City Council - Regular Meeting

Derek, thank you. The 04/16/2025 special meeting of the San Jose City Council is called to order at 05:34PM under Bionette code government section five four nine five three c two, the legislative body of a local agency shall publicly report any action taken and the vote or abstention on that action of each member present for the action. Item b, roll call.

Mayor Gonzales? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Martinez? Here. Council member Hurtado? Council member Montelongo? Here. Council member Melendez?

Agenda approval. I'll accept the motion.

So moved. I'll second, mister

motion is second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Hearing none, that motion carries four zero one being Item b, public forum. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons designed to address the council on an item which is to be considered during closed sessions. Speakers should limit their comments to three minutes. Is there any public comment? Seeing none. Public comment is closed. Item e, closed session. Thank

you, mister mayor. We have one item for closed session. Evening is conference of legal counsel anticipated litigation deciding whether initiate litigation pursuant to government code section fifty four nine five six point nine d four. Number of cases,

one case. Thank you. Thank you. And then we'll go to closed session. The city attorney, report from closed session, please.

Thank you, mister mayor. There was no reportable action taken in closed session.

Thanks, sir. There being no further business, the special meeting is adjourned at 06:07. The 04/16/2026 regular meeting of the San Jose City Council is called to order at 06:07PM. Under Brown Act, government code section five four nine five three c two, the legislative body of a local agency shall publicly report any action taken and the vote or abstention on the action of each member present for the action. Opening ceremonies, the invocation will be done by pastor Jacob from Set Free. I'll lead the five salute, and then we'll have a roll call. Please stand.

Let's pray. Heavenly father, we just thank you for this day, another day that wasn't promised. Lord, I just, lift up, our town. I pray that you'd be with our city, with our city leaders, our police, and the fire department, Lord. And I also lift up everybody that lives in this town, father. I pray that, we're able to, see this banner that's this plaque that's in front of us, and it says, in God, we trust. Lord, I pray that we put our trust in you, our hope in you. I pray that you guide our steps and our the words that come come out of our mouth, Lord. I pray that we're a city that that comes together, that serves each other, father, and helps to, to to better our community, Lord. We place this in in your hands. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Flag salute. Ready? Salute. I pray to The States Of America and to the republic of the fort which stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with every Tina injustice for all.

Nina, roll call.

Mayor Gonzales? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Martinez? Here. Council member Hurtado? Council member Montelongo? Here. Council member Melendez?

Thank you. Agenda approval and additions and or deletions. We just have one. Go ahead. The presentation was going to be moved to, May 7, the council meeting. But other than that, do I have a motion to approve?

So moved, mister mayor.

I'll second.

We have a motion in a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All is opposed. Hearing none, that motion carries unanimous four zero one being absent. Item b, public forum. The portion of this

meeting is reserved for members of

the public who wish to address the council on any matter not listed on the agenda and within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city council. Each speaker is limited to three minutes. Speakers shall shall address all comments to the mayor and the council as a body and not any particular council member or member of the staff. Speakers are asked but not required to state their name and address. The council is prohibited by law from taking any action on items not on the agenda. So we will now open the public forum. If anybody wish to speak, please come forward to the podium.

Good afternoon. My name is Maria. I wanna come and say thank you because, two meetings ago, I came and set up all the park, and I'm so happy because they listened to me. And I wanna say thank you to to her and to him because they fixed the park. They put plastic bags, and they fixed the restrooms. They they close at 07:30 now, and the water fountain, they're fixed. And I'm so happy because the area now, the the park, it looks great. Only we need lights, and we're so happy. So I came to say thank you because the people told me to come and say thank you. So thank you for everything you guys been doing.

Thank you.

Good evening, people. Hey. I got a call a few days back, and it had to do with the playground. The newer one that's on the other side of of of North Avenue, it's on the corner of Connor And Holly. It's a nice park. It's got things for the kids. What makes it really nice is that the platform is is really soft material. But, unfortunately, there's a hole when you come down one of the slides, and it took a chunk of that of that sponginess out. And I checked it out when they had called me. It was last week.

I went by again the other day, and it's still there, but probably no one knows about it. But what's bad now is it's starting to peel off even more. So whoever's taking care of that kind of stuff, I you know, hope hopefully, go check it out before it continues, and the whole soft surface would be even more expensive to repair. Right now, it's a little patch job. You could I think it's a liquid that you could just pour in there and clean it up in the patch. But, anyways, anybody could look into that. That'd be nice. Also, man, I saw our new logo. I guess you guys have heard something about it. It was terrible.

The writing on it, horrendous. I go, man, what's wrong? I mean, that's that should have never happened. I I hope they took it down, but it was terrible. I'm hoping you guys understand what I'm talking about, if you've seen it. You know, I know we're in a deficit. Money's supposed to be tight. We gotta watch how we spend our money, not foolishly smart. But, dang, that logo was terrible. I mean, invested some money on that thing because that represents I mean, that's the first thing you see on the header or whatever. It was just embarrassing. So, you know, if you're gonna spend money anywhere, I know we're tight, we shouldn't be spending money just because, that's a good project to get that done. Anyway, that's it.

Yeah.

Hello, Jacob Zalian. I just, wanna remind you guys next Thursday at 08:00, we're having an outreach. We're going to Sanger Park. We're gonna clean up. We'll take some cleaning supplies because those tables are pretty dirty out there, and we plan on cleaning it and then ministering to the people that are out there. We have a couple different, organizations that we know where we could send them. We're trying to get them services, try to help them. So if any of you guys would like to join us, 08:00, we're meeting at Setfri. Or anybody running for mayor or any officials, you're running, you wanna kinda see what's going on, set free. 08:00. We'll be there. We'd love to have you guys. Thank you.

Any other comment from the public? No. No. The public comment public comment is closed. We'll move to the consent calendar. Matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and will be enacted by one motion and one vote. There will be no separate discussion of these items. If discussion is desired, a member of the audience or a council member may request an item be removed from the consent calendar, and it will be considered separately. Council, do you have any items you wish to remove? Seeing none.

Public. Does anybody from the public wish to remove any items? I just saw you three and eight. Three and eight. The other from the public? Seeing none. So in regards to the the consent calendar with the exceptions of items three, f three and f eight, do I have a motion to approve?

So moved, mister mayor.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Hearing none, that motion carries unanimous four zero one being absent. Item f three.

Is there a particular question regarding item three?

Yeah. Okay. You know, I go through those bills all the time knowing that we're in a deficit and all. I'd like to know where the money is being spent. You know, guys, this is a small world. Recently, this has to do with check number 6 no. Sorry. 96828. And it was a check for the Sea Pines Golf Resort hotel and rooms. I know somebody that was there and saw you people, and I've been waiting to see if you were gonna have an explanation on why you're even there.

You spent $2,161 for rooms alone, and that's just that's that's okay if you have eight to 10 people. I I've stayed there before. In fact, I wanna be there in the next three weeks. I know what those rooms cost. So anyhoos, there's people there.

And my question is, why? If it was a meeting on the on the bill, it had said it was for project r. What what the hell is project r? That's what it said on it. So that's why I'm here asking. And I know what that golf resort is about. I see the money. That was for the rooms. You must have had eight to 10 people there, the way I figured it out. Maybe 12.

Well, I don't know. But they all had to eat because they spent overnight. I never did see in the bills where there was money spent for food. I also didn't see any monies for a conference room, because if you're gonna have a meeting some places, all you guys know, there's conference rooms. That's what you're go to the meeting for. Where's the who's who spent the money on that? And then for the green fees, you guys went and played golf? This is our dime? This is what we're talking about? Where'd that money come out of?

Did it come out of measure r? I don't know. There's a lot of questions. I'm probably gonna be hitting this for the next two two meetings, because there's a lot of questions that need to be asked. Like, for one, we don't have we're paying, what, $4,800 for those three suites over there. Right across the street, in the middle, there's a conference room. Did you guys know that? If you needed a conference, why go to Los Osos? That's on the coast. They're at the coast. Why go all the way? We have our own meeting room. Why don't you keep our tax dollars in Sanger? You can if you want to eat, have some of our business furnish that food. You wanna go golfing?

Go to Sherwood Forest. Keep that keep our tax monies here. I don't understand what the necessity was to go all the way to Los Alamos unless there's been favors there or something. I don't know. But that's why you guys need to explain it because my mind's going, I can imagine maybe it's some contractors that are are thanking us for that or thanking you guys. Maybe there's future zones that better be changed. And, hey, you wanna go on a golfing trip? I don't know. But that's why you guys should explain this before you even go. Who allowed you to go? So you guys gotta be better than this, man. Again, you know, we have a conference room right across the street. Please try to explain and justify why you thought it was necessary to drive all the way over there and who went.

Is there any other comment in regards to item f three? Seeing none. Public comment is closed. Same address?

Can we address that one now or my comments at the end? K. So that was the whole executive team. We finally, after two years of being here, have gotten a full executive team. We're fully staffed in all the all of our departments, and we also had two council members go with us. And we went over and did a review of financials and of the last year. We sat down, did some strategic goal discussions and settings. And then, yes, we did go out, as a group activity for camaraderie and play nine holes of golf. Chose that location because it was way cheaper than anything around. And when we stay local, we can't, how do you put it?

