called for. If they were spiked, and you need to find that out, bankruptcy is in a city's future. You will be in the middle of that. In addition, apparently the city manager negotiated two salary raises in close session, which is against the law, the Brown Act, which was passed so the government couldn't be run from the back room. So, you have your work cut out for you. Thank you, Margaret. Uh, Patricia, you're up next. So, Good evening. Thank you for your service in our city council. Um, I want to share uh my excitement for the new downtown. I went there this weekend, actually yesterday. Uh, I had friends that were talking about how wonderful it was and about the new bakery. So, I was very excited to go. So, I went yesterday morning, drove around and was just to my great

disappointment, pay to park, pay to park, pay to park, parking kiosk, pay to park. I drove around looking for some free parking and I did not find it even in front of the post office. So, um I thought, well, I'll park and risk it and run to the bakery, see how it is. It was delicious. a little pricey even compared to San Francisco and to Santa Cruz, but I'm willing to pay extra for a good bakery. Um, and then I thought to myself, you know, it's kind of annoying that I have to pay to park in downtown Reading when I've lived here for 29 years. Very excited for the new developments downtown, but it's a disappointment. So then I thought, well, I'm not one to just complain without offering a solution or my observation. So I got online, looked at the city of Reading website where where I could park, found where the free parking was and watched or listened to the um what is it called? The parking management audio that you have on the website. and I listen to it and you know um I understand time limit limits can cause turnover and allow uh businesses to have people park in front of their venues and I think that's great. I can understand the reasoning behind that. My observation is that when you compare the city of reading to San Francisco for example where my son lives and my daughter you can pay for free for two hours. There's a time limit of two hours free parking. You can do what you need to do. Move your car. There was not a two-hour free parking option. You know, there's a couple of 30 minute, 15 minute ones according to the website. And that's just

a little rushed for a town like Reading where we can saunter around, walk around, and it should be free. Now, a dollar is not too expensive, but when you add the dollar to a very expensive new bakery that you want to support, it adds up. So, my my thoughts to you are consider some of the parking lots give a bank of free parking for two hours perhaps to allow that turnover to be free for some of us. And also there was a um I know I have 17 seconds. $25 a month for employees. That's expensive. In the city of San Francisco, you can get an annual pass to park for $221. So $300 for an employee in Reading is a lot. That's it. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Patricia. Tonnie, you're up. Good evening and thank you for having me tonight. I'm here on behalf of Shasta Roller Hockey to say thank you for continuing to support the Reading Sports Park. We appreciate your commitment to keeping it open. Um this time and I just want to provide an update. This time last year, you had authorized the reopening and Shasta Roller Hockey took on running the youth and the adult leagues. Since then, our programs have not just recovered from that closure, but we've thrived. Our program is proud to share that we have seen several players make it onto national and professional roller hockey teams as well as we are working on a continuous development for a girls program here in the north state. With the city's support, we have been able to run the adult leagues with during this interim period, which is allowing us to reinvest directly into the youth program as well as the facility. Because of this, we're able to provide new rental gear to about 60% of the youth players that are out there that need it, as well as we'll be donating two new scoreboards to the fieldhouse for multiple sport use. With last year's uncertainty, we're proud to share that we've seen an increase in all of our programs. We have a 13% increase in our youth programs and our adult programs have grown by 25%. So, this has allowed us to book additional days and hours out of the fieldhouse to keep things running a little smoother and busier. Our travel programs have also grown by 30% and we're proud to bring a national tournament series to reading in 2025 which will come back in 2026. So, we know that you'll be facing some important decisions regarding staffing, budget, facilities in the coming months. So, we just want you to know that we're here to support you guys, that we want to see this facility be long-term

sustainable. So, we're here if you need us, and we'd like to invite you to come out and see what we're all about any Saturday out at the sports park from 9:00 to 4:00. So, thank you. Awesome. Thank you very much, Tonnie. We're going to go to public hearings uh presentation with uh development services. Uh consider the reasonzoning application. Is that right? Or no consent. All right. Well, made my first mistake. Isn't that great? So, okay. So, let's go to consent. Let's flip the page backwards the other way. Um, so looking over the consent calendar. I'm sure you've all had a chance to read that over uh before the meeting today. And we'll entertain a motion. Unless read the box. Read the box. I know it's your first time.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Let's put on my glasses for this one. So, how about that? A consent calendar. The consent calendar contains items considered routine 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 number one comment on an item. Two, respond on to any public comment on an item. Three, request the record reflect an abstentation or nay vote on an item. Or number four, remove an item and place it on the regular portion of the agenda for delivery of staff report and/or an extended discussion or deliberation. I don't know if there's any speakers. I don't see any here. So,

I'll make a I'll make a motion to approve consent. I'll second. Okay. So, let's take a vote. All in favor? I I Our first 5. I love it. So, look at you. Trust has already been built, it looks like. So, okay. All right. I'm so excited for all your dumb jokes. Yeah, it's going to be good. You'll appreciate it later. And I think uh I appreciate it. All right. Now, we'll move on to public hearings. We're going to have a presentation from development services. And um Lily, you're up on this one. So,

thank you, Mayor Latal. Council members. Mayor Latal that we go back to uh serving on the Reading Youth Soccer League and look at us now. We're serving in a different capacity but making an impact on our community still. So congratulations. So this item before you is a zoning code amendment. Uh this is an annual update and a little bit background. We typically do this annually and it's uh text cleanup. Typically it is for uh typos uh clarifications uh some minor nature intended to clarify the intent of the existing regulations and uh sometimes take the opportunity to bring our code up to date with state and federal law. All right. So predominantly this uh code amendment will involve uh uh touching our accessory dwelling unit ordinance and as you may be aware the state adopted a statewide mandatory uh ADU regulation in 2020 and since then has done a lot of changes to that uh pretty much annually and uh making it paving the way easier for folks in California to provide units uh smaller units on existing single family and uh residential lots. So just to highlight what we're going to be touching is um to bring it up to state law. We are going to change the number of units that are allowed. uh HCD has a latitude of inter interpreting the the law and basically each single family lot or lot that allows for residential use has a potential of a maximum of four units and that contains the primary unit

what they call a junior ADU and I'll explain what that is in a minute an attached ADU and then a detached ADU so a combination of four. So what is a junior ADU? Junior ADU is basically a smaller unit does not exceed more than 500 square feet has what we call an efficiency kitchen and efficiency kitchen is not like a full board stove or anything like that. It provides a countertop to uh prepare food and also an area for appliances such as like a microwave or you know a kettle things like that. So, uh, but the junior ADU does not have to provide a bathroom because a junior ADU has to have be an existing in the existing main house. It's either a converted bedroom or it's a converted garage. So, uh, typically if you have access to the main house, they don't have to provide their separate uh restroom. Uh, but uh that is an option. They can uh also provide a bathroom. Uh the other thing um we're going to bring into compliance is to provide zero setback for ADUs at the front uh for any unit that's 800 square f feet or less. We are also uh bringing our architectural compatibility standards. Uh we are stripping away the subjective language language such as um things that like color for instance um that was brought up at planning commission. Uh color is very subjective. What I like may not be what you like. So um we have stripped that away. Also uh owner occupancy is changing for deed restrictions. ADUs do not require to be owner occupied. So, if I built an ADU, I do not have to live on my property. I

could rent both of those units out. Um, junior ADUs do not require to be owner occupied if a bathroom is provided in the unit. So, those are the main things we're touching. Yes. Does that affect the short-term rental rules about that? I'm sorry. Does that change the short-term rental rules about that or is it those don't affect that? Um, if you have an ADU, you cannot short-term rent. That still remains the law. Okay. But you can rent them both. Yes, you can rent them both. But they cannot be short-term. They have to be longterm. Longer than 30 days. Longer than 30 days. Correct.

So, a little bit more diving deep a little bit. So, uh as I said modifying the junior ADU and ADU to comply with state, um we have to remove the lot size requirement um out of our ordinance. And also the state says that we have to allow ADUs and junior ADUs in any district where we allow residential uses. That includes our office district and commercial district. And we're doing some minor word changes in to be compliant with state law. We're modifying the ADU parking requirement. So currently an ADU is required one parking space. It does not have to be covered. It could be uncovered as well. Um we are adding a definition uh for what a junior ADU is and we are also adding a definition for what a living area is and differentiate the primary dwelling from an ADU and junior ADU. The other portions of our code that we're touching is uh the trash enclosure requirements to bring that into state code. As you know we um are required to provide organics now. So the different size and things like that are changing. So that's what that is. Um we are also uh bringing into consistency our parking ordinance uh with regards to height of vegetation. Um and also correcting a typo in our sign ordinance and removing a tent as an accessory structure in our with regards to what is deemed accessory structure. Tents are typically temporary in nature. So we want to remove that. So with that, staff recommends that uh council conduct a public hearing, determine that the proposed code amendment is not a project subject to squa and offer the ordinance for first reading by title only and re wave the full reading. And that concludes my presentation and I'm available for any questions at this time.

Okay, we're gonna open up a public hearing and see what speakers we have. Um, looks like we do have one speaker on the list. Uh, see if I can get this name right. Uh, Ragu or correct me if I'm wrong when you get up there, but Good evening everybody. This is Ragu Maladi from Maladi Homes. We are from Bay Area and trying to introduce some ADUs and uh fill in more homes in the infield lots in Reading City and working with planning and uh building departments at city of Reading. uh I have seen this proposal and which is great uh bringing adus that adds more housing and at the same time more rentals for the primary homeowners uh to get some money extra money out of that but I do see a a little bit challenge in the the size of the ADU the detached ADUs are proposed as of uh as what I see is a a th00and square foot is a limitation but state allows is to go up to 1,200. I was just wondering why we are restricting the size of the square foot is to,000 instead of uh expanding to 1200. The reason why I'm uh asking that question is the type of ADUs that we are bringing in. We are the licensed dealers for HCD, I mean hardcoded housing, manufactured housing on a permanent foundation. And these homes if they are more than thousand square ft then will have all kinds of provisions such as any type of loans. So it's easy to the homeowners to build these ADUs to get the loans. If it

is below,000 square ft then that comes under a personal property for that particular ADU or they have to do a stick build houses which is again a challenge. If you bring a manufactured house to put as an ADU which is little over than a thousand square feet then that will be that'll have a lot of added advantage to the homeowners. They can get all kinds of loans VA, USDA, conventional, you name it because those homes are qualified by Fanny and Freddy Mack under the any type of loan programs if it is above thousand square ft. But the proposal I see is within thousand I believe. So this is my suggestion to look into that to go for a state mandate mandates up to 1200 anyway. So why we are discounting is my question. Thank you. All right, thank you very much. Uh, we have John. John, are you here?

Could we get an answer from Lily on this question? Can we get a clarification from the planning commission on this question? Well, Jeremy, can I just ask is this does this actually discuss that or Lily, sorry, does this actually discuss the size of the ADU or is that in a different area?

How I address that? Um the state does allow a maximum of 1,200 square ft. When we had a ordinance um pre2020 it was called second dwelling unit. We had established a maximum square foot of 1,000. And when we looked at the state criteria they said a minimum 1,000 maximum 1,200. We stayed consistent because one we have a lot of downtown lots. They're small. We look at our RS3 which is majority of our single family uh units. They are average 6,000 to 7,000. Some of them have what we call plan developments which allow smaller lots down to 4,000 square ft. So if the state mandates that each lot can have up to four units, then we're covering the entire lot with 1,200 foot ADUs, a main house, and a junior ADU. just the congestion, just the people, just reading. I don't think is that type of community ready for that right now. So, that was from the planning department. We suggested 1,000 and we maxed it at that.

Well, that that makes sense to me. Uh but and the thousand should qualify for those loans anyway. No, they don't. That's why you said thousand would qualify. I said 1,200. Anything under a,000? Under,000 doesn't. Thousand 1,000 doesn't. I think but one00 qualifies for those loans. Oh, okay. Did anybody build what you're talking about? No. So, that didn't do any research on what is financable,

but like did anybody build four units plus a junior ADU? Did they do that? Even with a thousand, that's still very crowded. We have Yes, we have several junior ADUs, some with ADUs already on site. Um, but you're saying a main house, four units, and a junior ADU is untenable at 1,200 each, but I'm assuming at 1,000 that'd still be very crowded. Still very crowded at 1,000. And does that happen? It has happened with one ADU, junior ADU, and a main house. Okay. It's pretty crowded from a 6,000 foot lot. But I mean, isn't that their choice if they want it to be that? And if it's 1,200, it just means that more people would be able to be able to make ADUs because now they can finance it,

right? But then you also have the other layer where now we have zero setback at the front for an 800 square foot unit as well. So we're losing our front yards, we're losing our backyards, we're losing all space between all single family lot. If we had a couple in our neighborhood, one thing, but the potential can grow. I think we have to close. Did you mean to speak or No. Okay. What about lot size? I mean, all lot sizes aren't the same. So, we're blanketing a thousand feet depending no matter what the lot size. Yeah. The the state has stripped that away. We cannot dictate limit on lot size. You can have a 5,000 foot lot and do the four units,

but no larger than a thousand. The ADU in the city reading today is 1,000 is the limit. Right. 500 for an ADU per state. So, are we keeping it at a th00and to discourage more to keep it so that you you don't have because lock coverage doesn't apply, right? Lock coverage is how much building you're covering the land with, right? So, that doesn't apply. So, how we can regulate that is with the size of the ADU. So, and the state is okay with that.

Just a thought, how about we get through our public comment and then we can close the hearing and then we can have a few discussion moving forward. Is that okay? So, all right. So, John, are you out there? John, uh, come on up, John. You're next. Hello, my name is John Puit. I'm a resident of the city of Reading. And I had some questions about an ADU. I guess I'm not clear on what an ADU really is because it sounded to me like my neighbor can build a 400 foot insulated shed in front of his house and let someone live in it without my having any say about it and he can do that as many times as he wants up to four times. Is that not correct?

Has a kitchen. The ADU has a kitchen and a ba or can you please speak into your microphone? Lily, can you speak to that? It's a kitchen, a bathroom. So, can I ask the same question? How about we let him speak? We'll get through the public hearing and then we I guess my other question is does this have to have ingress and egress from the main dwelling? Okay. Is or does it have its own separate entrance? Okay. We'll let her speak to that after you're done. Are you done speaking? Those are my questions. Okay.

I I think it's a bad idea. I don't want my neighbor putting four sheds in his front yard and having Bethl people No. God bless you, Bethl. But my whole neighborhood is now full of Bethl people. And and that's what it's turning into. It's like a rental compound for Bethl people. And I don't want four sheds in the front of somebody's house because they can rent the whole thing out to more more tenants. I It's not in the character of the neighborhood. John, thank you for coming and speaking today. Thank you. All right, there's no other speakers. I'm going to close the public hearing and now we can go on to uh comments from council members here if there's uh or Lily if you want to answer that question.

Uh Mr. Mayor, I might suggest referring that last speaker to code enforcement. It sounds like he may have uh something uh that may be appropriate for that department to discuss. Okay. So, John, I don't know if you heard that, but uh we were suggesting we could refer this over to code enforcement. you can work with city staff and um after the meeting we can direct you to uh meet with Lily or Jeremy back there as well. He's got his hand up back there. You're talking hypothetically that there could be a shed in the front of the house, not that there is a shed, correct? You're saying hypothetically you could have a shed in the front as you Yeah, he he doesn't have a shed. He's saying hypothetically.

Yeah. So, let's address that. So what can you define for him what an ADU is and why a shed would not be an ADU? So a cessor ding unit still has to meet building code as far as a living unit. So insulation so a se shed you just can't put a bed in there and call it good. It's got to have a full kitchen for an ADU. Uh for a junior ADU like I presented has a efficiency kitchen. Um the question of whether it needs a separate entrance. Yes, junior ADU has to have separate interest. Every ADU has to have a separate entrance. But is a shed in the front of the house going to be what this is approving? Not a shed. I mean it has to meet building code.

Well, and I mean that's not reassuring. So has to have a full kitchen. It has to have a bath. It's a house. It's like a little ADU. Okay. So we we cannot interact with the public out here. So this is a public hearing and um that's actually what the public hearing is. Well, I'm sorry that but we're not on a microphone right there. And so so hypothetically, yes. So if there is no location for accessory don unit, you can put one in your front yard at zero setback, maximum 800 square f feet with a kitchen, separate entrance.

