City Council - Regular Meeting

We are.

All right, we're back from closed session. City Attorney, is there any reportable action tonight from closed session? No reportable action, Mr. Mayor. With that, we will adjourn our special meeting, and we'll take a four-minute break and be back just in time for our regular meeting at 6 p.m. All right, everybody, welcome to our Selma City Council regular meeting. Tonight it is 6 p.m. and it's June 2nd, 2026. In the Selma City Council Chambers at 1710 Tucker Street in Selma, California, 93662. The teleconference phone number is 301-715-8592. The webinar ID is 891-6864-5005. When on the phone, if you wish to address the council during the public comment part of the agenda, press star nine 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. Before we go to our invocation, could we please have a moment of silence for Bobby Cox, the Hall of Fame baseball player and manager, who was born in Selma, who passed away on May 9th, and Ryan Valdez, who perished in the fire. Could everyone please bow their heads? Thank you for that moment of silence. Much appreciated. Now I'd like to ask Pastor Chad Fagundes of the Kanoian Selma Church to come up and deliver our invocation tonight. Welcome, Pastor.

Did I do this right? I did. Would you guys go ahead and bow your heads with me as I lift us up in prayer? And so, God, we just pause in this moment tonight because we just want to honor your name. The best way we can honor your name is to invite you into the room. And so God, we just ask for your presence to be here tonight. God, even as we took a moment of silence for those two families, God, we just lift up those families and I just pray God that you'd give them peace in this time. You surround them with people to speak life into them. God, I lift up the board tonight. I know that leadership is not always an easy thing that sometimes is even lonely. So God, I pray, Father, that you'd meet them where they're at. Pray that you would encourage them, God, that you'd breathe a new fresh breath into them. I pray for everybody in the room, God, that we would have a fresh breath blown into us. God, that tonight would be a night where we can actually encounter your presence. And so, God, I thank you for being good. And I know that your goodness wants to permeate the city of Selma. And so, God, I pray, Father, for your goodness to spread throughout Selma. And so it would be here tonight in the agenda, in the wise counsel and discernment of the of the board. And so we thank you and we invite you into the room. And I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Pastor. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Ready? Salute.

I pledge allegiance 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.

Hey, would you call the roll, please?

Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the City Council. I'll start with Council Member Avalos.

Here.

Council Member Oseguera.

Here.

Council Member Trujillo.

Here.

Mayor Prochem Guerra. Here. And Mayor Robinson.

Here.

For the record, Mayor, all present. Thank you.

Thank you for that, interim city clerk. Appreciate it. 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. 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 on 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 tonight? Nothing to add or to delete, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, City Attorney. That will move on to oral communications. At this time, any member of the public may address the 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? Step up, sir.

My name is Robert Cortez and I'm here. I came to vote this morning and I was leaving the voting area. I saw across the street is where the old police department was. And I noticed something sticking out of the ground. So I went to look at it and I says, hmm, this is something special here. And I'm going to read it to you. It's a memorial plaque. And I'm going to read it to you. In loving memory of Sean Reed, 1968 to 2002. Now, I looked at this memorial. And I talked to Police Officer Guzman. He says he remembers it, but he doesn't know the person as far as the circumstances of why it was put there. but this monument is deteriorating over there, okay? All I have to do is kick the backing on it and it's going to fall. What they should have done is when they left the old police department, they should have took it out and brought it over here to the new one. And that's where it belongs, okay? Because to leave that there, I mean, I went home and it just took in my head like this, like, get me out of there. I need to leave that place. There's nobody there anymore and nobody really cares, but I do because I saw it there. So you need to see if you can move that. It doesn't take much, maybe a shovel and it will be pulled out easy. Okay. It's stuck to wood and it's deteriorating. See, so I don't know who Sean Reed was and, uh, I don't know if any of the police officers knew Sean Reed, but it says in memory of, in loving memory of Sean Reed. Okay, it's in front of the police department. As you go up the front door, it's to your right side. There was a tree there and that's gone a long time ago, but the monument was left there from, they pulled out of there. Maybe somebody forgot to, Bring Sean Reed over here to the new police department, okay? Because it doesn't belong there anymore. For me, he's a monument left behind, okay? So that's where it is right there. If you can go, you can go look at that monument yourself.

Got it. Thank you, Mr. Cortez. Appreciate your calling our attention to that. We'll certainly follow up with the police department to see if there's any more knowledge about that memorial and what should be done with it. Anybody else with oral communications at this time, please step up.

My name is David Thompson. I have a property out West of town, uh, the 8,400 block of East rose between, uh, floral and rose on the ditch bank. It's a dirt road. Uh, from what I understand, it's a public road, but Nevertheless, the last three years, I have been working on an eviction of the squatters. We finally got them all out, began to clean up the property. One of the personnel there got one of the travel trailers, moved it to 300 feet, and it has been sitting there. This is the eighth week. He was going to move it in a couple of days. It hasn't moved yet. It appears as though he's going to be there to stay. He had delivered Thursday or Friday last week, some firewood. There are three individuals, grown adults living in that trailer, travel trailer, two males and a female and a dog and two puppies. And at times there are six individuals that are living in on that property. Well, I am looking because I've been to the Selma Police Department. They came out a week or so ago, had a visit. Sheriff came out and had a visit. I've talked to Highway Patrol. It's out of their jurisdiction. It is in the county. And I've talked to the health department and I've talked to code enforcement. From what I understand, to have a trailer, you can have it, but you cannot live in it. They do not have sanitation. They do not have water. They do not have electricity. And they seem to be familiar enough with law, if you will, if they don't intend to move. That's what it looks like to me. I don't know what the conversation with the officer was when he was there a week or so ago, but the parties are still there. All I need is some direction. Who do I need to talk to to get a resolve? They're no longer on my property. they moved to an adjacent property, which is probably two or 300 yards from where they were apart on my property. And now they're partially on in the road and partially on the, what would be the bank of the road. And anyone that wants to travel by them have got to go up uneven on the ditch bank to get by me, you, fire department, uh, Garbage, anybody has got to go on the ditch bank. So if you can tell me who I need to go to to get this resolved, I'd like to visit with them.

City Manager, who in the county would Mr. Thompson contact? Well, we can have Chief Alcaraz talk with him and get his information. So after, yep, Mr. Thompson, after departmental reports, we take a five-minute break, and you can talk with our police chief at that time about who you should contact. We actually have about a quarter of the force here tonight. So you could take your choice of who you'd like to talk to. We have great experts here, but you can get more information about who you need to contact at the County for that. Okay. Thank you, sir. Anybody else with a public comment? Anybody online?

Mr. Mayor, I left you a speaker card on your desk for Mr. Jorgensen, who also would like to address the city council.

Okay, interim city clerk, this is your first city council meeting. We don't use cards here. Maybe we will start in the future. I appreciate you putting that in front of me. I did not see that for that reason that we don't use speaker cards. Did Mr. Jorgensen wish to address the council on the upcoming LaVena project or something that's not on the agenda tonight? What do you want to talk about? Okay, that'll be coming later on tonight, okay? You'll have your chance for that public hearing then, okay, Mr. Jorgensen?

Okay.

All right, thank you.

And Daryl did ask that with me. We thought it was a good way of trying to, with so many people getting names down so that way we could accurately reflect them in the minutes and stuff.

And maybe we'll take a look at that in the future is adding that. Maybe a council meeting, we'll discuss it. Thank you, appreciate that.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. Okay, anybody online or on the phone with a public comment at this time?

Mayor, I see no hands raised at this time.

Okay, so we will move on from oral communications to special presentations. Our first special recognition is a service award presentation to retiree Lance Pierce for 20 years of service with the police department. Chief Alcariz.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, and everyone present.

Lance, you mind standing up?

I'm going to embarrass you a little bit, so I'm going to put you on the spot.

Yeah.

So today's staff is recommending or recognizing retiree Lance Pierce for his 20 years of service, dedicated service with the City of Selma Police Department as a police officer. A little bit about Lance. Lance has been with the Selma Police Department for approximately 20, well, 20 years. During this time, Lance has received several awards, such as a Avoid DOI Award, a Lifesaving Commendation, and an award from the California Legislative Assembly Resolution. Lance served as a field training officer for the department and was certified in many areas to include taser instructor, basic police motorcycle training, standardized field sobriety testing, traffic clues investigation school, and most notable, Lance was a certified as a law enforcement and school resource chaplain. We wanna thank Lance for his many years of service and he will be deeply missed and we wish the best for him in his future endeavors. And we're all jealous of you, Lance. You got to retire. Since Lance is retired, we got him a nifty little gift because he'll be able to have a lot more home-cooked meals now that he has a regular schedule. So I'm going to present this to Lance, and we'd like for him to take some pictures with his family if he doesn't mind. Should he choose? Lance, do you want to? Absolutely.

First and foremost, I want to say thank you. Thank you to the city of Selma for giving me the opportunity to serve you as a police officer. Thank you to Chief Whiteside for giving me the chance to prove that anyone is capable of turning their lives around. And especially thank you to my wife, who stood by me over the last 15 plus years and through all that has happened. Selma, it has been an honor to serve you. Over the last 20 plus years, there's been a lot of change in this city. However, more importantly, there's been a lot of change in me. While serving the people of this city, I realized that we must never become set in our ways and fail to stop growing. We must be able to recognize our weaknesses and be willing to make the necessary changes in our lives and views for the overall good of the people of this city. For the people of Selma is who I worked for. For the people of Selma is who I worked for, and that is who I swore an oath to protect and to serve. In the beginning as an officer, I had become very jaded and very black and white. I thought I was doing the right thing by operating under the letter of the law and basing my actions on just the facts without being guided by my emotions. However, over the years, I realized that I was wrong. Over the next few years, I began patrol with an open mind and a caring heart, and I discovered that respect cannot be commanded. You have to give respect in order to get respect. By putting the people first and putting myself in their situation, I began to see things in a different light. I also began to see that the respect was going both ways. As police officers, we cannot be effective without having the respect and support of the people of our city. As the people cannot expect their officers to sacrifice everything for a city that has no respect or support for them. Selma, you have made me a better police officer, a better father, better husband, and a better man. For that, I will always be grateful. So do the people of Selma. I say thank you and God bless. So for the final time, I say Selma 83, Laco.

I'm going to take a picture, Lance.

Ready? One, two, and.

Thank you.

Learning words. We'll see you soon.

