City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome everyone to the August 18th, 2026 Salinas City Council meeting. We'll go ahead and call the meeting to order and we'll turn it over to the city clerk as we routinely do.

This meeting is available in Spanish for members of the public in attendance and on Zoom. Translation devices can be obtained in the foyer. This meeting is available in Spanish for public and on Zoom. Translation units can be obtained at the entrance of the round table.

Okay. Zoom webinar participation is available for members of the public. The Zoom webinar ID and link are available on the posted agenda on the city website. This meeting includes teleconference participation by Councilmember D'Arrigo from the City Hotel My Polish is not . I'll let Margaret provide the exact name of the city, but it's in Poland. And we are providing that notice pursuant to California Government Code Section 54953. And with that, will everyone please stand for the pledge?

for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right.

Thank you, everyone. Let's take the roll.

Council Member Barajas. Present. Council Member Barrera. Present. Council Member DiRigo. Council Member De La Rosa. Here. Council Member Salazar.

Here.

Council Member Sandoval. Here. Mayor Donahue.

I am here. Thank you. All right. Very good. And we have one city of champions recognition this evening. We weren't able to catch them at the end of the school year, but hopefully better late than never. We wanted to recognize the Alice Owl School girls softball team who made it to the state finals and acknowledge their good work. So if they, I'm gathering they're in the house, but if somebody would like to come up and quick recap of their terrific season and then we'll recognize the group. And it could be, some of the players would be perfect. So welcome. Congratulations. And can you tell us a little bit about your season? And then we'd like to acknowledge you with these certificates and take a photo. And then I'm going to guess you either have a sport or homework awaiting you. So anyway, can you tell us about your season?

Is there a coach? Hi, I'm the coach. My name is John Nieto. The girls tied for a league championship with Carmel in the Mission Division. And they won CCS Division I. And I believe they won two games in the NorCal and made it to the finals and lost 4-2 in the championship game. So great season.

But they made it to the state finals. They did.

They did.

Congratulations. And anybody from the team want to say anything? You're not obligated, but if somebody would like to otherwise, we'll be happy to. Is this the team? Who's here? Because I'm going to imagine you had a few graduates.

Actually, we only had one graduate. Oh, OK. Unfortunately, she's not here. We had a very young team. There's only four girls here, so I'd like to introduce them.

OK, could you please? And then we'll recognize them.

Right here is Abigail Walker. She was Pitcher of the Year in our league, first team All-League as a freshman. Had a phenomenal season and just has a very bright future in general and in sports and just all around great kid. Good job.

Very good. Abigail.

And then next we have a sophomore, Vivica Castaneda. Had a great season. When she got her opportunity, she did very well. Proud of her and looking forward to having her back next year. Next is a freshman. Well, she's a sophomore now, but she was a freshman during the season. She made second team all league. Is one of the main reasons we won in CCS in the finals. She had a, I believe a two run home run to put us up. So just a great season overall and looking forward to having her back as well. Chloe, we'll be right back. Next, another freshman, I believe she caught pretty much 95% of our games, had a great year, hit the ball very well, Sierra Manu. Good job. Next, I'm sorry, this girl makes me laugh a lot. I don't know why. is Aaliyah Ruiz. She's a junior, now a senior. Second team All-League was our shortstop, and third baseman, had a great year, and also looking forward to having her back as well. Aaliyah Ruiz. And next is our other pitcher, who was also first team All-League, had a great season. We were successful because we had two good pitchers, or two great pitchers, should I say. Nevaeh Lopez. Great job, Nevaeh.

Well, I'll tell you what we're going to do. We're going to do a photo op. They didn't give me this in the right order. It's hard to sort them all out. So for the purposes of the photo, we'll have you each holding up a certificate. And then, Coach, I'm going to let you sort this out. OK. So come on up to the. Oh, they keep coming.

I have a couple more girls I'd like to recognize. OK. OK. Another freshman. had a phenomenal year, just got better as the competition got better, she got better. It's safe to say she was probably in the post-season, she was our hottest hitter and she really carried us. Brooklyn Smith. Next is her older sister, who was our league player of the year, offensive player of the year. I don't know her stats off the top of my head, but I know she hit close to, I believe, 600. Just had a phenomenal year. And she's such a great defensive player, but our pitchers were so good, not too many balls went out to center field. But when they did, she gobbled everything up. Just great job. Good job, Michael. Thank you. And I also like to recognize my coach. He helped me out a lot. He's a great coach, good with the girls, and just a good guy to have around, Sunil Smith.

Now since there's more here than I thought, why don't we, I'll call them out and you can line up. So Abigail, come on up. Then you can stay. And they don't bite. You're welcome. All right.

Is Sunil here?

OK. Oh, OK. There we go. I was so concentrated on the girls. OK. All right. Well, come on up. Alvarez, or is Alvarez here or not here? What's the person? Alvarez, Natalie. Natalie. Natalie? OK. Not here. Okay, Vivica, Castaneda, I think that, yeah. Ileana, are you here? No. Nope, all right. This is, okay.

Yeah, Nicole. Not here, not here. Okay.

All right, Aubrey.

Nivea Lopez. Yeah.

All right, Chloe. And I think, Coach, it's you, and I've got a cue. All right. The Trojans are in the house, right? Congratulations to all of you. And now you move forward, and you're in front, and then we'll be the counsel, we'll be the managers, we'll do it quickly.

I am there in spirit.

Smile. I'm a Trojan. Thank you.

OK, we are now open. We are getting ready to be open. We are now open for public comment on items that are not on the agenda and that are in the city of Salinas' subject matter jurisdiction, comments on consideration, public hearing items. And the consent agenda will be two minutes per speaker. And with that, before we get started, each person who addresses the city council during public comment She'll do so in an orderly manner and she'll not make any personal slanderous or profane remarks to any member of the city council, the city staff, or the general public. Any person who makes such remarks or uses threatening personal or abusive language or who engages in any other disorderly conduct which disrupts or disturbs the meeting may be asked to leave the city council chambers. And with that, we are open for business public comment.

Karen Cameron, Concerned Salinas resident. I was here a week ago talking to you about my concerns about pesticides near the schools, urging all of you to sign up on spray days to get your own notifications to verify your own data. I'm just going to tell you the tale of one school, a school that happens to be within a mile of your home, Mr. Donahue. Seven applications in the last seven days. 6 p.m., 8.12, 7 p.m. 8.12, 6 p.m. 8.13, 6 p.m. 8.14, 12 a.m. 8.15, 6 p.m. 8.17. There were eight applications wrapped up in that blanket one. And last night, 8.18 at 1 a.m., another methamil application within one mile. of University Park School. I want to warn the public, there are three upcoming within the next couple days. Tonight at 7 p.m., methamilneudrine, and then they're switching to a new drug, the one they loved last year, chlorpyricarin and telone-1-3-D. It's back on the scene, 5 a.m., 8.19 and 8.20. Now, what can you do when you're a person like me living in a neighborhood that's just so inundated? I mean, it's happening 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. I could try to work around those hours, maybe. The notifications say it could vary within four days. I really need to walk my dog, so it's concerning. But one recommendation is to keep your windows shut, keep the kids and the pets indoors, wipe the toys, et cetera. Now, how do you handle that at a school? And I will tell you, at McKinnon Elementary, they had almost as many. And there are two upcoming applications. They are 8-18, 7 p.m., methamelanate 8.25 a.m., chlorpyracrine 1,3-D. Now, chlorpyracrine was used in World War I as a choking agent. It's banned globally as a chemical weapon and banned pesticide in the EU and 40 countries. 1,3-D, interestingly enough, is included on California Prop 65 list of chemicals known to the state to cause cancer. And yet, they continue to use it because they sided with the chemical companies. I urge you to request one-quarter mile buffer zones around the schools and check out spray days for the notifications for yourself.

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. My name is Kimberly Bryant. Good after Eve, everyone. I'm here today to invite you out to walk for Jesus. This is the sixth annual walk for Jesus that we're having. We're taking it to South main street this year. We'll be meeting at 72 San Joaquin street that St. Ansgar's church. However, this is not a church affiliated activity. It's non-denominational. This is for the body of Christ, for anyone who has a heart for Christ and a love of Christ to just come out and walk and celebrate him. This will be August 29th. We'll be meeting there on San Joaquin at 9 a.m., starting worship about 9.30, 10 a.m. We will be hitting the street, and I welcome you all to come. I am asking you, my friends, that you be joined together in perfect unity with one heart, one passion, and united in love. Walk together with one harmonious purpose, and you will fill my heart with unbounded joy. Thank you.

Thank you. Good afternoon. I want to be a community. Mr. Donahue, I do appreciate you trying to reach out to the public all of a sudden. I wish you would have that sooner. Pesce Montabella, we missed you the last almost two years. You never came out and took care of the stuff we needed done there. But you're on social media talking to every small business person you can talk to, which is, I mean, really? Now? Oh, it's re-election. That's sad, Sir Donahue. Andrew, thank you for all you do, man. You step up and you do it all the time. I like that. Everyone else up here, step it up, man. Don't just do it when you're getting re-elected. That really bothers me that you do that. And then you put one of your signs over here, and you blocked the road there. Someone had to tell you to move it. Out there on Williams Road, do you remember that sign? And you have another one right there, right across from us in Montevideo. You need to move that sign. You're blocking traffic. I mean, I don't know if people are going to vote for you in Monta Bay. I know I'm not. I mean, God bless you. I tried to make my peace with you, but I can't re-elect somebody who's not going to help the community. We need people up there that are going to help the community. And if you're not, please leave now. Have somebody else take the reins, and let's make Salinas better and great again like it used to be. Let's do that. Let's take care of the people that live here. Not the people that put money in our pockets. No disrespect to anybody out there who's got money coming to you. I know I don't. And for all the guys running, God bless everybody running against you guys. Because you know what? People are tired of it and they want to change. We want to change, Mr. Donahue. And hopefully, there'll be some new seats up there. I hope you stay, Andrew. But you know, everyone else, God bless you. Hope you guys make it. Stop doing that, Mr. Donnie. Stop trying to use propaganda to get elected like that. That's wrong. You should do that at the beginning. You should be that leader from the beginning, not just now. Since you started, you should have been that way. I don't know why you're trying to do it now. It's a slap in the face of the people in Salinas. And these poor guys, they never had your attention. They're excited. Not me, man. God bless you. Have a great day.

How's it going, Council? Daniel Munoz here. I just want to make a suggestion. I want to suggest that we stop doing the sweeps. I mean, we're kicking our homeless residents all around and with nowhere else to go. And it doesn't make any sense. The whole town is flooded with our people. They have nowhere to go. but you guys voted to make it tougher for them. You gave them less time to get their items. And for the people that don't know what the sweeps are, the city's going around and they're basically stealing our homeless residents' property. What little that they do own. Now we have money for a response team, right? We have money for a lot of things around here, but we don't have any money to just leave them alone, which would cost nothing. It doesn't make any sense. We're just harassing them. We're pushing them to the train tracks. A couple of them have died on the train tracks. But I think that's a part of the plan, right? The city is not responsible for what happens on the train tracks. I mean, this isn't just unique to Salinas. This is happening all across California. This is a strategy. It's a disgusting, sick strategy that should not be taking place anywhere. And the city of Salinas has the power to stop the sweeps and stop harassing people. We should also give them encampments, places for them to go, so they're not spread throughout the whole city. It benefits everybody. It'll benefit business. It'll benefit the homeowners and renters. Everybody benefits. They benefit, we benefit. Just doesn't make sense to keep kicking them around like they're nothing. It's wrong. It's wrong. It doesn't make any sense to me. The richest state in the country, right, in the world, we're rich, but our people, we're treating them like they're nothing. So I please urge you, stop doing that. Give them somewhere to go. Stop the sweep.

Good afternoon. Antonio Ravago from Montebello. I was going to make a real nice long speech, but I decided to change my attack today. I just want to remind all those poor people that are working, cannot attend the meetings, that elections are coming. And all the requests that we submitted years ago, starting with the spraying on the fields. Mr. Barrera, you remember the meeting we had at Cesar Chavez? that was supposed to be taken care of, what was it, 10, 12 years ago? And how many sprays are we getting this month and next year? Then our light poles, we're counting 19 poles with no lights. It's been five, six years. The water hydrants, three years. The roundabout pole, we're still waiting for all that. So I like to remind you that elections are coming. And we like to invite the people that cannot attend the meeting and speak to vote for whatever needs you need. And may the West be the best candidate win. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Carlo Rodriguez. I'm currently a senior at Alisal High School. And I'm currently a Soklovia Salinas intern. Today I'm here to extend an invitation to attend Ciclovia Salinas. Ciclovia Salinas is a one-day open street event where Alice House Street is transformed into an open space for recreation, music, cycling, and resource booths. It will be on Sunday, October 4th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The goals of Ciclovia are to promote health, stimulate local economy, unite the community, change the narrative, and develop youth leadership. And there are more than 70 youth from several high schools that are getting together to plan this family community event with activities like running, skating, aerobics, roller skating, walking, biking, Zumba, and yoga. Being a part of Ciclovia has brought me closer to the community and has given me the opportunity to help promote small businesses by encouraging participants to buy from local businesses around the route to join the raffle and reward to possibly buy to earn their gift cards. We are currently looking for adult volunteers 18 years and over and are wondering if you can all spread the word And if interested, please look us up on Instagram or our website at secloviacelenus.org. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Good afternoon City Council. My name is Lucero Canseco and I am a senior at Alyssa High School. I'm here today to talk about the importance of Ciclovia Salinas in our community and the need for investment from the city of Salinas. Ciclovia Salinas has been part of Salinas community for the past 13 years bringing joy, developing new youth leaders, promoting physical health, uniting the community and boosting local economy and changing the narrative of Salinas. Building Healthy Communities Monterey County founded this event 14 years ago with the youth from the east side of Salinas to change the narrative of the youth and have an open space for everybody in the community to enjoy. For the past 13 years, there have been hundreds of youth that have planned this event and felt connection with Salinas that didn't have before. For those that are not aware, Ciclovis Salinas is not only an event that happens yearly, but it's a movement that was created to provide a space for youth to engage in civic movements. It was the support system outside of school and home. Investing in a community event like this will allow Ciclovia to enjoy more unity and support families who are struggling, but will now have access for the resources and organizations that create a stronger bond. And we are also changing the way people see the east side of Salinas and Salinas youth, with a vibrant place that supports youth leadership. The members of City Council, we're asking to back up Ciclovia Salinas with the significant financial funding. While the city covers costs, we are requesting our investment in Ciclovia and the youth will build an investment to safety and leadership development of Salinas' future. To our community organizations, we need your continued partnership and resources to expand our outreach and push for a healthy community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name's Pastor Henry from Victory Outreach. I was there at the groundbreaking of the Gaborland Park And it came to our attention that maybe we're requesting to change the name to Pastor Herb Valero, which gave his life to the city for 30 plus years, changed a lot of lives, opened up a rehab home for men and women with no cost to come in. I was one of those guys 40 years ago. I was in Chinatown slamming heroin out there, messed up, but God changed my life. And he was a great part of my life, changing me. And with that, you know, it's just, you know, we honor a lot of people in our city, right? But we never honor the man of God who gave his life to our city and to our families and to his community. He sent out many churches in Monterey County. And my request is just to drop a line that perhaps we can change that park to Pastor Herbalero. Actually, he was there not even a block away. The church was there when I was there for about 20 years. And then we got the church at San Juan Gray Road. But it would be nice to recognize, we recognize a lot of people in our city, but when was the last time we recognized a man of God? that gave his life and ended his life witnessing to a man that was psychosis and ended his life. And so my heartfelt is you would take consideration and think about just a park named after her beloved. That would please the family. Sister Margo and the family, and also a lot of us that attended his church. And I still attend the church. And it would be a great honor to have that done in his honor and how he lived his life and how he finished his life. So I thank you with that, council people, and God bless you, man. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, Wes Wyatt, Salinas-Monterey County Homeless Union Co-President. Calling today because another sweep is happening. We don't even know when, you know, this was posted 8-7. There's another one posted 8-14, and there is a 10-14, that's a five-day window, and again, 17-21, that's a five-day window. So how's anyone supposed to prepare, say you're being legal, yet you're given a five-day window, and there's no way that I can try to be there at the point to document and observe the way the city operates. But you want to know where the homeless money spending is going, it's right here. To Republic, to Smith Inn, right? To the police. to the city administration, parks department. Everyone's getting paid. Nobody's being placed. The same people that are signing for services are still being driven out. Why? Because they don't have a lease. That's really what it comes down to. Can we make money off of these people? We can't. They're not gonna give me money off of whatever kind of program or Section 8 or something, so we're gonna make money off of them. And that's what you've been doing. Rich in land, rich in values. Are you sure of that? You don't seem to be. You know what you act more like? You act more like Sodom and Gomorrah. Ezekiel 16, 49 to 51 describes the sins of Sodom as pride, gluttony, laziness, and a failure to help the poor and needy. That's the reason for their destruction. And you're going along the same path. When are we going to repent? Are you Christians after all, or are you just team Christian? Because you're not following Christ, no matter what you're doing. This administration, policy-wise, you make sure to break people into the iddiest, bittiest, tiniest bit and say, well, now that you're completely broken, maybe we'll help you, but only if there's a program for you. Otherwise, we're going to drive you into the dirt, send you to the meat grinder, and turn you into that red carpet. Why do you think that red carpet's so red? All the bloody bodies that you put under it to walk all over them. Stop the sweeps, you're killing people.

Good afternoon, name is Eric Peterson. As supervisors last week, we were the subject of a somewhat impromptu discussion about homeless. It seems that not only does Salinas lead the county in homeless, our lead is increasing. That's not a good thing. What we need to do is start working on this. And the first thing to do, I know that you're not at all capable of this, but the first thing to do is care. Thank you.

Good evening, council. My name is Salvador Tavares. I'm from District 1, and I just want to personally tell Barajas, like, I really want you to engage more people from the east side because we do count on you to make the right decision on things, especially, like, the homeless. We would like to know, like, what's... Like, what are your approaches? I would personally like if you connect more with us, because I live in, like, by the money. I always lived there, like, almost my whole life. But I would like to see more like you making efforts to engage people. And that's all. Thank you.

Thank you.

So good evening, Council. I'm Eloise Shim. So I just wanted to, Margaret DeRigo at the last meeting, she did have a moment of silence for my neighbor, James Jones, who passed away. And he's right in this neighborhood. He died on July 4th. And he was my neighbor. He was my next-door neighbor. Our bedrooms shared. So, you know, I really miss him. He always said, Eloise, have a nice day. And I think that we just need to be reminded to be kind to each other. Say, have a nice day, and not attack each other, and say all these unkind, mean things. I know this nomination, these The season for electing new people is coming up in the campaigns, and part of the strategy is to put the other person down. But don't do that. Just say why you think you want to do something good. Don't be attacking people. It's not nice. I think a lot of problems can be solved just by caring about people and just treating them kindly and not Not talking badly. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, city council. My name is Lisa. I'm gonna bring up the topic one more time. I don't believe flock belongs in our city. I've noticed there's some posting about border patrol in the Monterey area, which means they'll most likely be targeting the city of Salinas. I want to make sure that you guys know that Salinas Police has yet to make much announcements over Flock. I also would like to just clarify that I'm not anti-Flock. I'm anti-LAPRs, meaning I don't want you to end the contract in 2028 and just make another one with Axon or any other companies. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Any public comment on Zoom? Colleen?

Yes, thank you. Good evening, council members. I'm here to speak today about the sweeps that are being conducted regularly at the Moon Gate building area between the closed shelter and Dorothy's Kitchen. Dorothy's services are no longer open to the community every day. It's only open now by appointment and workshop only. And so these encampments, they have to look at this empty closed shelter right on the corner where they are. I was there today and this community was working hard to keep the area clean and organized. People were taking on different responsibilities and they did it without any services, city supplies, water or garbage receptacles from the city. These are like refugee camp conditions and this community is targeted over and over again. You post a 48-hour notice with a five-day range in the area, then another 48-hour notice for the next five-day range area right after that. How are these people supposed to function under these conditions? They can't leave their belongings for fear of losing them again. They can't make appointments. They can't reach for support resources. You even threw away a woman's wheelchair, and this is inhumane. At a minimum, please put a dumpster out there. There's room for one. Give these residents that much. They are residents. And stop the sweeps. You already know what worked during COVID. Support this community. They're people of Salinas. Walk for the homeless and downtrodden. That's what Jesus did. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, Sophia.

Hi, good evening. I just wanted to reach out this evening in regards to my complaint that I had a few weeks ago regarding the Rodeo committee. I've done some severe research regarding that, and I've come to find that in 2010, when Donahue and De La Rosa were on that committee, they had an obligation to bring to the city that the Rodeo Committee was in breach of their lease by not reporting within 30 days after an event. Since you guys have been on council again, you guys have yet to do that since you've been on council again. I'm asking again for you two to step down because accountability is coming. You guys had Andrew Sandoval step down, Mayor. You did that. You put Mr. Barrera there only to probably ask the same question. You gave him a better platform. And for what? For us to be told the same thing? You are a mayor of division and division isn't of God. God is a God of order, not a God of segregation or separation or special interests, which is what the majority of this council is about. I want you to know, and I'm publicly stating, accountability is coming. So buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Okay. Thank you. With that, we'll go ahead and close public comment and proceed to President .

I would just like to bring one matter to your . If we get a map of Salinas, the first map of California, and you get the streets, The original streets, like North Main, South Main, East Dallas South, West Dallas South, whatnot, they're actually made by the Aztecs. And if you look real closely, even at the concrete here outside, you could see the Aztec hieroglyphs in each square. In the corner, you can actually see, I saw one, maybe about like five minutes ago, there's a snake. And it's all made out of orange rock. If you look really, really close, concrete doesn't have orange rock, and neither does asphalt. And if a rock is orange, it has a high gold content. And I may not be right, but I know I'm not wrong. And it's outside. You can see it for yourself right now. If I could just speak with your secretary or somebody that that knows how to approach the situation, this can change the world. It really can because it's not only the sidewalks, it's the streets and even some buildings that are made out of gold. That's not a rock. I don't have a clue to clean it, but I guarantee you that this has value. All right, thank you. So if there's any possible way that, my name is Rudy Salas, and I'm transient, so I really don't have any, but there's my donation to the city. Okay, thank you. Look into it, please. Thank you.

All right, public comment is closed. And we will receive an update from the Salinas Youth Council. So we'll have two presentations. These are not, there's no action required. This is, they're simply presentations to the council and then questions, comments would come from council only. So, Youth Council, you're on.

