City Council - Regular Meeting

Conduct in the city council chambers. Rules of decorum for the public. Members of the audience shall not engage in disorderly or boisterous conduct, including the utterance of loud, threatening, or abusive language, clapping, whistling, stamping of feet, or other other acts which disturb, disrupt, impede, or otherwise render the orderly conduct of the city meeting in feasible. A member of the audience engaging in any such conduct shall at the discretion of the presiding officer or a majority of the city council be subject to ejection from the meeting per government code section 54954.3C. Removal from the council chambers. Any person who commits the following acts in respect to a meeting of the cities shall be removed from the council chambers per government code section 54954.3C. A disorderly, contemptuous or insolent behavior towards the city council or any member thereof tending to interrupt the due and orderly course of said meeting. a breach of peace, boisterous conduct, or a violent disturbance tending to interrupt the due and orderly course of said meeting. Disobedience of any lawful order from the mayor, which shall include an order to be seated or to refrain from addressing the city council, and any other unlawful interference with the due and orderly course of said meeting. Good evening everybody. Welcome to the TAP City Council Successor Agency joint regularly scheduled meeting for February 17th, 2026. City of TAP council meetings are being held in person with full capacity seating and are livereamed at www.youtube.com/user/c

cityof. Public comment can be made in person and also can be received per the following. Written comments may be dropped off in the dropbox in front of city hall. Comments may be emailed to the city clerk at city clerk at cityofft.org. They may also be made by phone to the city clerk's office at 6617631222. Public comments will be accepted up until 5:00 p.m. the day of the meeting, and all comments received shall be read into the record. We'll begin this evening's meeting with a pledge of allegiance led by Councilman Waldrop, followed by an invocation from Greg Mudge. If you would stand and join me, plead.

Place your hand over your heart. Salute and pledge. I aliance 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 pray with me? Father in heaven, we're so thankful for this opportunity to come together tonight and and we're so grateful and thankful for this wonderful community that we've been blessed with to have such uh wonderful leadership in this community that works hard to protect us and provide us with the living that we are so comfortable with and allows us the opportunity to freely worship you and your son Jesus Christ. We pray, Father, that you'll work in the hearts of everyone tonight and let the love of Jesus shine through their hearts as they discuss business for this community. Guide them with the Holy Spirit. We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Greg, thank you very much, sir. Madame clerk, may we have a roll call, please? Mayor Nor here. Council member Crier here. Council member Waldrop here. Council member Shira here. And Mayor Proen Bryant is absent with notice. All right. Thank you very much. First item on this evening's agenda is a study session. We actually have a couple of them. The first one's going to be a presentation by Barry Foster with Econ Solutions. Mr. Foster, if you would please, sir.

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to come here tonight. Um, my name is Barry Foster. I'm a principal and managing director with the HDL companies. I started up the division of our company almost 12 years ago um to do economic development. We call it um HDL Econ Solutions. Um, at your last council meeting, you approved an agreement with us for professional services agreement um to do some economic development uh services uh and along with uh retail traction support. So, I kind of wanted just to go through and and kind of highlight a little bit of what we're going to do with that with that agreement. Uh, first of all, we did actually did some work for Taft about uh gosh, I think it was probably uh about a year and a half, maybe a year. Um, and I think the last we did it was right before the pandemic, so it was 2019, so it's been a while since I've been up here. Um so the so the proposal includes um a scope of work and uh task one is to do uh is to prepare an insight market analytics package for Taft and and look at two different trade areas. Um it'll probably be the shopping center that you have down there where Albertson's is and then kind of your downtown area. Um and so it'll look at the at at all the demographics and working analytics and and and all that. And then um the second thing we'll do then is is to do a leakage analysis. So we'll look at what people are living here are spending their money on and then what's leaking outside your community where they're going someplace else. I always look at that kind of as the glass half full. There people are spending their money but they're not able to spend it here for whatever reason. They're having to go someplace else. And so when when you're looking to try to recruit um new businesses, new retailers, that's that's an attraction because there's always people spend their money in those categories and but it's leaking outside

your community and that's that's that's sales that's lost sales tax revenue which is obviously very important for our city. And then um as part of that, we're also going to do a void analysis and we're going to look at um what retailers are not in Taft or in your trade area and and then we track and do work all over the state of California. Um and so we're going to look at uh where do they want to be, what kind of trade areas, what kind of markets, you know, footprints, um uh what kind of consumers they looking for. And so we're going to try to come up with a list of probably 15 to 20 or maybe 25 potential retailers, restaurants, businesses that would be good fits um with Taft in your trade area. And then we're going to do a a retail performance assessment for Taft. We're going to look at your vacancies. I I got up here a little bit early today. was able to to to do about a four and a half mile run and kind of run through the downtown area, but but got to see a lot of different things and I hopped in my car and did even more today. So, um you know, I think you've got some you got some opportunities there. You got some challenges. Um and so looking at those vacancies and and then we're going to come up with some targets in terms of what we think might be some good fits for some of those areas, some of those vacancies. Um and then uh take that as a very good first step. So the the compensation to do that task one is $20,000 to fix fee. Task two is to help you do some of that retail recruitment outreach uh support services. Um we've done this for the last 11 years and um for I think we've done it now for 32 different cities in California over time. Um earlier today when we had were having something to eat um C manager talked about Rididgerest

and and the the city manager just retired up there. We've done work in in Rididgerest for I think nine years now and um in terms of retail recruitment had a lot of success and I think there's a lot of comparables between Rididgerest and Taft and so um I kind of like working from for some of those smaller cities because uh council members in the community they appreciate getting those new businesses. Sometimes you work for for bigger communities, they think that they can get something even better and sometimes they're they're not satisfied with just trying to attract some retailers and some restaurants. But we're going to look for what's a good fits um for Taft. And uh in in Ridgerest, we we brought in uh the Panda Express. That was the largest opening that Panda Express has ever had out of over 3,000 restaurants.

