Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to your Tulare City Council meeting for Tuesday, September 15th. With our call to order, the first items we have on our agenda is our Pledge of Allegiance and Invocation. As we stand for our Pledge of Allegiance, I would ask that our Fire Chief, Mr. Ott, would lead us in the pledge, and please remain standing for our invocation led by Caleb Byron, Youth Pastor of Tulare Community

Good evening. Welcome.

All right, good evening, and thank you for having me. I'm Caleb Byron, one of the pastors at Tulare Community Church, and I love Tulare. I got a shirt that says so, and so it is my pleasure to open us up in prayer tonight. God, we just thank you so much for Tulare, the wonderful place that it is to do business in, to raise a family, and to have a life, Lord. And we just thank you for all the men and women here. who have devoted their time and energy, so more than just tonight, Lord, but also their Tuesday evening to make decisions about this place, Lord. And so we pray tonight that you would share some of your wisdom with those who are making decisions for this place that we love. Lord, we thank you for all that you do for us, and we thank you for Tulare in your name. Amen.

Thank you, Pastor Byron. Next on our agenda is public comments. Members of the public wishing to comment on any item not appearing on the agenda may address the City Council at this time. State law prevents Council from acting on any matter not on the agenda. However, your comments may be referred to staff for follow-up. This is also the time for the public to comment on items listed under the consent calendar or to request an item from the consent calendar be pulled for discussion purposes. Comments related to public hearing and general business items will be heard at those times when they are discussed. In fairness to all who wish to speak, Public comment is limited to 15 minutes with each speaker allowed three minutes unless otherwise extended or changed by council. Please begin your comments by stating your name, and you only need to provide your city of residency, please. For those that wish to provide public comment while attending the meeting remotely, you can press nine on your phone to raise your hand or click raise hand in the webinar. An item we have on the agenda, which is later, is on 8.4, which also 8.4 is a discussion regarding potential data center study session. Council might arrange the agenda coming up after public comment. However, if you are here to discuss 8.4, but you cannot wait to other items on the agenda, you're welcome to make public during the public comment period. We surely welcome your comments during this time. So with that, the yellow cards that I have, the first one that I have, which was under 8.4, but Gina Haycock, I surely want to welcome and give you the opportunity if you wanted to say your post. Good evening.

I'm Gina Haycock. I live in the city of Tulare. And my comment is from what I've heard about data centers in other cities, there is noise pollution, air pollution, water problems, and electrical bill problems. And I think we all have those problems here already, and I don't see any reason to make it worse. And from what other cities have experienced, I think we should look at that and be aware of the fact that there could be more detrimental problems with this than benefits.

Thank you for being here, for sharing, Gina. Another yellow card I have is Mark Barrios. Is Mark still here? I'll have the yellow cards given to the city clerk who does register that. Is there anyone else in council chambers who'd like to make public comment at this time? The gentleman in the far back. Okay. Good evening, Mike. You're welcome. Yeah.

Good evening, council members. My name is Mike Lee. I'm a lifetime resident of Tulare. Same thing. I just same thing concerns that all of us have in town about push and everything. And my biggest concern, man, is a lot of this stuff you see that's happening in other states around our country with the whole data center stuff is that it seems like they make a lot of promise on paper. Everyone keeps talking about the closed loop system and everything. And just from the little bit of research that I've done, it seems like in some of these situations that these companies are coming in and making these promises, And then it seems like they've got a track record of breaking ground. Once they break ground, they want to come in and change. You know, now it needs to be all of a sudden we need to tie into your city water because it's too expensive to do the closed loop system. And kind of it seems like the ongoing problem is, is once they break ground, we have stopping them. And we're talking about. multi-million billion dollar companies that are doing this and that would tie up our little city and all of its funds for a great deal of time trying to fight these people in court i think and unfortunately i i'd hate to see that for our community um i you know with with the feelings that i get you know from all the events that i've been to so far about this um overwhelming feeling of everyone that's been attending in the community they don't want this you know it's not anything that we want and especially for a hundred years man i mean that that's a long long long time to to get someone to guarantee them to not tie into our water and everything that goes along with this so all i ask is the city or for the council is just be mindful and discernful with this you know take a lot of time to study this i mean it doesn't just affect us city you know people of the city it also affects you guys too so that's all i got thank you guys thank you mike thank you for sharing you're welcome to come welcome

Thank you. Good evening, council members. Sorry, I'm still working on this public speaking. So I'm a lifelong resident in the city of Tulare. As you guys know, I spoke at the previous meeting. And just a little disclaimer, I am a telecommunications technician myself. Tonight, I am speaking in my individual capacity. I'm not representing my employer or any company. So basically I fully support the study session. We need to press pause, look at the facts and make a responsible decision about the city's future. But tonight I also want to address some important, some of the fears surrounding data centers. So data centers are not or these dangerous factories. They are a physical infrastructure behind so much of the modern life. When you check your bank account, when you access medical records, you use your car GPS or order something online, you rely on these centers. The cloud is a physical infrastructure. What this infrastructure is a physical building. Many people think it's just something that's imaginary and that's not what it is. In our society nowadays, it really highly depends on it. History has shown that with new infrastructure, this often creates a fear before people ever understand it. When the telegraph came about in the 1860s, they said the wires will introduce or conduct electricity and that would strike and cause fires at people's homes. When the railroad arrived in cities, They said that if humans traveled faster than 30 miles per hour, they could experience some kind of nerve damages when automobiles appeared. Some of the communities called them the devil's wagons and warned them bad from the streets. That doesn't mean we should ignore the legitimate concerns. Data centers can require significant energy lots of resources. And as you know, our farmland is vital and our fresh water is vital. So with closing, I just want to let you guys know that this is a really important conversation. I really hope tonight that you guys vote to go ahead and do this study session. because whether you like it or not we need data centers and if we don't have them we're going to go back to the 1980s people think that ai drove these data centers but that's not the truth it was really the internet.com boom of the mid-1990s that started all this ai is just expanding them and again ai is not all robotics It's basically computing systems that can compute just like the human mind, just like our GPS. Hope you guys vote to pass that study session. Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Madam Clerk, the Vice Mayor is confirming, did we get his name when he spoke?

No.

Did he identify himself? He did not. Okay, sir, if you don't mind, I know you gave a disclaimer not representing your company, but the clerk and the council members are saying you didn't say your name when you came up. Okay. All right. Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else in council chambers who'd like to make public comment? Madam Clerk, do we have anyone on the phone? Okay. Okay.

Donna. Okay, I can hear you now. Sorry about that. I'm having to call from very remote. Good evening, Mayor Isherwood and members of Council. This is Donette Silva with the Tulare Chamber of Commerce, just sharing out some information. Our exciting times in our community as it continues to grow, continue to happen, and we have a lot of activity going on from a variety of different types of workshops, both in English and Spanish with new cohorts, starting at the Tulare Business Innovation Zone. So I wanted to throw that out there, first of all. And then this Thursday evening, Creativo will be there at T-Biz hosting our monthly networking mixer at 5.30 p.m. So we'd like to invite everyone to come out and join us. Tomorrow we will be doing the grand opening ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Tulare County Fair at 12 p.m. That is happening on the community stage, and that is followed by the Quilts of Honor. We have the greatest number of... Veterans being honored this year, we have 33. So please join us there again on the community stage. And that's also going to be followed after that by our sister city performance. I'm sure that I anticipate council member Medeiros will share some of that information. Also happening on Thursday, we have a ribbon cutting ceremony for the brand new Xfinity store, which is located on West Prosperity. Then on Monday, we have another new home development by San Joaquin Valley Homes. We'll be celebrating their Mariposa development. Tuesday is the 75th celebration anniversary for the hospital here in Tulare, and that is an event being put on by Adventist Health. So please join us 530 p.m. to 730 p.m. And then we're going to go over and see our friends next door and our neighbors for Bank of California's grand opening. And the following day, it's Relation Insurance here in Tulare. So we're going to be very busy with a lot of activity. And then coming up, of course, next month on October 9th is the Crush Party. We encourage everyone to get their tickets now and come out and join us for a great, enjoyable evening at COS Tulare Campus Center. There are a whole lot of other activities with our members. Please make sure you're following us on social media. Check out our calendar. Get on our e-blast list. There is so much happening in the community of Tulare. Again, the exciting times continue. Thank you and have a good evening as I get ready to go into Valley Strong Credit Union and Sun Gazette doing their event tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Donna. Do we have anyone else on the phone?

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. Good evening, city council members. My name is Jordan. I'm a resident of Port of California who I also work in Tulare. I'm also a student at UCLA and a member of Power California. I'm here today standing in solidarity with the people of Tulare and I'm asking for the approval of agenda item 8.4, the study session on data centers. I was born and raised in the Central Valley and I'm very concerned about the possibility of any construction of an AI data center in my backyard. As I said during the last meeting, working families here in Tulare County are already struggling to make ends meet. The cost of gas, rent, utilities, and groceries has us living paycheck to paycheck. The implementation of an AI data center has the potential to increase our utility bills, increase pollution, and take valuable resources like water rights away from small farmers. In fact, I'm genuinely confused Confused by Tulare's reluctance to think about small farmers and everyday working people, perhaps large agribusinessmen see this as an opportunity to sell off excess land and crush small farmers most affected by raising utility rates and water consumption. But nonetheless, it seems like a mistake to me. Data centers could turn water in California even scarcer than it already is. My question is, what's your guys angle? I know folks like Medeiros don't support working class people, but why not small farmers? Why are you not acting proactively for an industry you claim to defend as a lawyer? We deserve a city that hears us and brings us in on matters of quality of life. Opening up the discussion was a great first step. Approving a study session would be a great second step, but we need to go further. The people of Tulare County do not want data centers. I will once again be directing my ask to council member Dennis Medeiros since he's not been acting proactively and has been deferring to his profession as a lawyer to excuse his standing idle. Number one, please vote in favor of agenda item 8.4 and approve a data center study session. And number two, please act proactively for the sake of small farmers and everyday working people and push to ban data centers permanently. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other callers on the phone? OK, thank you.

Hello, can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Mariana Alvarenga with Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability. I'm also going to be addressing my comments for item eight point four. We strongly encourage the council to schedule a data center study session to learn more about the negative impacts associated with data centers. This will provide you with the opportunity to engage the public before decisions on data centers are made and ensure data is available to help make informed decisions. The study session should be accessible to the public and be presented in an interactive format. Additionally, the city should provide interpretation services to non-English speakers and materials such as presentation or handouts should be translated to accommodate everyone. The study should include information on short and long term impacts to residents, including but not limited to the following. energy water air public health land use light pollution noise pollution and jobs impacts due to the massive consumption of resources by data centers the study should also include direct and indirect city impacts such as the need to repair deteriorated roads from increased traffic during the construction and operation of data centers and strains on water and energy availability in the city In the meantime, we continue to ask the council to approve a moratorium on data centers while the study is prepared to guarantee that data centers are not approved until the city decides how to move forward. Again, we respectfully urge the council to schedule a data center study session to learn more about the harmful impacts that data centers can bring to local communities and resources. Thank you.

Is our caller still on the phone? Ma'am, may I ask what your community that you're from, if you reside in Tulare or a different community? I don't need your address.

Yeah, can you still hear me?

I can.

Yeah, I'm based in our Fresno office. We also have an office in Bakersfield, and we work with the residents in the county who will be impacted from Athenitrack, Pixley, and Tuleville.

All right, thank you. Madam Clerk, do we have other callers?

Okay.

Is there anyone else in chambers as well that would like to make public comment? Okay. With that, then, I'm going to close public comment. And at this time, council, as we have done in past practice regarding this issue, do we want to bring 8.4 forward and bring this item to discuss Mayor Mrakas, Issues regarding potential data Center study session right now on the agenda. Mayor Mrakas, I think, to the point of as before i'm looking to get thinking to Council members of your direction, if you want to do it right now.

Mayor Mrakas, If that's the mayor's preference I don't have problem okay um.

Okay, just looking at all council members. I think with that, I would like to propose we bring 8.4 forward on the agenda as those that are perhaps here for public comment period are able to engage or be a part of the 8.4 as it takes place. So with that, is there a consensus? Yeah. So, with that 8.4 discuss and provide direction regarding scheduling a city study session.

Mr. Thomas Jeffrey actually counsel. I'll take lead on that 1. Thomas is going to. Take lead on 8.5, so I wasn't at the last meeting. My understanding of that discussion was it Council voted at that time not to move forward with a moratorium, but rather to present on this agenda. A discussion about whether or not there should be a study session or presentation in the future prepared. Council will need our staff will need your direction on that issue. We'll have to understand if you want to have a study session. Do you want to have a group of panelists come? Do you want to have staff prepare research and provide that information for councils consideration? uh do we want to you know look at videos do we you know what is sort of the format and the approach you want to take we have to have a sense of when you want to do that if you're asking staff to do the research as you know we've done some research already some preliminary research that we provided to you that information which we can we'd be happy to summarize for you in the future included information such as how many data centers exist in california where are they located A little bit about the different types of data centers that exist. You heard a little bit tonight about what the role of a data center is, how integrated they are in our society. know we could provide that information to you you're aware that i served on a panel discussion associated with american planning association a few weeks back where we had five panelists that have expertise in different areas involving data centers talking to a group of about 150 land use planners so we can invite those individuals to come that panel discussion talked about pros and cons of data centers one of the real outcomes of that discussion was it really wasn't intended to be a discussion about our data center's bad and evil or our data center's good and sacred. It was more along the lines of what function do these data centers serve? they an integral part of society and if so are they here for the long term if they're here for the long term what provisions should cities consider taking in terms of establishing conditions under which data centers might be allowed and under which data centers would not be allowed right you heard some of the individuals this evening talk about concerns related to environmental impacts like noise and water energy consumption. You also heard other individuals talk about the reality that if you're using Google Maps, you're using a data center, right? And so it's very much integrated into our lives. And so what conditions would exist under which something like that could happen? You've seen a number of jurisdictions around us and throughout the country move quickly to establish moratoriums on data centers a 45-day moratorium a 60-day a 90-day i i i don't i i appreciate council's resistance to sort of take that knee-jerk reaction because i don't know that that serves any primary primary purpose in the sense that if a data center were to come through the permitting process it would take far more than 45 days for it to go to be built um and in reality there would likely be public hearings and those kinds of things that would have to occur where there'd be public input so We just need some direction from Council if you want to move forward with a study session or a panel discussion. If you want to have a panel discussion, I can invite some of those same individuals. I'll explain to you who they were. We had 1 individual who works. For Southern California Edison, that is the individual that is tasked with actually analyzing data centers, running all the calculations to determine whether or not they would have a negative impact. on the grid system or positive impact, including whether it would have a negative impact to ratepayers or positive impact to ratepayers. So that person could speak firsthand about their experience in dealing with multiple existing data centers and the ones that are coming through their system now for consideration. We had a professor from a local university who is very involved in transportation and autonomous vehicles and the AI aspect of data centers. and spoke very simply and plainly about sort of the pros and cons and the impacts. And I think one of the points that they made is, curiously, there's evidence that a lot of the misinformation and negative information you hear is coming from certain sources that are trying to prevent the country from actually considering data centers. So there's a lot of information out there, right? So we need to understand how you want us to narrow that scope a little bit. Um, we could talk about cities that have had bad bad stories with data centers and cities that have had success stories with data centers that all that literature is out there. So, um, we're, we're open to whatever council's direction is. I just need you to be a little bit specific, hopefully for us. So we can meet your needs within a reasonable timeframe.

