City Council - Regular Meeting

Work.

Good evening, residents of Tulare, staff, and fellow council members. Welcome to the Tulare City Council meeting for Tuesday, 02/17/2026. Moving on from our call to order, the next item we have is pledge of allegiance and invocation. As we, here in a moment, stand, Chris Orr will lead us in our pledge of allegiance, and please remain standing as Greg Peterson, pastor of Sunrise Community Church, will deliver our invocation. Mister Peterson, good evening.

You. Please join me in prayer. God, we thank you so much for this opportunity to be led by you, God. I thank you for each person who's on this, council, each one of them could be led by you. God, we thank you for this wonderful town, and I pray that it would just be a place that people can come together, that this could be a desirable place to to grow, to to learn, to raise a family, to worship together, and to be a community for you, God.

God, I pray that you would bless each person on this council with your discernment, with your wisdom, to bring us together as a people to be unified for you, Jesus. And, God, we thank you so much that you use all different types of people for your glory, God. And I pray that you would, bless the decisions that are made today, bless each one of the people who are, working for our city's benefit, for the first responders, for the police, for the firefighters, for those in the hospital. God, I thank you for all the different ways people serve you and serve our city. Please bless us. In your name, we pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Alright. Thank you. Next on our agenda is public comment. Members of the public wishing to comment on any item not appearing on the agenda may address the city council at this time. State law prevents council from acting on any matter not on the agenda.

However, your comments may be referred to staff for follow-up. This is also the time for the public to comment on items listed under the consent calendar or to request an item from the consent calendar be pulled for discussion purposes. Comments related to public hearing and general business will be heard at that time those items are discussed. For those that wish to provide public comment while viewing the meeting online, you may call (559) 366-1849, and the clerk will assist you with your call. Do we have anyone in chambers who wishes to make public comment?

If you would please, kindly state your your name and your city of residence.

K. My name is David Valdez. I'm a resident here in Tulare. K. So, excuse me. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council members, and members of our community. My name is David Valdez junior. I was born and raised in Tulare, and I am proud to call this city my home. The values that guide my life, discipline, accountability, respect, and integrity was shaped right here in this very community. I am the owner of the Grind Martial Arts Academy.

Our academy was built with a clear structure and purpose to develop strong character through organized athletic training and mentorship. In just a few short years, we have become a positive outlet for families throughout Tulare. At the grind, we emphasize discipline in preparation, accountability in action, respect for others, and integrity in everything we do. These principles extend far beyond the mat. They influence how our students perform in school, how they represent their families, and how they contribute to our city.

In addition to operating the academy, I organized the grind classic, a jujitsu tournament that gives local athletes the opportunity to compete at a high level without having to travel long distances. We approach every event with structure, compliance, and professionalism because we believe Tulare deserves excellence. Working collaboratively with, coach Zee Enriquez and Adrian Hernandez, we aligned on a shared vision to bring NCAA division one wrestling to Tulare. This Sunday, February 22, that vision becomes a reality. This is this is history for our great city.

This event represents more than competition. It represents exposure to collegiate level athletics, clear pathways for youth development and scholarship opportunities, economic activity for local businesses, positioning Tulare as a capable and organized host city for premier events. Our goal is sustainability. We are not pursuing a onetime showcase. We are laying the groundwork for Tulare to consistently hold, host high level sporting events that inspire our youth and strengthen our local economy.

We are grateful to the city of Tulare for its generous support in helping make this event possible. Your investment reflects a commitment to youth development and to the continued growth of our city. Jeremiah twenty nine seven reminds us, seek the peace and prosperity of the city because if it prospers, you too will prosper. That principle guides my work. When Tulare prospers through opportunity, structure, and strong values, every family benefits. I remain committed to contributing to the city with respect, integrity, and long term vision for its success. Thank you for your time and your leadership.

Thank you for the information, Njing. Good evening.

Good evening. It's not an illusion. I am this tall. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council members, and members of our community. My name is Zee Enriquez. I serve as a head wrestling coach at Mission Oak High School and as the cofounder of the TeleriTitan's wrestling, a nonprofit youth organization here in Tulare. By the way, I'm sorry. I go back. I am I do live in Tulare. I'm from Tulare.

Tulare Titan has been built in simple principle. No child should be denied the opportunity to wrestle because of financial hardship. Our mission is to give young people access to the sport with the burden of monthly fees. Wrestling teaches discipline, accountability, respect, perseverance. These these lessons stay with young athletes long after their competitive years are over.

During my time at Mission Oak, I brought home two CIF California state champions, two high school national champions, and multiple state placers. And several other athletes have gone to compete the college level. I've seen firsthand what happens when young people are exposed to high standards and strong mentorship. Their confidence grows. Their goal becomes clear.

Their work ethic strengthens. The vision to bring NCAA division one level wrestling to Tulare came from a desire to expose our youth to what is possible. When young athletes see college wrestlers compete at an elite level, it makes their dreams tangible. It shows them that with structure, discipline, and guidance, they can achieve more than they imagined. This event is about more than wrestling.

It's about raising the standard for our city, our great opportunities for the next generation. We are grateful to the city of Tulare for supporting this effort and investing in the youth of our community. The partnership helps create experiences that can positively shape lives. Thank you for your time and for your continued leadership. Have a blessed evening.

Thank you for your comments. Good evening.

Good evening. Hello, everyone. My name is Adrian Hernandez. I'm the only outsider here. I'm from Cortland, actually.

But I've spent so much time with Tulare that I wanna say this is my second home. So, my name is Ido Hernandez, and I am the owner of Central Valley Tournament, Pros and, the president of Central Valley Youth Wrestling Association was, we help, pre k to high school wrestlers across the valley. We currently host from Modesto to Bakersfield and everywhere in between, seventy, eighty events through the season, and then we also help high school teams host as well. So almost a 100 events from pre k to us, actually, college now because we helped Bakersfield as well in the past. So our mission is simple.

We keep kids active, keeping our kids competitive, and keep them growing. When young people are training and preparing for competition, they're learning discipline, accountability, and confidence. Wrestling teaches them how to handle pressure, how to face challenges, and how to bounce back from setbacks. These are the life lessons that go far beyond the map. I want want to sincerely thank the city of Tulare for taking the chance on us and supporting something that we have never done before.

Bringing NCAA wrestling, last chance open, tournament to Tulare is a big opportunity for this it brings visitors into the city, supports local businesses, and gives our youth a chance to see high level competition right here at home. Having the city's backing means a lot to us. It motivates us from to continue bringing quality events to the Tulare keep creating positive opportunities for young people in this community. Thank you for all for your support.

Real real quick, just sort of information for which you shared. Mhmm. You talked about an event on February 22, division one wrestling. For those that are listening, what's the location of that event?

It is at Mission Oak High School.

Mission Oak High School. Alright. And the time? It is at 9AM. Alright. Thank you.

Thank you. It is actually just Sunday.

The twenty second. Yes. Sunday. Alright. Thanks. Mhmm. Is there anyone else in chambers you'd like to make public comment? Madam Clerk, do we have anyone on the phone?

Done it? Yes. Okay.

Thank you.

Yes. Good evening, mayor Isherwood and members of council. This is Dawnette Silver representing the Tulare Chamber of Commerce, and I just wanted to bring a couple of brief reports and invitations as well. We had an outstanding World Ag Expo and operation of the International Business Center. Wanted to note that we were able to host the SBA regional administrator, Steven Snow.

This was his first time visiting. He also went and did a tour of the TVS and was quite impressed with everything going on here in Tulare, and we received a very nice thank you letter from him and Don Golic, who is the district director for SBA. We also had Julie Heard, who is the associate deputy director for GOBiz California, attending and participating in the IBC for a day and had a lot of very meaningful conversations with some excellent leads. I'm sure your Executive Director of Economic Development is going to share that in her report as well. It was a great partnership working together and us both having access to opportunities that hopefully will move forward here in our community.

Anyway, on the invitations, we would love to have you join us this Thursday at the twenty sixth hour for our business after hours networking next year at 05:30PM. And then on Saturday, we have grocery outlets. They have done a extensive remodel, and they will have a ribbon cutting and celebration for that remodel happening at 11AM this Saturday. Please join us. And then next week, I know everyone's been waiting for Valley Oak Credit Union, big grand opening at their new site on Prosperity in Mooney.

That is happening on the twenty sixth at 10AM. And stay tuned. There's a lot more excitement coming as we welcome additional new businesses to our community. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share information tonight.

Thank you, Donna. Any other callers? Okay. Alright. Let's close on. And I think quickly, just to share, I too was a wrestler. I mean, few years back. Yeah. Alright. Moving forward to item four, communications. Mister Mondale.

Yes. Just one item. Counsel, each of you should have received in your inbox as well as I have received a book from an anonymous source. I don't know who sent it or what their intentions were. It's titled the great train heist, the California smart taxpayer rip off.

It appears to be a book about Sonoma and Marin Counties adopted a sales tax measure for a light rail transit system, and it's up for renewal this year. The book argues that it carries fewer than 3,000 daily riders while subsidizing 94% of their operating costs. So I I don't know exactly why it was sent to us. I can only because we don't have a light rail nor are we planning or discussing a light rail type of project. We are talking about a sales tax measure, so perhaps the intention was for us to be mindful of sales tax measures and what's occurring around the state or risks or costs associated there.

And, of course, as we discussed, should council decide to move forward with sales tax measure, we have discussed using it. It'd be a general tax, but using it in part for police and roadwork and some homeless mitigation work. But I will read the book, and I'll give you a summary of it in the event that you don't have the time to read it. That's all. Thank you.

K. Alright. Council reports and items of interest. I'll start with our vice mayor, mister Harrell.

Thank you, mister mayor. On the sixth, attended the strategic planning session, which I think was very successful. It covered a lot of areas of that. On the ninth, I was invited to attend the, a debriefing on the fog related crash down towards, the county line. The tenth attended the opening of the, international agri center with the mayor.

Eleventh attended the fire, the prayer breakfast. And then I've got a couple of, other items here, compliments to the fire department on the save at the church on on the prosperity. I was out there a little bit later that morning, not initially. They wouldn't they offered to give me a turnout and a helmet, but I declined. I figured the chief wouldn't be too too happy at that. But, they did a great save on that on that structure. It was fantastic. In regards to the, it's the farm show. It's always been the farm show to me. It always will be the farm show to me. Compliments to the chief and, captain Guerrero and all the troops out there for the for the job that they did and keeping everything moving like it should have been. I'm just glad that Ray was the one out there and not me. That's it.

Councilman Siyang. Okay. Councilman Maderas? Well, I attended the opening ceremonies of World Ag Expo. And, of course, you were there, and the vice mayor was there. But, obviously, the vice mayor felt like he went with you, but he didn't go with me. So even though we sat right next to each other, I won't take that as a I won't take that as a slide. And I also went back the next day. It was a very good show. Again, compliments to both our chiefs for seeing to it that the operation does go as smoothly as it does. We appreciate you. Nope.

I was able to attend on the second, the governor affairs meeting as well as I helped with interviews for the staff for the lighthouse for the operator of our our shelter. On the fifth, I spoke to leadership to Larry in their evening session, and on the sixth, attended the strategic planning session.

And as for myself, ditto to a lot of those events. It was great to be at the opening ceremony for the farm show. Thank you to Jennifer and to Donette for the invite at the international business convening that took place as well. So it was great to be out there with the community and, of course, the hospitality of vice mayor Harrell and captain Guerrero. So that was very helpful. A lot of community events taking place over the last couple weeks. And you What? Greeted the secretary of agriculture for the state of California, as I understand. I did. I went up and introduced myself and said hello.

There are quite a few dignitaries out there at the farm show, but it's great to represent Tulare. It was an honor. Oh, yes. And we also attended Assemblywoman Mosito's grand opening for her office, and vice mayor Harold and myself presented her with a Tulare challenge coin. So we appreciated the office in Tulare and, of course, what she does serving our community. So it was great to have one of our challenge coins given to her in appreciation, but also the challenge of keep up the good work. Alright. Moving forward then. Did I miss anybody? Stick to the script here.

K. Item six, consent calendar. All matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the council to be routine and will be enacted in one motion without discussion. If discussion is desired, that item may be removed and considered separately. Council members? Six point two and six point three for minor modifications.

Well, for me, 6.4, I think a lot of the folks are very interested in that presentation. I'd like to hear from Jennifer what's going on. So I'd like to have 6.4 in them, please.

K. So we have 6.1 and 6.5. No. 6.2 and 6.3 were the ones I pulled, and 66.4 is the one that oh, I'm sorry. I misunderstood you.

Yeah. I'll make the motion to approve 6.1, 6.5 on the consent calendar.

I'll second. K. We have a motion and second for consent calendar for six point one and six point five. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? K. Next item is 6.2, mister Maderos. Yeah. On the special meeting minutes, item 3.5, the items I there there were three items I brought up.

It only mentions one. I discussed that with the city manager, and he verified the the items that I I was indicating I'd like to see completed were the stoplight at Western Prosperity, the Bella Oaks and Mooney, the intersection intersection completed, and the inter International Agri Center Way extension groundbreaking. And I'd like to have that added to the minutes. Other than that, I'm prepared with that modification to make a motion to approve that item. Any other comments?

