City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everybody. We are going to call this session to open. Let's get a roll call.

Council Agency Authority Member Stockton? Ritchie?

Here.

Chapman? Here. Remout? Here.

Wiley? Here.

Vice Mayor, Vice Chair DeSilva?

Here. Thank you. All right. So can we get everybody to please rise for a moment of silence if you will. Council Member Wiley, would you join us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Ready to pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The

United States Of America, to

the true power for which

it stands, or a nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Alright. We had no closed session, so moving along. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda? Motion to approve. Second. Alright, we've got a motion and second. All those that agree, say yes.

Yes.

Aye. Aye. That's unanimous for the record. Do we have reports for the city council, from the city council?

Yeah, I have one.

Could you activate your mic? Yeah,

I have one just to report out on our Capsalone JPA. So we were, we've been in the process of selecting the coordinated entry system, court operator for Vallejo Solano Continuum of Care for the period of 12/01/2025 through 05/31/2028. And this ensures that Solana County continues to operate a HUD compliant CES that provides equitable access to housing resources for people experiencing homelessness. Four applications were evaluated by independent review panel using a standardized scoring tool aligned with the request for pricing requirements and led by independent facilitator. Following individual scoring of facilitated media, the review panel unanimously agreed to recommend the selection of abode services.

And this was a long process. It actually passed through a variety of it actually won the bid twice. And so it was highly emotional, contestable. Anyways, this is what we just recently voted on. And so ABOAT is going to be the new Coordinatory System Operator.

And then the other thing that I have to report out, just a quick thank you for the Vacaville Rotary Club. I'm not part of that club, they have a on Friday at the Mayfair, a lot of us assembled and it's for basically mentally and physically handicapped people of all ages and to go out there and have an opportunity to volunteer and walk kids around and walk adults around and just see the struggles that people face as a real eye opener. I've been doing this for a few years now and it's a really well put together event and it's a reminder of how hard life is for some people. So I'm just grateful to the Vacaville Rotary Club for all of their efforts in putting this together.

Thank you. That's it.

Well, I have a couple of things to report. I did attend the two community meetings about the potential tax measure for the city in District 6 and they were not attended by everyone in the neighborhood but the people that were there got an excellent presentation and our staff did a great job with saying how the financial situation is for our city and laid it all out, so people had a chance to ask questions. So that was good. We had two of those this week, which was the last two of 12. And then I also went to the prison today because I have gone to graduation a couple of times for the OCMP which is a program for prisoners who are doing a good job and then they go through a year long training and then they mentor other prisoners and do a lot of things.

But today was an art show which I had not attended. This is the third year, I believe. And the art is done by the inmates in this program and then it's being given to Opportunity House and Opportunity House sells it, some online and some in person, and then the proceeds can go to help with Opportunity House. So it's a way that they give back. And there was some art, there was some knitting and crocheting and one of the persons had contacted me and I worked with Chief Poland and they have these he crochets these little bears and the bears have clothes on so he wants to then donate them to the police department so when they have a call and the kids need something, little snuggly thing when they're on a bad day, so they're little beer policemen.

So he's working on those, so we will have some of those to donate from Mr. Stephen Clark. And they also did a lot of poetry. So it was really a nice event and council member Chapman is involved with that program as well and I did speak on her behalf because she was supposed to speak but as you see she's not available today. So that was good today and I also just wanted to recognize the work from the COV Connect and thank the employee recognition and lunch was really nice last week and we had a lot of employees out kind of enjoying the time and being recognized for their work in the city, which is great.

And then finally, I went to a pet parade. Thank you to Joan, Marquon Wilsey and her people in the Neighborhood Association for the Pheasant Country Park and it was supposed to be two weekends ago when it was pouring down rain. So we had, I don't know, 10 dogs and I was a judge and it was just really a lot of fun and people were out in the park enjoying the time and so it was a great event. So neighborhood associations do great things and thank Joan Marklin Wilsey for her work with the pet parade. So prison to pet parade. So I was there. Thanks. Thank you.

So my report out is that I want to give a shout out to all our FFA youth. They did a phenomenal job at the Dixon Mayfair. Happened to have a chance to meet a one of our young sophomores, particularly at Vaca Hire. Her name is Desiree. She was able to successfully auction off her her lamb and continue to nourish our our public, whoever that went to.

But I'm just really impressed with how much effort, dedication, and responsibility all those kids put into raising an animal and going through that whole process. I also completed the Water Education leadership program. It's a fellowship. It had five different one weekend over the course of five months, rotated different sites throughout the state, learning about water policy, its impact to that particular environment, and not forgetting about the impact of people. So that that was a it was probably one of the best trainings I've had as an elected member ever, so I learned quite a bit from there.

So anybody wants to learn more about any of that, happy to happy to share when time comes. Last night, I had a whole bunch of fourth grade youth scouts from PAC one ninety six and PAC forty four up here, and they they got down to business. So they're they're actually a very enlightening young group. Always appreciate folks who wanna learn more about civic engagement, learn about the process, and, you know, what it all the different intricacies and challenges that we have to come to terms on how we best move our community forward. Last thing, tomorrow around noon, Chief Pullen, correct me if I'm wrong, there is a peace officer memorial for all those throughout history that will be that have fallen in locally and regionally.

So that'll be at the outside the courthouse in Fairfield. Open to the public. Yes, sir. Thank you. So that said Oh, Mr. Richey. Councilmember Richey.

I said no, but then I remembered I want to talk about that, but I'll be there tomorrow. So thank you for that. So it's still on. I guess Jeanette Wiley, Councilman Wiley did a great job reminding me to choose a path throughout Vacaville. It was run over, I think, about two weeks.

I had the opportunity to attend multiple districts. What's interesting was the amount of people that were not there, and this is going affect every single last half back of a resident. And amount of people that did not make the trip to go hear the education, hear the park was kind of concerning. So I took it upon myself to do some pretty strong media posts, and I reached thousands of people. And first, I like to just the respect for the other fellow Vacaville residents that had the courage to engage each other in a civil manner in that thread.

It's tough. People, their friends, their neighbors, and they're seeing their opinions and they're going it's just it's tough to see people turn on each other for their opinions. You you have to respect the freedom of speech and not everyone has the right to have their own opinion. But, you know, I try to make it fun, like champagne dreams on beer budget. It's it's funny, but it's not. And just I really wish people would just this is serious. If you can if you didn't attend event, the public, please go back, educate yourself. Don't sit don't sit in your butt butt because it's gonna come. Change is gonna come either good or bad, and we better get ready for it. Just educate yourself, don't be lazy, and take the right steps to understand that, you know, the same reason why you didn't make it out, it's never convenient.

It's never convenient to raise revenue and raise fees, but it's necessary for the quality of life and the level of service we own in the city. So take the effort and time to please educate yourself.

I also want to give a shout out to the Dixon Mayfair for the kids auction out there, it was a great event. End up buying a hog, I think it's about $249 per sausage, something like that, but it was a great event and money's for a good cause. But also I got to be in the parade and my job was a pooper scooper running behind the horses. So, they, you know, they didn't cheer the horses, the cars, the fire trucks, but when the horses did a little bit of fertilizer and I was there scooping it up, I got all kinds of shears. So it was kind of fun being in the Nixon Mayfair this year. That's it.

Alright. And just so you guys know, we got some of our council members and mayor that are out there handling business, so that's why the makeup looks a little odd up here. But welcome Assistant City Manager. Mega Ebers, did you have a report for us?

I do. As you're aware, the city recently completed a sustainability project with Optera Energy Services, and we have a brief video that highlights and recaps the project for you tonight. Corey will play that for us.

