City Council - Regular Meeting

Well, good evening everyone. My name is Mayor Erica A. Stewart and just admiring the new public art behind us. Um, and I'm here to call the meeting to order with all of our city council members here and present. And with that, um, Vice Mayor, will you please lead us in the pledge of

allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the stand with Well, thank you for that. Uh, today we uh will be providing two presentations. We have the women's history month and then youth art youth art month i.e. the pictures in the back or the um art in the back. So um I will present the proclamation and then Angelia Moore will be coming from the Monday club and you'll have three minutes to speak as well as Amanda will be Greish will be there you are uh will be presenting three minutes after the youth art proclamation and with that we'll get it started. So in March 1978, a school district in Soma, California held a weeklong celebration to honor women. This spread throughout the country, and since 1988, US presidents have issued annual proclamations designating the month of March as Women's History Month. Women's History Month recognizes the achievements, leadership, and enduring contributions of women whose efforts have strengthened communities and advanced opportunity for all. Women educators, students, and leaders at institutions such as Kalpali and the St. Louis Coastal Unified School District continue to advance learning, innovation, and civic engagement throughout the community. Women working in healthcare and human services play a vital role in supporting the well-being and resilience of St. Louis Abyispo residents. Women entrepreneurs, farmers, and business

leaders can contribute to the economic vitality of the city through small businesses, agriculture, tourism, and hospitality, strengthening both local commerce and community identity. Women artists, historians, and preservationists help safeguard the cultural legacy and creative spirit of the local community through organizations such as the Monday Club of St. Louis Abyispo, Slow County Arts, St. Louis Abyispo Museum of Art, the History Center, the League of Women Voters, and so many more. Women serve the community every day through leadership in local government, nonprofit organizations, neighborhood associations, volunteer service, fostering collaboration, inclusion, and positive change. So now, therefore, I, Erica A. Stewart, mayor of St. Louis Abyispo, on behalf of the entire council and in collaboration with the Monday Club of St. Los Aispo proclaimed March as Women's History Month, honoring the women who have shaped our past, lead our present, and inspire our future. You guys can come up here.

Thank you, honorable Mayor Stewart and the St. Louis Bispo County I mean St. Louis Abyispo city council members. My name is Angelia Moore and I am a member of the Monday club, a previous board member and the future president for next year. I'm joined here today with board members Kristen Inman of publicity, Julie Martin of membership, Tammy Vaughn, corporate secretary, Pamela Croft, Ways and Means, and Susan Phillips who is on our decorating and floral design committee. On behalf of the Monday Club members and the Monday Club, thank you for the honor of receiving your proclamation in recognition of Women's History Month. This year's theme of Women's History Month is leading change, women shaping a sustainable future. For over 100 years, the Monday Club and its members have served the St. Louis Bispo community in civic, educational, and environmental efforts. Our primary effort continues to be the preservation of our historic clubhouse and its legacy so that future generations can learn about local women's history and this small but significant architectural contribution by Julia Morgan. Our members engage the community through living history dosent tours and student education programs. Through our contributions to Luminina Alliance, we assist women and children in their path to self-sufficiency. And through our fine arts awards, we support local students in their pursuit of excellence in music and art. Our sustainability policies include environmentally conscious use of materials water-wise and being butterfly friendly landscaping and distributing gently used books to children throughout the community. Again, I would like to thank you for this honor and appreciate the opportunity to share with you about the Monday club and its members. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we have recognizing youth art month. So the city of St. Louis Abyispo recognizes that the study of art leads to a fuller, more meaningful life. Participation in the visual arts nurtures imagination, innovation, cultural awareness, and emotional expression while supporting academic achievement and lifelong learning to all elementary, middle, and secondary students. Art, sorry, art education develops students creative potential and improves problem solving and critical thinking skills by reinforcing and bringing to life what students learn in other subjects. Art education teaches sensitivity to beauty, order, and other expressive qualities and gives students a deeper understanding of multicultural values and beliefs. The city of St. Louis Abyispo recognizes that young artists contribute meaningfully to the vibrancy of our neighborhoods, public spaces, and civic identity. Through school programs, community initiatives, and public art opportunities, our youth are empowered to share their voices, perspectives, and stories in ways that inspire connection and belonging. Art educators, teaching artists, community organizations, and families play a vital role in fostering artistic growth and ensuring equitable access to creative opportunities. Now, therefore, I, Erica A. Stewart, mayor of the city of St. Louis Abyispo do hereby proclaim March 2026 as youth art month and urge all community members to celebrate the artistic achievements of our young people, support our educa art education in our schools and recognize the transformative power of the visual arts in shaping a vibrant and inclusive community.

Mayor Stewart, council members, city leadership and colleagues, members of the community, student artists and families, I'm truly honored to stand before you today to accept this proclamation declaring ing March as youth art month for the city of St. Louis Abyispo. On behalf of our young artists, educators, families, and advocates for the arts, thank you for recognizing the vital role that creativity plays in the lives of our youth and within our community. Youth art month is more than a celebration of student artwork displayed in hallways and council chambers. It is a recognition of the profound impact that art education has on academic endeavors, social emotional growth, and community connect connection. while honoring the role art educators play in shaping the creative culture of our community. Art education supports the whole child. It nurtures the imagination, builds confidence, and provides a powerful outlet for self-expression, especially especially for students who may not always find their voice in traditional academic settings. A 2025 National Endowment for the Arts study found that arts engagement at each elementary grade level has been linked to higher performance in reading, math, and science. While arts coursework at the high school level shows an increase in attendance and higher graduation rates, public art plays an equally important role. Displaying youth art in public places reinforces the power and importance of their voices and ideas. Public art initiatives like the box art program and art in council chambers. invites youth into civic life, turning our shared spaces into places of belonging and pride, reminding us that creativity is not confined to classrooms, but lives throughout our city. By proclaiming March as Youth Art Month, you are affirming that the arts are not an extra, but an essential an essential part of a well-rounded education and a vibrant community. You are sending a message to every young artist that their imagination is

powerful, their perspective is important, and their contributions shape the cultural fabric of our city. On more personal note, I'm deeply honored to serve in this role as as a public service arts advocate and coordinator with the opportunity to uplift the youth of our community through public arts programs and opportunities and support the art educators that mold the young, creative minds of our city. A special word of thanks to parks and recreation director Greg Aian and recreation manager Megan Tolley for their compassionate leadership and unwavering support and encouragement. On behalf of all of us who believe deeply in the power of arts to inspire, heal and connect. Thank you for your leadership and for champ championing youth youth creativity. We are grateful for your continued support and look forward to showcasing the incredible talents of the Laguna Middle School students and slow high school students throughout the months of March and April. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I look forward to uh adding to the community mural for the public art over by CL Smith this Saturday. I know that council member Shoresman already um volunteered to be part of that in the past. What? Two weeks ago, three weeks ago. Yeah. So, thank you so much for um taking care of that program. And with that, we move on to the city manager report. And now, city manager McDonald.

Thank you very much. Happy to be here and to share a few updates with you all. Um, we will start out with a little celebration and announcement uh that our slow swim center was recently voted as the best pool complex on the central coast by the tribune. A big congratulations to our parks and recreation team. Um, as well as our facility maintenance team for providing such amazing programs and services at our swim center. Uh, and a big thanks to our community for showing this vote of support for this amazing asset we have here. Next up, kind of going along the parks and wreck theme, uh we want to remind everybody we have the annual leprechaun lost event coming up uh at our farmers market on March 12th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. This is a free familyfriendly event uh for ages 3 to 12. Although, I don't know, maybe if some folks older than 12 want to get in there, it's probably okay. Um, as participants, you'll be handed fun clues that will guide you on a quest to locate our elusive leprechauns within the farmers market. If you find the leprechauns, you can collect uh lucky coins and return to our parks and wreck booth to collect special prizes. Look for our parks and recreation booth at the intersection of Hagera and Broad Street. And hope uh may I was going to say, may the odds be forever in your favor. and a little mixed metaphors happening there, but hopefully we see folks out there having fun. Moving on to another really amazing announcement. Our brand new cultural arts district garage will be opening very soon uh on St. Patrick's Day, in fact, March 17th. Uh we want to make sure folks are aware that um this new structure will provide 400 new spaces,

41 EV charging stations. So anybody who's not aware, this really is uh the largest collection of charging stations in our county. So anybody you know who might be passing through and they need a charge, hopefully they'll stop and check out our garage and come downtown to patron our businesses and restaurants. Uh we began building this parking garage in November 2023 after more than 20 years of ideas, planning, and design. The purpose of this project is to increase transportation options for our downtown, and to support a vibrant cultural arts district, which includes the children's museum, the new Slowrep Theater, and an expanded slow museum of art. We are also inviting the community to take advantage of a new opportunity to park in this new garage at no cost for the first 28 days. So again, that's free parking in this garage for a full 28 days starting on March 17th. We really want people to come familiarize themselves with the garage and all the various um ways of interacting with it and hopefully checking out and really getting engaged in the community there. Our parking rates at this garage will be the same as our other downtown parking garages. So that's $2 per hour with a maximum daily rate of $8. Um, our monthly garage permits are available for $45 a month and they provide unlimited access to all of our downtown garages. So again, that's a really amazing value that I think we're seeing increasing numbers of people taking advantage of that. And so you'll be able to park in this brand new garage as well. Our EV charging spaces will include an additional charging fee of 50 cents per kilowatt hour in addition to the standard garage parking rates. Um, we also offer a parking validation program to support downtown businesses and enhance our visitor experience. So, local businesses can purchase discount garage parking validations for their

customers, making it easier for patrons to enjoy all that downtown has to offer. simply ask the business you're visiting whether they provide parking validation for city parking garages. Uh and we offer that to businesses again at essentially half cost. So $1 per hour uh for those businesses to offer to their customers. We're really excited for this new amenity. This investment believe we believe will set the stage for a really vibrant cultural arts district downtown support variety of transportation options for both visitors and employees and provide safe overnight parking for our new and existing residents downtown as well. So hopefully people have seen it. Um it I have to say it is quite beautiful uh and also has an un uh unsurprisingly in our community an amazing view from really any angle including that top floor. So we're really excited to bring that online in just a couple weeks. Uh we also wanted to remind everybody that we are in the swing of our annual advisory body recruitment. There is still time to apply. There are several advisory bodies that could use a larger applicant pool. So, we want to kind of pump those up. In particular, that includes the construction board of appeals, which is a body that hears and decides appeals of orders, decisions, and determinations that are made by our building official that relates to our building construction and fire prevention code. Our citizens revenue enhancement oversight commission. You'll probably hear us refer to them uh as RIO. They review and make recommendations to the council related to our revenue and expenditures of our general uh use tax that is used to pay for essential services and facilities. Also, our mass transportation committee provides recommendations and input relating to public transportation in our city and we are really hoping we have uh

a great influx of folks interested in those committees but also really any of our committees that um have vacancies. So, please take a look at the list. Um, there's a a a website web page identified up there. You can find through our website if you go to advisory bodies and uh vacancies. And please consider getting your application in by Sunday, March 29th at midnight. That is the deadline. Uh, and if you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out to our city clerk's office. Um, we've got a few items coming up on our next council meeting, a few grant related items, and then for our public hearings and business items, we will go through uh an annual employee recruitment and retention trends requirement to talk through our vacancies. We will discuss again the Slowco local roads first measure. They are seeking a resolution to support putting that measure on the ballot potentially. Um we also at this uh point in time we have uh a presentation from CAPSO on their strategic alignment plan and changes to their good neighbor policy and then a consideration of a countywide homelessness response compact and inventory of current countywide programs related to homelessness response that we'll be bringing forward. Um, so with that, the last uh important thing I'd like to take a moment and invite our police chief to come forward to speak a little bit about um the really unfortunate incident that happened in our community Saturday um early evening.

Good evening, Madame Mayor, members of council. Um I think most of our community is aware that we had an officer involved shooting over the weekend. And I just want to thank each of you for allowing me this opportunity to speak directly to our community about what is uh truly a terrible uh tragedy that occurred here in slow. The department released an official statement related to the officer involved shooting. Um so tonight I'm just going to summarize a few of those details and provide an outline for the next steps uh that we should expect. First, we're deeply saddened by uh this loss of life. And you know, from a law enforcement perspective in policing, there is no greater responsibility than to preserve and protect the sanctity of human life. And so, anytime a life is lost, uh that's extremely impactful for uh our community and certainly for all of your first uh responders. At approximately 4:45 uh p.m. on Saturday, the department received several 911 calls regarding a person uh threatening others with a weapon in the Arbor's neighborhood. Uh as units uh arrived, we located the person on the sidewalk area near Poinsettia in Blue Bell Way. Um and the person was armed with weapon at that time directly uh in proximity to several other community members out in the neighborhood when we arrived. Given the life-threatening actions that the officers witnessed uh at the time, um the subjects still again had the weapon with them and the officers used deadly force in response to to that threat. Um sadly, the person did not survive their injuries on scene. Upon administering uh emergency first aid to the subject, um we discovered that the firearm uh that we believed was on location was actually a simulated weapon or a simulated pistol. Um we contacted uh the Department of um justice for California. There's a policy

under law under AB506 anytime a shooting occurs with a simulated or nonfunctioning firearm that we contact them to um conduct the investigation. We've been in close communication with the California DOJ and we're cooperating fully to provide them all the information they need to uh do a complete and thorough investigation. From a timeline standpoint, um working with the DOJ is a little bit different than working with either our sheriff's office or our local um attorney uh attorney's office and so um district attorney's office. And so we're going to expect that this investigation is going to take a number of months to complete. Um after that work is done, it's forwarded to the actual uh California Attorney General, which could take um 12 plus months for their review. And so we're not expecting to have any information back to us for some time um regarding the outcome of of the uh shooting. Uh regardless, we're going to continue to provide transparent communications to our community. There's a couple of other things that are going to occur. We're going to release um soon release a press statement when when we confirm the identity of the person as well as we're going to release the critical incident videos that capture uh exactly what the officers saw at the time. and that's going to come out in the next 45 days per uh California law. The officer who unfortunately discharged their weapon is on routine paid administrative leave from the department. Uh and we're working to again release any other pertinent details that we can right now without compromising uh the state's investigation but provide important information out to the community. Uh, and I just want to say again, we're extremely saddened um, you know, by the loss and then we wish to extend support to, you know, of course to our family and our community, our employees, but um, also to the deceased person's family. And this is absolutely going to have an impact for for the rest of their

lives and certainly the people that witnessed uh, this tragic incident. Um, and so with that, I'm I'm open for any questions that you have, but we'll continue to have these communications as updates are available. Thank you so much. Um, one of the things that, uh, you've explained to me and I appreciate and I think it would be helpful for the community to hear is why, um, would we as the police department shoot to kill versus shoot to wound? So, do you mind sharing that, please?

Yeah, that's a very that's a that's a good question and we we do hear that from time to time. And uh when we look at the Supreme Court ruling Graham versus Connor, there's a lot of context provided that and how officers are to um defend themselves. And when confronted by deadly force, the courts uh have have said that deadly force is authorized to um stop the threat. And I just want to be very clear that officers are not trained to shoot to kill. Um we're trained to stop the threat. And so anytime we're confronted with the threat, we're going to use the minimum amount of force that we can to simply just stop the threat. The goal is to obviously take people into custody if they're violating the law. When we talk about shooting to wound somebody, it's it's virtually impossible, especially in a um a high-risisk, highintensity uh situation, to try to wound somebody. And anytime you were to use a firearm against somebody, um even if your intent is to wound them, there's a high likelihood they're going to suffer a traumatic uh bodily injury and or um succumb to those injuries as well.

Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for the opportunity. City manager, anything else to add to your report? No, not at this time. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for the city manager?

All right. Thank you for the thorough report and we'll move on to public comment. Uh so public comment is for items that are not on our consent agenda and not on our um public hearing agenda. So, if you have something else, uh if you have not put in a uh speaking slip with our city clerk right here, um you can put a slip in now. Otherwise, forever hold your peace, at least for the next two weeks. So, um city clerk, do we have anyone to speak?

Yes. Right now, we have eight public comment cards. No, I included that one. Um and so, I'm going to call off three names in a If you'd please line up and be ready to speak when the person in front of you is done, that would make us make it go faster. Biz Steyberg, Sharon Roberts, Steve Schmidt. Good evening, Mayor Stewart and council members. My my name is Biz Steinberg. I work for Capso and tonight we on behalf of the board of directors of Capso, the staff, the volunteers, and all those that we serve, we want to present, council member, vice mayor Emily Francis, with a thank you in appreciation of your commitment and dedication to helping people and changing lives. We've welcomed Mr. Boswell to the February meeting. So, he's had one meeting now. Um, Emily, you also served on the Childcare Resource Connection Advisory Board, which is greatly appreciated. So, I'm going to come give this to you and thank you and thank the city of St. Louis Abyspo for always providing uh one of you as a publicly elected official to the CAPSLow board. Thank you. Thank you, Biz.

Uh, my name is Sharon Roberts and I'm a St. Louis Abyispo resident. On Friday of this last week, I submitted a letter as well as a copy of an article that was written by Nicholas Depali that was in the New Times regarding the tree that's on the site where you want to build a new rep theater. So, I came tonight to talk a little bit about that because I think it would be a shame to lose uh that tree. And one of the things that he said in his article is mature legacy trees are not decorative elements. They are fixed ecological infrastructure in responsible development practice. They are treated as non-negotiable design drivers. The oak remains standing. The building has not yet been constructed. Drawings can change. And so I agree totally with that. I think we should try to find a way that the oak and the new rep center can be designed together. I was a little bit upset about part of this because I kept hearing from the rep that they wanted the tree to be part of the design and yet the tree is not part of the design. And if you look at the rep's website, it clearly states that the city decided to get rid of the tree because of the design that the rep came up with. So, I'm asking you to consider what uh Mr. Depali had to say in his article about having a halt. The tree is still there. It's still living. It's still giving to us. A tree is a living, breathing organism. And this one's been there a long time, longer than I've been alive. So, I'm hoping that you will go back and reconsider, possibly put together a committee like Depaly Talks in here. uh

see if you can come up with another design that will incorporate the tree and the rep center to coexist so that we can have both of these things, not only the nature, both the cultural arts, which speaks so much to our young people that are growing up. It tells you them how much you value that. And it also speaks to anybody that would visit our area and be in the rep center or take a walk down there. That is such a beautiful area. And I have to say the new garage does look lovely. Uh, but it's I can also see that the tree had to go through a lot of stress with having everything torn out, completely demolished, the new garage built, and then the tree is standing there all by itself. Trees like to be in groups. They do better when they're in a group, but that's not the case any longer. But I've been in several locations where trees and buildings have been incorporated. So, I'll hope you'll take this under consideration.

Thank you so much. Thank you. After Mr. Schmidt is Matt Bernetti, Chris Boyd, and then Ryan Rundle.

