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 infeasible. 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 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 Tuesday, November the 18th, 2025. City of TAP council meetings are being held in person with full capacity seating and are livereamed at www.youtube.com/user/city

oft. 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're going to begin this evening's meeting with a pledge of allegiance led by Councilman Crier, followed by an invitation from Pastor Lloyd. So, if you would all please join us,

please place your hand over your heart. Salute. Pledge. 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. I need to apologize to the mayor. I I broke the line getting in here that cops almost arrested me. I want to say I'm sorry to you, sir. I thought I'd be late and they let me through. And uh so if you see them, the police officers, tell them thank you. And I apologize though. No worries.

Well, Father, we want to thank you for the opportunity for the city to come together and the leadership and government to have a sound mind and and wisdom. And that's always, Father, when we ask you for it, you always give it to us liberally. I pray, Lord, for finances, that the city would be uh sound in finances. that there's issues that they need to uh do with, for example, projects they're short on. Lord, I pray you'd outpour a blessing upon the city, for the streets, for the for the improvements and all the things that the city council are trying to do. Father, I pray for our police officers. Thank God, Father, for them giving me a little bit of grace to pass through, but also Lord, I pray for their safety. I pray God for the sheriff department, the city of of Taff that there would be a safety, an angel around each one of these officers and their families. May they be at peace when those officers go out. And for the fire department, those who serve our community, first responders of all sort, God, I pray your blessing upon them. I ask God, you minister to the administration of Taft, the city, and all that they are required to do in the behind the scenes. I pray your blessing upon this meeting today in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Thank you very much.

Madame clerk, may we have a roll call, please? Mayor North here. Mayor Proen Bryant here. Council member Crier here. Council member Waldrop here. And council member Shave is absent with notice. All right. Thank you. First item on this evening's agenda is citizen request public comments. Do we have anybody signed up? Nobody signed up for that. Okay. Thank you. Well, then we're going to move right into council statements non-action. Councilman Crier, would you like to begin, sir?

Thank you, Mayor. But we're going into the holiday seasons and um I just want everybody be careful, due diligence because there's a lot of people watching our homes right now that shouldn't be um they're looking at people being uh having a um a set when they leave for work, when they come home for work, they go, they might want to take your presence that uh that you want. But just be due diligence. And if you see something like that with your neighbors, help them out by calling the police to uh let them be alerted. Um I know there a lot of activities going on in town. It's amazing how this town pulled together and supporting each other and making this holiday a great season to be part of our great city. Uh that's all I have. Mayor.

All right. Thank you very much. Councilman Waldrop. Uh, anybody's interested in getting their dog shot with a needle, thank you for call call this number 7631210 and find out what th those dates are going to be coming up. Uh, that's all I got to say, Mayor. All right. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim Bryant. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I I'll be brief. It seems like we just started November yesterday. It turns out next week's Thanksgiving. So, on behalf of everybody here, me and mine, happy Thanksgiving to everybody out there. That's all I have. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I'll tell the world. We all get together, we take time out, we take a deep breath, we have wonderful food. I like leftover turkey sandwiches for the record. Just laying that out there. And pumpkin pie as well. A lot of hugs, a lot of family, very little pressure other than the cooks. But uh I hope that you all have the opportunity to spend time with family and friends and count your blessings along with all the good food. Enjoy it. And one of the blessings we have is we live right here in the city of Taft. I can tell you that just recently we had some events and those events are fully dependent on volunteers. This community is so full of volunteers and the energy that goes into those things. Whether it was Old Dorado or we had a a big event over at the community gardens and I think there were some 230 people signed up to volunteer to help out there. Young kids were there and they helped out and there sweat equity was the opportunity to get a free bicycle and a helmet and uh just a wonderful affair and it looks beautiful. So to all of those of you in the city of Taft who have volunteered your time and your effort to help your fellow man whether or not you even know who they are, thank you very much. That's what it's all about. So that's all I have. Uh next up we have planning commission report. Do we have planning commission report this evening?

Yes, sir. You don't look like Jerry. He looks different. Look like Jerry. No, we were asked to break it up a little bit and I I volunteered for this position. Sadly, also I have to supposed to run off out of here and do some scouting some kids. It's not a bad thing. That's a good thing.