Hello. My name is John Carley, and I'm the mayor here in the city of Backendall, California. And today, you're hear an update about our sustainable energy project with Optera. It's really important for city like Vacaville to operate sustainably. It comes down to three basic areas. It's about people, it's about the environment, it's about how we spend the tax dollars that we care for. Especially at times when things are really expensive. To find a project like this is a tremendous asset to the city.

My name is Savita Chaudhry and I'm the City Manager for the City of Vacaville. Vacaville's sustainable energy project included installation of solar panels over eight different facilities. It also included emergency backup power for our City Hall as well as our fire station. We also implemented a tree infusion program with three twenty seven trees part of the project profile. About 128 of them were installed in the downtown and remainder were installed in various parks community facilities. This was really important for us to focus on energy infrastructure because it helped us with our energy savings goals as well as providing power reliability and reaching our carbon emission reduction goals.

Hi, my name is Brian Oxley. I'm the public works director for the city of Vacaville, and we're standing here at one of the solar systems at City Hall. All eight solar systems included in this project will generate approximately 4,200 megawatt hours annually of clean energy, which

will offset 2,100 metric tons of CO2. Something else that's really special about Vacaville is that we really are about the arts. Part of this project included murals in downtown through a contribution from Optera. This is really special. If you haven't seen it, I encourage you to walk to downtown and see it. Behind the scenes, there's things that may not have been as visible. One in particular is we had paid internship programs through the Solano Community College.

Hi, my name is Christopher Martinez. I'm an Altera intern on the City Of Vacaville project and I found this internship through Solano Community College. I love working on the project engineering team because I get to work with customers as well as be on-site. Having an internship in my community means a lot to me. I grew up in this area all my life. I've passed by here all the time and just even now seeing the work that we did, it makes me proud. It makes me feel like I was a part of something bigger and that's something that would benefit my community.

Hello, my name is John Carley and I'm the mayor here in the city of Vacaville.

Brandon, for filling in today. So we appreciate you. Alright, we're going move on to presentations. So first up is Older American Month's proclamation, and they gave me a supersized one for blind folks, but I'm not that blind. Let me get the normal people's stuff.

I read the proclamation first? All right. So this is from the Office of the Mayor, whereas the City Of Vacaville recognizes the increasing growth of the aging population is committed to providing needed services and opportunities for residents of all ages to participate in community life, and whereas Vacaville is home to more than 20,000 citizens aged 60 or older who are part of a growing population with evolving needs that contribute to the social and economic fabric of the community. And whereas the City of Vacaville strives to equitably serve residents of all ages, ability, levels, income, races, ethnicities, and other backgrounds. And whereas our community can provide recognition and respect by improving the quality of life for older Americans by increasing their opportunities to remain active and engaged in community life, providing individualized services and support systems to maintain the dignity, independence, and self determination of older Americans as they age, combating ageist attitudes by honoring their past, present, and future contributions, and whereas the McBride Senior Center was founded in 1967 and serves the aging population where they are at while building the path to inclusiveness and the changing needs of residents as they age.

And whereas in our community, the McBride Senior Center has proven to be an essential resource dedicated to enhancing the overall quality of life for our older citizens by creating a safe environment that promotes health education and continued learning opportunities, encourages independent living, and serves as a conduit to other local age friendly services and resources. Now, therefore, be resolved that I, Vice Mayor, on behalf of John Carley, on behalf of the council, do hereby proclaim May 2026 Older Americans Month. Thank you. And would you like to make an announcement? What you got? Good

evening, vice mayor, council members, and members of the public. I'm honored to be here tonight on behalf of the Parks and Recreation Department to receive the this pro clamation recognizing May as Older Americans Month. At the McBride Senior Center, the active aging staff and I pride ourselves on displaying daily appreciation for our active aging community. Whether it be engaging in a friendly conversation or dancing together at one of our luncheons, we want everyone to feel they have a safe and inviting space to enjoy collaborative time with their friends. We do this through the following program offerings.

We currently provide a host of trips and tours that pique the interest of our patrons such as Michael Jackson, the musical. We offer free computer basics courses, which are currently funded by the California Public Utilities Commission, which includes a free Chromebook for those who attend over 75% of class sessions. Cultural arts classes such as watercolor painting and ukulele, support groups for grief and Alzheimer's awareness, social groups and events such as our recent Cinco de Mayo celebration where 50 patrons attended, our senior lunch program offered in partnership with Innovative Health Solutions, which provides nutritious food and solution interaction or social interaction, excuse me, and free services such as legal consultation, blood pressure screen screenings, driver courses, and tax aid. I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the city council for recognizing the contributions and needs of our older adults. With your continued partnership, we will keep investing in programs that uplift, empower, and connect this incredible part of our community.

Thank you for this proclamation and for helping us celebrate Older Americans Month, not just in May, but all year long.

Thank you so much. Alrighty. So next up, we have another proclamation for public works week. How you doing, Mr. Auchley?

So if you don't mind, I'm going read the proclamation first. Eventually. So this is from the office of the mayor. It's a proclamation that whereas National Public Works Week is a celebration of the men and women across The United States who provide and maintain the public infrastructure and services collectively known as public works. The theme of this year's sixty sixth annual National Public Works Week is, quote, rooted in service, powered by community.

And whereas it is in the interest of the public for citizens and civic leaders to better understand the integral role that public infrastructure plays in protecting the environment, improving public health and safety, contributing to economic vitality, and enhancing the overall well-being of every community. And whereas the support of an understanding and informed citizenry is vital to efficient operation of public work systems and programs such as streets, parks, public buildings, mass transportation, recycling, solid waste collect collection, energy conservation, and storm water management, and whereas the quality and effectiveness of these facilities, as well as their planning, design, and construction are dependent upon the efforts and skill of the qualified public works professionals who serve our residents with dedication and a commitment to their communities. Now, therefore, be resolved that I, Michael Silva, on behalf of the mayor John Carley, on behalf of our city council, do hereby proclaim May Public Works Week. Thank you.

Good evening, Vice Mayor and council members. And on behalf of Public Works staff, thank you for that. I would like to take just a moment and recognize our 104 full time staff and 42 part time staff members. Our staff maintains and operates our city parks, streets, creeks, traffic signals, fleet, and numerous facilities. In addition to their normal duties, our maintenance staff provide assistance during emergency situations throughout events like Merriman on Main and Fiesta Days.

Our staff also manages city coach, solid waste and recycling, and storm water management. Our engineering services team designs and inspect city projects, manages traffic operations, and works with development community on numerous private projects. And I'd also like to recognize our administrative staff who do the hard work of keeping our department running. As a resident of the city of Vacaville, I would like to thank our public work staff for their hard work and dedication in making our city a nice place to live. And finally, would like to thank city council for your support.

Each one of you at different times have expressed your appreciation for public work staff. And every opportunity that I have, I share that appreciation with our staff members. And I want you to know how much that truly means to them. And so again, thank you for your support.

Thank you guys for the good work you do.

Thank you.

All right. So moving on to our consent calendar. Are there any members of council who would like to pull in the items off the consent calendar? Anybody from the public who would like to pull any items off the consent calendar? I don't see any. Can I get a motion and a second?

Motion approved.

Second. All right. We've a motion and a second. All those in favor, say aye. VICE CHAIR: Any opposed? Unanimously passed by all four of us. All right. Moving on to business from the floor. So this is the item, this is the time, if anybody has anything to speak upon that's not on the agenda, there's a three minute limit we ask you to respect. But happy to hear what you would like to share.

Hello, I am Joan Marquon Wilsey that council member Wiley referred to and I want to thank her and assistant city manager George Ann Maker Smith for coming to both to be our judges for the pet parade on Saturday. I wish I could show you all my pictures. I have 120 or so. Nope, I'll wait for another time. The other reason I'm here is about parks.