There's constant interruptions. So, I scheduled a executive team meeting, and it was, I believe, 12 of us in total, including my executive team, the city clerk, and then two council members.

Thank you.

Great. Thank you.

And and I believe the total was with everything because I don't know if you said there was, like, two or something. It was, like, $3,000 total for food and everything on that.

Thank you. Yeah. I I thought it was a a good good retreat. We basically have a whole new executive team. It was good to come together and and, you know, as a team because, you know, if on on a day to day basis, you don't see each other all that often. And then Nathan said, you know, with constant interruptions, it's, you know, it's a little more difficult to get together and then, you know, come together as a team. But, anyway, it was a it was a good conference. Do you have anything to add, counsel? Okay. Thank you.

Also, information item item f eight.

Was there anything particular on f eight? And I believe, chief, this is your item.

Yeah. 88 was the issue for me only because I would hope somebody up here could help me understand what what that all was about. I didn't really look into it too much. But since I am a concerned citizen, I care what happens in here. I guess I should've read up on it, but I I just didn't. So could you just someone help out and just explain what it all is and what what it means?

Good evening, mayor and council. This item tonight before you is on the consent calendar for adopting resolution twenty twenty six dash 30 authorizing a budget amendment in the amount of $50,000 for purposes of retaining Choletta Holdings and then approve the consultant services agreement between the city of Sanger and Choletta Holdings in the amount of $98,008.79 and authorized city manager to sign the agreement on behalf of the city. This, is strictly to hire in a consultant, to come in and help us with our emergency operations plan. The city's emergency operations plan has not been updated for more than twenty five years. Because of the length of time that, has been since we've done this, we need to do a complete rebuild of our emergency operations plan to be in compliance.

We are expected by not only our state but federal partners to be in compliance with our emergency operations plan. And the staff report does go over the, various specific tasks that we, include into that contract with our our proposed consultants, including the project management, coordination expectations, the integrated emergency plan, the EOP training exercises that will be done, with staff that are here that are not trained and and have been trained as well, as well as providing a a complete plan to the city for review prior to adoption. And the initial budget was $50,000. That was approved in your budget as you approved it last year. However, when we did an RFP for services, we noted that every RFP returned, was over $98,000.

As a matter of fact, Cheletta came in at the lowest price point, but the best service. That's why we we picked them. The fiscal impact, again, is a a $100,000 to retain, Choleta Holdings to start this project as soon as we get, approval. I'm happy to answer any other questions you might have.

Thanks, sir. Do you have any questions I have for Tim?

Yeah. I know chief, you had mentioned the COP document hasn't been updated for twenty five years, and it's certainly an important document because it it outlines how we prepare for, respond for, respond to, and recover from disasters and major emergencies. How often should it be updated? Since this is twenty five years old, how how often should it be?

It really needs to be updated at least with fingers on it every five years. And then likely every rewrite a good rewrite every 10 is my experience. And so, it's been it's been quite a while. And so I think I'm the only one that has a copy in the city. And so we really do need to, to update it and get it into into everyone's hands. Okay. Thank you.

What's the matter for your time? I have no question. What's the for the

So the fire department, police department, public works, you guys have worked together. When this thing comes in operation, you guys turn the when they start building it, all three, departments will be involved in it?

Actually, all departments will be involved departments will involved. Well as your council. I will likely get, planning commission involved as well to some extent. And, of course, the citizens too, they'll have someone put

in this as well. Alright. Thank you. Mhmm.

Thank you, chief. We're gonna go ahead and, turn it over to the public. Is there any other questions in regards to item f eight? Hearing none, public comment is closed. Do I have a motion to approve item athlete?

I'll make a motion to approve.

We have a motion.

And I'll second,

mister May. Second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Hearing none, that motion carries unanimous four zero one being absent. Item g, department reports.

Good evening, mayor, council members. So the first up today is a quarterly presentation by the Sanger District Chamber of Commerce, and that'll be Isaiah.

Alright. Good evening, mayor, council, staff, and people those people that are present today. I want I a year ago, was here, as a staff member. So now I'm here as the official president and CEO. So I wanna just trace back from July to December 2025. So a lot of our photos here today are also courtesy of the Sanger scene. Wanna mention that. Alright. So here are some events that we have done throughout the throughout the 2025. We had the annual fourth of July spectacular.

We, contributed to the city of Sanger back to school backpack and supply giveaway resource fair. We were able to bring in some partners such as Walmart and other agencies with the back to school giveaway, and, it was a really great turnout, partnership. We brought in the inaugural Downtown Street Fairs and replacement of the, farmers markets. We had our Oktoberfest. We had the thirty seventh annual Downtown Trucker Treat.

We had the twenty twenty five small business Saturday, done done by the refuge church out there on Jensen. We had the forty second annual Christmas tree lighting, seven seventy seventh annual toilet parade, and inaugural holiday vendor fair, a new spin to we already have vendors at the parade, but we use the vacant mural lot to do a holiday vendor fair. The hundredth annual track to the nation's Christmas tree and then the annual light of the night contest. And then, we closed up and wrapped up the year with the groundbreaking ceremony for Tractor Supply. So each event, I'm gonna get into specifics.

We had over a hun over 1,500 guests from the local community for the annual fourth of July spectacular and surrounding areas. We had more than 15 vendors participate, offering a diverse mix of food, crafts, and informational booths. Event entry and exit was modified this year differently. Parking event sales were highly profitable. A special thank you to the Sanger High MPSA, for their support and contribution to the event success.

MPSA is a military public service academy program out there at Sanger High School. The independent ceremony entertainment were a success. This year, we moved away from bands or a band, and we had a DJ playing on diverse music. Some improvements that I've seen, have not been to the event for quite some time in the planning stages. The fireworks show, was misfiring lots of different fireworks, a lot of grand finales.

The the, the public enjoyed it, but it was something that needed to be worked on. Event lighting. We need some more lighting out there at the, Sanger High School. I'm sure that's something that we could, produce, maybe renting. And then the kid zone was not, really executed correctly this year, so, hopefully, that that could be something, you know, produced better for the future.

I did provide some income and expense there. So we had a $13,000 and a $124 for income, and then we had a $223 of expense. Here we have some photos of the event that date. Now I'm a go into the inaugural Street first. We had more than a hun more than a thousand guests from the local community and surrounding areas.

We had more than 35 vendors participate, again, offering a diverse mix of food, crafts, and info booths. Three dates this year. I wanna make sure that I'm really clear about that. And we and we revamped the name to street fairs instead of farmer's market due to national night out. Event themes were unique and executed accordingly.

The Hispanic Heritage Fiesta and Taco Throdon was a huge success and community favorite. We had an income of $11,875, an expense of $19,000 and 300 $19,322. Here we have some photos of the event. Now I'm going into the Oktoberfest that we had. It was a new introduction event.

We brought it to the we brought it to the community. We merged it into a business after hours mixer and a meet and greet for the new chamber president and CEO where it was held at the Hideaway, Hideaway Bar in their vacant lot. More than 50 guests from the local community and surrounding areas attended. We had more than five local vendors participate, again, offering a diverse mix of food. Special thank you again to Hideaway Bar for being generous hosts.

We had an income of $300 and expense of 700. Here we have some photos of the event. Now I'll be going into the thirty seventh annual downtown truck retreat. More than 2,000 guests this year from the local community and surrounding areas. We had more than 35 local businesses and organizations participate in filling up downtown to pass up candy and info.

Special thank you to the Sanger Police Foundation for sponsoring free hot dogs meals that were catered by Aces Catering and served by the Sanger Police Department Explorers, a new addition that we added in this year. We had an income of $700, an expense of thousand 600. Here, we have some photos of of, some info booths and some people lining up. Now I'll be going into the forty second annual Christmas tree lighting. We had more than 500 guests from the local community and surrounding areas.

We revamped the program this year with special performances instead of a guest speaker. I wanna really say thank you to the Sanger Bible Church and others in the community that stepped up, that eat that step up each year annually to sponsor event costs. The chamber a lot of these groups just upfront the costs, and the chamber only had an expense of $5.20. Here we have some photos of Santa and the performances and the volunteers. Now I'll be going into the seventy seventh annual Toilet and Parade and the inaugural Holiday Vendor Fair.

We had more than 3,000 guests from the local community and surrounding areas. We had more than a 100 parade entries reaching a new milestone. More than 35 vendors participate, offering, again, a diverse mix of food, crafts, and informational booths. And, again, like I said, we had the holiday vendor fair in the mural lot, which was a different addition this year. And our biggest sponsor and funder this year was Measure C.

We had an income of $8,000 and expense of 4,000. Here we have some photos of our beautiful Santa this year. We had some complications with a variety of Santas due to our Santa retiring this year. So we had three Santas this year. We had Santa Denny, Santa oh my god. Jason, a little different Santas. So I want to thank Nathan for helping me set up that set up that that beautiful Santa we had for the parade. So it was a a good minute a good last minute save, just due to scheduling and things like that with all the Santas. So it was a rate really great great parade this year. I wanna thank everyone that, was part of the badness behind it all.