Okay, what I would like to do is approach each of our council members as we do, I do want to keep this conversation with rules that one towards the issue that we have at hand with 8.4 as our city manager also outlined. and there's a combination of council's concerns the city manager public concerns but i want to keep us focused towards 8.4 and would like to limit that council members keep our comments to three minutes of course discussion we can decide if we want to continue the discussion as council but with that i will start with our vice mayor steve harrell

fully supported a study session by staff gathering information but as i look around the room i can see that mario would have to be involved in this the police chief the fire chief tricia our city attorney michael this would be a long process to gather all this information i don't see you need to sit down with a panel to discuss What a data center was in Mississippi. What happened there? What happened someplace else? We're concerned about to Larry. And some people will say, well, this has got nothing to do with the fairgrounds. This is what generated the whole thing. That's what got it started. So I fully support a. The staff gathering information, and I would think that it probably take them. Probably close to 90 days at least. to gather everything to be able to come back and present it to us so we could see take a look at it and see what what's out there and how we want to proceed from there council members thank you i definitely appreciate the fact that we're having a conversation on this

A lot of folks in the community are interested. As the Vice Mayor said, this has nothing to do with the fairgrounds. This has to do with if one day a bazillionaire, trillionaire, whoever came to the city of Tulare and said, hey, I want to build and operate a data center. To be honest with you, I don't know. I mean, I've been on this council 10 years, and I can't tell you how that works. So a study session would allow our staff to tell us, hey, all they got to do is fill out a one-page application, or they got to fill out a 100-page application, and they got to go to this committee, they got to go to that committee, that commission, and maybe or maybe not come to the city council. I have no clue what it takes for someone to build a data center. Now, do I have a chance of getting struck by lightning right now versus someone building a data center? Probably. But I think it's important for us and the community to understand that if someone were to approach the city, we have an idea what it would take for them to do so. A city manager reference, there might be some public hearings and this and that. I don't know. I quite honestly don't know. what the process is to build the data center in the city. So that would be one thing we'd love to be able to have staff present on what we have existing in terms of ordinances and processes for that to occur. I think originally when I brought this idea forward was the idea to get some pros and cons about what are data centers. I mean, I've come to learn a lot. in the last couple of months about different data centers, what types there are. There's some as, some people have been saying that there are some as big as, you know, that part of the podium there, one of the boxes, and there's some that are miles long and so forth. You know, the miles long ones are not going to happen here. I mean, that's back in Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, those areas where they have a lot less environmental rules. Unlike here in California, where there's a lot of environmental protections. But it's good to know what are some of the pros and cons, if there are any. Are there good pros? Are there bad cons? Or what's going on? I think that'll help us understand, at least help. hopefully the council understand have a better uh appreciation and be taken position but i also would like to be able to as folks brought up the impacts that this will have on the environment of any on health if any you know what are some of the studies or what are some of the things that that are generated and i think in particular you know the city managers made a public statement that edison has told him that this will have no impact on rates or increases i'd like to hear that for medicine Either they come before council and publicly state that or send us a letter saying that a data center is not going to impact rates or increases to the cost of electricity. And so those are some of the things that I like to be able to do in an open forum. Study sessions occur before the council meetings. IT ALLOWS THE PUBLIC TO LISTEN IN AND TO PROVIDE PUBLIC COMMENTS ON ANY OTHER THINGS THAT WE MAY WANT TO LOOK AT. SO I DO APPRECIATE US CONSIDERING A STUDY SESSION AND HOPEFULLY WE'LL MOVE FORWARD WITH SOME OF THOSE ELEMENTS. THANK YOU. COUNCILMAN MCGURK?

LET ME MAKE SOME CLARIFICATIONS BECAUSE A COUPLE OF DIFFERENT TIMES I SEEM TO HAVE BEEN THE TARGET OF WHAT PEOPLE BELIEVE IS AND IS NOT MY VIEWPOINT ON data centers, I don't have a decision one way or the other. I grew up on a farm. I am now what you would consider a small farmer. I was an attorney for over 40 years. My biggest problem previously was defining exactly what it was we're dealing with before we start taking action one way or the other. Basically, that entails education. There's what appears to be a knee-jerk reaction to data centers. I think the more information we can obtain, it'll be helpful not only to the decision makers that sit up here, it'll also be helpful to the public at large. John Potter, Under under those circumstances i'm not opposed at all to giving staff, the opportunity to put together the necessary information and having a workshop if there are issues that need to be presented for full information relating to what. John Potter, Edison deals with or. I think you indicated one other gentleman. What area was it you indicated?

He's in higher education who deals with autonomous vehicles and AI related to data centers.

That ties everything in, basically.

Yeah, he has a much broader perspective on this.

So having additional information from experts along those lines, if they're willing to come and help educate the panel and also educate the public at large, I don't see that as a problem. The more information, I think, the better. What I'd be in favor of is a workshop that would include those individuals if staff believes that would be helpful, not only to our council, but also to the public at large. And it would have to be, I think, because of the interest that the community has. John Potter, I think it would have to be a situation to where that basically is a study session that deals only with that topic, so that. John Potter, it's separate and apart from our Council meetings and we can concentrate on that and those people within our Community and otherwise that wish to come and see what staff has prepared and how that relates to the city of Tulare. That is something favorable. So it is. Is that what you're looking for? Is that kind of information?

Yes, the 3 of you provided me the 4 of you. I'm sorry. I haven't heard from the mayor yet, but the 3 of you so far have provided me good information that I can use waiting for the mayor and and then we'll be able to go from there.

With that, yes, absolutely endorse the, uh. data center discussion workshop, as was noted, we've had workshops before. I think that's the excellent way to go. With that, and I think some of that direction that has been touched on is, As we've been seeing different information, and as even mentioned here tonight, is what are the definitions of data centers? There are a different breakout you can look online, you know, relative to about six to nine different definitions, ones that deal with AI, ones that deal with processing and computing. So we'd love to see a breakout that helps to frame the the research and presentation on what are different definitions. I step two is I think that's helpful because as we're seeing different definitions is as I think Council Member Segala said, we're hearing there's different types, different sizes. It helps to understand. And I think frame of schools have a data center is that their computing system, health care has a government entities have it. So framing that I think helps to put it in the right perspective. I also, as council member Sagal and I did, we had a meeting with the assembly member Macedo who brought on a data center, the CEO, but also brought on our county, our city, all of our legislative partners and walked through some of these definitions and walk through our concerns. Because the definitions are important to our review, it's key impacts. So understanding the key impacts, our city around policy and our community around info is ready to know what we have in front of us. And we allows us to gauge what's appropriate because I think as I've heard from city staff and kind of a summary, and I think the council was understanding this is, How do we approach this? Because zoning, building code, my understanding is we don't have that on the books with us to the definitions of what the process to an AI or a data center definition. So I think it'd be great to come back and also have city staff say under these definitions, under this framing, this is what our zoning and our building code looks like. And I agree with the other council members of i know the city staff have been doing homework already this is what professionals have under here here's what the other cities have and i think what what i understood a consensus of the council is the public can also walk away and know okay here's the information here's the policies here's what's right for Tulare. And I definitely propose, which I've heard, and I thought there's one council member, I think it was Council Member Harrell, Vice Mayor Harrell, had said in 90 days of having that on our agenda and the timeframe if that works for staff.

If I could add one other thing, I think along the lines of what was indicated that, and you may have touched on this, specifically knowing where we stand and what the process would be. I know if you want to build a subdivision, when someone goes to buy that property, they don't just buy it. They usually buy it with a contingency that the entitlements get in place. They want to make sure they have all the permits, they have the city's approval, everything's in place before they pull the trigger and actually buy the property. Some of the some of those situations can go on for months or I've had situations where it's been years. And so the idea that somebody is going to buy a piece of property without knowing that they're ever going to be able to do that is extremely unlikely. But that's why it's important for us to know what the process would be. And by with us knowing, then the public will know. I'd also like to see in any presentation input from Jason Bolling, because Jason, this is your area, Jason. And I mean, an argument can be made that in City Hall, we have a small data center. Is that is that your microphone on?

You could make that argument.

Yeah. So what that's where I've had issues from the very beginning is we need definitions here. We need to know what it is, what scale John Potter, Are we talking about what is the the Center that we're dealing with at what point do they become of the issue and along those lines so that's.

Yeah, that's I think it's in councilman. So go and advice me. I'll come back.

Yes.

And I think that's the part that was also framed here from 1 of our community speakers that we're not caught on our heels and we're not caught annoying. Hey, we followed this process and then council is left. Wait, what do we do now? So the proactive approach and I think the proactive approach. allows and creates limits that's not right here. We wouldn't be able to facilitate that. This is under one definition. The other one's the public's informed with that. Both of you have your mics on. There was something you wanted to add.

Yes, Mr. Mayor. I think another point that I wanted to make related to the whole data center is that I just wanted to know the public that's watching or listening in now or in the future to let them know that my understanding is that at this point, and the staff can correct me if I'm wrong, there is no plans for a data center to be built near Matheny Track. So I just wanted to put that out there and give the staff the opportunity to tell me, councilman, you're wrong. There is something going on or there is a proposed idea. But as far as I understand, there is nothing being built near Matheny Track.

Yeah, that's correct. First of all, Matheny Track is not annexed in the city. So if there was a project being proposed, we wouldn't know about it because they would be going permitting through the county. We've not been approached by anyone or are we pursuing anyone that would have any interest in building a data center in Matheny Track. Matheny Track is a residential area. We've talked about a business park south of the Matheny Track, but we don't talk about it in terms of it being adjacent to the Matheny Track. We're talking about it being Mike SanClements, You know, a great distance from the Matheny track right, so I don't know what that answer is half mile mile two miles I don't know we're still talking through those discussions right but. Mike SanClements, So Councilmember Seagal is correct, there are no plans there's no discussions about building a data Center near or in the Matheny track that that we're part of again there's counties doing something I have no idea about that.

Mike SanClements, So with sorry Vice Mayor Harold do you have anything else to say yes, go ahead. Mike SanClements, Oh.

One thing that we need to also look at is when this whole issue of data centers came up, it was data centers, resiliency centers combined. Mr. Gorman at the last meeting has done a very good job of explaining the difference of at the fairgrounds on the corner of Martin Luther King and K street. where the state came in and tore down all those buildings and have this nice chain link fence and these uh corral type aisles to get in and out of is where the resiliency Center was supposed to go which is something totally different from a data center we need to make sure that those people people understand that those are separate issues and maybe we can do some research on what this resiliency Center is if the state ever decides to do it

So before we move towards our, our formality, which I think there's consensus here with that, but I did say with 8.4 and we have, is there, I want to go to public comment, hearing the staff's opening view. And then with that discussion, if there's somebody who'd like to speak at public comment, you're welcome. Mr. Lee, you had your hand raised if you'd, With like that, I'm gonna enforce the rules and keep the public comment that has to 15 minutes. But with that, welcome, Mr. Lee.

Hi, thanks for having me back. So I guess earlier, and I guess I didn't present, I'm not a public speaker by no means, but I guess the question that the concern, like I've spoke with you on Facebook, Patrick, I guess my question is here is I've heard, you know, you guys talk about the fairgrounds. So my deal is, I guess my concern is, is, What is this? So I'm not here approaching you guys to build a debt that your guys are trying to build a data center. What I want to know is what the city's standpoint is and what your guys' responsibility and what you can do to be a part of said data center that they're trying to build in our fairgrounds. I guess I didn't clarify that more. you know global stack llc said company was created in march 14th of 2026 so you know i mean it's only not even six months old seven months old and they're wanting to come here and sign a lease on our fairgrounds for 100 years so i guess to clarify that's my question is is can you guys stop that can they just come in here and do this or can you guys set guidelines and and and rules and whatnot that that they have to follow or is it because that state property they can pretty much just come in and do what they want tie into our utilities into our municipal water whatever they want just because they own that property

sure mike if uh that that's kind of what uh what i guess what i'm more concerned about what i will do guys just i'll absorb your public comment and then with that is i will ask city staff to address your public comment because providing in that so quickly if if i can i just um It's not a debate. Right, right, right, right, right, right. So, Mr. Monday, would you like to address that question?

So, so we don't have all the answers because we don't know all the details of what that facility would be. So, so at a high level, fundamentally. The state has a certain degree of sovereignty or. separation from a city's permitting process when they're doing and a city attorney correct me if i'm wrong but when they're doing public projects and things related to the purpose in the case of the fairgrounds things related to the purpose of the fairgrounds right that seems to be fairly clear to us in law and that's not just the state there's other entities when schools build school buildings they don't typically go through our permitting process they have their own permitting process okay gotcha But where it gets a little bit of a gray area is, what if it's not a fully public use? So we don't know enough about the data center. Will the data center serve? They've talked about it being a resiliency center. And what we've heard, the limited information we've heard, and I don't know if they have all the information, how it will serve public safety and response times and things. That sounds like a very strong public purpose. But if it's a data center that also will serve consumer purposes, like we talked about today, people having buying movies on Netflix and those kinds of things, and they're generating revenue from it, that may change the. All of a sudden, that might start falling under the city's jurisdiction. Right? So we don't know that answer. I would say, in terms of your question about water consumption, I do think. You know, if they end up in, there's a little discussion so far today about closed loop systems and and could they use cooling other substances for cooling other than potable water? Right? Because that's been a big issue everywhere around the country. And, you know, if they're not using potable water and they're not having to meet our ordinance requirements, then we probably don't have much to do about it. Right? If they're having to do a curb cut onto our street, they might have to go through our process of getting that curb cut approved. But maybe that doesn't that doesn't necessarily mean we could hold it up. To stop the construction either, because that's usually sort of a. An administrative function, right? Doesn't come to city council. It just has to meet certain standards and we issue a curb cut. So we don't have all the information. And so it's say, I would say, as it's currently framed, we, it doesn't appear that we'll have much control at all. Even if we want to pound our fists and pass an ordinance, they could ignore it as it as it's framed today. But, you know, if more information comes out and it's and it's different than what we're hearing and thinking, we might have a stronger role in that discussion. Even if it's just issuing having control over issuing a permit for water, which, in that case, of course, I've heard from all the council members say they're not interested in using groundwater. know for that kind of purpose so um you know we've had bottle water bottling plant bottling plants water bottling plants come to the city and we've said no because they want to use groundwater right so so um it kind of depends on what comes out of all that okay does that make sense yeah yeah thanks thank you for your clarification thank you thank you mike is there anyone else in chambers who'd like to make a comment okay yes

So I'm sorry that I keep coming up here on this topic, but I just think it's- Just for the record, if you could say your name, sorry. So my name is Rick Gorham, lifelong resident of Tulare. Sorry I keep coming up here for the same topic, but again, telecommunications technician acting in my individual capacity, not representing the company. It's just disheartening, and thank you guys for approving the study center, but I just think that the residents need to do more research. These data centers are a vital role into our modern data. Basically what happened was in the mid 1990s, boom, local infrastructure would be like somewhere right here. And we still have modern little data centers here or server rooms that support the local infrastructure. But what happened was when the internet took over, now you had businesses and they would say they would sell furniture. Back in the 80s, they would only be open nine to five. A customer can only come in on those business. When the .com and the internet boom came, these local infrastructures had to expand. They couldn't keep these servers no more and house them. So what they had to do was they started leasing spots. And we already have these modern little data centers everywhere. Telecommunications companies been building them for over 60, 70 plus years. They have every aspect that they have. I understand that the resources, again, I know you guys won't use our vital farmland. I hope not in our fresh water. But like they've already stated, when a developer comes in, they pay for these upgrades. And I would recommend the council and a lot of listening to look into the California legislators. They have seven data center bills that are on governor, governor, Governor Gavin Newsom's desk right now, they already passed both House, the Assembly and the Senate. There's seven of them. And they cover all our concerns. It's already here. So basically, again, they're in every business everywhere. If you use any kind of technology that, you know, sends, receives data, they're already in there. So they're already here, Facebook, internet, GPS, Amazon, logistics, hospital records, reports. All that has to go to a compute processing and server facility. We've got to work on our latency or lag times. So I would suggest the council just further study this, the people at home further study this and know that If they pass the bill today and they said there's no data centers in the United States, we will go back to, you know, right before the Internet. And it's just what it is. Do they belong here? We'll see with transparency. So thank you, guys. Thank you for your comments.

Okay. With that, I'm going to go back to council. Council, do you have an action item?