Second. K. We have a motion and second for 6.2 with mister the the corrections modifications as presented by councilman Medeiros. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? 6.2 is approved. 6.3, mister Maderos? Just clarification. When this matter came at our last meeting and was the ordinance was initially adopted, it was in the report.

It was indicated that that there had been an error that I did not have a potential conflict of interest by owning property within a thousand feet of the White House. That has shown up again. I just wanna make it clear before this matter is adopted that that correction is necessary. And with that correction, I'll make a motion to adopt.

Second.

Any other comments? We have a motion and second for 6.3. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? 6.3 is approved. 6.4, councilman Segala, as you said, I think you wanted some information presentation. I will look perhaps Jennifer Gomez if you can enlighten us with some information in the economic development report.

Certainly. This was your update for the month of January, and the first section covers various building permits that were pulled for the month of January. We continue to see improvements and construction done in residential and commercial development, and those valued improvements were roughly $11,000,000 and that seems to be fairly consistent month to month. And then we again had several new business licenses that were issued. Again, these aren't necessarily brand new businesses.

They might be existing businesses, but just didn't have active business licenses at the time. And so all of those businesses are recognized in this report to help highlight and show people and encourage them to go to our new businesses here in town. And then the active projects, various capital improvement projects are identified on here as well as residential development, commercial development. There were a couple of residential subdivisions that have basically been completed now, and so those have been removed off of the list. And some new residential development projects have actually been added as well.

So it's nice to see that we continue to grow throughout the city with various types of development. And with the last section regarding site plan review, we only had a couple of things that were of significance that came before staff back in January regarding more commercial development. And that is it.

Just, real quick. So I I believe I I haven't had a chance to go through the website, but is your presentation up every month or every quarter? It's up on the website?

Yeah. We put up after the council meeting within the next couple of days, you should see the monthly report on there. And every time I do the quarterly update, that also gets uploaded to our page on the city website.

No. I appreciate it. Just that I get, you know, calls. I'm sure the rest of the council gets calls about what's the latest ones over at RNN. I guess they took off some part of the facade. So people are seeing actual construction that when we old all right now, we're on Barsley. So I get calls from folks, and they see the buildings going up all over the place.

So Yeah. Yeah. Definitely a lot of that.

I think it's it's I mean, I prefer and I don't know what the the mayor or the rest of the council would be, but I think I do enjoy your your presentations that you do your slideshow. So I don't know if that's something moving forward maybe every other month instead of it being on consent that it might be as part of a general business item that that you can present so folks can can see that. So that that'd just be a recommendation for future, mister Mayer.

But I think we have it where it's touched on, but then quarterly, there's a presentation.

Is it correct? Okay. According?

I did the PowerPoint presentation quarterly

Oh, okay.

Which then IGN kind of highlights, some of the activities and the site plan.

Okay. Well, that that'd be fine. Because, yeah, I mean, a lot of people are interested in what's being built in our city. So I think

So I hope

And you guys do a great job.

On a quarterly basis. Monthly, it's just there's not a lot of significant change month to month. But, yeah, quarterly, hopefully, that's where people are seeing

the biggest impact. Mister mayor, if there's there's no other questions, then I'll move to adopt the item. I think it's 6.4. So move to adopt 6.4.

Second.

Motion and a second to adopt 6.4 or economic development highlight updates. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? 6.4 is carried. Moving on to item seven, general business. Present to the council if we can move up item seven point we can address first item 7.5, a request for funding for July 4 event. Think of folks we have in the audience possibly, just different reasons. If council is okay with that, I'll entertain. We'll do seven point five first.

K? So with that, request for funding for July 4 event. Mister Mondele, if you wanna open that, and, of course, it has mister Orr staff presentation.

I defer to Chris Orr to make the presentation. Good

evening, council, mayor. The Sequoia Symphony Orchestra, which was formerly the Tulare County Symphony, has a history of performing at Zoom Wall. 2014, they started their season at Zoom Wall Park's John Philip Sousa Pavilion for its annual pops in the park concert. The annual event was a tradition where the symphony kicks off its new season with an outdoor concert featuring, different popular classics, movie music, and, music from Americana. They performed annually at Zoom All from 2014 and 2019 excuse me, until 2019.

Due to the pandemic, they did not perform at Zoom All in 2020 or 2021. In 2022, they performed at the site of Visalia Fox Theater instead of Zoom All because of several artistic and logistical factors during that season. Staff in working with Spade Entertainment has discussed the possibility of the Sequoia Symphony performing on 07/04/2026 at Zumoa Park as part of a two hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration of America's independence. Production costs for the Sequoia Symphony to to perform at the Denis Health Amphitheater have been negotiated at a cost of $50,000. Their normal production cost is approximately $60,000.

Production setup for Symphony Orchestra involves a rigorous blend of logistical planning, specialized staging, engineering, and technical coordination to ensure acoustic balance as well as practices at the site. In addition to production costs or other site logistic costs such as security, insurance, etcetera, Spain Entertainment estimates estimates that with a $50,000 subsidy, the additional overhead cost can be made up through selling tickets at $10. Another option is to provide a $60,000 subsidy, which will cover all overhead costs and offer free tickets.

Counsel, I'll just add a few additional comments. You know, we this is in our second year. The first year, I think we did a great job and, you know, we continue to learn a lot about the venue and operations and the types of bands that people are interested in so on and so forth. We're really interested in trying to bring the symphony back. We've mentioned from the very beginning when this project moved forward that part of the goal was to offer a variety of genres of music so that everybody until Larry could enjoy hearing a concert. And so as you know, we have a variety of concerts. Some are free. Some are discounted tickets. Some are, you know, maybe more premier type performers. And and so, you know, this coming year, we've got a nice variety of different things that we're gonna try.

We have couple Latino Mexican type concerts. We have couple country concerts. We have the Beach Boys, which I think will be be attractive to, you know, a certain segment of our population. We have a com comedy show, which would be the first one that we've tried here. It would be great, I think, to bring the symphony back to, you know, sort of tie the park back to a little bit of its history.

I think there'll be a segment of our society that really enjoys the symphony, and we'd like to see them back. I think one of the nice things also about that form of music tying it to February as a nation, I think, offers a real special treat for everyone hearing some of the old Americana type of music being performed live. So I think it has a broad attraction to a lot of different segments of our society. We have Spade Entertainment. It's in that time frame when we have our concert series, so this would be part of our concert series.

Spade is Todd Spielman from Spade Entertainment is on the phone, so he can certainly answer questions. I know there's a number of questions. In general, just so you have a sense of the cost, think of this concert would be very similar to a lot of our different concerts. Right? So some of our standard costs associated with production would be required. One one of the things that's tricky with production is every instrument has to be miked. Right? So that's a lot of cabling, a lot of mic work more than that, but to keep it simple. There's gonna have to be janitorial services, you know, all the standard type of things that go along with every concert. It's part of this package, and and mister Spielman can certainly answer more of those questions.

So, you know, at this point, we wanna turn it back over to counsel to see what questions you have, and, hopefully, we can satisfy your all of your needs here.

Yes. Councilman councilman Maderas. Yeah. I have several questions. When they have a concert over at the Fox Theater, Chris, how much does the city of Visalia subsidize that?

I'm not aware of the city subsidizing any costs. I didn't look into that.

How do they pay for the, the, use of the Fox under the circumstances?

Not

not the city, but, the Symphony itself.

I think that's where the $60,000, action cost comes in for the symphony.

Part of that cost. But I I'm trying to figure out how they structure that. I mean, when they hold a concert there, that that money comes from somewhere. If if the city's not subsidizing, how how are they meeting their costs?

I don't know if the city subsidizes, sir.

Our No. I'm beyond the city. I'm talking about the Symphony itself when they when they have, their production. How do they raise the funds to be able to cover their production costs if the city isn't subsidized?

Gotcha. I believe they have a budget. I'm not sure how they raise the cost unless it's

your ticket sales and fundraising. So generally speaking, it's through sponsors and that type of thing. Is that right?

Assume so. Yes.

And you've given us two options, but there I would assume there's other options that we possibly could I mean, like, VIP box the bot sell the boxes, sell the VIP seats. They have it open free for everybody else, that type of thing.

Yeah. I mean, we probably go $40,000 with a $20 ticket or, you know, different ranges, sell the VIP boxes, that sort of thing. Yes, sir.

Okay.

And and councilmember Nerios, before you go too far, also Todd with with Spade Entertainment's on the phone. He might be able to speak to someone else.

Yeah. And I did have a conversation with the city manager this afternoon. I looked with Todd to explore other possibilities, and one of them was what we just discussed. The and and I think in in the past, do you know how did you explore at all in the past when we had these previous concerts from, pops in the park, whether they were paid to come over to Tulare or not to perform?

The research I did didn't address that.

Okay. So we don't have answers to that question either.

No. There's not a lot out there as far as, historical information.

Okay. I know there's some I got a list of of some of the members of the board for the symphony and several of them I know. And I and I might, mister Merrill, wanna take the opportunity to reach out and find out what we could do to make this somewhat more amenable if if at all possible in conjunction with Todd. Todd's on the phone. I I don't know if Todd wanna add something maybe.

Yeah. I think he can probably speak to a lot of those questions. Todd, if you're available.

Yeah. Hey. Hello, mister mayor and city council. Thanks for having me. So after our phone call today, Dennis, I tried to do some research.

I'm waiting for a phone callback from the director, Max, at the Sequoia Symphony. But a couple of things I did find out is in the past when the symphony has been in Tulare, they charge 10 to $20 per ticket, for the pops in the park. I don't know of any way that they could pay for a full show, by charging only only that much. But I recall a conversation that Max and I had a few weeks ago, and he said 85% of their funding comes from donors. So, like, Adventist Health is one of their donors, and there's another health company, and that pays for the artist.

Then I went over as a ticket holder to, the Fox website, and all the ticket sales go to their platform. So the Fox is collecting the money. So my question would be, for the symphony then, are you getting any money above and beyond the the cost of doing the show, or are they just paying you your flat fee for doing whatever show that you guys do there? And then that was good enough for you guys, and the Fox has taken the risk. So I'm just waiting on those, those answers for you.

And, Todd, if you don't mind, some in terms of this show, what was sort of the approximate breakdown in terms of the the dollars that the Symphony would be charging versus dollars that are going towards other purposes? And, specifically, what is Spade getting out of the show?

Yeah. So the Symphony is right at about $20,000. It's their low end offer. They have different offerings, but we we wanted to keep this one very basic. And then we were able to talk the production down a little bit.

So with production, janitorial security, and everything, max maxed out would be $60,000 if we allowed it to be a a free event, but, you know, maxing that out. As far as, Spade goes, we're willing just to do this and bring it back, and cover our cost. We're gonna have some catering, bills and a couple other small costs. We think it's not gonna be a huge bar by any means, but we think we can probably make a couple of thousand off the bar to help cover those costs, and I I think we should be, you know, good for for this year. And then our discussions moving forward with the Symphony would be to be a little more extravagant, you know, next year.

Max thinks that by doing a show this year that may maybe they can start taking their donor money and then taking away from a couple of shows maybe at the Fox and, like, putting a a big show into Larry at Zumwalt. They do wanna get back to Zumwalt. So so in 2027, you know, taking some of that donor money and helping with that. But they're just out of funds, this year, a 100%, So we'd have to help cover some of that.

Councilman Sarah, do you have any members? Mister Harold?

Todd, what do you think the possibilities would be of going out and looking for sponsorship? Not donors, but actually organizations that might like to help sponsor this.

Yeah. I think it's a a great opportunity. It's kinda like the Christmas event, where we just, you know, went kinda last minute, and the business community was really behind it. What I did tell Mark and, Dennis today is, you know, I'm willing for sure to go after our current sponsors and see if we can get some additional monies. But if we can even get, you know, like, the Kiwanis Club to kick in some money, or like Dennis said, maybe we sell the VIP Boost as a sponsorship opportunity, to cover some of the costs.

But if we can get some help, you know, from maybe parks and rec or just some people, you know, that you guys know to help help fund this for the first year, that that would be huge. And I'll I'll do everything I can on my end as well.

I would think that an event like this would be drawing from all over the county and and elsewhere. So, possibly, we could even get some sponsors from some of the other cities within the county.

Yeah.

Thanks, Todd.

Yeah. You bet.

Mister Amir, question I have for city manager. What what is the timeline on this in terms of, like, we have to act on it tonight for it to happen?

Yeah. Todd, I don't know. He was trying to reach Max. I know that they were anxious to to lock it down as soon as possible because they're trying to finalize their schedule for the year. Todd, do you have a I know you couldn't reach Max today. Do you think if we push this till the March 3 meeting that would give them enough time to still be able to commit, or did you get a sense from Max on that issue?

They were definitely anxious last week. He hit me on Tuesday, and he said, hey. It's canceled tonight, or is it next week? Because we're really anxious to cinch up our season. I told him it was next week. I don't think it would be a massive issue to push it off to the third, so we can get some of these answers. I'd love to give him, like, you know, a a feeling of where we're at, but he's very aware of the questions that we have. I emailed it to him and texted it to him, so he just couldn't he's tied up in a meeting till late.

