City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, I will call this regularly scheduled meeting to order. If you'll join in the slip our nation's flag. Ready, begin. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. Good evening. We will start with the call to order and roll call with the declaration of conflicts of interest. Council member Abram here and none. Council member Bixel here and none. Vice Mayor Mendes,

here none. Council member Phillips here none. Mayor Bubble Black here and none. With that, with approval of agenda as posted or amended, some second. Second. Motion is second. Will you call the role, please? Council member Abram. Yes. Council member Vixel, yes. Vice Mayor Monet, yes. Council member Phillips, yes. Mayor Bill Black, yes. Pass with the 5-0. We'll move on to uh proclamations and presentations. We will start with a presentation by Director Sims and others.

Good evening, mayor, council, city staff, and members of the public. Tonight we are celebrating a new Turlock business that enrolled in the Turlock partnership incentive program. A program that provides $3,500 to a new business that opens in Turlock. Mr. Malachi Hernandez of Turlock Music Academy. This business has completed all requirements of the program which are be a new business in Turlock that operates out of a commercial location, not part of a franchise or corporate chain, submitted a business plan, participated in a pre-development meeting, and agreed to simple recordkeeping and quarterly feedback for one year. Malachi appreciated how helpful building planning and city staff have been throughout the entire business opening process. He expressed how easy it was to get started. He lives in Turlock. He has a passion for music and we're proud that Turlock can be home to his new business. Also, his business is putting on their first music recital on March 28th which will be held at Stan State. So, Mr. Hernandez, please join us for a special check presentation so we can celebrate your business. Council, city manager, please join us. Squeeze the music. You guys take a step forward.

All right, got it. Thank you so much. Good luck. and they're located at 200 North Broadway Suite C.

All right, we have go green. Director Fish, are you starting this off or are you making others? All right. Good man.

Good evening everybody. My name is Monica and we're regulatory affairs and we're here to present this year's Go Green Week. So, is it okay? So, a little about our program. Um, the city partners up with local K through2 schools and our main focus is to educate students on the importance of water conservation, recycling, pollution prevention, and how to be energy efficient. This year, um, Go Green Week turns 18 years old. So, that's that's a big milestone. Uh some of the some of the activities that uh our program offers is uh live animal shows, tree planting, recycling contests, t-shirt contests, uh tours at our water treatment facility, SRWA treatment facility tours, Turlock recycling center tours, and bus transit um tours by bus uh by transit, I'm sorry. Some of our accomplishments through Go Green Week, our program, there has been 395 trees planted. Um about over $15,000 has been raised and approximately 22,315 pounds of land of waste has been diverted from our landfills. And our go through our um go green week program transit is offering free free bus rides from March 16th through the 21st. We like to thank all of our staff, city staff, vendors, Turlock Scavenger, uh for helping coordinate uh this program. And lastly, we'd like to congratulate Jocelyn, who is our 2026 t-shirt contest winner. She could not be here, but we are so excited to have these wonderful shirts. It's a great event. I encourage everybody who is at the school district to actually participate. And uh with that, next I would like to introduce

Jesse Merchant with Turos Scavenger. He has a couple words to say for us. Jessie.

Okay. Thank you, Juan. Appreciate it. Um council, everyone here in the audience, um yeah, I just want to say thank you again. This is uh Monica mentioned our 18th year. I did not realize that I've been um I have the privilege to be in charge on our end for the last 13 years. So, um just basically in my career being part of this has been one of the biggest highlights every single year. Um having the schools come out and just see what our job truly is. Um it's just a lot of fun to see. They learn a lot. Um we discuss a lot of things beyond just picking up the cans and where the trash goes, but we also focus on recycling, composting, alternative fuels, and how our trucks run. um these kids when they come out are extremely bright and they're very inquisitive and they pay attention a lot and I think that um really reaching out to them really helps what our mission is which is um to have a better environment for the city but also most importantly I think is to serve the city. Um we're members of this community as well. Um we've been operating here for almost a hundred years and so I like to uh keep that keep that going. Um, and also I would just like to say this year um, we have really been upping our social media presence. Um, Cynthia is in charge of um, making sure that we get our message out on Instagram um, and Facebook. Um, so I do encourage everyone to look us up, Turlock Scavenger, on those platforms. Um, she's done a really great job just showing what it's like to be a garbage man, but also what we do for the community and the environment. So, thank you for your time. and I get the distinct pleasure of reading the proclamation, but I do want to add that um this is one of the weeks where our entire community gets together and they and they invest in our youth. And I have to say that, you know, that

the impact that that makes just is is tremendous. And my kids are teaching me how to recycle. Um you know, and my kids are following behind me and turning the water off. So like I you know, I think when we invest in our youth, the future is bright. Um, with that, in honor of Go Green Week, March 11, March 16th through 20th, 2026, whereas the city of Turlock Council is committed to partnering with our schools to provide educational enrichment opportunities for Turlock's children. And whereas Go Green Week provides an opportunity for students, educators, government, industry, and environmental organizations and residents to work together for a prosperous and sustainable Turlock. And whereas Go Green Week will help produce the next generation of engaged citizens committed in preserving natural resources, enhancing the quality of life in Turlock. And whereas for the last 18 years, the city of Turlock and partnering schools throughout Turlock have planted 395 trees. They have raised more than $15,472.38 for schools through recycling activities and diverted approximately 22,315 and.36 pounds of waste from the landfills through go green week programs. Now therefore, on behalf of our good mayor, Amy Bublak, by virtue of the authority vested in me, I messed that one up.

That's all you did. And behalf of the entire city council and all our citizens, I do hereby proclaim March 16th through the 20th, 2026 as go green week in the city of Turlock and urge all students, residents, educators, and businesses in Turlock to participate in local education and celebratory activities. Outstanding. All right. Are you giving this to uh our people or who I get a picture? Awesome. Let's come up here. What school does Joselyn go to? Okay.

Okay. Okay. Thank you guys.

Now we have a presentation by uh Stanco Peoples. Come on up. Uh, good evening, Mayor Bubble Black and members of the council. Uh, my name is Chris Gregerson. Um, and I want to thank you for having me here. I work for Kimley Horn and we're working with Stanco on the 2026 uh, regional transportation plan uh, and sustainable community strategies. So, I'm just going to cover um what we're doing um overall the plan and uh outreach opportunities, which is really why we're why I'm here tonight. Um so, the RTPS is a planning high level planning document that's completed every four years required by the federal government and it's a shared vision of the region through 2049. Um so it focuses on transportation and land use uh focusing on all transportation modes and reflects how land use drives transportation needs. So specifically what the plan must do is prioritize transportation projects and be fiscally constrained meaning we have to identify revenue sources for all the projects not just a aspirational document but uh you know an actual plan and um just complies with the requirements um overall and meets uh air quality requirements both at the federal and state level. Uh just a couple of definitions that are going to be referenced through the rest of the presentation. Uh vehicle miles traveled is just uh how far uh all the vehicles travel. So in the example here, there's four vehicles traveling 30 miles. So it's 120 BMT. Um we look at that uh both BMT and and air quality. They're kind of interlin. Um and then missing middle

housing is a lot of the housing that falls between single family and large uh apartment complexes. So that's your duplexes, uh, small apartment buildings, forplexes, and town homes. So Stanco partners with the University of Pacific demographics department to project growth over the next 25 years uh, for each agency uh, focusing primarily on population and employment. So it's done for each uh, city and the unincorporated county uh, in Stannis Loss County. Um, but where that growth goes is part of what the plan looks at. So we developed four different analysis scenarios both in terms of where growth is going to be placed as well as the types of transportation improvements that we're considering and those are guided um by some principles including focusing growth in low VMT areas to try and reduce urban sprawl um preserving farmland which is very important in Santa Los County and then growing infill with missing middle housing um and matching jobs and housing. So the next two slides are going to cover the four analysis scenarios that we're looking at the business as usual. Uh I mentioned the documents done every four years. So the last one in 2022 was this is the preferred scenario that was selected by Dancock's board. Uh and it focuses on spreading missing medial housing throughout the the county. Uh we have two mixeduse focused analysis scenarios. So it's concentrated both by transit um existing and planned and then also um job centers to try and link housing with jobs to lessen the reliance on um having to drive and focusing transportation improvements on transit and active transportation. Um the final uh scenario we have here is the increased ADU. So looking at putting small units on uh existing and future single family lots and spreading the

growth out a little bit more. So having it a little less concentrated in terms of transportation improvements that vary through the four scenarios. Um we're really looking at transit and bike and ped. The bike and ped differences are really focused on either linking housing with transit or housing with jobs. Um and the uh transit improvements are focused on express bus linking residential jobs and other land uses. Um so our transit analysis scenario includes six express bus routes. The other mixed use includes three and then the other um the business as usual and the increased ADUs only includes one. So it's kind of a balance of investment and and linking the different areas. Uh Stanco's also undergoing a few special focus projects to help implement the plan. Um so it's not just a document that sits on a shelf. So the community enhancement zone plan is really looking at um developing a toolkit for agencies throughout the region to help them construct the missing middle housing and also um how to fund transportation improvements to link that new housing. Um the vehicle miles travel reduction strategy is focusing on squa needs or environmental needs uh for new developments throughout the region to help get housing constructed quicker. And then the non-motorized plan update is really focused on linking um a lot of agencies uh have great local plans but they end at the borders so you can end up you know riding your bike you get to the edge of the city and there's not anything to ride on after that. So this plan is really trying to take a regional focus and and allow uh folks to move throughout the county um on their bikes. So, input opportunities. Uh, we've been going, we're going to every single city council and board of supervisors meeting. Uh, we've had folks at the libraries ahead of time. So, we had someone there reaching out to the

community ahead of this. Uh, we have flyers out in the hallway um with QR codes or just physical surveys to try and get as much input from the public as possible. We've been meeting with community based organizations um holding uh in-person presentations and virtual presentations and those are going to continue through um the second half of next month. So, we're we're trying to reach out to as many folks as possible, get a as diverse input uh as we can. Um we have a project website that you can see on there that has a ton more information than what I covered uh tonight um going into depth. We have a survey link um in an interactive map if folks want to go and say, "Hey, I want to see a bike lane here or if I want or you know, this is where housing should go." They they have the ability to just navigate there and put their input. Um so, as I mentioned, we're going to continue with the outreach. Um few of the city council meetings that we've been at, we were at series last night. Um, and we're going to continue with that with targeted popups and workshops. Uh, and then eventually take one of the four scenarios to the stand to the Stanco board um, and get approval and public hearings. The one in June is when we release the plan for public comment and it'll be open until August when it's adopted and when we're responding to those comments. So, covered a lot there, but just wanted to give you an introduction and kind of point everyone to our our input opportunities. So with that, I'll take any questions.

