City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, everybody. Welcome to Selma City Council regular meeting at 6 p.m. in the Selma City Council Chambers at 1710 Tucker Street in Selma, California, 93662. And we have our 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 or raise your hand and we will select you from the meeting queue. Press star six to unmute and mute yourself. 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 get started tonight with roll call, I would like to ask for a moment of silence, please, when we all bow our heads for Juanita Gallardo, a wonderful woman who was a pillar of our community, worked in the fields, raised a family, and was well-respected and well-loved by so many. Would you please bow your heads? Thank you for that moment of silence. And now we will move on to our invocation. And I will be filling in for the pastor tonight. And our invocation is, please bow your heads, everybody. Again, we come before you with grateful hearts, thanking you for the opportunity to serve the people of Selma. We ask for your wisdom to guide the decisions made here tonight. that they may be marked by fairness, integrity, and a sincere desire to promote the well-being of every resident. Bless our city, strengthen our families, protect our first responders, teachers, healthcare workers, businesses, farmers, and all who contribute to the life of our community. Bring comfort to those who are struggling, healing to those who are ill, and hope to those facing uncertainty. Help us to treat one another with respect, even when we disagree, and remind us that by working together with humility and compassion, we can build a stronger future for generations to come. May all that is said and done this evening bring honor to you, Lord, and serve the common good. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Everyone, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please place the flag. Ready, begin.

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. Would you call the roll, please?

Council Member Avalos.

Here.

Council Member Seguera. Here. Council Member Trujillo. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Guerra. Here. Mayor Robertson.

Here. Potential conflicts of interest. Any council member 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 agenda changes or deletions?

Nothing to add or to delete, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, City Attorney. With that, we are going to move on to oral communications and our first special presentation. We are honored to have our Congressman, Mr. Jim Costa, here for a presentation for the City of Selma. Welcome, Congressman. Good evening.

How about that? Good evening. Good evening.

Good evening.

Try it again. To be here with you this evening for an opportunity to say thank you to each and every one of you the city council, the mayor, your staff who work so hard every day to ensure that the services of the city of Selma are always first and foremost. Safety is obviously a primary responsibility of this city and Selma has got, I think, a wonderful reputation and in this valley has been a wonderful community to live in, and you all make that happen. And so sometimes you don't get thank yous enough, but I'm here to say thank you. I'm also bearing a gift that is a reflection of our 250th anniversary as a nation. I suspect, like many of you, I'm a history buff, but I've been spending a bit of time this last six months reading what happened 250 years ago. It's really somewhat amazing that we would... begin this experiment on representative democracy, the oldest in the world, the United States of America. And, you know, we have a mission statement that, you know, begins with our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, but that mission statement begins with we the people, we the people, it's all of us, in order to form a more perfect union. Well, that's aspirational. We're never going to be perfect. But what a wonderful goal that we should dedicate ourselves to trying to ensure that that all Americans are able to have the opportunities that this country was founded upon. And so this flag is a ceremonial flag that I am giving to the city of Selma. And we may want to, I don't know what the appropriate protocol here is. I don't want to do anything improper, but it might make sense if the city council and the mayor come down and we can do the photo op, if that's appropriate, Mr. Mayor.

You ready to present that, Congressman?

Yeah, let me just close by saying that all of us, I think, feel very special about the country we live in and the opportunities that we have. A nation of immigrants, past and present, I think it's part of America's secret sauce. and but we all have a story each and every one of you have a story your families have a story we have a story and we call it the american story and it's part and parcel of the american dream and so as we work hard to continue to provide opportunities for the people of selma the people of our valley our state and our nation we remember that at the end of the day whatever differences we have. And these are challenging times to be sure. Historical times, a seminal moment in American and world history we're living in. Let us not ever forget the common values we have beginning with our constitution and our bill of rights is far, far stronger, stronger than whatever differences we may have. And we're together. And at the end of the day, it's a team sport. Thank you. Thank each and every one of you for making Selma the wonderful place that it is, dedicating your careers to ensuring that the next generation has the same kind of opportunities that we've had. So with that, I'd love to present this flag. I know you have a busy agenda. Come on up, Congressman.

Let's go down and

Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir.

You're always welcome here. Thank you so much, Congressman. We'll see you again real soon.

Thank you.

Safe travels. Thank you, Larry. Okay, now we're going to 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 anybody who would like to make an oral communication at this time?

Teresa Salas, 1701 Danube Avenue. I have a question. I don't know if finance director's not here today. On the check registers, each time it's posted in the agenda and I look and I never see any payments to the city attorney. I think I've seen maybe one or two in the year and a half that he's been our city attorney. And I would like to know how much we're paying him and how much he's been paid. And I just question why it's never listed on the check register.

I believe there are three on this check register, city attorney. There are three, three bills. Got it. Thank you.

Well, good evening, Mayor Robertson, members of the summer city council, members of the city administration. My name is Emer O'Brien. I believe this is the first time I've followed a congressman for public comments. I am running for the position of Fresno County Superintendent of Schools. And I know there are a lot of things on the ballot, but in my humble opinion, the future of education in our county is potentially one of the most important things that we should be considering. You may recognize my name. I was the district superintendent of Clovis Unified for a long time. And last year, I served as interim superintendent in Central Unified. What has prompted me to run for the County Superintendent of Schools position is that even though we're the fourth largest economy in the world, we really do have an educational crisis here in Fresno County. For the last decade or more than a decade, we've had about 60% of our students not reading on grade level and about 70% of our students not proficient in math. The sad thing about those statistics is that it does not have to be that way. We know what the cause of that is. We know how to fix it. And as of this year, we have hundreds of millions of dollars in the budget dedicated to fixing the literacy problem that is not unique to Fresno County, but is definitely shared by many counties in California. One of the things that makes me unique in this race is that the job of the county superintendent is to support the 31 school district superintendents in our county and a big part of that job is to provide the guidance and the support and somewhat the influence to district superintendents and When one has been a district superintendent, it's a great advantage because you're mentoring and supporting those in a role that you yourself have held. It's very unique to be a district superintendent because if you think about Superintendent Gomes here in Selma and all the other superintendents, they are hired by a governing board and they are held accountable to that governing board. And for someone like me who's done that twice now, I'm very acutely aware of what it is to be held accountable. Those contracts that district superintendents hold are always written in favor of the local governing board as it should be. But accountability is something I'm no stranger to. And I just ask that when it comes to the time, you very rarely get an opportunity to weigh in on the leadership in education. You don't get to decide on who your superintendent is or your high school principal. but you do get to weigh in on your county superintendent. I really just want to ask everybody to do your homework like we asked the kids to do on this. And I'd like to pass some flyers to whoever your clerk is. I'm not sure. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. O'Brien. Best of luck. Anybody else with oral communications at this time? Do we have anybody online or on the phone?