And it was huge. And I remember I remember when we uh we got ready to open them up, didn't have any advertising, a little bit of social media. They had uh 250 people waiting for the doors to open up. They um they had such big business, they had to bring in a an extra refrigeration unit and put it in the parking lot because they're pumping food in so fast there. It's stabilized, but it's still a very strong restaurant. And so we've done uh also in Ridge we brought in Grocery Outlet uh two hotels um Ross just opened up um Five Below um we did uh Chipotle as an uh second Starbucks or second Starbucks Habit Burgers. Um there's a Wendy's under construction right now. a lot of things, a lot of positive things and and um over time. And so it's it's something that um I've been really, you know, fortunate to have worked with them, but the city's really appreciated and the people who live there have really have appreciated that. Um, so, so we're going to again look at doing some marketing and putting and working with with Craig and some of the city staff and putting together some marketing packets um to go after potential retailers and restaurants. Um, we have a lot of relationships with developers, site selectors, uh, reps for retailers, real estate professionals. Um, just and we're going to want to really understand the marketplace here. And then um you know I I' I've been doing this uh I worked for cities in California for 23 and a half years and I've been with HDL for almost 12 years. So I've been doing this for a while and it's something that

uh I think it's a it's a combination of us kind of helping and working with city staff and w with council members and other folks who try to make some of these things happen. Um, we also participate in a number of uh International Council of Shopping Center events. Um, there's one there's a big one in Las Vegas in May. This will be the 32nd year I've gone to that one. Um, there's one in Monterey that's in March. It's coming up. Uh, there's one in uh in San Diego that's in October. So the these are trade events that will set up meetings and try to look at um you know potential um opportunities for TAF work with the real estate people for those companies and and try to they're kind of little like it's a little bit like speed dating. Try to get your foot in the door, tell your story, paint your picture. I know Craig's been on a lot of them. Um, you know, you don't usually do so many deals there, but you want to get your foot in the door. And it it just it takes some time to do it, but you want to you want to paint that that picture and tell that story of why uh TAP would be a, you know, a good fit for a potential retailer or restaurant. So here so then and then so with that retail traction support services that's done on an hourly on an hourly basis with a not to exceed number and so it's there's the hourly rates. So alto together for task one and task two it's a not to exceed amount of $45,000. A little bit about us. Um our team I think we've got now six people on there. We we have a total of 104 years experience working in economic and community development. Um myself and uh my three senior adviserss all worked long time for uh for cities. I was the community and economic development

director for the last two cities I worked in um before I retired and then went to work for HDL u almost 12 years ago. Um, so we have a lot we have just a we have a a c a tremendous amount of experience um having done this for a lot of for a long time. Um, and again we've done work for 32 California cities in the last 11 years. Here's just some of the some of the logos of some of the businesses that we've and some of these we brought into multiple different cities. um looking at what so we've actually had help facilitate 90 transactions for retailers for restaurants and that generates about 5 million annually new sales tax for those cities with that I'm happy to answer any questions.

All right, gentlemen. Great. Open the mic. Anybody have any questions? I'll open up the mic. Okay. Okay. Um, TAP is kind of a unique city by itself and stuff, but uh there's been new legislature where we can get more permitting for wells and stuff that will bring in a lot of different uh opportunities. Nothing's guaranteed, but there's opportunities out there. But when you go out there to recruit businesses and stuff, would that be a part of your deal that we we need businesses that we need as far as just don't open the store up, don't sell things that not going to move

or too high, but also opportunities to service the oil companies, the wells, have maintenance and stuff and different opportunities there. Um, we do also don't have a lot of vacancies in our city. We could use some housing. There's we got land here. We have a track there could be built on. We could use some apartments and stuff in this town here for workforce housing and uh and apartments for the workers and stuff. Um those are just opportunities that we have along with like different um opportunities you bring in different storefronts and stuff because the more houses or demographics that we have the more it draws more uh opportunities here from other franchises coming and and and businesses that come here. And then the oil fields and stuff opening up there's opportunities there not and not pulled for the restaurants. And um I I I I I'm pretty positive things about our city, about California. I'm not so positive, but you know, in our city, I'm I'm hyped up on it. And I think we can offer a great service. We got great uh people here because not only does we're like a magnet. You're going to get people from Quyama, all Wesley here, Der Derby Acres, but uh Valley and Dustin Acres and Borderline Bakersfield come here. So, we're in a kind of a good spot. The only thing we don't have, unfortunately, is a railroad or a a good highway for transportation. That's the only thing that could hurt us a little bit there. But I see a lot of opportunities. But is how do you explain it to get them to come here or look at us, get some builders and construction uh companies that come here to attract it? You there's things that would be my concern.

Yeah. So I think we're going to try to pull together all that information, try to paint that picture on why we think this would be a good opportunity. I think in if you if you if you're able to build more housing, that's all a plus. I mean, you're you're bringing in more consumer dollars there. But when we look at the trade area, it's not it's not going to be just Taff. We're going to look at that greater trade area. We're going to go out 15 20 minute drive times. You know, no one looks you want to look beyond your city borders and you want to pull those people in, too. That's a big part of what Ridgerest does. They pull people from 15, 20 minutes away that are coming in and they're spending their money there in Rididgerest. And I think you have that same opportunity to do that here in Taft.

I'd like to add to that our crime rate. Yeah, we have a little bit of crime, but it's petty stuff, you know. We don't have a major crime or major murders or or none of that stuff. So, we have a we're a safe town, you know. It's a like almost like Mayberry. Watch Andy Griffith. But, you know, it's it's a nice little community uh and service clubs and everything we have here. So, I just want to brag on that. Those are all positive things that we're going to want to try to use when we paint that picture and try to tell that story. Councilman Waldrop, you have any sir?

You know, it would be really nice if we get one of or even two of these stores that come in here. That'd be great. And we could work with them naturally uh to put some sugar there. And uh that would really uh be a plus. Plus uh uh if my suggestion on one of the things we need here really bad. It's a steakhouse. It's bad. We need it and uh I'd be there quite often. But otherwise, uh yeah, you never know what's going to work until you try it. I appreciate you coming.

Thank you, Councilman Cheva. Yeah, I'm super excited. I mean, we need this insight. We need this information. Um, so you talked about leakage analysis and possible retailers and you talked about your experience here today. Do you have any information based on those two just on your recent experience so far?

You know, I think I think we're going to want to spend some time just, you know, I haven't been up here since 2019. So I think we're as I drove around, you know, a lot hasn't changed, but some has changed. So, I think he was one of kind of really I know I spent some time putting a lot of notes and who's here, who's not here, who I think would be good fits, but as as we as we start doing that market um analytics, we're going to kind of get lay a foundation there. And so, a lot of these retailers and restaurants, we work with them all over the state. So, we know kind of where they want to be, what kind of trade areas they want to be in, u those those that are active and expanding. And again, we're going to try to make that match. It's it it's uh it's it's, you know, it's still early, but we're going to go ahead and and uh really understand what this community is all about and then then we'll be able to tell that story.