Mayor Mrakas, isn't an action item or consensus, I think we've given direction and there's a consensus mayor there's a comment on the phone sorry okay.

Can you hear me? Yes.

Okay. Yeah, sorry for coming back up here, but, you know, since we had a little discussion, there's some things I wanted to cover. One, to the city...

Excuse me, sir, can you please say your name and residency, please?

Yeah, it's Jordan Higuretta again, and again from Porterville, California. I was just going to ask the city manager if we could maybe get a possible video or transcript of that APA meeting that he attended, if one is available. And then also, you know...

Unfortunately, there was no video of it, but I can provide notes that were taken and documents that were circulated.

OK, would really appreciate that. The other thing is, yeah, there are different types of data centers, right? Like and I'm interested in learning more about that, too. I think most people are really concerned about the hyperscale data centers. You see companies like Amazon own, right? And this isn't something that's unbelievable to think would be built in the Central Valley, right? Because we have loads of land that know farmers could sell off to data centers right um it's not unbelievable to to think about that right um and they're the ones that tend to cause the most pollution cause the most uh resources and and land to be taken up um also amazon is like they have like infrastructure like uh in visalia i think so you know um the fresno for example has an fci uh data center i believe it's called it's more of like a computing like a like a uh a high-end compute computing data center and it's used for like agribusiness right like um researching uh agriculture and stuff like that if it's gonna be a net benefit to our county it's going to provide us with resources and it's not going to take resources from us i don't think anybody's necessarily against that nobody's against a tiny little data center um that powers something vital uh for the community i think what we're really upset with is hyperscale data centers or these closed loop data centers like proposed by global stacks again i know it's at the fairgrounds but It's being proposed nearby, so it's a concern. These closed loop data centers that this company came out in March, we don't know if this what they say it is you know um we also don't know uh if we can trust you know like the other gentleman said that they won't go back on their word right um so i think that's the main concern also thank you to sagala for putting this on the agenda and assuming you know maderos like you are actually uh you know you're a small farmer and you're just trying to be cautious about this then you know i apologize for my comments but i'm worried about an agribusinessman or a tech bro pulling a fast one on us as a community. So just want to put that out there. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. So council, is it that we have a, there's a consensus? Yes, we're directing staff to put a study session workshop. I like the term of a workshop on our agenda. We've given direction. Each of us have provided key items and areas as well as public input. And we will set that date. We had said 90 days that looks towards the, if I'm correct, October, November, December, that'd be the end of December.

um we usually would we second council member second council meeting in december yeah i'm gonna do our best to shoot for the first meeting or a special meeting yeah we're either a special or the first meeting we're going to do our best um we're also going to have a changeover in council so we want to try to get it in front of you guys before you Obviously, we'll have new council members who I'm sure we'll have an interest in it as well. But I think I don't anticipate we're going to have a 1 and done work session. I think we'll have a work session. Well, there'll be a lot of things discussed. There may be more questions. You may ask us to do more research. You may give a specific direction. Then that comes back with some kind of ordinance. So I think it would be good for the new council members. To be able to sit and listen into that discussion before they actually take seat and have to start making discussions decisions.

And I think with that direction too, as there was some elements as anything that presents that issue, like more information or something escalates with project staff is going to bring that information to council ahead. We're not going to wait for that. 100%.

Yeah.

Okay. Well, that's a motion. I think it says there's to approve. So to approve one of our options or actions. So I'll approve with the recommendation provided by council to have a study session. So I'll make the motion.

Yeah. Provide direction. OK. Well, I said approve here. We got that. It's, yes, direction, full consensus of all council members. OK. Moving forward. is we will go back to item on our agenda thank you for everybody uh attended i just also want to say as we go into item four communications or item five if you looking kind of for a spot you'd like to leave the meeting you're surely welcome to leave during this time communications or uh reports so communications the city manager no communications okay council reports and items of interest vice mayor harrell

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. On 9-10, the Downtown Association 9-11, the 9-11 Memorial Service put on by the Fire Department. Outstanding performance and presentation as always.

Council Member Segal.

Council Member Medeiros. On September 2nd, I had a LAFCO meeting. September 8th, I had a Mid-Quea GSA, Groundwater Sustainability Agency. I've been on that for eight years and we've dealt with water. I'm familiar with the circumstances and how it relates to our Cahuilla sub basin. On September 10th, we had a leadership reception that I attended. I attended the September 11th ceremony and I echo John Potter, The thanks for chief of fire chief in the presentation of fire chief on that was an excellent presentation and and on the 14th the Chamber yesterday the Chamber governmental affairs committee and as an item of interest. I've been in touch with Christian Lukens from Caltrans on a somewhat ongoing basis, and he let me know today that supposedly, Michael, correct me, supposedly by 1 o'clock on Friday, our interchange will be open for business. Oh, I've driven on that. The first one of us was our vice mayor who snuck early in the morning over that some time ago. Is that correct, vice mayor?

I agree.

That was on official city business, correct? Yeah. Thank you.

Councilman Medeiros, I also want to say, is there anything perhaps you want to touch on our sister city activities that are catching places?

The mayor of Angra is flying into Los Angeles tonight and will be in our community by 9 o'clock, I think it is, and she will be attending with her husband the annual inspection that our police department is having. And after that, I believe the chief is going to give a brief tour of the police department itself. Is that accurate? Then we'll end up back at City Hall and our city manager is going to show her City Hall. And then our assistant community service director, Brian Beck, will tour with her the amphitheater. And I believe she's going to pop in at John Potter, The the meeting you're going to have a 10 o'clock tomorrow morning when we get done with that we're going to end up with a tea biz. John Potter, tour and lunch and those those in this room that wish to pop over I think we'll have enough food. John Potter, Is that correct Melissa have I missed anything.

John Potter, No okay.

John Potter, Anyway, and then there's other things going on all week long through Sunday and. There's going to be a documentary on the 60th anniversary of the sister city relationship between the city of Tulare and the city of Angra. And that will be at Galaxy Theater. They've been so kind to, Freddie's helped with that. They've been so kind to make a screen available. And Freddie, that'll come off smooth as can be. Is that right? No glitches. We're not going to have all those people there. And then the camera won't work. So let's just. so that shouldn't be a problem. There will be a presentation of a proclamation at that time that Melissa is feverishly working on and will have ready. And unless the mayor is going to present that and wishes to delegate it, I'd be glad to do that.

Okay. Yeah, the event, I also just want to recognize Denise Fresno State and the Angler Club as well as the Tulare resident for his involvement in work and putting this event together and the lunch tomorrow which I'm committed to the opening ceremonies at the fair which this lunch is taking place at the exact same time unfortunately but as well we'll be attending the dinner and event on the 20th as well kind of the close out of the tour and talked with Ceremony involvement as well.

I think you also need to recognize Carmen Pinero for her involvement in this along with she's she's the president of the sister city foundation.

Okay.

So with that, they're also, yeah, I'm sorry if I missed it 600 years that the.

I thought I heard something that's been some time ago. They, they. I don't know if that's this year or not, but it's aged well. Let's put it that way.

And so with that, I think it's touching on this week is our opening of our Tulare County Fair. So myself, I don't know if others will, I'll be joining our fine and fabulous fire department for being in the parade. And with that, I think our police corps is leading off the parade. That's correct. So I don't know if other council members were going to be... if you're gonna be in the parade department. Thomas, thank you for sending that invite out. And then just I'll close with what has been stated here. It was thank you to everybody involved, our fire department, our police department, all first responders, partners that put on our 9-11 Memorial Ceremony, 25-year event, Chief Ott, for your words, and other groups as well, reflecting our deepest appreciation for that recognition and solemn recognition towards that. And of course, Rotary and near 9-11 blood drive that took place that day. Great job. 20 years of the blood drive and providing life to the community.

Okay, moving on. Well, Mr. Mayor, before we move on, I just wanted to note that later on in the agenda, I'd like to adjourn in memory of a longtime family friend who recently passed away. Her name is Rachel Saenz Mora. So I'd like to be able to adjourn in the memory of before we finish the meeting. Thank you.

Okay, item six 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, what is your action with the consent calendar? I have a motion, I have a second. I have no items for removal. All in favor? Aye. Item seven, public hearing, 7.1, 2025 consolidation annual performance evaluation caper. And to note as well, public comments for the public hearing are limited to three minutes per speaker for a maximum of 15 minutes per item, unless otherwise extended by council. I want to remind anyone that is attending the meeting remotely, you may press nine on your phone to raise your hand or click raise hand in the webinar. So with that, um we will open our caper good evening we have in burr and cervantes is that correct yes all right good evening

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Jessica Cervantes, and my colleague Noreen Barr and I serve as Housing and Grant Specialists with the City of Tulare. We're happy to offer a presentation on the City's 2025 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report, also known as CAPER, for fiscal year 2025 through 2026. The presentation will cover the following areas, we will first start with the background and purpose of the caper identify the reports key sections and content. And then review key outcomes from activities and projects, assisted with federal Community Community development block grant CDBG and home investment partnerships program funds. Illustrated here is a simple overview of the program year involving CDBG and home-assisted activities and projects. First, after a request for proposal period in the late winter, early spring, housing staff prepare an annual action plan for council's consideration. This AAP is submitted to the Housing and Urban Development Head in May and outlines anticipated goals and expeditures. Most CDBG and home-assisted activities and projects involve an agreement with an eligible organization to implement a service for the city over the course of one or more years. with financial and programmatic outcomes monitoring from July 1st through June 30th. The capers are prepared in August through September of each year, documenting outcomes of the recently closed fiscal program year. And for your reference, all planned activities and projects must address one of the priorities identified in the current 2025 to 2029 consolidated plan. These goals include preserve and expand affordable housing, revitalize communities, enhance public services, and maintain program administration and planning.

The CAPER is a program requirement for all recipients of CDBG and home program funds through HUD. The Housing Division leads this evaluation and looks to gather public input on reports content prior to submission of a final version to HUD before the end of September. Housing Division staff published a public notice in the Visalia Times Delta and Tulare Advanced Register on August 26th, 2026. This legal notice through Visalia Times Delta and Tulare Advanced Register, housing staff opened a public comment period on August 27th, which will close with this evening's public hearing. This period meets the minimum 15-day public comment period required by HUD. In addition to the public notice, housing staff submitted notice to local listservs that work with the City and provides public services. The CAPER public notice was distributed through the Tulare Chamber of Commerce email list, Kings Tulare Homeless Alliance, and Community Care Coalition communication networks. The city of Tulare's draft caper has been made available on the housing divisions reports page and public notice has been published through this on the city website starting on August 26 after August 26 city social media platforms posted about the caper public meeting and public hearing.

Like.

A detailed 2025 caper document was published on the reports web page of the housing division and is available upon request. The sections CR05 goals and outcomes to CR58 section 3 compliance are required elements for each caper and give the city an opportunity to expand activity outcomes or lack thereof, as well as identify other actions taken in support of housing, social services, and other community development goals. Three CDBG activities, projects, and program administration related costs are identified here. First, despite a delay in the activity, start. Launched outreach case management and housing navigation services as a part of behavioral health bridge housing. An initiative in the 2nd, half of the program here. Over 100 people experiencing homelessness were engaged and assess for the available initiative. City anticipates full realization of interim housing and clinical care to occur in the new fiscal year. And a housing rehabilitation program with self-help enterprises helped a total of six low income house homeowners with minor rehabilitation projects, such as roof replacements, HVAC and lead paint abatement work up to $20,000. the largest cdbg assisted project did not commence construction in program year 2025. the tillary dayton avenue utility sidewalk and street improvement project was bid in quarter four and will begin use of cdbg funds in the new program year engineering is available to answer any questions about the new project timeline

The city received its first federal word of home program funds as a participating jurisdiction by April 2026. Given the timing, the housing division was unable to incur plus planned costs in fiscal year 2025 through 2026. Only program administration costs were incurred against the 2025 Home Award. With improved program marketing and design aspects, the Housing Division anticipates a particularly active fiscal year 2026 to 2027 for rental assistance with the Housing Authority of Tulare County. And housing staff intend to release a special request for proposal NOFA involving home, housing successor and other resources as part of committing said funds to an eligible developer to construct new affordable rental housing this rfp is planned for quarter two of fiscal year 2026 2027. and this concludes staff's presentation housing staff welcome any questions or comments from council and others in attendance following the public hearing thank you

Being that city staff has concluded their presentation, I will open the public hearing. Is there anyone in chambers who wishes to make comments on the 2025 Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation Report as the CAPER? Is there anyone in chambers who wishes to speak on this? And Madam Clerk, do we have anyone on the phone? Okay, with that, I will close the public hearing. John Potter, To staff in the other additional items or Council members, do you have questions.

John Potter, My only comment is, I want to thank you for the presentation to tell there was a lot of work put into it and it's appreciated by Council. John Potter, The job you do is integral to make sure we do things right, so thank you very much.

Thank you.

The only question I've had, and I'm glad that Spencer is here today. I know I've brought this up in the past on the CDBG sort of limitation where a super majority of the funding goes to construction type of brick and mortar type of things. And I think only 15% goes for social services. So have you guys are aware of any discussions that congress may change that formula up i know that maybe when we get to spencer's uh part of the agenda might be able to do something because i think that unfortunately limits us on how we can help people i mean we can build some streets or add on to a street project but the 350 400 000 for that i think would probably be what more served in social services but you guys haven't heard anything but any ideas on changing the formula

Thank you for your question. At this time, HUD has not presented any new information or made any new rules that we are aware of, but housing staff and community development will stay out of it in case there is anything new coming out of the administration.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council, do you have action on 7.1? I'll make a motion to adopt a resolution approving the 2025 consolidated annual John Potter, Performance evaluation and authorize the city manager or his designee to submit the 2025 caper to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development on behalf of the city of John Potter, We have a motion and a second on approval of 7.1 all in favor by any opposed motion carries

Moving forward on our agendas, 7.2, TMC, Tulare Municipal Code, Chapter 10.83, by-right approvals and revision. Pass to print an ordinance approving Zone Amendment 778 to amend Chapter 10.38, by-right approvals to the Tulare Municipal Code. Mr. Anaya.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council. This item, just a quick correction. I think it was a typo on the agenda. So just to confirm, it is Tulare Municipal Code Chapter 10.83. It's the by-right approvals revision to that chapter, which was actually adopted by your city council May 5th. And second reading was in... I'm sorry, I got that backwards. It was April 21st, and the second reading was May 5th. So this has to do with... Our continued quest to have our housing element six cycle housing element, which you've heard me present on in the preceding months for certification with the state. We are very close. This was your council might recall. We had a rezoning a number of actions that were taken at those two meetings in the spring and the adoption of this chapter adding despite right approval chapter ten point eight three was one of the requirements. View with the state housing community development department, they just had the minor clarifying text changes that you see and track changes, which are provided at your seats. To the to the language and the text just specifying which projects would qualify for these provisions. So that's what's in front of you for your consideration with. your consideration and approval of these revisions. We can present them back to the state. I know they are also anxious for us to make the revisions to hopefully have us be fully compliant with state housing law and finally achieve certification of the city's housing element. That's really all I have to present. I can answer any questions after the public hearing. Thank you.

With the conclusion of staff's presentation, I will open the public hearing for Tulare municipal code chapter 10.83 by right approvals revision. Is there anyone in council chambers who'd like to speak on item 7.2? Do we have anyone on the phone? With that, I will close the public hearing for 7.2. Council members, do we have questions for staff? or comments on 10.83.

Mr. Mayor, I just have one for Mario. I know that we work diligently with staff to approve the RHNA locations and obviously ties towards those. But does this also apply to other non-RHNA locations if some developer just for some you know, out of the goodness of their heart, wanting to build affordable housing and it's not a RHNA site, would these apply to that particular project or just RHNA sites?