That was a great produced parade, and that wasn't that long as last year. So that's a great thing. Next thing I'll be going in into is our centennial, our hundredth annual trek to the nation's Christmas tree. It was very special this year for us as a community. So we had more than a 150 guests from the local community and surrounding areas.

Again, like I said, we celebrated a Citanio milestone with the support of the national parks and unitaries across the region. We honored the founding family members and had a historical temp this year. We added a stage and comfortable chairs for the special occasion. So, we had an income of $2,215 and expense of $9,500. On the way there to the event, we had guests, visit the Schoolhouse Restaurant Tavern where they were able to have a nice brunch and have a nice brunch.

So, that was a nice experience, and we hope to make some changes in the future with that event. Here's some pictures of the day of the event. Next day going up is the annual light up the night contest. We had some changes this year with the annual light up contest. We just kept it residential, and then Esmeralda Hurtado took up the portion of the business part.

So we had more than 12 home displays this year. We took a digital route this year. We had the community submit submissions through online link, so that was really different this year. I wanna again say thank you to our annual sponsors, the Sanger Stine and Emmy Flowers, who provide gift cards and for for arrangements for the three winners. Last thing, sorry.

Not last thing. December is the groundbreaking ceremony for Tractor Supply. So we were reached out by the city to, make this event happen with the developers. We were able to make it happen. A lot of, a lot of planning and coordinating due to the weather and rain and things like that so they could grain, break ground, but we made it happen before, after the holidays.

So we worked closely with the developers, like I said, and the city for an effective date for the groundbreak. Over 10 individuals were in attendance in support of the South Corridor, commercial business expansion. So we had a really great time out there. The developers are happy, and they're excited to, they're already doing the work there, and they're excited to open the doors, hopefully, early fall. Next up, we have our business after hours mixers.

We brought them back up again. There was not many happening in producing, but we have been working really hard with our businesses and our members to bring those back up. Our first one was in August. We had the senior Sanger Eagles Hall, step up to the play and host that mixer. In September, we had the Kings River Winery.

In October, we had the Oktoberfest by Hideaway Bar Sanger and the chamber. And in November, we, introduced a new tradition. That's the members giving and royalty crowning of the mister and miss singers of, Sanger West, Sanger High. And Sanger Women's Club offered their, sponsorship to that event along with other aces and Fresno DJ company, all sponsoring the night. Last thing I have is the usual thing we provide every year is our business outreach.

Again, we are committed to providing ongoing support to businesses through the strategic social media, advertising, and dedicated office assistance. Our office our our efforts include connecting with businesses with available resources, facilitating follow-up on application processes, guiding them through their business license application, which we're still kind of, working on this year with the city. And I think, I think thanks to Esmeralda not Esmeralda. Sorry. Esperanza, excuse me.

And, Carla, we've been really working to revamp that process with the city, thanks to Nathan too, in establishing direct communication with local officials. And our current membership count is 200 and counting. So that concludes my presentation for that part. I do wanna address a few things if I can, mayor.

Go ahead.

I have a statement written out here, so please bear with me. At this time, I'd like to address our organization's current situation with transparency and clarity. Following the resignation of our former president and CEO in late May twenty twenty five, the Board of Directors identified financial irregularities and a lack of sufficient oversight in day to day operations. Since then, both the Board and I have taken decisive action to implement stronger financial controls and improved organizational structure beginning with the July 2025 fiscal year. During this transition, we uncovered approximately 50,000 in outstanding invoices and debt.

We have been proactive and intentional addressing these obligations, and we are steadily restoring the chamber's financial standing. In addition, we have restructured our membership and vendor fees to be more affordable and business friendly while actively working to renew existing members, recruit new ones, and build strategic partnerships that have already generated new sponsorship revenue. We have also reimagined our approach to community events focusing on collaboration, unity, and cost efficiency while maintaining the quality and welcoming environment our community expects. On 04/09/2026, I met with our city manager to address concerns outlined in prior communications regarding compliance and operations. During that meeting, I shared same information I have presented here today.

I'd like to clarify that as of today, there is no district attorney investigation and no confirmed break in at the city annex chamber office and no confirmed break in at the sorry. While it's no confirmed break in at the city annex chamber office While a board member independently initiated an inquiry into our situation, it did not result in any formal investigation. We have not received any official documentation or reports from the DA's office. During the meeting, the city manager raised questions regarding past board decisions, particularly related to financial matters and professional services connected to our board chair. I explained that those services were approved by the board prior to me as CEO and that the board chair does not use a chamber office for personal business, only for chamber related administrative responsibilities.

We concluded the meeting with the mutual understanding that the current contract requires significant revisions and clear language and that some of and that and that some level, a board restructuring may be necessary. I confirm that we are actively actively complying financial documents requested and express my willingness to meet again to review both those materials and the future contract. The city manager indicated that a new contract will be presented, though it will differ from the current one. He also stated that the chamber will need to vacate vacate its current space by 07/01/2026 with alternative office accommodations to be provided. He and I will review the draft he and I will review the draft contract together before I present to the board for final consideration and ultimately to the city council.

He also shared two requests for the board's consideration. I communicated that while that I while I can relay those requests, it should be more appropriate for him to present them directly as I do not control board decisions. And those two requests were that for a nonvoting seat on all chamber committees and the request to realign the board with 50% of new board members.

So

regarding event compliance, our discussion focused primarily on the veterans parade. While it's suggested that the event should have proceeded under article one n, we did not fully examine the operational realities involved. Publicly, I cited due to lack of sufficient parade entries. However, additional challenges existed. We discovered that the established parade route was under construction, requiring the development of a new route along with a professionally prepared traffic control plan, both of which carry significant costs.

Given those unexpected financial burdens, combined with low participation and the fact that such requirements were not outlined in our contract, the board and I determined it was not feasible to proceed. Instead, we prioritized addressing more pressing organizational needs. It is important to recognize that this issue has been ongoing, particularly following changes that impacted the Veterans Network's ability to host a parade and introduced final financial barriers that we similarly faced in 2025. The chamber was formally positioned to absorb those costs under a onetime agreement, and this highlights the need for better alignment and the collaboration moving forward. In closing, I want to thank those who have supported the chamber and my leadership during this period of transition.

The challenges we inherited were significant, but the progress we have made in less than a year reflects our commitment to accountability, growth, and service to this community. As decisions are made regarding our future relationship and contract, I ask that they be met thoughtfully and in the best interest of the community. The Sanger Chamber has served the city for over one hundred years. It will continue to exist with or without a contract and beyond any one individual because of the strength, dedication, and leadership within this community. Zenger is growing and now more than ever, we must remain united to ensure a strong and successful future.

At this time, I'd like to welcome our board chair to share some updates. Sheryl Sand.

Good evening, counsel. I'm here at Cheryl Sen, the board chair of the chamber. My term ends on June 30, so I just wanted to make you aware that we did have an election, and we did elect a new board chair, Mark Morales. And so he will be taking over as of July 1. I wanted to address a couple things that, after the last March 19 meeting, when there was no report given, I did reach out to the city manager, I said, hey. I can meet with you. Let me try to bring some information down. And he said that sounded good to him. So I followed up with an email on March 20, and I and I said, when are your available dates? I did not hear from him for two weeks.

K? So I got ghosted again just like I have in the past. And when I did finally hear from him, he said, thanks for reaching out. I'm gonna wait for Isaiah. So first, he said, yes. We could handle some information, and then ghosted me for two weeks. Right? So then but after that, on March 25, the city manager was discussing the chamber and myself with a community member, bringing up asking questions of whether I have an office downtown where you all know I have an office downtown because all of you have been to my office more than once. My office address is on my business license because I have a business license. So why would a city manager have to ask a community member if I have a separate office downtown that I take care of business in?

I didn't really appreciate that. To me, that's gossiping, and I didn't appreciate that. Alright? If you wanna know about my business, how I take care of business, I've been in business since 2014, and I have every invoice for billing, everything that I've ever done. And when I'm at the chamber office like I was today, I was there for two and a half hours taking care of things the board asked me to do, which was do data input into our membership list. That's what was working on.

Real quick. Shannon Shannon, is this

It's it's it's in the agenda packet.

Is this part of a Yeah.

It is. Know. Presentation. It is.

Mayor and and council members, the purpose of this meeting right now is for a financial update about the chamber. It's not it is about the written presentation for the report, and it is to receive the quarterly presentation from the chamber of commerce, if any, and receive an update from staff regarding contract compliance and provide direction to staff as may be appropriate. And the topic is the quarterly presentation by the district chamber of commerce and contract compliance update number two. So the the the focus of this is the contractual obligations that were in here, and that has been the focus in the past.

I feel like we're getting a little bit into some weeds

and No. But within the but then within that agenda packet talks about there's lack of communication. And I'm trying to say that I did try to make sure there was communication, and then there wasn't. So that that is a very valid point because it's in your agenda packet.

There's a lot more, data.

I'm just stating a fact that if there's any questions about where my office is or any questions about what I do

There was no question

about this topic here. Well, there it was brought up. So it was brought up with our president and CEO and brought up with the community members. So I just wanna make sure that they were clear on that.

Okay. Thank you. Is there any other public oh, do you guys have anything to add for, Adam and Gina?

