City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome. We will call this session of the Ripon City Council to order. We met in closed session at 5.30. Mr. Terpstra, could you report any actions?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. The council did meet starting at 5.30. All members were present during the entirety of the closed session, and there was no reportable action out of that session.

Very good. If everyone could stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, remain standing for the invocation. 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.

Hi, my name is David Morris, pastor at Christ Community Church. As I say, personally, I'm thankful that I can pray this evening and I'm grateful that we have this ability to pray. So thank you. Heavenly Father, Thank you for another night that we can see your good hand all around us. Thank you for the men and women that provide leadership for our city. Thank you for skill and ability that have been so good for our town for so many years. And I do pray that you continue to grant wisdom, the kinds of decisions that need to be made, I pray for decisions that would be good for our city religiously. I'm so thankful even as we celebrated July 4th and 250 years of religious freedom, as well as so many other freedoms we get to enjoy as Americans. I pray the decisions we made that protect and guard that kind of religious freedom that we so gratefully get to enjoy in our town. I pray for decisions that are good for us socially, that as neighbors, decisions that are made here would be good for us in how we interact with one another. and care about one another. I pray decisions would be made here that are good for us as a city economically, the way money is spent or not spent, and where it's directed or not directed, that all those things would be for the good of the city of Ripon. I'm asking you for wisdom in that, because I know that you give wisdom to all, great and small. Thank you for, again, the freedom we have in this country, and I'm especially grateful for the freedom that those of us who are in Jesus Christ have from our sin even as I pray in his wonderful name. Amen. Amen.

Thank you. Lisa, roll call, please.

Council Member Daniel DeGraff.

Here.

Leo Zuber.

Here.

Mike Restuccia. Present. Vice Mayor Dean Uecker. Here. Mayor Gary Barton.

Present. All right, this is a time for Discussion from members of the public on items that are not on the agenda. Is there anyone who would like to speak? If so, please approach the lectern. Seeing none, let's move to approval of minutes. We have two sets of minutes. Is your motion to approve both of those? Yes, it is. Very good. Do we have a second? Second. All right, both sets of minutes are approved. Moving to our agenda as posted. Is there a motion to approve that agenda? A couple items that are getting pulled, right? There are a couple items to be, three items to be pulled. So those are... 3.1 A and B. Hold on. What's the other one? 1.3 A and B? 1.3 A, 1.3 B. They always do that. 1.4.

1.3 A and B, right? Yes. 1.4 what?

E. E. All right. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended? Second. Thank you, Councilman Restuccia, for weighing in. All right. Consent calendar.

I'll move to approve as amended. So moved. Seconded.

Council members Zuber and Restuccia dominating the motions in seconds tonight. It's not a race or a game.

They're very quick.

They are indeed. All right. So item 1.3a, I asked for that one to be pulled. And I just ask our public work district WORKS DIRECTOR, MR. PEACE, MY FIRST QUESTION IS WHAT DO YOU THINK OF OUR PROSPECTS FOR SUCCESS IN GAINING THE GRANT MONEY THAT YOU'RE APPLYING FOR?

NEW SPEAKER Yeah, I WOULD SAY HIGHLY LIKELY. WE CHECK WITH THE AIR BOARD PRIOR TO SUBMITTING THE APPLICATION And as long as they have funds in there, our city is eligible for that $20,000 per vehicle. So at the time before we put this on the agenda, we check with them, and they still had funds available.

Okay, very good. And then my second question for you, I know in the ag business we're, THESE KINDS OF PROGRAMS, PARTICULARLY THROUGH THE AIR BOARD, IT OFTEN REQUIRES US TO RETIRE A PIECE OF EQUIPMENT WHEN WE PURCHASE A NEW ONE. IS THAT GOING TO BE SOMETHING THAT YOU WILL HAVE TO DO AS WELL AT PUBLIC ORDERS?

NEW SPEAKER NOT OFFICIALLY, NO. WE DON'T HAVE TO GO TO A DISMANTLER WITH ANY OF OUR VEHICLES. SO WE DON'T HAVE TO RETIRE A VEHICLE SPECIFICALLY FOR THESE VEHICLES. NEW SPEAKER VERY GOOD.