You would have to provide one parking space. So parking typically is a limitation, right? Because most of us have two twocar driveway and a garage perhaps. So if you have to provide one parking space for every ADU, you need three parking spaces. Great. Would that be a parking space on the street or a parking space? No, it has to be on the property. On the property. On the property. So there's your limitation. Okay. For many properties. Did that answer your question, sir?

John, we we cannot interact with the public out there. Just a reminder out there. But um Council Member Resnner, I think you've got a comment. Um could you maybe we could we could give reference to uh the difference I think that you briefly touched on this during your presentation but the difference between or or just point out a couple of differences between what are the state regulations because there are a lot of state top-down sort of regulations in regards to ADUs and and infos infill projects versus uh the city ones that we chose which sounds like the thousand square ft sort of thing.

So really right now the only difference with the proposed amendments the only difference is the size 1,000 square ft. Um then my second question is if hypothetically the financial access is changed by a 101 could we hypothetically change um what our max was to,025 which is essentially an extra five foot by five foot. very small um that potentially still allows for qualifications. Okay. All right. We stuck with a thousand because that was carryover from the second unit. Makes I understand I understand why staff made that suggestion for sure. Okay. Uh council member Muntz.

So these were not statemandated. These are suggestions and laws that we did. I thought all these were mandated by the state. You're right. The ones being proposed are mandated. Yes. Thank you. Um, I had one question. What feas was there any feedback residents have provided uh regarding the proposed changes? Was there anything major that we need to hear or No, no, no feedback. I mean, they're statemandated, right? So, we're required by ACD to bring up our code. Okay. And another question I had reading through the packet, um, h how does the removal of the owner occupancy requirement for ADUs, does that affect our housing availability at all or is there no impact on that? So,

um I would think that there's potential for investment property owners, right? So, you would have investors coming in instead of, you know, your, you know, Mr. Walmart trying to buy a house, right? So, there's going to be a lot more competition for sure. Okay. Thank you. Uh, Council Member Odette.

Um, so, um, I'm aware of a constituent that had a question, um, about why we would do this. And so the last two touched on this, but for the benefit of the public, these are we're coming in compliance because HCD let us know we were out of compliance, which is the housing and community development at the state and they want us to come into alignment with their rules. Um so when we if we say yes to this, we're just coming into compliance. But as far as um council member Resnner's recommendation, we could go up to a,025 with this. We could do that or we would have to do that separate. No, you can do that with this.

Your prerogative is to increase that size if you like. In that case, I'll make a propos motion to increase that to,25 but accept the rest of the proposals from the planning department. I see nobody else up here to speak. Is there a second or comments? I'll second that if that's sufficient for Okay. city clerk in terms of Great. I don't see anybody else up here wanting to speak. So, how about we take a vote? Uh, all in favor? I I All oppose. Another 5. We are building trust again. So, all right. Uh, Lily, you did such a good job on that public hearing. Maybe you'll get to come up here and do it again. Or is this Oh, it's not Lily. Oh, okay.

He didn't mean it. Well, All right. Well, Lily, I still think you did a good job. So, but we'll we hope you come back again. All right. So, here we go.

All right. Good evening, honorable mayor, council members, members of the public. David Schel, senior planner with the planning division, and I have another zone amendment for you. Um, it's a housing opportunity overlay district. U recommended approval by the planning commission. Bring it to you. A little bit of background. Um, every eight years we adopt a new housing element where we look at the projected needs of over those next eight years of of housing at all income levels and understand whether we have the capacity to accommodate that development and we do that through our zoning. Different zoning designations at different densities produce uh different economic results um which allow us to meet that need. Uh we also look at governmental constraints on development and uh prepare a plan to address those and also meet the need in other ways with programs. Ultimately the bottom line is we have a current housing element that's certified by HCD as uh being compliant with state laws through 2028. Um but we did have a notice from HCD that some of the actions that we set forth in our pro plans and programs in our housing element have not been done yet. Uh one of those things is we look at vacant sites. We we establish those sites as uh potential for residential development to meet our arena. And uh if you have multiple rounds of of housing on the cycles where those same units or those same sites have been identified, state law says you have to actually reszone those to a higher density 20 dwelling units per acre if somebody comes to build 20% of that development with affordable housing and also make it by approved uh in those locations. So we have 11 remaining vacant sites that were uh identified in two previous housing elements. And I'm not going to read this whole

section to you, but just suffice it to say that our activity in the 20 uh 20 2028 housing element said we were going to do this. And uh that's what we're recommending to you today. Uh ultimately what the changes in the code would do is change for all properties uh zoned 12 units per acre through 18 units per acre. You could uh go up to that 20 units per acre density. if you propose a project that has 20% affordable uh low-inccome housing units. So, that's a minor change from 35% that we already had in our code going to 20%. And then the other component of this is we actually want to identify these properties through an overlay district for the ones that are going to be eligible for by development if they take advantage of the 20% affordable higher density um incentive. And this is just showing you the list. You can see all the sites we have are actually under that 20 units per acre density. They're ranging from RM12 through RM18. And what that does is ultimately increases the capacity overall and on each site. So right now if somebody came in wanted to do the maximum density on all of those uh sites that you see on the map, it would be around a thousand units. And and if they did it at the 20 units per acre density that they'd be getting with this uh reszone, we get about 500 more units. And I just wanted to show you the locations of all these sites as they're kind of dispersed throughout the city. And here's an example site if you wanted to look into u one in particular just to show you what this would look like. We'd have an overlay zone district on this property. Uh at 5.4 acres, they could do 81 units currently. after the overlay district, if they take advantage of that uh incentive, it'd be up to 108. So increase of 27 units on this site here in the south part of our city. Ultimately uh this project went before

the planning commission. and then recommended to the city council that we introduce the ordinance and for first reading and title only and wave the second reading for the changes before you direct the city attorney to prepare and the city clerk to publish a summary ordinance. Finally, amendments to the code uh before you are exempt from environmental review pursuant to public resources code section 211080.085 085 which was uh signed into law this past year that made actions that are set aside in our housing for resoning exempt from SQA and and lastly finally uh adopt the o overlay district maps and that's our recommendation and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much for that. All right, we're going to open up a public hearing. I don't see any speakers. We can sit here for another five minutes and wait, but I don't think they're going to come. So, we're going to close the public hearing. Um, any comments from council members or I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second. Uh, council member Audet, you have something to say. So, sorry. Yes.

Well, I just wanted to point out for the public that the arena is basically we have a regional housing needs allocation. So, the state basically says you need to be building a certain number of houses every single year for different levels of income. And so because people aren't building apartment buildings and highdensity apartment buildings is a high density, we're basically moving the goalpost so that it would make it more attractive. So if you own any of these properties, it means it makes your property more valuable and if you live next to that property, it means you're going to get more neighbors. So um but the the state is driving this. So this isn't our great idea of how we can get more apartments. This is really about um the state making these requirements and they give us these you know things that need to happen and then we respond and put them in our code. So for the public's benefit that's generally what's happening here.

All right. Thank you. So we have a first, we have a second. Uh let's take a vote. All in favor? I. Any oppose?

That passes 50. We are rocking and rolling. All right. So, uh, we're going to move on to our regular calendar item. Uh, we have a report from the city manager, a presentation on, uh, it's anformational report regarding our pearl activity, uh, within the city of Reading. This has come up, uh, multiple times at previous council meetings on discussion. Uh, I I believe, uh, council member Denuka asked to bring this back for an update and so we will, uh, we will get some information. So, here we go. Good evening, mayor, members of the city council. Um, as the mayor indicated, um, we, uh, were requested to do some research on an issue, uh, where we've been receiving a few complaints over the last number of months. Um, there's been an increasing number of public safety concerns related to activities occurring um, in and around a local motel. Let's see. Here we go. And transitional housing sites uh within the city and uh particularly involving individuals on parole andor registered sex offenders. We wanted to give just some statistical context uh with regard to justice involved persons in our community. And the first item we have there is just the estimated number of folks on uh probation. Um, and this comes from the Shast County realignment report. Uh, the new report is not available yet. At least I could not find it. Um, so there's roughly about 1,800 persons on probation and we have a breakdown between mandatory supervision, postrelease community supervision, and courtordered supervision by um the courts for probation. Uh the number of registered sex offenders that we have within the city

of Reading is about 372. Um and we also have 98 registered arsonists uh within the city of Reading. Of course, the Shasta County numbers would be larger than that. I believe um as far as registered sex offenders within Shasta County, it's somewhere around close to 600. uh on parole. Um there are 240 persons on parole within the city of Reading and of that number, 99 are registered sex offenders. Um this is just an estimate with district attorney cases that are presently pending. There's about 5,000 cases in the DA's office. Uh approximately 64% are misdemeanors and 29% are uh felonies. And I kind of wanted to find a I know this statistic is uh old uh 2018, but I just wanted to give some context to um you know folks that are unsheltered and uh their connection with law enforcement and uh just in justice involvement. About 13% um of homeless persons reported being under community supervision. 28% reported a recent release from jail or prison. and about 70% of the homeless population has a history of incarceration. So staff um staff actually met and had several staff meetings with regard to this issue and we divvied up responsibilities. And what we ended up doing is um we contacted a few um providers in the community that um have uh sheltering programs through local motel and uh they um we contacted New Life Discovery and a letter was sent to New No Boundaries with regard to their operations. staff actually um got in contact with New

Life, the New Life Discovery Project, and we toured their administration offices as well as uh one of the motel facilities on North Market Street, uh the Abode, um otherwise known as the roadway. And um staff also uh contacted um and researched other issues in the community um as far as parole. Chief Barner met with the state parole executive team about placement of non-Shasta County paroleles uh in Shasta County. Uh Chief Barner also contacted Partnership Health and spoke with them about their community uh supports program. And um as far as the community supports program, if you aren't aware of what this is, uh partnership health for their uh participants um in uh Shasta County, um the community supports program actually funds uh programs such as housing navigation, uh short-term post hospitalization, medical respit, uh respbit services, personal care, housing tenency, and some other um community supports that assist homeless persons in trying to navigate their way to permanent housing. Oh, uh Chief Burner also contacted um uh WestCare, which is a national placement program for justice involved individuals. Um it is a national program. Uh they have uh locations in other states of course as well as in California. Um, of course, um, motel have been utilized as interim shelter since, I believe it

was 2009 with regard to project room key, uh, which was a state program. And since that time along with various grants um that have um happened over the last number of years uh interim sheltering programs um have continued to operate in local motel. Uh now new life discovery program and no boundaries are a few of the providers that actually master lease units uh from hotels. Uh, New Life Discovery um actually masterly master leases entire motel um while present presently no boundaries as I understand it um is only master leasing uh 30 units uh at the guest place Motel. other nonprofits, uh, they have what are called motel vouchers and they utilize a number of motel in the community. Um, Chest Community Health Center, Pathways to Housing. They actually provide um, motel vouchers to the owners of those motel for individuals to be able to stay uh, in those motel. And um, it could be a week, it could be longer than that. Um, some of the motel that are presently being being utilized in this capacity are the Abode, the roadway, Shasta Lodge, Travel in, Stardust, Deluxe in, Sundial Lodge, Guest Place in, and Suites. Five of those seven, this will become important later, um, five of those seven motel are located in the downtown specific plan area. Um, I mentioned program funding uh, for these uh, motel interim shelter projects. um partnership health with their community support program, specialized treatment uh for optimized programming which is the stop program

which um I believe is uh the westare program and there are of course additional state funded grant programs that that fund interim um shelter programs um including probation realignment. Um and just as far as trying to nail down perhaps where um if we are having um justice involved individuals coming into our community from outside of our community. Um uh New Life Discovery Project does not receive individuals from uh out of our area. Uh New Life, excuse me, No Boundaries actually has in the past under their West Care program. Um, however, that program is no longer being funded. Um, and that stopped being funded in August of 2025. Um, just for reference, uh, the city of Reading Housing Department is not funding either one of these projects. Uh, we do have, um, some motel vouchers, um, contracts. say we are basically funding through the end of this month and that's through Shast Community Health and one other local provider. As far as um some demographics um like I've said there really is not a concentration of out of the area paroleles throughout all programs. Most participants are local um although a significant portion of the homeless population has some history of justice involvement. Uh, Chief Barner did after Chief Barner did contact parole. Um, we've only had one parole from Trinity County since that time and that's probably been a month or two. Um, just some zoning and motel use considerations. Um, as far as zoning requirements, uh,

the use of motel as shelters or transitional housing programs requires compatible zoning. um including compliance with any specific plan overlays. Um as staff was um talking about this issue, um it seems that the residential hotel classification within our current zoning code uh is um most describes um what these motel are being used for. Um, and it allows for semi-transient or or permanent residence. Um, one one thing I wanted to point out and I had mentioned it earlier is some motel owners are actually mixing um shelter programs along with essentially tourists coming into their motel. Um, which um may not be a a good thing to do. Um the roadway or the abode is um designated general commercial that's on the no north northern part of market uh street and under this general commercial uh zoning designation. This allows for residential hotel use with an approved use permit. Um, we also looked at another one of uh, New Life Discoveries projects which is located at the Shasta Lodge which is in the downtown specific plan area. Um, this zoning designation um would not allow a residential hotel. Um and second to that we also talked about tax uh toot tax implic uh implement oh excuse me taxes that we are not actually receiving um because these

motel are being utilized for long-term stays longer term stays. So staff's direction at this point um a after having the these internal discussions staff plans to research consequences to the transit occupancy tax and possible remedies um regarding lost revenue. Uh we would like to research and investigate whether owners of residential, multi-family and single family units should obtain business licenses. Um we are looking at uh researching business license software and uh database management system to enhance um current software to track program related motel supportive uh supportive housing transitional and rental activities. Um staff is um looking for direction from city council with regard to um how you feel we should be looking at these interim sheltering hotels and um what the zoning designation and classification should be. Um should we limit homeless programs to res the residential hotel use classification? Uh this would eliminate uh these uses in the downtown specific plan area because the downtown specific plan does not provide uh for this use classification and if it doesn't provide for it, you can't do it. Um we would also be seeking uh direction regarding the timing and enforcement uh to review uh remove these uses. Alternatively, we would like to amend um or the possibility is to amend the downtown specific plan to actually allow for these uses um to de or to develop a new use classification, update the zoning code

to determine um where this type of use should be allowed uh within the city. And this concludes ourformational um report. Uh we're available for any questions.

Thank you. We have uh four speakers, so we're going to get through the speakers first and then uh we'll circle back to questions and feedback from council members. Um looks like Tim, you're uh Tim, if you're here, you're up first and uh Susan, you'll be up next. So, Good evening. I'm Tim Weatherald. I'm the CEO of New Life Discovery Project. We do operate five hotels in Reading that provide temporary short-term housing. In a sense, you could say that we really act more as an extended stay motel. Um, our funding through partnership medical uh is a maximum of 182 days. Um, I I totally understand the concern especially with justice involved parole. Um, we started out like a lot of the people in this space just kind of taking rooms here and there at different different motel or hotels. But what we found is that by doing a master lease, we can provide services. We can supervise. We have some amount of control and accountability. We can limit and um for instance, we don't take registered sex offenders, arson um and we can provide a better service and achieve our goals of helping people establish long-term housing. This year alone, we will have helped 150 at least just in reading homeless people into long-term sustainable permanent housing through our programs. And one of the things when you look at the motel that we lease, the Shasta

Lodge, the Stardust, and the Deluxe especially, it's much better for the city for us to be managing these hotels than what they were being used for. by the hour. You had drug dealers, you had prostitution, you had all kinds of people that frankly weren't tourists to res reading. They were basically people that were using those motel to commit further crimes, endanger the community. Um, they were run down and we take care of our properties. We take care of the people in them. We have 24-hour supervision and security. And we work closely with the RPD to make sure that people are in compliance and that they aren't causing trouble. They're not on the streets. And we provide a service that not only helps clean up these streets, but achieves the goal of getting people permanently into housing that's sustainable. We help them find jobs. We help them with resumeumés. Uh we help them in recovery. We stabilize them if they have psychiatric or mental illness problems. We provide a lot of services that frankly were not paid for by our community center on plaster and um some of your staff members heard that facility and if you were to ask them I think they would tell you that it's pretty impressive.

