City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, everybody. Welcome to the Selma City Council regular meeting. It's Tuesday, Cinco de Mayo 2026 in the Selma City Council chambers, 1710 Tucker Street, Selma, California. The teleconference phone number is 131-7158592. The webinar ID is 891-6864-50005. When on the phone, if you wish to address the council during the public comment part of the agenda, press star 9 to raise your hand and we will select you from the meeting queue. Press star six to unmute and mute yourself. Notice to meeting attendees. Members of the audience shall not engage in disorderly or boisterous conduct, including the utterance of threatening or abusive language or other acts which disturb, disrupt, or impede or otherwise render the orderly conduct of a city council meeting infeasible. Tonight, before we call to order, I would like everyone to please join me in bowing our your heads for a moment of silence for James Brockett, who is born and raised in Selma. He was Selma's city manager, Selma's police chief, and Selma's mayor. Also, he was a Marine who went to war in Korea, and he passed away on April 25th. We'd also like to have a moment of silence for um a great friend Joyce Kasein who passed away on April 30th. So would everyone please bow your heads for a moment. Okay. Thank you for this moment of remembrance. Would you call the role, please? Mayor Robertson

here. Mayor Pertamara here. Council member Avalos here. Council member Saggera here. Council member Trujillo here.

Okay. Our invocation tonight is by Minister Santiago J. Martinez from the Antioch Church. and thank you for having me here tonight. And uh happy Cinco de Mayo. Let's put this in God's hands. Father, we humbly come before you in prayer. We pray for wisdom, guidance, and direction. We ask that you give us the ability to use your understanding and not our own. Lord, we pray that we think we pray and we thank you for every blessing, big and small. We ask that you continue to bless us all in this city in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, pastor. Let's please stand for the pledge. Salute. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. Potential conflicts of interest. Any council member who has a potential conflict of interest may now identify the item and recuse themselves from discussing and voting on the matter. Agend agenda changes or deletions to better accommodate members of the public or inconvenience in the order of presentation. Items on the agenda may not be presented or acted upon in the order listed. Additions to the agenda may be added only pursuant to California Government Code section 54954.2B. City Attorney, do we have any such changes or deletions this evening? Nothing to add or to delete, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, city attorney. With that, we will move on to oral communications at this time. Any member of the public may address city council regarding any item on the regular meeting agenda over which the council has jurisdiction. No action or discussion will be taken on any item not on the agenda. Issues raised will be referred to the city manager for review. Members of the public are asked to limit their remarks to three minutes. Do we have any such oral communications at this time? If so, please come forward.

Hi, good evening uh council member and uh residents of Selma. My name is Nick Zahora and I am a truly honored to be here with you tonight. I'm a lifelong resident of Central Valley and a farmer over 35 years and a business owner more than 25 years. I'm currently trustee with the Selma Unified School District. I'm also on a Central Valley engineering and surveying where is more than 15 years I have worked closely with the cities like a Selma in infrastructures development and a long-term planning. I'm here tonight because I'm running for a Fresno County Board of Supervisor District 4. But more importantly, uh I'm here because the Selma matters to me personally. I have lived here nearly 40 years. Selma, the raising capital of the world is a built on agriculture, hardworking and a strong families. I have been proud to be served this community through the Selma Rotary Chamber of Commerce downtown business movements and during the co I helped from SA which is more than 200,000 meals to the family in need since opening my engineering firm here in 2008. I have always believed that Selma potentially and I believe that uh we can do better together when we are united. We move forward when we are divided. Progress slows. When elected, I will be a strong advocate for Selma at the county level, making sure the city receive its fair share of resources that including ensuring the major C and station funds are used for to repair Selma aging roads and a family rely on every day. With my engineering uh survey backgrounds, I understand the infrastructure is not just concrete and a pipes. It's opportunity. Roads, water, sewer and planning determine whether a city grow on a fall behind. I will work on a sport

small businesses and encourage responsible uh development and addressing house affordability so we can keep the workforce here in our community. Public safety will remain on a priority. I respect the work of a sheriff's department and I will ensure that they will resources needed to be keep Selma and his surrounding area are safe. We have an important investment in in the Golden State Boulevard corridor project, but we need a more project that directly benefit city of Selma. I'm also a sport initiative initiative that farm food future program bringing a federal investment in advanced egg technology support small farmer and create good paying jobs. We must make sure Selma is a part of the future. At the same time we must thoughtful about growth balancing economic development with the protecting agriculture land. We cannot rely on one industry alone. We must diversified support local businesses create jobs while preserving the farming heritage and define the city. As a farmer I understand the water and a engineering background. I understand infrastructure. As a business owner I understand the jobs. Selma does not need a one-sizefits-all solution. and Solan need a leadership that understand the challenges and are ready to deliver results when elected.

Mr. Sota, thank you. Appreciate it. We we appreciate you coming out. We can't endorse any political candidate, but we very I'm here to be just coming out for oral communications. Thank you. Thank you. That's my oral communications. So, I'm looking forward on June 2nd election. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Anybody else with oral communications at this time? Anybody online or on the phone? Mayor, I see no hands raised at this time. Pastor has a comment.

Good evening, mayor, city council, public. I just want to extend an invitation as we're celebrating our 75th National Day of Prayer. I'd like to invite everybody to Lincoln Park where we'll be joining at 12:00 together to pray for the city of Selma, for our city officials, for our law enforcement, and for our first responders. We just like to invite everybody to come out and pray for the residents of Selma and our and our just our great city. And I just want to tell you guys there'll be nachos afterwards. So come and join us, but not for the nachos for prayer. Okay, God bless you guys. My name is Pastor Joe Alers. Thank you for this moment. Thank you, Chester. Go Dodger. We're losing. [laughter]

Maybe Otani will get a hit one of these uh one of these games. Anybody else? Okay. Thursday, National Day of Prayer. Got it. Thank you. With that, we're going to uh move on to our special presentations tonight. Um our first one is a special recognition for the H Heartland High School Certificate of Recognition. Communications director. Mayor, members of the council, what you have in front of you is the city of Selma certificate of recognition to Hartland High School in recognition of being named a 2026 model continuation high school by the California Department of Education. This prestigious statewide honor recognizes Hartland High School's outstanding program, exemplary instruction, and commitment to supporting every student success. Harland is commended for its individualized learning, student centered support, and dedication to helping students achieve academic and personal growth. At this moment, I'd like to invite staff to come up and take a photo.

Cheers. It's not good. The short They can see you back in a little bit. Now I can see everything. at this moment. I'd like to invite any staff to uh go to the podium and say some words.

Good evening, council members, city manager Rogers, and Mayor Robertson. Uh thank you guys for having us here tonight. I truly appreciate it. It's such an honor. What's a a great honor too is to showcase this amazing school. I just want to quick little bit of a story. Uh over three years ago when I started out here, uh walked uh H Heartland is my first school to walk through and I think some of you guys know because I was taking pictures of things going, "Okay, we got some changes to make here." And it started with great leadership, great staff, great students and families coming together with the plan, raising the bar, high expectations, and three years later, they got a model school award of California, and they just got back from Burbank. Amazing work by amazing people, and I'm just lucky to be around them. So, thank you guys for honors. And tonight, I do want to introduce our principal real quick. He has a few words here uh to tell you guys here. Oh, there he is right there.

Good evening. I'm Jonathan Farley, the principal at H Heartland High School, and the reviewing team made comments on the exemplary program, but more than that, on the amazing team that we have at the school. And I'd like to introduce right now uh Mr. Joe Shai, who's here representing our college and our career technical education programs, Miss Morantes, who represents our math department, which she led over 60 point increase in test scores last year, and Miss OA, who is our administrative assistant, who makes sure everything at the school continues to run. And more than that, the uh team was very impressed with our student body and the who we have on our campus and their dedication to their future between the college and careers. And to represent our student body today, we have an exemplary student. This is Mario Nevz. Uh he's just completed nine federal certifications for wildland firefighting. Completed a training, a two-day training just uh a week ago up at Sequoia Lake. And he truly exemplifies excellence of the students that we represent here at H Heartland High School. Thank you very much for this recognition tonight.

I want to thank you folks for coming out. It's a well-deserved honor. Thank you for doing Selma. So proud. I was out along with Councilman Havalos for the fentanyl presentation. The students were so attentive. Staff was amazing. You could just feel the the mutual caring going on there. So, thank you for setting the bar so high for for schools everywhere in California. We're really proud of you. Did any other council members have a comment at this time?

Oh, yeah. I have something to say. The the you H Heartland's your staff is phenomenal. Okay. And without without your staff, you know, in in the school districts that are a, you know, I want to say A1 hardworking teachers that care about the students. That makes everything very proud of the school and the students when they leave. They're very their dignity and proud stays inside, but they never forget the teacher. Trust me, it's basically the short guy.

Thank you. That will move on to our item two of our special presentations, which is a Cal Water certificate of recognition. Mayor, members of the council, what you have in front of you is the city of Selma certificate of recognition to California Water Service Company in recognition of California Water Service for its value partnership with the city of Selma and continued commitment to the residents that they serve. Through its generous sponsorships of community events, dedication to meaningful outreach, and the focus on providing dependable service, California Water Service has helped strengthen community connection and the quality of life in Selma. I'd like to invite them up to take a photo now.

Yes. like to invite representatives up to the podium to say a few words, please. Good evening everybody. want to say thank you for having us here. I definitely want to say thanks to our department heads who work with me every single day and keep me on track. We really appreciate the time and effort in this and recognizing Cal Water for 100 years of service. Um in getting a little choked up here, sorry. Um we're going to have a water awareness festivalyear celebration May 20th in Lincoln Park. The community is invited to come on out. The food will be free. We'll have some entertainment for the children. We're going to have a art contest and give away some native plants that are drought resistant for everybody. And for another uh token of our appreciation, I brought my staff here to help out hand out challenge coins which commemorate our strong ties in the community for building Selma. And if you guys can help me hand these out to everybody, that'd be wonderful.

Got a mile. Nice. Thanks to Cal Water and thanks for uh your quality, service, value, and your

commitment for so many years to Selma and all the communities you serve. We really appreciate it and thank you for going above and beyond like you you just showed. You come out and you're a huge part of our community. Thank you. And I just want to say on a personal note, I just want to thank um Mike because he's been um instrumental to our Selma live events and also the spay and neuter. uh they came out and did donated $4,000 for the SP unit program. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Okay, with that we will move on to item three of our special recognitions and this is the National Public Works Week proclamation

and we have Director Han on the phone. Um Director Han, did you want to speak on this proclamation? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Uh again, we appreciate the uh recognition for American Public Works Association's appreciation week. Um this is a annual event um that takes place nationwide throughout public works departments for the service that they provide to their communities. This year's uh week of appreciation is the 18th through the 22nd and we will be uh joining the Friday night live event on the 22nd and we will be set up around Lincoln Park and we invite everybody to come out and join us for a celebration and an opportunity to talk to your local public works employees and just discuss what we do for the city and answer any questions that you may have. I believe tonight uh I have my supervisor Ulysus Mavilla is in chambers to accept this proclamation. [clears throat]

Great. Okay. With that, I'm going to uh Thank you, director. I'm going to read the proclamation and I'm going to present it to the deputy director. Um this is a proclamation from the city of Selma for National Public Works Week, May 17th through 23rd, 2026. Whereas the public works department provides services for our community and are an integral part of our citizens everyday lives and whereas the support of an understanding and informed community is vital to the efficient operation of public work systems and programs such as streets, storm drains, fleet maintenance, public buildings and parks maintenance. And whereas the health, safety and comfort of this community greatly depends on these facilities and services. And whereas the quality and effectiveness of these facilities as well as their planning, design and construction is vitally dependent upon the efforts and skill of public works officials. And whereas the efficiency of the qualified and dedicated personnel who who staff the public works department is influenced by the people's attitude and understanding of the importance of the work they perform. Now therefore, be it resolved that I, Scott Robertson, mayor of the city of Selma, on behalf of my fellow council members, do hereby proclaim the week of May 17th through 23rd, 2026 as National Public Works Week in the city of Selma. And I call upon all citizens and civic organizations to acquaint themselves with the issues involved in providing public works services to our community and to recognize the contributions which public works employees make every day to our health, safety, comfort, and quality of life. Proclaim this fifth day of May 2026. Scott Robertson, mayor, Sarah Ggera, Mayor Prom, Jim Abalos, council member, John Trillo, council member, and Santiago Oagera, council member. Come on up. You listen.

Okay. Um, council comments.

Yeah. Uh, you know, public works is, uh, they're kind of the hardworking staff behind the scenes. they make the parks and everything looks in the streets, the the Christmas decorations and all these events that are taking place in our community. Uh without the public uh works making it happen, uh you know, and they're a great asset to our community. They make our streets and our our parks look clean and everything. They mow the grass in case we have a special event. They're jolly on the spot making things make sure everything's done correctly and all cleaned up for especially anything that's happening in our city. We thank them for it. Thank you.