My suggestion is staff. I don't know if, any of the staff have any presentations on this, but if they do to provide them with that opportunity and then, any questions that the council may have.

Okay. Is there any was there any staff presentation, Nathan?

No. There wasn't.

Okay. Council, do you have any, anything to add on g one? Do you have any? No.

Okay. Just a quick question, city attorney. As a city council, can we give authority to the board president to provide, additional comments or feedback in regards to their contract?

The city council majority of the city council has the authority to request information from the board of from the chamber president or whoever has happened to be here, anybody who's made a presentation. They legally don't have an obligation to provide it here if it is, out scope of the finite outside the scope of the financial, but you can ask. We have to be careful to stay within the parameters of the agenda item as the only thing. So my suggestion and the reason why I say this is this is not let me tell you what this meeting is not. This meeting is not a contract negotiation meeting.

This meeting is a report as to what has occurred, and consistent with the agreement. And that agreement is for the financial information and event information, which Isaiah and I'm so sorry, Isaiah. I forgot your last name. Lopez. Thank you.

Which mister Lopez has provided. And then, typically, the questions would be related to the report, the finances, the event, the attendance, and that sort of thing. Particular incidences that haven't been raised, like, I hesitate to use the he said, she said thing, those are not necessarily within the scope unless they are somehow possibly connected to something financial that would be part of a financial report. So I I hate to give you the long answer, but Yeah. I would suggest caution because this is not a contract negotiation item that's been agendaized.

Got it. Okay.

I mean, to me, I I would like to hear more from the chamber board president. That that's just one person. Thank you. But that's just me.

Council member Montelongo. Not this time unless we're gonna open up to the public first. Yeah. After that. Okay.

Wait. In regards to item g one, does anybody have any public comment in regards to the presentation you just saw?

Evening.

Harry Gumber Carter Sanger. I I have the greatest idea, and I'm gonna and it's about finances and transparency and a lot of questions that are being asked about the chamber. And my my idea is for the council and the city manager and the board of directors of the Sanger Chamber of Commerce to have a town hall. I think we could all sit at a table and let people come in, and we can talk to each other so they can be hearing what we're asking. We can all have our reports and our evidence so people can see it.

And I think I think questions can be answered that way. That's my suggestion. I would like to know who to speak with to find out where we could have it, if it's possible, and when. Because I think we need to get answers out to the public and to you folks so you can really know what the hell is going on. And there's a lot going on that you people don't know. You're hearing rumors. I wanna clear them up. Thanks.

Is it does anybody from the public have anything to add in regards to the presentation you just saw?

Where it really gets me is your mindset is showing. Receive receive the quarterly presentation from the chamber of commerce, if any. I'd like to see that with anybody doing a presentation, if any. That's a chicken hit. That's that shows your mindset, and it's pretty awful.

Do it to everybody.

Mhmm. Be fair. Anybody have any other comment? I always come up with more expectations. I understand why you have. Does anybody else have any, public comment in regards to the presentation you just saw?

Yeah. The presentation that was given by Isaiah shows me that there was some issues, I guess, when he took over. When there's monies involved or something like an event like this, you would think that you guys would have a, like, a an audit of what has happened before this person left to what they're handing to the new person so that at least they know what I gotta watch out for or whatever. But it doesn't sound like that happened. It sounded like it was just, here you go.

And then they gotta figure it out, and Isaiah had to figure it out. That's what it kinda sounded like to me. And, yeah. So, hopefully, that whenever these jobs, like your jobs, any of some of the, police or fire chief, I'm sure you you consult with the new person and to let them know this is where we're at at this stage. This is what's going on. Whatever it be, monetarily or this what's going on with the city, let them know. It helps them when they take over to do a better job. But, again, it didn't sound like that happened here. So I feel sorry for him jumping into a job like that, you know, in middle of a hornet's nest, sound like. But yeah.

So, anyways and, also, this is being crazy here, though, is that someone suggested, you know, have a place to have a meeting. How about Los Osos? That was a good place. Right?

Kevin Carter. Feel like a dog with a bone, but here we go. I'm back on this Veterans Day parade. We've had a lot of discussion. We've had a lot of different outlooks on the situation. Let's get down to the bottom line. Was it in the contract? It only takes one word to answer this. Yes or no. You've heard a lot of discussion, a lot of in excuses. Let's get to the bottom line of things. Yes or no? Same with this office breakdown break in. Lease department's right across the parking lot. I'm gonna go over there tomorrow and ask them if they have a report.

I don't know why that's so hard. I didn't read the agenda till late there, so I would've gone today. But I'm gonna go out, and I'm gonna find out whether they have a report of a break in or not, period. This DA investigation, I've heard a lot of rumors. I'm not gonna repeat repeat the rumors that I've heard. But, supposedly, there's more than one person that's heard part of a report from the DA, part of a report. When you hear part of a report, that doesn't really mean a whole lot because you don't know what the rest of the report said. And if someone has this report, I think they should come right up here tonight and present this report to the public. Because, personally, I don't think there is a report.

Right. Do you have anything to add from the quarterly report?

I guess I'm done then. Thank you.

Sorry. Does anybody else have any public comment in regards to the quarterly presentation? I know it's oh, you want the microphone? Okay. Does anybody need to add anything to the presentation?

Seeing none, the public comment is closed. We'll bring it back to the council.

To the mayor, could I make just a brief statement? Go ahead. Response to the, the taller good looking gentleman that came up with the cane that had a question about the agenda title? That was a carryover from a prior agenda where there wasn't one submitted at Paris, and the word if any was inadvertently left in. So if you look at the staff report, it was removed, but that didn't get carried forward. So I wanna let you know that was not intentional on staff's side at all. The intent was not to have that. It was just carryover from last time when there wasn't 1%, and the city didn't know what one was going to be. So remember, this is round two. That's all I ask. Thank you, sir.

Mayor Brotan.

Okay. Well, my comment first, Isaiah, thank you for the presentation. There was a slide that was left up the longest, and I don't know if it was because well, it probably was because it was the last slide. But in my opinion, it's probably one of the most important slides with our business outreach, 200 members. This is the core the bread and butter of what a chamber of commerce does is, you know, dedicated to, provide businesses available resources, follow-up application processes, guiding them through business licenses, applications, and establishing direct communication with local officials.

Let's not forget the mission of the chamber. Is this here? It it to me, it it it's 200 members. I I think that's pretty good. So I think that's always be the goal. Obviously, we wanna increase that. I'm old enough to remember a newsletter the chamber would put out where there was a a list of chamber members on the back page, and we would all make sure to support those businesses. And, that may be something we wanna do again is identify these 200. That way, we'd know where to, you know, spend our money and and thank them for being chamber members. But going to the, presentation, I mean, yes, the core mission, in my opinion, is business outreach, but it you know, the chamber does put on these great events, and we're happy to have them.

I mean and it is kind of, you know, eye opening when you identify income and expenses in this fashion because I think a lot of people take for granted how expensive these these, events really are. And a lot of them are are are loss leaders. You know? You see the street bearers are losing. And what do you do?

You charge more people you know, charge the vendors to come in, more money to come, then you're not gonna have any vendors. So it it it will always be the challenge. Obviously, you know, the economy, the way it is now, we all gotta tighten our belts and and figure out ways to run leaner and meaner, so to speak. So, I mean, with that being said, I'm just kinda curious on my main question before I went on my soliloquy was, what's the largest expense for your street bears? Because it's it's quite a dramatic difference here.

Entrance gaming. Enter. Yeah. Entertainment. Audio is out.

Okay. And and just one note, it's like, you know, you mentioned the entertainment for the, for the July 4. You know, the expenses for July was only $200. So either we had a very cost efficient DJ or he

did it

for free.

Isaiah, can you Oh, sorry.

So so the city covers all the major costs for the Satacular. So the expenses was just decor Okay. And, food and beverages for the volunteers that that evening.

Okay. Which leads me to my point is on on some of these expenses on these events, when you listed or identified a sponsor, you can dramatically see how your expenses went down. It obviously doesn't take a a financial wizard to know that sponsors are the key, and I certainly hope and encourage, you know, businesses and and, you know, anybody who's capable of of sponsoring an event to certainly do that. We certainly recognize, like, the bible church and and things like that, you know, help with some of the Christmas cheerleading and stuff. So it's absolutely awesome. So, you know, we're all in this together, sponsors, you know, attendees, things like that, chamber members. So let's not lose sight of of what the mission is of the chamber. So I really appreciate you coming out here today. Thank you.

Thank you, Daniel.

Council member Hurtado.

Thank you, mayor. I also want to start off with some positive notes. I think we need to give recognition and credit where it's due. You guys have been successful this past year in actually, improving some of the street fairs, for example. And you did say, you know, the the sound, the band, and all of that is costly, well, guess what? It showed because you guys have put up a really great, concert. I believe it was the last one where you had the lights and the the bands and all that. That was just amazing. I mean, just to see the diversity of different bands playing every week, has been amazing to see. So there has been a lot of growth, in this past year.

And then also, I also have to applaud you on the the Christmas tree lighting, ceremony because, you know, you incorporated organizations within our community that are the foundation of this community and the glue, you know, that keep our youth, you know, into math, science, and art. And it was amazing for you to incorporate that into our festivities this year, and that's something that I wanna see continue to happen, in our community. And I know a lot of our community members are really happy with a lot of the events that were that were presented this past year, myself included. I've I've recognized the work. I see it.

