City Council - Regular Meeting

What do I feel like?

We are going to call this meeting to order. Let us stand for the reading of the flag, the flag salute, and then remain standing for the innovation. Thank you. Ready? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the

Let us pray. Oh God, we come before you tonight. We're so grateful for all that you've given us, this city of Riverbank, Lord, the counsel, Lord, that advocate for us as citizens, Lord, the city staff that works on our behalf, Lord, for our city. Lord, we're just so grateful and so thankful. I just pray tonight, Lord, as you've said, that if we lack wisdom to ask you and you would give it to us. Without finding fault, we're asking for help tonight as we walk through business. And I just pray, Father, for the spirit of unity in this town, Lord, safety, protection, all that you offer us. We ask for it now in your name. Amen.

Council Member Uribe. Here. Council Member Fossey. Here. Council Member Call. Here. Vice Mayor Pimentel. Here. Mayor Hernandez.

Here. There are no agenda changes at this time. Any council authority member who has a direct conflict of interest on any scheduled agenda item to be considered is to declare their conflict at this time.

And so I have a conflict on 11.5. Okay.

Pursuant to Government Code Section 84308 Levine Act, any council authority member who has received a contribution of $500 or more within the preceding 12 months from a party participant or their agent related to an item on the agenda must disclose that contribution on the record prior to participation in the discussion or decision on the item and may be required to accuse themselves as applicable. Thank you so much. Councilmember, anyone else? All right. Just as a note, as we head into the presentations, we will be taking comments on these items during the public comment period. We're going to go through these presentations as scheduled on the agenda and then request those comments afterwards. So first, we have National Health Center Week. If we have Golden Valley, come up with me. Friends, so we are excited to do another year of honoring you for National Health Center Week for August 2nd through 8th. Whereas for over 60 years, community health centers have provided high quality, affordable, comprehensive, primary preventive health care in our nation's medically underserved communities, delivering value to and having a significant impact on America's health care system. Whereas community health centers are a critical element of the health system, serving rural, suburban, frontier, and urban populations, and often providing the only accessible and dependable source of primary care in their communities, nationwide community health centers serve one in every five residents of rural areas. Whereas every day community health centers develop new approaches to integrating a wide range of services beyond primary care, including oral health, vision, behavioral, pharmacy services, which I'm sure you'll go over all of those, to meet the needs and challenges of their communities. Health centers have more than doubled their behavioral health workforce in the last decade to meet America's growing need for behavioral health services. Whereas community health centers are governed by patient majority boards, ensuring that patients are engaged in their own healthcare decisions. Whereas during National Health Center Week, we celebrate the legacy of America's community health centers and their vital role in shaping the past, present, and future of America's healthcare system. Now, therefore, let it be proclaimed by the City Council of the City of Riverbank that August 2nd through 8th, 2026 is National Health Center Week within the City of Riverbank. I encourage all Riverbank residents to take part of this week by visiting local health centers, some of which I'd like you to hear right here in Riverbank, celebrating the important partnership between America's community health centers and the communities that you serve. Signed today. And here is another one for your collection. Thank you so much.

If you want to turn a little bit off.

Thank you so much for having us here. It's always a pleasure serving our community here at Riverbank. Here at Riverbank Clinic, we offer family medicine. We also offer behavioral health services and also ophthalmology and rhinopathy. And then we also invite you to celebrate Healthcare Center Week next week on Tuesday, August 4th. at our golden or central bali pace after 5 p.m we're going to have treats outreach services and lots of activities as well thank you all right everyone's invited next tuesday can we take a photo with you yes you want to come down here

Beautiful.

No, at least

Thank you so much. Next, I want to join Council Member Uribe to recognize Angel Avila, the owner of Protein Spot, for his assistance to local veterans.

Thank you, Mayor. Angel, if you can join us.

Thank you so much.

Okay, so for those that don't know Angel Avala so he actually is the owner of protein spa but we're not here to talk about those drinks that he makes right so we're actually here to talk about the support that he's been just kind of just pumping into this community right so. In the community, there's a lot of community organizations, there's nonprofits, and one that's just continually been advocating for what a great support, what a great backbone, what a great person overall ANGEL has been is the veterans group. As a fellow veteran myself, I wanted to recognize you for that, so I thank the council for allowing allowing me to do that. And I asked you a couple questions about like what kind of drives you right and so your goal is mentorship right and just just serving the public serving veterans and so no one's telling you to do it no one's asking you to do it you just want to do and I thought that was just a beautiful thing so. on behalf of the entire council. We appreciate you. We thank you. And obviously it shows we got a whole row of veterans and probably more that are here just for you. So I'm going to read this certificate and then I'm going to invite you to say a couple of words if you would like. Yeah, appreciate you. So this is on behalf of the entire city council and staffer. Your dedication tomorrow to promoting healthy living and making a nutritious food simple convenient and accessible to the Community. Through your business you strive to build meaningful relationships support local events and partnerships you're always honoring veterans and making lasting positive impact in riverbank through your service and your commitment to others, we appreciate you and thank you.

um. I'm very grateful to all my veterans and the community, especially because I did get a lot of support from the community, especially Shirley. She's always keeping me up to date with everything that's going on. And I think it is important to support the veterans because there are some that are struggling and they've served us a lot. So I think they deserve it for sure. Yeah, I'm grateful to everyone. The community is awesome here. Riverbanks has an amazing community for sure. Everyone knows each other. And yeah, it's pretty much. Appreciate y'all.

We're gonna take a photo. This one's for you. Thanks.

Beautiful. Beautiful.

Oh, yeah, let's do that. Oh, yeah, that was close. Yeah. I'll put that on.

all right thank you so much angel item uh 7.3 a presentation on the sas county interagency task force on unpermitted food vending operations by robert kastlini did i pronounce that correctly the director of sas county department of environmental resources well good evening mayor and members of the city council thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight

My name is Robert Koslovy, and I'm the Director of Environmental Resources for Stanislaus County. I'm here this evening to introduce our countywide Unpermitted Vendor Task Force, which is a collaboration between Stanislaus County, our partner cities, law enforcement, regulatory agencies, and non-governmental organizations, otherwise known as NGOs. This effort was created with one primary objective, to protect public health while supporting a fair and level playing field for the many vendors in our county. Tonight I'd like to provide an overview of why this task force was formed, how it's operating, and the progress that we've made together. Now the first few slides are very important as it's the foundation of Why we're here today and it'll provide a good understanding of the various nuances that we're going to discuss tonight.

Oh.

And one of the first things that we really need to understand is what is an unpermitted vendor? And that's anyone that is selling goods or services in a public setting without the correct licenses or permits. And why does it matter? It matters because, you know, for food safety violations, other public health concerns, there's traffic and pedestrian safety. unfair competition with permitted businesses, property owner liability, and I can't stress this one enough, lack of food safety training. Now I took this picture right here in the city of Oakdale on my way home and just happened to see this vendor and you can just tell right away that it was an unpermitted vendor because it's on the side of the road. And when I stopped, I got out and another car pulled up right next to me and said, are you somebody official with the county or the city? I said, well, I'm with the county. He goes, well, I'm the owner of this property and these folks are trespassing. They don't have any right to be here. Can you help me get them to leave? So when we say talk about owner liability, if anybody is allowing this type of operations on their facility, they can be liable for any damages that occurs to folks that may get sick or get injured from a vehicle and whatnot. Another key component is a commissary. A commissary is a commercial kitchen where all of the mobile vendors, whether it's a push cart, a food truck, they all have to take their food to and prepare it there. Whether they're slicing and dicing or storing it overnight, they sanitize all their equipment. They use the commissary to fill potable water and to dispose of their wastewater. They also can receive food deliveries at this commercial kitchen. And the thing about the commercial kitchen is it is permitted through the county. And sometimes we do have Uh, sister counties that, uh, multiple vendors can, uh, they go across county lines and we do, uh, have communications with the other counties to see if that is a legitimate commissary or not. Now, um, prior to July 1st of this year. So for several years we've been, uh, environmental health and, uh, and Stanislaus County has approached. enforcement and education, this this specific way and we would get receive complaints. And we would look at those targeted areas we'd contact law enforcement and law enforcement isn't for any type of intimidation the law enforcement is utilized. to ensure that the workers that are going out there are safe because oftentimes when we show up to these unpermitted events, there's a long line and it's the public that starts getting angry. They'll yell, leave these people alone and they'll drive by and there's videos of inspectors getting things thrown at them. So that is one of the reasons why we utilize law enforcement. Just a couple weeks ago when I was doing an inspection in Turlock with law enforcement, we had a gentleman, as soon as I got out of the car, I'm not a little guy, and came right at me. And then law enforcement was standing right next to me and got in his face. And then there was another law enforcement and he got in his face. It can be hostile at times, and that's why we utilize our law enforcement as protection for us and also for protection for anybody else that might be on the scene. So when we get to the site, our process has been very similar as other counties across the state of California. We give essentially two warnings. So when we go and inspect them, and if we find out they don't have a permit We educate them and tell them how to get a permit. We give them the appropriate paperwork. We ensure we have bilingual staff that can translate if needed. And we have them shut down their operation and we send them on their way with their equipment and all of their food. The second offense, it's a repeat and rinse. We do the exact same thing. We give them a warning. We educate them. And from that point, We say if this happens again, we will impound your equipment. And when we do impound your equipment, we're going to hold it for 30 days. And after that 30 days, if you don't come and get it and pay your permit fees and the fines associated with it, you will forfeit anything that we impounded. And to give you an idea what that looks like, this is our office in Ceres. So if we're out here in Riverbank and we do an inspection, we have to load up all of our equipment and take it to Ceres that night. We catalog it, we put the who the owner is, and it's stored for 30 days inside that building right there. And then if we need to go back to Oakdale or Riverbank that night, that's a long process because now we have to drive all the way back from Ceres. And that's something that we're gonna talk about. in just a minute. Now when I mentioned there is most of California has been doing the exact same type of enforcement and education process throughout the state of California. And you know, it's sad to admit that we've absolutely failed, that that did not work. And we needed to come up with a different methodology. And I know some our sister County Merced is a little further along the lines than we are. They started a little more aggressive campaign, and they stopped doing the three inspections. They went to immediately educate, enforce, and impound right then and there. And the thing about it is we've been doing this for several years. Most of the vendors, we've already seen them several times, so it's not new to them. This is just... a different methodology that we're looking at doing. And this new idea is the creation of this interagency task force. And the lead of the agency is environmental health or environmental resources. We're gonna utilize collaboration from the city and the county, law enforcement from the city and the county, the DA, and I'll explain why the DA is involved in this in a minute, representatives from the Board of Supervisors and city councils that can make decisions, and the non-government organizations or NGOs. Now, one thing that we're looking at is everybody that's involved has got to put some skin in the game. And my skin in the game is if we're going to work here in Riverbank, we're going to need some assistance. Instead of driving, if we do an impoundment, it doesn't do us any good to Take everything back to series, you know if you have a way to store it here that's ideal so that way we can continue on on our inspections at night and see if we can make a positive difference. And we're also going to request assistance with any of your code enforcement and law enforcement as well. Now, the one thing that we're looking at is, I keep, I mentioned the NGOs a couple of times already. An NGO is the one we're trying to get involved in our interagency task force is the West Modesto Collaborative and the Latino Chamber of Commerce. They've been to... meetings last week. I met with them privately. And the goal of to have them is to have some positive interface with any of any of the regulated community and provide communication to them to how to get, you know, a permit if they need it. And if there's anything else going on in their lives that they can reach out and ask for assistance. And that's what The goal is the county and this task forces is about helping the people that were interacting with you know whether they're on permitted or not, we want to we want to be that that face to to help them in the situations that they're in and i'll get to that situation in a minute. Now. There is a connection to a larger problem here now, a lot of folks think that. when you see an unpermitted vendor or a vendor on the side of the road, there could be a little kid running around, there's a male and a female typically cooking the meals, and you stop thinking that you're gonna help somebody out in this economy that we're in by offering some business to them. But what you're not seeing is, this isn't typically a mom and pop type of operation. The ones that look like this right there, those are organized syndicates. They are throughout California. And when we do the impoundment, a day later, they're back up and running with identical equipment. And a mom and pop just isn't going to have that type of resources. In fact, we just did one on Sunday, and they were up and running last night. and we know it's part of a larger ring. There are potentially cartel involved and our DA at the presentation I did with our Board of Supervisors got up and spoke and mentioned that oftentimes we're hearing about the workers coming over the border and being forced to work to pay for the cost of that that type of activity. And unfortunately, they're, they're being paid pennies on the on the dollar for what they're doing. And am I able to play that one?