Questions. All right. So you anybody can go to a website. Yeah. And um the surveys are in both in English and Spanish. Um and so yeah, it's just open to the public. Anyone can go. Perfect. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Appreciate you coming.

All right. Next is public participation. And this is time set aside for members of the public to address the city council on matters that are not listed on tonight's agenda and are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city council. You'll have three minutes. The timer is set up here. If it is something that is on the agenda, then I will ask you to hold off. If you start and I realize it's on the agenda for later, I'll ask you to have a seat and we'll catch up with you later. So, I have a few cards. Uh Jason Good evening you guys. You guys know I'm I just want to let you know of course there's a lot of rumors been out there about my housing that's been put out on a platform on one of your guys' officials platforms. Uh I see a lot of bullying. It's very well alive. My family is being attacked by it. We are scared. My records being weaponized against me. You know, I've lived in a city home for four years and never thought anything like this would ever happen. Ever. And you guys sold it over to a nonprofit. Questions were there. There were no answers. I wasn't throwing nobody under the bus within your guys' city. I love all you guys. We got to work together as a team here in our community. You know, I'm only here at the table when it's really important. And my son is here even with me. And for his mom to be struggling of addiction still on the street of homelessness, for him to be blasting his mother on his personal page, that's an attack against my family. That needs to be investigated by all y'all. I'm not here to tear nobody down. I just want to keep stability for my family is knowing that everything's got turned

over to the section 8 and the housing authority. This is my family's scared right now. Bullying is very live. So, you know, I could have came here and put on a show, but I don't want to. I have to respect my city and I really respect you guys. So, I please beg you guys to look into this. Bullying is very much alive and you guys know what official interlock is doing this. Thank you. Mil. Good evening, mayor, council, staff, community members. Milt Treeweiler. I was born here in Turlock. It's time to reflect on yourselves. Good, honest politicians and good honest public employees are defined by a firm commitment to integrity, placing the public welfare over personal gain with consistent and transparent communications. They hold themselves accountable for mistakes, demonstrate empathy, and possess the courage to support right decisions over popular ones. They develop trust through ethical and evidence-based action. There are key component qualities here. They are integrity and moral courage. They maintain a deeply held belief in right and wrong and act ethically even when no one else is watching. Often defending unpopular positions that are morally right. Transparency and accountability. They're open about their actions, decisions, and motivations and take full responsibility for the mistakes rather than blaming others. Selfless service. They're not driven by power for its own sake, but rather see their position as a duty to better their community and constituents. Authenticity. They mean what they say and act consistently in both public and private

life, avoiding the unpredictable, insincere, and prejudiced behavior often associated with typical politicians. Active listening and empathetic. They are compassionate, seeking to understand the needs of people they represent, particularly the vulnerable, and are willing to change their minds based on new, accurate information. Consistency. They maintain their core principles and promises rather than constantly changing their opinion to gain votes. Honest politicians also demonstrate intelligent curiosity and competence surrounding themselves with knowledgeable, truthful people rather than flunkies and yesmen. To my fellow community members, this is what must we must strive for here in Turlock. Thank you,

Leslie Stokes. All right. Good evening. Good evening.

Okay. So, first I want to congratulate we care on receiving their grant. Okay. So, that's a beautiful thing. I know the majority of this council didn't agree with that. But now that they have gotten it, let's move on because it's not about just feeding the homeless, right? It's about getting them off the streets. It's about getting them in their own places. But when you disagree with your constituents, then you have problems, right? Find common ground. It can be done. It can definitely be done because we have known now. We know now that if you speak in absolutes, what's going to happen is absolutely the wrong thing, right? That part. So, let's get that together because you got to reach out to the community and they will help you. But it seems to me that you're battling your community, your constituents, and you're not working with them, right? It has to be a partnership. This is a community of people and neighborhoods. And you have to work together. You can't say, "Oh, we're going to do it our way." That don't work. It don't work. You can't say, "Well, we're just going to give them everything." Because that doesn't work. So, let's get it together. You guys know people in the community, those of you who actually get out in the community. You can do these. You can do all of these things if you just try to extend your hand. You can't have one side

versus the other, one party versus the other. That doesn't work. It does not work. And so you have to reach across the aisle, find common ground, right? Because we care is here. They're not going nowhere. And we have to fix our homeless problem, right? So, let's get it done. It's not that hard. We could find jobs for these people, couldn't we? If we wanted to. Thank you,

Joey. Good evening.

All right. So, first and foremost, I just wanted to get up here and just put you guys on notice that I have filed my federal lawsuit against the city of Turlock, the Turlock Police Department, Turlock Unified, and every other individual involved that decided that they're going to try to cover up my daughter's investigation. There's actually been a few years in the making that I have been gathering enough evidence to come after the city of Turlock. And so, anybody that wants to join, let me know. Um, you can feel free to contact me. I'm Kelly Qualo for Turlock on social media. Um, I also wanted to let you guys know of my notice of intent to recall our current mayor for many multiple reasons of different conversations I've had with individuals in this community. Um, so that will be circulating in our communities and anybody that wants to sign, you know, how to get a hold of me. So tonight I am announcing the filing of the notice of intent to recall mayor of Turlock. The residents in the the city deserve transparency, accountability, and leadership that put the people first.

We don't do electioneering at that podium. that investigation every FPPC rule out there. You're a candidate.

The investigation and audit into the nonprofits in the city of Turlock is also what I'm requesting here, including we care, United Samaritans, and the city who you guys know don't have a control over. So, I'm going to request who's going to conduct this investigation and audit into all the nonprofits and everybody else trying to pin pocket money from these nonprofits. Kim Ryan that just accepted um from Great Valley Development Corporation, the nonprofit using the same address as the Santaas County Housing Regional Housing Authority. So many so many issues here. Well, who who and where was this vetting done through? That's where I that's what I want to know. It's clear to me you guys have failed our community once again and we want answers. You know how heartbreaking it was to see a family in our community didn't know if they were going to have housing once that transfer happened? heartbreaking. I'm a disabled veteran and let me tell you some of the stuff that has been going on in my my lane. I've m filed multiple police reports with Turlock Police Department. So, I'm going to ask Chief Heden to please do your job. Please follow up on all these criminal complaints, police reports I've been filing since I've been targeted as a candidate. And not only that, my whole family has been targeted. Also, the news platforms that have decided to slander my family, myself, everybody else involved that's following my platform on on the taxpayer dollars. We we're going to put this to an end in the city of Turlock. We're not going to continue to abuse our taxpayer dollars at the direction of you guys who think you can control what's being put out in these news platforms. Let's start with Save Turlock, Paula Mandonado, Ronald Bride Group, DJ Francen. DJ Francon received a $100,000 contract. So, all these individuals are involved and they're all connected and I and I have the evidence if anybody wants to see it. Um, so again, Chief Heden, please do your job and do follow-ups on this. I am scared for our community and other individuals whose life are at risk right now. Patrick Jensen, I have I have something to say to you. You were just appointed the planning commission. Everything

you're putting out there, we all need to work together. Just like Jason said, we all need to work together. Thank you for your time, Michael. Um, hi, my name is Michael. Um, I come here on behalf of my candidate, Kelly Quo. Um, I don't appreciate people out in the community, uh, and on social media blasting her family and attacking her and slandering her name out and about. It's unacceptable, uncalled for. You guys need to protect protect this community and her family because it's uncalled for to disrespect a veteran with PTSD. It needs to be dealt with. That's very, very unacceptable. Period. She doesn't deserve that. Neither does her family. Thank you.

I have no other cards. Is there anyone else wishing to speak? Come on up. Uh, mayor, city council members, city manager, acting city attorney. My name is Sean Sheridan. I am here to say that the city of Turlock is responsible for some of the gray hair on my head and for making my 81-year-old mother's hair even grayer. I say that to be polite, but what I really mean is genuine emotional distress. I am the legal agent for my elderly mother who has lived in the same apartment in downtown Turlock for 10 years. Before that, she lived in a nearby apartment for 27 years. That's 37 years in two Turlock apartments. My family moved here from Texas and chose Turlock just days before I was stationed at Castle Air Force Base in Atwater. Here's my point tonight. Both the police department and the building and safety division share a mandate to protect public safety. In our case, that system failed for 7 months. From August 2025 to March 2026, my mother did not have a handrail to use for the um for the stairs leading to her apartment for seven months. No handrail whatsoever. Enforcement was needed. The city was on actual notice of life safety hazards from day one. The stairs had been built by a licensed contractor without a permit and completely out of code. The guard rail was 54 in high, exactly level with her shoulder with a 6inch wide top she couldn't possibly grasp. On day one, she fell backwards and could have

suffered a fatal head injury on the concrete had I not caught her for seven months. I had to escort her up and down those stairs every single day. Yesterday, I filed an appeal to the planning commission about the permit that was eventually issued on December 9th. That same day in December, the council voted on a package of job descriptions handled by a law firm and the HR department. The duty of handling building safety complaints was removed for the bu the police code enforcement supervisor, but not for the code enforcement officer. I've been told this was a mishap. Multiple times I sought the involvement of code enforcement when it mattered only to be told later that the unit cannot be involved. But even today, the web page for unsafe building issues still directs citizens to the code enforcement unit. I ask the city council to please revisit the overall matter pertaining to enforcement. Thank you.

Anyone else who did not fill out a card? Kathy Thank you. Thank you, city council. Down. Thank you, city council. I wanted to congratulate the Stennis Los County award for the WeCare Center for $427,800. I think that this was an excellent use of money that will go for a year's worth of housing for our homeless uh population. But I'm here also tonight to to continue to encourage the city to work towards solutions for getting the homeless situation under control. It is everybody's responsibility. It is not something that you can keep kicking down the road. I've been involved in trying to take care of homelessness within our town. Uh ever since Gillis Gar started or trying to organize a committee uh uh of city people to take care of this problem and still we have no hard and fast solutions. I know that the Turlock Gospel Missions uh day center has been out of operation for I don't know two years, three years uh due to funding holdups with the city council. So, we need to solve that problem. You you closed the uh day center at um um the one that was across the street uh behind Good Samaritan. you closed that and that was a good working solution but now that one's gone too again for h for uh funding issues. So

I want to encourage Mayor Bublack and the other uh two city council people who did not support uh supporting the the $1 um for the weare center. I want to encourage you to keep fighting for solutions. If you have to form more more um community organizers, uh we would like you to do that. What we don't want is we don't want you to keep tearing apart the homeless encampments that they have. People had no other resource except try to try to find a a barren piece of land where they could pop up a tent. Please let's solve these problems. The contrast between how we treated we care in 2025 and how we treated them in 2026 could not be more uh evident. So let's continue to work towards solutions and I volunteer my time and my effort to work towards these solutions also. Thank you. Let's give We Care and other homeless institutions and programs a chance. Thank you.