Mayor, I see no hands raised at this time.

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

Yeah, I'd like to pull two questions. I mean, on the consent calendar, actually, it's, yeah. The check register? Check register.

Okay. I'd like to pull item 2.4. Is there a motion to approve items 2.1 and 2.3?

I'm seconding it.

Call the roll, please.

Council Member Avalos?

Yes.

Council Member Seguera? Yes. Council Member Trujillo?

Yes.

Mayor Partemguera?

Yes.

Mayor Robertson?

Yes. Item 2-2. Oh, okay. The reason why I pulled 2-2, I didn't catch it until later on tonight, is the item 80-90, it's a check register 90-11-8, and... And that's for $18,170. And that was for December 25th, December, mind you. And then we had another one.

What item was that? That was 90-11-8.

That was for Costanza Associates. Okay. And also that was for December. And also we have the item 9120. That was for Castangia Associates again for 19,860. And that was for November. And then up 25. That was 25. And the other one was 919, again, Costanza for 30,000. And that was for October of 2025. And the reason why I just in my head, I just pulled up is what took so long? Did we miss a payroll on this one here?

They show up on your check register. pretty fairly long after they're actually paid.

Okay.

And you know, there it's, uh, we we've had some issues or the city's had some issues with some of my billings, which we've all corrected. And we're there. Uh, Mark is working, uh, diligently with the girl in my office who does these things. So those will all be caught up to at least June by the end of this week.

Oh, okay, so we're doing a, okay, cleanup operation, okay, in the bookkeeping department, okay. And also, I'm going to question this 90102, California Police Chief Association, this PD for... with 26, CPR, CBA, California, $883. Is that cheap? Is that for the membership of the officer?

Unfortunately, yes, Councilor Ravalos.

Okay. And that's what, is that yearly? Is that a yearly thing?

Yes, sir.

Okay. And then, okay. And then also, check register 9- 90-0197-90-199, Engineering Department, Horn Engineering, which, well, it's actually a rebate for $140,973.50. I guess it's a return there. Reimbursement, right, cost of reimbursement on that one. And then another one, I was kind of, was the air condition in 90, 11-7, cool air specialist, installed compressor. That was Public Works, 9,000? That was 9,600?

That's correct. It was a compressor. It was when our server room went down. The cooling unit on the roof, the compressor burned out on that unit. And that's what they had to do to repair that unit.

I didn't realize compressors cost that much. It's an old unit. Oh, hard to find. Yeah. And then another one is 90 101 caddy rodent service. It's for $8,225. But the only, the, the reason why I pulled this is I know that it's a pest control annually or whatever, but there's no date on it.

So that's caddy shack and caddy shack actually does our rodent abatement for all of the, Ground squirrel holes that are at all of the parks, especially at the sports are taking place. And so that bill includes every park in the city of Selma. And we have a breakdown that I can provide for that if you'd request.

Yeah, I noticed there's no date. Is that a monthly service? Every six months or what is it? Yeah.

The time of the year that we try to get them out right before the rodents get real bad. They try to get them early. So I believe we started this probably right after the rain around March or April of this year.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Cause I, I was the one, the numbers kind of threw me off a little bit here. Right. Okay. Thank you very much. That's it.

Um, city manager. 901-757-926-QUADNOPF, otherwise known as QK, that the city has a contract with. Is that contract being terminated?

Yes, as of August 1st.

This will be the last bill that we see from QK.

That would probably be for some July services. So you may see another one for, or that could have been for June services because this was payment in July. So you may see one more on there, especially as they wrap up and get all the data and other stuff over to our staff.

It's my understanding that precision civil engineering is handling what QK formerly handled as of August one. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. So we'll continue to see charges from precision. We won't see charges anymore from QK.

Maybe one more, perhaps one more for July.

Thank you for that clarification. Anybody else? Anybody with a question public about the check register? Anybody online or on the phone with a comment?

Mayor, I see no hands raised at this time.

Thank you. Is there a motion to approve item 2-2? I'll make a motion to approve. Call the roll, please.

Council Member Avalos.

Yes.

Council Member Oseguera. Yes. Council Member Trujillo. Yes. Mayor Partemguera. Yes. Mayor Robertson.

Yes. Item 2-4, an update on progress of replacement of signs. Director Hahn, give us a little update there.

Sure. As of the end of fiscal year 2526, we completed districts five and six. Currently in this fiscal budget, we're working on completing district seven, which we started at the end of the last fiscal budget. And then we'll be moving into district 10. Actually, it will be our eighth district as noted in the staff report. But district 10 is actually the downtown, basically the bid district. So when we finish seven, we're going to start moving into the new, um, downtown logo signs, white with the blue lettering. Um, and that'll be basically from West front going through the entire downtown district. So that'll be our next phase that we'll be working on. You know, we, um, we have a lot of projects that we're working on right now, which I'll get to a lot of them in during my department update, but, um, We have had to pull Ivan out of the sign shop quite a bit to help with staff out in the field. So we were averaging between two and two and a half months per district to get the signs printed and get them in place. But one of the other factors that's kind of impeding us a little bit is that a lot of our old street signs, I'm sure a lot of you've realized driving around town, you see them, they're actually in the dirt on the backside of the sidewalk. We now have a coring machine and we're putting them in the sidewalk per city standards so that they're not in people's front yard. So there is some extra work going into the districts moving forward because some of the districts that are left have quite a few signs that aren't in the right away. They're in the right away, but at the back of the walk, they're not per our new adopted city standards. So that's what we're installing them to the new city standards and We're going to keep moving through that process.

So the current, the one in progress is District 7 right now. That's correct. Then you'll move on after, and that appears to be in the northeast area of Selma. After that, you'll move into the downtown, number 10. That is correct. For those signs. Are there any such signs that are in the dirt right now downtown?

Not in the downtown area, so to speak. But District 7, we're finding quite a few of them. And we'll address those as we get to them. The downtown district, for the most part, most of the signs in the downtown are in the sidewalk or they're up on our stop signal locations. So I don't think we're going to have an issue with that. We should be able to move through that pretty quickly.

Is there a reason you're not going sequentially just –

The main reason why I chose to have the crew shift from district seven to district 10 and get the downtown done is because we're getting ready to go out to, to, to construction for the second street beautification. We also just put in all of the new trash receptacles that we purchased with the bid committee. And I, I felt it appropriate to address the signage and try to kind of wrap that whole downtown area of signs, the second street beautification and, getting the parking lot on 1st and High Street done. So that was my decision to shift from District 7 to District 10.

I think it makes sense. With the $3 million grant that's going to be implemented for 2nd Street, turning our 2nd Street, formerly an exit that wasn't much to write home about, now it's going to look really nice and be a welcome mat for the city of Selma. And I think those downtown street signs are really going to... to delineate downtown as well and accentuate it.