That's the that's the question I asked him this afternoon was the possibility of tabling this along the lines of what you indicated.

Well, yeah, I'm not necessarily advocating for that, but I think I I think it's a great idea that we do some nice event with the symphony. But my I come from more of, I'd like to see a budget breakdown on paper. I like to see you know, we have an idea now that, you know, I like to see what the 40,000 is for. I mean, it it it has three categories that were talked about production. I know that's always expensive and janitorial and security.

So I'd like to see an actual budget breakdown includes a revenue component. If we are if if there are gonna be sponsorships, alcohol sales, and maybe I would imagine people want some food, so we're gonna have to charge some food truck a fee that there's also gonna be revenue generated. And, I'm curious to see who's gonna get what, in terms of of, you know, that you know, Speed Entertainment mentioned that they would do some catering or something, you know, from the bar. So I wanna see who's gonna get what in terms of that. Because if there's any revenue, I think it should go into the event.

If if the if the operator is gonna charge a flat fee or a fee for his participation, and I don't want I want to see that in the budget. So for me, I prefer to see something in writing that'll brings all that down before I would vote on it.

Yeah. The operator already said he's not charging a flat fee, but we'd be happy to put the other budget for you.

I think with this in summary is is this is a, I think, a great idea for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Independence Day. It's a patriotic event for our community. Porterville's doing events. Other cities are doing that, but especially for Tulare. I I think it's a great morale boost.

I think it gets us a chance to highlight this venue, highlight many different groups, especially for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary Independence Day. I I was only one year old in 1976 when festivities like this happened fifty years ago, so it'd be a great time, I think, to to put this together for the city of Tulare. I also, though, agree with with the dynamic of the questions. The idea has been presented. It's on the agenda.

And I think coming back as any of us that have been involved in putting on events, what's the structure? But there's a lot of details. And I think all those details the ideas in front of us, these are kind of some assumptions. But sponsorships, the dollar amount, the breakdown, everything that's been mentioned by the other council members. I'm myself, I'm with the group of of I think it's continuing this item. Would that be the appropriate term? But or table this item to the next and then come back with that project detail. Yep. More conversations with the groups. And with that.

The other not for discussion, I think, but next meeting, I'll have an item in front of the council that continues with some additional ideas of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary as well. Kiwanis has the the July 4 event. There's other things that take place Third. The third. Correct.

But but in the community, I think, to kinda have that wraparound with the community. But, yeah, some more just those details. And and events take all of that and put that together. I think Todd and perhaps the group of us take tabling it till the to the next meeting looking for counsel unless they disagree. If there's a a consensus towards more information, more details, you know, there's on board with two hundred fifty anniversary independence, just what that looks like, and move that to the March 3.

And with council's permission, I'll continue to investigate the aspects of this so that I can assist staff in my own way, not not get in the way, but in my own way, to get answers to some of these questions. I've already reached I found out who the treasurer is. It's someone I've known for a long time, John Thomas with Bank of Sierra. I've texted him already. He's gotten back to me, and I expect to talk to him tomorrow.

I also have a meeting next week on another matter with Pat Hillman. She's actively involved in the symphony. Between those sources, we may be able to deal with this in a more in a very productive way. Yes. And I imagine and I imagine as well as many of us will probably have inquiries and other components a different way.

So, miss

Maria, if it's possible to add, to the inquiries that are being conducted by whoever's doing them, if there's gonna be the actual fireworks show as well, I mean, is there is that happening? You know, what day that's gonna happen? If it's gonna be

The fireworks show is scheduled for July 3.

Third? Okay.

It'll be the hundred and fifty seventh year it's done.

Okay. Thank you.

K. So do we need a motion for that, or we just make that as we'll get I think we do need cancel direction to table that to the next meeting.

Yeah. I I you don't need a motion. I mean, it's there's really no action, but we'll we'll make sure it's back on.

Unless there's opposition. Right?

Correct. Yeah. If you don't wanna do it, I

should say.

Yeah. Consensus, then yeah.

If we're on the same page to table this to to March 3. Okay. Alright? Moving forward is we'll come back to item 7.1, consideration of termination of agreement with t c TCCAD, the Tulare County Consolidated Ambulance dispatch. Mister Mondale.

Yep. Thank you so much, mister mayor. Counsel, I'm pleased to present this item to you tonight. You know, when I first was hired four and a half years ago, when I walked in the door, this is one of the items that was under consideration. You recall our former interim chief was discussing this topic with counsel, and he at the time was recommending that we move forward with consolidation, similar to what Visalia does.

When chief Ack came into the office, he had some concerns about that approach. And so we, made a decision to hire a third party consultant, an independent party to look at this a group that, you know, studies these types of things all over the country. That's the matrix group that was hired, and they did a study. And I'm just gonna read a couple things for you kinda just as a reminder of kinda where we've been. We entered into an agreement, as I understand it, this is well before my time back in 2011 with TCAD, and they've really done a great job and served us well all these years.

They are obviously predominantly an ambulance dispatch service, but they also provide fire dispatch for us, they've done a great job. And we're grateful to them for that. But as we continue to, grow as an organization, as a community, and as we continue to raise the bar for all the services that we offer and how we offer those services, We're not only doing things more efficiently, but we're increasing tech the use of technology and trying to do our best to provide higher levels of service across the organization. You know, we we asked the matrix group to look at that that in mind and and give us some recommendations. So we hired them back in June '23, and these are all things council's well aware of.

I've kept them aware of the process and everything we've been doing over the last few years. In my weekly report, I address this item, I think, almost eight times. One of the key things that came out of that study was they they understood that we are updating our CAD RMS system at the police department for our police nine one one dispatch. And their recommendation at the time was, look, you don't wanna do consolidated dispatch while you're implementing system. You need to get the CAD system in place, see how it's operating, make sure you get the bugs out of the system, run it for a year or two, and then if everything's working well, then you'll be ready to look at that.

So they said, you know, negotiate a a continued contract with TCAD for the time being as you continue to explore the possibility of consolidation. So we completed the CADRMS project in July '23. In October '23, Matrix finished its report, and I provided that to counsel. We never brought it into a public meeting because you'll remember in the email I sent you back in November '23. I said, here's the study.

You know, let us know if you have any comments. But because they're recommending we continue just to negotiate a new agreement with TCAD, I won't bring you to matrix study. I'll bring you back the agreement when we get that done. But if any of you feel differently, if you want me to agendize it and talk about it publicly, let me know. Otherwise, we're gonna continue to go down the path that the consultant's recommending.

We'll negotiate an agreement with TCAD. We'll see what we can get done there in that negotiation, but we'll continue to work towards fire and police consolidation. And part of that was based on fund availability. You know, it's it's expensive to upgrade our system internally to be able to bring on fire dispatch. In February '25, and, you know, so from between November '23 and February '25, we're implementing the the CADRMS project.

We're making sure we got a year or two under our belt, how that's working and figuring out all those bugs, which we did. Then I advised you guys in February 25, hey. We're gonna pursue some federal funding. We're gonna try to get an earmark to cover all these onetime capital costs associated with dispatch, which is about $600,000 or so. I gave you in March '25 an earmark update, and then I advised you in January '26 that the earmark was awarded.

It was approved, which is, great news. That was just last month. And then I sent to counsel in February, and I sent to TCAG in February the letter that I sent to them and said, hey, guys, we got this earmark. We're gonna bring to counsel this evening a recommendation that we start the process of moving forward with consolidation. We don't know exactly how long it's gonna take because even though we've got the earmark, we don't have the dollars on our hand.

They'll give us notification of what agency it's gonna be issued through. We think it's gonna be the Department of Justice from the Department of Justice to the city on behalf of the police department. Meanwhile, Fred and Mikey have been talking about this. They're looking at you know, we figured out what room it's gonna go and how many stations we're gonna have and what the cost estimates are. And they're working through the operating budget and the staffing plan and all of those details because we know it's coming.

Once we hear from the Department of Justice, we'll know how long we have to implement it. Normally with an earmark, you have one year from the date you receive the funds. You can often extend it an additional year if you have to, but they don't usually like you to. It's only if you need to, not like, hey, we would prefer not to. It's more like, hey, we ran into matters beyond our control.

But that's normally how the earmarks work. And so we wanted to give TCAG as much time as possible so can be aware. All this staff recommendation is doing is saying, vote to move in this direction and essentially give me the authority to issue them a ninety day notice, which is something that's in the contract, a ninety day notice of termination when the time is right. And again, that time would be right working with TCAG and a combination of when are the dollars coming in, when do they expect us to spend them, what does TCAG need to do in preparation for this. Obviously, they're going to be losing some dollars if council moves in this direction.

But of course, you know, if they lose dollars, they're losing some type of serve some form of services. We'll talk with them about what does that mean for them. Do they need to bring on another city in terms of ambulance dispatch? I know they've talked to Dinuba about fire dispatch. You know, obviously, if we take it on, we'll be hiring positions. So there may be employees of theirs that that that would be looking at our jobs. I I don't know all those details. Those are some things we still have to work out. But we continue to move down this path, and and we're excited that we're at this point in time, and we're here to answer any of the questions. I know both chiefs are available. TCAG

is

in the office and the audience tonight. So whatever questions, whatever counsel's prerogative.

Council members, do you have any comments or questions? Yeah. Fair. There's any questions on the agreement anyway first. Anyone in council chambers who would like to speak on this matter? Madam clerk, do we have anyone on the phone? Councilman Segala?

Yes. And I apologize. I couldn't meet with city manager because of work, and the holiday, but I guess I'm just trying to understand. From what I received about this topic not too long ago, we're, like, a 180 degree turn, right, in terms of what the report because I the report wasn't attached to the it's on the it's in the the report is in here?

The re the report is attached to the court the email correspond I sent it to you recently.

Yeah. Because I guess what I'm trying a little confused on this thing because from what I had read and and understood was that there was a recommendation to not do it on our own yet, that we were gonna contract with the the TCAD to continue services. But now we're looking to, I guess, suspend or or or do away with those services once we get the the money that comes in from the federal government?

No. No. Sorry. Maybe it wasn't clear. Let me try to be more clear.

That's that's

So Yeah. So the recommendation that came out of the report back in October '23 was to stay with TCAG and TCAD until our CADRMS system is in place and fully operational. Give it a year or two. Right? And then that's what I told you in November '23 because we're gonna just negotiate an extended agreement with them. We've had this agreement since 2011. We're gonna extend the agreement another three up to three years, but it could be terminated at any time by other party with ninety day notice. Right? We're gonna extend the agreement to continue to work with them until that time the CADRMS system is in place and it's operating well. Give it a year or two and assume we we find the money.

Right? So that's what I just explained. And then I just explained that, you know, we we went for the earmark in 2025, and then we got word that we got the earmark in 2026. So even though we have an agreement in place with them to operate, now is the time to give them notice of our intent to what to do what we said we were gonna do back in '23, which is start implementing it ourselves. But we're giving them a year's notice.

So all I'm asking you tonight to do is say, continue with the plan that we've been talking about for the last several years. Give me the authority to give them the ninety day notice when the time is right. The time will not be right once we get the money. Once we get the money, we actually have to build all the improvements. So we gotta go into that space and tear down a wall and put the CAD stations in there. Then we're gonna have to hire the employees and train people. So I think we have about a year's worth of time from now, you know, or certainly maybe when we receive the money somewhere. It's hard for me to pin that down exactly because I think we're gonna get the money within the next couple months, but I don't have the exact date. That's up to the federal government. I can't really I can only I can only encourage them to let us know when they decide when they let us know things.

So I'm trying to give everyone advanced as much advanced notice as I possibly can. That's what we're doing tonight. So there's not a 180 degree turn. It's real everything's been a 100% consistent from day one with what we've said.

So so right now, we what what is the the term of the contract that is existing now?

Contract yeah. The current contract, it's currently ex except to expire on 06/30/2027.

Alright. So that's, two and a half no. Year and a half or year and a few months. Yeah. So do you think, so you're saying that that they might be close to about that time when we're ready Yeah. To do our independent I

mean, it could go sooner, but, I mean, I would also wanna work with TCAD. Right? Like, let let's let's imagine we get the money in two months. And my staff comes back to me and said, hey. We've worked with the architect. We figured out whatever the drawings are. We think we can build this project out in four months and be done. So it'd be, like, six months from now. I wouldn't wanna just say to TCAD, hey. We're gonna be done in six months, so we're moving in six months. What I'd wanna do is talk to them and say, we think we're gonna be done sooner than a year. Does that work for you, or do you need a little bit more time? Because we know there's gonna be impact to them. They might say, hey. It'd be great if you could do it in nine months or twelve months.

So just because we spend the funds and we build out this the system doesn't mean we have to go live day one. We're gonna still need time to hire staff and train staff and practice and make sure it's operational before we do the handoff.

Right. And I guess the last question is on the on the budget process. I mean, I'm real familiar with our city council budget process, the state legislative budget process, but not too much with the congressional. So when you talk about it being earmarked, meaning it's approved, it's inside of a bill, and that bill's already been approved by congress?

Yeah. When when Trump signed the federal budget, this was included

in that. I've given you big part of the big Yep. Beautiful bill part, that one,

or it

was a different one?

No. I explained all that to you in my emails.