I know it's hard to be working in the conditions that have been presented, unfortunately, with this, mess of back and forth and, just internal stuff and external external stuff stuff affecting the chamber. I absolutely do not agree with that. I think it's no way to be able to properly do work. It gets in the way, so this division really needs to stop. And I'm I know I'm not saying it's you, but, you know, I'm looking at you. You know what I'm talking about. It's not helping our community. It's really dividing this community, and I hate to see it happen again. So I do want to let you know you you're doing a great job. I know there's a lot of more improvements that need to come, but I know that you're working towards that, and I've seen it. And I know that you can do it. So thank you for everything you guys do.

Thank you, Esmeralda.

Thank you. Do you have any, Michael councilmember Montalago, do you have anything in regards to item g one?

First and foremost, thank you so much for finally bringing a, report. Like I said, you weren't here at the last meeting. I don't know what happened and why you didn't show up, and I was hoping you would've and everything else. And I I know you were scheduled to. I'm gonna stop for minute until they stop.

Good morning, guys. We we are respectful of your time up here at this microphone. Please be respectful of ours. Thank you.

When I came back in 2021, it was one of the things that I asked to be more clarified and more transparent was the financials, and it was pretty hard. So you're you're the third CEO that I've seen from 2021, 2026. And to me, that's kind of not just important, but it's concerning because now we're at our third in less than six years. And every one of you have given some type of report or no reports. And so I I agree with mayor pro tem that though you could put income and expense, we still don't know where the income came from and what expense was the expense.

So the forge light protector I mean, I'm thank you for saying what you said because, yes, the city of Sanger is the one that pays for the majority. And your income came probably from the, the vendors.

Vendors and parking.

And so that clarifies some things when, the city manager was talking about, you know, taking this back. Because if we were to say you take it completely, you would be in the hole by paying for everything, probably around $20 versus a profit of 12,000. And so I I see, you know, some like okay. You wanna take it all or you don't wanna take it all? You know? Then I'm looking at some of the others in the inaugural street fair. I think they're it was great. I had a fantastic time time. You know? The the live band, I mean, it was pretty awesome, the lights and everything.

But you gotta weigh out the expense. Yeah. The people loved it, 19,000 and then 11,000. But, again, it just shows income where the income came from. I don't know. Where the expenses I don't know. And this is some of the things I kinda talked about in 2021. And then when the new CEO came in after that one, it got better somewhat, and then sometimes it drifted, and then sometimes it came good. Sometimes, I think we, you know, we got told, well, the board has to approve what the expenses and everything are. I don't know if the board this.

If the if the board really gave you the okay to say, yes. Present this like this because I wouldn't think a board would appreciate that. And so I don't think it's you that particularly said, I'm gonna put it this way because because it's it's not not showing everything. In your contract, it says. You know? And you you should outline out. It's in the contract. And that's where I that's where I normally try to go with. Like, 2021, I said that. Even after that seal and even the seal before you, I talked about that once in a while, and the contract just plays a lot, you know, for me. It does that to a lot of things we do here on the Dice one, and we have contracts everything else. And sometimes if we make a mistake, then we have to own it. You get what I'm saying? Yes. And everything.

So every time I look and then you have the 39 downtown trek or treat and 700 income. I don't know where that came from, but they spent 1,600. You know? So now we're starting to see you're you're to develop a deficit. You know? And I know it's hard. And so I would love to see, like, are you getting sponsors? Who are the sponsors? Like, you mentioned one of the sponsor was, measure c. Okay? How much did they give that time? I don't know. I just know they're a sponsor. You know? Did they give 200, 100, 5,000, 10,000?

You know, what did they give? Where did it go to? You know? Those type of things. I agree with one of the gentlemen that said, you know, do an audit. We can't do an audit for you guys, and you really can't do an audit, but your board could do an audit. And maybe you could do an audit in the last five years, six years, and come back and say, yes. There was an issue. Honestly, I think there's been an issue since 2019 or before that, and it kept on going. I really believe that.

Because if we had a hard time back in 2021 asking questions, then where did everything go? You know? We made mistakes with ours, and we're doing our audits, and we're getting there and everything else. And, I mean, I was one that was not happy, but I would appreciate if you guys can do an audit. And there's more. You know, you could go on, but at the very end, it's it's the contract that lays the foundation, you know, where it goes. I appreciate everything the chamber does. It's not an individual. It's a group. It's it's a community.

Because when the chamber puts something on, you got volunteers that are not part of the chamber but are part of the chamber because they're part of the community. They wanna see something happen to our community. They wanna see things flourish. They wanna see things nice. You know, they're always looking for the betterment. But at the same time is do within the contract reason, you know, and go from there. I think you're doing a pretty good job, and I what way you could do things. I like how some of the things are changing, in certain areas, but, I don't know. It just like I said, coming back from 2021, I still see some issues. You know? And I can't look and say you're at fault because '21 you weren't

here in 2021.

You know? The membership count, 200, who are they? I I asked that question 2021, and I had a hard time getting the names of who they were. Hard time. That was during COVID. And the reason I was asking a lot of questions because the chamber was closed during COVID but had no money even though we're still giving them money. That didn't make sense to me. That's why I started asking the questions. I think you mentioned about certain board members that have gotten paid. I mean, who are they?

Why? You know, maybe that should be part of that. You know, your outline, what you say, your expenditures and everything. You know, what were they used for? You know, their voting members, nonvoting members? Are they people who come in and, meet with the city manager and try and negotiate? You know, those are things that'd be good to know. Because, you know like, right now, I don't know. I mean, we're paying you know, with the money, I think we are paying you as CEO and so forth. But, ultimately, I think what the what the mayor pro tem said, it's it's pouring back to the community with the money that we have here and using it for the community.

So I I wish you really had a very much more detailed income expansion plan and how things went. But seeing face to face and seeing what is taking place in downtown and all the things you guys did, fantastic. They incredible. Every time the chamber does something since I've been involved in the city even when I was a kid, incredible. But it's different when you have it on paper.

You get what I'm saying? And, again, I focus on the contract. You know? What does the contract say and everything like that? And there's some things you you guys have done that's not on the contract, but it also says in the contract at other events. It does say that. And when you take something over, then, of course, you you deal with that. And if you can't deal with it, then you let us know. But I do have a lot more, and I don't wanna take any more time. But I I'm I am concerned. But I appreciate your time being here. Thank you for at least coming and giving us a presentation. Appreciate it.

Yes. Thank you for your comments, Michael.

And, you know what? I item g one is a quarterly presentation. You're here. You give a presentation. Thank you very much. In regards to the presentation, I did write down, and you guys were negative, like, $6,500, and I understand that. It's a challenge, man. You don't you don't know whether to raise the price to try to meet that challenge, then people might not wanna come as a vendor or whatever. You know what I mean? Or you don't wanna go too low and then be $6,500 in the hole.

But, you know what? Thanks for for coming and and basically showing us what you what you did. A good good another good note is Tractor Supply. I did talk to them, and and they're ready to be doing a a ribbon cutting here pretty soon, and and I know you guys have been involved with that. That's just some something that is a good thing that happens between the city and and the chamber. But thank you for bringing this to us. We asked for it, and you brought it. As far as, the other things go, that's something we we will address maybe at a later date. Because right now, what's on our our radar is item g one. But, you know, we we are gonna do help out with the negotiation process.

As far as the negotiation process, city attorney, I think it was probably be, appropriate to have a committee, an ad hoc type committee. The advice of the council would agree.

Under the agenda item, you can give direction to staff regarding the, contract compliance and contract. So if the city council wanted to, it could point either one or two, council members to act as an ad hoc committee to advise and coordinate with the city manager regarding contract negotiations. So that way you have a faster feedback with the chamber, and it doesn't have to wait every two weeks. And, mister Lopez can actually, move more quickly on his end and and mister Olson the same thing. But, yes, you can legally do that.

And and the reason I said it, this isn't unique to the situation. I mean, when we were negotiating the previous city manager's contract, we had an ad hoc committee that would

It is not uncommon. Yeah. Not uncommon at all. So Okay. There would need to be, however, a nomination or a motion as to who would be on that ad hoc committee.

Well, as as your mayor, I'd I'd like to volunteer for that spot if you guys agree.

Yeah, mayor. I think you should definitely be on.

And then, Prochem, do you wanna be on there?

I would. I'd defer if I'm

Okay. But like you said, we could do it. We could just have one. Right?

We can have one or you can have two. So if council member Montalongo wants to be on there, he certainly can do it if the majority of the city council agrees.

Council from our Montalongo seem to be really well versed on this, if you would like to be on it.

Yeah. If you don't mind, I don't mind being on it.

Okay. There you go. We have to

Council, I'm also open to, going as an alternate if needed.

Okay. Thank you. The one

thing about an alternate is once negotiations start, the alternate can't step in because only because then you'd have three council members that would be involved in the process. Uh-huh. So if I'm not sure what you want to do with that, but I just wanted to flag that for the city council.

Got it.

Good. That's why we have you here.