Thank you Tim. your your time is up, but no, we're grateful you spoke today. Thank you very much. Uh Susan, you're up.

Thank you very much for letting me speak tonight. Crime and criminals in the city of Reading. That's what visitors see online when they are looking to visit somewhere in Northern California, especially Reading. It is all over the news next door and Facebook which includes reading crime and community alert chast county and reading crime 2.0 etc. Even though the city of Reading has been advertising amenities that the city has to offer to encourage people to come for a visit or a vacation so they can see for themselves the worldass trout fishing on the Sacramento River, the beautiful Sundal Bridge with walking and biking trails, Turtle Bay, Whiskey Town Lake, and Shasta Lake. Sounds like heaven, doesn't it? We have to ask ourselves, why are visitors and vacationers not coming to Ready? Well, when they start reading and investigating that type of area, it is maybe it is because of what they are reading. Could it be as to the crime homelessness and the prolles that are housed in our hotels and motel? Is it really a surprise to us why the toot tax and sales tax has been on the decline the last few months or even a year or so? It does it doesn't matter how beautiful any area is. If the people do not feel safe due to crime and the homeless population, they are going to they are not going to come and bring their families. One of the BMBBs in the area is barely staying afloat because people that have booked a room have canled and the owners have asked why they are cancelling and the people have told the owners that is due to the crime in the city. How can how can these businesses survive? that takes a direct hit to both our toot tax and sales tax. Also, a business are losing out on the chance of sales tax uh and gas t excuse me sales as to gas or food uh etc. in the Reading or Shasta County. And if

that isn't enough, that is going on in the city of Reading. It is the no boundaries transitional housing program that are being paid to house high risk uh offenders without telling the public. Prolies, including arsonists, and registered sex offenders in our hotels, motel, some of which are not from the county or state. years ago, the only felons that came back after being parrolled to the Shasta County were the ones that got sentenced out of Shasta County. But it has changed. Now, no boundaries has brought in these sex offenders, narens, and placed them in our hotels, motel. So, with this all going on, why would visitors want to come? I understand that you as a city council and reading police department have been researching why this is happening, and I am hopeful this can be resolved soon. Thank you. Thank you, Susan. Uh, John, you're up. So, are you? And if I can hand out participation points or loyalty points, you are sliding into first position today. So, it's uh good job. So, uh Carla, you're going to be up after uh John. So,

hello. My name is John Puit. I'm a resident of the city of Reading and I'm aware that um paroleies and probationers um have a lower rate of recidivism if they're provided with support and I think that that's a good idea to support them and try and reduce that recidivism and um protect the public from that by supporting those people as much as we can. And I'm just curious how much um increase in crime and cost of prosecution and and reincarceration we've been experiencing since these programs have been put into place. That's my question. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much, John. Carla, you're up.

Thank you. Um I'd just like to point out the hypocrisy of the council. I read in the record search light that the state didn't for inform you about the program housing paroleies including alleged sex offenders in the local motel. Yet you did the same exact thing to my neighborhood. You entered into a lease with Shasta County to build next to my home a sheriff's complex that will serve and house these same type of people. You did this without notifying us. Thank you, Carla. All right, we have uh two council members here. Uh council member Dunuka and then council member Muns. You're up after that. So,

first of all, I must thank Chief Barner and uh inter manager Steve Bade and the staff for taking such a lead on this. like I asked you guys to really work on it when you had so many other things to do and you really did it by talking with the state local agencies as well as these businesses to at least reduce the flow of these things. So I really appreciate Thank you for all of you. Thank you chief. U I do feel that we as a small community cannot really absorb anyone outside the area with these uh uh past history. I understand that we want to support our own people first. So I would like to see this completely stop and I appreciate uh there are two programs I hear about. So do we have any representation from no boundaries here? Nobody in the room. I'm really disappointed that No Boundaries has not, you know, really listened to public concern. I and appreciate the new life discovery project to at least hear the community proh concerns. I would seriously consider changing our ordinance for the recommendation what the staff made for the first recommendation to limit that to residential hotel only so that we can limit it in our area. I would seriously consider that. Do you can you give me some stats that how many no boundaries have and how many NLDP has

presently uh no boundaries has 30 rooms at the guest place hotel which is next to I5 and they have uh 30 um I don't know what the total number of participants they have um sometimes they double up in those rooms but as I understand it between registered sex offenders and uh registered arsonists. There are 30 persons in that location. And how many of the paroleies have NLDP has um I do not know the total number of paroleies at that location. You would know, right? Three. That's no no the total. Let's not interact with the public. So that's Yeah, he doesn't have a microphone. Nobody can hear him. And

okay, that's fine. So I would like to see our council to consider seriously consider three things. one that limit this to residential hotel types only and enforce that as soon as practically possible humanly possible. Second also consider the business license for these businesses which currently is not a requirement and uh put certain conditions on that business license to stay in a good standing. And the third thing which really bothers me is you told me that some of the hotels are being used for mixed use travelers as well as these people. Yes.

So that can we limit that legally? Can we pass an ordinance that wouldn't mix would not be allowed because you know as a traveling family on I5 with little kids, you wouldn't even know who's living in that. That really bothers me. Yeah. And that that might be a little bit more of a question for planning and building, but I I'm not convinced that it actually is allowed under the existing um code. Okay. We could take a look at that. Um but I don't know that we currently have a designation for something that would fall in to multiple categories along those lines. If if nothing else, the higher level of regulation would apply.

Okay. So if it is limited by our current code, then I would like the code enforcement to come heavily down on that. And if it is allowed by the current code, then I would like the ordinance to upgrade that. Can I ask on that one point? Would it be possible to give a notification at the hotel at check-in to say so that anybody coming in is just aware that that is present so that they can make a an informed decision.

Uh yes, you may be able to. Well, I would suggest first step would be to see whether it's even permissible for those uses to be mixed under the existing code. Um, if it is, then we could look at a potential ordinance that might impose a notification requirement. Well, to that point, I will only say that, you know, if you're a somebody you're traveling family on I5 and you break your car breakdowns and even if someone informs you, you may not, you know, kind of think about it so much. So, I would completely prohibit it. I would I'm just saying that if they can't do that. Oh, okay. I see what then if they can't. Got you. There's something has to be done. Let's go to councelor Muns and we can circle back to you if you got more too. I'm all right.

Uh Chief Barner, can you come up and expound on a lot of the stuff that you discovered, please?

Yeah. So, we we had been hearing from the public regarding these concerns and and started looking into it and digging into it. Kind of the the the the reason that we started was we had 30 sex offenders show up at records and they needed to do an address change. And so, that that really triggered us to to start looking into why we were getting so many sex offenders and why they were moving. Um just today we had 10 uh come in from the guest place under no boundaries. they moved uh they move rooms every within 28 days to try to stay kind of skirt the rules of the the 28 day rule. Um so it's just a lot of work for for our records uh clerks to deal with. You know really everything came back to to Partnership Health. That's the state and the funding that's provided. Uh they provide the six months of free housing to uh the the the nonprofits. Um the concern is that you know when these sex offenders when these the people that are in these partnership health programs uh the state does not require any to to compile any data for how many of those people go into long-term housing but we see an influx at the police department of people on the street and we found that because once the 6 months is is run out there's no long-term housing and so they're put out on the street and that's what our officers are dealing with. Um, we're also seeing that that a lot of people are coming from out of the area. Our officers on the street talking to people from uh other states and other areas. They're coming to reading because we have the the the nonprofits and the forprofits that are bringing them in for free six-month h housing. Um, with the concern is though that there is no long-term housing for them. So, good meetings that we've had with with everybody. you know, parole was great. Uh they brought in their their A team from Sacramento and but the benefit of that was Sheriff Johnson, myself and and Anderson Police

Chief Collins. Uh the benefit with that is that as the presentation talked about earlier, that was 3 months ago. We haven't had the one from Trinity County is the only out of area parole that we've that we've had. So that that is that's good news. So parole listened and uh it's good to be the squeaky wheel and and kind of call their bluff on that. Um other than that, the you know, we we continue to have these conversations and and you know, try to try to encourage the motel owners that are running and allowing these and then the the forprofits and nonprofits just to be good stewards of our community. If you're going to have these, don't bring people in from out of the area. Don't bring paroleles from out of the area. they are the ones that can limit this and not bring them into into into reading. U the other concern is you know that the downtown is there's a lot of momentum going downtown and the concern is is having these having these people in downtown motel when it's vibrant downtown right now. Last weekend was great. Uh I expect the same this weekend. We we want to keep that momentum going and is this is this what we want in our downtown corridor and so that's the question for for you guys to discuss and decide.

Thank you sir. I love that you're giving a plug for the downtown market quietly. So but it is a great place to be right. Thank you. Uh Council Member Adet I saw your name earlier. Oh, there it is again. So Yep. Don't worry I'll never stop. All right. Um good. So um Dr. Danuka, are you making a motion for those three things? Yes, I would like to, but I just want everyone to comment first. Yeah. Do we need to Cuz I'll second that. Do we need to add then um Chief Barner,

would we need to Would we need to add this loophole where they shift every 28 days to avoid being there for 30, you know, you have 30 days and out? Like, is there something that we need to address or a way to do that? And while before she goes, are we able to make a motion? This is an information item. Are we able to take action on this or are we just be able to provide feedback to I mean at this point the motion would just be a mechanism for pro providing direction feedback to

understood. Okay. Thank you. I think it uh was a recent government code 1954 that made that illegal. Um forcing people to move every 28 days if they're staying in a program or at a motel. But so why are they shifting everything? I don't I don't know. Okay. I don't really know. It it could be just uh um educational. They folks need to be educated that they don't have to do that anymore.

No, that they can stay. And the but see the reason why they actually do that is because if you're in a program in a motel then you're in a program. If you're not in a program you're considered a tenant after 30 days. So what they do is they move people every 30 days so they're not considered a tenant and then subject to California tenant laws.

Mr. Mayor, I this actually gets a little bit more complicated than that. Um, if the council would like, I'd be happy to give you um a memo with some brief legal analysis on that. But there's going to be different status for the purpose of where what use classification they qualify for our zoning code versus um what they're doing to evade potential tenency under California housing law. And I believe that the legislation that's being referenced is specific to um the California housing law and specific programs as opposed to um our land use authority and how that's being regulated within the city of Reading. So I um I think there's a number of different pieces of this that we're going to need to take a look at and make sure that they're fitting together in the way that's attain

excuse me achieving the council's objectives. So for purposes of this motion, should we include something like that or are you already doing that and you'll get back to us? Yeah. Um, we can take a look at that. If you want if you want um a specific uh memo, I can give it to you. Otherwise, frankly, this is just something we'd look at as part of the um the overall regulatory picture. And if we have a recommendation there, we would we would bring it forward. Okay. Then then I'll second your motion for those three items. If Yeah. Go ahead. Um I council member Resnner, I think you were going to speak or did you have something?

I wanted to ask some clarifying questions. um about the motion or items to bring back. So, investigate whether owners of residential, multi- and single family units should obtain business license. That was on your list. Yes. And then re and for staff to bring back research business license uh software and database. And then uh limit homeless population to residential hotel use clarification and then also bring back to us recommendations in terms of mixed use. Yeah. So or mixing those. So basically as per the eliminate mixing

as per as per the staff recommendation uh I would like to make the motion to bring back an ordinance to limit the uh downtown business area use to sorry

something and I'm I'm sorry to interrupt. Um the I think there's a little bit of confusion. Um the the current ordinance actually prohibits that use within the downtown core um and requires a use permit um in um I think all or most commercial zones um otherwise within the city. Um the the option that was given to the council was if you wanted to make this legal, we could bring an ordinance back that did but otherwise I believe staff are obligated to go ahead and proceed to enforcement um with respect to these facilities. But what they're saying is uh that right now they can house these people without the classification of residential hotel.

Yeah. And I think that that was uh if I understood correctly, I think that might have been a little bit of confusion on the wording in the PowerPoint. Oh yeah. How many people can we get on this? Sorry, I just want to add a little clarification. So we don't in our zoning code currently have a use classification for this use. The best use classification. The best use classification we can use is residential hotel. Okay,

that use classification was created decades ago. That's typically your your longstay hotel, your whatever home suites situation, right? Long-term stays. That's what that was intended to capture. Certainly, our zoning code when it was drafted didn't envision this type of use coming in to our hotel motel. So, it's the best definition we have. We could def we could redefine it in our zoning code and make it very specific to this use and then you could very much control when and where it goes, but for now this is the best we have to work with. And to reiterate the city attorney's point, as a residential hotel, it is not allowed in the downtown specific plan area today. That's current law. Um so they have four active uses happening. So we were wanting some direction from the council on the expediency of enforcement and what your thoughts are there. And then the general commercial, the roadway, which I guess is called the abode. Now, they need a use permit if they want to continue operating. Um, now use permit approval comes with a discretionary approval process. It could come all the way to the city council through planning commission. You could also condition use permits to do certain things that's been discussed today. So, when you have a discretionary permit issued, you can condition that use the way you see fit to make sure it protects health, safety, welfare, and the like. So, hopefully that clarifies a little bit.

Right. So basically right now we we are not they are not required to use a residential hotel designation right that's how we interpret it yeah and and just to to to clarify when we say it's the closest one if it doesn't fit within residential hotel it's not allowed period so um we do believe that that based on our analysis so far that is the appropriate classification under the zoning table and that it is subject to that treatment under the existing zoning code. Okay. So, what do you need from us to proceed with your items that were listed on the last slide?

So, so one thing that would help me is um in terms of and I put it up there as an option hearing from the council. I don't I don't think this is where you'd want to go. I mean, we could change our downtown specific plan to allow residential uses. I I don't didn't think that would be what I hear from you, but I want a clarification.

Another point of direction would be helpful to us. this is going to go proceed with code enforcement. So it would help me to understand what parameters you expect of staff. We can take it through our typical process, what's the expediency, what's the severity, otherwise we'll handle it just as we would routine business. Um that can take some time. So we have to do code enforcement action downtown. And then the use permit, we need to proceed with accepting an application from the operator to then walk them through the use permit process. But as of right now, they're operating without one. So, that was going to be my question moving forward is is there a timeline for when we can expect to see uh enforcement of the zoning regulation? Well, we can enforce it just as fast as we're directed. Um, you know, it it would fall on our code enforcement team,

but in some should we already be enforcing that because that's within your parameters and rights to do that. So, we can we have pretty wide latitude and discretion though on timing and how quickly we act. And so, um, generally that's at staff's, you know, purview. Hearing from the council tonight helps me sort of gauge uh what level we put this in priority and where it falls in the stack for enforcement for us. Um but we go through the process. We do a notification. We do a notice of violation. We work with the operator to uh to to rectify the situation. Yeah.

Let let me just understand this because it says in your recommendation council direction to staff limit homeless programs to residential hotel use as classification. Is that something you are asking us to vote on now or give you direction or you can do that already? Can do that already. I'm mostly asking um I I posed the question I think knowing the answer. Do you want to change current regulation to be more permissive? What I'm hearing is no. No. So we have that regulation in place now. Okay. Now it's a matter of enforcement. Do it.

Do it. And uh we definitely want to have the proper legal notice and we want to make sure that you also take their practical consideration in mind as humanly as possible. But I we want you to enforce it. Right. Am I Yes. Yeah. Speak. Yes.

The second thing is that business license should be required and you should have some specific requirement for them to stay in a good standing to maintain the business license. So, I think there was some value to or explanation or staff packet about why business licenses weren't required for nonprofits before. Uh maybe there's some value to that because of time or um I don't know if we can speak to that if if that's a good direction to go. Um, so I will say what I'm getting is a little bit of oral history in the city in terms of how that decision-m process was made, but my understanding is that the city's business license ordinance was adopted as a tax prior to the requirements of Prop 26 and Prop 218 that would have made that subject to voter approval. And that when it was adopted as a tax, it was specifically imposed upon the forprofits because of the fact that those would essentially be the revenue generators. uh and there's a desire not to be taxing the nonprofits and that it wasn't operating to require the licenses otherwise. Um we could certainly bring forward an ordinance that would require a business license of the nonprofits. Um they would the only fee that they would pay would be any fee that would be associated with the processing. They wouldn't be subject to the um uh any component that would be treated as a tax. Um but um that would allow for consistency in the treatment of these businesses so that you would have the screening and the zoning clearance in advance. The fee is not that important. It's just that they have a license that we know who they are. They've registered themselves and we have the a means to contact them and to re to take they can't can or cannot operate if they're not in good standing.