Hi, good evening. Thank you for having me. My name is Steve Schmidt. I'm the executive director of the History Center of St. Louis Bispo County. I'm here to give a lot of thanks, uh, give a quick update on the history center and commemorate the Deansza expedition's anniversary. Uh so again, thank you for the wonderful Carnegie Library that you avail to the history center and especially the staff. Uh again, Alejandro and his team are fabulous. This time I want to give a special shout out to Israel who I asked to do some painting for me and he said, "Steve, those are just uh vinyl letters and so he showed up with a heat gun and tweezers and got everything to my satisfaction." So thank you. Uh thanks also to Bob Hill. Uh we finally got our busy schedules to line up and we're having coffee tomorrow morning. Uh, speaking of coffee, I'm having coffee with the people from the new parking structure as well. So, the new parking structure that serves the cultural arts hub, uh, slowrep, slow, the children's museum, and the history center. Okay. Um, also, thank you very much, Vice Mayor Francis. Uh, we had a good time at Lunar New Year. Good job to Matt and Sam for uh, planning one of my favorite I lived in San Francisco 26 years. It's one of my favorite holidays. So, good job, St. Louis Abyispo. Gave my first speech in Miss Mission Plaza. So, thank you, Emily, for warming up the crowd for me. Uh, also, thank you, Council Member Boswell, for coming and visiting me on that cold night while I was manning the table. Um, last thanks for availing Adrienne Harris and Becca Carcel to the board and to the history center. We had our first meeting Sunday, February 22nd. It went very well for an introductory first step. Our next planning session is Thursday, March 19th in L of a board meeting. So they're great. Thank you. Um at the last meeting, I talked about concerts at the day Adobe. So I'm trying to partner with as many nonprofits as possible. So this is the first public

announcement of the history center partnering with Gayla for Pride Month. And we're going to have a Sunday afternoon tea at the um day adobe on Father's Day. tea ma b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b basically like a disco party. Um but it's going to be a big fundraiser for both of us. Also, we're going to use the day Adobe now with the Central Coast Shakespeare Festival to be continued. I spoke with Zoe Saba just today. Uh lastly, I'm here to support my friend John Ashb who's going to be talking about the Deansza expedition. Uh so yesterday marked the 250th anniversary of Watista Deanza arriving in St. Louis Bispo. I've been reading his diary all year, making daily PSAs on KVEC, Facebook posts, and Instagram posts leading up to the 4th of July and the signing of the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago this year. Uh, and so yesterday was a big one. Danzo arrived. Tomorrow's a big one. Danza leaves St. Louis Bispo on his way to found uh San Francisco. So, thank you very much and uh listen to John Ashb. Thank you.

Thank you. Hi, my name is Chris Boyd. I'm a local business owner, father, Calpali alum, and resident of downtown slow. I'm here to read a statement for my neighbor because she can't be here tonight. Her name is Lindsay. She's a young mother of two and she recently posted this on social media. It has gained a lot of attention and sparked conversation in the community about some serious issues that we are facing as residents. I question start quote I questioned posting anything about this but after yesterday I am at a boiling point with the urban blight and transient situation in slow I have lived downtown with my husband 2-year-old and newborn for eight months and lived in slow most of my life. Anyone that has a toddler knows how much time you spend outside and in parks. And we happen to live right in between Mitchell and Emerson parks. Mitchell Park used to be our go-to, but no longer is safe. On a typical day, there are at least 5 to 10 transients loitering immediately outside of the play structure at any given time. I have consistent consistently witnessed public intoxication, dangerous drug use, fighting, explosive, belligerent, and aggressive behavior, and public inde indecency, all within 6 ft of the play structure at Mitchell Park. They are often using the picnic tables and bathrooms for multiple hours a day, making it impossible for my children to play unhindered. We no longer have equal access to our parks and play structures due to the unpredictability of the environment there and we've had enough. We now avoid Mitchell Park and typically try Emerson Park. It used to seem quieter and safer, but more recently Emerson Park has become more active with transients and disruptive behavior. Just this week at

11:00 a.m. in the morning, there was a man sleeping inside of the play structure. In these situations, the other parents and I usually keep a wide birth, but still try to use the structures on the playground with our children. Someone sleeping on the playground is an issue itself, but we were shocked when he woke up annoyed by the sound of our toddlers playing and began to aggressively cuss and swear at us. Needless to say, this cleared the park. We took our little ones over to the workout area looking for refuge. And during that time, another frantic homeless man approached, gesturing wildly and yelling at us and a group of other transients sitting outside the parks department. I'm almost out of time, but another community member has volunteered to help me finish reading Lindsay's statement during this public comment segment. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hey there. Uh my name is Matt Penetti. I'm a 18-year resident of Slow. a volunteer over at Praa with the Capslow folks. Very uh appreciative of their efforts. Um I'm going to finish reading Lindsay's quote. Um another incident happened close to home just a few days ago while walking through a public garden at Emerson Park with my toddler. We came face to face with a woman furiously itching and scratching her whole body and removing articles of clothing, inevitably ending up with her arms down her pants. My toddler was noticeably scared. Unfortunately, we had similar issues and similar frightening experiences walking around downtown. The once beautiful and scenic creek area is now off limits for my children due to constant transient activity, including camping, public intoxication, drug use, and unsightly litter. In my attempts to find safer places in slow city for my children, I have struck out. The incident has left me mostly uh me most oh excuse me. The incident that has left me most disturbed and feeling helpless happened on Shinshimer Path near the railroad safety trail where a transient came out of nowhere and charged me and my newborn with her dog pulling on its leash as she yelled vulgar threats at me and threatened to beat me up. Another female jogger came to help me and protect my child and call 911. To our dismay, dispatch seemed uninterested and even put us on hold for a few seconds while we attempted to ward off the asalent. I am at a loss. I don't even know what the solution is, but whatever is in place right now in slow city is not working. The parks downtown area and their extensions are getting more dangerous and more unpredictable. I'm tired of having to worry about protecting my

children when we go out for walks that in what used to be sweet, sleepy, slow, the city where I grew up. So, I think there's a reckoning occurring with city government. I see it up in San Francisco right now where I'm from. Um, I think you guys need to pay attention to what the community is telling you. Um, butterfly friendly gardens, vibrant cultural art districts, best pool complex, finding leprechauns, none of it matters if the city residents don't feel safe using the city, especially young mothers. So, we need to really address this issue and get serious about fixing the parts of downtown that make it unlivable. Thank you. Thank you.

After Ryan will be Garrett Filin and then John Ashbaw.

Hello. Thank you so much. My name is Ryan and I'm a CalPoly business administration student and I'm here because I care about the community. So true public safety means that it's more than just enforcement. It means addressing the conditions that led to the instab instability in the first place. When homelessness goes unressed, everyone feels it. Families, businesses, and the individuals living our streets. Recently, I actually met a homeless man downtown. And I sat down and talked with him. He wasn't mentally ill. He's not struggling on substance abuse. He worked in computer science and sales and was just 12 units away from graduating from Qua College, and he just fell in hard times. For 2 years, he's been waiting for housing assistance. He is willing to work. He wants to rebuild his life. Yet, despite his motivation and capability to get back on his feet, he has not been able to access meaningful support. When someone who is ready and willing to improve their situation cannot navigate or access help that signals a weakness in our current approach to this problem. If they can't find a solution, how can those who cannot find themselves mean cannot help themselves be helped? We need to examine how city and police resources are allocated when multiple officers are assigned to low-level enforcement such as multiple officers conducting simultaneous stops on Cal Poly students for riding scooters or skateboards or doing full intensive parking violation sweeps. We have to ask whether or not those resources could be better balanced with investments that directly improve long-term safety and stability. Real safety means families feel comfortable downtown. It means businesses can thrive. And it means that the homeless have a clear, efficient path to housing, employment, support, and real stability. If we want St. Louis Abyispo to feel safe and strong, we must invest in solutions that prevent homelessness from being entrenched, not just manage his visibility. The homeless man I met last night, please remember his name, Peterson, because behind every policy decision is a person that is either helped forward or left behind. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Is there additional people after carrot? John Ashall. Okay. Make sure you line up. Thank you so much.

Sorry about that. Yeah. So, mayor and city council and staff, uh, I'm here as myself, Garrett Filman, not representing the tenants union tonight. Um, and so I just wanted to say thank you to uh y'all five up here and especially Timmy and David for putting in a lot of effort around the rental registry. Uh, I know it's been a long time pushing for us, but I know that all of you have put in a lot of effort into this and I want just to make sure that that's acknowledged. There's certainly more that we want to do, but I was also surprised that I think I heard five people up here saying yes to a mandatory rental registry. And that is a win for me because I'm speaking just as me. And so I really want to make sure like that was something I didn't expect. That was something that I think has happened over time as you all have listened, as you have looked into um what has been presented by staff and realize that this is something that is important and will make a difference in our community. Um I do hope that this can be implemented during this budget cycle, the 2025 to 2027. I think the week before the rental registry that there was some money that was set aside. Um, and also that staff presented that there are some things currently on the docket and there were some concerns around that. And so I just asked that um, I think that's something that can be reconciled with still keeping it this year. Um, in part because I think it's really important to get this started now because when the rental registry is implemented, it will start giving us information about what is working and what isn't. And there are a lot of decisions that you are making during this budget cycle that the sooner we get this up and running then you'll be able to have actual information of what is and what is not working. And I

think that as city council folk being able to speak to the public from a place of knowing and a place of confidence as much as you can have right to say we are trying these things and here's what we are seeing working and let's keep going with that or we tried this not everything works so let's pivot and do something different I think is really powerful and I also think it's going to be a helpful tool for some of the loudest voices on either side to um find some humility when we come forward with things that we think might work. Uh I know that we are not all omnisient and so I hope that we have this tool in place so that we can see are the things that we think or I think will help tenants actually working and we need to be humble enough to say sometimes no. And so I'm really looking forward to this um just so that we know it's working. And ultimately I think as we said landlords and tenants have the same goal um we just have different ways of going about it. So, I hope that you continue to push this tool and get it across the finish line so we can have a better understanding of how to make a safe, secure, and affordable slow.

Thank you. Thank you.

I guess I'm next. Madame Mayor and members of the council, I thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. Uh, as you may know, my name is John Ashb. uh you're getting copies of a sort of an executive summary of something and you'll see on the screen here the draft rough draft committee work that I want to talk about tonight. Um this year our nation is going to celebrate and I guess at least recognize the 250th anniversary of our nation's founding July 4th. But here in San Los Aisto there is another important anniversary we should not overlook. On March 2nd, 1776, exactly 250 years ago yesterday, Juan Batista Adanza and his expedition arrived at Mission San Louis Aispo. They had traveled nearly 750 miles over primitive trails. After spending two nights here, they continued north to establish what would become San Francisco. By the way, this is kind of repeating something you've heard already from our new executive director at the History Center, Steve. So glad to have him on board. Um that journey followed what we now know as the Juan Batista to Anza National Historic Trail. Uh it's project of the National Park Service. San Louis Abispo once had two count them Juan Batista Anza National Historic Trail markers signs not just markers but signs um on city property. Today only one remains. Most residents don't know where it even is. I suspect you Jan Marks probably know you don't. Well, okay. I'll I'll tell you, but I I'll get to that later. Uh I'll get back to that sign. Um I want to briefly address the context of this observance. I don't want to call it a celebration or commemoration. I just want to call it something that we should

note, take note of. Um the Denza expedition included nearly 300 settlers largely recruited from what is now Mexico along with hundreds of animals. when they arrived here, mission sandalless was very different from what it is today. You can see it kind of like as Paula represented up there in the upper right corner. Um the California missions were significant but short-lived. They were not created primarily for settlers but to convert the indigenous people of California to Catholicism and secondarily to Spanish culture. While many missionaries were sincere, the mission system ultimately failed to achieve lasting cultural transformation. It is important to say clearly the missions alone were not responsible for the devastating impact they that the cultural transformation that occurred later um had on native communities. Most historians agree that far greater damage came from later waves of colonization. For that reason, tonight is not about celebration. It's about observation, reflection, acknowledging a pivotal moment in this city's history. Now, back to that sign. when the Mission Plaza trail sign was removed two years ago. More than that, the National Park Service allocated funds for a new sign designed specifically for San Losispo. That's another sign that we are working on. We want your help. So, please read your executive summaries and uh thank you.

I have more information if you'd like to see it. Thank you so much. Is that our final speaker? Yes, it is. Great. Thank you so much. Um I know that there are quite a few things that were shared that I think staff might want to respond to. Um I know um 100% that the city did not desire to take out the tree at the slow rep. That was a request from slowrep due to the root damage that would be taken. So I just thought maybe uh director twe you could share a little bit about that. Um and then I know that we've done quite a bit of work um for the unhoused community and um obviously uh director of Aken is speaking with some people about the park. So thank you so much.

Thank you so much Timmy Toy, director of community development. I'll absolutely speak to the slowrep tree. So slowrep originally designed that building around the oak tree. It was entitled meaning approved by the city many years ago and at that time the best practice in the industry was to look at the drip line of the tree and assume that's where the root zone was. At that time the city didn't require an arborist report with an entitlement like this. And so we have since you know a few years ago changed that practice to catch up with best practice in in arboricultural science. And um it's now understood that the root zone of a tree can go far beyond the drip line. And so when originally approved, the intent from the applicant or slowrep was to keep the tree. That was still their intent. Um that is still their intent and that was their intent when they applied for building permits. The difference is that when they applied for building permits in the last year or two, the city said asked them for information from an arborist on how they were going to protect the tree in that place while the construction was going on. And at that time, the arborist hired by slowrep noted that the root zones went beyond the drip line and that the tree likely would not survive the construction at the site. And so that's when then Slowrep uh applied for a tree removal permit. And so it's a very unfortunate situation um that we are we are in at this time, but the arborist provided a thorough report about what the tree might what the construction on the site might do to the tree and our city arborist concurred with the uh review and recommendations of that arborist. So hopefully that's helpful and I'm happy to answer any questions if you have any.

Thank you. That's helpful. And before you go um also just wanted to um well there other questions but also if you could please share around the um rental registry. I believe our next steps are studying not requiring a mandated um register rental registry. So if you could share on that as well. So per direction that we received um at the last meeting, staff is going to be doing some leg work in anticipation of putting on the development of a reg rental registry onto the next budget cycle document. So the 2729 budget, sorry. And so we will be doing some leg work to prepare to present to the city council how much it would cost to do the remainder of the work to establish that rental registry.

Great. Thank you, Council Member Shoresman. Um before you step away, I just thought it might be helpful. I know this isn't um consolation to some folks who are um very upset about uh the removal of the tree, but I wondered if you could talk about the compensatory planning uh planting plan um to try and rectify some of

Absolutely. So when someone submits for a tree removal request, there's a number of criteria that we look at to note whether or not staff recommends or not. And um in addition, the code requires replacement of that tree with additional trees. And in this case, and I'm trying to remember, it's a few weeks ago, but I believe they're replacing it with three new trees. Um or four. Four. Thank you. four new trees. So, they will be replacing it with with four new trees.

And those are not exactly There's going to be one tree replaced on that site that will probably Well, it will be it's the the type of tree has been chosen because it will be well suited for that location and the urban environment. And then the other three trees, I believe, will be street trees along Napomo Street. So, I'm I'm reading the staff report. One tree is proposed in the 20x 20 area where the oak tree will be removed and then four additional trees are proposed offsite. So, it's actually replacing that tree onsite and then four additional off-site trees that I believe are along the street. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you for that. Appreciate it.

Um, anything from staff who'd like to share about um our homelessness work as well? City manager?

Thank you. Just one quick followup on the the issue of of the tree at slowrep. Um, Slowrep has also issued a statement today um that's available on their website that provides a little bit more context for folks as well. Also, if anyone's interested in taking a look at that, um, it certainly expresses their same sentiment they expressed here as well during that conversation, which is, you know, same level of disappointment that, um, they weren't able to continue to support the tree on site. um explaining the background, how it is that we got here, how they got there, um and the lengths to which they tried to find other options, but really basing their request on the best available information and uh really scientific uh recommendations coming from the arborist. So, just wanted to make sure folks were aware that that they have issued uh some additional statements. Um, and then from there, I'm happy to kind of quickly uh pivot to the kind of homelessness response issues that were raised earlier. Um, as the mayor mentioned, our parks and recck director is speaking, I think, with the individuals who spoke, but um, a few items of note. Uh, certainly at any point in time, if somebody is seeing and experiencing any type of threatening behavior, call 911 and, uh, our officers will respond. It's incredibly important that we hear from people when something is happening so we can go out and address it uh and also have a better sense of what's occurring in the area if there are patterns occurring. So please call us um and call us every single time if it's not rising to a level of potential criminal activity. It kind of depends on your your even personal level of comfort um perhaps. But if let's say you're seeing um litter or other types of things that are concerning, you can always use our Ask Slow app as well to

report things like like litter and we will send folks out to make sure that we're cleaning that up quickly. Um but this is certainly, you know, what we heard is really um a really big uh systemic national, statewide uh and and local, regional issue that we are continually trying to help address. our website um under there's a category um called living and under that we have a homelessness response page. It provides a lot of great information about what it is that we are doing what people can do when they are experiencing the impacts of um folks in our unhoused community. um on in addition to the reactive work um which we do every day and again we want to hear from people when it is happening so we can come out and help immediately but we have a lot of work that we do uh with a lot of partners in the community to help provide that more preventative and um proactive approach to helping address the problem itself. It's just incredibly challenging. Um being unhoused itself is not illegal. And yet if there are activities that somebody who happens to be unhoused is in engaging in that is illegal, we we will take steps to enforce and help make the situation safe. So we are also doing a lot of uh work trying to support our uh partners, nonprofit providers, our regional partners like the county and building housing and supportive services for folks who need them. um there's never enough and so doesn't mean we don't stop. We we continue working on that. We have a few projects that we uh are looking forward to coming online in addition to the shelter at 40 Praau. Um we've also uh have the welcome home village project that will be coming online very soon that the county uh is really spearheading. But we are

partnering with them to help move folks out of uh really targeting the Bob Jones bike trail to move people out of that area and into housing. Um the uh project we partnered with people's self-help housing uh to purchase a Motel 6 project or or property down on Kaioen which is called now Beacon Studios. That project is well underway. Um it's taking longer than I think anybody wants it to to get up and running but that will provide I believe 70 units. Hopefully I'm I'm correct pretty close on that. Um those types 75. okay with the with the additions of the work that they're doing out there. So those are the types of projects that will help move the needle on this and yet we will unfortunately I think continue to experience um and our community will continue to experience the impacts. Uh doesn't mean we won't keep working. So I just really want to reiterate to the community um we we really do want to hear from you uh and we will keep working. Thank you so much. And even in our even in our budget conversation today, there's some conversations around the licensed psychiatric technicians and what they um have provided. So um very interesting I think part of the agenda if you feel like reading that part.

I probably should have also keyed into our next meeting uh on the 17th. We will have a couple of items for discussion there, including uh some work that the county has done to try to collect uh really a list of all of the programs and work that all of the cities are doing in the county to help provide resources to the unhoused population in each of their cities. And so it's really just trying to make sure everybody is aware of all of the things that we are doing together to try to address the issue. Um, and it will will help tell that story both locally and then even statewide. Uh, of course, we have a goal and a desire to take that story and help ourselves advocate for additional resources um in our community to continue growing that network and the services that we'll be able to offer people.

Thank you. Thank you, city attorney.

Thank you, mayor. I just wanted to add one little practical comment on something I heard from the commenters on the same subject about being put on hold when they called dispatch because your city manager correctly is encouraging folks to call in real time and let us know which is incredibly important to get resources there. I just want people to understand that being put on hold is probably an indicator that they are trying to expedite the dispatch of resources to you, not that they're ignoring the call or somehow being dismissive about the call. And I know that that's sometimes when they are juggling a lot of variables, taking multiple calls on the same on the same incident, which can happen um or when they are trying to get officers out to that location quickly. That can feel very abrupt in the moment. But I just wanted to offer a little bit of explanation about sometimes why that's happening. Thank you. Great point. I was thinking about that in my head as well. Council member Marks.