Yeah. Just know I'm open to it. Also, I do wanna give feedback before we move on with the motion, but, I just

Is is there any action for this one? This is just information? Yeah.

It's just information, but by consensus or by a vote, you can appoint an ad hoc committee.

Okay. Do we think did we got consensus for me and Mike?

I would like to give comment and give consensus as well.

Okay.

So before I think before going into the round of negotiations with the, Chamber of Commerce, Since, mayor, you wanna do it, and Montelongo, you wanna also be part of it, I would just, really ask you guys that you guys go in in good faith and, work with the chamber. You know, tonight, we did see you know, somebody get silenced. And, you know, as a council, we wanna know make sure that, you know, you everything's known out there and that, the chamber is also, in agreeance with whatever is on their contract. So, just wanting you guys to practice in good faith, and, hopefully, everything goes well for for both entities. I second or give consensus.

Appreciate it.

Yes. I will be fair. Alright. It's crazy.

So we have consensus on an ad hoc committee consisting of mayor Gonzalez and council member Montelongo?

Yes. That's correct. Okay. Alright. Move on. Thank you.

I just wanna say thank you to the mayor and the council, and, actually, wanna say a big thank you to all the city staff, especially department heads and everyone that's been so helpful in the transition. All of our department heads, chiefs, it's been a really great partnership, and I'm looking forward to the future. Well, thank you, everyone, and public works. We're superstars.

Item g two.

Good evening, mayor and council members. So tonight is the second reading of an ordinance of the city counts of the city council of the city of Sanger authorizing an amendment to the contract between the city council of the city of Sanger and the board of administration of the California Public Employees Retirement System. The recommendation is that the city council waive in full waive reading in full and adopt an ordinance of the city council of the city of Sanger authorizing an amendment to the contract between the city council of the city of Sanger and the board of administration of the public California Public Employees Retirement System PERS, by title only to remove the 3.56% cost share from the SPOA members and authorized authorized the city manager to execute any documentation to effectuate the CalPERS contract change. This was a result of the negotiations we had at our last meeting. We had the first reading.

This is the formality to adopt it so we can deliver on what was negotiated to the SPO.

Great. Thank you. Mayor Proton.

Do you

have any comments any comments to the public? And I in regards to item g two, is there any public comment? Seeing no public comment. Public comment is closed. So you guys signed in GED. Do I have a motion to approve?

So moved. I'll second, mister mayor.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Hearing none, that motion carries four zero. Wouldn't be nested. Item g three.

K. Presenting this tonight will be Virginia from our finance director, and it's the police fire paramedic nine one one response gang drug prevention independent independent accountants report on compliance for the fiscal years ending 06/30/2021 and 06/30/2022.

Thank you.

Good evening, mayor, council members. The city is required to prepare a report related to yearly expenditures of measure s funds. As part of this process, the city retained an independent consultant, immune CPA, to prepare compliance reports of fiscal years '21 and '22. Immune CPA prepared reports regarding the city's compliance with measure s. As part of this process, an examination was conducted in accordance with attestation standards established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Those standards require an examination to obtain reasonable assurance that the city's measure S expenditures complied with the criteria of the city's ordinance number ten ninety four, resolution number four one two two, resolution number four three six one, and ordinance two zero one nine dash zero two, which amended ordinance one zero nine four in all material respects. The examination involved performing procedures. And obtained evidence on whether the city complied with the specified compliance requirements. As a result of this examination, MU and CPA concluded that the city's measure as expenditures complied with all relevant resolutions and ordinances in all material aspects for both fiscal years ending 06/30/2021, and fiscal year ending 06/30/2022. These reports are being provided to the city council for acceptance and filing.

The city's the citizen oversight committee will also receive a presentation on the compliance reports from staff. I am presenting these reports today for, to be received and, accepted of the final, sorry, to receive and accept the filing of the annual compliance reports of measure s for fiscal years '21 and '22.

Great. Thank you. There are no questions? Councilmember Hurtado. Move to the public. Does anybody have any public comment in regards to item g three? So you know public comment? Public comment is closed. So bring it back to the council. On the regard side of g three, do I have motion to approve the move?

So moved, mister mayor.

Second.

Motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Hearing none, that motion carries fours. Four zero one being absent. And we'll move on to item g four.

So this is a budget versus actual financial report year to date. Finance has been working on giving us kind of where we're at year to date. It's a lot of moving pieces with all the different audits. But, again, we'll turn this over to Virginia Harmon, finance director, to give some brief numbers.

Thank you.

Good evening again, mayor, council members. This presentation is to, go over our current expenditures and revenues for funds general fund 01/2001, 07/12, 06/11, 06/21, and 06/31. $6.11, $6.21, and $6.31 being the enterprise funds just to kinda give an update of where we are as a city. For the general fund, currently, our revenues are at $13,942,946.31 as of 04/10/2026. That's when we pulled this data for the staff report.

Currently, we show the it is less than what we budgeted for, but we are about 75% through the year. Some of these differences could be attributed to tax collections that we get in July that will be accrued back as part of the closing year end process. It is also attributed to interest allocation that has not been booked yet by the city. That is an entry that we normally receive from the consultants at the end of their process for helping us in closing the books. It also can come from closing entries as well for, like, transfers or reclassifications that may affect what you see here on these on these figures.

But so far, it looks like everything is lined up to still project out to meet those the budgets, that we did project at the beginning of the year. For the expenditures in general fund, I would like to point out the personnel is well underway to, having some salary savings. We did do us, just a very simplified projection to see if we were going to have salary savings at the end of the year, and it looked like we were about 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 in salary savings. One of the reasons why you would see such a giant variance would be because the city budgets for all vacancies. It cannot predict when staff may leave or how quickly vacancies can be filled.

So there could be spots that just remain open for months and months at a time. But as a city, we have to account for the fact that those vacancies can be filled. The city also budgets for the most generous benefit packages. So if we offer, for example, family coverage, we budget at the family coverage cost because we don't know if a person will opt out of doing the family coverage versus just covering themselves. So we have to always budget at the higher at the higher cost, which is why, again, you see that there's quite a bit still out there in salary savings that we're probably gonna end up with for, the end of the year.

Indirect cost allocation, it doesn't have any expenditures currently because that is a year end entry that we do. When I go over fund seven twelve, you'll kinda see that fund seven twelve host basically our finance department or IT, basically departments that, offer services for the entire city. So we have to allocate out and charge those funds accordingly, because we do assess pretty much everybody. So that is a year end entry that is done. So currently, you don't see anything there, but there will be.

Luckily, we do budget for that, so it won't be a surprise once you do see that being journaled. Operationally, we are about 50%. So, again, we have 2.4 under of what we projected. But, again, with three months left, you may see that some expenses may have waited till year end to to kind of come through. For supplies, same thing.

We have about a 130,000 left of the budget. Capital outlay, I I show that there is a huge variance, but that could be due to, base, project delays that may have occurred or maybe we're waiting for additional funding sources to start those projects, so maybe they were placed on hold. But I can certainly look into more detail for that. Debt service, we're I'm with our bond payments. That's what you normally would see in this line.

We only have one payment left for the year, which is gonna be that 22,000 you see up there. For transfers, again, that would be a year end entry. As we close the books, you'll see ins and outs, but, again, we do have a budget for that as well. So overall, for general fund, we're looking pretty good. As far as health wise, I don't see a deficit at this moment in time nor do I anticipate having one.

What what was that?

A a deficit.

There's no deficit?

Possibly not with the salary savings and operational expenses.

K.

So as we get closer to year end, I hope to continue to keep you updated on these figures.

Thank you. K.

For fund seven twelve. So, again, this is the departmental one that I was talking about where it hosts IT. It hosts basically finance. We do have a cost allocation plan that we do utilize to charge other funds for the services that finance department does administer and also our IT department. So, currently, you don't see any actuals in revenues because those are gonna be monies that are gonna be transferred in from those departments that are charged for our services.

For expenditures, again, we do show salary savings again, of about 660,000. We don't expect to reach that, with only three months left. For supplies, we're also pretty low as well. For capital outlay, And then we have a few transfers there, but, again, we still haven't exceeded expenditures there. So looking pretty positive when it comes to the expenditures today.

Water, just wanna add some context. We do have about four more months left of billings for the year. So although you do see about a 1,197,000 in revenues that we have not collected, we are approaching the hotter months. So those are probably gonna generate the higher bills. So with four months left, we may be getting closer, to that number. For the transfers piece, again, that's a year end entry. The use of money and property, you do see zero there. That, again, is interest allocation that has not been booked. So it'll it'll show up closer to year end when we do our closing. Going into expenditures, again, it shows pretty favorable there.

We don't show anything over budget at this point in time, and we still, again, see the same kind of pattern. We see salary savings there, not as much as the other funds, but we do see some. On operational expenses, same. We'll see about a million there. There is cylinder budget, again, with only three months left of the year.

For fund six two one, and that is our sewer operations. We're pretty close there when it comes to our fees and licenses, and, again, that would be our billing. Gonna get four more months left, so I I'm hopeful to see that number get closer to what we projected for the budget. The use of money and property, again, it's missing that interest allocation piece as well. For personnel and other expenditures, we are still seeing that we are not in a deficit for this fund.