I agree. I think that it was a good decision on council's part to go with that direction on the signs.

Thank you.

It's a quick, just a quick look at it, and you can recognize where you're at as far as being in the downtown district.

I saw the cost, $22,750 or $22,250 for each phase. How long will it take to finish up seven and get to number 10?

We... I don't want to be held to a date here, but again, we're moving through it, Mr. Mayor, as quickly as we can. We're being diligent about getting that done. My staff, I've expressed the importance of getting started on the downtown district because of the Second Street Beautification Project.

Do you think there's a possibility that could be done in time for the band festival this year?

October, I don't know. I thought you maybe were going to say by the end of the year, and I would say that that's a good projection. By the band festival, we can direct focus on the band festival route area because of the publicity and the factoring in of pictures and news media and all that. I think that we can definitely direct that district in a manner that would be appropriate to accommodate getting that section done before the band parade actually happens. I think that could happen. Thank you for that.

Sure.

Any questions? Okay, Director Hahn, I have a question. So for the District 8 and 9, which I'm looking at, you know, do you think that possibly those districts would be completed by next year?

I think absolutely. But by next year or by the end of next year?

Yeah, by end of 27.

I think absolutely. That's very doable. By the end of 27, my projection is that we'll be done with all of the street name signs that we'll be moving into actual speed limit signs, truck route signs, cautionary placards. That sort of stuff. So right now, just keep in mind, we're just doing street signs. But I can tell you also, and again, I'll get into my department report. We're doing other street sign work, like installing the crosswalk flashers. And we're trying to work on a lot of that stuff before school goes back in on Monday. So like we're down to crunch time right now, thermoplast striping, crack sealing, all of those things are also taking place. So again, it's pulling the resources out of the sign shop a little bit to try to get that work completed before school goes back because of the fact that there's no parking, not to get long winded. It's really difficult to do any work around any of our Selma schools, except the high school when school is in session. So we kind of plan, we get calendars from the school and we, and serve teacher in service days. Those are days when we're trying to coordinate any work that we have in the school district areas because of parking. So.

Okay. Thank you.

Anybody else? Any, anybody from the public with a question about the sign update, anybody online or on the phone with a comment or question about the signs.

I see no hands raised at this time.

Okay. I'll make a motion to approve item two, four. Is there a second second call roll, please.

Council Member Avalos?

Yes.

Council Member Seguera? Yes. Council Member Trujillo?

Yes.

Mayor Pertam Guerra? Yes. Mayor Robertson?

Yes. Moving on to departmental reports. City Manager?

Yes. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Since we last met, I've been responding to questions received and issuing addendums for the RFPs for grant writing services and EIFD formation. The EIFD RFP submittal is due tomorrow and the grant writing RFP is due on the 13th. Staff and I have also been working on compiling information for the opportunity zones. called OZ 2.0 census tract submissions and submitted application forms. We have an item on this related about that tonight. So I'll discuss that further. I also attended the CVTC cohort 22 graduation ceremony. That's always, a great event to attend. We conducted interviews for the admin analyst slash deputy city clerk position. We have second interviews scheduled for tomorrow. The Selma library update, we were informed that the contractors in the final stages of the work, a few additional items were identified that will need to be addressed before they can receive safe to stock clearance. um and they stated that construction is anticipated to be completed mid-august and then they will reassess an opening date from there and then finally our new community development director will be starting with us next monday oh great thank you for that thank you for your report parks and community services

Good evening, Mayor and Council. A few updates for you guys. To start off at the Art Center, the SAC Teens, the Prom Teen Edition runs its final weekend, featuring a post-show cabaret on Friday, August 7th, and Sticker Saturday for closing night on Saturday, August 8th. Tickets are available at selmaartcenter.com slash tickets. CKP's How to Drain Your Dragon the musical opens this month and runs Thursday, August 27th through Sunday, September 6th. Tickets will be available to the public this month at selmaartcenter.com slash youth. Rehearsals began last month for Selma Arts Center's production of the 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee featuring two casts and 17 total actors. Performances run September 25th through October 17th at the Selma Arts Center. The Selma Arts Center has been recognized as a collaborator on American Pachuco, The Legend of Luis Valdez, winner of 2026 Sundance Film Festival, screening at Maya Cinemas, August 7th through 13th. Selma Arts Council member Juan Luis Guzman, one of the first to direct the stage version of Zoot Suit in the Central Valley at the Selma Arts Center in 2021, worked with Luis Valdez on this project. For recreation, community swim has officially wrapped up for the year. So we want to thank the healthcare district for sponsoring that program. We had 491 different patrons enter the pool this summer. And so the community is definitely utilizing that pool space. NFL flag and cheer registration is open this week. It is open through September 12th for ages seven to 12. Registration for the 5k color run has opened as well and will remain open until the day of the run. Shirts are only opened until October 26th. That'll be the last chance you get to get a shirt. And then the senior center wants to thank the Selma Healthcare District and Pastor Joe for his family cooking and serving a meal to the seniors on Tuesday, August 28th. We had chicken Alfredo and the seniors loved it. And then animal services, a microchip clinic will be held on August 22nd. It'll be beginning at 10 a.m. at the Selma Animal Shelter. Currently working with Director Moreno to get the word out to social media. And that's all for community services.

A couple items, director. One is it may be 107 degrees outside. By golly, you have the best water cooler in the house right there. That puts a Stanley to shame. That's a heck of a water jug right there. Good job. Item two, speaking of cooling centers, where are we in terms of the senior center? Are we going to talk about that later? Are we going to talk, are you going to address it tonight?

Um, I can address it now. So I had a, I talked with city manager. Um, we're able to operate a center for places for people to come in and cool down, come inside, um, during our business hours and up until 4 30 PM. Um, any day that it's over 104 or forecasted for over 104, um, they can come to the senior center until 4 30 PM.

Okay. What are the hours they can come to the senior center?

Hours of operation. So 8 AM to 4 30 PM. 8 to 4 30. Okay.

I have a comment. September 4th, the Morenos along with Ruben in La Nueva Honda, Lincoln Park can be a good show. So come on out. It might be a little warm, but that's okay. We can handle it.

Still be a great event. It'll be a lot of fun.

Please come out on September 4th.

Yes. Thank you, sir.

Will we be getting an update on the skating rink at the next meeting? Are you getting contracts? Are you getting bids?

Yeah, so the bids are due on August 6th, and so I'll be able to come to the next council meeting with all those bids.

Great. All right. Thank you. All right. Communications Director Moreno.