Completely agree. And you know that public works are first responders as well. I'm really happy that they're finally included in the group of first responders. And I mean, you you you could call them at all hours, go through the city manager, the city manager um contacts the director, and there's always someone to help our city. For instance, we were on the route for the uh the seek parade a couple weekends ago, a couple Sundays ago, we went under uh that bridge on Rose Avenue and there was graffiti there. So, you know, I contacted um city manager, public works um director, and when we went through the tunnel the first time, it was still there. When we came back, on our way back, it was gone. You talk about being on the spot, and that was a Sunday. So, thank you to public works for, you know, always being so responsive and being there and helping in in so many different ways. You you guys really do make a difference for our city. All right. And with that, we will move on to our last item, which is item 14, which is the annual presentation, Mid Valley Disposals's annual update on recycling programs from recycling programs manager Thomas Hammond.

Good evening, mayor, council, city staff. Thank you for granting an audience tonight. Um, I am Thomas Hammond, recycle programs manager. I'm also here with Rachel Patlin, our government relations representative. And we just like to get out at least once a year in front of staff just to let you know what we've been doing from the recycling department standpoint, some compliance things and show face, answer questions that you guys may have. We don't see you guys all the time, but when we do, we know it's going to be a great conversation. So, we're here to answer questions and I'll just get right into the um presentation. Um he'll pull up the overview. Perfect. So, we're going to go over some side assessments that we completed in 2025, some recycling audits, some community events that we attended, um the recycling of the year award that we grant to a business that's doing all the right things. Um I'll jump into some cleanup event totals from fall 25 and a small tonnage report. Uh next slide. So, SP 1383 site assessments. A site assessment is basically when one of my staff goes to a business to check for compliance, service levels, and to make sure that they're properly disposing of the material in the right stream. Um, it's very important that we get out there and talk to businesses one-on-one. Education is paramount when trying to get compliance. Most businesses are unaware of the requirements right now, and so we really take it upon ourselves to get out in front of the businesses and talk to them to make sure that they do understand what we need to do um, moving forward with SP 1383 regulations. So in 2025 we visited 321 commercial businesses in town, 56 multif family homes and 325 residential homes. Um each of those each one of those visits gave us opportunity to engage um with the with the with the residents or the or the business owners and then educate which we think is is like I said paramount with with compliance with the regulation. Uh next slide.

We can't do it alone, right? We we rely on our drivers to let us know when they see things out in the field. And that's what a recycling audit is. A recycling audit is when a driver sees a contamination in either a bin or a can, they tag that can. It's strictly educational and then my department follows up with that tag to make sure that they get even more education to understand how to rectify the problem moving forward. So last year in 2025, we had,82 um recycling audits, 144 commercial for a total of 1326. Keep in mind, we're only 20 months in, right? We have a lot of work to do and so we hope to see these numbers slowly go down over time. I think the business um aspect wasn't that bad. I think the residential one we need to do some work on. So, we're going to continue to educate annual mailers, calling, knocking on doors when we can, and just really trying to educate uh to make 2026 look better than 2025. So, community events. Um, as you guys know, we love to be a part of the community. Anytime we can get a chance to be out in the public at any event, um, we'd love to do so. In 2025, we did Earth Day thanks to Liz. She was great. Selma Live, we we attended the Raisin Festival, Selma National Night Out, and also the Christmas Parade. Um, we were just at Selma Earth Day not that long ago, a couple weeks ago in 26, and we were just at the Raisin Festival here on Saturday. So, I I saw I spoke to John and I saw Jim Costa uh walking around with with staff and so it was a great turnout. Um, but to to get to 2025, you can go to the next slide. I just got some pictures here, you know. Um, there's there's OCAR with us at at live last year. um and and and and Mayor Scott as well. And what we like to do is we we create a game, right? Uh you spin the wheel. It has a different commodity on it and you have to tell us where that commodity goes and what stream. And so it's educating. Um it's very kid-friendly. We understand that the kids teach the parents more often times

than not. And the kids are the ones doing a lot of the work when it comes to taking the trash out. So if we can tackle the kids first, we know it'll trickle upward to the adults inevitably. So that's what we really try to do, make it engaging. So we we you can funnel through a couple of the pictures here. That's summer live summer raisin festival again. Um next slide. Uh Selma National Night Out. We really love the National Night Out. That's when we really get to to engage with the kids, not only the adults, but um really great time. And then last but not least, the Selma Christmas Parade. Um that's our driver right there. He volunteers here. Um and we just like to be a part of the community anytime we can, right? Not only do we like to be uh educating, but we like to just show that we are part of the community. We want to be part of the community moving forward and and these events just kind of attest to how committed we are to doing that. Um so I would have probably built it up a little bit, but he got ahead of me. So, um every year we like to honor a business within the city that's doing everything the right way per SP3 regulation. They're recycling the cardboard and cans and glass and material needs to be recycled. They're getting rid of their food waste and their organic spin and they're donating food whenever they can. In in 2025, your recycler of the year was Sal's Mexican Restaurant. So, I'd like to give them a round of applause and acknowledge them. Not only does Sal do things the right way when it comes to diverting the material correctly, but they order their food in such a way that they don't have a lot of leftovers. Right. really the a part of SP 1383 is to have proper separation, but an even bigger part is food recovery to get the foods into the hands of the people that can really really use that. And so they do a great job of not over orderering so they don't have a lot of bad food, but when they do, they make an effort of getting that food to people that can actually use it, not just throwing it away. And we really like to recognize businesses that do that. And if you if you go to the next picture, you'll see a picture of the

owner um with the reward. Um it's a little trash truck and it just says 2025 recycler of the year and it acknowledges and so this is something we will continue to do year by year. Um we we typically try to do a new business every single year and we really try to focus on who's doing things the right way. You can go to the next one. So here's the dry part of the uh the presentation. We get a little bit of a regulation some recycle updates. Um, JACE, which stands for jurisdiction and agency compliance and enforcement, are currently doing audits of Fresno County. Um, and in Q4 and 2025, six or seven jurisdictions got their letter. A few have gotten some in 2026 and Q1. Some has not received their letter yet, but I've been working directly with Michael, uh, public director, public works director Michael Han, and Sylvia Luna, his assistant, to really get everything in order that's going to be needed for that audit. He also has Green City Consulting that he's slightly working with. So, you guys are in great shape when it comes to the a possible audit that may arise. I think Michael's done a fantastic job getting the records in order that they're going to request and and so I don't see any problem with that moving forward. It's been a really good process. Um SP270 is now SP 1053. For those of you who don't know what SB270 was, that was a single plastic bag use. uh they wanted to get rid of single plastics in in in the stores and in the convenience stores. Well, what they did was they created a different problem by allowing mixed plastic bags that couldn't go into recycling to be sold. Now, if you go into a supermarket or a convenience store, you will no longer see plastic bags available to you. It will strictly be paper bags. And that's because a lot of that plastic bag material was actually making it to the landfill and not being diverted with the intention of SP270. So, they upgraded that to SP 1053. And so moving forward, you should see that. Um, and so it's great for us. It's great for the community. Your paperbacks can go both through recycling

and organics if it's soiled. So it shouldn't ever make it to the landfill. So that's a great it's a great initiative or a great bill that they passed to to take care of 270s, a little bit of their downfall. Um, last but not least is the electronic annual report. That's something that's due annually from the city. I work with staff uh handinhand with that. Uh, typically it's public works director. I will work with city management as well. Um, but we we will work together to get that in turned in by August 1. So, we usually start around June, mid June to kind of gather our information, make sure we're on the same page and all the programs descriptions are matching. So, I will assist with that moving forward. Um, you can go to the next slide. Cleanup event. I mean, 985 total customers is probably an all-time high that I've seen. And I think that in the in the fall of 2025, people really took advantage of this cleanup event and that's exactly what we want. We want to keep we want to beautify the city at the end of the day and having cleanup events available to residents like that really helps move that needle, right? So in 2025 of the fall, we had 37 total loads, total customer count of 985, 17 tons of total mattresses and that goes to the mattress recycling council. So those are getting all recycled. Um total tires 1.31 tons. Total e-waste 472 lbs. Total refues 127 tons. And total metal 97 tons. So a total diversion rate of 48%. Which means out of all those materials, we were able to divert 48% of that material out of the landfill, which is what we really want to do, right? Is keep everything out of the landfill, keep those emissions down, abide by SP 1383 regulations. I have one more note. I don't have the totals for the spring cleanup, but it did just happen. And I believe we had 1,083 cars show up for the spring. So, we're gaining traction and that's exactly what

we want. So, we're going to keep promoting this and keep doing this for the city and we look forward to the fall cleanup and we hope that we get even more cars in this year's fall cleanup. So, um, if you're listening online, please pay attention to when we get those flyers go out or the information goes out. We would love to have you. Um, and just work with operations if there's any questions on that. Uh, last but not least is our tonnage report. Um, this is kind of what we picked up in 2025 as far as commercial and residential goes. So roughly around 6,100 tons of refugees for the commercial sector, almost 800 tons of recycling and 465 tons for a total diversion rate of 17% uh of of material not going to the landfill. Residentially, we did around 6,900 tons of refues, 1,700 tons of recycle, 4,000 tons of organics, which is a really great number for a total diversion rate of 46%. That's one of our higher diversion rates for residential. Um, so we really think that although we saw a lot of contamination tags via our recycling audits, we do think that the majority of the public is really buying into the organics program and really diverting the material properly. So we look to build on those numbers in the commercial sector by continuing to do our site assessments every single year and continuing to educate. Um, but with that, that is the presentation. So I open up to any questions. Um, you can ask me anything you want, even operational. I'll do my best to to put my operations cap on, but I'm limited on my knowledge when it comes to operations.

You know, I was looking for the certificate of recognition for you guys, but I was told we already gave one to you because Yeah. So, last week. No, we really appreciate it. I I I think being part of the community is a big aspect of what we want to do. We're not only your your hauler and uh a service provider, but we also want to be a part of the community and really show that we're here for the long run. I mean, our contract is a good amount of time and we want to make sure that we're taking care of you guys every single year inside and out and we really appreciate the recognition from from staff noticing our effort and we're just going to continue to do that. Thank you. Council have a comment.

I have a couple of couple of comments and just the fact to congratulate you for uh I Saturday I seen you out there and I I've seen you a couple of times in events. So congratulations for all the efforts cuz some people tend to say they're out there but you were out there in the booth and it was kind of hot and you it's you know so congratulate you for all the efforts you put in yourself. Okay. Thank you.

That's one. The other one is it's really important being that on the on the side business of of my other business of a restaurant uh what you call surplus the business uh statement of equalization uh calls it shrinkage. So if we could shrinkage uh wasteful food it actually helps out. and the fact that you're actually educating restaurants in our city. We had two years ago we were talking about that. What do we do? How do we separate it? And from the way when I speak to all the restaurant owners when they come to office, um they're talking about that you guys are reaching out to them and I really appreciate that because it is something that's important here in the city. It's important everywhere else, but the shrinkage of the food and and separating that that's so important especially for the business owners. So, thank you for that. Oh, you're welcome.

Your comments know we started out, it was a transition. We had to get to know each other. Yeah. We uh we talked about picking up in the front instead of the alleys. We got that rectified. Realized that really wasn't Mid Valley. That was a city previous administration direction, council direction. Um we've really, I think, um gotten to know each other and really appreciate everything that Mid Valley does. is like the council member was saying, you're visible at so many of our events, you're visible in our city and people I talk to, they know they can reach you. You know, you're really accessible. So, thank you for that. Thank you for the really I think the numbers show,

you know, how accessible and how the program really is working and we are we've formed a really good partnership between the city citizens and and Mid Valley. So, thank you for that. I I thank you for the kind words and I couldn't agree more and we look forward to years to come of this of this great relationship. Great. Thank you.

Thank you guys. Take care. With that, we'll move on to uh consent calendar. All items listed under the consent calendar category are considered routine. The complete consent calendar will be enacted by one motion by roll call vote. For purposes of discussion, any council member may have an item removed from the consent calendar and made part of the regular agenda. The council can then approve the remainder of the consent calendar. Does council have an item or items they would like removed from the consent calendar tonight? Yeah, I would like to remove two two item. Okay, like I said.

Okay. Anybody else with an item they would like removed tonight? Okay. Before I ask for a motion for the other items, I would like to um commend staff for the report and the transparency of item 24, information only. It's anformational report on personnel activity from January 1, 2026 to April 24th, 2026. Um, as D assistant city manager Fowler and and Director Morano have known, they've heard us asking for more transparency, more information, and you're really delivering. And so, um, tonight that is a great report on personal personnel activity. Appreciate it very much. Keep up the good work. Is there a motion to approve item 21 and 23 through item 27?

Make a motion. I'll second. Call the role, please.

Council member Avalos, yes. Mayor Pertanga, yes. Mayor Robertson, yes. Council member Sigaraa, yes. Council member Trujillo, yes.