And very appropriately, we will now move on to our second item on our special presentations, which is the annual police department report. Chief Alcaraz.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council and everybody in attendance. I first want to first start by thanking Lance for coming out tonight and his family. It's good to see him again. I'm super envious. I hope to someday get to that retirement point. But my kids are still in college. It's going to be a while. That said, I also want to thank all the staff that came out from the Selma Police Department because I think it's crucial that they be here tonight because... What we talk about right now are they're just a bunch of numbers, right? They're the results of all of their hard work. And I want them to know how special it is to me, to you, to the council and to our community, because the work that they're doing is making a difference. These numbers here are really just benchmarks. It's something to guide that we're moving in the right direction. What it really means to me though, is when I drive around town, The town, the city looks so much better. I see people walking at night. I see people exercising, kids playing in the parks. That's only happening because our community members feel safe to do that. And this day and age, that is a monumental task to accomplish. And that's all the hard work of all of these law enforcement professionals behind me. I don't do it at all. I just find great people that care. And I couldn't be prouder of every single one of them. I was speaking earlier today and I mentioned Sir Robert Peel. And if many of you don't know, Sir Robert Peel is the father of modern day law enforcement. And Sir Robert Peel said quite eloquently, that the people are the police and the police are the people, meaning law enforcement officers are paid to do a job that's inherently natural to each and every single one of us citizens, and that's to keep each other safe. So their commitment to make that happen does not go unnoticed. I'm extremely proud and honored to lead these brave and committed professionals. And I want to just kind of expand on that a little bit with this annual report, because the numbers, again, they're just numbers. It's all their hard work day in, day out, whether they're tired, where they have things going on at home, whether they lose a brother in the line of duty. They came out and continued to work hard and were committed to the city of Selma. And we are seeing the fruits of all that hard work, sacrifice, and commitment today. So if you'll allow me, I'll try to surmise this. We'll go to our 2025 annual update. So nobody wants to read my message, but it basically says that over, you know, Beyond mentioning just 2025, I always try to correlate what's gone on during my tenure as your police chief. And in an up-belt, this is really kind of what I just spoke to, and it's using some different words. But over the past three years, what these remarkable professionals have done is they've reduced crime 55% over the last three years. They reduced traffic collisions by 42% over the last three years. They've taken over 220 guns off the streets in the last three years, meaning they're taking illegal firearms out of the hands of people that be using them for nefarious and criminal activity, which makes our community exponentially safer. And we're seeing the fruits of that now, correct? The biggest, and I'll just say, for 2025, for the first time in probably over 10 to 15 years, we had no homicides and no fatal traffic collisions. That is quite an astounding feat, given that we're on the 99 corridor in the middle of Fresno County. and Tulare County. And the traffic that traverses through our city, it's enormous. So that creates an enormous policing challenge. And to be able to show those kind of numbers shows their commitment and hard work and dedication. So it's something like, and that's exactly why I was hoping they'd all be here to be recognized for those efforts. So this, this here is just talk a little bit about the calls for service. Um, you know, we have our communications dispatchers last year, just for the city of Selma, they handled 34,000 calls for service, a little over 34,000. They also handled over 10,000 calls for service for the city of Parlier and their, the service that you're getting is an exceptional service. Um, You know, I've worked for smaller agencies before, and I think one of the biggest complaints was how long it took to get to dispatch because that city was contracting services out. So by having our own dispatch and communication centers, we get a much better quality product for our community, and that's absolutely what they deserve. And they're getting the best of the best in Fresno County. I truly believe that. So again, over 44,000 calls for service in a year, that means they're picking up the phone, they're answering the radio. If you break that down per day, It's a lot of calls per day. So kudos to them. Here we'll talk a little bit about, we had a 49% reduction in burglaries in 2025, a 58% reduction in larcenies in 2025, and a 37% reduction in motor vehicle theft. That's happening because career criminals know that our staff are out there being diligent, they're being proactive, they're out looking for criminal activity. They're not waiting for a phone call or for someone to call them or flag them down. They're out looking for these signs that criminal activity is afoot. So our aggravated assaults were down. Homicide, again, no homicides in 2025. I'm very, very proud of that number. And robberies, arson, again, all down, all trending down. So I'm excited for 2026. Our patrol and operations, we've had, again, 13% drop in traffic collisions this year, no fatal or major injury accidents in 2025. We made over 1,400 arrests and almost 100 DUI arrests. That's a large number for a small town such as Selma, you know, for 30,000, 25,000 people. If you look at the picture to your right, we seized 68 firearms. If you look at that one picture there, this kind of has all the firearms on the table. That's not an accumulation of firearms that we took throughout the year. That's one case. One case where our investigations and our patrol divisions were working together, talking about things that they're seeing on the street, and then taking that case, going above and beyond, serving search warrants, and then ascertaining all those illegal firearms. So again, something to be very proud of. Our investigations unit, oh, what can I tell you about them? These gentlemen and ladies, these professionals use every form that they can to research criminal activity to ensure that we leave no stones unturned. I know it says they've written over 40 warrants. I'd have to say it's got to be 100. I think they're being very, very modest there. I know they've pulled over 300 case numbers. And again, follow-up investigations. That's how we get successful prosecutions. So criminals know that when we start to look at them and we make an arrest, we have a good chance that that case is going to go forward and we're going to get a successful prosecution because of the work and efforts that they put into each and every case, especially when we're dealing with some of our more prolific criminals in the city. In addition, we're able to get two school resource officers, one at Abraham Lincoln and one at the high school. And our school resource officers do a phenomenal job, not just staying at the schools, but trying to get into elementary schools and then assisting patrol when they can, whether it's after school's out or covering a shift. So they make an enormous contribution. sacrifice to help ensure that, that not just the school resource program is running well, but they also assist in investigations at times and operations. Oh man, I'm, Code enforcement, well, I'll tell you, when I first got to Selma, I asked for code enforcement. My peers told me, are you crazy, Rudy? And I said, no, no, because I felt that code enforcement wasn't being utilized to its fullest potential. My first couple of years, it was rough getting code enforcement up and running, finding the right personnel. But when we did, code enforcement has been a full multiplier on how we're dealing with some of these nuisance properties, as well as some of these eyesores. And I assure you, and I guarantee with land the way it is, not just in the city of Selma, but throughout Fresno County, the state of California, these infill lots are going to be invested in by developers. And we're going to get some beautiful housing, some tenants, and populate those properties with good citizens that are going to be able to keep an eye on the neighborhoods for us and help us get us from where we are to where we need to be and further be successful in the future here in Selma. We also have our canine units, and I'm happy to say that canine Satin got her first gun a few weeks ago. So I'm very proud of that. And I also would just want to throw a little shout out to the Selma Police Foundation for purchasing Satin for us. She's been a great addition to the department, and we expect more guns from her next year. I hope Officer High is here. He's not okay. Well, I'll talk to him later about that. Also, we retired K-9J to Officer Shannon, who unfortunately left us and has gone to another department. But I'm sure he's doing great things, and I'm sure K-9J is enjoying her time off. So we appreciate that program. So in addition, I spoke a little about communication, so I won't hit on them too much. But again, they do a fabulous job. Our records division, these two young ladies do a phenomenal job. They processed over 7,300 reports last year. That's a lot of reports that they've got to make sure every piece of paper is put together. and it's sent over the district attorney's office or whether it be a PRA request or whatever the case may be. But that's a tremendous workload for two people. And they do always with a smile on their face and they're always have a great, great attitude. And I can't thank that division enough for the hard work that they do. Also, we'll get on our property and evidence. When you write a bunch of search warrants and you make a bunch of arrests and you stop a bunch of cars and you take a bunch of guns, that means we take in an enormous amount of property and evidence. And we couldn't do it without our dedicated property and evidence technician and the work that he does in routing all of those, all that evidence out to the labs or to the courts or wherever it needs to go to get into the professionals that we need to process that evidence for prosecution. So, Again, it seems easy. Our guys just booked that into a locker, but then someone behind the locker is pulling it, tagging it, make sure it's properly tagged and recorded as we move that evidence throughout the county, the state, or wherever it's going. So again, that's a lot of pieces of evidence to process in one year. All right, so our community outreach. What I will say is that... To lead an organization, I truly feel that you have to be able and be engaged with your community and listen to what's going on. You know, I can't tell you how many times we go to events and people ask me, Chief, how's it going? And my response is always, I don't know. You tell me. I can think I'm a rock star and you go, this guy has no idea what's going on. Right. But it's really the input from our community members. What's going on in their neighborhood? How can we be better? How can we deploy resources? Not just what our personnel are telling us or what, you know, social media forums are telling us, but also out in the streets. We're talking to community members trying to figure out what can we do to be better? And that's that's, I think, important. something that's resonating with our staff. And I think I'm hoping that they're bought into that because it's gonna prove them well in their future endeavors in this profession, which is a long one. I also, at the end of every year, we have a departmental breakfast. That's my time to sit down with staff and really talk about the work that we did that year and the things that we're looking forward to next year. It's the one time of the year that I can actually sit down with everybody and have a good intimate conversation and really know how to let them know how much I appreciate their hard work and their efforts. It's hard because they see me sit in an office during the day or here at council meetings or up going from this meeting to that meeting. And sometimes I just get to say hi, but that's a time where we invite their spouses or a family member to come because we have an enormous ask of our law enforcement professionals and that the things they do affect their home life. And I just want their spouses to know that we appreciate it and the spouses would be upset with me because I'm the guy that's asking for these efforts. But it's my time to recognize all of them holistically, you know, not just them, but their family members, because the things we do do affect our family. I'm living proof of that. So, you know, I'm still trying to make it right to my wife. Yeah. for the rest of my life. But this year we gave out the Officer Gonzalo Carrasco Award to Officer Anthony High. Here's someone who exhibited the commitment and dedication to not just the Selma Police Department, community of Selma, but the profession overall. Because Gonzalo was such a dedicated individual who made the ultimate sacrifice. This is a way of honoring somebody that embodies that ideology. As well as we send, the Selma Police Foundation sends the recipient of this award to Washington, D.C. during National Peace Officer Memorial Week so that we have a representative in Washington, D.C. for Gonzalo. And that's something that myself and the Selma Police Foundation chose to do. It was very important to us. And again, it's some way to make sure that Gonzalo's not alone on such an important day. Beyond that, we have the Top Grown Award. This is an individual, Officer Hernando, who's made a ton of vehicle stops, arrests. Overall, he's just a very productive individual and something that we absolutely want to recognize. So that award went to him. We also have our spotty award was our support personnel of the year award that went to Sam, our code enforcement officer, because I will tell you that Sam is a rockstar. I drive around town, the way things look, the way things are taken care of. He's extremely responsive. He is always coming with resolution. never excuses. And that's a very admirable quality to have nowadays. So we really wanted to recognize him this year. We also recognize Maria Valdez is our dispatcher of the year. So we also had a dispatcher banquet. Well, Fresno County, Madera County has a, dispatcher banquet. She was recognized at that banquet, but we also recognize her here at the police department as well. Because again, dispatch is such a crucial component to what we do to get people from where they are, officers from where they are to where they need to be in a calm and clear voice, getting the most information they can to make sure that when they get there to deal with that event, they're as safe as they can be. We also didn't have pictures because Officer Romero doesn't like taking pictures, but he got the Matt Award. I think he had 24 DUI arrests. So of the 99, he had 25% of that workload by himself, which is an astounding number. And the chief's word to Officer J. Alvarez. Officer Alvarez, again, when we started looking at the stats and just he's always got a smile on his face. It took him a while to get that smile. But he finally has a smile on his face. He's out there. He's proactive. He doesn't we don't get a lot of complaints about him. That means he's out there being a professional. And that's what our expectation of him. And then next to that is the firearms award. We had five officers receive the firearms award. And for that award, they get a little pin they put on their duty uniform. But to receive that award, they have to have confiscated five illegal firearms during the course of their duties for that year. So these five individuals, I believe, collected over 36 guns, just those five of them. So the 68 guns they took, these, these five digits are responsible for almost half of those. So again, we want to recognize that. And, uh, it's, it's a huge deal for us because every gun that we take off the streets makes our community exponentially safer and makes them exponentially safer. So we, it's something definitely want to recognize and, uh, memorialize. And before I end this, I'll always talk about Gonzalo. Um, we, we try to memorialize Gonzalo the best we can, uh, every day that we can, um, in a way that doesn't cause reservation to, for our people to go back out there on the streets. But, uh, we, we, we wear a patch that memorializes him in January, uh, when he was taken from us and in May for national peace hospital Memorial week. And then throughout the year, like, uh, the Dia de los Muertos and other things like that. We have the beautiful monument at the front of our police department to always remind us that this is the unfortunate part of our job and that's what we're committed to do. And the very last picture, when you took our annual picture, Maximus was able to come and take a picture with us. So Max's is right there in the middle. We try to include Maximus with us and remember him at Christmas and his birthday. And anytime we have any significant event at the Selma Police Department. So, Mayor, members of the council, that's our 2025 annual report. It's an honor to bring this information to you. And gentlemen and ladies behind me, thank you so much.

I absolutely appreciate all your efforts.

Thank you.

Chief, I want to say thank you for that report. The numbers, like you say, are just numbers. They speak for themselves. But I can tell you that's so right. As a community representative, streets are safer. People do feel safer. And that's just so foundational to the growth of our city. And our city is moving in the right direction. And you do have a lot of support, a lot of support. And we thank you for everything you all do. And it's really showing in report like this. But in the conversations we have, I mean, I see Alex, I see Sam. We all get along. We're all moving, working for the same thing, trying to grow our city and work together. And that's how we do it. And just can't thank you enough for all the time away you spend from your families, all the risks you put yourselves through. You know, the bad times have brought us together. There's a huge community support, the Crossco family. And the good times bring us together. And we're in the good times right now. Let's keep them going. Thank you, PD. You're doing an awesome job. Please keep up the good work.

Mr. Mayor, as a reminder to the community, the The annual police report is on the city website right now, cityofselma.com departments and go to police and you can read the report yourself. It's live right now.

I'd like to thank our communications director for working closely with Selma PD chief Alcarez to make this report really pop and come out. Thank you for your efforts on this. I know it took a lot of time, but it was well worth it. Community really appreciates your efforts and chief, your efforts are stellar. Thank you so much. Now we'll move on to our item one, three of our special presentation. This is the Central California APA chapter, and it's awarding the Selma Parks Master Plan, the Planning Award of Excellence for 2026. Acting Director Tiger.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I have the privilege of introducing Christine Chavez. She's the chair for the APA Sencal Awards and as well as a senior planner for QK. And so I'll let her take it away from here.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, City Manager Rogers, and the community here today. It's a very hard presentation to follow, but I'll make it quick. So I'm here today on behalf of Central California American Planning Association. I'm sorry. I also have Claire Corral with me. She's the co-chair for the awards this year. I'm here to present you with the Award of Excellence for the 2026 Planning Excellence Award for Implementation. The central section of APA California covers a vast 11-county region encompassing Fresno, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, Mono, Stanislaus, Tulare, and Tuolumne counties. The section's geographical area includes the greater central southern San Joaquin Valley, the most productive agricultural region in the world, the foothill and mountain regions with four national forests, Stanislaus, Sierra, Sequoia, and Inyo, four national parks, including Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Death Valley. And I invite you to join us as a member of the American Planning Association. APA is an essential membership association for planners. No other organization associated with planning profession provides the quantity and quality of information, continuing education and peer relationships that APA does. Membership in APA provides you with the most opportunities to elevate the practice of planning and the communities you serve in your career. I'm honored to recognize the City of Selma with special recognition to Liz Fletcher, Director of Community Services and the hardworking staff at the City of Selma. Nominated by Jerome Keene, AICP, a principal planner at QK on this excellent planning document that improves quality of life for residents in the central section of California. The City of Selma Parks Master Plan is the first comprehensive parks planning document ever prepared for Selma. A community of over 24,000 people that's 82% Hispanic ranked among California's top 25% most disadvantaged communities and home to a park acreage deficit of 75.1 acres relative to the city's own general plan standard. Initiated in February of 2024 and finalized in September of 2025, the 20-year master plan was developed by QK through bilingual community engagement, a full day of stakeholder interview program, and statistically valid public survey, ensuring that the voices of predominantly Spanish speaking, lower income community shaped every recommendation. The plan delivers a clear equity centered roadmap for transforming Selma's seven existing parks, identifies 126.9 acres of future park land possibilities, Introduces an innovative storm drain basin conversion strategy and provides a grant-ready funding framework, positioning one of Central Valley's most underserved communities to close its park deficit and achieve 5.0 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents by 2045. Projects and plans that are developed with community input include supportive community-serving uses where feasible and prioritize the needs of the community. Parks improve quality of life in many important ways, including socially, physically, environmentally, and economically. Selma's efforts in improving their parks supports the mission of SenCal APA by improving quality of life and by creating great communities in Central California. So again, congratulations on your 2026 Award of Excellence, Planning Excellence Award for Implementation.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, come on up.