Mayor, members of the council. Sorry, my mic is a little bit low today. Check, check. Mayor, members of the council, as Director Tiger mentioned, there is a lot happening in Selma, and I want to redirect folks back to the city website where they can see all of the events that are occurring. You can see this nice little image of the microchip drive that's happening on August 22nd. You can check out our events calendar that has Selma Live, like Council Member Osagura mentioned. All of the events are updated on the city's webpage, cityofselma.com. And also a new endeavor that is on the webpage is we're working with Selma Unified School District and Selma PD. You go down to police, you go down to e-bike information, and you're going to see info on bike safety. It just talks about knowing your bike, knowing the classifications, helmet requirements, the rules of the road. It's just a hub of information that the community could reference if they ever have any questions about if their children's bike is what it's classified and how it's used. As the ordinance develops and gets approved, it'll live here on the website as well. But right now, we really wanted to get info out to the community about really what these bikes are. Because some community members may not have all the information on it. So that's on our city webpage. You can find it at cityofselma.com. Lastly, I want to share a short video on our Selma PD officers working with the Boys and Girls Club on a dodgeball competition. It's a fun little video that's on social media. And here's a glimpse of it. That was a short video that kind of showed what the goal of that event was. And Chief's arm is probably still a little bit sore. I'll let him update you on that. But it's good to see PD engage with some of the young folks there. Ruby and her team, they had a good time and it was a good opportunity to get that out on social media. A lot of folks love it and are sharing it. So it's positive news for the city and mayor members of the council. That's all I have to report.

Thank you for that. If anybody has a question about e-bikes and e-bike safety, um, how would they respond with, could they respond on the, on the website? They send something.

We can add an email address probably to the bottom to say, um, send an email and we can, I can connect with sheep to see who would be the contact for that. Um, definitely I'll add a, uh,

email link to the bottom i've had some questions oh yeah people about what is an e-bike you know where can i use it where can i can't where can i not use it things like that yeah i advise them to check out the website if there's information that's not on there they can shoot us an email and we'll figure out how to respond to that great thanks for your report police chief alcarez

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Just to piggyback on the e-bike conversation, we were in the process of drafting a new ordinance to deal with these e-bike users, I guess, for lack of a better term. However, currently there's legislation being quickly loaned through the House that's going to address some of our concerns. So in the interest of... legislation and making sure that we're not going back and forth with this ordinance. We were going to wait for legislation to become codified, see what that new legislation is exactly, and then format an e-bike ordinance that can deal with this issue appropriately.

They're contemplating the adoption of some very restrictive regulations that basically treat these things for what they are as vehicles. And so the legislation is comprehensive what they're considering and very, very restrictive with respect to riding an e-bike on the sidewalk, for example, that sort of thing. And they're essentially treating them as they should as vehicles because they're motor propelled.

Will that change the age requirement for those who can actually operate them? So that's part of what they're considering.

And part of what they're considering is also licensing of these things and requiring, you know, the appropriate attire, helmets, all that, just a whole slew of things. And they're being very, very restrictive, which I kind of find surprising, given the legislature's live affair with electric vehicles. So go figure. But they have two bills presently circulating in the assembly, one of which is about to make it to the floor. And they're both, like I say, very, very restrictive, far more restrictive than what we were contemplating as an ordinance. Wow. So then.

will refer to the state law in reference to our ordinances.

Once they've come to their final conclusions and they've adopted that legislation, we can then look at it to see if maybe the legislation that they bring forth is going to address our concerns and give us the ability to appropriately deal with this. It was really what they are like... as city attorney Costanza said, they're vehicles. And if they term that as such, and that gives us the ability to deal with it, then just legislation may allow us a bigger tool to deal with this.

And there's a lot of things that are going to delegate to the city or cities or counties, as the case may be, because it's really a local matter that you've got to regulate according to what your street system looks like and that sort of thing.

But if they have to be licensed, that's a DMV issue, right? They're going to have to get licensed.

There's one provision in there that requires a license, but I understand they are going to give that responsibility to you. It's kind of hard to say for certain because it hasn't made it up to the Senate yet. It's just circulating around the legislature. What a surprise.

And we'll pay for that locally through the license fees? Is that how we'll supposedly pay for that?

Whenever they require a license, they slap you with a fee. So, you know, hopefully... They will delegate that to where it should be, to the city that it's involving and or the county or what have you. DMV has proven itself to be incapable of doing much of anything. And I think that would probably be the best way to go. And I think the current bill that's up there does exactly that.

So the city issues a license and collects the fees and keeps the fees. Mm-hmm. for the increased cost in public safety at this time, but nothing has been decided yet. Are they taking public safety's input? Are they taking- I'm certain they are. They are.

I'm certain they are. And in fact, the Attorney General is soliciting from city attorneys like me, I've made a comment on it. I suggested it would be appropriate to leave the licensing authority with the cities because cities always have these bike license ordinances anyway. And it seems to me to be awfully difficult. cumbersome to require, they're talking about age 16 and above only, but it seems to me to be awfully cumbersome to require them to go to DMV and get what is the equivalent of the driver's license you have.

It's sure been the wild west. It can only be an improvement. We need some regulation there because just look at all the problems and the

unfortunate fatality that we had experienced here that we should never experience again hopefully that'll cut those down to zero it's kind of surprising there aren't more if you've ever seen these electric scooters i mean i i can't imagine even riding one of these things because you hit a bump and you're close to the ground you're on the street

Is that it, Chief Alcaraz?

Actually, Mayor, in addition, well, not in a separate note, we will be working heavy traffic enforcement, also looking at e-bike users and making sure they're adhering to the rules of the road over the next couple of weeks with school starting. Again, that's where we naturally, before school starts, we ramp up our traffic enforcement. However, with the e-bike incident we had and just the e-bike concerns that the communities are having, we're going to be adding that to part of our enforcement operations over the next few weeks. So we'll have a lot more police officers driving and stopping vehicles. So for our community members, please ensure that you're adhering to the rules of the road. and drive safely and remember that kids will be walking to and from school now. So there'll be some additional foot traffic and vehicular traffic around our schools. And beyond that, my last item is we held a community forum on Thursday just to talk about anything that we talked about, flock cameras, talked about e-bikes, talk about anything our community members would like to. We'll be holding another one probably the first week of November. And again, I encourage our community members to come out and talk to us. And that's an opportunity for us to have a good organic conversation about what we're doing at the Selma Police Department to ensure the safety and quality of life for our community members. We talk about some of the technology that we currently have, talk about technologies that we're looking at and how those technologies become force multipliers for our labor force or our police officers to ensure the safety of our community members. So it should be a great conversation. We were there until 9 o'clock from 7 to 9 on Thursday, and that was just two or three people. So, again, we encourage our community members to show up, ask questions so we can have a good conversation. And that's it. Thanks for having that, Chief. Appreciate it.

I have a question here, Chief. Who was the winner of the dodgeball?

The kids got us. The Boys and Girls Club. Oh my gosh. Need more practice.