Okay. Well, I'm I'm trying to recall your email since it's been years sent them. I just wanna make sure that there's no hiccup on the funding side. So it's already been earmarked, approved, by the president, just ready to roll.

The e the email I gave you in January explained that to you. Yeah.

We haven't actually

Yeah. No. We haven't received the actual dollar. We received approval of the dollars.

Yep. Yes. And congressman Fong called me directly to let me know that that award had taken place and was signed.

So Yep.

I I appreciated him calling me on my cell phone and passing that information on. You're just topnobbing with all these. Yeah. I'm just I'm I'm I'm a little bit I stumbled a little bit of shock that the con I just appreciate the congressman taking the time to give that direct phone call. So thank you on behalf of Tulare. It's good stuff. Any any other questions? Vice mayor Harold?

I guess I'm kind of a unique situation here considering the fact that for I don't know how many years I essentially ran the dispatch sections of the police department, which also dispatched for fire, and I also ran the dispatch for TCAD, this is this is nothing new. My concern is that we we will possibly have the same problems that we had before because police dispatch is not the same as fire, and fire is not the same as EMS. Probably fire is closer to EMS than they are to anybody else, but if we make sure that we get the people that are trained specifically in fire dispatch and you don't have a police dispatcher trying to handle fire calls. When I ran TCAD, our intent was originally to have dispatchers that were trained only in fire and only handled fire. They were trained in fire dispatch, but unfortunately then they were absorbed into the general dispatch system.

So it's, the fact that this could happen within a year, two years, three years, could be time, but I, I don't know. I just I I I have some concerns. It's I've seen this before. I've gone through this before, and I'm just don't want it to turn out like it has in the past.

If if I can just absorbing your your comments or concerns, sure, is I think if I'm right or hearing you right, your concerns are more of an operational component towards how the team will build that system, work through that system, hire staff for it, the internal part. And there's a concern for that and possibly to be involved in that from experience. What we have in front of us, is there any concern that the city manager is just giving a notice that he has approval to provide ninety day notice when that point in time comes in the future? No. Is it more operational compared to the notice itself? Is that a fair

Yes. I'm just saying Yes. Yes.

Yes. I have I have no problem at all with agreeing for the city manager to have give the ninety day notice. It's just because I have worked in both of them for quite some time. I can see what happened, and I don't want that to happen again.

If I might provide one comment, council member Harrell, I hear you exactly, and that was one of the big things when I was first considering this that I heard from some of the fire personnel is that at the time in the past, police the department didn't understand the difference between police dispatch and fire dispatch. And I've had some long conversations with both Fred and, chief Odd, and they both have assured me they understand those differences, and they're extremely important. I have a lot of confidence in these two gentlemen. And one of the things I've told them is whoever the dispatch manager is going to be, we're gonna expect them to be trained in both themselves, and 50% of their salary is gonna come from the fire department and 50% from the police department. So they're not answering to one master only.

The second thing is, there's a part of the reason why, Tom is gonna be with us this evening. He's he's feeling ill, but our assistant city manager has direct oversight over both police and fire. And one of the reasons for that is for this dispatch operation because I wanna make sure that if that dispatch manager is having a problem, and I'm sorry to say this, gentlemen, I don't expect this to happen, but we're all human. Right? If there's a dispute between the two of them, I expect the assistant city manager to walk into the door and to resolve that matter.

So that dispatcher will have access I'm sorry. That manager of dispatch will have access to the assistant city manager and, of course, to me through the assistant city manager. So that's one of the ways we're gonna try to address your concern. Chief Odd's already been working on a a budget, an operating budget with all the certifications that are necessary, and we're talking about Crouch training so that even the police dispatchers that we have, you know, some of them this is what Visalia does. A lot of them are cross trained so that a police dispatcher might come in today and say, you know, I wanna work fire dispatch today instead.

And so they they have the opportunity to switch back and forth, keeps them active and relevant. So I can't tell you all of those details yet because these two gentlemen are working through them, but I I'd ask both of you. Do you do you both feel confident that we can we can resolve some of those concerns?

Yeah. I mean, there's gonna be operational hiccups like any other new new plan, but with the new CAD RMS and the way technology is, I expect it to not on day one,

but it's gonna go.

We don't have a choice to but to help the community. And, I'm confident working with fire and our our current dispatch staff that we're capable of taking over this this, obligation.

Vice mayor Harold, I share your experiences in working in dispatch centers in my previous, employer. I've been through multiple consolidations, combined dispatch centers on the federal level, so I understand your your concern of how that's gonna work when you have different dispatchers sitting in the same generalized area. I will say there's a lot of benefits to it. You know, when we have a large scale incident, knock on wood, we don't have those in our city. But if and when that happens, you have the brain center for that emergency right there, and the cops and fire dispatchers can talk back and forth in dealing with that incident commander on that scene to mitigate that emergency.

So that's a huge benefit just for our city. But like like the city manager said in Fred, it it's all about getting the right people in the right positions and getting them trained up to that level of what we want them to do to provide that ex exceptional customer service. And that way we get these emergencies started off as quick as we as quick as we can to get everybody's lives back to a normal day to day operation. So

By all means, my my comments aren't being critical of what's going on. I'm I'm referring back to the days when we just transitioned from a horse drawn fire engines and ambulances and police officers walked

a beat.

And a tin cam on the stream?

Yeah. Yeah.

But, you know, it's it's things that I went through, and it affected the community. It just I have no doubt that we're gonna get nothing but qualified people. TCAD has done an outstanding job of dispatching fire. You know, I'm I'm not even gonna I wouldn't even attempt to go into the incidents that we've had of complaints between, you know, like, I think you mentioned, PD is not paying enough attention to fire and fires. You know, they're interrupting what PD is trying to do.

This I think we'll make sure that we don't go through that again that we have. Completely a kind of a separation of powers if you would be you know that. You dispatch fire you know what fire needs you know what your department needs. PD and if we have like said a major incident. And certainly T. Cat is going be involved in it also. The all three. And these work together and I'm sure that. They all can work very well together they have in the past and they are they are right now. I think we just continue on that way.

Councilman Medeiros, sir? The questions I had have all been answered by our two chiefs and by the vice mayor and our city manager. Okay. So with that as well, I was open to public comment. Is there anyone in chambers who'd like to make public comment on the consideration of termination of agreement with TCAD, TCCAD.

Madam clerk, do we have anyone on the phone? K. Council members, do we have a recommended action? I'll make a motion to direct staff to proceed with consolidation of the fire and police dispatch operations at the Tulare Police Department and authorize the city manager at the appropriate time to issue a ninety day notice of termination of the agreement with the t TCCAD for fire dispatch services. Okay.

We have a motion. I'll second the motion. And seconded by council member, Sarah. Any further discussion? K. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Alright. 7.1 is approved. Five o. One last thing, if I may. I I know Jackie Paul is here. I wanna thank her for all the service she's given to the city of Tulare and its citizens, and we'll continue to do so with the ambulance service. But just on my behalf, I appreciate you.

Thank you. Alright. Thank you. K. Moving on to 72, revised emergency shelter operator agreement.

Okay. Mister mayor, council, thank you so much. You recall at the last meeting, we brought you the first draft of the agreement. It had a lot of stuff in there, and council had a lot of comments and thoughts and questions and proposed revisions. We tried to capture just about all of that, not all of it where we're able to, but just about all of it in terms of this revised document. We tried to simplify things a little bit. Last time, we showed you two budgets, the original budget and where we're at. This time, we're only showing you the final revised budget, which we're not really I mean, if we're not looking for you to adopt it tonight, because

we

know there's a lot to consume, and you may have other revisions and thoughts. I know I met with council member Medeiros earlier today, and he has a number of administrative issues and cleanup and formatting things he like to get with me on, for example. But, yeah, I think he has some other substantive things as well. And so what I'd like to do, if it's okay with you, is we can either I'm gonna turn it over to Manny, and he can either kinda go line by line and explain what you said and and what we addressed. We could walk through it, or we could just I don't know if you've had a chance to absorb this. If you just wanna ask more questions or or you have more comments, how would you like to proceed?

I think, initially, I think it'd be great if Manny came up to the podium or or from your your seat's perfectly fine as well too. And then council members, we can go through if you have additional questions and comments. And, of course, we can we have the operator. We have Lighthouse represented here too. We can break break that up.

So

Manny, if you wouldn't mind walking through the agreement revisions, I'll get into the budget, and then Renee might be able to speak to some of the policies.

And I and I think as you said, if council members have a specific item, I we can touch on it perhaps at that time compared to circulating and coming back to a list again at

the percent. Okay.

Okay. Good afternoon, mister mayor, vice mayor, council. We have 16 items that, we, changed in the document per your request. The first one, the request was to add language restricting operation of the city vehicle by licensed employees only, and that the operator should be responsible for maintaining the vehicle in working order. Those changes were made inside the document.

And not only that, but he mentions the reporting process, and how to return the equipment in case this contract is terminated, for some reason within 30, within 30. So everything, your concerns about who's gonna drive it and who's gonna be responsible, it was added to, the revision in 10 g and 10 h. That's that's the first item. Second item, language, for qualifying operator experience and credentials in the recital scene. Actually, it's not only an a, but a, b, and c.

They added everything that it was needed to inform about the credentials.

So so I had I had a question on that, and I appreciate that being added to the recitals. The only thing that I would like to have the council consider adding is just explicit explicit financial background as well. It doesn't mention anything regarding financial finances in terms of that obligation. So I think I just I I would like to see because it does say provider represents to the city. So I'm assuming to the city manager that they can conduct this, this, and that.

They have these skills and abilities, but there's nothing in there regarding financial financial, being able to handle the finances. So if I can that could be added to that to the satisfaction of the city manager. In other words, you know, he feels that they can do the finances part of it. I think it I like to see it in recitals, at least mentioned in there.

I could certainly add that they've agreed to and understand their obligations and the agreement financially, and they can meet those obligations.

Yeah. I just, yeah, I just wanna make sure that that that's understood that they have provided you enough comfort that they can handle the finances part of it.

The other thing is, when it says in operation for twenty years, I think it would be better to say for for approximately twenty years because we don't know the exact amount of time, and I mentioned that to the city manager.

Okay. Number three, make it clear the LRM is, is an independent contractor and not operated in legal partnership with the city that was placed in the location, recital f. Number four, clarify how many staff members, salary, and benefits provided at what cost. And in the last page, you can see that we have 10 full time employees, 12 part time employees, and, their salary and, how we divide it. Number four I mean, number five

I'm gonna go back to number three, Manny.

Yeah.

Just just so I understand that language about the independent contractor. But I guess on the practicality side, I know there's going to be a lot of and as and it's written in the in the in the document, a lot of oversight, a lot of hands on, from our city staff, as has been the case now with putting together all these documents and all these agreements and even the fact that some of our council members are involved in the interview process for hiring. So there's gonna be there's gonna be a more hands on. Does that jeopardize the independent contractor relationship in terms of, like you know, I guess I've been an independent contractor where you get hired to do a job and you're out there and you're doing it versus, you know, we're gonna have full time staff on this project. So does that is there a way to rewrite, or is is there any issue with that relationship as an independent contractor?

That that's probably a better question for me. So, the key the key thing is that, we're trying not to exercise control over how they do it, but we're certainly entitled to verify that they are doing the things that they're required to do with the contract. And so that's why, you know, that's mostly what our staff is gonna be involved with is overseeing and making sure that they're doing the things that they're supposed to be doing.

Right. Because I think, you know, from what I read some of it, it it kinda blurs that mind about, you know, like, as you said, the oversight versus kind of being in the thick of things, and I'm just trying to figure out, you know, what ultimate staff will be assigned to be the point person, and I believe would be that'll be Manny to be the inner the one that goes between the city and the lighthouse in regards to the contract. So I just wanna get a sense of how much we're gonna be involved. I mean, you know, we're gonna I mean, I I'd know that when the concert series started or even till now, the city manager has been very involved in that whole process. So just wanna make sure that we have that sense of independence as well legally.

Yeah. It's not necessarily it's not necessarily involvement. The the key things in the partnership are, again, we're setting the expectations of what we want, and then they're going out and performing. And so we're we're certainly allowed to make sure that we're getting what we want from the contract. What we shouldn't be doing is telling them how to do those things.

Yeah. I'll give you an example. Like, let's say, for example, they are responsible for making sure that they have enough laundry supplies at the facility, like the laundry detergent or some of the laundry they're actually doing. Right? So if I'm a guest at the shelter, I'm responsible for going and laundering my own clothes. Right? But they, the operator, will probably be responsible for laundering the sheets. Why? Because we wanna make if we left if you left it to a guest to do the sheets, you might have one guest that does it every day and another one who wants to do it once a month, and then there's bedbugs. Right?

So they'll handle certain laundry activities. We're not gonna tell them you know, they gave us a policy document that says how they're gonna do this and what their intentions are. And we we understand they understand from us what what kind of level of performance we wanna see, but we're not telling them how to do it. You must do it every day in this manner. Oh, and by the way, you gotta use this firm to do it. We're not doing that. We're saying, we're giving you the basic performance standard. You go meet it. We're paying for it. And now but we have the right to watch you. Right? So if all of a sudden they're not meeting the performance standard or let's say they come back and they've hired a firm to do this work and we're like, we know that firm's 10 times higher than everybody else. Then we're gonna have a conversation with them, but we're not dictating the terms of it to them. We're very clear on how to do those things.

Well and I appreciate the city attorney laying it out. So for me, I I just would be interested if at some point we have to step in, tell them what to do. I think that's something that I I I would like to know if that ever happens.

Number five, identify the operator fee and upfront provision of working capital. That was, you can see it in four a, number six, and language and language.

If if we sorry. But I had Okay. Four and five are on my list as well. In terms of the the benefits, you mentioned that and I'm looking I just wanna make sure the where you list all the employees, is that the proposed budget? Is that that one sheet?

Yes.

Because what I was looking at, was to the broader question that I had talked to the potential operator about was we, we have the we have the budget there of who you know, 75,000 for the program manager, 65,000 for for the housing net. So we have the budget of what the costs are. And I know we're gonna be fronting the cost of payment for, I think, the first three months or something like that.

The 300,000?

Yeah. No. Not the 300,000 for

the office. Oh, yeah. The 200 the $2.50. Right?

Yeah. So we're kinda we're basically paying the bills for the first three months to these folks. What what I'm interested in, and I don't know if it's in the policy. I I look for it in the policy, but I was just curious to see what kind of benefits were going to be offered to the lighthouse I mean, to the employees. And if there were gonna be benefits, would that increase the budget cost?

Yep. So so, yeah, as you're coming up so let me give an example. So let's say the $75,000 program manager, well, that was the that was the cost, but they were actually gonna get paid $50,000 because they were gonna get $600, $700 a month health insurance. So, you know, help with their health insurance, so then that would be part of the 75,000. So I don't see that in the policies, and I'm not sure what the lighthouse is thinking about. I mean, in other words, are these people gonna have health insurance and other types of benefits?

We're working on a benefit package now. It will include health insurance. We have a simple that'll be established that they will contribute to with a with a a match. Those are the two, and that's included, and then the 10% on the bottom of the budget. So the 10% let me see the budget.

So the no. I see that 10% admin

fee. So Yes. And

that show that?

That's included in the budget. Correct.

That that'll cover any other expenses that you guys need? Because I usually from my experience and I know we have our HR director who can probably who has way more insurance than I I mean, experience than I have. But from just my limited experience, when you hire someone, it's usually about 30% in terms of, like, the benefits and, you know, you have to pay a FICA match, and you have to pay all these things. It usually adds up to about 30% of the salary. So is 10% gonna be enough?

Well, there's there's well, again, I'm not gonna dictate to the operator on how much they need to set aside for all those things. That's their job. But I will say in my experience, I've worked in the private sector. I worked in the public sector. I worked for an I had worked for a nonprofit organization. I would say, typically, there's a difference in all of those. You would tip in my experience, I have typically seen higher benefit packages in the public sector Mhmm. Than in the private sector than or in the nonprofit sector. Usually, in the private sector, for profit private sector, you see higher salaries, lower benefits. So I you know, 10% feels reasonable to me, but I'm gonna leave that up to them to make that decision.

I get it. Because, I mean, we're paying the bills. I mean, they're not paying they're not paying they're not spending a dime

Right.

Or a cent on the salaries and benefits.

We're paying

100%.

Words, we dictate that part of it. In terms of Well, in terms of in of well, you use the word dictate, so I just wanna put on that. The other But we're the ones that set that

Sure. Salary. But it's dependent on the employee election of it, which means you haven't hired staff yet. You don't know who would select it or elect to take those benefits.

Of course. I mean, if you have a spouse and you don't need it or whatever, I mean, some companies will give you couple $100 for not using health insurance. But I just wanna make sure that that total cost is is is in there because if if, well, I'll take out the 300,000 for the operator, so it'll make it, like, 900,048 or something like that. Is that gonna be enough to cover those salaries and additional benefits? I just wanna get it right from the beginning. I don't wanna have to come back and say, oh, hey. We're short another 20,000 because, yeah, Jose decided to take health insurance, and he wants to be healthy.

So My understanding that's my only concern. My understanding, and you correct me if I'm wrong, Renee, that all of these figures that you've shown on here includes the salary the sort of the max salary and the benefits. So they may hire people at a lower salary, but they're showing us the max salary and benefits.

Right. And we currently, we will not be offering benefits to this to the people that are part time, which we have 12 employees that'll be part time, 10 full time.

So the only thing that that I'd like to see once you guys do the math is you see what that looks like. Just a little more breakdown on that. So that that's something that if you guys can do, maybe our HR director can help with that.

Number six, our language and agreement that the initial guest population should not exceed 200 individuals and will only be increased by city council, not to exceed 400. And keeping in mind that 25% for for the county. Seven, a definition of interim housing is included, in a six. Language, policy and procedure for removing guests. Clarify no tenancy rights. On seven, Manny?

Yes, sir. That

was that's in the exhibit?

Yeah. Yes, sir. I think it's page 13, if I'm

not mistaken. Let me see. It's a six. It's the it's the bottom of page 13.

It's a six, page number 13.

Getting to the city manager that where it says third to the last at on the interim housing definition, third to the last line where it says supportive bridge solution designed to quickly move people, I'd be more comfortable by saying attempt to promptly move people so we're not held to a standard that could create a problem for us in the future.

With this definition, just so you know, came from the state, but I don't think there's anything reason why we can't change that. We're not held to the state's definition. So attempt to to what did you say? Promptly. Promptly. Sure.

Go ahead.

Okay. Number eight, language on policy and procedure for removing, guests clarified. No tenancy rights is added. Language regarding sanitation and retention of personal items. Guests cannot set up a tent at the shelter. The operator shall retain personal items up and abandoned, in accordance with law and, remit them to the city staff for a retention or disposal. Number 10, language, maximum annual city contribution should be accord with the annual budget and unless otherwise approved by city council. Number 11, clarify

Manik, can I pause you there Yes? Real quick? I think it's the right time. There were not having the exact language from our past meeting. There was a conversation from council about what that cap budget would look like or understanding what cost frames of contribution on the city side.

And so I know I had brought that up and had conversations with the city manager on it as well, and I I think this is the right area to touch on it for council members. What I've understood in reviewing this and talking with the city manager is that this contract in front of us is with the operator and then internal policies with the city is moving forward. The city manager will work with staff and review of in over this next year in this time period of tracking what does that system look like of the city's cost. You know, what what does cost mean? What's what's staffing allocation budget?

The city manager in the report states that the budget will be kept. We have a cap of what that budget is. So if you go over that budget, be it in different cost amounts, it's gonna from a council. But in over the period of time that if we're if council wants to look at, okay. What's what's the allocation or cost of our soft cost in supporting the shelter itself, administrative work, maybe police coming in and out for duties, accounting services.

The city staff will work towards that system to have that that cushion. So after a year or we come back after one year, the city could give that information to us. Now Yes. I I say that, and there was discussion from the last meeting, but I also think here so we don't roundabout with that is there was discussion that's council member Isherwood's discussion with the city manager, and it's also looking to council members if there's a consensus or or not, I think, in views of saying, hey. I think that's a good idea.

But, again, looking to council members if there's a consensus for that. If and if folks feel that you get where I'm going. I just didn't wanna make that a Patrick issue with, you know, item from the conversation I shared that with you. Sorry. It's basically moving forward, over the year, once it gets operational, we want a system that can track, you know, and report back what's the city's soft cost to that.

What's what's it charge in different areas if the accounting department's doing fiscal review? What everything has a cost to it. And can you give us an idea then as we come out of an operating year that we have an understanding then of what that cost to our team is for doing extra services? But how do how do you differentiate the kind of costs that we're already incurring now for the Halo team for additional law enforcement Can't do it. And and try to bring that into this homeless shelter under the circumstances.

It would seem like it's that'd be a tremendous task to ask staff to do under the circumstances, and we'd better be better off served by focusing on what the actual cost is with this operator. Perhaps the city manager can weigh in.

Yeah. I I totally understand the desire to understand the full cost of, you know, all the things that we do and being transparent. I I strive for that. It's important. It does get it get it can get difficult. And let me see if I can explain to you why it gets difficult. So for example, if we just turn to the last page of the packet, which is the budget for a minute. In the in the very bottom of the the budget, you see you know, so the budget kinda goes through the top. Here's what the operator staffing costs are going to be. You know, all these other costs for services on-site, Here's what the funding sources are.

And then it said and then it says after that, city covered expenses. Right? So we've got a little bit of that based on our estimate right now. This is looking forward. These are only estimates. So we think, okay. The waste disposal cost that were on the hook for us about $50,000 the sewers. Have capital maintenance. So the capital maintenance would be our facilities guys having to go over there and replace the I'm just making this up replace the filters and the air conditioning units. That's not a regular maintenance item that we want the Lighthouse Rescue Mission to do.

We need our guys on our lift to go out there and get up on the roof, right? Or obviously the limited veterinary services, some of the work that we'll do on replacing some of the exterior landscaping. So we have some of that cost currently estimated. I what I understand the mayor to be talking about it, and I think he appreciates that estimate, but I think what he's saying is there may be so one, he wants us to track those costs through the year. So at the end of the year, when they come to do their annual report, we would give an annual report.

Here's what we our cost would be, and we would reflect back on these numbers and say, you know, our landscaping costs turned out being a little bit less than we that we estimated at the 2100, but our pest control costs came out a little bit more or something like that. But I think in addition to this, he's saying, what other costs will we have? Like, for example I'm just making this up now. Right now, we have a a homeless individual who is in an encampment out at the Santa Fe Trail. So our code enforcement has to go officer go out there.

I mean, this is what they get paid to do, to just deal with code violations. And sometimes it takes the form of human violation. But we we go out there, and we give that person a a a notice, and we say, you gotta move. And then they move to Walmart. And so our guys drive over there to Walmart and say, hey, you gotta go you gotta move. Once the shelter's open, it'll be a little bit different discussion. It'll be like, can't stay on the Santa Fe Trail and, no, you can't go to Walmart, can't just keep moving around. Your option is either to go to the shelter or you're going to eventually get arrested and get taken to jail. Or you can go leave the community or find somebody in community to put you up. What'll probably happen is they'll say, Okay, I want to go to the shelter.

And Manny's team will take them and drive them to the shelter and drop them off at the shelter. So there's some time involved with staff taking them to the shelter. Right? So we're not currently capturing that cost. That's just the cost. Whether whether Manny's team's issuing somebody a citation because they have garbage at their house or we're taking somebody to the shelter when the time comes. In my mind, it doesn't really matter what that is. But I think what the mayor and correct me if I'm wrong. What I think the mayor is saying is he'd like to get a more true picture of what whatever those costs are that we are putting into the shelter operations, not citywide homelessness, anything tied to the shelter. And some of that may not have gotten covered down here.

I don't know. We have to really sit down and think about it. And he's just saying, put a system in place. Call some other cities who track this. There's other cities that have homeless shelters. How are they tracking it? Build a system so we can track some of it. We do some of that now. This came up at the last meeting. We have staff that, many of our staff have allocated costs. So they don't get just paid from one fund. They get paid from multiple funds. Sometimes those funds are like grant funds, and we have to track their time very precisely. 22% of this week they spend on this grant. Sometimes they're more generalized, like gas tax money or just making it up.

They they can only use so much of their time for this. Lot of times, it's not really tracked that way on the on the time sheet. I think the mayor is saying is, we track some of that going forward, set up a system that helps us track that? I think we can. I just need to sit down with my staff and think through that. And I'd like to do is do some research on other cities and what they're doing and come back to council, probably, like, in a weekly report. Not this it won't be this Friday. It'll take us a month. But, like, say, this is kind of how we can do it and see if that aligns with your interests.

How does that what is what is the benefit of doing that that you're looking for that we don't already have now? I mean, that's gonna take a significant staff time. And now I mean, you almost need an analyst to be able to figure that out. And is it worth it under the circumstance to get the kind of information that you're seeking? The let me answer the first part.

Think it's the destination point because there's some other part. I think the destination point in understanding, which is the estimate of four 62867, not asking staff to come and give a whole mathematical breakdown towards that. Rather, as we move forward, and I think understanding if we are gonna look at adding positions and we're gonna add, what does that look like? What's that percentage that if staff are working at the homeless shelter means they're not working somewhere else? So in a dollar factor is it comes back and goes, you know what?

Actually, from the actions that we had this last year, it's more like 750 or a million, and this is gonna impact staffing or other needs of the department. It's better to to understand. I'm it's it's getting a final count at the end so we can project. I also thought that council would benefit from knowing what's a rounded package cost. We're doing a two year agreement. We're gonna get into the operator for two years. We're gonna have assessments. And as when staff comes and says, we would need somebody new in accounting department. We need somebody new in code enforcement. In that, it's articulating saying, okay.

This is a this is what is looking towards the resources needed in the homeless shelter. And as council members, we might say, great. Or we might say, oh, that's escalating. Are we okay with that? What does what do those impacts look like? As far as so that's the end benefit. I I would like to know picture instead of estimates, and I think also it helps us as council member to understand capacity of the homeless shelter. The operator is doing these tasks, and the city is having to do with these tests. There's cost for homelessness. Not asking to to wrap up that all up, but at least as far as evaluating for the for the citizens of Teleri, we have an understanding that the operator's doing this, city's doing this.

Maybe we need to evaluate that that capacity needs to go over to the private operator, and it helps us to evaluate roles and responsibilities. Responsibilities. And I understand what you're talking about. I guess just to counter that. I mean, when the when the police chief comes and says, I need some more police officers, we we don't necessarily ask him to give us a cost analysis of where each officer is going and and give us that breakdown.

Fire department's the same way. To a certain degree, we take them as to what's being indicated. Yet in this situation, we're asking staff to go to that extra level to give that kind of breakdown under the circumstances. So that that's the only reason I was asking this question is is this gonna turn out to be worth it?

So, mister mayor, I'd like to I'd like to to add in. I I appreciate you bringing this up because I kinda brought this up when I asked what the total staff cost to to mister Maderos' point. Chief chief, you may correct me, but we have a Halo team. Correct? And the purpose of the Halo team is to do what? To assist any way we can with the homeless population. Now is the Halo team full time? Yes. So that already is a cost. Right? There is a cost from the police department to deal with homeless issues. From the general fund. Well yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But, you know, I you know, we don't have a shelter open, but I would imagine they'd be part of getting people to the shelter. Not necessarily, you know, interested in breaking it down the cost of, like, hey. The HALO the HALO officer spent point 5% of their time on this and that. I know it could be done because when I look at Tricia's budget over there in her department, she breaks down her directors or her staff by this person's getting paid 10% from this fund, 15% from that fund, 20% from that fund to equate the one FTE. So I I know that is happens in the budget.

But I guess for for me, I think I would like to to know the cost like the mayor. But one benefit that may help, is, you know, I forgot to mention this earlier, but I'm I was very excited and proud that our city was able to get League of Cities to sponsor a b 17 o eight, the bill that we've been talking about to try to get money for cities. You know, it took a it took a, an elect it took a assembly member from Inglewood, you know, someone that I actually worked with a long time ago when he was a school board member in Linwood, Scottish from Linwood to introduce that bill. I think if we have the total cost, if that bill were to pass the legislature that basically says that we can now go to the front of the line at the local continuum with the total dollars that we spend, that'll help us more. So if we go and say, hey.

We spent 2 and a half million on our shelter, then we get we get some funding from them. When in reality, it's 350,000 or 2, you know, 2,000,000, you know, 3,000,000 or whatever, that would help us with the true cost. So that's I see that as a benefit. Hopefully, the legislature will pass the bill, and we'll be able to take all of our expenses to try to get some money back.

So if I can just address a couple of things. So just to make sure we're all on the same page here, sometimes when you see in the budget an allocation of dollars for a position, sometimes it is actually that person is working 20% of their time to this grant, and that's why 20% of their salary comes to that. Sometimes it's not tied to that at all. It's just it it doesn't reflect their time necessarily spent. It's a reflection more of the funding that that person does multiple things, and those dollars come in to fund multiple things. So it's not always a direct tie one to one. So I don't want you to think because you see something Patricia's budget automatically mean that's not necessarily the case. Where where where and I think we can approximate this. So I don't think we have to spend much more time working on this. I'm gonna do my best to try to find a way to accommodate your desire.

What I want you to understand, though, is there's going to probably be disagreement with each of you and me in terms of what we should be tracking. So for example, Halo. I don't think we should track Halo at all. We know what the cost is for Halo. Whether you approve this shelter agreement and let's say the shelter never opens. It never opens. The HALO officers are still here. They're still gonna be doing homelessness issues all around the city. So that's where we're gonna disagree is where that line is. So I'm gonna draw a pretty tight line.

I'm just telling you right now. Pretty tight line too, specifically tied to shelter operations. So every time that a a guy goes over there to fix the air conditioning at the shelting the shelter, that time's gonna be tracked. But not if he's going citywide. Just because we hired a facilities guy, he has to manage 10 buildings. But because one of them is the shelter, we should track all of his time? No. We're only gonna track the time he puts to the shelter. So I just need you to understand upfront because this thing could become so unwieldy I mean, I'm gonna tell you right now, when I sit down with executive team tomorrow, this is gonna be frustrating for all of them. But we're gonna say, it's okay.

We can we can work this out. Let's see what other cities are doing, and I'm gonna give you give me a month or two to put together a a list of what we think and how we'll capture it, and we could tweak it from there. I'm just telling you, I wanna try to keep this thing tight because it could get out of control very quickly.

That's my concern. I think other than, you know, going around the room and asking directors to hear that, I I the comment, I think, as Mark had said, was for staff to review that. What does that system do? I don't I don't wanna give my opinion in answering the how. I'm not a CPA.

I don't play one on TV or council. Familiar with the accounting dynamics, which I bounced off Mark, but rather as the city manager had said, and I wanted to present this to council so it's not an edict coming from me, that those benefits, there's objectives behind it. The city manager takes some time, meet with staff, what does that look like, and come back to us and say, okay. I think I have something. It's I don't also, I wanna put some boundaries to it, and I think what the city manager's saying this is, I'm not gonna put the whole system in front of you where we debate every way that they're doing their calculation.

Rather, the city manager said moving forward, as he said here tonight, won't put words in his mouth. He had just said, when I was moving forward to evaluate and look at that and to have that come back in in front of us. And I do one of things you had said in, I think, a bit of separation come I I'll touch on this and my thought on this, is the homeless shelter and the dynamics of cost and what we're looking the investment to do. I do think it's important that this item gets separated out because it helps in future evaluations, conversations, and understanding of resources. And the city manager if we're in agreement with that, to let the city manager look at that and come back with a Okay.

Are we all good? Manny, we've got that one done. Thanks.

Next one. Clarified in the agreement what the city should pay for directly and what the city will be billed for, and that's explaining the budget in the last page where it says city cover expenses. Number 12, replace the 75% of budget goal with the city, and operator will work in good faith to reduce cost. That was included, and, definitely, we're gonna do that. Number 13 clarified that the city manager only has authority to make reasonable increases to the insurance requirements as might be required by the city's risk management association.

Number 14, add language to the add language that the city acknowledges that the operator and faith based organizations, and as such, there might be religious activities occur occurring from time to time at the facility, but the the operator shall not make occupancy or use of the facility for guests contingents, on the participation in say religious activities. That was added. Number 15, clarify that he's the operator who is responsible for ordering, purchasing, picking up, and ensuring the provision of adequate food, dog food.

Speaking of, just to get it out there, speaking of dog food and animals, I know there was a whole section in policy and procedures that talked about animals. And one of the concerns I brought up to the city manager, and I know by the donut shop, we had those individuals that had dogs. I couldn't help but notice, and you went out and you've had continuing trouble with it. But a couple of those dogs were pit bulls, and it got me to thinking. You know?

If we have dogs that are inherent considered by many to be inherently dangerous dogs, Dobermans, that type of thing. We have no policy here for screening those types of dogs, and and we could have vulnerable people. We do have vulnerable people using this facility, and dogs are gonna be present. Shouldn't we, mister city manager, in some way or another, take that into consideration or at least having our policies when they sign in that that will be a consideration that that staff will will I mean, they won't just bring any dog. I mean, it could be a vicious dog of some sort.

I I would I would defer, I think, to the city attorney's office to maybe help us with constructing some language around that so it's fair and equitable. But, you know, it doesn't automatically discriminate against any particular breed, but recognizes that we have to be able to work with the operator to manage those situations.

Yeah. Same. I I probably wouldn't recommend a scheme that's based on breed, but rather viciousness or history or something like that.

Characteristics, behavior. Yeah.

Yeah. Like insurance. I

Yeah. There's a lot of procedures around animals with the facility. When they are brought in, there's a lot of animals that are begin gonna be moving from the encampment over there. So we do know most a lot of the animals that are coming over there now, we know of those animals. We know all all about them. As far as policy and procedures, when animals aren't just running around. They're either in a kennel or they're with someone on a leash. Either they're walking outside the facility or they're over there over there over where the There's actually gonna be a little dog run for them to run-in. So I think as far as that goes, they'll and there's only one dog allowed per guest. So I think there'll be better oversight in the encampment.

I mean, in in the facility than there is in the encampment now. I mean, you know, we'll be able to regulate regulate it a lot more.

I I I was thinking more of that when they sign in Mhmm. And they've made aware of the rules and procedures

Right.

That it specifically indicate that there's discretion on the part of you as the operator to be able to oversee that and determine if a dog is a problem.

Yes. Oh, no doubt.

And so so you don't have that conflict when you have to make that tough decision

Right.

That that dog is is been vicious or it's attacked or it's it's the kind of situation that needs to be dealt with.

Yeah. And I can I can have Britney come up and talk to that too? She's she's dealt with now over in the encampment. And they and they can there are times we're gonna have issues. It's gonna come up. And there's procedures where there'll be a verbal conversation, there'll be documented conversation, and they'll be exited. This is Britney. She's our she's gonna be the facility manager.

Hi. Good good evening. So currently, right now, as we stand at the temporary encampment, all of the dogs are leashed and, have to stay within their own area. Once everybody transitions to the permanent shelter, the only person that will be able to handle an animal that is, registered into the shelter will be the owner of the animal. So that person will be in charge of handling their own animal.

There we will not allow staff members or other guests to handle somebody else's animal. So that's to keep it in a safety precaution for everybody. Right now at the encampment, how it stands is the dogs are on a four foot tether to their, I guess you'd say, campsite area. And it relatively works fairly well. We do have a dog run area there that the guests are able to rotate their animals through and allow their animals to get time off of their tethers.

So we plan on having the same type of setup with the shelter. The dog handler, the owner of the dog will be able to take their dog out, take it to the dog run, let their dog run loose for a while, and then put their dog back in the kennel. So it won't be too much hands on with actual staff. It'll be more of the owner of the dog.

Even in the maintenance of the dog, that's required by the by the guest. They're responsible for feeding their dog, taking the dog out, walking the dog, exercising the dog, cleaning the kennels. That'll be part of their responsibility as a guest with an animal.

So you guys would provide food, for example. But where you might step in is, let's say, you have a guest, either it is not performing their duties and it and it needs to be taken care of or, you know, somebody who's incapable, period. You know, you may have some individuals that have mental illness or drug addiction. They're they're going through recovery. They may be a period of time not be able to. You would step in and handle that. Or to Dennis' point, if we have a vicious dog, we you know, you'd call animal control. Animal control would step in, and we'd have a policy that protects you and the city that says, listen. We warned you. You've not been managing your dog. Your dog has now attacked two people or another dog. We're removing that animal. We just I think he wants to make sure we have a policy that gives you the authority to do that so nobody can later question your authority.

Yes. And and even in situations where you might have someone exiting, they just they don't come back. We have procedures in place to handle the dog because we work very closely with animal services now. So

Yeah. That that's the question I had. I mean, I've gone by the shelter a few times, and I've seen dogs lose. Are those just neighborhood dogs that come in to the shelter, or do you guys have that problem?

To be No. I've dogged in yeah.

The in temporary encampment. I've seen dogs running

around. Some in some cases, yes. We do

have visiting dogs that you

We do have some, there's neighboring dogs that sometimes get loose, and they come into the encampment. We've done very well recently on getting majority of our animals that are at the temporary encampment, microchipped. So a good majority, vast majority of the dogs, plus most of all of our dogs, I believe all of our dogs now in the encampment are currently registered into the encampment. So for the most part, I particularly know what dogs belong in the encampment or not along with the other guests in the encampment. So they're they're fairly quick to let me know, hey.

This dog came in last night. It's been running around the encampment. We're not sure. And at that point, I'll check the registration list, and then I typically will contact, animal services. They typically will come out and scan the dog to verify if it is microchipped to maybe somebody in the city or even to the encampment, and it just got loose. Right. If it's not, then they typically

will pick it up.

I think because I think from what we adopted with the encampment, as Mr. Moderos noted, there was there is language in there about how to handle dogs and different other issues. So is there would there be a problem to incorporate that into the to the homeless shelter?

I don't think so, but I'd like the city attorney to just kinda look at all to make sure it complies.

Right. Because the other thing I'd like for them for him to look at, I know there's a law against, you know, leashing up your dog for a number of hours. So is that I wanna make sure that that's also, you can't chain your dogs up to a tree or to a post for hours. That's a law that's been in place. I think it's Schwarzenegger. But there's a there's a law that says you can't leave your dog tied up for eight, ten hours at a time. So if they can look at that to make sure we're in compliance with any any laws.

Are are you saying as as far as leaving them in a kennel?

No. You referring to what we're doing now to the account, man. You said someone said climb up to a pole. You have a dog tied up for a certain amount of hours. So I hope it's not the same in the at the shelter, but I just wanna make sure we also look into that law.

Sure. We'll have the attorney look at all those things.

Are we at number 16, Manny? Yes. Number 16. At language, the parties acknowledge that the city is ultimately paying for the provisions of all goods and services and might pay direct or be billed by the operator. The parties further agreed to work together to obtain such goods and services at the lowest possible cost. And, therefore, the party responsible for such procurement might change from time to time. That's the last one, mister Mayer.