All right, good evening, City Council. This is our City Youth Council for the 2026 to the 2027 year, and my name is Andres Martinez. I'm from Alisal High School, and I'll be taking on the Vice Chair role, and joining me here today is... Arjun from North Salinas High.

Hi, my name is Natalie Morales, and I am a current senior at Ever Alvarez High School, and I am this year's Youth Council Chair.

And to begin, we'd like to talk about the previous city council meeting where you guys were able to extend the tobacco ordinance, which the youth council is in strong support. The youth council asked that staff could also consider the proximity to daycares and schools, but also being able to evaluate the impact to small businesses and the policies that might be put in place regarding transferring of tobacco sales licenses when a business is sold. Additionally, as we enter our second year on the Youth Council, as many of you guys know already, there's been several incidents that have occurred across school campuses here in Salinas. So we really want to reinforce and want to continue our mission of addressing youth violence. And we asked the City Council to partner with the Youth Council in developing a strategic plan that empowers young people to help prevent and respond to violence that's arising in our community. Thank you very much.

Hi, so today I want to talk about both the Sherwood Rec Center and the Measure G Adult. So for the Rec Center, I think it is very important for us to continue supporting more recreational spaces for youth. And I'm looking forward to seeing the project open. I know it took a while, but we're genuinely so excited to see more spaces like this open to our youth. For Measure G, I really appreciated how the information was broken down in a way that was easy to understand. I think we should continue to share budgeting information in a clear and accessible way so that many people can understand what is going on with our community's money. Thank you.

Here are some general updates. Over the summer, we had our youth council summer retreat and team bonding and started putting together our work plan for the 2026-2027 year. And we received a presentation regarding the Williams Road project and provided ideas and feedback to the consultant on the need for a robust outreach strategy. Lastly, the Youth Council hopes to see everyone at the Closter Park grand opening on Saturday, August 29th from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. All right, hold on just a sec. All right, anything from Council?

Just congratulations to the new leadership, and I'm always open to collaborate to discuss any issues that the Youth Council wants to bring forward. Okay, thank you.

Tony?

Tony? You know what, I'm very amazed at the maturity of your information. I really mean that. And I know we discussed with the city manager, the things that you're bringing forward, we wanna make sure that we implement them. And I know Ms. Sophia Rome is all for that. And thank you for your dedication. And we will see you at Cluster Park. Thank you.

Just very briefly, thank you for the presentation and welcome to the new leadership.

YES. I ALSO WANT TO THANK ALL THE NEW REPRESENTATIVES. I JUST WANT YOU TO ALL KNOW HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO REPRESENT OUR LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS AND HAVING BEEN A FORMER TROJAN AND VIKING, I'M ALWAYS COMPLEXED OVER WHICH SCHOOL IS BETTER. I'LL LET YOU GUYS HAMMER THAT ONE OUT. really value all the work that you're doing. Local government is very important and quite often sometimes the most simplest solutions comes from something written on a napkin. So I just want all of you to know that we continue to value your work and feel free to reach out to us individually as council members. We're here to listen and act on your behalf. Thank you.

Thanks, Gloria.

As council members, you've heard we're here to listen and we're here to implement your ideas. And we're also here. You know, you need our help with the anti-violence and you can contact me. And yes, we can all do our part to support you and to make our city safe. And we're very proud of you. Thank you.

Just to echo my colleagues, and as I recall from a long, long time ago, the beginning of school years are always exciting. And so it's great to see a new group. And we'll look forward to hearing from you throughout the year. So thank you. Well done. And obviously, we'll see you again. Thank you. All right, with that, we are going to hear from Monterey One Water. I see Paul Schuto is in the house, so you have, you know, I'll show my age and some of my preferences. You have the bridge.

paul welcome thank you mayor and council members my name is paul shuto i'm the executive officer at monterey one water and uh so i appreciate this time just to give a brief update of some of our priorities capital projects coming up and some rate information i definitely see your agenda so i'll try to make this as brief as possible thank you um So I think it's great to be back here, number one. I think most of you know who we are and what we do. We're hopefully just here to help the community providing resilient water solutions any way we can. As you may know, we own and operate some wastewater conveyance throughout northern Monterey County. We also have a treatment plant, which you see under wastewater treatment plant right there. that treats water to a level that is safe to discharge into the bay. However, we've added some other things over the years. Recycled water plant for agricultural irrigation has been operating since 1998. Recycled water facility for potable use, so a highly intensive pure water facility. Started in 2020, expanded last year, producing recycled water for drinking. And we're in the middle of a renewable energy project because obviously treating water and moving water takes a lot of energy. So to try to be responsive to customer needs as well as the environment, we're trying to optimize our resources and be energy independent. Now, having said that, The treatment plant, the wastewater treatment plant, is 35 years old in a wastewater environment, marine environment, which is very aggressive. We have a lot of renewal and replacement facing us. So what does that really mean? Currently, we're upgrading pump stations throughout the community at the treatment plant, doing some major maintenance, as you see there, and then trying to replace aging equipment to be more efficient moving into the future. Infrastructure improvements for the next year or so, electrical reliability, the treatment plant master plan, because it is going to be 40 years old soon, and working on our biosolids management. In total, and I'll get into it in a second, but these capital projects, we, all of us, own the system that has about a billion dollars worth of assets. So we need to renew that over a time frame. I talked about the recycled water facilities, but I definitely want to talk. People often say, well, do the wastewater customers pay for the recycled water or vice versa? We keep separate enterprise funds so as not to subsidize or have one customer class subsidize another. So expenses and revenues for recycled water stay in one area, expenses and revenue for wastewater stay in another. So we're very precise about that. Now, in terms of those rates to support the projects that we talked about, we obviously prepare a financial plan every year. For years, we've been doing a 10-year financial outlook so we can have sort of a planning horizon on what's expected. This last year, we did have an independent rate study performed by an outside third-party consultant that then evolved into a rate design, which we brought to our board earlier this year. Our board approved a rate increase this year, and you'll see down on the left-hand side there, last year we were at $54 per residence for our fees. It is increasing as of July 1st of this year to $57.27. That is in addition to whatever our respective member entities, the City of Salinas or others, add to the wastewater bills that we bill for. And we understand this can have an impact to a number of customers throughout our service area. So in reference to that, we tried to identify areas and we did go out into the community and had a number of information sessions in Salinas, Seaside and Marina. And oftentimes what we heard were two things. These rates do impact us. Do you have a low rate or a low income program? And we do. So the second one I'll talk about first. We've had a customer assistance program for years. We've just tried to enhance it a little bit. And that little QR code there or contacting us, we can get you more information about that low income assistance program. This year, something new, we did a low water use program. What we heard from a lot of customers were, it's just me in the home. Why am I paying the same as the home next to us that has a lot of people? And frankly, it is our rate structure. And there's only a few rate structures we can do as a wastewater entity. So to try to address those people, we instituted a low water use savings where if you live alone or just use less water, you can show us your water use bills for the wintertime when there isn't outdoor irrigation. and we will discount your wastewater rates. It's still in the works, so feel free to reach out to us and please convey this to your constituents, your residents. With that, I just want to also invite any of you that have any questions or want a tour, feel free to contact me. I know this was really brief and there's a lot going on, but I want to be that resource for you throughout.

that's all i had okay thank you paul okay any questions uh from the council andrew yeah well i appreciate that you have that um a discount for people who use uh you know less water but is there any rate study moving forward like to change uh based on actually usage so we are looking into that however not to get into too many details there's um

There's two ways that we've seen are legally allowable for wastewater rates. One is a flat rate, like we're doing. The other is, as you said, based on usage. Oftentimes, that's with a public entity that does water, wastewater, recycle water, because then they have all that data. We have reached out to the six or seven water companies in our service area, and they're not very open with their data. So we are trying, and we hope to develop that moving into the future, because I certainly feel that'd be a more equitable way to approach it, is have your wastewater rates as some percentage of the water you use. But for the foreseeable future, in the next few years, that's not gonna happen.

Is that really the barrier? Are two water providers in Salinas not wanting to share their data? Is that really the?

It really is. And it's not just the two in Salinas. It's the two in Salinas. Castroville has their own Marina Coast Water District, California American Water, some of the other small privates in the areas. It's just gathering all that data that is difficult or people just don't want to share it.

And how are you sharing out the information for the low water usage discount and the assistance program you have?

So we did it a couple different ways. Certainly one was through our information sessions where we went out into the public. It's on our website. It's on our bills as well. And there will be a specific bill stuffer for the invoices that go out. It is not continual throughout the whole year because obviously there's costs associated with it. But that is the way we're trying to reach out. Also, of course, some social media and newspaper media.

So what kind of long-term investment are you guys planning to try to capture some of the water that we're currently discharging into the ocean?

So a couple different ways. One is... And these are ballpark numbers, please understand. And I'm going to use acre feet. So we get in probably about 17,000, 18,000 acre feet per year of wastewater coming to us. We utilize about 10,000 to 12,000 acre feet for agricultural irrigation in the Salinas Valley. And then we recycle to the peninsula about 5,000 acre feet of water. We have ballpark 4,000 acre feet that is discharged to the ocean in the non-growing season. So let's call it November through February, March. What we're trying to do is, can we optimize further recycling for agriculture or potable use and just do the best we can? There's no storage, which is one of the issues we have. that we can't just treat it, store it someplace, and then bring it back out for agricultural irrigation in the summertime. So two years ago, we recycled 81% of our flows. So pretty darn good. But certainly, our board has challenged us to try to keep moving towards that goal of zero discharge.

And have has there been discussions? Obviously, the agricultural industry is one of the biggest users of the recycled water. So I know you may not have capacity for storage, but has there been discussions with them about them making an investment to be able to store some of that water?

There have been discussions, certainly with the Monterey County Water Resources Agency, for relatively small amounts of storage out in the Castroville Seawater Intrusion Program area, tanks. And then I do sit on the Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency Advisory Committee. And so within that discussion, which the board met last Thursday, there are options for potentially storing in the ground once again or during percolation ponds if we can be part of that solution and utilize some of the water that's currently going out we're we would love to do that it's just hasn't gone to the point of actual planning design permitting and all that so we are having discussions is the simple answer to your question but it isn't well developed

In your recent rate study where you had to move to higher rates, were those only residential rates that you studied or were those commercial and agricultural rates? And what were the impacts of those rates?

So the rate study was specific to our wastewater customers, which consists of residential primarily and commercial rates. They all went up accordingly. The rate study outlines the methodology, the equitable sharing of costs between those customer classes. I can certainly forward the rate study to you or at least what those rates are and the increases. They're all about the same percentage. The agricultural, that's a different enterprise fund, which wasn't part of this rate study. That is actually set with an annual budget, which we discussed with the Water Resources Agency. And it's just costs equals expenses, which, as we all know, between chemical costs, energy costs, et cetera, have been increasing. But they are separate.

And so that rate stays then annually? Is that what you're saying?

For the Water Resources Agency, yeah, we meet with them on an annual basis to develop the budget. On the wastewater side, we had not done a third party rate study since 2017. And what we typically do is take what the consultant has provided us, and then we add a percentage of increase for chemicals and CPI or construction costs and things like that. So we use their rate study. And it's a dynamic study that we use throughout time. And then we'll in a number of years, say five, we'll redo a rate study with a third party because it is costly.

Thank you.

Tony. Welcome, Mr. Shooter. Mr. Shooter, I'm looking at your report. We're 20 to every year is going to be going up the rate every year. Is that right?

Not necessarily. Let me clarify that, if that's OK. So as a public entity, and I think the city certainly has done it, is you do a Proposition 218 notice. So what we're asking our board is, for the next five years, here's the maximum allowable the board can increase rates. Every year, we're going to go back to the board and say, can we increase rates or can we not? So it is the board's decision to go anywhere from zero to the maximum that the Prop 218 sets. Now, why would that change? That is based on our financial plan and the rate study, what you see before you. Hypothetically, let's say we get $20 million in grants next year. Well, that's going to substantially change our budget. So we're not going to ask our board for that percentage. Conversely, if an earthquake happens and we need more funds, we can't go above what's stated there. So it is a fluid situation. That just establishes the upper range. But to your point, yeah, race will probably be going up in the future. We spend over $9 million on electrical and gas. We spend a little over $8 million on chemicals. Each of those have been going up double digits over the last five years for us, and actually for everyone. So that is reflected in our rates.

If there's a family of two or whatever, if they want to seriously save money here, you're saying 75 gallons per day or less of usage in order to save money. How does that family keep track of that?

So the family doesn't need to keep track of it. What a family would need to do is copy off their water bills for November through February for four months. send them to us or bring them to us if we can verify that that gallon per capita per per household is below that 75 then they can go to the low use program so it's not tracking it's truly just grabbing your bills so what's considered in your numbers what's considered a low income uh house So I can certainly send that information to you. It is based on the PG&E CARES program as well as another county program. And so we try to be as broad as we can in opening it up for low income based on the number of people in the house.

Let me ask the city attorney a question. Mr. Callahan, Mr. Sciuto says that, okay, well, we have two water companies for Salinas. We do serve the public in all different areas. Why would a water company not want to share numbers or is there something in your department that can be done to where people can come to the table and give this information?

So if I understand your question correctly, Council Member Berrari, it may be that the information the water company is considered to be proprietary, trade secrets that they don't necessarily want to share outside of their own corporation, their own agency. I don't know exactly the specifics of the conversation that's going on here, but based on your question, that's what I would surmise. Yeah, I'd like to know.

And that's accurate. And having been a city manager where you run water utilities, it's much different because all that data is, there's still some protection, but all that data is available for us to submit programs. So cities like Watsonville or City of Gonzales or some of the other cities, they have water. So they can now meter the water usage and apply whatever through the sewer bill. That's the difference with water companies. It's a model that some cities have water companies, other cities don't. So there is some proprietary. They are regulated by the Public Utilities Commission. So any way it increases, it has to go to the PUC. So there is some challenges there. That doesn't mean that we can't ask to try to work with them, but there are some challenges there.

yeah because you you know one thing that we get like we today we got mr shooter in front of us and we always say hey well it's only five cents here but then there's another company there's another 10 cents and then before you know it we got over a dollar of a rate increase but mr shooter is um to that question that we've been asking um you know the usage of Can you explain again why we have such a difficult time where we can't come to that, where people that are using less besides being low income or whatever can start saving money?

So we can now with our low usage program. I'm sorry if I inferred that they were combined programs. They are separate programs. So someone that uses less, we can reduce their bills if they show us their water bills. And frankly, the reason we haven't done it thus far is all the times that we've had public meetings or we've done this sort of thing, this is the first year that I've truly heard a lot of concerns about the single person in a home or two people in a home that don't use much water. So we tried to develop a program to address it. But that's the reason we haven't in the past. We try to be responsive to the information we're getting from our customers. And I hadn't heard it before, frankly. And I'll go to Renee's comment. A previous place I worked, we did water and wastewater. And we had all that data so we could use it. In this area, we're fairly fractured in terms of the number of water companies and wastewater companies and this and that. And it's very difficult. And when I told people this, they always said, well, you need to work harder. And we do. And as Mr. Callahan mentioned, some of the private companies and even the public ones are hesitant to share their data.

Mr. Mayor, I don't want to put you on the spot, but you are a representative for Salinas. A lot of people are low-income here in Salinas, hardworking people, but they're low-income. Do you think we're making strides to be able to assist the people in Salinas? I know I hear about votes and And if it's complicated to professional people, imagine a lay person. These are difficult issues that we're dealing with.

the bottom line is the person wants to save money you know so where do you think we're at with this well a couple things this is a jpa salinas did not did not vote to support this but but having said that it is a jpa uh and one of the things to to paul's point um he it you know the voices on this issue have become louder and the entire board was very clear that we needed to move in this direction to try and address the folks who need assistance. And one of the things, and just as this body did after our sewage rate increased, increased commitments to assistance. there had been a number on the table from MW1 and the board was not pleased with that and have asked to bring that back for review sooner rather than later. So I certainly think that MW1 is moving in the right direction. But it isn't something you say, OK, boy, this is really heating up in August. We'll get this squared away by September. What we can do in a timely fashion is look to increase the assistance program. Obviously, there's communication elements to all of that as well. But I can tell you that the MW1 board was very clear and the MW1 executive staff understood and is supportive, hey, this is something we need to look at sooner rather than later and increase the commitment there. So I think we're moving In the right direction, but it is a process, but you know that voice in terms of this particular concern, I think is being heard. Loudly and clearly, and, you know, from a salinas perspective and the boards I I sit on, we've we've represented as as this Council knows. we're bringing forward our own one water roadmap. And so one of the reasons we had concerns about this rate increase was the timing. But each agency, whether it's the SGMA or MW1, they all have their own timing just as we do. And they're not quite in sync. But what we're trying to do do as a city is take a more, just as Paul alluded to, there are other people involved in this water discussion, multiple agencies. And what's clear after our study is that as Salinas future growth needs, current needs, they will require a more integrated look of everything, just as MW1 does as well. But specifically to your question, I think the MW1 board is very intent on we have to address this issue sooner rather than later. Near term, that comes in the form of increased funding, which I think will be looked at either within the next couple of meetings. But the other thing is, There is a process component. How do you set up the system to do it? I mean, that's a real thing. Even if you have the data, that's a real thing, setting up the process. But I think we're moving in the right direction, and we'd all like to see it happen sooner rather than later.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Jose? Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Schroeder, for the presentation. I have like a question slash comment, kind of speaking to some of my colleagues' concerns. Recently, it's my understanding that the Groundwater Sustainability Agency, M1W, Water Resources Agency, and Moreno Coast Water District, amongst maybe a few other agencies, signed an MOU on data sharing for the deep aquifer percolation to kind of begin that discussion in its initial phase. Can you kind of speak to that a bit?

Certainly. So let me be clear. I do not sit on the Deepwater Aquifer Committee. I do have a staff member that does, though. So she does go to the meetings and such. And we do not have any data in that particular area, but we do sign on to these things just to show cohesiveness among the public entities in getting the data so we can move forward on trying to address seawater intrusion, declining groundwater levels, and so on. That is obviously pretty darn important for the Salinas Basin as one of the 16 critically over-drafted basins in California. So certainly the board has a lot of work to do in that sense, the whole GSA does. And once again, if there's a way we can help out, we certainly will.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Aurelio? I just had more of a kind of clarifying question in terms of the independent rate study. Was one performed or what we're looking at or you are looking at doing a independent rate study? I'm going to have a follow-up question.

One was performed. So we retained a consultant, Will Dan, in, might have been close to the end of last year, November, December time, just November timeframe. And they're the ones that looked at our, what we've, what our business is and what our revenue needs are and developed that rate study as a third party consultant. And they're also the ones from a rate structure perspective. I wanted to move towards, hey, can we do it per square footage or fixture count or something different? They're the ones that are like, no, you really can't. It's not legally defensible. So it was very, in my opinion, prudent and wonderful to have Will down there to make sure that we did things properly within California law. I know that was a little bit off your question.

Yeah, and then there was a follow-up too, and it sounded like you answered part of it. My follow-up was just wanting to know if it was done in-house or with independent, so you answered that question. Yes. And thank you for answering those two questions. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you. Gloria?

Thank you, Paul. Good seeing you. Good seeing you too. Yes. I'm very pleased at your residential support programs. And because you know that here in Salinas, we have a big population of low-income families. And it's great that you're giving them the opportunity. And I like this, this is new, the low income assistance on the portion of your wastewater bill is waived for four months.

Yeah.

Wow, that's great. So go ahead.

I was just saying the board approved that a couple years ago as a pilot program. It went very well. This year they approved it again with increased funding because we do know that the pennies add up and we're increasing it by $2 or $3.27. It impacts people. So the board did fund it even further.

Yes, my colleagues asked a lot of great questions that were answered. And I just want to thank you for the presentation. And yes, any time we can help our residents, I think it's great. So thank you for doing this. And thank you, Mayor, for sitting on that board.

All right. And Margaret, since you're up late, we wouldn't want you to miss your opportunity to ask any questions, if anything. OK, Margaret, you're on mute. OK. All right. Well, we'll see if she jumps in. But Paul, well done. We appreciate your time and very thorough explanation. And obviously, this isn't to be continued. And I think as you heard clearly from the council, we have a real concern and interest in how the low income fixed income conversation continues with the MW1 board. And I'll certainly continue to represent that.

So Mayor, if I can add a couple of things. So the CARES program, it's on the PG&E website. And so it ranges for family of one to two, 43,200 or less, family of six, 88,000 or less. So we use the CARES program for a couple of our programs as well. If you demonstrate that you're part of it, you get eligible for the rebate as well as seniors for the UT rebate. So as it pertains to the, what Paul, I mean, I think M1 Water is trying to deal with the capacity. You know, if I use less water, and I think they've come up with actually a fairly good solution, if it works, we kind of can look at it for our program moving forward. Because, you know, we, like all the other partner agencies, they bill for us and we provide them the rate. So there may be a way that we can maximize our, wastewater assistance program if we were able to sort of piggyback on that. So I do think that it's moving in the right direction. We still have some work to do. So I think that from M1 Water's perspective, they've kind of hidden a real sort of, based on the lack of information and the data, you know, it's a little work to bring the bill in, but hopefully we'll get better at that. Thank you.

All right. Very good. Thank you, Renee. Paul, thank you.

Thank you very much. And I will send over the rate study with the sheet that says what commercial is and also send over the low income program so we can all see it. That's good.

Thank you very much for your time. All right. We appreciate your time. With that, we are going to have a public hearing and we are going to talk about a zoning code update. And we're looking for Mr. Moore and I see he's in the house.