Chasing around. Yeah. So, the planning commission report, we want to thank you for uh approving Mr. uh Don Black. We swore in this last meeting. Uh we had an opportunity to uh talk to the people from Miniature Golf right there in Taff. So, new businesses coming into town. Uh we're we got it continued off till uh next month in December at 12:30. Uh we went to the res uh resolution about the a new cell phone tower. Right. Verizon's putting a new cell phone tower right behind city uh the jail. And uh what else we got going on? The plan commission was adopted. That's all title stuff. All title stuff. Yeah. So that's basically it. Yeah. Yeah, thank you very much.

Well, thank you. And speaking of thank yous, I want to thank uh you and the members of your troop that were a part of the flag ceremony at our veteran celebration. That was a lot of fun. So, the young people did a really good job and they were respectful of our flag and our veterans. So, uh just want to give you uh my appreciation and uh be sure and let the troops know. I will. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Cheers. All right. Item number four, department reports. Do we have any department reports this evening? Seeing none, city manager statements. C manager Jones. All right. City attorney statements. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Statement.

Okay. Future agenda request this evening.

I have one request. Um, a lot of people know that the oil industry fortunately got some got passed through our state legislature and the governor signed it to give our county 2,000 permits every year for next 10 years, but uh not necessarily they'll use up those 2,000 permits every year, but the opportunity to. And that comes to about if we used them all up about $1.5 billion a year. the potential uh permitting along with all that is that is the impact that will come to our county and to our great city for uh uh the housing. We might need more extra housing, restaurant opportunities, uh business opportunities, schools taxes for fuel, um motel taxes, occupancy tax, and it and that we be prepared for it. that's coming here and it gives the idea a guide for the our citizens here in Taft and the businesses here in Taft and also to bring uh us the bragging rights to bring opportunities here to our city for uh come and invest in our town because we're all these wells we have around here is opportunities for you to uh make some money from the oil companies and things and I just like to see just uh get with get like a study What is the impact that going to have on our on our town and opportunities we're going to get from it? Not the negatives. I want the positives. What's it be the good things for the town if negatives way? Well, maybe we might run out of uh motel spaces, maybe run out of housing, but that be the negative, but it could be a good thing. But it opens up opportunities for them for the building construction to build more more housing in our cities. Maybe affordable housings in our city for the workers housing. But

I'd like to have a if we can do it u something uh maybe uh next council not not to have a report or anything but maybe to have a little discussion possibility how we go about having a study if we want to get the college involved with it. I know uh some speakers that would like to come and talk about what what could possibly be uh coming into our town as far as uh opportunities. I love opportunities and u because a golden idea is that a lot of our graduation from our classes and stuff they're leaving our town. This not an opportunity with this godsend from the uh for the industry for the permitting to keep our kids here locally and get jobs here locally for them. So I think it's a win-win situation. But I just like to see us look into that uh so that we have like a little h opportunity to see what's what it's expected in our town. Mayor. Okay. I uh I will tell you uh Councilman, I'm not sure exactly what resources we would bring to bear regarding uh that and and I'm heavily involved in the industry and u I I know we're talking about Assembly Bill 237 and I was involved in a lot of that. But, uh, Mayor Bro Tim or Councilman, if uh, if you have some input regarding what Councilman Crier is talking about, uh, help us out here.

The only thing I can think of because I I kind of feel it very much the same way you both do. Uh, one, I understand what you're trying to do, or you're trying to kind of bring forth these are the things that we need to be a SWAT analysis, like these are things that are are could come out of this that are positive. These are things we need to be thinking that could be potentially negative or we they could turn into a positive. I don't know how you turn that into a staff report or if that's kind of what you're asking for. Not going to be a staff report. No. Um be a study. I think we're needing a study for on this. So to have somebody us commission an economic study of the impacts. Well, we have different groups already. We have our

EDC. We got the current ED current economic development corporation as one to help us out. But you know the state we the oil industry spent tens of millions of dollars to get this passed for them. and they spent $65 million just for litigation price they had. This is an opportunity. They spent all that money. Now we just need to grab it. What can we do to to take some of that to our city? What can we do to bring it here and for opportunities within our um uh with our our council but as far as perview for the business opportunities and and potential business opportunities here.