That is a very good question, council member. It does apply to the RHNA sites, but it also applies to any affordable housing. So it lists the various, actually to be specific, Under 10.83.030, that's where it lists the eligibility for the projects. And then it lists a number of types of projects. So you see housing developments with 20% of units affordable to lower income households. And it specifies kind of what the state wanted to ensure is that it includes not only sites intended to accommodate our shortfall capacity, as well as the rezone sites. And then it goes on and it mentions In centers, any projects, whether they're arena sites or not that are 100% affordable. And then other projects is eligible under state law for by right approval that last kind of catch all as, you know, the state has been state legislature has been very focused. on trying to increase buy-ride approval of housing projects in particular. And so this would allow for any changes to that particular section of government code that might include new eligible projects to be captured.

So taking a closer look at that, if the College of the Sequoias, which owns a lot of property now within the city boundaries, the College of the Sequoias wanted to build student housing. would that be considered affordable? And would that come under this? I mean, students are, you know, by nature, not are probably not too well off, but if this, if something like that, because I did see that it calls out institutions of higher learning. So if the college wanted to build student housing with affordable housing, they would under this be exempt, it would be a by right project for them.

That is correct, sir. Okay.

Well, I hope they're listening, but okay.

John Potter, Council members do we have a recommended action well i'd like to just a side comment and it's territorial.

John Potter, If you look at the front page of the tolerate advanced register at the top, it says my say at times delta to Larry advanced register pet peeve of mine is when we say it was published in the by salia times delta there a merger of these two newspapers several years ago. And we were assured that it still would be the Tulare Advanced Register. So maybe what we could do in the future when we publish is not say it's the Vicea's paper. It's our paper. So I'm not picking on you, Mario. This is meant for everybody's ears, okay?

I'm perfectly interested.

Anyway, that's just a comment. With that comment, I'll make the motion to pass to print the ordinance as indicated in the staff report.

I'll say it.

Hal Hallstein, We have a motion a second to pass to print an ordinance approving zone amendment 778 to amend chapter 10.83 by right approvals to the Tulare municipal code all those in favor. Hal Hallstein, Any opposed. Hal Hallstein, Okay, moving forward to 7.3 historical cultural landmark nomination for the fruit house. Mayor Mrakas, Mr night that I said that crawl by the.

Mr. No, that is correct mayor historical fruit house, however, staff is requesting that this item be tabled continued. Mr. Unfortunately, there was an adequate noticing that was done for this particular to want to allow adequate public hearing before we present the item at the next meeting.

Okay. So with that, we will, you know, this is being pulled because of public hearing process. So there's nothing from us. Do we have to hold a motion to table?

Yes. Okay.

So I'll make a motion to table at two. What's what's the day?

To October 6th. Second. So we have a motion and a second to table 7.3 to October 6th. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Moving forward to item eight, general business. 8.1, state and federal legislative update in November election preview. Receive a presentation providing an update on state and federal legislative activity and review of the November 2026 statewide ballot measures. Mr. Mondale.

Council, we're very pleased this evening to have with us who is our advocacy partner and he's going to and you're very familiar with Spencer and all of their great work and everything that has done for us over the years. We've been a long term client of theirs and many of the things we've accomplished we couldn't have done without. And so we asked Spencer to come and just give you an update on our legislation and how it may impact our community. Thank you. Perfect.

Thank you Mr. Mayor, members of council, city staff, and residents of Tulare, Spencer Street, Wisconsin Public Affairs. 2026 was a very busy year in Sacramento and Washington DC with a lot more on the horizon in 2027. So very briefly, for a table of contents for my presentation, I'm gonna hit on the three tenants of how we serve the city of Tulare, funding, policy, and politics. We're gonna review state and federal appropriations updates, bills that are of concern to the city, both in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., and a little preview of what to expect on the November ballot and a preview of what to expect in 2027, both in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. Starting off in January, the state was facing a projected 3Billion dollar deficit. The legislative analyst's office projected a marginally higher number, but that 3Billion dollar deficit set the tone for the state's priorities. However, in June, the governor signed into law a budget bill that projects a $0. into the 2028, 2029 fiscal year. As tax receipts came in during quarter two, the state adjusted spending plan ending with a balanced budget. To accomplish that, the state is spending approximately $350 billion, but with no new large-scale broad-based spending or revenue increases. The focus was on maintaining recent investments and preparing the state for impacts of HR1 or the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Much of the budget discussion this year HR1, notably in the Medi-Cal space. The final budget allocated funding to support increased county workforce and workload for health and human services programs, including 197 million for Medi-Cal and 223 million for CalFresh. In August, a number of trailer bills were also implemented and passed to shore up the remaining priorities of the legislature. As individual proposals in the state budget, the state again, assumed may revision revenue assumptions at a higher level than the January proposal. The state is intent on shoring up revenue. potential downturns in the next couple of years with now 28.8 billion in total reserves. And there's also a measure on ballot in November that could increase the amount that the state puts into the rainy day fund. One accomplishment for local governments this year was achieving additional funding for the hat program at the the governor's proposal included only five hundred million dollars for round eight of the half program down from the usual one billion dollar annual allocation. Local governments led the charge to get that number up to 900 million dollars still short of the 1 billion dollar normal allocation but it's still still something that we will have to come back again in january to advocate for additional funding for the state budget also allocated 50 million for prop 36 implementation assisting counties and local governments with the actual implementation at the local level and as i mentioned there are no broad-based tax Tax proposals, however, there was one targeted tax increase to include and expand the sales tax base to include digital pre-written software and software as a service to enhance the state revenues by approximately $450 to $900 million annually as far out as 2030. For Federal Appropriations every year we work with the with the City City Council City staff on proposing projects for inclusion in the Federal Appropriations process, known as community project funding, congressionally directed spun spending, or colloquially earmarks. This year we submitted five separate projects to Justin Cappos, Representatives Vince Fong, Representative Valadeo, Dave Valdeo, and Senators Schiff and Padilla. The project for the city's downtown sewer rehabilitation was selected by Congressman Vince Fong and included in the how your environment and related agencies subcommittee bill for eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The remaining projects were submitted to your various members. However, we're not selected to advance. I will have an update in a little bit on the actual appropriations process, and when the city can expect to receive that Mitch McConnell has returned to Dc. We anticipate the appropriations process to resume towards the end of November ahead of the expiration of the continuing resolution on December eleventh on to state policy. in the transportation and roads funding space. Senate Bill 922 was a priority for local governments in response to a court case whereby a city was sued for using fees collected from waste hauling agreements to repair local roads. This bill clarifies that local agencies are in fact permitted to use service related fees to offset damage done to roads. This case was specific on waste hauling contracts often Use roads damage roads. It, uh, it serves a reason that you should be able to use those fees to come back to support local roads.

Real quick question does that also apply to the city owned? Yes, it's probably work because I know in the past. At the fire department, the idea of. having the public works department pay for their concrete because the idea of trash haulers going back and forth to pick up trash was maybe not something that could be done, but under this legislation, that is an option. So in other words, our public works department could pay the fire department's concrete pathways because the city trash trucks go back and forth in there.

Not necessarily. If the city is contracted with a third party and collects fees from that agreement, those fees can be used for local road repairs. Assembly Bill 2059 by Assemblymember Wilson. Excuse me.

Yes. Tricia, you looked like you were ready to say something.

I think it's more meant for public streets, their impacts on public streets, because we're down residential streets 3 times a week. So, and they're not necessarily built for that type of traffic. So.

Yeah, not necessarily private, like a fire department drive approach, but but under that legislation would then disqualified unless it's only a 3rd party, not a city department.

If it's internal, I'll have to check. This was intended to address actual contracts with services or contracts for services. Assembly Bill 2059 is intended to protect taxpayers' transportation dollars by establishing a reasonable limit on vehicle miles traveled or VMT mitigation costs for the purposes of CEQA for transportation projects in rural or non-metropolitan counties. The author specifically recognized that VMT mitigation requirements add significantly to the cost of transportation projects. As such, the bill intends to ensure VMT analysis is applied in a way that reflects the community, the transportation projects, and project context. The bill provides that a transportation project is presumed to have a less than significant transportation impact as determined by VMT if a majority of the project is in a non-metropolitan county. Both of these bills are pending on, or sorry, Senate Bill 922 was signed into law. That was one of the first bills that the city has taken action on that was signed into law. Assembly Bill 2059 is still pending on the governor's desk. in the world of local control and city finance. Assembly Bill 2180 would allow water agencies to set proportional rates in compliance with Prop 218 to allow for tiered water rates that allocate costs proportionally to usage. Prop 218 was implemented in 1996. to or an imposed voter approval for requirements for property related fees. This bill is intended to provide some extra flexibility to local governments when setting tiered or proportional water rates. Assembly Bill 1383 by Assemblymember Kenner was one of the most hotly watched bills in the local government space. The bill resets and raises PEPRA pensionable compensation caps through a two-step adjustment. First, it increases the base to calculate the cap from the 2013 limit to the 2027 limit and raises the percentage applied to the new base for members not covered by social security the bill also lowers the retirement age from 57 to 55 for pepper safety members and creates a fourth formula subject to collective bargaining state department of finance along with cal cities came opposed to the bill the department of finance in the governor's own administration cited increased costs between 230 to 353 million dollars annually to calpers Along with a likely increase to pepper employee contribution rates to help offset some of those costs. CalPERS estimates that the present value of future benefits under this bill would be increased by at least 4.8 billion, potentially upwards of $8 billion, which would need to be funded through a combination of increased annual normal cost contributions for future service over the remaining future working lifetime of employees who are active as of June 30th, 2024, and increased amortization payments to pay down the resulting increase in unfunded accrued liability. That bill is still pending on both. These bills are still pending on the governor's desk in the procurement and public safety space. Assembly Bill 1786 was supported by a large number of local governments and permits local agencies to use best value contracting as opposed to a lowest responsible bidder for projects over $500,000. This bill was signed into law yesterday. and assembly bill 1941 creates an organized metal theft offense responding to an uptick in metal theft helping local law enforcement respond to incidents such as copper wire theft in the housing and homeless Assembly Bill 956 would require cities to ministerially approve specific on a lot with existing or proposed single family dwelling and would prohibit from being imposed that restrict the development of. and Assembly Bill 1708 by Assemblymember Solace. This bill was a labor of love that the city partnered on with Cal Cities to open up HAP funding for small jurisdictions. Currently, HAP funding is allocated to large counties, Continuum of Care, big cities, and organizations. This bill would have created a pathway for small cities to receive some of the Continuum of Care Allocation this bill unfortunately was held in the appropriations committee and along the along the process the. City of L. A. the mayor of L. A. came out opposed to the bill, which slowed the bill down significantly. I've spoken with Cal cities. They're working on bringing this proposal back when it continuing part of the city. I know this was a prior that we discussed late last year. So it'll come back. It is absolutely a priority combined with the advocacy around increasing the base HAP funding for cities statewide.

So just to get a clear picture, obviously it was held in the House of Origin, but it was held because of the big cities opposing it? Yeah, the big cities opposing that? Led by the mayor of LA?

The mayor of LA came out opposed, which was something that was hard to overcome. As the assembly member leading the bills from the Los Angeles area, he was very sensitive to that advocacy. The bill took some significant amendments that would have more or less directed the state to find a way to get more HAP funding to local cities. So it wasn't the original proposal to expand more funding, but more of a study bill, but still hit some roadblocks.

Okay, thank you.

All in all, the city took positions on quite a few bills, still waiting on the final results from the governor. He has until the end of the month to sign or veto legislation. On federal legislation, the city has partnered with Congressman David Valadao to advance a proposal that would allow the city to purchase two parcels, both of one which the woman's clubhouse resides on. The other is the across the street. They can continue to keep these properties available to the public in perpetuity. The bill is still pending with the House Natural Resources Committee. Councilmember Sayer attended the last hearing over the summer and was able to testify in front of the committee. the committee and members of Congress have had some potential changes to the bill, which has brought Union Pacific back to the negotiations table. Mark, do you have an update?

Yeah, so we just had a call this morning. I'll give you an update on this. So first, I want to remind everyone sort of what the goal here is, as I understand it, which is for many years, the city has had an interest in gaining all over the land. Obviously, we have, we've invested money in a skate park, but we've been leasing that land annually from Union Pacific and Union Pacific as it's moving forward in the future. Not typically doing long term ground leases anymore. They usually do like one year leases. Um, and they don't often do fee, simple sales of land either. And so we have been working really hard to try to encourage their support, or at least not their opposition of a fee, simple sale of the land. And that's what this language in this bill would would have helped to accomplish the challenge that we all didn't really anticipate that we're faced with right now is, um, That land was granted by the federal government to Union Pacific and to other similar railroads through a land grant process without any compensation. or consideration other than the reality is that the railroads had to build that infrastructure. They had to build a national railroad system that supported commerce and transportation throughout the nation. And in doing so, Union Pacific has to provide the federal government certain benefits, reduced pricing. Uh, through the system and allowing military access and maneuverability and a number of other things. And so, unfortunately, there's some committee, and I'm not criticizing them. I'm just stating the reality. There are several committee members whose position is. They believe since the federal government gifted the land to Union Pacific, the Union Pacific should gift the land to the city. While at face value, that sounds. of that to be the outcome, there is no obligation for Union Pacific to do that. And Union Pacific has argued back to them, listen, we've met all of our obligations and more for billing. And you continue to have added more requirements on us over the years. And so we Union Pacific that they've already essentially paid for the land over all these years. And so we're in this little bit of a conundrum where Union Pacific won't consent to the fee sample sale. The federal government really can't require them to do that. The federal government would like compensation. So, and Union Pacific is not agreeing to take our compensation and just pass it through to the federal government. So we've had some conversations about a number of different scenarios and none of them have been satisfactory. What we did discuss with Union Pacific today was the possibility of going back to a long-term ground lease. Again, the goal is to control the property so that we can invest funds and partly we are pursuing wanting to pursue donations of funds to renovate the woman's house. There's not going to be many folks in the community are going to be willing to donate funds if we don't have that land under our control for a long period of time. So the conversation we had with them this morning was would Union Pacific accept the same dollar amount that we had previously negotiated for the purchase of the property, which I think was about $725,000 for, there's essentially three parcels of land, but allow us to enter into a long-term ground lease, a 30-year ground lease for that land. We would prepay that rent upfront with those dollars. In some ways that, I mean, obviously that's not as attractive to the city, but the reality is in the marketplace to rent that land for 30 years, we would have to pay about $2.7 million for it over a 30 year period of time. So we have asked them to consider reducing that cost to the amount we had previously negotiated for fee simple sale, enter into a long-term ground lease. They're not obligated to do that. They don't typically do that anymore. And they're running that up the flagpole to their presidents of their organization and all their committees. And so we hope to bring back to you that information here shortly. While it doesn't accomplish every goal, it would achieve the goal for us to ensure that we have control of the property, we can invest funds, we can seek donations to improve those properties. 30 years from now, we also make a stronger case if we wanted to go that time to the federal government or to Union Pacific and say, hey, Now it's time for us to get some credit for the dollars we've invested in terms of our lease and purchase the property at hopefully a discounted price. Who knows, maybe 30 years from now it would be at no price. I don't know that. That's where it stands. Other than that, there are no other options for us.

An attempt to discuss about the feasibility of taking the amount of money that's Been negotiated and splitting it between the federal government. Yes. And, uh, the railroad that was my 1st option that was my 1st offer bring this to a conclusion.

Yes, that was my 1st offer and, um. That was not accepted by either part.

So, again, so the scenario you've explained, uh, shared with us, then that. precludes the federal government from being involved?

That would take the federal government out of the equation.

Right. But are we still keeping it as an option? In other words, if there is a changing of the guard on the seat, would that process continue or would it have to be resubmitted by the new person?

If the city were to enter into a long-term ground lease, this would come back up at the end of that contract.

Yeah, I'm talking- legislative effort, the HR 8919, if there is a changing of the member of Congress, let's say, would that new member of Congress then have to reintroduce it or could they continue this effort? Because I think having options is important, right?