Yeah. So maybe I do not want to change it for all the nonprofits, but for this specific use, we should require

I don't think we can discriminate because then it looks like we are specifically targeting the pies at that point. I so there is there um there is a little bit of danger in terms of trying to define the specific use and um how that would that would apply in terms of the treatment and what does is it going to be passing rational basis etc. I will note um from my review on this it looks like the vast majority of citizens do cities do reply uh require business licenses for all nonprofits. Um it's a relatively simple requirement and really the purpose is just to make sure that you someone has checked to actually see that you are complying with the zoning in that area before you set up shop and then it's um a code enforcement issue.

Okay. So we we do have a motion. I don't know if there's more discussion but I'd like to hear that motion again. I know we've heard ideas just so we know what we're voting on. Um and maybe we can jumble that together and hear what we're want. Do you need do you need a motion and a vote from us or was consensus okay? Consensus. Consensus. Do you feel like you got what we're looking for? But who do we need to direct about business licenses for?

Well, we'll just include that as part of our We're still I would say we're only halfway through this process. Okay. So, we now know some further direction. We, as Jeremy was alluding to, we did already send out some code enforcement letters to a few of the addresses that are, you know, they're actively running the larger programs, I would say. So, we need to do some more due diligence with other facilities that are doing the same thing so we can get some clarity on, we want to make sure we cover the whole city of Reading. It's important for us to hit that use uh correctly. So, we have some more work to do. I just really wanted to make sure we brought uh you know a concerted answer back to C to council and it has taken a number of staff to get here because there's a lot of lot of moving parts. Uh we're also looking at some other programs and working with a program like Aegis too on on heart now to address a number of those issues that are that are uh coming from that facility. So it goes beyond just the housing but we want to make sure we're addressing all of them

and also enforce that uh prohibiting the mixed use. Correct. Yeah. And could you give us a timeline then? Would you please give us an update or a progress report in one month? Is that reasonable? I we could probably bring another update back in January, like the second meeting in January.

I would think too if if we were made aware of the the intermixing of uses at a property to the city attorney's previous point, we would regulate that with a more restrictive use. And so if a hotel motel had transient occupants, your typical visitors and tourists intermixing with a residential hotel use, I would just say um they would be regulated per the residential hotel use, which would require a use permit and a and a conditional use permit issued by your planning commission. So um we can do that today with the current laws in effect. Please do. And I would note that the conditional use permit would also be a mechanism by which you could impose those notice requirements.

Right. Okay. And and one more clarifying question if I may. Um so am I hearing from council then for this type of use that's outside of the downtown specific planning area uh i.e. north market in the general commercial zoning. Is this council okay with proceeding with our current regulation which allows that use with a use permit? So they should apply for use permit. Correct. And I will walk them through that process as I would anyone else. Yes. Um to be clear there I mean we have current non-compliance so you may want to be clear to the council as to how that would be handled in terms of grandfathering.

Well not not in terms of grandfathering because it wouldn't be grandfathered because it was non-compliant but non in terms of what that would mean for any code enforcement proceedings while an application was pending. Right. I don't know how much detail you want me to get into now or if you want to help me with that. But I mean we would walk them through submitting the application and working through the process not knowing really what the eventual outcome would be in terms of how that project would be conditioned uh at this juncture. Yeah. You know and it is a discretionary approval. So we obviously can't guarantee that it would be an approved use

and and um just where I was going with that was would there be any forbearance um in enforcement action while the application was pending or would enforcement proceed and the activity would need to stop until the use permit was obtained? We do. Oh, so in the sorry sir, we can't in the interim is what you're saying. So like what do you do if we're going to go this route? Do we keep them there while we work this out because they're currently there? Right. I don't know. I'd kind of look at my city attorney for for some guidance

response. So we've done this before. We've had programmatic issues before and we've worked with the property owners and the program operators at No Boundaries at a prior facility location. and we worked with them as they transitioned out because we don't want 240 people on the street. We're here. We know that they're operating a good program. It's just not the correct location for that use. And so we I would recommend that we would go forward. Absolutely. Help them facil give them the opportunity and all the full support to bring this into compliance. Yes. And in a good standing. Yes. Okay. So I think we provided a lot of feedback so we might be able to move on unless there's any other comments from anybody else. I don't want to leave anybody else like there's a conversation out there that will Does this does that cover it?

Is there anything else you both might want to say is it sounds really exciting actually. So no we we're just trying to get clarification. Um I think we've got the direction um unless director pagan thinks that he needs anything further. Can I just ask that you would email to us the list of hotels that this this designation would now affect so that we have a scope and an understanding of Right. Because if we say that this type of use is now a residential residential hotel that um we are thinking of the what you listed but that it could actually encompass many more. I'm assuming there's others.

So you're asking for existing list existing hotel motel buildings that are in the zoning for which they could get a use permit to do this. Is that what you're asking? Yeah. Okay. Right. Don't you want the scope to understand so if someone asks us we know you know what those things are? Yeah, we could I think we could do an analysis to give that information to the council. Okay. And that's regardless of whether they're operating a program of this type just if they are hotels motel to have that right. Right. Because if if they move for some reason they move out of that and go somewhere else, you know what I mean? At least we'll have an understanding of where those zones would be and the public would then be able to know that as well. Yeah. Yeah, I think we could do a GIS exercise and or do an analysis to see where those building types are and in which zoning districts they are. Okay.

And we can provide that, but I would also say prior to any of that use commencing, they would need to have the use permit, which would mean that there would be a notice process. Yes. Um uh and there would be a discretionary permit review. Great. Okay. Great.

Okay. Let's uh let let's move it along. So um 9.1E consider establishment of financial oversight committee. This has come up in discussion at our prior council meetings. I think I can give credit to multiple council members around us that uh came up with this idea. Um we're going to discuss this today. Might have some overlap in discussion regarding our existing audit committee. Um so I I think we're going to turn this over to Steve and then as we get into council feedback. My thinking is there's going to be a lot of feedback and ideas here. So maybe we might just do some rapid fire discussion and keep circling back so we can give everybody a chance to speak and uh and um so I'm excited to see this come back and see what kind of result we get for this. So Steve, you can take it away. Start us off. Okay.

All right. So in staff's due diligence uh through this process of understanding what a financial oversight committee is you know we reviewed uh a number of other cities that had formed and maintained uh financial oversight committees and we identified two different categories for these committees. Uh first similar to the city of writing many jurisdictions have audit committees responsible for reviewing audits of past expenditures. These committees may review both internal uh and external audit results in addition to setting audit priorities and identifying areas for future audits. Uh in larger districts, the internal external audit functions may be given to separate committees uh which work in conjunction with a dedicated city auditor or city controller position. Examples of this structure you'd find in something like Las Vegas, San Francisco, San Jose, some larger jurisdiction. Uh the city currently has an audit committee which is comprised of the mayor and vice mayor and the city combines both the internal and external audit functions into this single audit committee. Uh as a standing committee of the council, the audit committee is a brown act uh body uh public publicly noticed with publicly noticed meetings. uh staff did not look at any original organizing uh documents, but based on the review of the agendas, the audit committee is to meet regularly to consider the results of the city's annual external audit. The audit committee then advances the results of the annual external audit uh to for consideration by the council. The committee also meets and considers modifications to audit contracts including extensions and the selection of new auditors. Uh the city does not have an internal auditor or controller position, but policy 425 delegates that the internal audit function of the city to the finance division and further states that due to the limited staff time available available to work on

internal audit items, finance will set those priorities uh which are then also reviewed by the audit committee. Uh second, several jurisdictions employ a different kind of committee that participates in budget uh in the budgeting process by reviewing projections on future revenues andor expenses. Uh the purpose of these committees to provide additional technical expertise that can assist in budget uh accuracy and transparency. Uh for example, the city of Los Angeles or Las Vegas engages a financial advisory committee uh that includes local stakeholders such as e economists, hotel years, and representatives from the home builders association. Um per that city of Las Vegas budget summary, uh these members provide perspectives into the city's revenue projections and sometimes expenditure assumptions. Uh by including representatives from key local industries, this type of committee can provide insight into local economic trends that practice um which also whoops local the county they'll give you insight in local economic trends which is a little different um compared to what the city of reading does where we rely on outside forecasting model uh provide by uh community services. So they provide this the forecasting models and then they we as an exit our executive staff uh use that as a basis to create revenue assumptions uh which are then reviewed and adjusted and approved by council. So we're just using that forecasting model just as a basis to understand what's what the economy is is how it's acting. Uh these two different types of committees are not only are not mutually exclusive. uh in Los in Las Vegas. Uh the city that city utilizes both a financial advisory committee looking at revenue assumptions and upcoming budgets and an audit oversight committee to review audits of past expenditures. Each function provides a different benefit. As such, the committees have different

needs in terms of member expertise, meeting schedule and structure. As part of our due diligence, we also found an article that was in Western City that uh we thought was very good and we provided that to council as a reference. And they stated that these committees composed of community members aim to increase city government transparency and build accountability. Uh it goes on to warn of potential pitfalls, highlighting that clear direction is needed to avoid duplicating of staff work, creating competing priorities and workload for staff and andor challenging the governance and authority of the council. The article recommends establishing clear steps to avoid the pitfalls that could include articulating clear direction from council on the mission and role of the committee, setting clear roles and responsibilities, adopting a standing committee resolution or a code of conduct for that committee. Uh providing training and orientation to all involved. Appoint a city council member and or staff liaison. uh clearly delineate the level of commitment or committee staff support to be provided. Consider sun sunset provisions or term and then regular review the purpose and mission of the committee. Uh there are two staff recommendations this evening before you. If council is supportive for the audit committee, staff is recommending drafting resolution to formalize the composition of the members for that committee, terms of of the members uh purpose of the committee and then also that schedule that would go along with that committee. Uh secondly, the staff or city does not currently have a committee that provides forwardlooking recommendations on revenue and expense projections to assist the city uh budget process. If the council is interested in creating a committee similar to what is used in other cities, staff would draft a resolution establishing the financial oversight committee structure specifying

the selection process and composition of members, the term of those members, purposes of the committee and then also meeting schedule. So very similar to the audit committee just formalizing those both in resolutions. Uh in regard to the committee selection process, each city typically uses its own appointment structure. In the city of writing, appointments are made by the mayor uh subject to approval of the full council uh with terms staggered in order to allow for diversity of the appointments. Staff could prepare a draft resolution with the same model or another process. Say each member chooses their own their own representative uh could also be another consideration and is expressed by some council members. Uh this concludes my repres or my presentation. I'm available for questions. Uh, also our finance uh, services director, Greg Robmanette is available and then our city attorney uh, Curtis is also available. We all had a hand in in this research and trying to figure out which the best direction is for council and these committees. Thank you.

Thank you. So, um, moving forward, I know there's a couple considerations of what's up for discussion. We'll be looking at the consider the establishment of the financial oversight committee, whether we want to have that overlap and combine with the audit committee. Um I I I get the feeling that we might want to have those two separated with the audit committee and financial oversight, but that's definitely something for us to discuss. Um the staff is looking for feedback as far as what that committee will look like on each of the audit or financial oversight committee if those separated. Uh how many members will pick, what the terms of that look like, and um that seems to be a lot of things that staff is asking for consideration. So I council member Resner, I see you're up to speak, so I'll I'll give you the floor. Um, I am anticipating that we'll probably roundroin this a bit, but I would like to authorize staff to draft a resolution formalizing audit committee. Um, the structure that I would like involved um do do you want us to do each of them at at once because I think you're probably right. I think that a majority of us want those to be item one, item two.

Let's flush that out real quick. Maybe that way we can get consensus that'll help build our discussion. Is is there consensus that we want these two separated or is there any feedback from other council members here that would like to see these combined into one body? I would say that I I don't mind being combined just less staff time spent on it as well as uh uh I I think it makes sense for us to combine that if we structure it right. So my conversation with staff was uh time is not of concern and maybe staff can depends on the number of meetings. There'll be no staff on the fin. Yeah, but still it's a brown net committee. So, you know, they're the both are brown committee. So, I'm sure there'll be

potentially. Yes. So, but um just asking that question, was there consensus? Do you have them separated or I'd like them separated? You would like them separated. Okay. So, we've established that. So, let's councelor Reszer, you can

Okay, I'll make some recommendations. So, for item one, audit committee, um I would like the audit committee to continue to um have the mayor and vice mayor I s I'm going to suggest uh quarterly meetings. I think that those meetings should be um available and set calendared and posted online like where the rest of our meetings are so that anybody could attend and give public comment. Um I would like the uh these are my four proposed ideas for those quarterly meetings. One of them is a training since usually there's a rotation of mayor and vice mayor. Um the second thing is re reviewing the internal audit findings or process um each year if there's any improvements or any findings within the internal audits that we um would like changed. um considering one meeting that is considering any modifications or evaluations of the external contracts that we have. Um selection of new auditors, any sort of feedback surrounding how that um process went that year and then um what it feels like it is now, which is just a meeting of the third party findings um to review those before they're presented to council. Those are my high level what I would like to go on that audit committee.

So you've given us four uh the mayor and the vice mayor uh to meet quarterly. Were there any other members that you would want added on to that or is it strictly the mayor and the vice mayor? That's the way it is currently because that's the way it is currently. So would we want to add uh a few community members uh not not to that one thing? Um not to that one. I do have community member suggestions. Fair enough. So you suggested uh meetings quarterly for training, findings, modifications of contracts and then also um you said third party I think.

Um well at the moment we have a third party an outside auditor who audits us um and the current audit committee meets with that um auditor and reviews any of their findings and that's when they're asking questions. So in my personal opinion that would be whatever third in whatever structure that quarterly like when the start date was based on finance. Okay. Got it. Um and then that last one would essenti essentially be to review and consider any sort of changes going forward in in terms of the external auditors.

Okay. Currently our audit committee meets uh once once per year uh and so this would be four quarters. Any thoughts on that? Anybody else would like to speak on that or any ideas? So I didn't see Oh, there you are. No, he we'll give Well, I'll be quick on this. So my only feeling on this is audit is actually audits can get actually very technical. Mhm.

So you really need more of auditing background even the uh financial people they need to have a specific training in the audits that can really get very technical. So my suggestion my change in that presentation will be either I mean if whosoever you want to appoint should have some kind of more of auditing background in that and maybe mayor are you saying you want to add two members from the outside community to either or mayor or vice mayor if you are saying that they can maybe they can designate someone which could be a public member who has a specific expertise in auditing. Okay, let's take that idea. We'll see what the rest of us feel about that as well as about adding other community members or people with expertise. But council,

I can designate one. That's what I was saying. Yeah, sure. Council member Bradet, you got something? So,

yeah. So, um having been in uh one of these meetings, um I I think what I'd like to how I'd like to enhance it and make it more impactful. Um I I'm I'm good with mayor, vice mayor. I think that's fine. Um um typically you've been on council for a while. All people here excluded because none of us were had that happen. But typically that that goes that way and I think that that makes sense. Um but I think I would I'm not opposed to quarterly meetings. The uh you know the findings come out in typically January we have or December whatever but we meet in January to discuss um sort of the findings. And I would say largely the focus is did it pass the audit? It's an is it's not an inter I looked for any of that code for or the um council policy 425. I had asked have there ever been an internal audit included with that and I didn't find any. I don't know if you found any. I couldn't find where there was actually an internal audit. Now I would I'm sure they'll all argue that the entire thing is an internal audit because they give all they prepare all of that and they give it to the external auditors to check their work. Um but uh maybe so that we have a a higher value for the idea that that's an internal audit is that maybe um and I don't know exactly when it could happen but it would be I think great instead of just like hey they approved it it's great we don't have any material findings it passed you know the the we performed to this standard instead let's actually talk about what's in it because that doesn't really happen where you go through maybe in the beginning part where it's sort of management is discussing the year-over-year performance given it that it's an audit and sort of even training wise of like what's the best way to read this because you could probably start

ahead of time like the the trouble is that you're the mayor right now so like

if you're not the mayor that following year so if you start to get training then you're not in that meeting that next year to for that to have been of value and if you between now and January I have to get, you know, so maybe it isn't quarterly because we have to jam-pack you to to get the training to know what to look for to sort of see like, hey, these are the pages that most affect you that you want to be looking at as far as, you know, and why it is written this way, what's excluded, what's included, so that you have some comprehension of what you're looking at. Because in that meeting, the goal really is to say we passed. It's not really to say here's how we performed, which is super valuable for our sake to see

what the performance was of that budget and the city and where we are year-over-year. So, I think maybe four meetings just not quarterly. They're just full meetings. I don't know how to sense because you have a whole year, right? But then you're not going to be on the thing the next. Yeah. Like I mean, good feedback. My perspective is um jumping into that audit for the first time. I was raw. thought I was new. I was uh green, right? So, and it didn't mean I was really the expert in the information. It doesn't necessarily mean I was the most qualified person to be part of that audit committee. Fair, right? Me, too.