Okay. Item 22. Okay. Uh on uh item 22 uh register uh number 89447 um fire department. That was a Rose Avenue cam charge on December 25th through June 26, $2,583 22 on that uh particular CAM charge. What was the what was the basis on that cam charge? What was it for?

So, the invoice in question is for the facility we rent uh for the utilization of our EMS post uh over near the hospital. Uh CAM charges stand for common area maintenance in that the property management company produces a invoice and based on the square footage of our utilization is broken down for that. Um there's maintenance items that are I believe um with regards to the parking and really just access to all the common areas on that property and that's a um included portion of the uh rental agreement that we have with them.

Now let me Okay, on that note, is that part of is that included in the rent? Let me ask you that question. The common area maintenance charges are in addition to the monthly um rent charges um for the actual space that we utilize. And so there are two separate there's two separate deals, right? Am I correct? Correct.

Okay. Thank you for clarifying. Uh on another note, um since I have you there, uh check register 89418. This is a Fresno Mercedes ambulance repair. $15,46023. Uh the reason why I pulled it um you know I I want my colleagues up here to u more definite item on the charge. What was the what was the repair? Was it a engine block or was it a a crankshaft or we more identification on the on the charge itself on the Mercedes? And on another note, uh I I like to know as colleagues up here. Uh it it was it the same ambulance or was it different? You know, which one was it? Number one or number two or number three? you know how often do we maintain number one number two go to this this cost factor how many miles is driven to that t at that point.

Sure. So uh the check-in question is for multiple invoices uh for repairs that were provided to uh two separate ambulances. Uh the first ambulance in question uh was our ambulance 552. Um, I believe that ambulance currently has about 207,000 mi on it. Uh, that was for uh repair costs associated with the uh fuel injectors and some emissions equipment. The other large portion of um the invoices associated with that check was for ambulance 554. That ambulance currently has 107,000 miles on it. Um and that was also for emissions related equipment as well as the replacement of the Cadillac converter system which is extremely pricey. Um these Mercedes-Benz Sprinter platforms they have 2 L turbo diesel engines that are very costly uh to maintain. uh the initial cycles or preventative maintenance cycles um uh were not to the caliber required for the use of those. And and so over the course of the last two years, we've um we've adopted a pretty stringent preventative maintenance program. These vehicles uh we currently have six ambulances in our fleet. All six of those run about 50,000 miles per year, so totaling about 300,000 annual miles. uh the the intervals just for what we call an a service which is a simple oil change is every 5,000 miles. So every ambulance is seeing a shop about once a month. Um which is uh multiply that by six. So uh our vehicles are in and out of the shop. Um but as you know um in the last you know six months we've placed orders for two ambulances and we have a third one uh for your consideration in this updated budget.

Um, we're going to a different platform which is a Ford E450 chassis. Um, those vehicles can be maintained here locally at our Ford dealership. Uh, they're a much more simplified um, platform. It's a gas motor, not a diesel motor. Um, and so there's going to reduction in in maintenance expenses. And then also just the adoption of that preventative maintenance schedule um, helps prevent some of those costs. Um the tough part is is you know you can't go buy an ambulance at a dealership and have it show up. And so um you know they're $300,000 pieces of equipment. The maintenance charges you see for replacement costs. You know although you know $15,000 is a very large number but when you consider the cost of the replacement of that that's just part of the cost of utilizing that resource. And so our goal is to get about 300,000 miles out of every ambulance. And if we can squeeze an extra 50 out of that, that's just bonus miles that we can utilize. But, um, you know, those are driven pretty hard and they go from, you know, sleeping at night to, you know, cruising down the road, rushing to emergencies. And so, it's a very tough environment for a vehicle. It's not like a commuter car that just cruises down the freeway. And so, uh, the maintenance and the repairs are just at a higher degree than what we're accustomed to for our personal vehicles.

You know, on Thank you. On that note, you know, I mean, I know them I know the Mercedes you you only can only take a certain only a certain place. I understand that, but it is a cost effect. I mean, it does it rides smooth. It's a good ambulance. Not saying it's bad, but you have to I guess in the long run, you have to maintain it. You know, you have to maintain that that uh but every time you take a Mercedes in, it's it's it's a cost. it cost and I understand that you know because you know I mean look other other ambulance like American Ambulance they don't they don't have Mercedes I never seen them

the American Ambulance of Fresno does utilize the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter platform yeah okay but thank you on that note chief thank you for updating us thank you very much okay any additional items good make a motion to I'm going to make a motion I have a question really quick. Just just just a really quick question. The 89408 I noticed on the attorney fees came through that is a month of June. The question is is that going to be rolled over to 2425 fiscal year. The true statement when the auditors do the 2526 audit

they'll pull it back and roll it back over. So the next the other four will be rolled over on the 2526. Correct. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. I'll make sure. I'll second it. Call the roll, please.

Council member Oalos. Yes. Mayor Pertamara. Yes. Mayor Robertson. Yes. Council member Oera. Yes. Okay. Council member Through. Yes. All right. Calendar passes. Moving on to departmental reports. City staff and contract employees present will be recorded in the minutes. City manager.

Yes. Thank you, mayor and council. Since we last met, staff met with uh our consultant for the development of the downtown design guidelines. As we move forward, we'll be bringing that to uh planning commission and then ultimately to council. Um I also had meetings with various agencies such as uh CI um SKF and EDC on various topics uh related to infrastructure uh within the city. Um I continue to work with staff on the fiscal year 2627 budget. Uh the agreement with precision engineering for community development director interim services was executed and we have a kickoff meeting with them scheduled for this Friday. [snorts] And then I also attended the Earth Day and Downtown Arts and Culture Fest events. These are great events. Had good turnout uh which we love to see and love to continue supporting. Thank you. Thank you for your report. city attorney.

Yes. Mayor, members of the council, take one and pass them down. I I'm just passing around the uh rather lengthy memorandum that I provided to you all by email uh previously. It's the only way I can make sure you all got it. So, I was asked to uh identify the pros and cons of forming Selma as a charter city from its current general law city status. Uh that turns out to be a very difficult thing to pinpoint and that is simply because the whole issue depends on a very nebulous courtmade rule of law which we call the home rule. And the home rule is simply this. If you're a charter city, you can enact any law which you always do by ordinance or you can put it in your charter. Although currently the the the practice is to simply reserve to yourself in your charter everything that relates to municipal affairs and and to and you can adopt uh that charter or you can adopt those ordinances as long as they relate to municipal affairs. They can be inconsistent with state law and they govern within the boundaries of your city. So you can actually preempt state law. However, if the state legislature enacts a statute which addresses a subject that is a matter of statewide concern and reasonably tailor that statute in such a way that it addresses only

resolving that matter of statewide concern. That state statute then takes precedence over your municipal affairs ordinance and the state statute governs. Yours is preempted. So there are a very limited number of cases on on this uh the application of this rule. And I think the very first one you see is the one in the city of Vista uh which is quoted in the in the memorandum there. And the city of Vista adopted an ordinance or a charter uh that exempted itself from payment of prevailing wages. And they were sued by the state. And the state enacted a new statute that said, "We we find prevailing wages to be a matter of statewide concern." And it expressly applies it against the charter city, the city of Vista. And so the city of Vista sued and the city of Vista prevailed because what you pay people that are developing uh improvements in your city is definitely a matter of municipal concern, not a matter of statewide concern, even though the legislature said it was. So the court just flat out rejected what the legislature had done. And this is the Supreme Court of our state. And they allowed Vista to exempt itself from payment of prevailing wages. The legislature in California being what it is went back to the drawing board and adopted a completely

separate statute that says you don't pay prevailing wages. You're a charter city. You're not going to get any form of grant money from the state. any way whatsoever. And so no one has ever challenged that law because it would be uh kind of silly to do that. I mean the the cost of doing that would be extreme and the benefit of uh of prevailing would be slim to none because the prevailing wage law really isn't uh that hard to evade. Uh it's not that hard to comply with either. If you get a a regular contractor uh that employs union labor, he's necessarily paying prevailing wages. Uh and and they will tell you right out of the shoot. So, no one has ever challenged the legislature on this. That statute is likely unconstitutional, but no one has found it worth their while to go after them. There's there's cases that go way back that make very clear that you're exempted if you're a charter city. If you want to exempt yourself from it, you're exempted from the competitive bidding laws. Those are the laws that require you to award a pro contract to the uh lowest responsible bidder for a public works. Um, and that is a significant benefit in and of itself because you can start awarding contracts to the person that is the best value and you can even make preferences to people that are local uh contractors and all all sorts of things. Uh you can I I attached a chart that was developed by the uh Berkeley School of

Law and it basically goes through item by item on all of the various statutes and you know it tells you what a charter city can do as opposed to a general law city. But it's really not that informative because at the end of the day, it always just relates to the application of that home rule, which is really just a judgment call by a judge or an appellet court as to whether or not something is a statewide concern. Um, the legislature cannot make that determination. And I think the city of Clovis recently considered this and they said, "Well, what's the point?" You know, the the legislature keeps taking away uh powers that uh uh charter cities have, but you know, they've been doing that since they dissolved RDAs, which is the really the first time uh this came into focus. And you'll see if you go back, the charter cities did well, way better than any general law city because they were able to form uh entities that were separate from the city that did essentially the same thing as an RDA and they were able to funnel money to it simply by, you know, manipulating their budget. So they they came out a lot better. all the general law cities ended up paying a bunch of money to the state. But that's that's really the only second time that the issues really raised its head.

What is the what's the way a city goes from one form to another? Say from general law to a charter city. What's the method?

Oh, it's it's got to be a ballot proposition. So, your ballot propositions are uh required to be to the elections office 88 days before the election. The election is November 3rd and so that means the 88th day before is August 4th. before you send it to the uh elections office. However, you have to have two public hearings uh preceded by 21 days notice and those two public hearings have to be uh 30 days apart. So, if you if you wanted to place it on the ballot, you could you could do so, but you you'd have to start the process now. And you have to wait uh 30 days, I'm sorry, 21 days after your last public hearing before sending the proposition off to the election's office. So, you know, the right now the what the legislature is doing is it is encroaching on what is clearly recognized as a municipal affair and it's doing that by virtue of these various housing laws they've got out there. um you're dealing with that issue yourself. And what they're trying to do is make inroads into your ability to zone property to develop a general plan. And there has been only and I do mean only one case that addresses any of that and that is against the uh the city of Huntington

Beach but the city of Huntington Beach uh didn't do it properly. the city of Huntington Beach tried to exempt itself completely and totally from a tried andrue thing which was the state's involvement in your um your housing element. Right? So the court just said, "Well, no way." Whereas if they would have just, you know, focused their attack a little bit better and said, "Well, you you've now changed it. You've given HCD the power to adopt these regulations without going through the normal process. And you've given HCD extraordinary powers to affect our zoning ordinances, our general plans. Uh that might have might have flown, but their their challenge was just too broad. Do you have

the other the other one you've heard about is of course Columbus. They settled that suit. We don't know why they settled it. So you really don't have any uh real uh appellet court cases uh that address that issue in the context of the current uh effort of the legislature to make inroads into your municipal affairs. Do you have any recommendations as our city attorney whether it would be beneficial to Selma to go from general law to a charter city? I think it's always beneficial to become a charter city because being a charter city gives you ammunition you can use to fight back against uh inroads that the legislature tries to make into your municipal affairs. If you don't form as a charter city the way the trajectory of the current laws are going, you're probably looking at losing your land use function completely or or nearly completely to the state. Whereas if you're a charter city and and there's there's case law that goes way back, land use function, zoning ordinances, general plans, those are all municipal affairs. And what the state appears to be doing is they appear to be telling you, well, you you can't have, for example, a low density uh zone. Everything's got to be, you know, real dense and you got to allow

for um all these uh split lots and all these other things. There is a uh a trial court case out of a Los Angeles where the city of San Ramon and five other charter cities sued uh the state uh to have themselves declared exempt from this law that allowed for lot splits anywhere in the city without city approval. made you required you to ministerially approve them as long as they were going to put an additional house on that lot that was split off. The the trial court ruled against the state and awarded all those cities their attorney's face and the state did not appeal. instead the state went back and they they tried to beef up their amended statute again and they're going after them again. But th this is just the way the the legislature operates. I I think it's pretty clear. They they've already crossed the line and I think that case with San Ramon demonstrates that. I think it's real clear that uh what what you're dealing with right now relative to the surplus land act is indicative of what they really want to do. And what they really want to do is they want to eliminate your ability to zone residential property. They want to be able to tell you to change something that is commercial into residential. And I would think that you would want to fight back on that because

it will give the city more tools to it's the only independently zone. It's the only tool you have as a city with respect to the state. And when we're talking about the benefits of being a charter city, uh that that's really all you're talking about. You're talking about a legislature that is saying, you know, we we've adopted this law. It's a thing of statewide concern. You got to follow at Charter City, and you know, you you you have significant ability to push back. And most of the time those push backs have been successful for the people who have who haven't caved.