And so we had that internal discussion. Should we pause this and wait until there's a new makeup of the committee and Here's a couple of challenges with it. Here's kind of what we thought about as the challenges that approach. One is I don't know how much it's hard for me to determine how much of the committee's perspective on this philosophy. It's not a law. It's their philosophy on this issue. How much is that as coming from just a handful of members? And if they were to be replaced, they wouldn't have that philosophy. How much of it is driven by staff? Um, or sort of other policies within the organization. I don't know that answer. So. You may be rolling the dice a little bit if we said, okay, let's just wait a year or 2 years or until those committee members were replaced and re, approach them with it. It might be a similar result. It could be very different, but the thing that we're working up against in my mind is the condition of the woman's clubhouse. While we have put some money into it to weatherize it and to try to shore it up. um we continue to get even though we fenced it and we boarded it off we continue to get uh people breaking into it and we had a fire in it not a few uh i think a couple months ago that we immediately put out thank god i'm very concerned about if our goal serve the building and return it back to a public use it is the oldest building in the city of tulare that if we roll the dice and wait We have all the momentum now by getting Union Pacific to the table to get a deal done. Now, I'm concerned that we may lose the momentum either with Union Pacific and or with a new committee and at the same time, lose the building. That's kind of the I'm not saying that's the right answer. I'm saying that's the variables we've been discussing.

Or do you feel comfortable indicating who it is that is the. Congressman that that has this philosophy that's holding this up.

I'm not I'm not I'm not I can't speak to that issue from our conversations with the committee.

It is a bipartisan it is from several members of the committee. It is not just 1 member. It is not staff this process whereby. A bill has to be introduced to remove the federal government's reversionary interest in a parcel owned by Union Pacific. This happens nationwide, and they have seen the committee's concern is that local governments that have improved properties for a long time are now being required to pay an additional cost to the railroad who receive the funding or receive the properties essentially for free. That's a concern nationwide, and these bills pop up. Some where sometimes they go through sometimes they don't, but it is not just 1 member. It's it's a bipartisan concern. So if there is a change in the guard, we anticipate this concern still being there and process wise. If this were to be reintroduced, it would have to be the start of a new Congress. This bill would still be in effect for for some time. But I can't point to 1 member. Unfortunately, just.

When I first got on this council in December of 2018, I received a call from someone at Congressman Nunes' office indicating that this very issue was before a committee. They thought it was going to pass and it would go right to the floor of Congress. Would end up being signed into law very shortly. That was 8 years ago.

So, yeah, we've gotten, we've gotten farther than we ever have. And so I'm not saying we have the same result same result for a different reason. I agree with you. But what is different this time is we really have Union Pacific. Again, they stand to get this right. I get it. And we, you know, we could. My intent is to bring to you a ground lease. And if you guys decide you don't want to move with that and we will follow your direction, that will be something that will come to you in the future for your consideration. And if you choose not to accept the ground lease, then we'll have to look at strategies in the future.

Looking ahead at the November ballot and before delving the several pages of ballot initiatives that will be hitting the streets shortly, I want to highlight several state and federal races. Representatives covering and representing the city, incumbents, Senator Melissa Hurtado, Assemblymember Macedo, Congressman Valadao, and Congressman Fong are all up for reelection for Congressman Fong and Valadao. This is the first race post Prop 50 with the new district lines. and Senator Grove is turning out and running for the Board of Equalization with Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magzig and William Brown Jr., a Marine veteran and social worker from Visalia, running to replace her in the In the primary election, Supervisor Magsik had about 60% of the vote, a little bit over, and is looking to be the favorite come November. Also on the ballot, of course, is the gubernatorial race with either Javier Becerra or Steve Hilton taking the helm in January. So between the first post-Prop 50 election, a new governor, and a potential shakeup in Congress, 2027 will again be quite the whirlwind. For individual ballot measures, there are 14 statewide initiatives, and I'd like to highlight just a few with local impacts, but please pause and let me know if there are any other measures that you'd like me to cover. 1 was placed on the ballot with a legislative vehicle this session, and it would fund an 11 and a quarter billion dollar housing and veterans bond that would fund the development rehabilitation. preservation and acquisition of affordable rental and ownership housing the bond would also include 200 million dollars for local housing trust fund programs and one and a quarter billion would go specifically to Veterans housing skipping down to proposition three this would continue the higher personal income tax rates approved in 2012 for higher income taxpayers indefinitely This could help generate revenue to ease pressures on health, housing, homelessness, and local assistance. And then similarly prop. Forty is the billionaire's tax that we've been hearing so much about over this past year. The measure would institute a five percent tax rate on covered assets over a billion dollars. Proposition 43 is the revived Taxpayer Protection Act renegotiated during this legislative session to apply the two-thirds voter threshold to dedicate to local taxes, regardless of whether or not they were placed on the ballot by local governments or via citizens initiatives. Previously, citizens initiatives had to pass only by 50%. This would increase that voter threshold up to two-thirds. This measure would not apply retroactively, but would make future dedicated revenue measures more difficult to pass. Lastly, Proposition forty-five is the Cal Chamber sponsored Building an Affordable California Act, which would expedite environmental review and litigation for covered projects, including housing, transit, water, public safety, health projects, and clean energy. Specifically, it changes the review scope, court timelines, evidence and remedies, and in the long run administrative and legal savings are possible. How the measure works is, if a project is in the city, and the city is the lead applicant, the city would be under tighter timelines. However, if there is a regional project, potentially a project sponsored by the city, where the the State is the lead agency, it's covering sequa. The State would have would have to fall into those same expedited timelines to get those projects up and running looking ahead at the Federal level. We are fully anticipating the FY27 markups process to resume after the November election, now that Senator McConnell has returned to Congress. The continuing resolution that funds the federal government through December 11th does not include earmarks, including the city's $850,000 for the downtown sewer rehabilitation, but we fully anticipate and it's common practice for those projects to come back up in the full appropriations process. in starting this fall i will continue working tpa and myself will continue working with the city to identify key local projects to consider submitting for federal appropriations and councilmember seagal i want to address your question regarding cdbg back july the road to housing act was signed into law which it didn't allocate more funding for cdbg but it allowed for some more flexibility under the cdg allowing 20% of a grantee's CDBG funding to be used for new construction of portable housing units, amongst some other changes. So that went into effect back in July. And with that, I'm available for any questions.

Council, do we have any additional questions? I don't have a question, but maybe a recommendation. I think that. You know, maybe if you can work with the city manager and staff to. Maybe schedule something in December, definitely before the legislative deadline. I think it's in sort of in the January, maybe next year, February for this year. There's any legislative ideas that. Council may want to recommend like we did with the legislation or other things that. John Potter, You know, we can maybe some time to consider and then obviously you know Spencer and townsend would have to go shop around a an author for for the bill, but. Would at least give us an opportunity maybe to weigh in on some budgetary or legislative that we could propose and maybe sponsor as a city. So if that's something maybe we can do. I know there are legislative deadlines. I don't know what they are, but usually around the end of January, February for bills to be mocked up and introduced and so forth. So I think we had that session last week. And so I think it might be worth us if there are any ideas to propose at that time. So just like to make that recommendation. Thank you.

Council members, any other comments? Okay. With that, this is not an action item. We received the presentation. Thank you for your time and information.

Thank you.

Moving forward to 8.2, ACFR and single audit for fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025. Mr. Roberts.

Yes, I'm hopeful that we have Anthony Gonzalez, the city's representative, the city's auditors price page up there is to present the results of the or the act for any results of the single audit.

Thank you, Mark. Can you guys hear me? Yes. Perfect. All righty. Well, good evening, Mayor and fellow council members. My name is Anthony Gonzalez. I am an audit manager with Price Paging Company, and tonight I have the pleasure to present the 2025 ACFR, the audited financial statements, as well as the single audit. I have a few slides here that I'm going to share. All right. Can you all see that? Yes. Thank you. Okay. So the agenda for tonight, I'm just going to be as efficient as possible with the city council's time, but I'll talk a little bit about who we are and what we do at Price Paging Company. I'll talk about the scope of the audit that we performed this year, as well as the audit process from a high level. Then I'll move into some of the areas that we spent significant time in this year's audit for the City of Tulare and then of course I'll cover the reports that were issued as a result of our audit and then finally finish up with what we call required communications. I did put discussion and questions at the end but please feel free to interrupt me at any time. Okay, so a little bit about us price page and company is a full service accounting firm based in Clovis, California. This year, we're celebrating our 50th year serving clients very proud of that. We're a top 10 firm in the Central Valley. As it relates to serving governments, we have over 120 different audits of municipalities, special districts, counties and nonprofits. And currently, we sit at about 60 employees with about 15 CPAs. This year, the engagement management team that worked on the City of Tulare's audit consisted of Fausto Hinojosa. He is previously our managing partner. He is going to be retiring here soon, but he was the engagement partner. Myself, I served as the engagement manager. And then we had Jasmine Logie, who served as our engagement supervisor. So that was the engagement management team. And then we also had three additional professional staff, as well as our administrative support staff. So all combined, we have over 50 years of experience, most of that providing audit and attest services to government clients. I did want to point out just very quickly that this is our third year auditing the city of Tulare, and we've managed to maintain the engagement management team, so Fausto, myself, and Jasmine, to provide that continuity, but also rotating our staff. So this gives us the ability to have fresh eyes on the audit, and we think that provides a higher quality audit. Okay. The scope of the audit that we performed this year was an audit of the city's financial statements in accordance with applicable audit standards. So we actually perform an audit under two separate standards, one promulgated by the American Institute of CPAs. Those are what are referred to as audit standards generally accepted in the US. as well as government audit standards or a yellow book. So because the city obviously is a government unit and receives federal and state funding, we also perform our audit under the yellow book. In addition, we also performed an audit of the city's federal award programs in accordance with the uniform guidance. This is commonly referred to as the single audit. And these audits are risk-based, which are designed to provide reasonable assurance that the financial statements, the ACFER, as well as compliance with federal awards are free from material misstatement or material noncompliance. Now, when we look at that, we're comparing it to generally accepted accounting principles. So a misstatement would be a departure from generally accepted accounting principles. Again, this is a risk-based audit, so we're not testing 100% of transactions. Even with the advent of AI, that's still not something that we're able to do. So the audit standards require that we perform a risk assessment and focus our time and effort on the areas that we believe will be most susceptible to misstatement or noncompliance. Okay, so that's kind of the high-level scope of our audit. Now I'm going to talk a little bit about the audit process. So it starts off, we have to obtain an understanding of the city's fiscal operations. We do that through numerous avenues that generally starts by reviewing the budget, looking at the general ledger, inspecting the books, essentially to determine what kind of transactions is the city entering into in during the year? What balances does the city report in their financial statements at your end? We also interview staff and do a lot of things to just gain an understanding of what could go wrong. Where could the misstatement be? So yeah, we're looking for the risk of misstatement due to two things, error and fraud. So our audit is not designed to catch all instances of fraud, but it is designed to catch material fraud. Another significant component of gaining this understanding is uh learning and evaluating the city's internal control processes so the things that that staff and management do to ensure that transactions are recorded properly and we're looking for two things we're looking that we're looking for the internal controls to be effectively designed so that they're capable of accomplishing what they're set to do and also that they're placed into operation because if it's well designed but not used it's not going to do its job and the opposite is true as well So once we've gained that understanding, we perform our risk assessment and we develop our audit procedures to substantiate or obtain evidence about those transactions and balances. Then we perform those procedures and then based on the procedures performed and the evidence obtained, we then provide an opinion on the financial statements as well as the compliance for federal awards. This year specifically, we focused or the areas of audit emphasis for the financial statements included cash and investments, kind of obvious, but significant balances, fungibility of cash, as well as given fraud risk for cash and investments. So we spent some time there. We looked at the city's revenues, so apportionments from the state, as well as utility collections and amounts receivable or owed to the city at year end. On the opposite side, we looked at the expenditures, the disbursements to vendors, including salaries and related benefits, and what is owed to vendors and employees at your end. Another significant item on the city's balance sheet are capital assets or those assets that the city is employing to provide services to the citizenry. So we took a look at those. Another area was fund balance classifications and the related restrictions on those, as well as custodial activities or how the city is managing others' money. And then the last two here for the financial statements included the net pension liability, a very large liability on the city's balance sheet related to pension benefits. And then lastly, the cost allocation, so costs that are paid for in one fund but then benefit multiple funds, how those are determined to be allocated across those funds and departments. On the federal award side of things, we had three major programs this year. We actually don't determine what those major programs are. That's determined by the federal guidance, depending on when it was last audited, how much, type of risk, And those three programs included CDBG or Community Development Block Grants, Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. This is commonly referred to as an ARPA program. And then lastly, Congressional Directed Spending. I believe that was an SBA funded award. So those are some of the areas of audit emphasis for the 25 fiscal year audit. Now I'm going to move into the auditor's reports. So we actually issued three different reports as a result of our audit. The first one being the independent auditor's report on financial statements. So this will actually tell the user of the financial statements whether or not they have been prepared in all material respects with generally accepted accounting principles. I'm pleased to report that the city did receive an unmodified or what we refer to as a clean opinion. This is the best opinion that you can receive. As I mentioned, it tells users that the financial statements are fairly presented in all material respects and that significant accounting policies have been consistently applied. The estimates that management has determined are reasonable and the supporting disclosures in the financial statements are complete and properly reflected. So that's the first report. Good news there. The next report is called the Government Audit Standards Report. So previously in the presentation, I mentioned we perform our audit under two separate sets of standards. This is the result of us performing the audit in accordance with government audit standards. So there's actually no opinion included in this report. Instead, it describes the auditor's responsibilities under government audit standards. And before I go into this report, I wanted to point out that This report will also identify any deficiencies that we found during our audit as it relates to internal control. So we're not providing an opinion as to the effectiveness of the city's internal control processes or structure. But if we happen to identify deficiencies during our audit, they get reported here. And there's two different levels of deficiencies, and I've got the definitions from the standard on this slide here, but just very quickly, material weakness is a deficiency or combination of deficiencies in internal control that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the financial statements will not be prevented or detected and corrected on a timely basis. And then below that, we have a significant deficiency which is the same thing but less severe than a material weakness, yet still important to warrant consideration from those charged with governance. We actually did identify four internal control deficiencies during our audit, two significant deficiencies and two material weaknesses. I have the title of those deficiencies on the slide in front of you here. These can also be found in our single audit report. I believe it is starting on page 371 of the agenda packet for tonight. But just to briefly go through these, we identified that the bank reconciliation was incomplete or not reconciled. The overhead cost allocation or how the city is allocating costs across different funds and functions is utilizing an outdated methodology. And then the two material weaknesses included a misclassification of cash held in escrow. And then lastly, the last material weakness was related to the grant reconciliation that was prepared by the city relating to omitted expenditures and revenues. So those did not modify our opinion. They were ultimately corrected through the audit process, but these were identified and included in our government audit standards report. This report will also touch on any noncompliance that could have a material effect on the financial statements to which we did not identify any in fiscal year 2025. Okay, moving on to the last report from our audit. This is what we refer to as the Uniform Guidance Report or the Single Audit Report. We're issuing an opinion here, and this is over the city's compliance with the federal award, so the three major programs that I noted previously. um so this is the audit of the city's federal expenditures and we're actually issuing opinions on the direct and material compliance requirements for each individual program that we're auditing okay so within that there could be up to uh 12 different compliance requirements And I'm pleased to report that two programs received unmodified opinions. There was no noncompliance identified there. However, on the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds or ARPA funds, we did identify noncompliance related to reporting. So essentially the city's reporting to the grantor was not based on the activity in the GL or the general ledger. However, no question costs were identified related to this. And again, we've summarized this deficiency in finding 2025-005 relating to reporting that's on page 13 of the single audit report or 374 of tonight's agenda packet. And then lastly, this report also provides an opinion in relation to the schedule of expenditures of federal wards that it comes from the information included in the city's financial statements. Okay, I'm going to move into the last section of my presentation, which is required communications. And this summarizes some of the required communications per the audit standards to those charged with governance. The standards require that we update you on the significant accounting policy changes that are implemented by management during the year. This year, the city adopted GASB statement number 101. This changed the way that the city recognizes essentially like paid time off to employees. So this was required in fiscal year 2025, and the city did adopt that statement. These significant estimates included in the financial statements include the net pension liability, the post-employment benefit obligation or OPEB, and then depreciation. So estimates, these are numbers that you can't point to on a bank statement. These are management's best guess, essentially. The net pension liability has a lot of assumptions and actuarially determined items. So that is considered an estimate as well as post-employment benefits. Sensitive disclosure, so anything that we think warrants the attention of those charged with governance, we would include here. We chose to identify the deficit fund balance of various city funds. Not too many, but we did identify the non-major governmental funds for local law enforcement block grant and auto theft deterrence. Those are running at a deficit, as well as the internal service funds for general insurance and purchasing. And lastly, the city's fiduciary funds, the private purpose trust funds. Finishing up here, difficulties encountered in performing the audit. We did not identify any significant audit adjustments. We actually included this with our communications. I don't know if it was included in the agenda packet, but this will summarize the adjustments that were material that were corrected during the audit. I believe we had two adjustments this year. There were no uncorrected misstatements or differences that we found during our audit that management didn't correct. So that's good news. did not have any unresolved disagreements with management and we did not identify any fraud non-compliance with provisions of laws and regulations or abuse so that essentially completes my presentation and i'm happy to take any questions that the council may have thank you for the presentation before going to council questions with the conclusion of that presentation i do want to

Make sure to facilitate public comment. Do we have anyone in council chambers who wishes to make public comment on 8.2, the ACFR and single audit for fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025? Madam Clerk, do we have anyone on the phone? Okay, then moving forward, council members, do we have any question? I'll start with our vice mayor, Mr. Harrell. No question. Councilman Segal.