Anyone else who didn't fill out a card?

Good evening. I'm Mary Jackson. Um, I wanted to talk to you about a situation that's gone on in our neighborhood since um, Mayor Flores has been paved. Um, it was paved about two years ago and the the problem that we have is when it was paved, um, the drainage they put in new drainage tanks and the tanks do not have a hole drilled into the bottom of it so the water can seep into the sewer system. And so what we have from that point on, I mean, the street's wonderful. Well, we're very happy to have it. Our other street just got repaired. We're very thankful. Um, sidewalks got repaired. We're very thankful. But we have a huge mosquito breeding ground and with the warm weather, we have mosquitoes in February. And I could I'm not going to show you my legs or my arms or my back or wherever, but they eat me and one of my daughters alive. Um, we are lighting citronanel candles. We're spraying. I'm actually going to call the Turlock mosquito abatement. But the issue is is the water department or municipal services has got to talk to the roads department. Um we have a former city employee who knows exactly what needs to be done that lives on our street. He's more than willing to talk to you. Um and our neighbors didn't all come down here to be angry and frustrated. But we are angry and frustrated because this has been going on um for about two years now. and we survived one summer but I doubt that with the warm temperatures we are not going to survive another summer. So I am more than willing to meet with whoever it is. Um and again I think our form the former employee can also meet with you. You just need to drill down then the new drainage um all along from Mirror Flores from I can't remember the one street but it crosses all the way down to Murphy. um everything that got repaved is going to all those new drainages have to be um drilled through so the water can drain and I've have photos I can send them to

people um anyway so it's just it needs to be taken care of and I think that from this point forward you need to have the municipal service and water work with the roads people to make sure this is not an issue in other parts of the city because there is a lot of road work going on. Um the one thing I wanted to echo is or to to fix is that the day center was open for six months. It had been funded for a whole year and it was working. So it is very frustrating. Um I think people have been very polite and civil. Um and if the issue you don't know is that it is um they have been turning away men for the last probably six weeks to eight weeks because the shelter in Patterson that they had 20 men and 20 women were housed has been closed. Um and homeless people are are transient. So we've asked for a plan. It's been 13 months. Um I am more than willing to be on it. There's many people in the community that are willing to be on it. Um I think when Mr. Stoke said we can do more. I believe this community has done more and will will do more in the future. Thank you.

Anyone else who did not fill out a card, come on up. The room is offset. Um, okay. first to the um acting city attorney. Please tell George for me that I'm going to miss him. Okay. Um Okay. In terms of recalling the mayor, well, number one, you're up for election. Okay. So, you're up for election. Number two, you don't come to I have experience doing this because I was involved in 2020, I believe, in the first uh recall effort that uh ever was done in the history of the city of Turlock. Um so I know a lot about uh all the very precise details that have to be done and you don't announce it at a city council meeting. Um, so it seems to me that that's just kind of a um political stunt, which I'm sorry to see. Uh, I will officially say that, uh, I'm not paid by anyone. Miss Quailo has been told that multiple times and writing ever since November 9th, I believe, of last year. and she continues continues to say that which is a lie is slanderous and it's harmful and it's hurtful. Okay. Now, when it comes to the $100,000 contract with uh DJ uh Francen, um she was actually here when that contract was brought forward to the city council in June of 2024. Actually, it didn't have to even be

brought before the council because there was a $100,000 personal services contract which could be signed. Well, Gary was not the city manager at the time. Um, Rean Wilson was the manager. He had the authority to sign it. And personal um services contracts don't have to be put out for bid. But the uh city manager, the economic um I'm sorry, forget your name. Um Anthony, yes, thank you. Um he and uh DJ Francen wanted everything to be above board and transparent, so they actually asked for it to be on the agenda. Miss Crayo came up and asked questions about it and she got answers. So she knows all that. She's a detective and she wanted to. She could simply go to the uh I don't know how many, it's probably more than 50. Perhaps Anthony could tell us how many um business owners in the downtown area received very personal service from uh DJ on what was done. So I just leave that. Those are the facts. Okay. Thank you. Have a nice meeting.

Anyone else? Okay. We're going to close public comment and we're going to move on to the city manager report and updates. Mr. Hampton. Good evening, mayor, members of council. I have uh three uh or two advisories and and one notice. Um your March 24th agenda uh will be lighter than normal. Um one of the topics on there is a review of fire service and um next actions. So we're assuming that that will involve a lot of conversation among council and the community members. Um so we are keeping that agenda very light. And then um secondly, you'll notice in your staff reports, I have uh replaced the alternatives. Uh staff was required to provide alternatives to the recommendations in staff reports and that was discontinued some time ago and um our department heads are obviously subject matter experts and they're filled so they should be providing you more than one alternative. And that's not an alternative. It's just one. And I think we can all agree that do nothing is not an alternative. And so you won't see that in their staff reports either. And then finally, um just a uh a review of staff or I'm sorry, a a press briefing that was sent out um earlier this week and late last week regarding uh um measure A and Measure L. So, u just briefly, the question regarding measure L and measure A um was generated as a result of Measure L, which is a countywide 1-cent transportation sales tax administered by Stanco and dedicated to roadway improvements. That program recently completed its independent fiscal and compliance audit. Some residents have asked whether Turlock's Measure A program was part of that review. It was not. Measure A is the city local sales tax that supports

public safety and road improvements and has its own citizen oversight process. Both funding sources help support the city's roadway program, including 18.6 million budgeted this year for road maintenance and safety improvements. That completes my briefings. Thank you for that. All right, move to consent calendar. I will allow one minute for uh anyone in the public who wishes to speak on an item that they think that we should pull and have more discussion on from the consent item. Anyone? Okay. I will close public comment and move to consent calendar. Move to approve as written. Second. We have a motion to second. Call the role, please. Council member Abram, yes. Council member Bixel, yes. Vice Mayor Manz,

yes. Council member Phillips, yes. Mayor Buck, yes. Passes on 5. Moving on to final readings. Uh first is uh a final reading for second reading of ordinance for levying a special taxes uh for a for a facilities district and uh so I will open it to the public. Anyone wishing to speak on this item? Closing public comment. Move to approve. Second. Motion a second. Call the role, please. Council member Aram. Yes. Council member Bixel. Yes. Vice Mayor Man. Yes. Council member Phillips. Yes. Mayor BL. Yes. Passes on. 5 Z. Did you hear that theme? We get along. Who knew? Imagine that.

Uh item 9B is the second and final reading of an ordinance for Turlock Municipal Title Nine. I will open it to the public. Closing public comment. Move to approve. Second. We have a motion, a second. Call the role, please. Council member Abram. Yes. Council member Bixel. Yes. Vice Mayor Manz. Yes. Council member Phillips. Yes. Mayor Bill Black.

Yes. Passes on 5-0. Public hearings. There are none action items 11A, accepting the city Turlock economic development strategic plan. Director Sims, good evening, madame mayor, council, city staff, and members of the public. Before you tonight is the updated draft city of Turlock economic development strategic plan prepared by Cosmont Companies. Staff is asking council to approve a resolution to accept the plan or defer back to staff for more work on the plan. The city's previous economic development strategic plan was adopted in 2017 and this update provides a refreshed data-driven framework that reflects today's economic conditions and future opportunities and strategies for Turlock. This plan gives the city of Turlock a roadmap for economic growth over the next several years while building on our strengths in retail, industrial development, workforce partnerships, and regional visitation through extensive research, stakeholder outreach, and market analysis. The plan identifies key strategies that can help guide the city's economic development efforts. The plan also includes a valuable supporting data within the appendix related to visitor trends, workforce data, hotel data, retail market conditions, and regional economic analysis, which will help guide future economic development decisions. At this time, I'd like to introduce our consultant, Mr. Fernando Sanchez, the vice president of Cosmont Companies, who will provide a brief overview of the plan and highlight some of the key findings.

Good evening, Mr. Sanchez. Good evening. Um, sorry. Just one moment. Clicker. Clicker. Thanks. Change of channel.

All right. Good evening, Madame Mayor, Madame Vice Mayor, members of the council. Uh, my name is Fernando Sanchez, vice president Cosmo Companies. We're an economic development and real estate advisory firm. Uh, serving communities throughout the throughout California and the Western US. We're based in Southern California. And we were hired by the city of Turlock to prepare an update to the economic development strategic plan. And so tonight I'll go over at a high level the work that has been finished, the purpose of this updated EDSP, our findings from the analysis including strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, strategies and recommendations to consider and then also key development opportunity sites. Okay, so what's been done? So the staff issued the RFP in April of 2024. Cosmo was selected in August and work began in September of that year. uh we had both an analytical portion as well as stakeholder meetings that informed the economic development strategies that we laid out in the plan. Um the analytical portion included the demographic economic profile analysis, a retail market analysis which also included an analysis of other real estate asset classes including industrial office multif family and hotel and we also compared that from the city compared to other uh regional cities such as Merced Modesto Antika as well as Stannislo County and we also conducted a SWAT analysis of economic development within the city as far stakeholder meetings go, we met with several different entities both internally, that's referring to city departments. So, we met with the finance department, municipal services, development services, and economic development departments. And then externally we met with large employers about 14 different employers including Amazon, Blue Diamond, Divert uh economic development organizations such as uh opportunity Stannis Laws, eight different education workforce related entities including CSU Stannis Laws, the Volt Institute and Turlock Unified,

three uh three different shopping center managers including uh the Countryside Plaza and Monte Vista Crossings managers and 11 different commercial real estate brokers uh mainly representatives and brokers from CBRE Century 21 and Advil properties. So the purpose of the EDSP is to really identify challenges and threats to the city's economic growth, establish development economic development goals, strategies, investment opportunities, and implementation action items that the city can take over the next several years. So what really does this plan do? It provides strategies to support existing businesses, strengthen your market position, and also aid in attracting industries, jobs, and economic development projects. So the previous EDSP was adopted in June of 2017 and since that uh last plan was adopted there's been several achievements made in the city. So measure A added $15 million in sales tax revenue uh to the general fund annually and that was adopted in 2021. You have the westside industrial specific plan 2600 acres of indu uh allocated for industrial. We have 8 million square feet of industrial currently built. that's attracted a lot of major in uh major sales tax generators and top employers like Amazon. Uh hotel demand strengthened. You have 10 existing hotels that are of a chain or franchise brands and two of them in the pipeline. Additional sports related growth at the Turlock Regional Sports Complex and Padetti Sports Complex. Uh Stannislo Regional Water Authority, expanded sources of fresh water as well as significant road projects and retail shopping growth. So uh over just kind of giving you an overview of Turlock. So population 73,100 24,500 households 640,000 within a 20 mile radius. So think of that as