So in terms of the cost, we could take that to the next step and look into the cost of getting this on the ballot. Well, if you if you did it as a special election, which you don't want to do, uh you you're that would cost you about 20 25,000 bucks. you simply add a proposition to a um a ballot that's already existing November. That's cheap. I would I would guess and I can I can ask the elections office how much that would be, but I my guess would be about five grand.

Well, maybe when we request future agenda items, we can ask um staff to look into the cost to put it on the on the ballot. Okay. Thank you, city attorney. Appreciate your report. Community Services Director Fletcher

Mayor, members of the council, just a few things to update you on. Um the events are still not slowing down. We're still we're still in high gear. So um our Beerfest currently has tickets available at the Sama Arts Center um website. And so Beerfest is being held on at Pioneer Village on May 16th. Um, we also have tickets on sale right now for Greece. Our opening night is going to be May 2nd and then Some Alive is still scheduled to take place on May 29th here at Lincoln Park. Um, and then I kind of wanted just to give you a quick update on our spay and neuter and TNR program. So, staff is currently working on kicking that off really soon. We're establishing accounts with um with South County and um New Village here in Selma to to get the ball rolling on those. And so there are some focus areas that we're going to be working on for TNR, which is going to be our cats. And then we do have a list of um interested community members for our spay neut program as well. And so you'll see that starting to kick off within the next week or two. Um, so keep an eye out for that and I'll make sure that staff provides a monthly report on all the animals that are um and all the residents and salmon that are taking advantage of this program, including our our cats in um and then on a personal note, I just wanted to let you guys know that I am currently working remote at this time and um staff is currently holding down the fort. Um with that being said, when um I'm ready to officially Um, my recreation supervisor, Matthew Tiger, will be um, taking over for the most part with the assistance of Nichollet Anderson, my recreation supervisor, and Armando Gorillaola, my animal services manager. And so, I trust that you guys will all be in good hands and that they will be able to to uh,

keep the ship afloat and answer any questions that the community service running smoothly. So, that's appreciate that. We wish you um all the best for your leave, director, and um look forward to seeing you when you return. The the uh Raisin Festival went really well this weekend. One little issue with the um the the Selma Street, having the gate there at the at Rose Avenue, having it right there at the street cause the seniors to have to walk too far. Can they just move the the barrier in or maybe uh make it easier to move the barrier in? Would they drop the seniors off in the morning? They had to walk too far to get to the senior center.

Noted. Yes. So, that is something that we were addressing or talking about internally is just trying to figure out how we're going to minimize that that um that but the extra vendors, you need that street, but at the same time, the seniors need a place to go Thursday and Friday. also have a comment. Don't forget uh May 29th, John Peton. You always forget. It's Elma Live. Announced it live. But you got to announce it with with Gusto. Sorry, the energy levels right now. Well, I'll do it for you. Be diverted in different direction.

May 29th at Lincoln Park, uh jumpon and we hope that all the people that had volunteer will come out. Margie, Margie and Margie and her husband and so we we got a lot of help coming. So, thank you. Great. Right, Mr. Horn. Me, Mayor, members of the council, just one quick update. Uh wanted to let you know that the Clarkson lift station that's been under construction, uh they're going to start the pump startup process tomorrow morning.

Oh. So everything is in place. The vendors, all of the manufacturer pieces have all been passed all inspections. So they'll start the pumps and get that process running and checking, making sure everything's working. And then next week, I believe Wednesday, uh they'll run the generator without the electricity to make sure that that's uh in place and properly working in case there's ever a power outage. So this is a a major milestone at the very end uh to make sure that all the pumps are working. After that is u operational. Then they'll finish the site work, the fencing and any of the the pieces of the site now that the uh pumps and electrical system is working. So just wanted to give you an update that we're real close to the completion of that.

Boy, that's a long long time coming, isn't it? Yes. You know, and that will it's a project that will unlock development on the west side big [clears throat] time. and it was paid for with American Rescue Plan money. So, it's really it's been a long process, but it will definitely help development in the on in in Selma and in particular on the on the west side. Thank you for your report. All right, our Chief Webster.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Just two items uh tonight. Um last or actually two Saturdays ago now on the 25th um we hosted an event with Selma Unified School District uh which was in partnership with Selma PD as well as um West Hills College out in Lore. Uh this was a training drill um that was really utilized for both our department, the police department, uh the paramedic students and nursing students of West Hills College. We were able to use high school students from Selma High School, as well as staff from Adventist Hospital here in Selma. And the the purpose of the drill, it was a active shooter drill. um something that we hope to never have to face in real life, but something that's just absolutely critical and kind of a part of our our modern modern life um today. And so um that that drill we were able to conduct um you know a real life simulation. We had um uh ambulance companies from throughout the central valley that really simulated what it would look like to have a response here to the city of S. We had a helicopter that uh almost landed and then they got dispatched to an actual emergency somewhere else. uh in the central valley. Um but it was it was really a great opportunity for um all of the entities to work together and really kind of um exercise the system and see how this would work. We had uh supervisors down from central California EMS agency as well to kind of oversee um anyway great work. Special thanks to our division chief of EMS, Daniel Diaz. He was the one that brought the program over to the city of Selma from West Hills. um they look for different host agencies every year and and uh he worked really hard to get all of the partners together and to to make it work. Another shout out to director uh Jose Moreno. Uh

he was there and um took a ton of photos that we look forward to to seeing. But uh the one thing that I wanted to point out was uh when we got on scene and we hit the go button for the simulation, Selma PD came in like really really hot. I almost got ran over by a bunch of armed police officers and it was it was just kind of chilling to know like man I do not want those guys coming after me and uh just brought some real life to uh to that scenario. So anyway, special thanks to to all the partners in that. It turned out to be just a really good event and and really critical uh training for our community. Uh the second item that I wanted to address was uh one of the items in your consent calendar this evening was the information about the um file of life program and uh the beginning of this council meeting we had a moment of silence for Miss Kasein and I think it's important for the community to know that the reason that that program is here at the city of Selma is because of a conversation um that I had with her out here in the lobby of city hall about I don't know a few months ago in reference to to an incident involving one of her loved ones. And so, uh, that conversation led to the realization that this is just a really critical program for our community. And it can really, uh, be impactful to, um, just the timeliness of our staff being on scene and getting off scene and having the right information to be able to provide to the continuum of care at our area hospitals. And so, um, I just really felt it was important for her to be recognized, uh, for for being just a really critical piece of getting that program here to our community. Thank you for that, Chief. You know, Joyce came to a lot of meetings and she she talked about that and it was very nice before she passed away that she really left that as a as a legacy. Thank you for um taking her concerns seriously, taking them to heart and actually implementing them in this uh file of life. It's a really good program and and I'm sure she's smiling down on

you and all of us right now. Thank you. With that, we'll move on to our communications director, Jose Moreno. Mayors, mayor, members of the council, I just have a couple of items to present. Um, the first item I would like to share is a video that's part of the Safe Street Selma campaign in collaboration with our A&M consultants. Uh, in this video, you'll see them kind of give some tips about crossing at um, uh, school crosswalks and it it's just educational information for the community. This video will be on social media uh, in the upcoming week and I like to play it for you. I want to thank um PD and Officer Greer for helping out with that video and uh walking us through some safety tips. It was it was it's good to get PD involved

and show them in a different light um and show their personality on video to the community. So that video along with another one uh will be rolled out in the next couple of weeks. [clears throat]

The uh the last item I have is, in case you haven't heard, Friday is our first food truck Friday event and it's featuring the Morenos. Um this event is hosted by the downtown business improvement district where our goal is to bring folks to the downtown area, expose them to the new businesses and activate the downtown space as that third space where folks can come out and have a good time and uh enjoy the community, enjoy uh good food. Um this is a little different this time. We are building relationships with the downtown community in the sense that Centro de Fukor is going to be performing a downtown dance studio that brings hundreds of kids weekly um to their dance practices. Uh we are also collaborating with CYS who also manage the neighborhood resource center that's over in front of the uh old uh Haiti building. They are hosting uh Loia, so it's Mexican bingo and we'll be doing a few prizes there as well. It's also hosted by Liz Gonzalez, a local resident and TV anchor. um she'll be on the microphone making some announcements throughout the night. Uh the last thing I wanted to highlight is this new collaboration with Riley's Tap Room and although they're not a downtown business, they saw the benefit in partnering with us and wanting to bring their brews and their drinks to the downtown community. Um so they they graciously offered to donate beer for all four of our food truck events. So it's a great collaboration amongst all the a few businesses in the downtown space. Um, and I just wanted to bring this to everyone's attention and invite you all if you've never been. It's a good time. There's great music and there's a lot of dancing. So, come on out Friday between uh 5 to 10 on High Street. You know, that's what it's all about, isn't it? It's about getting having the space, a safe space for all these elements to come together, these groups of great people, great talented people. And that's what we have. And we provided that space as a city, provided really great professionals and a really safe atmosphere. So, uh, everybody come down, enjoy your city, you know, Friday, May 8th, first, uh, food truck Friday. So, um, and and catch the Morenos and

catch, uh, Liz Gonzalez. She does a great job MCing. And, uh, the we haven't seen Loia before, so that will be cool. It's going to be a really interesting event. That might be the only cool thing because it's probably going to be 99 that day, but uh, we'll we'll make it a cool time. We have lots of refreshing drinks. We have lemonade, we have a frescas, and if you're over 21, we have Riley's. So, we'll have plenty of beverages out there. Very good. Looking forward to it. And with that, we are going to take a fiveminut break during which anybody who needs to speak with our department heads can speak with them now. And to our department heads, thank you for coming out. If you have no more business with the city. Good evening.

Okay, everybody. We are back after our break and we'll move on to our regular business agenda tonight. Our first item is item 41, an action item, which is hearing consideration and necessary action on a petition by residents of the Frontier Mobile Home Park objecting to a rent increase notice. Report, please. Mayor, members of the council, on April 20, 2026, uh we received a completed formal petition uh by the residents of the Frontier Mobile Home Park uh objecting to a notice of a rent increase uh proposed by the park owner or landlord. Um and they have requested a hearing under uh chapter 5.5 of title 5 of the municipal code. That is what you are supposed to do anytime you get one of these petitions. In this particular mobile home park, there are 20 lots or spaces I guess they're called. And the petition is signed by 12 of the tenants. So that's 60%. they're above the 50% um threshold for you to consider their petition. Uh staff has provided you uh with the petition and all the materials uh that either side to this dispute has presented. I will simply note that your ordinance um limits a base rent increase to for any given year to 75% of the consumer price index or 3% whichever is less.

I'd be kind of shocked if the CPI was below 3% given the way prices have been raised, but I I don't I don't know what it is. Um and and it applies specifically to any rent increase within any 12 month period. So it appears that this particular rent increase which was for uh $45 per month which amounts to a 12.85% base rent increase. Uh the owner is apparently saying that the uh increase is necessary to cover the cost of lawn care, laundry room maintenance, water and garbage uh service. uh that is the position of the respective parties and uh what your ordinance requires you to do in this circumstance is to simply hear their dispute and make a decision.

Very good. Thank you, city attorney. Okay. So, I'll go through our steps at this point on the city council. I will say the city has received a petition signed by more than 50% of the tenants of Frontier Mobile Home Park as our city attorney mentioned objecting to a rent increase notice. The council members have all reviewed the petition and the documents submitted by the parties prior to this hearing. The ordinance requires that we adhere to a specific procedure. So, I will conduct this public hearing by first asking the representative of Frontier Mobile Home Park to provide the position of the owner that the rent increase is justified under the ordinance and to provide any testimony or documents supporting the owner's position. Following the presentation of the mobile home park owner, I will invite the presentation of any testimony or documents from representatives of the residents as to why the increase should not be allowed. That will be followed by giving the park owner an opportunity to respond to the resident's presentation and the residents will likewise be given the final opportunity to rebut the park owner's response. Step one, to commence this hearing, we are going to say, "Please step forward mobile home park owners representative to the podium and provide your position and evidence supporting your position. Please provide your name and address too, please.

Good evening. Uh, Char Tucker, 2128 North Street. I am the property manager for um the owner. But I I did want to clarify one thing. This has nothing to do with their base rent. This is simply pass through ex um expenses that the owner um has a right to recoup. The residents of the park have not had a rent increase um to their base rent um for 4 and 1/2 years. Uh the owner has incurred all of the expense for trash, water, um electric, um lawn maintenance, um for the past four years since he's owned the property. So this is the first year that he has asked for um some help with this. And as you can see in your packet, the um cost for 25 was 18,000 500 something I believe. So if we divide that by um 12 months in the year and then divide that by 20 units, it came out to $7720, I believe. But the owner felt that that was too much to ask um the residents for. So he um he asked if we just raise the um rent $45 to um help cover those expenses. So this has nothing to do with base rent. when I came to city hall um in December

to ask um for some clarification cuz um the ordinance is doesn't say a lot about u pass through expenses um I spoke with Mr. MSAS and he wasn't quite sure um what to say about it. So, I did receive an email um at uh December 22nd from him and it it basically says that um it this is the information is provided um in the ordinance just for general compliance um and guidance and does not include approval or denial of the increase. So, I I feel like um you know, the owner absolutely has a right to recoup um these expenses and he's been very generous. I'm not asking for $77, but cutting it down to 45. And again, um the residents have had no increase in their base rent um since he's owned the property. Um, and I believe that was at the end of 21 when he purchased it. So 4 and 1/2 years later, they um were still paying the same base rent. And they are still paying the same base rent. We haven't touched that at all. I have also provided them with a lease for the um $3955 that um is for a year. So that is a guarantee to them that the owner cannot come back um for that year and ask for any additional base rent.