At the 04/28/2026 meeting of the City Council, a motion was made and passed to bring to a future agenda the City Council a discussion about the plans for the Culver's Park and Malakias Pantaya Center and stopping these projects due to the money shortages that are projected for Vacaville's long term finances. I implore the city council, the mayor, the city staff to carefully consider the importance of these projects to the city and specifically to the planned location in our city. Money to cover a lot of the project's expenses, I believe, has been secured through city funds, grants, and federal funds. Extensive planning, staff expertise and time, and community investment have already been made in these projects. Certainly, city leaders, city staff, and our Vacaville residents are hearing the alarm and the anger wrapped up in the news of the city's restrictive long term financial outlook.

However, let's not allow parks and recreation department projects to be quickly dismissed as luxuries, as things that we build when we have extra funds. I am passionate about parks and recreational opportunities as basic elements for individuals to be healthy and to interval into community life. Events, programs, summer camps, green spaces, they all help to make Vacaville the place where we love to live. The city council and the mayor may remember the presentations over the years from the Parks and Recreation Department staff describing the challenges due to the shortages of classroom space and meeting space, surges of ball fields. Regularly, the Recreation Department gives statistics about the waiting lists for the classes and the teams.

And remember that if we could satisfy every sign up opportunity for students or kids and teams, we would have an income stream to the city. The plans for Park include a large playing field. The recreation center plans include meeting spaces and a commercial kitchen. These are things that we can use in the future of the city. Please protect Decolores Park and the Malikis Montoya Center. Those should not be abandoned because of the city's projected budget shortfalls. And thank you for consideration of my plea.

So the other day, I got this in the mail. It's from California forever extolling the, wonderful Collinsville shipyard they wanna build. That's the new tack they're taking. As you know, I've been here many times before with these extracts from the county staff report talking about the billions of dollars that California forever will cost taxpayers, and furthermore, how ridiculously expensive it would be for someone to actually build something that resembled a shipyard at Collinsville. For the longest time, I've wondered just where our mayor stood on California forever.

And finally, he put out a statement long winded as it was. Alright. First of all, if any of these captains of industry that, are running California forever wanted to build any sort of factory or whatever in California, someone would make them a deal. They're not expanding anything in California because Sacramento is too expensive. Or should I say the people there make it too expensive.

Now, in mayor Carly's statement, he says that count that Solano County is in competition to become Port Alpha, which for Ceronic, which he calls a shipbuilding company. Ceronica does not build ships. Ceronica builds autonomous patrol craft. Ceronica is well funded with about 1,750,000,000. Mayor Carly fur further states that Ceronica is not related to California forever.

Well, two of the major, investors, Mark Andreessen and Reid Hoffman are major investors in both. So that's a distinction without a difference. Okay. Talking about Port Alpha. Oh, yeah. Okay. Ceronica has had quite a few vessels that have been looked at by the Navy, but none of them have been bought. Saronic has 69 competitors. So autonomous vessels is a very tight market. K.

And Saronic recently okay. First of all, most of yeah. Ceramic recently opened up an 80,000 square foot 80,000 square foot facility in Downtown San Diego. So presumably, they can be near to their major customer that they hope will be Nav State 32nd Street. Most of Ceronix boats this so far have been built in that thriving seaport of Austin, Texas where they launch them off a little trailer into the lake.

Now in April 2025, Ceronix purchased Golfcraft in Franklin, Louisiana and upgraded it with $300,000,000 investment, and they recently completed a 150 foot Marauder class hole. Their intention for Franklin, Louisiana is that they will expand it into a prototyping and production hub that will produce up to 50 autonomous craft a year and will employ over 5,000 new workers over the next three to four years. Mayor Carley, Franklin, Louisiana is Port Alpha on Bayou Portage.

Hi. Good evening. My name is Alicia Minion and, I have some questions first. And then I have a request for counsel and for the city attorney's office. So I heard the news about the decision to brown out medic seventy two.

So number one, I question the legality of browning out an ambulance for several reasons. Voters have passed various tax measures to fund paramedic ambulance services. In fact, property tax owners pay dedicated paramedic ambulance parcel tax that was passed in November 1976 for the purpose of providing ambulance services to residents of Vacaville. And I can provide the ballot language via email. The reason residents are unaware of this particular parcel tax is because the tax bill doesn't describe it as a paramedic ambulance tax.

Instead, it is labeled on the property tax bills of Vacaville City Tax. My 2025 property tax bill shows that I'm levied 2 and $10.46 for this particular tax. Also my property tax bill includes another dedicated paramedic firefighter and police tax known as CFD number 11 in the amount of $2,152.48 This CFD number 11 is supposed to provide paramedic ambulance and fire services within the territory. However, because of the brownout medic seventy two, services are being provided by the fire station CFD number eleven outside of the territory. Additionally, we pay a water excise tax known as Measure I and that ballot text states that it's for in part public safety.

In addition, Measure M, sales tax, is also in part for fire and paramedic services. Another source of revenue for the city for paramedic firefighter services is that for every patient that gets a ride in an ambulance, the city is reimbursed by their health insurance company, which is typically Kaiser. So given that the city receives dedicated sources of revenue for paramedic ambulance tax, it doesn't make sense to me that you would brown out an ambulance that generates so much revenue. And so those are my questions that I'd like an answer to. And then number two, the pattern that I'm seeing in terms of browning out 'seventy two, this isn't the first time.

It was browned out in the last election season in 2022 and it was exploited by a certain city candidate for city council in District 6. And I still have the email today where it has picture of medic seventy two. It's like, round out. The council is not looking out for your best interests. They don't care about safety.

And my message to city council and to city's attorney's office, please remind those council members and candidates not to exploit Medic 72 because it looks like the city's intentionally doing this to obtain votes for either a particular candidate or for the sales tax measure. Thank you.

Mr. Berger, please do you have a question?

Yeah, so we can't directly respond to the questions tonight from it's not an agenda item but please feel free to reach out to our office. I'm happy to share my information with you and you can reach out to any staff at the city. We're happy to speak with you about that.

Thank you. Anybody else? Comments? Alright, comes in public comment. Alright, there are no public hearings. Move on to business. City Clerk, would you please introduce 12A?

Yes, item 12A is a presentation of the draft community development block grant for program year twenty six-twenty seven annual action plan and tonight we have Housing and Community Services Director Tamara Colden here to present.

Good evening, vice mayor, council members. Tonight we're here to discuss the community development block grant or CDBG program year twenty six-twenty seven funding allocation recommendations. Staff is asking that council provide feedback on the proposed annual funding allocation for the upcoming twenty six-twenty seven year and then also hold a public comment period to allow the public to comment as well. Once you receive the report and open discussion, then staff would like feedback or any direction that you would like to provide to the twenty six-twenty seven allocation. Any changes or recommendations would then be included in the final draft of the plan, and then made available for public review before it will be brought back for approval at the May 26 meeting.

The Community Development Block Grant entitlement program provides federally funded grants to cities and counties with the goal of developing viable urban communities, providing decent housing, and expanding economic opportunities. Since 1988, the city of Vacaville has been an entitlement city receiving CDBG funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The primary focus is to benefit low and moderate income individuals or those earning 80% or less of area median income, and these requirements ensure that CDBG funds are directed towards those who need the most, foster inclusive and equitable development within our community. And the CDBG funds allocated to us locally are used to address the priority needs that are identified in the city council's five year consolidated plan. These goals include planning and administration, supporting public youth services, and improving public facilities and infrastructure.

Each activity must meet one of the following national objectives. They must either benefit low or moderate income persons, prevention or elimination of slums or blight, or address an urgent need. For the twenty sixtwenty seven program year, we received an annual allocation of 500 a little over $527,000. During this program year, we also received a little over $88,000 in program income from the sale of a CDBG property during this current year. So the annual action plan includes a total of available funds of a little over $615,000 The allocation is broken down as follows.