Diarrhea and vomiting, both symptoms more than 17 people have reportedly experienced after officials say they ate food sold illegally by a particular group of street vendors. Andy Linton, America's County Environmental Services Department Interim Director, said they were first made aware of the problem months ago. The group of vendors in question is generally set up near sidewalks and in parking lots.

And they move around to different locations.

The issue, Litton says, includes no hand washing or sanitation equipment. They've also found the food not properly refrigerated, specifically the tacos al pastormi, which is usually found on a vertical rotisserie.

We suspect that it's not being held at temperature control overnight.

So I'm gonna take on a little journey right here. This picture we took a couple years ago.

And once again, there's the El Paso store.

And as you can see, this is how it showed up on scene it's already it's coming from somewhere. And it's hanging from the truck and it's bouncing around in the truck when is driving so whatever. It's touching on the sides. It's getting cross-contaminated and put back on the meat. So if that happens, let's say yesterday, and it touched and then they brought it back today, now you're getting bacteria and viruses that are growing 24 hours. Now they touch it. Now it's cross-contaminated with something new. So not a good setup there. And when I mentioned about the commissary commissary once again is a commercial kitchen that is permitted for the proper preparation of food and the proper storage of food, as you can see here in this picture. it's not it's not ideal, you have this right here is a large garbage can. that has some sort of red sauce on it. And we're going to explain what that is in a minute. We find buckets of stuff that we don't know what's in it. You got to remember, when you're looking at these vendors on the sides of the road, there's no bathrooms around at all. And so I did blur out that picture on purpose, but this is what we're finding. There's no hand wash stations. I just did an inspection on Sunday night, and we had raw meat in an ice chest that was dripping into shredded cheese. And you may not think, oh, the cheese is going to get melted. Not necessarily. It gets sprinkled over the top. So whatever was in that meat is now a live pathogen inside yourself. And once again, the way this operation works is you have a house or a warehouse. One of those white vans will pull up, and they will get their daily allotment of the pastor, the sauce, and the various other stuff that's there. And then they go on their way. How long it's been stored there, we don't know because it's not a permitted facility. This one right here should kind of make your stomach turn a little bit. You have, once again, you have some white buckets. We don't know what was in them. This is where the agua fresca is being stored and created. And this is an outdoor outside somebody's house. And I have a feeling this is going to come up again a little bit later on in our presentation today. Once again, this is a residential house that has stuff in the garage and out in the backyard. Right here you have refrigeration that's not working and you have maggots in in the food you have improper equipment and just left out and to the outside, so any vermin insects and rodents can access that food. This one's really hard to see, and if I can highlight it, this is corn storage you look right there there's a little rooster. or chicken right on that right there. Yes. So that's food that you're consuming. Once again, this is an outdoor kitchen, just it's bad. And there's so many things wrong with this thing that everything's stored incorrectly. I mean, it shouldn't even you can't even have a commercial kitchen like this. Once again, we have uh some sort of meat or entrails in that bucket on the left another uh garbage can full of uh some sort of red sauce and then all that food in that other refrigeration unit is out of temperature so merced county Just released actually was a few days after I did my board presentation with Stanislaus County just released the grand jury report and it basically said that Stanislaus County residents are at risk for foodborne illnesses, because of the unpermitted. food vending that's going on. And that unpermitted food vending has been linked from Merced all the way to Monterey. And it's now, obviously, as you see, it's starting to be linked here. So this is moving throughout the Central Valley. Are you able to play this one? And if we are able to play this video, this is from merced county and I did a joint inspection with them to see how their tasks were they don't actually have an official task for how their environmental team works and. This is the same same location that. Our inspection occurred. So what you see is you have two different competing organizations trying to set up in the same place. And so they are fist fighting and pushing each other out in the busy road. Had there been a busy line there, that could have been a child or somebody in there that gets pushed out in that way. We would never allow a permitted area in the side of the road like that. That's good. No, I've showed you quite a bit already. I don't know what just happened. Okay. And a question that I want to ask or just put out to you is, you see this presentation so far and think to yourself, can this happen here in Riverbank? Can we have the same conditions that we just saw? here maybe even a few blocks from here so this is the city of riverbank this is just a few blocks from here this is the beginning of uh A our task force, you know just three and a half weeks into our. task force where we're trying to you know establish good communication line what we're trying to do. Trying to you know write out the memorandum of agreement between the counties and the cities and every Wednesday, we have a meeting. And so we start discussing various things about this task force, whether the team likes the enforcement platform that we've created. And I can't say enough already just for the collaboration. And it's been amazing because you see this, and you may not think it's not that bad. But inside those, there's containers of urine. So you have this outdoor sink right here that has that pipe. And just if anybody knows anything about the California plumbing code, kitchen sink water is considered black water. Same thing as sewage because you're washing various things in there. So that pipe was going directly to the ground right next to that outdoor fryer. And there was so much water on the ground. There was mosquitoes everywhere, flies. The smell was horrible. And then they had plywood put down right over it because there was so much water there. And the floor is stained from grease and the water itself. They're reusing the grease that they're making the Doritos in, you know, the wagon wheels. They're screening those out. This picture right here is, I mean, you would really have to see this in person and smell it. So what they're doing is they're reusing the horchata, the milk, and they're straining out the curdles. You can see the curdles of the milk in that center picture. You can see the screen. Let's see if I can highlight it better right there. And then they put it in that big container then they fill it up in the jugs that you'll see in a minute oh i actually you won't see it in a minute but uh uh you know some of our elected leaders had a chance to participate in this and one thing that you know i i i can't preach enough is you have to see it for yourself You know, I've been doing this for 26 years and I try to talk about the conditions that we see and, you know, or what we smell and to have, you know, some of our leaders actually, you know, put some skin in the game and participate and utilize all five of their senses. And I guarantee you that that's going to stay with them for a long time of what their senses developed. And it's been challenging. And this is just a, I'm going to say it's been a feather in the hat of the beginning of this task force, because even though we might skin our knees, you know, getting to the finish line, we're doing good things already. And, you know, one of the things that this task force is really trying to do is empower each of the cities. So right now, whenever we do an inspection, environmental health has to be there. And we're trying to empower the cities to train their staff and follow a prescriptive protocol. And once this is dialed in, it's gonna be several months from now, I can have you work under my license and make you an agent of environmental resources essentially. And as long as you follow that protocol, You're able to do those inspections without environmental resources being there in person, you know you could always there's two aspects of this that we're looking at the legal of it, and that is. If we have to be there, we can actually just use our phone and do a facetime and we've we've done that already and that has been pretty effective or if the the city can fill all the documentation out upload it to a. a centralized database, and then one of the environmental health staff signs off on it within 12 or 24 hours. That's the ultimate goal. And when you really think about it is, we could have nine cities and the county all operating on the very same night and utilizing everyone's resources together. And by doing that, we're able to really level the playing field, help educate our impacted community and those vendors and really make a difference in what we're doing and a lot of times people don't understand there's more impact than just. The health and safety aspect of it. So I ran some scenarios through Ai. And we see these TikTok vendors claiming that, well, I've seen the line, that people are waiting an hour for a taco, for a dollar taco. And so if you input that into these models, one at $15 a head every time they go in there and get served, and one at $20. So this is only working three days a week, Thursday through Sunday. You can see what they're making. $421,000 at $15 a client or over half a million at $20. That's huge. And I see the revitalization that you guys are doing downtown. And I can only imagine if any of those brick and mortar businesses, the food trucks, would love to have that amount of money coming into their facility, even if you halved it. I'm sure somebody that's running a business is going to love to have $200,000 in their pocket to run these. And unfortunately, this is being lost. It's not being circulated into the community. It's being circulated somewhere else. And if you were to actually see how the operations of these unpermitted food vendors work, you're going to see there's a van set up, the business, and then at some point in the night, A truck or a car will pull up, take the money, and then take back off. And then they just keep doing that over and over again. They work till 2 in the morning. It's advertised. So this is a huge impact on the city. And this is just one vendor. And I know Merced County's DA has already looked at this. And they're looking at several million dollars for the unpermitted vendors in their county. This is a big deal for us. And my ask for you guys tonight is to really think about officially joining this task force and making any edits to our memorandum of agreement and help us make this work. And if it takes us a year, so be it. We want to get this right. and we wanna make it fair, and we wanna make it right for the public. A lot of times the public doesn't get to see everything that we get to see. And it's a shame. And I'll finish up on this last piece. As I mentioned, I've been doing this for 26 years, a long time. And I've always gauged how I'm going to behave or my actions on a food facility based off of one criteria, and that is would I let my baby girl eat this food? And she's an adult now, but the same thing occurs right now. Would I let my granddaughter or grandson eat that food or any of that food that's right there? Absolutely not. So I'm available for any questions.