Uh yes. I just wanted to briefly uh address Mitchell Park. Uh I uh frequently u make a point to go walk around and check it out. Having uh um uh done a lot of work back in the day to get that playground established in the first place. Uh and I want to urge if you see people who are uh sleeping or loitering uh adults um uh you know in the playground area to call the police non-emergency. Now this is the people who are not being aggressive or they're just kind of hanging out. But um the police non-emergency number is 8057817317. And just say there are a bunch of um um menu uh lounging around uh in the playground and it's making making me feel like I can't be there as a mom with kids. And I I call that non-emergency number quite a bit. if um if Mitchell if the playground is indeed kind of being invaded by an adult population, it's for children and it's posted that it's for children. And so I just want to urge people to uh go ahead and call even if it's not an immediate kind of threat as such, but just um uh a presence that makes a family feel uncomfortable about using the playground. So, thank you.

Thank you. And I think that number is 805781. Is that the wrong number? Yeah. 7312. Thank you. 012. Yes. One two 7817312. So, if you have want to give the call to the non-emergency number, just want to make sure you are calling the number you're trying to get to. Council member Shoresman. Yeah. Just one follow-up question for staff on that slow rep statement about the um the status of the tree. You had said that they had posted something on the website or otherwise sent something out. I wondered if you could share that with council so that we can share it if we get more questions. Thank you. Y

sorry, city manager. Happy to share that out with everybody. Yeah, perfect. Thank you. Well, thank you much. Thank you so much for all the updates and for everyone who came to public comment. We always have a lot of interesting things happening in our community and um so much work to be done even though there's already so much work that is happening. So, thank you very much for that. With that, we move on to the um non-controversial items, the consent agenda. And I just ask my colleague anything you would like to have pulled before we go to public comment. I see shaking of heads of no. So, do we have any public comment on the consent agenda, city clerk? No, we do not.

All right. With that, can I get a motion? Uh, council member Shoresman. Yeah. I just want to thank staff for asking answering my questions about um the cost allocation plan so the community knows those answers are there and agenda correspondence. I appreciate that. And I'll make the motion to approve the consent agenda. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I will second. Wonderful. And I just want to say uh I'm excited about the easement with P Genie for the um Bob Jones Trail Pathway so we can continue to um have people get from the city to the sea. And with that, city clerk, can we have roll call, please? Council member Shoresman, yes.

Vice Mayor Francis, yes. Council member Boswell, yes. Council member Marks, yes. Mayor Stewart,

yes. And the motion passes 5. So now we have uh one item that has been continued to um next next meeting on the March 17th. We've talked about that already from city manager about the local roads first proposed ballot measure that'll come back to us from slowcog uh slow council of governments on the March 17th. So we'll move on to budget. So, uh, director Emily Jackson and principal budget analyst Riley will come and share with us about, uh, the 2627 budget supplement preview. And, city manager, are you kicking us off? Thank you so much.

Yes, I will be. And we do I've got just a couple of introductory slides. Um, even though it, you know, it seems a little bit to me like, uh, this item might be quick or simple, uh, it certainly was not. In getting to this point, um, many, many hours of work done by, uh, every single department in our city to take another really deep dive into our operating expenditures. That's why you see so many members of our staff here. they really all had a hand in helping to put together a list of uh proposed expenditure reductions that we are ready to walk through a bit this evening. So uh why are we here? I suppose you might ask. I thought we had our uh financial plan all settled. Um and we do we we adopted a financial plan covering two years from 2027 to 29 back in June of 2025. Um we are here however uh be sorry our current financial plan is 27 to 25 to 27. I was reading the slide too early. Um but what we as part of that process is we identified uh what we believe will be about a $3 million deficit beginning in the beginning of our next financial plan. Um there are a number of factors going into why we believed we'd have that type of a deficit. um it's you know both ends of the equation both revenue and expenditures. So uh we forecasted a decrease in our revenue um from a number of different sources really driven by macroeconomic uh trends that everybody is facing throughout our region, state and nation. Uh at the same time uh rising costs in a number of places and really the 2027 year um becomes a more acute for us because we do have a

commitment through a development agreement to bring on a fifth fire station to serve the southern part of our city. Um that's a a big undertaking in terms of not just capital costs but ongoing operating costs. In this situation, the developer themselves will be building that station, but we do need to staff it. Uh, and that's a a big uptick in our needs in that area. So, those were the largest factors really driving what we had identified as uh a deficit in our next financial plan. So knowing that that would be coming, we wanted to u make sure that we had basically taken a close look at our spending to uh control it to make sure that we were doing what we can on our side of the ledger in terms of the expenditure side uh to be wise in what we were um spending our our money on. Um after the financial plan was adopted back in June of 25, we took some immediate steps to address that looming deficit. The first one being uh actually before adoption of the plan, we went ahead and enacted what we call our fiscal health contingency plan. So what that is is a it's really a mechanism to uh slow our spending internally um on a quick basis. And so we've done we've activated that plan a few times typically in response to uh an emergency or if you see say your your revenues uh start to take quite a dip um in order to again control our spending immediately. We also asked our departments to go through a careful analysis of their expenditures and come up with a proposed list of reductions. uh we asked everybody to take a look uh and really exceed what we thought we would need in terms of reductions so that we had a really robust list of options to walk through and not have to go through the process more than once. Um so we what we

asked folks to do was to create uh three and five and 8% reduction lists because we thought we were looking at about a 3% gap. Um, so going through that process at the same time as updating our long-term financial forecast, we came up with a targeted amount that we would be bringing forward to you all for consideration for reductions. Um, our financial forecast is looking better than we had anticipated. So that is a good thing. um through just changes in the economy and our uh a number of our revenue sources um al along with things like our Kalpers payments that um are showing a little bit of a reduction based on market market uh impacts. Um, all of that really went into a big calculation for us and we came up with a list that will is summarized in the staff report of about a million dollars of net reductions and spending that we are recommending that we go ahead and put into effect with this next budget. So, starting in July of this year, we believe that will bring us in line to address that deficit that we had identified kind of looming in the next financial plan. Um, I really want to thank our teams and take this opportunity to thank our entire staff because discussing budget reductions um is really challenging and creates a lot of anxiety naturally so because um most of our uh expenditures are related to our people because we are are a service organization. That's how the work happens out on the ground for our community. And so if we start talking about reducing those expenditures, um it can be quite a a concern and a a potential threat for our staff. We we had a really um careful process that we went through to develop this list um and are really proud that what we were

bringing forward does not recommend any layoffs um of filled positions. There are some positions that we have identified, but they are vacant. Um, and that was part of the benefit of activating our fiscal health contingency plan when we did. It meant that folks, our departments couldn't fill positions immediately, but needed to think through whether that was going to work well if they needed to look at cuts in the future. So, all those things came together um to what we're presenting to you all this evening. Uh, which that one about a million dollars in cuts. We'll talk through some of the potential impacts of that, but we don't believe it will create significant impacts into the community or for our staff, but will instead um be measured and allow us to address that deficit. Uh and so what I want to reiterate for everyone up on the screen here is really the process we undertook here was intended to be transparent to ensure that we are responsible in our spending to give you all the information that you would need to make sure that those things are happening. um while also undertaking really thoughtful planning for not just what we need now, not just what we need in the current financial plan or in the next one, but even the issues that could be coming on later down the line. And so you'll see some of our conversations later. We took an opportunity here to not just look at our existing spending um but also to think about those things that we do see coming that we will likely need to spend money on later so that everyone is aware of where we will be heading and what we might need in the coming say 3 to 5 years. And so um a lot of uh things came out during that conversation that we we've or conversations. It's been u an iterative process for us with lots and lots of hours of um discussions of what we think our community will need in order to

address uh issues, new state legislation that is always a favorite that we have to deal with every year. Um and the commitments that we've made to the community over time. So um that's kind of uh teeing up the process we went through to get here and then the goals that we have in presenting this item to you all. So, with that, I'll hand it over to Emily and Riley.

Great. Thank you, Whitney. Um, happy to be here this evening to provide council with a preview of what staff is planning to recommend from an expenditure reduction standpoint. um when you uh formally consider the budget for 2627 on July or I'm sorry on June 2nd. Um I I think this will be a helpful addition to the process because as always we want to um be able to develop a budget proposal that meets the council and the community's expectations. And so tonight I think is a helpful milestone to get us closer to that so that we as staff have clarity about what expectations are um so that there's minimal need for revision happening in June of this year. Um like Whitney noted there is a lot in the item this evening. Lots of moving pieces when it comes to budgeting. Um Whitney provided a pretty good overview. We're going to talk in a little bit more detail to, you know, provide set some context for the situation that we're currently dealing with by talking through um development of the 2527 financial plan. Um like Whitney noted, we've updated the long-term forecast. We typically do that about every six months. Um sometimes do it in in those six months multiple times just as things continue to shift. Um there's certainly been a lot of that over the last year. Um and so we'll walk you through um where the forecast was on June in June of 25 when you adopted the financial plan and where it sits today. Um we'll also be talking about some of the upcoming initiatives that Whitney spoke about that are going to require some investment of general fund dollars to to move a number of things forward that um we've talked about previously or that our community expects of us. um we'll provide an overview of the recommended expenditure reductions and then we have

a number of other things that we're going to be um either seeking council direction on um including uh whether the the eternal question of whether or not we actually utilize the section 115 pension preunding trust that was established a number of years ago and whether we go ahead and make an initial contribution to that. Um, and then also going to just provide you and the community with an overview of some of the improvements that we're making to our budgeting process and to our budget document to continue to enhance the transparency of both the process and the document for members of the public who may be interested in engaging on this topic. Um and then finally, we'll we'll be um the intent of the item this evening is also to inform the council of the city manager's intent to terminate both of the fiscal health contingency plans that are currently in place. And then we'll close out with some operational updates. Um one of the things that we had a lot of conversation about when we were working to develop uh recommended reductions is that there's there's a lot on our plate. We have always had a really ambitious work plan. A lot of core service needs, major city goal actions that we need to be moving forward on. Um, and so budget reductions alone do not get us there. And so we've been doing a lot of sort of self-reflection as an organization at the staff level about what are the things that we're spending time on and how do we best position and support the organization in order to be able to deliver on everything that um the council and community expects of us. So, um again, a lot in the item, but there are two areas where we're seeking council um uh direction this evening. Um you'll see when there are slides related to each of these items, there will be this little wayfinding at the bottom. Um seeking council direction to remind us all that this is really something to pay attention to. Um but again, we're we're

um seeking direction and input on recommended expenditure reductions that will come back before you in June of this year, as well as um a decision about whether or not we should go ahead and make an initial contribution to the section 115 trust and if not, what we should do with the funding that's been assigned for that purpose instead. So, as Whitney noted, uh, budget prep for the current two-year financial plan was, um, was kind of kicked off with development of the long-term forecast, which showed a deficit, um, in the current financial plan period. Um, our first priority also is to is is always to deal with what is immediately ahead of us. um and then to start making plans for what do we do to continue to achieve and maintain structural balance in the outy years. And so um to uh balance the financial plan for the 2527 period, we um we removed the cost of the additional discretionary payments from the long-term forecasts that we make to CalPERS on um in every year. Um, I want to be really clear that that is not a removal of any funding for required payments that we have to make to PERS every year, but removal of um 2 million in additional discretionary payments, which we can um do we we can do or stop at any given time. Um, it doesn't mean that we're not planning to fund those on a go forward basis, but we stopped forecasting for them. um we've historically assigned money in the general fund for that purpose and so there was a bit of a doubling up in both including it in the forecast and then assigning it for expenditure at the end of every given year. Um we also asked our departments to constrain the growth um in their budgets moving into 2526

and so um directed um that all departments uh provide us with budgets that um kept their non-staffing costs in 2526 flat with what where they were in 2425. Um on the whole departments reported that that would just provide them with less less flexibility to take things on that were unanticipated as they came up. Um and there were a few uh instances where we actually restored funding. So some departments saw a bit more growth than others um due to you know high priority needs and we highlighted those in the uh June budget hearing last year. Um, we also recommended what was at that point uh recommended to be a one-time reduction in the amount of funding that we provide to our capital program to redirect it to our operating budget. Um that was a recommendation that was made because there was expected and had we have seen a very minimal impact to the capital program as a result of that and we again wanted to um preserve our level of service provided to the community and the support we provide to our staff to provide those services in the operating budget to the greatest extent possible. Um we also increase the staffing vacancy assumption from 3% to 4%. that's more in line with um where we ultimately end the year. It's still a a bit under what the vacancy rate has historically looked like. And then um really became more aggressive in our revenue forecasting. That doesn't mean that, you know, it's um we're just looking at sunny skies all the time, but we've taken a more granular approach to how we do revenue forecasting and looking at every line in detail. taking a look at, you know, for questions like property tax, instead of always going with what the county tells us, taking a look at how property tax has actually performed and making some

decisions about how do we forecast that um revenue line based on actuals rather than um estimates that we get very early in the year from the county. Um on the whole, you know, those those strategies were really helpful to um balance the budget for the current financial plan. But I do think that it's worth noting that what all of this results in is an overall tightening of the budget, which means that um we will continue to uh you know, have difficulty, I think, taking on new things as they pop up. There's going to be some trade-offs required, um rep prioritization potentially. Um and it it's also expected to result in an overall lower unassigned fund balance at the end of the year. And and fortunately we we have a policy um for use of unassigned fund balance which um basically states that it's only used for one-time purposes. So, we expect that that isn't really an operational hit, but it's just something to consider because we know that um certain uh groups in the community really rely on that funding as an opportunity to to seek um a contribution from the city. So, this is a look at the long-term forecast, a very rolled up version of the um long-term forecast that the council saw in June of last year. As I noted, this is uh post all of the actions that we took on the last slide to balance the financial plan um for the the current two years, but as Whitney noted, a deficit at that point was still we were still looking at a deficit in the out years due due largely to the requirement to bring a fifth fire station online. Um so as we moved forward to uh planning for the 2627 budget um and beyond um at this point we are recommending to continue the reallocation of the $1 million from

capital to operating. I think that's something that um makes sense on an ongoing basis, but certainly something we can check in on every year just to kind of see where the needs are in any given year. And then we're also uh recommending operating expenditure reductions which we've summarized um in more detail in the staff report but we can certainly take questions from council this evening on those areas. Um this is what the general fund forecast looks like today. So, the the uh off-white uh row surplus deficit shows what all of the actions that we took um got us prior to landing on recommended budget reductions. And then um the bottom white line, budget reduction, shows what we're recommending um this evening. And um the adjusted surplus and deficit um factors in all of the actions that we took up until identifying reductions um factoring in the reductions and and just the net of those two things. So, we're expecting that um if the budget reductions uh move forward in June that we um are at this point forecasting that we'll have about 1.6 million um in funding to do something with in 2627, but we don't expect that that will continue. Um we have a very modest deficit projected in the first year of the next financial plan and then a slight surplus projected in the second year of the next financial plan. And so, um, again, some more context I think is really helpful here. Um, though the news is looking a lot better, um, we have a lot on the radar, things that, um, we've had previous conversations about and, um, some of the brainstorming that we did back in November, um, when we forced all of our department heads to

sit in a room together for two days. Um there's a lot coming and um I think you know there's there are things beyond what's on this list, but we really wanted to highlight for your council and the community what some of the upcoming initiatives are that we're eventually going to have to find a way to pay for. Um it includes things like an upcoming user fee study per policy. We need to start working on that um early, you know, later this year, early next fiscal year so that we can develop a uh develop and deliver a new user fee schedule to you all um next spring. We also have an impact fee study that we're going to be required to do in the coming years. We have a little bit more time to pay for that one, but there's certainly a cost associated with that. Um, back in January of last year, you received presentations from the public works maintenance division and the police department on staffing studies that were done last year. Um, last week, of course, we had a a a big conversation about the question of whether or not to pro proceed with a rental housing registry. There will be a cost as outlined in the staff report last week associated with that. Um, we are seeing a decrease in the amount of opioid settlement funding that we have historically used to fund the licensed psych text um that we contract with the county for to support our mobile crisis unit and our community action team. Um I if those are things that we um your council is going to want to continue um and see a benefit into the community, um we would have we're going to need to have a conversation about whether or not and to what extent the general fund uh picks up for the loss of opioid settlement funding on a go forward basis. Um and then you know we've got a host of other things including um

Calpaly campus fire service needs. We've been talking about that ongoing implementation of our new uh fire hazard severity zone maps, further investments in the downtown, and um ongoing work that's needed to address our continuing Oracle ERP related issues. Um, all of these are covered in the staff report, but just wanted to highlight them for your consideration tonight because um, it's exciting to see a surplus moving into 2627, but there's a lot that we could be spending that money on. Um, and then this is just a high-level overview of the reductions that we're recommending this evening by department. Um the first column um with numbers in it shows what each department's budget is in the current year. Um what the reductions are recommended to be. And then just kind of to give you kind of a a rough order of magnitude for how impactful that is to each department. Um that percentage of budget column is just intended to show you know um which departments are are taking more of a cut proportional to their operating budget than others are. Um and like our city manager noted we are recommending some very very modest um reductions to staffing levels. Uh very happily all of these positions are currently vacant. So, as our city manager noted, we are not recommending any layoffs, which is really, I think, a pretty um it was a huge priority for the leadership team. Um, and a pretty big accomplishment just given all of the moving pieces here and everything that that we've been working through for the last couple of months. So, really really happy to be able to to um not be affecting anybody's jobs. Um

the impact overall of the recommended expenditure reductions is um there's some variation from department to department. Um but generally, you know, the the message is is that this continues to tighten the budget. It's going to continue to provide uh less flexibility to address things as they come up. And so we're going to have to continue to be having conversations about tradeoffs. Um just wanted to highlight a couple of items. Um the public works department as you saw on the last slide is taking the single largest um amount of the reduction um about half close to half of it and what that really consists of is elimination of contingencies for unexpected things that pop up throughout the year. So our public works department is tasked you know if somebody runs into a traffic signal and it falls down they have to get that back up and running very quickly. um they've historically budgeted um contingencies for that type of work. We do have other means for funding that work on an emergency basis, but just just a note that um that will certainly impact the amount of unexpended funding that the public works department returns to unassigned fund balance at the end of any given year. Um in community development, um the largest uh portion of the reduction is to consulting budgets. Um we're we're seeing less of a need for that right now just because some of the largescale developments that we've that our community development department has been working on um are are in a you know more in a building phase and so we're not seeing as much need for plan review. Um though if that does pick up again, this is a cost that should be offset by um fee revenue. And so that's something that we'll be looking closely at with our upcoming user and impact fee study. And then the uh last one to highlight is

that for both of our public safety departments, police and fire, um those departments are both taking have contributed toward the towards the reduction, but it's not a net reduction because what we're recommending is a reallocation of what they're reducing to their overtime budgets. Um we've historically not um sufficiently funded overtime for those departments and overtime usage just continues to increase. Um, and so we thought it prudent to uh get their public the public safety overtime budgets closer to what we actually need, just a better overall representation of the cost to provide um the services that those departments run. Um, so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Riley to walk through some of the other recommendations included in the report.

Thanks, Emily. Good evening, mayor and council members. Uh the next section of the presentation will focus on a few improvements to the budget document and process that we'd like to highlight before the supplemental budget hearing. Um most of this is a continuation of what we were trying to do with the 2527 financial plan. Uh good change management says you don't do it all at once and some of these things will take a few years to implement as funding becomes available. Uh the first thing that I'm going to highlight is something that I'd categorize as an easy win that we can uh implement with next year's budget. Uh and it's just getting the long-term forecast for the general fund and the budget aligned. Um there's a few key differences and some of those are for good reason. First is the budget's a one-year snapshot. Uh the long-term forecast is designed to enable long-term thinking and so it's going to cover a much broader period. We're going to preserve that. The next is that the budget's focused on what we can control. And so when we report out on the budget, we're really focused on the operating budget. Uh the long-term forecast to show that we have a balanced budget has to be totally comprehensive. It includes capital and interf'll preserve that as well. So what we do want to change here is to get the staffing assumptions aligned between the two. Um I'll focus on that on the next slide. In the budget, we assume that all positions are filled 365 days a year. Uh, and we know that's not true. Um, we have enough data to suggest that we typically see 4 to 7% of staffing budgets go unspent because of vacancies. And historically, we've built that into the long-term forecast. The budget has always assumed 100%. And it creates a lot of confusion internally about what departments can actually spend and how we're tracking midyear. Uh so we think this is a pretty easy win, something that we can clean up to reduce confusion um by incorporating the forecast assumption into the budget.