The allowable 20% for the of the annual allocation can go towards planning and administrative costs. That's shown here at $105,401 And these funds are utilized for staffing, supplies, program administration, ensuring the smooth operation of the program. We are also allowed to spend 15% of the annual allocation towards public services totaling a little over $79,000. And as described in the consolidated plan, that will be directed towards youth focused public services in the amount of $74,050 towards the Neighborhood Boys and Girls Club and then $5,000 towards Levin Kids. The Boys and Girls Club currently operates out of the Trauer Center, which is also a CDPG property, and Levin Kids operates out of the Mariposa Neighborhood Center.

The remaining allocation totaling $431,000 one $431,130.38 has been allocated towards the improvement of public facilities and infrastructure and the section 108 anticipated loan repayments. Funds have been allocated towards the Trauer Center to address necessary improvements that will be needed before making the facility available to a new program once the Boys and Girls Club relocates to their new, facility. Funding is also allocated towards the Mariposa Center and Vacaville Social Service Centers for improvements needed for continued use of eligible CDPG activities. And finally, funding has been allocated for the anticipated Section 108 loan repayments for the funds budgeted to be used towards the Malaquias Montoya Community Center at De Dolores Park. As counsel may recall, the section 108 loan application was approved and submitted to HUD in July, and then following HUD comments and technical corrections, the application was approved by the local HUD field office in September and forwarded to HUD headquarters for preparation of the commitment letter and final loan documents.

Since that time, staff has maintained regular communication with HUD, including at least monthly follow ups requesting status updates. And while some delays were anticipated during the federal government shutdown between October 1 and November 12, staff has not yet received a detailed explanation regarding the continued delay in preparation of the final loan documents. And most recently, the update we received was to hurry up and wait, so that's what we're continuing to do. But in the meantime, we're preparing as anticipated for the payments out of our annual allocation to go towards repayment of that loan. Once the commitment letter and final loan documents are received, staff will return to counsel with a more comprehensive update as requested at the previous, council meeting, and with any necessary actions for counsel consideration at that time.

So a public notice was published in the Vacaville reporter in Spanish and English to notify the public that the draft to 02/2627 annual action plan was available for public review and comment. The public notice also notified the public that this meeting would be held tonight as well as a final meeting on May 26 before council approves the plan. Staff will incorporate all comments received tonight, either from council or the public into the plan, and it will be brought back at the 05/26/2026 City Council meeting for approval and then submission to HUD no later than June 3 as required. Counsel could choose not to provide any direction on the proposed CDBG funding allocation tonight. However, this is not recommended as it could delay, approval and submission of the annual action plan that is required by HUD and could result in the city delaying or losing CDBG entitlement funding.

So with that, we're happy to take any questions or comments from the council or public regarding the plan.

Thank you. Any questions from council? Councilmember Pramow.

Of the 500,000 was it, dollars 527,000 that's proposed to be allocated, that's pretty much yearly, right? That's, give or take, it's roughly a little over $500,000 so. And I was reading through the projects, the percentages of what the different projects are going for. We've got the 203,615. Is that for repayment alone on what?

So for the, De Colores Park, part of the funding anticipated is the section one zero eight loan, a total of about 2,600,000. And the way that we repay those that loan is through payments made from the annual allocation that we receive. So in our application, we made a pledge that we would use future annual funding to go towards those repayments.

Right. So and that that basically is about 57% of our yearly allocation of 500,000 is what it says in the report. So I'm just wondering, is that every year from now until 2030, will it be 57% of that, CDBG money every year until 2030?

Forgive me. I don't have the exact percentage of of what the annual allocation is for that payment, but it is for the next twenty years.

For the next twenty years?

Correct.

Okay. So that would come out as I always get this tongue twister, CDBG. So that would come out of our CDBG money for the next twenty years?

MS. Correct.

MR. Towards the repayment of the Section 108 loan. Okay.

Correct. They give us the full, 2,600,000 up front so we can put a larger contribution towards an eligible project instead of us having to wait over time saving up that annual allocation to use towards an eligible project.

Okay. And that's something that got voted on that is going be for the next twenty years for that Section 108?

Correct. So during the consolidated planning process, we did an open community outreach. We brought the consolidated plan and section one zero eight, application before the council in July 2025, and the council approved submission of that application. That strategy was also discussed during the park planning process when the, when staff brought before council, the request for additional funding, to fund the gap for the park that was part of the funding strategy at that time as well. Okay.

Yeah. Was looking through the numbers on it. You know, I'm just I'm thinking about the other programs that we have are going to be left with basically about 30% of that CDBG money for the next thirty years, will cover all of other programs, other infrastructure areas, paving. I know paving is not really part of it, but it but the the wording is in here for it. So that's my only concern is that it it it ties our hands for the next twenty years for CDBG money?

So so planning and admin is always limited to 20%, so we could not spend more than 20 of our allocation towards that. And public services is always limited to 15%, So we could not spend more than the 15% that we always allocate towards public services. So the remainder is has typically historically been used to, find eligible public infrastructure projects. Sometimes it's ADA improvements. Sometimes it's improvements to CDBG properties that allow services or activities to continue to operate that serve, lower moderate income households.

And so typically that remaining amount of CDBG funding has always gone towards public infrastructure or public facilities. Okay.

I think that's all that I have for now. Thank you. Oh, excuse me. I apologize. On page 32, and page 31, it has a breakdown.

I'm sorry. It has a breakdown of what's going to the Vacaville Neighborhood Boys and Girls Club, seventy four thousand and fifty. And then it says estimate the number and type of families that will benefit, 123 low to medium income households. And then you go down to the next one for 11 kids, it's $5,000 Estimate number and type of families, it says three. Is that number low because they've been shut down for the last year doing reconstruction there? Because that number was higher before, wasn't it, around seven to 15?

I can double check and with the 11 kids and confirm. I know that in the last couple years, HUD has had us change how we report the number of kids assisted only with the CDBG funds. So with the CDBG funds, the activities that are funded, we only report those number of unduplicated households. However, that doesn't mean that only three kids are supported at 11 programs at that site.

Gotcha. So then if we go to and then then it goes on the next page. It's planned activities and funding and project names. So the Trauer Center improvement funding, 127,000. But it doesn't give an estimate on the number and type of families that will benefit from the proposed activities. It says to be determined on it. But on the next page, when it's talking about De Colores Park, estimate number and type of families that'll benefit is 1,775. So Trauer Park is, what, half a mile away from there. Wouldn't it be would it be the same 1,775?

So for Trower, it's the Trower Building, not the park. So there's the the Trower Center is the neighborhood center that's that Boys and Girls Club is at.

Okay.

And we what we thought we would do is, once the once we are able to go out and identify what program would be serving or would be taking up residence at the Trauer Center, that would be give us a better idea of how to determine who would benefit from whatever that service is.

Okay. And so that's my hope is that something can happen at the Trauer Center. I was mixing that up with Trauer Park, but that something can happen there to fill a gap that's gonna eventually be there for that. Right?

Yeah. During the, consolidated planning process, that was what was, directed to staff from council. So right now, we know that there are some improvements that need to be made at the center that we won't be able to determine how long those improvements will take until Boys and Girls Club is out of the center. And so once we have a timeline on what how long it will take to make those improvements, the intention is that we bring back once the center is ready to be occupied, how counsel would like staff to move forward with finding that organization or agency. During the consolidated planning process, we did some neighborhood surveys about what the neighborhood would like to see there once the Boys and Girls Club, is no longer there, and, surveys happened again during the Markham Callan, plan development process.