So I'm seeing salary savings. We don't have the indirect cost allocation yet, but, again, that'll be a year end entry. Operations show favorable at, you know, 1.5 short of what we, projected for the budget. So looking pretty good as well. And for fund six three one, which is our disposal fund, still show about 934,000 short of the revenues.

But, again, we do still have a few months after the year where we're hoping to get closer. We did have a company help us with our, percentage fee increase for the beginning of the year, and they're the ones who helped us kinda determine what these numbers should look like. So with their expertise, I'm hoping that we can see that kind of close in towards the end of the year with the months remaining. There are some reclassifications that need to be done. There shouldn't be any personal costs here, so we're gonna look into that and find out why we have a $196. But everything else in this fund is looking pretty favorable, as far as compared to budget where we initiated initially, projected for the year. And I will open it to any questions.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you for the report. I do have a really quick question because I wanna make sure I heard what I thought I heard correctly. Can you go back up to the general fund?

Absolutely.

Right now, we are 75% through the budget year. Yes. And it looks like our expenditures, we've only hit about 50% expenditure.

That's correct. When I did the calculation, it was about and I actually wrote it down. We are at 51% of the annual budget.

So we within the next three months, is it expected to be probably less than 60, or what do you think?

Probably closer to 70,

to be

honest with you, because I know a lot of the expenditures that are still expected to occur are, like, larger purchases. For example, I think we had well, I'm gonna actually stop there. I'm gonna actually research that for you. I can maybe come up Well, ballpark. With some projected figures for you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The ballpark is fine. 70%. I mean, that's three quarters.

Yeah.

So what we budgeted of expenses, we really only spent 75% of that. So, conversely, the revenues is gonna be probably closer because you could already see the percentage is greater than 50. Yes. So the percent the the revenues would probably be, like, 80% or so of what we take

care of.

We did have for example, on the revenue portion, we did have more revenue coming in from permits than we expected, so that is part of what is driving that number. We also had a larger reimbursement from IGT come in as well that also is increasing that number. So that would be for the ambulance department. So

so, I mean Yeah. Basically, what my question really is is for this fiscal year, will we have more revenue than we do have expenses?

That is what we're aiming for.

And and we're we're aiming

for it for this. Like, what are the chances?

Yeah. Solid. At this point, because of the salary savings being a huge portion of what we're seeing

Uh-huh.

That we're not gonna end up needing 5,400,000 given the reasons that I just stated, it is favorable to say that.

Exactly. It does seem favorable unless it's a catastrophe or unless gasoline gets to $25 a gallon. It looks like we're gonna do it. So the buzzword as far as being a deficit budget

Right. Deficit Four points.

It it didn't it didn't materialize. We budgeted for a deficit, but it didn't happen.

And it wasn't truly a budget for the deficit because of the way we do our salary projections.

Mhmm.

The way we have to budget for the salaries because we have to ideally budget for every vacancy at that highest benefit package to make sure that as a city, we've accounted for that occurring. Best case scenario, we are fully staffed. Right? But that's not always the case, and that doesn't always come to fruition.

Yeah. So, I mean Yeah. Like like I said, bottom line, a very, very, very favorable chance that we took in more money than we spent for this fiscal year.

I know all of the department heads are working hard on tightening the belt, so to speak.

Yeah. Okay. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you. Sounds good.

Council member Hurtado.

A

question on the water fund or a Sure. A general question on, late fees. So when we're charging people for, late fees on their water, services, Where what what where does that fund go into? Like, what is that utilized for?

Stacy.

The late fees do go into the water.

Okay. And they're used for just what are they, are they recovering, you know, lost funds? Mhmm. And, I mean, is what how does that look? Health wise, like, how does that look?

Or We try to really mitigate those. I know we've started off in previous years with a lot of shutoffs, for example, and we have our staff and finance doing everything they can to minimize how many people actually are on that shutoff list. We do offer a grace period for the billings, so we do try to decrease that when you see the, the line item fees and licenses. That is also our billings for water. So it's not necessarily a late fee. It's the billing of water. So it's the bill going out to residents to charge them for the usage of that, of the water.

Okay. Yep. That's it.

I had similar question on the water bill because how we went and, shut off people's waters, and it was it was due time because we've been giving so much of a break. Do we know the amount of out there that are are now complying and those are not complying. Because I know that we had quite a bit. I think

it was over, like, probably a

little over a million and a half of money that was Yeah. Not collected yet because people were not paying their bills.

I can certainly bring that data or give that data to, Nathan, city manager, and provide that for you. As far as what is still delinquent and how much that is, I think they're definitely disclose that. But I know there has been a a very like, a big increase in how much we actually are truly doing shut offs. And we're trying to work with our residents by offering, you know, payment plan arrangements. I believe we offer two before we are not able to, to do anything else for them. Because we do try our best to really get the best plan possible for those that need to catch up on their bill. My my team is very good and very kind to those that come in that need that help.

Yeah. How many shutoffs did we have this month?

I'm gonna say it was under a 100, but I can get you that number. Do you have that number? We had Eight. Eight. There you go.

That's unheard of.

Yeah. Because I think we were averaging

over a thousand a year and a half ago. Yeah. And then it dwindled down to 600 and working, but eight.

That's the lowest of

15 of any city. Yeah.

When I always started, it was, like, 200, then went down to less than a 100, and now eight. So our team is really making those phone calls and and urging the residents to come in and making those payment arrangements with them as well if they need help.

One thing I I got, I keyed on was the increase in I think it wasn't impact fees. It was, permits. Correct?

Right. There was probably from health

and stuff like that. Right?

Awesome. Yes.

I I just wanna make sure we caution ourselves because Yes. Back in my days when I was there in the mirror, we made mistakes. We saw it coming. We thought, hey. It's gonna be there. Think it's gonna be there forever, and

it's

not. So Yeah. It's nice to have, but we need to make sure that we're cautious with it. Because at one point, depending on what's gonna happen in California or The United States and things are gonna drop and things are not gonna go up, people are not gonna buy homes, that's not gonna be the rounds. I I hope but my mistakes, I hope that we learn that.

Yes.

At the same time, I wanna make sure that from 02/1213, the councils back then, when they decided about we're not gonna do any impact fees anymore, I wanna make sure that we stay what we have to do because that's the revenue that's most important. Otherwise, right now, to me, we're paying for the mistakes that happened in 02/1213 when it came to those impact fees being eliminated. So I just wanna caution this. I it's great to see it's great to see the cost savings when it comes to personnel. But, again, we're not gonna be all jealous. Oh, we could buy all this or do all this.

Absolutely. Yeah.

You know?

We also do look at more than one year for revenue projections, so we'll be looking at past history.

Bless you.

Any anomalies that may have happened. Like, did we have a developer come into town? It was there one big project that happened where we have to kind of account for that and exclude that from being an outlier, basically, and just kind of smoothing it what it should be. We we don't like to just take last year and plug it in for this year. That's not part of our process.

K. Thank you so much. Appreciate. Great presentation.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Yes. Thank you very much. You know, it but that's good news. Thank you. Then we'll turn it over to the public. Did anybody from the public wish to comment? So you know public comment? Public comment is closed. And this was just information. Right? Correct.

Mayor, could I suggest just receiving this by consensus? Okay. So it looks like there's a consensus to receive it. Thank you.

Receive it. Yeah. Motion. Are we good? No. Consensus. We move on to item h, city manager.

So good evening, good mayor and council members. Just a few things. We've met with all the awardees for the public safety sales tax, so those checks have been issued, and contracts have been signed for that. The the logo that that is absolutely not a redesign, it was just a corrupt file when we uploaded, got missed. Honest mistake. It was corrected as soon as it was brought to our attention. We're starting new rounds of negotiations with all our bargaining units. Believe it or not, we just accepted some last month, and now we're starting over again. Parks and rec offices are moving across the street. They've already started.

Probably be a one or two week transition, so we'll have the building over there completely full. And, and just to address a comment from earlier that I was not communicating, an email did go out on 03/23, four days after the council meeting, stating that I would, not be meeting with Cheryl upon my initial thoughts, said that could work. I changed my mind, and I there is an email. I don't think I need to get into it, but I did communicate the following Monday that I would not be meeting with her. So what was said was inaccurate. Thank you.

Thank you. Item I, reports and matters initiated by city council members. This portion of the meeting is reserved for mayor and council members to make brief reports on boards, committees, and other public agencies and at public events to initiate new matters and to request updates and to initiate new agenda items. Under this section, the council may also take action on any items specifically agendized and within and which meet other requirements for. Mayor Pro Tem. You got it there. K. Let

me see. Updates. No. I mean, there was a and chief Reynolds, I appreciate the update that you, put in the agenda for, police actions and things that have happened. There was one item in there about ebike that ran into a car, and I think we had talked about it a a few weeks back.

Reason I bring that up is I got a a call this weekend about kids riding these ebikes. And I don't know if it's better weather, but I've also noted it my noticed it myself. And, obviously, there needs to be some type of ordinance or regs to, you know, control these things because, I mean, these bikes go really, really fast. And, I mean, the best solution would be for the state of California to come up with a law that may be, like, know, statewide. That way it's the same everywhere. But, there was an item in there, chief, that you had mentioned that you'd probably be doing, a roadshow or outreach to schools and kids about the safety and, you know, how to properly use one of those bikes.