Okay. I understand what you're talking about. Obviously, that's why we work so hard to get uh you know, Senate Bill 237 passed. Um I still am not clear on who we would reach out to to do the study that you have in mind. I think we reach out, like I said earlier, to the current economic development corporation, KDC, right? That that'd be one avenue right there. Um

okay. Perhaps then um a request would be that you could actually invite Richard Chapman or somebody from KEDC to come here and speak to the council. Would that be a a first step? That' be one of the first steps. Yes, I agree.

Okay. Well, I think we could extend that invitation. And I know Richard very well. I've spoken at several events that he's spoken at. So, um why don't we start with that? Why don't we start with let's extend an invitation to Richard Chapman of KEDC to come speak to us. Give us a a a brief presentation if you would based on uh the possibilities that come along with the possible issuance of 2,000 drilling permits per year for 10 years. I'm I'm sure they have something for the whole county, but they have it segmentated for our area or the west side, however you want to look at it. Um because uh we've been members of KD current corporation for a long time, but we're not getting a whole lot like get some of our money back from them for what we've invested in organization. and maybe they can help us out as an opportunity to help us and we can utilize them to uh

give us some uh good information for the citizens here so they know what to expect cuz I know they first they start starting the drilling process here. I know they're going to drill one well and take out two abandoned wells out I believe have to pay for

No, that that was a proposal for counties outside of Kern County because they hadn't done a valleywide EIR. So that was the rest of the state so to speak, but that actually did not happen. So uh the what happened was the state of California codified the Kern County recirculated revised EIR. So all of the stipulations made and the costs associated with drilling permits for Kern County through the Kern County EIR was codified by the state of California, which basically insulates them from litigation, but it doesn't actually release the opportunity to Kern County to start issuing those permits until after January the 1st.

That is correct. January 1st, it's coming up pretty quick. It is indeed right around. Correct me if I'm wrong. The average well goes about what 3/4 of a million dollars on the average for put a well in. On the average. Yeah. I mean, you call that average. There's places up in in the end of Crocker Springs where we set the top of the adapter at 85 ft and total depth was 800 ft, but then we drilled the Thunderball well at the intersection of the highway and Midway Road and it went to 26,000 ft. So there's a

there's a lot of different things going on there, but it it will take some preparation and it'll have to be placed in the budgets because it's capital expense, but uh obviously getting it codified and getting it signed and getting the opportunity there was the very first big step. I I agreed and even the fire department affects them because all these wells going in safety and any potential uh accidents or or whatever, you know, it's going to affect uh all our government organ uh organizations and stuff. But I think it's something that we need to look at because uh as a business and stuff and owners, there's been some tough times we've gone through.

Now we might have some good times coming our way. Let's be prepared for it. We hope certainly that it stimulates the activity for sure. So why don't we do that? Why don't we plan on then we will reach out to KEDC, Richard Chapman, and KDC and extend an invitation to come do a presentation and we can take it from there. And I would like to invite uh Les Clark to along with him if that's possible. I'm sure that's possible.

Yeah, I spoke out reached out to him and he said he'd be happy to to be part of the the the discourse on it. Okay. All right. Very good, then. So, madame clerk, you have clear instructions regarding how we want to go about this. All right. Very good. And and I know Richard as well, so I'd be happy to talk to him as well. All right. Thank you very much. All right. Thanks, sir. Any additional agenda requests, gentlemen?

I'm just This is my business as well with I can tell you how slow it is now. And I'm looking forward to those 2,000 wells, hoping that my business will open up somewhat to where I can make a better living. It's It's tough. I think the discussion around the passage was there probably been from that point at least two years before you start seeing some of those economic I understand. But but we're going somewhere. Sure.