THANK YOU. OKAY. ITEM 1.3B. CHIEF SAUER. So, yeah, this is a interesting one and an opportunity for RPD for, yeah, a nice check. And maybe could you go into some detail about how this came about and what are the prospects for these kind of monies in the future?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, our traffic officer, Kyle Prather-Saul, that this grant opportunity was available, and it makes it so we can get funding from the Department of California Highway Patrol Cannabis Tax Fund grant program to receive funding basically to assist with impairment issues in different communities. So it's a grant opportunity he saw a couple months ago, so he jumped right on it, applied for it, was able to get approval to move forward. And so that's what we're requesting to execute the grant agreement with them to receive those funds. It'll be very beneficial to fund our DUI saturation patrols, to do DUI checkpoints, to get standardized field sobriety test training for some of our newer officers that haven't had that yet. And also be beneficial, really beneficial for our traffic officer to purchase a new BMW motorcycle because our current equipment that we have is aging, and now that we have a full-time traffic officer, so it's time to upgrade to a new motorcycle for that and also get a DUI enforcement SUV that we can use for those operations as well. So overall, I think this will be very beneficial. And actually, from doing the research, we are allowed to apply for this grant every year.

Excellent. That's great. And please extend our thank you to Officer Prather. That's really good work and a wonderful benefit to our community. All right. Next item is 1.4. Was it E?

I just had, I wanted to make sure I understood what was in the staff report. The amount of funding that we had for this project would have covered the engineer's estimate, but because the bid came in $850,000 higher, we don't have that money. And so absent getting it, the whole project goes away. So by re-advertising, if we get closer to the funding we have, then there's a chance we could find something someplace and get the job done. Because we've been waiting a long time for this. I mean, I have to say.

You're exactly right.

Okay. I just wanted to make sure I understood that there's everything to gain by rebidding it. And if we accept the one we have now, it's a no-go and we lose the whole thing. All right, thank you.

There's no, we're not looking at cutting anything out of the project, whatever, to put it back out to bid. Still just put the same project out to bid, just trying to get more bidders on the project, right?

Yeah, that's correct.

Kevin, was there a reason why we only received one bid? That's unusual.

Yeah, I can speak on that. We went through our standard bidding process. We advertised for two weeks. Staff has been in contact with several contractors. A few had told us that the timing of the last bid period just happened to fall during a stretch where their estimating staff had low capacity. So we believe that it's due to that. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Very good. Okay. Is there a motion to approve the three items? I'll move to approve. Second. Sounds familiar. All right, consent calendar is now approved. And let's see, let's move to resolutions. So this is regarding sending a council member to the California League of California Cities Conference. Is there anyone on council who would like to attend? I see Mr. DeGraff. Well, I was thinking maybe we'd make a motion to send those two.

Seems they're so eager for motions. Yeah, I'm busy that week. No, I would just comment, we have not historically sent anybody to this conference and don't feel that there's value to it. So my recommendation is that we don't, but.

Yeah, that's the time of year. Well, unless somebody wanted to go, but I don't think we assigned somebody to go.

Mike, are you thinking perhaps you'd like to go this year?

No, I'm busy that week.

You still are? Okay. All right, then we will decline. Do you need a motion for that? I guess.

Do we need a motion for that?

Yeah. Okay. All right, moving on to public hearings. So our first item is annual assessment for Ripon Lighting District. Mr. Werner.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is the final step in the process that would approve the assessment to the Lighting District. The assessment at this time is $42 per single family equivalent. This has been the same assessment that's been in place since 2005. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Any questions from council? If not, this is a public hearing. Is there anyone who would like to speak on this item? So please go to the lectern. Any online, Lisa? No? All right. Then we will bring it back to council. If there is any further discussion... If not, is there a motion to approve this item? Hold it. Dean, I'll second that motion.

Beautiful.

All right, very good. Next, our landscape maintenance districts. And again, Mr. Werner.

So for our landscaping districts, there are three recommended increases. The Carolinas Maintenance District is recommended that it goes from $262.50 a year to $275.62 a year. That's at $13.12 annual increase. Cornerstone, a $6.52 increase. annual increase that brings that assessment to $136.88 per year. And then lastly, the Alexandra Maintenance District, a $4.52 increase that brings that assessment district to $306.14. And this additional funds was needed because of the cost to maintain the landscaping in these districts.