Council have any questions for the owner's representative, Miss Tucker? Yes, Char. Let me just ask in regards to the $45. You're stating that that's not an increase to the base rate. Correct. Correct. [clears throat] It's just to recoup these additional charges that he was um that he had to pay for. You're saying landscape, electrical, PG& cal water at Mid Mid Valley Trash. Is that correct? Correct. So, is that $45 just a one-time fee for the year or you're saying that's a monthly?

It's a monthly fee. I if you look at the um the total whatever it was 18,000 something then we divided that by 12 to get a monthly cost and then divided that by 20 spaces to get their portion of the cost. And again, it came out to $77, but the owner felt that that was too much and asked that we only charge them $45 a month to recoup their portion of the expense. But that's going to be ongoing, correct?

Well, for a year. Yes. Their there are leases for one year. beginning in July, we've given them a 90-day notice. Okay. Go ahead. Well, you know, okay, Char, on this particular issue, um those who live in that uh frontier, are they mostly seniors? Uh it's a family park. Are they mostly seniors that live in that park? I I have no idea how old they are. There are children there. Oh, okay. I mean I mean I'm you're the property manager. You maybe you should know. Well, that what does that have to do with

the reason why I'm asking that question is when you have seniors in the park, they're they're on a fixed income and and there's 20 units there and I'm and I'm looking at this, you know, some of those people might be on a fixed income and probably they are uh and I would if I was the owner basically my logic if I was I would spread it out for so many That way people can live comfortably and not be stressed out. Apparently when people come to uh sign a petition and stuff like this, it seems to be a problem. You know, that means there there's an issue going on financially and uh so that's why I'm Is the property owner here by some chance?

Is he here? Yes. No, he lives in um Northern California. Northern California. Okay. All right. And I I I wish he was here so we can get to the nuts and bolts to it, the gentleman, but that's okay. You're the property manager. You're the spokesman. Uh let me ask you a question. Could you go back and talk to him if he spread it up for maybe three years and help alleviate some of these issues with his tenants that did a petition? Councilman Avalos, um, these expenses are incurred by the owner every year. Yeah. But

well, can he be generous and help him? He he was generous. Um he it came to $77 a month and he reduced it to 45. But your own ordinance states that it does not include the approval or the denial of the increase. It again has nothing to do with their base rent.

Okay. Okay. It has nothing to do with the base rent, but it also it has something to do with the upkeep of the property itself, maintaining the property care and all the equipment, the amenities around it. So, the person's who's be who's be at fault? Would it be the property owner or the person that's living there that's supposed to keep it up?

I'm I'm not understanding your question. Well, the question is, you know, you know, like the grass and the maintenance and the garbage, everything. It's his responsibility to keep those amenities in play, right? He provide those amenities such as trash and water are there for the tenant but these are pass through expenses that are that that is a right of the owner to ask well I mean for some help with that.

The question is what what what possessed them wait so long to do this? I didn't ask him that. But the fact that he's incurred these expenses since he's owned it for 4 and 1/2 years, I I guess he felt it was time that he got a little help with it. You know, his property taxes have gone up, his insurance has gone up. Um I mean, it goes

he is within his right to do that. I mean it goes up every year char you know that you're a property manager like anything else garbage goes up water goes up everything is on a yearly basis so it's already factored into it you have to kind of factor in slowly not wait so many years and then throw it at him this is not this is not a 4year charge this is only what he paid for in 2020 25 25 okay it it doesn't go back for four years that that

expense is lost it was incurred by him the owner and he is not asking for that back he has taken 2025 which again he is allowed to do I mean I mean I mean it's it's a difficult situation to be in with the people that live there. I I I I I got a feel for them right now. You know, that's a big increase. So, was $77.

I mean I mean the the considering everything is kind of in a situation everything's kind of, you know, food prices are going up, gas is going up, the medical's going up, you know, sometimes people need help. Sometimes a property order can write these things off. You know what I mean? It's taxes. I'm just kind of throwing it out there. That's all I got to say right now. Okay. Anybody want to hear from

If no one else has any questions, we'll hear from the uh the representative of the residents. No, we step up on the Oh, my name's Daniel Ortiz. Good evening. On this rental increase, she wrote [clears throat] us this. The new owner bought the park in 21. Since then, he has not increased the rent. You've gone for four years or increased. However, expenses have continued to go up necessarily. Amenities mentioned above. There has been a necessary increase of $45. Okay. Then she gave us uh a new lease. I've been there 30 years. I don't need a new lease. I didn't fall off the sky. And everybody there has been there more than 5 years. And she's lying about this owner. Uh I came in because they turned the water off. I come to the city here and we talked and they looked it up and Barbara Clarence still the owner. She lives in Santa Barbara. She don't live up north. And um I tried to ask her, "Well, who's the owner?" The garbage was piled as high as this house. I mean, as high as this light. I came to see the mayor and [clears throat] we talked about it and he said they simply weren't paying the bill. So, when you don't pay the bill, you get charged extra for cleanup, the excess um garbage and

everything. The the garbage trucks ain't going to do it for free. And then the water bill, uh I was getting the notices, $3,000, $2,000. They're going to turn the water off. I went to go see her and then she won't let us in her office. you got to knock on the door or call her. And I called her. She wouldn't answer me. And when she finally I caught her going in, I gave her the bill. I says, "You know what? How come you don't have this sent to you? I'm getting it. I can't do nothing about it. They're going to turn the water off." And she turned around, looked at me. It's none of your business. And she closed the door on me. I have never been able to talk to this lady. I was a manager there for 25 years. We were never laid on the garbage. We were never laid on the water. She don't trim the trees. She went and dug a hole in front of my house. She was going to put the garbage cans there. That's what the alley's for. The way the city's made. And now she's uh asking because back rent. She should have given us a 100 day notice the beginning of the before the beginning of the year and she'd be entitled to 3%. Uh four years 3% 3% that about 45 bucks. But she's not entitled to it because she didn't give us the 100 day notice. And the only thing I can say to her is thank you for the the free rent. I mean, the increase and now she's here like uh and she knows who's old. I'm 76 years old. I've talked to her, but she won't talk to me. And ask anybody that's in the park what

what she's I think she's only entitled to $10.50 the beginning of the year. she has to file uh 100 day notice before October and to raise the rent uh 3%. And I tried to talk to her about it and she told me, "All you are is a troublemaker. I live there. My trailer cost me $100,000. I got an investment [laughter] in that park." And she's acting like I She don't got no investment in that park. I do and everybody else does. And we can't talk to her. Uh it's gotten ridiculous. That hole she dug up. They turned the water off. I came to the city and that's when they told me Barbara Clarence still owns it. And tell her to tell you who the owner is. It's a military secret or what? and the garbage the way she left it. Well, of course they charge more. And uh I think she's uh she needs to go learn some of she had to read some of these. They're interesting. The laws that they made in 24. I've been reading them and uh I totally understand them. And uh [clears throat] this lease agreement, she's not the owner, so she can't be the landlord. And the landlord has to make the lease agreement with us, not her anyway. I couldn't when I was manager. And uh if she don't know the laws, um [clears throat] I can't educate her. Not my job.

Okay. Thank you. And that's [clears throat] all I got to say. Thank you. Appreciate it. Do we have a rebuttal

from the representative of the owner? Well, I don't quite know where to start on that, but um the trash the trash is in the alley and because people going down the alley dump in that bin that we have we have two. The people from the car wash um they come over and use that bin. So, we have had to go to two pickups um a week, which has basically doubled the um the trash bill. I have provided each tenant with copies of the bills for the past 12 months. Um I I don't recall some of the things that Mr. Ortiz has said. Um, my office is closed, yes, but you can knock on the door. And I don't believe that he has ever done that. He did call me um the other night after this. Um he received this and um I did try to talk to him, but he was adamant that the um trash could not be that expensive and that I could not sign a lease. Well, property managers are allowed to sign leases. That's what we do. Um, but I I I am a little confused about um this email that I got from Mr. MSUS basically stating that pass through charges were just um included in your ordinance just as a guide for

information and general um compliance, but that it did not um include a view approving or denying the increase. So I I'm a little confused about that. Can I ask a question? Yep. City attorney. Um this is Tucker. When these um when this gentleman purchased the the mobile home park, he charged them a certain amount of rent for the space. Correct. Correct. And that that amount of rent has never changed.

Correct. When he initially purchased the park, did he charge them at all for water service, refu, pickup, and uh disposal or sewer service? No, he paid those expenses. And he did that for four years.

Yes. Four and a half now. Um, is any part of the $45 to account for maintenance of the laundry room or whatever? No, it's all it's all for water, sewer, and garbage. Trash. Um there's a breakdown in your in the package of um each item landscape

along with statements water et services. So it's landscape. They they've never been service for water, sewer, garbage pickup, peni

not until this year when he purchased the park. Their rent was 350 and that's what it has been um the base rent up until now. And and their base rent is still 350. He's not raising the base rent. He is just recouping some of the expense from 2025 for water, trash, um, electric. Thank you. You're welcome.

Anybody from the residents would like to rebut that? We'll take one more comment. Scott, my name is Donald Schaefer. You should know who I am. Yes, sir. Okay. I live Thank you for your service.

Thank you, sir. I lived there since ' 84. My mom lived there before 1984. She passed away in 2010. A group of doctors owned that court at one time and it was all senior citizen, but then it sold and then they started moving the people in there. Most of the people there are now are social security welfare people and I think we got one girl that's in family way. She's going to have a baby soon. So as far as little kids running around there, there's none really. Okay. My rent now is 350. Okay. I pay for my own gas, electricity, phone bill, homeowners insurance, and everything else. Now, this last January, I got an increase on my social security check with all these little increases that come up because they do this every year. Grandma and grandpa got a pay raise, so we got to add take this increase, that increase, that increase. Now, she wants $45 more a month. That puts me in the hole. Okay, now I can go with the 3%. That's not going to be too much of a problem. But to go $45 all at one time, just boom. No, I can't do that. I'm going to have to maybe move. And I don't think that's right because I've been there since 84. So some of the stuff that she's doing like the garbage, that garbage, he was right. It went through the roof because she didn't pay the bill. That's the reason why it went so high. Okay. I've got a tree here that I beg PG&E and her to get rid of and they would not do it. I ended up having to do it. I've got heart

problems now, Mr. Mayor. I I got a loopy quarter and a pacemaker. My doctor got all piss excuse me, got all ticked off because I went out and took this tree down. If I may have approached and show your attorney or you what this tree looked like and what I had to do to get rid of it. We're good. We got it. I get it now. Come on. Come on, Mr. Shaper. Come on.

Okay. Is that in your backyard? Yeah. You see where the electricals are at? Yep. Okay. No pressure. Everybody's just watching you. Just kidding. That tree would have fell over. The fire department would have had one heck of a volunteer for 14. Bad situation. Got it. So it was a public safety issue.

That's right. Could get her to act on it. So I ended up having to do it and heart problems and I passed out but my whole arm was red with blood because I tore the and I had to sit back out that gentleman that did the presentation on the garbage truck his people got it thank you Mr. Shaper never approach the podium.

I don't think this lady's warrant having a $45 increase. Thank you for your comments. Appreciate it. Okay, with that we're going to close this public hearing. Thanks, Mr. Schaper. Appreciate it. Now, we're going to close this public hearing. We're going to refer this matter back to council. Um, who wants to go first? Mayor, can I go first?

Sure. I know I'm not on the council, but I have something to uh um inform you of. So the uh the definition of base rent in your ordinance this is uh section 5- 5.5 six two I think. What does it say?

You cut off the number at the top. So yeah, five five and two. Um the definition of base rent is rent charged for a mobile home space on the effective date of this chapter. And there's other language that follows it, but none of that is applicable here. Um, so these these people were charged $30 and some odd dollars base rent as of 2021 when this person acquired this property. The definition of base rent also says base rent shall not include utility charges for submetered gas and electricity. I have um from your packet page 178 which itemizes all the various charges

for uh that that this person is trying to recover. Yep. Uh by the $45 rent increase and gas and electricity is $2,3123. But it is clearly not submetered because the landlord has been paying the gas and electricity since 2021. But you asked Miss Tucker. Yeah. So if it's one meter, so the gas under under your definition of base rent in this situation, I would submit to you that gas and electricity

is based base rent. Then you go down to um and this this is does not fit the definition of a capital expense because a capital expense is something that didn't exist before. This existed before. It's just gone up.