Thank you so much. I think all of us have some questions or comments here at the dais. But I just want to start by saying that I'm not going to speak to the examples you gave because I think some of the worst that you've seen probably out there in the 26 years you've been working. And I mean, foodborne illnesses, like you mentioned is a scary thing. I was scared to eat lettuce for a week because of a federally regulated mishap that happened. So I know this doesn't just happen locally, it happens across the nation. And I agree with you that a different approach is needed. This isn't a new issue, but I want to, now that you're trying a collaborative approach, I'm hoping that we can reassess the education and the resource piece of it. Really loud out there. And so, I think that we've seen some portrayals of the work that you're doing and residents are angry. We have, some folks have more questions than answers based on the task force enforcement. So I feel like in a way we missed the mark just because that we're lacking communication and information along with the enforcement that you're doing. And so I knew, I do think we can do better and I would welcome the conversation around reassessing the MOU. I haven't seen it yet personally. But I think that would be important. So again, as we take these questions, I do want us to consider that there's another side to some of the, again, the worst case scenarios that you've shown us. And there are entrepreneurs, there are some of our neighbors. that has small businesses that can't exactly afford a brick and mortar, et cetera, within our county as a whole. So again, it's signaling to me, just I've fielded questions, comments, messages the last few days that we do need to work on transparency, communication, and the information, and that should be the priorities of the task force. I know you've mentioned you've approached it that way before, but now with the potential nine cities involved, I think there's a new conversation that we can have. I do have a few questions left, but I do want to default to my council colleagues right now. And before, can I address? Please, yes.

So we are still, education is still number one. And in fact, the two residents that we have Enforced on on Friday, they came into the office yesterday and today I spent an hour with one of them yesterday, trying to get them to understand where you know how to get the permit, what to do, and then the one today we sat down and he left pretty seem pretty happy that my staff is going to sit down with them based off of the type of cart he wants to have, and we're going to, you know, Spend whatever time it takes to get him permitted and any of these vendors we expedite their plans because we want them permitted. So it's still about the education and we're excited about it. And the more people that were able to bring in from these unpermitted vendors. And get them permitted. the better off we are and the more, and once again, that'll be another feather in the hat. So we are excited about that. Yeah.

Thank you. So before we get to questions, I think you should talk about the knock and talk protocol just so people understand the process from pulling up to the door and how you're able to get inside because I think that's an important piece about it. because people are worried about private property rights and going into their homes.

Oh, absolutely. And what we do is we knock on the door and we let them know that we're with the environmental resources, environmental health. It's been reported that they are having an unpermitted food vending going on, whether it's a commissary or their food trucks or food carts are there. And we ask to inspect. This is no different than if... You know, if this gentleman here had a restaurant, we're going to do the exact same thing. And it's written in state law that this is how we are allowed to do it. And I actually wasn't anticipating that. For purposes of enforcement, any authorized enforcement officer made during the facility's hours of operation and other reasonable times, enter, inspect, issue citations, and secure any samples, photographs, or other evidence from a food facility, cottage food operation, or any facility suspected of being a food facility, or cottage food operation, or a vehicle transporting food to or from any retail food facility. And that is Health and Safety Code 114390.

So to summarize that, they're essentially, and in this case last week, they allowed us into the home to inspect. It wasn't that we just made ourselves welcome at the first home. The second home ended up being a little bit different because we had reasoning, but we still only stayed on the outside and we did not enter the home because we did not have permission to go into the home.

That is correct.

Thank you, Rob. So just for some clarifying questions, though. So you were saying the training, the protocol from environmental resources, you said it was for staff, the debutizing. Is that strictly staff or code enforcement, if you can clarify that part?

It's everybody that's in the task force that's going to be part of it. So what we want to do is... you know, have each staff, each city interact with the county staff so we can, you know, let them know the process, what we're looking for, what's permitted, what's not. We're developing a, and it's a horrible word, but, you know, an enforcement whole protocol, you know, things that, you know, checklist you, this, this, this, this, this, you know, to make sure that we're following things through. No different than a, my son is a mechanic for the Air Force, and they have a whole checklist to go through, the pilot has a checklist to go through before they can go and operate a plane, this is gonna be the same sort of thing as they're gonna have a whole checklist and a series of steps to go through before they're able to do these types of inspections.

My next question might actually be for the County Board of Supervisors, but I'll ask you and then if I'm redirected, that's okay. So you guys are going after trucks, carts, roadside vendors, and home kitchen. So AB 626. So the California's micro enterprise home kitchen operations law is under a permit from local health departments. Someone can cook, sell meals directly out of their home kitchen where there's no commissary needed. There's no commercial, no commercial kitchen built out. Was that part of conversations as a task force was being formulated? You know, 19 jurisdictions have opted in. I know Stanislaus County is not currently in but are they considering that or is that something I go to the board to get clarification on?

My understanding was back right when COVID started, environmental health was getting ready to do a presentation on the pros and cons of utilizing a micro enterprise kitchen. And we have not been able to do that yet. You know, right now, you know, my thing is I'm looking at the unpermitted vendors first. And I want to make sure we have a good handle on that. If our board ever wants to move forward with approving the MACOs is what they're called, that'll be up to public vote on that. And there are definitely some pros and cons. And just so you know, everyone's aware, they're able to basically turn their house into a restaurant and serve food, you know, directly to the customer. They can set up tables And they're basically a restaurant in a house. And so you're going to have all the planning components of it, where is that going to fit into that area? Is there going to be issues with parking, neighbors? So there's a lot of aspects to it. And then the other aspect to it is I think it was poorly written. And the reason why I say that is there's a financial threshold. So the MAKOs are allowed to make $100,000 before they're forced to get into a brick and mortar or a mobile food facility. No one's checking that. You know, my staff are not accountants. We're not CPAs. We're not going to be checking their books. So once again, that's going to fall back on what impact is that going to have on the cities and the counties.

Thank you for that. And the only reason I brought up AB 626 right kind of like the mayor said we're looking for we're looking at the other side of this right so this is obviously a need, but we're also looking at the other side and how do we support the, the small business growth and the partnerships there too and so this would be possibly an option for us to kind of look, look at down the road. I know there's also shared kitchens. That's also an option as well. So that's all I have for now.

My question is, as a citizen in Riverbank, how do I go up to a cart or somebody on the side of road and know that they're permitted?

They should have a sticker that has environmental health on it.

And it has a curtain year and everything.

We're actually looking at developing a, A newer type of sticker. That's going to have a barcode on it that you can scan it and then it'll take you to the permitting page, just like what the Modesto be reports on, you know, like this, this Restaurant past the inspection on this day, it'll, it'll be like that'll pull up their inspection report, whether they're legitimate or not. And also part of what our Task Forces is doing is we're creating an an application and app for the governmental agencies to utilize so we can see where the unpermitted vendors are, where the hotspots are, what district are they located in, you know, repeat offenders. I mean, it's going to have all kinds of things in there, and we're in development of that right now.

I just have a question the video that was released recently a riverbank do you think that should have been made aware to the public, or was it released too soon, because I have been getting a lot of phone calls about the video of riverbank.

i'm not sure where's the video okay.

So I. I have a lot of things I want to touch on when it comes to this, but, um, as it pertains to our strategic plan, I know in, um, the, the agenda notes, it said, it doesn't really, uh, directly link to our city strategic plan, but it does. I actually found a couple of pieces within our, um, strategic plan that it associates with. So supporting public safety, increasing code enforcement. We, as a council decided that we wanted to increase code enforcement and, uh, With unpermitted food vendors, I really do feel like that falls into that. And then also prioritizing community education partnerships. And one of the strategies within that was providing community education, health, safety, and resources. So I reached out to the Stanislaus Latino Chamber. You mentioned them as well. They're holding trainings. They're continuing to have those conversations on permitting insurance and taxes. So that piece of it, we're We're partnering with Santa Claus Latino Chamber. We're investing into them. So I really would like to see their presence in our community when it comes to this, not just Modesto. So maybe you could put in a good word. I talked to Johnny, but I did express that interest as well. I also was continuing to look through other pages on social media and Chef John Gardner, who is formerly at Canal Street Grill and Table 26, who owns Farm Truck Catering, He actually came from the brick and mortar, decided to start his own business. And he recently actually just within the last couple of months held a seminar on how to get permitted as a mobile food vendor. So the education is there. We just need to find a better way to get it into the hands of people so that they can see it. I think educating not just on the process, but also the difference in licenses and what those entail, what they're allowed, whether it be Just drinks and prepackaged snacks if they're allowed to have a full service restaurant type meal where everything's raw peel cut what sort of hand things they need that sort of thing. Or if they're just going to do a cottage license and what that permits, because I think the biggest thing that I seen is that. Oh well, how do we get it if we can't cook at home well that's not true, you can cook at home, you can get permitted to cook at home, but please understand, there will be people inspecting your home. to get that cottage license. So I really think that we have failed in that regard, as far as educating people on their options and what they can do. But I also think it's important that people see that these are big fish. We're not, we're not looking for the person, you know, selling a cup of coffee out of their home. We need to educate them, but there's a bigger picture here and there's, When I walked through that home, I remember them saying, oh my gosh, it smells like rotten milk. No, that's not milk, that's recycled lard just sitting. Flies everywhere, you saw rat traps. So I think that the situation that we're seeing is much bigger than maybe people realize. And I did post a video from the sidewalk because that was all public view. I didn't post the details and it wasn't my place to post those details because It was personal. You know what I mean? Like that's somebody's personal property. So it just, we really have to do a better job of educating and I support this. It aligns with our strategic plan that we put together. So I do support this as a council member, a mom, a community member, and a small business owner.

And one thing that we're looking into as well, and we talked about it actually a couple of years ago, And it's really in line with what you just said is creating a place where we have folks from the community that are all together. We're finding ways to get them permitted. We might have some donations where we can help, you know, have a vendor fabricate the carts, you know, right then and there for the folks. And if we can, you know, potentially waive fees on some of the permits and whatnot. I think that's a great way to go and to really get some buy-in from the community.