And so, again, the intention is that staff will bring back, an an item to get direction on how counsel would like to move forward, identifying an organization or service, that ends up at the Trauer Center once we have a better idea when it will be ready.

Thank you, Chairman. That's that's my concern here is that we're eating up our CDBG money for the next twenty years. Is there is there gonna be more money available out of the CDBG fund to fund the next necessity that might be there at the Charter Center. So I guess that's kind of it's kind of where I was going with the whole thing, is I'm concerned about spending all of our money for the next twenty years.

Well, any services that would be there would be limited to that 15%. That means counsel would have to make the decision on whether to share that 15% between a third agency. So there would be some decisions counsel would have to make, but, again, that all comes out of that 15%. So, the funding being allocated towards the section one zero eight loan repayment could not be used to support services at the Trauer Center.

There's my concern. Only so much money in the pot. So that's all I got. Sorry to go so long on you there, but I really wanted some clarity. Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Wiley?

So speaking of clarity, so will you just clarify, they can't be spent for the other money because it has limited to youth activities in that 15%. And the money that we're setting aside right now for the DeClores Park is for public facilities like Parks and Rec and neighborhood families. So that's why the money needs to be spent in that category rather than in youth services at the for the 15%. Does that

Correct. So the the money being allocated towards the repayments could not go to any type of service. Any public service, whether it's youth youth, whatever it is, is limited to 15. We already maxed that out between Boys and Girls Club and Eleven. So if we wanted to fund another service, we would have to take some of that allocation away from Boys and Girls Club because of the 15% limit, not because there's not enough funding.

Right. So it's not spending that wouldn't help that problem at all. Thank you for that clarification. And just the other thing, the way we have it in the plan, you can fund it year to year and make a big difference in what we have. Sometimes if you do a little bit of money here and a little bit of money here and a little bit of money here, the money's spent and you don't really see the impact but this would impact 3,000 families or however much over many years to come in the future.

You're referring to the Section 108 Yes. Yeah, that is the point of having the option for Section 108 loan is to get a lot of funding up front, and then you would pledge your future allocations toward repaying that so that you can make a larger impact.

Right. And currently that facilities could also be part of like that commercial kitchen and that other part that otherwise we wouldn't be able to fund.

That's correct.

All right. Thank you for that clarification. And great report and I just hope that, we do hear from UD and get that money before too long. Thanks for your work.

Councilmember Fremont? Yeah, one more.

On the geographic distribution again on page 33, so it's a description of the geographic areas of entitlement. And it says the target areas are the MarkhamCalam Street, 57%, and entire jurisdiction meaning what? The entire city?

Yeah. So we have one target area. So during the consolidated planning process, we can design or determine what our target areas would be. And so during that process, we were also working on the Markham Callum plan. And so that, whole process helped identify that as a target area for, our CDBG program as as well because of the amount of low and moderate income households who are in that area. The remaining funding is just not in that target area. So that's what it means. It's it's it's spread out between the entire jurisdiction, not just in that target area.

Okay. Thank you.

Alright. We'll open publics from the comment from the floor. Excuse me. Sorry, just one second, please.

Great. Hi. Alicia Minion again. So I've come to a lot of council meetings and I really enjoy listening to the CDBG reports. And I don't know if you've ever read the annual reports, Councilman Freemire, but I would recommend that you do that.

I think what would be great for staff is really to present the history of the Marken area and all the promises that the city has made to that area that have been broken. That area is part of the redevelopment agency. That area was promised many, many things And the city is lucky to get other section 108 loans that were well over 1,000,000 that they paid over twenty years. And the city bought land but didn't build anything. That city that area has been promised the removal of all blight, parks.

They just don't get it. But the city gets money because of the census tracts in that area. These are low income individuals. So the city at least is lucky to qualify for additional funding like a CDBG HUD Section 108 loan, which is preferential terms. My fear is from what I'm hearing from you just because you've outright said you're against the park.

My fear is you're trying to pull any excuse to really kill it so that the money can be allocated to, I don't know, police, fire. I don't know who wants this. I don't know who's talking to you. But it's fundamentally wrong that for counsel, for those members against the park, that your first idea to save money is take it from the disadvantaged community. It's insane to me.

It's so difficult. The staff has done an excellent job in getting grants and CDBG money. It would be a travesty to first take it from a disadvantaged community. And I think because maybe you're new and maybe you don't know, all the decisions the council has made that are deeply ingrained in resolutions from all the past. Like I had to go take days off work and read resolutions that are filed with the county. Have you ever done that? Anybody? Anybody? Okay, I did. Okay, I think you should.

And it would be it's just to me, it's just like a sin to kill the park. There's many ways you can save money. I'm a CPA. I know governmental accounting. I'm happy to volunteer my time and find a way to save the money without hurting the people that need this the most. Thank you.

Q: Hi. I'm Cass Padgett. I've been here before. Everybody knows me I'm sure. I had something to say but all I want to say is I completely ditto that. That was exactly what I wanted to talk about. I have no more to say. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Renee Tadlock with eleven Kids and I just wanted to provide some clarification on the number of unduplicated participants that we're serving and supporting during this fiscal year has already been 16 and we're building our presence back after the pause but I just wanted to provide clarification. Think the three was just for new enrollments for the quarter. Thank you. MR. Anybody

else? Right. Opposing public comment. Any other comments from counsel? Right. We'll just take did you need an actual motion to continue to move along or?

MS. So if there's direction that the counsel would like to provide to staff that's distinct from what's in the report currently, I think that they would take that direction and bring the item back at the next meeting. But if there's no direction based on the way that the report is now, then I think that we can run with that too.

Counsel? Alright, getting a thumbs up to move along. Thank you for your work. Thank you for your comments from public. Moving on to 12b, City clerk.

So item 12b is an informational update on the City Of Vacaville budget process, Budget 01/2001 presented by Ken Matsumiya, Finance Director Leslie Hoover, Assistant Director of Finance and John Collette, Budget Manager.

Good evening Vice Mayor, members of the council. As mentioned tonight we are giving an introduction to the city's budget and providing a Budget 101 overview to serve as a foundation for our upcoming budget study sessions. Next slide please. So tonight we're covering a definition of what a budget is, going over the different types of funds that make up a budget, those restrictions and how they're used, providing more of an overview on the actual budget development process and then also how the budget calendar works. Next slide.

So starting off with the definition of a budget, at its simplest term, the budget is an estimate of the income and expenses for a set period of time. For the City Of Vacaville we adopt an annual budget and so that set period of time or our fiscal year is from July through June. In practice the budget is more than just numbers on a page. It serves as the financial plan for the city, reflects the priorities and goals of council, establishes the service levels for each department and how much each department receives in funding to carry out those services. It can change throughout the fiscal year depending on economic conditions and then it's governed by the federal, state and local law.

Next slide please. So this slide lays out the shared responsibilities between council and staff and so starting off with council. Council sets the vision and purpose, they establish goals, they prioritize the direction and action items, they adopt the budget, authorize contracts and engage with community. And then with staff, we align those goals with resources, we implement the action items, prepare plans, carry out the day to day responsibilities, make sure the city functions effectively. Next slide.

And so what is a fund? A fund is fairly unique to non profit and government accounting and budgeting and so you you can think of a fund as a distinct bank account with its own sets of revenues, rules, regulations and the purpose for what that fund is used for. And so at the city we have a number of different funds that we use for our departments and make up the budget and so I won't go through each one of these in detail on this slide but you have the general fund, special revenue fund, those listed below. As mentioned, all of these funds have their own rules and regulations and so I think one of the confusing things that can come up with government is that there's an assumption that the budget and funding is all kind of one big pot of money. But because of fund accounting you can't simply or easily move funding from one fund to another to cover any shortfalls.