That looked fun. All right. Public works director. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. A few things to update you on. I mentioned a couple of meetings ago that we had bought, purchased some deterrent cameras from a company called Q-Star where we're having a little bit dumping and graffiti issues. Those cameras were all three installed yesterday. So staff is actually cleaning up those areas that have, John Potter, previously dumped items they're taking care of all the graffiti and then we're going to start monitoring those. John Potter, To get the still pictures to actually send a PD and code enforcement so those were installed yesterday so we're making good progress with that project i'm working with the city planner David horn engineer and Mohammed. from Y&H to draft a RFP of sort to put out for a contractor selection for the downtown bid grant items that would be done by downtown owners. We're working on that right now. trying to put that draft together, how we want to send it out to get some general contractors to respond so we can vet them out, make sure that they all are DIR registered and that they all understand the prevailing wage. So at least that way, when a business owner gets a grant or wants to do improvements to their building, that we already have a pre-vetted list of at least three contractors that, hey, these are three people you can call. The city's vetted them. They have the insurance requirements. They have their DIR number. They pay prevailing wage. Like you can use them or you can go out and find your own contractor. So we're working on getting that put together. Should have something done in the next couple of weeks on that. I know that you have an item on the agenda tonight for the downtown standards. So I'm sure that that will dictate somewhat how we put that together. So anyway, working on that. We installed today a project that started in actually 2019, which is the generator upgrade to the senior center backup generator, emergency generator. Quinn Caterpillar assisted us three years ago when I first came on board to getting compliant with San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. The generator was a tier three, needed to be upgraded to a tier four. We finally received that apparatus yesterday and we delivered today and actually got it set. That apparatus should be completely functional Monday or Tuesday of next week. And actually, we're just meeting the deadline. San Joaquin Valley gave us till the 17th or the 19th of this month. to get that project completed before we were fined for noncompliance. So we met the deadline and there's not going to be any fines, so we're getting that project wrapped up. We did go down a week before last and we pressure washed the entire arts center. I don't know if anybody's noticed, but wow, what a difference. It looks like a brand new building. We are still looking into getting the paint matched for the beams in the front and having staff actually in between productions go in and repaint all of the steel beams that are up the front. So we're working on getting that done. And we will also be pressure washing City Hall and getting City Hall cleaned as well. We have our crew. We've had some complaints about the dog park, about the stickers. I went out there personally last Friday, talked to a couple of the residents that are regulars out there. They're kind of cleaning up a little bit while they're out there. But the last two days, yesterday and today, we've had our parks crew out there with some of our APs. And they've actually spent two days out there cleaning up. They got everything along the fence on Nebraska and down that west wall that's on the Ringo Park side. Now we're going to start working across the back wall. We've also looked into a couple of cheap devices that are actually, I've never seen them, but they're a roller that actually picks up all of the stickers and They're about $350. So we're actually looking to purchase a couple of those and try them out and see if they help out just for a quick roll them up and down the fence line and pick all those goat heads as they're called. So we're still continuing to work on that and remedy that problem. We started yesterday installing, as I mentioned a moment ago, we have our new core drilling machine and allows us to core through the sidewalk to place street signs and other apparatuses to meet our city standards that have been adopted by council in the sidewalk. We started putting the crosswalk flasher in on Aarons and McCall yesterday. We're going to continue working on six locations that we have that I've had principals from Selma Unified for two years tell me we need more flashers out there. So we've procured those and they're being installed as we speak. So we'll continue working on that, try to get as much done before school goes back in, like I mentioned earlier. And then the The last item that I have is that I received yesterday two floor plans of used modular unit, bathroom units from Ryan at Mobile Modular. He is trying to get me some pricing for not only the used units, but for the new units. And I've heard some preliminary kind of reach in the air and grab a number of numbers. And I think that with the budget that we have, what was budgeted and the parks budget, the 270 plus the 50,000 that SOMA healthcare district so graciously granted us a couple of weeks ago. I think that we're going to be able to pull off actually two modular buildings. One women's and one men's, 40 foot long, 12 foot wide. Once I get numbers, I can come back. So don't hold me to it. But the numbers that he was telling me for brand new units were around 100,000 per unit. Um, so if we have three 20 to play with, um, 200,000 for the units, I have sewer and waters already right there. We can connect those. Um, the only other thing is to build the deck with the ADA ramp. And, uh, I think that we can pull that off. So, uh, on that item, it's just, I'm, I'm receiving stuff. So I'm keeping you updated and in the loop, like I mentioned, I would, and I will bring more information. I have a staff report already done. I'm waiting for numbers to plug into that report for financial obligation, and I'm going to try to get that on the agenda for the next meeting on the 18th. And that's all I have.

Thank you very much. Councilman Avalos, do you have a comment? On the note for a safe routes to school situation, on the corner of McCall and Nelson Boulevard, One of those stop signs coming into town on that corner right there. On the other side, it's got the flashing signs, you know, the flashers. But in the past, when they put the other one in, it had flashers, but it doesn't have a flasher no more because I notice some people, when they're coming in, they kind of actually run that sign. They actually run that sign. They see the apartments and they just keep going.

So you're talking about the flashing stop signs. So like I mentioned during the sign replacement update, once we get through the last of the 10 districts, we are going to be addressing stop signs, speed limit signs, cautionary signs. We have already had internal discussions in Public Works Department about areas with high-speed travel to four-way intersections. I can tell you Nebraska coming off of 43 is the same way. So we are looking into procuring more of the flashing stop signs that have the red flashers for safety reasons. And I'm working with the city engineer on appropriate locations for those. Okay, thank you.

Okay, so... the healthcare district. I again, want to thank board members, Avalos, Gallardo and Rodriguez for voting for, um, the $50,000 for the restrooms. That's going to be a real game changer. Timelines. I know you don't want to hear it, but if we get it on the agenda next time and everything goes really well, um, You know, we can get something in what's the proximate, just something you pull out of the air.

So I can tell you from the time that we, I can bring that to council and you guys can give me the direction to proceed. Once we have numbers and understand total cost of the project. I would say. Probably within a couple of months. All the infrastructures there, the units are already prefabricated. So I would say within two or three months. A lot faster than a construction job.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And then we've been hearing all these stories about water companies, water utilities getting hacked. Have we heard anything from our partner at Cal Water about what they're doing?

I have not heard anything from Mr. Andrade, Mike Andrade, or from Stuart Skook. I have been watching that in the news, and I've seen where they've had some hacks into water distribution. That's crazy. Yeah, so I don't know what Cal Water is doing, but I can tell you even prior to these events that are happening currently, Cal Water's policy for protecting their water system is pretty extravagant. And I only know that from the experience on the Valley View project. We opted to do an above-ground bypass project. And they would not allow anyone to do that because of the possibility or risk of some kind of an attack to that above ground pipe. So I know that they have pretty stringent security policy, but have not had a conversation with them recently about that.