your trade area. Uh Turlock businesses currently employ 29,000 to 30,000 people. About 8,300 are a resident workforce. So they live and work in the city. You have you're home to CSU Stannis Los 8 to 10,000 students with 700 full-time faculty. We mentioned Wisp 20 2,611 acres 8 million square feet of industrial already built a historic downtown that's walkable and with providing a lot of diverse shopping and restaurant and experiential. Um also Monty Vista Crossings is a major power retail center that along with the downtown are major regional draws to the city. As mentioned earlier, hotel demand is strong. Sports is a big part of the community. And you also have um a strong community partnerships with the Chamber of Commerce, CSU Stannis Laws, and the Downtown Property Owners Association. So, here's kind of a high level overview of what our SWAT analysis showed um for economic development in the city. Now, a lot of the strengths we've already touched on, but a few other ones to mention include the Turlock Irrigation District providing electric power well below Modesto and PG& rates. Uh there's a significant entrepreneurial spirit with many startup companies in the area and also opportunity Stannis loss and the Volt Institute. Volt Institute of course is the offshoot of opportunity Stannis loss and it came into existence in 2017 provide it so far has pro at least in 2024 has provided 30,000 hours to almost 300 trainees both on and off site. It's a really big improvement there. Uh some weaknesses we saw was uh in the downtown area due to the age of the buildings and there are issues related to ADA and also building code issues that make reusing those buildings difficult. Uh there's also a need to improve the business permitting process which we're actually seeing now as a

opportunity with a new online permitting software. Um and also uh one other point to mention that we gathered from the 2022 Stannislo County SS was that there was a relatively unskilled labor pool for STEM type jobs. However, of course with the Vault Institute that is slowly changing. Some opportunities that we do see, of course, downtown Turlock, a walkable historic downtown that is a unique and regional draw. You have strong regional demand for single family housing. Some of the lowest vacancies in housing uh compared to other cities in the area. Uh city has healthy financial reserves. There are large infill sites that can grow with mixeduse development. Um the WHISK area is ideally located to promote commercial, industrial, and recreational facilities. You do have federal opportunity zones about 837 acres within the city, 11 of which are in the downtown and about 117 are in the WISP. Uh and then the city is also well positioned for agricultural processing jobs given your location in the Sanwin Valley. And lastly, of course, the online permitting software is a major benefit to business attraction via increasing in efficiency in the permitting process and really making it more attractive to businesses. So, Cosmine identified several different economic development strategies um these nine here and with each of these strategies there are several uh action items associated with them. So, I'm going to highlight a little bit on each one of these. So, first business expansion it's really should be expansion attraction and retention. So, this really discusses business friendliness. So, how to get to yes. So the idea here is to support the needs of developers, businesses and foster entrepreneurship and bolster the local economy. Um such ways of doing that would be developing a tech technical assistance programs. Uh working with businesses to understand their needs and challenges, conducting outreach with and

collaborating with property owners to explore those development opportunities having a more efficient plan check. Uh we mentioned the online permitting system. So that's improving already and also attending ICSC which is a major conference that um where you can meet with major retailers, restaurants, hotels, developers and brokers to really understand what's going on, what what the other um what these entities see in the Sanwin Valley region and also within Turlock uh housing as economic development. This is really dealing with housing as more than a place just a place to live. It's really where people live, work and shop. um especially considering more and more people are working remotely. Uh so the idea here you increase housing and you um and thus increasing sales tax revenue and the more houses the more heads you have or the more homes you have the idea there is it also attracts retail. Um so establishing a business incentive program. So here we understand there is a policy in place that ex exempts existing buildings undergoing change of use from paying CFF fees. Uh the city could consider setting a specific goal like attracting downtown for attracting downtown development such as fasttrack permitting, tax sharing agreements, facade improvements. Uh the WISP another one that we mentioned um here we're thinking uh participating in major another major conference such as NOP. the National Association of Industrial and Office Parks to really promote the WISP and attract additional industries to that area. Uh considered a P bid to give that area a unified image. Uh also updating the specific plan to emphasize economic growth. Uh value capture refers to mainly using economic development tools such as DOR and AFDs. to do of course development opportunity reserve allocating zoning in

exchange for public benefits. Um and EIFD is the enhanced infrastructure financing district that's a tax increment financing district where you're utilizing the increment from t uh from the property tax from new uh development towards funding new infrastructure uh an expansion of sports facilities. So we found that from the 2022 Victus study that showed additional demand for uh more sports uh related uh activities. So 80 weekend tournaments alloc that allocates or equates to about 50 million in economic development activity and about 1 million in sales tax revenue and toot combined. and the WISP has a lot of land for that to accommodate a major indoor outdoor sports facility and to support that additional retail entertainment and hospitality uses. So that's one option there. And then downtown placemaking. So again exploring expanding the P bid to support cleaning security uh marketing and evaluate publicly owned parcels, invest in physical improvements, including facade improvements and other outdoor retail and also growing your social media engagement. We touched on federal opportunity zones. Just high level oz give tax credits through the deferral of capital gains to developers supporting mixed use and business growth projects that help close a feasibility gap. And then lastly, uh gathering performance metrics to measure annual progress. So that's really measuring uh interest from developers, measuring business formations, showing success in commercial and industrial business attraction and similar efforts. That's kind of measuring on an annual basis. And lastly, I want to close discussing opportunity sites. So, we highlighted four major uh development areas with several thousands of acres of privately owned land for industrial, retail,

entertainment, and mixed use opportunities. And those include um the Highway 99 corridor. So, that uh green area there, that's number one. So, we saw about 371 acres in that that's currently has 1.7 million square feet of retail space and about a 100 acres or so of vacant land available. Downtown Turlock is kind of hard to see, but that's number two there in the turquoise. Those are the boundaries and that's 38.4 acres. The westside industrial specific plan, it's 2,611 acres outlined in black. That's number three. And then the federal opportunity zone areas, those are based off census tracks and that's the pink overlay that you see on the map there. Of course, some of it falls within uh the WISP and some of it falls in downtown. the most significant development that or near-term opportunity for development that we see or that we saw in our report was the 30 acres uh site. It's a vacant site that's kind of sandwiched between Monista Crossing to the north and countryside plaza to the south in the first section on the Highway 99 corridor and that actually is currently uh being developed. Uh we do see uh as mentioned earlier the chick or I heard earlier the Chick-fil-A is being added to that site as we speak. And with that I will open it up to questions.

Questions for Mr. Sanchez? Mr. S or Mr. S. Yeah. Um I'm not sure if your presentation has all of the same slides that were in there, but I have a question. I think it's on page 43 of the document. It's basically the economic development roadmap. So the I think it's six months, 12 months, three years. Yeah. Um I my question is more to Mr. Sims. I mean is that can we put that up and is that sort of are our marching orders and is that of realistic all of the things that we could consider doing?

Yeah, this is just a a guide, a road map. uh we can shoot for these six-month priorities, the 12-month priorities, and the three-year priorities. Those are just the suggestions that Cosmon had provided, but direction from council. You know, we could we could look at six months. For example, uh it's not on the screen, but the six months priorities could include assign responsibility to gather performance metrics, initiate business expansion, attraction, and retention incentive policies. So, that relates uh to business retention and expansion visits. So, we already meet with about a hundred or more businesses per year. You know, meeting with those businesses, identifying what their challenges are, if there's any expansion opportunities there. Uh, the 12-month priorities mention WISP infrastructure financing plan. So, that would be uh internally taking direction if we need to look at the WHISP and look at ways to expand that or put together some financing tools to help expand that. It also mentions provide report to council on bear success and other economic development performance metrics. That's one strategy that we kind of do in our monthly reports. We try to show how many business business retention visits we we have, how many business workshops, so on so forth. Uh downtown placemaking events, we're pretty fortunate. There's numerous downtown events that happen throughout the year, too, but we can include that in our metrics as well. And then the three-year priorities, it includes three um bullet points. Examine new sports facilities districts. So, as we go forward, we're doing more of these things. It just says that year three, examine new sports facility districts, master plan for federal opportunity zones, and then implement value capture strategies. So, it's more of just just a roadmap, a guideline, but this is a document that we could take direction from.

Can you expand a little bit more? I'm I guess I'm not quite understanding the federal opportunity opportunity zones zones,

right? So essentially so regarding opportunity zones, um the point there is that it it provides an opportunity to kind of leverage this federal program to attract additional investment. They it attracts investment um by way of uh uh giving special tax credits um or through deferral of capital gains to developers that are supporting mixed use or business uh business growth projects are.

So it's really an advantage. You're not putting any you're not I guess giving away any capital gains tax or paying capital gains tax on those investments. Obviously federal correct? It's a federal program. But but then can you expand a little bit on like what what tools do we have at our disposal to help promote that federal policy in those areas or is it just letting people know that they're out there?

Well, as far as the federal program goes, it would be more letting investors know, hey, we have this program. We have 837 acres within the city, 11 of which in downtown, 117 in our WISP. The WISP in particular is very powerful considering, you know, you have all this industrial and opportunity to attract significant uh growth there. So, uh I would definitely market that. Other questions? Okay, let's open it to the public. Anyone wishing to

Yes. Uh Mil Treewater, I do have several comments to make. Um I'm going to begin with the program we had the re and it plays right into this the regional transportation plan update uh from Stanco. I happened to attend the city of Modesto event which was the same event that we heard here tonight. And one thing that was presented at the Modesto event was it actually told what they projected the population growth was going to be. And this is the UOP research in Stockton. They're doing the research in Modesto, California, and it goes all the way to 2049. They are projecting Modesto will grow by 19,000 people. If Modesto is only going to grow by 19,000 people to 2049, Turlock is probably going to grow 10,000 or less. So, we're looking up here in the sky and reality is down here low. We're not going to get anything like that. So, that was interesting. Um, I did hear a comment tonight about building housing. I remember we had u a a person on the staff who was really an expert in housing. And the one thing he emphasized to us was that housing really never pays for itself because you have so much infrastructure cost that you're actually losing money when you build housing. And the taxes we get, the property taxes all go to the county. We get onetenth of a percent or but let 1% I believe it is 1%. So we're getting very little of that. And uh the other taxes for anything else is also going to sales taxes also going mostly to the county except for our measure A funding. So we're not going to be getting a lot of taxes by building houses period. It's not going to happen. But we're not going

to have the growth to begin with. One thing else I want to mention is that unemployment, okay, with robotics and artificials, I've been researching this, they're predicting that with robotics and artificial intelligence, we're going to have unemployment rates from 10 to 40% over the next several years. In other words, robotics are going to take our work away from us. We're going to have unemployment all over everywhere, not just Turlock. It's going to be all over the country. There's not going to be any money to support what we're talking about here. The good thing was u you do have the WISP out there and you have land out there. You could put uh high density housing out there. You could put sports stuff out there. That's a good place for that. Um and oh, one other thing, MID, T, they're both actually both the same entity. So there is a slightly larger charge from Modesto's electricity, but it's not a major difference because they're coming from the same dam, Don Pedro Dam. So I think we have some things here that we need to explain more clearly. Thank you.