The next change is something that we'll make some progress against uh as Emily mentioned with the budget reductions, but we can't solve entirely uh and that's public safety overtime. The police and fire departments incur overtime costs for a number of reasons. Uh people get sick, injured, uh they do take vacations, uh and we have vacancies. Uh but those shifts every day still need to be covered by someone. Uh and when they're vacant, that's covered by someone who's already worked a full day and is paid overtime for that. Historically, the city has not allocated sufficient funding for that. Uh and in the meantime, assignments have only increased. So, new assignments like attending council meetings, uh, downtown farmers markets, and special events throughout the city, um, have not been funded as they've been added. Um, I want to be clear, both departments have effectively managed staffing and overtime costs, and so this is absolutely not a management rights issue. Uh, it's strictly a funding issue. Um the table shows that both departments have done a really good job managing overtime expenditures in line with vacancies so that the net staffing variance is actually positive at year end. Uh it doesn't look like that's going to be true anymore in the current year for both departments. And so it's really time to address this. Um like we said, not all of this will be done in one year. Um but hopefully by reallocating some of the expenditure reductions this year, we can start to make progress. Uh so the next item is really about communication in the budget document and our philosophy when we forecast revenues. Uh the city's operations are largely funded by projected revenue. So not what we collected last year but what we expect to collect going forwards and that means that our ability to forecast and predict revenue is really important. Um typically we've been pretty conservative in how we forecast revenue. uh that results in those large surpluses at year end that we've seen in previous years that have kind of started to

dwindle, which is great. It enables us to invest in our pension debts and fund some really big community priorities like slow rep and the museum in recent years. Um but being too conservative also means that we're not funding our programs to the levels that we could or in an agenda item like tonight. So we'd be taking more cuts than we really need to. Um, as Emily noted in the 2527 financial plan, we got a lot more granular in how we forecast the revenues and we think that's appropriate with next year's budget and going forwards as well. But we want to be clear of the implications which is again less fund balance at year end. Uh, and that's important because that's how we make these additional discretionary payments to Kalpers. Uh since we started making these payments in 2019, the city's invested $28 million. Uh there's still quite a bit of work to be done. The remaining unfunded pension liability is $188 million. Um and going forwards, we'll continue to recommend that these are made out of unassigned fund balance uh and in line with our financial policies. There have been years uh like the peak of COVID where that fund balance just wasn't available. And so there were uh zero years. There's also been years where we've made catch-up payments and invested quite a bit all at once. Uh like in fiscal year 2122. Um but for the last few years, we have a really great track record here of making those payments each year. Um and we think it's really important to see that continue. At 66.2% 2% funded. The city's behind most other Kalpers agencies and and that unfunded liability of 188 million will make it more challenging for the city to issue debt to finance important infrastructure projects that come up. Uh and the last item that I'd like to cover tonight, uh and it is relevant to the next item as well is the operating reserve. Since setting aside $2 million

to potentially fund the section 115 pension preunding trust, the city's excluded the $15 million required annual payment to Kalpers from operating expenditures when we calculate the operating reserve. Uh and a true reserve including that payment at 20% would be about $3 million higher. Um to be clear, we think the general fund is pretty well capitalized and this is mostly an issue of where the funding sits uh rather than a true additional funding need. Um but in the next few years, we would like to see a cleanup of the general funds fund balance sheet uh and get to a true 20% reserve. Uh and with that, I'll hand it to Emily for a review of that 115 trust.

Thank you, Riley. Um, so I think we've we've talked about this or at least made mention of this in all of our recent quarterly budget updates to council. And so we're hoping to have a a more focused conversation with council this evening about whether or not we should move forward with using and um contri contributing funding to our section 115 pension preunding trust. Um just by way of a little bit of background um the uh city council back with adoption of the 201921 financial plan directed as a major city work uh major city goal work program item to establish a 115 trust. Um it was a couple years until that was actually done. The trust was ultimately established in 2023. um the lag was really due to the impacts of COVID and the uncertainty that that created for the city's budget overall. And so that I think was a very natural pause on um uh you know the decision to actually move forward with establishment of the trust. Um that said, in the interim um the city did um begin assigning in the general fund $2 million for an eventual contribution to the trust. Um at this point the we have not um made any contributions to the trust. We have a zero balance in our trust and so the question before council this evening is to fund or not to fund. Um and if not uh what is our our means for um continuing on the good path to pay down our CalPERS pension liability. Um we have a I just noted a quick error on this slide. As Riley noted, we've made um $28 million in adps to CalPER since 2019. Um and I want to be really clear uh for the listening public that we're not

talking about the um normal payments that we are required or our unfunded liability payments that we are also required to pay to CalPERS every year. um additional discretionary payments um represent additional money that we elect um every year to contribute to Kalpers to expedite payown of our pension debt. Um, as you will recall from the um uh actuary uh who presented to council in 2023, um our our pension plan continues to be a work in progress and um it's it's difficult often to look at how much money we're contributing to Kalpers on an annual basis and how much we've um paid beyond what we're required to pay over the last several years. um but it's helping um and so I think that that's the really important thing to keep in mind regardless of how we set aside money for this purpose. Um in fiscal year 2526 just by way of context we are are going to be making a total payment of $25.6 million to Kalpers. So, um, that's larger than more of our most of our department's costs on an annual basis, just to provide a bit of context for, um, how much we're we're setting aside and contributing to CalPERS as we're required and as we desire to do more of. Um so a section 115 trust is really a mechanism that PERS agencies can use to um set aside funding for um sort of reserve funding for future payments to CalPERS. Um there's a number of considerations outlined in the staff report this evening and they're just summarized on this slide. Um but I'll I'll run through them quickly as I expect that this will spur some further conversation and questions from council. Um trusts are are a a good um you know mechanism to help agencies build a

cushion um and provide for some level of budget stability. Um it's important to note that we have other means of doing that. We've been doing that. Um we've assigned money in the general fund. And so this is a way. It's not the only way. Um, it's important, really important to note, I think that the single biggest thing to consider this evening is that deposits into the trust are irrevocable. Meaning that once we put money into the trust and once it earns interest, we cannot access the money that's sitting in the trust for any other purpose. There's nothing stopping us from saying, you know, we've set aside $23 million to make a payment to Kalpers. we'll really spend 21 of that and then we'll pull $2 million out of the trust to make the full payment and then free up some room in the, you know, general fund to do something else with. But, um, we will never be in a position where, you know, we have a balance sitting in the trust and we can pull it out to pay for something else more directly. Um, it's important to note that the contributions in and of themsel to the trust don't help to reduce our unfunded acred liability. Um the payments that we actually make from PERS either from the general fund, any of our enterprise funds or from the trust help to address the unfunded acred liability but simply having money in the trust does not um does not meet that need. Um investments um of deposits into the trusts assume some level of market risk. Um we basically rely on Kalpers to manage those investments. Um but the city also um importantly uh manages its own investments on our cash. And so you know we have an investment oversight committee that meets on a quarterly basis to review investments, make decisions at a high level about industry

exclusions and and where we want to be investing funds. Um and so regardless of whether or not we utilize a 115 trust or we we hold the money ourselves, the money will still be invested. Um there's a certain an additional level of of market risk with the um investments of 115 trust money um because Kalpers has just a more um uh aggressive investment um strategy than the city does. We prioritize safety and liquidity um over yield and not everybody does the same thing and so that's a consideration to make as well. Um, funding the trust again, you know, just like it doesn't in and of itself reduce our unfunded acred liability, it also doesn't guarantee a decrease to our long-term cost. It's a way to hold on to money um to to provide flexibility, you know, maybe in tough years where we don't have the money to make a payment or, you know, we there are one of one of the reasons that a lot of professional um associations site as a reason to fund a 115 trust is that you don't always have a city council that's committed to to making those payments over other things. That's fortunately not something that we struggle with here. And I think that we're on a good path, but that's certainly something to consider as well. And then finally, if we were to move forward with funding and maintaining and utilizing the trust, we would likely want to develop a policy um to govern um use of the trust, roles and responsibilities, any reporting for the sake of transparency. um and and and I really clearly identifying when we would use the trust and in what circumstances it's maybe wouldn't be um so appropriate or necessary to use the trust.

So um this evening what we're seeking council's direction on is uh whether or not we should deposit the $2 million that we've had assigned for a number of years for this purpose into the section 115 trust. Um if if not um we have a couple of different options for what council consider could consider doing with that um funding instead. So if council were to determine that um we should not be utilizing the trust or at least not funding it at this point and that there is a better and higher use for the $2 million. Our recommendations would be that we use it to make an additional discretionary payment or assign for a future additional discretionary payment um or appropriate for other purposes. Um the two that come to mind that we've uh talked about in recent um budget items and Riley just covered is that we have some work to do to get our operating reserve to a full 20%. Um, you know, we also have an insurance fund that could use money given our move to selfres self-insured retention. Um, or we can just continue to assign it and um, you know, punt the conversation about whether or not to deposit it into the trust to another day. Um, so I'll end on just kind of a high level look. This is something that came up in our agenda review meeting this morning and just kind of compares typical returns that we realize on our cash our city managed investments. Typical returns are about 3.8%. Um in a 115 trust um returns have have been closer to 5.2%. And then of course, you know, we we talk a lot about what the what returns Kalpers actually sees on their

investments for funding already paid, not sitting in a trust, which is um fluctuates a lot more. We have years of big loss and years of some amount of gain, which is always a really happy surprise. And so, um, it's important to note that while the 115 trust, uh, typically delivers more returns, it's also riskier because it's just a riskier investment strategy. And so, that's something to consider. While um, you know, it looks attractive on paper, there are are years when it doesn't do as well as the city's managed investments, which are much much more conservatively managed. So um that's the overview of um the section 115 trust and um we'll move on to the um final budget related item of the evening which is again the city manager uh in uh informing council and the community of the city manager's intent to uh terminate both of the fiscal health contingency plans that are currently in place. Um, as Whitney noted, one was activated back in 2023 in uh response to the winter storms and uncertainty about um reimbursement timelines. I I don't we could have this in in place forever if that is our qualifier. Um we are making good progress like we've talked about. We've um we've actually received about 1.7 million in reimbursement from FEMA and I just opened a check yesterday for about 14,000 for another storm project. So things are happening very slowly. Um but I think we're on a good path and we're at a point where we're actually starting to see some forward progress and so I think appropriate to to terminate that plan at this point. Um and then the second um fiscal health contingency plan in place was activated in April of 2025 really in response to um flattening revenues and increasing

expenditures. A lot of what we already talked about this evening. Um we're recommending um the city city manager is planning to terminate that fiscal health contingency plan as well given the improved um revenue forecast compared to when it was activated. and also um presuming uh council's direction to move forward with the budget reductions that we've provided an overview on this evening. Um so with that, that wraps up the budgetary part of the presentation and I'm going to turn it back to our city manager to talk about some of the operational initiatives that we've been focused on.

Thank you. We just have a couple more slides to go through and then hand things over for further conversation. Um, of course, uh, any good budget conversation wouldn't be complete without talking about the ways in which the budget comes together to impact our operations. So, I think, uh, all roads lead to and from a budget I in a lot of different ways. And so, we we did take an opportunity to look at a number of different things, uh, about the way we conduct our business here at the city that we might want to consider shifting and improving over time. So um some of those items are listed up here on the screen. Um they are generally best practices that we would be looking to do at any given time. And so again we are taking the opportunity here to do that as well. We will want to talk about um and include some targeted workforce investments and training for our staff because we know ongoing training is incredibly important as things um continue getting more complicated. We onboard a lot of new staff. We have a lot of uh our staff are fairly new in their roles and so increasing that training and providing opportunities is really important. We will look at doing things like uh revising our purchasing policy to just make sure it's userfriendly and makes sense uh while also ensuring accountability and transparency uh and continuing to work through the way we do our capital improvement planning. So, with our last financial plan, we brought forward a 10-year capital improvement plan, which is quite a bit longer than ordinary plans typically might cover about a 5-year period, but it really helped us see the full breadth of projects that we could identify being on in that planning horizon. Uh, and we will continue to work through how through that planning process and how we go about making sure we have both the funding and the people resources available to deliver our capital projects. Again, we we do need to continue thinking about our uh new

initiatives that we see coming our way um that either come to us whether we want to or not or that are selected by, you know, really hearing from our community and things that we all talk about here um to make sure we're making great policy continue that momentum to bring our community into the future. Um, and so during our uh budget supplement process, so just to remind everybody, we do have a two-year financial plan, but we do adopt a budget every year. Uh, and so that's what we call our budget supplement, which will be coming up in June. We will look to incorporate the reductions that we talked about and discussed this evening. um along with just other adjustments that we think we might need to make to meet our needs overall and shift um including if we have priorities that need to shift over time. The next thing we wanted to highlight for folks, so there's a little bit of information in our staff report on this concept. Um I know uh we did have a discussion really last year as we were going through our budget development process that it's always a challenge to discuss what we mean by major city goals every two years when oftent times our goals take longer than two years to achieve. And we want to be able to not only keep an eye out for things that might take longer than two years to make measurable progress on, but also be able to tell the story to the community, to ourselves, uh to you all on what are the things we've already made progress on and incorporated it into our day-to-day operations. What are the things that we do all day every day that most people aren't aware that we do that we um make big you changes and progress in the community? So and it what we will be doing is coming up with a list of our current programs. Um we have a lot of them and some of them span various

departments. So earlier we talked a bit about our homelessness response um process and and programs that is a great example of a program that spans I think about five different departments. uh and so you won't see it captured really well in our budget document because we describe our programs and spending by department. So we want to be able to identify those programs at that level um as well as uh things like key performance indicators and what do we mean by a service level? So if we say we are spending x millions of dollars on a certain program, what does that get us and the community in terms of outcomes and the service that's provided? That um will really help us think about um potentially adopting discussing and adopting a strategic plan that would be longer term than a two-year major city goal and budget process. The idea being we're laying out the vision for the community for what we all want to help um achieve for them over a longer period. And then for every financial plan process, we would um hear from folks maybe there's new things that we need to consider adding, but also um be able to pull down from that longer list of uh goals and priorities to say for these next two years we want to see measurable progress in these specific areas. So, um, we are we're really looking forward to bringing this process forward. We think it's going to be a great way of really telling the story for the community about what we are already doing, but then being clear about the priorities we have that you might not see even reflected in our list of major city goals, but remain incredibly important. So, I know that's something that has been a challenge because if something say falls off of our major city goals, does that give an impression to people that it doesn't matter to us anymore when that's not the

case at all, it may be so now embedded in what we do every day that it's just standard practice for us. So, um, we'll look forward to bringing that process together, talking about it more as part of our budget supplement and then hopefully really, um, engaging in that as we go through our next financial plan process that we typically really kick off say in November, January, and then our community forum in February. So, with that, that's a quick snapshot of some of those things. Of course, lots of other issues and needs were discussed as well, but um we wanted to give you some highlights of where we think we're headed over the next few years.

Thank you so much. This sounds um really exciting. And um we can't say thank you enough to not just um to Director Jackson and Riley, but also to everyone in the room and everyone who's not in the room staff-wise that have gone through this. I remember hearing um some people comment they'd rather not be doing this exercise and yeah, I get it. Uh I wish we weren't sometimes. Um but I really appreciate the fact that we're spending the time to look at how do we manage this budget well. Um with that, we're going to take a 10-minute uh break and then we'll get into questions and public comments and uh deliberation. Thank you.

All right. Thanks everyone for a great break and we'll get moving forward to questions from council and then public comment. Any questions for our presenters? Vice Mayor?

Yeah, thank you so much. Um, so excited for the strategic plan. So, I'm really glad that got highlighted and it was a nice reminder of our conversations about how to do all of that kind of thinking in a more coherent way. So, thank you. Um, also just want to echo the mayor's uh, comments earlier that just so grateful for the many, many, many hours of conversation and um, planning that you all had to do to put this document together. So, thank you. Just have a super quick question to kick things off. I'm wondering if there's any merit to building in some like minimal ADP into the budget rather than trying to rely on unassigned fund balance. And that could be sort of a hedge uh rather than using the the trust, you know, trying to get people in the habit of recognizing that that's part of what we do. And if there's any sort of restrictions to doing that or if you could just maybe give me a little commentary on on why we would or wouldn't want to do that.

Um there's no restriction. We can do we have a lot of local control over how we budget for things. Um, you know, I think the the upside is that it would provide some level of shity that we can consistently make that payment. The downside is that we don't know what we wouldn't be able to do in any given year if we were decide to move forward that way. Um, I think important, you know, to keep in mind that, um, we've we've previously had about $4 million assigned in the general fund for pension related items. One of them is the $2 million that we've historically drawn on. We've used to make the additional discretionary payment. In the last couple of years, we started inflating that payment um commensurate with staffing cost growth to make sure that the ADPs are are having the same amount of impact that they they have, you know, prior to just the increase in staffing cost growth, whether it's due to headcount or negotiated wages and benefits. Um, so you know, we we have kind of a two-step approach as it currently stands for funding the ADP. Um, but we also have the $2 million assigned in the general fund also for the section 115 trust. And so, you know, another option would be that um we substitute out we we've um determined that moving forward we're no longer going to assign the 2 million for the ADP, but we could, you know, repurpose the 2 million that's assigned for the the section 115 trust for the ADP instead. That that would be another option.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And oh, can we add city manager's input to that?

Yes. Thank you so much. I think the the challenges is really we would need to find another $2 million in reductions to be able to afford that. Um the other piece is that um our operating expenditures are as a general rule then subject to our 20% operating reserve target. And so we would probably have this question that we would need to walk through in terms of does that ADP do we want to subject that to a 20% reserve? And which and and why because it is discretionary. It is an additional discretionary payment unlike the other annual Kalpers uh payments that we are required to pay to pay our UAL down that we talked about earlier that we want to adjust a little bit to get to that true 20% reserve. So that's just another piece of the equation we would need to wrestle with.

Yeah. Thank you. I know we were very intentional in in taking it out of the calculation in order to get to the the balanced budget, but um you know, we've just been so diligent about keeping up with it. And so it's been a little while since we had our conversation um with the auditor, right, who had come and talked us a little bit about not the auditor, I'm sorry, but the um actuary, thank you, who came and told us a little bit about how we were doing and how we're making progress. And I was wondering if you could remind us um you we looked at the averages uh last week and saw that we're lagging a little bit behind the California state average despite being super diligent about making these extra payments. And I was wondering if you could tell us why we continue to be a little bit further behind.