So, um my perspective is I I think we're looking for u uh better government transparency to build uh public trust. Uh council members come and go. We're not here forever. We could be if we're lucky enough we want to be, but we could find a lot of value in bringing in three people from the public to participate in um the audit that have some sort of expertise and knowledge because they might be more knowledgeable than us. And uh then we get more questions through the auditing process and we avoid the issues to where one of us in the council being newly elected that just knows really not a lot about the inner details of the government. But we may have some consistency with overlapping three community members that continue to serve on this committee and maybe they continue to get reappointed. So I just think um I would love to see three people from the community um add to that. I don't think the mayor should appoint all three of those if we go that route. My suggestion would be if we avoid and I don't want them all three on one term to where then we have to appoint three in the future. I think could there be an idea to point three people. Maybe the first person serves for a three-year term. the other person serves for a two-year term. The next person serves a one-year term, but when that one-year term comes up, it turns into a three-year term.

And um I think that's just going to add a lot of value and it's going to avoid the issues of somebody coming on the council that just doesn't have the financial backing or the the experience with that. So,

can I ask offer a suggestion to that? Maybe possibly because I like the idea that there'd be other people asking questions and if they're there for more than a few years, they they start to learn because they did the training too and they're learning what to look for and what to ask. So, they're the continuity and that's what we're looking for. But what about if we did hire a controller to actually a professional to look at all of that and when it comes to time to sit into that January meeting, they come in and give their assessment not on did they meet the GATS standards and did they have no material findings, but giving us the understanding of like here's how that performed year-over-year, here's where you would read this, here's the important pages, here's what you should go back to your council and report and that type of thing. So what would be uh help me on this um uh what what is the role of the controller? What is what does the controller do? And is that a high level position that's going to cost us a lot of money? We love to spend money, right? So but

yeah, well I would wonder more so like if you had a consultant that came in for like a month and I actually have no idea how long it would take to look through and if they would look through the prepared audit, you know what I mean? But that'll be like an what you're suggesting is almost like an outside personal time 12 months contract.

Correct. It would be someone that comes in maybe in December looks at I'm not sure exactly when the audit gets passed back to us. If it's December or January, I don't know how many more weeks we have before we approve it, but if if at some point they're looking at it, assessing it, they know exactly what to look at and then they're basically our advisers of what we should be looking at and understanding when we come back into the room. Um, I wouldn't be opposed to maybe a controller because it would be a basically a month maybe contract or something. Could the structure work to have a controller that is the chair that rotates every year and so we have like an like a new controller every year that's part of that committee or I want a professional and I want

I I might I might recommend a little bit of caution in terms of the the terminology here and the duties are going to be assigned. So, we might want to be it it sounds like what we're talking about is more of an outside expert that's able to come in and provide some for an internal internal audit on like our procedures and our budget and and honestly to look at that document and say here's it here's what you need to be looking at. Here's something that you know because if we're not I mean we're it's putting a lot on the public to know how to do that.

Yeah. Let's go to C. Can we go to councelor Resnner or do we want to I want to hear from director Robinette just to pro provide clarification on what that schedule looks like when the for the documents when the you know when this audit committee is really going to be active and so he can give some clarification and what does the committee actually do? Yes. So um I think council member Odette pointed out that you know there really has never been any discussion of internal audits. I went back through all the meeting minutes all the way back to 2015 which happens to coincide with my time here. I started in late 20 2014.

Um the reality is we've never done any internal auditing. So there's never been a report. The theory of internal auditing is it would actually cover different subject areas than the external audit book. So maybe council would show up and say, "Hey, we want you to go look into travel expenses and are pe people following the travel policies or overtime or something like that." And so that's what council policy 425 currently does is it delegates that to the finance department because we do have people who in our department have performed audits um in different capacities. Myself, I worked at the IRS. We have another person who worked at an outside audit firm before. So we do have people who have done that and can help mentor other staff members and we've all most all of us have completed accounting coursework that gives you the understanding of what audits are. So we definitely have the staff internally to be able to do that. just a matter of having the bandwidth across all of our responsibilities to do it. So, I think the internal audit function is a very different role than the external audit function. To council member Aad's point, we we haven't ever had a report on that. So, um I think to council member Resnner's point, that would be one of the meetings potentially is maybe setting a priority um reporting back on the activities that we've done in the internal audit area over the past year. Uh maybe one of the meetings would cover recommendations that the audit committee has for council for policy changes or procedure changes as a result of either internal or external audit findings because I think either one could and should precipitate a need for a change in policy or procedure if it was necessary. Um and then I think the fourth meeting around training or something to that effect. It sounds like a great idea. But I definitely think those three meetings make a lot of sense to me um as I heard them being discussed up here. I'm not sure if there were other questions that I didn't cover.

What's the schedule for like when you guys get the audit back?

Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Thanks. Um, so the schedule currently, you know, the year end closes June 30th. Uh, we in finance work towards completing all of our audit work over the fall months. We we usually complete our audit work um midocctober. We're kind of done with what we call the entitywide statement and we start to turn information over to our auditors. Um, our auditors then start going through and basically basically testing all of our procedures and we call them internal controls for shortorthhand. It's basically a document that solidifies the way your policies and procedures work together. And there's a way for the external auditors to come in and make sure you're following the procedures you told them you would follow. And if you're not, you'll likely find an audit finding in your external audit. Um, frankly, that could be something we could unearth in an internal audit as well. But our external auditors, they complete their work usually mid to late December. We're always pushing them to get it earlier in December, but usually mid to late December. We meet with the audit committee. I always feel like this is very jam-packed because we get the book late December. We're trying to schedule an audit committee meeting for the first week in January so we can show up here the second meet second meeting in January. I personally would like to give us a little more breathing room there and maybe the audit committee could meet the sometime first or second meeting and we bring the actual uh acter to council first meeting in February. I think that would just

because right now it is I mean Char's shaking her head because she's experienced it. We're trying to get on people's calendars and and it's just a really tight turnaround to then turn around staff reports for council's consideration at the second meeting in January. So I know that we got our report I believe this year on like March 15th. Yeah, they this year was our first year out of the new system. So we were delayed by a couple by about a month and a half. But are we still within statute?

Um yeah, I mean the Okay, so the the deadline the big deadline that we're up against, well there's two big deadlines. One, you have state controllers's office. Um that reporting is due at the end of January. The other big deadline that we're up against is frankly the GFOA award that we apply for and receive every year and that they want that submitted by the end of December. Both of those you can submit extension requests. That's what we did last year. So we were still within all of our extension requests and meeting our obligations with them and notifying them what was going on. It's not abnormal. I think I talked about this a year ago. It's not abnormal when you undergo a a significant system change. I mean, our auditors said that it can be delayed over a year at times. Um they've seen that happen. And so us being only about a month and a half later wasn't a big deal and we were able to get everything turned in on time with proper extensions that were filed.

So that's not normal. We That's not normal. And and I and I'm expecting this year we're we're cutting it close, but we're going to be on normal timing again. So really, you only have as far as when you could once you've become the mayor and the vice mayor and you're going to be in that meeting, you really only have a a couple weeks. Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a very quick onboarding process. You're right. If you to your point, I think you're alluding to yourself. you were brand new to council pretty much and then you were on the audit, right? So I beat you. It was it was brutal. Yeah. So So it's um I hear what you're saying. So maybe we do schedule some type of training in December the training meeting. So maybe it's not a quarterly meeting I think is what you're suggesting.

I'm you tell us like if we really want to empower them whoever is going to be whoever it's going to be. I mean I I personally would not be opposed to all of us being trained on this and then whomever becomes the mayor or vice mayor. they just then they actually get to implement it better, but we would probably ask better questions when it came back and and or we would understand what the feedback you're giving. I think it might be better. You know what I mean? And so this year, I don't remember who said it, but I think there was an idea along these lines of trying to come up with like formalized how we onboard council members. Me, okay, please.

And and so actually I think we could yeah include this as part of that like here's what the acter is. here's, you know, what your role is as part of the audit committee. I think that's a good idea for any council member to receive that information and then figuring out the best way to coordinate that with the um audit committee meetings, I think, is thought process we need to think through more. I don't think we necessarily need to address it tonight, but I I do I'm hearing the thought process. I think we can address that as part of these recommendations we bring forward.

Yeah. I think for the public they when they think audit they're not thinking of what this committee is looking at. It's an external audit. We are talking about is the external audit passing but we want to sort of bolster what this audit committee could be. Um and one of those things would probably be to educate all of us. So what would you recommend as a time? So maybe we can't do that necessarily this year because it's going to happen in January, but like what do you think given we know we're going to move forward? Do you think quarterly would make sense if we have a year on ramp because we're not going to do it for this year?

I think I personally think quarterly makes sense from a from a staff resource standpoint so we're not stacking them on top of each other. It it gives us I I think the idea of having them standing, they're going to be held. there's going to be certain subject areas we expect to cover, but there might be things that come up through the course of the year that need to be added to those meetings for any number of reasons. Um, I think quarterly makes sense. I I think we definitely need to be thoughtful with how we onboard council members and and prepare council members to serve on the audit committee because I I think you bring up a very valid point that we're probably not doing enough of that right now to help you all understand what that document um is intended to do, what it is doing, what is it telling you? Um what can you learn from it that helps you all make decisions as you move forward into the future. So I I absolutely hear what you're saying and it certainly will be something no matter what cadence we decide the meetings will be on. I think I'm taking that to heart and thinking through how we could do a better job of that.

Yeah. And the resource of what an internal audit was intended to be because I think that's to that that sounds like, you know, a forensic audit is this specific thing we're going to go deeper into. So before we have to get to that place, having some mechanisms to know there's tools for that. So if there is an issue, we could always request an

and how council could actually bring that to the audit committee or a council member could bring it to the audit committee and request us um as staff to to try to work that into our priority if maybe council becomes aware of something that they want uh looked into further from a financial records or whatever standpoint and then we could actually take that into consideration, put it on the agenda to start trying to get that addressed so that we can report back on it to council. I think that all fits together in a way that makes a lot of sense when I hear all of you talk about it. And I'm hearing similar veins of the same information that um I think I'm looking at Steve too, but I'm hearing a lot of good overlap that we can make something that is super powerful for council, the audit committee, and our community as a whole. So, um

I'm just saying I think it would be beneficial to the public if there was a mechanism that didn't have to go all the way to forensic audit or grand jury. we can literally just give a better assessment with documents and all that kind of stuff. So, I think that would be really beneficial. Greg, your three minutes is up. You'll need a speaker card next time. So, there's a card in the back room. Councelor Resner. Uh

um I think that my preference is two or three community members rather than a controller at this point in time. Uh maybe a controller would be really great or hiring a consultant would be really great when hopefully in 5 years we're in a different financial situation. Um but I am concerned that I would like staff to bring us back things that are lowhanging fruit like you have $20,000 extra here like that we can cut when we're reviewing budget. So, I don't want to add any additional cost. Okay.

I would be willing long term or for I won't be here, but further out to have discussions about that or for it to be considered at a at a time in which that it makes financial sense, but I think I would pick community members because well, they're free dollars. So, I'm hearing yes on three. Yes. Or three committee members and three committee members. I feel that way. What about qualifications or term or unless can I just ask what would the purpose of three like they're not voting on anything right so two I'm just curious what the three was for I was just thinking a normal committee might be five so I mean there's no rational reason I just thought more bodies more community interest transparency theus

but are they voting on something is no they're not actually on the board actually they we in the audit we do vote because I recall so they're board members now the audit Mayor and mayor and vice mayor vote, right? So that's why I'm curious what exactly what's their like what's their advisor. They're just there to observe observe and kind of ask questions. Ask questions, give feedback, but they don't vote on anything. No, they can they can vote. I'm willing to entertain that if I'm just curious. I just I don't think we would give the majority to the public though. I mean, that might be a concern, right? So that's why I'm curious like I'm not exactly Go ahead.

Function. Sorry. So yeah, so certainly you want to think about who votes, but the other thing to bear in mind there is um whether or not the members of the committee is in impact quorum is going to impact um your ability to form ad hoc committees um and who can talk to whom. So, you're going to have some brand act consequences if you appoint people as member of the committees or um you could potentially have um uh I'm trying to think of how this would be done but some sort of advisory um not staff but advisory leaison um uh that would be appointed to work with the community. So, could you we given you feedback you could potentially come back with options in the future uh like and and think about that structure but go for it.

I was just curious the nature of what you mean. So when you say three, are they on the board as vote? Like that's what I'm curious about. Well, I think you have identified that that is an issue. I I I don't think we would want to give the community the this the supermajority to where Right. So that's not at all. That's and so in an advisory role, they're not setting policy. They're um just advising.

They're advising. Right. So yes, however that works in that structure. What may we don't need three, but do you have a different option or do you have a better way of thinking this? Well, I was just trying to understand exactly um what that meant. So, when I like I I I I like the intent. The intent is that they'd be asking questions. It's you know, but it already is open to the public, right? Isn't this a this meeting's already open to the public? Yes, but that meeting's held like on a random day in January. Yes, of course, we notice it correctly, but it's in the executive.

No, I know. So, I'm just curious like what is their what for really my question is what forces them to be there because are they like on the like what is the what would it be designated as would it be a new advisory commission and they'd be commissioners and there'd be three of them and they their role is just to come and observe and then give feedback and ask questions with us um what what's the what is their role like puzzling through that a little bit now right you could appoint them as non- voting members of the committee that would impact your potential quorum consequences um but you may not have them voting on the ultimate um decision. So you need at least one of them there in addition to mayor and vice mayor. So maybe two if that were to happen so that at least we we get one. What if one dies?

We appoint a new one. I mean can you repeat can you repeat the suggestion? They raise their hand. The Can you repeat the suggestion? And and bear with me because I'm thinking through this out loud um as we're here. Um, you know, one possibility would be to essentially have the mayor and vice mayor be the only voting members of the committee,

but to appoint three non- voting members. Yeah. Um, who would be relevant for quorum purposes. Um, or we could look at the bylaws and the structure that you might not have for that. Um, but they're still going to be treated as members for Brown Act purposes. It's still going to potentially um create a situation where they're not able to just you know meet with the um other members of the committee one-on-one but um they would be participating in the the notice public meeting and they would be appointed um by the full council. We could we could structure something like that and bring that for your consider so who would appoint these we raised that issue earlier. I don't think the mayor should appoint all three of these. I think um I don't know that it should be three. I'm concerned about the quorum issue. Me too. I am as well. Okay.

Okay. say too I don't I don't feel super strongly about what's the consensus how you feel down there what I feel is the most important issue here is to uh create that leazen between the council staff and the public and build that trust. So my suggestion is just like we have other SESAC or planning commission they can make a recommendation to the city council they're not the final decision maker but that committee whatever number is structure is they make a recommendation to the city council whichever recommendation they're making and if if we have that

because they're not the final decision maker I think it's okay to have more than two members whether you decide three four five whatever it is and some public members in that because they're going to bring it back to the council. Yeah, I see. Would it would it make sense to have since the mayor and the vice mayor are in it, the the mayor and the vice mayor each nominate one person to be on it. I just would like a little I would love for them to serve for a longer time. Yeah, I think the threeear term was fine and maybe the staggered like maybe the vice mayors is two years this one time and the mayor's is four years the first time and then you know what I mean and then it rotates around. That makes sense. Stagger them. Something like that. So to stagger it is that possible because you guys are in the meeting.