Yes, I'm not sure who might be able to answer this question, but I think obviously I'm not in a CPA or accountant, just a regular guy who reads these 300 or hundreds of pages of reports. But one of the things that popped out to me was the auditor's sort of attention on the, I guess, internal controls on the ARPA funds. I thought we had paid a pretty good amount of money to a consultant that would help us keep track of this stuff. So where was the consultant in this stuff? Because from what I read, and maybe the auditor can correct me, but from what I read, there were things that were not submitted procedurally or accurately, but yet I think we spent over $100,000 on an ARPA program. Consultant that was supposed to guide us through these reporting requirements. So my question is what happened there?

Yeah, we, we did hire a consultant. I don't remember the exact amount. I don't think it was a 100. I could be wrong. I want to, I thought it was. Closer into 60,000 range nonetheless a good a significant amount of money. And Mark, I'm going to have you speak to this as well if I miss anything or get this wrong. I think part of the issue is there's a few things. Anytime the federal government comes up with a new program, and they rush to put it together, it's always very confusing about what's required. When is it required? They change the rules after the fact. So I don't, I think many government agencies have had some difficulties associated with ARPA to be quite frank, not to make an excuse just to 1st of all state sort of what probably is is the obvious. I think the 2nd thing is. The consultant really did a good job, I think, of helping give us guidance in terms of what we could spend the money on and not spend the money on. And they did file reports for us. I think part of the challenge was us getting them some correct information and some timely information. I'm not saying it's solely on our end, but I think that's part of the challenge. And, of course, part of the challenge is them probably not doing some of it correct. Mark, if I've misspoken or if I've missed anything, I need you to correct it.

No, I was going to focus on the last thing you said in particular. It really falls on us. The consultant does what they do with the information that we provided, and there was simply a disconnect there.

I'm just trying to figure out, I'm trying to read here specifically the causes, you know, that were highlighted by the auditor in terms of like no independent review, accuracy and completeness of quarterly reports. So my understanding, you know, when, and I definitely supported it because it was the complexities of the money and how to spend it. And, you know, I remember being the mayor at that time and having people with the money was a big thing, but I was just a little bit surprised that this had come up from this regard, given that we were kind of relying on someone to guide us. So that was my main question is what, and we still work with that consultant or is that relationship over?

We're pretty close to being done with that. All the funds have to be expended by December of this year. So we're getting right to the end of that deal.

And I don't know if Mr. Gonzalez can contribute any more detail on that, but I want to assure council that there is no risk of losing or having to return any ARPA funds. This is not that kind of matter. So I want to put your minds at ease with respect to that.

Yeah. And just to add to that, Mark, the ARPA funding reporting portal is not necessarily the uh, easiest to correct when previous errors were made on past submissions. And there's not a lot for us to test, right? I think, I think the reporting requirement is like an annual submission. And, um, so it's, it's kind of a one and done type thing for us to test. So when we look at it, we compare it to what is reported on the city's general ledger. And if there's differences, it's, um, that's kind of where we're at.

Yeah, and if I could add one other comment to that too is, and this is not intended as a criticism, it's just a reflection of reality. Anytime you deal with a federal, just about any time you deal with a federal agency. And it's very complex and there's many of them when you try to contact them to get advice and. You know, to not only in terms of trying to correct forms, which is very difficult, but just to find the right person to talk to, to get the right answer. It's very, very difficult. It's hard to get through often people change. If they give you misinformation, it's not their fault. It's our fault. It's every 8 federal agency. It's a real challenge. They're very understaffed typically. And it's many times they've been only there for a short period of time. They don't have the answer. I've had federal agencies. Say to me, not not at this city, but in other cities where I've asked them questions and they're like, well, I don't know. How would you do it? And I'm like, well, here's what I think. And they're like, great go do that. I'm like, well, how do I know that's going to work? And they're like, well, let, you know, later. So it's, it could be, it could be challenging.

I think with that of just a quick review, which is one, as we come back, is you issued an unmodified opinion, which is a clean opinion. And as you noted, too, it's complete and properly reflected amongst everything of the audit. And if it's correct, you did, your price page had two, you had noticed, though, you had put that in front of us. But if I'm correct, as you had said, is that there's a material witness, but there's also no fraud, there's no misuse, but those materials were processes. That's what it came back to. And I think that summary is key because also, as you mentioned, with that being a process, processes are curable. And so coming back and having that we can cure process. And I think it reflects back is a complete and promptly reflect an audit and a clean opinion. So I surely, I just wanted to touch on that. So members of our audience and our community kind of understands those dynamics. If my summary is fair.

Yes, that is. And that's a, that's a good point to, to draw out. Yeah. The, the, the findings that we had are the result of, you know, Hey, you know, This could be improved or this account balance was reported here, but it should have been reported here or like this, but it's not the result of, or, you know, the result wasn't money went missing or anything like that.

Sure. Review of the process. So thank you. That's like, I'm going to have other council members. If you have any other, I have just a quick question.

As part of this audit, maybe I should know the answer to this question, but I'll let you provide it. We have policies as it relates to our reserves and what limits and what amounts. Do you audit that and confirm that we are following our own policies as it relates to our reserve accounts?

We do. We do. So in the presentation, I mentioned one of the slides was the fund balance classifications. Those reserves are actually recognized on the financial statements. So depending on how they are reserved, kind of puts them in certain buckets. And so we do audit that. And we're also looking at compliance with anything that could have an effect on the financial statements, even if that is an internal policy.

So if there were those that were worried that we were burning through our reserves and reserves were lower than our policies and that we weren't in a situation to where we were secure in that regard, this audit would pick that up. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Medeiros, because that was not the case. That's kind of why I brought that up.

Just to remind the public and the council that a few years ago, we did change our reserve policy where we generally had it at 25%, but then city manager recommended that we have a scale. So if it goes down, it can go down to 17% and up to 33%. So if someone were to see our financials and say, hey, well, three years ago you had 25 million, but now you have $22 million is because it falls within that range. So there is an opportunity for the reserves to go back and forth, where now instead of it being a straight 25%, it can drop down as low as 17, but not go as high as 33. Is that correct?

That is correct. And just so you know, that was a recommendation from some of our consultants to us. It is actually the GFOA standard and recommendation. That recommendation came through our chief financial officer to myself, me to you.

And if I may, I am pleased to report that we are in fact, this was a bit of a sensitive topic as I guess you could call Mr. Gonzalez and I had was a spirited debate as to how it should be classified. But I am pleased to report that as the city manager mentioned, we did, we did. bring something forward to council. Council adopted the reserve in such a way that it can be separately reflected on the financial statement. So you now see that reserve on the balance sheet as well as the other reserve grouped together on the balance sheet. You can see an economic contingency reserve of $15.3 million. So that was something with council's wisdom that they approved that is now reflected on the financial statements that wasn't there before.

Some would call that full transparency. Is that correct?

I believe everybody would.

Council, any other questions or comments?

And with that, Mr. Mayor, can I? Yes, I'm so sorry to interrupt. I just want to just take 1 second to thank. And Mr and our finance department for their hard effort and work on this as well as everyone else in the finance department. These audit efforts are over a 6 month period, and they take everybody's help, including staff from all of our departments. Obviously, you know, the price page team led by Anthony. It's been great working with them. We really love when a new when a party comes in and looks with a fresh set of eyes at what we're doing, how we're doing. Our goal is always to try to get better. And it's hard, especially these last few years, because. You know, even though we counsel has approved some, a couple of new positions in the finance department, it's taken us a long time to fill them. Our new accountant just came on board, maybe 3, 4 months. And at the same time, we're implementing a brand new financial system. It takes us 3 years to implement that system. So we're running 2 systems simultaneously. With the same staff at the same time, we're trying to do these audits. So I'm, I'm really excited that we're getting better our, our, our auditors giving us recommendations. We've accepted every 1 of the recommendations. Some of them we anticipated, and we're working on putting those into place. Now. I'm really hopeful that next year we're going to get I think we're going to get the audit done sooner. Hopefully. that's not a criticism on anyone's part it's just when we started a little bit later i'm hoping we might start a little sooner this year um coming you know for the 26 audits so i feel like this ball's moving in the right direction a little bit slowly but it's but it takes so much work by so many people i can't i'm i couldn't be more grateful to everyone who works on it so thank you yes and thank you as well and uh of course thank you to our city staff for having an

John Potter, complete and properly reflected audit so good stuff. John Potter, With that I think Council, we have a front is not only to review, but also accept the annual comprehensive financial report and single audit for fiscal year ending June 30 2025 do you have a proposed action in light of the fact that our reserves are properly.

at levels that we have approved and everything appears in place as you've indicated as it relates to this audit. I'd make a motion to accept the annual comprehensive financial report and single audit for the fiscal year June 30th, 2025.

Second. We have a motion and a second for the 8.2. And with that, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? ACFR single utter for fiscal year end of June 30, 2025 is approved. Thank you. Moving forward, we have 8.3, community gardens presentation. Mr. Orr.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Staff research community garden programs and partnerships implemented by other agencies provide city council with information regarding community garden models and practices as part of that research staff identified a partnership between the community health trust or a horrible. Organizations have partnered for approximately five years currently support for community gardens located within the city of Watsonville. Gustavo Interos with the Community Health Trust of Pajaro Valley and Leonardo Cruz with the City of Watsonville will provide an informational presentation to the City Council regarding their community garden partnership and experience. Presentation is intended to provide Council with information about an established community garden model and an opportunity to ask questions from participating organizations.

Good evening. Can you hear me okay?

Yes, we can. Thank you.

My name is Gustavo Enderoz. I work with the Community Health Trust of Pajaro Valley, and I'm joined by Leonardo Cruz. Leonardo, can you share your title, please?

Hello. I'm Leonardo Cruz. I'm public works program manager here with the City of Watson.

Cool. We will get right into it. I will share screen. All right, so my organization is a nonprofit. We serve the health and wellbeing of the Pajaro Valley region, which is South Santa Cruz County, Watsonville, and the immediate surrounding areas. And we'll give you a little bit of some background on how we partnered with the city of Watsonville to build three community gardens the last five years. And Leonardo will speak to what this partnership has been like from the city's end. And in summary, it's been great and excellent and easy to work with the city. Having someone like Leonardo who has really laid the steps out for us on how this started with an idea,

and then a decision to pursue funding to having three gardens serving the families in our community um leonardo take it away yeah so we have multiple gardens at the city within city limits most of them are in city parks some are on property from the city that public works Manages but all of the ones that Gustavo and the Community Health Trust collaborates with the city on our own city parks, so we find the land. figure out how appropriate it is to have a garden there with the neighbors with access to water with access to sunlight and then we work with in this case, the Community Health Trust. to see if this is in alignment and go through the whole process that is stated in the community garden program guidelines that the city adopted many years ago.

to outline a little bit what that process looked like on our end as the organization who built and now and maintains the gardens. We meet with the city of Watsonville with representatives like Leonardo and other folks working in the Parks Department. and specific parks were identified through a park assessment report that the city of watsonville conducted with a third party agency in 2024 and this ranked the value of each park on a swath of criteria and we'd identified some uh where where This resulted in identifying parks that needed immediate improvement based on the usage and demand of those parks and how outdated some of the facilities were. We identified some parks that were in the middle of this assessment ranking, given that they were not high enough of a priority where they would be receiving funds for improvements in the near future. But these parks had a demand and they were used by folks in the community. So they were... identified through this park assessment report. And then to gain approval, the city of Watsonville requires that organizations who want to start a community garden get 50 signatures of approval from local families, which has been a breeze to collect. In the 150 signatures I collected, I think every single person I asked signed it. So it's a project people tend to be in favor of. Not to say that it never happens, because I do have some stories of some people who have initially opposed the idea of a garden, but really I think these are people who just oppose change in general. And then once we have gained the signatures, we go through our city planning commission approval, our city council approval, and then it's on the organization to prepare the site. We have funds through a USDA grant. We got a grant for almost $360,000 that covered the cost of contractual services and supplies. to build these three gardens that the partnership your staff identified is referring to. And we use a combination of staff time and volunteers and contractors to take an unused part of park land and get it to the point of community gardens that are ready for community members to rent out. We maintain the gardens through a combination of gardeners tending to their own space and also staff and volunteer efforts. We partner with local schools, senior centers, other local organizations have interest in being involved with the gardens. And that results in getting a lot of community support to keep them looking nice, to keep them available. And it's really nice to see even folks who don't use the garden that want to support it, whether that's donating their time or monetarily to make the projects financially sustainable. We only we need to cover the water bill. The city gave us water access, but is we make sure to cover the cost of water. and to deal with any sort of water issues within our point of connect water connection feeding into the gardens we have decided to install um irrigation in our garden beds this is not something you need to do um we decided to do it and it lowers the barrier of challenge for folks to getting into gardening we we serve a lot a lot of our gardeners are mobility restricted. And so sometimes I don't come to the garden every few days. So having the irrigation really improves the gardening experience. On average, our water bill is about $10 a month. And if we have our gardens rented out at a 50% capacity, we charge folks $100 a year, that covers the cost of water. So if we have a 25 garden If we have 13 of them rented out, the cost is covered of maintenance for the water. The city handles the park space outside of the garden. And then we have formed just a, you know, a friendly partnership with city staff that I see around the sites and with admins such as Leonardo. And it's been a great partnership to work on. And in terms of funding, We're currently building out a individual and business sponsorship program that we're using to collect funds to make long term garden improvements. The grant we received got everything built up and nice and even some funds to get some equipment to last in a couple of years. We collect sponsorships from individuals and businesses that want to see families have more access to garden in our community. And that's also been a success. So I'm really happy to say that financial sustainability is looking good for this program for the near future. Leonardo.

