Planning Commission - Special Meeting

Move to close session.

in session, and Mr. Terpstra, could you report on our activities in closed session?

Yeah, thanks, Mr. Mayor. The council did meet in closed session. All members of the council were present during the entirety of the session. No reportable action was taken.

Very good. Thank you. We are now in, again, an open session. No public comment. Very good. Let's move.

There's one.

I WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING ONLINE, BUT THANK YOU, COUNCILMAN RASTUSHA. THE GHOST APPARENTLY. OKAY. FIRST MATTER, HASPEN SURVEY.

I CAN TAKE THIS ONE, MR. MAYOR. THERE'S TWO INVOICES FOR CITY COUNCIL'S CONSIDERATION FOR APPROVAL. ONE COVERS WORK. by Aspen Survey to research public right-of-way at the intersection of Jack Tone and West Main. Staff has been investigating relocating the traffic signal that has been hit a number of times in that corner. And we found additional right-of-way where we can move that a little bit away from that corner and help prevent those accidents. And then the second one is related to the C&G station on Doak Boulevard. We've been working with PG&E to bring a PG&E gas service there or to that site. And we had to do some work on a parcel map. And that's the second invoice for $2,063.75. Thank you, Kevin.

Any questions? If not, is there a motion to approve? I'll move.

And with my motion.

Come on. Good one for you. Come on.

Everyone vote. Your mouse, turn it on.

Maybe it's off. Check your mouse and see if it's on.

Use the keypad. There we go.

That was close, but we made it. All right. Next item for discussion is regarding the bid work on community center parking lot. Kevin. Spencer. Very good. Thank you.

I can speak on this. So as you know, staff first brought the community center parking lot expansion project to bid on July 1st. the city received a single bid which came in well over the engineer's estimate. Council rejected that bid at the July meeting and directed staff to re-advertise. Staff has since revised the bidding strategy to provide the city with greater flexibility and direction and discretion in determining the scope of work to be awarded by splitting the project into a base bid and an alternate. The base bid includes relocation of the middle baseball field, field number two, reconstruction of the existing western parking lot with concrete pavers, and baseball field improvements. The alternate bid expands that scope to include reconstruction of the southern parking lot also. The bid documents reserve the city's right to determine which scope of work would be awarded. To protect the integrity of that process, bids were submitted and evaluated blind so that decision could be made without knowing which contractors submitted which bid. On August 11th, the city received 10 bids. The lowest base bid alone was $2,037,435. and the lowest base bid plus alternate was $2,586,477, both submitted by different contractors. After evaluation of the submitted bids and the city's available funding and the net benefits a completed project would provide, staff determined that the apparent low bidder would be based on the base bid plus alternate amount. Only once that determination was made was the identity of the apparent low bidder revealed and their bid package evaluated, which is how staff identified the low bidder as Dirt Dynasty. Awarding the complete project under single construction contract provides several benefits, such as lower overall costs, a more consistent final product, and reduced disruption to the community center and the public who use it. With that being said, staff recommends that the City Council award the base bid plus alternate to Dirt Dynasty in the amount of $2,586,477. To fund that award, the Parks and Recreation Capital Fund currently has approximately $2,480,973 available. With a 10% construction contingency, the total project budget comes to $2,845,124. leaving a shortfall of approximately $356,000. Staff recommends a transfer of $400,000 from the general department capital fund to cover that shortfall and fully fund the project. And with that, I am happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for Spencer, Kevin?

I have just a question on schedule. If the bid's awarded today, what is the timeline for the project?

The timeline, we're hoping to get all our contract documents in within the next week or two, and then we're going to be issuing the notice to proceed immediately. So we're hoping to get going on this one as soon as possible.

Good.

I have one question. In listening to what you were saying, this project is going to take the parking lot that's on the west side of the building and extend it up. we're not going to do anything to the big parking lot behind the building?

So that is where the alternate bid comes into play. So the alternate bid is that southern, the rear parking lot. So awarding both the base and the alternate will cover all of that.