All right, definitely had to adjust this down a little bit. Ah, yes, thank you very much. Good evening, Jonathan Morrison, your planner with Community Development. Here tonight, excited to talk to you about the ordinance with the first set of amendments coming out of the zoning code update process. In tonight's presentation, I will give a little bit of background on the zoning code update and this phase in particular. I'll review the main points of the ordinance and conclude with a recommended motion. Last year, the city launched a multi-phase comprehensive zoning code update to overlap with the completion of the general plan update. The phase one zoning code ordinance makes mandatory changes for legal compliance and addresses priority items that don't have to wait for the whole general plan update. Planning Commission reviewed this ordinance in July and passed a resolution recommending its adoption. Phases two and three will launch later this year with a much broader scope, including consistency with the general plan update once that's completed and making the overall zoning code easier to understand and use. Most of the phase one ordinance is in response to changes in state housing law meant to address the housing affordability crisis. According to data in the housing element, just over 3% of our housing units are vacant in Salinas, while almost 20% are overcrowded. Over 40% of our renters are rent burdened. That means that they spend more than 30% of their income on housing. And the average home price in Salinas is around $750,000 this year. The state has passed numerous bills over the last several years to try to address the underlying causes of the housing crisis with themes of streamlining review processes, bringing down associated costs, and promoting accessory dwelling units and other forms of housing to try to increase supply. All these new state laws have changed at a rate that's made it hard for local cities and counties to keep their ordinances up to date, and they've also reduced certain aspects of local control. The 2023 housing element of the general plan identified areas of the city's municipal code that required updates for compliance with these changes to state law. This includes new accessory dwelling unit and junior accessory dwelling unit sections. You might recall that we repealed our local ADU ordinance earlier this year, even though before that we were already deferring to state law and referring applicants to use the state handbook. Recent changes include allowing certain ADUs and front setbacks and allowing accessory dwelling units even with multifamily development. Another big point of emphasis from the state is reducing, rather increasing objectivity in housing decisions. Just one thing this requires is removing potentially subjective finding requirements from our conditional use permits and from chapter 17 of the municipal code related to reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities. And what that really entails is removing things from those sections that aren't related to health and safety. Some changes seek to reduce constraints or costs to new housing, such as removing requirements for covered parking, not necessarily parking spots when not preempted by distance to transit, just that they be garaged or covered. Some definitions are updated to remove potentially discriminatory language or to align with new state laws like SB9, which is a recent law that allows for two unit development in low density residential zones. In this case, this is RL 5.5. When combined with ADU law, it can get a little complicated, but the maximum number of units for SB9 project would be four or two on each lot in case of a lot split. One non-housing related legal compliance change is the removal of restrictions on ground floor religious assembly facing Main Street and the central city overlay district. The intent of this regulation was to encourage active storefronts such as retail and dining that can now make a vibrant downtown. This was challenged in court while the city prevailed on Other aspects of the case, this particular restriction was found to violate federal law, which requires treating religious uses similar to similar uses within the same district. Since we have multiple live theaters and a movie theater downtown, which are ground floor assembly uses with somewhat infrequent hours, we have to allow religious use in the same district. The last change related to legal compliance for this phase one update is to add cottage food and microenterprise home kitchen operations to the home occupation section of the zoning code. State law was updated in 2013 to allow cottage food production under the California retail code. Many people could produce certain low-risk food products at home for the sale offsite under limited conditions, and there's a specific list of food that the state maintains which you can create. And in 2018, the state added microenterprise home kitchen operations to that same code, which is a facility where food may be served at your home to customers on site. That's if your local county opts in, which Monterey County did in 2023. You cannot operate both a microenterprise home kitchen and a cottage food operation out of the same residence. And this update to the zoning codes makes clear these are permitted in Salinas, but further defined by the state and regulated and licensed by the Monterey County Health Department, as well as adding specific standards and conditions for home-based food businesses. There are three optional areas, three areas not related to legal compliance in this phase one update. They are related to driveway increases on single-family homes, accessory office space in industrial districts, and seasonal product sales. Salinas, like many other California communities, has its share of residential parking challenges. The combination of high housing costs and overcrowding discussed earlier lead to multiple families, generations sharing a home or apartment, which can lead to unpermitted parking and paving of front yards. And when combined with state preemption and a lack of suitable transportation alternatives, it can make these problems even more challenging. This creates problems such as blocking your entry and exit in case of emergency, increasing stormwater flooding risks, and reducing natural space in our neighborhoods. These issues themselves are symptoms of much larger housing and transportation challenges, but specifically to allow a little more parking on single-family homes or give an avenue towards that. In 2019, the city amended the zoning code to allow for driveway increase of up to 10 feet on the opposite side of the driveway as your front door for single-family homes with a minor conditional use permit. Because of the costs and processing time and no community opposition to any of these minor conditional use permits, there have been more than 80 of them in the six plus years since, this amendment removes the minor conditional use permit requirement and adds some of the standard conditions of approval as standards instead, such as tapering the increase back to the driveway width. to protect sidewalks and reinforces that parking and paving outside of the driveway towards the front door are not permitted. The conversation on appropriate front yard standards and parking will continue in subsequent phases of the zoning code update, but this makes it a little easier right now for someone to legally increase your driveway width if you have the space available. And in our two most intense industrial districts, industrial general and industrial general commercial, there are currently limits on office space as an accessory, as a secondary use to the main industrial project. Currently, accessory office space is only allowed up to 2,500 square feet, or up to 30% of the total square footage of the building, whichever is less. we know there are multiple projects that have cited this as a barrier and some that have opted to not move forward because of these requirements so the proposed change in this removes the 2500 square foot floor cap and increases the percentage to 40 percent of the building before requiring a conditional use permit this just gives a little more flexibility for projects to adapt to building and working conditions while still preserving the industrial use as the principal use of the site in these districts. And if you've seen Halloween sales already start to pop up in our local stores, you know that holiday marketing periods have just gotten longer and longer. So the last set of changes extends the temporary land use permit length of time for seasonal pumpkin patches and Christmas tree sales to 60 days, just to allow a little more time for these vendors to align with current holiday sales periods. We believe this ordinance will be considered exempt from the California Environment Quality Act, or CEQA, as a common sense exemption, as there is reasonable certainty that there is no possibility that the ordinance would have a direct and significant impact on the environment. As it's focused mostly on legal compliance, this draft does not grant additional development rights beyond what's allowed under current law or under higher levels of law. And the proposed project doesn't increase density, doesn't grant any specific entitlements or development rights. As such, the proposed ordinance would not in and of itself result in direct changes to the environment. So our recommended motion for this project is one to find the attached ordinance exempt as a common sense exemption from CEQA and adopt the ordinance amending chapter 17 of the Salinas Municipal Code and amending various provisions of chapter 37 of the Municipal Code. So that concludes my presentation. I turn it back to you for questions.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Jonathan. Okay. Gloria, we'll start with you. Any questions or comments?

My concerns is about the parking. Okay, when it says removes requirements for garage and covered parking.

Specifically that change, it doesn't remove the requirement for the number of spots. It just removes the requirement that they be enclosed in a garage or covered area. So there are lots of things like changes in state law that have reduced required parking things. This doesn't actually reduce the number of parking spaces, just that if you build a new single family home, you don't have to include a garage with it. And that's a specific request that the state HCD has made in the update of several housing elements. So that was a direct action in our housing element to remove that requirement for covered parking.

And so just for the community that's here and listening, a lot of these regulations, because as council members, and I'm sure others get the same concerns by residents and comments, like the parking situation now in our neighborhoods, because we approved the ADUs, And we have everybody wanting to add that to their, you know, as a homeowner properties. And I understand it. I understand the need. But we're getting those calls about the parking situation. So can you kind of tell us why we're in this situation right now? Just so people, I know why, but I want them to hear that the state, Well, go ahead and say it.

Yes, phase one, as John said, there are only three items that are coming before you that are not requirements of state or federal law. So this is all part of the state's actions to facilitate the production of housing and reduce barriers to the production of affordable housing. And so, yes, this is a state requirement that we are becoming compliant with.

Right. And the state is requiring that we need to look at this and approve it.

Correct. And we've committed to do this through our housing element. Right.

But again, I go back to the situation we have now and that the community needs to understand that. We were told by the state, you need to do this in your community. Okay, thank you. Those are the only questions I have right now.

Aurelio? Yes, I also had a similar question. Sounds like you touched upon it regarding the removal requirements for garage and covered parking. So thank you for that. RESPONSE. THE FOLLOW-UP QUESTION I HAD WAS IN TERMS OF THE ZONING CODE UPDATES, I KNOW THAT, YOU KNOW, PART OF THE INDIVIDUALS AND BUSINESSES THAT COME IN AND CONDUCT BUSINESS WITH THE CITY FREQUENTLY. I just want to know what's our plan moving forward in terms of keeping the community and those that come in regularly as part of their work regarding these updates. Are we going to have an information flyer stating what was it previously and what is the new update and how that might impact them as they continue to work with the city?

Sure, and we will be forming a zoning advisory committee to inform, especially the larger phases of this work. because so much of this was focused on legal compliance and certain things we have heard directly from businesses and customers through the counter. This was kind of a more narrow focus update, but when it comes to the broader, larger general plan update, we will be forming a zoning advisory committee that will include business owners, architects, people who use the code frequently, as well as targeted outreach to do things like business owners to various sectors where they don't want to sit on a standing committee, but they want to have their feelings known. So there'll be a lot of different opportunities and avenues for folks to share their advice, feedback as we go throughout the subsequent phases, especially starting this fall. And I think in September, we're going to be bringing a update, especially to Housing and Land Use Commission kind of the general plan engagement, and this will kind of tear off that. But yeah, so long story short, there will be plenty of opportunities going forward for this kind of engagement to happen.

And just a follow-up comment. I know quite often that the language can get quite technical for individuals. And so that's probably why an individual may have to go to a professional. But if we could just also provide that technical language and then kind of a simplified approach FOLLOWED UP WITH AN EXAMPLE OF HOW THIS NOW MAY AFFECT SOMEONE CONNECTING BUSINESS WITH THE CITY. I THINK THAT WOULD BE GREAT. IT'S LIKE OUR DUTY TO KIND OF SERVE AS INTERPRETERS WHEN IT COMES TO ZONING CODE UPDATE. THAT'S THE SERVICE THAT WE PROVIDE TO THEM SO THAT THEY'RE CLEAR AND THERE'S NO FUTURE SURPRISES IF THERE WAS SOME SORT OF MISUNDERSTANDING. THANK YOU.

All right. It looks like we had Margaret and the internet connection was clear. So Margaret, anything? On again? OK. All right. Jose?

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Moore, for the presentation. I have a few questions largely pertaining to the optional changes. For the optional changes for accessory office space and industrial zoning districts, how would that impact the development or future development of the ag industrial part of the city? WOULD THAT POTENTIALLY SEE ANY DIFFERENT USES OR DIFFERENT TYPES OF BUSINESSES?

SO IT WOULD DEFINITELY, WE'RE SEEING NOT JUST IN THE AG INDUSTRIAL, FUTURE AG INDUSTRIAL PARK, BUT IN THE REMINENT PARCELS OF THE SALINAS TRAVEL CENTER. THERE'S INTEREST IN BUILDING WAREHOUSE DISTRIBUTION SPACE. And 2,500 square feet when you have 100 plus thousand square foot building and operation is just too small for today's market. And we've received that comment both verbally and writing from applicants wanting to propose projects. So we do see it supporting all industrial development as they come forward in the Salinas Ag Industrial Center. in our current industrial area, or as well as out at the Salinas Travel Center.

Thank you for that clarification. Another question was regarding the legal compliance changes, particularly as it relates to the central city overlay district and use classifications. So if I understood correctly, because our municipal or our zoning code allows for certain commercial uses like bars up until a certain time or movies up until a certain time, religious uses also have to be allowed within that same time window?

You want this, Chris? That's correct, council member. We went through this issue a couple of years ago with a church that was formerly in downtown. And so under federal law, the religious land use and institutionalized persons act, we need to treat religious assembly uses the same as we do other similarly situated uses, which is why we needed to change that provision in our zoning code to allow them to operate in our downtown core area.

OK. Thank you for that clarification. And my last question would be, I don't think it was in this presentation per se, but where within the zoning code update process would we see perhaps the incorporation of SB969, the entertainment zone participation or definition within the, you know, whatever staff identifies as might be the most appropriate zones?

That would be in the more comprehensive update. That would include a broad community engagement. As Mr. Moore said, we would have our technical advisory shareholders, but we would be having community meetings, workshops, pop-ups, surveys, other ways to engage the general public in the different topics, such as the one you mentioned with the entertainment zone.

All right, thank you. And then one last question pertaining to the optional changes. It's relating to the Christmas tree sale lots and the pumpkin patches. Is the language only restricted to those two retail activities, or does it open it up to, say, I want to sell for Valentine's Day 60 days prior, for Mother's Day 60 days prior?

So this is a minor phase one tweak to our current zoning code to apply those tulips that are specifically called out with timeframes. So for Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, they can still apply for a tulip for that three, three, four day period around that holiday. So we're just making the change to what's specifically called out, which limits when they can start the pumpkin and Christmas tree sales. We intend to bring this topic back through the broader discussion with the community to make sure that we're including all types of seasonal and product sales through the comprehensive update.

Thank you. That's all my questions. Thank you. Tony.

Mr. Moore, I'm glad we've finally reached the common sense that is here. I wonder where that came from. Mr. Moore, as you know, LSL, you've got a lot of entrepreneurs out there, hardworking people. They get out of work and they're already looking how they can do a little side job somewhere. Hardworking people. what you've gone through your report but let me ask you a little bit more specifics on the housing compliance changes removes requirements for garage and covered parking what what exactly does that mean so that again that's just that the parking spot provided be in a garage or covered so right now there's requirements in zoning code

prior to this amendment, that if you build a home, you have to provide two parking spots in a garage, which the state sees as, well, that might potentially add to the home cost because you have the cost associated with building the garage. So they see that as kind of a necessarily cost that you should require. It doesn't mean that someone, a developer, can't build a home and include a garage because they think that's the product that's going to sell, but it recruits the requirement to do so. So, and again, it doesn't change necessarily the number of parking spots required, if not preempted by some other state law or if we decide to reduce those in the zoning code update. It's just the covered requirement, the garage requirement.

Yeah. You know, on the home cottage food and microenterprise home kitchen, where can that be done with?

I'm sorry?

The home cottage food and microenterprise home kitchen operations. Can that be done in a garage?

Part of the operation might be, but I think, yeah, you would, if you have the appropriate

Yes, so the short answer is yes. It can be done from a garage. And the cottage food allows you to prepare certain foods from your home. And the micro kitchen expands that to provide food service to individuals from the garage, from your home. And that is regulated, as Mr. Moore said, through the county environmental health department.

So how does the city get involved in this process?

So we are just becoming compliant. Again, these are state laws that were adopted, but 2018, 20, 2013, even before micro enterprise, the micro kitchens came later, but we are just updating our code to reflect current state law.

You know, when I hear state law, it scares me because a lot of times decisions are being made at the state level and they don't really have a clue how physically impacting our neighborhoods. So, but there's going to be a lot of excitement around this in the LSL because people are ready to turn their garage into a kitchen. And I mean that seriously. How does people, once this council, whether they support this or not, how do people start finding about these changes here?

So we can work to have a social media campaign. We can specifically focus on the changes with removing a CUP from the expanded driveway, those that would have most impact to the community in terms of the cottage food and micro enterprise and connecting them to where they need to start with the county.

Thank you, Ms. Brinton. You were nice to me with several homeowners at the library regarding driveway with increases. Can you share a little bit about what that means?

Share about?

As far as some people say they don't have enough parking, so they want to

Correct. And so we're reducing the barrier to be able to expand the driveway through the proposed amendments. So currently we have a minor CUP process which comes with a cost and it has time associated with it. We are realizing that we are not receiving any protests or challenges when we are processing and then noticing that we have an intent to approve the proposed expansion. So this would remove that conditional use permit process. The driveway would have to just meet the standards as established in terms of allowed to expand 10 feet to the right.

yeah and i have one final question for the city manager um mr mendez as you know there's a lot of people that are excited if there's opportunities for them but right now as far as uh sometimes we have difficulty finding out who's compliant and who's not um Sometimes in these homes, some people are using ADA corners for a driveway to go inside their front yard. How do you see us? I mean, once this council decides one way or the other, you have eight departments in front of you. How do you see us enforcing this? Making sure people are...

So a great question. Let me sort of answer that a couple of ways. The first part of it is that there are some legal requirements to make these changes. So if the council opts not to do it, which clearly from a policy perspective, we have to then report back to the state and we're going to be left with probably some other issues. So there's that concern. Some of this you adopted in your housing element. We told HCD that we were going to make some of these changes, and we needed to go through the process to get here. So that's number one. Number two, as it pertains to the enforcement, I think that goes to the bigger question of, as we've been trying to brief up our code enforcement, as we're trying to connect better with LASA and using AI to increase their capabilities, and as you work with the police department, is how do we choose to do a better job coordinating and enforcing that. And it's a work in progress. I'm not going to tell you where they are yet, but it's a work in progress. You have approved certain changes that will help us, I understand and can appreciate the frustration that we're not there yet, but it's training, it's getting everybody seen, getting everybody coordinated. So, we'll continue to try to work on that. We'll continue to try to work on how do we do a better job in Fort Seattle, we do a better job with the parking, and I think the other thing it's important to realize from my perspective is There are some folks that abuse it. Many of our community doesn't. That's the only options they have. So we have to have some sense of empathy as well. We just spend a lot of time talking about the cost of an increase in water. So when we tow, so forth, there is a cost to get that tow. And I understand we have to do what we have to do, and we're getting better at that. But I think as part of... our role is there has to be a little bit of empathy and we're trying to work with the community which maybe not allows us to do something immediately and i get there's a there's a threshold there but in short i think we just continue to work on doing a better job of enforcing on connecting all the pieces that you've approved and hopefully we just continue to engage and get better at it yeah thank you well thank you thank you mr moore how you doing andrew

OK. All right. OK. Thank you. We'll go ahead and go out to the public on this.

Good afternoon. I want to be a community. This came up at one of the meetings a few months ago. And it's kind of funny how you haven't engaged with the public about it. You're making a decision to rezone something without having public, you know, the public involved. Why? I mean, I called in on this and I started laughing because You're not going to have a front lawn anymore if you're going to go 10 feet to the right. You're going to have people parking. People park on the lawns already. I mean, why do we allow that? And Mr. Mendez and Mr. Donahue, if you guys don't let court enforcement do their job, they're not going to do their job. You guys need to let them enforce that and give people tickets. Stop feeling sorry for people getting tickets. Let's stop doing that, guys. Tony, let's stop doing that. People need to pay their bills. Pay your ticket. If you make an infraction, you're speeding, you do something wrong to the community, pay your ticket. Like everybody else, we've got to quit giving out handouts. That's why we don't make any money here. This is ridiculous. I mean, honestly, you haven't brought this to the community at all. I mean, you're going to make my neighborhood a ghetto. We don't need that. We don't need Montevideo to be a ghetto. It's a nice place. You're doing that by doing this. You guys don't think about that because you don't live there. None of you guys live there. You guys live probably outside the city or in South Salinas or somewhere else. If you live on the east side, you know, some people might like this because they don't care. They want to rent as many rooms as they can and make money and put 30 or 40 people in there in the house. It's wrong, guys. Build the homes we need. Build the homes. You have the land. Do something with it. Stop doing stuff like this, rezoning. Really? It's ridiculous, man. Thank you, guys. God bless you, man. That's ridiculous.

Thank you.

My recommendation would be to open up a position that takes a look at the state and federal laws that get passed every year. We have a full-time legislature. They work from January up until September. Those always impact us. That's why we have our leaders like Assemblymember Rivas and Senator Laird, which I'm sure Barajas has a close relationship. The City of Salinas should have a close relationship with them. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Anyone else from the public? All right. Anyone on Zoom? Yolanda? Yolanda? OK. Yolanda, it shows you're on mute. OK, hand is down. All right. All right, we will come back. This is an action item, so we will be looking for a motion to approve staff recommendation.

Mr. Mayor, I think this is something that is important for the people that we do serve. People like opportunities. I like what the city manager says. Let's have some empathy. And yeah, to Mr. Guerra's point, I don't think we're giving handouts, but at the same time, we need to make sure that we somewhat enforcing it. First of all, with education. And with that said, I'm going to make a motion to approve. Second.

All right. All right. Let's go ahead and call for the question.

Council Member Barajas? Yes. Council Member Barrera? Yes. Council Member DeRigo? Absent. Council Member De La Rosa? Yes. Council Member Salazar?

Yes.

Council Member Sandoval? Yes. Mayor Donahue?

Yes.

Motion passes.

All right. Thank you, everyone. all right well we were waiting for some fireworks in this evening's council meeting and apparently uh chris knapp is here to provide that for us so chris uh we i've got a fireworks enforcement after action report coming up mayor i think we have the budget item before that let's do that first chris you're in the bullpen or you're on the on deck circle all right sorry about that selena

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members, Celina Andrews, Finance Director. It's a pleasure to be here. The item before you is the fiscal year 2026-27 budget update. Staff met with the finance committee earlier this month to discuss the possibility of funding additional programs and initiatives not included in the budget. The committee made some recommendations and they're now being brought forward to council for consideration. But before we begin that discussion, it is important to review the initial biennial budget and balancing strategies which are presented here in this table. Shown here are the revenues compared to expenditures and the variance which was resolved by using fund balance at the bottom of this table. You'll see the amount is four million. Police development impact fee and the current budget also includes a vacancy factor. Therefore, the city will need to ensure that this is maintained throughout the year. While the budget is balanced, it is important to note that it is not considered a structurally balanced budget because one-time monies are used to fund ongoing expenditures. In the future, if revenues are higher than projected and expenditures are lower, it will move us closer to a structurally balanced budget. Additional programs and initiatives discussed with the Finance Committee are included here, as mentioned in the previous slide. Staff would like to discuss funding these initiatives brought forward by Council at the June budget meeting. These initiatives are all included in this table. and further discussed in the staff report, but we're also going to go through them in this presentation. Staff is also making recommendations for additional infrastructure investments that can be funded by the infrastructure reserve. We'll get into this a little bit later in the presentation as well. So we'll start with senior park maintenance worker and park maintenance worker. Staff provided these below alternatives, which include at both positions now, at one position now and one at mid-year. or at both positions at mid-year when we will have more budget clarity because at mid-year we will have completed our audit and we'll understand our fund balance a little bit better because that's part of what informs future budget decisions is that fund balance. So the Finance Committee recommended option one which is to fund both of these positions now. Another item that came forward was funding Ciclovia. And staff presented these alternatives. Noted here, refer Ciclovia through the community sponsorship program and maintain the budget at the current level of $150,000. Refer Ciclovia to the community sponsorship program and increase the budget capacity an additional $50,000 to fund additional programs that qualify or provide a direct contribution to Siglobia. And the finance committee recommended option two, which was to refer Siglobia through the program, the community sponsorship program, and increase the budget for additional capacity. So staff also presented the request that was made by city council at the June budget meeting, and that is to double the funding for neighborhood grants. from $42,000, which is already included in the budget, and double that to $84,000. The Finance Committee did not recommend additional funding for this move forward now, but would like to review the program at mid-year and thought maybe that was a better opportunity because we will have more information at that time. Staff also presented the request made by City Council to double the funding for small business grants from $105,000 to $210,000. Additional information is included in the staff report. And the Finance Committee is not recommending moving this forward at this time. but would like to continue the discussion at mid-year, which is a few months from now, to determine how the program is doing and give staff an opportunity to present on that. There was also a conversation about funding, increasing the funding for the rental assistance. This is a general fund funding from $500,000 to $600,000. And within your staff report, there's additional information related to this. But essentially, there is currently $700,000. $200,000 is is from a grant that needs to be expended by September 30th, 2026. So in this case, staff does not recommend adding additional funding to the program and would like to see how this program goes and then come back and provide additional information to Council. So here we have a summary of the program initiatives that are recommended by the finance committee and would like for this council to consider, and that's to add the senior park maintenance workers. And you'll notice here that we included year one and year two. That's because when you add a position in one year, it will carry forward into future years. And so The cost is noted here for both positions, and then to increase the community sponsorship program, an additional $50,000. So the projected remaining fund balance, this would be at the end of year two, is $556,000. So I mentioned earlier in this presentation that staff also has made a recommendation to increase some projects, infrastructure projects. But before we get into that, I wanted to remind this council of what has been what investments have been made since a couple of years ago, so 24, 25. There was 18 million, 18.2 million in CIP projects. And that increased in 2526 by about 61%. And then further increased in 2627, which is the year that we are in right now. That's about 66% increase. And then you see a slight decrease in 2728. And this is due to all the work that we anticipate going into the sanitary So as we discussed this before, there's quite a bit that's going to be happening in this current year, or we're going to be kicking it off this year. So these are the additional infrastructure initiatives that are being recommended by staff. And so this includes striping, street lighting, potholes, and an additional contribution to the adopt-a-tree project. And as you can see here, the striping locations, some of them include these four listed here. This isn't a comprehensive list. Staff is still working to get a full list. And we'll be presenting that to council at a future meeting. And so the recommendation is that about 500,000 goes towards striping and then street lighting about 374,000. And here's a list of the suggested street lighting locations. And then one of those locations includes solar lights. and that's the LV drive. There's also a recommendation to address additional potholes. We don't have a list yet, but we are working on putting something together so that we can present that But to date, staff has addressed nearly 12,000 potholes across over 2,000 different locations. And some of the streets, just to name a few, are Abbott Street, Esperanda Road, Monterey Street, Old Stage Road, North Sanborn Road, Adams Street, Rainier Drive, amongst a lot more. And to continue to improving on the road conditions, staff is recommending and identifying the most critical areas to continue this work on. In terms of the adopt-a-tree project, so currently there's about, I actually, I my apology 70 outstanding requests and staff is proposing to address 190 locations citywide. And so the total contribution or additional investment in infrastructure is about 1.5 million. At the last meeting, at the, I'm sorry, Finance Committee meeting, there was also some conversation that came up about additional, an additional infrastructure research that staff should be looking into, and this specific one came up, and it's, RRFB and specifically in this location we provided an estimated cost but there is still a lot more research that needs to go into this and will be brought forward when we do complete that research. And so I had mentioned earlier that additional infrastructure investment will need to come from somewhere. Staff is recommending that that come from the infrastructure reserve. And what you have here is What you have here is the current citywide reserves. So there's the general fund economic contingency, and that's maintained at 12%. And then there's the OPEB, which is the 115 trust infrastructure reserve at 4.6 million, the facilities maintenance reserve at one and a half million. And in total, There is 40.5 million and that's about 21% of citywide general fund expenditures. Use of the reserves, any reserve here is going to require a two-thirds vote. So if this recommendation moves forward, we will require that tonight. With that, staff is available for questions, and staff is also here to talk through the individual recommendations also that were brought by Council and recommended by the Finance Committee. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Andrew.

All right. Well, let's start with potholes. $400,000 for potholes. What is the proposed plan on how we would spend that? Is that going to be to have outside people help us with potholes or supplement existing staff?

So we're looking into actually hiring some temporary help and put more people on the different machines that we have. And this money would go to paying for the temporary help and the extra material that we need to fill those like mastic and hot mix asphalt to put our two machines out there. We're in discussions right now with the CCC and Rancho Cielo to see if we can get some people on board.

And what kind of material, I know you mentioned mastic, but basically, I mean, are we going to make sure we're repairing them so they last long term? Are we going to do half temporary and half long term? Or what's the plan for that?

Yeah, so this money would go to permanent, well, As permanent as we can get for pothole patches, we do have our pothole machine that grinds out the asphalt and we put hot mix in there. Mastic is working really well in the areas that we have used it. It's a more expensive product, but it does hold up and will hold up longer than our temporary patchwork that we do. We need the extra... money because the material we're using is more expensive and we need people to actually put into the project.

Okay, I want to get some clarification. Our finance director mentioned that the, is it my understanding that this adopted tree program, the $100,000 will fund 190 trees for the adopted tree program?

Correct, yeah. So right now, we have about 70 requests in the queue. If this passes, we actually have a contractor ready to go on those locations. And so we would work with them to get those trees planted so it'll be about three months before we work through all 190 locations if we get more people requesting adopt a tree we'll fill we'll fill the adoptery tree first and if there's money left over we'll hold that until more people come in for adopt a tree so as of now we're moving forward on the existing 70 applications correct

Okay, and then just because I did see the finance committee meeting and the small business grants, I guess my first question is this. It's for the finance director, but there's not a, from your perspective, just like we're adding expenses, different expenses, there's nothing preventing us from taking the action to approve that money now, is there?

Correct, if this council wishes to increase

any of the initiatives that were discussed that that would be within your purview okay and then just because two of the items on here are neighborhood grants well let's talk about the neighborhood grants program one of the concerns that people have had over time is that they don't all have the ability to apply for a neighborhood grant because they have to up front the cost And for a lot of people, if they're awarded a $6,000 grant, the reality of them having $6,000 or even getting together with some neighbors to up front the cost isn't realistic. And so what steps will the city be taking to help address those concerns?

So actually we have for the last couple of years offered a direct purchase opportunity. So as an example, if a neighborhood group is having a block party and they aren't able to front those funds, we have purchased supplies on their behalf. And we've done that with a number of projects every year.

OK, that probably helpful to put that in the application is currently the application says reimbursement and I think that would help us get more applications. And then when was other than the the recent social media posts and I think there was a message sent out on our gov delivery. How else are we marketing the neighborhood grant?

So we typically do that through the website. We do that through social media. We reach out to various neighborhood organizations, neighborhood watch groups, past grantees and people who have applied and may have not been selected in the past. So it is a broad spectrum of outreach.

Yeah, and just want to share my observation, because I tried to get some people to register, I think, last month. But when I sent them the link, they kept telling me, well, the deadline already passed. And so I don't know if there was a glitch last month or something like that. But I kept having to say, well, we're currently approving the funding, and it's still going to open up.

So the application process is still open. What we did do is extend some informational sessions, which is something that we started doing several years back where we meet with potential applicants to walk them through the process and give them as much information up front to help them be successful in completing their application. So there were three original dates, and I believe we've added another two opportunities. But even if somebody isn't able to attend one of those informational sessions, our neighborhood services coordinators will meet individually with potential applicants to assist them through the process.

Okay, great. And is it my understanding for the rental assistance, one of the reasons that staff was not recommending it is because we still have available funds?

That is correct. So we have $200,000 in Family Homeless Challenge Grant funds that we need to spend by September 30th of this year, in addition to the $500,000 that was appropriated through this year's budget.

And do we not anticipate that there's going to be a big need or... Yeah, that's my question is, just because we have those funds now, do we not anticipate a need come November?

Not at this point in time. Our preference is to encumber the funds through Monterey County Office of Education and ECHO. And at mid-year, if we see that the funds are being spent down faster than anticipated, we could then have that conversation. But at this point in time, we would like to engage and focus on spending the funds that we have. which is approximately the amount that we spent last year.

Okay. And then I do have some comments on some of the other items, but I'll wait for comments on that. Thank you.

Tony. Mr. Mendez, you and I have spoken about, you know, as you're hiring your team and hiring other folks, I know this report calls to hire two people Or maintenance, very well paid positions. I guess my question to you, sir, is going to be, I guess as you're forming your team and you're hiring more people, If it's an investment, the people out in the neighborhood should be able to see, hey, we hired some new people. They should be able to see something happening out there. How do you see that happening? Because you can hire people and then everything stays the same in the neighborhoods. I believe if you are going to hire investment, the neighbors will start seeing some change out there.

That's correct. By the way, just for accuracy, these positions we brought because the council asked us to bring them. We were going to try to work with the department and kind of figure out how to do it, but we were working with our parks stakeholders and stuff on how do we increase our impact. So the short answer is, if you approve the hiring of two positions in parks, those are the two-year costs. So just to be, we provided, this is a two-year budget, what the cost would be for two years. So if you split that in half, that's actually the annual cost. So having said that, as we get more impact, and as we work with our partners in Car Lake and others, we hope to maintain and for the community to see the impact. Not only do we get better at what we're doing, so now we have more staff that we can focus in Car Lake or in our cluster, and we don't have to pull staff away to do other things. uh and our other parks start improving better because we're doing a better job of staying up with the maintenance and so forth that that's the goal um first of all we have to fill the position so it's going to take a little bit to fill the positions and then number two we have to integrate the positions and get them acclimated to our process and then the team has to adjust accordingly so the hope is by this conversation next year's budget we can if we have the positions filled we can clearly demonstrate that there's been a improvement in just our maintenance overall yeah

Thank you. Mr. Jacobs, on the issue with the potholes, it's just an ongoing issue here, but you know like the police department has special forces within the department, the fire department also, whether it's paramedics, whether it's a SWAT team. In your department, which is very important, because your department is the one we see out there in the neighborhoods, these potholes, do you have, because you mentioned in your report, You're gonna be hiring people. Is it possible to have a small team of individuals, and I've shared this with the city manager, that could just focus on something like that? I mean, is that feasible? I know you're gonna tell me it costs a lot of money, but can we get to that point where we can focus on something and just gradually start making it happen?

It's definitely possible, but with our full-time employees we have now, we do the most work we can with them. So during the summer, we have a pavement crew that actually goes and paves streets. They also actually, when the paving equipment's down, they go out and do skimmer work where they put asphalt down in the potholes. On Fridays, when they're servicing, that's when we do pothole work. patrol and we have like five trucks go out and just do pothole repairs so with the limited staff we have we're doing as much as we can if we wanted to hire people to just do potholes we can do that but again it's probably going to be a three or four man full-time employees, which is an expense, and then we actually have to budget the more materials that we're going to use for that four-man crew. So it's possible, but it's going to be expensive.

And if I can add to that, one of the things our public works director said, we're looking at can we bring some temporary help to focus. So I'm looking at it from that would be our pilot program to see if we can demonstrate an impact and see if it works. And then as we're looking at mid-year or the second year of the two-year budget or the next two-year budget, we'll have better information. So I think that's one of the things our program directors are looking at is can we bring temporary help, focus on PAHOS as an example, Can we discuss with, you know, maybe other some companies to help us maybe be a little more focused in some particular areas? So we're looking at all of that. But the short answer to your question is if you approve this, we will focus on PAHOS and whether we do it through temporary help or other sort of limited to other pilot programs. And then when you ask us this question as part of next year's budget update in the middle of a two-year budget, we'll have better information.

Thank you. And Mr. Jacobs, if this council does approve this, your report does say the striping, you'll start next month?

Yeah, so the striping work is through a contractor. And they're supposed to be coming to Salinas in September. and to do the work that they have bid on. And so when they come back in and we give a notice to proceed, we'll talk to them about adding the streets that we have on this list and the other streets that are on the priority list to get as much done as we can for the extra $500,000.

So with the checks and balances, Mr. Jacobs, I know you contract out, but... In your department, there's somebody that goes out there and checks the work and says, OK, it got done or yes, we do.

We do have inspectors that are out on every project to make sure they're following what's in our specifications and they're putting it down properly.

Well, I'm glad you're looking at the additional infrastructure research on this light that's desperately needed over on Granada and Laurel. But my God, 750,000, can you tell, is these special lights or what? $750,000. I would think we'd just call Amazon and put a little blinking lights or something, but why is it? I know the crosswalk at Williams in front of Alisal High School. About a million dollars, if I remember correctly.

That was $750,000, but there was a little bit more that went into that. We did some median island work and some removal of some concrete to get that in there properly. So when we talk about other locations, we use that as a starting point, but it could be a little bit less, it could be a little bit more, depending on what the design comes back as.

You know, and forgive me, but I'm trying to understand, is it this expensive because it's government involved, or why is it so expensive?

I would say it comes down to the poles and the power that goes into it. The poles are expensive because they're one-offs. You don't go and pick a pole off the shelf. You actually have to order that pole, and they have to make it. And there's only a couple of those pole manufacturers in the United States, so they jack up the price of their product because people are willing to pay it. or the cities are willing to pay it you know when i when i started in this business um 250 000 was was the cost of a traffic signal at an intersection 25 years later it's a million dollars i mean i think that's crazy for an intersection but that's that's the going rate right now well do you see uh i know we've been talking about this one for years this it's this intersection

Do you see it happening? I know you're doing some research on it. It is needed, but do you see us being able to do it sometime soon?

I don't know that I understood the question, sorry.

Oh, it's okay. Mr. Mendez, can you help us with that? I know I give you a little headache.

So I think the question was, do we see us doing that project soon? So we have to do the research, then we have to bring it back to you. And how do we fund it, give you alternatives on the potential funding sources, and you make a decision. Yeah. And as we're looking at, One of the, I mean, we've talked about this before, and this is not, it's just what we have today is we need to catch up for decades of things. I mean, a lot of things have happened over the last several years. So as we're looking at these projects, there's probably other intersections that deserve the same amount of attention or maybe different attention or more attention. So if we're looking at 700,000, 800,000, 500,000, You know, we have a capacity. We're pretty comfortable right now at 20% reserve. That used to be sort of a best practice standard. But any little blimp can eliminate some of that reserve, right? And so as we're looking at how do we bring more projects into the mix, we have to look at our funding sources. And so the question will be, once we bring the research back to you, here's your options that you have.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jacobs. Jose.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the presentation, Director Andrews. I do have a few questions. Just to start off on slide number three, just want to confirm that infrastructure improvements will be only funded by the maintenance reserve, the infrastructure maintenance reserve. Is that correct?

Thank you for the question, Councilmember Barajas. I think what I heard is that, I think the question was how would this be funded, and it's the infrastructure reserve.

Okay, yes.

I'm sorry, that is what we are recommending.

So I'd also like to take the opportunity to clarify one thing. the maintenance reserve and all these reserves are already as you know they're already in the budget so we set them aside for you so it's not like we're changing it's already in the budget so it's not new money it's not new expenditure we set aside and we're bringing this back as a use of the maintenance reserve that's already appropriated was approved when you took action on the 26 27 27 28 budget So I just think it's important to kind of clarify that. But we are recommending, like our finance director said, the use of that maintenance reserve.

And then do we have any triggers established for use of reserves, like an actual declared emergency or any other reasoning behind it, other than we want to get more work done now?

so there there is there isn't anything specific for the infrastructure and facilities maintenance reserves um and so the only thing would be that it would have to it would require a two-thirds vote and you this council would have to have a plan to replenish that reserve within um three years

So what would be the recommended plan for replenishing that? Would it just be divided up evenly in three installments over the next three years?

That would be our recommendation, or depending on after we close out the year, if there is excess fund balance, we could take it in one trench there.

Okay. So if I just can add to that, I think it's important to... realize that a few years ago, we had our general reserve that we set a target at 12%, and then we had our retirement, our trust 115, which can be used to offset retirement costs, but the council took action a few years ago to establish that 10 million. So we had those reserves. Last year, because of where we are with our fund balance and expenditures, we brought forward a recommendation to start implementing these other two reserves so when you talk about implementing because we saw a huge need as you recall um i believe 25 the holiday 25 or somewhere around there kristen where are you uh we had a thing with our pool and we had a contingent we had to use it and we brought it back that we had to quickly spend a million dollars that we had aside because our pool weren't using it because we had some issues with the hvac and so forth so then we brought it back to you and we added a million dollars back to that maintenance so what we're suggesting is if you take the two the two-thirds action to use these reserves which are recently established a few years ago that over the next couple years when we have the opportunity we start replenishing it with the gold that we can bring it back within three years That doesn't mean that there will be something else that we would use that amount for. But that's the goal, to bring it back. This one doesn't have a trigger. The other two do have, they're a little bit harder to get to. But these two were just established. And so now, because of the need and some of the feedback and and the discussion that's permeated almost every council meeting about how we're doing, what we're doing on some of these things, whether sidewalks, lights. There's not a day that goes by that folks don't ask what's going on with the lights. And while we, for example, have done 11 lights, we have others that we need to redo, and we don't have a funding source for that. So that's kind of why this is here, not because there's any sort of necessary trigger. The other two we would require significantly more of a sort of emergency trigger. But by the way, the best time to set and adjust your reserve is when you're adopting the budget. So at that time, it does not require a two-thirds vote to add or take away from the reserve. Once you establish the reserves, after the budget's adopted, then we'll ask for the two-thirds. That's just... the way it works.

Good to know. All right. Another question. Regarding the senior part maintenance worker versus the part maintenance worker, I'm not sure who this question might be best directed to, but obviously the finance committee recommended option one, adding both positions now. Can you speak to what are the benefits of adding both positions now as opposed to perhaps adding the part maintenance worker now and then in mid-year adding the senior maintenance worker or waiting altogether for the next fiscal year.

Sure. So a couple of things. Park maintenance is a seven day a week operation and we do not have a permanent supervisory lead position on Sundays. And so one of the reasons for wanting to add a senior park maintenance worker is so that we have that lead worker. Now this is not a supervisor that would sit in the office. This is a lead worker who would be out in the field and working alongside the rest of the team. We're also getting ready to celebrate the grand opening of the restoration area at Ensign, which will allow or give an additional 67 acres to the city. And so having both of these positions available to support the rest of the team with our entire system, including the restoration area, would be very beneficial and really help us to keep some of these newer assets at the level that they need to be, as well as help us to improve the maintenance at other parks within the system.

OK. And then just for my clarification, are the costs projected for year one and year two fully loaded costs for those positions? Yes, they are. OK. Thank you. This one's more of a comment regarding Ciclovia and the community sponsorship program. Though I am, I would preferably do option one, just kind of sharing this with my colleagues, just because we had this issue come up last year with the fireworks. i'm kind of surprised that we went through the whole process of you know putting ourselves you know through that situation where we had one community group that clearly did you know good work in the community no one's saying no against that but we have another group now and several other groups you know ciclovia the monterey water keeper that asked for additional funding so i would just have a preference to keep it at 150 000 dollars rather than establish a precedent that we can have perhaps another third party group. Recently we just saw El Grito is not going to be hosting their celebration this September. Perhaps they come to us next year and again, same situation. We just keep establishing a precedent where we keep increasing the amount of funding just because there's an increase in need. I think we need to be a little bit more fiscally prudent with those types of asks. So my suggestion would be Option one, refers Secovia to apply for the community sponsorship program and maintain the program budget at $150,000. Regarding the neighborhood grants, Also, just a quick comment. My position on it would be no to increasing it point, like period. Our current budget is around $6,000 per district. Not every council member actually ends up using up all of their funds for their particular district. When I came in in 2024, the previous council member had not made that allocation yet. So I got to make an additional allocation for the previous year. And additionally, that would increase discretionary funding from 6,000 to $12,000 per council member district. So I would just rather have everything run through a little bit more smoothly through staff and through the finance department, rather than have each individual council member kind of make special projects within their own district. I'd rather have that be a full council discussion that we make together as a council. Regarding the small business grants, I'm in agreement with staff recommendation that at this time it would be best for the council to hold off on making any additional contributions to that fund and waiting to see how the program did and what can be improved and how we can get more businesses to participate. And the same regarding the rental assistance program, agree with staff's recommendation and just wanna highlight some bullet points from an internal memo in which we, the current program from operating from January through the end of June assisted over 257 households exceeding its goal of 138 households served by 87%. 54 individuals were served and 203 households were served with a 96.9 homeless prevention rate, which I think is probably one of our best homelessness prevention programs is this rental assistance program. So as staff proceeds with implementing and continuing to expend these funds, bring back those options or seek opportunities where we can keep these types of programs alive in alignment with our partners like MCOE and ECHO. And if we could turn to slide number 11, please. along with additional infrastructure improvements. Thank you. So for this one, do we have a specific data-driven reason for pursuing different streets and different orders? Or are these numbers, for example, under street light, locations include, not a comprehensive list, one through 10, are they ranked? Or is that just a placeholder number?

these are the street lights that we've had complaints that they're out and that we've checked them and that the wire has been stolen so these these 10 streets need to have new wire pulled to get the lights back on and we did lvs solar because we pulled wire in there we put our new lids on there And since in an isolated area, they had all the time in the world to figure out how to break through our lids and ended up stealing the wire again. So we said, okay, let's, if we continue to do this, they're going to continue to steal that wire. So let's go to solar on LV Drive.

So moving forward, is that going to be a strategy that Public Works is going to hope for the council to adopt?

Yeah, we have a special lid that we put on our pool holes now that's almost impossible to break. They actually had to break all the way around the pool box. to get into it and then pry it up. It probably took them several hours to do that. If they were in an area that people drive by, they would probably have been reported. But since it's LV Drive, they have all night to go through there and you can see a car coming and you can duck off real quick and then when you finally get the lid off. We're also implementing on our new lids, we're going to put four bolts in instead of just two. We were putting two bolts in and concreting those bolts in. So it was, you actually have to work the corner that didn't have a bolt in to get it up. So we're gonna put four bolts in now to help prevent future thefts. So we're constantly trying different things to curb the theft.

Awesome. Thank you for that clarification, Mr. Jacobs. This last one's, again, question slash comment regarding the rectangular rapid flashing beacon at East Laurel Drive and Granada Avenue. Obviously, it has a cost to it, but I would argue that there might be other locations citywide. I know the city manager acknowledged it. that there might be other locations citywide that also deserve that kind of attention. One of them I'll mention is in District 1 and across District 6, Constitution and East Laurel between Natividad Hospital and the Salinas Sports Complex. There's obviously a lot more folks that cross that street than do East Laurel and East Laurel. What is it? East Florida and Granada. Just off the top of my head. There's maybe not the numbers behind it, but just from observation, you know, that intersection probably would benefit a lot more, particularly given that there's a youth factor attached to it. And that's all my questions and comments.

Thank you. Yes, I wanted to go back to the two park maintenance workers. I want to make sure I understood that correctly. I'll let staff approach the mic. So we're actually, I thought I heard staff say that we may hold off on one position filling it and then, okay. So providing that we approve this tonight, we might see a position filled within the next 30, 90 days.