I I think there's a lot of different reasons for that, potential reasons for that. Um, you know, I think we've been pretty diligent about um continuing to prioritize paying down of the pension debt. But around the time that Calpers made all of their policy changes back in 2018 that sort of uh changed the game um for how how actuarial unfunded liability is calculated. Um different agencies took took different approaches. So, you know, we took the approach of establishing a section 115 trust, setting aside money for it. Prior to that, we had done some amount of pension reform um prior to PEPA going into effect and the timing of when various agencies took those actions varied. Um, you know, we weren't first and we weren't the last, right? And so I there's a there's a um a the the implementation of the second tier and the timing in which other agencies did that I think had a pretty significant impact. Um you know most most agencies in California uh participate in PERS but there are a handful of independent pension uh trusts. U the county is a really good example. Um, council member Shoresman sits on that pension board as an employee. Um, that provides the county with a lot more local control over how investments are made and um enables the um county to work with the pension trust to sort of uh time the implementation of pension c cost increases and sort of smooth them over time. um you know there's 37 act counties as well that handle their pensions in a different manner but um I think it's

really a a a where did we start you know the the turnover that um you know classic members cost a lot more than um second or third tier members cost. And so um you know every agency experiences turnover and attrition at very different rates. And so there's a whole host of things that contribute to it. But you know the one thing that all PERS agencies have in common is the the impacts of the gains and the losses experienced from um investments of those funds in the

I know there's a lot of variables in in trying to kind of game out different scenarios but you know we have this $2 million now and of course by having it just sitting in the general fund earmarked it's missed out on gains that it could have gotten by being applied as an additional discretionary payment previously. Um, but I like the idea of having this hedge in years where we might not have that additional discretionary payment. But in general, it generally makes more sense to apply funds when we have them available. So like they go in earlier and kind of work on paying down that um that unfunded liability versus paying it later, right? Like am I understanding the math there? um for moderately well

making the payment now versus making a payment later.

Yeah. I mean in general right the value of a dollar today is more than it will probably be tomorrow because in of inflationary factors but you know you also you you it's it's difficult to predict the outcome of investments especially as the market is currently operating. And so, you know, the city's approach has always been slow and steady prioritization of of, you know, safety and liquidity. We we're really trying to not lose money. And if we make money, that's great. A really happy surprise. Um, but, you know, other investments aren't handled in the same way. And so, it's a it's difficult to know. you know, the the big one of the things that we heard from the actuary back in 2023 is that the single there's there's this whole universe of things that affect our funded status and we control about this much of it and the rest of it is what the market does, right? And so, you know, regardless of whether we have the money sitting in our coffers and we're investing it along with our other cash or it's sitting in the 115 trust or, you know, in some other um some other mechanism to to hold on to the money, the the biggest uh the biggest variable is what the market is going to do com combined with what is the overall investment strategy and how much how much risk um each agency assumes.

Thank you for taking on that unwieldy question. I appreciate it. Thank you, Council Member Shoresman. I have a couple other questions, but I'm going to stick on the pension theme just for a minute since you already kicked us off with that. But you said something in your presentation um about removal of the $2 million uh in ADP payments from the forecast and something about that doubling up and I'm not sure what you meant by that. I think you were you were talking about the impact of ADP on the forecast in particular I think and something about doubling up you said

yeah so I think there's probably two different things there so we've historically forecasted with the assumption that we will make an ADP so we've kind of held space in the forecast to make that ADP um but we've also la um for a number of years had it assigned in the general fund meaning that even if it's not programmed into the operating budget there's always kind have been a backs stop of $2 million to make that kind of base level um ADP. Okay. So that has actually been budgeted until this past year. Correct? Or two. Yeah. I don't remember what I don't remember in the staff report when you said it got removed.

City manager.

Thank you. This is one of those pieces that we are looking forward to clarifying in the way that we build and reflect our budget because technically it wasn't budgeted, meaning we didn't put a line item to spend that money, but in the forecast we showed that we were reserving $2 million for the pension 115 trust. Prior years we showed $2 million for the 115 trust and $2 million for the ADP. We chose in the current financial plan uh forecast uh that we would not be showing that $2 million for the ADP really to help ensure that we were still meeting our reserve target and not needing to then cut $2 million out of our operating expenditures if we were trying to meet that reserve target in a different way. If that makes sense. So annually in a sense, even though we didn't have a line item for it, we were setting aside $4 million. That's right.

Because we had that original 2 million that we anticipated using in the trust if we ever put it in there, which we didn't yet. Uh and an additional 2 million for that year's that year's ADP payment. That's right.

Okay. But when we show our available fund balance at the end of the fiscal year, we pull out all of those things identified as assigned. And so the result was we would the ADPs that we've paid that were above the $2 million, we spent that out of the amount that was left over. This is part of the process that we would like to make less opaque for both um our the public but ourselves as well so that we are all very clear about how much money is both available for spending and then what we are responsibly setting aside for specific purposes. So, the question today for us is, do we take that original $2 million that's kind of just been sitting there waiting to go into a trust and actually put it there?

Right. And then are we also talking about a line item for an annual ADP as well?

That is not uh our recommendation, but we're certainly, you know, open to talking through that. So, we are asking for direction on whether you would like us to go ahead and deposit that $2 million into the trust. And if not, then then what? Is there a different purpose you would like us to show that money being used toward? we could, you know, essentially un assign it so that it is now just part of our fund balance um for use in future psych uh budget and planning cycles. Uh or you could provide direction that we perhaps identify it as a sign for an ADP or something different. Um it could if we were to as an example not um if you give us direction to don't put it in the 115 trust. Let's just unassign it and it lives in the fund balance. We would also then have that funding available as basically our overall operating reserve, right? Because as we identified, we're a little over $3 million under our target for our operating reserve given the way that we have been calculating our PERS payment as part of our operating budget.

And and if we gave direction today to start the 115, uh would we then write a policy about how we used those 115 funds in the future? So, for example, we could say that we only I'm just making this up in the moment, but we only want to use those 115 funds for UAL payments in the future if we don't have enough money to make our UAL payment or something like that.

I think we would definitely want a policy to govern how we make the investments and any guidance on the investment itself. we've already selected uh an investment strategy when we set the 115 trust up. So, we would likely reflect that in the policy, but then yes, I think governing how we would evaluate uses. Um, but again, very consistent with the purpose of the trust. So, we can't use it for other things, but you know, we could look at it for I believe we could use it for an ADP in any given year if we wanted to. Um or we could have it available if we are and we just reserve it in case we're not able to make our minimum payment from PERS. I will say the at the risk of adding more layers of complexity if we get closer to our goal of the 20% reserve that includes our annual payment to PERS that in in and of itself provides a 20% buffer and reserve on the payment itself. So we've already built in then a 20% contingency for being able to pay if the if the known amount say fluctuates or we are honestly I think what happens is where we would struggle is if our revenues don't come in enough in a in another category then we would have that money available um in the reserve itself to pay for the the known payment to pers.

Thank you. Yeah, it it is it gets very complicated very quickly, but um I guess the the point I wanted to make and and it shows when you start to look at the investment returns or the potential investment returns, it's a good idea it seems to if you establish a 115 trust to plan to keep the money there for a little bit to not like use it immediately because you can you have a little bit more safety and security in the investment returns that you're going to get if you can invest it a little bit longer. What I don't know is if the return is that we identified is based on a presumed length of time for the investment investment strategy. I was assuming

because you would invest it a little bit more assertively than you would the money that you know you might need to use tomorrow or the next day. Yeah. It's it's a the the it's a typical return, right? So I don't you know I it a typical return though dep if you're looking five years back a typical return for the last five years could be very different than the next five years. So it's based on more recently available information,

right? Okay. Thank you. Um it also says in the report um it in talk in thinking about the removing of the million dollars from the capital improvement um project budget that it would not impact our progress on CIP. And I wondered if you could kind of talk about that a little bit. I mean, it still seems like a million dollars million dollars can go a long way to uh to our project list. Just wondering how that how that doesn't impact our ability to make progress.

Um yeah, so when we talk about our ability to deliver the CIP, we often focus on the amount of money that's available to pay for the projects. Um the other, you know, 50% of the equation is the staff capacity to deliver on all of the projects. So, we're finally we we've we've struggled to fill and keep fill the engineering and the capital project uh coordinator positions that we have um in in our public works department. we're now at a point where I believe we're still fully staffed there. Um, which is a great thing, but um, you know, we we have a lot of competition with neighboring agencies who are able to pay more for that. And so um you know while while um even in years where we have you know sufficient funding to move these large scale and smaller scale projects forward, we don't always have the capacity to coordinate the expenditure of those dollars and all of the construction and the outreach and all of the everything else that goes into successfully delivering a capital project. And so, um, you know, we're still we're at a point where we we've got a relatively new team. They're, you know, getting up and running, um, you know, really well at this point. Um, but we've got to keep that momentum going so that we can continue to deliver on all of the projects and and really focus on the staff capacity and we just haven't had the staff capacity to spend all the money in the last couple of years.

Got it. That's Thank you. That helps clarify that for me a lot. I was not viewing it as a capacity issue. So that's um that's helpful. Um two more quick ones. Uh this is a preview of the supplemental budget, but when we come back in June, that's when we'll actually approve the supplemental budget. Correct. Is there a chance that our forecasts could change or Yeah. So what if things look significantly worse in June? What then? Yeah, we we're going to have we're tracking it very closely. Um we, you know, we had our meeting with HDL, our sales tax consultants, a couple of weeks ago. It was better than, you know, what we had heard the meeting prior. And so, um, we meet with them quarterly. We'll we'll have another meeting with them at least before June, which will provide helpful context. But, you know, we're we're we're keeping an eye on things every day and it's it's hard to know what we would do because we don't really know what's coming. Um, you know, the the economy right now both nationally and at the local level is arguably significantly impacted by um policy shifts that we're seeing at the federal level. um how the state responds to that and how we all personally respond to that as consumers is um really hard to predict. And so given that you know almost half of our general fund is funded through sales tax which is a very volatile can be a very volatile funding source. um you know, property tax property tax never really goes down and we're also on the county's Teeter plan. So, we have a level of assurance on that that sales tax is not something that we have a backs stop for. And so, um it it it, you know, if it's a

if it's if we have another million dollar deficit, you know, that emerges in the next couple of months, that's very different than how we would, you know, address a 20,000 or a$2 million or $5 million deficit. And so, um, you know, I think the only thing that I can say is we we have a legal requirement to adopt a budget by June 30th so that we've got a a fresh budget to start the fiscal year on um July 1st, but we can make amendments to the budget throughout the year. And so, we'll do the best we can with the information that we have at any given point to to deliver to you what we think is a prudent, realistic spending plan for the coming year. Um, we'll check in with you at least quarterly for our quarterly budget updates and if there's a need to do those with more frequency, you know, we we may look at doing that. And um, every council meeting is an opportunity to amend the budget if if truly needed.

Okay. Hopefully we won't hopefully in June things will stay stable and you'll be able to bring back the same budget that you're proposing right now. Keeping our fingers crossed. But yeah. Okay. My last question was about something that I didn't see in the staff report, but I saw on one of your last slides about um um the next steps and um operational was where you talked about the strategic plan. There was something on that slide about AI and I wanted to hear what that was about because I didn't see it in the staff report.

Yeah, thank you. We as part of our ongoing work to make sure we are efficient and effective, you know, we certainly need to keep an eye on um new tools that develop over time. And so our team has been doing a lot of work to evaluate different AI tools that are out on the market and how they might fit into our current operations. Uh the reality is that uh people are using AI uh every day in some capacity a lot of the time and so our goal is to make sure that we are careful about it and find the right tools that will work well for our team based on the needs in specific departments. Um we have a policy that we've been working on that is very near to be complete. We have a whole team uh a working group that's been evaluating all the different AI um apps out there to make some recommendations on what we think might work here. Um we just like any organization we have to look at the different risks that the different types of platforms might bring. And so that's been part of our work as well. But we do think that there we're hopeful that some amount of a carefully chosen and executed AI tool could just be helpful for efficiencies for our team. Uh and so we wanted to make sure that folks were aware that we are trying to incorporate that into our practices but responsibly. So um we're trying to keep up with the times and make sure that we're using those tools that are available out there in the market. There's there was one other um nuance I wanted to add on the the CIP or the capital budget question and where that million dollars may have an impact or not.

We actually built the 10-year CIP with that shift already built in throughout uh the plan. So in other words, we making that shift more or less permanent or permanent with at least the foreseeable financial planning process. it will not impact a specific project in any way. Um, we've already accounted for that in what we've presented to your council and had reviewed and adopted as part of the current financial plan. So, it's really again considering the capacity constraints that we have and our ability to actually deliver projects that along with the need to make sure that we were making our our budget balanced. um that really landed us at that recommendation. And so we went ahead felt like it was more responsible to plan for not having that funding that would go directly uh into those capital projects. Um and so it it won't create an impact on what we've already planned for. So just wanted to clarify that.

Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. when you talked about the budget changes in June, it gave me like COVID flashbacks of every couple weeks talking about the budget and what we need to do. So, trying to like bring myself back down from that. No, it's all good. Um, all right. So, Council Member Marks,

thank you. Um, yeah, I have more questions about the 115 trust. Um, so, uh, a usual trust when it doesn't have any money in it disappears. It doesn't exist anymore. So, I wasn't on council when we established it, that we established it and now we're ignoring it. And I'm wondering if just eliminating it or winding it down or whatever you would do um, would have any effect on our budget? or is it just it would just go away and that would be fine.

I I we haven't researched that question in detail, but um since we don't have any money in it, I I think it's safe to say that we could we could um dissolve it if that's what we wanted to do formal and I mean we can leave it sitting there without money in it. Um Kalpers never reaches out to us and says, "Hey, where's the money?" Um, but I also think, you know, that if we if the decision this evening was that we just didn't want to utilize a section 115 trust, the prudent thing to do would be to reach out to Kalpers and um the folks who manage those trusts and just formally dissolve it so that, you know, we we're not on their list for communications and all of all of the, you know, audits and all of the other things that we might have to participate in if we were to actually fund it. So, um there should not be a risk to either just letting it sit with a zero balance and there are also shouldn't be a risk to to formally um closing it out.

Okay. And my concern about uh the 115 trust and uh I just like you to respond to this is that it would in some way limit our discretion. It could certainly Yes, it could certainly limit discretion. I mean, if you were to set it aside, if you were to make a deposit into the trust, you would only be able you would have no discretion. I mean, you'd have discretion about do you use it for a normal payment or

an ADP. Um, but it would have to go towards paying down pension debt. Um, you know, that said, there there was also nothing stopping you though from if you were planning to make a regular payment to Kalpers and you had budgeted for that purpose, there would be nothing stopping you from pulling, you know, assuming your our own adopted policy would allow us to do that. But we could presumably pull money out of the trust to make the pension payment, thus freeing up 2 million or whatever amount is spent out of the trust for something else in the general fund, right? In a worst case scenario, it might be helpful. That's what I'm hearing.

Sure.

Okay. I had another question um um about the uh I had asked the question in uh and it's uh you responded in agenda correspondence about um uh recommending my question was whether tonight we'd be talking about um the use of the unallocated 369 uh,000 plus dollars the unallocated uh unassigned fund balance and your the council the uh staff's response was says funding will remain unallocated until council allocates that funding for a specific purpose and so I'm concerned uh I'm my question is um when are we going to do that we can do it we could theoretically do some of that tonight or is this something that staff believes has to wait till June June.

I I don't believe that it has to wait until June. I mean, we've we've held it essentially. Um it's it's reserved for future action by the council. And so, you know, I I would say that at any council meeting, you could make a decision to direct staff to expend it in a certain way.

Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. I also um in uh the staff report there was a list of contemplated uh initiatives and one of the initiatives that was not mentioned was um the grant uh request by the St. Louis Abyispo College of Law for uh startup funding for the um uh center for uh dispute resolution or the mediation services and uh staff responded to my question like why did why wasn't that on there? The uh response was that the report was written um before that request came up. And so, uh, staff also says in the agenda correspondence that council could wish to, um, provide the $10,000 that is still sitting in this year's budget or last year's budget. Um, a as well as uh contemplate uh whether we would want to move forward with that grant um request of $30,000 tonight. And so I just wanted to verify that that would be something that could be done tonight.

Yes, that that's something that I think council could uh direct this evening. And I think, you know, we would we would just want any additional uh direction that we would need in order to go make that a reality. All right. And I think that's all I have for now. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Boswell. Uh yeah, just one uh question. So, one of the things that comes up in the um in the staff report is that um probably in the next financial plan cycle, we'll be confronted with a decision about whether to fund the LPT program due to the declining opio opioid settlement um funding. um our I think one thing that would be helpful uh when we have to make that decision is an evaluation of the effectiveness of that program. So my question is is there is that something already underway or we've done that in the past or is that something that could be done ahead of the next financial plan?

Thank you. So, our uh licensed psyche who um are actually provided, they're county employees and they're kind of uh loan to us essentially to work with our CAT and MCU teams. Uh and this program hasn't been in effect for very long. Um we have we have heard and we certainly will be evaluating the the value and the effectiveness in considering bringing back uh a future contract as well as some funding recommendations. Um I will tell you the initial um information that we hear from our teams is that they have been game changers for what we are able to do for people um in our community and out in the field. Uh I think the number of as an example reunifications with families in particular I think has been incredibly effective. Uh and really helping to provide a connection between um what our teams interact with and other agencies who provide direct services to folks. So as an example they have access to HMIS uh which is a a data management system that the city doesn't otherwise have access to. Uh, and so those are the types of things that I'm just giving you a preview, I think, of what we're hearing so far. Um, but we absolutely would would talk about the effectiveness of the contracts themselves, the program, uh, the the use of of that assistance for our teams in evaluating whether we want to continue investing in that service. I think, you know, obviously if we had and have had a known funding source that wasn't coming out of our general fund directly, it's been really helpful um because it made it kind of a little easier for us to try that out. Um we will definitely look at how we might be able to continue funding that going forward. Right now, we haven't

identified other funding sources. So, we most likely would be looking at really finding a place in our general fund uh budget to help continue to pay those costs. Uh, and really we would we would look at it like we would another um significant operating budget change request that we would evaluate in the context of our overall needs and figure out if that's something we want to recommend we continue moving forward knowing that we may need to make some other tradeoffs in terms of um funding in other places in order to continue providing that service. Yeah, thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you. Um, I think most of the questions have um been asked, but I do just have a couple. Um, I saw that development fees were back up on page 621 and I was surprised because the previous meeting we had it was that development fees were down. So, was there any like main reason for that that we saw? We're still working with our community development department to really kind of nail down what um the trend looks like with development fees um these days. Um we saw a pretty sharp decline last year um budgeted this year expecting that that decline would continue and things are performing better than we expected. And so that's a a good thing. But we're working on you know there there are times where there's a certain amount of consistency in the amount of um development revenue that the community development department is taking in. And there's also times where, you know, they'll get a single payment for like $700,000 as an example um for a large project and that's not expected to continue. And so we're continuing to work um with community development to really hone in on what that's going to look like on a go forward basis.

Thank you. I think the esteemed director to will be joining us to also respond.

Just adding a little context to that. So we looked at this very closely and the 6 months before we projected out for this financial plan the development our fees really took a dive and so we were conservatively guessed that that might continue. Looking back there was a lot of uncertainty at that time. It was right after the election. The tariffs were being discussed but not yet in place. So we saw a very big drop in activity I think because the building community was hesitating a little bit to see what would happen. What I think is happening and this is a guess based on just my experience in in this industry but is that the uncertainty is now normal if that makes sense and so people are getting a little more used to it and beginning to move forward with some of the projects that they had hesitated on for a little bit. So we are seeing things kind of pick up and be a little more steady than what we had seen in those times where it was unclear what was going to happen with tariffs and things like that if that makes sense.