Very good. Thank you. Any questions from counsel at this point? Yes. I have a question.

It's all math. It's pretty simple stuff. But the question I have is that there's a lot of information there, and we're not just accepting these things. We're reading them. We're looking at them. There's a lot of analysis. Do they get the opportunity without asking for the actual study so they can look at it? I mean, is it part of any public document, or do they need to ask us?

Yeah, we're happy to provide it. The full packet is in the agenda as well, but we're happy to provide it to anyone.

No, I saw it myself. I was just curious. Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? If not, this is also a public hearing. Is there anyone who'd like to speak on this issue? Seeing none, we'll bring it back to council. Is there a motion to approve our landscape maintenance district resolution?

So moved.

Second.

Yeah. Wait till there's a tax for us to improve.

Zuber and Restuccia have competition. All right. Next item is our fiscal year budget. We've had workshop, number of discussions on this, and Mr. Werner. Thank you.

You're right, Mr. Mayor. We have talked about this over the last few months. Tonight, I just have a couple of slides that are summarizing the budget that is being recommended. The budget and for all the different categories within the budget, including the general fund, our utility operating funds, free and road funds, transit, et cetera. It is a balanced budget between all of those funds. This includes all of the operations within the city, debt obligation and capital projects are funded through this budget. There are a number of transfers that also happen with this budget. These transfers are, are calculated to replace capital in the future. So the General Fund has three transfers. One is to the C&G Capital Fund. One is to the Department Capital Fund. This is what replaces the police cars, computers at City Hall, other equipment within the Administration Department. And then we have a Park and Rec Capital Fund as well that replaces lawnmowers and equipment in parks, et cetera. the utility funds, water, garbage, and sewer. There's a transfer of 50% of those funds to that reconstruction fund. The rest remain in that operating fund. And then there's a $92,000 transfer to the landscape districts that operate in a deficit that are older districts that were not able to increase the assessment in those districts. So that is an overall summary of the budget. There are a couple areas that we're monitoring closely, and I wouldn't call them areas of concern, just areas that are being closely monitored right now, and we continue to talk about. The first one is just the overall financial trends of the general fund. Over the last four years, we've seen revenue increase on average about 3.9% per year, and expenses increase about 7% per year. There's really no single contributor that is resulting in these larger expenses that we normally see. It's really a combination, and some of our largest contributors to this is healthcare expenses, our CalPERS unfunded liability, our deposits to the worker comp and liability self-insured fund that we're a part of, and then just the overall inflation that's happening with fuel prices. So this is something that we continue to watch and work with department heads on managing these expenses over time. And then lastly, we just talked about it, but the lighting district. This shows in the black line on there is the balance of that lighting district, and that corresponds to the right side of that graph. But when the city took it over from the county in 2005, it started off in a deficit. And that was really just us taking it over and some of the upfront costs. We started in about $150,000 deficit. And we remained in a deficit pretty close to 2019. And then at that point, we started working closely with PG&E. and making some changes to how we operate that district. And you can see from 2019 to about 2024, the balance in that has increased to about $100,000. So we've done well making that a balance in the positive direction. But again, with some of the inflation that we're seeing and increasing expenses, it's unlikely that will continue because the $42 assessment I mentioned earlier is not increasing over time. So it's taken away the financial buffer that we once had in that lighting district. So at this point, staff is planning to bring back to council in the next year or so an engineering report that evaluates what does a financials look like over a longer period of time and what are some options to mitigate those. And that could be anything from increasing the assessment to using the street and road fund to make up that difference like we do on those landscape districts. The budget also includes a number of contributions to various organizations. I won't go through each of these on this list, but it does count to about $475,000. And this is anything from, you know, the almond blossom to the chamber, what we put into the library with the county, the fire district and the hazmat agreement, the school district with the operations of the aquatic center, the museum. These are all important aspects of our community. And through the... through the budgeting process, like I said, about $475,000 has been allocated to these organizations. And with, oh, sorry, last slide. This is a summary of the debt of the city of Ripon. So we have two utility bonds that currently have about $3.5 million of debt right now. One of those is going to be paid off in 2027, and the other one in 2032. We have RDA bonds, and we just refinanced those bonds recently. Those are paid through property taxes, and the utility bonds that we have are paid through utility rates of our customers. As far as our own internal debt, the city has had an emphasis on economic incentive programs, and we have two that are currently in place right now. One is with the commercial center off of River Road where Vine House and Primo's is at. There's about $370,000 left to reimburse the city for the funds that we've provided to help that project move forward. And then for Happy Days RV, there is about $712,000 left from the original $1.3 million the city put forward to help that project move forward. Both of those are being paid back through the sales tax that's being generated in both those businesses. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Very good. Thank you, Kevin. Any questions? Yes. So that's a great program.