There are rules and regulations on kind of why we account for the budget and the different funds to meet legal compliance and also for transparency purposes. Next slide. So this slide is just a visual of kind of what I'd mentioned previously. It kind of lists the different departments and programs based off of their fund type and so just kind of going over a couple here with the general fund. Most of our departments are funded out of the general fund so you have the public safety, the public works, parks and recs, city administration, special revenue funds would be for example housing, enterprise funds would be sewer water operations and as mentioned previously, all the different funds they have different rules, restrictions and levels of flexibility on how those funds can be used and moved.

Next slide. And so starting off with government funds and the general fund. So every government has a general fund. It's the main city checking account, kind of the main operating fund for any type of government. So it is also the most broad and flexible funding source that a government has.

It is primarily funded through general tax revenue and so for the city that's property and sales tax And then it provides funding for many of our core services in majority of our departments, as I mentioned in the previous slide, public safety, parks and rec, city administration. Special revenue funds, these are used to account for revenues that are restricted for a particular purpose and so a perfect example of this would be the item that was right before, so CDBG. There's a specific purpose that that funding is to be used for and so that funding and those expenses are accounted for in a special revenue fund. Other examples would be our Lighting and Landscaping districts, our gas tax revenues and our community development department. Next slide.

And so other government funds that we have, we have debt service funds which are used to account for the principal and interest payments that we make on long term debt. And so examples of this would be like the Optera project, the financing. Those debt payments would be accounted for in the debt service fund. It's already been paid off but for Fire Station seventy five when we had financing for that we accounted for those payments in a debt service fund. Capital project funds are used for acquiring and constructing infrastructure improvements and so this would be related to our capital improvement program.

It's adopted with the operating budget. Capital project funds, they get funded through a variety of resources so it could be development impact fees, grants both from state and federal level, even the general fund in Measure M. Next slide. And so rounding out the last three funds that you'll see in our budget document, you have internal service funds which are used to centralize the purchases of goods and services that support the department citywide. These funds, they receive their revenues or kind of cost recovery through internal charges to the departments and so examples would be kind of our general liability and risk management, equipment replacement, our garage and technology replacement as well.

Enterprise funds operate very similar to the private sector business in that their funding source comes from user fees and so water and sewer are a perfect example of that. And then with our fiduciary funds, our main one is the successor agency and this is really just winding down the former debt of the old redevelopment agency. Next slide. So this slide provides a kind of a high level breakdown of our current year budget, not next year but the current year that we're in fiscal year 'twenty six and so for the city's total budget excluding the successor agency we have a $295,000,000 budget, successor agency is about 6.5. I really just wanted to call out here that the general fund, most flexible kind of funding source I'd mentioned, the most broad one, that's about 53% of the budget.

And so almost half of the city's budget is in funding sources that are restricted, cannot be moved around to like the general fund as an example, if there's any challenges there and that really highlights where you could have challenges in the general fund or financial pressure of the general fund that might not seem like it might be large because you see a $300,000,000 budget and think that well can't you just move money around but because of those restrictions I mentioned earlier those restrict those special revenue and all those other funds, you can only use those resources for the purpose that those funds were intended for. Next slide. And I'll pass it on to John for the next section.

Thanks, Ken. In the next few slides, we'll talk about the general fund. Specifically, we'll be going over the revenue sources and how the general fund is allocated. So where does money come from? These are, again, the general fund revenue sources and this slide is from, the mid year budget update that was presented to council.

The majority of the revenue for the general fund comes from taxes, property taxes, sales tax, measure M, and other taxes account for 82% of the city's general fund revenue or just under $123,000,000 Department charges and fees account for 9% of the city's general fund revenue. The standouts or callouts here would be the fire department's ambulance charges as well as parks and rec, other programs and activities. And then other revenues, so everything with the exception of taxes and department charges and fees, that's 9% as well. An example here would be intergovernmental revenues, which are reimbursements from another government such as the state for specific programs that we participate in and then they reimburse us. The total budget here for revenues was $149,600,000 and again, when we come back at Q3, we'll have an updated projected number at that time for, budget study session number one.

So what does the general fund pay for or how is the, money allocated? Public safety is 67% or roughly two thirds of the general fund, with the police department accounting for 38% and the fire department totaling 29%. Public works is 10%, parks and rec, roughly 7%, and then all other programs and departments under under the city administration account for approximately 16%. Now that we've seen where the general fund money comes from and how it's allocated out, we'll look at what the major tax revenues are for the city. Tax revenues, again, they're the largest contributor to the general fund.

Property taxes account for approximately 42,300,000 or 36% in the yellow there on that chart. Sales tax is 49% or 42%. This includes general sales tax, which is Bradley Burns and Measure M. And then all other taxes account for $26,000,000 or 22%. Property taxes, again, are the largest single general revenue source and account for approximately 32% of the city's general fund revenues.

It includes regular property taxes, RDA or residual balance and pass through payments, which is part of the former redevelopment agency, and then property tax in lieu of VLF or vehicle licensing fees. Per proposition 13, it is a 1% tax of the assessed value of the home or building, and the assessed value can be adjusted annually by CPI, but no more than 2% in a given year. As you can see from the chart here, the property tax revenue has been consistent since twenty fifteen-sixteen with an average growth rate of about 5% from that time period. This picture represents the allocation of every dollar collected for property taxes. So the city receives 16 to 18¢ per dollar collected.

Schools get roughly 49¢, the county 19¢, the school library 3¢, local community college or Solano Community College 3¢, and then that other category, that bucket is about $08 So again, the city received about $0.18 Sales tax accounts for approximately 33% of the general fund revenue. For every dollar in a sales transaction, the consumer pays 8.125¢ in taxes. Of that, 1.75¢ goes to the city. So another way to look at that for every $100 cost of goods that is sold, the consumer pays, $8.13. Of that, a dollar 75 goes to the city.

A dollar of that would be towards Bradley Burn sales tax or the general sales tax and then 75¢ for Measure M. Looking at the chart below, from fiscal year twenty fifteen to fiscal year twenty twenty two, the city saw stable growth in sales tax. But from fiscal year twenty two through fiscal year twenty six, it's been flat or relatively, slight decrease with the exception of fiscal year, '25, that 58,400,000. And, just to reiterate, there was a one time sales tax transaction for Genentech for the the sale of Genentech to Lonza. That was a pretty significant payment of almost $8,000,000.

So if we strip that away, the sales tax was flat for that year as well. That doesn't that helps us in that year, fiscal '25, but not the ongoing years. It's a one time tax, sales tax. Other taxes account for 17% of the city's general fund revenues. These taxes include the paramedic tax, franchise tax, transient lodging tax or TOT, which is related to local hotel stays.

As you can see from the chart, it's fairly consistent as well, and it has seen a growth rate of 4% since fiscal year sixteen. Key drivers of the general fund increases, this is on the expenditure side. Salaries, so any new MOUs with COLAs, that would increase those expenses. Rising employer pension costs, rising health care costs, and just want to note that these aren't unique to the city of Akaville. They're affecting agencies and municipalities across the county as well as the state.

Service and contract inflation increases, we've really seen a spike here since fiscal year twenty one during COVID with those supply constraints. Inflation has come down, but those couple of years with those significant increases, we still feel the effects of that. Increasing technology and cyber security costs as well as software costs, increasing general liability costs, and then increased regulatory mandates without funding. Any time state legislation is passed requiring a new mandate, there's typically some type of cost associated with it to ensure that we are in compliance and meeting all regulatory standards. Another component of the five, the general fund analysis, is the five year forecast in preparation for the budget.