Yeah, so there's many benefits as I'm sure everyone can think of some for the community or the organization. that is involved and for the city. Some of the obvious ones are putting parts of parks or property that the city has to use that either might not be taking adequate use or they're hard to maintain. So a lot of these areas in the parks that are not community gardens were somewhat in the corner We weren't getting a lot of usage from people that were already visiting the park, so it helped with that and also reducing the irrigation needs from city parks to maintain the grass. It also beautifies the whole park. There's points when it looks kind of wild. and bushy and weeds everywhere, but it's just for the untrained eye and from far away. But as you get closer, you see that, oh, those are actually tomatoes or squash. And it's intentional and it goes through the seasons, so it changes colors, it changes sizes. It obviously brings people together. that's uh something that it's a soft benefit that happens over time where neighbors connect with each other share resources um become aware of who lives where and um what are some of the needs so that when something happens for example covet or fires or earthquakes there's more of that relationship and awareness of whom i need help if we can offer help um aside from the fresh local organic grown produce that they grow being outside and exercising. And it doesn't look like much exercise, but it is a good exercise to tend to a garden bed. So it improves the health of the individuals, their community. And from the city side, it offers audience, group of neighbors, to, one, bring messaging about resource conservation, water pollution prevention, emergency preparedness, et cetera, but also to hear specific feedback for specific neighborhoods. And it also could add value and beauty to a neighborhood, make it safer, and activate that area for other ages and bring in this case community health trust but then the organizations that the this organization also partners with anything you want to have yourself that's very well said i can just anecdotally talk about the the benefits of the beautification and

bringing people together. Every single time I'm doing maintenance at the site, a neighbor is telling me how much they appreciate how it changed the park from what it was to what it is now. Taking dead space and converting it into a very purposeful part that has people there and that are present and doing positive things changes how people use a space. And I get a lot of positive feedback from community members about that. This one's you.

So the city's role is really determined by the program guidelines that were developed and approved by staff and council specific to the city of Watsonville with the support of organizations that were focused on health, the environment, growing food, and it is really the guiding document guidelines that we need to follow and need to reference because there's a lot of moving parts and details that could seem easy or simple, but then can get really complicated. So in the initial conversations that I had with City of Tulare staff, I strongly recommended to first come up with your own guidelines to have everything clearly laid out what happens when many things that can happen, what to do, what's the plan, who's involved, who's responsible. So that's mainly our role, and there are specific sections for how to identify potential land, what kind of infrastructure does the city bring, who pays for it, who doesn't pay for it, how much they pay for it, and then all of the permitting, the insurance, everything legal that needs to be in place so that everybody is covered. All that is laid out in our guidelines, and it's the most important document related to this program, the community guidance program. And so, just big picture, we start following these guidelines. We identify the location. All the factors from sun to space to neighborhood, access to water. Agree if it's going to be with an organization or a group of neighbors that want to do this. What is their proposed timeline? Who is the lead for getting all the documents needed? And again, we just stick to those guidelines. Once the garden has been approved and it's going, We coordinate with the annual permits, liability waivers, and the plot agreements. That's on a yearly basis. And then to make sure that this is sustaining and that more and more people are becoming involved in learning about this garden, because at first you get like 30% usage of the total plot and it takes maybe a couple of years to get to 100%. But from the city side, that's a great, um resource to offer conservation devices in our case to to save on water to pollute less um to bring in other partners that have resources related to emergency preparedness and then anything else that comes up that the city whether because it's something that's happening in that neighborhood or that neighborhood has a population that we want to reach then this is a channel to reach those residents

Um, from the organization, uh, the builder side, it's, um, our responsibility to follow the city's, uh, compliance and to design and make sure that the project is built on time and correctly, and that it's sustainable and it reflects the needs of the community. Um, and it has been a smooth process working with the city of Watsonville. Um, I think that concludes our presentation. If folks have any questions for us we're happy to answer questions.

Thank you for your presentation. And I think quickly, I'm going to go to public comment. But as well, I think might be on our minds is if we can have your presentation provided to us. I think at the public comment, you could submit that to the city. So one, we have it in the record. But two, I would love to have a copy of that to help facilitate some additional questions and notes for the future. Hal Hallstein, But with that i'm going to open up for public comment is that there's anyone in chambers who'd like to make comment on 8.3 Community gardens presentation. Hal Hallstein, Anyone on the phone. Okay. All right. I will close the public comment. And as well, council members, comments, questions? Mr. Segala? Sure.

Thank you. I do appreciate this presentation. Thank you. This has been something we've been working on for some time to try to talk about community gardens in the city of Tulare. So I appreciate the background and so forth and learning about the different partnerships and processes and the guidelines. I think one of the questions I had, in your experience, there haven't been any public safety issues at community gardens, have there? In your city, in Watsonville? I mean, no crime or the wrong people hanging out at the community gardens?

in my experience i'd say that there's a a positive correlation for i guess i'd describe riffraff to track the other way community gardens are a great solution to to activating underutilized park space where you may be identifying undesirable public behaviors and that's absolutely in the in two two specific projects we've conducted i've noticed groups of unproductive activity just go away when there's people there using the space to garden and using their families. And in terms of the folks who rent garden beds, we haven't had any issues with inner garden violence or anything like that. He did debates about tomatoes, but nothing, it never gets violent, I promise.

Right. In my past, helping build some community gardens down when I used to work for the legislature down in LA. I know how they can revitalize communities. I worked in Pico Union and other places in LA where it really revitalized that particular section. I think understanding that the guidelines will help us when it comes to the allocation process. whether we rent out a plot or not and how big of it it'll be. So that, I think that's welcoming. I welcome the mayor's, you know, look at that as well. And I guess the last, the last question I had on this in, In the work that you guys have done, I know, like, for example, freeways and other places have a lot of adopt the freeway particular section. Have you guys had something similar, like adopt the garden? Because I know you talked about sponsors and others who may want to help out with contributing towards maybe lowering the cost for residents to participate. So is that something you guys have looked at or has it been difficult to create that kind of sponsorship?

Leonardo, do you want to answer his question and then I'll go after you?

Yeah, so we haven't had an adopted garden indefinitely ongoing, but a lot of the gardens have been able to secure donations for wood, for the raised beds, for plants, for different materials for the garden. And some existing organizations like the Rotary Club or Plasma Wetlands Watch or nonprofits will go and support when it's time to harvest or to do a cleanup or to put together raised beds.

And then back to our sponsorship program. While we haven't used that specific language to adopt the garden because we're not closed off to that as well i i would just i interpret adopting a garden as one primary sponsor um and i have we have been collecting smaller sponsorships from more people and but it's the intention is the same it's so it's to lower the to make the space more accessible to the community so the intention with our sponsorship program is exactly like you said we want to make We are collecting sponsorships from businesses and individuals, which I have found to be one of the easiest asks in my fundraising experience. And folks are interested in supporting these projects, whether that's private businesses donating volunteer time to help with the construction or garden assembly, beautifying. filling garden beds with soil or even donating funds and then even staff of these businesses who come in volunteer they they develop an attachment to the project and they donate their personal funds to it costs a hundred dollars to to let a family garden for a year that's something folks are interested in contributing to so i think you have a great idea to let a business or an individual adopt a garden it's a great idea

Well, thank you. Thank you very much for your presentation. And I hope this spurs continues establishing the community garden here in Tulare. So thank you.

Councilman Medeiros. I know we have, we have a, the UC extension here in Tulare County has a master gardener program. Do you have anything similar to that in your area and has there been consideration to work with them?

Yes, they're actually, they've been strong allies to our programming. We have scheduled events where we scheduled Master Gardeners to come. and give workshops or answer any and all questions to the families that garden at our different sites. And these are extremely talented, smart people that share a lot of information that enjoy interacting with with the gardeners gardeners enjoy learning from them um ucsc is the specific school that they're coming to us from and not only do they support other gardens besides ours as well yes yes all gardens yeah they might how far are you from the university there well we have uc merced that's uh

Dave Kuntz, that's obviously in in merced itself and other than that the closest is UCLA. Dave Kuntz, To the south unless San Bernardino is another. Dave Kuntz, yeah we have the uc extension here in polarity county that we can directly deal with that's available anybody else have any other further.

knowledge on that chris have you dealt with the uc extension to the point that that might be a resource utilized in this situation yeah i did contact them uh it is a potential resource good so i also want to share with council i do have uh they sent me a copy of their assessment report and their guidelines i can also share with you they being uc extension gustavo okay

Yeah, in the presentation that you have, and that thank you slide, there's a link for the community gardens program guide, the page for the community health trust landing page, and the map of all of the gardens that we have in Watsonville for you to reference and explore.

Okay. Thank you. And thank you, Chris, as you're saying that you've received the guidelines and the report information.

Yeah, I have copies. I can send there a PDF file. Fantastic. Mr. Mondale.

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if this is for Gustavo or Leonardo, but your very first garden in Watsonville, was that a city led effort, a community led effort or a health trust led effort?

it was a church led effort church yeah yeah so churches and schools are also um properties where we have gardens um besides city property and parks yeah my my biggest i don't want to say concern but um

in my opinion, and I don't have experience with community gardens per se, but is getting the folks that are really interested in participating and doing the work, that are going to love it. So finding the folks that are going to be the ones that are going to be the ones out there doing the work and loving it and helping them, right-sizing it and making sure it's funded properly. And the reason for that is you don't have that it could become, I think, pretty quickly, potentially. Either an eyesore, or I don't want to say a burden, but a city born expense. That now becomes a staff led effort. So it's more of a. An aesthetic amenity, maybe more so than, let's say a working garden and. and or those scenarios when you don't have enough, you know, sort of the broken window theory, it certainly can deter crime if you have people regularly, readily available and working it and using it and loving it and developing community pride. But if there is a community pride and a lot of people working it and loving it, It can become the place, I think, where people end up, you know, going to do other things. And so that has been part of our concern at staff level is making sure that whatever route we go, if we go forward with some route of this, is that we have good, strong grassroots support for the people that are going to do the work. 100% agree.

My question is, what's your opinion as it relates to what our city manager just indicated?

Yeah, I'll respond just to clarify a couple of things. One is the main lift from city staff was coming up with the guidelines. Once the guidelines are up and established and approved, it's just making sure they're being followed and working with whoever is the garden coordinator for each garden. or the organization that is coordinating the gardens, like the Community Health Trust. So for example, me from the city of Watsonville, from staff, I don't actively pursue the development or creation of any gardens. We promote the guidelines as part of our urban greening plan and our climate action adaptation plan. And we respond when people ask about community gardens or growing their own food, that this is a resource. So that's a clear, I think, valuable distinction that who does most of the work is either the neighbors that organize to get a community garden going or the organization that designates a staff like Gustavo to get more gardens going because they're aligned with their the mission and the values of the organization like the Community Health Trust.

Can I ask one more question if I could? If you have a community garden, you have these beautiful ripe tomatoes that somebody's growing. What prevents someone coming along and just helping themselves or any corn or whatever it is? Have you had any of those issues and how have you dealt with it? I see lots of smiles and no comments.

I just like talking about gardens. At the gardens I manage, we set line items to build fences and the gardeners, they know the combination to get into them. So we haven't had any sort of that theft has not been an issue to impact the gardener or my managing experience so far. I know that you can have a successful community garden without, steel fences uh we have like in the neighborhood part of wattsville i live in i think is one of the uh gardens that leonardo was referring to that once you know he promotes the the guidelines community members hear about it and then you know they have they can work to get together and just there's a community garden a couple blocks away that's just folks assembled garden beds out in an underutilized part of the sidewalk and they're growing there there's all sorts of plants and vegetables. Whether folks are stealing and impacting the gardener experience, I'm sure it's a possibility that it happens at those locations that are unsecured. But they've been going for years. So I don't know if it impacts the experience so much that it takes out the desire from somebody who is really interested in gardening. But I'm sure it's definitely possible. But there's measures you can take to prevent and mitigate theft.

Who pays for the fence? I mean, what kind of fences are being put up? Are they chain link fences as to each plot?

So we, for the Community Health Trust, we're one example of how community gardens were built in the city of Watsonville. We received a grant from the USDA for $360,000 to build three gardens. And we budgeted to build fences. You don't have to do that. And especially, or you can work with a local contractor who might be interested in the city of Tulare's parks. And you can, I know you need to work with certain types of contractors, but you could determine on what the security needs would be for the space.

Yeah. It is not a requirement to have a fence, but it really helps. There are three other gardens that do not have a fence, and they do encounter their beautiful tomatoes disappearing overnight. Not all of them, but some of them. And it's something that does happen. It doesn't happen to the extent that it deters people from growing them, but there are different measures. One, being very clear with the language, because some people misinterpret that it's a community garden. So it's for the whole community and you can just grab whatever you want. And so some signage and different methods to help it so that people know that someone paid for this and put a lot of effort in this. And while you can take a photo to abstain from taking the produce in order to get involved with the garden coordinator. All gardens need to have hours of operations and who to reach to get into contact and to get involved with gardening. So theft does happen also of tools. That's why we encourage bull sheds that you can lock them. But it's not as bad as to the point that people stop gardening. yeah when when tomatoes are ripe you're looking for people to give those suckers away too there's just too many tomatoes and something to add there's a it's not very clearly stated and it's not obvious but part of the community garden program guide includes community orchards and so that's a bit um not as easy to steal at least because some of the fruits are up high and you need some tools but we do have that as part of the guide to have community orchards

Is there an alternate name you've come up with so people don't think it's free pickings for the whole community?

Keep them out. There's no perfect name so far, but yeah.

So Mr. Mayor, I just had a question on the process. What would the city manager, the parks director prefer that a council item be brought forward or is this something they can bring forward on their own in terms of having an initial conversation about community guidelines to agendize it? So what would be the preference? Would it be something that staff could program? I know there's a lot of stuff on the plate, but can they at a future meeting bring start a conversation on the community guidelines especially if chris has a copy of watsonville's and maybe we can find other ones or do you require a council future agenda item to begin that process yeah i would prefer a future agenda item and the reason why is i need to understand from council kind of what ultimately a majority of council is looking for in terms of our commitment if

You're simply saying we wanted to adopt the guideline, put it on the website and tell the world that the city is open to. Public gardens, that's easy. That wouldn't take us very long to do that. But if council is going to say, well, we want to do more than that. We want to identify places in city parks where we can put gardens and this is how many we want and we want to identify parties. You know, go out and start serving neighborhoods and organize nonprofits who wants to participate and. You know, here's what our guidelines are. Do you think this works for you? Help us develop these kind of I kind of need to know. What level of involvement and commitment you want to make to this and or if we're going to, you know, put any dollars into it. My gut feeling would be if we simply just take their guidelines, change our name. And stick it on the website, we're not going to get anything. It's not going to do anything with all the other ways. We just say, hey, we have a guideline in a program. And people are going to come to us and go, well, where can I do the garden garden? We'll be like, I have no idea. We haven't established that yet. So I think there's things we have to do. So I need a little bit more input for counsel on this matter than us.

Just bringing a guideline for if I could ask gentlemen along the lines of what our city manager just indicated. How did. How did your program commence and progress to get to the point to where you're at today?

Yeah, it was also because of a grant. It was a grant awarded by the Strategic Growth Council, and that provided the seat to get together staff, organizations, and put together the guidelines, which include some waiving of costs. And so if you were to just copy our guidelines and adopt them, there would be some things to be mindful of. For example, the city waives the activation and connection fee for water service activation. We have a free meter installation that city supplies and installs the new meter, the water meter and backflow prevention device. And we offer a reduced water rate for community gardens. So there are some additional things that the city takes on waves. We offer free waste and recycling drop-off at the city drop-off location. We're looking into adding free green waste to the gardens because that keeps coming up as a need.

So what initiated the whole program, if I'm understanding you correctly, was someone sought a grant to be able to establish this, and it was a federal grant, is that correct?

Yes, it was from the California Strategic Growth Council, and staff were directed to pursue grants because In the urban green and climate action adaptation plan, community gardens were one of the strategies to pursue. So these other plans had already been adopted, and this is one of the strategies that staff were looking to see if we could get funding for, and we did, and then the guidelines came up.

So that could be a starting point is to seek the kind of grants that are necessary to initiate the whole program. Is that correct? Yes.

Right and then, just so you know, Gustavo Leonardo, the city spent a lot of resources and time putting together a parks master plan. And this was the number, the number, the top three was number three of the city's residents who said we want community gardens. So for me, that is the spur to move forward with this. So I will be presenting an item and looking at your guidelines and see if we can do something here in the city of Tulare. So thank you for your presentation.