Anyone else? Yeah, come on. Hi.

Um I uh I'm Jordane. Nice to meet you guys. Um, I really enjoyed hearing the stuff about sports. I went to Pitman in 2015. Um, and I know a lot of my friends that are also on the football team and the wrestling team. And then we got to Stan State and there weren't any, uh, football or wrestling teams there. Uh, so I think that would be amazing. I think, uh, Turlock really loves football and I think a lot of people could gather around that. So, I'm just super excited to hear about a possibility of expanding on sports facilities and I would just personally recommend uh football and wrestling, especially I went to Pitman, so I'm always going to go for uh the Pride. I think that there's so many great wrestlers and wrestling clubs out there um that a wrestling team at Stan um and also a football team I just think would be fantastic. You know, I and I don't know if can we ask can we ask questions? Is that is that okay?

You can ask and they'll answer at the end. But if you want to ask Yeah, he'll write it down. Yeah. My my biggest question is just like is it possible to even get those sports at Stan State? I don't know if there's a bunch of red tape or I just I'm just super I'm just super curious, you know, as a as a sports guy myself. That' just be super cool to see. Thank you. Anyone else? Mary, you want to be on the football team? Mary, come on.

Um I'm Mary Jackson. So, I have lots of questions. My biggest issue is we didn't get the Trader Joe's in Turlock and it went to Riverbank. I No, I know. Well,

we we did we did 15 years ago and we were told it would go to Merced, but we are university town. Um, and so we have to just do the same thing we did 15 years ago, which I'm more than willing to do. Um, and we just have to go. Every time you go in, you ask them. I'm from Turlock, so when are you building there? Um, I'd like to know if a community center has been talked about. Uh, Sirius has a phenomenal community center. We sold ours what 10 years ago, Chief Hampton, when Soy Seth was mayor. You could have bought two guys on Broadway. It would have we had a plan of a whole civic area with a police anyway police station, but what it could have, shoulda doesn't cut it. a a community center um would actually generate revenue, which is one of my favorite words if you're a um elected official. I I think you were talking about this whole federal plan of enticing people to build. That's it was redevelopment and Governor Brown had to cut redevelopment because he had to balance the budget. So, whatever we can do um to encourage low-income housing, I I dare any of you on the council to go try to find an apartment under $2,000, twobedroom, two bath. I dare you. So, we need to figure out how to start having mixed use to grow up. Um we need more. I mean, we could we could double Pretty Park and I think we would get our money's worth in five years. Um, my friends in Sacramento come to Mary Groen Park. My daughters play soccer. Soccer tournaments is are huge. Um, if we could have a Mary Groen Park, we do have Gimply Fields at Pitman High School. Um, that's wonderful. But again, these are all things I can remember when I asked Chief Hampton, our parks are safe. People use our parks when I sit on the dis. And that is very very important because they come here and they spend money whether it's gas,

food, entertainment, whatever. Um the one issue I'd like to talk about importantly um I'm not a big fan of fast food. We don't eat fast food at my house for it's usually when we're traveling and we're in a hurry. Um I want jobs, real um living wage jobs. So, if we have to work with the school district, and this has been one of my pet peeves since I moved back here, is the Silicon Valley is over there. We have the affordable housing, we have um cheap water and power. Why have we not lured them here if we have to educate people to do it? I'm a schoolboard member. Come talk to me. Again, my name is Mary Jackson. Very simple, common spelling. We need to do that because that's what needs to fill our wisp is tech. and we need to grow up, not out. We need to stay in our current general plan, urban boundaries. Thank you.

Anyone else? Okay, closing the public comment. Uh, did you write any of those down?

Uh, so I have the question, I think I just saw one question. Has a community center been considered? And I would say the regional indoor sports center would be the closest to that. And for the sake of uh the football sir um title nine is where you have to have just as many athletes female as male. If you did a football team as Stannis Loss then you would probably have no other male sports to cover. So um I happen to be married to a former athletic director from Santa Los. So I'm very very comfortable saying that that probably would never happen especially now with money involved. I don't see this area being able to to push that funding out there, but we can always find something to do here. Um, okay. So, you have comments or questions?

Sure. Go

ahead. Um, I mean, I just I want to say thank you, Mr. Sanchez, for coming and presenting this and for Mr. Hampton, Mr. Sims for bringing this forward because it's it has been lingering out there for a while. Um, and you know, after going through this this, you know, slide deck and multiple times, you know, there's there's a lot of granularity in there and we only got to go kind of at the top level. But I would I would really like, you know, because let me just take a step back. Having a plan is is step one, then we have to like see it come to fruition, right? So, I would like to see more specific staff items about this, you know, development opportunity reserve or the enhanced financing districts. Like, how does that going to look in Turlock? What policy, you know, like levers do we need to pull to make some of those things happen? So, um I I just I would like to see more specific actionable things coming out of this plan. Um, and I would like to say I I do personally appreciate the concept of like housing as economic development, too. I understand that you don't get sales tax from houses, but you also build a community out of where people live and work and send their kids. So, um, thank you for this plan. I I want to see more specific actions and um I hope we can work on those.

I uh want to just clarify one little gaping uh uh thing that was wrong there. It was not 2017 that the WISP began. It was 2008. Uh and it was voted three to two. It happened. Uh Council Member House, Council Member uh Spicer and myself voted for it. The other two didn't. And so it's been there a long time and it was set aside planned for for this. Uh I was on a zoom today with administrator Laughafler talking about opport opportunity zones and about the uh SBA and how manufacturing jobs or manufacturing companies almost 90% of them can use this SBA and there's a ton of money out there and they want us to to reach out and get those there. So with that, I would tell you that I'm happy to push this forward minus the the plan of the six months to three years and have a real dialogue, a one-on-one with each of us to kind of figure out what like, okay, we're seeing this because it it it's kind of uh wonky. It doesn't really tell us what we want. And I think we have to have at least three, if not all five of us have that vision to move forward to to make that go. So, I would ask my colleagues to pull that portion out and try and move the rest forward.

No. Yeah. Go ahead. I just wanted to address Trader Joe's because it's been coming. I don't know why it's still coming up and coming up and coming up again. I just had a newspaper reporter ask me about this a month and a half ago. We tried really hard to get Trader Joe's. Believe me, I tried. Um, and so did she. We were essentially told, for the public that doesn't know, we were essentially told the only way we could get Trader Joe's is if the Modesto location burned down and it could not be rebuilt anywhere in this Modesto city limits. So we we have tried beyond all measure

and for the sake of that's a I just had lunch with Mark Hall who built Monavista Crossings uh and and it is called a a treasure uh shopping. So, you go there and it's a higher price and you have you go there for specific stuff. It's not like you're going to save Mart or Food Max or whoever else. I don't want to get people mad if you're not picking their store, but so having having putting that for uh your your people who are going to college is probably not a likely thing. So, our numbers don't really calculate towards a treasure shop as opposed to shopping. So, anyhow. Yes, sir. You have anything? Do you know anything?

I I think staff can very easily put together a strategic implementation plan and really, you know, drill down in these some of these granular issues that you that you talked about. They're in there. Um they're very they're broadly mentioned. Um but really what we need is we need council to accept the report um and let us bring back um an implementation plan. so that we can really drill down and talk about um we can obviously make some recommendations but you will make the final decision on whether it's the next five to 10 years will this plan be the one that we utilize to gain our biggest benefit from economic development. So th this this is this is the uh high elevation look down. Now what we need to do is we need to bring you an implementation plan. Uh this has been sitting on the shelf for some time. Um the company was uh generous enough to come out and uh make a a delayed presentation. So thank you very much. Um but now it's time for staff to put this specifically our economic development director to put an action plan behind this um so that you can really um give clear direction on which plans we want made made available to developers, which ones we don't. Um, and so where where's our priority? Because it's a it's a broad presentation and that's what it's intended to be.

Does it have to pass with the road map or can it be eliminated with it following up as we get closer? The road map doesn't really make sense to me. It seems very capriccious. I'm just saying I don't you guys can vote for it if you want. I don't care. I I mean it it's our plan, right? So we can we can take page page 43 out. Um um which I I will make a motion to accept that uh SANS the road the road map which is currently on page 43 and uh request that an implementation plan with specifics be brought forth. Second that.

All right. We have a motion and a second call. Council member Abram. Yes. Council member Bixel. Yes. Vice Mayor Manz. No. Council member Phillips. Yes. Mary. Yes. Pass on a 41. All right. And now, director Moreno.

Instant replay. I know, right? It's really warm. Can you can you make it only otherwise it'll be freezing? Oh, please. Not you. It's going to take more than that. Thank you, Mr. Sanchez.

I need it quick ice bath. Good evening, uh, honorable mayor and council members. Um, the item today is a topic we briefly discussed at a previous meeting, but it was brought back to actually pre create a nexus between the presentation you just heard and some of the the program that we're going to be presenting today. Um, just to caveat to the whole thing, it was identified in the program as far as what that study said. So, it kind of started the conversation on what this program looks like. There's a lot of different topics within the program itself for the study. Um, this program is a little more easier to implement and move forward in today's rates and how we can get things done. So that's why it's being proposed as far as one of the starting points of the overall program itself. So today we'll be discussing uh a business incentive program for capid facility fields reduction. Um, it's important that we call it a reduction of how the structure works because we're reducing the fees, not necessarily not eliminating the completely. So, what is a capital facility fee? Sorry, I'm used to having it in front of me. So, a capital facility fee is really just a form of impact fee structure. Um, within our our city, we have multiple impact fees. We have an eastwami master plan, west industrial specific plans. All these different fee structures are basically built up either in a specific area or citywide. A CFF is an impact fee structure that is citywide and hence why we kind of focused on that one. So we're talking about broader spectrum across the city instead of a specific plan itself proposed CFF reduction program. So we're going to talk a little high level of the CFF and how it break down and I'll give you a visual of what the overall is going to do. So you starts with the overall land categories which be residential, commercial, retail SL and commercial

other and industrial. Then it breaks down into specific areas which you have downtown um master plan areas and then city infill. It then breaks down a little bit further and it goes into transportation, general government, public facil or police and fire facilities. We'll go ahead and show you a little demonstration of what that looks like. The actual CFF report is actually posted on the city website, which we'll click on. It gives you a better visual. I give you a lot of information of how it breaks down, but the page itself really gives you a little more meat of how the table actually is developed. Yeah,

the eye doctor says it should be a better contrast and I totally have agree with that.