Sorry, there's a fly. Yes. So there's a lot of things I think that were happening leading up to this meeting. And if you'll that separate the portrayal, which versus what was happening. Maybe it was putting the cart before the horse in that sense, but we're moving on to progressing and having these conversations. I don't expect you to have these answers now, but I'm curious what, Because you've mentioned a lot of potential tools and resources that you want the city to do. You're asking CBOs, NGOs, to non-governmental organizations to do some extra work. And we know these organizations well. They're at capacity financially. And so I'm curious what the fiscal impact of what you're asking is to cities, to the county. And I want to ask the county, to invest in these nonprofits and these non-governmental organizations to do this work alongside us. And now I'm getting ahead of myself in the MOU conversations, but I'm also curious what you've seen through your enforcement, the ratio of human trafficking, gross negligence, et cetera, that you've shown us today versus those mom and pop shops that we're seeing. Oh my gosh, we're seeing And to be able to do a cost benefit analysis of what the enforcement versus the support would look like moving forward so that we can have a full conversation about whether it's a, you know, an MOU with the county, whether we go ourselves to partner with the nonprofit to, to do some of this work, et cetera. So, so yeah, I don't expect you to have those answers today, but yeah. I would like to ask the Council to bring this back as a workshop for us to discuss those different options on just general code enforcement and the approaches that we can take.

Just follow up question, when is this going back to the Board of Supervisors?

September 15 is when we're trying to, you know, I'm going to give an update and also hopefully have the ML, the memorandum of agreement signed.

And this is for staff. So seeing as this is presentation, we're not looking for any kind of feedback at the moment, motion, anything, correct? Okay.

Thank you.

So what is the process as of now? Like how is the MOU conversation happening? With the task force.

But right now. The the two forms of. The documents, you know the mo mo a and then also the the enforcement component of it is with each task force so each city has a copy of it and we've asked the. them to pass it on to their respective council to evaluate and see what's wrong, what's right, what makes sure the hair on the back of your neck stand up, and we want to make sure we get this right. And, you know, if we're not able to get it done in September 15th, that's fine. I'm still going to give the update to the board, but We need to get this right on all cylinders and firing that way. There's too much at stake here.

So question for our staff, when is that conversation happening with MOA?

We do have a draft. I know some of the comments that we have sent is that one of the documents feels incomplete. So the volume two?

Yes.

We were waiting for just additional information on that. Will they come to Council? So hopefully if we get something, then we can schedule it for the August 25th. If not, then the September 8th, which would still be ahead of their deadline. Okay.

And the volume two is more on the procedural aspect of it. You know, the enforcement inspections, the communication, everything that we're doing to further better the task force.

Okay, so it'll be it'll come as a workshop or what it would have to because at that point it would still be a draft document until the Board of Supervisors approves that then it wouldn't be a document that we would bring forward to to have Council consider.

Is there anything else from Council yeah I think when you bring the workshop back i'd also like to see the impact on utilities, I know we talked about the fog program and how that particular home could impact. sewage because that's a hot topic around here. I also would be curious about calls for service or some of these types of within riverbank how many calls for service we're getting when it comes to that. I know it's it should be going to code enforcement, but a lot of after hours activity. So I'd be curious what sort of activity we're seeing here locally that's being talked about and discussed maybe just so we can evaluate according to that as well.

So, you mentioned that law enforcement is often the first to respond. We've both participated in Project Resolve conversations, a few of us here. And I do want to know, you know, the crux of that for four years, over four years, has been that law enforcement, we're working on building that relationship. So, Naturally, there's a distrust that exists. And so it'd be helpful, not that it's, well, I won't say it. So it would be helpful to invest into non-governmental organizations so that they're alongside with that trust that's built. Because we know well these organizations that you've mentioned and others that can help facilitate that process and speak the language as well. Because as we've seen It's a huge Latino community that's here in Riverbank specifically, but across the county. So could I ask just separately in an email, ask about the fiscal impact that I brought before? Thank you.

So on the call, actually, the deputies were present. They were having a lot of good conversation with the tenants of the home. So I think our law enforcement here in Riverbank has done a fantastic job of connecting with our community. They actually knew who they were. I don't feel like there was any sort of mistrust, but I understand in situations where there could be that possibility, but really Rob did most of the work in his team and the deputies were more or less there to keep an eye on the situation and maybe not for the things happening in the home, but around the community just to see the responses too. So kudos to Riverbank police services on that because they did a great job just letting Rob's team do the, do the work. So.

it was it was a good good environment so i can attend to that yes river thinks the best um is there anything else from council we will get public comment um after this we have one more presentation thank you rob um item 7.4 a presentation on city facility fee waivers policy annual update

Michael Patton our director of parks and recreation will provide this report.

Good evening mayor and Council wait for Norman to get the presentation up for us. All right, so I'm here to give you guys a presentation on our fee waivers that we've done for our city facilities in the past year. To give you kind of a background, on May 27th of 2025, the City Council approved a policy, a fee waiver policy for city-owned facilities that gave city staff the ability to waive the facility fees for local organizations to use the community center, Scout Hall, other facilities that we have. The reason being is because we had a lot of organizations that would request these fee waivers at city council pretty consistently. And so I think we try to expedite the process and have city staff have that control. As a part of that policy requires city staff to provide an annual presentation on the fee waivers that were given in the last fiscal year and kind of which ones didn't get approved and kind of give you guys that information. So this is very small from what I looked at on my computer screen, but I'll try to read it over So in the fee waiver policy, US City Council granted the city staff the limit of $7,500 in fee waivers that we can give out. In the past fiscal year, we've given out $6,710, which is a difference of $790. So we're pretty close to our limit. We had a variety of local organizations that applied. All but one received a fee waiver request. The one that didn't was a local sports organization that wanted to use the facility more as a private use. If you look at the, if you could see all the ones that got approved, they were open to the public, like open fundraisers, open to public events. The one that was more just a, hey, this is just our group, we don't want anyone else coming in. And so we denied them, we let them know, and they actually ended up paying the fee anyway, so. We had local organizations as far as the Chamber of Commerce, Love River Bank, Community Praise Tabernacle, the Federal Women's Club, CVCR, Mujeres Mexicanas de la Acción, and we actually had a local organization that did the Juneteenth celebration at our community center that got approved. As far as future policy recommendations at this time with after our first year staff does not have any recommendations to update the policy at this time there's isn't anything that we really want to change or would recommend. Also, not policy states that it will be reviewed after three years of implementation so. Is that is good time for a Council, if you have ideas or thoughts we can share that way, when we get to year three we can start looking into possibilities of those kind of making changes implementation. Um, but yeah, I'm here to answer any questions or thoughts, comments, or what the council might have.

No, uh, does that, are you rolling over from, or does it start over?

It starts over.

Okay. Uh, any questions from council comments?

No. All right. Thank you. Easy.

All right. At this time, members of the public may comment on any item not appearing on the agenda and are and pertaining to our presentations. And within the subject matter jurisdiction of city council LRA board individual comments will be limited to a maximum of three minutes and time cannot be yielded to another person. Under state law matters presented during public comment cannot be discussed or acted upon.

Mayor, we'll start with comments in the chamber. Mr. Francis Guevara.

Mayor and council, thank you for having me. Today, I'm just representing the Riverbank Chamber of Commerce and just wanted to touch on some coming events that we have. So the first one is like our Monthly chamber meetings have changed to the first Wednesday of every night, and it's an open invitation to everybody from 6 to 7 p.m. at Timeless Real Estate. And then there will be a multi-mixer Thursday, August 6th from 5.30 to 7.30, hosted by the Modesto Chamber and the Stanislaus Latino Chamber at the Hotel Bayette on Salida Boulevard in Salida. And also coming up on the 20th Thursday, or coming up on Thursday the 27th, we're gonna be celebrating Red Robin's 20th anniversary mixer. And everybody's invited, including public. I do have some flyers in the back. So from 5.30 to 7.30, we'll be doing some light hors d'oeuvres and also a fundraiser for the Riverbank Chamber as well. The Chamber Court partnered with Stanislaus Equity Partners will be happening every Wednesday from August 12th to September 16th from 530 to 730. So there's more information on that from the Chamber website. And then coming in on September 19th, the Chamber Commerce Committee is having their second annual bingo night at the community center and it starts at five o'clock. Tickets and sponsorships are still available. And Red Robin probably will be catering that event as well. So that's it. Thank you.

Mr. Richard O'Brien.

Evening Council.

I'd like to address the challenges that the bank faces with the aggressive Modesto general plan 2050. But as the general plan has no regard for the definition of boundaries, our current general plan and our intended growth. When Modesto general plan was drafted, it had approval from Danny Jackman. A portion of this general plan was provided to me by Mayor Ted Bramble in 2019. In that plan, Mayor Bramble clearly states It was approved by Jackman. The importance of Mr. Jackman in this process is that he once was a city council member for the city of Modesto and was the swing vote and advocate for developing prime ag land for Modesto. While Modesto has several thousands of acres within their city limits undeveloped, they're looking to expand their sphere and boundaries across the North County corridor, separating Modesto and Riverbank by backyard fences halfway between Oakdale and Coffey. Just imagine the continued development of McHenry to the river using the proven creative vision of tattoo parlors, smoke shops, and massage parlors. I know several Modesto council members who are irate about river banks stealing their sales tax dollars. However, the state finance department shows very little swing in tax over these last few years. You have had read several op-eds stating that Riverbank should never have been allowed to have a Costco, Home Depot, or a Trader Joe's. It is imperative that Riverbank protect its boundaries north of the North County corridor, east of McHenry, south of the river, and the agreed Greenbelt separation between Oakdale and Riverbank. Several landowners south of the current developing North County corridor wants to be incorporated into the City of Riverbank and have their properties developed. Any neglect in proceeding in the immediate future will ensure that my desk will claim that portion as their commercial development for Tivoli. Danny Jackman is very pleased in his input for Measure M. The measure appears to me different than the proposed measure during the signature gathering phase. It is appropriately named Measure M, benefiting Modesto while not benefiting Riverbank. Whether this measure is approved or not, Riverbank must deal with future citizens' desire in developing an upcoming general plan and their participation in future developments. Whatever the outcome of Measure M, a new general plan is required and the boundaries be firm. We have an uphill battle with Modesto protecting himself on Lascaux. and the alternative citizen representative protecting her own property. It is a challenge and we must take it on and the challenge we must win. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Eric Grubeck.

