City Council - Regular Meeting

Appreciate it. All right, everyone. I'm going to ask you to ask you make your way to see your way to get started. Okay. What's that? Yeah, I can do what? All right, we got everybody. Charles is checking on this car. All right. Good evening, everyone. I will go ahead and call to order the regular meeting of the Leo City Council at 7:15 p.m. And we'll ask our C clerk to call the role, please. Mayor Source, present. Vice Mayor Mullik, present. Council members Bgenzer, present.

Council member Gordon, present. Council member Letu, Council Member Matias here, and Council Member Palmar here. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. With that, we are going to move to item three, pledge of allegiance. If everyone would please stand and join us for the pledge. All right. Thank you all. That is going to bring us to item four, report out for of close session. I'll ask our city attorney if we have anything to report out from close session.

Thank you, madam mayor, members of the council. Uh the city council did meet this evening in close session with regard to the following items. conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation significant exposure to litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9D2 one case uh the council did give direction with regard to that item item B conference with real property negotiators pursuant to government code section 54956.8 Eight. The property is 50 Solano. The agency negotiator Gileian Hayne, acting city manager. The negotiating parties, the city of Valo and Mark Tomco for Valo Flood and Wastewater District. Under negotiation, price and terms of payment. Council gave direction to its negotiator with regard to that item. Item C, conference with real property negotiators pursuant to government code section 54956.8, Eight, the property one harbor way Valo. Uh, the APN is listed on the agenda. Agency negotiator, uh, Gileian Hayne, acting city manager. The negotiating parties, the city of Valo and Bobby Winston, Bay Crossings. The council gave direction to its negotiator with regard to that item. Item D, conference with legal council anticipated litigation, initiation of litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9D4 one case. Council did not discuss that item and it will be continued to a later date. And item E, conference with labor negotiators pursuant to government code section 54957.6, Six. The agency designated representative, Stephanie Squenthis, the human resources director. The employee organizations are the Balo Police Officers Association, the International Association of Firefighters Local 1186,

confidential administrative managerial professional association employees and unrepresented employees. The council gave direction to its negotiator. With regard to the close session this evening, there is no other action to report.

All right. Thank you very much. With that, we will proceed to item five, presentations and commendations. And we do have a proclamation this evening. We'll be presenting a proclamation recognizing April 2026 as sexual assault awareness month. And while Council Member Gordon uh goes to the podium to present this proclamation, I'll say I think we we know particularly from reason recent news why this continues to be important and why it's important to uplift and believe survivors um and victims. So, we have, I believe, up to seven representatives here to accept this proclamation from our range of community organizations that support victims and survivors of sexual assault. Uh, SafeQuest, SANSART, Solano Family Justice Center, Travis Air Force Base's Family Advocacy Program, Travis Air Force Base's Sexual Assault Prevention Response, the Victim Empowerment Support Team, and Solano Advocates for Victims of Violence. Would any representatives from those organizations who are here please also join Council Member Gordon at the podium?

Thank you all. All right. And whenever we're ready, we can present the proclamation, have short remarks from whoever wants to be the representative for this alliance, and then we'll take a photo to all together in front of the dising. Hello everyone, thank you for coming. This proclamation recognized April 2026 as sexual assault awareness month. Whereas sexual assault awareness month is observed each April to increase understanding of sexual assault and affirm this community compliment to prevent support and accountability. And whereas sexual assault affects people of every age, gender, and background, remains widely under represented due to fear, stigma, and barriers to seeking help and often began early in life with many survivors experiencing harm before the age of 25. And whereas data from the center of disease and control and prevention indicates that nearly half of women and more than and six men's in United States have experienced some form of contact sexual violence in their lifetime reflecting the widespread nature of this issue. And whereas in Valo and Solano