So we have eligibility lists for both positions. We need to verify the status and make sure that they're still current. So if they are both current, we could fill those positions fairly quickly. A month probably is a minimum in terms of being able to bring these individuals on.

the other thing i also heard too is um once we approve these you know they become you know permanent positions with the city so here moving forward you know five years ten years from now we will have these dedicated uh staff positions okay it's adding to our existing count of full-time equivalent positions yes okay And so the reason why I bring it up is because I know that we've had a couple of, like, individuals and organizations and coalitions, you know, they've been advocating for it. I just want to acknowledge them. I think I see a few of them here in the audience tonight, and I think we'll probably hear from them again. So I just want to make sure, you know, I think we all heard correctly. Again, we may see these filled as soon as maybe 30 days and that they would become permanent positions with the city. Mm-hmm. all right thank you oh um i'm sorry um i have one more um i in terms of feedback regarding the neighborhood grants um had an opportunity to oversee a neighborhood grants program um with a previous employer and um you know i would concur with those uh small grassroots organizations that apply for for funding um RECEIVING THAT FUNDING AGAIN UP FRONT, YOU KNOW, THAT CAME UP REALLY HELPS THEM, YOU KNOW, HAVING TO GO THROUGH THIS WHOLE REIMBURSEMENT PROCESS. ONE, IT TAKES UP STAFF TIME AND I THINK WE NEED TO FREE THAT UP. BUT BEING ABLE TO SUPPORT THOSE up front and providing them the technical assistance and open up those bank accounts having oversee a similar program i know that that was one of our challenges because quite often an individual may be like oh well i'll just I'LL JUST OPEN IT UP UNDER MY PERSONAL BANKING ACCOUNT AND NOT KNOWING THAT THAT MAY BE SEEN AS REVENUE. YOU KNOW, IF THEY RECEIVE A CHECK FROM THE CITY OF SALINAS. SO THERE'S SOME TECHNOLOGICAL ASSISTANCE AND GUIDANCE THAT THEY WOULD NEED IN TERMS OF OPENING UP A BANK ACCOUNT UNDER THE GROUP'S NAME. SO IF WE HAVE A PARTICULAR NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH GROUP. There's a little bit of TA there that they would need. Not too difficult. And I think I brought something maybe about two years ago. I'm always certain that I can make myself available to help those organizations as well. I know what that process is like and having to work with our local banks and the benefit that it provides to the city is is quite invaluable. Yeah. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Thank you for the report. And of course, I was part of the committee, the finance committee that approved the budget and all the recommendations. But I am going to go back, Mr. Jacobs, on the beacon, the beacon lights on Laurel, on Granada. I am very aware that there are other areas in this city that are in great need also, but I have to remind my colleagues that this area has been requesting, requesting from me, when I came back to council two years ago, I have not stopped having meetings with those residents. This is a very, what we call an arterial street that is very busy. A lot of you travel that area. Those residents cross from Granada over to that shopping area. I have a petition already from all the neighbors around that area. I have been having several meetings with them. I have a petition from the North High students And Councilmember Sandoval, thank you, because he is aware of it. He was also present. They have come to us to ask us that we put these beacon lights. So I know the cost is high, but I am asking you to look at other options to make this area safe for the residents that live in that area. The street was striped. It's beautiful. You should see the traffic. All of you are aware of the traffic that is there. I'm also aware of the traffic in other areas, Constitution. But again, I ask you and I ask my colleagues, please support the beacon lights for the area of Granada and Laurel and for my residents that live in that area that keep coming to me. And so please make it safe for all those high school students that cross over to buy a pizza, to buy whatever they need from that little shopping center. So again, I will say I am very aware that there are other areas, but this is a particular area that is in very much need. So thank you.

I'll save my remarks for comments. So with that, thank you for the presentation. And we will go ahead and go out to the public on this.

Good evening, my name is Lucina, and I'm speaking on behalf of the Salinas Parks and Recreation Coalition. We appreciate the city managers, city staff, and city council for continuing to engage with the coalition about staffing needs of our parks and recreation system. Tonight, we want to clearly reaffirm the coalition's support for the recommendation before you, funding both the senior park maintenance worker and the park maintenance worker position now. The coalition has consistently advocated for these two positions because we believe the need for additional maintenance staff is not new and does not begin with Ensign Community Park. Our park system has been operating with a significant staffing gap for some time. With the addition of ensign 66 acres, the city will be responsible for maintaining nearly 320 acres of parks and open space. Adding these two positions now is an important step, toward ensuring that these public spaces are properly maintained, safe, welcoming, and available for our community. We also appreciate that the city is looking beyond these immediate positions and considering a broader parks and recreation staffing goals and targets assessment. We encourage the city to use that process to establish a long-term approach in which staffing grows alongside the city's park and open space inventory. As Salinas adds new parks, staffing should be part of that planning from the beginning. For these reasons, the coalition strongly supports option one, funding both park maintenance positions now, and we respectfully encourage the city council to approve the recommendation. Thank you for your time, your leadership, and your continued partnership with the coalition.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Benjamin Mancias. I want to speak about the facade improvement plan and neighborhood beautification grant and the importance of making sure residents actually know these opportunities exist. I personally try to help get the word out about the city's programs. When I was learning about the Facade Improvement Program, I went up and down Allisaw Street and talked to businesses and people in the community, asking if they knew about the program. I found that there was an outstanding number of business owners and residents who had absolutely no idea about the program. Because of that, I made a video explaining the program and shared it through social media in an effort to reach more people. I was also fortunate enough to collaborate with Andrew Sandoval to create a video explaining the neighborhood beautification grant. I've been trying to use the platform and the resources I have to help residents become aware of these opportunities. And that's why I believe there could be even more done by the city to get this information directly to residents. We shouldn't expect residents to constantly go onto the city's website, search through different pages, and figure out what grants are available. The people who could benefit the most from these programs may be the least likely to know where to look for that information. I would encourage the city to be more proactive with outreach through social media, commercials, neighborhood organizations, community centers, schools, local businesses, create street teams, announce at community events, make advertisements, reminding residents to frequently check the city's website and other places where residents already are. I think we should make sure the people of Salinas actually know that money is available when it is and understand how they can access it. Concerning the neighborhood beautification grant, I think we should look at the way the grant money is distributed. If residents are expected to pay for an entire project up front and wait to be reimbursed. Oops, I'm sorry. Well, anyway, I was just glad. Okay, thank you. Okay. Thank you.

How's it going, council? Daniel Munoz. I think it's a good idea to get some temporary help to get those potholes done. I think that's a good idea. So that's off to the people with that one. Now, I've worked at the Apple building. I've worked at the San Francisco airport doing the runways. I've worked in the overpasses, right? I never made more than $100,000. So these park guys making $125,000. Hey, I know you guys need the help, but I mean, that's a lot of money to pay somebody to take, you know, to upkeep or whatever for the parks. I think that's a lot of money. I also want to address the idea of using these pothole machines. They seem good, like on the surface, right? But when you come from the construction industry like myself, JCB is like the Harbor Freight. of like tractors. So JCB, to my understanding, is one that makes these pothole machines. So I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they're breaking down and they must cost a lot of money to upkeep and maybe even potholes won't get fixed because they have to fix these machines. So maybe we could just go back to the old school, getting somebody to cut the hole with the saw cut, cut the hole, fill it in. using good old, you know, using our hands, you know? That's what I used to do. We didn't have a problem machine, and I used to work for a multi-million dollar company, one of the biggest companies here locally, I'm not gonna name them, but that's my ideas in regards to that. Now, Andrew Sandoval suggested that we have solar lights. Months back, nobody seconded the motion here. We don't need to rewire them if we could just put solar lights. It could save a lot of money. Just food for thought. I mean, nobody seconded his motion. Let's see what else I have written here. We should put money in there to help the homeless people. If we're going to have money for all this other stuff, help the homeless people. Give them a dumpster. Give them a restroom. Give them a shower. Give them something. Thank you for your time.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. I'm here with Bixter Land Trust and Friends of Ensign and the Scenic Parks Coalition. And I want to thank all of you here today for listening to some of the youth that are going to speak after me. And also thank you to the Finance Committee for finding a path forward to bringing two additional staff members for our park system. I think this is a really timely issue and it's something that has been outlined as a recommendation in our 2019 Parks Rec and Library Master Plan of bringing additional staff to get us closer to that industry standard of parking as workers to park acreage ratio. The approval of this recommendation is going to tell our community that the city is not only wanting to bring assets to the community, but we also want to invest in protecting them. Our parks are very well used, and with that becomes a lot more trash into our parks, but it also creates a lot of issues that go beyond that, right? There are people walking around and just kicking things for fun. And so our parks staff are not just out there cleaning up trash and after people, they are keeping all of our amenities, you know, functioning and our kids can go down on sites and then swings. And so we really want to reiterate the importance of bringing these additional staff now. rather than later because, as we heard, sometimes it takes time to bring additional staff. And so we want to prioritize that. As mentioned, we are almost a month away from opening Ensign Community Park's 67-acre restoration area, but we're also going to be seeing Cluster Park open again, and it's fully renovated, and so we want to protect our new and renovated and existing parks. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Juliet Gonzalez. I'm a student at Allisaw High School and an intern for Big Sur Land Trust. I am here in support to the staff recommendations of accepting budget changes that allow for the hiring of additional staff to maintain our parks across Salinas. As a volunteer and local resident, I notice the ongoing need for additional staff to keep our parks clean, mainly because as much as I love my community, they don't clean themselves. We go out there and we help clean. I would also like to extend an invitation for all of you to attend one of our upcoming park cleanups, September 19, and then we open the 20th, so keep it clean for the opening day. Don't worry, guys. I'll make sure you guys get the easiest part, okay? um and i would also like to give a special shout out to council member andrew sandoval who came out and helped us clean um he proved that council members actually look pretty holding a rake and waiting thank you guys for your time and leadership

Good evening, my name is Concepcion Alvarado de Islas. I attend Ever Alvarez High School and I'm a founding member of Friends of Ensign. I came to support this meeting to adapt this recommendation to get two park maintenance workers to keep our public green spaces safe and clean and usable. Parks protect native wildlife, preserve our history, and improve public health. They bring neighbors together and it boosts the economy. Families like to walk around nearby parks to connect with each other and release stress. You see little kids running around, just their laughter. It brings back memories to us of how we used to be outside all the time. playing outside in the playground without worrying about dirty parks. With increased park use throughout the city, we've seen an increase on trash. We need additional staff to help us with the upkeep and maintenance of our public parks. Thank you for the finance committee for the recommendation to bring two additional staff, and I urge the council to approve. Thank you for the time.

Thank you.

Buenas tardes, miembros del concilio. Mi nombre es Norma Aeda, organizadora comunitaria de salud con el Centro de Abogacía de la Comunidad. CCA sigue trabajando con Big Sur Land Trust en Ensign Community Park. CCA también es parte de la coalición de parques y recreaciones. Estamos aquí para apoyar la recomendación del personal de aceptar los cambios al presupuesto que ayuden a contratar personal adicional que ayuden en el mantenimiento de nuestros parques en salinas como organizadora de salud estamos promoviendo estilos de vida saludables para las diferentes edades y los parques donde nuestra comunidad pueden disfrutar de actividades al aire libre para mejorar su salud física y emocional. Por esa razón, CCA y la coalición respalda firmemente la opción número uno de financiar ahora ambos puestos de mantenimiento de parques. Gracias.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, council members, mayor. My name is Nombra Hedo and I'm a community organizer, a health community organizer with CCA. CCA continues working with Big Sur Land Trust and Ascend Community. CCA has also been part of the Park Coalition and Recreation. We are here to support the recommendation of staff and accept the changes of the budget that help us hire more people so they can help with the maintenance of our parks and salinas. As a community healthcare worker, we are promoting healthy lifestyles for different ages and parks is one of the things that our community can enjoy and have activities outside activities to increase their emotional and physical health that is the reason why cca and the coalition supports firmly option one that is to finance right now both positions for the maintenance of the parks thank you thank you

good evening mayor and city council members my name is ustena barrios youth organizer with cca and in my role i lead a lot of the various activities and events that we hold at ensign community park and also friends of ensign and friends of ensign is a volunteer based group that focuses on our activating the park and keep maintaining the park clean so while we are happy to be able to do so for our I know that many other parks don't have that opportunity to have a volunteer-based group that can help maintain and keep those parks clean. So as we also form part of the Parks and Rec Coalition, I am here tonight to please urge council to please support accepting those staff recommendations on budget changes and maintaining, to be able to keep, to maintain or selling those parks clean. So we particularly want to urge staff to vote for option one, to allocate funding for both park maintenance positions now. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Good evening. Name is Eric Peterson and just a couple of side issues here. We've got oversight committees and some of the members are here tonight. Some of the members don't show up for their committee meetings. It'd be nice if the council members would keep track of who's not showing up and deal with it accordingly, like suppliers under people. The other thing is a lot of things that don't get done are because there's no money appropriated to get them done. We've got an election coming up. There's gonna be mud thrown. It would be really nice if council members would point out when something hasn't been funded, and that's the reason it hasn't been done, to people who bring that up. Thank you.

Mary Ann Worden, thank you, Gloria, for mentioning Granada and Laurel. That street, I've asked for lights on that since I was on the traffic commission. I've seen more accidents on that corner. And for our lights on Williams Road, I was so happy on the 30th of June when I went home and they were working. But there's at least four of them that's not working now. I think it's Fairhaven or Grand Haven. There's four up to past Alma. I think Alma's not working. And then the one on Del Monte and Sanborn off the lights, the one's not working too. But I reported that already. So hopefully it'll get done. I don't mind new people hiring new people, because when we need them, we need them. But please have them speak English. I don't care what nationality they are, but I've known people that have come here to apply for a job and couldn't speak or write in Spanish, and they weren't hired, even though they were quite capable of doing the job. So please, when I talk to someone, They don't understand even what I'm saying. And you can't help people if they don't understand. They need to fill in a hole. And I ask, why don't you fill the next hole? They can't tell me. They don't know what I'm saying. I'm still not have figured out why the trees and the grass Flowers on Davis are not, what's wrong with them? And all the other weeds that are around here during the, those, that's disgusting. Disgusting. Thank you. It's been so many finding out what's wrong.

Buenas tardes, concilio, alcalde. Mi nombre es Nidia Soto, organizadora de la justicia económica con BHC. Estoy aquí porque... Por muchas cosas, verdad. El presupuesto es muy importante en el involucramiento cívico de nuestra comunidad. Y como ustedes pueden haber presenciado desde el momento inicio de este presupuesto, en la elaboración de este presupuesto, nuestro equipo de vecindarios prósperos fue involucrado y ha sido siendo involucrado. Y por esto... Everything is important. The streets, as Councilor De La Rosa mentioned, are very important. Businesses, support for small businesses is very important. Support for young people, our youth here in Salinas is very important. Everything that is said here is super important. So, ahorita estoy aquí por el esfuerzo que se ha empezado desde el principio para el financiamiento de Ciclovia, que es involucramiento de la comunidad. Demuestra unidad en nuestra juventud, en nuestra comunidad, apoyo para los pequeños negocios. Y agradezco la recomendación del Comité de Finanzas a Ciclovia y les pido que voten a favor de la recomendación de este comité. Gracias.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council. My name is Nida Soto, and I am an organizer of economic justice with BHC. And I am here for many things. One of them is the budget, Encyclopedia. And as we mentioned, the budget is really important. And building healthy communities through thriving neighborhoods has been involved from the beginning. And we think that it's really important, a lot of the things that we have mentioned here. things that are important for businesses, for youth, support to Salinas. And that is why mostly one of the things that I wanna highlight is the financing for Ciclovía. I really appreciate the recommendation of the budget committee to give this funds. The Ciclovía is unity, it's youth, it is community engagement, it is helping small businesses. So I really appreciate if they approve the recommendation to give funds to Ciclovía. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Anyone else from the public?

I just have a quick comment. I usually go to the skate park in the Greek park over there. I think it's Nativa Greek park, the skate park. And there's no lights. From my understanding, I guess there's like wiring, like the wiring is like cut off or something. And also the main pathways of the park, like they're like, they're not, like they never turn on. Like I've reported like, TO THE CITY BEFORE BUT LIKE THAT HAS LIKE THERE'S NO LIGHTS AND YOU KNOW LIKE FALL IS APPROACHING AND AND UM IT GETS DARK SOON AND LIKE IT WOULD BE NICE TO SEE LIGHTS BEING ON AFTER SIX OR DURING THAT TIME THAT'S ALL I WANT TO SAY THANK YOU THANK YOU

Good evening, City Council. I would just like to address the streetlights. Not only do they beautify our city, they reduce accidents on the road. They help police in their jobs. It increases business. There was a two-year study in the city of Philadelphia where they improved the city lighting. It decreased night crime by 15% and decreased 5% citywide gun violence at night. And to address concerns of funding, I would suggest to decrease Salinas Police Department's funding and increase public works. Salinas Police Department, from their general funds of Salinas, has $48 million. And then from Measure G, the one cent tax that we have here in Salinas, they get $6 million. So that's my recommendation. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, we will go ahead and see if there's any comments on Zoom. All right, Jose.

Good afternoon, . You know, I see a lot of money being moved there, and I just don't know how you're going to prioritize all that. I mean, no disrespect to Mr. Barajas wanting a light BLINKING LIGHT IN DISTRICT ONE. I MEAN, MS. DE LA ROSA HAS BEEN FIRED FOR THAT WITH ME FOR A LONG TIME. I'M ON THE TRAFFIC COMMISSION. I BROUGHT THAT UP SEVERAL TIMES. WATCH THOSE MEETINGS. AND NOTHING'S BEEN DONE. THAT SHOULD BE A PRIORITY. ACTUALLY, ALL THOSE LIGHTS SHOULD BE PRIORITIES. BARAJAS, YOU SHOULD GET YOUR LIGHT ALSO. EVERYONE ELSE THAT NEEDS ONE OF THOSE LIGHTS IN FRONT OF A SCHOOL OR ANYWHERE IMPORTANT, GET THOSE DONE. THE PAHO THING'S NOT GOING TO BE SOLVED OVERNIGHT. You guys don't have a plan for that. You say you do, but you don't, honestly. Let's take care of safety first, public safety. Let's take care of that and then do the infrastructure. That is my opinion. As far as the grant for the neighborhoods, I mean, that was ridiculous how you guys presented that to us. When we got our qualification for it, they wanted us to put the money up front and then GO AHEAD AND GET REIMBURSED THAT'S JUST A REALLY BAD IDEA AND THANK YOU YOU REACHED OUT TO ME AND I THINK WE TALKED ABOUT THIS AND WE DECIDED NOT TO GET FROM MONTE VEA BECAUSE A BLOCK PARTY REALLY THERE'S A LOT OF THINGS WE CAN ACTUALLY FIX IN OUR COMMUNITY WE COULD PUT FLOWERS TREES OTHER THINGS THAT WILL BENEFIT ESPECIALLY MONTE VEA PARK ALL OF THE UM Things you make the carne asada on, the little barbecue pits, they're all rotted out. I put in a concern already, has not been addressed, have not been fixed. Little things like that, that money could go a long way. Block parties, come on, guys. The city can throw those. Why do you have a community have to be in charge of that? And then to use your own vendors, that's wrong, guys. We can even pick our own vendors. Why do you use city vendors, which is wrong? Man, I'm sorry. You guys just like spending money and don't know how you're going to... Thank you. All right. Gabriela.

Hello, good afternoon. My name is Gabriela Camacho, and I participate in the Salinas BHC Prosperous Neighbors Team. Soy dueña de un negocio en el distrito 3 y me gustaría que incrementaran la subvención que la ciudad otorga a los negocios de Salinas para marketing, tecnología, equipo u otras necesidades empresariales elegibles y hacemos saber al concilio Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Gabriela Camacho and I participate with BHC and thriving neighborhoods I live in district 3 and I'm a business owner I would like to ask City Council if they can increase the grants for small businesses small businesses need to in to invest in technology Merchandising and better technology to have better businesses and provide better services. So we would like to ask you if the City Council can increase those grants so we can invest in all these things when it's eligible. These awards will help us, our businesses thrive, and we can give better services to our community. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, and Adriana.

Adelante, Adriana. Buenas tardes, Concilio y miembros de la ciudad. Mi comentario es acerca de pedir el apoyo para la subvención para los negocios, para tecnología, ciclovía, seguridad, infraestructura, vivienda. especially the public lighting, but what I would like is, we are investing a lot in renewing our parks, but we are not worried about hiring someone to give maintenance, and also surveillance for our parks. We are losing our parks because we no longer have a ranger who is monitoring the park. In addition, it is of no use that we continue to invest in renewing them and renewing them and renewing them if we do not have a person to monitor them. Tenemos personas tomando, fumando y haciendo desmanes en los parques. Necesitamos protección, necesitamos vigilancia en los parques, que después de ciertas horas no haya personas que no tienen que estar allí porque estamos gastando dinero. pero nuestros niños no se pueden beneficiar de los parques porque no tenemos nadie que haga vigilancia ni haga cumplir la seguridad en los parques. Entonces, todo esto es bueno invertir, pero necesitamos darle seguimiento para proteger los parques y cada vez ir invirtiendo menos En cuanto a la calle Sanborn del Monte Gardner, no hay alumbrado público suficiente, no tenemos señalamientos, no tenemos cruces, los letreros de los semáforos no tienen los nombres de las calles.

Good afternoon City Council members. My name is Adriana and I'm here to support what is the grants for small businesses. We need those grants. We need technology. We also need to invest in ciclovía and safety infrastructure and houses. Also, we need more public lighting. But another thing that I think is very important is that we're investing in parks. And I think that it doesn't make a lot of sense to be investing in parks if we're not gonna be hiring the people that are going to give the maintenance to these parks. So we're investing in them, we're improving them, we're renovating them, But then there's nobody there to take care of our investments. We don't have enough staff to be there. And the problem is that people go into those parks, they smoke, they drink, they create riots, they destroy everything that we have built in those parks. And so if we want to maintain and we don't want to invest our money in something that is not worthwhile, we have to have somebody at the parks that's making sure that people that don't have to be there are there after hours. We need to increase the maintenance. We need to hire enough people and we need to increase the policing in our parks. And we really have to follow up on this because also another thing is Sanborn, there's not enough lights, there's not enough signaling. We have to improve the light and we have to, for example, at the streets and at the sidewalks, there's not even the names of the streets. So all these things we really have to follow up and invest to improve our city.