Got it. Um then it says base rent shall not include charges for water refu disposal, sewer service and or other services which are either provided and charged to the mobile home residents solely on a cost pass through basis or are required by state or local law. I have to confess I don't understand the meaning of that last phrase. I assume if you read that in context that has to mean that the charge is required by state or local law to be passed through to the tenant because it says specifically charges for water refuge disposal, sewer service, uh other services which are either provided and charge to the tenants. That did not occur in 2021, did not occur in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. So notwithstanding the exception of those items from base rent, I think it's fairly clear that in this case they're necessarily built into the base rent because they were never charged before. Um, so

the that that accounts for the entirety of the ballots except uh there's a landscape charge of $1,200. Uh that that clearly was included in the rent and that's not excluded from the rent uh under your ordinance. Well, from the facts of the situation, the the new owner took over four years ago, and these expenses didn't just occur overnight with a new owner. They're recurring, and they've been continuing. So that money that the landlord was collecting, a reasonable person I think would conclude included those charges for the electrical, for the gas, um, for the trash, for the water, with the possible exception of landscape, but I would even submit it included the landscape given that there's been four years. Well, I mean, you're you're charging for the space, but you're also charging for the things that come with the space.

Yeah. How do you differentiate that, right?

Particularly if you're not charging them, you know, prata, the ga the amount of the gas bill or it's not separately metered, those sorts of things. That's why you set the rate at a certain level. If the landlord would have put four years ago, look, I want you to stay here. Here's an offer. I'm not going to raise your rent for four years, but the end of four years, I'm going to have to because, you know, I've got these costs, but I'm going to keep it the same for four years and pay these additional expenses. That didn't happen. Those expenses just got, in my opinion, plowed into and included in that 350 monthly charge.

Exactly. Right. And if you look at the ordinance, it's really clear that a 12.85% increase is not called for in the ordinance that only as a gentleman noted 3% or 3/4 of the CPI, western region CPI, um, whichever is less, not more. So, if you look at the CPI in the nationally last year, it's like 2.7%. I don't know what the western one is, but I mean, if the tenants accepted 3%, they'd be pretty generous on that as opposed to if you get the CPI. I don't know what that what that factor is. Yeah, I I don't I don't know what the CPI is in this particular case, but it it seems to me that these charges for gas, electricity, water, uh garbage, uh disposal, and landscaping were all intended to be included in that 350 whatever it is charged for your space. And that's that's all you ever paid for the last five years. And so even though your your your ordinance says base rent shall not include these things, it makes qualifications. It shall not include those things only if you know in gas and water or gas and electricity situation it's separately metered and it's not. And with respect to water, sewer, and garbage, it has to have been charged to them on a a cost pass through basis, and it hasn't been. I think it's pretty clear that that was included in the in the rent and it's not

um over and above the base rent. The second question I have, of course, subject to the votes of of my council brothers and sister are um where do we go from here? Can we

if uh you um you have section five hyphen 5.5 hyphen 4 which sets that at you know either 75% of the CPI or 3% whichever is less and you know if you go on the CPI you're talking about I guess it would be a a little bit less but is 2.9 2.9 last year for western region western so it's a little higher than the national so what you would what you would uh what you would do if you found

2.17 this exceeds right an allowable base rent increase uh what you're required to do under your ordinance is to suspend that portion of of it that is not collectible and retain the portion that is and that is uh 75% of the CPI or 3% whichever is less. So you would, you know, let let let's just, you know, for simplicity sake, let's just use the 3%. You would just 761. Multiply the current base rent, whatever that was,

350 by 0.03 and you'd be there. Got it. 761. Okay. So, is there a motion to suspend the increase of 12.85% 85% um rent the rent increase and to insert instead that portion which is collectible which is the lesser of 3% or the uh 3/4 of the western CPI which as we were told is 2.9% or $761 a month. Is there is there a motion to approve that? I'll make a motion. Is there a second? I'll second it.

Call the role, please. And that would be effective tomorrow. No. Now. Now. Okay. Okay. Your your order is effective immediately. Council member Abalos. Yes. Mayor Permaraa. Yes. Mayor Robertson. Yes. And Councilman Ocara. May Council Member Figgera. Yes. Okay. Motion passes. Oh, you forgot. So, member, sorry, I apologize. I was getting there. Okay. And then so that passes and the additional rent will be $7.61 a month.

Thanks for coming out. With that, we'll move on to our next item, which is agenda item 42, and that's an action item, declaration of surplus property located at McCall Avenue and Nelson Boulevard, APN 358079, and direction to proceed with the surplus land act process.

Yes. Thank you, uh, mayor and council. Again, uh, this is a resolution declaring the 5.03 03 acre city-owned property at the norththeast corner of McCall Avenue and Nelson Boulevard as surplus under protest while preserving the city's position that an exemption under government code section 54221F1P applies. Staff recommends proceeding with the surplus land act process, including issuance of a notice of availability to establish a clear path forward toward uh future disposition of this property. Um fiscal impact is that future sales proceeds would return to city reserves um once the property is sold. uh while this action also reduces potential legal costs and enforcement risk from the state. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, city manager. Any council members have any questions for the city manager regarding this action item tonight?

No, it's more of a cleanup operation. Did uh do we have any members of the public with any comments before we bring this back to the council? Okay, with that we'll bring the matter back to council. This has been frustrating. This is a piece of land that was purchased it it it's it's a piece of land that was purchased without an appraisal for $1.5 million. Um, if you look back, it was purchased by the council in summer of 2023. Um, the there were no specific plans that had been developed for the property at the time of the purchase. Um, it was noted that the was suitable for various future city facilities that are part of the city's capital improvement program. This 1.5 million came out of the general fund balance. Um this was uh the staff recommended at the time that council approve the purchase and sale agreement authorized the city manager to execute all the documents to complete the purchase. The staff report was signed by city attorney Megan Dodd and city manager Fernando Santion on June 9th, 2023. The documents do not contain a separate standalone appraisal report for the property. The 1.5 million purchase price reflects the authorized offer made by the council prior to the June 19th, 2023 meeting. Um, in my opinion, this was an ill- advised um purchase. There was um no appraisal. And I find it quite ironic that the uh city is being told by HCD, which the city attorney talked about earlier, that

this land is um subject to the surplus land act. Be that as it may, it's going to cost the city time, it's already cost the city a lot of money. 1.5 million from the general fund. If anybody's been following the city and the finances over the last few years, we sure need that money and we could use it for general fund which pays for salaries to provide city services. So once again, this is the state reaching in to the cities on items that are our responsibility and our ability to regulate our land. And I dispute any claim that the city did anything wrong in selling this land and putting it up for sale. We are doing what to we can do to comply with housing and community development, but this is our land and it was ill an ill-advised purchase and we are using it now as a dump for the trash day April and October. pretty expensive trash dump in my opinion. So yes, we will comply with the state. That's why we have it on the agenda item. But all the time that we take in, you know, putting this out in this exercise is detracting from our city ability to sell this land to interested buyers and to put that money back into the city and our citizens where it belongs. We have any more comments? Do we have any public comment? I would just add that it's actually worse than that because you you you've made your position to HCID very clear. It's all in writing that that's why we're doing all this under protest. We're reserving all those

arguments. Um the real problem is this. We identified an exemption from the surplus land act. That exemption applies because this property is zoned commercial and the notice of availability they're requiring you to issue invites people to uh make proposals to purchase it to turn transform it into residential property. and you're required to give priority to people uh that plan to build um affordable homes within HCD's definitions. So, we we made all these things very clear to HCD and that's that's one thing I was attempting to point out with respect to being a charter city. you would have a much better position pushing back on them right here, right now than you do being a general law city if you were a charter city.

So, this is an example of why it's advantageous to be a charter city instead of a general law city. Yes. Thank you. Any any comment from members of the public?

I have a comment. I just want to give a clarification in regards to what went on. I just want to tell you how this was this amount of money was misused back in 23. Okay. This no back in 21. We purchased the empty lot on Huntsman and Thompson for the fire department for the new fire station. That was a 4.2 acre parcel. We paid $546,000 for that. This is one acre more. So really and truly, if we added 130, say 150 more to that, that's probably what that land was worth. And we paid a million five, which was way overpriced. That lot was for sale for over 15 years. Nobody would purchase it because it was too overpriced. The other thing is no appraisal, no comps. That was my frustration and that's where I'm wanting wanting to find out. They're giving us such a hard time trying to sell this land. Well, where was the rights when they purchased it without an appraisal?

Where was the investigation? Where was the investigation for that? That's my comment.

Public comment. I have to say Rose Roberts and 1057 Mil Street. I think it was actually o over 20 years, not 15, that that wouldn't sell for that amount. They wanted something extremely high. I remember that very well. And I also remember um the summer of 2023 that vote again was a 32 vote. I remember that very very clearly. Um, and I I have to say council member uh Avalos and council member Oera were not on there at the time. Um, that the obviously we know the two nos were prota and [clears throat]

uh Mayor Robertson. Um, the one of the yeses was we all know he's still up there. I I'm I'm just beside myself that legally they they did this thinking it was legal without the appraisal. Who does that? $1.5 million of taxpayer money. So, I would ask the new city attorney who obviously wasn't on at that time either. Would you have allowed this to happen? Cities aren't allowed to purchase property without properly designating the municipal use to which it will be put. My understanding is there was no identification of uh the use to which this would be put. So, you can't really tell if they're buying it for a proper municipal purpose, which is a condition on exercising the power to do that. Period. And you're right, it is absolutely common place for all cities to obtain an appraisal on property they are purchasing. Never have I seen a city pay the asking price for this property. uh which is what I think that happened.

It states right here government code 37350.12 and this comes out of our general fund taxpayer money $1.5 million out of our general fund to purchase this. Um we have um Mid Valley Times here right here in the front. Let's hope this is going to be on her front page. Thank you. You councilman Avalos, do you have a comment? We got somebody. Well, I I'll tell you something, guys.

Unfortunately, I wasn't up here when it took place on buying that property. Uh, you know, in the past, we always got an appraisal. anything we bought, you know, being in a council. But it's an old saying, you don't you don't go out and um go to a car lot and not know the price of the vehicle and then and then the guy says uh $5,000 and and you pay the $5,000 even though the car is only worth a thousand. That's that's insane. Not that's like you need the you need the appraisal. Uh it's it's logical. you got if you don't have the appraisal, it's it's senseless. It's like buying a house. How much is the house? Oh, I'm I'm just going to say the house. Don't worry. Sign the check. I'll I'll cash it. Don't worry about it. And that's what happened. Unfortunately, that's all I got to say. We're not going to do it again. Trust me.

Stellar Marisama resident. I don't even know where to start. Um, as Mr. envelope stated you anytime you make a purchase a house car you got to ask how much you got to get it appraised to find out the price you can't just buy it you know another thing why wasn't there an an like an offer made or something why did they just do this that I don't understand that um $1.5 million that's a lot of money a that and this was all done back right old council this that's when this was done who okay at the time attorney again why didn't she question this this was something legal advice that they had to take from her she said nothing I want to know and trill was up there he was on council and he has said in the past that that lot was bought for a senior citizen place was that in writing cuz our attorney just stated that there wasn't nothing written as to what this was going to be used for, but Trillo said in the past meeting that it was going to be used to build a senior citizen place. Was that in writing or was that just a word of mouth? Again, everything done should be in writing recorded. This is just frustrating how money was spent back then. 350,000 given [clears throat] away. 50,000 $1.5 million. I don't know. It's just it's this is just frustrating and this should be taken to the Department of Justice because this is not this is not right in so many ways in so many levels. This is our taxpayer money. And just to do things without even consulting anyone or just they just went

out and did it. Why? because they didn't care. [clears throat] They didn't care. This new council cares because it's transparent. And people often get mad. Why do you monitor me? Why do you want to know this? Why do you want to know that? Because of this same reason. We want to know us as taxpayers where our money is going. Thank you.

And with that, we'll bring the matter back to council. It should be noted as well as Mayor Prom um discussed at that that land at Huntsman and Thompson, there was a specific purpose for that land. It was for the new fire station and that includes the EMS facility. And guess what? An EMS facility is going in there and a fire station will be going in there as well. So there was a specific use for that land and that was 4 acres and was 130 140,000 an acre as opposed to five acres that were 300,000 an acre for no real purpose no stated specific purpose. All right members of the public do you have a did you have a comment Mr. Ray? Okay. Thank you. Is there a motion to declare surplus property located as surplus property the um APN 358-080-79 and direction to proceed with the surplus land act process?

Yes. Make a motion. Is there a second? Would you call the role, please? Council member Avalos. Yes. Council member Oera. Yes. Mayor Robertson. Yes. Mayor Permaraa. Yes. Council member Trujillo. No.