County, individuals continue to seek support through crisis line and exam advocacy services and legal system to indicate both the ongoing need for services and the importance of timely responsive care. And whereas survivors of Solano County are supported through the collaboration of Safe Quest Solano, Saintart and Family Justice Center of Solano, Solano Advocates of Victim Violence, Victim Empowerment Support Team, and partners at Travis Air Force Base, including the family advocate program and assault sexual assault prevention and resource program providing confidential trauma informed care including advocacy, forensic medical services, counseling, legal support, and preventions of education. Whereas many survivors carry the weight of what happened to them long before they speak about it. if they speak about it all. The prevention requires a shared commitment to recognize boundaries, responsive contents, and taking action when something is not right. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that I, Andrea Source, mayor of the city of Valo and the city of Valo Council, do proclaim April 2026 as sexual assault awareness month, and acknowledge the real and ongoing impact sexual assault within the community, affirm the commitment to support survivors, strengthening preventions efforts, and ensuring that All individuals have access to services resource pathways to

safety. Signed by the may our mayor Andrea Source, Vice Mayor J.R. Matulik, Council Member Peter Panzer, Councilwoman Helen Marie Gordon, Councilwoman Tanya Leu, Councilman Alex Mateas, and Councilman Charles Pares. Thank you so much. Does anyone like to speak? Good evening everyone. My name is Randy Zaid. I'm the executive director of Safecoalano where we have fought against domestic violence and sexual assault for over 50 years. I want to start off by saying thank you to all the partners involved. Thank you for this proclamation. It's a honor to stand here together uh and be recognized as partners in this work. This recognition reflects a shared commitment across SafeQuest, the family justice center, saints, vest, Travis Air Force Base, SAVE, and many others in the community. I like to think we're all part of a big puzzle and we all lean on each other to work and help the survivors in this community. Together we support survivors and help create pathways to safety and healing. This is only possible through this strong collaboration. We are proud to stand together in this mission and remain committed to this work. Thank you for the support in recognizing this important effort and as we serve survivors not only in Vallejo but all of Solano County. Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you so much. If the group would if the group would come forward here in front of the podium, we'll take a a picture together.

Yeah. Just All right. Wrapping up that presentation will bring us to our community forum, but we I want to mention that we have our public safety update on information

for this council meeting and we do have our sheriff and team here and the last time that we had this on the agenda, we moved it towards the beginning of the meeting to place it in the presentation section so that our sheriff could join. And I want to kind of look around and see if there's consensus on the council whether we would like to move that presentation forward at this time. And I'm seeing enough nods to do so. So with that, I will use my discretion to call our information item, which is 10A public safety update. And we'll invite our chief and our sheriff up to the podium for a short update. And we will also open public comment on this item. All right. Good evening, Mayor, vice mayor, council members. Jason Tavalo, chief of police. Today I have with us our sheriff Brad DeWal. So, he's going to help me with this presentation. So, we're going to provide a 60day public safety update. A lot of this formatting is uh similar to what you all are used to kind of seeing. So I'll go straight into staffing. So the last update was on March 10th and so you can see the numbers on the March 10th column. Currently we have a total sworn

staffing of 79. We just had a a sergeant retire recently. We have two modified duty officers. We currently do not show any workers comp, but we did have a pretty severe motorcycle accident yesterday. So, realistically, we have one there. So, the numbers uh don't reflect that. So, sworn working full duty brings us to 77. 40 officers working patrol, five patrol sergeants in patrol. Officers in the field training program, we currently have two. no anticipated resignations and we have three in the academy and they're scheduled to graduate next next month. So current strategies that uh we have in process to increase staffing. We're currently using all-star recruitment. Uh we've been in discussion with uh HR just looking at the total effectiveness of the program. So, we're still evaluating uh the use of the all-star recruitment team. Uh we did have a recruitment, retention, and referral program that was approved by you all back in July of 2025. We currently still employ two extra help recruiters that work for HR. Uh ongoing, we have our officer oral panels, the physical fitness testing and the written exams. Those are all ongoing. We we coordinate with HR and monthly coordination meetings with command staff for recruitment. Just to give you an idea of some of the numbers, in 2024 we backgrounded 97 different officer candidates. In 2025 we backgrounded 96. I just want to kind of mention that um only about 20% of those backgrounds ever