Chief Webster, your OES calls dealing with this?

Yeah, we received some information from the governor's office of emergency services pertaining to this specifically in that information was passed on to Cal waters team. So they are aware and have been provided both the contact information as well as all of the documentation that was has been passed down through. Oh, yes.

Good to know. I mean, you wouldn't think they would target a city of 24 of our population. But they could target anybody. They're going to try to probably go where there's least resistance. And it's good we're putting up that firewall so we're not an easy target.

You know, the big target, we talk about water a lot, but you need to think about your wastewater treatment facility. So I can tell you, SKF, I don't know, I haven't talked to them either about this, what's happening, but they're on SCADA systems, which can be hacked. And I can tell you those wet wells only will last 11 to 15 minutes of capacity as the influent is coming in to the plant before it literally backs up in the system and starts blowing manhole covers off in your streets. And then you have raw sewage in your street. So it's also a major event for the water treatment facilities, wastewater treatment.

Got it. So our representative, Councilman Avalos, the next SKF meeting, this would be a huge topic to bring up, definitely, and let us know. Thank you for that. Okay. And with that, we are going to take our usual five-minute break, during which the public has the opportunity to talk with the department heads, and then we will come back and finish up our meeting after that. is an action item it's the presentation and request for council direction the draft of the downtown design standards and guidelines resolution 2026-77 city planner

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. Tonight, before you in your packet, we have provided you with a copy of the administrative draft that's been provided to us by our consultants at Alta Planning and Design to draft design standards and guidelines for our downtown business districts. This is not a formal presentation of these standards for adoption at this time. It's sort of a preliminary review of the draft standards and the guideline document that would serve as sort of a supplemental tool for the community to refer to if ultimately the council wishes to adopt standards into our zoning ordinance. So tonight we're requesting review and consideration of These standards and our consultants are on the line to provide you with the presentation. And if you feel these are satisfactory to guide us towards initiating these zone code text amendment process, which would allow for these standards to become part of our development requirements. that the planning department would then implement in our development review process. So with that, I think I'll turn it over to Mr. Sensenegg at Alta Planning and Design.

Hello, thank you, Megan, and thank you, Council, for having me today. I'm going to share my screen. I'll send the request to do so.

All right.

So I'll just give a quick project overview and run through the downtown design guidelines and what we heard and then turn it back over to Megan for next steps. So i'm here to present the draft downtown design guidelines and standards, the standards build on the downtown strategic plan that was developed in 2024. In 2025 City Council, the planning Commission. And the bid how to workshop and outline and here, you can see the outline of some of the guidance. For the design standards, these include ideas like creating attractive and transparent storefronts creating a pedestrian friendly and visually compatible and interesting environment preserving original materials, ensuring visual variation between buildings. To support a coordinated color palette was created to provide guidance and create a cohesive visual theme downtown. That was also part of that document. The downtown design standards and guidelines will give the city guidance on new buildings and also create a clear understanding of what is eligible and how to evaluate the proposed improvements as part of the downtown storefront improvement grant program. And here's a quick overview of the topics the downtown design standards and guidelines cover. You can see massing and scale of buildings, facade design, specifics for ground floor design, facade renovations, colors and materials, where utilities, equipment and refuse access and screening for that. And also some stuff on signage design. Again, today I'm gonna take a high level approach and address a few of these, but we'll take your comments on any of them. So before diving into an overview of the standards, I want to take a moment and talk about the down, about downtown Selma and what we observed. The standards are built around this understanding of place. There's a lot of great things going on with the buildings in downtown. There's a great structure to the street. Buildings are located up to the back of sidewalk. Generally, the buildings are also of high quality materials and there is a wonderful array of facade details and charming architectural moments. There are also some not so great things that have happened over time, some of the nice facade elements are covered up some buildings lack ground floor transparency. And there is a lack of cohesive shade from street trees and awnings and to the northern northern end there's a much more suburban character kind of lose that downtown feel. And here we can see some of those elements. And you can look at the wonderful detail on some of these buildings. There are beautiful cornice lines, recessed windows, and generally high quality materials. But as you see, some sides have been covered up with plaster taking away from that historic character and charm. North on High Street, The composition of downtown breaks apart with a more suburban style and lack of cohesiveness and visual interest and identity. Buildings are set back more, it's harder to find the building entrances, and there's a lot more surface parking. And here we can see on the southern end of High Street, the variation in storefronts. On the older side, we see, again, this great rhythm and pattern of facades about every 30 feet. We see beautiful columns, decorative parapets. All these things create visual interest in the place. And here on Second Street again, we see such a wonderful storefront building. Beautiful details and materials. And look at the parapet and the corner element. the bulkhead at the bottom with its little blue boxes, and these absolutely stunning columns. And this is something we noticed that is actually very special in Selma. The columns provide so much variety and artistic character in the community. I mean, just look at all of these. You have some whimsy, you have art deco, You have some simple elegance. And even in the Art Center building, you have this giant double pyramid set of columns that really sets that building apart from the rest, but also still follows that same pattern of these beautiful columns. And to me, this is something that makes Selma special and unique from an architectural perspective. When we developed the design standards, these are the elements we were hoping to encourage and require. The design standards try to build on this foundation by requiring some of these decorative features. And in doing this, we provide a menu where you need to do at least two things. And by providing this menu, there's an opportunity for variety and unique expression. and different ways to meet the standards while requiring a minimum level of architectural details. And one of the goals is to use these decorative features to create a distinct base, middle and top to each building. This really sets off how you interact with the building, how it interacts with the sky. And it's a traditional way of designing that creates a wonderful human scale to buildings. Another key standard in the document is to ensure great storefront design. A key element of that is to have functional entries that allow space for door swings. Awnings are encouraged to provide much needed shade and also bring down the scale. And storefronts are required to have transparent glazing for a majority of the facade to ensure one can see into the business and create visual interest throughout downtown. The design standards also address facade renovations. Here, one of the key goals is to retain and enhance some of those key details that are part of these wonderful buildings I spoke of earlier. But also realizing renovation is necessary and that things like windows and storefronts likely need to be replaced with more modern and functional products. So the city has shared the draft guidelines with the bid and other stakeholders. And from the first draft submitted, we heard some things that we feel will make this a better document. And the following changes to the document are listed here. Some of them are removing some pieces, others are adding to some of the standards. And then there are also some simple clarifications where the stakeholders identified that the standards were not clear. So I'm looking forward to this discussion today and creating a downtown design standard document that suits the city and is easy to administer by your staff. And that concludes my presentation and I guess back to you, Megan, are open to discussion. I'll stop the share and find my way.

So with that, I would ask for your feedback. If anybody has any questions for staff or for our consultant, we're happy to discuss.