So, you can see the table in front of you. It's not part of the staff report, but I thought it was a good visual about all the information and what we provided because it it really breaks down the table itself. It's how the categories break up and then it breaks into the specific areas of how the fees are calculated. This is original base of what the fees look like, but it gives you a better table and visual of how the things we just talked about from categories perspective and how they overall break down. So, it's a little more easier to digest when you look at it from the information I just gave you. Go back to the Is it better now or now? So, as you can see, it breaks down the categories you saw in the report. We are proposing to reduce these fees by 25%. Um, and we'll focus them on the a specific area of the report itself, which is the commercial, retail, and industrial. So why we focus in this part of the categories itself is because we we transition back to the report it does talk about these specific areas. Um but when you look at the actual report it does have another component which is residential which we'll talk about a little bit a after when we get through the presentation of options. So to be able to run this program it's very structured in a way where we actually put funds towards the program. So we talked about a waiver but we're actually backfilling these with other dollars or discretionary funds which were in this format we're proposing tot. So why toot? So toot itself um is traditionally already used within the city for different mechanisms of economic development. It's used for parks. It's used for business incentive programs in the future special events which all drive economic development within the city. So we are requesting an appropriation of 500,000. We do expect that this will last at least a minimum of a year. This really just based off of development how construction is going to

flow. Um so you can generally estimate look at histories but it all based off development when permits are pilled. It can go from a year it can go longer. Um you could also again talk about different uh options and where the red the fe the percentage is changed and maybe stretch a little longer. So we'll give examples of what those numbers look like though. program oversight. So, I think this is a critical piece and a lot of the questions I got in the beginning is okay, well, how does this all going to work? So, the best thing we can do is make sure we're transparent on the information on how the money is actually being utilized and going out. So, program oversight one will will take an overall factor of 75%. Once these funds have been utilized, we'll come back and talk about the program, how it's been working, what has been driving it, uh where the funds been utilized the most. Um, so that'll give you a benchmark of we know when staff will actually come back. We also will be talking about it during the budget process and I'll also be reporting our monthly finance reports. A lot of it's just about transparency. When you're adopting a new program and going in this this transition, you need feedback. You need to be able to see how the money is going out. Is it going faster or slower than what we projected? Again, because it's based off of development, you really need to get that information out there so that they can start tracking the money and see how it flows. Yes, you can get a large project. They could bundle this money up pretty quick or you can get a lot of smaller projects that can stretch it out a little farther. So, you really have to manage it from the finance department to give oversight overall. The last thing you want to do is get to the end and say, "What do we do now?" So, you have to have a conversation early on before you get to that point. Why council would consider this program? There are benefits that actually tie into the general plan. um attracts new businesses, low lowers economic burden for construction, which we know continuously grows, um creates new jobs, increases sales tax and property tax. So, one of the biggest drivers when I

looked at it from a finance perspective is really the return on the investment. And I see it more of an investment into our business community, not just a business incentive program. So when I looked at some of the permits that are pulled in the past and based off of property tax increment or sales tax increment, I can see the returns of the investment as far as what this fee percent this percentage came up to be within about 3 to 5 years. Now depending on the project, that can vary obviously depending on what the project is doing. Does it have sales tax uh what is is a shell of a building? It all depends on when how it's all going to be assessed from a property tax or even it's a sales tax driver. So that's why we took a more financial look at it from a business perspective and how we drove this program and again it is called out within the the strategic report that you just heard recommen recommendation number three establish a business center program it's targets are retail commercial and industrial it was a it wants to be focused a little bit a little bit broader than what's in this the plan says but again trying to get a better approach of what this program is going to look like and then we can hone it down potentially when we have more data to see how successful the program is or isn't not in the future. So, examples of the calculation. So, you can see an a permit here. This actually is a real permit um for comm for the drive-thru. So, the sample here you can see their total impacts. This is against all programs 261,000 just to CFF itself 111,000. So, you can see with the the table in front of you that what a 25% factor does. So 20 $27,000 doesn't seem like a lot, but they can put that money back into the improvement of their what they're doing. It really gives them a it's all about return on investment ROI, right? And so the better you can help their number come to fruition. It makes that return on investment faster, the more enticing it'll actually be for the project. So looking at a commercial industrial building, same concept. Look at the

total impact fees of 160 thou 63,000 CF being 31,000 and you can see how they calculate two different projects two different calculations two different numbers you really have to run the analysis on the project itself because every project's going to be slightly different depending on what it is alternatives categories could be expanded or or eliminated if you want to move the projects around maybe focus focus on one piece of it overall. Allocated additional funding, alternative funding sources, that could be a topic we can discuss and bring back. Um, you could direct staff to focus on a different part of the strategy. Maybe this is not the right time for this and one you'd like us to focus elsewhere. So, you've heard a lot of different options today. Some of those take implementation and are a lot more strategic on how they build out. So, they take a little more time to develop overall. And that's why you saw your short-term, near-term, and how those things are doing. This program can be implemented today. If approved today, we can start to move forward and actually gauge what it looks like as we build out the rest of the plan and the strategies that we bring forward. So again, alternatives, you can move things around, you can move percentages around and you can identify different funding source or you can again just put tell us come back with something different and focus here or one of the other strategies and go for it. Any questions?

Questions? Yes. Um, so why a fee reduction program rather than a and a more expanded fee deferral program? We have two or I guess three, right, for industrial development. Why not something that lets people expand that a little bit longer?

So the referral program here is something I want to work with next. Um, again, this is kind of a step process moving forward. the program itself works, but the structure is a little bit different in a sense of the way. So, I'd like to revamp that structure and how we do it. So, right now it's five years out. You can defer it, you get an interest factor, but you're also getting escalators on top of it. So, you're it's actually cheaper to go finance a project than it is actually to do that referral program. So, that program is being discussed as far as restructuring it. and term is one of the topics we're discussing on what looks further out maybe a 10 year maybe a sevenyear depending on what the programs are going to look like so that is a program that I'd like to discuss a later date and bring forward too as well

so having just heard about the economic development plan um shouldn't we exempt the areas that are opportunity zones so as not to double dip and actually help people who are not going to get that help from opportunity zone because that's a disadvantage area.

I would say trying to limit to certain areas is you want to focus on a broader spectrum. So the opportunity to zones itself are federal credits. This is going to be a local credit to help overall. And I can think a great example that I can give you is you're going to have a potential large development coming into that project where they're going to coingle funding from all over the place. Maybe they're getting some state bonds to help from an EPA perspective, whatever it may be. So, it's really putting more tools in the toolbox across the board for our economic development director to go out there and sell these properties and because that's what they do, right? Hey, these are all tools. This is what's available local, but here's what's available federally and statewide. So, I just see it more of a addition to the overall toolbox that we have instead of in trying to expand it even more.

Other questions? Yeah, I well I like the idea of the term when you say return on investment and you know that obviously is got to be our goal or bottom line with regard to who qualifies. I mean like I said certain businesses are are much better fit or or put this way from a standpoint of return on investment. We will do better with business A than we would business C. How do you make the decision of who you dole it to? So, we're going to bring up another page within the CFF document and get a better conversation on what that looks like. Give me one moment, please. So, bigger vigor.

Let's do lunch. There you go. Now you got to reduce a little bit. So within the categories itself and how the program is going to work there there's a reason we structure this way. One, you don't want to trigger preventing wage because you'll you'll kill the project, right? Two is you want to make sure it's not a a gift of public funds. So in order for the program to be kosher in a sense of the way you want to make sure you stick within you can change percentages but and you can stay in the categories but you can eliminate a project. And I'll give an example. If you go down to industrial Thank you. So you see warehouse at the bottom. You see a description as of warehouses distribution centers and you also see mini storage. We all know distribution centers are large drivers of of sales tax. Right? But you can't isolate for example the mini storage which is not a sales tax driver whatsoever. Right? So in order for the program to work successfully and be appropriate we can't isolate specific businesses itself. We can only isolate categories in that sense of the way to your question. We can eliminate warehouses because that'll eliminate the factor where you have low return potentially because of a mini storage or whatever else product that may be coming forward, but you also elimin the the other items. So you can eliminate one of these categories and leave it open to where you see fits best for the city and kind of move those components around. That that's where I was talking about expanding and retracting. It's really within this these key areas here. Well, let's say we like commercial, but we don't want to do gas stations for whatever reason it might be as an example. And so, you can eliminate that from the program. And then, but we still have to lead the large definitions of the categories themselves.

Okay. And I hear you on we can't we can't change this table that much. I understand legal said we can't, but why can't we re like location specific apply apply this location specific? So location specific because this is a citywide program. You can do this. So let's go back to page nine. Like why why can't we say this just in the wisp? I know that has its own master plan but

because of the area that's identified in the whole you have these these categories downtown MPA master plan areas and citywide. So you can say the the WHIS is a master plan area but it's only one of the master plan areas. So you can't even you can't even be specific for the WHIS. You got to say master plan areas and it's all the master plan areas. So you can get that granular but it's still a little bit broad.

Can I ask so in the Nexus study that you're pulling this from, it calls master it it specifically calls out master plan areas as like southeast one two three. It doesn't necessarily say Wisp. Is that is that how it is or you know is is the WISP considered a master plan area in here? was considered a master plan area. On the little shading on the map, it looks like kind of all over the place. Yeah. Just Okay. So, realistically, a half a million could go like that

potentially could. And that's the whole whole identified. We have to watch it. We really have to to make sure that how it's tracked, where is it going, and what is it doing, isn't it benefiting? Because if you get a large project, just because they blow through that money, that's not necessarily a bad thing because we got a large project out of the whole thing, right? So I I wouldn't take it a large project coming through as a negative. I would take it as a large product is maybe potentially coming here because of the program and helping it because of their overall ROI. So yes, there is risk in that nature of how the program's structured. But again, you can't pigeon hole it to one specific project and the nature of how

Let's open it to the public. Come on up. Uh, thank you, Isaac. Um, first thing I'd like to just say, I'm going to ask my question first and then make comments. My question is, you keep talking about the TTO taxes being the source of funding for this. What was the total TTO tax we collected last fiscal year in the city of Turlock? the amount. I want to go on to point two here. Basically, what I see this doing is just promoting growth for people who are larger businesses. We had a downtown man here. We're going to give him $3,500 to start help with his business, but we're going to give someone else a h 100,000, 200,000, 300,000, whatever money funds that we have. So, this is not really helping the people, and it's not really helping the majority of the people. and we don't know what it's going to be. So, we don't even know if it's going to help us tax-wise. Um, so again, it sounds to me a little bit discriminatory because we're only focusing on the larger businesses. We're not focusing It's going to actually create more competition for our downtown areas and our smaller business. I was a small businessman for 42 years, 41 years. And the biggest problem I had was big companies coming in and competing with me. Unfortunately, they went out of business. So, that stopped that part. But I I just don't see the points of this. I do want to bring up something that everyone should know about. And we brought in uh Texas Roadhouse. And right now, the city is going to be spending $750,000 of measurel funding to rearrange the roadway on Countryside Drive. So, Texas Roadhouse has a driveway into their place. So here we are already a

multi-billion dollar company and we're going to be spending $750,000 to promote them. The sales tax we receive from them from measure A is approximately $60,000 a year. So it'll take 12 years for us to recoup the money from their sales tax to pay the $750,000 that we're going to be spending on them. This just doesn't make sense to me. This money is not really going to help the Turlock. It's going to help. I don't know who it's going to help to be honest with you. We're not going to grow in population that much. So, we're talking about things that really don't apply to Turlock. They don't even apply to the valley right now. It's just not happening. But again, okay, is this money going to go to Fish Fillett? Maybe they need road some road work done there, too. We could give them some breaks in their fees, too. We're spending money. We're not helping the people. We're helping the millionaires and the billionaires. I just don't like that. I don't care if we have I've never been to Texas Roadhouse. I've heard the food's pretty good there, but I go to downtown here and and I don't go that often. So, I see a lot of problems here. I hope we can come up with something better in the future. Thank you.