Thank you for this award. Sounds great. Stand down there and we'll stand up behind you.

Sounds good. We'll let Director Matt handle it.

All right with that we're going to move on to our final special presentation of the evening, which is a bank of California presentation.

Good evening, council, city manager. Great presentation to fall after. Now I'm going to slow it down a little bit and talk about some banking. So I really appreciate the opportunity to come up here today and discuss relationship banking. Bank of California, we're really dedicated to serving the communities we're in. really depend on that local relationship banking and bringing things back to a face-to-face and also getting a lot of work done and contributing to communities. So as I was saying, we're committing to serving our local communities and supporting businesses, real estate developers, municipalities, multifamily housing through specialized lending and banking. The bank's financing solutions for public projects, nonprofit, and tax-exempt borrowers support community services and compliance of public funding cycles. Providing affordable housing loans help address housing needs, which benefit many and improve lives, so. Bank of California's affordable housing commitment. It's a core priority of the bank to provide affordable housing to support low and moderate income communities with flexible financing solutions. Comprehensive financing support, providing multifamily construction loans, permanent financing, and refinancing the workforce and senior housing projects. Affordable housing is integrated into the bank's mission and core advancing sustainable housing initiatives within the local communities. We use simplified tax exempt loan structure and have experienced legal teams to make the processes smooth and move forward as quickly as possible. Tax exempt and taxable debt for the 4% and 9% LIHTC projects are provided. Direct debt funding from 5 million to 100 million is available with Bank of California. Fixed tax exempt and taxable interest rates are available individually or combined. And integrating financing options that fund project constructions and convert to permanent financing upon completion. So we're there from the beginning to the end to ensure folks are getting into that housing and we're providing the relationship banking for that. So I think it's important in relationship banking to understand Selma's developmental needs. So I think it's just good to have open dialogue like tonight being able to present, I'm honored, with partners. So it starts with understanding city priorities like housing and economic development. And then discussions with related parties such as developers and real estate investors. Identifying next steps. There's a lot of detail. So being able to identify projects, timelines for funding, and complementing other funding sources and those timelines as well. So everything's coordinated. And then the long-term commitment. The bank offers guidance and commits to responsible lending and community development. So once again, I just appreciate this opportunity to talk about relationship banking. Bank of California, we are a large regional bank, but we do have a focus on community banking and being available in the committees we serve like Selma. Thank you again and have a good evening.

Thank you, Tommy, for your presentation. Real quick, are you planning on moving into Selma? Where is your bank located currently? Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

So currently we have a branch in Hanford, but I am all over the communities we serve. We also have branches and a branch in Fresno and Visalia. So we don't currently have a branch in Selma, but I'm always a phone call away. I'm available at any time.

Great. Thanks for your presentation. Appreciate it. Thank you. With that, we're going to move on to the consent calendar. All items listed under the consent calendar 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 any items or an item they would like removed from the consent calendar tonight? I'll take off item to dash 3 is there a motion to approve items to one to 2 and 2, 4, through to 7 make a motion. Call the roll, please.

I'm member of the loss. Yes, the member of the era. Yes, I remember 3, 0, yes, and never to era, yes, they're up.

Yes. And just let the record reflect the mayor pro Tem Gara made the moat, the initial motion. Thank you. Item two, three. Thank you, sir. Item two, three. Did you want to expound on this?

I may, I'm just the city manager. Thank you, mayor members of the city council. I called to the attention of the city and the city manager when we were putting the agenda together, Now, typically these type of items reside in an elation. It's a matter of high public policy interest. And therefore I wanted members of the public to have the opportunity to weigh in or for public comment. And so this is the reason why I mentioned to the city manager as to why we needed to pull the item. We can move it when we get to the calendar under regular items and we can have that discussion.

But we pulled it, so it's actually a regular item now. Does a member of the public or any members of the public have any comments they would like to make about this agenda item about the upcoming November 5th, November 3rd election? Do we have anybody on the phone or online who would like to make a comment about this agenda item?

Mayor, I see no hands raised.

Is there a motion to approve this item?

I'll make a motion.

Is there a second?

Second.

Call the roll, please.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you, city clerk. Moving on to departmental report city manager.

Yes. Thank you, mayor and council. It's been quite a while since we were up here. Actually, not really. We were up just last week. But yeah, since then, I've met with various developers related to different developments going on in the city. Raven, Crown, Selma Marketplace, Casitas Developments. Also worked with finance and engineering on the fiscal year 26-27 budget document for the June 16th agenda. Community Development and I met with a party that had some questions regarding the surplus notice of availability for the Nelson and McCall. At this time, no offers have been submitted. for this property. They have until July 13th, I believe, July 11th or July 13th. Met with HDL consultants to review the fourth quarter 25 sales tax receipts. Overall, the fourth quarter was up 2.7% over the prior year. And with yearly 2025 sales tax receipts up 1.1% over the prior year. The Lennar project has started moving forward with building their homes for the Amberwood project and are pulling reports, not reports, pulling permits for those homes. I attended the ICSC conference with the mayor and the majority of council members. It was a good event, and Director Moreno and I learned a lot and got some good information. Also, thank you to Director Moreno for completing a lot of the economic development slides that we were able to hand out. And then we conducted interviews for the community development director position and had some good viable candidates that are up for consideration. I also wanted to introduce our interim community development director, Bonique Emerson, here tonight and will be presenting later. And then finally, we've contracted with Daryl Bettencourt for interim city clerk services right now. And I wanted to briefly introduce him to you all tonight. Thank you. Great.

Thank you. And welcome to Daryl and Bonique. Thank you very much for coming to Selma. Mr. Mayor. Thank you. We have a report from our acting community services director, Tiger.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I do have some things to report on. So this weekend or this past weekend on Sunday, me and six other lifeguards went through our training and got our recertification. Community swim program will open up on June 13th and run every weekend until August 2nd. The pool will be open at Selma High School from 12 to 4 p.m. And then on Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m. is a dedicated time for swimming. people with special needs. The pool is still open to the general community. It is just a more sensitive time for that time. We just had Selma Live happen on Friday. It was a great event, very well received by the community. Thank you to Public Works, various staff and volunteers for making that event happen. And then this summer or this Friday, we'll start off our summer series with our summer kickoff event and partner with The Bid, an event downtown. And I'll let Jose talk a little bit more about that. We'll be bringing some inflatables and yard games with that. Then we'll have our movies in the park that following Friday on June 12th. We will have from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. We'll be showing Coco for the first movie. And then on June 26th, we'll be showing Nacho Libre. And then we'll be providing the free snacks as long as supplies last. And so that's always a good event. It'll be at Lincoln Park with a big movie screen. And then all the families are welcome. Bring your lawn chairs and everything. And then at the senior center, we currently have a survey going on right now. It is an in-person survey. It's kind of over encompassing all of our programming, future meals and various activities that go on in that senior center. That survey is open and in person right now at McDean Senior Center. We also have staff available that can assist with anybody that needs assistance with that filling out of that survey. For the Arts Center, they're still doing their production of Grease right now, and they're offering student and senior discount nights with $19 tickets on Thursday, June 4th, and Thursday, June 11th. And then with that, Animal Services has been doing their spay and neuter program. To this date, they have 10 vouchers distributed, and staff anticipates participation will continue to increase as the program becomes widely accepted. So far, a total of 50 vouchers have been printed based on available funding. It looks like we can afford approximately 60 surgeries. There's currently a waiting list of 34 animals for spay and neuter services, including the vouchers that have already been issued. beginning June 13th animals services will expand the program offering vouchers directly to the public at the Selma animal shelter on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. staff is currently working with participating vets to establish a voucher expiration date to make sure that we have those things all lined up for the time it's public rollout and then the TNR program is still going right now they're actively trapping sterilizing returning cats to target locations throughout the city These areas include Walmart, Home Depot, the Police Department, and Tucker Street neighborhood. Those are just to reduce the unwanted litters in a safe and humane way. Those are my updates.

Thank you. Appreciate it, Director Tiger. Question on the Spain New Year program. Thank you for that report. As everybody knows, the city allocated $6,000 for that, and it was matched by donations from private industry, from Selma, citizens and businesses. And so there's a total of 12 to 13,000 for the spay and neuter. As everybody knows, we have an overpopulation program. If you went to the scholarships at Selma High recently, you saw as many cats as you did scholarship recipients. I mean, they're out there. There are just a lot of them, and that's not the only place. Selma Cemetery is another one as well. So we really need to do something about the problem itself, and we are. We're doing something about the problem, not just putting them in behind cages in the animal shelter. We're taking care of it at the cause. I appreciate the good people in animal services who are helping us with that. I know there was some trepidation about or concern about too many people registering, but I don't think that's the case. We have our animal services manager Armando over there, but wanted to confirm that we are going to be advertising this program on the city's social media in order to get as many animals spayed and neutered as possible. Is that correct?

Yeah, we've been working with Director Moreno on getting a post out to the public. With the staff's concern of just the over amount of people, the excessive amount of people, that's why we kind of limited it to Saturdays so that staff can kind of still manage those high influx of people coming in for those vouchers.

For those people who can't get the animals to the veterinary, I think the city's using South County and Dr. Peel right now to, What do they do? What is the way the city is going to be handling that if they don't have transportation to and from veterinarians? Have we gone that far yet? Can you do it on record? Armando, please add the mic so we can hear it.

Thank you.

Whoa.

You are trying to get just introduce yourself on the record, if you would. Armando Girola, Animal Services Manager. First time up here. We have always booked. We're going to start doing a waiver. So if we're going to be transporting some animals, we'll be transporting them very short distances from the city of Selma, wherever they're at, if they can't do it themselves, to the actual vet, an area clinic, South County or Dr. Pills right there off of Manning and McCall. When they are done, the doctor will call us. We'll go pick them up and transport them back to the house. Normally, this will be for people who don't have a ride, are disabled, and can't do it themselves. We'll be more than happy to do it for them.

I think that's really important in order to get those animals taken care of.

I have a question. When you do the rollout, can you please make sure you do it in Spanish also? Absolutely. I just got another hit on social media. A person in Spanish speaking, they wanted to know where to go. And so Nydia and myself directed the people to come and see you at the shelter. I know you want to do it on Saturdays only, but if they're coming on social media, it's because they don't know what's going on. So it's very important that you guys and Director Moreno get it out to the community in my area, which is the barrio, because the need is great out there.

Absolutely. We will be doing it in Spanish also. If I may real quick, the reason that it hasn't been so much brought on the social media is we're just working out those behind the scene kinks right now. So it's completely ready to go once we roll that out for the full community. So we're just working behind the scenes on those final detail things, and then it will be rolled out to the whole community and social media.

Sounds good. So could we get another report in, say, another month? You guys come back, give us another report. That sounds like you're starting to ramp up now. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. Okay, moving on. Engineering Director Horton.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. Just two quick updates. The Clean California project on 2nd Street, we just were informed that Caltrans has issued that encroachment permit and approved the plans that the consultant worked on. So they'll continue to move forward now with getting ready to have that project go out to bid. So we appreciate Caltrans' help to get to that point. And then just a quick update on Floral Avenue east of Dockery is now open. The Lenar tract finished that work. You just want the residents to know that the temporary traffic control has been removed. The traffic is back to what it was before. So just be aware and drive careful.

In the future, when there are 300 families that have moved in there, will the city be doing another warrant study potentially to see if stop signs should go in there or how the city approach that?

Sure, that can be done in the future. The Amberwood specific plan had a traffic impact analysis done for the entire specific plan. So any of the tracks that go in are gonna have to follow that impact study. And if there's any requirements for additional control, those will be done as new tracks come online.

I wanna thank you and the city manager also for responding to a concern of the residents about that, about whether there's gonna be that connector road to Dockery. and appreciate the city getting right back to this resident and calming their fears that things will be going in from that track that actually aren't coming in. So thank you for that and taking care of those citizen concerns.

Okay.

Anybody question? Okay.

Thank you. I have a question. I know it wasn't something you're going to report on, but where are we at Thompson Park? I know it's been for a long time. We haven't heard anything. I know you were working with another agency on getting that done.

So the plans for the park and the streets adjacent to the park are completed. But we've been working with CID as the open canal that's on the southeast corner of the park has to be piped before the park can be built. So those plans are in process and have to be reviewed by CID's consulting engineer. So that's what we're working on now in order to have that portion done so that the park can be finished.

On a related note, City Manager, is the county putting that land up for sale at Rockwell Pond? We had started that process in 2020. It got reversed. We are again looking at that for a regional park, a 40-acre, a larger regional park. Where is the county in that offering?

I have not seen a move either way on it yet.