Good. That's what I thought, but when I heard that, I was...

And they'll be connected. Is that correct?

Correct. I have a question. Can you send us a map of that? Because I understand what Leo's asking. I know we've seen a preliminary kind of discussion before, but you probably have a map that's laid out that shows the baseball fields will move out a little bit, right, to make that connection that you're talking about.

Absolutely, yes, I can send that. Okay, that'd be nice to look at. Thanks.

Any other questions? I would just say I'm looking forward to this actually moving forward. And I know we've been kind of waiting for this for a while and knowing progress is coming and excited to actually see this move forward.

So thank you.

Agreed. With that, if there's no more questions, I'll make a motion to approve the contract as suggested by staff.

Dirt Dynasty. Got a motion and a second. Dean is all over at this time. Thank you. All right. Just left his mouse in one spot. We look forward to having that project move forward. Next, service agreement. IT staff. Are there slides? Yes.

There's no slides. We're seeking approval and authorization from the mayor to sign an agreement once approved by the city attorney with CDW government for a Microsoft 365 subscription and also to approve and authorize Waypoint Network solutions to do the data migration from our old email to the new.

IT staff is happy to answer any questions pertaining to Microsoft 365 migration and such.

I guess I'm the only, I mean, so many guys have done all of the research, but as far as security in Microsoft 365, is it, I mean, is it like a normal Microsoft 365 account or is it a higher level of?

To an extent, we have a number of different license categories that we'll be applying to different staff. Our PD staff is under the highest compliance regulations with we are subject to FBI CEGIS compliancy. So we'll be awarding G5 level licenses to PD staff in order to maintain that compliance. City staff will receive a G3 level license, which maintains the compliance that they're required to meet. And then we've got other assorted service accounts for login purposes. They're not awarded to specific people, so it's a license level akin to keeping the inbox open.

Gotcha. Thank you. I have a quick question. Quick question. So this is going to be Microsoft, you said, so the new email is going to be via Microsoft?

We are currently through Microsoft. We currently utilize Outlook. With the Microsoft 365 migration, we would be continuing with Outlook. Currently, we utilize a legacy platform. This will be moving us into kind of the future with the standard format that all of the surrounding cities in our county are already a part.

So it will look a little bit different.

It will look different.

Okay, because the organizations I'm with, we've all gone to this or transitioning to it. So the good thing for me is at least it will be consistent because every time I get a different email. Yeah.

Consistency.

The legacy platforms are garbage at this point.

They're approaching it.

Elizabeth, do you want to talk about the change in the email addresses as we go through this process as well?

Yeah, absolutely. So as part of this migration, coming up in January 1st, 2029, The state has mandated that all city agencies have a .gov or .us, .us.gov something email address. So as part of this migration, the city of Ripon will be adopting a .gov email address. So instead of cityofrippin.org, we will be cityofrippin.gov.

Do we have the domain already owned?

We already got the paperwork signed in. We're waiting for final approval.

Otherwise, I was going to go buy it.

Yeah.

Any other questions? No. All right. Sounds like you got under control.

We're doing our best.

Motion to approve this. Second. Good. Let's see. Next. On our agenda, part-time per diem dispatch positions. And who is this? Yeah, I can report on that.

So we're just seeking approval to add four part-time dispatch positions to help reduce mandated overtime and employee burnout. The dispatch center has 13 dispatchers and one supervisor. We are currently down three dispatch positions with another one expected to resign next month. While we are actively recruiting and sending candidates to backgrounds, that process does take time. It takes a couple months, probably about two months at quickest by the time they get done with everything. And once they get hired, they go into a six-month training that's pretty extensive. So by the time we have somebody that's in those seats and fully capable of filling that role, until that time, we're doing mandated overtime, which causes definite burnouts. for employees. So we're seeking to hire four part-time positions that are post-certified, that they currently already have the training that could come in and fill the seat quickly. Primarily looking for past employees that were here that are familiar or other dispatchers that are familiar with how our RMS and our CAD system works to try to alleviate that on a part-time basis.