Great. Now, you you mentioned that you want to figure out who the community is. How how do you how exactly do you guys go about doing this?

You know, we're going to work with the city manager and just gain a lot of that insight. Um, I know when I ran uh here today, I ran by the Chamber of Commerce. Unfortunately, that was closed today. I would have liked to gone there and talked to them a little bit. Is your Chamber of Commerce active or not active? Yeah. So, I think we think they can be a real asset and so we want to we want to pick their brain a little bit on some of the um some of the businesses are doing good here and what they think are some of the some of the uh opportunities and we want to work with them. And so, you know, the the other thing that we have is um is our my company does uh sales tax consulting for about 420 cities in the state of California. We're the biggest consultant doing sales tax in California. Our database I I have sales I've I have access to 97% of every business in California that makes sales tax. And so, you know, when we're looking at those kind of good fits, we understand what they're doing in in other communities. So, we're going to look at comparable cities to TAP and see, do they have locations there? How are they doing? What's their sales tax? That's all part of telling that that story. There's no other consultant in California that has that database that we have. That's a huge tool that I use.

Just a couple more questions. So you state here that uh that you guys helped uh facil facilitate these 90 retail restaurants. Based on your knowledge, are those restaurants are those retailers still in existence in those communities or have they closed down? None of them have closed down. Good. And as far as timeline, what kind of timeline do you think you have to come up with this information?

It's, you know, I think we're going to take the next couple of months to pull this stuff together. Um, my goal is to try to have some uh meetings at the ICS conference in Monterey, which is I think it's the third or fourth uh week in March. And so I'd like to have some meetings scheduled with some potential fits and kind of get our foot in the door and start that that dialogue and and conversation. And then we'll follow up. I'll do some more meetings in Las Vegas in May, which is a it's a huge event. Um, at the one in Las Vegas, I usually end up doing 30 meetings in about a day and a half. And so they're like pretty rapid fire and I'm doing them for a number of different cities. But, um, it's, uh, those would be the first two that we would kind of go after. And and again, you don't you don't get deals there. You try to get your foot in the door and and start that conversation. Um, we also have to work with uh the with the people that own these these centers and and these in these buildings and and they've got real estate people, too. So, we're going to try to work with them. And uh I think we've got some uh some data and some analysis and and market analytics that a lot of the other people don't have. And so, I think we're going to um we're going to try to work with them. It's it's their property. We need to work with them. and uh but but usually when they understand that they're not paying me or my company anything, we're just we're just there to help them. It's it's usually a pretty good fit.

Well, excellent. Hey, we appreciate your time and we're looking forward uh to this information and and working with you. So, again, thank you for stopping by and thank you. All right, Barry, I had uh one question. A couple of them have been asked, but the question is at what point in time are you going to come back before the city council and apprises of uh just exactly what you found? Is it going to be after the meetings, after Las Vegas, prior to um because I know this is not to exceed by the hour, programmed into your timeline.

When do you anticipate coming back before the council so you can fill us in? Yeah, I think it probably would be um probably be early fall, late summer and uh after we have those two events and a chance to follow up and then we can kind of give you some some of our thoughts and ideas and then as we get ready to then to go to the one in San Diego which is in the end of September. Okay.

So, I think we'll have a we'll have some feedback, we'll have some thoughts and we can share those with you and then we can kind of tell you where really where we want to go. obviously through the course of that I mean our city manager will keep us posted because she'll be working along with him. So uh that's that's all I have. I want to thank you very much for coming before us. I want to thank you for being a part of uh city of Taft moving forward and look forward to working with you. Thank you. Thank you sir.

All right. Next up we have another study session. This time it's a presentation by Richard Chapman with Current Economic Development Corporation. Richard, what a pleasure to have you here, my friend. My My pleasure. 100%. Thank you, mayor, members of the council. Very excited to be here today. Um, and uh I have my props with me. So, I wanted to basically talk about uh the city of Taft and obviously optimism as well as obviously some realism. We're all excited about the uh passage of SB237, but also uh what does that mean the short term as well as medium to long term? And I was actually looking um when Barry was speaking uh the trade area 30 minute drive time from downtown is 100,000 people live. M

so I think you're getting obviously part of maybe West Bakersfield but that's going to that number is just going to go up dramatically uh with the number of projects around West Kern County and the vacancy rate as we talked homeowner vacancy rate I looking at we have a jobs EQ platform is 0%. M so we definitely need new houses kind of like unemployment you don't want if you have uh full employment then that means employers can't hire right

so there's that happy medium right where you want some folks that are still looking for jobs and as well as the employers able to have more than one or two resumes for opening so honored to be here today and just I'll go through um my presentation as it impacts economic development throughout the region current EDC was started in uh 198788 which you may remember I think is less Clark says Les Clark senior uh tumble weeds were going through the various downtowns oil was at $10 a barrel and commodities I I'll add commodities are pretty much at an all-time low that was a time of crisis that community leaders in the region got together and said how do we how do we up our game how do we fight for jobs um and I want to make it clear 80% of all jobs in any economy are from companies already here. Yes, we're going to talk about recruitment, but retention is also important. If your local companies aren't happy, uh, you know, they're the ones that are growing at maybe five to 10 uh folks at a time. It doesn't make headlines, but they're the ones also telling companies that are looking to come here, this is a great place to do business. So, we want to make sure we call it business retention expansion. We want to make sure the companies in Taft are happy here. Um obviously uh we have a wonderful time working with your city manager uh and his team. Um very responsive. We're going to talk about uh how communities you have a uh in in our publication Taft is open for business. I like that. Um you're saying welcome. We got the welcome mat. Uh also we talked about um how how you promote to opportunities and much like to hatch you list we you need to list the pads that are open available when you go to ICSC you just don't say come here but you say hey here are the pads commercial pads uh oh by the way grocery outlet and others what are their sales per square feet because guess what those companies are know they know how

much is spent in Taft at these various retailers and so that data gives them the power to decide where to go and we're not to go. But if we're talking about a trade area of 100,000, I think that's really uh powerful. And we'll talk about some of the projects around. So, we promote Kern County um as a great place to basically live, work, and play. And a lot of our residents do not know these facts. In fact, Kern County does not have a business journal. I think we're the largest city uh region in the country without a business journal. Fresno has a 40page weekly. So our organization, we take it upon oursel to help tell the story. Uh we have a where business is boundless series that gets about 20,000 views. We will be profiling uh the city of Taft later this year and tell us tell our audience why uh they should uh you know understand the story of Tafts and resilience, right? It's also future growth but resilience. Um and so here's the ways that we promote um to our residents but also of course folks looking to invest in Kern County. Uh some of the projects we worked with, we would love to add some in Taft. We have mainly industrial projects. Uh of course we'll work with you on on the retail side. We do have block level data on every community in Kern County, the demographics, the economics. Um but we've had a significant number of projects that are creating family wage jobs in industrial uh from Calair's the most advanced dairy manufacturing plant in the world. that's in Bakersfield. Obviously, Hard Rock is game changer, no pun intended. And we would love to see I know Plaster AI is a great um platform to see how many people that go to the casino come to Taft. We need to see that cross-pollination, right? We have that that data will be available and is available much like Lightning and Abato where you have 25,000 people come to, you know, Lake Bu a Vista. How many of those folks came to TA? Uh the raceway,

we have Kevin Harvick Classic coming up. 80% of people from outside the county. That's new money. So, we need to really track that new money. Uh, and how many eyeballs are coming into your community. Um, and I'll talk about how, especially on the industrial side, what we always recommend cities to do. First mill in 50 years is coming to Kern County. Um, so there's a lot of first that we're seeing, but we want those first in in Taft. uh we host the the west coast largest energy summit right uh we know we know um that we are um the number one producer of renewable energy and top 15 for oil and gas so wanted to talk of course about oil and gas um it's obviously um I don't have to tell you all uh but is it is terms of the terms of highest wage per industry sector it's up there over $90,000 um not just wages but obviously tax base and so the roads, education, public services, oil and gases funding uh is the number one funer by far as well as for the state tax revenue I think it's 5%. And so we're looking at that data and how has the um you know the decrease in production over I think the last seven to eight years. Uh we went from the number one county in the country to number 14 for oil production over the last 8 to nine years 78 years. Um and so we try to communicate the impact of this industry, not just obviously feeling your car, but also in everyday products, medical, uh you know, uh uh eyeglasses, uh you name it. And so a lot of times our even our residents aren't aware of that. Uh but we are 70 about 75% of the state's oil production. Um now what we see is a real change um in these numbers. Uh California as a state produces 300,000 barrels a day. Uh

and I'll talk about what the demand is. Um but you can see New Mexico is this rising star, right? And and I you do hear and I'm sure you all know of friends, relatives, acquaintances that have gone to New Mexico. The investment has gone to New Mexico um uh and triple in fact since 2019 in terms of production. Texas is pretty uh pretty uh uh obviously been uh number one state. Um when they say that we're a net e exporter, that's the country, not California, right? Um because what we've seen uh is a dramatic downturn in local production. uh we have another session we can go through all the reasons which I know again you all are aware but we went from about 5% of our um uh sources being uh foreign to 77% right um Alaska will be zero one day um their their their production continues to decline for various reasons but you can see our reliance is really on uh overseas oil and it's this is something we try to communicate uh basically um why we should prefer local product, right? Um uh one one factoid said 16 oil tankers produce more pollute CO2 emissions than all the world's cars. But really it's a it's the fact that we are losing local jobs um favoring um overseas production. And so we we talk about human rights records, we talk about uh as well as um uh environmental rights records of these countries. Uh but this is one of the fact sheets that we put out. Um and we seem to seem things have gone pendulums are shifting as we talk about uh with with SB237. Uh we know the press conference at the board of soups uh several months ago. Uh

so this is wonderful uh that we are moving uh to uh what the 2000 um permit threshold. But what I wanted to look at was uh over the years right how much of our uh terms of assessed value from the oil and gas industry uh has fluctuated uh and we can see uh pretty much um it hit its peak in 2001 and I track it against oil prices right because there is a correlation between GDP growth and oil prices in our region but you can see even though on oil prices in 2021 were over 100 our assess values have not really uh did not bounce back. So the question is uh what will happen over the next three to four years? Now we're going to be able to have permits um but what will that look like? Um how will that impact employment? I believe it will impact assessed values. Um but the question is employment uh will be 5 10% that would be great. uh we have about 13,000 direct jobs in oil and gas and then the the indirect induced is another 13 to 13,000. So that will have an impact but um we believe you know I'm not an economist uh but we believe that you know that that could be a a marginal gain in employment um and of course uh we've seen what's happened this is for the uh state but you know vast majority 80 to 90 80% plus are in Kern County. So we pretty much have seen uh this uh this significant drop to almost zero. I think the last couple years it was around 100 or 100 total or 50. Uh and now you can see in 2019 where there or excuse me 2009 well there was a drop wag because oil was pretty much one of the all-time lows. But again the fact is that um that uh we

will see these permit numbers increase significantly. So that is a positive right because new investment into oil and gas produce significant uh indirect and induced effect on our community. Now we are want to recruit companies right to to Taft. Um what do communities have to do to prepare? You can say we're open for business uh which is wonderful but you really have to have and I'll talk about receptive audience. the team uh like Craig and the council have always been very uh open uh and uh respond um ASAP to inquiries. But these this is this is basically the deck we're given. Site selection energy energy is driving night nationwide uh the ability to secure projects. Do we have that availability? Can we plug and play? We have sites in Kern County that plug and play be to be at the wonderful. So can we have that in Taft? Can we have these sites especially industrial where we primarily work at can we have because we have a record number of manufacturing look looking to come to Kerna before it was primarily distribution companies but how think about your community how well you do and I think really well right I think Taft is an A I believe in most of these areas as we said skilled labor well we have we have folks uh and as I said the trade area is 100,000 this the Pacific steel project in Mojave. Uh they're hiring 400 people, but guess what? A lot of them are going to come from Bakers. So maybe Taft, they will drive that 1 hour because you're going to have a 70,000 plus uh uh job. Same for logistics uh in the community. Now energy cost and other that's something unfortunately we have the third highest cost in the country. A lot of that that is basically out of our control, but I'm very posit I'm very optimistic on Kern County's ability to track investment. We currently have

about 25 active projects primarily manufacturing uh representing about 6 to 7 billion uh uh dollars of cap investment and several thousand jobs. But again, we have to have those sites that are ready. Uh spec buildings are great, but guess what? They're not uh we only have 3% vacancy rate in the county industrial. Can we get a building that's ready to go? So this is something that we love to work with you all on um as we uh enhance a reason's profile and that's why I want to talk about nimiisms as I wrap this up. Uh we all know what nimi means right? Not in my backyard. Uh do we know what bananas mean?

Build absolutely nothing anytime or anywhere

any build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody. Um, so this is, can you imagine there are places now that, and I didn't even have retail. I'm sure retail would be on there, but people are chasing away investment and we're seeing this in the up north of the valley. I won't name communities outside Kern County where warehouses now are facing unprecedented uh, challenges. Uh, but Kern County has always done things more. We have buffer zones, right? You can't build a warehouse over 250,000 square feet in Riverside unless you meet certain uh requirement setbacks. We all know what setbacks are. Um but this is the thing that Kern County and Taft we need to show that we don't have the bananas or the nimbies. Think about Hard Rock. Think about Pacific Steel. Basically had uh no no opposition, right? No organized opposition. Think about these huge projects. We're talking about projects here maybe 50 to 100,000 plus square feet. So that's what business want. Time is money. If they're up against a significant uh portion of the community against it, then they'll look elsewhere. So this is something we need to pro promote obviously retail but again uh to the industrial clients that we have. Um we uh actually kicked off the year last year our West Kern economic alliance was at Taft College and again talk about a gym you have Tap College right you have an educational institution not many communities in Kern County have uh again what you have your portfolio to sell that ability right sell that ability to tap an industry they educate the next generation uh we do have the West Kern Economic Alliance we're meeting and Taft thanks for hosting us that is all eight communities in West Kern about best practices, but also we have other businesses, educators seeing uh what the communities are doing. But Taft will have the um the

opening uh the as the host community to uh present to that group on March the 11th. And I think that is my presentation. Thank you, mayor and members of council. Well, thank you, Richard. Thanks again for coming and bringing your wisdom and experience as well as your enthusiasm. Everybody knows that you are the head cheerleader for the entire valley and uh Kern County and you do a great job. Funny feeling these guys have some questions for you. So I'm going to start with Councilman Shiver.

No, we appreciate your time. Um you know, you're always enthusiastic and we appreciate that. I I think the the the the what I really enjoy is the idea that that Taft College is holding this uh the West Kern Economic Alliance and uh I urge I urge the community to come and attend this and that way if you guys have any any questions or concerns, this is an opportunity to have this conversation with uh Mr. Chapman. Uh but again, I I appreciate your time, buddy.

Well, thank you, Councilman. And this is the thing. Um I've been at the EDC almost 20 years. Um and when I started we the knock on us was we what about East Kern you're west centric group. So guess what we created the East Economic Alliance which has been going strong for 19 years. But uh realizing well what about all the West Kern communities? Are they aware of the partnerships uh businesses in their backyard? So, the beauty of the West and East Kern uh groups working in tandem, working in concert, but also um your communities like yours being privy to some of the projects uh in your backyard or over the hill. So, we appreciate um uh you all hosting this and uh yes, if anybody it's open to come one, come off. If there's anybody that you'd like us to add to list, um we would love to invite them.

All right. Very good. Councilman Crier. Thank you, Mayor. Uh Richard, uh I've known you for a long time and stuff and we have a lot of discussions by our cities and things. What do you see possibility of those 2,000 permits we're getting a year from the to the to our current county? How much of an impact you think it would could I know you can't have as a figure but what would be the range of impact would help tap as a city and as and as a district as far as the sphere of influence would have

right and and I would mention uh Cal State University Bakersfield their economist uh Dr. Mitcha is going to release in the next week or two uh a economic development contribution oil gas in Kern County. So, he's the economist. I'm an economic developer. Uh, but I I basically uh uh um you know, looking at SP237, I think the jury is still out, right? But we see there's healthy permit activity. The question for you all is what percentage of the wells are in Taft, right? Obviously, the if outside the community, it will still benefit in terms of the folks coming in. Um I mean I I would estimate again assessed values but but employment we're at 13,000 so uh perhaps a five per 10% but that's I'm just guessing in terms of could we have an employment increase but again then you weigh in uh the acquisition of you know recent acquisition of um of CRC acquiring Barry terms of how overall employment in the industry automation too right jobs required on sites Um but the thing is now we at least have the ability uh to say you can get the permit. Um we know we have the strictest regs in the world. So we thought that would be enough uh to allow us to get the permit but now we do have that ability. Um but I would I think the biggest frankly oil has to be over $80 or $80 to $100 to really create that significant employment uptick. So that's a long long-winded answer to your question, but I think we have to push 80 to 100 to have that, you know, significant incremental difference in employment.

Okay. saying that we get that $80 or $100 or whatever dollar figure you're talking about. What would be the demographic as far as how many if if if they got that and oils at that price and the benefit to our city to get the developers here, how many jobs would that produce here theoretically that would produce that? Well, we need at least 2,000 more housing, a thousand more housing.

Well, number the threshold with a 0% vacancy rate. Right. So, you already have uh and then a lot of your workers come here and they go back what to Bakersfield. So, how do we keep you're you you're this community that's booming in the day and then they right some communities are the bedroom communities. Uh and you're you guys are actually folks are coming in uh and then but leaving at night. So, I mean obviously look at even How do we enhance the healthcare infrastructure? We need more. We need more. Uh we need to push it up to 10 15,000, right? We talk about retail. We got we got it. That retail even city specific has to that population threshold has to you know push the 10 to 15,000. I mean Ridgerest is what at like 25,000 and they're pretty much they have the base which is what billions of dollars of economic activity. Um so that's been what we see is spawning retail in that area. But how do we how do we create that economic engine uh beyond just you know a couple you know a thousand new jobs and and and then the diversification is happening correct I mean you have education jobs but we need to get that industrial corridor which is manufacturing we need to build upon that uh which is now we're see industrial we have cold storage facilities going uh there's one near uh at home we have Pacific steel how do we get how does TAF get their Pacific steel because that's the game changer.

Well, the oil companies, you know, they like to see, well, in Taff we got excessive labor and stuff to be able to work in the oil fields, but we don't really don't have that at this time. We have a few that because oil fields been down for so long, a lot of them went to Texas and other states. So, we're down a lot in workers, but

and um so in order for the oil companies to see and look at tap, you cuz we're in a prime spot for for the wells and stuff for development and everything, but we need workers to come here, but how can they come here without housing? So, we promote promote the housing, apartments and stuff here, get the demographics that we have the people here in order to supply the workforce for the oil companies. Well, that's why if we can get the industrial pads for to support manufacturing um then then I believe you have we have to build that's our over number one B uh we have a manufacturing alliance of Kerna we host that every month um and we're seeing that that sector I think will be the next generation uh to build and the transferability of skills somebody working uh in the oil and gas can move into a manufacturing capacity so I I would just that's part of that diversification strategy.

So, as of now, how much permits have already been handed out to Kern County so far? Pardon me. How many permits now? Have we uh I heard the three. Was it three? Well, uh was it 300?

It's uh last I checked there's 344 total put out. Some of those are redrilled, some are abandonments, PNAS. Uh of the 344, 126 I think are actually new drills. But that that information is uh at least two weeks old and they were going to put on some additional staff because some of the permits were uh permit applications were incomplete and it's kind of a new day. So they're going to try to streamline that process. But there are permits being issued and there is interest and you will see I believe in this area that the infield drilling activity is going to pick up is going to be Simick Midway Sunset U actually south of the city of Taft as well. So I think that's where the bulk of it's going to be. It's still California. You still can't frack BV noses out until such time as we deal with that. But uh there'll also be increased activity in the uh Kern River area. But mostly it's infield drilling and infield drilling is it's not wild catting, you know, it's not green field and it's absolutely necessary. We know where the oil is and we know what we need to do in order to fight the decline. They're mature reservoirs. It's no secret to anybody producing oil in this valley. So, um, the first most important step was codification of our countywide recirculated EIR. There's additional steps for deregulation that need to take place and this this fight is not over. I mean, the struggle continues and we will keep moving that way.

And super uh, council member Crier, we can there is data that we have are privy to that shows for every million dollars in new investment, how many jobs? I think it's 5.3. So we the the proof will be in the pudding six months to a year out. We will know how much new investment came in. Uh I think we'll be able to track that because now we've say come on in investment but is it in New Mexico? Is it overseas? So um so I think that yeah 6 to 12 months from now the data that you're looking for will at least have something in writing.

Well we're in our second month. If you have say 300 so far, it' be a snowball effect. And another thing, too, we got a lot of wild cats here in Taff, you know, talking about wilding, but a lot of feral cats, but

well, you have you that's the thing, right? You're open for business. So, I look forward to coming back at a later date and having you all on our where business is boundless uh show. it logistically as far as um uh when we get going as far as uh new businesses coming in town like oil field construction maybe moving into town or reviving the older ones here in town they be more productive do do you see that to rise significantly

I mean the indirect the indirect and think about like a if we had a refinery the it's a multiplier effect of eight that means or nine for every one job on site you have eight jobs in the community. So that is the key getting you industries that have high multipliers not just direct but indirect and induced you know those the money spent by the workers in restaurants uh you know you name it as well as the suppliers. So yes right it will not just be one on site but it will it will it will have that ripple effect into your economy. So that's why I think in six as you said six months uh we will be able to and again think about we look at the activity around your area not just uh in oil and gas but even tourism with the uh the Hard Rock casino and casino we're going to be able to see we can track pretty much where these folks are going once they stop at the casino the hotel that's the proposed next phase I think will also add more people coming into this region uh and visiting Taft and ST money staying in Taft. That's what we want, right?

That would be nice. I just like to see there's for our businesses and stuff we have in town and our um different districts we have, you know, our wreck district and and our hospital and stuff. Is there hope that we're getting new money coming in and the business that we have here as far as restaurants and stores and stuff that they can hang on longer haters help on the way, you know, encouragement? I know it's not going to be today or tomorrow, but you know, it's going to hit here sometime.

I think we'll see with the the casino. I think what you're seeing, but obviously you want something and not just that, but in closer proximity, but getting folk getting folks to stay in the community for four or five days uh with the RV uh you know, coming uh and so I think I would love to find out uh in 20 you know what would the numbers going to be like in 2026 uh for for these uh for retail sales. So we're going to have it uh right leakage should be starting to drop but those are the data that's the data that I'm looking forward uh to coming out uh so in the next uh you know in the next uh by the next uh meeting that we can present and I'm not sure when are you going to present Barry when are you presenting the the report back with the first uh discussion probably the end of summer early

okay so perhaps I could have a uh re a repeat uh visit. You're always welcome here. Always welcome here, Richard. That's fat. Thank Well, November 18th along what uh Council Member Crier uh I know mayor of you presented the summit is the November 18th is the 20th annual uh Kern County Energy Summit. And this topic that was brought up today is of course going to be the most gerine uh uh at uh that 20th summit. So again, that will be in about eight eight months. So uh we're we're cautiously optimistic.

We'll have some hard data then and and one of the critical components like you talked about Richard is we don't suffer from the hypocrisy of nimism uh in on the west side. We don't we are business friendly. We are industry friendly and u we are open-minded about those things. Well, and I should say, mayor, how we sell this area, it's not up, but turnover, work ethic, and we have some of the highest productivity rates uh definitely we we uh uh the US and uh and we we run circles around our productivity rates, the average per employee. And then turnover rates, uh we uh looking at logistics especially, uh we're the envy of uh of of the uh state. Uh, Riverside has I think um, you know, uh, that that's the big challenge for them, losing talent and and, uh, we retain talent. We pay well, we retain talent, and retraining is such an expensive endeavor. So, that's, you know, that's a testament to the city of Taft. Uh, we're work hard, we don't brag much, just get the job done.

That's it. Thank you, Richard. For me, I'm done. Appreciate your Councilman Waldrop. Do you have anything for Richard? Well, it's pretty much been said, but uh seeing all the traffic going and coming from just Taft Highway to Bakersfield and we got all these side streets, there's a lot of people coming and going to work already. That's what I noticed. And I and I something's going on, you know. So, I'm hoping uh they take an interest. a lot of the people back here seeing what's happening and uh as we go down the road it's it's going to improve and maybe we'll uh we'll never get back to what I think is like the 70s.

That was a booming time. Boom. Well, we went 70s and then we had the 80s kind of buzz and we went back up again. Uh but yeah, look, let's look at traffic counts. We have that. Let's see the traffic counts over the last uh year. I I depend on oil. Okay. My business uh mostly because I got a lot of the oil companies coming in buying big stuff and there's where you make the money, you know. So, I'm looking forward to it and I I'm going to hang on. I don't care how long it takes.

Well, we're just getting started with the advent of Senate Bill 237, the ability to issue permits, bringing talent back into the area like you brought up. uh lifting costs are lifting costs and you got to be able to profit when you lift a barrel of oil out of the ground. It's a global commodity and I believe that right now it needs to be 80 or $90 a barrel and the fact of the matter is when one looks at the replacement of reserves on a global scale and global consumption right now today we are globally consuming more oil than we have ever consumed in the history of mankind during COVID you know the ridiculous days of COVID it got so bad that I think British Petroleum said that BP stands for beyond petroleum and there was peak use was behind this and all this other kind of rigomearroll. The fact of the matter is people are going back to work and people are abandoning these fantasies in favor of economic realities. We will be dependent upon hydrocarbons long past 2050. Everything else is smoke and mirrors crap. So uh we have gone through that and we have got to continue to provide the foundation the critical foundation for modern quality of life. What sets us apart from the third world is ready access to abundant affordable energy. Pretty simple. That's a billion people in the face of the planet. 7 billion aren't that fortunate. So, you're right. We are. We're open for business. Kern County is the land of cowboys, calluses, and common sense. So, you just bring them in here. We'll put them to work.

Well, thank you. May we have to put that on bumper sticker. You do that. You can use that. Appreciate your time today. Thank you very much, Richard. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks.

All right. Next item on the agenda is item number two, citizens request public comments. And we have none. So we'll move right into council statements non-action. Councilman Waldrop begin with you this evening, sir. Well, the wind blowing pretty good blowing all that trash everywhere, but some places it cleans your yard and my place is getting rid of a lot of it. going to the neighbors or something. But a few of us is uh cleaning those uh mowing those thing down. And I understand some of them not doing it right now because it's still we're getting wet and but I'm going to keep preaching it until uh gets gets the time. But that's all I got to say, Mayor. All right, Richard, you drive careful.

See you next time. All right, Councilman Shivera. Yes, sir. Just a couple items. First of all, I'd like to congratulate uh Tapai's soccer coach and team. Uh they are uh the SSL, we're talking about the boys team, but they are the SSL champions. First time in history. Uh in addition, they won their first playoff game and maybe Doug can help me. I think tomorrow they have uh their second game. Doug, is that am I right? And it's here at home, correct? Yeah. 6 o'clock in Maria.

6 o'clock. And I encourage us uh to go to go and attend the game and enjoy each other's company and help cheer those boys on. Um secondly, uh I just want to reiterate this West Kern Economic Alliance. A lot of folks uh interested in our in our uh local economy. This is an opportunity right here uh to get involved and if you got questions and concerns, uh here's your platform. Um, number three, again, just to uh build off of uh the risks or the concerns about about our weather. Um, make sure that we're safeguarding our homes from falling uh debris. In addition, make sure that we're we're driving safely uh in this wind. And then uh actually that's all I have. Appreciate it.

All right. Thank you very much, sir. Councilman Crier.

Thank you, Mayor. you know, TAFF is open for business, but it seems like the state is closing for business and um it's getting more difficult. Um, you know, I'm preaching a little bit to have a business in California and stuff, but we're here. We want it. And, uh, our our fuel costs, don't be surprised, it be creeping up, slowly, but creeping up. And, uh, and at some point should be a jump. And um and people wonder why has that happened? Well, we've had one party system here in California and all our branches of government for the past 20 plus years and no changes. But uh the other party gets blamed for all the problems. That's the sad part about it on there. We just need a change. What make our state a better state? Make our state where we can live where we can afford and have jobs and raise a family. There's so many things that we need uh for our state to do to improve, keep our energy costs, keep our businesses here, open some refineries, maybe need another energy plants, make it uh electricity. What can we do to make our state a better state and more quality and uh energy efficient, but we're neglecting all that. Everybody wants freebies. What can I get? What can we get? Why want to work for it? Why why work get this from the government? Why why do this? Real estate guarantees that. But somebody's got to pay for it. And people who are productive are slowly, if not rapidly leaving California, go to other states where it's more reasonable, less taxes and energy costs and utility costs as much reasonable. We need to reverse it and change it and get California more sensible again. And um that's I just one one of the the things I I I just want to stay on there, but

we're we're I keep saying it is that we're blessed with our community we have here and we have a lot of like like likenesses of everything and want to make our town. We have a great council here having the same ideas want to do do make this place better. But we need people to participate in our local government to be here and and and and be strong. If not, you know, write letters, good, bad, or ugly. Communicate to us to know what direction uh what your concerns are. Uh what would you like for us to do, what what business do you want? Come to these different uh different um uh venues that we have uh seminars and stuff here about the oil industry and marketing. And there's so many opportunities here that we just need participation. People get involved. And uh this is one step right here and hopefully it'll ignite some uh a passion and get more cooperation if people attend to it. Otherwise, we're going to be talking not going to go nowhere, but we need input from the public. And that's all I have, Mayor.

All right. Thank you very much. A lot of discussion going on, a couple of great presentations and and obviously we work hard and everybody works hard to try to diversify our economy. We've been working on for a very long time. Our city manager works on that every single day. And uh heaven knows like like Richard said, we want to be open for business. We are open for business. Affordability in the state of California is all-time low. Affordability. They say we have a housing affordability crisis. If you own a house in the state of California, it is a crisis just trying to hang on to it with everinccreasing costs. Well, the same is true for vehicles. And there's something that just happened this year and I wasn't aware of. I got to reading about it. So, just I just want to help people out there understand what's going to happen when you open your vehicle registration bill coming from the DMV this year. Three things have conspired to make it far more expensive. And and there's a phrase for that. It's called fee stacking. One fee by itself, one assembly bill by itself seems kind of inconspicuous. Just sits over there. No big deal. But then you stack them one on top of the other, one on top the other, and next thing you know it becomes significant. So what happened to your registration in the state of California car registration in 2026? First off, there's a new clean vehicle sir charge on your vehicle registration. Basically what that means is the older your vehicle is, the lower the tier motor. And the state of California thinks you need to pay for that. So, if you have an older vehicle and it's a tier 2 or a tier three, you're going to pay up to an additional $250 a year. If you have a plug-in EV, you get a free pass. Go figure. The search charge is separate from the existing clean vehicle rebate program and does not fund consumer rebates.

Instead, revenues flow directly into CALR low emission vehicle infrastructure program supporting fast charging corridor development along I5, the 101, and the 99. According to the California Air Resources Board, program aims to install 12,000 new high-powered DC fast chargers by 2028. 12,000. That is a time when Elon Musk is going to quit producing the uh Tesla S and the Tesla X, both of them, because he says people who want them basically have them already, and he's going to repurpose that factory in the state of California to build robots. Item number two, the DMV updated its clean vehicle valuation model. You remember when you were paying your registrations and each year your vehicle got a little bit older, so it was worth a little bit less money. So, you knew that your registration was going to go down. Well, California thought, well, that's not necessarily true, especially since we haven't recovered from COVID regarding the amount of good, clean, used vehicles that are out there. So, some of the uh vehicles out there that retain their value better than others, like the Honda Accord and the Toyota Camry, you could very well find that the value of it last year based on the state of California, is less than the value this year. So, it's a year older and it's got 15,000 more miles on it, but the state of California thinks it's worth more money. So, you're going to pay more money on your registration. That's the second item. Third is the local transportation funding mandates added county level fees. This is another Senate bill. Senate bill 1260 passed in September of 2024. All 58 California counties required to implement a local transportation improvement fee in LTI by January 2026.

And they vary by county. It could be Los Angeles at $87.50, 50 cents. Santa Clara 62 bucks. Riverside 44 bucks. Fresno 51 bucks. By itself, that doesn't sound like a lot of money. But if you add those other two, then all of a sudden it turns into something. So here's your real world impact mini case study. Consider Maria R, a school counselor in San Diego who drives a 2019 Toyota Camryle. Her 2025 registration total was $312.75. That was last year. Her 2026 renewal notice, not $31,2.75, $58,920.

That's one vehicle of 36 million vehicles in the state of California. Also, a big part of it so we can build superchargers to charge in plug-in EVs. Of the 36 million registered vehicles the state of California, 1.25 of them are plug-in EVs. So all the rest of us were going to pay and we're going to pay a lot. That registration went from $312 to $589. So now this is where you figure out where it's really going. She appealed the clean vehicle search charge, the 250 bucks, submitting her vehicles emissions tablet and a carb certification. DMV upheld the charge because said, "Well, we really don't care that your vehicle is really clean. That doesn't matter. It's what it was designed to do." So, they denied it. San Diego's LTI had no exemption pathway for public employees. Ultimately, Maria opted to enroll her Camry in the state's clean vehicle assistant program, which offered up to $5,000 toward a qualifying used EV purchase. So, she was forced to turn in her perfectly good Camry, take the $5,000 qualifying used EV, and uh turn her car into a plug-in EV, whether she liked it or not. That's the plan. That's the reason for all of it. That's the long game that the state of California is playing. Even though the plug-in EV mandate has been killed on a federal level, that's what's happening right here in the state of California. So, when you open your vehicle registration and your vehicle is a year older and it has 15,000 more miles and your

registration has doubled from last year, now you know why. Just wanted to share that with everybody because I didn't see it on the front page. Not sure how that escaped everybody once. Okay, that's all I have. So, next up, planning commission report. Do we have a planning commission report this evening? Got a couple of planning commissioners.

Good evening. Uh, only got one item to report on and the planning commission would like to recommend the council approve the planning department to send the state an annual progress report on our housing element. This is a requirement of the state. All right, that's it. Thank you very much. State has lots of requirements that they hand down to us, don't they? Yes. Yes, they do. The whole housing element is a state requirement. State requirement. A lot of time and a lot of money and effort. Thank you very much. Y. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, department reports for this evening. We have any department reports? None this evening. Next up, item number six, city manager statement. City manager Joan.

Thank you, mayor. I just wanted to thank Barry and Richard again for their presentation tonight. And u we track certain things here at city hall. Uh one thing that current contract tracks is traffic counts. The last 60 days there has been more traffic in Taft. I'm sure you guys have noticed at certain times it seems to be industry related traffic. Planning applications are up, business applications are up. So hopefully we're turning the page to something better than we've had in the last 10 years and we'll be ready for it. So um the HDL I think will be helpful in providing some of the uh statistics we need for uh the industry folks when we attend ICSE. That's kind of like he said speed dating. You got like five minutes to tell your story.

It's a it's a different world I'm telling you and uh usually it takes multiple interactions before they call you back. So it's a it's it's a constant uh battle. But anyway, just hopeful hopeful that we're turning the page. All right. Very good opportunity. Sounds like a wonderful thing. City attorney statements. Jason. Thank you, Mr. Manual. Statement. All right. Thanks, sir. Future agenda requests this evening, gentlemen.

None. Seeing none. All right. Next up, consent calendar items 9 through 11. All items listed on the consent calendar shall be considered routine and will be enacted by one roll call vote. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the city council requests specific items be removed from the consent calendar for separate action. Any item removed from the consent calendar will be considered after the regular business items. Are there any items on the consent calendar that any member of the public would like to comment on? I don't see any hands going up. So those items are item number nine, the minutes for the February 3rd regularly scheduled meeting. Item number 10, the payment of bills, some $745,000 worth. Item number 11, the monthly report for Kern County Fire Station number 21, December 2025. Recommendation is receive and file the monthly report for December 2025 from Kern County Fire Station number 21 and find that the activity is not a project per the California Environmental Quality Act, SQUA, as set forth in section 15060C3 and section 15378 of the SQUA guidelines. At this time, I'd entertain a motion to approve consent calendar items 9 through 11.

Motion. Second. I have a motion and a second. Madame clerk, may we have a roll call, please? Council member Crier, yes. Council member Shira, yes. Council member Waldrop, yes. Mayor North,

yes. And that passes on a 40 vote. Thank you, gentlemen. This concludes the open session portion of this evening's meeting. I want to thank everybody for attending and thank everybody out there in TV land. This is your government. Be sure and get involved. This council will be going into close session for three items. Item A, conference with legal council, anticipated litigation. Government code section 54956.9B, two undisclosed cases. Second item B, conference with real property negotiator Craig Jones, city manager, government code section 54956.8, one undisclosed parcel. Lastly, item C, conference with labor negotiator Craig Jones, city manager, government code section 54957.6. Six all units. It's nasty out there. People be careful. Trees are being blown down onto power lines. If you lose power, don't go outside with your chainsaw. Call PG&E. They're the experts.

All right, we're ajourned.