That program has been excellent. Just so for the people that are listening online, maybe you can just very quickly go through, like let's take garbage operating fund and you're doing transfers. You do a CapEx plan, right? So you're looking at we need some garbage trucks in this year and that year and you're accumulating enough at that time. So that won't buy it, but maybe two or three is worth at the time you think the other ones are going to run out. And that's the same for every one of those categories, correct?

That's exactly right. We have a database that we list every piece of equipment that is going to have to be replaced over time, what the current value of that is, and estimated life. And that's what calculates those transfers on this list.

Thank you. Any other questions from council? If not, It's a public hearing. Is there anyone who would like to address council on our operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year? Seeing none, we'll bring it back to council. I wanted to make one comment. The trend of revenues versus expenses is now a trend, in my opinion, pretty clear. It is not reached the threshold of troubling, but it may get there if this continues for another year or two, at which point we and staff are gonna be in a position of making some difficult decisions. So I appreciate your leadership on this, Kevin, and the department heads, as always doing a wonderful job of watching are nickels and dimes, but there are forces at work, particularly, you mentioned healthcare or health insurances, just staggering how that's gone up. And there are other areas. And with the continued move to electric vehicles, which is impacting sales tax, our primary source at the truck stops, Yeah, we may have some challenges in front of us. So just wanted to highlight that. All right. There are no other comments. Is there anyone who would like to move to approve the budget for? I move we approve the budget.

Second.

All right. Change the order. All right. I can't hit the vote. Whenever you're ready. I can't hit there. She did it for me. Thank you. All right, very good. Next, ordinance on our annual ordinance on fixing money raised by taxation. Our current tax rate is zero. Lisa... Is this one you would like to address? Yes.

This is our annual ordinance that's required to certify the 26-27 appropriation limits, which is also known as our GAN limits. So in essence, it's saying that the taxes that we collect are below the ceiling that we are allowed to collect based upon the rate set in Proposition 4 that was passed in 1979. And I'm looking for a way of first reading and introduce the ordinance. I don't have to answer any questions.

Very good.

Are there any questions? I'll make that motion that we waive the first reading for Lisa's sake and introduce the ordinance. All right.

And this is a public hearing. Is that correct? Yes. No, the ordinance is not. All right. So we have a move, a motion to waive the first reading. Approved. We've got a second and I still can't hit the vote button for some reason.

All right.

Approved. Next. Discussion item. Ripping Consolidated Fire District property owner assessment ballots. And we are going to provide direction, city's response to the Prop 218 assessment ballots. And I believe we have Our fire chief here.

Can I introduce this one first? Yes. So, yes, we are looking for direction for council on what to do on the ballots that we receive for this. But since we did the staff report, we did receive two or we have two other parcels that are noted. So the staff report references 98 parcels for a total of $12,002. It's now 100 parcels for $12,093. Just want to clarify that. And that's what I would be looking for direction for tonight. And Chief DeHart is here to do a small presentation and answer any questions.

Very good. Thank you, Lisa. And unless there are any questions now from Council, Chief DeHart, the floor is yours.

Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, thank you so much for allowing me to come here today. I think I last stood in front of you guys in March, gave you an update on where we were with the benefit assessment, and that's now gone. Thank you. Technical difficulties. So I appreciate the opportunity to come forward and kind of explain what we've been doing the last few months. And now we have hard numbers that we have been able to present to all of the parcel owners within the fire district, which obviously is probably the most important, what mostly people are the most interested in. So I've put together a real short PowerPoint just to kind of explain some of that. So over the last few months, a lot of coordination with SCI, who is the consultant that we've been working with. I will say that since we approved the contract, they have really been good to work with, very responsive. Really, we have no complaints about the process with them. MONTHLY MEETINGS, SOMETIMES MEETINGS EVERY COUPLE MONTHS WITH THEM AS WE WERE PUTTING TOGETHER THE PROCESS FOR THE ENGINEER'S REPORT AND BASICALLY EVERYTHING THAT IT TAKES IN ORDER TO PUT A BENEFIT ASSESSMENT TOGETHER. developing the ballot process, what that would look like, looking very hard at the ballots to make sure that the language was accurate, sometimes three and four times, and might have even been a little nervous to hit the go just because of history. But the developing of the process, what the ballots look like, what the ballots everybody received, and then going forward, how they're to be counted in the collection process. We're still working on some fine details of that, but mostly a lot of that has been worked out. And then outreach for the majority of the time, just a lot of outreach, a lot of one-on-one meetings, meeting with our stakeholders, whether it was stakeholders of one parcel or stakeholders of numerous parcels, it didn't matter. Anybody that was willing to sit down with me and talk to me, I had that opportunity as well as other staff members, members of the community, a lot of collaboration has been going on. And we still have a month to go until we count ballots. We'll talk about that in a second. So there's still a lot more of that to be had. We did seven town hall meetings, five prior to the ballots going out, which were all mostly informational after the ballots, or I'm sorry, after the engineer's report was accepted. And when the ballots were about ready to go out, we had a town hall meeting at the beginning of June. And then we had a town hall meeting after the ballots went out a few weeks ago. So really just trying to get the information out there, talking to everybody, explaining what's going on. When we started this attempt, at the end of the 2024 attempt, we heard a lot of people said we just didn't know enough about it. Well, that was my number one mission. And when it's all said and done, I don't want anybody in our community to say didn't know anything about it.

And I think we're getting there.

meetings with various groups. So we've met with the Garden Club, Ripon Sorority. I met with one HOA group that allowed me to come in and talk. Big groups, little groups, doesn't matter, really reaching out. And then I cannot say enough about the group that was put together May of last year, so over a year ago, which ended up being termed with Ripon Fire. Several of them, many of them are in the room with us. I think on paper, there's probably about 25 citizens of our fire district that came together and helped the district shape what this was going to look like. We really leaned on them and asked them a lot of questions and the product that you now have seen in your ballots and on the streets and everything, the majority of it really came from them and their guidance. And I cannot say enough how much I appreciate the efforts that they're doing. You'll see on the slide door-to-door education. For the last, I think at least six, maybe seven Saturdays, the groups have been going out, just going door-to-door, knocking. Kind of a surprise, not a lot of people answer their doors anymore. Definitely a change in culture these days. But when people did open the door, very nice conversations of, did you know this going on? Here's some information if you'd like it. The majority of folks really appreciative of what's going on. And I think that is speaking volumes to the, the amount of information that has been going out there. And it's met my goal as we're going and knocking on doors. The first question I'm asking is, have you heard about it? And again, Nine times out of 10, the answer is yes, I know all about it. I know something about it. Yes, I've heard bits and pieces, so we're working. Still hitting a few doors or saying don't really know what you're really talking about. So we still have some work to do. That still remains my number one goal. So the ballots, the ballots were mailed out on June 12th. They started hitting everybody's mailboxes around June 15th. We have over 6,700 parcels in our fire district. Because this consultant did ballots a little bit differently, if you owned multiple parcels, they put up to 14 on one ballot. So a little over 5,500 ballots went out into the community. If you did not receive a ballot, it is still not too late. We're highly encouraging everybody to contact the fire district and we have a process that we can make sure that you get a ballot. If the information you got is wrong, I've heard from several people, just nothing significant, but little issues with it. We have a method just like you heard earlier to be able to make sure that The ballot gets corrected and then gets sent out to the owner. So when are we going to know the results? The last day that we will be accepting the ballots will be at our regularly scheduled board meeting, August 13th at 5.30 p.m. is when it starts. There'll be a last call for any ballots. Of course, there'll be a question and answer period for those that feel like they need it. Ballots will then be accepted and then that will be the last of it. Ballots will be counted the next day, August 14th, starting on or around 9 o'clock in the morning. We have elected our tabulator. That is the person that will oversee the entire process. And I'm very happy to announce that Leo Zuber has accepted that role. So he will be there that morning watching the process to make sure that everything is done the way it's supposed to be done. And then the results will be announced at a special board meeting later that day on August 14th at 5.30 p.m. So what are the costs? So the consultant broke it down to different parcel types. And you can see the breakdowns here. A single family residence, $249.98. Your multifamily residences, so apartments and so forth. And then that is per unit. And I do want to make sure everybody is aware these are per year. These are not per month. We've had a few people kind of asked us those questions. So we want to make sure that's clear. Commercial buildings. Commercial buildings are based off of... half acre. So what we ended up doing was bringing them up on Google Earth and doing a measurement around each building, finding out how many acres or point fractions of an acre they were. And you can see up there it's $461.44. For commercial space, office space is the same way. Storage is the same. Parking lots, and then you can see kind of the breakdown from there. And then the overall Generated income or revenue, I'm sorry, that is expected is a little over $1.79.

Chief? Yes. Yeah, quick question. I should have known this, but your half-acre rates, and then let's say you find someone with a quarter acre. Is that rate then, that percentage applied to the half-acre rate?

That's correct. So it ends up rounding up to the half-acre.

It rounds up to the half-acre?

Yes, that's correct.

All right, got it.

So that's the end of the presentation. Happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Yes, questions from council. I have a few questions, Chief. A couple things. One is on the vacant lot. So when somebody builds on that later on, how do they get assessed for the risk of that?

So if you build on a vacant lot. So it's going to go through the permitting process. We'll be notified of that. We end up, you have to actually come to our office to get a permit. We'll see the square footage and then we'll end up going through the assessor's office to make those changes.

So the 3682 will go up if it's a single family to 249.

Right, whatever ends up being built on it.

The other thing is the layout of the ballots. I think you guys did a good job. And I like the fact that My multifamily is on one ballot. I don't have to sift through three or four or five of these things. And then the single family is on the other. I think that's excellent. And you get to see next to each other what the different prices are. And number three, one of my neighbors, as you know, across the street is on your committee. I got signs all over my neighborhood. I have people asking me. In fact, I got one in the back of my car. I'm supposed to bring my other neighbor. So everybody's. knows about it that I've talked to. So I think you guys did a really good job this time. I'm praying that you guys get it passed because, you know, there's a lot of risk out there. And again, I'm going to go back and say the thing I've always say, and I don't mean to be redundant, but that 249 would look very, very cheap if you get downgraded and your insurance rate go up because it will go up more than that every year. So this is not an expensive price to pay for what we're getting. That's it.

Thank you. Any other questions? I'd just like to make a quick comment. I know I told you before, but I reiterate the statements I've made in the past that you've done a fantastic job of communicating with the public, I think, on this. And I mean, the consultant to confirm what Mike said, the format of the ballot, the pamphlet that came with it, the envelope I've done. I don't know, done myself or been involved in probably a dozen Prop 218s over the last 10 years. And like I say, this is the cleanest, nicest presentation of the ballot and format. So I'll probably be stealing it for my future Prop 218. So thank you to them. But I mean, great job there. And yeah, I just I mean, I hope that people will understand the importance of this. As Mike said, the $249 may sound like a lot right now, but in the long run, that $249 per single-family residence is going to provide security for the future of this district, and I think it's pretty important that people vote to secure that future for the district. So I would encourage people to vote yes on this.

Chief, do you have any sense of how many ballots have been returned?

So I don't. The process that we decided to go with this time, there was a lot. In the previous attempt, there was the ballots were coming to the fire district and we had more than one citizen come in and say they felt like there was a issue there, that we were actually accepting the ballots. So after doing a lot of brainstorming, if you will, and Definitely some help with Kevin Werner. Definitely want to appreciate all the collaboration we've been doing on this. And again, through the With Ripon group, we decided that they're going to a PO box here in town. And we have three of our fire chaplains that are solely taking care of the collection. and then they are then bringing them to the fire district into a lock box. We are completely out of the process. So I don't, at this time, really have a good number for you on how many ballots have been returned.

Okay, thank you. So we do have a number of people here. If anyone would like to address the chief, have any questions or comments, you're welcome to do that now. If not... we need a motion to approve our response for the ballots that the city is in charge.

I'd be happy to approve. I don't know how you want this thing worded, but to have the city pay the assessment that we've been assessed.

Cast a yes vote.

Yes vote. Yes vote.