Sooner the better. I I liken it to the fact that state of California's if you want to call it an energy policy. The state of California has no energy policy. And it was a high-speed rail headed off a cliff is what it was. And it wasn't until the announced closure of the second refinery, which then, you know, we we're going to go from 40 some odd refineries during the days of of Ronald Reagan down to nine. And the closure of the Valero refinery in Benicia and the Philip 66 refinery is the loss of almost 20% of our refining capacity. So, if all the other refineries continue to operate at 100%, we will not be able to supply the state of California with all of the refined goods that it currently consumes. Okay. We're going downhill and we're we're going downhill fast. Uh so, Senate Bill 237, like you say, we we slowed that train down. So, you liken it to a train. It was headed off a cliff. We slowed it down. I think we stopped it before it went off the cliff, but we're right there. One more bad thing could happen and we could still go off that cliff. And that's why the studies, independent studies have said that price of oil and gas or gas and diesel fuel in the state of California could could go beyond $8 a gallon. It's supply and demand, folks. That's what it is. And that is all on the backs of policy coming out of Sacramento. They created this nightmare and now we are trying to stop it from going off the cliff. So, all right. Well, thanks. That was a worthwhile discussion. So, thanks for getting that started. Okay, that's no more future agenda requests. Therefore, we're made our way to the consent calendar. Consent calendar items 7 through 12. 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 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 excuse me any member of the public would like to comment on? Seeing none, those items are item number seven, which is the minutes of the October 18th, 2025 special mayor's lunchon meeting and the November 4th, 2025 regularly scheduled meeting. Item number eight, the payment of bills, some $241,000. Item number nine, monthly report for Kern County Fire Station number 21, September 2025. recommendation is receive and file the monthly report for September 2025 from Kern County Fire Station number 21 and find that the activity is not a project per the California Environmental Quality Act SQA as set forth in section 15060C3 and section 15378 of the SQA guidelines. Item number 10 is a resolution of the city council of the city of Taft authorizing bank card services. The recommendation is a motion to adopt a resolution entitled a resolution of the city council of the city of Taft authorizing bank card services and find that the activity is not a project for the California Environmental Quality Act SQA as set forth in section 15060c3 and section 15378 of the SQA guidelines. Item number 11 is the approval of street closures for the Christmas parade on December the 8th, 2025. Recommendation is a motion to adopt a resolution entitled resolution of the city council of city of Taft authorizing the street closures for the 2025 Christmas parade and find that the activity is not a project per the

California environmental quality act SQA as set forth in section 15060C3 and section 15378 of the SQA guidelines. Lastly, item number 12 is the allowed purchase of 12 Glock Model 22 40 caliber semi-automatic duty pistols by sworn tapped police officers. Recommendation is a motion to approve the transfer and purchase of used firearms to tap police officers as requested by the chief of police and find that the activity is not a project per California Environmental Quality Act SQA as set forth in section 15060C3 and section 15378 of the SQA guidelines. Does any member of the council wish to remove any of these items from the consent calendar?

Not here. Oh, you know what? We have an esteemed guest and an expert on all things fire related. So, in order to get him to come up here and talk to us, I am going to remove item number nine from the consent calendar. Therefore, at this time, I would entertain a motion to approve consent calendar items 7, 8, 10, 11, and 12. Motion. Second. Have a motion and a second. Madame clerk, may we have a roll call, please? Council member Crier, yes. Mayor Prom Bryant, yes. Council member Waldrop, yes. Mayor No, yes.

All right. Next up is item number nine, the monthly report for Kern County Fire Station number 21, September 2025. C Manager Jones, would you like to defer to the expert in the room? Yes, sir. Okay. I can read it, but it pretty much says that. So,

you know what? I will say that uh just on on looking at the numbers, we we were talking briefly before the meeting started that we're on a downward trend excitedly a downward trend in both number of cause and number of fires. So that is correct. Mayor Nor Carrie Wright, Kern County Fire Department, City Council. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. So, it has been a few months since I've been here um due to fires and other activities uh other commitments, but I do send a monthly report to city manager Jones. And um looking at the numbers for the last four months, you are correct. Numbers have gone down. We're still looking um prior to the summer, we we tend to see the calls incline, right? They tend to get a little busier as the weather gets better. There's more activity outside and there just happens to be more 911 calls. Once we get to the summer, that's usually our peak with July typically being a very busy month. Um, as you can imagine, Fourth of July is a very busy day.

Yeah. Um, almost uncontrollable day. It's that bad. Um, but as we've trickled down, we saw August drop down to, so we were around the low to mid 200 911 calls per month. Um, August and September dropped down to 140, which is a pretty significant drop. Don't have any explanation as to why. Um, but it did drop down. Uh then back into October, we're back up to 170 call 911 calls with 13 of those being fires. So a lot of fluctuation in there. Um but it that's not uncommon. We don't we don't look at month by month. I like to do this chart. I like to provide the chart because you can look at it over the course of the year and really get a better idea of what's going on as opposed to just looking at a month-by-month basis.