come to a hiring decision. So realistically it's about 19 per year and then once we get those 19 then they go into training at the academy they go to field training and sometimes we don't have successful trainings in either of those areas. So that number then gets reduced. So we're reviving the Valo Police Department Explorer and Cadet program. We just had a very good meeting with Senator Schiff's office. He expressed a lot of support. We also have support from Congressman Gar Mendy's office. So if that comes to fruition, we're hoping to bring a little bit more than $200,000 into the program to help use it as a feeder pipeline for future recruitment. Our current reporting structures are um this of course the 60-day public public safety updates. We meet monthly with our surveillance advisory board. We also meet monthly with our police oversight and accountability commission. Monthly as well with the chief's advisory board. Also monthly with the public safety subcommittee and monthly with the ad hoc police reform subcommittee. We have a variety of other community engagement events that are listed here to include neighborhood watch business watch programs. Our neighborhood impact team, this team usually is deployed after a critical event. So this includes our iHeart folks that are some of them are in the room here today and this is just for the benefit of really informing the neighborhood what had happened and just give them a little bit more information on what had just occurred or if there's any current safety hazards um at risk. We have uh our community police academy um and we also have our youth engagement

through Valo Unified School District and other agencies. Not listed here is our volunteer program. So, we'll be graduating our volunteer program next month as well. Uh this is uh the March 2026 crime operations report. So, a lot of information here, but I'll just kind of start with the top right columns. So, you can see the total number of calls for service for the month of March. he had about 4,600. You can see the on the the right side the arrests, they're broken down in felony and misdemeanor arrests totaling 290 for the month. And we did not have any officer involved shootings or any of those critical events. Moving down to the the bottom, you can see um the traffic collision reports. We took about 71 reports. We had one fatal injury for the month of March and year to date we have six. So this is an area that we're watching very closely. We're working also with our public safety subcommittee on looking for environmental uh solutions as well as enforcement strategies. Bottom right is a report out on our abandoned vehicles. So when we started the month um we had I think a little bit more than 1300. So you can see we're trending about 1,20060 pending inspection. We towed 150 and uh this number several months ago was close to or above 4,000. So we're making progress, but it's um it's been a little challenging with some supply chain issues. This is the second half of that report.

Uh just blew up. um one slide and the other just to make it easier for the community to see. But these are the crime types that we track monthly. So looking from the left uh you can see the first column is calendar year 2026 and then it kind of compares it to same time last year 2025. Some of the numbers here that we're we're tracking are are homicides. Uh we have currently one homicide. Um actually that might be two so that might be a typo. Uh some of the areas though that we're really looking closely if you look at aggravated assaults and simple assaults uh those are trending a little bit upward. Uh we're attributing that to increased domestic violence cases. If you go towards the bottom on the left you'll see the theft cases for auto burglaries and theft cases are significantly down by over 50%. and our shootings have also diminished. So, we're we're down 35% from this time last year. The columns on the right just indicate the same crime types as those rows are to the left, but it just breaks it down by beat. So, if you look at uh for example, beat six and beat five. Beat six had about 241 of those crime types listed above. Beat five is the second busiest beat with 197 and I'm sorry the third highest and then beat one experienced the second highest 208. If you look down towards the bottom uh you'll see that same breakout with just those other three crime categories. So just looking at shootings uh we had the the highest number of shootings in beat seven, the second highest in beat five, and the third highest in beat four.

our average response times. So, you're looking at the chart on the top. This just gives you kind of a a snapshot from April 2024 to March of 2025. So, we're just kind of comparing the same time last year to the same time this year. So, starting with the April 2024 and 25 column, you can see the priority ones. we were averaging about 13 minutes response time. Priority two for that year we were averaging about five hours. Priority three we were averaging about 8 hours. So this is more recent from April I'm sorry April yes 2025 to March of 2026. So you can see the difference there. Priority ones, a pretty significant increase, nine minutes from the time the call was received till the time the officer arrived. