City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, residents of Tulare, guests, staff, and fellow council members. We call to order our city of Tulare, Tulare City Council meeting for Tuesday, June 16th. And with that, we are going to move into our Pledge of Allegiance and invocation. Our invocation tonight will be led by Deborah Epps, Assistant Pastor of Living Christ Church. And with that, as I will call upon our Vice Mayor, Steve Harrell, to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. And after the Pledge of Allegiance, please remain standing for the invocation.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

we're going to be in the testicles in a row.

Most gracious Heavenly Father, we humbly come before you this evening with grateful hearts, acknowledging that all wisdom and authority ultimately come from you. We thank you for this city, its residents, businesses, schools, churches, and all who call this community home. We ask for your presence to be among us this evening. Lord, we ask your blessing upon the city council meeting and upon each council member, mayor, city official, employee, and community leader present. Guide each discussion, each proposal, and grant understanding. Grant each of them wisdom to make sound decisions, discernment to consider what is right and just, and unity as they work together for the benefit of all citizens and respect governing proceedings. Guide their thoughts and words so that they may act with integrity and fairness and a genuine concern for the people they serve. Help those entrusted with leadership to serve with humility, compassion, and a genuine desire to improve the lives of whom they represent. Help us to seek the welfare of this city and to work together in unity, respect, and cooperation. Give us the courage to address challenges with wisdom, the humility to listen to one another, and the compassion to consider the needs of all citizens. We thank you for placing these leaders in their positions for such a time as this. Strengthen them for the responsibilities that they carry and give them courage to lead with vision, wisdom and understanding in the face of today's challenges. We pray for peace within our community, safety for our families and prosperity for our city. Bless our first responders, educators, healthcare workers and all who serve the public. May our city be a place where hope flourishes, needs are met, and people work together in harmony. Your word says in Proverbs 11 and 14, where no counsel is, the people fail, but in the multitude of counselors, there is safety. We humbly ask that your divine counsel be present and that your hand direct every outcome according to your will. We thank you for hearing our prayer and for your continued grace upon the city of Tulare. In the mighty name of Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you.

The next item on our agenda is a recognition for Lauren Starr. And with that, I'm going to have Mr. Brian Thoburn from Southern California Edison come up and introduce this item. We also have a representative guest from the County of Tulare if you'd like to come up and join me upfront as well. And Mr. Thoburn, if I may ask, I will trade microphones with you and let you present to the community on this side.

Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Council and everyone. Edison International, which is the parent company of Southern California Edison, awards each year $50,000 college scholarships to 30 high school seniors in Southern California Edison territory to help them pursue their passion in science, technology, engineering, or math. and as they begin their college educations and with the ultimate goal that we will empower help empower them to make a meaningful impact in their communities and this year i'm proud to announce that Lauren Starr of Tulare Western High School is one of our 2026 Edison Scholars so this time i'd like to introduce Lauren so she can say a few words and introduce her parents And she, he brought the ceremonial check. So it's official to bring it with me.

I wanted to invite it this time too. If you have guests, if they would like to come up, they're welcome to join you.

Yeah. I have many guests. So I'm here with my family, my mom and dad, Julie and Jason star and my grandma, Joanne Waddy. Um, Yeah, I was so honored to receive the Edison Scholarship. It came as a surprise. And thank you so much for acknowledging me tonight. I really appreciate it. So like he said, my name is Laurence Starr and next year I'm planning on majoring in mathematics at Loyola Marymount University where I'll also be playing water polo. So I decided this year that really math and teaching is my passion. So I'm majoring in mathematics with an emphasis in teaching. in hopes of one day coming back to Tulare to be a math teacher. I just graduated from Tulare Western, and all of my teachers there and my coaches just made such a big impact on me, and I really hope to do the same when I come back.

Great.

Lauren, congratulations on all your achievements, and especially this award from Southern California Edison and the grant proposal. Do you want to raise that check up and let us know? Yes, raise that high. Congratulations. For the picture, though, Tony, that's all.

Oh, no. That's all good.

And Lauren, the city of Tulare proudly recognizes you for being selected as a 2026 Edison Scholar, honoring your outstanding academic achievement and commitment to excellence. Lauren, being a recent graduate of Tulare Western High School, as you noted, will continue your studies in mathematics at Loyola Marymount University. The Edison Scholars Program awards $50,000 scholarships to 30 high achieving students pursuing studies in science, technology, engineering, math, and recognizes those who aspire to shape California's clean energy future through innovation and leadership. lauren you exemplify these ideals and through your academic success community involvement and dedication to inspiring future generations in stem on behalf as being the mayor of tulare in our city council we extend our congratulations to you yeah yes brian did you want a photo with everybody uh sure you want us to come in front yeah all right we'll do that You got some other family guests here. Would you like them to go?

Of course. Good to see you. I want to get a picture.

I don't know if they're ready. Who might be 35 or 60?

All right, Lauren.

Yeah, I'll make this brief. Um.

Big congratulations to you. The recognition is very well deserved honor and privilege to stand before you on behalf of supervisor Pete Vanderpool. He was very static to find out that you were getting the award because. Truly, I can speak for myself and maybe most folks in this room. When we were your age, I don't think we were going to even be knowing what we were going to be doing the next day. So it sounds like you have quite your life planned out in these next couple of years. It sounds like you're going to be so influential for the Valley. And big congratulations to you on behalf of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors, Supervisor District 2, Pete Vanderpool, in recognition of your outstanding achievement as a 2026 Edison Scholar for your academic excellence, leadership, and dedication to your educational pursuits. Big congratulations.

Yeah.

Before you step down, Lauren, I'm right here. Years ago, when you would have Christmas over at your grandparents' house, Santa Claus would come. Your grandfather talked somebody into being Santa Claus, and that was me. And it was always a pleasure, and I know you were there along with all your grandfather's other grandchildren. And we lost him 10 years ago, right about now, if I'm not mistaken. And I know, having known him so well, that he would be extremely proud. And he was a former councilman who sat where we're sitting right now. And he served not only this city, but our community as best anyone could serve them. And he would be proud of you. And I know you are proud of him. So congratulations.

Thank you.

All right, item 3.2 is a proclamation for the 250th anniversary of America, which is taking place July 4, 2026. And I had not thought of coming down and doing a formal presentation of this proclamation. I think for council members and all of us seeing this is this proclamation I would enjoy of us presenting at the July 4th events with the Sequoia Symphony at the amphitheater on July 4th itself. so um with that though this this being in front of us if there was any questions or comments or corrections and with council's approval uh we'll do the uh official presentation on the evening of july 4th all right moving forward 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 presents council from acting on any matter for the 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. Order request an item from the consent calendar be pulled for discussion purposes. If you are City Council Chambers, viewing or participating in this move this city council meeting remotely, you may provide public comment. City Council Chambers, By pressing nine on your phone to raise your hand or click the raise hand in the webinar and the city clerk will assist you with your comments is there anyone in chambers at this time, who wishes to make public comment. City Council Chambers, And then click do we have anyone on phone or webinar.

Hi, Donette. You've been unmuted. You can proceed with your comments.

Thank you very much. Good evening, Mayor Isherwood and members of Council. This is Donette Silva with the Tulare Chamber of Commerce. And I just have a few comments to share out. one we just want to know that want everyone to know we really are excited about this salute to dairy event this year we have our largest attendance with over 100 more people than previously so look very much looking forward to friday night if you still need tickets and don't have them give us a call at the chamber and also we want to let everyone know that it is time for leadership to larry Recruitment to begin. So we are starting that next week with applications becoming available as well as attendance at the information meetings. And we will hold five meetings between the end of June and the middle of July. Additionally, with TBIZ, we have been booming with activity with various different cohorts and training sessions. Today we had our Meta AI partnership presentation. which went very well. And tonight as we speak, we have the 10-week series called Hammering It Out, which is all of the elements you need to build your business. Folks can still register for the rest of the sessions, although we have one tonight. We will have nine more coming up. And please look to T-Biz or give us a call at the Tulare Chamber or All Things Chamber and T-Biz 686-

one five four seven and that's where we're at right now thank you so much thank you donette anyone else on caller webinar anyone else in chambers okay moving forward item five communications mr mondell no communications okay moving forward item six council reports and items of interest and i'll start with vice mayor harrell

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First item was on the 4th, first meeting of the Cesar Chavez Memorial Committee to discuss the options in regards to the park. The 6th, break the silence. The 12th, the Rotary flag pole dedication. And on the 17th, the Juneteenth at Zumwalt Park.

Council Member Segala. Oh, Mr. I mean, vice mayor already covered the participation of the assessor Chavez committee also wanted to thank staff who staffed us that time and our clerk. There is a survey that has been posted. online and we'll be going out to get an idea of what folks think about the renaming of the park and some suggested names to replace the existing name were offered and folks were given an opportunity to add additional names as well as other information about the process. So I wanted to thank staff for putting that together. The Survey Monkey, I think it's their Survey Monkey, will be available till June the 30th. Our next scheduled meeting, I believe, is July 15th, where we will be discussing the results of that survey. Public is welcome to join us. It'll be on our website. But I believe it's at 5.30, is that correct? Or 6? So July 15th at 6 p.m. if anybody wants to join us. But if you do come across the survey, please fill it out if you are interested in that topic. And I think it will be on our website as well.

Is that correct, Madam Clerk?

Yes. So I encourage everybody to participate in that. The other thing I wanted to share, council and city manager and clerk, is that after a number of tries and attempts, well, let me back up. The city council a couple of years ago approved the idea of creating a third sister city. So we currently have a sister city in Australia. We currently have a sister city in the Azores. uh we also the council agreed to uh pursue the opportunity of having a sister city city in the state of jalisco in particular with the town called halos totitlan which is in in what they call those altos of jalisco which is up in the mountain area of the state in the i guess northeast part of the state well after trying to work through the mexican consulate through the secretary of exterior relations, I guess what it's called. There's their version of Secretary of State. We kind of been working with ASEAD as was our partner to try to reach out, to try to develop, letters have been sent. But we ended up working through the sister city association. I was up in Livingston a couple of weeks ago, met with some of the representatives from Holos that came to Livingston because they're also a sister city. And so we have made some inroads And their mayor, which they call the municipal president, Presidenta Municipal, who is the woman Judith Macias Ramirez is her name, will be traveling to Tulare in a couple of weeks. The city of Jalos participates in an annual tournament every year around 4th of July where they bring children or youngsters, boys and girls to play. And this time the tournament is going to be in Pasadena. So she's going to take the time to come up to Tulare and visit, and I'll be working with, uh, I'll be talking to our city clerk and been working with that said, and we're putting together a day of her visiting the number of things in the city. So definitely we'll pass that over to the city manager that just happened over the weekend where they confirmed that she will be here July the 5th and the 6th. So, um, we'll put putting together, uh, when I was the mayor a few years ago, I had the honor. of hosting our mayor from australia and we did something similar where we took them around to the fire station to just a dairy council bear madero is very helpful in setting up a dairy tour i might might reach out to you again on that but so i'm excited that we're moving forward through the sister city organization which seems to be a the best way to develop that relationship so i'm very excited to And I appreciate the patience of the council, but dealing with the Mexican government and their elections and a number of things that have occurred in the past year or so, it's we're finally hopefully going to be able to establish that relationship. So thank you.

Good to hear. And as you said, July 5th and 6th, and you shared some ideas for dinner and myself, and I think others look forward to participating.

Yes, I'm putting together an itinerary. I've already kind of confirmed different places to visit, but I definitely, my goal is to try to get most of it done by Friday and share it with the council and the city manager. So if you can join those days on tours, but I, yeah, I've already had that experience with the previous visit from our mayor from Australia. So I've been putting together that schedule. Councilman Medeiros.

Very quickly. On the third Wednesday, the third, I attended the LAFCO meeting. On the fifth, I was at the homeless shelters grand opening. I also attended the governmental affairs on the following Monday. and also went to the homeless shelter for the tour of the governmental affairs. And I want to thank Manny for his help because I had a problem while I was over there that we got resolved. Thank you, Manny. That's why I got a black eye. And then after that, I had on the John Potter, I attended the Rotary flag pole dedication in between that was my grandson's birthday I can't went over I did did the ribbon cutting and went back so other than that that's it Thank you yeah. John Potter, that's remember sir.

Yes. So I also attended the homeless shelter open house, which is really close to my heart. It was wonderful to see all the work that's been done there. I was able to, the week of the 9th, 10th and 11th, work the pancake breakfast for every high school graduation, which was lots of fun. And that was with the Kiwanis Club. went to break the silence then on the 12th was power of the purse which is united way uh event which is really nice we had our some of our police officers were uh curse models, and that was fun to see them there. And then I had the Tulare County Regional Transit Association meeting. I did attend the Meta AI workshop at TBIZ today. And on July 1st, I like to say I'm so excited that Congress will be addressing the Land Grant Act of the 1800s, which will allow the city to purchase the land under the Women's Clubhouse. And so I'll be representing the city at that particular event, and then we'll start fundraising. So everybody get ready.

Yes, I think as council members touched on, it was a great event for the dedication of the flagpole at Zoom Walt Park. Thank you to the Rotary Clubs as well with attending the Juneteenth Zoom Walt event. Very exciting. It's nice to have it back at Zoom Walt Park. I've also attended the baseball closing ceremonies. with Artillery Baseball Association, as well as the homeless shelter tour that we had. It was great to have council members, a lot of community members there. And as well, today I did attend, or yesterday, sorry, I attended the TCAG meeting. And just quickly, I think to note, Three items i'd like to know for the meeting is one county wide overall for the county road construction plan over the next ten years. The ten year plan is over one billion dollars of infrastructure road improvements within Tulare County. So tcag itself that the well, Tulare County itself within tcag is two hundred million of that one billion. So, according to Ted Smalley, that is the largest amount of a ten most robust plan for road improvement projects in that cycle. So pretty impressive of what Tcag, and all the partnerships, of course, with all the incorporated in the county are putting together, and the last item i'll touch on is, I think all council members myself. We received an email from Michael Paul Mendoza, and he was requesting some John Potter, Support help with his mission oak ASB for their ASB trip and it's good excited to get that email and I told him, I would endorse that tonight and ask of other Council members. John Potter, As we come into our fiscal year end if you'd consider supporting his fundraiser for that all right. John Potter, Moving forward item seven is consent calendar. All matters listed on 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, do you have actions for the consent calendar?

Mr. Mayor, speaking on the topic about the mission, I'd like to ask for 7.4 and then 7.5 and 7.7.

John Potter, Okay, so with that we have separating out 7.5.

John Potter, 7.7 wasn't there another one for the 4.4 point 5.7 point 4.5 and points up, and if there are no other. John Potter, council members that like to pull in the items and I will move to adopt the consent, the balance of the consent calendar for tonight second.

Okay, motion and second for approval of the consent calendar with removal of 7.4, 7.5, 7.7. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay, 7.4, Councilman Segala.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, Council, this particular agenda item is update on the amount of travel funds and community improvement funds that are available to council members every year. So it gives us a current balance. of both items and i did also get the email from michael pom mendoza and i have talked to our assistant city manager about verifying the process on requesting that the balance of my community improvement budget which is uh four thousand dollars i've expended a thousand dollars to assist with the independence day event sponsorship and uh there are four thousand dollars remaining in The account, and from my understanding from both Jennifer and our assistant city manager that as a council member, I could request through the city manager that funds be expended to other. Other type to purposes and things that are. They have been done similarly by other Council members here in terms of supporting sponsorships for events, baseball, little league and sponsorship for nonprofit fundraisers. And so they would fall in line with that. I just wanted to announce that it would be my intent and I'll follow up with an email to the city manager that are the 4000 dollars. My intent is to allocate a 1000 to Lincoln school for I received from 1 of their teachers a request to see if we can do some shade for their. I think it's a Pre K program to buy some shade and benches. I also intend to see if I can allocate $1,000 to Anvets for their annual Thanksgiving dinner that they provide for the community. Also $1,500 towards the Mission Oak ASB for assistance in their leadership development, which does outstanding work for not only the high school, but the community. And the last $500 for our museum. I would like to donate some money because I think one of the things that we've talked about in the sister city, progress was that they were going to provide a number of things like other sister cities that provide for us to display and i think it'd be appropriate if we can display those at the museum so so that's my intent on that particular item to to uh and i'll follow up with an uh email to the city manager so that's all i wanted to bring up on this item is there is there any other items relative to action for this item or not no there's no action i think it's just an information but i just wanted to use it to provide my intent of what i would be speaking those are all non-profit uses as i understand and it's done before the end of this uh budget year before the end of june so i believe it should be uh acceptable to do so yeah yeah i try to obviously follow what others had done throughout the year so i i do know that there are other council members that have balances so this may be also the time to if you don't want to publicly say what you want to do but

I would have never known that, Mr. Segal, if you had pointed that out to me.

I don't see anybody speaking. I was just going to make the motion to approve the item.

I'll second. Thank you.

We have a motion, a second for 7.4. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Any opposed? 7.5.

Mayor, council, this particular item is... an item that will declare 1370 South O Street as surplus property. And as many of us know, that process will go through a process before it ultimately ends up being sold. But my understanding that this property is currently where our temporary encampment is. and now that our new homeless shelter will be opening in the next couple of weeks, then there'll be a transition. The reason I pulled this item was I wanted to ask the city manager or staff, in this particular uh with this particular surplus whatever it gets sold that because obviously the first step well there has to be in part of the process it has to be uh offered for non-profit housing right that's part of the process and if there is no interest in that then it could be sold to whoever we bids on it but i was curious the money that is Raised from this, uh, is does it go into the general fund or is that to go to a special fund?

You'll be fund balance.

So to go into the fund, because I think 1 of the things that that I wanted. And obviously it's not going to happen tonight, but because it's not, it's not in the agenda, but I would like to see maybe in the future. We could have a discussion on on certain certain surplus property that sold that maybe that money could be sort of the. The seed money for looking at other properties around the city that that the city could purchase to disperse some economic development in particular. And I'm not going to say where, but on the West side, there's a nice piece of property that I think would be a great. restaurant. So if there's a pool of money that maybe the city could use to buy certain property around the city and say, hey, if there's a developer that's interested in bringing a business, we can work with you. So I just wanted to kind of put that out there. We got to sell it first, but I wanted to just put in people's minds that maybe we can have a future conversation about what to do with this particular money. I mean, I know what we bought it for. I remember what we bought it for. I'm hoping that we can sell it for that amount or more typically the appraised value. Yeah. And so I just curious to see what happens with the money and.

This item would come back before council for the actual approval of the sale and we could have a conversation at that time. Yeah.

So I just kind of wanted to throw out there. So if there are no other questions and I'll move to approve 7.5.

2nd, we have a motion in a 2nd, for approval of 7.5 all in favor in your post 7.5 disapproved 7.7 and mayor council.

The reason I pull this item is because I, this is 1 of the questions I get asked the most or not the most, but 1 of the top questions as what is the city of Hillary doing and economic development and. I know we are doing a lot. I know through the leadership of the city manager and our economic development director and staff. There's a lot going on. So I would like to request if you can at least present some of the highlights for those that are watching, because this is this is the thing I get hit most at the gas station at the grocery store, wherever, like, hey, what the heck is doing? They see the stuff. They see the new restaurants and the Chick-fil-A and all that. But yeah, this is what I get asked most about.

Sure. Yeah, because I would also point out that these monthly bulletins are highlighting mostly the larger type projects that have a more significant economic impact on the community. There's always going to be other projects and things that are happening that I'm not highlighting in here, but I do try and point out a lot of these things, but For other, um, potential commercial development, there's interest on the West side. Um, we still have things going through site plan review, um, on the north side of town in the cart mill area. And so, yeah, so we're, we're definitely keeping busy community developments, keeping busy reviewing, um, plans and permits and, you know, and so we. Reveal that information once things are official. But now it's a good time here. A lot of small businesses and large businesses are coming here.

Is the report still available online?

Yeah, it should be.

All right. So, yeah, I just want to encourage people if they are interested in seeing that there are if someone wants to sneak peek at something, you can always look at the site review site plan review agenda. Yeah, that's kind of like the initial step for people to that are thinking about doing businesses. Um, and so, um, but yeah, there's a lot of folks are asking, like, what status it is or what's going on with that. So I do know that you do work hard to incorporate it in your report. So, thank you.

If there are no other questions, I was just going to say, I think quickly, as you said, to highlight it, if I made Jennifer 149 building permits, total evaluation of 10719000. And the report also says 10 new businesses with new business licenses, and the 10 new businesses are listed there. I mean, quickly and then active project. It gives updates. So it's good to see the. The building permit at 10Million, which, you know, a lot of activity taking place and also disappoint out there with the building permits.

I do again just. Pick certain type of, um, permits, which I do identify on here. There's a lot of other permits that, um, people pull, you know, for improvements, like plumbing or, you know, different things for house improvements that I don't include in here. Um, but these are like, the larger type projects that people are doing that add value to their homes and commercial businesses.

Good, good. Great. If there are no other questions, Mr. Mayor, then I'll move to adopt 7.7 from this consent calendar.

Second. Motion and second on 7.7. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Is approved. Moving forward. Hal Hallstein, On our agenda is to item eight and we have a public hearing, and with this public hearing for item 8.1 I need to pass the gavel to Vice Mayor Harold to facilitate is, I have a conflict and need to recuse myself from this action.

yeah.

The next item on our agenda is 8.1 public hearing, approve the application and amending the permanent local housing allocation plan and authorize the city manager or their designated execute a standard agreement and any related materials to obligate and expend 2022 and 2023 PLHA funds. And I will turn it over to Jessica.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Jessica Cervantes and I am joined by my colleague Nervine Barr. We are housing and grants specialists in the community development department. This evening, we are holding a public hearing for the city's proposed plan amendment involving permanent local housing allocation fund PLHA. First, this presentation will offer a brief background on the PLHA program. Second, we will review the current PLHA plan and accomplishments to date, and staff will discuss the requirements for a plan amendment and the specific plan amendment itself. The PLHA program was created in 2017 to establish a permanent source of funding for housing for cities and counties statewide. This was established through a fee on real estate transactions. The city is a formula grantee, similar to how our CDBG program and the California Department of Housing and Community Development oversees the availability and use of PLHA funds. PLHA funds support local housing strategies, including affordable rental housing, homelessness services, and home ownership assistance and owner-occupied housing rehabilitation. Rounds of PLHA funds from 2019 to 2023 were set aside for the City of Tulare. The City's current PLHA plan was adopted in fiscal year 2020 through 2021 and committed all rounds of PLHA funds to eligible activity number one. City staff have expended 2019 and 2020 funds as part of construction and gap financing for the Santa Fe Commons project. The 2021 funds were committed as an operating subsidy to Santa Fe Commons and will be expended over the next two years. Thank you.

For Council's reference, any awardee pursuing an amendment to their plan will need to hold a 10-day comment period and public hearing for consideration. These serve a minimum requirement according to state PLHA program guidelines. Additionally, the city must set aside at least 40% of its funding to meet the affordable owner-occupied workforce housing requirement. Housing staff oversaw a comment period since June 5th and received no comments to date. Past and proposed new uses of PLHA funds all align with the city's consolidated plan. Their goals, particularly the goals in one and three as illustrated. To improve access to affordable housing for low moderate income households and persons with special needs and provide supportive services and housing options for people experiencing and those at risk of homelessness. Housing staff recommend an amendment to the PLHA plan to include case management and homelessness support services, as well as owner occupied housing rehabilitation. From the total of the 2022 and 2023 PLHA award, 60% will be allocated to case management and homelessness support services activities, and the remaining 40% will be allocated to home or occupied housing rehabilitation work for people with a disability. If the amendment is approved as presented, housing staff will submit an amending plan workbook and certified resolution to HCD before the June 30th deadline, and housing staff will bring new service agreements involving the 2022 and 2023 PLHA funds to City Council's consideration in the near future and hold a new request for proposal process to receive applications for local organizations to use the funds from the next five-year PLHA cycle. Thank you, Council and Mayor, for your time. This concludes our presentation, and staff are available for questions following the public hearing. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, ladies. I'll now open the public hearing on 8.1 regarding the PLHA plan for the Permanent Local Housing Allocation Program. Is there anyone in chambers who would like to make comment? Madam Clerk, do we have anyone on the line or on webinar? Hearing none, I will close the public hearing. Counsel, do you have any questions?

I had a question, Mr. Vice Mayor. If you go back to the slide on the breakdown, 60-40% breakdown, What is the 60% case management? Obviously, is that going to be part of the homeless shelter budget? I guess that'd be a question to the city manager. Is that going to offset that so there's no other type of, yeah, okay. Okay, there it is. Sorry about that. I just didn't read that part of it. Now, how often do we get these funds?

It is a five-year cycle.

So five years. So this completes the five years from 2020 in terms of the allocation?

From, I believe, 2019.

Oh, 2019. So then...

It's the 2024 cycle.

Let's start. So it's 2019 through 2023, making it a five-year period. The next cycle will be 2024 through 2029. That is the following five years.

And we don't get the money till 29? Or when do those funds are made available?

Um, that is usually according to each CD and their schedule, and we're happy to confer with our community director, community development director and find out the specific answer for you.

So I guess the question is that that these are just to. close out that particular five-year period and the new allocation hasn't come in yet? Yes. And so then when the new allocation comes in, do we have to wait or can that council weigh in on that right away? Or what's that process in terms of expenditures?

So we will set up an RFP proposal after we figure out activities that we will be utilizing with those fundings. Of course, after an application is approved through HCD, but the process would be similar to our RFP process in the month of May. We will have requests for proposals once we do receive, again, an approved application. And the process of that would be to receive proposals from subrecipients or local organizations that are interested in proposing.

One of the, I think, seven activities that are approved in the guidelines.

That was going to be my question. So the next round can expand beyond the homeless shelter? So in other words, it could be someone else beside the homeless shelter can benefit from future funds.

And as you see, this is number one affordable rental housing. That is activity classified as one. And then case management is activity classified as number six. And so throughout there, there's about seven activities that PLHA is approved for. Yes. Thank you.

And I believe we do have, did we have activities?

Mr. Medeiros, do you have any questions?

So if you go here to the consolidated plan strategy and goals, the goals are listed one through six and right now we are utilizing goals one and three specifically.

Okay, thank you. Now, last question. So when you guys decide like the RFP and it comes back, whoever responds may fall under one of these six criteria or six sort of criteria. Is that an in-house then process that they need the recommendation to counsel?

It comes back to you guys.

In terms of like who we select and when it's done?

Yeah, we'll have a recommendation, but ultimately counsel will make that decision. Okay. Council members there, any questions?

If there's no other questions or comments, I'll make a motion to approve the application and amending the permanent local housing allocation plan and authorize the city manager or his designee to execute a standard agreement in any related materials to obligate and expand the 2022 and 2023 PLHA funds. I second the motion.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Any further discussion? All those in favor or opposed, no. The 4-0 noted that the mayor has, I guess, recused himself from this action.

Thank you, ladies. Thank you.

Thank you Vice Mayor Harrell. Moving forward on our agenda to item 9, general business. 9.1, draft economic development strategic plan. Jennifer Gomez, good evening.

Thank you. Hello. Just as a quick background and then I'll do an introduction. So back in October last year, the Council did authorize a contract with Cosmonaut Associates to develop an economic development strategic plan. And the goal of an EDSP is to provide a comprehensive analysis of Tulare's demographic, economic and market landscape, and then develop goals and strategies to support our goal, our objectives and to streamline development. Cosmont has concluded their analysis and has prepared the attached draft, which identifies various strategies and proposed actions along with the recommended roadmap for staff to implement over the next three years. And then following council's review of this draft, it will then be finalized and adopted at the next city council meeting. And Melissa, did we have them on? Okay. So I believe for Cosmont, we have Fernando Sanchez and I believe Ken Hira. I don't know if it was just the two of them that were going to be on.

Just the two of us, if you can hear us.

Yep. Thank you.

Okay. Well, Birgit, should we take it away?

I think we're ready. Okay.

Well, thank you so much, Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Ken Hira. I'm the president of Cosmont Companies. My colleague, Fernando Sanchez, who's a vice president with Cosmont Companies, is also on. We have another colleague who's watching. And we've been collaborating with city, city staff, like as mentioned, for several months on an economic development strategic plan what we have is a full report that's still sort of quote-unquote draft because we'd like to get direction tonight and have you had a chance to to review it thoroughly but there's a full report which is pretty lengthy and ideally pretty comprehensive for the city of tillery tonight I myself and my colleague Fernando will walk through some excerpts from that edsp economic development strategic plan so that we can try to hit some of the highlights of what's in the full report. There's a lot to it, but we then certainly would be available for any Q&A. And as mentioned, the goal would be subsequently, maybe in July, you know, to come back or for this item to be formally adopted should you choose to do that. So let me start walking us through the presentation. If you could scroll, Fernando. Fernando, I think you're controlling the screen. Great. Yeah. So if you go back up to where we were, Uh, we cause my company has been in business for 40 years. We've worked with, um, you know, hundreds of cities. I think it's fair to say across the state of California in many different capacities, uh, we've worked on market evaluations and fiscal impacts and the more comprehensive economic development strategic plans. Um, but every city is unique and Tular is very unique and, uh, it's been actually very exciting to kind of delve into. the approach that we took and for our findings. So we took a look at several documents and toured the city just to highlight our tasks, went through several interviews and gained feedback from staff, council members, community stakeholders. We tried to apply sort of a regional set of trends, and then that drills down into more of the specialized analyses within key industries. We took a real close look at your local demographics, market conditions, visitation trends. And ideally, we were trying to come away with the identification for you all of the key opportunities, key strategies, and key economic development tools. Next slide, please. The city is one of the fastest growing communities in California. It's grown pretty substantially over the last sort of 15 years, and it's pretty well positioned along the 99 corridor. And I think that some of the community assets that I'll talk about here in a moment will be will be a function of their proximity to the 99 corridor, which has access to rail and airport infrastructure, et cetera. The physical location also lends itself to not just a good community, but some industrial and logistics growth as well. Tulare is a major agricultural center, of course, the International Agri Center. And so many attendees come to the different events, and we'll highlight some of those that really make Tulare a regional, a national, if not an international draw. So the city is obviously located in a top agriculture area with 1.6 million acres of harvested land. crop value of almost eight billion dollars and exporting to you know close to 100 countries so very robust community that way um by way of background if you could keep scrolling please the the economy is supported by several features um amphitheater, the TBIZ, which is the Tulare Business Innovation Zone, the outlet center, 268,000 square feet of outlets with millions of visitors, College of Sequoias, etc. Next slide, please. Community assets, we tried to highlight because this document wants to be something that you all get to be, you know, call your own and be sort of proud of, ideally, It also wants to be educational for your community. But in our estimation, in our experience, this wants to also be a document, ideally, that can be educational to folks outside of the area so that if you want to get educated about um about the city and the area you have a pretty comprehensive location for this information i know you know much of this but your downtown is a key historic civic core so we try to highlight that um significant investments to enhance the downtown including the the amphitheater which we mentioned um additionally the city had implemented a program called taste and that was based on sort of some forgivable loans for rest to drive restaurants improvements, and then downtown tool repair improvement, existing shop space as well. So next, next slide, please. The agro center, which we mentioned, 2.6 million square feet of exhibitor space, over 100,000 visitors, and obviously a whole variety of events, equestrian, sports, ag ventures, etc. Next slide. The Tulare County Fairgrounds, again, drawing over 100,000 visitors with a plethora of activities. The Motorsport Thunderbolt Raceway, the fairgrounds obviously has a lot of open space for banquet hall, livestock events. So it's pretty exciting, these different regional demand drivers that we've identified as your community assets. And then the Adventist Health Amphitheater with a pretty significant dollar amount of what we consider offsite retail spending. A lot of times we'll look at different assets of communities and they'll have direct sort of tax revenue benefits. But the reality of having these regional draws with tens of thousands of attendees is there's a significant amount of offsite retail spending from those attendees, which includes retail spending and sales tax revenue generation, as well as hotel stays, which is also a high tax revenue generator vis-a-vis your transient occupancy tax or TOT. Next slide. Dozens of community events, carnivals, The Zumwalt Park, which I think was mentioned earlier, Christmas Parade, Crush Party, etc. So very exciting events that I think are enjoyed and appreciated and are an asset to your community. Next slide. So I'm going to turn this over to Fernando to dig into some of the existing conditions. This is more of an analytical section of different demographic and market metrics. And then I'll come back and continue our presentation. Fernando, go ahead.

All right. Thanks, Ken. So the city has several major projects in planning, starting with the business park in Inland Port. The business park is planned for offices, warehouses, and other industrial uses. Inland Port is going to support logistics users to increase distribution of goods away from seaports. Project Vesta is the retail project with 150,000 square foot big box anchor located at Cartmill and Highway 99. It also features a 12 island gas station and supporting restaurants and retail. And also the city is looking to develop an entertainment district along the 99, anchored by a 100,000 square foot sports facility. And that sports facility will offer programs for the community on the weekdays, along with regional youth and amateur sports tournaments on the weekends. The project also contains Eatertainment, so venues that blend food and experience, such as Dave & Buster's, Topgolf, and it also will contain supportive retail and hotels. So the top five industries with the most employees in the city are retail, trade, healthcare, and social assistance, manufacturing, accommodation, food services, and educational services. Three of those, so retail, trade, healthcare, and accommodation food services are among the top five fastest growing industries in Tulare County. Tulare, compared to Visalia and the county, has several job concentrations in different industries such as utilities, manufacturing, retail trade, information and accommodation, food service. It is gaining ground on Visalia and the county in terms of transportation, warehousing, administration and support, and healthcare. We noticed also that the county is increasing its regional specialization in certain specific industries. So the city should try to attract ag tech support type jobs along with manufacturing businesses given that increase in regional specialization relative to other adjacent counties. Visitation data was pulled from Placer AI, which is our mobile data analytics provider. The data showed that visitors to Tulare come from a broad regional area. So about 32% come from 10 to 30 miles away from the city. 30% of visitors are coming from over 30 miles away. Tulare Outlets is a major regional attractor, over 800,000 visitors, totaling over 4 million visits. And also Placer AI looks at retail sales leakage. So these are the sales that are among all consumers visiting Tulare, where those sales are going outside of the city. And that total retail sales leakage is over $350 million. Some major categories exhibiting that retail sales leakage include limited full-service restaurants, grocery stores, along with building material and supply stores. So we observed the retail office industrial flex space and multifamily housing markets comparing the city of Tulare with Visalia and Tulare County. We looked at market variables, including inventory, vacancy, lease rates, and absorption for the most recent available quarter, along with a 10-year period from 2014 to 2024. And some of these high-level findings you see here. So just to kind of summarize. So retail market, 3.9 million square feet of retail in the city. About 105,000 square feet of retail has been added to the market over that 10-year period. Retail vacancy, although it is higher than Visalia, is actually performing quite well at 4%. It's a very stable, strong market. Retail rents are slightly lower than Visalia. Office, it's a relatively small office market, 1 million square feet, although it did gain almost 808,000 square feet during that 10-year span, 41,000 of which came from a medical office building built in 2024. Very stable market as well, strong market, 1.1% vacancy, rents are on par with Visalia. Industrial flex space is the current largest commercial market in the city with about 6.1 million square feet. Vacancy in the city is 10%, but it's still significantly lower than Visalia and rents are actually higher compared to Visalia. 61,000 was recently added the first quarter of this year at the CNS Business Park and another 1.1 million square feet is proposed at the 99th Central Logistics Center. And lastly, the multifamily residential market is quite strong, 3% vacancy, which is lower than Visalia. Rents are still somewhat lower than neighboring cities and the county. And lastly, we want to touch on stakeholder outreach. Outreach is a real essential part of the EDSP process. So as mentioned, we conducted stakeholder outreach from December of 2025 through March of this year. We gathered information regarding strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities affecting economic development in the city and interviewed a total of 12 representatives from various groups, including city council members, city staff, businesses, nonprofits, along with commercial real estate brokers. So some of the key findings that we found in terms of strengths include strong leadership, vision, and responsiveness from the city, The city is strategically located along the 99 with rail access, and it has an established agriculture and logistics base. Some challenges that were noted include the retail leakage, especially retail leakage to Visalia. Infrastructure service capacity constraints, limited shovel-ready sites, so that kind of speaks to the infrastructure and service capacity constraints because not every site for development has that infrastructure ready to go. And also somewhat uneven investment from private sector and particularly on the west side. Some opportunities that we found across these stakeholders included expanding that retail, dining, and entertainment options throughout the city, also building and expanding on the success of downtown, particularly building on that momentum from the amphitheater, also leveraging the upcoming interchange and growth quarter investments, along with strengthening partnerships for business and workforce growth. So I'm going to turn it back to Ken to discuss economic development strategies.

Thank you, Fernando. So what we tried to do was create some categories that can be important action categories, you know, as part of sort of an action plan. And we've listed them here, there's about eight. And within those, there's some real specifics we'll get into here. But one of those categories, one of those strategy categories is the idea of business expansion, attraction and retention. And we can dig into that, but the acronym for that is BEAR. A second one is establishing some business incentive programs for maybe targeted commercial or industrial sales tax initiative. And we provided some case studies Housing and housing we kind of view interestingly enough as a form or a version of economic development. And I can talk about that in a minute. Utilizing value capture strategies is another area for action. extending sports facilities which is really a hot topic these days downtown placemaking very important for your community and federal opportunity zones so and the last item on this is making sure that there's performance metrics so that these areas of action are measurable so if you get into the next slide I can drill down a little bit and what we tried to do is be specific so if the business expansion attraction retention bearer category is listed um you know we have eight action items and and each of those can be something that's taken upon by staff or others to try to really execute you know developing a technical assistance and i won't read all of them but developing technical assistance programs proactively working with property owners it's it's very important to sort of have those relationships so there can be mutual goals mutual economic development goals if you will you know regularly contacting the top 25 sales tax generators and employers doing that by the way in terms of building the relationships with top tax generators is a version of business retention right because we want to make sure we keep those folks in town we put on here, pursue healthcare providers, create sort of a development agreement incentive packages, outreach to property owners and development opportunities, making sure that the plan check process is efficient. We do these econ dev plans, you know, for a lot of communities, as I mentioned, and sometimes the process of getting permits and entitlements is challenging. And to the extent that it is, the more efficient And the more business friendly that that process is for private investment really ends up making more private investment opportunistically creating value within your community. And the other way we define business friendliness is how to get to yes. So sometimes we say that, you know, planning departments and building departments, if they have a mantra of how to get to yes, it really creates a business friendly environment that catalyzes more private investment. And then another tool could be considering having some resources like a concierge or an ombudsman to help with economic development. Also ICSC, which is a big private sector retail hotel developer conference. Your staff has attended the Monterey ICSC conference, the Vegas ICSC conference. These can be very productive. areas at which business attraction, you know, is sort of one of the number one goals. And they tend to be very productive conference opportunities. Next slide. Business incentive program, you know, some of that we've already kind of touched on, TASTE program, EDIP. And the EDIP program, which is Economic Development Investment Program, really can amount to probably up to $150,000 if the program is taken advantage of by small businesses. And that's very meaningful. Some of the other implementation ideas that we listed here is, again, fast tracking permitting, some tax sharing, job tax credits, facade improvement programs, infrastructure investment. And I want to make sure we don't forget about how important infrastructure is. was a comment about you know are there enough opportunity sites and sometimes it's chicken and the egg if the infrastructure is in place off-ramp street improvements utilities etc that can create those that can create opportunity sites and so i'll talk about that when we get into the tools and how we think a certain economic development tool could be good to help you all pay for infrastructure next slide please Housing for economic development, the broader picture of what this is trying to discuss or highlight is that the land uses, land use revolution is going on where lots of land uses are changing. I mean, retail is evolving. Our country, you could argue, has too much retail. I like the idea that 3.9 million square feet, you have 4% vacancy. You have a stable retail environment. Perhaps that means you're not over retailed and you regionally pull as an example to your outlets. And I think that's very positive from a retail perspective. But what happens underneath the roof of a home is very different today than it was before. We used to sleep in our homes and all of a sudden we started shopping from our homes and all of a sudden we started working from our homes. So the home or the residential unit, The reason I say we view it as sort of an economic development tool, if you will, or an asset class is it's just a different way of thinking how important residential is because the work from home programs and the online shopping is quite relevant in today's economy. So that's why we make these comments about how important rooftops are, not just to help with your brick and mortar retail, but to also house those activities that are taking place underneath the roof of a home.

Next slide.

And the idea of capturing value, I want to highlight here, most importantly, probably this notion of a tax increment financing district. That TIF district, tax increment financing district in California is called Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District. And that is a tool that we do think could be very relevant for Tulare because that's the tool that will help you and can help you pay for infrastructure. A combination of community facilities districts and an EIFD are these tax increment tools that we believe could be very applicable to the city.

Next slide.

As I mentioned that, how that may benefit your business park. is if you establish a community facilities district, which is a tax on properties, so the property owners have to agree to that, the city would be a sponsor of it. It's a way to help attract early dollars for infrastructure. The latter dollars to pay for infrastructure would be something like an EIFD. The other action item would be a city econ dev staff participating in other events and other organizations like NAOP. And then we put in here for the business part, consider creating a specific plan to help pave the way sort of for objective standards, as well as some environmental clearance to help catalyze development in the future. And the next slide. Sports and economic development. I mean, today, sports is a hot topic, as I mentioned earlier. I think you know it. You've had a consultant help you analyze some of the opportunities for sports facility. We think it's a bright idea. We are working on sports facilities and speaking about sports facilities across the country. We've done a lot of work for sports facilities companies and You know, the report here, which is what Victus did, is a projection of some 700 million bucks in economic activity over a 30-year period. We have some very exciting examples of sports facilities built in both rural and suburban environments. Next slide. And we share that with you in the full report. Downtown placemaking. So lots of items here for action. Very important for your community, as I mentioned, but consider trying to help these existing businesses we mentioned downtown taste another idea would be developing food incubators food halls that links to the downtown tulare agricultural identity public private development opportunities like surface parking lots investing in the physical improvements you know wayfinding public art uh the beautification process that and also to encourage a blend of uses blending the potential of housing office retail restaurants entertainment to activate your downtown and lastly making sure that social media is an important outlet that positively can market you know businesses and market your downtown next slide please this is just a visual about some of the placemaking elements that that we've experienced and that we think are are pretty cool you know design uh districts and events next slide and then opportunity zones and what I was I was really happy to see is I think on your agenda for tonight if I'm not mistaken like maybe even the next item is to pursue the identification of opportunity zones we had an internal meeting this morning at Cosmon companies and it's very critical that the opportunity zones were identified by cities because that program is now open for the identification as of yesterday and I think it closes in July. And then, as you probably know, the items or the identification of the zones in Opportunity Zone 2.0, which is the latest version of the legislation, that needs to go to the state in the fall, and then it goes to the fed so the program can start January of 2027. So we think Opportunity Zones, quite frankly, and EIFDs are very compatible as economic tools and private investment incentives. Lastly, is just making sure there's some metrics for a lot of the action items in the EDSP. You know, here's examples of commercial building permits, assessed value creation, number of business licenses, employment by industry, sales tax revenue that you can analyze by geographic districts, hotel revenues, hotel visitor surveys, annual surveys of business owners, and then sort of the special events attendance metric. Next slide. and then I think uh lastly for this section it's just a bit of a road map the road map is some time frames we wanted to make sure we identified short mid and longer term uh opportunities for implementation priorities you know making sure that we establish in the first six months the responsibility to gather metrics there this business expansion attraction and retention in concert with the chamber we think is a really good thing to do in the very short term. A little longer term is initiate those barren incentive policies, consider the formation of EIFD or CFD for infrastructure, making sure that the focus on downtown placemaking is a priority within the next 12 months. And then a little longer term is kind of some of the implementation of those items, including leveraging the revenue streams that might come from an EIFD and examining maybe the sports district at that point, also the federal opportunity zones because once they're in place they'll probably start to um start to see some development and then implement value capture strategies so I think that's uh that probably wraps it up for this section I'm going to close in a short period here with just a couple more slides on some of the tools that the city can utilize. If you can go to the next slide, please. And we've talked about this, this tax increment financing. In California, there's been 37 TIF districts formed following the elimination of redevelopment about 14 years ago. 37, and they've grown rapidly, but they're growing even more rapidly. Cosmon's been involved in forming the majority of those 37. And there's different variations of the tax increment. Financing districts, EIFD is the most flexible. So we would probably see that as a tool that you would want to try to leverage if it made sense for you, which we think it does. A CRD is more focused on just climate matters, you know, extreme heat, flooding and things like that. And then the CRA is more geared around affordable housing. And there needs to be qualifications like high unemployment and poverty levels. So we think the EIFD is probably a tool to focus on within the toolkit for the city of Tulare. And as far as EIFDs go, what's important is what is your share of tax incremented? And as you know, property tax is at about a 1% rate, but cities only get a portion of that. The city of Tulare gets about 11 and a half cents for every dollar of property tax. In addition to that though, what's called MVLF, which is motor vehicle license and lieu fee, is 12.3 cents so when you add 11.5 and 12.3 you're talking about 20 you know 3 24 cents and that's pretty material of every dollar that you have to potentially leverage in uh and allocate and dedicate to create a tax increment district so that's that's a decent amount on top of that the county to larry gets 33 cents of every dollar and the way we've seen the eifds be the most um uh powerful if you will is when cities and counties can partner so there's a lot of sense on the on the dollar here that are opportunities to capture and leverage to create you know um a funding and a and a um a leverageable account that really wants to be able to help you all pay for infrastructure So I think that's a wrap for the summary of our EDSP, the excerpts from the plan. These were about 30 slides, give or take. I think there's 100 more, 130 total in the total report. So we appreciate the notion that there's a lot of information that's been shared. But thank you very much. Thank you for all the collaboration and we're available for questions.

And I want to thank you so much for your presentation and staff for all of his efforts. Cosmon's been a great partner for us. We selected them for a variety of reasons, and one of them is because of their broad expertise, especially as we start thinking about district in the future, maybe associated with the entertainment district. Council, we presented it to you tonight just for your information. We want to give you a chance to digest it. Obviously you have questions tonight. We are certainly happy to take them. Our current thinking is we may be coming back on July 7th requesting your adoption. If you think you need more time than that, we can always bring it back on 21st. What questions do you have and what is your preference in terms of timing?

Dennis, you want to kick us off?

Yeah, I have a fundamental question. It specifically deals with the indoor sports facility and entertainment complex that is being developed. I noticed I went through your report and it's very comprehensive report. Thank you for that. At the end in your summary of stakeholder outreach on page 124, you indicate some strong long-term economic assets. One of them was The International Agri Center is seen as a major regional anchor with significant visitor and economic impact. City investment should complement rather than compete with Agri Center facilities and programming. There is concern from some that the indoor sports facility and entertainment complex will be something that is competing against the Agri Center under the circumstances with what they're trying to accomplish on their campus compared to what might end up taking place next door. Based on your research and what you've found in our community and what's being proposed, can you opine as it relates to whether that is a compliment or a competition?

And I appreciate that question, and it's very fair. There's probably a few ways to look at it. We do believe your agri-center is obviously a critical asset in your community and it's critical to maintain sort of that relationship and to promote if you will its success because it it um your community enjoys uh its success you know within within its boundaries its total boundaries as a city on the indoor sports facility, if you will, as a facility that might be adjacent or what have you. I think what's important with these sports facilities is the land that they end up on, the economics of how to build them, and are they financeable, and the motivation behind and the speed at which those projects can be built. So one of my understandings is that there's a plot of land and it's got singular ownership and it could be a very good opportunity site for indoor sports facilities. I think I kind of see it as more complimentary than competition, but maybe I'm missing some of those dynamics. But we do think that an indoor sports facility will bring an added success to the community.

Well, that's conclusionary. Can you give me some specifics as to why you think it would be complimentary as opposed to competition?

Well, I mean, the Agri Center, I think, has what in it as part of its core function, you know, an agricultural, you know, use and as an asset, right? That's really what it stands for and what it tends to end up its reach is we're really trying to reach the agricultural, you know, communities across the state and the country, as we said. Sports facilities.

They are expanding to where They're having sports competitions, volleyball tournaments, gymnastics. They're trying to get into that area. How can the two work together so that we're complementing each other under the circumstance?

Well, I think perhaps it's a matter of maybe each or folks collaborating on what are the different uses. One of the things that I am learning in that business is the nature of the multi-use, meaning that there's so many aspects of sports, whether it's volleyball, it's soccer, it's pickleball, it's tennis, it's equestrian, it's soccer. I mean, there's a whole list. of all those sports activities. So to me, it feels like folks should get in a room, and talk about how there can, in fact, be complementary and not literally competitive sports aspects, right, multi-use, mixed-use components. So maybe there's a menu of those that get defined by each party. That makes sense. You don't want to build 10 volleyball courts on one facility and then right next door build another 10, to your point, I think. I think folks need to understand how to create the complementary uses. And it seems like there's such a deep set of sports uses and the land area that's needed for those deep number of different sports uses, I would think could be housed in both.

So Mr. Mayor, I had a question on this particular topic. Mr. Medeiros could help out. Were you, well, first of all, is the, has the AgCenter presented publicly their master plan? I know I've been waiting for six years to see it. So I don't know if you guys at COSBON had access to their master plan to maybe give you some idea on what they want to propose because it's, I've been asking for six years to see if they can come to council and present it.

That they have not, to my knowledge, presented the master plan publicly. They have shared information with us. That's in draft form for our review. We verbally conveyed some of that information to Cosmon, but didn't feel that we had the authority to share with them the full master plan documents as we received them. it is our understanding that they do intend to come to council to present that but i think they continue to work through some issues on their end including the final mix of uses that they want and i i believe they they they don't want to come to council and show you something that's um perhaps half-baked and not fully committed to at this point um i i believe that that will happen here in the next you know six months uh perhaps no later than a year but they're really kind of in the driver's seat on their timeline for their project. So we invite them, you know, probably quarterly, and they say they're aware they want to come, but they're wanting to finish some tweaking.

Right, because I think just for real, I see a difference in both a public offering of these kind of amenities, whether it's through the indoor sports park and those of a private, be it nonprofit, where I think the city has more of an obligation to kind of continue that for the general public. versus maybe someone offering them and then all of a sudden they decide to go in a different direction because it doesn't make financial sense to them. I mean, cities subsidize public things all the time, right? And so if there were, as your example says, 10 volleyball courts built by them, 10 volleyball courts built by the city, there's a more likelihood the city will continue them, even though they may not be money-making and there is maintenance. And then the nonprofit, or I'm assuming the Ag Center's a nonprofit, they would then all of a sudden, oh, it's not making money, so let's replace those 10 volleyball courts with something else. So I think that's kind of like my only concern without necessarily having that agreement, that if we decide that the Ag Center is the best place to do something like that, but then, Down the road, they change their mind and the public's left out of that amenity. That's just my only concern.

So we did counsel just a couple of other updates on this on this point. We did have a meeting just the other day with 2 of the leaders of the center to have some conversations about. International or international center way extension and the timeline, but we also. kind of carried the conversation into the entertainment district a little bit and the you know the potential indoor sports facility and you know one of the things we promised them was that uh right now we're working on a draft term sheet with price brothers that's the developer that council selected for the entertainment district so we're working through those details and price brothers is fully aware of the need to cooperate and to communicate with the AgCenter folks as we get more in the weeds on what are the differences, as Ken talked about, like who would be doing what. One of the things to keep in mind is let's just take volleyball for a second. You could build, and I have a little bit of experience with this, you could build a facility that has, we'll just say 10 tournament style courts. That will attract a certain size tournament, right? but then you could also triple that, and that'll attract an entirely different size tournament. There could definitely be a scenario, and I'm not advocating for this, I'm just saying we need to have this conversation where, you know, there could be a number of courts within proximity, and for certain size tournaments, we open and turn on all those courts, right? If you have like the facility that I was part of up in Rockland, where it was multi-use, multi-purpose facility, it was 130,000 square foot of hardwood floors, And it had basketball hoops and volleyball nets and everything in the ceiling. So you'd have an open floor where you'd had all kinds of special events and activities, wrestling tournaments. But then if you have a volleyball tournament, you bring it out of the ceiling, right? So you could have a facility where maybe they do volleyball on a regular basis all day long, but for certain size tournaments, We open our facility for that as well, so there's a lot of ways to approach this topic, we just have to get sit down with them and that that is coming in the near future. And then the last comment I forgot to share was in terms of their master plan they they have. publicly presented their secret document so it's coming there, they are in that process of starting to daylight the environmental documents, so the time for them to come to Council will be coming sometime I would imagine this calendar year.

I had the same question that Councilman Medeiros had, and it's been answered.

With that is, Mark, you had said coming back on July 7th. So I think some of my questions, but also encourage other council members that if we have the questions or materials or perhaps some of the drill down to extract information, we can submit those, but this conversation is going to come back to us on July 7th.

Well, before we end, I just had one question since the consultants are online. So there is a lot of information to digest, and I appreciate that Council will have an opportunity to kind of give our two cents or thoughts on some of these things. I guess for me, what really is important in all of this process is whatever um strategies that you guys uh the consultants recommend to the city and to the council um i guess the question for me are any of these strategies applicable to other parts of the city other than downtown you know, we're focusing on downtown a lot. We're focusing on other parts of big projects, but I want to know if some of these strategies can be applicable to the west side of the city, you know, and because, I mean, I think, you know, I take to heart, I don't know if that was my comment, and I'm hoping it wasn't my comment, but maybe someone else's comment, that one of the things that they see as a challenge is that the west side gets further and further, further and further behind the rest of the city when it comes to uh economic development and businesses so for me i just want to be able to say hey i'm supporting a document an effort that yes will work on in the city but it also could be applicable to the west side

I don't know. Do you want me to respond to that, Councilman, at all? I appreciate that question.

I would say that our tool, our strategy... My only thought is, if I can, I'll just set the stage for it a little bit. There's absolute respect to the question, but that's a big one. And I'm I also I think just kind of right on the coattail with that and with you have some strategies of how to utilize value capture downtown placemaking has kind of a relative definition. We might see the word downtown as we see downtown, but those are some of the questions to my only thought is. If it's a big one, and if he can jump into that big one quickly, or if really that one takes a bit more processing, and I think come back on July 7th as one of the key questions of, hey, how does this apply in a strategy towards specific areas, Westside, community, or others? I'm just giving it the depth and to come back and answer if you want him to try to jump in that one quickly.

You're the mayor, you decide, I mean, it's 130 page document and I don't really see anything.

To that question, I would say this council really quick.

I didn't I didn't say I disagreed with you. I'm saying, given times of July 7th, that's on the agenda to present.

Council, if I can just very quickly, there is nothing specifically that says this is what we, this is the tool you should specifically applied to the West side. What I would tell you is the lion share of the tools that have been presented could be used anywhere throughout the city and district could be established anywhere.

And if I could just add on to that as well. Mark, can you guys hear me?

We can hear you, Ken, yes.

Go ahead. Okay. I'm sorry. I want to just concur that the tools that we identified, the strategies, I should say, and the tools necessarily that we identified did not sort of purposely avoid necessarily certain parts of the community. And I think that in the discussion on the west side, we appreciate that. The tax increment district, the EIFD, is absolutely something that would want to be evaluated to capture value in different parcels and projects around the city, but to benefit, frankly, many parts of the city, which can easily and clearly include the west side. So the goal was not to not offer strategies or tools there And in fact, a tax increment district like any IFD is something, depending on how we form it, what the boundaries of it are, can benefit multiple parts of the community. And that's just one example of one of the strategies that applies to various areas.

And I would also add the next agenda item that we're going to be talking about is uniquely related to West Tulare.

And yeah, if I could just add to answer some of that as well, I was going to point out the opportunity zones. Those are going to be on the West side. So that will be benefit for that area. The downtown placemaking that's listed on here as part of the annual corridor placemaking is also part of the discussion and strategy. That's going to be incorporated in that study as well. and housing identified on here, having meetings with the community development director on how we could strategize and bring more housing to the west side and maybe thinking outside the box on what kind of mixed use we could have over there that would bring the more rooftops, but also more commercial development. And so I think a lot of these things certainly can't apply anywhere in town, but also definitely on the west side.

John Potter, Okay anything else so specific yeah and so I would encourage Council members as well, I think those the perhaps the drill down the extraction questions we want to get that to city staff and the big ones. John Potter, Overall, for the Community and strategy plans or other elements get those submitted and look forward to continuing this conversation on July 7 you don't need a formal action from us, this is presentation and to be continued correct. Mayor Mrakas, And Mr here right correct was actually yes correct yeah Mr here, thank you for the report, thank you for the presentation and we look forward to continue the conversation.

Mayor Mrakas, Great thanks mirror and members of the Council, we appreciate it.

Mayor Mrakas, we'll be back, thank you, thank you, thank you. Mayor Mrakas, On our agenda, then, is item 9.2. John Potter, Eligible census tracks for opportunities owns 2.0 and I think this is also a segue that comes out of 9.1 into 9.2 Jennifer.

Yes. All right. So, as a little background, the opportunity zone program was 1st established by the federal government back in 2017, and it was scheduled to sunset at the end of this calendar year. However, back in 2025, legislation was passed to make this a permanent part of the federal tax code. And it's commonly referred to as opportunity zones. 2.0. This program offers preferential federal tax treatment for capital gains invested in qualified projects located within designated low income census tracts. This incentive is designed to reward long term capital that generates sustained economic growth, job creation, and community revitalization in historically underserved areas. And these are requirements and designations that are established by the federal government. And so under these new designation requirements, the city of Tulare has six census tracts that are eligible. And I had them identified on a map that's included with your staff report. Now, under the federal requirements, our governor and all governors, they can only nominate 25% of all eligible tracks statewide. So we do need to prioritize these six tracks to submit for consideration and which ones we think will be most competitive statewide. I wouldn't recommend that we submit all six tracks, because then the governor could simply pick and choose what he thinks are the priorities and it may not be the ones that we think should move forward. Because again it's possible by submitting all of them, or even if we just submit one it's possible the governor doesn't choose any of them for for us. So upon reviewing these six different tracks, we looked into some of the priorities identified by GO-Biz to determine which ones will be most competitive and align with statewide and regional economic development objectives. And some of them include having clear redevelopment opportunities, infrastructure and planning readiness, regional economic importance, consistency with our general plan and housing element, alignment with regional initiatives such as California Jobs First, that there's a balance between need and readiness, existing developer interest is important, and strong potential for measurable economic impact. And so the first census tract that I wanted to highlight is 06107002100. This tract is very large with most of it actually being located in the county. However, the area that the city would be focusing on includes the northwest area of Highway 99 and Cartmill Avenue. As you know, this interchange can have a significant economic impact for our community. It can have a in this particular tract. There can be a mix of retail, commercial, residential, and industrial construction. It can Zach tax had done an analysis for us last year, showing that there is great potential and general fund revenue for development in that area. And also, as that area gets developed, the city would need to consider annexing several acres there to reach its full potential. Also within this particular census tract, there are four sites that are on the city's RHNA inventory. So that is something that GO-Biz would find favorable. And also for this area, um, we have the feasibility study that's underway for the regional sports plex. And so this is 1 area that it could be considered being located at and also, um. The potential business park is also something that could go up in this area as well. The second census tract that I wanted you to consider is 06107003002. And the boundary for this tract includes Enterprise Street to the west, part of Inyo Avenue to the north, then south on West Street to Barsley Avenue, Ice Street to the east, and Page Avenue to the south. Within this census tract is where our wastewater treatment plant is, just for reference. And one of the great benefits, I think, for this particular track is that we have begun engaging with a firm to create a plan for the Inyo Avenue corridor streetscape placemaking and revitalization project. And so that effort will support community and market driven planning, identify redevelopment opportunities and position targeted sites for future public and private investment. And then also, in addition to this commercial corridor the availability of industrial land that runs parallel with the railroad opens up various opportunities for regional distribution and logistics centers. And we do already have one site listed as part of the California jobs first business ready sites program and that's the California central logistical gateway facility. And also for this track, it can include retail, commercial service, commercial light, industrial, heavy, industrial and residential land uses. And we have 7 sites identified on the arena inventory within this tract. And there are already several subdivisions that are either under construction or going through entitlement right now. And staff have been meeting with a commercial developer that has also expressed interest in potential sites for some development within this track. And then the third track that I'd like for you to consider is 06107002901. The boundary for this tract includes I Street to the west, Tulare Avenue to the north, Highway 99 to the east, and Page Avenue to the south. This tract includes the historical core of downtown and a large section of our existing industrial zone. And so within this tract, it also includes commercial, industrial, and residential land uses. As you're aware, the city has initiated several efforts to revitalize the downtown area by providing financial assistance to businesses and property owners to rehabilitate their buildings and develop some vacant sites. And redeveloping a historic downtown can be very expensive for the private sector. So offering incentives such as being an opportunity zone can be very beneficial to turn things around. And we also have identified potential locations for affordable housing in the downtown as well. And then lastly, with several agriculturally related industrial plants and businesses in this particular census tract, the city's desire is to attract other manufacturers to that area as well. And so by opening up opportunities for higher paying wages, that will also then create a significant economic benefit to our region. And so for all these reasons, we are recommending prioritizing first 06107002100, then secondly 06107003002, and then third 06107002901.

Dave Kuntz, got all those numbers everybody yeah. Dave Kuntz, Thank you and Jennifer. Dave Kuntz, i'll kind of open this up to council's thoughts with that Vice Mayor Harold. Dave Kuntz, that's your questions.

Not at this time.

Dave Kuntz, Okay. Councilman Segala? Yes.

A couple of questions. I think the first one that really strikes me out is what happened to the little one there in Sonora? Is that not a census tract or what is it?

It is a census tract, but it doesn't meet the eligibility requirements for the low income threshold, poverty levels, those things that the federal government's identified.

So that's the higher income land in the west side?

Yeah.

Okay. all right um i think one of the things that that that i want to kind of get an idea what is the ultimate goal with the opportunity zones i know we talked about this a long time ago at least i remember maybe about i don't know if it was before dennis and terry got elected but we did talk about opportunity zones um in the city and i think for me i just i'm trying to understand is it uh For me, I think for me, the west side trying to help the business corridor, right, when you're doing the annual study, as you mentioned, the 2100 and the 2901 don't necessarily kind of, in my mind, look to help the West Side business quarter as we know it, right? And so I'm trying to understand. I get it that it helps with other projects that you laid out. But for me, it's like, you know, 2100 is up north and 2901 is not even on the West Side, technically, at least from my definition. so i'm just trying to understand why those i mean the 3002 yes it um touches inyo half of inyo right um so um i'm just trying to figure out what's the ultimate goal in trying to do these opportunities is to try to help businesses grow along the in your corridor or is it just if we happen to pick one it may benefit from it yeah it's trying to

Figure out what go biz and the governor want to prioritize. Um, so it may not necessarily be what the city wants to prioritize. Um, they're looking, I know for the governor, um, affordable housing is a high priority for him. Um, so being able to offer census tracks that where there's that potential for affordable housing, I think is important to consider. but i think for the inyo quarter that is the revitalization and rehabilitating that corridor but there aren't a lot of vacant areas for like totally new development um similar to the downtown you know there's some vacant spots here and there but you're really talking about um improving things that are already there. And so looking at these other tracks, that's where I was looking at new growth opportunities. Job growth is very important to GO-Biz and the governor as well. So I was thinking in areas where we can expand development, where we can get more job opportunities would kind of checkmark that box.

Right, because I think, you know, the fact that 2100 has just a little portion of the city and it benefits the county more than the city, I would say, if that makes sense. And then 3002, there isn't much land. I mean, there is on the corner of Pratt and Page, you know, there's the housing development that's being built. I think it's probably about 300, 400 homes that's already going to be built. So I'm just trying to figure out, for me, an opportunity zone, big criteria would be helping Westside businesses. And I think out of the three that you laid out, 3002 may be the closest one. I mean, I think if that was something the council supported, we can definitely work with our lobbyists to write a letter to the governor, you know, in terms of saying, hey, this is our priority. We hope that you, I mean, I just can't see the governor knowing Tulare that well. I mean, and so, I mean, we know a lot of people on his staff. I know a lot of people on his staff that, you know, we can reach out and say, hey, you know what? This is important for Tulare. This is this is the zone we'd like you to go with. And so I just can't see the governor saying, oh, hey, let me I know what's best for Tulare.

Right.

And that's all due respect to the governor.

Yeah. And I know that's why the applications are going directly to GO-Biz first for them. To analyze and review it, but they're certainly keeping in mind of what the governor's priorities are as well of what he's looking for. But it is ultimately up to the governor. I do know that letters of support can be submitted on behalf of our jurisdiction, but it just doesn't go in with the actual application that goes in a little bit later, maybe in another month or so.

And that's the other question is. Will the governor decide before his terms up?

Yes.

So it's this governor, not future governor.

Correct.

Because we also have relationships with the future governor. This is the end of the month.

It's the middle by the end of the month, yeah.

So for me, council, just for me, I think the fact that we... only do this every 10 years, is it would be for me a lost opportunity if we did not do something that would help the business quarter. And so I think for me, 3,002 is probably the closest that would help the business quarter on the west side than the other two. But that's something that I would propose that we do. And then the last question I have for the city manager. If, for example, the council went with 2,100, and there were um economic development let's say you know we had a very interesting meeting yesterday with any track about the in uh in the uh port and business part but let's say the business park was built on the northern part of the city, could there be a deal worked out, how we work out with Matheny, where we tell Matheny, hey, we build it south of you, whatever tax generation comes up, we can dedicate to your part if you become part of the city. Could that also be done if we decide to build a business park and there's economic development at Spur, can some of those tax dollars be dedicated to the in-your-quarter directly, like we're trying to do with Matheny Track?

I would say a couple of things. The short answer is yes. Council could ultimately decide to do whatever it wants to do. The reason why we had made the argument about if the business, the park would go south of the Matheny track. Is because if it's south of the Matheny track, arguably, there could be more impacts to the Matheny track. And so, because there's impacts, there should be benefits that come along with that 1. Two is if it's south of the Matheny track, the benefit to the city is we would be able to leverage the disadvantage designation of the Matheny track to try to get more grants and federal earmarks and state earmarks to improve the business park and improve Matheny track. That's the connection between those two things. If we build it to the north, it will cost us less money to develop the business park to the north. There would be no impacts to the Matheny Track, and we would not be able to leverage the Matheny Track, therefore, to be able to get more federal funds for the project there, but If it goes to the North, that's why there's 2 reasons why, in my mind, it's not as attractive to the city to put it to the North 1 is that reason. And the 2nd reason is, is you remember the exact tax analysis that analysis showed. That the prod, the area to the North will likely develop on its own, not as a business park, but as a mixed use commercial center and generate revenue to the city. Ultimately, the city can make any decision it wants to in terms of saying, hey, we're going to establish this special taxing district area, whatever that area is. And this is how we want to use a portion of those tax proceeds. When we get in the weeds, though, of that issue, we've got to be careful because. We can't have a situation where we're like, okay, all the development's gonna come here and pay these taxes in this district and we're gonna take all that money and move it somewhere over here. We're gonna run into a real problem with the people that are developing in that district if we take that perspective. So we'd have to get more in the weeds on that issue. If I could just add one other quick comment. Right now, what you see, you know, the three areas where the blue areas are on the outside, no doubt about it. If we were to add any of the areas from the three internal brown areas, in my opinion, it would be 2202 because it touches the annual quarter. Part of the reason why we didn't recommend that is because two reasons. One, the primary purpose of the opportunity zones, the primary benefit is to businesses. It is tax incentives, tax relief, tax credits, those kinds of things. And the problem with the 3 brown areas, the tan areas, yellow areas, whatever the color is, is those are heavily residential. There are spotted mixed pieces on some of the roadways where we could do some commercial, but we're talking very small commercial. Limited commercial, except for the piece that you identified council members on the in your corridor. So, you know, if we were picking four, we would definitely recommend 2202. But part of the reason why we're recommending these big other areas, except for the downtown piece, because we know what's happening in the downtown, it's 3002 and 2100. Bigger areas of land, bigger opportunities for larger employers, even though a small piece is in the northern piece now, if we were to move forward with commercial development or light industrial development in the future, that land will annex. all that land will annex up there into the city because they're going to need city services and we could work a deal with the county that says hey work with us so you don't object to the annexation work with us we can do revenue sharing so we're thinking about you know the next three five maybe ten years on that parcel to the north that's where a really great growth opportunity is for us you know but whatever council's prerogative is today right

And just to wrap up, Mr. Mayor, I agree with you on 2202, the fact that there is no land to build. That's the problem. So why would we invest on no land to build? 3002 does cover part of the Inyo Corridor, right? The swap meet area and all that. But I think it also covers the land that I have been asking for us to annex and rezone, which would be the corner of West and Barsley, the southwest corner, that would allow for those kind of incentives. So, again, you know, I agree with you. 2202 just doesn't work because there's no land to build on. But if that was the case, I mean, I say I definitely would advocate if we were going to rank, rank them, 3,002 would be the first one and then, you know, 2,100, 2,901. So 3,002 for me would be kind of what I would submit or whatever the process is.

Councilman Medeiros.

Just clarification. My understanding was there was to be a selection of three of these submitted for evaluation, not submitted and we want this one first, that one second, that one third.

Yeah, I just got the instructions today. They were released by GO-Biz. And so the way they have set it up is that we would be if we were wanting them to consider three tracks, we submit three separate applications. But there's a question there that says if you are submitting multiple tracks, then what is your priority? And so they are asking for us to prioritize. So if we were submitting all three, what's one, two, and three?

And based on the criteria of what's to be accomplished, and I appreciate what Mr. Seagal is indicating, I mean, each one of us can find our own district and say, I'd rather have it there, which I guess would be natural. But what I would like to see is what has the best chance of being designated by the governor under the circumstances because i doubt he's going to pick all three um so that's kind of what we're looking at here yeah on a technical thing uh bardsley is avenue 224 not 234 i don't know which meant you got this um i do i

i'm not going to say that i have any idea how the governor is going to pick these we know when we say evaluation it's going to go to go biz and go biz is the one who's ultimately going to be recommending to the governor i'm assuming he would follow their recommendation but governor is involved in politics and there may be other parties that persuade him differently than what gobiz says so i do think we should rank them you know ideally if you if you supported staff's recommendation for these three i think it would be good if you gave us an indication of what your rank order of those so we can fill out the application that way and then it's kind of up to them at that point i don't know if we're going to have a lot of pull to convince them beyond what we're going to submit

Well, in that regard, I'd like an indication of from staff as to out of these 3. Which they think which you think has the most chance of being accepted.

We haven't had that discussion. I'm going to turn it over to Jennifer to give us her opinion. 1st.

Um, well, initially we were thinking that we were going to. Limit ourselves to only 2 tracks because we were talking county wide with all the jurisdictions of how many everyone would be doing. before we learned more of the instructions that we would all just submit separately. And so initially the two that I was recommending are the 2100 and the 3002. But then once I learned that each jurisdiction was just going to submit their own and recommend their own, I added the third option of the 2901. So I would definitely say the 2901 would be my third priority. And then for between 2100 and 3002, they both have a lot of great benefits to both that I kind of highlighted. They both have housing, RHNA sites in them. I think the 3002 with the inyo corridor it's about revitalizing that area which is one of the things that they're looking for but they're also looking and so then there's also a lot more industrial area down here um the benefit though that i see for 2100 is that it's on the 99 and so while that area could certainly develop on its own I think this could be something that moves things along faster because developers and property owners could get that capital benefit for their taxes to get that area developed sooner than later. So I think it's really just either one. I'm not sure. I think we checkmarked a lot of boxes for both of those. And so it's just a... matter of whether you're looking for new expanding commercial development or re um revitalizing older development and um and industrial areas sounds like you said flip a coin yeah at least on the other two do we have an existing zone is there an existing zone in the city uh we do have two opportunity zones already um

What's come out of them?

From the federal website that identifies the opportunity zones, they also track where businesses have taken advantage of those tax incentives, and nothing's been identified until Larry. That doesn't mean that someone didn't, but it just may be.

We haven't been promoting them, frankly. We haven't been promoting them, but we are getting ready to do that now.

Yeah, no, and the reason I bring it up, because, you know. We don't we don't as a city don't dictate or, you know, have that ability to say, hey, Joe, you invest here and build here, right? I mean, we don't we do a lot of different tools that city manager has in the council has. But my point is saying that, yeah, 2100, I think on its own could eventually. eventually develop, as you said. But I'd hate for that to be our opportunity zone and no one takes advantage. For me, again, it goes back to what can we do to revitalize the west side? This is one tool. This isn't going to be the magic pill, but it helps and it captures a number of things, as you said. It captures that one corner that we want to develop into a shopping center. It captures part of the Inua corridor and it captures a the neighborhood south of Barsley or areas that are potential. I mean, my understanding that the corner of Pratt and Barsley, the west side of it across from the school, 80 acres may be up for some kind of development someday. Who knows? I don't know. But I think it captures the intent of what the opportunity zone would be for revitalizing the west side.

management could support 3002 as the number one priority council members there do you have any comments okay so with that um also being um are we at 9.2 i will open this up to public comment uh does anyone in chambers wish to comment on item 9.2 good evening welcome

Good evening, Mayor Isherwood, Council, staff, fellow citizens, Jason Bender, Tulare. By no means am I any expert. Could you put that back up for me please, Melissa? I am no expert in these opportunity zones, but they do sound beneficial. Just to add my two cents to make it even a little muddier for you. from based on the parties I represent and some of the recent planning I've been involved with with Enterprise, especially for low income housing, I can tell you along Enterprise in 2203 and 2202, There's approximately 1,200 lots over the next, I would say, five years that are coming, but they wouldn't be included in that opportunity zone. There are 200 lots in 2201 just off of Prosperity that's been on site plan. So I guess 200 of those 1,200 lots would be included, but not all of them. Additionally, I can tentatively announce that in 2204 uh we have a five acre commercial property with 11 um commercial parcels that we've submitted to the uh to the city we are still doing work on our m d So eight to 12 months, that should be done. And I would say within 18 months, we should have something, some product ready for commercial development. But then we're right across the street from the softball park. And again, not in an opportunity zone to develop on the west side. so uh i guess i have a dog in the fight i just don't know where i want my dog to fight in this fight uh but um i can i guess i i'm a little unclear again what the purpose is i mean if it's future development then sure it makes sense for 2100 and um i'm okay with the uh 3,002 because there is a lot of industrial development there. But I mean, if I did hear low income or lower income housing, they're gonna be 5,000. Most of those development on the enterprise gonna be 5,000 square foot lots. So I just contribute that to the conversation. Thanks.

Okay. Anyone else in chamber wish to comment on 9.2? Do we have anyone on the phone or webinar? John Potter, With. John Potter, Part of the understand the conversation here a bit and it's noted in the staff reports think for opportunity zones as well and really is about. John Potter, I think, rather than. repair or relief it's more of growth and opportunity of future development this is my understanding so a lot of um it has been a discussion through hcd housing and community development through funding sources of competitive scoring towards multi-family housing or others in opportunity assigned to opportunity zones and i know you said the governor is with that I think in those categories, which is if a destination, an objective of it's really 5, 10, 15-year development that's going to come in compared to a restoration of a district that's already been developed. You want that arena space, you want that land opportunity. That's what it's all about. What are the opportunities for the growth? Think to the comments by Mr. Bender of where that land is available. But I also know of I've heard from council members representing districts of an area, but also the whole entire city council is is a concentration then. of affordable housing being built in a concentration of an area which has been voiced as a concern. So if we take an area that we're looking more towards a goal and objective of enhancing or an incentive of opportunity for economic growth and mindful of picking a zone where if the land is residential, you're going to then is the opportunity of a concentration of that affordable housing compared to commercial in areas. Hal Hallstein, I myself, I think, as Councilman sagala from my experience could also see possibly 3002 as. Hal Hallstein, Making the list. and also a part of a barrier, which is, I think, making the list because of elements that ties the city towards that opportunity with mitini track. There's political advocacy with that infrastructure improvements, and I think, as the city manager said, is in doing so you get benefits that go with mitigating other circumstances. So you have heavy industrial, but as heavy industrial mixes with Matheny tracks concerns, other elements that we see, Rena gold concerns, that all has to blend together. And though I think that would be potentially a governor's priority because there is that future element of a possible annexation improvement to disadvantaged communities, what does that look like? The other part in sharing that which said 2,901, and I think to the up to the comments of what Mr. Bender said is there's a lot of open space in other districts. And I think what you had said, Jennifer, and what we're a little bit being asked is, what do we think is the most competitive? And I think what Councilman Madero said is i'd like that input. Then, if if we want one of them to be selected. John Potter, And our goals a bit are more towards economic future opportunity growth of elements to the West side but what's going to be selected for the city is that you need a decision now, rather than this additional assessment from the bid, so a priority area with that. John Potter, is kind of a cornucopia I think of a summary of all those items So do we want more of the opportunity for affordable housing rena. John Potter, Or do we want the combination with the arena in the industrial development and we're where we see growth opportunities happen. John Potter, And with that, it seems 3002 has been in your assessment, as well as 2091 and then of course we have we have others with it i'm i'm too i'm just giving a summary because. John Potter, i'm thinking more from my experience and what was discussed, I could see 3002 perhaps meeting that checklist of the governor's office of driving that opportunity development between. John Potter, disadvantaged districts Community there's a whole cornucopia of those elements as Council, perhaps, we would like priority number one to be in another district but you're not you're just saying 123 so I put that to counsel of what we see as well as one can I make a motion yeah.

Brett KenCairn, Unless the vice mayor has something to say or Councilman, sir, I'll make a motion to recommend census track and last four numbers since this track 3002 as preference number 12100 as preference number 22901 is preference number three to be submitted to go biz for the governor's nomination and exclude inclusion in California's opportunity zones.

Second,

John Potter, Okay, we have a motion and a second. John Potter, For the order of our opportunity zones to be presented for the staff report. John Potter, By repeat that right 3002 is number one. John Potter, What was 2100 number 2100 number two and number three being 2901 that's correct. John Potter, Okay, we have a motion in the second in the other discussion all in favor. John Potter, carried five oh. 9.3, review the current appointment process for council appointed bodies. Consider revisions to the handbook of council appointed bodies specifically focused on streamlining the appointment process and provide direction to staff thereto.

Clerk, are you handling this one? For clarification purposes on this matter so the rest of the council is aware, when we had a recent appointment, and I may have indicated this on another occasion. I am passing comment as I was meeting with the city manager indicated that it would be helpful to know who was going to be selected by us and our various appointments, whether it's the mayor or by certain districts. If we knew before the actual meeting so that we can evaluate it instead of that appointment, instead of being in a position to where we have to make a snap judgment at the time. At that point, the city manager recommended that we have Melissa do some research on what other cities do and other procedures that can be used. She drafted this. I've looked at it and I thought it was fine. I thought she did an excellent job. I just didn't want anyone to think that her great work, I had anything significant to do with this. So you can take over, Melissa.

good evening you can say thank you very much thank you very much okay um so this just comes as a follow-up for um from Councilmember madaris's agenda request um what he did say is correct I had already taken the Liberty of reviewing and revising the process for appointments to boards commissions and committees and so that's what you have in your packet is the red line version The most significant change for this would just be the requirement for, it's more like a two-step process now. So those applicants would be required to attend a meeting at a regular city council meeting as part of an interview process. And that way it gives the council members an equal opportunity to hear from every single applicant. Currently you have certain council members that do reach out to the applicants to gather information before they make appointments. But I feel like it would be beneficial for all council members to hear from each applicant. And then following the interviews, there wouldn't be an appointment that night. We would wait for council members to provide their recommendation. Because, you know, each council member on most of the boards has an appointment for that board commissioner committee. They would submit that to the city clerk's office. And then we would add that to the next council agenda for appointments.

And just counsel. So, you know, this is the process that I've been familiar with and other jurisdictions as well. So I think it's fairly standard process. It doesn't mean you need to do it. It's just what we have seen sort of as a maybe a best practice.

Any other additional comments?

Yeah, I'm just trying to understand how does this apply to the The Council Council member gets to pick Commissioner for this or that, how does this apply so so if I if I there's a vacancy that on a Commission where we've agreed that the Council member from Council seat I guess it's a proper term gets to recommend to appoint someone. The interview occurs. Is anyone else part of the interview or how would that play itself out? So I recommend Mr. X to Commission Y. That's the person I like to recommend and the council obviously makes the vote on it. So then is Mr. A and B and C or Madam D also invited to interview? I'm trying to understand how that would work.

so each person that wants to be considered for appointment is required to submit an application and then those applications those applicants would be provide would be invited to the council meeting where there would be an interview so it doesn't matter who has the appointment each of you will get to hear from every one of those applicants you might have a favorite one to appoint but we wouldn't know that at that at that point

So if there's an opening on a commission, I have a particular person in mind that I'd like to recommend to be appointed.

They would have to apply.

Usually is sort of a standard, hey, we approve your person unless there's something wrong with that person. So now you're telling me that everyone who checked that box for that particular commission now can come and be interviewed and the council can select someone that the council member is not recommending.

not exactly so each person that is expressing interest in that board commission or committee will be invited to the interview but the appointment isn't going to happen that night that just gives the opportunity for every council member to hear from each of those applicants the council member that has that appointment will make that recommendation and that can go on a consent calendar item at the next council meeting what i'm trying to figure out is that fair for someone that hey show up even though the councilman has already got someone else in mind

I mean, I'm just trying to understand from their point of view. Like, I want to be on the planning commission, and Councilman Segala already has his person that he'd like to recommend, but then there's 10 people that want to be on the planning commission, and we're going to interview all 11 of them, knowing that the councilman wants to appoint this person. I'm just trying to understand. I don't want it to be weird on their side.

I think if I may, I think in that process, is really, it allows the opportunity to be engaged in the public process compared to maybe being seen as political elements, which is, I'm not going to get considered for anything because I don't know Councilmember Seagal and I don't know Councilmember Isherwood. And I think it's much like in the spirit and the intent of like the brown act or others of those that apply gets their chance to demonstrate their engagement to the community. There's an application. They do that. It's not it's not discounting one a person's right to participate in the process, and at the same time it's not discounting the district for that council member selects. Here's here's the pool from that. So I think what it does is the person who's the applicant and myself being and then serving on boards and commissions. I got to come to the microphone and introduce myself to the community and the council members. I had the chance to do that. I was seen. My voice was heard with that. I want to be involved. And then, yes, perhaps District 3 or District 1, this is my appointment in that selection. It also doesn't take away that perhaps later when the appointment is District 5 or District 4, oh, we've heard that person make that presentation. Thank you for your engagement, and you could be considered for something. Something else I think it's been inconsistent over the years and this brings consistency to it.

If I could just add 1 other comment. I like to think of it in a way sort of like doing job interviews. Frankly, we have a lot of candidates to apply for jobs. And we have a process by which we go through and see who's eligible and who's not eligible. Right? Which would you hear? Some people live in the city limits. Some don't. Okay. And then, you know, I might look at the packet and so, boy, I really like this person. I really think that's the person I want to pick. And then we get the interviews and I'm like, I have changed my mind. Right? I don't reveal to anyone who I'm thinking that I may want to pick. I wait till I go through the whole process and then I make a decision at the end. And it's the same concept. Council could definitely know who they want. Never change their mind, regardless of how the interviews go. But they could they could say, I really want Jim and they have the interviews and they say, boy, I really like Susie. I need to rethink this. And then they come back to the final meeting and make their decision. It may be that a council member finds themselves in a position where they're like, you know, Jim says, I'm interested, but I'm not going to be available for every meeting because I have to travel. Right. So now you have to think through, well, what's better? What do I really want? Do I want someone that's there all the time? So there's things like that that could come up or may just give you pause and reason to really think. And then the last comment I would just share is you might have two candidates after that process you really like. You go with Jim, but you realize that Susie is somebody that you want to think for the future, for a future board, for a future opportunity, or Jim just doesn't keep showing up anymore. you now know kind of from there you've got another candidate that showed interest and made an impression upon you so it's just that it does take a little extra time it's that one meeting where you interview and talk to everyone but i have found it with the council members of my prior jurisdictions they see value in it and to the mayor's point the candidates see value in that opportunity i think i go back to the um

the decision that was made maybe prior to all the council members here. I know that was something that I worked on when I first got elected. When I was able to do my research and find out that there were 49 possible appointments in the city of Tulare for airport, for library, for planning commission, and out of the 49, only one lived west of J Street. 48 out of the 49 lived east of J Street. So it took me years. It took me years to finally get the council at that time to say that those commissions that are not ruled by law, like the library, or that are not dictated like the Board of Public Utilities by the charter, that those opportunities for the rest of the commissions that every council member would The noses community, the noses folks that would vet out someone that they could is not guaranteed, but they could appoint someone from their district. I've appointed people that are not in my district to commissions, but I've had that purview that. That has always been something that we trust each other with. in terms of like, hey, if Isherwood wants this person and Madero likes this person, we've always gone along and said yes. Now, the safety net is if one of us appoints someone that we know is going to be destructive and going to be this and going to be that, it's going to be this, then there's that safeguard that the council can say no. But for the most part, we trust our judgments and our appointments because, again, we want representation when John Potter, 49 or 48 of the 49 lived on the east side of J street that was definitely an unbalanced, so I think this has brought a little bit of balance. John Potter, For that, and I think I just want to make sure what what impact will it have on on that process, it sounds like it's going to go away, this is going to have no impact on it, except it creates.

John Potter, Why, why wouldn't you know, can I, please, please let me okay. All this does primarily is a situation to where we have in our packet, like in your situation when you make a selection in your district, we have in our packet for that meeting who that person's going to be so we at least know when we come to the meeting. As opposed to arriving at the meeting not knowing who you're gonna select, and then the person is selected. And I can't, you know, obviously we're talking about a particular situation that happened recently. And one of the things that accomplishes it prevents the type of situation where maybe the person selected has an inconsistent office that could create a problem. We alleviate those kinds of things by at least all of us being able to see who it is that's being selected, have that period of time to consider it, and maybe point out to you if you're the one doing the selection, have you thought about this? When it comes from the dais, without any of us having the opportunity to consider what has been done, then those kinds of problems can be created. This alleviates. And that's all that's happening. As I understand it, that's really the only change that's being made other than fine technical things. Is that correct, Melissa?

That is correct. I mean, the applicants are going to be required to attend that first meeting so that the council does have that opportunity to ask any questions that they may have. And that also gives the applicants opportunities to provide any additional information that they may not have included on their application.

And then after that, if... when they attend, whoever's making the selection, like if the vice mayor is making his selection, then during that period of time, he'll decide who he's going to select. He'll submit that to you. And at our next meeting, when we come, all of us will be aware of who he selected. That's correct. And then it will either be on the consent calendar or it'll be general business, depending upon how it's structured at that time. But that won't interfere in any way with the individual making the selection, as you indicated. That's correct. It just is a matter of us not being in a situation to where there's that sudden selection that nobody anticipated and without time to consider what the selection is.

I mean, I just think that the requirement of someone coming to the Council meeting is good. I think that should be regardless of the appointment that appointees should at least have the courtesy to show up. And that's something that I, you know, encourage and will, I mean, if we require my appointees to do so, that's great. But I think just part of it is just I don't have a problem if it falls on council members, if the city clerk says, oh, hey, there's an opening on this commission. Here are 20 people that are interested in joining. And then it falls on the council member to do their research and talk to folks if they want to, if they have someone, and then provide the clerk the name that would be on the agenda. But I just don't see inviting 20 people to come to interview when the council member is like, okay, thank you for coming, but You know, I already have this person in mind, that's kind of where the hiccup is it for me. So I would rather fall on the council member. Hey, here's 20 people you decide. Put that name forward instead of having 20 people show up to be interviewed.

Typically, when we have appointments, it's usually a group of. um seats that we're trying to fill so it's not usually just one every once in a while it may be one that we're trying to fill a vacancy for but typically it's for multiple seats on the various boards commissions and committees i'll let you ask is there any way that we could change it so that people are limited they could only

Check off the box that the committee or commission you actually want to be on. Don't check off every single box there. Like, we see so much of the time. So, we would know that they really have it. They truly have an interest in that particular. Commission or board, I mean.

Dave Kuntz, I don't know that we could I don't know that we could do that, but I mean the hard way to do that is just have them submit an application for the one that they want to be involved with this effort checking the boxes. Dave Kuntz, More work on this part, I think.

I. John Potter, I think, in past discussions it's probably been, which is a person who maybe doesn't know all the different opportunities, but that way administrative paperwork you don't have 17 of them, you just get one and that applies to three or four so it's probably administrative function.

John Potter, You know one option on this is we go with what she prepared if there's a hitch on anything or we find that there's something that needs to be modified we come back and modify it based on her recommendation. I look to counsel if you have prepared to make an action. I'll make a motion that we follow the recommendation of the chief deputy city clerk and the modificate as indicated and adopt the revisions in the handbook specifically focusing on streamlining the appointment process. I'll second that.

We have a motion and a second for approval of 9.3 for the recommendation from the Chief Deputy City Clerk. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries, 509.3. Moving forward to item 10, future agenda items. And we have 10.1, Vice Mayor Steve Harrell.

In order to save time, I'm not going to go any detail. I think it's pretty self explanatory as to what this is only looking for tonight is consensus to move this forward for future agenda.

Council, I'd like to address that. And specifically. you know, I appreciate the passion of the vice mayor in bringing this back. This came before us in December of 2023. And the only issue I want to address is should we, you know, at this time, should we put it on the agenda? This is one of those issues that I was trying to figure out how to say this, because when you're dealing with politics and religion, it can be, you have to watch every word that you say. And I noticed that Clovis, Fresno, Porterville, Delano were all mentioned. And what I did was I specifically put, I Googled, in God we trust Clovis, in God we trust Fresno, in God we trust Porterville and Delano. And in each one, there were, newspaper articles that dealt with the controversy that was raised when that occurred and and there were the pros and there were the cons and it became somewhat heated and it seemed like invariably what ended up happening was it was a contest to determine by those that are sitting on the dais as to who believed in god the most and uh i i think that's something that we have to be careful of because what happens is we end up with unintended consequences. Specifically, we're in a season right now where we've shown unity for six years, all five of us. We're in a season now where we've got political offices that are coming up. We've got a ballot measure that's coming up. John Potter, I don't know that in from my standpoint, whether this is now the time to deal with this this these chambers were built in was built in 2010 but had a planning stage of at least a couple of years prior to that time so we're we're approaching 18 to 20 years and. John Potter, God we trust was not has never been here and. There's been numerous councils, numerous council persons who have not made it their decision to add in God we trust, probably in the dozens. And we're now in a situation where we're going to make that decision. When that decision is made, I know in the Board of Supervisors, when they made theirs, it was on a split vote. And when it was on a split vote, then the next decision was how big do we put it? And then the next decision was where do we put it? And we have to realize that not every religion is the same. Specifically, you know, Christianity and Islam John Gerstle, Have monotheism, which is one God, but Hinduism and Buddha Buddhism have multiple gods so we're being exclusionary to a certain degree um. John Gerstle, I just want to avoid the controversy i'm especially now. John Gerstle, I think, maybe. John Gerstle, Consideration is to defer this, this is a federal logo, the. The logo for the state of California is Eureka, and we don't have that here. Within the last year, based on what I indicated, a Fresno City Councilman had become a supervisor, and now he's pushing to have it in those chambers. In this day and age, it becomes a divisive issue that one side, and I'm not saying this about the vice mayor, because I know he's not that way, but it can easily devolve into a situation to where it takes on a political nature. And Porterville even took it to a vote in 2008, and it was a little over 60% for it and the rest against it. So the majority was able to dictate to the minority, Telluride County Board of Supervisors, as I indicated, was a 4-1 vote. Delano brought in a member of the clergy to press the point. And I apologize for dragging this out. If I say a city council was left out of this in 2017, It came before them. And if I could just read from the article that was written at that time in the Valley Voice, and then I'll stop, OK, if I may, Mr. Mayor. OK. During the August 21, 2017, by City Council meeting, council members voted 4 to 1 against putting the motto, In God We Trust, above the city seal. Council member Steve Nelson requested the item be put on the agenda was the only vote in favor. Nelson wanted to discuss the issue because he was heavily involved in his church. He said that it had been the nation's motto since 1952, this article says, it was 1956, making In God We Trust not just a religious model, but a patriotic one. He added that we are a divided country because of the labels that we should all believe in the motto. This is who we are. This is our fabric, he said. Council Member Bob Blink, keeping the comment short, said, I have a strong belief in God and use him to make decisions. But we have a diverse community, and this is a public building, so I do not think it's appropriate to write it on the wall. Council Member Phil Cox also was succinct. As a saved Christian Mormon man, I do not need to have these words on the wall of our council chamber. I have them on the walls of my home and in my heart. Nelson's opinion was that if we have them in our heart, let's just put it on our wall and share the model of our country. City Councilmember Greg Collins said that the residents have approached the Council to debate the city getting involved with issues such as creating a nuclear-free zone or weighing in on the issues of abortion, but the Council of the past has always resisted. He said that debating the model would take a lot of time and angst and But in the end of the day, it's not a good use of our time. These city chamber walls are for city business, he said. Mayor Warren Gubler said that in God we trust is one of his favorite models and that he believes that Visalia is a religious city. But he added that we live in a pluralistic society and that he is not sure that all religions would be comfortable with that. He noted that no one had approached him about the model and didn't think it was a pressing issue for the public. For that reason, he was leaning against it. I'm also leaning against it. And specifically, I think there's three ways we can deal with this. We can say yes now to put it on the agenda. We can say no consistent with what our vote was in December of 2023. John Potter, Or because of the issues that I began with concerning the fact that these things have a tendency to become controversial and they have a tendency to become political. John Potter, We can just table this for now and table it a short period of time, I would say this consideration would take place in November after the November 3 election, and then we could deal with it at that time before there's a change of this Council. There is no pressing commitment to deal with it now at this point with the ballot measure coming up and the elections coming up. And that'd be my position, but I'll respect what council does.

We're coming up on the 250th anniversary of this nation. There's nothing in here that says anything about establishing a religion, promoting one God over another God. This is to... place the ceremonial and patriotic motto of the United States of America on the wall right back there. Everything else that you said, I think, has no bearing whatsoever on this. I think the people of Tulare would not vote down a tax initiative strictly because we decided to put in God we trust on the wall. So, therefore, I'd like to see a consensus to put this on the next agenda.

Council members. Anything else?

Respectfully, I'm a no. Yes.

I'm a yes. And I'm a yes, to put it on the agenda.

Thank you.

Moving forward, item 11, staff updates. Mr. Orr.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Nothing to report.

I uh just quickly a lighter note I came across somebody today and uh I had my city to city of Tulare shirt on and I'm not doing stuff and they were like oh you're the city of Tulare yeah wear the shirt so forth and they said yeah uh one of my buddies that I've known for a long time I think he's on the council or he's the mayor um his name's Chris and so I was kind of thinking for a moment I'm like well um what's and he was talking about uh parks and some other components so forth and i'm like chris or yeah that's chris or i've known chris or for a long time and so i just rolled with it i'm like yeah chris is the director you know that we have for parks and rec yeah so chris is a really good guy so just pass it on somebody out there man they uh they've got your back at least someone does yeah thank you

Good evening Council. I have a few items for you. Staff completed the always stop at Inyo and O Street today. It is very bright and it looks great. So we'll keep an eye on it and we have PD keeping an eye on it. Tomorrow we are going to begin southbound M Street. We completed northbound M Street a couple of weeks ago. We're going to do the mill and replace of southbound M Street starting tomorrow. we should be paving by Friday. And then the third item is we are having some issues with the Prosperity and M signal. Our system isn't working, so the signal is currently working in recall. So if you get calls and questions about it, the green light's gonna, you know, the left turn lane, there's gonna be no one in there and the green light is still gonna come on. So we are working on getting a new system ordered. It may be in recall for a few weeks. So I do apologize. But if you get the complaints, we do know that there is an issue at that intersection right now.

Thank you.

Nothing tonight. Nothing to report.

Nothing to report.

Trish, I keep forgetting to text you about that light. So thank you.

Nothing to report. Nothing else.

I got a couple items working with the railroad PD detail to keep clear all the cabinets and follow all the MOU with code enforcement. We had increase of graffiti throughout the whole city, not only downtown. So be patient. We are trying to keep up and try to see if we can work night shift and see if we can catch somebody because he's driving me crazy. And we're putting up a couple cameras, see if we have luck on that. All the furniture was delivered to the shelter. We emptied 220 by 20 storage units and 240 footer seat trains and 320 footer seat trains. So it was a lot of furniture. I'm proud of my guys with this heat outside doing all this. It was crazy, but it got done, ready to start assembling. uh finally demolition of the library started on monday so we've seen some people filming taking photos outside so hopefully by the end of this week it'll be done and uh finishing uh city hall landscaping it looks very nice uh just remember we have to wait the plants to grow so it looks small right now but they'll grow and they'll look uh way better thank you that's it

One of the, if I can just kind of write on that, and and other Council members you get this. I think Mark, you touched on this one time. It's frustrating is I do hear and chatter from all residents passerbys of just how they feel the appearance of Tulare is just not good and what they're basing that off of. And I say that is the 99 corridors coming in that all the improvements we're trying to do in the city of Tulare, the 99 corridors. Caltrans property is filled with tumbleweeds and and just uh they've tried to make certain improvements but i think the difficulty is we we can't answer to that we that's not a city of tulare property but it's frustrating because the perception with the public is It is and and kind of how to work with that because I, as we talked about things that influence, I think it influences other elements for what we try to do based off how people see that presentation of of the 99 corridor. And there's a little bit of saying is a thought is. If we can invest in 4 by 8 signs that says, this is not the city of Tulare property complained account trans much like, I think much like 4 by 8 and cross and say, this is a call this number. Um, it's just frustrating. It's just frustrating. And I appreciate your report and everything that we're trying to do. Um, and that's. Difficult, you know, to to to counteract and that influence.

So, um. I feel the same way about the post office landscaping. Anybody ever taken a look? If there's, I don't know how, I know that's federal, but God, that landscaping there is, they don't even mow the lawn or trim the bushes. And I mean, and that's kind of the center of town. You talk about downtown and the presentation, I mean.

Yeah, we we've worked on that issue. We've, uh, we've taken it all the way through our lobbyist, uh, to members of Congress. It's been hard to get the postmaster to do something there when we've done that. And they've reached out to the postmaster, send somebody out there to do it, but difficult for us. And in terms of the corridor on 99, I would say. We are making improvements. You'll notice that all the walls have been painted. That's because we did it. We're eliminating graffiti out there. You'll notice if you start paying really close attention, Caltrans continues to upgrade their fencing on the quarter. They're starting to put the no climb tubular steel fencing, which is much more durable and attractive. We're going to see more of that happening through the quarter. And they allow us now to go out and repair fencing once it's damaged and they reimburse us. So we're making strides. It's going to take a few years, but as these additional lanes get improved and the page interchange and the new IAC interchange goes in, you're going to see more beautification around all that. I'd like to say next week it'll be taken care of, but then the next three to five years, you're going to see, I think, a much more beautiful enhanced corridor out there.

I think they're spinning something to the tune of nearly 200 million. Yes. Some improvements in those areas. It is. It's the maintenance of the corridors.

Yeah.

Nothing to report.

Nothing to report.

Mr. Mayor, in regards to Councilman Medeiros' comments about the post office, that's gone as far as Congressman Valadao and Fong's office in attempts to get something done, and in regards to issues with the postmaster herself. And the response from the higher-ups is, well, just deal with it.

I agree. I've been hesitant to bring it up because out of fear that they might just close it, which what do we do then? And I mean, if you look at the foundation of the office, when you walk in, I think it was 1936 or 38, that building was commissioned. So it's got historical value. We just, it'd be nice if it looked better.

Well, I just wanted to comment that I was talking to the city attorney that it can happen. And unfortunately, it takes a member of Congress for it to do because when I lived in LA, the post office down the street from where I live, it was similar. It was dirty, graffitied. And interestingly enough, ironically, the person who helped take care of it was Congressman Becerra at that time. So I know that Congress can help.

Nothing a nightmare.

Just very quickly, we had a big meeting last night, Patini Track out of Palo Verde School, about 200 plus folks there. The meeting went as we expected, which is we knew it would be a challenge because many of the folks came really frustrated and upset about the history and the lack of investment and attention. And so many folks didn't realize there's a difference between, for example, the county and the city and our obligations and their obligations. In fact, it's not annexed, etc. Um, what I would, I'll put more in a weekly report on this, but what I would say to council is. You know, you'll get some comments for sure back and forth. I would just say, give it some time and be patient. If you can, we'll continue to work and talk to people and try to build trust and answer all their questions. Our next move will be to develop the website and put all the answers in writing and we'll send that information to council in advance. You have a chance to look at it before we go live. And we'll have some more meetings out there, and we'll keep talking and listening and try to address their concerns. And at the end of the day, there will be a survey at some point that will come out. And if the survey says, there's no interest in annexation or no interest in a business park, then we'll bring that to council and council could decide what course of action it wants to take of any. So, I just give it some more time. This was the 1st 1 and we knew the 1st 1 would come with a lot of concern. and you know there were a number of folks who were quiet that did not feel comfortable speaking that came up to me afterwards to talk and talk about support but they did not feel comfortable in an environment sharing support because many folks were really there to to be complaining and so and i understand why right so uh we'll get you more information here over the next you know in this weekly report and i'll update you as we keep working towards that that's all i have thank you all right and we do not have to recess for closed session all right

with that our city council