Is that the plan for the county to offer that to interested public agencies?

That was the last discussion that I had with my counterpart over there.

There will be a significant change in the Board of Supervisors after this primary election. So maybe there's some people that are waiting for that. We'll see. Okay, moving on. Communications Director Moreno.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the council. Just to report on a couple events we have coming up in the month of May and June, we've had about seven community, major community events that involve the Art Center, Sparks, and Downtown Business Association. So it's been a great time in the city. Selma's alive, a lot of events happening, a lot of folks coming together and having a good time and enjoying our community. With that, I kind of want to do a quick report on Selma Live, which happened last Friday. It starred Jon Pemberton and his wife Tammy leading some line dancing. And I just wanted to show a quick report on what it looked like and what the stats are. If you're unfamiliar with the process, We have a subscription to Placer AI, which is a data tracking system that kind of measures where folks are coming from and where they're at. Selma Live pulled about 1,200 visitors from 5 o'clock to 10 o'clock p.m. And if you need a recap, the event was in Lincoln Park in the large space area. Me and acting director Tiger mentioned how beautiful it was to be there. It was very scenic. It was a great space to utilize. It was the first time we did it. So it was a great setup. We see that the most community members ended up staying about 85 minutes, which means they're enjoying the food. They're sitting down in their lawn chairs watching the music. The peak time when folks showed up the most is about 8 o'clock, probably when the sun went down. But we still had a lot of people from the beginning to the end. From 5 to 10, we had a good amount of folks stay. If you look on the right side, this is the important data. We want to know who's coming to Selma, who's visiting Selma. And we could see that Selma residents made up 917. So 76% of the folks at this event were from the community. But we also had visiting communities from Kingsburg, Clovis, Fowler, and Reedley. They wanted to check out the country music and check out the events we have. We've had two country events back to back. And I've seen a lot of folks from Kingsburg come over and say how much they really enjoy us diversifying the entertainment in the community. We're doing new things. We're bringing new acts that they want to see. And we're close enough for them to travel and visit us over here. At the bottom right, you'll see where visitors are going once they visit the event. Selma Plaza, Garden Vineyard Plaza, Walmart, and Star One Market, which makes the most sense. It's right off the freeway, 2nd Street. So folks are getting gas before they leave. This kind of just shows the economic power of having community events where people are traveling to come see us. And that's the data from Placer AI. I want to mention we have two more events coming up. This Friday, we have Food Truck Friday. It's hosted by the Downtown Business Improvement District, and we're aligning with the Sparks, Parks and Recs team to make it a bigger event. They're going to bring their inflatables, their bounce houses. We have a DJ called Cumbia Bass, and they play live instruments mixed with DJ music. It's dancing. It's fun. We know we're in the middle of graduation week, so it's going to be a stressful time. So if you want to come out, have a good time on Friday, get some food. We got we got about 20 food vendors. There's a beer garden sponsored by Riley's and come out and dance and have a good time with the community. And that's and that's some of the feedback that I've received from folks is that coming together, seeing police and fire at all these events and having that engagement with those folks outside of critical incidents is very important. And communicating with with council members at the events, too. It's awesome. part of community engagement. And it's been a great experience working with staff, community members, public works, community members that help set up the event and our downtown business improvement district. And that's all I have, Mayor.

That's exactly right. Communications director, you were there the whole time. You were marketing it, showing our city off. Really appreciate all your efforts and appreciate everybody who comes out to support our city events because that's really how they succeed. It's for us. It's our city. And, you know, we had public safety come out in great numbers, not as the communications director said to fight fires or arrest people, but to show their support for our city. just as our citizens did who came out on a friday night it was a beautiful night came out had line dancing lessons we'll have different type of music this weekend but it's all about us citizens supporting our city and that's really what we're trying to do because this city is for our residents we're trying to make it a better place for us to live And I think we're seeing the results. Our city looks better. Our people are coming out. There are more people with smiles on their faces because we have a city that is alive and we're doing things just you know, go downtown on your way home tonight and look at those beautiful trees and those beautiful lights. And hopefully you'll come back on Friday as well for, for that event. So thank you to our communications director for that report. And we also have a fair number of out of town folks who are coming. We're going to want to buy gas, buy homes, start a business. They're looking at Selma. We're definitely on the map and we have a lot of interest in our community. So it's just, it's a great place to be. So that will conclude our departmental reports. And we will now take a five-minute break during which members of the public can meet with the head of our departments if they have any issues like Mr. Thompson indicated earlier. Thank you. We'll be back in five minutes.

All right, everybody, take your seats.

We're going to get back in session. I have a go.

My left hand.

All right, everybody, we're going to get started. We're going to get started with item four of our agenda tonight, which is a public hearing. It's an action item and it's public hearing tentative subdivision map and annexation pre-zone LaVena track 6514 Crown Homes Development City Manager.

Yes, Mayor and Council. Before we begin, I wanted to note that this application has generated significant discussion regarding general plan consistency and proposed pre-zoning. As reflected in the report record before you, planning staff and the city attorney have reached differing conclusions regarding the interpretation of the general plan in the zoning ordinance. This issue has been thoroughly reviewed and analyzed through both the planning and legal processes. To ensure an orderly discussion, I will first ask planning staff to present their analysis and recommendation, followed by the city attorney's legal analysis and recommendation. And then we'll bring it back to council to ask questions before opening to the public. With that, I will turn the item over to Bonique Emerson with our planning staff.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members, Bonique Emerson, Interim Community Development Director. So, Wait for the presentation to load here. Okay, so again, the item that I'm presenting to you tonight is item number four on the agenda, track 6514, the Lavinia Crown Homes Development. Next slide. So first just a quick project summary. So the project includes several components, including tentative track map 6514 and annexation into the city of Selma, a pre-zoning to the R14 zone district and a CEQA exemption. So the project area is approximately 78 acres in total area and approximately 53 acres of that is proposed for development. This proposed development includes the subdivision of that 53 acres into a 237 lot single family development. Within that development, there are two neighborhood parks and the exhibit there demonstrates the location of the project area. Next slide. So tentative track map again proposes to subdivide the property into 237 single family lots. There will be two parks, the parks total 4.3 acres in area. There is a larger park that's a little over three acres and a smaller park that's over an acre in size. And there's also a ponding basin and public improvements proposed for that map. The pre-zoning proposes to, pre-zone the 78 acres to the R14 zone district. The annexation proposes to annex approximately 78 acres into the city of Selma. And the CEQA determination is that the project is exempt pursuant to CEQA guidelines sections 15183. All right. So this is staff's recommended action, which is to introduce by title only the ordinance of the City Council of the City of Selma to amend the official zoning map of the city to pre-zone eight parcels. The parcels are identified there by assessor parcel numbers. Again, these total approximately 78 acres. and the pre-zone would be to the R14 zone district and approve the CEQA exemption finding. Also, we ask that you consider the annexation and tentative track map. Next slide. So a summary of future actions at a future council hearing, June 16th of this year, council may consider actions related to the second reading of the pre-zone. So this is the introduction. So there'll be a second reading along with actions of the annexation and tentative track map. And after that, if the annexation is approved, the next step would be to submit an application to LAFCO, that's the Local Area Formation Commission. Next slide. So again, a little bit more about the project. So this is the project location. It's located north of Rordon Avenue and north and south of Rose Avenue, west of Amber Avenue, within the City of Selma sphere of influence. And Amber Avenue is the eastern sphere line. So this project is at the edge of the sphere line. Again, the project consists of eight parcels, totaling approximately 70 parcels. So this is a aerial photo that depicts surrounding development. It's broken up on the north side of Rose Avenue and the south side of Rose Avenue. The surrounding land uses are to the north. agricultural land to the south, undeveloped property designated for future high density residential development. To the east is active ag operations and rural residential uses. And to the west is vacant property on the south side. Southwest is a vacant property that's zoned are for high density and to the west of the northern section of the uh project area is a approved the approved rose avenue panu subdivision that's track 64 24 so that area is currently vacant but is has an approved tentative map on it next slide So the existing zoning of the site is AE20 in the County of Fresno. The general plan land use for the site is shown on the map there. It is designated for low density. So the north side, you can see north of Rose Avenue is designated low density residential. And the south portion of the project area is designated as medium low density residential. Typical land uses with these designations include single family residential development and neighborhood serving open space and park facilities. The max density permitted in the medium low density residential plan land use is 5.5 dwelling units to the acre. Next slide. So next I wanna talk about the pre-zoning. So again, since the property is located within the unincorporated area of Fresno County, it requires pre-zoning prior to annexation into the city of Selma. The recommended zone district is the R14. And again, the R14 zone district permits single family residential development, and it's consistent with the site's low density residential and medium low density residential general plan land use designations. So again, the proposed development consists of 237 single family lots. This results in a residential density of approximately 4.5 dwelling units per gross acre. Next slide. So here is the tentative track map. The project features would include, again, single family homes, two neighborhood parks, and you can see the neighborhood parks, the larger park is on the left side, that's the north side, over three acre park. The smaller park is that square on the south side or to the right. And the furthest kind of open space area on the right is the proposed ponding basin. The lots range in size from approximately 5,000 square feet to 9,950 square feet in area and the average lot size is about 6,000 square feet. Next slide. So in terms of the density calculation, since that is one of the items that is a little bit controversial, I just wanted to show here staff's calculation of density. So of the project area of those 53 acres proposed for development, about 34 acres are currently planned low density residential and 19.32 are planned medium low density residential. So just moving on the right, you can see the calculation is the maximum units per acre that are permitted in the low density. That's four units per acre are permitted in low. So we take 34 times four and that gives us 136 units. For the medium low, the max density permitted in that designation is 5.5 units to the acre. So 19.32 times five is 106 units. So we add those two together to get a total of 242 units. That's the max density permitted on the site based on the general plan land uses. so given that um since the project is proposing 237 units it's below the maximum uh units permitted and below the maximum density permitted and given that the r14 zone district allows for lot sizes that fall within this allowed density range the r14 zone district can be deemed consistent with low and medium low density land use designations next slide So just to further discuss general plan consistency, I want to talk about the blending of densities, because that's what's occurring on this project site. And blending of densities across multiple land uses across a single project is a standard planning practice that's done in many cities. It allows for open space trails and other outlets to be placed on portions of the site without preventing the site from building at maximum density. The practice is further supported by languages language and policies in the general plan. Many of those policies are outlined in the staff report before you. There is one general plan policy that I pointed out here, which is section 1.5. And I'll point to just the second sentence there that states the classifications of land are adopted as general plan policies and are intentionally broad to allow flexibility in project planning. I'll just leave it at that. That's one of the policies that's within the general plan and included in the staff report just underlying the general plan land uses are intended to be flexible. Next slide. As you know, there has been an argument raised that the proposed zoning is inconsistent with the general plan because the general plan identifies the R-17 and R-19 zoning zone districts as districts that are appropriate for the medium-low density land use designation and the proposed R14 zone district was created after the general plan was last updated and thus it's not listed in the general plan. So staff does recognize that the general plan does not list R14 in the table, the consistency table in the general plan. However, the issue is not entirely clear-cut because the general plan refers to R17 and R19 as typical zoning districts, and the proposed project still falls within the general plan's allowed density range for low density and medium-low density, as I previously presented in an earlier slide. Next slide. So we did receive a letter from the applicant's attorney on May 29th. And the letter was protesting the argument that the proposed R14 zone district is not consistent with the city's general plan. One item that was stated in this letter was that even if it is determined that the R14 zone district is inconsistent with the general plan, the Housing Accountability Act may apply. And specifically section 65889.5 Subdivision J4 states that a proposed housing development is not inconsistent with applicable zoning standards and criteria and shall not require rezoning if the housing development project is consistent with the objective general plan standards and criteria provided. but the zoning for the project site is inconsistent with the general plan. So I know that's kind of a long statement, but what it's stating that even if you do have some inconsistency between your code and your general plan, if the project is consistent with the general plan, then it shall be deemed consistent with the general plan. So if the project is consistent with these objective general plan standards. Next slide. So in terms of the environmental compliance, the proposed project is exempt from additional environmental review pursuant to CEQA Guideline Sections 15183. It was determined that the project is consistent with the City of Selma General Plan Update 2035 and was determined to be within the scope of impacts previously analyzed in the certified program EIR. It was found that no new significant environmental effects beyond those previously analyzed have been identified. And this is documented in an exemption analysis document that's included in the staff report. So there was a long analysis that was done to that was specific to this project that verifies that the project has no additional impacts beyond that which was previously analyzed in the general plan EIR. Next slide. So in terms of public notification, the public hearing notices were posted in the Selma Enterprise. There was a mailing of public hearing notices to property owners within 300 feet of the site and notification of interested parties was given to people who have expressed interest in being notified about the proposed project. Next slide. So just wanted to touch on Planning Commission review. So Planning Commission held a public hearing on January 26th, 2026. At that time, Planning Commission asked the applicant to hold a neighborhood meeting before they would consider the item. So a neighborhood meeting was held by the applicant at City Hall on March 26th, and there were about 30 people who were in attendance at that meeting. Following these neighborhood outreach efforts, the Planning Commission held a continued public hearing on April 27th, 2026. And at this Planning Commission, several members of the public spoke in opposition to the project. So in addition to the comments in opposition to the project that were received at planning commission, there were two comment letters that were received. And I do want to touch on some of the issues that were raised in the comment letters, because some of them have been addressed. So first item is that there was a request for the project to not access country view. The response is that country view is not adjacent to the project area and the project does not access the street. Next access to Rorden should be limited to emergency access and staff's response is that access is proposed to this street, but this access point is not the primary entrance to the subdivision. A traffic study was completed to verify that the street has capacity to serve the proposed subdivision and this street will be widened and improved per the conditions of approval of the track map. So as a condition of approval, that road will be improved. There was another comment on block walls and landscaping. So there was a request that the block walls and the landscaping be enhanced. And the staff's response is that decorative masonry walls, so that's pilasters spaced 25 feet apart, have been required. This is a requirement in the conditions of approval. And general plan policy 1.25 requires landscaping in conjunction with these block walls. There was also concerns raised about access and traffic at Mill Street and Country View at this intersection. And staff's response is that the proposed project does not abut nor does it impact this intersection. There are also letters of support that were submitted on the record at that planning commission meeting as well. Next slide. So after the planning commission hearing, the planning commission voted to reject staff's recommendation of approval and forwarded a recommendation of denial to city council. Next slide. And with that, I just, staff's recommendation again is to introduce by title the ordinance, to pre-zone the property to the R14 zone district and approve the CEQA exemption finding. And that concludes staff's presentation.