Absolutely. Thank you for a great presentation. This has been a while and coming. And I think it's because it's taken so much feedback. This is definitely a labor of love and a lot of input from the city building owners, city residents. And I think altogether, what we want to do is we want to present a beautiful downtown and we're getting there, take a ride down high street on your way home tonight. And it's just so much nicer than even when these pictures were taken, You know, I mean, you look at even that building where the pretzel maker is going to go in. The sign's up now. It's been painted. It's happening. There's a critical comment in here about lack of shade and trees. The trees are coming in. They're just not mature yet, but they are growing. They're getting there. So this is a work in progress. One of the comments I would have at this point is, This is a long time coming and I really do think we need to keep the process moving along. I see where it's gonna take three to six months to kind of bake this into the ordinances. In the meantime, just wanted to clarify that the downtown storefront grant can move forward, correct? People can apply, the guidelines are clear, the colors are really clear now. One of the sticking points that I've seen on that is the fact that it has to be prevailing wage. And what you're looking at is a relatively low cost, low contract amount. requiring a contractor who has the skills to do prevailing wage. That's a tough combination. Those are kind of contrasting there. So hopefully, well, from what we heard tonight, the city is looking, according to Director Hahn, the city's looking for contractors who can, general contractors who can do prevailing wage and file certified payrolls. But the question I had is, you know, when you get someone who is like owner only general contractor or maybe, you know, one or two employees, would the city be able to have any kind of help in terms of instruction on how to do a certified payroll? You know, the chamber does workshops once in a while on business owners. There's one coming up for entrepreneurs, nonprofits. could the city kind of have something educational that the city could provide maybe even necessarily Harris construction, but you know, are good solid people who do good solid work and could also meet those requirements that the city has for prevailing wage and for all the reports that those entail.

DIR does have some information that is available that we can share related to that. Additionally, APWA, American Public Works Association, also has some of that. A lot of the certified payroll that we deal with with the city, a lot of that is handled by our engineering firm. And so we can also look into that on if they would be able to assist us with putting on sort of a clinic for those that were interested. But there are ways that we can get information to interested people.

Great idea. So you want to be a downtown storefront grant contractor, come to this workshop and have it twice a year. and have our contractor, our engineering contractor assist us putting that on, showing nuts and bolts of how to do that. Because up till now, it's just not going to happen. I mean, that money that was allocated by the council to the storefront grant program is still sitting there. No one's gone after it because it's complicated. It's got to be prevailing wage, and there's a lot of red tape there. I really want to see us as a city try to facilitate that to help people do what we have to do within the state law, but at the same time make it accessible to the folks with the buildings because there are a lot of buildings out there that could really, really benefit us. from this storefront grant. And I'd really like to see that balance in the storefront grant be zero in 12 months, as opposed to 100,000, because people used it.

I also have a comment in regards to the application. simplifying the application, making sure that it's very easy and a check off box so that they know, okay, this is what you have to do and check off a box because you don't want them to fill it out, come back and then they say, well, no, it doesn't meet the requirement. And then because you didn't do this, that we've hear that over and over with, I would say probably more so like with planning, they didn't get this because a checkoff box, now they do it. So I think making sure that that application has that checkoff box, so they know this is who you can contact. I like director Han's recommendation that we'll have three contractors that are prevailing wage. This is who you can use or call them. See, that's simplifying everything. So I think that's a great start. Hopefully we can get that in place. And then we can, like the mayor stated, we can get these building owners to use this grant because it's been sitting there, I believe now for two years and it hasn't been touched.

Yeah, no, I agree. And, you know, Megan and I share that. similar thought process of we want stuff to be easier, understandable. And so we've been working towards that. Planning has been working towards that. And so they've done a really good job of making sure that when people come in that they have information that they need. So it's not a back and forth all the time. And because we all agree that government shouldn't be in the way and should be there to help out.

I have a question. It would be to the gentleman that does Chris or I don't have your last name. The question I have is during your presentation, you spoke about the lack or I guess the, people, I guess, covering the brick or the style, the buildings, I guess what you could call is what the curb appeal was. And are you recommending that we go back to that? And if there was some kind of brick, tie that into that building and use some of the, I'm going to use for the better word, crown molding or whatever the mold, whatever the, interpret that into all the buildings or what do we what what are we because I imagine listening to your conversation it sounds great but I imagine right now when I walk by a building I see it it's pink or there's there's different building colors so we want to integrate all these structure plans and and but we also have brick because the buildings are so old and they're covered. So can you give me a little more information on what you were talking about and how you would, how we would do that if we had a building with brick and we had it covered?

Yeah. Well, I think the, the two buildings that were in that example on second street, like they were originally brick, right. And this has happened across cities, across the country. Over time, someone might have put up a plaster facade over some existing brick. That's 99% of the buildings. Yeah. Well, most of the buildings around downtown, there's actually only a few that have large portions. blocked um but it's it's to really you know if the details are there uh and that project is going through a facade renovation or the whole building is going through a renovation to have um you know a a direction that if it's possible to go back and take off some of that um covering and bring back the original materials that is the preference of the city through these design standards. And of course, it gives flexibility. It's not trying to say you need to follow historic architectural guidelines or such, but it's about bringing back those details that might be there. And whether it's brick or a lot of the facades are also stucco, but have those level of detail too. But if part of the building was covered up, it would be the preference and the design guidance to try to rehabilitate that part of the facade.

I'm happy you're saying that because I own a building downtown. And I believe that the brick brings back with the columns that you're signifying. But my question would be what that would be entailed into the policy or the structured work. If somebody did want to

revitalize their building then those they would have to follow those plans but if somebody doesn't they're going to stick with they got to do what they have have what they have and just do right or right i mean if people aren't making improvements to their buildings then they don't there there's no action they're not going to stick with a plan that we're that we're talking about right because there's no like there's no direct you're not requiring anybody to renovate their building Right you're just like if someone is going through the facade improvement program or someone is doing a major renovation of their building on on their own or if someone is building a new building downtown then they they would need to follow these design standards.

Now, but also, but also if you're doing it on your own, I mean like myself and we're going to do it, you want to be, you want to make sure that the whole city ties in. And that's my, that's my biggest concern that we start doing this. And some people don't, they just decide, Hey, I don't have the money. I can't do it. But, but I like where you're going with this about the brick. I have, I already have a vision how I'm going to do my building and, And it ties into exactly what you're talking about, the columns, the brick. But I also want to, if you can elaborate a little more on the awnings that you presented to us, because what do you recommend? Do you recommend metal awnings?