Okay, thank you. All right, I'm going to go ahead and close public comment. And then I'm going to go ahead and make an initial comment and a motion. And listening to everyone, I gather folks have some various thoughts on things. But I'll make my comments, and then I'll try a motion on for size. Going through this, I think in terms of the park maintenance, I think it is important to support that. And clearly, we've heard other community groups have looked at this. So that's additional thorough vetting and a broad cross-section of of input. And it's also an example of how we're going to have to move forward in a lot of ways to meet the expectations of the community. So good things happen when there's a public-private partnership. And the Big Sur Land Trust and the other groups clearly are doing their part. I was out at Ensign Park the other day, ran into the Big Sur Land Trust, friends of Ensign Park. So they're doing what they said they would. It came over to the city, but they've maintained their involvement. And we have made a huge investment in parks, and it's important to maintain it. And the other thing is phase two of Ensign Park is really kind of a kind of a different type of park element to introduce into the city when you're talking about 67 acres and trails and that sort of thing. So there is an extra maintenance load to that. And I think the other thing is, you know, we've all heard get ready for a wet winter. And a lot of times, that will show up in our parks and that sort of thing. So that ability to really be prepared on the maintenance support that we have and get ready just seems to be to make sense. So that was certainly our thinking. Relative to Cyclovia, I I would like to fund the project, but we heard a lot of different views. So option two represents supporting the system as I recognize it, that there is the community sponsorship program that vets and looks at things, but by raising the ceiling, it gives Cyclovia a chance to, and an opportunity to make their case. Under all circumstances, and because we're hearing the cancellation of events, the $150,000 in my mind is just generally tight. $200,000 is a BETTER NUMBER REGARDLESS OF WHAT WERE TO COME BACK TO COUNCIL FOR FINAL APPROVAL. BUT I CERTAINLY AM SUPPORTIVE OF CYCLOBIA AND THAT CREATES AN OPPORTUNITY UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES ANYONE WHO GOES THROUGH THIS PROCESS HAS GOT TO SHOW THEIR BUDGET AND MAKE SURE IT'S VETTED PROPERLY SO I THINK THOSE that guardrail, as it were, remains in place. So whether or not, this doesn't guarantee anything, but my feeling at the time was 200,000 is simply a better number for the community. So that was my thinking. Relative to the neighborhood grants, if you really look at it, there's no material change in the budget we passed. There was an acknowledgment and an interest, but it comes at mid-year. What I think we're all hearing is folks are very concerned about their immediate surroundings. And so there is a trend, I think, to more neighborhood involvement, more neighborhood participation. And so this mid-year, so there's no cost impact this evening. Budgeting, and this doesn't even apply, a budget doesn't necessarily mean something gets spent. It essentially creates some cap room, but I think Clearly, I think the council's disposition, for instance, personally, I don't think block part, I mean, maybe they make sense, maybe they don't. I mean, that can be a fair and I imagine even spirited discussion. But what I do know is there's a trend towards more of a desire of neighborhoods to feel closer, more connected, and have some autonomy and participation. So I certainly wasn't uncomfortable with the number going up, but I felt mid-year was a better time when we had more information. So there's no material cost impact. Frankly, we're just acknowledging it and then maybe even expressing some opinions at this time. But I do think there should be some conditions attached to that if that were to go in that direction. I think the support for the small business grants is clear, make sense. And as far as rental assistance, I think one of the things to note is that one, you know, besides the report we heard, you know, Jose, your comments, the assistance for homeless families is being used, and I know I've talked to MCOE, and what's the number that you feel more comfortable based on demand? Because the question was asked, do we expect to see more demand for this? So that homeless, working with MCOE, who has a good track record, the districts work with, I think bumping up the rental assistance makes program. I think the other thing we have been hearing is we've been doing a lot of projects. And some of them are big tickets. But there is an interest in smaller things that matter, so the striping, the lighting, the potholes, the trees. All those things are important to people. This happens to be the list that's CURRENT EVENTS, HOT OFF THE PRESS, AND SO LET'S GET THEM FUNDED. SO THE LIST MAKES SENSE. AND, AGAIN, WE KNEW WHEN WE PASSED A TWO-YEAR BUDGET THAT BUDGETS ARE DYNAMIC. THERE WILL BE OPPORTUNITIES TO STEP IN AND ADJUST THINGS AS WE MOVE DOWN THE ROAD. BUT, YOU KNOW, IT'S ALSO NO SURPRISE RIGHT AFTER PASSING THE BUDGET, WE KNEW WE WANTED TO POLISH A FEW THINGS OFF. immediate and current needs and folks clearly want them addressed sooner rather than later. And as far as the additional infrastructure, and the more I looked at it, I listened to what everyone said, but I think I mean, the motion I would make is to approve what's been recommended by staff with the caveat, based on what Gloria has said, we still don't quite know what this costs. And it's going to take a little bit to do it. But I think we want to make a hard commitment to get this teed up as soon as possible. That seems to attract right around mid-year. But we need to send a signal that voices are being heard. I think that's really important. And we certainly understand this isn't the only project. It's important to note on this that when When we talk about going into reserves, this was a budgeted, already passed in the general fund reserve item. And basically what we're saying, because we're all hearing, hey, can you all do some stuff sooner rather than later? So we're basically saying, rather than let that $4 million sit there, let's pull something in now so for instance if if there are situations like glory we could theoretically get to the mid-year and go gosh christmas was great sales are up we feel good how long does it get ready to get things in the queue so really even if there's a sense of urgency now and we've and we hear loud and clear the petitions of gloria and my my my thought is in order to move forward the things we talked about at the Finance Committee. But my motion would be to approve staff recommendation with the caveat that we will definitely bring back the Laurel and Granada Avenue project, understanding what the costs are. And depending upon where we are, I think we're certainly hearing This safety, not that it was not in the queue in terms of priority, but if we have to, just like we're hearing, hey, would you take care of some of the smaller things now? We know we've got a traffic calming issue. We know there are too many speeders. And that's just simply a big project. But this becomes kind of the bellwether SITUATION TO SAY, OKAY, LET'S PULL THIS INTO THE QUEUE AND OBVIOUSLY I THINK A SITTING COUNCIL IS GOING TO BE VERY SENSITIVE TO PRIORITY, TO ANY PUBLIC SAFETY PRIORITY. SO MY RECOMMENDATION OR MY MOTION WOULD BE LET'S APPROVE WHAT STAFF SAID WITH THE CAVEAT THAT INCLUDED IN THIS IS direction to because this doesn't specifically say it direction to bring this project back for mid review and and and hopefully commit to being able to fund it so that would be my motion second

And then if there's any additional discussion. Question for my clarification. So the motion would be, and this is just for that last part, and sorry to be a stickler on this. No, no. But for the East Laurel and Granada Avenue RRFB, so the motion would be there's no actual encumbrance for that specific project. We're just doing additional research. Staff will bring it back at mid-year sometime around December, and then we'll move forward with whether or not.

Yeah, we can't approve it until we... WHAT WE'RE DIRECTING IS WE WANT IT SPECIFICALLY BROUGHT BACK FOR PRESENTATION FOR APPROVAL. SO IT WOULD BE ATTACHED TO THE EMOTION TO ESSENTIALLY LOOK AT THIS PROJECT SPECIFICALLY, GET IT FUNDED, AND THAT GIVES IT CLEAR VISIBILITY, PUBLIC INPUT, AND FULL COUNCIL CONSIDERATION.

OKAY. WELL, MY CONCERN WITH THAT IS, AS I EXPRESSED EARLIER, IS I THINK THERE'S PLENTY OF OTHER LOCATIONS CITYWIDE, AND I WOULD MAKE THE ARGUMENT THAT CONSTITUTION, WITH THE SOCCER COMPLEX AND THE TIVIDAD ACROSS, WITH 10,000 PEOPLE, WE ALREADY HAVE THAT DATA, RIGHT? THE SOCCER COMPLEX HAS ALREADY DONE THOSE REPORTS. WE DON'T NEED TO HAVE PUBLIC WORKS GO OUT AND DO ADDITIONAL INVESTIGATIONS, ADDITIONAL RESEARCH. to learn that there's already 10,000 people visiting the soccer complex every weekend, Monday through Friday, almost year-round, and that's only gonna increase as capacity there increases.

mean if there's any way to increase that to be city-wide because i'm sure my colleagues on the other council districts as well also have other areas of specific concern if if you want because i would direct because you're right about the soccer complex and it's not the only area but that that is an area where that issue is going to frankly expand yeah and it will need to be part of a broader conversation um you know what we could could ask staff to put together a list of get input from council. Where are these other issues? And we can take a look at that. But the soccer complex, frankly, is going to be part of a much broader conversation. And you're absolutely right. But there are other elements to that conversation in terms of taking left turns, going right, speeding. I mean, it's a big conversation. an important conversation to completely agree i i i suspect it will have its own independent conversation soon with the community so if if if you know i i do want to uh uh you know this one has been brought in for the But based on the cost that we've seen, we need perhaps direction to begin looking at getting this compiled. But if we start going down the million dollar road for five or six of these, then this budget recommendation goes away. So I'm just trying to keep things moving, but with an understanding that we're going to have to look at these other areas.

Well, I see the Constitution and drive flashing beacon as an opportunity to work with the county because it's my understanding that you know that intersection and that crossing has always been intended to be you know a city county partnership because the county still has to figure out what exactly they're going to do with the parcel directly across from this and the city and county subcommittee is getting ready to to meet yeah

i have a question because you didn't say that you were okay with the funding for the small business but you wanted to hold off on the neighborhood grants to to the meteor is that correct is that what you said well that that that's that's what what i said i mean but i'm not opposed to the doubling of it in in any way shape or form uh i just i would suggest we just look at it look at it mid-year because because the other thing i think i'm hearing is we may need to get some guidelines on what what's clear cut you know how do we communicate what are the guidelines but uh but i think mid-year is the appropriate time to re-evaluate the bumping it up for the neighborhood grants but you're okay with moving forward with the additional allocation for the small business is that what you said oh yeah and then i would support your motion so just to be clear we would be bumping up the small business grants right yeah that's that's the staff recommendation

No, it's not the staff recommendation.

Oh, okay. To keep it as is. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, okay. All right.

I second your motion since you did say that.

Okay. No, no, no. I'm happy to bump that up. Okay.

So I need to sort of clarify this.

Okay. I hear what you're saying. Okay.

So we have a motion and a second on the table.

I need to clarify my own motion.

But you had a second. Okay.

So that's... Go ahead.

Here's what I would suggest, Mayor. Why don't you just withdraw that motion, please, from the table, and let's start again. Okay. Because there was some confusion as to what you were moving, so let's... Yeah, well, what I was moving was staff agreement.

But, no, I'm happy to withdraw the motion. I was just trying to provide my comments for the context before what the inevitable discussion was. So that's fine. I'm happy to withdraw the motion.

Okay. So the motion's been withdrawn.

Or is there a substitute motion? There's no substitute because there's no motion. OK. Or is there a new motion?

Well, I think I make a motion to accept staff recommendations with the addition of the $100,000 for the small business grant and to wait for the mid-year budget review for the neighborhood grants. That would be my motion, which is pretty much aligned with what you agreed. OK.

would you be comfortable with at least bringing back the look of absolutely i think we need to revisit uh because it's been a long-standing issue so would you be comfortable the second in that motion

I mean, do we have to mention that the issue that we're going to bring back to see the- No, we don't do it.

Council Member Sandoval just said yes. He wants to have that conversation about not only Laurel and Granada, but the others as well. So the answer to your question is yes, Council Member. Okay.

All right.

All right, then I'll second your motion.

All right, okay. And then I do have some final comments.

Okay.

So first I want to thank the youth for participating in this. I know that Big Sur Land Trust, CCA, and all the other organizations have been working very hard to maintain that and putting a lot of volunteer hours into that. And I think it's only appropriate for the city to come alongside and partner with you. So I'm happy to support that as well. I also want to thank Benjamin for helping spread the word on the Facade Improvement Program. I'm going to look for your help as well, as well as other folks to help me spread the message for the small business grant opportunities. I think we need to do a better job myself as well in the Spanish language because we do have a lot of businesses We're monolingual. I also want to recognize last year, Joey, District 5 resident, we held a neighborhood grants meeting where we had over 20 residents show up. And we had so many residents show up, we actually helped facilitate applications to District 3. District 6, District 2, and of course District 5. There is a need for those. If residents saw those applications and saw that they no longer had to upfront the cost, I guarantee you, because I'm going to go out and announce that tonight, maybe tomorrow, depending how late we get here, there's going to be more people who apply for the neighborhood grants. But neighborhood grants funded things last year like Lights for Autism, an event downtown that was like an autism awareness first of its kind in Old Town Salinas. The Alvarez, a market fundraiser for college visits and scholarship. I had a neighborhood on Baldwin that gave away free helmets, had a community gathering and a community meeting. We're helping Little League get batting cages. At Laurelwood School, we helped fund a school carnival. There was a resident, I think, in District 1 or another district who got new barbecue pits. So there's a lot of opportunities for that. So I also do want to... state that I am concerned about ongoing copper wire theft. Once people figure out that they can steal the copper wire, it's gonna happen again. And as Daniel Munoz said earlier, I had asked the council to support me on the transition to solar lights. I did not get a single council member to back me up on that, but the city needs to move in that direction. Otherwise, I guarantee you there's gonna be another area that's isolated and somebody's gonna get better at stealing copper wire. So I'm asking my colleagues again to support a transition or at least a presentation on what it would look like to move towards solar lighting. And those are all my comments. Okay, thank you. All right, Tony.

Mr. Mendison, Mr. Sandoval's point about solar lighting, I think the reason he did not get a second, you had mentioned something.

So we do have a pilot program going on, and if you look at the cost estimate for And it's all, you know, distance and poles and so forth. If you look at the costs that we have, we have 10 lights, 10 streets that we're trying to do with the not solar, and the solar by itself is almost a third of the other costs. So part of the issue is, from a cost perspective, is how do we begin to shift to solar? So the staff is researching solar, and we will bring back solar opportunities. We have been working with the vendor and with the Al-Asai area and stuff, so that's just being developed. But because we saw the need and we reacted and we're trying to be proactive, we're taking an opportunity to test it out at Delvey Drive. So I think we're going in that direction. And most of the staff's not saying it's a good idea. Some cities have moved to that. But today I just got directed to bring back flashing lights and do a city-wide kind of search on that, which is probably going to take us a little longer in the mid-year. So we're going to have to prioritize. So I'm trying to figure out how to bring that back to you so we maintain the momentum on the light that's been brought forward and still continue that work. Because when we go from one or two locations to broad locations, it just takes us a while to get through that. So the short answer to your question is I think we're moving in that direction with Solar Light. Staff did hear and listen, and we are trying to take advantage of the opportunity. So, I mean, I think there's just another path in that direction.

Yes, thank you. And my other comment is regarding social media dissemination of information. Even though Council Member Sandoval is very good at it, you also have a department within the city that disseminates this information.

Well, and I do think, I was going to talk about it in my city manager report, but it's appropriate right now with, you had the youth and my council member that, well, let's reinforce the fact that youth are bringing back some good ideas. So one of them was an increased campaign in public works, right? So there's been a lot more information in public works and we'll continue to grow that footprint. And so as we're getting better, there is a lot more footprint. So while I do recognize that we still have a ways to go, we are actively engaged in just getting more messaging out. So as we, if the council moves forward on the doubling of the grant, of the money set aside for the business grants, we're gonna do a much better effort in terms of improving our messaging and our outreach. And the other thing, We were trying to do this with really short staff. In the span of a year, and you remind me all the time, in the span of a year, we have brought more staff. So we have a deputy director now. We have another position, a business navigator position. So there's just a lot more capacity that we're going to continue to try to improve our outreach and our messaging. So yes, we're trying to maximize the tools that you have authorized us to bring forward.

Yeah. Thank you. And Mr. Mayor, one last point. I want to also thank all these young leaders that we have in front of us. I think the important thing is that as we work together, this team over here works for you. So I think as we message each other, we need to look at it as solution-driven for the community. And sometimes the way we do that is we dialogue. Maybe if you have an idea or something, whether it's Council Member Sandoval, but remember, we're all working to bring solutions to our community, whatever district it is. But I wanna thank you that what you've said today, it sounds like this council is going to be implementing these ideas. So thank you for your involvement. Thank you, Mayor. All right.

Okay, I just also want to thank the youth from CCA, BHC, media, and I want to thank Mr. Macias. Mr. Macias, I want to thank you personally. Thank you for coming out to our Republic cleanup that we had at Cesar Chavez Park, that you came and you videotaped me. and you gave me that opportunity, inviting the community to come out. We had 205 cars Saturday that came through. And yes, the social media is very important, but we also have a department, economic development department, and like our city manager just mentioned, We have a deputy now and we have staff that's doing outreach. So again, to the community, we need to work together and you need to contact our community development department because they're gonna be doing outreach and this is where we can work together to get these messages out to our small businesses within the city.

so again thank you so much and um yeah let's move forward all right I may just make one quick comment I'm just uncomfortable with the motion right now given that we're about to spend an additional 155 000 of which you know what is it 105,000 of those are going towards the small business grants, which programmatically I'm not opposed to, but I am opposed to doubling the amount when we haven't even received the presentation on the program. So everyone here is willing to throw double the amount, increase that from 105 to 210 without even seeing data, seeing a single presentation on the program, how it can be improved. So my one request would be to make a friendly amendment to just keep the small business grant recommendation as is by staff of keeping it at 105,000 and then reviewing it at mid-year.

Second.

What?

I think it's the maker of the motion has to, right?

Right. So the maker of the motion would have to accept that friendly amendment. And I understand that Council Member Sandoval is not willing to accept that friendly amendment. So the motion stands.

In that case, I'll make an alternative motion approving staff's recommendation with the approving staff's recommendation Yeah.

Say that again. Approving staff's recommendation.

He wants to withdraw the money for the small business.

For the presentation .

Mayor, on that, if I may, can we ask the finance director where she stands on that?

So I'm going to, with all due respect, I need to step in here because we presented the information and now it's a policy discussion by the council. It's not, at this point we provided our best recommendation and now we're going to talk about our opinion. So we provided an update. We shared, can you put up the... the slide where you, you know, the fund balance and kind of what we would have at the end, just so we can clarify that. So. Keep it accurate. The, no, not that one. The, keep going back, back, back, back. That one. So the recommendation from staff was these positions can be a sponsorship program. The addition to that was doubling the business grant. So it would reduce the $555,000 balance. That's a policy call like our finance director suggested when you ask, can we do something? Yeah, I mean, we can. So at this point, that's where we're at. I think from a perspective of we'll come back in mid-year, regardless of the decision you give today, and we'll give you an update on the budget. So if there's other issues that are going on, we will make recommendations at that point to adjust. So I just want to leave it at that.

Well, that makes sense. And we have consensus, including from the mayor. So to go back on that, like I said, I'd just like to call for the question.

Okay, so can someone?

Well, is there a second to the amendment? It's a separate motion. Is there a second to the substitute motion?

I just want to make it clear for everyone. Yes.

Second?

I'd second.

Well, then I'd like to have discussion on the new substitute motion. So I'm asking the council to increase the allocation for small businesses. We all say we support small businesses. It's not an unreasonable ask. I want to remind the council that this last year, the council approved $200,000 yearly for the Welcome Center with zero data, zero metrics, zero anything. Now, we're trying to give small businesses $2,500 so they can advance their marketing. They can buy new equipment. They can do things to better their community. I heard my colleagues talk about the Welcome Center is going to fund mom and pop and provide economic development. This $2,500 could help launch these small businesses. There's no limitations on We could do it. Our finance director said we can do it. This is the discretion of the council. So I'm asking you, the mayor supported it. Gloria, you seconded the motion. There's no logical reason for not funding and not providing this opportunity. So with that, I'd ask the council to not support Council Member Barajas' motion to withdraw funding for small business. We have the data. And I do want to share something with you. We all talk about outreach to the community. I've seen none of my colleagues ever post a small business grant opportunity, actually with the exception of Barajas, but that's through his employment. The neighborhood grants, we have that responsibility to doing the outreach to the businesses. Let's fund this program. And any unspent money, because what we're saying is we don't know if it's going to be a success. Any unspent money like it does with our sewer rate assistance or our rental assistance goes back to our general fund. If somebody can give me a logical argument for why we shouldn't support the small businesses and add this additional funding, I mean, make it make sense. Otherwise, it is going to be taking that opportunity from small businesses. So I ask you not to support the motion to withdraw funding from small businesses.

if i may comment and if staff may step in on this one do we have any information on how much of the monies that was allocated to that program have been expended and is there a genuine need because the staff recommendation itself says they're not recommending that and they're the ones that have the data can you please answer i can okay

Council Member Ross, can you repeat that one more time, specifically which program on that one?

For the digital marketing technology program.

Okay, so currently right now, the remaining balance is $67,914, split in between the Alisal and the citywide grant program right there. A total of $105,000 was allocated to both programs.

And then how much was initially allocated?

$105,000.

$105,000. So was that for the previous fiscal year?

That was for this year.

So the initial allocation was $105,000. For the previous fiscal year, there's a carryover of $67,000.

I believe it was one-time funding.

One-time funding, right. So this contribution would be from our general fund, correct? Correct. All right.

And to clarify, the funding is not for citywide. For citywide funding, there's only an allocation of $15,000 remaining. Is that correct? Well, I don't have to say is that correct, because that's the information that was provided by staff. So right now, the remainder of the funds are are only $15,000 for citywide grants and the rest is only specifically for LSF.

It's $16,678 for citywide, correct.

Yes, $1,000.

Yeah, that's correct.

So anyways, my request for the council still remains the same to support the expansion of this program and for us to, as council members, do a better job of providing outreach so people know that the grant exists.

I'll jump in for just a final comment. And there can be kind of an honest People of goodwill may differ. But I'd like to support Councilmember Sandoval. And we'll call for the vote. And we'll see where it goes. But I think there's a couple of things to keep in mind. Just because something is budgeted doesn't necessarily mean it'll be used. But I also think we know the economy is tough. I think we all know this has been a difficult summer for our biggest industry. There's no question that trickles down to small business in particular. So when you kind of hear the combination of what's the current economic environment, which will echo through the fall, coupled with we've heard not only on this, but on other items, that, you know, making information available is something we all agree on. And we've heard the city manager talking about we're building capacity. So all those things speak to having funds available, even if they're not all used, would be a good signal to send and get behind as just part of our economic development efforts because there really is a very active entrepreneurial spirit in the city of small businesses trying to make things happen. I won't vote for this particular motion, but I want to make sure that what my thinking is and it's meant to be a friendly comment and then we'll get it worked out one way or another, but that's my thinking. And so I won't be supporting this particular motion, but I hope if it passes, it passes. If it doesn't, I hope we can just pull everything together and move forward.

So I'd like to make a comment. Can you repeat again how much money goes into the LSL again, please?

Council Member, currently for the marketing tech grant for the LSL, the annual budget for it was $13,323. It was for citywide, and LSL is $23,000 total. Okay. Okay.