So I I had one on number five on on so just a question. Is there a schedule for the $300,000 operator fee? I know that $2,250,000 for the cost of

capital.

The the working capital, I guess, I would call it. Or that I can see that being upfront because you're gonna need it. But is there a schedule in terms of, like, how the 300,000 you bring? Is it quarterly, half a year, or just I don't know if you

covered my assumption. It would be monthly. Yeah.

So so I'm just trying to figure

out the schedule.

We can build that in.

K. So hearing Manny, do you have anything else to note?

No. That's it, sir. Okay.

Hearing the staff's report and then comments and review of items from council members and the agenda, I'll open this up to also public comment. Is there anyone in chambers who'd like to make public comment on this operator agreement?

Do you wanna look at the budget first, or you wanna do that after?

I've already opened the door. So okay. Mister Bender, good evening.

Good evening. May excuse me. Good

evening, mayor Isherwood, vice mayor Harrell, council staff, fellow citizens, Jason Bender Tulare. Just a couple of things I've I've been hearing. Last time we spoke, it was a $150,000 line item for dog food, and I still heard that mentioned today that the shelter is providing dog food. Animals are a luxury item, and it's already nice enough that we're providing a camp for these folks, and we're providing a new building for these folks. And our taxes are going to fund all of these issues because some of these folks are having a hard time.

But now you want us to feed their dogs? I have a real problem with that. It's not the dog's fault, but, you know, if you can't be responsible for an animal, then you should not have that animal, and you should not ask the citizens of Tulare to help you take care of that animal. Animal services is already over there tons of times. We have property in the area, and they're already over there microchipping and taking care of issues constantly.

I have 12 dogs on the West Side that keep coming on and off of property, and I've worked with animal services, but they're so busy dealing with other problems in the encampment and other places, they can't take care of the problems that the rest of us have that pay the bills around here. Secondly, I'm okay that the operator needs some language to deal with certain animals, but I'm very hope I I hope that we're not going to specify by breed which animals can and can't be there. I would hope that we do it by behavior and, the responsibility of that owner. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Bender.

Is there

on

mister on mister Bender's comments, when it comes to determining determining whether a dog is vicious or has a bite history and things like that, I don't think we should put it off on the operator entirely. We need to have animal services and maybe even the city's vet come out and evaluate that animal and make a determination as to where it's at, but I don't think it solely should be the operator's responsibility.

Is there anyone else in chambers who'd like to make a comment? Good evening. Welcome.

Evening, mayor, vice mayor, city council. My question is about insurance on these animals. Do you know that pet bulls aren't covered by homeowners insurance? It's the only breed. So if they bite somebody, their homeowner insurance won't pay for any of the expenses.

What I'm saying is those dogs, if they bite somebody out there or bite one or a worker out there and stuff, what's gonna happen? Are they gonna sue the city, or who's gonna pay for that? We know that supposedly the guests won't be taking care of it, but you kinda need to look into that because of the insurance part of it. I think, if you have that many animals and they start biting people, are is the city gonna be liable for the insurance? That's all I'm saying.

Brittany, currently, have there been any dogs that have attacked or bitten people at the at the shelter? I just wanna know what the what the might be.

No. Currently, we have not had any issues with dogs. I think in the last three years, we've maybe had two dog bites at the encampment, and they they were due to negligence on the person that was walking by because the dog was tethered. And it just walked into its area, which it a a dog tethered to an area, especially in the conditions and the living environment that it's in, most of the dogs are gonna be protective of their area. So if you walk too close to the area, a dog is gonna protect its area, especially if it's tethered.

The I don't foresee the us having those types of issues at the shelter because all of the dogs will be in kennels, and the kennels will be locked to where, not locked where you can't get in to get the animal out, but there's gonna be a security measure in place to make sure that the dog can't just lift the latch itself to let the animal out. So it would have to the dog would have to be taken out of its kennel by its owner. That's why we're gonna put in the safety precautions in place with the animals and the owners to make sure that it is the owners that are handling their animals and not random civilians or staff that is that are handling the animals.

You know, I seem to have opened the door on this. My concern was that in the policies and procedures, we at least have some reference that gives the operator the ability to evaluate these animals if there's an issue, Not specify exactly what kind, and I know what's I mean, the the owner of the animal needs to know that when they check-in and when they're admitted, if they're gonna bring an animal in, that is subject to the ability of the operator to evaluate that animal if there's issues. That that's the direction that, hopefully, our city attorney can take a look at and figure out language that would accomplish. That.

Along those lines, I guess the the question to deal with the what was said in public comment, the is there different types of insurances that take care of that? I mean, do we Does our general liability insurance take care of that?

No. There's there's two there's two insurances. Yeah. Right? There's our RMA coverage, which RMA has reviewed our documents before. We'll probably put them by them one more time once we have all the final language for them to take a look at. So the city's insured or self insured in a pool, and then I'll let you speak to the operator's insurance.

I can tell you that it it I'm I'm a State Farm agent, and we don't discriminate between animals. We don't say if you have a pit bull, there's no coverage. We wouldn't cover them. I don't know if there's been just regulations over the course of time to not specifically discriminate against an animal. All animals can be mean. Doesn't matter what kind of dog it is. I know they got a bad name, but, I don't know if language has just changed when it comes to insurance where you can't discriminate with the type of dog it is. But, not all insure so I suppose all insure none no all no insurances are the same. I mean, I would would think they know who we're getting our general liability from. They know we have kennels.

They know we have dogs. So they know the risk that we're we're they're insuring us for. They take all that in consideration. It's a very detailed process. The documents you fill out is pages and pages long. So

Yeah. I'm just curious. I just wanna make sure whether it's a city or the operator or whoever we have, you know, the adequate insurance because you would hate to some incident happened and it's not covered.

Sure. Of course. Yeah. Absolutely.

Well, the other thing I'll just tell you is we we haven't done this because we have to bring this to council, but RMA is covering us for all the different things we're doing. The com one of the conversations we've had internally is we're we're thinking about the possibility, and we would bring it to council as part of the budget process if we were gonna do it. We we're doing some things that are unique that are not normal for this city. It happens in other cities, but, you know, we have the the concert series where people can be in the park and there's some alcohol. They could trip and fall. So we probably get more claims over time. And the other season, I've been we've gotten claims. We usually defer them or we defend them or we move them along, but that's one risk. We have the maker space at the incubator. We have some businesses in there.

That's a different kind of risk. We have the homeless shelter. We have a new dog park. And so one of the things we've talked about is whether or not we wanna go out and get a separate I think of it as an umbrella policy, but a separate policy that sort of sits between us and those uses and before it hits RMA. We've gotten some prices. I don't like the prices, so we're trying to think about how we can divvy it up a little bit even further. So we're I'm fully confident we're gonna be completely covered. Really, it has to do more with assessing our risk and our cost to see if there's some way of reducing that so it doesn't always hit RMA, for example. But that's something I'll bring to you in the future. Alright.

So There we go.

You're in public comments, I think.

Yeah. The microphone wouldn't work. Yes. It's me. Alright. Thank you for the clarification. Is there anyone else in chambers who has public comment on this? Clerk, do we have anyone on the phone? Okay?

I had a question.

Yes, counselor.

I had

a question on Mr. Maderas on his, for evaluating the dogs. What would you have what would you consider to be the criteria for evaluating?

Primarily past history. Whether the dog if the dogs attacked, individuals, what the circumstances were, what the severity of, of the injury, that type of thing so that a determination can be made procedurally whether the dog has created a danger to others to the point to where there's liability under the service.

Again, my question would be, is this something we should burden with the operator, or should it be animal services? Are they qualified to evaluate an animal, and where are they gonna get this information from?

Well, it would be part of their policies and procedures that I mean, if they wanted to cooperate with or seek guidance from animal services, they certainly could. But the final decision should be by the operator because they're the one we we've got an independent contractor situation, so they're the ones that'll make that decision. But I'm sure the city attorney can come up with a at least some kind of evaluation or or process in which that determination could be made if we had to incorporate that into policies and procedure. My biggest concern is that is that they do sign when when they're admitted, they do sign a document indicating the dos and don'ts and and everything.

Oh, yeah. It's a very detailed 14 page document now that That's where

a Mhmm. I I feel like some kind of paragraph's gotta be gotta indicate that they have responsibilities as it relates to the animal. And if the animal proves Sure. To be a problem of some sort and it's evaluated by you as the provider, that you retain the ability to exclude not only the individual, but you have an an ability to exclude the animal.

So are you thinking a specific document that just addresses animals, stand alone document? Incorporate it within. Incorporate within.

Okay. I think if But we put language in the agreement, you can just cut paste language Yeah. From your agreement. Yeah.

Yeah. No problem. K. K. Any other questions, comments, review? I think have we you're not looking for an action tonight. You're just I think you're if I'm right, city manager, you're looking for a settling on these issues. Are we

Well, I wanna review the budget real quick with you. K. Go ahead. And then On

that line, I the comments I had, the additional comments, I'm gonna send an email to the city manager so that I don't further bore you with some of these comments.

K? They're they're mostly formatting. And

And I do yeah. But I I would like in our next copy a true red line of what changes have made.

We will give you a color copy.

Makes it very difficult to find these changes without it being

Yeah. So if you wanna turn just to the last page on a budget, I won't take very long. Very familiar with what you saw last time. I just wanna point out a few things that came out of the last discussion and share with some really exciting news. I'll share with you the boring stuff first.

So a lot of the numbers are the same. This will probably be the budget that you see when we bring this back on March 3 with the red line, but I don't know that you'll see much red line in this document other than a couple things. One is we will specify that the $300 300,000 administration fee would be billed monthly. I want to point out to you that, you know, we identified the number of staffing positions, the 22 positions in total with 12 of those being part time. The the exciting news that I wanna share with you Melissa, would you pull up that PDF I sent you?

So if you look at the center column where it says 65,000, a 165,042, those numbers come out of the budget. And what we have found out lately, and I'm not promising you that this is gonna work out this way, but there's a good chance that the dollars that they're identifying for the housing navigator lead and the housing navigators potentially could be reimbursed through the CalAIM program. So even though we're committing to those dollar amounts, and, of course, those are the max dollar amounts because because the Lighthouse Rescue Mission will be hiring people that will fit into those dollars amounts, so they may be less. Cal AIM is and I I don't know that I'm the authority on this, but, it is the program that which many of the like, the hospitals, for example, those who are dealing with homelessness, it's the sort of the the reimbursement program. Think of it as medical reimbursement program for providing services.

Does that sound fairly accurate? Help me out here. Oh, Noah. Yeah. He's way better at this.

Yeah.

Come on, Noah. Get up here.

He knows everything.

Noah knows everything. Do you know what I'm gonna talk about next?

I can either confirm or deny that. It's on the agenda, though. Good evening. CalAIM, also known as California Advancing and Innovating Medi Cal, that's the AIM part, is the state's efforts to revise and really change the way that Medi Cal reimbursement works in the state of California. This is off of a federal waiver that gives us an exception to use funds in a different way.

Part of the way that this really has changed is that traditionally for decades, the way that services are provided is counties enter into contracts with the states, and then counties themselves offer a variety of services, be they public health, behavioral health, or others. That relationship was changed with CalAIM services in that now the state contracts with the managed care plans like Anthem, HealthNet, Kaiser, and others throughout the state, so that now the managed care plans contract with the different, service providers themselves. So this takes the county out of a direct, relationship with the state in that regard and brings the managed care plans more to the front of it so that they can manage membership enrollment, benefits received and provided, and cost savings and other elements. Under that, there are services offered like enhanced care management, usually referred to as ECM. And under this, there's different positions and services that can now be offered that weren't available before, such as housing navigators, which is one of the main positions that operate in the unhoused space to help direct people into different housing resources, subsidies that are available to them, and similar benefits.

One of those benefits that just came online as of January 1 is called transitional rent, it's also referred to as TRA, that can provide up to six months of funding. So I mentioned that in particular, and that's funding assistance for somebody to move into apartment, pay for rent, those sorts of things. But I mentioned that specific benefit because we're talking about this potential position of a housing navigator of which if they're approved as a CalAIM biller, most of their activities can offset their staff costs. And if they're exceedingly productive, it actually could become a revenue stream as well. But part of the way that folks would get out of this shelter is through housing navigators tapping into benefits like transitional rent to help move them out of a shelter space and into either interim housing or permanent supportive housing.

So that's just a very brief nutshell of it. But, again, if Lighthouse is approved as a vendor through the managed care plans, they also can tap into some additional technical assistance and other things to help them learn how to more, and more efficiently maximize the benefits that they could draw down and help to benefit the shelter with. Happy to answer any questions.

No. I appreciate that. I know Renee would have been able to tell us that, but you gave us the opportunity to do that under the circumstances. So I appreciate it.

Just just to add to that. You know, This is one of the reasons why we're bringing the navigators in house because they're they have the ability to bill, and we can recoup their losses. We just don't know what that looks like at this point. So we've we've been involved in our navigator interviews last week or the week before, so we have some very important

access to these funds on the, programs that you have at at your main site?