Okay. Item passes. We'll move on to item 4, which is an action item. And this is authorization to replace flooring and reconfigure office space and finance, HR, and planning and building departments located at city hall awarding the contract to core business interiors not to exceed $190,000. Report, please. Mayor, members of council, um as we have pointed out, the um flooring has become an issue in both our planning and building department and our finance and HR department. Um in addition um we have tra we have trip hazards from that and in addition we are short on office spaces, private office spaces for our directors and highle um managers. Um we are recommending that we replace the flooring um and also um put in one private office for our finance director, two private offices over in the planning and building department. Those are um through floor basically floor to ceiling um height panel systems. They go in um just about 10 inches short of the ceiling so that we don't have to deal with the um HVAC systems and the fire sprinkler systems. Um and then there's a reconfiguration of the panel system. Uh we are recommending that we do replace the current flooring um with high-grade carpet similar to what you see in the council chambers. Those are the um carpet squares. They have a 15-year life on those. Our maintenance department um public works is recommending carpet versus um going with a hardwood. Um and um in um addition I do I have recommended um if council is not comfortable with doing um a full panel reconfiguration with those offices I've given you an alternative of just the flooring replacement only not to exceed $50,000. Our procurement method on this is a piggyback contract um utilized through Fresno um a Fresno contract um that are partners. Our project timeline is about four to five months out. That's why we're bringing this item to you now. Um,

no funds would be expended until the next fiscal year. Um, it currently, um, is in our next budget that will be coming to you soon. Um, it is not a general fund project. It's coming out of our, uh, building and utility fund, um, for a project and I can answer any questions for you. Does council have any questions for deputy city manager? I I have a question. And so because of the fact that you followed that process, there was no reason to do an RFP and follow the purchasing policy. That is correct. And it's the same process um that they used when they put the original panel system in also. So you just piggybacked off of that. Correct.

And the uh the purchase price is 190 and that's the amount that we have it factored in our budget and for our fiscal year. It won't be no impact for this year. It'll be for next year. It'll be in next year's fiscal budget, not this year's. And will that be a general fund expense or a particular account expense? No, it's coming out of our uh building utility fund. And how much do we currently have in the building and utility fund? Believe it's about 1.2 million.

Okay. So like 17% of that will be used to protect employees from further injuries due to the um defective [clears throat] uh materials purchased. The the materials were or defective installation

defective installation. There weren't a glue down um style flooring which is what we needed. um the panel systems are heavy and so the panel systems and the amount of staff on that flooring has caused the flooring to start to move together and so there it's bubbling um in some areas um in our planning and building department on um the other side in the finance and HR it simply is starting to come apart um so we're using clear duct tape on top of it because we have so um because we have um shards of wood um that are coming up from the flooring. I have a question. Um Yes. How long do you say it's going to take to complete even if we do the flooring? Um

um to order all of the systems and get them in, it's four to five months. And so this project would not be complete until about September or October. I mean, if we have an issue that's a safety issue, why so long? I mean, uh it takes if uh if we were to take pull down the the uh panel system, it's about $15,000. And um so we could spend the money twice and um instead we've chosen not to and so we've used cones over in the planning and building department to identify um the safety hazards and then like I said we're using duct tape on the other side. How much would a workman's comp plane cost to somebody that got hurt? I couldn't tell you. Rough idea. It would depend on the injury.

Depend how bad they get injured. I mean, I think five months is a long time to correct the safety issue. I mean, that's my opinion. I don't know if it has been it's been like that for for a long time, even before I became a council person. This is my second year already. When was the flooring purchased originally? Uh, it was in 2022. 2022. Got it. We identified problems with it starting about August of last year. Last year. Okay. So, all right. Um, and who will do the installing?

Core Interiors will. They have a flooring um division and so their flooring they they're they do school systems. They do a lot of business in this um area and that seems to be the problem from last time. So Cora will provide us with certificates of insurance naming the city as additional insure if there any problem that on file from they've done a couple of small um amount of work for us over those last year and it will also provide those three offices with that space at the top. My question is you you said one of the main um benefits of putting those offices in is privacy. If there's a space at the top, does that defeat the purpose of privacy or can that is there machine?

No, there this these are special panel systems um that are thicker and they're soundproof. And so um we have incorporated some glass up at the top to allow some some of the sunlight to come in to create the natural flow of light. And so um these were the same type of systems, um I've had in my previous employment and um they work very well. Any other questions for the deputy city manager? Is there a motion to approve this item? I'll make a motion to approve. There a second. There a second. I'll second. Call the roll, please. Council member Avalos, yes. Council member Sigera, yes. Mayor Robertson, yes. Mayor Pertima,

yes. Council member Truhill, yes. Okay, item passes. Thank you. And that was for the $190,000 option. Okay. And now we will move on to our next item, which is our last item of the evening on our regular agenda. Item 44, approval of resolution 2026-46R, adopting updated, it's not the last item, it's the second to last item. updated employment policies 2026-1 discrimination and sexual harassment policy policy 2026-2 workplace violence policy and policy 2026-3 safety plans deputy city manager again

mayor members of council um as I've gone through the human resources department looking for areas of improvement um one of the things that needs to be updated are our current policies to be up to date with f uh federal and state regulations Um these are very important policies. So these are the very first ones um that we're bringing to you. Um all um employees are required to be trained on sexual harassment. Um they have very specific guidelines. Our current policy um is 25 years old and very out of compliance. Um our uh workplace violence um policy um was adopted in 2003 and is also out of compliance. We're also taking a very um structured report approach to a um safety committee and plan um for the city. And so we're wanting to establish a safety committee and a full um safety pol uh plans that walk through um all of the um IP which you've already adopted um earlier and um all of the you know the hazmat considerations all of the different policies that we're supposed to have on site.

Thank you. Any questions for I actually do

this is thank you for up the update of this policy. It's very it's important to update these uh discrimination or and harassment policies for the employees uh and develop the workplace environment safety for everybody. And when you when you need to update when you update these policies, you know, I come from a corporation where we update policies, but also when we update the policies, people we did the uh classes, someone does a presentation on the board, whatever, or we have a our communication over there. He could probably do it. Uh at the end of the at the end of the proceeding, we got done. They we made everybody sign a piece of paper. they they fully understood the new policies of discrimination and all this harassment everything. That way no one says, "Oh, I don't remember that." And you give them a copy, not to be mean. Everybody gets a copy. That way it goes it goes in their personal file, everybody's personal file. And that way it's it's in stone. Anything that comes up, hey, no, it does happen. Trust me, I know that for a fact. you know, you know, that's all I got to say.

Thank you. I I think we're actually backing up what we just talked about earlier, providing a safe workplace. Um, this could have even gone in front of that because we're backing up this this policy of providing a ser safe workplace and having steps to ensure that through safety committees, but also through engineering and through having a actual um flooring that's safe and office space that accommodates people who work in them. And I I think you know we had even going further back we had that insurance meeting a while back which was like 3 and 1/2 hours long but it was important because we really saw that our ex our experience modification is like the third highest of our insurance pool members and so we have improvements to make we have things to do and this is definitely one of them policy and then what we just decided earlier the implementation of that policy. So, I think that's a they both really go together. There comments? Anybody from the public with a comment about this? Anybody online or on the phone?

Mayor. Mayor, I see no hands raised. Okay. Is there a motion to make a motion? Is there a second? I'll second. Call the role, please. Council member Avalos. Yes. Mayor Pergera. Yes. Mayor Robertson. Yes. Council member Saggera. Yes. Council member Trujillo. Yes. Okay. Item passes. Moving on to item 45. This is an action item. Consideration of commission board applications and subsequent appointments. Report, please.

Yes. Thank you again, mayor and city council. This is for council to consider appointments to fill one vacancy on the planning commission and one vacancy on the measure s oversight committee, both for partial terms expiring June 30th, 2027. The vacancies were created following member removals in March 2026 and were publicly advertised for recruitment. The city received four applications for the planning commission vacancy and five applications for the measure S oversight committee vacancy. Appees must be at least 18 years of age and reside within the city limits. With that, I will turn it over to council as to who they would like to fill these positions.

Thank you, city manager. Looking at the applications, I did notice that there is no part for um references. Did we did the city um take those out of the applications because there used to be a section for references? I'm not aware of that. I would have to get back to you on that. Okay. Thank you. We are going to start with the planning commission tonight. Are there any candidates for planning commission who would like to speak at this time? Anyone online or on the phone? Come on up.

Good evening everyone, city council. My name is Reyes Gallardo 333. [sighs and gasps] I uh applied for uh the planning commission just based on uh the current events that happened the last couple months that affected uh the area that I live in. So, I wanted to get more involved with what's going on with the of course um partials that the city has and making sure that uh sound judgments made and proper judgments are made where um individuals are not affected as far as financially. So, that's my that's my uh case and thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Anybody online [clears throat] or on the phone?

I see no hands raised at this time. Thank you. With that, I will call for nomination. I'll make a motion for Ray Gard Jr. Okay. Is there I read his application by golly. It's impressive. Thank you, council member. Is there a second? I'll second it. Okay. Would you call the role, please? And from there, council member Avalos? Yes. Mayor Pertamara? Yes. Mayor Robertson? Um, yes. Councilman Trill. Council member Trill. Yeah. Council member Oera.

Yes. Okay, great. Um, thank you. Thank you for your willingness to serve, Mr. Gallardo. Um, our next item is for our Measure S commission. Do we have our Measure S oversight committee? Excuse me. Do we have any candidates for this committee who would like to speak at this time? He's come up.

John Rehea, 3514 Hill Street. I'm a resident. I come here before you, mayor, and uh city council. Um I like I'd like to be involved in what the city's uh doing. And uh I like to use my experience um working with city, federal, and state agencies, which I did when I was working for the railroad VNSF railway. I do have reference that I did put down on uh on my application since I know this is uh strictly voluntary. Um I thought I'd get my feet wet here and I said uh help the people out as much as I can. as you know that I volunteer my myself uh for the city as well as uh Knights of Columbus here as well as American Legion. I'm an officer. So uh I just here to help out here to work with you guys.

Thanks a lot, Mr. Ray. I appreciate it. Problem. We have anybody online or on the phone who would like to say anything at this time? Okay. See no hands raised online. Mayor,

I got another comment from a candidate. Uh good evening. Good evening, mayor and council. Um I also was an applicant for this position as well. I currently serve on planning at parks recreation/per village. I believe I became a great asset for both committees because I felt like I've made a great change in both planning and in parks and pioneer as well. For example, I've we our main focus right now for the pioneer village is the restrooms. So we're currently working on that as as well as with you the city. And for the planning, we've also uh currently well recently we had a project over on by the hospital that I proposed that a workshop would be done for the city because there was and just need more information on more to be for it to be more clear, you know, to make a decision as great as that. And it was a huge help. A lot of residents showed up. They were greatly appreciated. So I I don't want to be I don't want to like I'm council member all of a sudden I wanted I don't want it to get to my head but I believe I made a huge difference and I affect people's lives. So with that I leave the decision to you. Thank you.

Right. Is there a motion to nominate someone for the measure s? Uh yes I remember at John uh the guy up there. Yeah. Okay. Is there is there a second? I'll second that. Okay. Would you call the role please? Heck, by the way, I he did have a resume all the way across. I read it nominated John Mr. Rya Grace,

you'll get it. You're doing a great job. Council member Avalos. Yes. Council member Oera. Yes. Mayor Robertson. Yes. Mayor Permaraa. Yes. And council member Trujillo. Yes. Right. Congratulations, Mr. Rhea. Thank you. And Miriam, one more one more comment over there. I I read your resume. I guess you could fix the railroad. But awesome. Miriam, thank you for stepping up and being with us again tonight and helping out. We really appreciate everything that you do. Appreciate you stepping up. Thank you. Thank you. You're very welcome. My pleasure. Happycoin.

Yeah. And now we're going to move on to our future agenda items. Council requests for future agenda items not subject to public comment. Items require a consensus. Does anybody have any future agenda items they would like to call for? Councilman Abalos. Um yeah on our you know our next uh workshop you know you know coming up um I like to include the u I mean all the departments uh their their expenditures uh as far as upto-ate expenditures that they have right now as far as they have spent right now on their the all the departments you like fire department um spent this quarter this much money, you know, public works, you know, every department's I want to see where they're at as far as their dollar, as far as their expenditures.

And also David Han, where he's at on his expenditures as well. Oh. Oh. Horn. Horn. David Horn. David. David Horn. David Horn. Yeah. And Horn. Yeah. We have a consensus for those items. Sure.

Okay. Um, I would like to check in on the status of getting that ice skating rink for our park. December is going to be this this year is flying by. It's May if you can believe it. And um I'd like to get a status on the cost, where we can get it, if it's still available, and um take a look at that because it's been a hit where it's gone. Hanford, they do a really great job. I think they own their ice skating rink down there. I don't think we're there yet, but we should at least try it out. Actually, they do own it. We should try it.

Or look at trying it. Number two, I'd like to look in the process of becoming a charter city to take it from the concept to now the cost and how we can put it on the ballot for this November if we've got time. It sounds like the timelines are pretty tight. But let let's take a look at it. All right. On ice skating ring. Yes. Yes. Consensus on charter city process. to take a look at Tim.