That does. Thank you so much. Um I'm going to go back to the Kalpers ADP conversation. Um I just feel like we need to say it out loud. So when we're talking about the additional payment, we're talking about really the additional additional. We just want to make sure for the community that they know that our unassigned additional payment we would still be making. It's just the additional additional we're discussing. Is that correct? So what we're what we're really talking about tonight is the 2 million that we have historically assigned for this purpose. In addition to the 2 million in the last two years, you have also allocated a portion of the unassigned fund balance. That is that is still something that we could do on a go forward basis subject to availability of unassigned fund balance in any other requests that come in. So what we're talking about is, you know, relative to the section 115 trust, we could utilize that funding or any funding held for pension, you know, at at the city um for our normal payments, our um UAL payment or the ADP.

Great. Thank you. Just wanted to make sure that's said out loud because I know it got a little bit kind of confusing as far as the payment, the additional payment, the additional additional payment, and then you throw in the 115 and it's payments going away in our budget

right now. Yes, could be. That's the whole conversation. Um, okay. And then with the slow PD on page 624 um says we had three years of that grant and I remember that was I think it was 75%. Um so it was three years ending at the end of the 26 27 year of the grant. Okay. Just making sure. Um sorry. I just want to make sure I asked every last little thing that I was thinking. Okay. I think everyone else already asked the questions that are on my list. I think Council Member Shoresman.

Yeah, just one more followup on the additional ADPs, etc., etc. Um, I believe staff did say in their report and it's also in the staff report though that with a tighter budget, it's pretty likely that we will have less and less unassigned fund balance at the end of the year. So relying on that to make our ADPs, that's where that's where I have the concern. Is that something that we should be thinking about? Yes, I Yeah, as we as the budget continues to tighten, we I think reasonably expect we've already started to see a decline in our um our unassigned fund balance. A couple of years ago, we were in the $8 million range. You know, at uh at the February 17th council meeting, we reported that we had $3.4 million to allocate. And so um it 4.3 it it was a lot less. Um so it we're already seeing a decline. I mean there are obviously things that happen in one year that can throw that. Um I think really important though to also keep in mind that you know unassigned fund balance is a product of underutili and underexpending our expenditure budget and overrealizing our revenue and um our uh the amount of investment income that we've earned on our investments is on the revenue side the single biggest contributor to overrealized revenue. um it's you know in the current um economy investments are performing a lot better than they have historically and so uh though we can literally take that money to the bank we can't expect that we can take it

to the bank on an ongoing basis because um it's it's completely without outside of our control and something that we have we have little to no influence over and so we always consider to be investment income to be one-time in nature. And so relying on that and on the unassigned fund balance, you know, is potentially risky. Um the um I I think that's I think that answers the question. Thanks. I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Yeah, keeping with this theme and kind of returning to my original question, I think in the three uh budget cycles that were projected out, there's a 1.6 and then a deficit of about 100,000 and then a 1.1 um projected uh year-end balance. And I know we cut out the 2 million that we normally earmark for this purpose, but I'm sensing some concern here from my colleague and I shared that concern about cutting out the $2 million that we earmark and kind of wondering if you know obviously the 2 million's out of the question because we don't have that on the books unless we want to go and look at deeper cuts which I don't think any of us have an appetite for. But is there merit in potentially doing a half million and then in that second or some portion uh that gets earmarked so that in that second uh budget cycle there's some small amount that we need to try and find to make up that difference. Um, but we are projecting having some some year-end balance and I'm just really hoping that we can continue to make some portion of an ADP uh in the next couple budget cycles here.

Yeah, I yeah, I think that's a really a good question, a good point. I think that um I think first I'll start by saying that the the 1.6 six the negative.1 and then the positive 1.1 over the next three years is where we expect to be at the point at which we build the budget. So those that's not the expected unassigned fund balance at the end of the year. So those are kind of two different points in time but same general concept. Um, one of the things if if council decides to that, so we've we've been assigning $4 million in the general fund for for PERS payments, we've um been consistently using $2 million of it. And like I think Riley or Whitney noted, it's that's money that we hold on to that we don't allow to fall to unassigned fund balance. And that's based upon prior, you know, council direction that we do that. Um, if we were to, uh, if the council were to decide that we did not want to, uh, we shouldn't utilize the section 115 trust, we could repurpose the $2 million that we currently have assigned for the ADPs that we've decided to already unassign. So you while it doesn't enable at least immediate contribution to the 115 trust, it still is kind of a local mechanism for reserving funding that the the city can manage to ensure that we're at least able to make a $2 million payment, additional discretionary payment to PERS on top of our normal costs and um UAL payment. um that you know we've I I

would say that in a lot of ways we've you know normalized the assignment of the the $4 million um and certainly the $2 million. And so you know the the option is that you can deposit the $2 million assigned for that purpose into the trust or you can just continue to assign it. either option is not it is not going to have a notable difference to the amount of unassigned fund balance because if if the you know in a year like we just had where council um just allocated additional unassigned fund balance that unassigned fund balance if the two mill the 2 million for the ADP and the 2 million for the 115 trust hadn't been assigned the unassigned fund balance would have been $4 million higher.

Thank you. I appreciate the breakdown. Thank you for all the questions. U we're going to take a five minute break to do a little reset for the computers. If you're watching at home, we'll be back. All right, we're back. Thank you for your patience. It was wonderful to see council member Shoresman and city manager for a long time, but we are trying to move it around with whoever's speaking. So with that, do we have any public comment? City clerk.

Yes, we have one. Uh, sorry, Lisa Spurrow. Perfect. Thank you.

All right. Good evening, everybody. I'm Lisa Sparrow, the CEO and president of Monterey College of Law. Tonight, I am here on behalf of what we're calling CDR Slow, the Center for Dispute Resolution. Thank you, Council Member Marks, for pointing out that this this is properly before the council tonight. And many thanks to all of you. I know there was a very robust discussion at the last council meeting, so I wanted to make sure I was here tonight to answer any questions and give you a little more background information. As you all know, there's currently a void in our community. When Wilshshire shut down, we lost our community mediation services. College of Law was approached by local organizations, previous mediators asking us to help fill this void. We currently run a very successful community mediation center out of our Monterey campus that's been there almost 20 years. So, we do know how to do this. That center, luckily, we had an endowment when we started it. So, we had some funding. We don't have that yet here. We are hoping maybe to get that at some point, but in the meantime, we're starting from scratch, an ad hoc committee of mediators, lawyers, other members, trying to pull together something that will really serve the community well. And we put together a budget for just this really very beginning stages is what we're seeking your support. If you notice, it's about the $30,000 request is about 30% of this very initial just getting our infrastructure getting started. Um, it's staffing, it is building community relationships, it is building the infrastructure such as websites and outreach so that we are prepared to go out and bid on grants, bid on contracts. We are also approaching other community members such as Qua Calpali. We are preparing hoping to bid on an RFP with the courts to prov um provide mediation there. So we are we are reaching out

into the community. We would love it if the city of St. Louis Abyspo could be our first really critical community partner in starting this. Our vision is long-term. We're doing a very small phased approach as we and hope to grow but it's really a vision of mediation services for the community by the community from the community and that's why we're hoping to partner with the city hoping to partner with Qua Kalpali other nonprofit organizations we really want to find out what the needs are and how how best to meet them. So thank you very much for your consideration. I'm here happy to answer any questions anybody has, but we would we would love it if if you were able to to join our join our group because conflict resolution, finding out ways to deescalate situations is so critical and I know that the city used these services in the past and we'd like to try to help fill that that gap. Thank you.

Thank you so much and thank you for your email giving a little more context and clarification as well. Any other public comment? No.

Okay, great. We'll bring him back to deliberations. A lot of conversation around the uh Kalpers and a couple other items. Um I'm just going to go ahead and kick it off around the section 115, etc. Um I personally feel that we should go ahead and fund the section 115 trust. I think that we've been holding off on it for a while um for some valid reasons at those different times, but if we saw the when we saw the uh presentation earlier, it was not as aggressive as the Kalpers, which kind of goes up and down anyway, as we know. That's why we're in where we're in right now. Um but I it does if we were to do the section 115, we would gain a little bit more than what we have now by just holding on to it. And that is um something I think would be helpful. I also think that if nothing else, this has been the unfunded pension liability has been such an issue we've dealt with for so long that I worry that in the future people will kind of forget this is something that matters. Um, and so as we start to kind of um, change council members and mayors in the future, I want to make sure this is still always something that we understand that in a really tough budget time, we are ready for this and and we can still make sure to take care of the retirement uh, responsibilities that we have and people can hold us accountable to that. So to me um I would like to see that um funded and let's move on from this conversation versus every year having this conversation. Um the other thing I'd like to talk about at some point and this may not be till June or so but I mean I would take LPTs over a rental registry any day. LPTs help us right now. And as we just heard from our

public comment, we still have huge issues um with not enough funding for our unhoused community to be properly um serviced or with wraparound services around them. Um we are working on lots of housing with lots of partners, but it doesn't happen tomorrow. So um to me that is something that is is dire. Um so I I get really concerned around the opioid funding. I know it's going away. We knew it was a a one time and and this could have been great or it could have been like me, no big deal, but it's been pretty great. And so I I I want to make sure that we can continue that. Um I'm also uh that was something else. Oh, so I think all of this though, whether it's um no matter what we're looking at funding with the one-time funds, I think has to be held until June because we have had conversations about rental registry. We've had conversations about code enforcement um that we'll be having in May. We have things that we haven't finished talking about. So, how do we just start giving out money when we haven't finished talking about all the options? So, those are just some of my initial concerns. Um, still willing to talk about all of this as as I hear from all of you since I've kicked it off, but I just wanted to share a couple of my initial two initial two cents. With us being only 66% funded, we are definitely not being a leader in unfunded pension liability. And I think that's something that's really important. Uh, Council Member Shoresman,

thank you. Yes. First, I just want to start by thanking everybody. I think some of my colleagues have already thanked you all for all the work that you've put into this. Um I know personally that it is no fun to um be asked to make cuts and find every turn over every couch cushion to find all the small little pieces. And I really congratulate you on doing it in a way that it didn't uh require us to consider cutting positions cuz there's really nothing that feels worse than doing that. Um, so thank you for all of that and I know this is, you know, it was hard this time and hopefully it won't continue to be that difficult, but I guess we'll see. Um, it's it's never fun to have to do that multiple years in a row. So I really really hope that we don't have to keep doing that multiple years in a row. Um, yeah. So, on on the 115 trust uh topic, I I'll have to admit when I first came on council, I was like, what's the point of this because why don't we just pay the money now and, you know, absorb some of those benefits of paying down our our unfunded liability a little bit quicker. Uh, but now that I've been on council for a few years and seen that line item sit there with that same $2 million in it, now I'm just like, we could have been actually we haven't luckily needed that $2 million to make our ADPs or our U payments. Um, so we we could have probably been investing that a little bit more assertively and and have it there for a future for future use. I I know I I hear you um council member Marks about it takes away some of our discretion and maybe some of our flexibility later. And while I trust this council in using that um using all of our funds wisely and continuing to

make AD payments whenever we can. We don't know that it will always be the same priority and when things are tight um people have to do difficult things. So, this would give us a little bit of cushion and still protect it for that use that I know we really value on this council now of of paying down that uh that unfunded liability. So, I would I would say let's let's use the $2 million to set up that um 115 trust. I do, you know, Council Member Francis, Vice Mayor Francis, you brought this up and I I am concerned about not setting aside that $2 million for the 115 helps us in the future, but I am worried about this year, too, and being able to make those ADPs this year on top of uh on top of our regular payments knowing that we're expecting to have less unassigned fund balance in the future. So I I don't know how to rectify that. I don't know if as um if there's some time at the midyear that we can establish if it seems like things are going the right direction, we can set aside a little bit um at midyear or I I don't know. I'm just kind of brainstorming here. I'd love to see how we can prioritize um as as early as possible, you know, at least the potential for some uh funding to go towards ADP. And I agree with you, mayor, that I would like to wait on that $369,000 or so that we set up or that we set aside uh at our last budget discussion for future um innovative programs, I guess you could say. We we we set some funding aside uh that we took actually out of the recommended money to go towards our ADP for some of these possible projects. So, I'm very hesitant to dedicate even though I I really support the work of the Center for

Dispute Resolution and I hope that we, you know, can find a way to partner with you in the future and support that effort. Um, I'm I'm hesitant to do that right now today because we don't know what our other discussions are going to hold for us in May and June. Can I ask you a question along with that too? Actually, maybe it's for the city manager. In our budget, we have I believe it was about 16,000 that we had already set aside for the mediation in the past, right? So, couldn't this 16,000 still go to the center for mediation?

Thank you. So, we we had 15,000 set aside in this fiscal year and the next fiscal year. Um, we are recommending that we hold back about $5,000 for the current fiscal year in the event that there are some folks who really could use some more immediate mediation services that we might be able to help fund um really as a one-on-one kind of contract. Uh so we would recommend that if you're interested in allocating that current $10,000 in this year, we do have it available. Um and I guess I would ask is that is that to fund the request that you are receiving now for the sort of startup funding or is it with anticipation of future needs for an ongoing program because we were we're really looking at two two needs there. I think both startup costs and then we do intend to go through we talked about this previously an RFP for services. We do anticipate that we may need to increase our budget and the costs for that service uh which we would um build into our next budget. So, we would recommend we would come back with an estimate for what we think we would need in the next fiscal year, which likely there there may be a good chance that it would be more than $15,000 next year.

Thank you. That had gone back and forth a couple times, so I'd forgotten where we landed.

Yeah, we had $15,000 in each year of the 2-year financial plan, I believe. Right. And so, what you're saying is from 2526, we anticipate using about five of that, right? And so there might be that $10,000 there from 2526 that could either roll into that's right 2627 or we could choose to use it right now instead of the other money that we set aside. Um play a shell game a little bit here with the different pots of money. But um I I would I would still rather hold off. I think now personally that would be my choice just to see to make sure that we don't need those funds for additional um costs this year. Not to say that in like I said in May or June when we have a little bit more knowledge about what our actual needs have been that we couldn't choose to do that then.

Thank you. Any other comments? Council member Boswell Boswell.

Thank you. Um yeah, I I think I agree with most of what I've heard. Uh let's see. I'm going to go through the items. The uh the Kalpers and the trust. Um I'm fine with also moving the money to the trust. U my my important thing was um I felt like whatever we do, that money should be going to Kalpers. um that's what it was originally committed for and we should kind of carry through on that. Um I would also be fine with just making putting it towards another additional payment now. Um I mean we we've got a big gap to fill and we don't have to hold on to it. We could simply go ahead and add it to our additional payment. Um, it seems like the benefit to putting it in the trust is not even so much that we couldn't make an additional payment in the future because we don't have to make those, but the real value might be if we found ourselves in a situation where we're struggling to make our required payments. Um, that seems to be its real value as opposed to the ADP. So, um it's always good to have um some rainy day funds and CalPERS is a big enough issue for us that I think it merits uh that consideration, but I'd also support just making the payment today, too. Either are good for me. Uh unassigned fund balance, I agree. I want to uh hold till June 2nd uh to continue that conversation um after we've had uh at least our study session on um uh uh code enforcement. And then I I think staff also wanted just general direction on the expenditure reduction plan and I'm I'm supporting staff's proposal for the expenditure reduction plan.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Marks.

Yeah, thank you. Um well, I'm I'm somewhat skeptical about the 115 um uh trust fund. uh I guess uh I was just not part of the conversation when it was established and so it doesn't um it doesn't strike me as uh something that we really need. Um but I do I do hear what people are saying about uh not trusting another council to do the right thing and I I have to say I think the voters are wiser than that and they're going to vote for good people. So, um uh at any rate, uh I also support the um conting getting rid of the contingency plans and looking at the um uh cost reduction plan that you all have come up with. I still feel that the um simplifying the ADP process, simplifying the additional pension payment and regularizing it um uh is very important. Uh as the city manager said, it's important for the public, but it's also important for the staff. It's important for the council. We need to know what the heck we're doing. And maybe it's because the figure we're talking about over and over again is the same $2 million. It's like, oh, 2 million for that, 2 million for this, and like that. So, I I um I think that uh vice mayor's suggestion that we think about maybe $1 million, possibly putting $1 million into the into the 115 trust, seeing how it works, seeing how it take the other million and go ahead and give it uh to uh Kalpers as an

additional um payment. Uh, I don't know. But, uh, if we're going to go forward with the 115, I don't see any particular reason to give it $2 million. Uh, and I have to say that the um, this uh, interest uh, amount that was uh, forecast will definitely go up and down. The stock market today dropped the Dow Jones dropped like over 400 points because people are upset about this war in Iran and they're going whoa. Uh so there's no guarantee. I mean uh with every investment comes a risk of loss. Vanguard says that to me every time I try to find out what's happening. So, uh there's no guarantee that the trust fund would would um uh be so lucrative. So, I really uh all my years on the um o investment oversight committee, I really think that the policy we have now, which is very conservative, very much looking at um avoiding risk is super. I think it's great and I think we should stick with it. Uh when it comes to um the center for dispute resolution grant, um I think that I can understand why people want to wait until June and look at all of the budget requests uh at at once and also know exactly how much money we have uh as the alloc unallocated uh uh surplus. Um, however, practically speaking, the there won't be a center for dispute resolution if they don't get some startup money, and they really do need it. Now, uh, I am I I was on the,

uh, advisory council. I did step down because I realized that I would be possibly in a position to, um, vote on uh, allocation. So, I think what the very least we could do tonight is to say, "Yes, let's allocate that $10,000 that has already been earmarked for um mediation services um uh and go ahead and and make a a a grant to the uh center for dispute resolution in the amount of $10,000. and then look at if they if they still have a budget request, a grant request in June, look at that at that time and see see how see how we're doing. So that's what I would that's what I would think. Um what the what the uh law school is offering is free facility, free meeting room, free parking. Everyone knows that. Um and uh you know the facility and the uh you know administrative backup of the Monterey College of Law which is very experienced um and ongoing stability of uh provision of mediation services. It's not going to disappear like Wilshire did. So, um anyway, I would like to ask if people would support me in uh allocating that $10,000 uh for that purpose, that grant purpose, partial grant purpose tonight.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

All right. Try and make this quick running down the list here. Um, the 115 trust. Honestly, I I'm really finding this one a little bit tricky. I'm kind of skeptical of holding on to money for some future rainy day when I think, you know, all of us understand that you can't time the market. Be better if we have money to put it in towards that unfunded liability. Now, um, I heard some potential interest in doing that. Um, to maybe at least pay some portion of that 2 million that's sitting there uh in towards that. Now, I know right now feels like a particularly volatile time. Um, and that makes it tricky, but again, you know, we can't play around with trying to time the market. And, uh, we've got the funds. We've been sitting on it for a few years. Let's just get it working for us to pay down that uh, unfunded liability. Um, I am supportive of the staff recommendation around uh cost reductions, but I do want some continued evaluation of our ability to maybe earmark some small amount towards that ADP just so we're keeping that as part of our kind of budget culture um in the city. You know, that's something that we've been consistently doing. I want to kind of keep that alive in some form. Uh and I just I'm nervous about you know us being just a little bit behind the you know average in the state. And then lastly uh the grant towards mediation. This is this one's really really tough. Um because this is something we need and we need now and I understand that there's some urgency to to this these funds. Um, but I also hear my colleagues and understand that, you know, it really makes sense to look at all of this holistically when we are kind of looking at a lot of different budget requests and we have more information about code enforcement and

all of that. Um, council member Mark's suggestion that we maybe split the difference a little bit and um take, you know, the 10K that we have earmarked uh just to get this thing kicked off. Funds now have more meaning in this case than funds later. And this is a really big need in our community. Um, you know, I'm eager to to see this get off the ground and uh I would hate for our decision tonight to be the difference between it happening and not happening. Um, so I'm going to uh support Council Member Mark's uh request for the the $10,000 that from our um allocated budget to go towards that tonight. And I'd love to see if there's any appetite for using the earmarked funds that were supposed to go into the 115 uh now rather than putting them aside for a rainy day. And I'll leave it there.