We work with our consultant HDL to help project our two largest, revenue sources, sales tax and property tax, and finance conducts an analysis on all revenue sources that for projected revenues. The chart on the screen is the five year forecast that was presented at mid year. We'll be again providing an updated forecast on May 12 during budget study session one. The key takeaway here is that the, on the columns, the revenues are represented by the green columns and then the expenses by the yellow columns. We can see that the expenses are outpacing the revenues from fiscal year twenty four through fiscal year thirty.

Fiscal year twenty five is more in line, but that's because, again, because of that one time sales tax transaction.

Say

that again? Yeah. The black line, that is the general fund reserve. This line would include the cost savings measures that we implemented in fiscal year twenty six, which is the current fiscal year. And including those in the life of the forecast.

So carrying those forward into fiscal year twenty seven. We can see in fiscal year twenty seven, even with the cost savings measures, the general fund reserve is projected to be at 18% at the bottom of our 16 to 25% general fund reserve policy. And then if we were to look at the base reserve, which is that light blue line, that's if we didn't implement those cost savings measures. In fiscal year twenty seven, we would be below our general fund reserve policy at 14%. And this chart is just another way to look at the previous chart with some figures.

So the top section with cost savings, fiscal year twenty seven, reserves are projected to be at 29,000,000 or 18%, again, within the reserve policy. And then by fiscal year thirty at 4,000,000 or 2%. Now if we stripped out those cost savings and just went back to status quo, fiscal year twenty seven, we would be at 22,000,000 in the reserve or 14%, again, below the general fund policy of 16% to 25%. And then in fiscal year twenty nine, we actually go negative. And with that, I will pass it over to Leslie.

Thanks, John. I will be going through the remaining slides for tonight's presentations and take you through our annual city budget process and priorities. Next. The development of the proposed annual budget is a shared responsibility between the city manager's office and the budget division within the finance department. Although the public facing portion of the budget process may appear to occur over a short window, the full effort spans nearly six months from start to finish.

Here we have a diagram of the annual budget cycle. We typically start the process in December of each year, beginning with building the base budget model. Building the base model takes several months, and we work with departments on things such as position allocations, organizational chart changes, department anticipated revenues and expenditures. From there in April is traditionally the period which we conduct departmental meetings to review existing plans and address any anticipated department level changes in the upcoming year. Then we move on to the public budget study sessions in May and June with the council.

This is the opportunity for council and the public to review and discuss the upcoming budget. Finally, the adoption of the budget takes place during the last regular council meeting in June. Next. Establishing the base budget begins with the final adopted budget from the prior year. From there, we remove all one time expenditures and apply required adjustments for contractual obligations.

We also incorporate anticipated changes to specific cost categories and grouped line items. These adjustments account for expected increases in areas such as adjusting the position budget for new rates for PERS, PARS, OPEB, and other post retirement benefits. Most of these rates are updated with estimates prepared by a third party actuary, ensuring that our budget model incorporates the most current and accurate long term cost projections. We also update update position budgets to include anticipated health care premiums and active MOU agreements. We apply the consumer price index for San Francisco, Oakland, and Hayward as of December each developing the city's base model.

The December CPI figure is used to adjust departmental services and supplies budgets, including overtime and non full time categories as well. As of this last December, the CPI was 3%, and that value will be reflected in our upcoming base budget for both overtime and non full time. However, for the second consecutive fiscal year, we will not be applying CPI to services and supplies portion of the base budget as a continued cost saving measure intended to help manage ongoing fiscal constraints. Also, we review and update the city operating cost drivers drivers that impact multiple departments. This includes analyzing and adjusting major utility cost categories such as fuel, electricity, natural gas, and water.

In addition, we update budgets for programs funded through the internal service funds, which Ken mentioned earlier. This includes the central garage or fleet, general liability, and citywide technology, where costs are charged back to departments based on either usage or allocations. Once the base budget model is compiled, typically by the February, departments are given a month of March to review their base budgets. During this period, prepare augmentation requests to support service levels and advance proposed goals aligned with the city's council strategic plan. Or like last year and again this year, proposed cost saving measures needed to address the current structural deficit.

These requests are then discussed in detail during each department's budget meeting with the budget team ensuring alignment, accuracy, and shared understanding of operational needs. Next. After the city manager and the budget team meet individually with each department, we reconvene to prioritize all the submitted requests. Several key factors guide this prioritization process, such as revenue versus expenditures. Are we able to recoup any or some of the additional costs?

Short term versus long term, does the request address an immediate need, or does it create an ongoing obligation? One time versus ongoing, will the cost impact only occur in the current year, or will it become a recurring annual expense affecting the five year forecast? Operational versus capital, is the request for day to day operation or something longer term for infrastructure? Administrative versus services, does the request support internal operation or direct community services? And then department versus department, how does the request compare to competing needs across the organization?

And then additional internal priorities, we also evaluate conditions that affect and influence the city's financial outlook. Economic conditions. As with prior years, broader economic trends continue to play a significant role in shaping our budget. Currently rising gas prices, reduced sales tax revenue, and federal tariffs are slowing revenue growth and intensifying cost pressures, further compounded by inflation and shifting consumer spending patterns. And then we have community and intergovernmental priorities.

As a service organization, we continually assess communities' needs, challenges, and opportunities. We work closely with the city manager's office to ensure the budget aligns with community priorities and coordinates with regional, state, and federal partners. This includes monitoring policy changes, funding opportunities, and regulatory requirements that may affect service delivery or financial planning. In addition, state mandates, which John mentioned earlier, such as new reporting requirements, underfunded program obligations, and changes in environmental regulations influence our budget decisions by requiring the city to allocate resources to comply with any new standards. Often these standards are often not funded as well.

Next slide. The strategic plan plays a critical role in shaping our annual budget. The budget is the mechanism through which the city allocates resources each year to advance the goals and initiatives outlined in the plan. In other words, the strategic plan sets the direction and the budget provides the funding to achieve it. The city council received a presentation on the new draft five year strategic plan on April 14.

The current plan concludes this upcoming June, and the new plan is scheduled for adoption at the same time, guiding the city's work through fiscal year twenty twenty nine. The final plan includes five core strategic goals that represent our highest areas of focus. We have organizational culture and trust city staff to cultivate environment that inspires growth, builds trust, strengthens relationships, and elevates the city as an employer of choice economic development, which

is to

foster prosperity and intentional growth of a diverse and local regional economy The third is quality of life, maintain our public and open spaces, quality parks, beautification, grow responsible, provide a variety of housing choices, and balance the community needs. Fourth is public safety and infrastructure. We need to able to maintain and enhance the city's essential services and facilities. And then we have fiscal health, good governance, and enhanced financial sustainability. Next.

So this slide right here outlines our budget roadmap for the remainder of the fiscal year. We'll return to council on May 26 for the Q3 budget update. Which will include revenues and expense trends through March. It will also have an updated five year forecast, which John mentioned. And this will also coincide with our first official budget study session for the upcoming year.

Then on June 9, we will have our second budget study session where departments will present their upcoming budgets. In addition, public works staff will also present the draft CIP budget as well. These public study sessions will allow for both council and the community to engage with staff and provide input on the upcoming budget. And then finally, budget adoption by the council is scheduled for 06/23/2026. Next. This wraps up our Budget 101 presentation and we will be happy to hear any comments or take any questions.

Questions from the council?

Thanks for the information. If you go back to slide 16 for a minute. So on this it's the projected how our property taxes. And so my question is, is this all reflected in the amount of growth? Because like in District 6 we have quite a few new houses and then you also mentioned that property tax can go up by x amount, like adjusted by no more than 2%.

So which so I guess that's my question. It is going up and is it mostly because of the new building that's going on in Vacaville and not as much with the 2% increase or?