Yeah, I agree with you. And you know what I mean like Yeah, that sounds great. Okay. Yeah. So but it means that every other mayor and vice mayor but essentially everybody will at some point. So, how many members you want? I just think I'm just worried about the two issues. Two is great. I I'm fine with two so we can move discussion because we're going to probably be putting people on the finance advisory committee, too. So, my question is if you're going to have mayor and vice mayor. Is that the one or two more? Two plus two. Two plus two plus two. Okay. All right. And how do we appoint them? Um the mayor and vice mayor make a recommendation and then we all and then we all and I'd encourage everybody to say if you have somebody in mind, encourage them to apply. Right. Would we then set up criteria

like you could just ask in I think staff's going to come back with like um the thought process as you guys were talking about it. I was curious because you talked about it a little bit whether you would or wouldn't want them to be voting members. So I just want to make sure we get clarity on that as well as you guys talk about the composition understanding your direction around whether you would want the other two to have voting powers or not helpful. No, I would I would I would I would suggest you do because they're not making a final decision. They're bringing the recommendation back. Not on audit. I do think that's fine when you're talking finance advisor. Have you been in one yet? Sorry.

Not in the city. I've been in other audits, but not in Okay. So, that's that's probably not helpful for you right now having not experience. That's fine. But it's like um it's just a meeting, you know what I mean? Okay, that's fine. Yeah. But what's your what is your thought about the voting part? What is your concern? No, I just it builds if we have diverse participation from the public and they have some say in the matter that actually is more transparent and building more participation and trust. I would say I think for myself I agree I would um I will be inviting somebody to go to it. Yeah.

You know what I mean? And I would just ask them if they'd be willing to go and to check it out and to ask questions and whatever. And that may be a way to like at least we're all participating, but I think it just makes sense for the vice mayor and the mayor. Yes. Just to create some structure and no other voting members. Okay. Okay. Yes. Are you okay with that? Yeah. Yes, I'm okay. Okay. Because I think more is better, but not for quarum. I do have my original question was uh because I do feel it's such a technical thing. Can we include that mayor and vice mayor would either we can serve ourselves or we will designate someone our design. No. No. If you were mayor or vice mayor that's like your duty. I know you know I'm just talking about the expertise in the office.

Just so you know my second time that I did it I we had a funeral so I was out of state and just the next person comes. So if for some reason you can't do it the mayor prom comes in and that and that happened my first year when I was the mayor prom. I had to come in because the mayor was gone. So we so I was in on it. I just want to make sure then other two members we select should really have some audit experience in that case. The food spread's really not that good. So you're not missing out. There's none. Don't worry. Um it's not riveting. Does staff have enough from us or do you need any more direction criteria for those members? Right.

Oh, you got it. We have nomination by mayor and vice mayor with appointment decision made by the full council. Right. Okay. Okay. All right. Um so let's talk about financial oversight committee. I think that's a little bit more exciting discussion. I mean it was all exciting but this uh this sounds fun geeky with numbers. Bring in experts that can help guide us. And uh can I ask one question really fast? So okay. Are you guys going to bring that back to us in its formality and then we vote on it? Yes. Okay. So, we'll bring back a resolution with that framework list. Go ahead. Sorry. For the finance committee. I'm sorry. Who's up? No. Go ahead. Go ahead.

No, we'll let Reser. She was here for the last 10 minutes and now you feel bad. So,

don't feel bad. I don't mind waiting. Um, I'm gonna do the same thing uh that I did before. I'm excited about a financial advisory committee. I definitely read through a lot of what others are doing and how could uh we implement that and what were the things that I liked um and didn't like. I gave a lot of my thoughts, feelings and opinions to staff. Um and where I have landed is that I like a financial advisory committee. I'll attempt to give some like bullet points. Um that would be two members of council. any two members of council, um, two members of staff. The two members of staff would be non- voting members. They would just be there to, um, answer questions, go through the content, um, provide reports, those sort of things. Um, I'm thinking five community members. um the first year I think that each one of us should make at least one recommendation or um request someone to apply. I'm thinking four-year staggered terms and the thing that I really like about the Las Vegas aspect is that they use um how I would describe as like major employers or local industry. Essentially, they're folks who see buying and spending trends as well as have some sort of like um uh intersection with social and emotional sort of pulse um or like EQ of what is going on within communities. Um, no offense to anybody who is an accountant or works in um, uh, finance or numbers, but those sort

of people typically work in an office from 9 to5 and don't have the same sort of pulse on um, just trends that are happening long uh, long term or what they're seeing, especially when our general fund is impacted a lot by spending or or trends. Um, off the top of my head, and I'm open to these um, being moved around, but in my head, I think someone relating to hospital, retail, some sort of hospitality, maybe construction, and uh, potentially something that's like insurance. Maybe that's somebody who does some sort of of health or commercial. Um, I feel like that gives a pretty good smattering of what what is going on in the community. And I think that that committee should meet a couple of times. Oh, I might have not wrote out specifically that one. Meet a couple of times. And one of them that I care about is reviewing um what staff would like to present to council so that they can give insight or speak into review what staff is planning to present to council. And then once it has um council priorities have been shared, that sort of thing, that they're reviewing that what is, you know, being voted on feels like it matches with council priorities and feels like it matches with the community and makes recommendations. I think they should be a voting board, but makes a recommendation and sends it to council that says, "Yes, I believe this budget uh essentially is wise." Uh those are my

that's my starting point.

U yeah I do I mean I kind of similar ideas. I do agree that we should have I would like this to be appointed one person one community member by each of the council members. Yeah. Yeah. So I complet you said that.

No no you said that. I'm just saying I'm emphasize that is the most important thing to me when and I like the idea of two plus two staff members or we can reduce we can be flexible with that but definitely have five members each one of us get to pick one member absolutely I would add to that the question to consider is if they have a recommendation they'll bring it to the city council to adopt a budget or change a budget whatever it is the question is how do we resolve if there's a conflict between the recommendation and the council decision And I would also like to see if we can have uh um more of a sunset clause to this that if we have

like in five years we have we revisit this I would say two years just kind of practice

the from what I think that it just looks like a sound practice. The intention is not catch anybody doing something right, but to make sure that whomever gets appointed to count or voted and elected to council um that we're not relying on them to be great at finance or have their pulse on what is going on in spending trends. that that's always great, but we have just seen in the last five years that, you know, qualifications don't always necessarily matter within a campaign. And so I want to make sure that there are members of our community who have buyin in that like balancing of a budget and that they're weighing in. So I I think that it's just a sound practice and I'm not intending for them to like I don't know it doesn't feel like a gotcha sort of thing. I think it feels like an integration of people uh from the community and and buyin and then it's public. I think that uh similar to when planning commission comes or when SEESAC comes that staff presents to us and so if council it is our job to make a decision and we have authority to say no I'm not listening to that planning uh planning commission suggestion but that should go on record.

Okay. Yeah. Let's let's uh Council Member Audet, you've been patiently waiting, so

um so I think you know my goal is that we start to build trust for the community and I think fundamentally when we're talking about finances and oversight, staff has something to gain financially from all of that's happening. And the perception from the public is that that needs oversight. And if we're not prepared to do that, it would be great to have some, you know, financial people from the community to show us what to look at that that the public then doesn't believe it's self-interested. No offense, but that is the perception is that the the the people that are making those decisions are also benefiting from those decisions. And so if we're the oversight of that, it would be good to have some experts. I mean, I think of um lots of people from the community that maybe don't want to run for office. they don't they don't have the time to do this but they have a great financial background and they really understand uh economics and how these things work and we don't have to explain to them the terms because I think if we put just regular people from these industries um my this is my concern with just putting regular people from what that article said is that you just don't have the same level of um understanding of financial documents and you have to then explain how the stuff works like I municipality is different in But it's not different in in in financial terms. It's just how it's used and you know maybe we have eight accounts where they would only have two and you know there are there's some nuance but you should understand the language. So I'm not saying that nobody from those areas couldn't also have that but I would want like a CEO level or a CPO level from those industries to come on and so um

yes I also think yeah so I also think that like um I mean that would just enhance it would be great. I don't know that we'll be able to do that, but I think the five members that we each pick super important. I think I don't think I at any point I would want it to go to just the mayor because we all have different circles. We all have different strengths and we're all we all represent different parts of the city and I think that makes us better and stronger if we're each, you know, picking somebody from our world and we're cross-pollinating that. I think that's just makes us all stronger.

Um um but I would say I don't wouldn't want any staff on there. I think it compromises what we're trying to do with the public. But I would say that we would often have staff coming to present to give us information. I think what I would want to stay away from is if you have staff on there, the perception is that they're narrating the reality as opposed to just giving us information, which I think is totally relevant. Um, but I wouldn't put them on the committee, but I think we would be inviting them to come speak or present or all the time often. Um my thought there is mostly that there are two people that are designated from finance. Go ahead. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. No.

Oh. Um so I was actually going to recommend against having staff be members of the committee. Um, there are situations in which that can actually cause unintended consequences from a Brown Act perspective, particularly as to unintended serial meeting concerns where staff have to discuss those same financial issues with each other and then potentially um uh depending upon the roles of the members of the committee with other members of the committee in other settings. So, are we are we I just would like them to be available to present. Yeah, they would be non- voting members. Is that what I'm hearing? I would not make them members at all. Yeah, I agree with Dennis. I agree. And I would have two council members be on there along with the five. That's seven.

Yeah. The the structure that I would recommend is that they not be part of the committee. What you can do like your ordinance tells me I have to be here at these meetings um anytime the city council meets. You could have a directive that staff be present anytime those that that body meets. Um and you could designate which staff, but you wouldn't have to have them be designated as members of the committee.

That sounds good. I'd also like to brooach an idea because I think it would be beneficial. I don't I had previously asked Nulort, who's the controller at the county, if she would participate in something like this. She may have changed her mind, but the last time I spoke to her, she said she would. I think even if it's just for the first couple to sort of give some advice and to lay some groundwork and and also to educate, I think it would be very helpful um to invite someone like that onto the committee. Um, I don't know what it does for the numbers if we have to have an odd number or I don't know that that matters, right? Because not everybody's going to be I I usually recommend an odd an odd number. So then I would but you could appoint her. Yeah, that could be your appointment.

That could be your appointee. I was just saying um I only say I she's sort of an expert and I want the public. So I want us to have citizens on there. She's sort of a I'm not even sure she lives in the city of Reading. Um, so I as an expert to sort of help guide at least the beginning even if it's just the first year and then we can council can decide if they want to ask her to come and do that again. But I think it would be really wise to have people that have that expertise sitting with us and sort of and is a model. So there's things that they do that are different than us that protect the county that protect um them from making unwise decisions. And so I would want to invite and andor our former finance director Denise Mel if you need another to make it an odd number but I want to I think we should talk about having an expert there that

I I think maybe the solution for that would be the committee could invite a guest speaker or so to come present or I'd want somebody on the committee. So you can be the you can appoint anyone of them. She's not here's the thing. So that's not a normal citizen. And the idea is that we'd actually put normal citizens on there that have maybe their CPA, their CFO. I mean, I definitely think we should put criteria on what we can pick because we we can't get them up to speed with the financial jargon to understand how that stuff works. Um, but I think that if you don't put some people in there that know, like a controller or former finance director, then it's the blind leading the blind. And again, we're relying on the narrative of staff and the public is going to that that's not going to work.

Okay. So, but I mean there my personal opinion is that I think that that should just be your person who it is that you pick out and I think that I agree. I I think that it will be staff's job to give us the stats or data and I think it's our job to pick people who would do a decent job of reading through that data and giving feedback. Well, there's no alternative to one narrative. And that's sort of the issue is that there's a one narrative that comes. I know. It's our job to pick people who would give other sort of

but they don't work in in municipal finance. So my point is is that I don't even know if Nola has the time to be on it full-time and for four years. Do you know what I'm saying? So if we have sort of an expert that comes in but that's what that's what it will come down to us to pick someone like that. Like you can pick one of those. I don't think you're understanding. I don't think she could commit to four years. She's the controller in the county. So maybe she could commit to coming three times out of four and she's on the committee. She may be absent once or, you know, throughout the year, but she comes to four meetings, you know, and is on the committee, but isn't one of the public and we have somebody that can give alternative ideas because we're all going to be learning. Okay. You know what I mean? Could we give uh let's give councelor Mun a chance to speak? So then

Well, I or I'm sorry. So did part of it, right? But part of it is purpose. And so I just want to hit purpose. Okay. Could we come back? Could we come back to purpose right now and then we'll let him speak a little bit? Well, a couple just minor things. I want maybe not a sunset clause, but maybe a checkin that with data, you know, maybe two years and down the road. How's it working? What how can we that's change it and what can we move? That's what I think. Um that makes sense. I also think um you know, not to argue with these with the attorneys, but uh I like the idea of having staff on board. Um and Steve, are you going to talk say something about that?

Well, no. The only I would suggest seeing staff would not be on the committee, but just be available as a resource. Yeah. As they are the experts in municipal finance and I think we have a very good staff that could represent well and provide the correct information. It it'd be much like how our parks director leads a seesac committee or something. Correct. Is that correct? Like non voting guide or they don't have to sit there throughout the whole meeting. They can come and go if you want to have some deliberation without them. We're solid enough in our decision making that we could do that. Okay, cool. We could do that. Councelor Muns, did you have anything else? No. No. Okay. Councelor Resner Zerup and then do you want to speak after that? Yeah. Well, I wanted to finish the Okay. structure. Um,

yeah. like what I want the purpose of that. Go for it. So,

uh I agree with the four-year term. Um as far as the purpose, um I have four things that I um would propose would be the purpose of the uh committee. One is um that in basically in Q4, you know, we we set a budget um without having final numbers and when you when the budget gets there and those final numbers are the the assumptions and the projections are not exactly right because we didn't have final numbers. And so it would be great if this committee could look and we can make whatever tweaks need to be made in that cleanup in Q4 when it comes back to us the budget comes back is that we sort of clean up not it doesn't necessarily mean so if it was if we thought it was going to be 2% and it it happens to be 3% either we change it to 2% or we just change that it's actually three and a half% so that it's accurate to what the numbers are now that we actually have numbers. And if this committee comes in and says, you know, we suggest these little tweaks and cleanups, um, here's the consequences of that and here's, you know, they're looking at that and and giving that assessment of of so that we're not having to go through and look up that stuff. That's actually being done to do that cleanup in Q4, make those recommendations. Second would be the performance of the budget. So, how did the budget actually perform? Um, what did we intend it to be? what did it how did it perform and they can report that um to us and then the uh a projection sort of review once those recommendations by the city are made they can go review those projections and then give us their recommendations if they think that that is in line you know I think there's been a lot of outliers we probably should have uh reviewed based on not the you know removed those outliers and and looked at a different type of assessment but you know that committee could say that's a good idea that's not a good idea here's the trend you know, as we were talking about. And

then fourthly, I think what they should be doing is recommending things that could create better transparency, um, better accuracies, maybe some cost savings, maybe they are looking at, um, you know, since they're giving assessments, they're looking at those unmet needs, what they think is realistic, if they've built businesses, if they're CPAs, you know, they're they're seeing some underlying um things and helping for us to maybe something to look at. Um, I do think that if they were to to meet and to start to review what's available, what data is available, they might be better to tell us how often they think they should meet because I think they have to make an assessment of what what what documents actually come out in the Q1, Q2, Q3, group, Q4, you know, so maybe they're meeting quarterly like we are. they meet ahead of our meeting and kind of go over some things and maybe they're getting a feel for what's available and so they could make a recommendation after the first year to say this is where we think you should meet. We've met this time and and maybe we allow them to make some changes to meeting based on what's available and and what they're recommending.