Thank you, Council Member Shoresman.

Yeah, I'm going to look to staff because I don't I can't tell from the recommendation if this is sort of a study session direction format or if you're looking for a motion here. Motion. Okay. I think it depends on what you want to do. So, if you want to give us direction to appropriate money for a specific purpose, yes, a motion would be great. Um, well, we we do need that. If it's instead direction to us to build something into the upcoming budget doesn't necessarily need to be an emotion, but you know, it's always helpful to have it super clear for us. Um I think if I can the discussion around uh for my clarity the ADP the additional payment now my questions are do you really mean now like are you contemplating appropriating money from our reserve today to direct us to make an additional payment to Kalpers today or are we talking about how we show the money in are reserved in the budget document for the future.

Good question. Yeah, why don't you clarify what you meant? So, when I was discussing making a payment now, I meant the funds that were intended to be put into the 115 trust rather than putting them into the trust that they would go towards a payment in the near term.

So, that would be in the supplemental budget because that's what we're talking about right now, right? Yes, we are. I mean, we are planning for how we bring back that budget. What are you looking for us to include in it? Um, and so we've got a few things going on, I think. Um, maybe I can back up a bit. I do hear consensus direction on our budget expenditure reduction plan being thumbs up, good to go, which is great, super helpful. Um, then it sounds like we've got a consensus around the $10,000 for the Center for Dispute Resolute. I'm seeing one shaking head. I just want to say if that is direction for us, we would recommend coming, we would come back with a grant agreement for approval for you all. Um, so I just want to make sure that we're clear on that. We would want to bring that back. Um the 115 trust concept though you if you want to give us direction to move forward with actually funding it that would include giving us direction to appropriate the the funding from what's currently in the assigned fund balance and we would go develop a policy for how it is that we manage our 115 trust. Um my guess is we would probably want to come back with that policy before we make the actual deposit. But then at least we know that that's what we're going to do. Um I heard a discussion about maybe not depositing the entire amount but something less than the entire amount that we've put in the reserve the assigned reserve line. So that's certainly up for discussion, but I think the make an additional discretionary payment now I heard that as literal um appropriate the money from the reserve and we would add it to the ADP I think that we were directed to make uh out of our last meeting in February on the 17th where we also looked at our fund balance

from last fiscal year. So, those are all things that, you know, we'd want to make sure that we're clear on our end what we're being directed to do. It looks like there's a fair amount of no actually to what I was summing up. So, definitely look forward to getting that clarified. Thank you.

Yeah, just to clarify once more on the 115. Um, I think what I was advocating for was not funding it and using the funds instead to uh I would leave to your discretion the timing on that if whenever the other additional uh discretionary payment was being made using the funds now to start paying down that liability in the near term versus putting it aside for a future payment inside the trust. So just I'll leave it there. Okay. Thank you. Can I ask one question before you continue?

So, with the 115, I know we've been talking about 2 million for years now at this point, but is there actually a minimum requirement because or was that 2 million? Sorry, it's been a couple years for me since I made that decision with everyone else. Um, there's not a minimum requirement, right? We had chosen that amount based on our needs at that time. I I believe that's the case. I'm not aware of a minimum requirement and it it that was just the amount assigned at some point. Yeah. Great. Thanks. I just want before we continue down that path, I wanted to make sure that was a possibility.

Okay. So, I would be opposed to diluting the $2 million for the 115 trust because we already know that's not going to be enough at some future date if we needed to call upon these funds. And the more money you put in there, the more you're going to generate in returns in re in investment returns to use at a future date. Um, yes, the market is volatile. Yes, it can go up from year to year. But as um, finance director pointed out, when these types of investments are made and you're in it for a long period of time, it can ride out the ups and downs of the market. And by the time we actually need to use it, it is a risk, but the chances of it being a bigger number than $2 million are pretty good. There are even it's even a pretty good chance that it'll be bigger than $2 million if we just kept it where it was and didn't invest it in the 115 trust. So, I would advocate for and I'm willing to make a a motion on if we want to break this up into pieces if it's easier. I'm willing to make a motion that we go forward with the um $2 million uh initial deposit into the 115 trust and we can um vote on that if folks want to. Um as to the $10,000. Um this is really hard because we want to support this service. We know we need this service. Uh I have no doubt that uh the the college of law will do a great job as they set this up. And historically when we've made startup fund, you know, at least in my term on council, when we've made startup fund donations to projects like this, there's

already been pledges of other amounts uh either from the community or um from other organizations that we can leverage and build upon. And and yes, I don't mind being an early adopter, but right now I just am not comfortable uh supporting a motion for the for the funding right now at this moment. I could very likely think differently at the end of the year when we have a more complete picture. Um but that's where I'm at right now. So I'll throw it out to the group. Thank you. I think before we go to the motion, I think there's three of us that haven't finished the input. So I appreciate that though. Uh, Council Member Marks.

Uh, yeah. Well, I I think breaking this up into pieces is a good idea. Um, and I would like to uh start by um um um making a motion that um the council provide the um uh San Louis Visto College of Law Center for Dispute Resolution a $10,000 grant uh of startup money uh based on Um, let me just see. Uh, based on the $10,000 that is available from the current fiscal year budget for mediation services.

So, is there a second?

Oh, I'd like to put some input in before we get to that motion. Um, what here here's my challenge. Um, one, when we've had someone bring us a challenge grant idea, similar to what council member Shoresman said, there's been other money that's been put down first and we were helping with a growth. So, I feel very um this is this wasn't the time for for a request. So, it feels very uh it doesn't feel very open to the rest of the community. The other part of this is we're about to have an RFP So, I asked this last time. If this is a sole source because there's not another possible mediation services in our community, then let's say that and be done with it. But if it's not, giving money to someone and saying, "But we're opening RFP to anyone else that might be interested." Feels very much like um we favored someone. And that makes me very uncomfortable. So that's my challenge with this personally. Yes, we need mediation services. When Wilshire went away, that was a big problem. I I mean, I literally had people in my office today that need to meet with other people. And I think that um they'd be better off having a conversation with a facilitator. So, I have no question that this is a need, but I feel that it's uh favoring a group that we're about to go out to an RFP for, and I don't think that's appropriate. So, that's my personal concern with it. Um, as far as the expenditure plan, most of it I feel um good with, but I just have to say I didn't get a chance to ask the city clerk this. So, um I I I'm concerned around eliminating the half regular regular halftime admin assistant for hybrid public meetings when we're just about to go back in July 1 to doing these hybrid meetings as

required by the new state law. As we got towards the end of the hybrid meetings, that's where we got to a lot of hate speech that came from anonymous people in our meetings. And so to not be prepared for that concerns me. Um, I understand that position is not filled and I understand that the city clerk and her office has been filling in um at the end when that was happening, but that just concerns me a little bit. Um, and then, um, as far as the 115, um, yeah, I'm not a I'm not in favor of putting that out to a later amount because when we think about how many positions even in here that we've talked about, we've added that are pensionable, that $2 million is not going to even even cut it. So, the fact that this is at least an inch towards where we need to be, I think, is really important. So, that's just my two cents. I wanted to at least put that out there before we start voting on things. Um, and I don't see any other comments. So, happy to go back to Council Member Shoresman.

I guess I'll just ask a question about uh the point that you brought up, the the funding for the halftime city clerk position. Um, and I don't know if the city clerk wants to answer this or uh, Deputy Herman, but um, I guess my understanding was that it had been determined that we could handle the hybrid meeting format without that position. Maybe I'm incorrect.

Thank you, mayor and council members. Great questions. We've had a chance to confer on it. We knew that we would need to support hybrid meetings starting in July when we put this reduction forward for consideration. And so there is still an administrative resource in the city clerk's office. It is also currently vacant and we've committed to when we hire that position being thoughtful about hiring it in a way in which either it can directly provide support for hybrid meetings when we do make that transition or free up capacity within our deputy city deputy city clerks to be able to provide that support in the evening because there is an additional level of work that's required when we make that change. So, we feel comfortable that we can support hybrid meetings and move forward with the reduction tonight. Great. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Thank you. That's super important. Yeah. Thanks for that clarification. Council member Marks.

Thank you. Well, um uh during uh for the agenda correspondence, I did ask the question, would there be a conflict of interest if council made a grant to the St. Elizabeth College Law Startup Center for dispute resolution project. And then they later submitted a bid in response to our RFP. And the answer was that the city attorney staff has evaluated this question from the last council meeting and has not identified any potential conflict of interest related to either the city's award of a grant or any involvement of the center for dispute resolution staff in development of an RFP for community mediation services that would preclude such action. you know, so this is a to me it's a question of um you know, a bird in the hand is worth uh a lot more than a bird in the bush, right? So this is this is something uh if we acknowledge that the need for mediation services is is uh dire and I believe it is um then I think it is a small amount of money to um you know get the ball rolling and uh you know uh support um this effort to serve the community. It's an effort to serve the community. No one else has come forward. No one else is asking for um uh help in filling that gap since Wilshshire imploded. So, uh I would like to um ask for the uh council to support this uh $10,000 that's already been identified in our budget for mediation services. It's It's there.

It can sit there. We can put it into the 115 trust and do something with it or it can just sit there. July 1st, um there will be new allocation for mediation services. So, why not use that $10,000 um to help the Center for Dispute Resolution get off the ground? I do also want to mention that um uh there have been a few minor small addition uh donations made to the center already. um they haven't been huge corporate ones but um that's uh various attorney firms are looking at it and moving forward and in order for the if we talking about an RFP coming forward in in the summer and we want to have services starting in the fall now is when we need to start supporting the creation of something like the center for dispute resolution motion. So, I think we should move forward and I'll be very disappointed if we don't. So, thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Was that a motion? It was. We'll second. Yes, it's a motion. Okay, you second it. All right, good. Thank you. Okay, so we have a motion and a second for the $10,000. Council member Boswell, just a a question of staff. Um, if we support the motion, a grant agreement would come back. Um, and we're not we haven't prejudiced our vote at that point. I could we could then vote against the grant agreement still at the time if we weren't satisfied with the terms of the grant agreement. Yes, city manager.

Yes, there's the the vote tonight. I mean, I suppose if you wanted to uh I'm walking through all the are you appropriating the money from the budget? I think it's fine. we we won't take that action until we get the grant agreement approved. So, you're correct. You you could vote it down if it does come back to you and you're not satisfied with the terms or you want to give us direction on different terms uh for the agreement itself. Yes.

Yeah. I mean, I feel like I could support the motion, but I I think part of my issue is I don't have a lot of information in front of me in terms of what this $10,000 does at the end of the day, how it benefits the city directly. So, I'd be okay with going forward another step to get us some more more information, but I want to make sure I'm holding the right to say no later if I feel like it is not a reasonable allocation of the city's funds. So is that a friendly amendment to staff agreement? Sure. At a later time. Okay. Is that agreeable with the second?

Yes. Okay. We had additional people on the list. So you're amending the motion to have a grant agreement brought by when? What? City manager? I don't know when would it when were we thinking otherwise that it would come back.

I think it would really be subject to how long it took us to put the grant agreement together. Um although if there are certain terms that any of you know you would like to see or if you as a majority would like to see us uh include uh that would be helpful. We certainly, you know, we take u the lead in a lot of conversations with our city attorney's office on the terms themselves. That would be fairly standard. Um we have had a number of grant agreements come before you over the past say year. Um it wouldn't probably be tremendously different, but um if there are specific things that you know you would like to see in there, that would be great to hear. Council member Boswell, did you want to add to that?

No. Okay. So before we go with your amendment, we do have two more people that have comments and so maybe they wish to add to that amendment or do a different amendment. Who knows? Council member Shoresman,

I just was going to explain if that's the motion and the second. At this point in time, I'm not going to be supporting the motion for the reasons that the mayor and I kind of described already. I just don't see um it doesn't it doesn't feel right at this particular time to do this. We already know that the team is working on some short-term solutions for mediation in this kind of interim period and I'm not 100% sure that $5,000 will be enough. Maybe it will be, but we might also need this additional funds in the next year. So I' um I won't be supporting it if it's as right now. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Yeah, just as far as direction for language in the grant agreement, um as long as this is only uh applicable to the 10,000 and not applicable to the RFP or any future contracts we have with them, uh I'd be okay with uh moving ahead with language at the discretion of city staff. I do want to make sure that any future agreement though includes uh housing and uh housing resolution uh type mediation as part of an agreement. So that's important to me. Thank you, Council Member Boswell.

I I do have I don't know if it's a condition, but it's a question. Um what if we donate the $10,000? I believe they're looking to raise more than that. They failed to raise the $10,000, but they spent the 10 we've given them and there's still no center for dispute resolution. Is that just lost city money?

I'm I'm looking at our deputy city manager because there's probably a few ways to do it, but it it probably largely depends on on the center for dispute resolution and and the terms we put together. So um certainly ask for what we've done in other situations. I know we have conditioned the use of the funding to ensure that it is being put towards something successful. Um sure. I just want to hand it over to

Thank you. Uh I think for a grant of this dollar amount and this type, it would be really similar in format to like our human services grants or DI grants which are pretty standard. um if there's a violation of the terms and conditions, that's one cause of action for being able to try and get the money back. Outside of that, for the uses that they've identified so far on the letter, there's likely not a mechanism for us to be able to get that funding back should they not be able uh to move forward with their center. Uh it would be more similar to the conversation we had most recently with the SLOM grant where there isn't necessarily a way to secure our investment um with this type of grant. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Council remarks.

Well, if I could make a suggestion, we did get a letter from um uh Lisa Spiro who's here tonight um outlining the uses of the uh the grant that they're applying for. Um, and so I would just say that the grant uh that the u uh grant agreement should include the scope of services that are outlined in this letter. Uh I see the city attorneys lining nodding her head. Um so that you know it would be limited to the scope of services uh outlined in her letter of March 1st. Um, so, um, I don't know if we'd need anything more to clarify. So, if if, uh, we could go ahead and have a vote, that'd be great.

City attorney, I was just going to say certainly if they're requesting money for a certain purpose, then utilizing the money for the articulated purpose would certainly be a term of a grant agreement. in terms of, you know, is is there some mechanism by which to sort of claw back money if the effort doesn't work? I mean, beyond putting sort of good faith efforts language in a grant agreement. No. And that's true of virtually every grant agreement we give.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And you know, and I mean the request is for 30,000. So this is already giving less than the request. And that always is challenging when it's a grant because it's not the amount that someone's needing as is. Um it it seems like this is more of a pledge than a grant, but that is what it is. Council member Shoresman. Oh, sorry.

Sorry. I was just going to I was just going to add I don't want to belabor the point, but as I read through this letter, while it explains um and I appreciate that they explained what the uses of the funds were going to be, it doesn't seem like a scope of services to me. It's a general request letter based on a more of like a budget. Um but um I do I did appreciate the clarity in the letter. It was um it was helpful. Answered some of my questions before. Agreed. So, it sounds like we are ready to move forward with a vote on this one part. Um, and uh, city clerk, can we have roll call? Council member Marks, yes. Vice Mayor Francis, yes. Council member Boswell, yes. Council member Shoresman,

no. Mayor Stewart, no. Thank you. And the motion passes 32. And um, so look forward to seeing that grant agreement. And then the next uh part of this, I believe that council member Shoresman, you started with a potential motion. Yeah, I'll go ahead and make a motion and see where it goes to put the $2 million uh that has been sitting in the budget uh into the 115 trust and develop a policy to go along with that.

Thank you. I'll second that. city manager, did you want to add to that?

Thank you. Uh, I just want to make really kind of one observation about the rate of return that we talked about um for the 115 trust versus essentially the cash um rate that we receive and the CalPERS rate of return. So one way of looking at this is that the ADPs that we that we make are essentially earning the Kalpers's rate of return as opposed to the 115 trust which is slightly less and then our own cash on hand which is less than that and it's all based on investment strategies and level of risk. So Kalpers takes usually with their overall assets a little bit more of a riskier uh approach. So, you know, if something goes wrong, the the returns are much lower. But I just wanted to make it clear that if you put the funding into the 115 trust, it would be doing better than our cash on hand, but it would under what we see here, not better than the ADP. So, it it just depends on how you look at it, you know, and really what the purpose is of funding the trust itself. So certainly if you're concerned about ensuring you know that that funding is there if we for some reason are unable to make our annual payment despite our intent to get in that up our reserve you know it being counted toward our 20% operating reserve then that's you know certainly understandable supported all of all of those considerations. If there's concerns about ensuring that that funding is again set aside and clamped down for that purpose only in the future for other councils, understandable as well. But if you're looking purely at the rate of return, you know, arguably making the ADP has been that given us

that better rate. So I just wanted to make sure that that piece was out there for consideration. Thank you. That's really helpful. Council member Shoresman.

Yes. Thank you for um thank you for saying that and that still too even that even that Kalpers rate is not guaranteed um about every 3 years uh at least in terms I'm speaking in terms of the pension trust. I haven't looked at the Kalpers annual returns um very recently, but in terms of the county pension trust, we've had a down year about every four years. So, um, it's possible that if any year we put in $2 million in ADP, it could be the wrong year to do it. So, it's it's it's always it's always a gamble. Um, I I think the the big reason for doing it is that that future um that future security. Um, and then the potential returns to be sort of in that middle ground area between the cash value and the Kalpers returns. um is also a a nice nice to have.

Thank you, Council Member Boswell. I'm not going to support the motion um mainly to see if we can get a motion to just go ahead and pay now uh to succeed, but if not, then I would entertain the motion being reintroduced to support it because I do want it to go to Kalpers in some way, shape, or form.

Council member Marks. Um yeah, I I would like to see us um go ahead and um allocate that money to Kalpers in June. So not now now, but in June. Okay. Um, and I just don't see the value of the 115 trust um, uh, uh, in that we're trying to guard against a future uh, where we wouldn't be able to make our required payment and um, I just don't see that as as realistically in our future. I think we're always going to be able to make our required purse payments. We're going to be dedicated to doing it. So, I I'm not going to support the motion.

Got it. Thank you, Vice Mayor Francis. Yeah. Thank you both. I will be holding out for that uh second motion. Excuse me. Sorry. Uh Council Member Schwarzman, I just wanted to clarify again because we're talking we're using that word now again. And so I thought this was the supplemental budget. So if um if the if the majority of the council wants to make an ADP payment now, it would be in 2627, correct? It wouldn't be literally now. Uh city manager.

It really depends on your direction. Um but we could certainly do that. I'm trying to honestly think about how that looks for our budget and and the way we calculate our reserve in the sub budget supplement just in either way, you know, if we get direction to put it into the 115 trust, then that money would go there, right? uh after we bring forward a policy and get that adopted and then it will no longer be showing up in our uh in our fund balance. Uh and the ADP concept I think we we we just we simply don't have the money for that. Um we there's $2 million in there that's accounted for for some type of PERS payment. Um, so then that's likely how it would look if we get the the direction to pay the 115 trust. Then what you would see under the the bottom line essentially um and our fund balance would be not align any longer for the either the ADP or the uh 115 trust. I think depending on, you know, I don't anticipate we're going to say find money between now and then to be able to put toward an ADP. If we got direction to make the ADP, I think we would end up with the same result. I apologize for everyone. This was basically me thinking out loud to everyone to un make sure I'm clear how it would look if we got direction because the direction would be to go ahead and pay the ADP and so it would no longer show up as part of our reserved fund balance and that's fine meaning we wouldn't pay it today unless you wanted us to. But if you don't want us to then we can wait. We can show that this is a planned expenditure that we would make as part

of the next financial plan, but because we don't have the funding identified to be able to continue to set aside something at this point, that's kind of most likely how it would show up in the reserve. Director Jackson, do you want to add confusion

with some of the conversation and the the deliberation? I think there's maybe two questions here. Is what do you want to do now? And then is there an appetite to regardless of whether or not any funding gets deposited into the 115 trust, you could also direct staff to continue to assign some amount for ADPs. Understanding that we're going potentially from 4 million to zero, but we could also go from 4 million to 2 million. How are you getting four?