As we look into the upcoming holiday season, there's a couple of things that strike me and and that's why I asked that you come forward because you are the expert and and we want to hear about that. and that is the homeless population moves indoors and they're trying to find a place to stay warm and they will burn whatever they can get their hands on to burn to stay warm and we've had some real issues with that in the past and then secondly with the holidays coming up the Christmas tree in the living room drying out so I I really do am I right in saying that that's those both those things are very real concerns concerns or have you not seen that really come to fruition?

No, that that is so when the summer's around, right, and after the most recent um amount of rain that we got now, my concern is less about vegetation fires, right,

because of the moisture that we've recently received. But as we come into the holiday seasons, and you all mentioned it earlier about what a joyous time we get our family together, but sometimes we lose sight of really what's going on, right? If if somebody's deep frying a turkey um and then little kids walk by and they don't do it correctly and they put a frozen turkey inside of a deep fryer and then all of a sudden that oil comes out and now you've got you're rushing a young child to the hospital that we nobody wants that right and then as we roll into Christmas if you do have a live tree and you have any type of uh poor electrical uh a lot of times and I was a battalion chief out in Taft. So I ran a lot of these types of calls where people are either borrowing electricity from their neighbor or they're running not appropriate extension cords for the amount of amperage that they're actually using and it creates heat. You get heat around a dry Christmas tree and around presents that are around there. Or you have candles because you want the house to smell good, but they're not sitting on something that's stable and somebody bumps it over and you start a fire, right? There's so many little things that can ruin your holiday.

And we don't want to run those calls. Trust us, those are the last thing. It it it ruins the family's holiday, but it also ruins ours, right? Because then we have to go home and try to celebrate a holiday when we've just ran somebody that lost theirs or lost a loved one. So, I ask you, please take a look and please be careful during the Thanksgiving, the Christmas holidays. Just do things right. Right. Don't take shortcuts. Um, if you have little kids running around, please make sure that there's a parent watching them. If you're distracted with cooking or with presents being opened or what have you, please make sure somebody is watching the little ones. That's that's all. Any other questions from you?

You know what? There's one more thing. I just got to thinking about my own situation. And I will tell you this, and that is uh for all the dads out there, moms do sometimes, but all the dads out there that are getting ready to put Christmas lights up, it's got to happen the day after Thanksgiving for me. Ladder safety has has got to be a critical component of all of this, especially if your front yard's all soaked and moist and one leg of the ladder gets uh going into the grass. So, and like you're just saying, and that's why I wanted you to get up here, and I really appreciate you doing that because we get so wrapped up in the hustle and bustle and the joy of the holiday season, and we we bypass very basic, very critical safety issues that that could potentially ruin everybody's holiday. So, I I appreciate you stepping up and reminding all of us to be diligent

and uh let's be safe and let's enjoy it. Make memories. Let's not make mistakes. Absolutely. I agree. Thank you very much. I appreciate Thank you. Okay, believe it or not, that brings us to a close the open portion of this evening's city meeting. Did we vote on that last one?

Oh, do we vote? Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. Thanks for that reminder. Okay. Uh, at this time I would entertain a motion to receive and file the monthly report for September 2025 for Kern County Fire Station number 21 and find that the activity is not a project per the California Environmental Quality Act SQA as set forth in section 150603 and section 15378 of the SQA guideline. So moved. Second. Any additional discussion, gentlemen? No, sir. All right. We have a motion and second. Madam clerk, may I have roll call, please? Council member Crier, yes. Mayor Pro Tim Bryant, yes. Council member Waldrop, yes. Mayor Nor,

yes. That pass on a 40 vote. Once again, thank you for all that information. So, that brings the open session to a close. This council will be going into close se session for two items. Item A, conference with legal council anticipated litigation, significant exposure litigation pursuant to paragraph 2 or three of subdivision D of section 54956.9D one potential case and item B, conference with real property negotiator Craig Jones, city manager, government code section 54956.81 undisclosed parcel. Thank you all for being a part of this evening's meeting. Enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday. We'll look forward to seeing you after the holiday.