So we prioritize, two years ago, we, we prioritized trying to spend more money. Yeah. In revitalizing LSL. So there's a bigger allocation for that.

Yeah. So. Can I just clarify the numbers just really quick? There's two, there, I see there's confusion. There's two programs. that are funded. There's the Alisal and that it's one-time monies. This is not an annual allocation. This was one-time funds. So the original funds for the Alisal was $75,000. And then it was expanded a year later to include $30,000 citywide. That's where you get this combination that people are talking about $105,000. What's left in that program has been the question. What's remaining for the Alisal of that 75,000 is about $51,000. What's remaining in the citywide program of that 30, there's 16,000 roughly remaining. Again, it's one-time funds. That's what's being discussed in the doubling, which would be helpful if this goes forward. The doubling, when it says let's double that, I'd love to hear some clarification. Is that double the for each one or is it just citywide?

Citywide.

Just citywide, thank you.

So it would be citywide if we approve the doubling?

If that's your direction.

It would be citywide, not just specific area.

Okay, now, okay. Now I would like to, yeah, take back my motion.

Your second?

Your second.

Okay, so you're withdrawing your second. She's rescinding her second. Council Member Sandoval's motion. Council Member Barajas' motion.

Okay, so unless there's a second, we'll just go ahead and proceed with the original motion.

So let's clarify, Patty, please.

So we'll go ahead and just clarify also, and correct me if I'm wrong, okay? So the original motion was made by Council Member Sandoval, second by Council Member De La Rosa, adding both positions for year one and two. The component related to Ciclovia was to increase the budget, the community sponsorship budget to 200,000. The neighborhood grants requested allocation, that's going to be discussed at mid-year, so that's not being approved right now. The small business grants for a total of $210,000 allocation. There was no mention of this, but I just want to clarify also for the makers of the motion is that this staff recommendation also included the infrastructure projects, which were the striping, street lighting, solar lights, potholes, and so on. So that's also included in the motion. And direct staff to bring back the East Laurel and Granada projects and other similar requests for future consideration and approval.

Yes. Don't forget the rental assistance.

And the rental assistance. I'm sorry. So rental assistance is not recommended at this time.

Increase for five.

No, it's not.

It's mid-year.

So mid-year. Okay.

Okay, I'm gonna call for the vote on this motion actually, can I interrupt very quickly? I just want to make sure to clarify if we were to if the small business grants were to increase the 210 that weren't increasing it We're increasing the amount that has already been expended. So if we want to increase it by 105 and that there's a difference there. So maybe if we just note the increase is 105.

Yes, it's 105. Yes, I understand. Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Let's vote. Okay, calling for the vote on this item. Council Member Barajas?

Abstain.

Council Member Barrera?

Yes.

Council Member De La Rosa? Yes. Council Member Salazar? Yes. Council Member Sandoval? Yes. Mayor Donahue?

Yes.

Motion passes.

All right. We are going to take a 10-minute break. And let's try and be strict on the 10 minutes. and so as i alluded to earlier there were going to be fireworks at this council meeting and and now uh and now we're about to prove it yes so chris why don't we uh get an after action report on uh fireworks this year thank you mayor uh chris knapp division chief selena's fire department uh tonight myself and staff will be presenting the after action report for the

ILLEGAL FIREWORKS ENFORCEMENT OF 2026. IN THE INTEREST OF SUCCESSION PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP TRAINING THAT A LOT OF STAFF IS GOING THROUGH, OUR ADMINISTRATIVE ANALYST, JESSICA BARDWAGE, IS GOING TO BE PRESENTING TO YOU, AND I WILL BE BACK HERE TO BACK HER UP. SO I GIVE YOU JESSICA BARDWAGE. OKAY.

Thank you, Chief. So yes, Mayor, city council members, city staff, city attorney, and city manager, thank you all for being here and members of the public. Like Chief Nabb mentioned, I'm Jessica Barwash. I'm the administrative analyst for the Salinas Fire Department. My primary role is to help with administrative tasks and operations in our fire prevention division. And one of the responsibilities that we have and we oversee is our fireworks enforcement process and our program, specifically for illegal fireworks and as well as safe and sane related fireworks. Sorry, I'm getting used to this clicker here. As per the municipal code outlines for us, our illegal fireworks enforcement process and outreach and education begins from June 1st to July 12th. During that time, we do interact with our community partners. We get a chance to also do outreach and education by posting a lot of enforcement-related messaging, whether that's through social media posts, through Facebook, Instagram, working with our print and social media and other radio-related media outlets, whether that's KSBW, working with Telemundo and other television channels that we potentially could tap into. We also get the opportunity to place 17 fireworks banners that also let folks know how to report illegal fireworks to our department, whether that's going to be through our fireworks hotline, through text messages, through Salinas Connect, which is a city run program or a app actually that someone can download on their iPhone or their Android. and they could simply make a report letting us know that they have either seen illegal activity somewhere or they have photos and videos and then we can go ahead and generate those and send those out, send out administrative citations for those. Our messaging remains the same and we also like to make sure that the folks know here in Salinas that there are repercussions to doing illegal fireworks. Every firework wick that is lit is 1,500. It's 1,250 for the actual firework itself and 250 for the noise citation aspect of it. And our also goal is to just remind folks the dangers of doing illegal fireworks. So we get lots of calls. about either fireworks causing some fires or injuries to people's hands and other aspects of things. And our other messaging is to remind folks to go ahead and just support local nonprofit organizations. And those are typically like high schools, middle schools, nonprofit organization, that want to participate religious groups and charities so those are our messaging and that we go ahead and promote on the slide there on the right top corner is one of our psa's public service announcements that just lets people know to think before they buy illegal fireworks and for the various reasons and the down below is the report illegal fireworks banners that we go ahead and post at the different intersections throughout the city So for revenue statistics, our revenue statistics ranges from June 1st to July 12th, which is the enforcement, like I mentioned, through our municipal code that outlines. And our funding sources come through three different locations. So our first one is through the Safe and Sane Retail Fireworks booth applications. Last year we collected $8,226, and this year we collected $8,457.80. And the increase was due to, on a yearly basis, on an annual basis, the fee schedule changes. So those are the reasonings as to why that application fee goes up. On the right-hand side, those are the percent changes for the various avenues there. Our second funding source is through the Safe and Sane Fireworks Booth. So in our municipal code, it also states that per each booth that generates funds and the proceeds, we go ahead and get 7% of that. And it goes back into fireworks enforcement. And we go ahead and generate that over and over again on that sense. And then our last thing is the illegal fireworks administrative citation collection. That's our third avenue. And this year we collected one hundred and nine thousand of funds. And it's based on people that are making payments and either full either doing payment plans. And it's not just for the year of twenty twenty six. It's anything in accumulation. And so that's our highest And over the years, I've been here almost nearly four years, and each year it's gone up. The year prior to 2025 to 2024 was about 59,000, and slowly we got it up to 82, and now we're at 109. And then our total revenue that we collected was 178,439.12. So like I mentioned, we also have safe and sane booths. We have two fireworks representatives, whether that's Phantom Fireworks or TNT. This slide is specific to our Phantom Fireworks. They had about three booths, and their difference between what we collected last year and what we've collected this year is down below in the green, which was $664, I believe, and $0.26 on there. And this is the slide for our TNT fireworks. They had 15 booths allocated to their fireworks booths that they had. And we had collected 49,721, which is a slight increase as well from previous years. Fire department operation and statistics. During our time period there, we've responded to a total of 1,664 emergency incidents. And down below, this is basically our breakdown. In this year, we responded to about 10 structure fires, 30 vegetation fires, and 84 miscellaneous. And our miscellaneous fires are those that are small enough fires that only one unit responds to and go ahead and extinguish on their own. So those could be just any random fires that potentially come up. And for illegal fireworks, on our right hand corner we have a breakdown of the different types of avenues people can go ahead and make reports to us or let us know that there are illegal fireworks happening. This year we had 207 text messages or phone calls come through our fireworks hotline, which we usually make live around Fireworks timeframe and then we had 178 reports come in through Salinas connect or as we call a cue alert as well, but those are resident responded Complaints that have come in and we also had 148 calls to 9-1-1 dispatch this year in total we had 513 with all of those accumulated there last year we had 559 and even the year prior we had about 800 ish on there was about 858. And illegal firework usage has decreased or the number of reports that we've received has decreased. And there are multiple reasons as to why that potentially could be. It could be because our enforcement is working and we're going We have a lot of resources and technology out there. There's a lot of costs coming up. And so fireworks are very expensive to purchase. We're hoping that our enforcement messaging also assists. And then we also send over a thousand fireworks prohibited notices, letting folks know that illegal fireworks are not allowed in the city. And we also send them out to previous offenders. That way they know that their address is on surveillance and they shouldn't be doing illegal fireworks. So this is a picture and it's a great example actually. This is a picture on the right hand side and on the left of folks and actually a dad who turned in illegal fireworks. He saw that his child or his son had these and he understood and recognizes the dangers of having illegal fireworks and what the repercussions could be. So they went ahead and turned those into our firehouse. And we have now transferred those over to the Salinas Police Department. And they're going to, once we have enough illegal fireworks, and we're going to go ahead and turn that over to the State Fire Marshal's Office for proper disposal. And I also do want to make note that this year we did something different in the sense that we also looked at social media and other platforms to see if anybody was doing illegal fireworks sales. And we were able to get about 12 different leads. And we passed this over to the Salinas Police Department to go ahead and address as well. And so for our fireworks enforcement task force, our fireworks enforcement program couldn't run without the help of the folks that participate. And that's usually our city staff and other folks and agencies that are able to assist. But primarily it's our public safety staff. We have six fire prevention staff members that assist with fireworks enforcement. We have drone team and our pilots that also participate. Selena's Police Department also provided us with a couple of undercover vehicles and members to go ahead and do enforcement with us. And I also want to recognize our other city departments that participated. We have Community Development, Permit Services, Code Enforcement. We also had people from Housing that assisted. We had City Clerk's Office also participate. Shout out to Alexis. Esther from IT, from Human Resources, and Public Works as well. So in total we had about 36 members, and I'm always hoping that we have more folks participate. And just to continue off that slide, like I mentioned, we have about five marked vehicles with the Salinas Fire Department and then code enforcement that participated. And we also had four unmarked Salinas Police Department vehicles, especially with the Violence Suppression Task Force. And their responsibility was also to go out there, collect evidence, bring that back, and so we could go ahead and generate administrative citations. We had three drone teams and one supervisor that kind of oversaw the entire program. And then we also monitored our Salinas Connect for any service requests that came through or even looked at our fireworks hotline and text messages. Chief Knapp did a really good job of go ahead and using a radio, dispatching people based on the activity and making sure that we were responding in real time to assist where needed. And we also had citizen participation slightly decrease, but we're hoping that's for multiple reasons. And then we do have a video. So this video is a highlight that was created by our administrative captain that works on the drone team as well. And this is an accumulation and just even a fraction of the fireworks that we saw and witnessed throughout the city of Salinas. Essentially, we're asking our drone team and our enforcement officers to wait to see where the folks are doing illegal fireworks. We would want them to go from the house into the street, launch the firework, and then go back so we could tie it back to what address and location the fireworks are coming from. And so as you can see, they're doing quite a number of fireworks out there. And this is a map of our flight path that our drone team did take. There's a couple of different areas that you can see on there. And something notable to mention on this as well is this is our first year that we had but pilots and drone pilots that actually went out and did enforcement on July 3rd, which is typically not the case. We usually only do it on 4th of July, but because we had the availability of drones and pilots that were willing to staff up and go out there and collect evidence, We were able to get them out there. And we also had the financial capabilities and capacity in our enforcement budget since we collect that money from the surcharge. And yeah, we just wanted to make sure our drone team got some flight time so they can go ahead and also participate on July 4th, the next day. And to go on to illegal fireworks statistics, this year we have issued about 80 administrative citations. And the fines don't change. It's per the municipal code is per illegal fireworks, it's 1,250, like I mentioned, and 250 for noise. And so it's a total of 1,500. Our largest citation that we sent was for 12,000. And then in total, we sent over 175,000 worth of citations. On the right-hand side, you'll see an example of what the administrative citation essentially looks like. It outlines what city departments or enforcement officers viewed the illegal activity occurring at, what code sections they're violating. And then it's sent to the address that we have on file. And on the back of the citation, it typically talks about appeals, how they could go through the appeal process, where to call, where to request public records, and things of that nature. And I did write a little note on my sticky note here to mention that thus far we've collected $19,000 worth of full payments since our fireworks enforcement began in July until now. And we have about 15 payment plans established, roughly about 46,000 in totaling in that sense. So each year we are improving. Last year we issued 96 citations, and the year before we did 110. But we're seeing a decrease in how many citations we're sending out and just the total aspect of that. For education and enforcement expenses, our biggest two expenses that we saw this year was going to be to city staff overtime and then our outside services. Our city staff overtime, even though it's in green, it decreased from last year because we had less enforcement officers. This holiday was on a Saturday, so we had less folks participate in the enforcement task force. We should always want to see that expenses are going towards staff over time, having a robust enforcement team going out there, collecting, bringing back the evidence and sending out citations for. A cost that we potentially will see is we want to look for more drones and we want to build our drone team so that way we have concrete evidence and information to send out. And then video equipment, we don't have any video equipment there. For outside services, we always want to partner with our media outlets and other folks that can also help advertise and let the message out that illegal fireworks are not allowed in Salinas. There's a lot of dangers to them and what the repercussions are. So that's the other aspect. And then this year, we didn't have to get any rental vehicles because we had marked vehicles and Salinas Police Department offered their undercover cars. And then sign printing, we potentially will need to purchase more signs. Because each year, once we put them out on the intersections, some either get taken away or damaged. So that might be a cost that we may foresee. And for recommendations, so I believe that we should still continue to increase our drone team and just make a robust program for 4th of July holidays. We should continue to use city staff and those that wanna volunteer and kind of give up their holiday to participate. This is a huge deal for the city and we're always wanting to make sure We're doing right by the residents, making sure that it doesn't tax the public safety staff as well. And we want to continue to share regional resources to target the sales of illegal fireworks, whether that's following up on leads, working with Salinas Police Department or other agencies. And yeah, just working with other neighborhoods and groups to observe and report so we could continue to send out citations. This is a SB 828 related legislation, which I will let Chief Knapp go ahead and elaborate a little bit further on, but it is new and recent regulation that might come down the pipeline and may assist with just enforcement processes and how we could be a little stricter as a city in those cases.

Thanks, Jess. So SB 828 is not signed into legislation yet, but it's going through the legislative process and it's stemmed from the incident that happened in esparto california where seven people died from a fireworks storage warehouse that was not correctly permitted didn't have the proper health and safety codes and an explosion happened and seven people died um it's going to give state fire marshal more authority to inspect product coming into california whether it's for sale in california or not and it's going to give local legis or local authorities having jurisdiction the ability to inspect further should we have some sort of fireworks storage warehouse in our jurisdiction we would have the authority to to ensure that they are meeting the health and safety codes that are required of them or find them appropriately or take them out of business. I think the most important thing to take from this is not necessarily that we have the ability if one of these came in, but that the state and the state fire marshal's office is taking a more proactive approach at combating illegal fireworks and looking at it from the importation standpoint versus just trying to catch people in the act of lighting them off.

Thank you, Chief. And for conclusions, let me just get to that slide. So like I mentioned as well, and I know some of you may have heard this presentation in the past as well, but the reason we have this program isn't to collect money. And it isn't to make it a hardship on the folks out there that are doing illegal fireworks. It's to really change the way people behave and make decisions. We want to change the social consciousness per individuals or on a neighborhood level. just to remind them that there are repercussions to it. It is taxing on city staff, and it's just illegal in the state of California in general. So in the future years, we're hoping to continue to build this program. Every year there's improvement in it, and we see those year after year. And that's the goal that we have is to continue to do so as a department and as a city, and just to make sure that the quality in life is exactly what the residents of Salinas need and deserve. And then I just also want to say thank you really quick to all the enforcement officers that participated. I also want to thank the City Council for supporting this program, my fire team here, for also being a huge part of this. And then we're also available for any questions. And both Chief Knapp and I are available.

Okay, thank you. All right. Gloria, we'll start with you. Any questions?

Great presentation. Thank you. You gave us a lot of information, a lot of good information. But, well, it's good.

It's good.

I need to put this up. It's good to see that the numbers are dropping. Yeah. So everything that is being done is working, you know. And so I'm very glad to see that and that the education, everything that you're doing. Right? But we still have to do a little bit more. And yeah, thank you so much. Those are my only questions. And I'll clarify.

I have no questions. OK, questions and comments, and then we'll go out to the public. There's no action, so just questions and comments as we proceed the dais. Aurelio?

Sure. Yeah, I had a question regarding vegetation fires. In terms of the vegetation fires, How is that typically determined? Is there evidence that you find of a firework that caused it? How do you differentiate that between like maybe just kind of something accidental from like a car backfiring?

So a few different items are going to characterize whether it's dispatched or categorized as a vegetation fire versus a miscellaneous fire. And usually, like Jessica said, is how many units do we need to respond along with what type of fuel is it in and how big that fire has gotten. So those are kind of the criteria that dispatch fire comm is looking at from the call taker that then categorize it as a vegetation fire where they're going to get three engines and a battalion chief or... a miscellaneous nuisance fire where they get one engine and if in route the details of that call indicate something greater than that company officer then escalates it to a vegetation fire response. So we pull that data from our dispatch site.

And then next question. Do we receive any data from Salinas Valley Health or Natividad in terms of, you know, maybe somebody, you know, they burned themselves accidentally? Do they share with the fire department or the city, anyone that, you know, may have accidentally burned themselves due to a firework?

Not necessarily because of HIPAA rules, patient rules, right? we protect this city and we respond to all the 911 calls with paramedics, right? So the last two years, we had one person each year lose some part of their body because of an explosion, right? And our paramedics were first on scene because someone initiated the 911 system. Usually we would hear through a rumor mill, not necessarily that, hey, we had this person, but just a heads up, something like this did happen. And we had no reports of that for the 2026 season.

Thank you.

Okay, Jose. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Boggs, for the presentation. Look forward to having you more frequently. Quick question. On slide number seven regarding illegal firework reports, on the third bullet point, staff attributes this to the following factors, kind of the decline. And the last bullet point is over 1,000 fireworks prohibited notices. You kind of spoke to perhaps some of the past offenders being on that list of 1,000 individuals or notices that go out. What are some examples of other groups or individuals or businesses that might also receive a notice?

Sure. Thank you for the question. So yes, we, throughout the year, receive reports of either illegal fireworks happening. And it's usually through Salinas Connect or I've actually driven around and seen fireworks happen too. And I report it just to kind of know that there's illegal fireworks happening in that area or neighborhood. And if it's a hotspot location, we'll go ahead and take down the address and just send reminders to folks that, and especially if we don't have evidence or photographic or video of the actions taking place, but we know that there were illegal fireworks happening, we'll go ahead and send them a prohibited notice. But those are typically coming through the fireworks hotline. They're coming through Salinas Connect. Sometimes we get email, just random phone calls. So because we also want to be responsive to every complaint, any service request that comes through, we try to take action on it. And even if it is just a courtesy notice reminding folks to not do illegal fireworks. And so we send those out based on those.

Awesome. Thank you for that clarification. And then can we pull up slide number 12, please? The drone flight path. What kind of led to these specific paths being determined? One thing that specifically stands out is, you know, Creek Bridge, Hardin Parkway, certain parts of large swaths of South Salinas that don't really have much lack of better or worse surveillance, you know, being a...

Yes. Following up on your previous question of those 1,000 prohibited notices, every salinas or every salinas connect submission for illegal fireworks phone call email goes into a database that then gis turns into a hot map for us and that helps pick our flight plan for our three different drones that we have that are going to hit six to seven different locations throughout the city over the fourth of july and on july 3rd as we did this year so that data that residents are giving to us is actively helping us create the areas that we believe to be the areas that have the most illegal firework activity.

Okay. And then just for my knowledge, do the current drones that we have like if they're up in the air, they're operational and they're supposed to be surveilling, say, you know, Montebello, but their line of sight is close enough. Sorry about that. Their line of sight is close enough to get perhaps some of Sanborn in sight. Does the drone like turn around and like start to cite that one or does it have to be manually commanded by an individual?

So there's a three person team per drone and am not a drone pilot so i don't know the specifics that they have to adhere to but there needs to be a line of sight where they are visually seeing their bird as it is flying around so there is a specific distance to it but as you saw kind of from the video or just looking at the general flight path there they kind of have free reign in a specific area that if they see activity start to happen they can veer off

uh record data in that area and then find some new activity it is at the pilot's discretion as long as they're flying in their capabilities for their their commercial license that they have awesome thank you for that clarification my last question is uh pertaining to slide number 14 education and enforcement expenses love to see green uh the yellow though drone equipment and video equipment what's kind of the game plan for building up that capacity

So because the surcharge money in the municipal code specifically states for use for fireworks enforcement, we have come to the end of the year and we have not spent money. And I asked our management analyst the other day, I said, is this reallocated? She's like, I don't touch that. Okay, we're gonna follow the rules. So, sorry, long story to get to the point of I've gone to our drone group supervisor and said, start specking out a new bird. Salinas Police Department, from 2025 gave me an absolute beautiful video of someone in an apartment complex coming in and out in apartment complexes are very difficult to enforce because most people aren't coming from their apartment they're just in the common area of that apartment complex lighting stuff off and they're sitting there having a party well these people decided that they would go to 1, 2, 3, 4, Main Street, Unit A, and go in and out, in and out. And the video was so clear. And I said, that is going to make our job much more easier. So sorry, long story short, I've asked them to start specking something like that out. Video equipment is the same thing. We have high resolution 4K video cameras that shoot a night vision mode. And we are looking at expanding some of that technology as well. In our recommendation, we said the drones are truly the game changer for us, so my budgetary priorities are to buy more drones. And we have an expansion with our drone team, so additional pilots with the new IFF contract really supports this operation.

so thank you for that clarification and then are these drones you mentioned partnerships with salinas pd are these drones like obviously these are drones for use for fire department for you know fourth of july and firework enforcement but are we able to share these resources with police department throughout the rest of the calendar year right so we have our drone fleet and pd has their drone fleet uh should the need arise for

PD to have need drone support. We have multiple pilots on duty a day. They make contact with the battalion chief and we can detail some pilots over to assist and vice versa. A lot of times with PD, they have pilots who keep them in the back of their car and we get a structure fire and one of the officers rolls up to the command post and he's standing there with the incident commander showing them the drone footage. A little bit more difficult for us because we have specific areas of the city that we are operating and we can't just up and go and take a drone without the right request because we still have to keep units in service but it is absolutely something that we could do to support um the police department we're not just using it for fireworks enforcement or large-scale hazmats commercial fires and things like that when as we start getting into this super El Nino that's coming through, the last big rain year, our drones were up taking a look at where our sewage goes and the solar farm over on the Salinas River, right? So this is a very universal program that can be used to help pre-plan for a lot of the areas in the city as emergencies start to arise.