Hello, Council. Hello, Mayor. Today I want to talk about the Unpermitted Food business process. And I want to thank Rob for coming from the county and putting on a great presentation. Really educated me on a lot of things that I didn't know that obviously was going on with unpermitted food vendors across all nine counties. So I really do appreciate him coming across and letting us know that. Now, one thing I've learned sitting here, listening to Rob go over all this is it's a challenge and there's a lot to do. And resources and there's so many different areas where you don't want to upset the good from the bad and making sure that we do have a good education process and finding something that works for riverbank I will say that every city is different in size. Every city has different demographics. Obviously with Riverbank, we do have a very large Hispanic population. So I think we do need to respect that. I am out in our community. I do a lot in the community and I do appreciate the county. I do appreciate them wanting to keep citizens safe. And obviously food safety is very important. It's not something that I wanna take away from what they're trying to do or the task force. But I really hope to see more education with all nine cities talking to each other and coming up with ways to combat this issue. But let's not remember, and this has also not been talked about. We need to talk about the residents that are buying the food. all i'm hearing is the business but those businesses are staying continuing to go because people are buying the food so i think the challenge needs to be is getting more educational resources out to the residents now i'm going to go back to what vice mayor pimentel said there was a video that came out in riverbank and i can say there were a lot of citizens bothered by the video i read the comments um there were a lot of citizens Me including, my wife including, a lot of my neighbors that live in the Crossroads neighborhood did not like what they saw. Now, do I thank the county for going out there and obviously doing what they need to do? Yes, but I don't think it was the right approach. We need to remember that times are very tough right now. People are trying to make a living. Those individuals that you busted, I've lived here almost 13 years and they've been parked in front of two grocery stores for a long time. I think what should have happened is we definitely should have had some sort of dialogue to the community as to what we were going to do. This came out of nowhere. Nobody knew about it. Now, obviously I don't know what the county is allowed to say and what they're not to say, but I think we also need to look at as a city perception, you know, outside of what was confiscated, we need to look at the perception of what went out to our citizens. So I really hope the council can come together and come up with some good dialogue. That's going to mitigate this problem. Thank you.

Thank you. Maria Solis?

Hi, council members. I'm Maria Solis. I'm the branch manager at the Riverbank Library. And I just have a few announcements. These are the programs coming up this month of August. We have Scratch Art on Tuesday, August 4th at 3.30. Friends of the Riverbank Library Wednesday, August 12th at 5.30. Lego Day Tuesday, August 18th at 3.30. Perspective Drawing for Teens and Adults, Saturday, August 22nd at 2 p.m. And the Riverbank Library Book Club, Tuesday, August 25th at 1 p.m. We don't have story time this month. In August, we have a break, but we'll be back on Tuesday, September 1st. All of these programs are brought to you by the one-eighth of a penny dedicated sales tax that supports the library. And that's it. Thank you.

Yeah. And then Laura miss Laura Robledo. I believe she left. Right.

Okay.

So that is all I have for comment cars.

You can come up. Just give your name when you come up. Yes, please.

Just please state your name for the record.

Yeah. Bill Brown, residents of Riverbank for 27 years. Thank you. And so I'm just concerned about the future growth of Riverbank. And first of all, Mayor, City Council members, hello, how are you? And then once again, so I'm just concerned about the growth, being a residence. My kids are all out of the house. But, you know, the future of our city development, infrastructure, for example, I know we're doing a lot of building, you know, more housing and perfect example. And I have not seen as my daughter's down in L.A. with a big pipe busted, if anybody saw that. Well, come to find out that big pipe that busted in LA hadn't been replaced in a hundred years. But I noticed we're building a lot here, which makes perfect sense. So I'm just concerned about us building our infrastructure to make sure everything is gonna be okay to handle the development and the new businesses and houses that are being built. So that was my concern. And another concern I have, and I'm sure it may be an issue that will come up, as you can see, they're building AI data centers. Some people know what they are. Some people don't. Some people don't care. And they're building immigrant Detention camps for the ICE. And that's something that I'm just not with. I haven't heard anything or seen anything in the newsletters about those things. So it would be kind of nice to kind of get ahead of those things before it affects our city. Definitely the AI data center. And I just heard, I could be wrong, that it's probably going to be one built out there by the old munitions plant is what they call it. And I hope that's not the case because whoever does our environmental impact study, that should be just a solid no brainer, but we don't have control of that. I think the city of river bank or the County, whoever controls that has to get ahead of that before it becomes an issue, because that's really a major concern. I can't think of anything else to say. So once again, just to, the building of our infrastructure to make sure everything's okay before we keep building more houses and buildings and all those things. The AI data center, to me, that's critical because I don't think a lot of people know what those are and how it's going to affect our water system. And what's the other one? Yeah, you know, the immigrant camps for, you know, ICE, I really don't want to see one of those in our community. So I think it's really up to you as the city council to ask the people before we start building those type of things and get our input. That's it.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Mayor, that is all we have for public comment in the chamber. And I see no one on Zoom wishing to speak.

All right. Is there anyone else in person? That wants to give a comment. Okay, thank you. We are moving on to the consent calendar items 9.1 to 9.8. Any conversation or consideration?

I want to pull item 9.7. So we can have a conversation about that piece.

Okay. We will consider items 9.1 to 9.6 and item 9.8. So I'll make a motion to approve item 9.1 to 9.8 with the exception of 9.7.

I second. Roll call.

Council member yes Council member Fossey yes Council member call yes Vice Mayor Pimentel yes Mayor Hernandez yes motion carries 5-0.

Okay item 9.7 a resolution to award the bid for the Townsend Avenue overlay project to Consolidated Engineering Inc and authorize execution of future change orders. Who do we have? Did you want to have a conversation about that? I did.

So I had some community members actually reach out to me about this. We had talked about it a little bit during agenda prep. And the biggest question is, why can't we delay it with all of the other construction that we have going on on main thoroughways, not just throughout our city, but nearby cities and just the county project. So I, I wanted to be able to give the public some insight because if there's a couple people with the question, I'm sure there's more than that. It reached me and that's not my area. So I want to get the timeline of the North County Corridor projected reopening where the detours would look like for the Townsend Avenue and why we need to approve this now rather than waiting maybe a couple months until we get closer to the North County Corridor Roselle opening up.

And I'll just also share. So I've also been reached out. That's in my district. And I also asked staff if there was any possibility with all the construction kind of going on everywhere. Can this be delayed? So just love for you guys to kind of share your thought process, if that's a possibility has work already begun there. And I've been seeing the cones up as well. And I have been seeing some work in that area. So just if you guys could just kind of share that information.

So Kathleen Kleeck, who's our Development Services Administration Manager, is overseeing this project. But there is a process to getting to this point that starts with a lot of engineering. With respect to North County Corridor, I can say that the expected opening of Roselle, which won't necessarily impact this project, because a lot of folks are usually probably using Oakdale Road to get to that side of town. on the west side, but those that are getting to the north side are probably going directly to the street that they need to get to, whether it's through Kentucky Avenue or through Patterson Road, because they're trying to get to the state streets. There's a small section that gets to Terminal Avenue to go through, but mostly they're just taking Claus Road all the way through to Patterson to get to that. But Roselle is anticipated. Of course, things can change to reopen in October at this point in time.

So good evening. So with your question, it's a good question. There's construction going everywhere. With the Townsend Avenue project, we already went out to bid. So Once we award it, it looks like they were gonna start probably the first part of September. The project entails a lot of ADA improvements. So new ADA ramps, which the road will be open during that time. The only time the road would close and what we were going to try and do is just have one side at a time and it would only be for a couple of days. So it's just an overlay, just a grind and then an overlay. It's not reconstructing. It's not where we have to close the road for months at a time, it's going to be inconvenient for a couple of days. Like I said, most of the ADA ramps, those are all going to be done on the side of the road, and they're not going to impact the traffic. It may impact some parking for some residents, depending on where the ramps are. But of course, we reach out to those residents and let them know what's going on.

That's fair. I'm glad it's only a couple of days and there's the possibility of having a single lane at least. And just the pain of the traffic as a whole because of construction, it seems like, I mean, I was going down Coffee Road and it's closed Briggsmore all the way to Morris. So just adding to that frustration and if we can help minimize that, that would be great.

That's definitely the goal. And the lucky thing about Townsend is that there's not a significant impact to a lot of the residents because it really is only on the south side of the road where there's homes. So luckily, the north side, it doesn't affect because it's the railroad that's there.

All right. Is there any more conversation or consideration? Mayor, we do have public comment on this item. Okay.

Hi, Council. Hi, Mayor. I was removed from public comment, so I wasn't able to give my comment earlier.

Your hand was lowered when we called for public comment.

I was removed from the space. I was removed from the Zoom.

No one removed you, Diego.

Okay. So I'm going to start my time, three minutes, if you could. I want to offer a direct rebuttal to Mayor O'Brien. Mayor O'Brien and Stacey. Go ahead.

Can you listen, please? Is your comment regarding item 9.7?

The comment is a general comment. Okay. Yeah, it's a general comment. I mean, you can try to stop the comment if you'd like, but again, it's a general comment.

Okay, let us get through this item. And then we will come back to you. We do.

I'm going to go ahead and Mayor, with all due respect, I'm going to take my three minutes. I'm going to take my three minutes. If you want to go ahead and mute me, you can mute me if you'd like. I'm going to go ahead and give my comment.

Mayor, Diego, we're going to finish item 9.7 and we will allow you to do public comment if you give us.

Yeah, no problem. I'll do that.

Thank you. Oh, okay. Give us a second.

Okay, so I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve item 9.7.

For a call, please. That was Council Member Caldwell? Yes. Council Member Uribe?

Yes.

Council Member Fossey? Yes. Council Member Call? Yes. Vice Mayor Pimentel?

Yes.

Mayor Hernandez? Yes. Motion carries 5-0. Mr. Hernandez, if you can please unmute.

Thank you. Hi, Council. Hi, Mayor. I wanted to offer a direct rebuttal to the comment that former Mayor O'Brien gave that this was a Modesto land grab. On October the 14th of 2025, $4.1 million were going to be offered for KSN, aqua aerobic systems, and Brown and Caldwell to advance the wastewater project. That was denied by the council. In September of 2025, Brown and Caldwell came and gave a pitch where it would be five additional years at 6% of increases to the wastewater treatments rates. And that was the way that we would pay for it. That was heard. And on November 25th of 2025, the council decided to go in a different direction. They decided to go with Blackwater Consultant and hear alternatives to the project. That's where we currently sit as of right now. Now it's my understanding that the council has in their possession, maybe the city has in their possession, the Blackwater Feasibility Study as to what it would take to be able to do a wastewater treatment facility. Even while we have that, we haven't presented it to the city. Yet, on August the 4th, we have a planning commission, and the planning commission is for the Riverwalk. Now, the Riverwalk specifically states under Chapter 6 that the only way forward that the Riverwalk could happen is if 640,000 gallons of daily influence of extra capacity is added. And it specifically states that we would need a wastewater treatment facility. Absent of a new wastewater treatment facility with extra capacity, The Riverwalk is not feasible. So why are we doing the Special Planning Commission? The reason that we're doing the Special Planning Commission is because we want to grandfather the project in before Measure M. Mayor O'Brien, Stacey Call, she was the first signature on July 20th. She offered the argument against Measure M where the citizens of Riverbank would take the power to delineate where the city of Riverbank could expand westward. And only under the citizen's approval could the city expand westward if the citizens approved it. this is a blatant lie and the reason it's a blatant lie is that danny jackman in 1990 he established the farm workers group in 1990 and in 2003 and 2004 as a city council member for the city of modesto he himself said urban women lines in 2008 he also advanced an urban light limit line initiative in 2015 he passed measure i which would prevent the city of modesto from going into wood commonly Now he has Measure M, which would prevent the city of Riverbank expanding into Riverwalk. And there's also going to be a new measure, I believe it's going to be called M, in 2028 that would prevent the city of Modesto expanding beyond Kiernan. I just want to put that out there so that we don't have this disinformation that Stacey called and Mayor O'Brien signed on for. This is a direct rebuttal. Thank you.