Yeah, I'm more than happy to break down our actual project timelines, in terms of materials. long it took to get everything put together i and to echo what the city manager said and what leonardo said i think it's really wise to in parallel develop your guidelines or while targeting uh specific city interest as if a business was coming to town and wanted to open a site make sure there's a demand for it and it should it'll increase the likelihood of it being sustainable okay

John Potter, Right with them so good presentation, I think all Council members, as we get the information from the city staff, I think we'll probably have more questions in review, I think that will carry forward this discussion, so I think, all in all, is this conversation will continue.

John Potter, All right, thank you gentlemen. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I guess 1 question staff or could say just 1 of the things that was said is the USD being federal funded, but isn't strategic growth council isn't that under cap and trade funding? That's not a federal program.

That's I thought they said that 1 was you. We said, is it federal funding? He said, yes, but then I thought he described a state program. I'm not certain of that. We can ask them. They give us the application problem.

It's a state grant program or current salt grant is funded under strategic growth council.

But they use it for their climate action plan, right? So to try to reduce greenhouse gases, which I know we have a plan from a long time ago.

But we're getting ready starting in January to update our general plan, and that'll be a part of it.

Yep. All right. Moving forward on our agenda, 8.5, Measure A voter education update. Receive an update regarding the city's Measure A voter education efforts. Informational only. Mr. Thomas.

Good evening. Just wanted to walk through for council real quick some of the things that have been going on relative to Measure A voter education. And then we also have some online content that Melissa will show in a moment. Do you have that ready? Yeah, if you have it up.

Every day, Tulare residents rely on city services from 911 emergency response and public safety to streets, parks, and other essential community services. These day-to-day services are primarily supported by the general. As the cost to deliver services and maintain public infrastructure has continued to rise, Tulare is projected to face an ongoing structural deficit within the next five and is evaluating long-term solutions. On November 3rd, 2026, Tulare residents will have the opportunity to vote on Measure A, the city of Tulare services measure. Measure A proposes a one cent increase to the city's local sales tax, raising the current rate from 8.25% to 9.25%, a step many other cities have already taken. If approved by voters, this measure is projected to generate approximately $16 million a year including maintaining 911 emergency, fire, paramedic, and police response, protecting local youth from gangs, while helping to prevent thefts and property crimes, and enhancing the quality of life and security. To learn more about the City of Tulare Service of Measure, Measure A, visit tularemeasurea.com.

So we've had that as well as some snippet pieces of that that'll be used on social media. It's in English and Spanish. And then you recognize some of that color and branding that you've seen in some of the other materials that have gone out. When the budget was adopted, we produced that budget at a glance document. And then following that was our virtual and then our in-person workshop providing an overview of that. We've also developed a one-page information sheet in English and Spanish that will go out to residents via US mail. And then we've also been using that content at the Tulare Marketplace at Zumwalt Park every week. We had a virtual community meeting and then we have an in-person one scheduled here in council chambers as well. And then staff both myself, Melissa, Mark, others have gone to different community organizations and presented our slide deck that was shown here months ago with the budget overview. And so the ones we still have scheduled is we're going to be meeting with the Building Industry Association later this week. And then we still have to go to Parks and Rec Commission at their meeting early next month. But lots of the service organizations and the Seeing that presentation, how to had an opportunity for. Specific Q and a with staff on any questions they may have. And then you've seen as some of these collateral materials have gone out, we've updated the city website. And the press release out, and all of these also had way points on social media where. We've been posting this content as well to provide voter education. Um, and I, and then we are in our. 2nd, our 2nd iteration of the to Larry together community newsletter went out. That's not just measure a focus, but that's all kinds of community information. And so on, so, just as we had launched a couple of months ago, our employee newsletter, we now have a community newsletter that's going out as well. And we're working on different ways that we can. Get more resident contact info so that we can help keep residents directly informed of the things that we have going on in the community beyond just the education materials for voters and education materials on budget. So that's just kind of a high level snapshot of some of those things I heard about them here and there individually, but wanted to kind of put them together and describe them in a way. Melissa, any big points that I missed on that? And I have any questions or go into specifics on any of those if you have them.

If I may, Mr. Mayor. John Potter, Are you highlighting in this presentation that one of the purposes is to maintain to increase our level of hires as it relates like to the police department, I know I. John Potter, When I talk to people I try to compare the number of police officers, they have in porterville compared to what we have and we're training.

and the porterville comment is the exact one that staff attendees when we're having that conversation so we always we highlight those priorities relative to retaining the 12 firefighters that we've got on the safer grant and that were a dozen fire a dozen police officers short compared to porterville along with the dispatchers that support those and so on and of course porterville has those on what's its

sales tax rate.

Exactly. They're at the 9.25. Yeah.

Okay. Perhaps what I'd like to do as well is open to public comment, but part of the goal I wanted to do with this is give council members also a chance. There are areas of focus, and we're advised that it's not our role to, I think, really do a resolution specifically designating what we would do with Measure A. But it's an input, I think, amongst us to say as council members, hey, these are areas that I see with Measure A. and wanted us to to have a chance and and each of you to perhaps share some of those areas i think it's it's beneficial because part of the community input which i'll touch on the what does the community want to see but each of us have had our ideas on that and wanted to give you know a platform for each of us to share it's not a debate it's not we're doing this not doing this it's just a point and i think a council member from representing the community um a chance of that this is what I see our community need or this is what I hear from my constituents what what does measure a look like for you and so um with the wanted to go around and wanted to give each person that's something you'd like to do to to share those reflections and I'll start with you Vice Mayor I always answer them the same way police fire and roads

I don't want to get in depth and get too specific on anything because then it could change how the vote is. So people, that's what they want to hear. Fix their streets, have more police officers, have more firemen, especially the Porterville. When I bring that up, they really, that kind of opens a lot of eyes. They can't believe it.

Okay.

Councilman school.

Yes. Thank you for the opportunity. Mr. Mayor. I think when I talked to my constituent. First and foremost, they would like to know where each council member. lines up. Are they for, are they against it, and why, and so forth, right? So those are some of the common questions. And then I think for me, I hear from my constituents about some basic things. I mean, obviously, they want to be able to feel safe with police and fire, you know, the firefighters, adding more police officers. I mean, roads, fixing potholes, just some of the basics. But at the same time, They want the opportunity to also talk about making sure the parks are clean. making sure bathrooms are operational, making sure kids have playgrounds to play on, and just some of the things that are something that's across the city. It's not just Mulcahy Park or Pleasant Park. It's all the parks, whether it's Delago or Sayre or others where they have those types of things. So they want to be able to see some of those things taken care of. Youth, you know, I was very happy to see that some kids are, you know, dunking on a police officer, but they're all playing together, right? And I think that's the story of something that I really appreciate, that I really advocated for, was to try to invest in youth to make sure that they stay out of trouble, stay out of gangs. You know, I hear from people that they're just as There's homies everywhere. Even on the other side of Mooney, there's homies. So it's a citywide thing that will make a difference. And then finally, in terms of being a little more specific, in terms of economic development, there's a lot of boom... throughout the city city manager and staff are doing a fantastic job in laying the groundwork for the attraction of businesses but you know there's always the the worry about the west side um kind of continuing to stay behind and i think uh are are interested in seeing if if measure a does pass and when it does pass if there's a conversation about some investment on the west side We've invested heavily in downtown. We obviously the east side of the city has its natural progression of development. But the west side of businesses and business leaders are always looking for a little shot in the arm. So I'm hoping that we can have those conversations probably with the new council. When that occurs, because as far as I understand, if it were to pass, you know, there would be no fund generated till sometime next year. So that's when those conversations specifically would occur. But those are some of the general areas, like I said, public safety, roads, but investing in youth. making sure our parks are clean and safe, and some investment on the west side, economic development-wise. Thank you.

Sure.

Thank you, Scott. Councilman Medeiros? Along the same lines that has been indicated, I think one thing we need to recognize is that we've also made a major commitment as it relates to trying to main maintain or deal with our homeless situation um and and we've we've opened this facility that will progressively make it make a difference and that needs operational funds primarily the funds that are generated i would hope would be used for uh public safety, police and fire, roads, but to have a portion in addition to what's been mentioned to deal with the operations that we have of our homeless facilities got to be recognized. I would think the community would understand that when people come to us and they ask us to do something about the homeless situation, and we as a council take major steps to deal with primarily our people who are homeless, that takes some additional money. that's a factor in all of this. So it's truly a situation to where as a community, as a council, we are trying to do what we can to make this a better community for everybody and to maintain public safety, improve our roads, John Potter, Deal with with our youth and address the homeless situation so that's that's what I would hope these funds are used for, and I hope this passes under the circumstance.

John Potter, yeah think of. there is a unity amongst this council. This Measure A really it's working with our community and taking us forward as a community. And I think with that and to those listening and bringing this up is what does the community have as needs and expectations? What are your thoughts? And it's really absorbing what does the community come forward with of public safety, first responders, the community's expectations with roads? What is your family and perhaps your child or your involvement with parks and recreation doing? as we work through homeless enforcement and programs, how do you see that for your community in the city of Tulare? Perhaps you're a business owner, perhaps you work in a place or you work in a nonprofit servicing people in the community. What does that mean for us as Tulare? Your engagement is very much needed to take us forward of, we've said, maintaining 911 emergency fire and police response. uh we have of course always improvements in our drinking water systems as touched on by council members preventing gang and crime activity community safe but also i think one of the key areas too that was touched on was updates to our parks we saw the update to zumwalt and we have many parks in our areas that have not changed in over 40 years some of our roads are 30 years old and some of our parks 30 years old. Where do we need to be? And I want to encourage that, that you at home and all of us coming together, we have a rich history in Tulare of passing school bonds. We've come together for that east side, west side, north, south of passing our school bonds. We've done that to support our community efforts of the past. We have a very giving community, but it comes with John Potter, Executing that charge, and I think, as this Council has put the effort into road improvements, we want to put the effort into building our we're taking the charge of building that next fire station we've taken the charge that was given to us of working with the homeless situation. John Potter, There might be things out there that we're all frustrated with what we come together as a Community. where do we need to be tomorrow and i really want to encourage that voices come forward share with your council members each person here has a very rich perspective of that and as the council members said this is really about us taking tomorrow it's about us taking that charge and having a bigger better community we want to support our first responders we want to rehab and and do our active parks. And at the same time, we also want to protect Tulare's tax dollars. I think there's frustration that we see with the state and other external government agencies, but when it comes to our hometown and it comes with us pulling together, there is a preservation of Tulare's tax dollars, keeping our money here right in our community. And that's another part of what we want to do. So with that, and as you see the information shared from the city and hearing this message of the community, give us that input. I really, as the mayor of the community, want to hear that feedback. And really, I think all of us have the right place of putting this Measure A forward to take Tulare to the next level. That's absolutely what we want to do. Any questions? John Potter, Final comment or thoughts I see everybody looking at me with that is, this is the last item on our agenda, but thank you staff and counsel for touching on measure a. John Potter, Moving forward on our agenda. John Potter, Future agenda items we had none submitted oh oh wait I skipped a portion I wanted counsel to give their input. I want to come back to 8.5 and allow public input. So I said we want that feedback. Is there anyone in council chambers here who would like to speak of what we discussed here tonight on Measure A? Anyone on the phone regarding Measure A? Okay. Then I'll move forward then. Number nine, future agenda items, none submitted. Number 10 staff updates. Mr. Orr. Thank you. Nothing to report, sir.

Nothing to report.

Well, this is the last night of me in this chair. Um, sorry next council meeting. You'll see a new face. Um. When you see out in the audience, they might went and they'll be would be filling the seat. The, uh, the latest upgrade to the position. Um, I just want to take the opportunity to thank council. All council members, both current and past for all the support through the years. it means everything to staff and it meant everything for me as well and to thank my colleagues my co-workers my staff publicly for everything they've done for me through the years to make this an amazing career and a true blessing my time here in the city it's hilarious thank you nothing to reward other than wishing our city engineer well on his next chapter and to tell him it's been an absolute pleasure working with him

Nothing to report. Nothing to report.

Nothing to report.

Yes.

Nothing to report.

Nothing to report, but I would like to also add my comments about Michael. I first started working with him 19 He's always been very helpful, whether I was working for the city of Tulare or other organizations, he was always there to answer questions for me. And so I really appreciate all these years of his friendship and professionalism.

Uh, thank you, Michael. Uh, you've been so helpful. Uh, you know, I came in as a young bright eyed up player and, uh, just learning from you through development and, uh, infrastructure and everything, uh, been a real mentor to staff. And so thank you. And we wish you the best in retirement.

Uh, nothing to report. Nothing to report. And, uh, thank you for your service, Michael. Nothing to report. Congratulations, Michael.

Before I go to you mark and give you the last word, I'm just going to let council members possibly reflect on this new bit of information that we're hearing. I mean, and razzle, I mean, give thanks to our retiring sitting in your Michael Miller. So, a little bit of is this going to happen and then tonight you come in. Thank you everybody for your service. So, so, well, there, I mean, walk us through that that we're getting this announcement tonight.

Old city engineers don't just go away instantly, they kind of fade away.

Okay, all right. So with that, yes, Mr. Miller, but our utmost appreciation to you and thank you for your service.

You know, if I may, I was sitting here a little while ago looking around the rooms saying to myself, you know, I've been here for eight years, who was here at the beginning and what seats have changed? James Rattling Leafs. And I was counting over there and I was saying, by God, Michael's been here the whole time and he's going to be, you know, when I leave Michael still going to be sitting there, you know, and I was looking over here. James Rattling Leafs. And then, by God, you lay this on us and you're not going to be here when I depart this seat in less than three months, but It's been a pleasure working with you. And I apologize for those times that I grilled you when I shouldn't have. So, you know, it was all meant for the best. So good luck to you. And when you go out for walks with your wife, feel free to walk into my cul-de-sac. And if you see me, say hi and let me know how retirement is going. And I'll do the same to you.

Michael, your experience and knowledge has been absolutely amazing. And it's been a pleasure to work with you. Even though I disagree with you about crossing quite a lot what we should do there. But I defer to you as being the voice of experience and knowledge as to what was the best way to handle that intersection. So best of luck in your retirement.

same thing I just wanted to say that you know unlike people think that Madero's and I think differently we were thinking I was thinking exactly the same thing and I was looking around the room I go I've been here 10 years who has who's everyone is new all these are the department except for Michael who's still been been there so but I also wanted to congratulate you on your retirement hopefully you have some time to do things that you want to do and appreciate all the uh answers to the questions some tough some easy that i've provided over the years but i want to thank you for your service and the city of tulare is way a lot better because of your service and your leadership in your department so so thank you and with that mr mondale you get the last word could we could we possibly name a street after michael like that

I think I'd have to dive so let's not do that.

That that that doesn't see that does. Michael, I can't help myself. That doesn't seem to be the issue in Washington, D. C. so. Mr. Monday.

Yeah, Michael, on behalf of all of our staff, thank you so much. You're truly the consummate professional. We're all better for knowing you and we certainly will all miss you. We are secretly hoping that you'll get forward quickly and your family will allow you is allow you to return to us in some consulting fashion to help us as we. Move forward with updating all of our standards. Um, but, you know, you've certainly left your department. Uh, in in good hands and, um. I think I think a lot of the good things that have happened until Larry are attributed to to your efforts. So thank you so much.

What what is the final day?

Next Friday, the 25th, so.

so the overpass will be open before your final day yes i gotta i stuck around longer for that one at least i think there's papers passed around that the mayor has to sign with stuff right so yeah we might have to work the timing and teasing teasing um With that is the city council is going to recess to close session. But before we recess, I would just like to take a moment of silence and reflection as it was presented for Rachel signs more signs more.

Yeah.

All right. So with that, before we break, would you please stand with me and as we end our meeting with a moment of silent for Rachel seism. And thank you. And with that, we will recess to close session for public employee performance evaluation per government code 54957.