Thank you for that clarification.

Tony. Chief Knapp, there's no doubt. I mean, every year has been getting better. Just out of curiosity, and I'm sure it goes throughout the entire city, but around the cluster park, I know the last two years, I mean, there's actually been, bombs where you get that reflection half a block away or something like that. Did you mention the drones? Are you folks using drones before the 4th of July and after or are you just doing it?

Third and fourth right now. Excuse me? The 3rd of July and the 4th of July are the active time when our pilots are getting detailed from riding on fire engines or fire trucks to creating or to being part of our task force.

Thank you, and I really appreciated your report, and I think you and your team are doing a great job. I just have two curious questions on the appeal process. Are there people that actually go and appeal your citation? Yes. And have they been successful?

Yes, people are successful. I'm not going to say that we are 100% correct. And that's why if we believe a citation was issued to the wrong party or the wrong address, I will look at it internally before sending it to our third party that handles the appeal and make that decision. There are people as well that say they got a $4,000 fine that they are looking for some leniency. And we tend to take those and try to keep with the idea of we're not trying to collect revenue, but we're trying to change a social norm of our city.

Yeah. My last question is, do you have repeat offenders? I mean, with these... Sometimes. You do? Yeah. Oh, my God.

Yeah, unfortunately.

Oh, there it is. Yeah, thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Well, thank you very much. First of all, great job, Jessica. I mean, you know, Captain Nat does a good job every year, but this was a little more juicy, so thank you. And of course, thank you, Chris, for building capacity within your department. I think that's so important. I think this is the most robust team we've seen. Definitely really like the reflection on what we could do better, how it went. We had more data this time than we've ever had before. So great job. I saw less illegal fireworks this year than I've ever seen. So I think it's working, and so keep it up next year. I do want to take this opportunity to share that I got a letter from an 11-year-old resident named Madelene. And she wrote about the impact of illegal fireworks the impacts of illegal fireworks on pets. She was sharing how she spends hours comforting her dog. And then when the fireworks go off, there's animals who sometimes escape and people lose their pets. And so she was just sharing her suggestion that if we could consider in the future a portion of the revenue that we collect from illegal fireworks citations be directed towards animal services to help care for the lost pets and displaced pets. And if they can't legally be used that way, maybe we could explore another mechanism to support the animal shelters during this time. So I thought it was a great idea, and I wanted to ask our city attorney his thoughts on what possibly we could explore to address that in the future.

So the question to me, Council Member Sandoval, would be, is it something that the council legally could do? And the answer to that question, in my opinion, is yes. Whether that happens or not is more of a council policy budget related question.

All right, great. Well, I'll encourage her to reach out to the other council members to have that discussion. But I also want to acknowledge her for not only identifying a problem, but recommending a solution. So thank you.

Thank you, Andrew. I WILL JUST ECHO ALL MY COLLEAGUES, TERRIFIC REPORT, VERY THOROUGH. AND, YOU KNOW, I CERTAINLY HAD A SENSE BASED ON FEEDBACK AND EXPERIENCE DURING THAT STRETCH, REAL PROGRESS AND APPRECIATE YOUR CANDOR THAT, YOU KNOW, progress is noticeable and there's still issues to be worked on, because that's kind of really frankly how progress works. Progress, but things to still be worked on. I think what I'm kind of struck by, and it's probably something for us to think about, we've heard a lot of conversation this evening about communication and community engagement, and while obviously this is an You know, a very focused effort and people working together, and you can't sustain that level of intensity and focus on a year on basis. The communication piece, perhaps within our own city, it could be and I know the police do a great job, but this community engagement community outreach, use of social media, signs. It may be our own internal version of state of the art, and we probably would do well to really take a look at that, because that's one of the things that really kind of struck out to me, that communication piece, because we've had a lot of conversation about that tonight. So well done. And with that, we'll go out to the public and see if there's any public comment on this. Well, I told you, and you're still out after dark, Mary Ann, but since you're here.

Mary Ann Wordman. Yes, 4th of July, they quit sooner than they normally do, and they weren't as bad. But mine starts around, not as bad this year as other years, around April. And that's almost every weekend we'll have it. There's several of them that sound like bombs going out. And they're not right next to my house, but they sound like a bomb just hit my house. The whole house shakes. So I wish we could do something, or those drones around. And I know more or less the streets they are. They are all the time the neighbors complain about it and they'll be about four or five of them for about an hour. Sometimes they go until one o'clock or two o'clock in the morning and it wakes you up and scares the heck out of you. So but I am glad that Fourth of July wasn't as bad as it and but I did enjoy the fireworks there the Sports Center.

Okay, thanks Matt. That's high praise. All right, anyone else from the public? All right, anyone online? Okay, Jose.

Good afternoon, I'm Jose at Montevideo Community. I just want to say thank you Fire Department. Thank you to the PD for a great, not as bad Fourth of July and a shout out to Alexis and her team. that was out there in Montevideo being care of us. I appreciate it. Anything we can do in Montevideo for the police department, fire department, or any other neighbor there, be happy to do it. Thank you guys, God bless you. Have a great night.

Okay, thank you. All right, we'll go ahead and close public comment. This is not an action item. So with that, we'll receive the report and move on. Okay, and we are gonna go through a similar exercise on Measure G, receiving that report. And Selina, you're back.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members, Selina Andrews, Finance Director. The item before you is the Measure G Subcommittee Public Report. on the fiscal year 2025 independent audit. The Measure G ordinance stipulates that the oversight committee appoint a subcommittee consisting of three members. This subcommittee is tasked with reviewing the city's annual independent audit. After completing their review, the subcommittee prepares a comprehensive public report. Outlining their findings, the report is first presented to the oversight committee. for approval. If approved, the public report is subsequently presented to the full city council, which is what we're doing tonight, ensuring transparency and accountability in the use of Measure G funds. The oversight committee appointed committee members Salmina, Field, and Mendoza to review the city's independent audit and prepared that public report. The subcommittee's report included the Measure G background and oversight consisting of what is Measure G, public accountability, and scope of their summary. This section is very helpful for readers to understand when the measure was approved and its purpose. The section is followed by a revenue and expenditure summary, which details the tax collected, earnings on the tax, and breaks down the budget allocated to the various departments and projects. Within the section, you'll also find a graph that illustrates budget versus actual budget expended within that timeframe. So that's for the fiscal year 2024-25 audit. The following section provides specific detail on what was funded and the outcome of that funding. The subcommittee closed out their report by providing their observations and recommendations, which staff will begin incorporating in future financial reports to the oversight committee. The audit report concluded that Measure G revenue was allocated across a broad range of city operations. It supported essential functions, including public safety, maintenance, and improvement of streets and sidewalks, enhancement of parks, facilities, community development initiatives, homelessness services, and capital improvement projects. The report highlighted significant achievements in service delivery and infrastructure improvements. These accomplishments underscore the impact of Measure G funding. The report also emphasized the importance of ongoing project level reporting to help clarify for the public how this revenue directly translates to improvements and results within the city. Thank you. That is the report. With that, staff is available for questions.

OK. Andrew?

No questions, sir. No questions.

OK. Anybody from the public? Anybody? OK. Is this the public? Yep. We're open for public comment.

Now for you.

Go ahead.

Sharon Field, good evening. I've been on Measure G for about a year and I volunteered for the subcommittee along with Amy and JP. And one of the questions I asked myself is what is our responsibility? What are we supposed to do here? I'm not gonna read the whole measure, but basically it's police, fire, public libraries, parks and rec. And so answering that question, what we found is 29 police officers are partly funded by Measure G, sworn and non-sworn, and I'm sure you have this in your packet. 15.5 maintenance and park coordinators, seven fire, 10 code enforcement, Let's see. And the support services go with that. Measure G also funded part of the police station and the fire station one. And in that, all the stuff that went in it, because I specifically asked that question because there were a few people that were complaining about the faucets and the lighting and things at the police department. And I asked if all of that was included, such as when you build a house, and the answer was yes. And having done purchasing in a former company, I know when you buy in bulk, you get cheaper rates than if you buy one. We wanted to make our report really comprehensive so it could be put on the Measure G dashboard, and anybody could go look at it at salinas.gov, everyone. And so we asked for lists of the streets that have been repaved, the pothole streets that have been filled, the sidewalks that have been done. And just because the streets in my neighborhood weren't done doesn't mean they weren't done in other parts of the city. And I wrote down just a couple of them. Independence from Baranda to Constitution was done where the Safeway is. Constitution from the Safeway to Baranda was repaved. Old Stage Road from Williams Road to the Salinas Maintenance Yard was paved. The other part of Old Stage is County, so that's not in Measure G. Davis from North Main to Rossy was paved. Can I have some more time, please? Please.

How much time?

What? Give me two minutes, that's all.

Yeah, I would say, because he's a member of the Measure G committee, he's part of the presentation.

Thank you. Also, we asked for reports on the libraries. All three libraries are open. They do preschool programs. They do after school programs. They do quilting and all kinds of things. We asked for rec. Most of the parks have rec departments that have also preschool programs, and they have after school programs. My park, El Dorado, is always filled. There's not even parking places there. And we opened Ensign Park, and my understanding is Hebron Park was redone. So when we asked the question, is the money being spent properly according to the measure, we had to say yes. We've also asked for the October meeting list of streets that have been done in the meantime and a list of priorities because nobody seems to know how what streets get done. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I'm still here.

Here I am again, Mary Ann Worden.

I just want to say that was the best Measure G report that I've heard, and I listened to them when I turned them on the TV. But it was, for the first time, It told where the money was spent, each and everything. And that was really, really helpful. And they did a wonderful job. And I was really tickled pink that they did it. Because just let everybody know exactly where the money is. And that's what we need. That's what people are asking for. Where exactly and how much for each item. And it was really nice. They did a wonderful job.

Thank you, Marianne. Thank you.

Good evening again. My name is Eric Peterson. And as I mentioned, regarding both oversight committees, we need to start getting the committee members there. You've got the good ones here, but the cancellations and the absences, I said earlier you need to light a fire under those people. Maybe to put it in better context tonight, light some safe and sane fireworks under them. One of the things I heard about this, and it's a side issue but it's worth bringing up, is you have a reputation for really good, fast responses to public information requests. And that's not typical. I've done them elsewhere. And I've actually handled some when I was working. But it's really nice hearing that somebody got a response that day. So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Eric. OK. Anyone on Zoom? Jose.

I just want to thank Celine and Ms. Fields for that great report. I do want some real good wording put on the actual ballot if you're going to do it. If you want it to pass, it has to have infrastructure, public safety, homelessness, that you're going to do it. And then do not defer from that and put other options in there if needed. And then don't send that to the general fund once you get the funding. Those are all my comments. Thank you, and have a good night.

Yeah, thank you. Anyone else? All right, we will close public comment, and this is not an action item, so we'll just go ahead and receive the report.

Yeah, Mayor, if I may.

If there are any final comments, okay.

I do want to concur with the sentiment of the public. Ms. Andrews, I think you're a great asset to our city, and... I know every time I have a question regarding the finances, you're always available to answer that, and your reports are fantastic. They really are because numbers are not the easiest thing, but you make it look easy where people can understand it, and I want to thank you and your staff for that. All right.

And I'll just make one final comment. I appreciate the report from the subcommittee. I liked hearing when we received all the information and looked at it, it met the criteria of the measure. I think that's important, just as Marianne's comment, that people like specificity. So it sounds like the ball moved downfield on both those counts. So thanks for all your good work. All right.

Thank you.

With that, we are going to go to the consent agenda. Matters listed under the consent agenda may be enacted by one motion unless a member of the council requests a separate voter discussion. Members of the public may comment on the consent agenda items collectively during their public comment. Would anybody on the council like a separate voter discussion on any of the consent item? We are going to take both dates of consent, the continuance from August 4 on August 18, together. If you have any items on either date, let me know.

Mayor, on the, well, for June 30th, on 26, 344, I'm supporting the International Air Show, but I know our new executive director, she's been waiting here all day. We'd like to give her an opportunity to introduce herself to some of us that don't know her. Also, 368, traffic control, I know the city manager has an update on that. And then 382 on the Sherwood Recreation Center.

OK. All right, anyone else?

368.

368, OK. OK, Jose? 344.

OK, let me do this. 368 and 370. OK, I'm sorry. So 344, 368. And 370. 370, OK, thank you.

Right over here. 344.

OK, 344. OK, OK, got it. OK, and Gloria?

344, comment. And here's 68. And return the page. And Sherwood, 382, comment.

OK, got it. OK, is that it? All right, thank you. We will go ahead and we're now open for public comment on the consent agenda. Any member who wishes to make a public comment on any of the consent items may do so now, limited to two minutes. So anybody on the public?

Name's Eric Peterson, 368 Speed Cushions. We need them. We've got so many traffic calming situations, and these are one of the solutions. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Eric. Okay, anyone else? Okay, anyone? Okay, Jose?

Good evening, Jose. Yeah, Mayor, I mean, There's a lot of stuff on that agenda. I know you guys are tired, it's a long day, but yeah, we need our two minutes back on every item there. We gotta do it. And I'd like to speak on the one Mr. Peterson just spoke about. Those are things that need to be done. We need to get that done. Those are all my comments. Thank you. Have a great night.

Thank you. Alright, we will. Go ahead and close public comment and we will start with 344 and. Tony wanted. Tony, why don't you go ahead since you were 1st and then we'll go over to Andrew, Jose and then Gloria.

Thank you. I support this, but I'd like to give a new... And we'll do that, yeah. Oh, okay.

No, we'll absolutely do that, yeah. Come on up. If you're okay with this, we'll hear from the council, and then we'll have you introduce yourself. Thank you.

Oh, okay. Same on my end. I just want to give her the courtesy.

Well, we're certainly going to do that. She's been very patient. Andrew, same thing? I had a comment. Okay. Gloria, a comment before?

Well, I'm going to give my comment before. I think you put on a great event, and I like the air show because you give back to the community. You're always giving back to nonprofits. So, again, I know you waited here all afternoon, and we want to hear you speak.

And Aurelio, you had a comment?

No, same as well. Same, just wanted to have an opportunity to hear from you. I know that the last executive director served for, I think, I believe approximately 25 years. I'd like to know a little bit more about your background. If you're not from Salinas, welcome to Salinas. Welcome to the air show. Growing up in East Salinas, I would watch the air show from my grandmother's rooftop. Shouldn't have been on top of it, but I was. If I wasn't on top of her roof, it was my Aunt Delia's house over by Varden Road. And so it is a part of Salinas' culture and history. And we'd like to hear what your vision and mission is and how the city can continue to help all that you do, because I know that you guys also open it up to a lot of our local vendors, and you guys have a real big impact, as well as the grants that you award to our local nonprofits. So I just want to make sure we give you some time for intro.

Well, I think you've got your marching orders. Introduce yourself, share the vision, and tell us what we all have to look forward to on September 26th and 27th. 26th and 27th. Because the signs are already up, so you have the floor.

So good evening, everyone. Thank you for allowing me to speak just for a brief second. I am introducing myself as the new executive director of California International Air Show. I am honored to be leading this amazing legacy of our 45th year. This year of 2026 is 45 years. It's incredible. I'm working with an incredible team, board of directors, who have been actively engaged all year. This is quite an endeavor, 12 months to put on this air show. And we have an amazing lineup. We've got, of course, the Air Force Thunderbirds, who is headlining this year, but we also have three civilian jet teams as well. We've got monster trucks. We've got Archer, who is also going to be there. That was also a big showstopper last year. And of course the air show outside of the amazing air optics in the sky, we also have all the Salinas Valley vendors that are participating. We've got many, many community members. On average, we have 35 to 40,000 people that attend the air show. It's a wonderful community event. I am honored to be leading this legacy. Somebody had asked, am I a local? The answer is yes, I am actually a local. I was born and raised in Toro Park in Salinas. I graduated from Santa Catalina, graduated my undergrad from San Jose State, moved back. I've been on the peninsula ever since. My family still lives locally, so this has been home to me. Monterey County has been home to me. I've been to the air show many, many times. This is really a spectacular turn of events for me. One of the most amazing parts of being the leader of the air show is actually being able to give back to the community. through our President's Club membership. Those members designate a portion of their funds, whether they're new members or whether they are renewals, in giving back to that designated nonprofit of their choice. And it's really incredible because a part of my history is nonprofit leadership. And many of these nonprofits that I have worked and supported in the past are the beneficiaries of the air show. So it's full circle for me. I'm excited to be here. We're excited for 2026 for our 45th event, but it's also the 250th anniversary of America. So it is a big year. New executive director, 250th celebration, along with our 45th annual event. I'm happy to help answer any questions.

Okay, I think we're good, and we really appreciate your patience. Absolutely, thank you. From our perspective, you were worth waiting for. I hope it was worth the wait.

Wonderful, thank you so much.

Okay, very good, and we're looking forward to the air show this year. Thank you. All right, let's see. Now we are going to go to 368, and Tony, we'll start with you since that's...

I'm looking at Mr. Jacobs, the man of the hour. Mr. Jacobs, briefly, the city manager had already answered my question, but I thought it'd be good for the public to know if this council approves this, by when do you think the work will be done on the streets. I know there's 15 streets that you're doing here with this, is there?

Yeah, so this gives us authorization to buy the equipment that we need to install. We estimate it's gonna be a couple month process to actually get this stuff in and then get a contractor out there and actually install them. So we're looking at four to six months Hopefully it's a shorter timeframe. It all depends on when we can get this equipment into the city yard and dispatch our contractor to put them in.

Yes, thank you. Let's see, Andrew, I think I've got you next.

Yeah, well, I have the same question, but I just want to thank the staff for taking this proactive approach to purchasing speed bumps. It's definitely going to move the process along. I did have a question for the city manager. I know that the Traffic and Transportation Commission was looking at our traffic management plan, which I think will also help expedite these projects in the future. When will that come to council for us to review?

Do we have an estimate, David? I'm thinking I was going to reach out to you. I'm hoping we can get it to you by the end of the year.

Okay. Thank you. Okay.

Jose?

No.

Okay. Very good. Gloria?

I mean, yeah. We need the traffic calming. I'm totally supportive of it. But we also need to enforce. More enforcement needs to be done. you know, and as a city, as residents of the city, we really need to slow down. We really need to slow down in our streets. So I think a combination of us doing outreach, enforcement, and yeah, our residents are speaking that, you know, we have 16 streets, correct? I believe it's 15, yes. Yeah, they've come to us, and we need to get it done. But yeah, but those are the points I want to make. More enforcement.

Thank you. Thank you, Gloria.

OK. 370, Jose. All right. My question on this one is, this is for an amendment to the existing agreement for additional code enforcement services outside of regular hours. Is that correct?

Correct. This is a continuation of a contract that we entered into in 2024. We've increased it annually based on the operating budget. And so this is for the last year. It was a three-year contract. So this is for the 26-27 fiscal year.

OK, and then it's my understanding that this contract as a set of as the third amendment, this would be the final amendment since the term of this contract.

Yes, and it is the intention of staff. We've been reducing their annual contract amount between last year and this year to then actually hire a code enforcement officer, which started on Monday. So the goal is to build up our staff teams and reduce the reliance on contract services for code enforcement.

Awesome. That's great to hear. Will we will we be receiving a presentation like over the lifetime of this contract award? The reason I ask is, I know earlier this year, we specifically directed staff to do more. Was it not proactive enforcement, rather than complaint-driven enforcement. So just to see how that, as a policy, may end up being an adopted policy of the city of Salinas.

Yes, we'll be sharing reports. We provide a quarterly report just on the vendor enforcement, which is, well, then started as their primary focus. They have also then shifted to support blight and proactive enforcement, and we are finalizing reports to share with the council. for the first two cycles of that proactive.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. While I have you on this one, when is the next cycle of the proactive enforcement?

I don't have the, it's every six weeks. So we're, I believe in our fourth cycle. Okay. So we started in May and the second cycle went through June. So we've wrapped up third and going into fourth.

Okay.

And I'd be happy to resend out all those dates of the original schedule.

Thank you. All right. And 382, Tony.

Thank you. Mr. Mendez, you and I spoke briefly on this already. So the marquee will be done when that place is open.

That's the goal.

That's the goal.

But based on the timing and the opening based on this project.

Yes.

We might not make it, but we are gonna look at, we need to improve that market. So that's the short answer. We'll be done, I don't know if we can make that time. Great, thank you.

And Mr. Jacobs, it seems like there's always drip, drip, drip on this project. It's been a career now. Any idea, you think this might be the last financial ask? Possibly.

Yeah? I mean, I've been through three, four buildings now. And this one was actually started before I actually started here. This project has been going on for eight and a half years, and it's finally complete. Yeah.

You're going to be our champion here at the City of Champions here. Mr. Jacobs, just one other thing. Well, I hope this is the last time, but... I don't know if you're, I had heard that possibly there might not be access to a senior program once the building is done. So I don't know if Mr. Mendez, or is there gonna be, you know, like the bread box right now, is there gonna be a group like for seniors, access to seniors there?

So I haven't, I don't think we've fully wrapped up programming yet. Yeah. So let me connect with Chris and bring that back to you.

Yeah, because your report does mention seniors, so I wanted to make sure.

Right. So it's our intent to maximize the programming.

I hear different things.

It's our intent to maximize the programming. I just don't want to mislead you right now, so let me just confirm that. But it is our intent to maximize programming.

Yeah, my vote. Thank you. Gloria. Yeah.

for for uh asking that very important question for the residents that live in that area in district four that um we've we've been waiting it's i believe it's going to happen this time okay the doors will open and so do the residents but the the residents around that area are really asking and i'm looking at my city manager right now that um What they have brought to me is there's a lot of programs around this area that are for the youth. So the seniors around the area would like to see some senior programs brought into this building. So those are my comments, and I know you're not in your head, so we just hope that it happens. Okay? Thank you.

All right. All right. That's everything. So I will look for a motion to approve the consent agenda.

So moved. Second.

All right. Why don't we go ahead and call for the question?

Council Member Barajas? Yes. Council Member Barrera? Yes. Council Member De La Rosa? Yes. Council Member Salazar? Yes. Council Member Sandoval? Yes. Mayor Donahue? Yes.

Motion passes. All right. Very good. All right. The city manager has a report for us.