Yeah, I think res come to you in a second, but I think we definitely agree. We've probably done similar research so we can uh this feels good. Um, but the four things I've identified I think are right in line with you. Uh, monitoring financial performance. The committee tracks the city's financial performance against established benchmarks, helping to identify potential issues early. Uh, number two, public communication. It communicates the financial information to the public, helping to foster community trust and understanding of the city's financial status. Uh, number three, long-term financial planning. The committee aids in developing long-term financial strategies to address future funding needs and challenges. And number four, risk management. Assesses financial risks and develops strategies to mitigate them, ensuring the city's financial health. I think my four themes were right in line with yours a little bit maybe.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I uh risk management's a tricky one. That's on job. Like you have a lot of faith in this committee, but I appreciate it. But um that seems like a big a big one. But yeah, I mean I feel like they may be able to tell us after the first year how they think they could best serve because if you're a CFO or CEO or CPA, efficiencies is is what you're constantly working through. And so you're going to not want to be in meetings just to have meetings. And they may say, "Actually, we need two meetings. We need to meet with you this time and this time and and here's the here's the items that we need." Okay? You know,

council reser, I saw you up there. Did you withdraw or are you have some comments here? Um, I'm I was just going to repeat what it is that I that it sounds like that there's some unity in and I'm hoping that there's unity for staff. Sounds like we're in agreement. Each council member appoints someone. Um, a check-in. I didn't hear a year suggestion, so I'm going to say a check-in in three years. I said two. Two. Two. Okay. In two years. I have enough data, I think, to come in.

Okay. um two uh members from the council, four-year staggered term. Um they're reviewing projections. Um council whether or not it's aligned with council policy. Um making any recommendations on the budget and then monitoring. I didn't hear what the last thing was that one of you said monitoring.

I would I would say the performance of the budget. So did we perform to what our projections were? Where were we off? Why? you know, just to just to give an assessment. Um, it it's it's very hard. What I heard what I heard often was, "No, we're looking forward. We're looking forward. We're looking forward." But it's like, well, it would be nice to spend a minute or two seeing how we performed and why and really start to learn trends. We should be learning trends, too. That's right. You know, so I think um

performance and budget of reviewing performance and budget and then aiding in long-term strategy ideas. The only other one I had was I just think it would be super valuable for that cleanup. And and honestly, I don't even know if this group needs to do it. Maybe just the finance team needs to do this. Once we pass a budget and then you get to Q4 and you have the numbers, we should clean up what we projected versus with numbers we didn't know for sure what they were. I I would think we'd want to do a cleanup. It doesn't mean you have to change it. It does mean but it does mean either the percentage changes or the number changes. We just have to be accurate. I think that clean up happens. But

I saw your eyes, so I wasn't sure if you were wanting me to We can do that. I I I think it's kind of separate from the committee, this conversation around um when we true things up, how we true things up. I think it's a separate conversation from the committee. I mean, frankly, not to step on council's toes, but I'm not sure you would want the committee to do that because at the end of the day, I think that's an important function of council. Um and then I have a question or I want you guys to address something. cadence of meetings. I didn't hear you guys address that as you were talking, but I hear what you're saying. I think it's a little separate. I think it's kind of a I don't want to call it a policy, but maybe a procedure between council and staff of how we want to see um information updated in our financial plan uh and on what cadence we want to see it updated. as I've kind of discussed a couple times and not to infringe on this topic, but um we typically do it right now at the um midyear and midcycle and then the second midyear and then the year end. I will tell you particularly what I hear you probably alluding to is we just adopt a new budget at that year end mark. You're bringing me the old 10-year plan. We just adopted a new one and now this new one already has things that i.e. sales tax in FY 2025, which may may have hit the mark, may have not hit the mark. It would be nice to see some type of quicker update to that information. Is that what I'm hearing?

Um, so specifically, um, what I'm saying is we we said we agreed a 2% increase year-over-year or, um, yeah, from whatever the last year's performance. So, whatever, but we didn't have that performance yet. So, we did a 2% year-over-year increase. Well, when those numbers came in, it ended up being like 3.6% of an increase, not 2%. So, my suggestion would be when Q4 comes, we clean that up and we say, well, we meant for two, we don't actually want to change that number. So, we're going to just correctly put in the tenure that that first one is 3.6, whatever. Or we do change the number to be accurate to the 2%. But one way or the other, we should create some accuracies because when you look at the budget book and then when you go to the 10-year and then when you go to um look at the actual number, they don't line up and so you then you are like these are inaccurate and you don't want that. So it's like one of them has to change to be to reflect what actually was.

We certainly can do that. The only caution that I would provide council is to where are we going to draw that line? Are we only going to do it and again I think this is a separate conversation in this committee and and certainly maybe something we could talk about agendaizing separately but do we do it um on just sales tax and property tax or we going to go through the whole budget and correct it all to actual because that could be quite a bit of work if you're going to go through every single line item of the budget. So again I I sorry not to I like to think of the 10-year plan as it it's its own financial planning tool. certainly agree with what you're saying in terms of the forecast, particularly around revenue, but I think there needs to be a line in there where we're going to say, "Hey, we're not going to correct it for every single line item correction to the actual results or whatever it might be." So, that would be what the feedback I'd be looking for on that.

Yeah. So, I think that the danger what I have found is that we're all dealing with different sets of numbers. So let's say we need to modify sales tax and and nobody has calculated that and we're talking about oh well we only increase it by 2% so let's go down to zero or let's go down to one. Well that number is not going to be one down 1% it's not 2% it's 3 and a half%. So, if you don't accurately know that you actually year-over-year increased it by three and a half% and we're trying to make a modification, we're working off the wrong assumption of what the increase was. And and that's maybe fine if it happens once, but when it happens year over year, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, then you get way off course and you're 14 quarters not meeting projections. And so, I want to avoid that. And I'm thinking that one of the ways, especially since our budget is so tight right now, it probably would behoove us to at least in our largest ones where that little difference is a big difference to double check that just to clean that up a bit. And I would say I I would think you would have advice on Yeah, you should probably do that with your big ones.

You know what I mean? Or you'd probably pick five and be like these five probably or four, whatever the number is. you probably know like that doesn't help me to have that number there and to you know and to get it wrong that that doesn't help.

I just don't want I don't want to you know we've talked a lot about staff making suggestions to council relative to some of these things. I agree with you. I think that for the most part what I'm hearing from you. It makes sense to me. it makes sense to have a conversation with council specific to the cadence at which we want to update our 10-year plan and and it makes sense to me to maybe focus on some of the more large ones or maybe if there's one that's just wildly doing something we didn't expect having a conversation about that specifically. Um, this tends to be done in our, you know, normal quarterly updates. We try to update council, but I hear what you're saying. The 10-year plan, there's some key connection points where we might want to re-evaluate the way we're doing it past practice and maybe set a a new standard of how we want to care for that 10-year plan.

I'd love for you to present that during budget workshops. I think that I think that um you're talking about performance, which I agree should be changed in February. What I'm saying is if we get to February and we think that we only increase sales tax by 2%, we may not make a good enough cut because we actually increase it by three and a half. So, I I feel like when when it's that big of a difference, a couple million, you know, that that that needs to be addressed in the in the Q4 because we're basically, you know, we're cleaning up one thing, we should probably clean up the other or just I'm not even saying you need to change go down to 2%. Just put in the tenure that that's actually 3.6. So, we know what we're dealing with when we get to February and we want to make performance modifications. I would say this is just clerical modifications. So, we really do actually have the right numbers on the page. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I I I think there's things we can do without even formalized council direction. I I I do like head nods um from everybody if if it makes sense. I agree. If you would agree to do that, I would take that out of the, you know, as we're talking about it. I I agree. I think that's probably should be in your wheelhouse and not in the finance just because that's some ticky tax stuff that you'd probably rather be in control of. Okay. Not necessarily that, but just I just think you run a risk of they might read into it a different thing than and try to project and try to project. And so I think we've got to be clear as to what we want them to accomplish on the committee versus what you're expecting staff to do is my comment.

Uh let's um see if we can circle into some consensus on stuff. But council reser I think it was mostly that okay they landed where I was going to attempt to get us. Um I have a quick question. Okay, councelor Duka. Yeah. Um so the two city council members on this committee how would you how do you propose to decide them uh who is going to be on the committee do we just vote on two members or how do you want to do that so before we answer that whenever I see our councelor Curtis come up I think that was actually my first question okay so you want to rephrase your question councelor Dia so the two city council members who are going to be appointed to this committee how do we select them we have to agree on a process

how do you suggest Well, I will volunteer myself. I would actually volunteer you and then I would like you to be on that. But in the in terms of long-term process, I never play hard to get. Okay. So, it I please pick me and then I will definitely I would assume that we it would just come and then we would vote. That's what I'm saying. It could be a rotation thing every year as we assign committee assignments, but we could flush that out later. But I mean I mean right now your ordinance calls for committee assignments to be set by the mayor. So um if you don't decide on something else that's probably going to be the default which is why I wanted to ask asked the question is there some alternative mechanism that you want for oh because this is not an ad hoc this is like a set okay that makes sense I've only done ad hoc so yeah that makes sense um

okay sure so yeah you got your name in the hat I I hear it so I'll do it with noa look we just put in right but but my question is not just about this time my question is in long term because they're going to come with a mayor appointment feels fine. Like I well think I would give pretty much value to the people that want to be on there. No, but it's not just about this one because we're setting this process for the future. So, we have to agree on a process. We're going to Sure. We could rotate. Again, you guys structured this however you want. You're probably going to want some continuity, right? You're going to want people that like are, you know, are getting it. But also willingness is probably your

Do we My question is do we elect amongst Do we vote on this? Well, he's it's a committee now. So, it would be a mayor's assignment. Doesn't have to be. Yes, it does. I mean, it probably does. We still vote as a body to prove that, which needs not for I mean, we we could bring back an ordinance amendment that would give this one special treatment. There there are options that we could do if the the council wants to bury it. If you don't want to bury it, the default will be mayor

default. But if we want, we can make it. The reason I'm saying is and I'll tell you why why I'm saying this. It's again comes back to the trust and diversity of opinion and transparency. Today we have a good mayor, but tomorrow we may have someone who may try to limit somebody's voice. That's why I'm saying if you this is so important for us maybe perhaps we should vote on those members or how do you want to do that? I'm open to suggestions. That is why we are vote that is why we vote on who is mayor. That's why it took us 45 minutes to decide who was it was 47 actually very

um so I mean I I I absolutely would love to have you on there so that I can commit to that. We can flush that out later but I I have no issues with that. So, what's that? And Aaron. And Aaron. Sure. Yeah. Sounds great. Yeah. I mean, more for you guys to do. So, I'm sorry. What? And I might come. No, I can come watch his appointments in this actually. Oh, he was making an appointment. Who are you appointing right now? No, everybody. No, I'm just I'm so volunteered today. We could just get a general framework on the future. We'll just go with the mayor and then if you change your mind when we bring it back we get to so he can pick right now and then in the future it'll be a part of the committee assignments.

Yes, we can do that right or do you want to do it differently? Do you not want that? Oh, I think that's great. There's two great volunteers that I think would add a lot of value to that. So I I'm great with that. So, okay. So, the other part of that is that that would be an annual appointment um uh uh by the mayor if it's part of the regular committee assignments. So, um you know, they you can always appoint the same person over and over again, but that would be by default one year. So, I just want to make sure that's clear. But like like sometimes people will discontin serve. I I believe council members can provide feedback of, hey, I really want to be on there and um so like am I the only one nerding out over this? you guys like

I will say uh this is this is unsolicited advice. Um but since you haven't been here for a long time um I had a discussion today with a director and I listed that there are certain liaison assignments which it's totally fine to rotate who is planning commission it or who is SESAC um is not a big deal to turn over but there are a couple of them that I think you just end up knowing um do sit well with one person to be that person for an extended period of time. Those are like League of Cities, EAGSA, SERTA.

Serta, I have a Yeah. Are you NC Yeah. Are you those tend So I think that you would those tend to be ones that there is a little bit of a just understanding that those are a really heavy lift and onboarding. Um yeah, I think um one other thing I want to add to this I totally forgot is criteria. I have like two pages of criteria which I'm sure you're not interested in, but I do think that who we pick should fall into a criteria. I don't want it to be I'd love to hear it. Yeah. Well, like CFOs, a a CPA, you know, that type of thing. People that actually have some experience, some,

you know, and have no conflicts of interest with the city. So, they can't be have any contracts with the city or have any monetary gain with the city. I like that. or be uh connected to a member of council or be what? Connected to a member. They can't be married to anybody. No nepotism. No, they can't be married to Yeah. They can't have a financial Well, they need to have financial certification. They just can't be married to anybody on the council. I think we should also have an opportunity in my guest to flush that out, which means if I nominate somebody that really isn't deserving to be on there, like you guys should be able to say no, that's a bad one. or right like um yeah that's usually how that right we're going to prove each other's appointments which means we're hoping to get the criteria that you're suggesting with with really wellqualified people so

because we wouldn't be able to see it beforehand though would we uh sorry to see who their nominations are uh the staff report would have the applications both the applications yeah so the the nominations by the individual members would be able to go out as part of the staff report it needs to be made available to the public at the same time it's made to aail available with everyone else and you can't discuss it among yourselves until you actually get your debate. Can I make a suggestion? Yeah. Could we each submit what we think the qualification should be to them in like an email and if you have some and then they can That's what I was going to say. They can flush that out and that's exactly what I was going to say. And then when we come back it would be included and then you guys could say, "Hey, love this, hate that. Let's add this." Whatever it might be.

Look at Greg smiling over there. The other thing I want to make sure I said it a minute ago, cadence. Meeting cadence. I mean, you guys have kind of touched on some of the topics, but I'm curious what type of meeting cadence you I'm thinking that because quarterly reports come quarterly, this first year should be before quarterly reports so that they can see the quarterly reports. It it might delay the quarterly reports coming to council because I mean it's it's a pretty quick turnaround for us to turn quarterly reports into council because remember it's two weeks before basically the council meeting. I they're going to need something to kind of go off of.

I'll use that idea as as we work a noodle on the actual uh ordinance that's going to come to ordinance. Am I using the right word? The resolution um that's going to come to council. Uh I hear what you're saying. We'll think about how we can maybe coordinate that around those key subject areas because I I think you're on the right track. I think my my inclination is that this group is going to say after a year we need we should do this, we should do this, we should do this and then we address update the resolution to reflect that to reflect like their recommendation of we should be meeting twice here once here that kind of thing.

Okay. Yeah. And it might be during budget like every other year when we're building a budget that there's more meetings to go with that budget. That would make sense to me personally. Are you finished with that comment? We can go to council reser. Yes. Okay. Uh I liked the idea. I think that staff can submit to us some recommendations and then after the first year we take in those recommendations for from them in terms of cadence. Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then if you have and then we'll we'll send you by email like what we think certific uh criteria for who should apply. I I'm I'm actually going to recommend against that being done via email. Um there's potentially brown act issues that can pop up if you

I'm not gonna send it to them. I was just gonna send it to you. I'm sending it to them. If it comes from one, it's fine if all five of you are sending us. No. No. Well, individually individually, we will just if we have a recommendation for that, then we'll send it. Send it to me. That would I'll send it to Yeah. I would never be on an email any of them ever. Ever. You guys do that, not us. Uh so clar clarity with staff. We've given them feedback. We like uh terms. I I've heard four-year terms, two-year terms, but I think we were set on two-year terms. Is that what I was saying? I would say four four year terms.

Can Can I Can I ask that because I've got to follow up. Um uh there's part of the question that I have for this is essentially if you have appointments that are made by each of the council members, um do you want a process? Part of this will touch on removal, but part of this is also the lining up of the terms. I've had situations where say um the term on the appointee doesn't line up with the term on the council member and then the appointee carries over and the council member wants their new appoint the new council member wants their appointee on the committee but the old u committee member doesn't want to leave so I think that's fine I think that

you live with it will you make recommendations of the best way to approach that my my general recommendation on that is that it lines up with the term of the council member so that you make an appointment at the time that you start on the council and then that person carries over there then becomes the question of what happens if you like with um member Dquisto if they leave midterm do you live with one for the prior one um we can certainly leave that as the default I mean that's a good idea I I like that to say the term expires at the term expiration of the council member or is that what he's saying

I would say no just continue them because this is not about one person this is about as many opinions as as much diversity as possible We we need some sort of rotation cuz I think the the trap is we don't want five people expiring in four years and like we never get staggered. This round makes some staggered terms. So probably some of us will get a one-year appointment, two year, three, four, four, whatever. I don't know. Whatever it is, but like and we can draw it out of a hat, whatever. I think you got it. Yeah, we do. We'll bring back a general framework with some suggestions. We've given you we've given you plenty. Is that right? Okay.