How's that?

We have a motion and a second. And I still am unable to move forward with the vote.

Thank you.

And the City Council of Ripon has approved that on a 5-0 vote. Terrific. Best wishes, Chief. You know what... my prognostication was the last time. I hope I do a better job on my prognostication this time.

Thank you. Appreciate all the support from the city and certainly from the council.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay. Staff reports. Police Chief Sauer.

Mr. Mayor, I have nothing to report.

Mr. Stevens.

esteemed Planning Director Zeidervark. Just one quick item. We actually will be having the Planning Commission meeting this month. So on Monday, we will be considering a condominium subdivision project. The Kyson River Industrial Project is looking to condo up their units so they can sell them off individually if they want to. So if you would like, you can join us for that. This will be a subdivision map that'll come in front of the city council at some point. There's quite a few conditions they have to meet before it gets to you guys, but you will be the final vote on it.

Okay, good deal. Thank you, Kenny. Mr. Peace.

Yes, just our water usage for the month of June. We were 18% lower than our 2013 number and 3% lower than last year's number. Very good. Thank you.

Mr. Terpstra. Mr. Werner. Mr. DeGraff.

I don't have much to say. We already talked a little bit about the fire district and what's, you know, an item on here. So, you know, again, I would encourage everybody, and I think most of you are supportive of it, but I encourage you to vote yes, and anybody else who's listening to vote yes on this fire district assessment. I hope everybody had a good Fourth of July. I know in the last meeting we were, you know, coming into that, and we were going to miss that. So... pretty good celebration of our country. I don't think anybody got to watch the fireworks show in DC. I was kind of kicking myself for not going to the 45 minute fireworks show while I watched it on TV from home, but also very nice to do that. So, um, hope all of you Patriots enjoyed celebrating the 4th of July and, uh, 250th anniversary. But, uh, with that, thank you all for being here.

Indeed. Councilman Zuber.

I do have a couple of things. One, I will, um, This is with regard to the two grants that we acted on earlier this year. I am very glad to see that the city is pursuing things like that. I see a lot of those out there. There's a lot of money that's available, not just for cars and that sort of thing, but lots of stuff. And I'm glad to see that the city staff is, when they're made aware of them, are pursuing them because it can help us out in the not too distant future and long term also. I would also like to thank the city staff that's responsible for the weed management in this town, because for years you could drive around and about May, everybody would go out and plow their weeds. And by this time of the year, they were all back and you couldn't even tell if they'd done anything. And whoever's responsible for that this year is doing a really good job. They're all I get around town a lot and that's one thing I've watched and they're all doing, property owners are doing a much better job keeping them under control and they don't do that on their own. So somebody is paying attention and staying in touch and I'd like to extend a thank you to them because it helps a lot for us. Two other things, one, the new lights at Orange Street by Ripon Elementary. I have had people comment about how, how should I put it, how noticeable they are when you drive down that street and somebody hits that button, those yellow lights are right in your face and it's much nicer. And some of the parents are very appreciative of the fact that it's a safer crossing now. And last but not least is the work that was done on West Ripon Road out there at Jack Tone. I've been catching stuff from people for years about the condition of that road. And in the space of three days, it was completely reconditioned. And it's very nice. So, again, thank you.

Yes, thank you. I want to second that motion. That was a third world road for too long. And it is really nice to have that turn around. All right. Very good. Thank you. Councilman Restuccia. I'll just ditto what Leo said about West Ripon Road.

I mean, I got called out on that thing probably the last couple of years, and I'm getting all kinds of compliments. So that's the direction that we like to go. So that's very nice.

Thank you. Vice Mayor Euchre.

Nothing to report.

All right. And I will just... I oftentimes... show appreciation for the great staff we have here. I'm going to shout out Mr. Stevens this month. Summer, you just see a lot of rec activities going on in this town, which is in many ways just it reflects the kind of community that we have. Family-based, faith-based, kids out doing what kids should be doing and not sitting in front of their video screen, uh, but out being active. And so appreciate the work you do Kai. And, uh, and just, it's a great blessing to this community, uh, echo, uh, councilman to graph that it was a great celebration of 250 years of this country. And, uh, And let's do 250 more. I probably won't be around for that one, but. Yeah, there you go. All right, and with that, we are adjourned.