Well, four between the 80 the what what they saw in um in the in the the 2425 audit that you have the ADP and then you have the 2 million for the ADP and then the 2 million for the one. Okay, got it. Thank you. And we also just in that budget item uh we did dedicate 2.5 million to ADP from the unassigned fund balance from 24256 2 million the 2 million that we've historically assigned plus another 500,000

plus another 500,000 from that assigned fund balance. So we we've kind of already made a now ADP payment. Yes. So, it might be if if the majority of the council does not favor the 115, which it's sounds like it um is the case, then uh it might be smart to at least uh do that $2 million or whatever amount in the in the 26 27 year during the supplement. So that you're you're doing some now and some in the next year. So how are you amending your motion? I'm not amending anything. Okay. Just trying to make sure I'm understanding.

I'm just talking. Okay. Got it. Suggestions since it sounds like my motion died. Okay. Just making sure. We'll mourn it. I love it. Okay. So you're not amending, but you're withdrawing at this point. The motion I didn't get a second, did I? I seconded it. Oh, you seconded it. Yeah. So, that's why I'm saying if you if withdrawing is fine because it seems like as though it's not going to go any further. I just wanted to make sure what you're doing so we can I mean, I'll let us vote on it, but it doesn't seem like it's going to pass. So, I'll just withdraw it. Okay, you're fine.

All right. So, that motion was withdrawn. Sounds like we have an appetite for another motion. Vice Mayor Councilman Boswell, who's doing it? Vice Mayor.

All right. Happy to try and tackle this here. Um I think I got a little bit lost in the weeds with the timing at the end. Um, but I the motion would be to not fund the 115 and instead use the funds that were allocated to go into the 115 for an additional additional discretionary payment at the discretion of the timing of whenever we should send that in which is that June the suggestion based on 26 27 right at the beginning of the next fiscal year just so I get the timing. We could apply it in whatever year. Okay.

Council wanted us to um was there a recommendation to do it though in the That's where I got a little lost. I think that actually it's a good thing, you know, we have smarter financial minds sitting at this table over here who I clarified really that we do have that 2 million now. Yes, that we could go ahead and put toward the ADP. It could be now. I don't think I'm assuming we haven't actually made the payment to Kalpers that was directed at the meeting on February 17th.

Then I would like to make the motion to to add it to the payment that we were intending to make already. Yeah. But we make it annually in April. Perfect. So there's time. Okay. Is that good enough for the motion? So at this point that would total a 4.5 is was what we're saying. Correct. Okay, great. Thank you. Just making sure we're hearing all of that correctly. Council member Boswell. Second. I think we have talked to this to death. Um, city city clerk, can we have roll call, please? Vice Mayor Francis, yes. Council member Boswell, yes.

Council member Marks, yes. Council member Shoresman, I'm not I'm not going to support this because while I think it's great that we are dedicating $4.5 million in ADP right now, this means that there's a higher likelihood that we will have nothing to contribute to ADP um next year. So um no, Mayor Stewart,

thank you. Um I'm in the same boat. my my thought was that we should have that money saved because we don't see the ADP happening in the future. So that was where I was coming from. Um so it's not that I don't support us getting further along. I just want to make sure we have a little bit for the rainy day that seems to be quite eminent in the next financial plan. So I will say no. But the motion passes 32. Thank you so much. All right. So any other parts of the budget that we would like a motion on? And I'm just going to look at my colleagues. I'm seeing no. Looking at the uh director Jackson, do you need any more guidance for city manager? I think maybe um for for my sake and perhaps uh staff to make sure the 115 that motion um is direction not only to pay the additional additional the additional additional discretionary payment but to not fund the 115 trust. Uh I actually didn't hear and close it out. So then the question is, do we keep it open?

I think we'd need some more guidance on that. I mean, Council Marks asked the question as well, which is, you know, do we disclose this? What do we need to know about that to do those next steps if that's where we're looking at doing? It seemed as though we didn't have enough information about So if we're going to close, what what do we do? I I believe we can close it without any penalty or negative impact to the city. If at some point in the future we wanted to open one, we we certainly could um in the future. So it if you all are ready and comfortable to kind of end that please

work and on the or end the question I suppose until maybe it comes up at some point organically. um then we can certainly take that direction and implement it. Happy to do a motion if necessary, but I just kind of want to get like a little bit of a voice feel. It seems like at this point I think we're going to be then going on to year four. What's the point of having the 115 and we can always just go ahead and open that account in the future. So I think going ahead and closing that since this is year four of no thank you. I'm seeing some head nodding. Vice Mayor, is there any fee associated with having the account open? We've not been asked to pay a fee. So,

that's not a yes or a no. Okay. Well, good to know. Um we I mean we we could also if if you wanted to direct us to spend a little bit of time like a hundred you know getting like a million% clarity on on the memo that come back because I don't see a harm in it sitting there if it's not costing us anything unless it means that just we have to come back and talk about it annually which doesn't feel like it's necessary. I agree a memo sounds like a fantastic idea. Council member Shoresman. Yeah. I don't I don't think we need to have it there as long as it's not going to cost us anything to close it or there's not going to be any penalties. So, yeah, I'm I'm a third person on that vote.

Council member Marks. Uh yeah, I'd like to move to close the 115 account. Council member Shoresman. I'll second it. Um, I'm Can I suggest a friendly amendment if we find that it costs us money to close it and it doesn't cost us money to keep it open that we leave it to the staff to tell us that? Okay. I move that we um uh close the 115 account assuming it is a costneutral event for the city.

Thank you so much. All right. Second. Okay with that. Council member Shoresman. That's fine. Great. Thank you. Can we have roll call? City clerk. Council member Marks. Yes. Council member Shoresman. Yes. Council member Boswell. Yes. Vice Mayor Francis. Yes, Mayor Stewart.

Yes, the motion passes 5-0. Thank you. Who knew we would have this much conversation? Okay, so I think at this point now we've provided guidance on all the different aspects for the supplemental budget. Um, anything else that you would like information or clarity on? I'm seeing no movement on that. All right. Anything else the council would like to share about the supplemental budget? Great. We'll talk about that in June then next June 2nd specifically. And with that, it's not 11. So, let's chat about communications and liaison reports. I know we haven't done that for a while. I think literally two budgets. Thank you so much team.

Uh it was uh January, but you do not need to go back to January. Vice Mayor Francis,

I'm going to keep this uh really recent and top line. Uh it was lovely to be with most of you at the state of downtown uh yesterday and uh council member uh Shoresman did a lovely job with speech and as well as um city manager. Nice job on that and I literally just erased my Oh, there it is. Uh last Thursday was the Nasimento Commission. Uh it was kind of a a brief meeting. We just went over the um uh second quarter operation budget report. also got an update that they're currently still working on negotiations for the easement for the uh realignment of the Nassie pipeline that impacts our availability of water. It's still shovel ready, but we need that easement in place. We should have more info on that after the March 10th meeting. Had a lovely time with council member Boswell and our legislative platform ad hoc committee, which should committee, which should be coming in front of the rest of the council soonish. um had the opportunity on the uh 20th of February to attend the county mayor's meeting. Um heard a lot of really interesting updates from the rest of the county mayors, particularly around um how they do community surveys. Uh some information about a program called Flash Vote that's been sort of interesting for Royal Grande. um and hearing about Grover's uh statistically significant community survey that they do every other year and uh just kind of different feedback on these on these different um methods of gathering more data from our community which I think is something that you know would be interesting to explore some different options there. Um I also uh had the opportunity to attend the Maxine Lewis ribbon cutting a Hassel new Hassel project that happens to be right in my neighborhood. So, it felt uh especially awesome to see that come online. And I believe it's 44 units uh for previously uh unhoused folks. 49 uh units 39, thank you for previously unhoused folks um who had been waiting a long time for housing. So, it was a real

joy to to be there. And I'll leave it there. Thank you, Council Member Shoresman.

Uh yes, also attended the ribbon cutting at Maxine Lewis Grove. always great to see one of those projects open and had some really great conversations with some of the residents that are very happy to have a place to call home. Uh the Lunar New Year celebration uh Vice Mayor Francis spoke uh during the uh festivities. It was a great event and there's only a couple more nights I believe of lights in the Mission Plaza. I think they change with the uh daylight savings time this um soon. So, uh get out there and see the the holiday lights um in the plaza. We have an uh the Homeless Services Oversight Council has an annual listening session that's coming up on March 18th. So, that is open to the public. It's at the vets hall from 1 to 4:00 p.m. The first part first two hours will be a listening and planning session for priorities for funding for the next uh the next year and then the last hour will be the actual HSC meeting. So um but it's going to be at the vets hall so open to the public. And then just wanted to uh put a little shout out to the current slow rep production of milliondoll quartet. It is all sold out, so you can't uh buy tickets right now to see it, but they do have a wait list. So, um I highly recommend it. I have not seen anything quite that entertaining in a long time, so go try to get on the wait list.

Thank you, Council Member Boswell. Thanks. So, it was January, huh? Okay, I'm not going to go back that far either. I just try to look back through my previous notes. Um, yeah, state of the downtown was um, excellent. It was nice to hear too that the uh, downtown slow was um, you know, telling us that the downtown is doing great and uh, really thriving and there's a lot to look forward to in the future. Um, I had my first uh, CAPSO board meeting. So, uh, nice to take over from Vice Mayor Francis. I'm looking forward to learning much more about CAPSLow and hopefully being an effective board member uh for that organization and representing the city's interest. Well, uh the most recent LAFCO meeting last month, there was no uh items for the city uh on that. Um uh again, thanks to staff for uh the Lunar New Year event. Really was a lot of fun and quite quite a magical uh evening. uh particularly u uh hearing the violin echo throughout the uh all of the downtown. So um I also attended the visit slow uh partners meeting. Um that was really uh interesting to hear more about uh the campaign that they've recently uh launched the concierge it is it called the concier life coach. It's like a concier life coach. uh the slow life coach. Um very clever in marketing and looking forward to see how that continues to uh to develop. Um and then finally um Slow City Farm hosted me for a tour. Uh that was a lot of fun and I learned that all kids eat their vegetables when they go on the Slow City Farm tour. So there's some magic there that they're capturing that we've got to we've got to figure out how to multiply that. So yeah, thank

you. Thank you, Council Member Marks.

Um, yeah. Well, I I attended the state of the downtown, too. I thought it was very well organized and and very um um how do I say very well attended. There was a lot of positive energy there. Um that was last night. Uh Maxine Lewis Grove ribbon cutting. Uh fantastic. And it's amazing to me that they have 39 units in that building. It does not look so uh so massive. It's just very well designed. Um I uh um the rack meeting tomorrow has been cancelled.

Okay. And the reason is that the people who were doing the program decided not to do it or got sick or something anyway. So that's canled. And the next air pollution control district meeting is May 20th. So, I'm kind of uh off the hook that way. Um I did want to say that I I was very happy to attend the um advisory body, mayor advisory body uh lunchon. It's always so inspiring and um the mayor was saying this is my favorite meeting and you know every everyone was uh ecstatic really and uh very proud of their whatever whatever their advisory body is they're very proud of it and very proud of their work. That was great. Um, I did have a comment. Uh, when we did the rental registry study session, it was very interesting to me to realize that the real estate community has got far more information about our rental housing stock than we do. Um, and uh, especially uh, the property. There was a great deal of um uh testimony and emails about how well-run the uh rental units are, which are managed by these property management firms. And the estimate was like they're over 8,000 of these units. Well, how many uh of these rental units um uh actually have business license? I I believe was something like 2,000. So there's at least 6,000. Well, this is pardon my math. I can't remember the numbers exactly, but there's a the vast number of these very

well, very well-managed, very responsibly managed rental units aren't complying with the mandatory requirement that the each unit have a business license. So here's my question. Would council want to um write a letter to Tim Townley, Steve Del Martini, and Jocelyn Brennan, the people we met with, or the real estate association, and ask them if they would um give us the list of all of their property uh managed units so that we can compare that with the units which actually have taken out a business license and contact the rest of them and tell them that we'd like to bring it to your attention that it's mandatory that you take out the business license. Not in a punitive way, not in a um in a way it'd be offering them amnesty. We wouldn't be saying, "Oh, you haven't done it." We'll be saying, "Uh, now's your opportunity to do it. either that or um uh possibly asking the real estate uh folks to um require that all of their clients have a business license. Now, some of evidently from what uh they said in an open session during the hearing, some of the um property management uh firms do require it, but most of them don't. So anyway, I just wanted to raise this as a question whether the letter should come from council or should come from staff or what do we want to do? And I'm

not talking about the rest of the uh units, the other um well, what would it be? 6,000 that are not property managed. So, do we want to try to kind of take them up on on their um challenge to us in this regard? What do you think?

On the evening of our last meeting on the study session, uh Jocelyn Brennan reached out and said she is happy to volunteer and help us with some of the data. Um so, I wish Director Trey was still here because I know that Director Tuy and David Amini have already um started that conversation. So, um, hopefully as they continue their conversation, they'll give us an update of some sort. So, you don't think it would be necessary? Can you finish the rest of your thought?

Well, they've, um, I mean, she's already reached out without us having to ask is my is my point. So, um, I'd love to find out an update from David and Director Tuy when they've finished having their conversations and figuring out whatever they can gain from from Jocelyn and from the realtor team and um then that might have us give us a more clear request from there. We got

city attorney. So, if we're trying to build consensus over council action to be taken, we don't have that item on the agenda tonight. And so, I'm going to caution the council against continuing along those lines tonight. If there's a desire to do that, it would need to be discussed on an agenda. If there's an action coming out of the conversation and an effort to gain some deliberative collective concurrence that's not permitted tonight. Absolutely. Just wanted to give the update that Jocelyn had reached out and that the staff is already working with her. Um, so as far as if we wish to put rental registry back on the agenda in this way, is that why you're asking?

Um, no. I just I just I brought it up as should we write a letter that would have to be put on the agenda. So, are we interested are we interested in kind of data mining um what what the offer was that I didn't I didn't realize that Josyn had made that offer, but um uh not getting into the substance of it, but just um to me it's it's an opportunity. They were offering an kind of an opportunity to well just kind of call their bluff in a way but also get some information. I don't know.

So city attorney at this point would we need to put this back on the agenda agenda to have this conversation is what I'm asking. If if the question is does the council want to agendaize putting together a letter and giving some or giving some direction to staff, then yes, that would need to be an agenda discussion. That's substantive direction. Or if the council is trying to build a concurrence around what would be requested in that letter, yes, that would need to be agendaized discussion. Thank you. That's why I was asking, do you want to put on the agenda? We have the code enforcement study session happening in May, but that's not the same as rental registry. So, if you want to put something on the agenda to redo the letter, then we have to put something on the agenda to be able to have that next step.

Um, well, it's not just me. I'm I'm curious about the rest of you,

Vice Mayor. Yeah, knowing that there's a conversation happening right now and that we will have an opportunity to potentially touch on this because it's not rental registry, it's business license is what I'm hearing specifically um as the the issue. Um I would like to have that be a part of our conversation when we come back uh to talk about uh code enforcement. think we have a pretty packed agenda until then, but um always probably worthwhile just to share that information with uh Director Twe as they're having that conversation just to make sure that that emerges as part of kind of the list of concerns that's addressed. Um I think that probably doesn't necessarily have to come from the entire council because that would mean agendaizing it, but I think individually that might be worthwhile.

Thank you. So, giving you my uh updates. Um, as I've already everyone already said, thank you for uh the Maxine Lewis um it was not really a ribbon cutting, but uh grand opening. Uh it was wonderful to see um a Maxine Lewis family. Um and you what? We cut a ribbon.

You did? No, I didn't. But anyway, um so it was wonderful to see the family and also I just want to say it was also great um as HLO as one of our amazing partners in providing housing throughout the community. Um she shared how Congressman Carbajal and um Senator Leairard and um Senate Member Addis and us at the city and the county just all came together to really make this happen. And there were some moments that felt a little bit scary that it wasn't going to happen financially. And so, um, I just wanted to thank everyone that was involved as our partners to make this happen. Um, on the 19th and 20th, unfortunately, I missed the Lunar New Year and the, um, mayor meeting. Thank you so much, Vice Mayor, because I was at the Cal City statewide board meeting. Just as a quick um synopsis of kind of a main issue, we talked about um should we take a position on the CDTFA, the California Department of Tax and Finance Authority? They've been talking about how do we potentially see taxes um differently in California? And so should taxes from online purchases be given to the warehouse where the warehouse is, which is what happens now, or should some percentage of it come from the people that purchase it and the city um that they purchase it from? It was a very contentious conversation and uh we decided at that point that it was not for us to um really support or oppose. It was really u for the cities involved to really have that conversation. So, just thought you might want to know that update in case you see any um see any emails flying around. On the 25th, I went to my one and only and last uh chairing of the city selection committee. The mayors just pass it around and you just do it once. I'm sure you did that as well, Council Member

Marks. And um chair, the new chair will be the Mororrow Bay mayor, Carla Wixom. Um we also voted on um LFCCO who would be representing us and um Steve Gregory from Paso had already served had already been chair in the past and so um I thought it was good to pass it on to someone else and so um it was unfortunately a 3-2 vote though and so Steve Gregory will be um serving as our LFCO representative again. um not that he did a poor job, he did a wonderful job and everyone was very thankful for his work, just wanting to see it um kind of changed if that was possible to give everyone a chance. And then um the uh quarterly advisory body as um Council Member Marks mentioned, it is one of my favorite meetings because we get to see what is happening in all of our different uh volunteers and all of our different advisory committees because we do so much work at the city that doesn't even enter the the council chambers. And um it's really exciting to see if you get a quick chance to check out that report, it just kind of reminds you of all the work that's being done. And I think it's really helpful. It also shows you, you know, some of the groups don't even meet lately. And um that's been kind of an interesting conversation too, which is does do we need those different committees still? Do we not? Um are does it is it actually a good thing if those different groups don't meet like a personnel board for example? And um so we had some interesting conversations about that. Um at this point in time, it's good to keep going. Um, and it really shows the amount of work that our staff does to make sure that um, as best as possible. If the personnel board is not getting a claim or a a not a claim, but anyway, uh, an agenda item, that's a that's a good thing that people have worked through

all of the different processes that we have at the city to um, get through things. So, get through the challenges. And um, lastly, I just want to say a shout out to Good Morning Slow. Uh that was on Thursday and as always full of interesting information and great commercials in a sense of our nonprofits and our businesses in the community. And um that is about all I have for a quick update. I have the Slowco Cog RTA meeting tomorrow morning and we'll be talking about battery battery buses and electric buses and um also the new tap to pay uh has had a little bit of a delay. So we'll have that conversation for the buses. Anyway, uh that is all I have. I just want to say thank you so much for a great meeting. Very intense, but that is what budget cuts and budgets uh it it's not even the amount of hours that our staff spent u working on this. So, thanks again for helping us provide a really repaired a prepared report and we will see you all on St. Patrick's Day. Wishing everyone safety over these next two weeks and don't forget that safety enhancement zone where double fines does come into play this weekend as well. Have a good evening.