All right. Well, let's let's uh well, hey, you know, this is the best part. We're not slowing down or speeding up, but we got the consider ordinance amending the Ready Municipal Code of Well, people won't come. I know. This is uh Nobody caught my joke, but right. Um I'm expecting that the engineer is going to be brief.

Good evening, honorable mayor, members of the council. Um, I have a real treat for you this evening. Um, as the mayor read, um, I'm going to introduce an ordinance amending Ready Municipal Code Title 11. Um, specifically regarding the engineering and traffic survey volume two. Um, so I have a a brief presentation that I'll run through and I will be happy to entertain any questions that you have at the end if I can get there. We go. Um, speed limit updates. Um, so here quick table of contents. We're going to touch on purpose, background, understanding, engineering and traffic surveys, uh, survey locations, speed limit modifications, additional considerations, actions, and then like I mentioned previously, uh, time for questions and answers. So, purpose uh, purpose of an ENTS or engineering and traffic survey is to establish a safe, reasonable, enforcable speed limit based on road conditions, design, and typical driver behavior. That's a big key there. Um, the other purpose with this volume is that this volume did expire in October this year. So, we currently have uh approximately 14 uh roadway sections that do not have a valid ENTS uh currently there. And what that means for Chief Barner and his staff is that if they go to enforce the speed limit in on those roads and we've deviated from Primmaacia, uh we run the risk of uh RPD not being able to enforce those speed limits. A little bit of background. Um pretty much all of this stems from California vehicle code. Uh we have the prima the section that talks about primaacia limits which essentially establishes 25 mph speed limit in business and residential zone zones. Um we have a vehicle code section 22357 uh which essentially allows local agencies like ourselves to perform the

engineering and traffic surveys. And we have vehicle code 22358 which requires that the traffic surveys be based on the 85th percentile of the of the free flow speed. Um, and that that's a key element there because essentially that is requiring us to not introduce a speed trap, which is a term that you may have heard in the past. And then, uh, California Vehicle Code section 627 defines the required components of ENTS's. So, understanding them, a little bit of statistics here. Um what we do is we send out staff um and we collect again free flow vehicle speed data and we're looking for the 85th percentile. So look at the the bell curve there. Um and that's a key indicator there because um there's a little bit of flexibility on on the speed that folks can travel on our roadways. And again that free flowing speed, the 85th percentile is the key point. Obviously, roadway geometry, the size of the curves, both horizontal and vertical sight distance, width, um as well as traffic collision data, and then the presence of folks on foot or bicycles. Those are all other factors that come into us um adjusting the speed limits of our roadways. I kind of got ahead of myself there on the previous slide. So again, California Vehicle Code um has a traffic safety component where we look at collision rates. Uh we have safety consideration for specifically pedestrians and cyclists. We also look at residential um density if we're driving through a neighborhood. We have a number of driveways and front yards. Obviously, there's likelihood that we're going to have children and parents or people out in their front yards and that's considerably different than a highway. And then there's also some unique uh circumstances. So for this update um this is volume two and for reference I think um all of you have seen these in the past um I've

recently done volumes one and three during my tenure and the former uh public works director Auckland um did volume four uh fall of September 23. Uh this volume two includes the 14 uh roadways you see before you. Um and then each roadway is broken into specific segments. And the reason why you see um the roadways broken into segments is because oftentimes we'll see the context along those roadways change. You might jump from a residential area to a commercial um and where those changes occur. That's typically where we set the segment boundaries. And you'll notice here um to the next of each of the segments along the roadways, we're showing the existing current um speed limit right now today. So, here's a map depicting all the locations. Again, these are the 14 routes that we touched. Um, and you can see where the actual numbers are. That's where we collected the data. And what what I mean by that is someone is essentially um using a radar gun and sitting in a spot that they won't be noticed and they're collecting free flow traffic speed. um they don't want to be seen because typically people slow down when they see somebody collecting radar data. Um so we try and put them in a inconspicu inconspituous spot if I can speak this evening. So of the 14 locations that we looked at, we have two locations where I'm recommending modifying the speed limit, both of them are reductions. One is along Blazingwood Drive um shown there kind of the top left of your screen and the other is along East Side Road between Geran and South Bonny View Drive. Both of these locations have lower um than our arterial collision

history. Um however, both of these locations do have a pretty high presence of bicyclist and pedestrians as well as a lot of curb gutter and sidewalk and driveways. So that's the the basis there for those reductions. Um I should also note that our traffic engineering team worked closely with Chief Barner's team to flush out and make sure that um RPD and the enforcement crew out there that we're not proposing anything that is counterintuitive to what they're seeing while they're out there every day um enforcing the speed limits. So there are three specific actions that I'm asking for this evening. Um one is to offer the ordinance amending ready municipal code title 11 chapter 1112 speed limit section 112010 um for first reading by title only and wave the full reading. The second would be to direct the city attorney to prepare a summary ordinance if needed and authorize the city clerk to publish the summary ordinance according to law. And then the final action would be to find that this is categorically exemp exempt, excuse me, under the California Environmental Quality Act guidelines pursuant to section 15061 B3, the common sense exemption. And so with that, I would be happy to answer any questions that you have.

I have nothing but funny jokes, but um any I make a motion to approve. I'll second. Second. Okay. All in favor? I I All right. Thank you. You did great. All right. Uh for the grand finale. All right. Um Carrie, you're up. I guess we're going to consider the budget resolution increasing appropriations for the city of writing employee benefits insurance. And uh this um yeah, go for it. So

all right. Good evening. and I'm here before you this evening to talk about GLP-1 medications in the city's health insurance. The city participates in the Prism Health program for health insurance coverage. What's important to know is that decisions made by the Prism Health Committee affect the entire pool. Recently, the Prism Health Committee implemented co-ayment changes specific to GLP1 medications which will be effective January 1st uh 2026. This is important because each of the city's memoranda of understanding lists co-ayment information for prescriptions, including specialty medications such as DLP1s. Theus specify a $50 co-ayment per month for specialty medications, but effective January 1st, the city's insurance will cover GLP1s at a different rate for some beneficiaries than what is specified in ourus. So, those persons taking GLP-1s for diabetes management will continue to pay a $50 co-ayment for GLP-1s, which is consistent with the language in theus. However, those who are taking GLP1 medications for reasons other than diabetes management will only be eligible for coverage under certain conditions and can be subject to a higher co-ayment amount. specifically if the beneficiary has a BMI or body mass index of 40 or more or if the beneficiary has a BMI between 35 and 39 with at least one related coorbidity. In those instances, the beneficiaries will be subject to a 30% co insurance up to a maximum amount of $150 monthly. If the beneficiary doesn't meet the conditions above, the GLP1 is not

considered medically necessary and will not be covered by the city's insurance. The Myers Millius Brown Act or MMBA requires local government agencies in California such as the city of Reading to meet and confer with labor unions over changes to conditions of employment. This would include changes to health insurance. As prior councils have bargained for and agreed to the benefit information which is specified in our currentou agreements, the city is currently bound to the terms of those agreements until such time as the city is able to renegotiate during successor negotiations. As a result, staff recommends that council authorize staff to reimburse employees the difference between the co-ayment amount authorized by the insurance and subsequentially paid by the beneficiary and the amount listed in the appropriate uh GLOU for GLP1 medications which are determined to be medically necessary by the city's insurance. As part of this, staff also recommends that council approve a budget amendment increasing appropriations by 36,000 in fiscal year 2526 and 72,000 in fiscal year 2627 for the associated cost of reimbursement, which would essentially front the reimbursement cost using cash reserves and the group insurance fund until year end when a reconciliation would occur to allocate the charges back to the departments based on the usage. Uh these calculations are derived using summary health data from our insurance broker. Currently, approximately 115 beneficiaries are utilizing a GLP-1 medication for non-diabetic reasons. There's no data available to the city which would provide BMI or co-orbidity

information for these beneficiaries. So, as a result, staff are estimating approximately half would meet the medically necessary criteria as specified by our health plan, which would equate to approximately $6,000 per month in estimated GLP1 reimbursement costs. I'm also available to answer any questions that you may have. I don't have any questions, but I'll uh make a motion to authorize and approve items one and Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I do have a question. Sure. So the third bullet in this those who do not meet these criteria have to pay full price or whatever right we don't cover it

they will not cover it and um based on what's proposed today we would not reimburse them the the full because it's essentially the insurance is deeming them to not be medically necessary and so the city wouldn't then step in and cover that. Okay. Well, no that kind of stuff like I know we have to align with this but the second criteria is a pretty tough one. There are so many more indications coming up for these medications nowadays that many of those are not covered by first two bullets. Now

um questions that came to mind is on HIPPA like if if a if someone has to come to the city and ask for reimbursement do they come to HR do they go to a different person to protect that information? My concern is if they have to go upstairs to HR that they may be embarrassed or not want to continue using something that they might really find beneficial because of embarrassment or so. But

uh that's that's a great point. So one of the other changes that um Prism Health is implementing is they're launching the DIGB health program who is going to manage the program and administer any of the weight management medications. And so if an employee uh provides essentially a receipt, we'll know based on how much they were required to pay if it's medically necessary. So if they pay a co- insurance up of 150 or less, we'll know it was medically necessary and we'll be able to reimburse them the difference between what they paid and what's allowed in theirou. If it is beyond the 150, then we'll know it's hasn't been covered by their insurance and therefore is not medically necessary. Yeah.

And I'll work closely um with finance to determine the best way to process these requests uh in terms of whether it's submitting a form and just attaching their receipt or um whatever documentation we would need to to process these re It just think feels like we're making it harder for people that really could use this to to continue using that. Um how much of this saves our general fund versus non-general fund dollars? Um

so initially there's no immediate general fund impact um because we'd be utilizing the cash reserves from our group insurance fund which is essentially kind of a a pass through account where we receive contributions from departments and employees through payroll to cover health insurance and claims costs. Um, however, when the true-up occurs, depending on which beneficiaries utilize the reimbursement, it would then essentially get reallocated back to those departments. So, there's no good way of mathing how much of this will be general fund in the end versus how much will be non-general fund.

Yeah. I mean, if it just feels like personally, like say we're saving $10,000 of the general fund, but there's an overall benefit to a population. I mean, I could see value to where we just continue letting people use this. And maybe we miss the mark where some people are abusing it, but on the flip side, other people that really could benefit from it might be more likely to continue using it because of the extra work it takes to get reimbursed or, you know, so that would just be my opinions. If there's not a ton of savings in general fund, then like it feels like we're causing more harm than help. So

the estim and I don't have the exact number in front of me but initially when this information was provided by our insurance broker one of the main reasons why they implemented the change for GLP1s is the cost. Um, and I and I may not have it exactly right, and I'm happy to follow up in an email, but I want to say the number that they provided monthly that it costs the insurance to provide a DLP1 medication uh, was like $800 to $1,000 a month. And so if the insurance isn't covering any of it at all, the the difference that the city would pay if we're reimbursing it could be $1,000 per month per beneficiary, which could be a lot more significant than if we focus on the ones that are determined to be medically necessary. Um, this probably would be a good time to talk again about the company that came to us to talk to us about sourcing our drugs like this. Um, uh, I would I would if it's a if you guys are interested in that, I think we should have them do an assessment to see if this then could be provided because we don't have to change anything. It doesn't affect what we currently have. It's it's it's just something that comes straight to uh the employee if they want to access this benefit. They would get their drugs at a much lower cost. And I think we should we should go after that if you guys are in agreement because it would be another opportunity to get lower drug costs for individual, you know, people. So, one of the challenges with having them costed is we do not receive the direct I'm going to say the specific data for the prescriptions from our broker or from Prism Health. All we get is aggregate data.

Yeah, you don't need specific. So, we may not have So, you don't need you may not have access to the records that they were requesting and you don't need that. You do need the aggregate. They need to have a to give you an assessment. But what happens is the moment that they fill it one time, the pharmacy is giving them that information because we've allowed it and they deal directly with just the one person. And I I'm already upset that I didn't know that we even offered this and I really missed the boat on this one. Um but um I we discussed that I I'm the stuff that they were asking for was not names and that type of stuff. So

correct. But the city does not actually own that data. It is. We don't have that data for which prescriptions are being paid through our insurance. We don't receive it and our prison health committee wouldn't release it to us. It I would I would suggest this may be appropriate for a separate item. Okay. Um you but are you guys interested in getting some more information that because they also were talking about reducing our our our um uh cost by $700,000 which we could really use some health insurance. Huh. For the health insurance, it's just for drugs. Okay. Gotcha. But it's probably not all general fund. Of course, when we think about our RU public works, so there's a breakdown that we don't know.

We're a bit off of the topic that's in front of you uh right now. So I just would recommend you're killing the fun here. um that is being submitted is that um for reimbursement um provides as much privacy um as as possible. And is it speedy? Do we know the timeline of how long a reimbursement will take or no? The first step was getting council authorization. Okay. To do the reimbursement. The next step will be um personnel working closely with finance to develop a process um and getting it in place by the first of the year uh so that we are timely with implementation.

All right. I heard a motion. I don't know if there was a second. I'll second. You'll second. And u all in favor? I someone voted for me already. It already It's always so weird when that happens. Amazing. Okay. Uh council travel reports. side. Anybody go to the North Pole? Anything like that? I have an old screen for the vote. Um, no, but I Oh, sorry. Well, go ahead. No travel reports. So, no. No, nothing there. Okay. Uh, suggestions from council members relative to potential topics for future city council meetings.

I just would want to see them give us that assessment for the um the it's not for your just generic drugs. is for those like it's for something stuff like GLPs and that kind of stuff. I'm getting the specialty drugs. The specialty drugs. Yeah. Yeah. Very expensive. I I have a thing or two to say about that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure have a lot of conversations about these. That's okay. I gave I gave Steve Bait about a 30-minute dissertation about research around all of those cool drugs. So, okay. So, we can bring that tag team. We're good with that. Anything Anything else? Cooperate with that group. And

I have one. What do you got? Uh could we reconsider that lady's suggestion who spoke about parking downtown? Could we look at that option of providing at least one or two hours of free parking up front and then it can keep rotating? That's something can we can we bring this back and because this is a lot of we do have a parking update coming up. I think that might be the appropriate time for public works to present that. That's fine. Let council know what our current status is and then also maybe bring some options.

I would also like to see when they bring that to see if they can bring the options. Do we continue with the same thing or can we modify it to give at least one hour free parking or something initially? So those options if they can bring and I I know that businesses downtown are also looking at validation and that might be tied to the P bid. We'll see how that plays out when they agree to the assessment. So that it's possible.

Okay. Um I am wondering since we were talking about residential hotels and um housing parolees that sort of thing um if anybody is interested in inviting community agencies who provide housing um and provide services in general um to a meeting to share about ideas for housing citizens with uh challenging backgrounds. pounds, whether that's a local person or um someone from within the area because I'm sure that that's going to be a follow-up sort of thing. I'm not it's not urgent and important. I know we have a lot on our plate, but

we do the other we do that at at home. I'd love to hear from them. Well, you're he's going to be assigning people to the at home committee. I would like them to come to I don't it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be at home. For what purpose would they be coming? Because we don't have dollars for that. So what what or do you want to talk about vouchers, which we do do? I want to talk about what are other communities doing? Oh,

is there some That's why I'm I don't care whether it's somebody within the community or somebody outside of the community, but if housing has anybody that they'd like to recommend or bring in um any sort of systems that are working or ideas that are working for housing those uh challenging populations. Just to clarify, is that presentation not necessarily an action item? Yes, just a presentation. But for what? How come? Because I think that once we tackle all of the you can't be in this section of town, there then is going to be conversations around where do they go? Yeah.

So demonstrating what other options or providers are providing uh in in the variety of housing that's whether it's transitional permanent. I mean I just think the entire yes I believe where do they go is going to be a thing in which that the council then starts getting questions about. So, I want to be informed. So, it'll be a presentation for that. So, we have consensus for that. Okay, that's fair. Anything else? That's it. We're adjourned. Um, can I ask all to take a picture? Um,