Yes. Good evening. Yes. The the ebike issue is a problem, not just in our jurisdiction, but, we just had a couple roundtable meetings with, chiefs of police in other jurisdictions from Madera and Fresno Counties, and every jurisdiction any any city is seeing it and dealing with it. There's, there's laws on the book.

There's legislation in the California vehicle code that regulate ebikes Uh-huh. And the different classes of moped, age required for helmets, etcetera. And think what we're seeing is, parents that are just buying their children what they think are legal, or they don't know. What they don't know, what they don't know. And the kids are out there riding bikes, not following the traffic laws, no helmets oftentimes.

We've been making some vehicle stops onto some unsafe riders. We had the juvenile that was probably 14 years old that got hit by the car after running a stop sign and, you know, going the wrong way. City Of Readley has a city ordinance for this. It's still even with that, it's troublesome. They don't have the manpower to go after it and and the resources, as many bikes are that there are out there.

Our concept was let's, put the information out there first, and let's have some bike rodeos where we're doing the education on it and some maybe some, safe riding techniques. Our motor officers are out there often anyway. They really eat this stuff up. It's covered by, our office of traffic safety grant. And so, we get cost recovery from the state to put it on, so we just need to get out there and maybe put on a couple. We do it at national night out already. Mhmm. But the ebikes really wasn't catching on at that time. That's just the the pedal bikes. Yeah.

But we need to get out there some more. We'll probably partner with our local part, allied agencies around to do that as well. Because if they're seeing the struggle, we're gonna see the struggle, and, we can work together in doing so.

Excellent. Well, that's I brought it up for because I appreciate you guys being proactive on that and doing the outreach. That's very important. So thank you. And that's all I have, Mayor. I'll be able to report.

Councilmember Hurtado.

Thank you, mayor. I would just like to request from city manager, any contract amendments for the flock safety, CSG, and Innerwest. I know this item was brought to us, I believe, back in February, so, I would like to, you know, remain updated if there are any changes to these contracts. Second thing that has been brought up to my attention is, signage at Sanger Park. If we can have, like, actual signage that prohibits, you know, illicit activity, for example, or more signage to, kinda, you know, avoid certain activities at at the park, I would like to I'm also gonna be attending on April 23 with set free to to clean up the park.

So, I will I will I will be happy to report back and see what, additional needs are, needed additional things are needed there. And then lastly, I just I just wanted to update, from Josh Rogers on the crosswalk on Jensen And West Avenue. I know it's a, you know, it's a far stretch, and, I wanted to see if there was any possibility of maybe doing the lines, yellow since it's in between two school zones, and it is a a very wide crossing walk. I think it needs there needs to be better visibility. I think there's a little bit of of of a blind spot too.

So I think maybe if we can address that a little bit better. And that's it. Thank you.

Thanks for not allowing me.

I had some stuff being done at Greenwood Park and at Audrey Park and found out today it was done, so I appreciate the staff for doing that. For public works and rec director working on that together and getting those things done. So I'm gonna go take a look at them, just see how it looks, but my understanding is they look very good. Thanks to the chief. I know last, meeting, they talked about Sanger Park, and I know that you guys have been doing things at Sanger Park.

And I think people don't realize when you deal with homeless, when you deal with people, when it comes to either alcohol or different drugs and and the issues around that, that happens when you when you talk to these individuals when you work with them. And so, for example, most time you have an open container, you're probably getting a ticket. And if the ticket's there to that homeless person or to whoever it is that's there, if they go to if they deal with it in court, they don't, well, then it goes a warrant. But then that warrant becomes maybe a misdemeanor. And do we really send an officer to take that person to custody to county jail who's gonna be released within an hour?

Or if it's an offense when it come to drug offense and it's not that big of a drug offense, will the county jail hold them? And most of the time, they don't because there's just so much stuff going on there, and the county jail's already holding federal prisoners that are now being released because the governor's shutting prisons. So now that's overloaded. So it's almost like catch 22. So I know you're doing a good job, and I appreciate that.

So I went to the park myself and and to go look and see, what's out there. And, I've noticed that you guys are out there periodically. I kinda sat out in the area for a good two hours and and saw going periodically back and forth and everything. So I appreciate what you guys are doing. I know there's more things that have to happen.

I I know that, Sethry goes out there too because I see them, but I'm pretty sure when Sethry goes out there and they talk to people, some might wanna go and some don't. So the issue stands is if if they don't cooperate with the police department and they stay, if they don't cooperate with set free and they stay, what is the solution? If you send county health department to go out there and they don't wanna they don't wanna go and they wanna stay, what's the solution? Instead of California, it's a public place, so you can't tell them to leave. But then we did an ordinance to them not to stay there.

Same ordinance city of Fresno is doing, same ordinance other cities are doing. And some of those ordinance are being fought in court, and some have already lost, which means cities have lost. So it's all of our issue. We can't pinpoint to anybody. We just what is the solution? And I think at the end, we need to work harder on state legislation to help us. That's what have to work harder on. Some people here are saying, don't want the housing to be here. Put it somewhere else. Where do you put it?

So when people come and talk to us and say this we're finding, let's come as a group together and say we're all trying to do it together. Because at the end the day, we all are trying to figure it out together. So I would like to go there on the the twenty third, but I'm working. But I go there my own time. I go move around, see what's out there. But I don't know what solution is because they don't don't go set free. They they don't comply with the police department. You can't put them in jail. They don't go to mental health services. Then what's the next step?

So I do appreciate what the police department's doing, every efforts are doing. I know from time to time the fire department has to deal with them too when it comes to mental health and other issues, and and some of them may have, you know, been gotten hurt or so on. I think everybody's trying. We just shouldn't say that it's his fault, his fault, or nobody's trying to do anything because I know everybody's trying to work hard for it. And so I hope we finally figure that out and say, we're doing it together and not trying to point fingers of who's not. And thanks to city manager, I did have some other issues within my district, but they're well taken care of, I appreciate that. And thank you, mayor.

I just fell asleep. I just had a couple, brief things. You know what? When you're out there and you see something, say something right away. If somebody says there's something wrong with the park, call.

You have to wait two weeks for a council meeting to come up and bring it up, report it. Yeah. In Sanger Park, you know, I'd like to see, you know, even some more cameras out there and some signs that they're it's under surveillance. Maybe that would maybe that would, kind of, curb that that action out there. And, the ebike, I talked to the mayor of Reedley quite often, and he sent me their their version or their ordinance of the ebike thing.

I sent it to you guys to take a look at. Like, chief said, you know, it's, it's something that that's already taken care of by by current laws on the books, and we just have to get out there and, like, it said over and over again as a community, you know, try try to reel this in before it gets too crazy. And, Nathan, just one other thing. Know, I I I walk around the community quite a bit. I see mister Carter out there all the time too.

But somebody did ask me about their neighbor's yard being overgrown with weeds and basically just ugly. Mhmm. And how do they go about turning that in? Is that something that's on our on our city website? Is that is that I mean, what do you say that the chart is ugly?

Yeah. I was gonna I was gonna bring it up. So if you go to c I if you go to the city's web page, on the main page on the left hand side, it says ask Sanger, and it's reported concern to the city. You click on that, and there's a bunch of there are a bunch of options. I believe there's something for everyone. If you can't find exactly, get it close because then we get a time stamp. It goes to the departments. And you as the person who puts it in, if you want to, you can leave your email, and then you'll get updates from the system that it was received. It was taken care of. So, yeah, if you wanted to talk about a bad yard, it could be

because that

abatement. Yeah. But this is vacant lots only. But if somebody's yard's really overgrown with weeds Yeah. There's could throw that in there, and then it'll get it'll get associated. But that it's a citizen's request tracker.

Mhmm.

It tracks everything, and then we can use that. Actually, won't be budget. Like, if if you get potholes. Right? If we got 400 potholes reported, we can kinda go put it on a map, and then that might be something we throw the engineers and say, hey. We're seeing high activity in this section of town and stuff like that. So it really helps us and to make sure that things aren't forgotten in transit. I mean, if I'm out walking, somebody says something, I can't always remember it.

Yeah. I do the same thing. That's why I tell them that, you know, to report it. I I said, I'll I'll go and try to report it. Or I will report it, but it always looks good coming from the person that's actually, you know, has the concern. And the thing that I didn't know is I mean, if you have an ugly yard, is that a is that an ordinance thing? Or

Well, it it depends what's ugly about the yard. Right? If it's just, like, bare dirt

thinking. You know?

Bare dirt, but it's not weeds and there's no fire hazard, that that's a tougher sell.

Yeah. These guys have bug bug

and furniture. I mean, there's

Okay.

Your yard should should be livable to the people next to you, and our it's it's really how our ordinances are written. Okay. But you know? And then, giddies in the eye of the beholder too. So sometimes you know? Some people think weeds are great flowers,

but they're not.

But, yeah, I would just report it, and then we'll go out. And if they're within a a violation, then we can address it.

Just wanna make sure. Okay. Well, that was that was it. There being no further action, this meeting is adjourned at 07:56PM.