Okay, we are moving on to item 10.1. This is a public hearing on a resolution approving the solid waste annual CPI rate increase of 3.8% pursuant to the solid waste franchise agreement with Jilton Solid Waste Inc. Mayor and Council, Tammy Alcantor, your Assistant City Manager, will provide this report.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. So this is an annual process that we have done since we adopted our current contract with Jilton. So as stated, tonight is a proposed solid waste rate increase at 3.8%. Um, effective to be effective September first. So Jilton has provided waste management services to the city of river bank for more than forty years. Our current contract began April twenty, second of twenty two, and will expire in April of two thousand and twenty eight. On April 12th of 22, the city held a Prop 218 hearing and the current rates were adopted with an increase based primarily on additional services required by the SB 1383. So SB 1383 was intended to reduce organic waste disposals by 75% from the 2014 levels. Organic waste include green materials, food scraps, and paper. Jilton has adopted the MRF system, which is the material recovery facility to enhance waste management. Jilton facility sorts waste streams to maximize recycling, and they have been able to achieve a 91% organic waste recovery exceeding the state goals. So part of our franchise agreement with Jilton in section 9.1 identifies that the city will adjust the maximum charges made to customers annually. These increases shall be based on the consumer price index for all urban consumers published by the US Department of Labor for the San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, California statistical area. It should be based on the previous 12 months from May to April, and it shall not exceed 5%. So staff has retrieved the CPI index for May 25 to April 26, and that CPI increase is the 3.8%. So this is a snapshot of the increases to our residential. Most of those increases are less, well, all of them for residential are under a dollar a month. And then here is our non-residential CAN services, CART services. And then we have our BIN services, which is primarily commercial. And some more services there, so how will this affect our customers, the typical single family resident will experience an annual increase of $17 and 52 cents, which is equivalent to $2 and 92 cents per billing cycle. So we have six bills per month or per year, excuse me, the seniors eligible for the discounted rate or discipline disabled and will experience an annual increase of $14 and 64 cents or $2 and 44 cents per bill. So tonight staff is recommending that the city council adopt the resolution approving a 3.8% increase in rates for solid waste disposal services or the current contract. And I can answer any questions.

Thank you so much, are there any questions from Council first. All right, this is a public hearing, so we will open it up for public comment. Is there any public comment in chamber? Or we'll go to online second, give it a chance to buffer. Anything in person? On this, yes, presentation. Could you come up here again? Thank you for those online.

Yeah, just curious, Roosevelt Brown, just curious why the rate increases?

Could you talk to the council? Yes, I will answer your question.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, so just curious on why we have the rate increases. Because, you know, I get the justification they want to raise the rate, but I'm just a single person living at home. I barely have any trash that goes out. So it doesn't make sense to base it like that. I get the numbers and I understand how they're coming with that. But man, I barely hardly have any garbage. It's sort of like my water bill. You know, I barely use any water to water my grass, but you're going to keep raising the rate, but I don't get any better service. And I'm, And so that's a tough one. I just don't see the justification, and I get that. Their costs may be going up, you know, because of fuel and all those things. But so does their profit. And I'm sure they're not doing bad. So, I mean, I'm just not with the rate increase, and I totally understand. I probably don't have a say in it, and it might be only $2, but... Why should I have to pay when my neighbor's dumping so much garbage? And how do you base that? And how do you pay? That's a tough one. But I'm not with the increase. But, you know, does the consumer really have a choice? You don't have a choice. You have to pay that amount. What if the city tells them no? Maybe give us the increase next year. A lot of families are hurting, and I know it's an insignificant amount, but get the increase next year. Why do you have to give us that increase now? And that's all. Thank you for being able to comment.

Thank you very much. Is there anything online?

I don't see anyone on Zoom, Mayor.

I have a question about this, actually. Oh, no.

Hello, Council and Mayor. My name is Richard Jilton. I am the owner of the Jilton Garbage Company, Jilton Solid Waste. And I can understand where rates being increased can be a concern to anybody. But unfortunately, we're living in a very difficult time that we went from $3 for diesel to $7 for diesel. Just that alone is more than a 3.8% increase. By all rights, it probably should be 15% because of all the other expenses. I mean, landfill fees go up, cost more to recycle, all these kind of things that take place. We got to compost our organics. That costs more money. So there's a lot of increases that a lot of people don't see. But I definitely understand the concerns that somebody could have because of a rate increase. But if you really break it down, for $9.50, we supply you a can, or actually two cans. We come to your house every week. No matter what the day is, the only days we take off is Christmas, New Year's, Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving. Rest of it is essential. We have to take care of business. So I mean, there's a lot of expense in that. And I can share with anybody, I'm not living in the billionaire's house. So we have, uh, I've been in this business all my life. My grandfather started it in 1947 and we have been servicing the city of river bank said 40, but we've been serving us at, we just hit our 50th birthday. So we are very honored to serve river bank, but it does for $9 and 50 cents. What service comes your house? And does that nothing you can't even get nothing for that kind of money you can't even get ups the delivery of package for that kind of money. So. it's not expensive.

No, but we can talk afterwards. We can have a full conversation. I do want to address some of your concerns afterwards as well. Thank you. Is there any more public comment? Oh, yes. We'll come back in a moment. Is there anything else?

No, Mayor. There's no one wishing to speak.

Okay. We are going to close this public hearing, and I'll come back to council.

So I know the CPI index is recommending a rate increase, and I totally understand what the fuel increase is. Do we track or does Jilton track our actual landfill usage or like what our trash weight is? Because I mean, the trucks are specific to Riverbank. So in that regard to Mr. Brown's point, has there been an increase in our usage of trash? Average, I would say, because obviously there has been because of the number of homes, but I'm just curious because not only do we have the residential increases, but we also have the small business increases too. So Just kind of curious how we're weighing out when it comes to trash, no pun intended.

So we don't have those numbers, but we do track that. We have to pay tipping fees to the landfill and the Stanislaus County actually oversees that. So in order for them to be able to bill Jilton for those tipping fees, they do have to weigh out our trash. So that does get, like I said, we don't have those handy for you today. So we can definitely get that for you. And we can share that with all of council. We get quarterly reports from the county with regards to that.

Anything else from Council? Any recommendation?

Make a motion. We approve 10.1.

And I'll second it.

Roll call, please. Council Member Uribe?

Yes.

Council Member Fossey? Yes. Council Member Call? Yes. Vice Mayor Pimentel?

Yes.

Mayor Hernandez?

Yes. Motion carries 5-0. Thank you. Happy birthday. Okay, new business 11.1, a resolution. Does anyone have them online? All left. Okay. Of appointment of eight candidates to the Riverbank Youth Council for the 2026-2027 term. I don't know if they were going to be coming back.

So Mayor and Council, your city clerk, Gabby Hernandez, is going to present this report. So I guess we're waiting for the candidate.

Oh, thank you for hanging out. I'll wait a little bit.

Well, Mayor, Council, it is my pleasure to present to you the consideration of the 2026-2027 term appointments for the new cohort. Oh, I turned it off. Okay, so what is the purpose of the youth Council city Council approved the establishment of the riverbank youth Council on June 10 2025. To give an opportunity for us to engage in civic leadership provide input on issues affecting youth and the Community. The inaugural cohort completed their term in May of this year and establish their bylaws. For this year, the recruitment was held from April 6th to May 14th. We did outreach through social media, our website, flyers sent to schools and given out through community events. We received a total of 21 applications. 18 coming from Riverbank High School, one from a charter homeschool, one from Enoch's High School and one from Bayer High School. I will preface that the one from charter homeschool, Enoch's and Bayer were all incoming underclassmen. The interview process we conducted interviews on Saturday June 27 27th here in the Council chambers from 8am to 1pm our panel included representatives from each of you that you appointed other than the primary which was mayor. She was on the panel. And then Council Member Call, who is our alternate, could not attend, so I stepped in for her. The representative from Council Member Uribe, Council Member Fossey, and Vice Mayor Pimentel were all on the panel. We did interview 19 applicants. One could not make it. He had a scheduled appointment. which he did not make me aware in time to set something up. And then another one was a no-show. The top eight scoring candidates were selected by the panel and are here for appointing. So the youth council, I'm sorry, the candidates for appointment consideration tonight are all here but one, I believe. Yes. And if you all would like to wave hi when I call your name. Christian Asensio. Emily Ramirez is not here. Adelaine Murguia Zamora. Sarai Gonzalez Villagomez. Can I come back? Oh, she's on her way. Lucia Zamudio. California Huntley. Bianca Vigil. And Saul Zamudio Madrigal. So the next steps for their term. Their term will begin August 2026 through May 2027. Their oath of office ceremony will take place in the council chambers tomorrow at 3 p.m. The newly appointed youth council will work on the following items in the second term. reinforcing the established bylaws, selecting members for positions, attending regular youth council meetings, community engagement and events, fundraising, collaborations with schools and youth-focused programs, and leadership development opportunities. They will be receiving presentations from city staff on the city departments and the roles and tasks that they handle here. They will come before council and give a presentation on what they learned through their term and their experience in May of next year. They are allowed to participate in any other items that are of interest to them or anything that might come up for them that they wish to move forward with. Fiscal impact. The program will be funded through the approved youth council budget adopted by city council in 2025. No additional general fund impact beyond the adopted budget. The inaugural cohort did roll over their fundraise efforts to the second term council. And that was a total of $1,999.92 to help provide the second term members with financial resources to begin and continue the program's success. So the recommendation tonight is that city council approve the resolution appointing the eight candidates to the Riverbank Youth Council for the 2026-2027 term. All right.

Awesome. Is there any comments or questions from council? Okay. Any public comment? Does anyone want to say anything? Or maybe our former chair? Want to share a little bit?

Hello everyone. It was an absolute honor. I was on the interview panel and I did sit through every single interview and we had so many amazing candidates, but these ones were just, you can't beat them. So I'm so excited to see what this upcoming term holds and what they will do and I hope that they continue and form an amazing mission for the Youth Council and that we can see the impact they'll have in Riverbank and building more community and bridging the gap between government and youth.

So much. All right. Anything online? I do have a couple online wishing to speak.