Anyone else? Yeah, John. John Gibbon. Hey, I I'm really happy today. You know why? They're repaving my street. Not repaving it, but grinding it up and doing that. Complain about that.

And uh and uh and uh and they we got our sewer line done, which has been the biggest problem. But anyhow, I just had to throw that in. My my my specific question is, you know, on incentives, do why are we doing incentives? Are we losing businesses uh to other places or or uh you know is Merced taking our businesses or series or Houston or Daire or something like that? You know that's that's fine. I understand. It's just like when you had the hotel tax, you know, uh you wanted to raise it. Well, are we going to lose business to seriesir or something because the tax is too high? Well, I I can understand that. It's just like uh people uh I can remember my my cousin uh he he he uh worked for Turlock Scavenger, but they bought a house in Houston, exactly the same house, but it was $50,000 less than it was in Turlock. Well, that's an incentive to him. Do do we want the people who live and work in Turlock to get a better deal or, you know, whatever. I I'm just saying there there's there's certain things. And then when when you talk about incentives and things like that, I you know, as a small business, they would have these investment tax credits on the federal level or and sometimes the state and uh and they want to give you 10% off extra or something like that. And I would look at, you know, if I was going to buy equipment, I said, "Well, that's nice. I'm going to buy it anyway, so I'll take the 10%." But in a lot of cases, you always have to ask in any uh type of business what what you're going to get back from it. Are are people going to come to Turlock irregardless, you know, and everything? Are we going to get extra businesses that we wouldn't have got because of this incentive? Now, I you know, like you say, 500,000 is nothing in the the big scheme of things. I hate to say that but uh and and trying something else. But you have to be able

to say well what is I realize if you say that this business came here only because they got the incentive only because they got the incentive and not because they wanted to be in Turlock who has a higher uh you know uh income than other surrounding areas and things like that. So I think that's just things that you have to look at. Thanks.

Anyone else? Thank you, Isaac, for the presentation. Um, I agree with the two previous speakers. Our road got repaved three times. So, I'm really, really excited and we got a new sidewalk. So, it's very exciting, isn't it, John, to have your road fixed. So, thank you, Measure A. Um we my concern is that our economy is teetering and anytime you're going to give tax breaks I I just have concerns balance um budget related concerns major concerns um because we could be heading into a recession and in any past experience the last one in 2008 2010 was a serious depression in our community. What we really need honestly in economic development is a new car dealership. When Cherlock Auto Plaza went out of business, we lost a million dollars of tax income that came to the city that we didn't share really with that many other people besides the DMV. So, I I just caution this council right now. I'm wondering, can you give them loans? Can you spread out the um the pay structure? Maybe they pay 10% now or they pay 25% now and another year they pay 50 and then in this second year if they're still in business they pay the extra 25. I I mean I'm just like think outside of the box. Um and to go to Miss Abram's point, can this be done in infill? I mean I think we have a great community. We used to say in former city councils that Turlock was the jewel of the valley and we have a state university. I mean, honestly, Miss Bublack, if you look at where Trader Joe's goes, there's one right next to UC

Davis. There's one right next to SAK State. There they go to college towns. We need to promote, and I think you and I can agree on this, the town gown relationship much better. Um, we have beautiful parks. We have um a school system that offers a dual immersion program, language program. We have um lots of amenities. is we have youth programs. Could we have a a I would love to see a year- round ice skating rink, but um especially when it's 110 in the summer. So, there's things that we could do. These are things I've talked about I think for 25 years since Hampton was our police chief and I still call him Chief Hampton. So, I just think that I would be very hesitant of just giving this to people because I agree. We just gave $3,500 to small businesses, yet we're giving um fish fillet. That was kind of funny. Now I'm gonna call it that. I call it Chick-fil-A. Um but, you know, we don't need to give big national chains tax writeoffs or or give to pay for their infrastructure needs. They should be paying half at least half if not that whole bill um because they have the money. Um so I would really caution this council into doing this right now. Anyone else wishing to speak?

Okay, we will close public comment. Um, can you answer some of those questions? Transient occup a good question how we answer this. Um, this this program itself has no impact to the general fund or its reserves whatsoever. This fund is actually coming out of the 120 fund whereas the tot fund some of the TOT funds are going is why we specifically picked that. If we were talking about going into the general fund and reserves, we'd have a totally different conversation on what this is all going to look like. So from an economic resiliency standpoint, your total operations primarily are going to be in your general fund and we're not going there. We're not even proposing to have that conversation today. Um so this is again it's a starting point. That's why we're identifying this funding source from reserves. It impacts no current projects, no current u services that we're providing. So that's that's a big point that I'd like to make. Um to start from the other conversations as far as these questions, how much toot bring in about 1.6, but it's spread across multiple funds. So we bring in quite a bit, but some of it goes into the general fund, some of it actually goes into um this 120 program and how we deal with it. And again, it funds multiple things um parks and services and things of that nature. Um not helping people. So let's think about how the general fund works. the general fund itself. There's not one department primarily, we'll look at public safety as an example, that funds itself. How does that funding come to fruition? Sales tax and property tax primarily. Those are our big drivers and how we balance our overall budget. So when you say businesses coming in doesn't help the public, it does because it expands our budget to be able to give the services we need to provide to the community itself. When the when the business community struggles and you've seen this happen through COVID and Toot impacts, things of that nature, you can see the general fund start to struggle, we start to cut overall services because we have a healthy reserve. We could manage that and take a look, forecast it out. But we're not talking about the general fund in today's nature. We're talking about an outside funding source

and reserves. They're currently not been identified for any other project. Okay. Um roadhouse project. That project that he's identified talks about a road project. road project itself is not about yes it is about economic development but really that road project is about public safety and the traffic flow it's not about sales tax drivers within that overall flow it's about the expansion of what that project's in that area the totality of the area not the roadhouse project itself but the totality of the area and the the infrastructure is currently there and how the improvements need for traffic flow reasons that's it's not a sales stack driver in that sense of the way how it works uh why do we do incentives This is not a new program. There's multiple cities across the state that do this type of program. They all do it in different formats. It gives us again another tool to entice businesses to come to our community so we can continue to grow. One thing that you can always think of if you're not continuing to grow, you are continuing to struggle. So you have to continue to to work your economic development to be able to drive new revenues so that we can continue to keep up. Costs go up. Revenues don't always go up the same time as with it. So we have to work our toolkit to be able to expand and keep up with the economy as it continues to fluctuate through the years. And again, economic tanking, we're not impacting the general fund. There's no impact of services whatsoever. Spread of the loans, loans are actually what the deferral program is. It really is a loan and it's spreading out over multiple years. We're already doing that to the degree. I think we would need to revamp that structure and bring it back and have a conversation on how it works. But there's already a toolkit that we currently utilize. So I believe I got them all at that point.

Thank you for that. Comments. Sure. Sorry. All the above. So Isaac, the council, this could go fast, right? We could burn through $50,000 or $500,000 in a matter of minutes or it could take months and months and months. Right. That's correct. So the council can terminate this program at any time. Correct. That's correct. Okay. And what happens when so today you're asking for a half a million dollars. What happens when the if let's just say it goes blazing saddles and the half a million dollars is exhausted in 90 days where where what happens?

So we'll have a bigger conversation about how the program is working and what the benefit we actually achieved. Did let's say we had projects that come through they're not really giving a return on the benefit of what we thought the program was going to do. That's a totally different conversation, right? Because hey, we put this money out. We want to start the program, but we're not seeing the benefit that we projected could come from it. But we could also look at additional other funding sources. So, for example, tit is identified today. Maybe we look at cannabis and restructuring that policy and how it goes through. Um, not saying that I'm proposing that today, but we'd have a bigger conversation if the program is successful, how we could continue to fund it. Another example that I'm looking at today, legislation just passed about toot and now you can you can tax um these airbs and that nature. So I'm restructuring the ordinance to be able to compensate for that. That's potential new revenue coming in. Maybe that dollar amount can work into the program. So these things are being talked about what the future looks like at the program even though be even before we've even adopted it. I I think the critical for me to point out is just the oversight of the program is the critical part. We don't want to come to the end have this conversation. Is it working or not working? We want to talk it about ahead of time. So identif maybe a different alternative as far as funding source can be proposed so that we can manage the program and get it forward.

But staff does not have the authority to exceed the 500,000. Okay. You got to say that for the public, please. Thank you. So let me let me put it in a different way. This is going to be in the budget. This is going to be part of the budget conversation. Uh we have no authority to exceed this dollar amount. We will be tracking on a monthly basis as it comes to fruition. Let's say by the end of the fiscal year we've we spent 200,000. Our max limit is 500k. We cannot go further than that. We rebudgeted 300,000 and go forward. But we have limitations based off what we're currently proposing in the appropriation today. If new funds are going to be requested or an expansion of the program or how that may work, we have to come back.

Comments.