Thank you, Director. Appreciate it very much. City Attorney, do you have your perspective to offer on this at this time? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. My legal opinion and consistency of a general plan with a subdivision map or zoning ordinance is a legal question and consistent with that principle. Any enactment of this city council, including a general plan is interpreted according to established rules of statutory construction, because as it is an enactment of an alleged of a legislative body, this city council, It is also established law that any subdivision map must be both consistent with the zoning assigned to it and with your general plan. Otherwise, it can't be approved. My legal opinion is that this particular subdivision map is consistent with the zoning, but the zoning is inconsistent with the general plan, which means the subdivision map cannot be approved. That ultimately, the question of consistency is ultimately a discretionary determination for this council to make based on the language of the general plan and the competing interests that are attempted to be addressed in that general plan. There are many things in the general plan that are general policy statements. There are a few statements in there that are absolute clear mandates. One of those is what appears in Table 1-1 of your general plan. The zones consistent with the medium low density and low density land use designation contained in your general plan are are one nine and are one seven. The last number on each of these zones. is the square footage assigned to each lot. So for example, R14 allows for a 4,000 square foot lot. R19 requires a 9,000 square foot lot. In this case, your zoning ordinance was adopted after you amended the general plan Uh, and that zoning ordinance created this new zoning district are one four and the zoning ordinance, uh, very improperly expressly declares that the new zone is consistent with the land use designation for medium, low density. it does not declare that it is consistent with low density. So this, you know, at least half of that is not even covered by the general plan designation or the zoning declaration that is consistent with the general plan.

That is precisely the opposite of the procedure that you're required to follow.

You cannot amend a general plan by a declaration in a zoning ordinance. It is the zoning ordinance that has to be consistent with the general plan, not the other way around. The general plan includes that table 1-1, and that was updated in 2023 by Resolution 2023-36R. Insofar as that table is is concerned that update removed minimum lot sizes from the table and replaced those with per acre or per house per acre quantifications of density. But it didn't remove the statement that the consistent zones for this land use designation are R one nine and R one seven. The fact that you amended that table specifically and left that provision in place is very indicative of the fact that you wanted that to remain in there. That's one of those rules of statutory construction. The pre-zoning proposed by the subdivision map is R14 with respect to the entirety of the subdivision, part of which is designated low density. And there is nothing in that zoning ordinance that says R14 is consistent with low density. It says R14 is consistent with medium low density. Ordinance number 2024-6 created that R14 zone, allowing for the 4,000 square foot lots. And that was adopted on June 17, 2024, after the general plan was updated, including table 1.1. That section appears in your municipal code as section 11-2-2, subdivision B, and it states the newly created R144 zone is consistent with the pre-existing MLD general plan designation. The ordinance to that extent allows for a new zone to be consistent with with those land use designations reflected in the table. That zoning ordinance can't change the general plan and that's exactly what the council attempted to do when it adopted that ordinance. Anytime a zoning ordinance is adopted and conflicts with something in your general plan, under consistent law, the zoning ordinance is void from its inception. It's void on the date you passed it. It never becomes effective. No one acquires any rights under it. You acquire no obligation under it. It doesn't exist. That is the rule of law and state law simply imposes that requirement that a zoning ordinance be consistent with the general plan and it renders anyone that isn't void. Can't rely on it. You can't use it. The consistency doctrine is the absolute linchpin of development law. And your general plan is your constitution as far as development within your city is concerned. The developer's attorney, as the community development director pointed out, served us with a letter on May 29, making various claims, including claims under the Housing Accountability Act. I had raised this issue with the developer's attorney back on April 23. And I told him that our zoning ordinance, no, no fault of yours. Your, your client didn't do anything wrong. The council adopted a zoning ordinance that is in part void because it changes what's in your general plan, something you just can't do.

It's a legal impossibility.

Um, And it's clearly inconsistent with the general plan because you have a total of four zoning districts in your city. You have R1-12, R1-9, R1-7, and R1-4, the new one. And the new one, R1-4, is something that allows the highest density possible for a single family home, 4,000 square foot lot. If you were to adopt, by adopting that ordinance and saying that ordinance is consistent with the medium-low density requirements, You are essentially saying that medium low density requirements doesn't exist anymore because our one four is the highest density possible. So you are rendering what's in your general plan absolutely ineffective absolutely meaningless. Because it doesn't matter what the land use designation is. you can build the highest density home or homes within the medium low density area. It completely changes the requirement, which is stated in the ordinance as an absolute mandate. There are no other zones that are deemed consistent by your general plan with the medium-low density land use designation. The only thing that the developer points to and that our community development department points to is other provisions in the general plan that state, policies. And the one they rely on apparently is 1.15. Although they've, they've quoted, I think 1.5, but I think they got that wrong. I think what they quoted to you was 1.15. So 1.15 is the one that allows a transition between higher density development and conventional single family developments. And it says typical zoning for the medium-low density land use designation is R1-7 and R1-9, consistent with the table. There's another policy in there, which is 1.5, which specifically says that table 1-1 provides a summary of the density ranges allowed in residential designations and lists the zoning districts appropriate for each land use. Both the developer and the staff report rely on the fact that the statement in table 1.1 does not say R19 or R17 are the exclusive zones that are consistent with the general plan, but there is a rule of statutory construction. If you express one thing, you are presumed to be excluding something else. That's commonly arises in a statute where you list various things that are all fall within the same category of things. Here you have a certain category of zones. You have four of them total, you've listed only two. Under the rules of statutory construction, you are presumed to have intended to exclude the other zones as being consistent with this zone. And Policy 1.5 makes that very clear by saying that it lists the zoning districts that are appropriate for each land use in Table 1-1. There's very little room for movement there. In fact, there's no room for movement there. The the fact that half of this is designated low density. Is a real problem. Because. Even your zoning ordinance doesn't say that R1-4 is consistent with low density. It says it's consistent with medium low density, which it can't do because it's a zoning ordinance and it can't change the general plan. It's just that simple. The table identifies the only zones because of that rule of statutory construction and the the other rule of statutory construction that you rely on here is applicable to um uh policy 1.5 policy 1.5 says we've listed for you the zones that are that are consistent with this land use designation. And when you do that, like I said, you're presumed to have intended to exclude the ones that aren't listed. That's the basis for my opinion on the lack of consistency of this subdivision map, and I do believe that you have no basis on which to approve this thing. I raised this, as I said, with the developer's attorney back on April 23, and I told them that the only way you could make this work is to pre-zone at R1-7. Because that's the only way you can make it consistent with the general plan. The zoning ordinance here is absolutely void to the extent it tries to change the zones that are consistent with that general plan. We didn't get very far in his consideration of whether or not to change his proposal to pre zone it at our one seven and you know, a month later, you get a A letter threatening you with litigation in the event that you Don't approve this project and he relies as she pointed out on various provisions in the Housing Accountability Act Which is as ridiculously long statute and he's relying on one particular subdivision Among others. This is the primary one. He's relying on And it it says that For purposes of this section, a proposed housing development is not inconsistent with the applicable zoning standards and criteria and shall not require a rezoning if the housing development project is consistent with the objective general plan standards and criteria. But the zoning for the project is inconsistent with the general plan. We have part of that problem here. Zoning for the project is inconsistent with the general plan. That's because the zoning is simply inconsistent with table 1.1. But this only applies to a housing development that is consistent with your general plan. And this one is not consistent with the general plan. So that subdivision of that Housing Accountability Act doesn't help him. There's another one that he relies on, which is, and I'm reading from Governor Coe's Section 5 655 89.5 and this is subdivision j4 that i just read from back in subdivision j2 there are provisions in there that say uh if this is a housing development that is um In excess of 150 units, you have 60 days to make a finding of consistency after the application is deemed complete, which has already occurred in this case. Those 60 days have already run. There's a provision in that subdivision two that says... without using the word general plan, you have to approve the project. If you didn't comply with that, if it's consistent with objective standards in the zoning and or plan, it does not use the word general plan. And you can see from subdivision J one of that housing accountability act, that all of these are prefaced on a subdivision map that is consistent with your general plan. And it allows you basically to rely on objective standards in your general plan to save a project that is inconsistent with your zoning. This one is consistent with the zoning. Problem is the zoning is not consistent with the general plan. So none of these things apply. So when you hear references to the Housing Accountability Act and your lack of discretion to approve or disapprove that project, I can tell you with absolute certainty, those don't apply here. We have a subdivision map. that is inconsistent with your general plan. I'm not entitled to make that determination though. That's something you all have to do. There is a brand new case just published. The 2026 case is citizens against marketplace apartments and condo development versus city of San Ramon. It points out that in all cases, a determination of consistency is necessarily a discretionary choice to be made by this council. You have to look at the language of the general plan and the zoning and the proposal submitted by the applicant for a subdivision map approval, and you have to make that determination for yourself If you do that, if you go through that exercise and make that determination, your determination is gauged according to what we refer to as the abuse of discretion standard. So if there's any substantial evidence to support it, your determination is valid. That job is placed squarely upon you. Those are the reasons I disagree with the determination of consistency. It's not consistent with the general plan. And I would recommend that you deny this application outright.

Thank you for your opinion. We have representatives of the proposed developer here. Did you folks, would you like to address the city council at this time? Please step up.

Good evening. I'm Dirk Puschel and my business address is 923 Van Ness in Fresno. And I'm here this evening on behalf of Joseph crown and crown development. Mr. Crown could not be here tonight because he's suffering a very serious illness. It's important for the council to know that this application was submitted to the city of Selma in 2024. Find ourselves at June 2nd, 2026, being told that the hundreds of thousands of dollars that my client has spent and many hundreds of hours that your staff spent on this project are basically useless because of a determination by your council that the project is inconsistent with the basic tenets of your general plan. We disagree with that determination, and I'd like to just summarize it a little bit deeper into some of the goals of your general plan, because you do have the ability to weigh between goals and inconsistencies that may or may not be present. Goal number three seeks to provide a high quality living environment and residential neighborhoods, supporting smart growth policies and mixed use of higher density walkable communities. Fact by way of background in July of 1999, your council adopted the landscape of choice, which was a multi-county effort to try to increase densities at a target density of about six units per acre. And the reason for that was because there would be significant improvements to air quality, fewer vehicle miles traveled, many other things that were going to be beneficial to all of the cities within our central Valley by adopting these slightly higher densities. Again, our projects at about 4.5, but this target density was six in conjunction with other cities in the San Joaquin Valley, the city of Selma adopted the San Joaquin Valley blueprint and the San Joaquin Valley blueprint. also proposed slightly greater densities that reduced impacts, this is out of your environmental impact report, to the economy, the environmental health, vehicle use, and consumption of natural resources, including prime farmland. In fact, the adoption of the San Joaquin Valley blueprint was a mitigation measure in the environmental impact report that was used to adopt this general plan. So you said you were going to increase densities But you here in this evening appear that that's not going to be possible. It was the very reason why your environmental impact report was certified. Selma General Plan goal number five seeks to ensure that higher density residential densities do not negatively affect existing neighborhoods. Again, right out of your general plan. The staff, your planning staff, who state law defers their interpretation of the plan and your zoning ordinance, has identified that this project is in fact consistent with your general plan and consistent with your general plan densities. General plan goal number six requires the provision of mixed densities, which will ensure adequate affordable housing for all economic segments of the community. This is directly inconsistent with Mr. Costanzo's interpretation of the General Plan, where it talks about the mix of densities to assure adequate, affordable housing for all economic segments of the community. We believe that staff has accurately identified the findings of fact to approve the project. And frankly, after two years and all of the conversations that the council had just this evening with the bank, APA, other people that came here, You're going to tell this client after two years, oh, by gosh, we made a mistake. Our general plan and zoning ordinance does not allow this project. If you go down that road, I think Mr. Kinsey was going to tell you, you're going to have other problems with other projects that you've approved under similar circumstances. Because if it doesn't work for us, it's not going to work for other developers that come forward. I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have them of me, but I believe staff has concluded all the findings can be made. This project should be approved.