Mr. Hernandez, if you can please unmute.

Yeah. Hi, council. Hi, mayor. Hi, potential youth council members. I wanted to offer you guys a challenge. Take the previous two years of budgets. Take the two years, previous two years of budgets. I would go five, but take the previous two years and grab them. You guys are young. You guys may know a little bit more about this. Run them through a linear regression model in AI. I'm going to repeat that. Run them through a linear regression model in AI and see where the city of Riverbank will be in 23 months. Less. It's actually less. See if this general fund, 101, is going to be insolvent. Now, the city of Riverbank's general fund has a policy of 15% reserves. At the present rate, from what I estimate, is the city of Riverbank will fall below 15% in the next 23 months, meaning the reserve requirement will not be sufficient for the current policy. Not complicated. All you have to do is download the PDF file, run it through the AI regression, linear regression model, and ask it, will this meet a 15% reserve requirement? And that's one of the most important things that the city council has to do is to make sure that the city remains solvent. Not complicated. It's something that a young person should be able to do. And that would be my challenge to you guys. So congratulations on stepping up and serving the community. If you have any questions, my name is Diego Hernandez. You can look me up on Facebook and find me. I'm sure I might pop up. But take a look and see how the city is faring. See if the city is headed in the right direction or in the wrong direction. Now, there are some issues, there are some bridges that the city is going to reach, mainly a tax sharing obligation that the city has with the developer for the Costco. So the Costco development, it has a 50% tax sharing obligation where it shares 50% of the tax revenue back to the city to cover the infrastructure costs. And I believe there's only $700,000 that are left. The city is going to cover that within the next budget. But you have to run the model. You have to see if the city is going to be able to remain solvent and going to be able to maintain that 15%. Right? Because the concern is that the city has been overspending. And then the other challenge that I would ask you guys to do is take a look at payroll. Payroll increases in the enterprise funds. Now, the enterprise funds are water, sewer, more garbage to some extent. Those funds are business-like enterprises where those funds have to pay for themselves. The money can't leave the account willingly. It has to be appropriated in a very specific itemized manner. Take a look at those funds and see how much expenses are leaving those accounts and how much the payroll has increased. Those are some challenges that I would recommend that the city council take on amongst other things. And take a look at those and see how they look. Run them through the linear regression models and see what you come up with. Thank you so much, and I wish you guys the best.

Thank you, Diego. And then I have Mr. Pearson. Can you please unmute?

Yeah, can you hear me?

Yes, please go ahead.

Gary Pearson, Riverbank resident. I applaud the new group of student council members coming on board. It's a tremendous learning opportunity to see how our government, local government works. It will be an experience that you will remember for a lifetime. And I applaud this city council for taking that leap of faith in our young people and nurturing them, coaching them, engaging them, because they're going to be out in the community and hearing about all the different challenges and opportunities. So I applaud all of you for accepting the challenges and the risk and have an enjoyable year. I look forward to supporting you in all those endeavors. Thank you.

Thank you. Mayor, I believe that's everyone online wishing to speak.

Thank you so much. And you were able to witness a lot of what the city council addresses daily. Luckily, we do have a budget advisory committee that is handling the city budget aspect and you have a lot to look forward to. So we're excited to work alongside you this year. But so we are going to come back to council. Is there any more comments?

No, I think the only thing that I expressed it is I was wishing there was a couple underclassmen, but I'm super excited to work with the group that we have. I'm sorry I couldn't be at the interviews, but I'm super ecstatic to be a part of the process with you guys.

All right. Any consideration? Make a motion that we all approve this great new youth council item 11.1. Second. Roll call, please.

Council Member Uribe?

Yes.

Council Member Fossey? Yes. Council Member Cohn? Yes. Vice Mayor Pimentel? Yes. Mayor Hernandez? Yes. Motion carries 5-0. I did forget, sorry, to thank our panel. Deputy Tovar isn't here, but I want to thank, again, Evelyn for joining us, and then our community member, Patrick, for joining us, too. It was a long Saturday. Peter, sorry. Peter. No wonder you didn't respond when I said Patrick. It was a very long day. And I do want to say thank you again for taking the time out of your day to come out here and join us for panel interviews for a very long day. And a lot of, you know, conversation happened after interviews. And it was a very tough decision. And I thank you both and Deputy Tovar, who's not here, for helping us with that. So thank you. And congratulations. I'll see you all tomorrow.

hey thank you mayor i know it's a little out of order but i would love to get a photo with those that are here today just because it's the day of their official appointment they'll take their oath of office later but yes unless you want to do oh yeah if we can do oh okay

picture

Okay.

All right.

Oh.

all right um barbie 11.2 thank you a resolution adopting the city of riverbank sewers system management plan mayor and council your director of public works cody bridgewater will provide this report

Good evening, Council and Mayor. So tonight's presentation is the newly updated City of Riverbank Sewer System Management Plan, otherwise known as the SSMP. So the SSMP is a living document that documents ongoing collection system activities, procedures, and decision-making at the scale necessary to address the maintenance operation and sustainability of the subject sewer system. This plan may incorporate other programs such as the City Spog program and other plans by reference to address short-term and long-term system resilience through proactive planning and decision-making, local government ordinances, updated operations and maintenance activities and procedures, implementation of capital improvements, sufficient budget to support staff resources, contractors, equipment, and training, and updated training of staff and or contractors. So a review and update of the requirements for the newly adopted plan is the State Water Resources Board general order dictates that the SSMP must be updated and recertified every six years, which is where we're at right now. And we have to do internal program audits on a three-year basis to verify compliance and effectiveness. So there's 11 mandatory elements that must be addressed in the SSMP. You have to establish goals for the proper management, operation and maintenance of the system. Identify the staff chain of command, legally responsible officials and responsibilities for implementation. Detail the agency's legal authority to control inflow and infiltration, enforce standards, and require sewer connections. Outline routine activities, engineering data, maintenance schedules, and staff training. Document standards and inspection procedures for the installation, rehabilitation, and repair of sewer systems. Define procedures for responding to, mitigating, and reporting sanitary sewer overflows or SSOs. Describe measures including education and source control to prevent blockages of fats, oils, and grease. Identify hydraulic deficiencies, system capacities, and plan short, long-term capital improvements. Establish metrics to measure the effectiveness of the SSMP and identify necessary updates. And detail the process for conducting periodic internal audits, which are on at least three-year basis to assess compliance. and outline how the agency communicates SSMP activities and spill information with the public and relevant stakeholders. So I'm gonna go through each of the areas and updates that were made to the plan. Not every section required an update. Those that did are outlined in the presentation. So we updated the SSMP to comply with the State Water Resources Control Board General Order 2022-0103, replacing references to the previous 2006 statewide general order. We added documentation and procedures required under the current sanitary sewer system regulations, and we updated audit reporting and implementation requirements. So under our operations and maintenance improvements, We expanded our maintenance program in 2021, 2022. The city entered into a contract with Mobile MMS. We use them as our computerized maintenance and management system. They're the primary work management and record keeping tool. So if we go out and Gareth J. Do our check and pump check on a lift station that's documented we clean a sewer line that's documented we CCTV a troubled line that's documented all in the program. So we can keep track of the records. Gareth J. And what the program actually allows us to do is we can set a recurring schedule. So we can say we want to come back to this, you know, location in two years. and clean it again. So the system will actually send us a email notification when that two years has come reminding us that we need to go out and clean the sewer line again. So that goes along with the updated preventative maintenance procedures and revised sewer cleaning and CCTV inspection documentation and our improved maintenance tracking documentation. That's all within that CMMS system. So you could find the section reference in the SSMP under element four, operation and maintenance program. We updated our overflow emergency response plan. We updated the sanitary sewer overflow response procedures related to the new general order. And we revised our emergency notification and reporting requirements. We updated our response responsibilities and emergency contacts. So as staff changes over, we have to change the contact information that's in the plan. and we added our current state reporting procedures. And so this will be under element six, overflow emergency response plan. The collection system documentation was touched a little bit on in the operations maintenance, but we also were required to update our sewer system inventory. As the city expands, new infrastructure is installed. We have to document this in our collection system in our plan. Council Member Uribe put a little fun quiz out on social media asking how many manholes. That's changed since the report was established. I don't know the exact number, but as we speak, there's new manholes going in the ground. We revised our GIS mapping and infrastructure information. And updated collection system statistics and updated descriptions of city facilities and assets with, you know, the Crossroads West commercial development coming online. We have a new asset there with the new lift station on Oakdale Road. So that was added into this plan and was not in the previous plan six years ago. Our long-term system planning, so we updated our capacity assurance program, revised capital improvement program references, updated rehabilitation planning, and improved documentation of system evaluation activities. and our program administration, we updated organizational responsibilities with the new general order. One requirement was previously to be a legally responsible official, you basically had to be, you didn't have to be a director level or engineer, but now with the new general order, it can only be the public works director or city engineer or something of that nature. So we had to revise that. We revised the staff contact information and then updated our SSMP implementation schedule with the 2006 order. The internal audit was required every two years and an update to the plan every five years with the new order. It's now a three-year audit and a six-year plan update. And that's where we touched on the biennial audit procedures. Now it's triennial. And then we updated the appendices and supporting documentation for the new program elements. So the key takeaways of the new plan, it brings the city's SSMP into compliance with the 2022 state journal order documents, the city's current maintenance inspection and emergency response practices incorporates the city CMMS into the maintenance program. updates system inventory planning and supporting documentation and addresses recommendations from the 2025 SSMP audit and positions the city for continued regulatory compliance and effective management of its wastewater collection system. So just a couple of future key dates. Our next audit will be due August 2nd of 2028 and the next update due August 2nd of 2031. Staff recommends city council consider resolution approving the city of Riverbank sewer system management plan update. And I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Are there any questions or comments from council? Anything?

No questions. I was actually going to mention the game and I was going to actually have you participate in my little trivia game. So best guess that obviously there's a number in the report. What's Cody's best guess for the trivia answer here?

I mean, as of today, Mayor Mrakas, The report was 1259 i'd say we've probably added. Mayor Mrakas, Between 10 and 20.

Mayor Mrakas, There you go so you congratulations, you wanted.

Mayor Mrakas, That your price leader.

Mayor Mrakas, Tomorrow, maybe different.

City Council Chambers, Is there any public comment or online.

City Council Chambers, Mayor there's no one on zoom wishing to speak on this item.

City Council Chambers, Okay, I will bring it back to Council for comments consideration.

I make the motion to approve the SSMP 11.2.

And I'll second it.

Roll call, please.

Council Member Riva?

Yes.

Council Member Call? Oops, sorry. Council Member Fossey? Yes. Council Member Call? Yes. Vice Mayor Pimentel?