Okay. Um, so I mean I I have I have talked to staff. I'm sure you guys know some of my concerns about this. I I very much want us to utilize these tools, right? Do do more things, be businessfriendly, allow for us to grow, but my my big issue with this is, yeah, we want to grow, but we don't really know what we're going to get at the end. You know, I hear you talk about return on investment and I understand that, you know, well, generally probably three to five years we can get that back, but that $500,000 could very quickly go to a very intensive, you know, use um you know, a warehouse, a trucking, parking area that doesn't necessarily produce a lot of sales tax or doesn't necessarily create a lot of of, you know, jobs. So, in terms of policy, I want us to be able to devise policies. I know that this is easy to implement. It's across the board. And I certainly don't want us to be picking the winners and losers, right? That's not our job, and that's, you know, that that's just going to get everybody in trouble. But I would like more specific policies, things that we can measure um to explore, you know, expanding the WISP. How can you know could we I hear you that you don't want to double dip on federal opportunity zones but I think that's if those are economically disadvantaged areas could we you know incentivize that that kind of thing more I want to and if we already have a fee deferral program that we know is not working for me step one would be how can we fix that before we add something new so I I'm I'm I don't I'm going to vote no on this if it's like it is and I don't really know how to suggest we chop it up at the dis tonight if that if there is any interest in that.

So I will say to your statement as far as risk any program you bring forward has some type of risk. Um so you pointed out the whisk maybe we need to expand it or build upon it. If you build it doesn't necessarily mean it comes right so there is risk with any standard program that you're going to be in investing into financially in any way. Um can you say if I build it I'm going to get this large industrial factors create all these jobs and this is going to occur. It's based off development. we can we can help them come to fruition. We can have those conversations, but at the end of the day, we they have to be able to pull the trigger themselves and it has to financially make sense in that sense of the way. So,

I agree with you and I just want to add on to that that like all of our fees are predicated on all of these different infrastructure things that we have to do. So, if we can make the infrastructure improvements in today's dollars, that could lower the fees and, you know, reduce the costs for people later. So I agree with you and I'm yes ending you. Yeah.

So unfortunately we we do have no disrespect to anybody we do have a reputation as not being business friendly and people build around us and so incentivizing at at what even Mr. Gabalon has said is not a big amount of money in in terms of building anything in this place. Right. So we're talking about a half a million dollars and we can see what's going on with it. I think that the the force of multiplying is that you want something that is going to bring you more jobs, more economy so that we can have better services for our public. Um but at the same time if somebody in you know downtown wants it they they have not only the opportunity zone but they can do that as well. I mean I am presuming and Mr. Hampton, tell me if I'm wrong, that that we're going to have our economic development director like hand in hand looking out to find business to bring here with with that incentivization so that we're we're actually making it work as opposed to just put it out and wait for somebody to call. Am I wrong?

No, you're not wrong. Open for business.

Yeah. I mean, we're taking toot and reinvesting it for our future is essentially what we're talking about. Um, we're using toot obviously now to sustain some of the operations of parks and wreck and sports fields and so on and so forth. Um but what what what's being presented to you is um really um a direct incentive for someone to build a structure here and obviously anything inside that structure that's mechanized is going to get um state taxes on it that we get a piece of. Uh the property becomes more valuable because it's no longer just a strip of land. Now it's got a you know $25 million facility sitting on it

equipment. So, the equipment taxes, I mean, it goes on and on and on. I I think the question is though, if you have a and I I hear you loud and clear, council member, if you have a um a developer who comes in and wants to to develop a quarter mile long dry warehouse, I'm not sure that pencils out for us. say no to that. I'll I'll leave that to the planners to answer that question. If they qualify, they qualify. Correct. If they qualify, they qualify. Unless we take it out.

Again, you could take that category out, right, to reduce your risk factor that you're we're discussing there. Um, and that's the only way you can kind of get around how the program structure stays intact overall and fair. Would that help for you to uh pull that out that and what specific category are we talking about here? Yeah. Scroll up just a little larger please for the old people up here. So we don't need to see residential because that's not even part of the conversation right now. Right. So keep going. Keep going. Industrial. There you go.

So warehouse and and we're not looking for I mean I would like to take warehouse out and I would like to take uh if it's storage units because there's nothing that you know we're not talking about warehouse that has robotics and so on so forth that could be beneficial to the city not only in jobs but you know taxable equipment and so on and so forth what I was talking about was just a simple drive warehouse that's a mile long drive up 12205 corridor. I won't name the city. That's what you see.

But the warehouses in Patterson are bringing crazy amount of retail or I and money. I mean their revenues and yes, I agree with both of you that like I mean we can't we don't know we don't know what kind of warehouse it's going to be. You don't know and and and that's that's my whole problem with this. So I I wish I had suggestions on how we could cut this up. Gotcha. Well, what is the will then? Motion to approved. Okay, we have a motion. I'll give it a second. Call the role, please. Council member Abram, no. Council member Bixel, yes.

Vice Mayor MZ, no. Council member Phillips, yes. Mayor Back, yes. It passes on a 3-2. Thank you, Mr. Marino. As soon as you uh like sling any of that money out, let us know. We want to know what's going on. Thank you, Mr. I This is obviously after the fact, but this obviously there's no retro come and apply for it.

It's it's upon point when you pull the application. So, I mean, we looked at some of the stuff that's that's coming through and what it all looks like. And I I the main point I can drive to you just because they're having conversations doesn't mean it's come to fruition. So yes, those are conversation potentially what it potentially may look like, but until they pull that actual permit, then it becomes a true factor and we actually allocate these funds. So even when we start talking about numbers with developers, we're going to have to disclose, you know, until you pull your your permit, this is your number until that that comes fruition and funds are available.

And how often will you come back to us with information pertinent to how it's going? So, I will put it in my monthly report as far as how much dollars have been going out from the from the tuition. If I see something starts a spike or something's occurring or if I get good feedback, I'll definitely come back and give a presentation how the program's working. Um, so I I really want to just track it and see where it's going, but I do want to be transparent of if it's not working, we'll have a conversation. We really will. Okay. Okay. And and also with that, can you I guess you get things to say. I was going home already. What happened here? No, no, you're good. You're good. Go ahead. We're just teasing.

I I I need to hear this feedback. That's how I can only help you if you give me your feedback. Yeah. So, with say you don't out $100,000, at the same time, I think with depending on the type of business it is, I think you can do some forecasting on what our ROI is going to be. And that's how it came to three to five year factor. But yes, right. But I mean, I think that that would be very valuable to us to see, do we want to continue this? Do we want to expand it? Do we want to pull it back? You know, so no, I appreciate that feedback. Yeah. Again, the more information I can give you, the more you give me feedback, the more I can bring back to you, right? So, I don't know until you tell me. So, here's some feedback. I really don't like it. So, please keep your thumb right on top of it. We could always bring it back. Yeah. Right. Okay. So, just because we dumped it today doesn't mean we can't talk about it tomorrow.

But, but I'm with Council Member Abram. We want to do this. I I I just don't like how uncertain and choppy the the plan is. So, I'm not anti- program of what you've presented here tonight. Know that. I just don't I'm comfortable with where it's at. I get it. I totally get it. All right. Now, we are going taxpayers money. Okay. Moving on. Comments. You can use your time for that. Council Ra.

Yes, I have I have comments. Um, so number one, congratulations to Joselyn Nuin on that. And then I brought a visual aid. So, um, this last Saturday was the opening of the farmers market. The visual aid is gone. Okay. So farmers market is wonderful opening day that goes now six months through the year and you know I I have brought this to previous city managers. I think that with the type of events we have there's opportunities to improve pedestrian safety especially when it comes to you know we close roads with signs that are not actually going to stop a moving vehicle. So this what you were looking at here um this is from a picture in the wild taking my family to St. Louis Bispo at the farmers market there. These are portable ballards. You can't see it but on the other side there are wheels. It's basically a very large steel wedge. Um and so I think that this is something I I would encourage the city manager to have a conversation with the pertinent departments to see how could we use this? What would it cost? Because

you need a half a million. I I'm hoping less than that. I looked it up. St. Louis Abyispo got 36 of these in 2022 um at about $9,000 a pop. So, they are not cheap, but they are really big steel and they I'm assuming have a very long um use. So, um Mr. Hampton, this is my suggestion for additions. And I would also suggest that you know when we talk about funding it um measure A for a long period of time was increasing our general fund reserve. That general fund reserve is well beyond what we our our policy says we should have. So I would I would be interested in exploring that as a funding source.

Council member Abraham, uh I had conversation with staff this morning regarding these ballards, the portable ballards. Um I'm familiar with them. You see them all over Canada. Um, you see the bigger metropolitan cities utilizing them from New York to California and there's no reason we can't have a safer way to close our city streets. It only takes one incident for us to regroup. Those are good colors, too. I like that. Well, clearly you can customize them so we could have public art on them, too. Uh, oh, guess we're going to need Joselyn again. Yes. I But we'll give you more.

You got nothing. Miss Yonan, such a pleasure to have you here this evening. Um, I'm gonna ask the city attorney's office for a briefing on public comment. Um, you know, folks, Turlock is very laxed on the rules of public comment. And if you read government section or government code section 54 954, it's very clear that public comment is not to get up and and talk about a a freeforall. um public comment is to address the city council on items that the city council actually has jurisdiction over. Okay? And believe it or not, your your officials that are sitting up here tonight don't have jurisdiction over everything. Um one thing that that public comment lectturn turn is not used for is electioneering. Okay? recalling somebody, running for office, announcing your candidacy, that is not permitted by a multitude of FPPC regulations and code sections. The entire foundation of the FPPPC exists to prevent stuff like that from happening. So, I I think we need to buckle down a little bit. I'd like a briefing from the city attorney's office. It's the 1st of March. You cannot even pull papers to run for office in the city of Turlock until the 1 of July. So we have people who can't even run for office yet and the election hearing has already started. That is not what our live city council meetings are for. Constituents don't come out for that. They're here for us to solve their problems, not here about things that aren't per permitted and are in fact prohibited.

All right. Um, Council Member Phillips and I went to Diva, so we were not at the farmers market uh at Carnegie. Very nice event. Um, and and uh the pastor started with grace and it just seems like the people that got up to the lectern didn't hear the grace part because you can say mean things all day if you really feel that that's necessary, but the truth be said, it just reflects on you. We we can talk to you all day long and talk and tell you what we can do and how we can help or have our team help, but the grace is where it's got to start. And you can't keep calling people names constantly because we are adults and we're going to try and hold each other accountable for at least having grace. So with that, uh I believe that uh oh, I wanted one more thing. We care. We did give money to transitional housing. We gave $452,000 last year. We just didn't give the dollar for the shelter, but we gave it for transitional housing. We are helping. We are trying to make people have accountability for the rest of our community. And we'll continue to do that. Or at least I will. Now we have full session.

We have 13A conference with labor labor negotiators, California government code 54957.6A, agency negotiator Amy Bublack, unrepresented employee, city attorney and B. Public employee appointment California government code 54957B1 title city attorney. All right, we will uh come back out if report should there be something. Thank you for coming tonight. Be safe.

That was very

All right, we are back from close session. There's nothing to report out. Good night. Ajourned.