Yeah, so the growth is mainly going to be because of new development and any sort of land, basically if the house sales, things of that nature. And so the big jump that you're seeing in twenty four-twenty five is, this is mentioned in some of the prior budget updates, the county implemented a new property tax software system which caused delays on their end, also with assessments. And so that impacted kind of when we received our property tax revenue. But the growth that you're seeing is primarily going to be because of new development as opposed to houses just going up by that 2% each year.

Okay. So then another question that in District 6 there's some areas that are all rental and not single family homes. So does the property owner who owns all those houses, do they pay about the same property tax as if they were single family homes? Know I how you would figure that out. Mean whoever owns all those has to pay the amount of property tax on each one. So if they were single family homes would it be about the same?

I just want to clarify if I'm understanding the question. If it was a single family home being rented versus owned is there a difference between

No, the no. Mean if we instead of having the development come in that had all these rental houses, like there's one at Montesla, whatever it is, there's two of them. Montesla. Right. So if it hadn't been changed to rental homes and it would have continued to be the single family homes that they were originally planned for, would that have generated more property tax or not?

I can't definitively say.

Right. But the owner of the they pay a huge amount of property tax because they have 80 houses, is that correct?

Yes, it would be based off of that value, yes.

Okay. Then if you could go to number 22, slide 22. So on that one you mentioned the cost savings. So is that the 5% cost savings and doesn't include going to the 10% cost savings that we had talked about might have to be or this just a 5% cost savings?

This is the current 2.5% cost savings that are part of the current year budget and continuing that.

That's the 2.5%. Thanks. So those were my questions.

Thank you.

Any other

questions from the council? Alright open up to public comment. Close, Doctor. Stein. Too slow, Mike.

No, I'm just

Oh, I'm sorry. Just a second.

Hi. Okay, sorry. On Measure M, there's a portion of the city's website that addresses Measure M. And I think it would be helpful for the city to outline exactly how it's been spent since inception. There's a lot of misinformation out there, I think mainly because it's campaign season.

You got ridiculous stories on Facebook but they'll say, oh, Measure I was supposed to be for police and they didn't get it. It's going through for equity and inclusion type projects. It's like it's all false. And so since the city is seeking a sales tax measure, I think it's important that even absent that measure, that you educate the public exactly how Measure M has been spent. We all know police and fire got a piece of it and it's been spent in other ways too.

So that's my recommendation. And then there was a discussion on landscape and lighting districts. I find that interesting because the city of Fairfield had this case and some of their landscape and lighting districts, the assessments were deemed illegal because it didn't go through the voter process to allow people to protest it because apparently the city assessed more than what was allowed in the initial engineer's report. And now the city's having to give refunds. And during that meeting, one of the Fairfield council members said, oh, does any of the city have landscape and lighting districts?

And I'm like, okay, Vacaville has I think 134. But maybe you can go back and look at the landscape and lighting districts and just verify that the assessments are accurate because I know the city counts on that to provide the services within that assessment district. I know it can't be used for general fund purposes but I think just maybe after the budget's done, that might be an exercise that the city can do. And then lastly, one of my favorite subjects, as you know, is OPEB. Guys, I mean, I'm happy for the employees to get lifetime health care benefits for the employee and the spouse.

But maybe hire a consultant to relook at that. Like maybe pick a high deductible plan, cap it so you don't have this runaway premiums. It's sad because you're offering this extraordinary thing that nobody else gets except for maybe state workers. But you can't compare yourself to the state because their salaries are lower. But that's a way where you can still provide medical, meet the promise of the employees, but cap your liability.

It's a runaway liability. And unfortunately, that takes money away for critical services and for parks. So just go back and think about it. Maybe not this budget session, but the next.

Thank you.

Bushman. I have one question for staff and, one for, counsel. For staff, I'm just wondering if you're able to separate the projected deficit into unavoidable external pressures, first. And then second, policy choices made by the city. And third, temporary timing issues so that the public understands what was imposed versus what was chosen?

And then in terms of accountability, I'm just kind of wondering in terms of the council. The city says spending deficits began around fiscal year 'twenty three, structural warnings acted on sooner? Did leadership avoid painful corrections early? Was spending growth sufficiently challenged? And did public safety leadership bias spending priorities? Thank you. Thank

you. Any other public comments? Alright, seeing none, closing public comment. Staff, would you be able to answer any of those questions that were just recently posed?

I think I just heard maybe one question or comment from the previous speaker on sort of what's unavoidable versus staff decisions. I think you could do some separation there but I think it'd be very hard to decide or make a determination on what's unavoidable. Mean just looking at our revenues for example, our biggest revenue source on the general fund, sales tax and property tax, the reason why that number hasn't grown and if we pulled back up the chart, we'd see a lot of that kind of took place after 2022. Well, the Fed started raising interest rates in 2022. And so if interest rates are really high, you're going to have less home transactions, the cost of building goes up, so you're going to have less construction.

On the sales tax side we rely on consumer spending and so if people are not spending as much on the sales tax side, you're not gonna have your sales tax grow as well. And so I wouldn't say that's like I'm not sure if you consider that in the unavoidable bucket because it's really more so on the national side. As far as kind of knowing that the deficit spending was occurring in 'twenty four, sort of what actions were taken, we do these quarterly budget updates, we do these forecasts as part of it. Kind of going back into 2024, even prior to that, the reason why we spent a lot of time on the reserve is that the city had built up a reserve over 40%. Like our policy to have a reserve of 20% essentially two to three months and so if you have some sort of economic downturn or some sort of slip in the economy that you have those reserves to kind of buffer and kind of buy you some time.

The city had double that at the 2024 and so like the council had done a great job of building up those reserves when times were good. And when we noticed that we forecasted deficit spending and you're seeing a slowdown in the economy, That's where we started to peel back on things like, for example, we were making additional pension payments to save on interest costs and unfunded liabilities. We pulled back on that. We also looked internally as well. And so with the '26 budget, we started at 2.5% but even prior to that we already taking making some changes as well to kind of save on costs.

You look at like the solar project and other things that the city's done to save on energy bills. So it's kind of been this ongoing process. It hasn't been something where we knew about this or projected it in 'twenty four and then really didn't do anything about it until 'twenty six, if that clarifies.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments from counsel? Alright. So and I'll just I think there was another set of posed questions from questions from the floor. The only thing I want to maybe just comment to that is I think that the more I think we dig into understanding our financial situation and really comes down to what we feel independently is what the role of our government is.

And I think there's a lot of different philosophical approaches on what the role and scope and depth of our local government provides. And I think that's one of the greatest benefits to having an elected body representation that is distributed throughout our city to where we collect that feedback and navigate the different challenges that we have from the different perspectives, the different experiences, and the different just different prospect just the diff overall different approaches of how we go about meeting the challenges of maintaining and creating a better city that we call home. So I'm happy to have those discussions more independently to kind of get digger into that, dig deeper into that, excuse me. And yeah, any other comments? Okay.

So we're gonna so just receiving that report. And thank you, John. You did a great job switching slides. Keep up the good work. Alright. And we're gonna move on to item 13. So just before we adjourn, in addition to the peace officer memorial, I'm really happy that justice was brought into the disgraceful actions that were made. So just in addition to that, this week this upcoming weekend the following weekend, excuse me, is Fiesta Days. So hoping to have a lot of good fun and eating a lot of good carnival food. Not this weekend, the next weekend, I'm sorry.

And then but don't forget that we this the opportunities that we have in this country and this community are absolutely due to the sacrifices of those that came before us, particularly that gave their all in different military actions. So I deeply respect and condone the families who have lost loved ones. And just make sure, please, I request you all just to take at least a moment out of your lives to recognize and never forget the sacrifices that many of our soldiers have made. Thank you.