Very good. Thank you, Jared. Any questions for Jared?

Can I just add one thing? I know through some of my conversations, Chief Sauer is out of town today, but this does have a short-term, near-term fix for this problem. But I think in the long term where the police department is going is this will help prevent this problem again in the future because you always have this type of turnover in the dispatch areas. But in the long term, we may be hiring people who do need training. And you could put them into these part-time positions. And then when there are vacancies, you put them into the full-time position. That's very similar to what we do with the Public Works Department with the part-time positions there. They get hired. And then when the full-time positions, that's the pool we use to fill those full-time positions. So, you know, I think this has some obviously short-term benefits of what we're going through. And I think hopefully has some long-term benefits preventing this from happening again in the future. So at least that's the goal of, I know where the police department is trying to go.

Yeah. I talked to the chief briefly about it. I mean, just the idea that you could pull from some previous staff that are already trained and know the system. It makes a lot of sense for short term. And I think it's a, sort of the benefits of having the dispatch and doing the dispatch the way we did and the additional employees, right. Was to alleviate the burnout already. And then, so if we're coming back to that and finding ways to be creative and, you know, getting rid of overtime hours, which some people may like, but I think a lot of benefits to this plan.

So just appreciate you guys putting it together. So I talked to the chief quite extensively about this and what I like about it, your dispatches are literally your first responders. No doubt about that. Then the cops are kind of secondary, but yeah, I think it's good. The banking industry had this, we call them utilities to where they're kind of on call and you need that because when you're short, your people are burning out. And if you're short people and everything, you know, people only want so much overtime and then that's it. So I think, I think there's a very smart thing to do and I'm glad you're doing it.

Yeah. I think that's why we're requesting those four positions up to that. That way we can take our time to get the right people in those spots. Just like, Kevin had said, I think it just, I think it does right by the employees. And it just will boost morale in there and a sense of like not panic in a way, sometimes when you're forced to do that and trying to treat our employees right and want them to come to work and enjoy being there. So.

Dad, I understand you that you're talking to people that were ex-employees. Would they be willing to come back?

Yes. Yes. Great. There are times where that does occur. Yes. Yeah.

And why did they leave in the first place?

To be frank, there are some there's some moms that start to have young families and it comes at a toll to be away from the younger child. But they'd be happy to to work in a job that they absolutely love that they hated to walk away from. But for their family, they needed to do that. But they still need to have some sort of side job. And it actually fits very well for them. We've gotten very positive feedback from some of those that are interested in that.

So they were full-time people and they would now be partners.

Yes. Yeah, maybe children go back to school and they have a little bit of time available, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's a good opportunity to give people work that's fulfilling to them that they enjoy and that fills a need for us too.

Yeah, and just because they might have stepped away now at this point, children do get older. And if they keep up their certificates and keep up their skill set on it, I could see a potential like when those kids get older and back to school, maybe they do want to go back into full-time and make more money.

I think it's a great thing. Well, they also get to kind of pick and choose. If you say, we need you on Tuesday, they go, I can't do it. You got the next one on the list to call. Yeah.

Yep. I think it's great. Kevin, when we invoice Escalon and Lathrop, are those invoices reflective of the overtime that we're paying for?

Yeah. When we set up the agreement, we based it off a certain amount of overtime. Okay. And we track it every year to make sure we are recouping all of the costs. So once a year, Chief Sauer goes through and evaluates the expense versus the actual expense versus what we are billing on that, making sure we're not in a losing position because there were some assumptions that we put in there as far as the cost of a full-time equivalent.

Do you short at the end of the year?

We don't short. We just... From our perspective, we just know where you're at. Yeah, it's been a pretty fair agreement, and I think we're running pretty close to where we thought we were going to be.

Okay, good. Thank you. Okay, is there a motion to approve these four part-time dispatch positions? I'll make a motion to approve it. And that is adopted. Thank you, Jared. And I think that's, there is no more business on the agenda. So we are adjourned.