Yes.

Mayor Hernandez? Yes. Motion carries 5-0.

I applaud you, Cody. Item 11.3, a resolution adopting the City of Riverbank travel and training policy and rescission of APP-07 Travel Policy.

Your Assistant City Manager, Tammy Alcantor, will provide the report.

Good evening again. So tonight before you is the adoption of a City of Riverbank Travel and Training Policy. Our current policy was dated back from 2006. So tonight the purpose is to establish consistent rules for travel and training expenditures ensure that we are being responsible, stewardship of our public funds, provide clear guidance for employees and improving managers, and improve compliance, documentation, and audit readiness. So why update the policy? update it for modernized travel practices and reimbursement procedures, clarify approval responsibilities and reimbursement expectations, and improve consistency across all departments and align with current operational and fiscal practices. So our major policy changes, we clarified approval process and departmental authorization, We added cancellation procedures to minimize unnecessary costs. We've established expectations for city credit card use. We've added time reporting and work hours section in travel, clarified lodging standards and premium room restrictions, added guidance for rideshare services and modern transportation, added statement reserving city's authority to deny unauthorized or undocumented expenses. And we've modernized our per diem language using the GSA rule mill rates. And then we've updated our rental vehicle provisions and insurance guidance. So the highlights of the policy is budget accountability and advance approval requirements, use of economical travel options whenever practical, clear rules for lodging, mileage, airfare, rental, vehicles, and meals, and identification of non-reversible expenses, receipt, and documentation requirements. So the benefits to the city is this gives clear expectations for our employees and supervisors, greater consistency and reimbursement decisions, improved fiscal accountability, and reduced audit findings and administrative questions. So looking ahead, I just wanted to preference that we will be looking at other policies as we're going through these, one of them being our city vehicle use policy, establishing when city vehicles may be used for meetings, conferences, trainings, and other official city business. PB, Lupita D Montoya, Define which employees and officials are authorized to operate city vehicles who can and cannot be transported in those vehicles and the eligibility criteria for take home bill vehicles. PB, Lupita D Montoya, Oh, that's in there twice established criteria for take home vehicles. based on operation need, emergency response requirements, on-call status and job responsibilities, clarifying our commuting expectations, personal use restrictions, documentation requirements and supervisor approval. We also recently had some items that have come up that we know we need to update our city cell phone policy, establishing that eligibility of city issued cell phones or reimbursement, define appropriate business use and personal use limitations, and address hand-free requirements while driving security of the city information and records retention requirements. Additional administrative policies will continue to review related policies to ensure consistency and accountability. But for tonight, we are asking the council to adopt a resolution approving the city of Riverbank travel and training policy and rescinding the prior APP 07 travel policy. And I can answer any questions.

Thank you. Any questions or comments from council first?

Just one clarification. Tammy, if we can back up to the looking ahead slide right here. So is this one legislation-based or is this just staff kind of just staying ahead of the game?

Staff staying ahead of the game.

Okay.

Yeah. I mean, you know, as you, we have a lot of long-term employees, but we have also seen some turnover. And so reestablishing some of these policies is important. And especially when some of them have been in place for a while, you have to revisit and bring them up to date. Okay. Thank you.

So looking ahead, I like what I see on there. I just wanted to point out a couple of things for the public because I have the packet in front of me. So purposes of this policy references to employee. So when it talks about employee, it's also referring to us here up here at city council. So I want to make sure that the public understands that this travel and training policy also pertains to City Council. And again, the goal is in here and it's 1.4.2. It's we're trying to be responsible and prudent in spending our taxpayers and the city's money. So knowing it can be audited both internally and by external auditors, including the public. So there's a couple of definitions that I would like maybe to be more specific. We've seen what can happen at Stan Cog. We've seen it in a board perspective. a chair, whoever it may be. So I would like better definition on 1.5. The purposes of this policy references to conferences will imply any such trainings, programs, schools, special events, seminars, workshops, consortium function, or meeting that is being attended by a city employee for or on behalf of or representing the city. So I think that we need better parameters on this. I did, and we'll get to that too, is the process in which people check out the car. But I think we need to have a very clear line of what we're designating as a city sponsored event or a city convention or what we're attending. I don't think the car is currently being used appropriately in some of the means as far as what's counting as a conference related to city council. So I would really like to see some better definitions on what we're going to permit in that regard. And then when it comes to the car, just because we're on the topic, and I think that that's the thing that really hits with me being in sales and transportation, the process in which the car is checked out, I would like to see more accountability in that regard because I personally use my personal vehicle. And when I get the reimbursement, it's mileage based. So I think in return, if we're using taxpayer money on a vehicle wear and tear, requesting a gas reimbursement could be a full tank of gas. I think that it should account for the mileage being driven and it should be a reasonable amount of mileage being driven. I don't get paid to drive around to dinner while I'm already at the conference. I'm only getting paid for the mileage to and from the event space. And I think that we should be doing that because even when I file my expenses, they want to know everywhere I went. They actually tracked me on my phone through a car data app. So really getting more concise with the information that we're leaving and just more transparency with the public. Again, I think it's important that we do that. And the reasoning that we're checking it out. We need to have good reasoning as to why we're taking the car. And that's where really defining what a convention would be is important. And then lastly, the biggest thing, 7.2, city employees who attend conferences or seminars are encouraged to bring back all relevant materials from these events and share experiences, materials, procedures, et cetera, with fellow staff. If we're using the car, no matter what it may be, if we checked it out, we should be reporting back what we went to, not necessarily, hey, I checked out the car, this is where I went and this is what happened, but hey, this is what I attended. And that's where the transparency piece is going to be really important. with the public when it comes to employee and city council's use of the vehicles. So that's just what I see.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions from council before I go out to the public? Any public comment or online? Mayor, I don't see anyone on Zoom wishing to speak on this item. All right. I will bring it back to council for consideration.

I would like to make a motion to postpone 11.3 until we see some updates to the travel and training policy, whether that be through a workshop or whatever it may be.

I'll second the postponement.

Roll call, please. Council Member Dieben?

Yes.

Council Member Fossey? No. Council Member Kall?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Pimentel?

Yes.

Mayor Hernandez yes motion carries for one.

Thank you item 11.4 a designation of a voting delegate and alternate to represent the city during the 2026 League of California cities annual business meeting.

So, Mayor and Council, speaking of conferences that Council and staff attend, this is with regards to the League of California Cities annual conference. This year, all of the City Council, myself and the Assistant City Manager, will be traveling to Anaheim, California in order to attend this annual conference. It's an opportunity for us to attend workshops and seminars for items that are city related, items that are of interest to each one of the council members. There's a variety of topics ranging from fiscal sustainability to homelessness to now the big hot topic that Mr. Hernandez mentioned earlier, AI. So certainly we walk away with a lot of information that we can come back and implement, revisit our policies to ensure that we're staying up to date. So part of that is that various cities, along with other cities, at least five, can band together to look at developing resolutions for future policies. that the League would like the legislature, House to look at and implement future policy that can help to guide us. The more guidance we have, the more we're able to rely on that guidance as we're developing our own policies here locally. So in order to be able to have an opportunity to vote on these resolutions that are submitted, we do have to appoint a voting delegate who will be at the Friday morning general business meeting that does run from 8.30 to 10.30 approximately and an alternate in the event that for some reason the voting delegate is not able to attend the meeting that morning. So tonight, the request is to be able to appoint the voting delegate and then be able to appoint the alternate in the event that there is resolutions to consider those will come before the city council in order to be able to provide the delegate and the alternate with direction. so that they vote on behalf of the city. So I'm available for any questions on this particular item.

Thank you. Any questions, comments from council, volunteering?

Nope. So just for some context, so the Riverbank Sister Cities Committee is planning our annual event for the fundraiser for the Student Support Fund, where we're planning to do it again, raise $2,500 for five graduating students that are graduating senior class, So the goal is, again, to do the 2,500. The date of the event is the 25th. We actually have one person coming from Tamasula. So we want to be here early that morning. So I'm not speaking on behalf of John, but he's in the same boat as me. So I will be flying back in early Friday to continue to prep for the event. Host Chuyita, who's going to be coming in as well. So I will step away from the voting delegate for this time.

I will take one for the team. Because last year, as you know, they didn't do the business meeting. So I will go ahead and take it. Thank you, Stacey.

I'll do it. All right. Any public comment by chance? Anything online? Mayor, there's no one wishing to speak on this item. I'll bring it back to council.

So I'll make a motion to approve item 11.4, Stacey as the voting delegate and our mayor as the alternate.

Roll call, please. Oh, sorry. Second. Roll call, please.

Council Member Uribe? Yes. Council Member Fossey? Yes. Council Member Kahl? Yes. Vice Mayor Pimentel? Yes. Mayor Hernandez? Yes. Motion carries 5-0. Okay. Yep.

So item 11.5, the city flag design contest, a review and selection of top three designs for the public vote.

Mayor and council, this item is coming back after an initial discussion in January. And apparently I used the exact same PowerPoint because it still says January 13, 2026. So apologies for that. We are obviously at July 28, not January. So a little bit of history on this particular item. So the city does not have an official flag that represents our community. The flag that you see on this initial slide was developed by some company that creates flags for cities and said, hey, we think this is a good idea. Why don't you take a look at it? So the draft design was prepared in 2002, but never formally adopted by the city. In July of 2025, council member Uribe presented a council referral item to hold this flag design contest. And with the hope that the city flag would enhance our civic pride, our cultural representation, economic potential, community connection, our legacy and modernization of our city. On September 9th, council provided direction to move forward. We also adopted the guidelines. And then January 13th of this year, we did our first round review of the submittals. Council requested reopening for a second round. And so we are here back to you today with those first round submittals, the new second round submittals with a goal, hopefully, of picking top two or top three that we can put out for a public vote. and then be able to bring that back to council and award the final winner. So just to quickly give folks an overview of the design rules, we ask them to keep it simple, easy to draw, easy to remember, be symbolic to Riverbank, show what makes our city unique, use two to three bold colors, high contrast, no gradients, no text or seals, so that the flag speaks through symbols and not words. To submit original artwork only, it must be their own work, no clip art, AI-generated images, or copyrighted designs. So round one. So I'm going to go through each one of these, give a brief description that the artist provided with regards to their design, and then... After we go through them, we can walk through Council's. Boston Navarro. His flag design name is Riverbank Flag. His flag shows the main things that make Riverbank special, the beauty of the city. And then there's this trees because Riverbank has many of them, especially near the parks. So the trees show how green and full of life Riverbank is. So that is design number one by Boston Navarro. Could we pause real quick? The ways and how much they represent our county. The flag design features a water line or a small wave representing