May I just have one? I'd like to get an update on what our laws are for motor [clears throat] scooters. Um because I know in Fresno they've had two in or two incidents that involve teenagers and one fatality just last week. And reason I'm bringing it up is because I have seen it in, you know, with my own eyes here in Selma. And the person driving it didn't even didn't have a helmet on, just was crossing over streets, wasn't following the same laws as this as the um motorists follow. So, I'd like to see what the laws are in regards to that because it's it's really dangerous.

I can provide an update on that one right now. We we we don't have a we don't have any ordinance specifically related to um motorized bike scooters. Okay. So, but um we could look at that bringing that back as a discussion item for or updating our ordinance to include language for that.

Yeah. Or even like the mopeds. I mean, they were two young kids and I I would probably say that they were younger than 10 years old. No, they were they were small mopeds and they were on 99 driving around. Yeah. So, I'm just That was No, the ones I saw were in Selma. Yeah. And they looked they were right there by Estraa the restaurant. So, I [clears throat] just think that it it'd be they're hard to see, especially because they're a lot lower and if a car comes pretty quickly, I mean, it would have took them out. So, I'm just really concerned about it.

Yep. Yes. Consensus. Yes. Thank you, Councilman Trio.

Okay. Um it's not an agenda item, but maybe we can um uh talk to the school district cuz sometimes I go by um right in front of the high school um and write and man some of these kids don't even pay attention. You know, I was I was waiting for the students to cross the they they crossed and the guard was already on the other side. So I started to take off and this kid out of nowhere cuts right in front of him. Didn't even go on the crosswalk. just cuts right in front of my car and I almost hit him and and I open my go, "Dude, what are you doing?" They just looked at me and keep on walking, you know? I mean, they they're saying that motorists are are, you know, the culprit in some of these accidents, but I I tell you what, some of these kids, I don't know, man, they just cut across and, you know, that [clears throat] needs to be,

you know, well, that we should relate that to the district, superintendent district. Discuss with them. Yeah, discuss it with them. Good. Okay, with that we're going to um we need a consensus for that. Are you just going to mention it to Superintendent Gomes? Oh, okay. Good. All right. That we're going to move on to council reports. Oh, yes. I got You're on Well, I have a little bit to say,

you know, I I did start the day off looking at Mayor of course. Yeah. And I still look this I still look the same good looking. you know what I mean? [laughter] Then I looked at my wife. She's still looking good, too. So, we're off to a good day. And uh and I said bye to my dogs, too. Uh but I I also attended the cleanup day. We had clean up that day and over there on on Nelson. Um I went over there with my my junk and threw it away. And I gave him donuts. I mean, I I you know, um Han didn't go by and give me any donuts, so I gave him donuts. And then I at the that same crazy week we uh we attended the U seat parade. It was a great event. It's over I would say I asked how many people showed up. They told me about 10,000 people showed up. A lot of we we we actually walked me and me and Scott walked and other people walked and I was amazed, you know, like we we went to the tunnel and they had a graffiti and we come back and they had it all cleaned up. Public works. I gotta give him credit. Uh that phone call, my god, in less than 30 minutes it was done. Uh but also we came back safely and graffiti was it looked good. When you covered it up, it showed that we're were on top of it. And those people that came out of town, they realized that, hey, Selma is on on the mark. They clean up their mess real quick. And they do these seat community when they do the pray. They have people picking up the trash. And I give you credit every year. And also I attended the uh Christian cafe, believe it or not, on Wednesdays. Uh I I attended that. It's always a good event to uh see the people that It's a good event. Uh people that, you know, can't afford a meal or just come out and kind of get together and have a chitchat. It

kind of relieves the stress in life. It does. And and I appreciate the people that take turns uh giving their uh christening cafe. Everybody takes a turn as far as giving free food away. Uh doesn't matter what organization you belong to. Uh they're doing a great job that particular area and people come out and they're happy. Their they leave happy, their souls are happy and stress is happy. Good. That's that's a plus in their life. And also I attended the uh the Raisin Day Festival. Uh by the way, I didn't get any rides. They they told me I couldn't get on. It was too big. But uh it was a great event, the Raisin Bell event. The weather was nice. Uh the people were good. Uh the entertainment was excellent. Excellent entertainment. People come out and when people come out to these these uh events, get people out outdoors. That's why we have these trying to get people out. It shows that not only we care about our community, but we care about our people that live in our community, but also we care about people who live outside our community that come here and have a good time and and kind of relax, take away the stresses in their life and and just have a good conversation with other people, people they didn't know. It's a good event per it's like back in the old times having a good time. All I got to say, thank you. Thank you, Councilman Trio.

Uh just a couple of things. Uh one is I did attend the cleanup day. Uh second, I attended a um roundt discussion with assembly um woman parade that's trying to run and trying to get elected. It was a good conversation. The other one was um went to the carnival and I think I made a fool of myself, but I was there trying to make a basketball hoop. I think I spent $150 and I got a basketball which is cute. Had a couple of my renters there and they had a good time which is really good to see the kids and it's really important to understand that there are some people that can't make it to Fresno or go anywhere. So when they go to this this this event here um I was really really proud of how how it looked, how clean it was. Big shout out to Mike Han for the cleanup and the setup. Um really impressed. Um the other one I al also want to congratulate the um raisin queen. Um it was the FFA sponsored um really good group. Congratulations to her. Little notch up. I got to do a shout out to um my relative. She won the parlor roundup queen and um she did a really good job. So congratulate to her. Um, all in all, I think that these last couple of weeks have been really um I think it's been really um eye openening. We're going through some we're going through some changes here in the city. And I think that and what I mean by that is u we're going to go we're entering our next uh fiscal year. So, all I just want to say is that I I thank thank you, M city manager and assistant city manager for sitting with me and talking to me last week. Uh I apologize I didn't make the the um finance director's meeting I was scheduled but I had a hearing for the ED. So but as but I will I uh generally do that with all department heads prior to budgets probably it's a standard for me. So I really appreciate the you guys doing

that. Thank you.

You councilman Oscar. Well, I don't have a mirror, so I didn't get a chance to look at it, but uh I'm sure I wasn't as good-look as this guy, but uh that being said, um I attended the chamber mixer, which was uh really awesome. Uh what I didn't go to the the carnival. We don't have any little kids anymore, so um kind of defeats the purpose, but I used to go for the juicy tacos. Those are always the best. Uh what else did I What else did we attend? Was there anything else? I always come to City Hall. I'm always here bugging people.

Um what else? Um well, we're getting ready to go to Vegas. Um the 17th we're flying in and hopefully we'll be able to uh bring some more um stores, more retail to Selma. So other than that, I think that's it.

Great. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim. I also attended the Raisin Festival on Friday night and it was a such a great event with um at that night they had Elena Benton Court that was putting on she did a great job with music and we there was so many people there and it like council member um Avalo stated, you know, there's people that come from other cities and they just really wow Selma how what a great city it is and that, you know, just proves how m how great things are going, you know, and that's what we're here for is to continue to move our city forward. Um, Saturday I was also um in the presence with the mayor to meet our congressman Jim Costa that came here to visit our city in Selma. So, he was really excited to go to the um festival and walk around, talk to people, meet new people, and um he even hit a couple of games with the mayor. So, that was that was pretty nice. Um I also on Sunday attended the carnival again because I took my grandkids and they had such a great time. And that night or during the day I got to see Ruben and Ruben Bettton Court which again is outstanding performer. Um this is what really showcases our city is you know we never had music before at the carnival and one thing about our chamber with Karen Foster, Trish and all the chamber folks that are supporting it want to do things bigger and better and that's how what it takes and that's what they did. They they brought music. They brought Alvis on Thursday night and I heard they had a great turnout there. Um they brought a

band on Saturday night which I was not able to attend but they said they had a good a good attendance. So that's what it's about, you know, and I'm really proud of the chamber city staff that all pitched in because that's what it takes, you know. It takes all of us to work together to make these events. So that was great. Um the other thing I worked on is um our scholarships. We've been giving scholarships to Robertson Insurance Agency. We've been here 25 years and we've been giving scholarships to Selma High School for 25 years. So that's something that we're very proud of because we always like to see those kids go off to college and then they come back and they let us know how well they're doing. So it it it really means a lot. and sometimes those kids, you know, are here to give back. So, we're really proud of them. Um, and other than that, again, I just want to thank staff, city manager, our attorneys, everybody, our administration, you know, everybody works so hard and we're really appreciative of them. Thank you.

Yeah, I would say all the same thing. Um, it was an honor to serve with um the our family at the Christian Cafe. It is very fulfilling. Nice to see the same people there. They're like family. [snorts] Um we brought uh some good food and they brought the good the good vibe and the good spirits. It was really nice. Um I attended their Earth Day. We had our um planning commissioner Ramirez there um staffing one of the booths. Thank you for that volunteering for that commissioner. Um I attended a Selma Cemetery District board meeting. We have one of our board members in the audience today. Thank you for your service on that. Not a lot of people go to those board meetings, but you know, I got to listen to how they're doing their retirement plan and their endowment fund, which is very interesting. And it's all with public money. It's all a taxpayer money. So, it's really important that, you know, we we all take an interest in that. Um, I attended the uh the planning commission meeting. Didn't say anything, but attended it. Um, again, we have our planning commission, Commissioner Ramirez, in attendance. Thank you for your service on that. Um, I attended, uh, the reason I couldn't go see Jeremy Elvis Pierce on Thursday at their opening of the Selma Raisin Festival. I was at a council of government's meeting and at Fresno County Rural Transit Agency meeting that Thursday evening. Um, Mayor Prom and I, um, along with the planning commissioner who showed up for that, too. He was everywhere. Um we gave um Congressman Costa and his um assistant a tour. Um and it was very nice to walk around with him. He showed a good arm with the baseball toss and um uh was very nice just uh you know talking with him in more of an informal setting. Usually when you know you talk to these people, the higherups in the the government, it's an official function and this was

more of informal and it was kind of nice to talk about um things like you know the importance of of rural festivals, the importance of tradition and of course I hit him up for funding for our recreation center and for our regional park. Um, and then, uh, yeah, the, uh, the Raisin Festival was a real, it was a great draw. Really appreciate the city. It looked great. The park looked great. Um, the PD was out there really watching everything. Appreciated the trailer out there. Uh, Selma was rocking. I mean, gosh, Thursday night, we had something going at the church, you know, at the the baseball field. we had um here at Lincoln Park and you could tell the people were immersed and they weren't thinking about getting their cars broken into. They weren't thinking about, you know, getting kn they were thinking about having a good time with their family and celebrating community. And that's what it's all about. And I think that's what it's up to all of us to do our job to provide that experience for the residents here. And I and I really think that we delivered um this last this last week. It showed why we want why we live in our in our small town of Selma. It's a really fun time and look at all the people that are stepping up for the commissions. Very it it just shows that you know this is our town residents. this is our town and um we have a responsibility to make it our town and that's to pay attention to these meetings that aren't the most exciting things sometimes but we pay attention watch what's going on with our money and then we staff these commissions that you know don't pay anything but they are part of a fabric of our community to make our community responsive and responsible to our citizens. And with that, we will give you the boss, the last word and move on to uh our last oral communications of

the evening. Is anybody have anything to say before we say good night, Stella Ramirez? I'm a resident. Um I just want to piggy back off of what you guys said right now that you know working together as a team. I want to thank you guys and tell you that you're doing an awesome job. Um our city attorney, thank you for all the you know the legal end of it. Um this you just proved it all of you earlier when with the um citizens from the mobile park. Thank you for working with them and making sure that you know laws were being followed and all of that. Um council doing an awesome job as well as our city manager all of you guys. So, thank you as our, you know, as a resident and I'm pretty sure I'm speaking behalf of other residents that there is a lot out there going on now. It's just that I I can't keep up. I forget. Yeah. I didn't even know it was Mother's Day on Sunday. I I can't keep up really. So, um but just I just want to say thank you and we really appreciate you. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody online or on the phone with a comment? See no hands raised. Mayor Sure.

Brian Maris, I agree. Um, thank you guys for everything that you've done. Um, Neil, thank you for today. It was just heartbreaking just to hear those stories about those um singers living in the park and that you know that they should they should be able to just live stress free, not worry about anything any increases. I understand that increases are happening in our state, but it's out of our control, you know. So, I'm glad we able to work with them, meet them, not even in the middle, you know, maybe not even a quarter, but less than that. So, it really worked out for them. So, I'm really happy for happy for them. Um yeah, like again like like it was said, thank you staff, for everybody putting their part in, for looking out for us, the citizens, the taxpayers. Um to our PIO as well has been doing an amazing amazing job showcasing our city. We had a conversation on Earth Day. Give him his kudos and yeah, it sounds really good. Thank you guys.

Thank you. With that, our meeting is adjourned. We'll see you guys at the next meeting. day for