No. No. You don't. We don't have a housing navigator on-site there. We're in the process of training someone to do that, though. Thank

you for that. And then the second third figure there, the $4.82 $2.28, you'll see that in the budget as well under funding sources. We have the PLHA, permanent local housing location funds. There's no guarantee that, but we are going to likely receive those funds, come back in April. Council will have the ability to decide how it wants to use those. But we could also use those grant funds to help offset our operating costs as we understand it. So if you look on the left column, we show the the the $3,167,000 from the budget. Those are the costs. We discount that by the $7.12 from the center column. That brings us down to 2,400,000.0.

Then we offset that by the million dollars and measure y funds. That means it'd be 1,450,000.00 out of general fund. That's one way to look at it. The third column does the exact same thing, but what we did there is we took the 462,000 that was the city covered expenses. Right? So the waste disposal fees, what I referred to before as sort of some costs that we have with any city building. Most of those are any city building animal limited animal veterinary services are not any building. That would be mostly just animal control. But so if we added those figures in and did did the same math, reduced it down, we'd be coming out of pocket of 1.9. And in the staff report, we say, you know, the $2,000,000 out of general fund. So

So the difference between two is that four six and

two eight?

Yeah. Depends on how you look at it. Right? So either way, we're still under the $2,000,000 that we're promoting or suggesting in the staff report, be able to obligate towards the operations, but we would be tied to the budget. Right? So even though the funds are sitting there, we'd be tied to the budget. And then if something came up throughout the year, there was more costs somewhere. Even if there's more costs somewhere, just keep in mind, we still can move money from one line on them to another, right? Just that we do that at the city as well. All of a sudden, for example, we have on-site animal services of 152,000, and we've got maintenance and cleaning of 75.

But it turns out that maintenance and cleaning is 76, and we have a surplus somewhere else we can move we can move within the budget dollars. We can't go outside the budget. If we had to go outside the budget, we'd come back to council and say, hey. Remember we budget 2,000,000. We need another 20,000 for this, and you could decide if that was, you know, worth it or not at that time. But this is good news. Right? So I told you from the beginning, we're always gonna be working to try to find grants or other people's money and earmarks, and there's no guarantee it'll always happen. There's a guarantee we're gonna try. And so, hopefully, the picture will continue to get better over time. We'll find more grants. And now that's just something that happened between last meeting and this meeting, and can't promise you we'll have more good news by March 3, but we'll try. Okay? That's all that I had this evening. Counsel, turn it back to you guys.

I think we reviewed the steps and walked through that. So I think in time, if we covered all the base in this, council member has really an acute issue during this. We give direction to staff, and, of course, you can email additional concerns and questions to city manager. Are we are we okay with moving forward? Yeah. Additional modifications, we'll table it. Can we table it to the March 17 meeting?

Yep. You can. March 17 or third?

No. Seventeenth.

You want more time?

The trouble with the third is we already because you have to get your agenda out. I mean Yeah. I know. By Wyndham.

I know.

Bang. You have to get it done.

So I'm fine with that, but all I would say to you is if we're gonna do it on March 17, now we're gonna start feeling a little pressure to get this approved because these guys gotta hire people because we're gonna have the facility done sometime in April and be ready to operate May 1. So I'm not saying you have to get it done. I'm just I'll bring it back I'm gonna bring it back on May 17 as a red line, a true red line.

March.

Sergeant. March 17 with the intent to adopt. That's our recommendation at that point.

K. Thank you. And thank you, Lighthouse Rescue Mission. Moving forward to 7.3, pension trust administration services. Mister Roberts.

Yes. I'm sorry. I'm trying to get

some key here. Alright.

I'll I'll do my best. You can probably hear me over the microphone anyway. So, yes, this is this is to adopt the trust which the to to adopt the trust and pension trust admin administration services as approved by council on 12/16/2025. In order to create a trust, the the trust that is attached to the staff report must be adopted. And as noted in the staff report, there's also an agreement for public agency retirement services or PARs to serve or to provide pension trust administrative services and to allow the city manager or his designee, which will likely be yours truly, to execute the documents needed to establish the trust.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

K. Council members, any questions on the policy to staff? K. Nope. I will also open this up then to public comment. Is there anyone in chambers who has comment on the pension trust administration services? Kirk, do we have anyone on the phone? Okay. Council members, if there's no further questions, do we have a recommended action? I'll make a motion to adopt the resolution as recommended by staff.

I'll second.

We have a motion and a second for adoption of the resolution to the Pension Trust Administrative Services. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Carry. Proved seven proved five o. Moving forward, 7.4, park special event permit process and facility use fee schedule. Mister Orr.

Thank you. I'm gonna kinda summarize this. So we received a request from councilman Segala, to set aside the May for Cinco de Mayo events. There was some confusion as far as whether there was a process to reserve Zumel Park. We had a informal process, but through this request, it kinda came up that we need to formalize this process.

So myself, directed by Mark and other city staff member, put together a draft process. We went ahead and extended this to all the parks. Well, the special event parks, and including Zoom. We sent our draft to the council council members. A few of you did add some comments.

We amended it, showed you the red line version. From there, we took it to, parks and rec commission Parks and Rec Commission supported the process. They did want some other, language added there in italics to kinda help out local residents and local companies get priority over outside companies. This also affected the, fee schedule for Zoom wall. We needed to increase it because the facility is a lot more than it was, before the renovation.

So we recommended an increase of up to, I believe it was a thousand dollar rental, private, and one, seven fifty nonprofit. We did have a conversation with the parks and rec commission about, setting aside a certain day a year for certain events. They did not support that idea. The primary logic behind that is any event, whether it's Juneteenth, Cicco de Mayo, they could conceivably come in the Monday after their event and reserve it three hundred and sixty four days in advance.

Staff recommends approval and is available to answer any questions.

When does the fee schedule go into effect, the new one?

I believe it's sixty days after today.

Melissa?

We'll be bringing back the actual amended master fee schedule to incorporate these fees at the next meeting, and it'll be sixty days after that.

So at the March 3 meeting and then six days after the March 3?

It's not now because we do it as part

of the fee schedule.

We're just getting I'm sorry.

How much how much?

Chris, what is the current the current amount was how much for rentals?

It's do

you remember?

It was 500 for the day and then $2.50 for or $3.50 for nonprofits. What happened is we had a request for, it was a Saturday in April for $500. They wanted to reserve the whole park and close it down exclusively. We don't think that's appropriate for a certain pry certain private events for the basically, the city of Tulare citizens to not be able to enjoy the splash pad or the park on a given day. We did kinda say, okay. We'll we'll close it down in the evening, say, four to 9PM, which is less frequented by kids, used to playground, splash pad, that sort of thing.

Is that closed down when we have concerts done, Chris? Or is it if kids have access to the splash

pad splash pad is on. When when we have a concert is on. Yeah. Zoom all park. Right?

It's not open for you can't just walk in and use it, but if you come to the concert, you can use it.

Yeah. Okay. So we do close it down certain times for certain events?

No. It's not closed down.

It's Well, I get the notices that, hey. There's a concert happening. Zuma Park is gonna be totally closed.

Well is day or day. You and I have definite difference of definitions. So, like, if people can go into the park and use it, I would consider the park not being closed. It's it's usable by admission only.

Okay. That's that's the case, but it's not open to the public per se unless you got some cash to pay for tickets.

Well, it depends. If we have a conscience, some of those concerts are free. The admission is free. So it depends on the

saying is that that what Chris said is that they don't want to if if if you come in as a private corporation for an event and you wanna rent it all day, I I don't know if it was you or the commission didn't feel that that'd be appropriate, but it is appropriate when we have a concert When

we have a city so the difference I would say concert is a is a diff yeah. You're a 100% correct. We're acknowledging the difference between a city sponsored event versus a noncity sponsored event. Right? So there's certain times of the year where we have a concert series, which are city sponsored events, which are driving people to be to to redevelop downtown. And so on those events, you can get in. Now it could be it could be free admission. You get to use the splash pad. It might cost you $10 for a ticket. You could use the splash pad on those events, but that's true. We're not saying it should we're I think staff and the commission are both saying it shouldn't be closed down at all times for all parties. The city made the huge investment. It has an investment in downtown redevelopment. It is a public purpose behind that. When a private group or individual wants to close the park, there is no public benefit to that.

There's only a benefit to those private individuals.

So theoretically, under the old fee schedule, and I I knew I had it, private private half, private half day rental was $3.50. Full day was $5.50. Half day nonprofit was 200. Full day nonprofit was 400. So under the old kind of fee schedule and process for $5.50, I could go in and reserve the whole park for my child's birthday party. It would be exclusive, and that's what we're trying to avoid. Now we could consider, hey. We just wanna rent the gazebo. Yeah. We could do that.

You know, there's it's everything's flexible the way we kinda wrote it, but we're trying to get away from that. You know? Because then that's just basically someone really that has money can just exclusive use of the park if it's taken away from the citizens. That's what we're trying to avoid. We had an event, Friday night, under the current, process. We told them the park needs to be open during the setup, and it could only be closed from four to nine.

Yep. That's it.

K. Yeah. Thank you. So hearing the report by staff and some of the comments, go to public comment. Is there anyone in chambers who'd like to make comment on 7.4 Park special event permit process and facility use fee schedule? Madam clerk, do we have anyone on the phone? Okay. Council, with that, is do we are we ready for an action?

Yeah. I have some questions, mister mayor, if I can go.

K. Sure.

I'm I'm trying to I I took the time to take the to take what was provided to us and add my comments and red lines and suggestions on the process, but I I've never really heard back why some of them may not work. I think that was one of the goals. I don't know what other council members weighed in, but I sent them in, and hopefully somebody saw them and got reviewed. But, I had a couple of questions. I I have some specific concerns with the process in regards to, the paragraph that lays out if someone is going to rent the facility, and has, let me read the exact line.

So there is a a facility that requires a live event, I guess, and and it requires use of the stage or the production that the application is automatically given to the operator to how I read it, take over the event. The language that is used is that the, the the they'll have the option to manage the event. So for me, have a I have a strong concern with that. If someone brings an event and and and, they should be given the choice to say, hey. Your event requires lighting, audio production, whatever.

If you like to, you can work with the operator, that operator, Spade Entertainment, and for a fee well, I don't know what that fee is, and that's something I'd like to see if we can lay out what that fee would be. They can help you with your event. So it should be a choice. Shouldn't be an automatic. I go back to Assad. Assad has their Cinco de Mayo. They invite August. All of us all of us have heard the band August. Great music. They come self contained.

In other words, all they needed was just access to the stage on the amphitheater. They can set up their own speakers. They can do their own wiring, their own microphones. I don't think someone should be forced to have the operator consider managing their event. Should be an option.

So the language should be that you're you you could you know, the fact that you might need some lighting or product or sound production or whatever, you may, you know, want to go and talk to the operator to see if you can develop a partnership versus automatically your thing's gonna go to them, and then they're gonna decide whether to do your event or not. And if they do, then what are the fees? I mean, I like to be able to figure out, hey. If you're gonna use our lighting, it's gonna be a $100 an hour. If you're gonna use our audio person, it's gonna be $50 an hour.

I like to see a fee schedule for the operator so that the public knows what they're getting into versus, like, hey. My price is gonna be taken over by Todd by, Spin Entertainment, and they're gonna charge me, in Asad's example, $5,000 to do their event. And I have I don't know what that is. I don't that's that's a that's a big concern that I have in regards to that.

Essentially, is an option. In our contract with Spade Entertainment, He has first right of refusal. Specifically says that in there. Now any event and this is kinda we've had probably eight or nine events come to us that I referred to Todd. Spade Entertainment. Todd says, here's the fee. They say, okay. We don't wanna do that, and then they come back to the city. So it it it is an option that we're not saying, oh, you have to go with Spade Entertainment to have your event. The only one that chose to do so was Land O' Lakes for their corporate picnic.

All the you know, a lot of the other events have come back to us. I think, again, because we didn't have a written process, there was a misunderstanding that they had to go with Spade Entertainment. They didn't know. No. You could come to us. We have a informal process. Gotta get your permits. You gotta get your licenses. You gotta have your insurance. You're gonna have alcohol. You gotta do this. You're gonna have security. This is what's entailed in you know, if you wanna run Zoom all. So, essentially, they do have an option.

Yeah. So so I'll I'll add a couple other comments. The first comment you made was you made a bunch of red lines, and you don't know what happened to them. So we had we had comments from two council members, you and council member Harrell, and we adopted, incorporated just about every one of your comments and of your comments, not all of them, just about all of them. I would that's the first thing. So that's what happened to him. The second thing I would say is you have to remember during the concert series, right, this I forget the time frame, May to October, whatever that is. We have a we have a vested interest in protecting our concert series. And so if there's a lot of folks who look at it's one thing if you wanna use the park and you wanna have a family event like a picnic or something like that. It's another thing if you wanna have a concert.

Right? If you're gonna have a musical performance, we need to protect the our concert series and the branding of our concert series. We've talked about this a number of times. We don't need somebody to come in and do a concert and do a bad job at the concert, and everybody goes, man, the city's concert series is crap. It sucks. The production was horrible, and there's a massive no. No. That's why we say if you're gonna have a concert, if you're gonna have a performance, you work through first with Spade. And part of the reason for that is not only because we wanna make sure that the that the value of the production and everything is is high, But we also wanna see if they can if Spade can do give them a benefit. Right?