Good evening, Mayor, council members. My name is John Kinsey. I'm with Wanger Jones Helsley. Under state law, I know your council has asserted that the Housing Accountability Act does not apply. I emphatically disagree with that opinion. It's wrong. And under that statute, this council has no discretion to deny this project. It simply lacks the discretion to deny it. It must approve the project. The arguments raised about inconsistency have no legal or factual basis. The R4 zoning district is consistent with your general plan. First, I wanna talk about statutory interpretation. I deal with statutory interpretation all the time in the courts of appeal and elsewhere. The intent to exclude statutory interpretation that statute construction only applies when you have no words that suggest that you're expanding upon the examples provided in the document. Here, here when you look at statutory construction you look at the plain language of this provision and the specific verbiage and i'm quoting here this is not me paraphrasing says typical zoning would be r17 r19 it's not exclusively r19 your general plan policy 1.5 your table 1 1-1 Nothing in your general plan suggests that those are the only zoning districts that could be applicable to the low and medium low density land use designations, nor are they the exclusive zoning districts. So if you look at the plain language, if you look at the maxims of statutory construction, to the extent that's even relevant. The argument simply makes no sense, and it breaks down when you look at that fundamental rule of the plain language of the statute and the word typical there, plain as day, in the sections that have been cited by your council. Second, the fact that the city approved and adopted a new zoning district in 2024, 14 years after the general plan was originally enacted, is critical here. In that case, the city council exercised its discretion to make an express finding based on evidence provided by staff that that new zoning district, R14, was consistent with the general plan. It specifically mentioned that. That was a legislative act in 2024 where the city made findings that that new R14 zoning district was added to be consistent with the general plan land use designations so the city's already made that determination it would be an abuse of discretion to turn back the clock and to make a different determination this evening i also heard on numerous in numerous statements that the r14 zoning district is void and any action that was taken in furtherance of that zoning district is void because that zoning district doesn't appear in the general plan from 20 2010 void means that regardless of whether it was approved today or 14 years ago or a couple years ago that action has no legal effect okay and it also means that subsequent actions would have no legal effect now I understand the opinion about this project. I don't think that's right. That being said, the city should really consider the ramifications of a determination that if a zoning district does not appear within the four corners of a general plan, that that action is void. And I specifically want to alert the city the amberwood project that project was adopted on a specific plan not a general plan so it's subordinate to the general plan in 2021 that project likewise has subsequent approvals and guess what the zoning for that property is it's not r17 it's not r19 it's not any general it's not any zoning district that is even mentioned in the general plan so If this council makes the determination that in order to be consistent with the general plan, you must have your zoning district mentioned within the four corners of that general plan document. What that means is that any subsequent approval for the Amberwood project is invalid. It likewise means that the prior approvals for the Amberwood project are invalid. And I bet Lenar, and their AMLA 100 law firm that represents them would be very, very interested in that determination. Because honestly, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. So it would be an abuse of discretion in light of those previous determinations, in light of those previous enactments, in light of those previous approvals for the Amberwood project to find that this project, a completely different set of rules regarding general plan consistency apply. That's an abuse of discretion. In addition, even if this argument were correct, the Housing Accountability Act provides numerous mechanisms for relief and for instances just like this, where there's some alleged inconsistency. And I know your counsel said that it doesn't apply. I emphatically urge this counsel to reach the opposite conclusion. That's just not accurate. The term general plan is replete. within the act. It is a long statute. I'll grant you that. But that statute absolutely requires approval here. Finally, with respect to this interpretation issue, city staff throughout this process, back in 2024, throughout 2025, throughout all the investment that my clients made in this community, has expressly consistently and repeatedly found this project is consistent with the general plan. The planning commission staff report says the zoning district is consistent with the allowed densities of the general plan's low and medium low density residential designations, even though it's not specifically listed in this table 1-1. Now, why is that important? The city staff, their opinions as expert planners are entitled to substantial evidence. That's not the case with an attorney. An attorney's opinions are not, in contrast, entitled to deference as substantial evidence. So when counsel refers to substantial evidence, the substantial evidence that is relied upon is the opinions of staff, and staff is emphatically noted for many years through this process. that this project is consistent with the general plan and all of the policies they're in. So the argument that this project is inconsistent with the general plan has no factual basis and the council cannot deny this project without violating the Housing Accountability Act, state planning and zoning law and the like. I do want to alert this council to a recent case. That case involved the city of Fresno. In July of 2024, the Fresno City Council declined to follow the recommendation of staff and denied an apartment complex in Northwest Fresno. You may be familiar with it, Herndon and Valentine. And it was based on very similar arguments that I'm hearing today from council. And the applicant, ultimately sought a writ of mandate and the statutes that were relied upon by the applicant there are the same statutes that we're talking about today ultimately a year later the applicant won that lawsuit and the city had to go back and approve that project And it would be a tremendous waste of taxpayer and municipal resources to proceed down that same pathway that's already been charted in the Fresno County Superior Court. And finally, the city's planning documents, the city staff's determinations, those aren't just statements that you can throw away. Those are things that people who want to invest in this community rely upon. And if the rules change based on public opposition, based on some concern about inconsistency that's raised at the 11th hour, that sends a chilling signal to businesses that want to invest in this city. And the city's doing great things. We heard some great presentations from many of your constituents and others about some of the great things that the city's doing. The city also needs economic development, and it would send the wrong signal to businesses, to those who wish to invest in this city, and to those who wish to buy homes in this city. those whose children are wishing to buy homes during the midst of this housing crisis, to turn developers away after they've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, many years, trying to get a project off the ground. So a denial tonight not only would put the Lennar project and subsequent approvals in jeopardy, it would set a horrible precedent for those who are looking to invest in the city. And at the end of the day, it would be contrary to the law. So I do request that the city follow its legal obligations and approve this project. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. City attorney, did you have a response?

Sure. Uh, with respect to Mr. Pochelle's representation that we agreed to Eric Flintley- Increase density, you did you remove the minimum lot sizes from table one you you transformed the pre existing single family zones into something different by reducing the lot sizes assigned to each the minimum lot sizes assigned to each so you complied with that. Eric Flintley- And I don't frankly understand the point. I also don't understand the point of trying to make this analogous to Amberwood or suggesting that Amberwood would be in danger of the same fate that is befalling this subdivision. That subdivision was approved in 2021. before you even had the R14 zone. And it was approved pursuant to the provisions of a specific plan that covers the entirety of the Amberwood area and divvies things up between areas that are high density, low density, and everything in between. There's no danger of that project not being given its development entitlements. That ship has sailed. And to try to liken this project to Amberwood when it has no specific plan, And it doesn't deal with the R one four zone. It deals with the zones that are called out in that specific plan that were expressly found to be consistent with the general plan. So there's just no, there is absolutely no analogy here. Substantial evidence in this case consists of the documents that we're referring to. Not my testimony, not their testimony, not anyone's testimony. It refers to what's in your general plan. It's the council's job to look at that general plan and decide. when it says the zones that are consistent with this land use designation are R-17 and R-19, period. And it says in a different one, different policy 1.5, that we've specified what the consistent zones are. And you specified two zones. You excluded the rest. That's the plain language of the statute. And under the rules of statutory construction, as I pointed out, and as he doesn't deny, because you only included two zones as being consistent with that land use designation, you have necessarily excluded the rest. The rules of statutory construction are designed to implement the intent of the legislative body. And that is your presumed intent. And there's no contrary evidence to it. That's the substantial evidence. And all you need to do is evaluate the language of that general plan, compare it to an ordinance that is adopted after you amend your general plan and seeks to insert an additional zone as being consistent in a way that absolutely destroys any concept of low density, medium low density, high density. It would all be high density because R14 is the highest density zone you have. If you allow R14 in a low density area, why do you even have land use designations? They don't mean anything. You're allowing the highest density possible everywhere in the city.

I understood one thing to be consistent. at least one thing between our city attorney and our community development department analysis, it is that there is a gray area here and that gray area tonight will be decided by the city council. We're the ones that are going to decide this, whether or not to approve or to deny this pre-zoning after weighing the evidence and listening to all the sides. Or else why would we be here if ACCA just told us we just have to approve this no matter what, because it's state law. I don't find that that's the case. we have discretion here to decide on this project.

You do have discretion. And if you look at the, um, the resolution that approves the subdivision map, one of the required findings is this subdivision map is consistent with both the zoning and the general plan. You can't make that finding. You can't approve this subdivision.

This is a public hearing. So we're going to open the public hearing now to testimony of the public. Everybody has three minutes. I'm really going to have one speaker per public hearing. So we won't have repeated same, same people getting up and speaking just for time's sake. Please come up. If you're for this project, or you were against it, and please give us your reasons for it now. Please come up.

Hello, my name is Gary Jorgensen. I live on Rorden Avenue, so this has a big impact on me, and I'm against it. And a couple things. I said that we were supposed to receive information if we were within 300 feet of this thing. Well, I never received anything, first of all. Also, my house, I'm very fortunate. I have a 17,000-square-foot lot on Worden Avenue, which is definitely low-density. They want to put four homes on the same area that my home is on, just 300 feet down the road from where I live. He talks about hundreds of thousands of dollars. Well, I've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in my home. I wish I spoke as eloquently as the city attorney, because I think he summarized a lot of things. This city, when I built my home, I was told this was all going to be low-density housing. So I invested my money and everything in this town because I wanted to be part of this town. And now I almost feel like I'm betrayed by this town if they allow low-density housing to go all around me when I invested in my home. It isn't just like I can pick my home up and move it. And how many areas in Selma? And I think we need area where there is low density housing. You already have a nice area there. And it's, you know, there's a lot of folks here that I'm sure feel the same way I do. They've gone and they invested their time, their energy, their money, you know, it's taken me a lifetime to build my home. And I feel kind of, how do you want to say they don't care.

Thank you. I hope that is in the way. Thank you. Appreciate it. Communications Director, can you put up the clock so we can see the time elapse? Speakers will be able to see it. Thank you. Can you let us know when the time elapses, please? Absolutely. The alarm will go off.

Good evening. Paula Rogers. I live on Mill Street in the same neighborhood that the gentleman just spoke about. This is the only area of Selma that has low density in it. We can't turn around and approve for four houses per acre, 4.5 per acre and the medium to high density housing. to be in that one area that has always been custom homes for the individuals that have worked very hard and many years to afford to live there, including myself. I have no problem with that housing where it is really appropriate for that housing. We don't need a bunch of... high density homes now built behind us. We don't need more parks in that area. We don't need more crowded congestion. The traffic isn't built in yet for the streets to exit that area. I think last time they spoke, they said there was two streets that would be exit areas. It just doesn't make sense. I'm sorry that you guys have spent a lot of money or been coming back and forth. Not our fault. And you guys have been afforded the latitude per council that you guys can make a decision on that and vote against it. And so my voice is to vote against that property building in our area. Thank you.

Next speaker. Come on up.

Good evening. Melvin Alves, live on Rose Avenue, live in the country. We do have some property that this group is supposed to purchase. And I've been coming to all these meetings and 25,000 people live in this town. And there's about 150, 200 people that doesn't want this project. But what about all the other thousand people? They're not here complaining. That's really all I got to say, okay?

Thank you.

Anybody else like to speak? Hold on. Let's not have any of that. Please sit down. Please don't talk. We're having an orderly council meeting. Thank you. Appreciate it. I get it, Mr. Allison. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Tom Bowers on Mill Street. I've got here groundwater condition in the city of Selma general plan update for 2035, and this was done on June 2009 by Ken Schmidt and Associates in Fresno. Very well known, very recognized in the water well industry. My question is, is this the best data you can get from 2009? For one, I'm not sure that it's given us the complete picture, but where are we going to get the water? I have no idea where we're going to get the water. According to this report, we're going to be in a deficit of 15,000 acre feet of water per year, both in urban and consumptive use. An acre foot of water, 326,000 gallons of water. We also have a overdraft problem in this groundwater basin that we're in right now. Currently, We are about 800, we're about 800 acre feet short. In other words, we're taking more groundwater out than is going back into the ground through recharge basins and other methods. That's 260 million gallons of water. We're going to be short. Did you know that from 1960 to today, our population is still hovering around 24,000? You add another 1,000 here, another 1,000 there. I don't know where you're going to get the water. Really don't. I've been doing this business my entire life. It doesn't look good. Thank you. Thank you.

Teresa solace I don't live in that area, but I feel that. Your citizens have gone to your planning Commission they're here at the City Council meeting to tell you how they feel they have elected you put you in the in on the City Council to represent them for their benefit for the city of Selma and. I would, I would hope that you would listen to them. Yes, it's not the majority of the population, but it's the majority of the population that lives in that vicinity of town. The The zoning right now is very low density. And you're talking about putting across the street, medium density. That's a big difference. As I mentioned at the planning commissions before the two meetings, we don't have a lot of bigger houses available to our population. You've approved a lot of apartments and lower income homes, smaller homes, starter homes for lots of people, and that's wonderful. But where do those people go when they've outgrown their home? They go to Kingsburg. They go someplace else that has big houses because we don't. We don't have big houses. My daughter moved to Fowler because they were looking for a bigger house. They have a big family. They could not find anything in Selma. And so they left our community because they couldn't find something to suit their needs here in Selma. We want to get of diverse population here, doctors, lawyers, people at that economic level are not going to move to Selma because there's nothing to satisfy their housing needs here. If we want a lot of low income houses, yeah, then go ahead and approve all these houses jammed up on top of each other. But we need a variety of homes in our community. We need to be able to serve everybody, not just the lower levels of income and not just the higher levels, things in the middle. But for right now, we don't have anything in that price range. We don't have anything in that size range for our community to keep people here, to keep them from moving to another community.