Yeah, I mean, the design standards don't recommend, like, I mean, there's a cost issue to requiring metal awnings, right? And so the design standards provide flexibility of providing a wide variety of materials for awnings. Now the city could certainly take the direction to require higher quality materials, but again, it comes at a certain cost. I would say, and the standards encourage this, but awnings that are wide and cover a good deal of the sidewalk, I think are very beneficial in a town like Selma. One, I think they create great architectural detail. Two, they provided much needed shade in conjunction with the street trees that are being planted. So it's up to the council's discretion, of course, of how much you want to require certain materials for awnings. But I think you can have well-designed fabric and or metal awnings.

My next question is to Megan. In regards to the awnings, are we gonna have a policy of the height procedure or are we gonna have one's higher than the other? Are we gonna have a standard, If we do, let's say we decide, hey, you're going to do an awning, but it has to be all need to be at this height. Because what if somebody comes in and decides to put, let's say I tear the whole place of my building and I decide to put an awning. Are we going to have a structured policy that states how high?

I might ask Chris to weigh in on that. What you see commonly in other communities for uniform height?

Yeah. I mean, the standards do have a minimum of nine feet. John Gerstle, Above the sidewalk, so there is a minimum. John Gerstle, I don't personally see. John Gerstle, Much of an issue with having awnings at different heights, I think it can help create you know. a different rhythm. And the building on the corner of 2nd that I showed, that has a very high awning. And it fits with that building type. And then some of the storefronts that you have around, I guess it's like 3rd and high, have lower but very expansive awnings. And I think there's There's opportunities for both of those. I don't think it's necessary to have awnings all at one height. I think what is necessary is that there's a minimum height and that provides places to walk and that you could have signs hanging from the awnings and stuff and you're not inhibiting people's path of travel.

I have just a quick question in regards to that, or just a comment. But looking at our downtown and going through even High Street, Second Street, you'll notice that the building sizes, not every building is the same. You'll see some are higher than the others. So wouldn't the Ani's be more tailored to how that building is designed? Because you could have a lower building and maybe your awnings may be a little lower if they choose to put them in, but then you have folks that might have a taller building and awnings might have to be raised a little higher because that's just, you know, that building is built that way. It's just taller. It's... So I'm just wondering if having to be equal, you know, is going to be suitable because like I'm saying, every building is different.

Yeah, correct. There is not a standard for them to be equal. There's just a minimum standard. They need to be at least nine feet off the sidewalk.

Okay.

But they can be higher than that.

We also identified a theme of an arts district. How does that play into the guidelines that we're looking at tonight?

Yeah, so the way that I think that plays in is requiring these decorative features. And, you know, I was out there a few years back working on the downtown strategy, but it wasn't until I was working on this project where I really took a close look at each building. And I have to say, those columns and those parapets that you guys have, the decorative parapets, like, that's what I think is something that really creates the art district for me. Like, I mean, you guys could almost have, like, a little, like, hide and, or like a scavenger hunt. where it's like find five different column types and people could go out and find the column types and all of a sudden start seeing these things. But I think if new buildings and if like renovations of older buildings that if they begin to add this level of detail, I think it can provide something that's really special and unique to Selma.

Anybody from the public with a comment on the downtown design guidelines? Anybody online or on the phone with a comment? Mayor, I see no hands raised at this time. Thank you. Thank you for a thought-provoking presentation. Is there anything you want to leave us with, Chris, tonight as we embark on moving forward with this three- to six-month process to of finalize this but i think as we're seeing tonight i think it's going to be a living breathing document things change building standards change downtown demographics change and i think we want to be mindful of that so we keep it flexible and i think this is i think there's a lot of flexibility in this you know you don't necessarily have to have the same color the same height the same you know brick i mean it does reflect that individuality that any arts district should have. It's kind of interesting that William Soroyan used to ride his bike to that red brick building you identify in here. He probably gained inspiration. He probably wrote a story about that Selma building. And that's pretty cool. It's in keeping with the arts district too. And hopefully we'll get more stories like that that add kind of an interesting storyline to our city as well. So this is an action item. Is there a motion to approve this item tonight?

I'll make a motion.

Is there a second? Call the roll, please.

Council Member Avalos?

Yes.

Council Member Seguera? Yes. Council Member Trujillo?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Guerra?

Yes.

Mayor Robertson?

Yes. Okay, our item passes, and then we're going to move on to item 5-2. which is another action item. It is asking for adoption of Resolution 2026-78 for Opportunity Zone 2.0, recommendation for eligible census tract in the city of Selma. City Manager, you'll be taking this tonight?

Yes, thank you, Mayor and City Council. This item is consideration of the city's Opportunity Zone 2.0 recommendations. This program is intended to encourage long-term private investment in economically distressed areas through federal tax incentives. Since this report was prepared, the state has released its draft list of recommended census tracts. I'm pleased to report that two of the three tracks that we sent for nomination covering much of the west side of the city from the railroad tracks west have been identified as recommended by the state. Our third track remains eligible and can still receive public comments and letters of support during the public comment period, which runs through August 28th. Staff will continue working with our partners to submit letters of support and advocate for all three tracks. Tonight's action authorizes the city to continue advocating for these designations and submit supporting documentation during the state's public comment process. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

So in a nutshell, this potentially offers

benefits whether tax or otherwise for folks who want to buy land that falls within that census tract identified as an opportunity zone correct what it allows is it allows tax benefits federal tax benefits for improving land within an opportunity zone so infrastructure building housing commercial development that type of thing and so it makes it more attractive for those two come in. For instance, we have Casitas that has been approved over there. These opportunity zones, Casitas falls within one of those areas. And so if this moves forward and nominated and gets selected by the feds as an opportunity zone, then beginning January 1st, 2027, they would be eligible to start receiving those benefits once they start building something.

How does this differ from the EIFD?

EIFD is a tax increment financing mechanism. So you take the sales tax that would generally increase for putting that on there, and you use that to pay off existing potential bonds for development for EIFD. infrastructure. And so used in conjunction with each other, then it would help make the area much more attractive to an investor coming in.

going to make the cost of improving the infrastructure, it's going to lower those costs for a developer.

Right. I mean, if they can potentially lower their, you know, tax burden because it's within an opportunity zone, and then additionally, if EIFD can be used to pay for that infrastructure going in, then, you know, it makes it more viable for them to put in a larger project or any type of project.

When will we know who gets put in these census tracks? What's the timeline for that?

So the public comment period ends in August 28th, and then the state will make their choices and submit them to the federal government in September. And then I believe by November or December, we should know because they're supposed to be in effect January 1st. Can the EDC help us with this? EDC was very instrumental in helping staff on this. They provided a lot of the educational information related to this. They helped us identify those census tracts that, you know, had the best opportunity. And so we've been working with them very collaboratively on this process.

Sounds like something of, that would really help to have that partnership with the economic development corporation. I'm glad that city's partnering with them on this. Any members, neighbors, again, just folks, we all live in the same city.