Thank you. Next. Anybody else comment?

Oh, Richard Garabedian. I live on Rorden. Real quick, in 2004, 2005, somebody tried to put some crappy homes across the street from us. So they came to the city engineer, which was my father-in-law at the time. He went to D.B. Huser, said we have to protect the area. So he went to the city council. They decided to change the general plan that everything south of Floral, north of Nebraska, and east of Dockery was supposed to be R110 or R112. to protect that area. Now, this is the only low density area of town. We don't wanna be a mediocre town. We have all kinds of other high density stuff around town. We meet the state recommendations. We meet the state requirements with every other part of the town. This is the only place that is low density. So don't mess it up, okay? Because we put a lot of money into these places, we want the consistency there. Though you guys put a lot of money into this, you could salvage your project, just come back, redesign it, put 180 homes instead of 237, everybody will approve it and you'll be fine. I mean, really, it's pretty simple, okay? So that's what I have to say. Just keep the integrity of this area the way it was intended. Okay, we need all kinds of homes. But keep this area nice, because we're going to keep fighting this. And part of the problem is that the city messed up a little bit. I don't know who did it. I'm not going to make any. I don't know who did that. But it's confusing to developers. They don't know what to do. Okay, so make it straightforward. Maybe go back and clear it up so that we don't have this problem again. Thank you.

Anybody else?

Good evening, Mayor Robertson and Council. My name's Jeanette Solorio, 1191 Mill Street. My thoughts kind of resonate with Dr. Garabedian there. What a beautiful opportunity that we have here. A lot of the zoning issues, the plan, We weren't familiar with all the constituents here tonight. It's come to light because of this development. But I think what we've learned as a city and a citizen within the city is there are some inconsistencies, right? The resolution that was adopted in 2023. But our plan, our general plan was developed in 2010. And now we have the Fair Housing Act. I think this is a wonderful, beautiful time for us. the citizens and the council to get together. Let's align and then fix whatever the rezoning and the documents need to read accordingly, because right now there's a lot of gray area. So for future development, but let's not be hasty in this decision. to push this through when, and the gentleman said that he has been working on this quite a few years. We did not receive any information about this build. I know the staff has continually recommended it, but they don't live here. And so we own this land, we own this property. So I think what a beautiful opportunity that we have now, and I would like to see, and maybe that could get pushed out to the community, the zoning, because I wasn't even aware there's R12. where that area is and maybe they can come back and do this appropriately in the correct zoning where our city is not so disjointed that you council members, you guys have an opportunity to build and lay out the foundation for the future of the next 10, 20 years of what Selma is going to look like and where the building is going to occur. Because we're not saying we don't want development and we realize there's a housing crisis, but let's not be just disjointed about it. Let us not be hasty and let us get all our documents and plans aligned and build accordingly with conscientiousness in it, you know, so we can... to be well established, not just hit and miss. I feel like growth, we are growing and we're trying to do new things. There's new commissioners, new councils, but it's kind of been disjointed. So you guys have the opportunity to say, hold on and let's make a clear and concise plan for the future. So, you know, I think it's a little bit hasty. So let's slow down. Let's get all our documents, all our zoning accurate, and then we can move forward and honor the zoning that this lot, this development, the constituents that have all been here, honor their previous requirements. Got it. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Leslie Helm. I live on Rordon. My parents actually built the second house in that lot and there were high expectations for it. And I do agree with the fellow speakers before me because we do need to have a balance in our city. This is a lot of flashback for me. My mom was the mayor for a couple of years. She was on city council. So I remember hearing this and yes, there's going to be mistakes. Yes, there's going to be things that happen, but there also is grace and mercy. If our city has a mission and our model is not meeting that mission, then we need to change the model. We need to find things. There are a lot of areas in our community that have been built. There's houses that have been built that stood alone, that stood empty. There are areas in our city that need to be revitalized. If we can't, Make our city inviting. There aren't going to be businesses that are going to want to come in. I've watched meetings where businesses have come and gone because there were not the things that they needed in the city. And I heard they were on Van Ness. That's not a shabby area. I'm wondering if the gentlemen live in a high density area, what it's like. We have worked really hard. I've worked two jobs. to keep my parents home and to keep that legacy there. And I would like to see something there. And I appreciate our city attorney for looking into the things that maybe he did not know, but he brought to light. And I think it's very important that we take everything that relevancy and we, we figure it out together as a community, because I think that's what we're trying to build is a community within our city. And that has to start here. And it has to start with the people that are representing our city and the people that are representing the common people. Thank you.

Anybody online or on the phone with a comment at this time? Mayor, I see no hands raised at this time. Thank you, Director. With that, we are going to close the public hearing and refer the matter back to council for discussion and a vote. Any council members have any input that they would like to give about Selma's history?

Yes, I do. Mr. Garabini was correct, 2004. I was elected in 2004 on the council. And at that time, there was a plan made for low density in that area. And my colleagues voted for it. You know, there's Dennis Lujan and Mike Dern, the guys. We lived in different areas, but we realized that we needed low density, high end homes in our community. And we brought in that area and also another area by the hospital. It opened up. So I do have history behind this and I understand the concerns. I get it. you know, you invest in these homes, I understand. And I understand on developer side. He wants to invest and he wants to, you know, invest in his community. But at the same time, I tell myself, this area was designed for one area, for low density. And my colleagues say, We had a vision, you know, my colleagues up here, my colleagues up here, we have a vision for the city because we take it from you guys, what you want. And back then my colleagues had a vision for low density area. So that's where I stand on that area right now, because I can't turn my back on my colleagues who've made a decision a long time ago.

Thank you. Any other comments? I'll just say that, you know, this has been a hearing tonight where we have received a lot of input, a lot of evidence that we are weighing tonight. We're not abusing our discretion. We are thinking we're members of the community as well. So, you know, we're not just up here making decisions. We are, going to feel the effects of those decisions as well. And I really appreciate everyone's input on this. It is, I think abundantly clear that when councils change, things can change and ordinances can come in that future councils may not have a part of, but have to deal with the effects of, and we are at that stage right now. So tonight, I think what we have become, may be painfully aware of is that the zoning ordinances that have been cited as approving this project are inconsistent with the general plan. General plan should be council proof. In other words, that general plan is made to stand the test of time and the test of many councils. And that came in in 2010. And from what I heard tonight and I weighed the evidence from an excellent report from our community development director and our comments and our legal perspective from our city attorney who has 40 years of legal experience and from the excellent testimony from the developers representatives here tonight, the construction company representatives here tonight and above all you, the people. And this is our town, the people, and that's who we represent. Based on that, my perspective on this is that the zoning ordinance conflicts with the general plan for this housing development. And as someone said, as several people said, every town needs different types of housing, and that's what we're doing in Selma. And part of that housing, one of those areas of housing should be for larger lots or low density. And I think it's a value to preserve that. in city. And I think that makes an orderly plan of growth for the city and make no mistake about it. Our city is growing. Our city is on the move and we're moving forward. There are no villains here. It's just us. We're community members. We just want to make the best out of our town. People have worked hard for their homes. A lot. Everybody's worked hard for their homes, but in, in these neighborhoods that we're talking about, putting homes in with the R one to four would be incompatible with with the general plan. And it would also not be something that the neighbors in that area are looking for. But overall, I'm basing my decision on the general plan and that zoning laws need to be consistent with that general plan. And this project has really brought up that the zoning ordinances need fixing. So with that, I'll call for a motion. Is there a motion on this measure?

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to just say a couple of questions. You know, I've been reviewing this and getting a lot of information in regards to it. And I want to, you know... I know that there's a lot of passion and a lot of understanding of what you are representing as a group, as a neighborhood, but we also all are elected officials for different districts. And one of my key points is what is correct and what I see as a corrected. So you guys can, say what you say, but I just wanna do my interpretation as to what I read in the law. And what I appreciate is that I see that the way it's read on ours is that the zoning, it's not inconsistent. We have our staff recommending what is correct. And our staff has been consistent for two years. Now, and I also want to say this, and you can come to me and tell me, I've lived here for 40 years. My mother's lived here. We've lived here. But you know what? We're all residents of this community. And there's a third of you guys that are paying the taxes, and there's another 70% that are paying taxes too. So tomorrow morning when we get sued, when we get sued, the city gets sued, the city's going to get paid. The city's going to have to pay. So, I mean, I can get all the naysayers and I can get yelled at, but you know what? A true representation represents what's right. And this project is gonna be back at our city because of when I look at this and I've done some research and you know what? I'm sorry, I have to go with what the development is calling for. There's a lot of development that goes on that gets railroaded, but because of where we're at, but at the end of the day, they've been there doing their due diligence for two years. It's inconsistent for us to stop and go with our staff report. So for me, I have to go with my staff recommendation. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

I have a comment. I just want to say as a council, we govern the general plan. So with that, I'd like to make a motion to turn down the project for the LaVena track.

Is there a second? I'll second. Call the roll, please.

Council Member Avalos?

Yes.

Council Member Oseguera? Yes. Council Member Torillo?

No.

Mayor Pro Tem Guerra?

Yes.

Mayor Robertson?

Yes, and let the record reflect that Mayor Pro Tem Guerra made the initial motion to turn down this project.

Thank you, sir. That motion, the project is denied by a four one with Mr. Thank you.

Right. With that, we will move on from our one and only public hearing tonight to our first item of regular business, which is an action item, item five one, which is to adopt resolution 2026 51, adding the classification of administrative analyst, deputy city clerk, and to add the classification to the master salary chart and remove obsolete classifications.

Mayor, members of council, as we're getting ready to bring in salary increases that have been negotiated from our unions, we've had an opportunity to take a look at our master salary chart and recognize that we have obsolete classifications.

Can you hear the deputy manager or would you prefer to wait for them to? Okay, go for it.

We've identified 14 different classifications on the master.

Council member Osegarra requested for them to file out first. Okay.

Can somebody close the door when they leave? They talk in the foyer. Thank you. Okay. You can continue, Deputy City Manager. Thank you.

Mayor, members of council, after reviewing our salary charts, we recognize that we have 14 classifications that are not in use. And in most cases that we do not have current job classifications that represent those classifications. So we're recommending that we remove those classifications from our master salary chart and from our recognized classification chart. In addition, we have worked on an administrative analyst slash deputy city clerk position. This position is in main support to our city manager. It would be a direct report to him and then back up the city clerk in her absence and across trains so that we always have a trained city clerk. And so, um, staff is recommending, um, that you adopt resolution 2651, um, taking away the, um, classifications as noted in the transmittal and adding the classification of administrative analyst slash deputy city clerk.

I have a question for you. Um, What is the salary range going to be for this position? I mean, it says it's a percentage from what the city clerk, but I want to know what the actual number.

Sure. The position is benched 20% below the city clerk position.

And let me grab that salary for you.

Number 14, page 285, deputy city manager. So it's the lowest per city clerk is 82. The high step is 106. So it's 20% of that, correct?

20% of the low.

So like 66,000 to start with. 82 is the low. It's the first step.

So is this consistent with other cities that have

Yes, it is. And it's, it's just 2% above the administrative assistant that we had previously had. And so it's in the same ballpark, but just slightly a couple percentage.

So when you say analyst, what do you mean by analyst?

An analyst is, I was an analyst in my career. The city manager has been an analyst before. And so when you are out recruiting for positions, typically when you see an analyst position, you know that you're going to have to be doing reports. You're going to have to be breaking down, you know, doing statistics, doing all of those kinds of things. Whereas analysts, When we hired the administrative assistant, we had a lot of people that thought they were going to be answering the phone, scheduling appointments, and doing those kinds of things. And that's really not what we're looking for. We're looking for somebody that can help work on the PRAs, the subpoenas, do analysis for the city manager, for you as a council, et cetera. And so we're looking for someone with more analytical skills.

Yeah, because I know Orange Grove, all they have is administrative. They don't have like 20 different names. I just don't want this person to be doing the city clerk's job because the city clerk is making good money. That should be a self-sufficient position. I don't have a problem when she's gone or whatever or whoever the city clerk is for her to fill in. But, you know, when you say, well, she's going to be doing PR, she's doing the work of the city clerk, then, you know.

You know, having done the position this last month, I can tell you there's ebbs and flows. And so there are times this week I've already received two PRAs and we've received two subpoenas. Last week I received four PRAs. You know, so there's ebbs and flows with the position and there are times where the PRAs are more difficult based on what's being asked. And so you're then having to deal with multiple departments in order to get those taken care of. And so it really, some of it needs to be, can be done at a confidential analyst level, which this position.

And I agree, but I spoke to a couple of cities and the administrative analyst only helps her First, she helps the city manager, and then she helps all the departments as time permits. But she is in no way tied into doing the job of the city clerk. Because when you look at the salaries that we pay, those are very well-paid salaries. And we, I mean, I don't know. I expect our city clerk to do the job. We have city clerks that can, like I said before, that can run the city on their own without having any of you guys around. So- You know who? You know, but you know what I'm saying? So I don't want to say, well, you know, she's not available because she's helping the city clerk full time.

We understand that. What we want to make sure is that in the absence of the city clerk, that the functions of the city clerk continue to be done. And in order to do that, you need somebody cross-trained into that position. That's not their primary role with this position. Their primary role is to support the city manager. Our PIO needs some help with bid and some of the different things. I need some help. And so it will be a multifaceted position that will help a lot of the department.

I'll keep an eye on that.

As an analyst previously myself, it was something where I was loaned out to various departments, multiple departments, and helping out with everything which has helped me out.

I've seen recently what happens when the city clerk is going to be away or go on vacation or what have you. And I think one of the situations the city is responding to is what do we do you know, when the city clerk does go on vacation or when the city clerk is away, you know, for whatever reason. And, you know, maybe that's a valuable position to have as a backup. It's not going to be the backup city manager because we have the deputy city manager. But we have one communications director and one PIO, so it could be sort of a backup for that position, too. And, you know, as long as this person is trained, they could provide a valuable service in that way. But I do agree with the council member that this person shouldn't just be the assistant for one person and that's it. and shouldn't have to do the work of that person. So I get that cautionary note that I'm hearing there.

And that's why in the title, it's the administrative analyst is the first function. And so the deputy city manager is the second function of the job. We wanted that in the title because of the mindset of a clerk.

Deputy city clerk, she meant. She's not replacing herself. Okay.

Yeah. So, but we wanted that as a secondary, but we want that mindset because it takes a very analytical person to do some of those functions, working both with the city manager and in the clerk position.

And all those other positions, did they have, were they budgeted? Were they going to be budgeted? Those positions that are being removed, since they're being removed, is any budgeted amount Gone with that too, right? Okay.

They are all unbudgeted positions. Most of them have not been filled for multiple years.

I have another question for you. Just a deputy city clerk. I mean, shouldn't she get paid city clerk wages? 20%. Because we have a position. And, you know, the wages, you know, they become part of a union. They're going to ask you, well,

Isn't it 20% of the city clerk?

Normally in your classifications, you have benchmarks. And so the city clerk is a benchmark. This position makes 20% below what the city clerk makes.

To avoid compaction. Right.

Yes.

Right. But. When I when I store cousin eligibility workers we couldn't make me do anything else. Because then you have to pay me out of us which is like if they want to redo to my supervisor's job while to pay for the time that I did it gets when I was getting paid to my supervisors which is and that's only thing that I'm worried about that you know somebody can say well deputies, you know city clerk. They should be getting paid the city clerks.

which position reports to the city manager. Is that correct? That's correct.

If there was a vacancy in the city clerk office, in the city clerk classification, and if the city manager felt that position, that administrative analyst was trained enough to temporarily place in that classification during their recruitment, that could happen. And so they would be under our rules. They would either receive 5% acting pay or ASTEP, whichever is highest.

but that would only but that would only be if the position was truly vacant but if they're filling in just on a temporary basis or or because the the clerk can't be here for a council meeting and they can fill in on that they're not getting paid but if they're on leave if they're on leave Right, potentially anything relatedly. Got it. And then, yes, you are correct. The position reports directly to me. And so tasks are assigned by my office.

You're hearing the sensitivity of counsel to this matter here that they don't just become that position, get all the items from that position. Great. Open this to the public. Would anybody have anything they would like to mention about this?

Stella Ramirez, summer resident. Now, this is a full-time position, right? How much is it? I'm sorry, I missed it. How much was it for salary?

The position is 20% below the deputy city clerk. Below the city clerk. I apologize.

What about, I don't know if you can do this or not, but what if they got her or him part-time? Could they do that? Because I understand that our budget doesn't look good right now. And, you know, we've got to save every penny and I'm thinking part-time. Maybe we can hire someone part-time until... our budget is pretty much able to afford a full-time person to come on board. You'd be saving on benefits and all of that and just have her come in, you know, part-time or him. That's just my opinion. Thank you.

Anybody online or on the phone with a comment? Mayor, I see no hands raised at this time. So if council does approve that this year, will a careful analysis be done of this person's job duties? And if they are not having their job, if it's not taking up their entire time, does the city have any recourse to make that a part-time position in the future? Or is it one way only in terms of this? And does the city have any reservations that this will be a full-time job? This will be a full-time job assisting three different positions within the city. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Anybody have a comment? Oh, no. She just, she just clarified.

Actually, I have a question. So last week we were talking about housing hiring freezes and we're talking about retake re reboot. Um, we were talking about last week, hiring freezes and doing a, a restart and having all other departments freeze their hiring. Why are we adding another employee now? Why didn't we talk about it last week when we were talking about during budget?

The original was to take a look at the administrative assistant, which is what we had filled that position. And that position remained in the budget going forward. And when we looked at what the duties actually needed to be, we reassessed and decided that we needed a different classification.

Do you understand, as an elected official here sitting here, when you're talking about a restart and getting all your departments to go back to the re-back and go start, And then you're coming here and telling us that you need another position. I'm just speaking on my behalf because we are in a deficit. We're not in a deficit because we're going to use monies from other places. But for me, I just want you to understand that, you know, as you talk about, you know, bringing in another person and, you know, they're assisting the city manager, assisting our clerk and our... Information officer but but but i'm just i'm just a little bit. I guess I question that because of the fact that first we're talking about hyzer hiring freezes and now you're coming back and you're implementing i'm consistent and okay with them eliminating these. he's these all these positions that don't have any funding, but I just, I just find it kind of concerning.

And it's a, it's a fair point.

And one of the things that we see though, is that for certain positions, if, if they are on extended leave and then we have to go to outside sources for it, those costs for that are significant, significantly higher than what we are currently paying. And so therefore, you know, we are incurring additional costs on top of costs that we've already paying for somebody else. So if we have somebody that's already within the office that's able to slide into that role at times, then we're able to cover that within the existing budget. The other positions that were mentioned in there are specifically ones that were sent out to all the department heads that have not been filled in multiple years. So that's why that's just a cleanup on those.

And in another note, I would, I would, I would suspect that when you're coming to bring a position to add, to assist to a department head, or someone, I would have thought that you would have brought me an analysis, brought the council an analysis of how much usage our city clerk actually is doing right now. Because if you remember, our past city clerk was paid by the hour. So she had overtime hours. So there's a difference between somebody getting paid a salary in overtime. That meant that she could be here all night because she knew she was getting paid that fee. And my question for you is to the finance person is that I typically, when you come to a municipal government and you're going to add a position, you bring with analysis of how much is actually being used, how much she's been using, how much work she's been doing. Hey, this is what she's been doing. This is what it's allocating. This is what it's costing us. We need help. You're coming to me. I mean, I'm just speaking on my behalf. You're coming to me saying you need a position as a part time person. And he's going to go and he's going to go flowing over here and there, which is fine speaking of it. But I'd rather have I'd rather have some report telling me that, hey, we've done an analysis. This is what it calls for. And this is what the usage is going to be. This is where we're predicting to spread it out. And this is where it's going to be spread out. So maybe at the end of the year, we can budget it to a different department and we can break it down. Right.

I have a quick question. I know you mentioned this back, Margie. Wasn't this already mentioned a few months ago in regards to getting this assistant? And because there was an employee that was part-time and I guess left, we didn't fill the position because we're waiting to see if we were going to go with the full-time position or a part-time just to... confirm whether the work was gonna be needed for a full-time or part-time. So wasn't this already budgeted for this position?

The salary is 2% higher than what the budget was, but we won't fill it right away because of the recruitment process. So that will, you know, it'll come in under budget. I believe that probably an analysis came to council in 2024 or 2025 when the last clerk left and you hired a new clerk and that decision was made to put the newest clerk on a contract and she's an exempt employee. And so that would have been the rationale between the exempt versus non-exempt, which that position does meet the exempt criteria. But yes, this has been a budgeted position. Unfortunately, Unfortunately, the last person that was hired did not meet the standard of the city manager's expectations. And so the choice was made that we needed to do more of an analyst style position. And so had we had not made that recommendation, we would have already been in recruitment to fill the position at the administrative assistant position.

yeah executive assistant position is what it was budgeted for i can also say that having been on the council from the uh years of 2020 to 2024 there was an executive assistant to the city manager or should i say there were there were two three or three three council members executive assistants who all resigned or otherwise and And that led to, I think, the council, this new council in 2024, new majority, I should say, looking at how the city funds could be spent in that area to really benefit the most employees who really needed it. And as we've seen, that's the public information officer, that's the city manager, and that's the city clerk. Before it was just an assistant reserve for the city manager. This one would be on performing other duties. And I do believe, I remember that with the city clerk previously who used to run the live stream, he used to bring us our council packets, who used to do all the parties, you know, the going away parties and the maternity and paternity leave parties and communications, you know, the PIO. So, and she was hourly. or that person was hourly. So that was, you know, that was changed. So really overall, in terms of analysis, it's a little bit apples and oranges to compare hourly to a salary. But you know, having spoken, being able to communicate with our city employees now, which has been a great change, a great change since 2024. I've been able to hear the concerns of city employees going through the city manager, of course, and who has no problem with our council now communicating with city employees, that there is this need for an analyst and an assistant. And so I see this need and I appreciate the city taking away these inert class these classifications that haven't been used and adding this classification that really is useful and had already been budgeted for a an assistant. that didn't work out an executive assistant. So, you know, based on experience, that's what is happening here. It's not based on theory or several high price studies that the city is conducting. It's based on actual experience, empirical evidence that the city has that this type of analyst and assistant is needed. And I applaud that. So is there a motion?

I'll make a motion. to approve the position.

I'll second it.

Call the roll, please. Council member Avalos. Aye. Council member Oskara.

Yes.

Member Trujillo.

Yes.

Member Tantara.

Yes.

Mayor Robertson.

Yes.

That motion carries 5-0, Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you, city clerk. Next item, 5-2, adopt resolution 2026-52, approving and authorizing the city manager or his designee for the purchase of the Glock Gen 6 firearm platform. With accessory support, the Selma Police Department through LC Action. Chief Alcaraz.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. I'll keep this brief and short and concise. In a nutshell, in 2022, the Selma Police Department purchased the Sig Sauer platform firearm for use by our sworn personnel. Since that time, other agencies have experienced issues accidental discharges with that firearm. We've not had any accidental discharges. However, I did speak with members of the Police Officers Association who kind of displayed or expressed concern and reservation over the use of that firearm. That being said, what we did as staff is we quickly converted back to the old clocks that we used to be able to put something in their hand that was more reliable. I don't want to say they're unreliable, just something they felt safer with. That being said, The Glock that they're currently using is past its industry life. And we're looking to replace with, we're looking to purchase a new Glock Gen 6 platform for our personnel. Part of that purchase would include, in the staff report, is surplusing our Sig Sauer firearms along with the old Glock firearms and selling them back to LC Action for a credit. So that said, the quote to purchase Glock 50 new firearms, 50 new Glock Gen 6, let's just call them new Glocks, is about $51,000. I'm sorry, $50,166.41. Once that purchase is completed, we would then gather up the surplus firearms that we currently have, and we'd be selling those back to LC Action with the hopes of receiving a check back for $13,430, thus offsetting a net cost of $36,736.41. This would not impact the budget as we did not renew a contract that we had budgeted for in this year in the amount of $55,000. So this is well below our fiscal budget of 25-26. We'd just be reallocating those funds within the same fund with permission from the city manager. So that's what we're looking for. I hope that wasn't too confusing. There's a bunch of glocks, six hours.

Oh, no, I get it.

But this, again, would be putting the newest generation Glock firearm into deployment for our personnel. And we just feel it's the right way to go. It's the safest way to go. We haven't shown any problems academically discharging. No, we were looking at other firearms, and they're having issues with those. I think it was the Smith & Wesson model, and we just said, hey, if they're having problems, just don't let them look that way. Glock has been extremely reliable. The only issue with Glock is they only have very – Their qualified vendors are extremely limited, which is why we had to sole source this through LC Action. We actually did try to get quotes from other vendors, actually a local vendor. However, those firearms are not available to those vendors.

The only two else. This particular company, they must have all the, they have it on the, they got it sold up.

Yep. I kind of figured this out. You know, it's just the way that the private sector works, unfortunately.

No, no, no, no. But, no, it's a good weapon. I heard good things about it.

But we should be net cost about $36,000, which is something. Like they're buying back the six. Yes, we're going to package everything up. However, we have to fill out a lot of paperwork and get all the serial numbers. But those are all itemized in our surplus list. And you've got a good local vendor for maintenance if you need it. Yes. Yeah.

Great. Now, Chief, on another note, how soon will these weapons come available for the troops?

We're hoping to move as soon as possible. OK. It's just a matter of the paperwork. Again, there's a lot of paperwork that's got to be filled out.

No, no.

We're talking about firearms. We're going to try to get it done ASAP.

I want these people to get it done.

i appreciate that got it thank you um any comments from the public on this item anybody online or on the phone with a comment about the clock purchase by the sum of pd mayor i see no hands raised Thank you, City Clerk. Item 5-3, action item, adopt Resolution 2026-53, approving and authorizing the City Manager or his designee for the purchase of law enforcement rifles through Central Valley Guns to be deployed by the Selma Police Department sworn personnel. Police Chief Alcarez.

Thank you, Mayor, members of council. I'll keep this concise. Long story short, in looking at some of our inventory of our rifles, some of them are about 15 years old. We feel that those rifles are past their life expectancy.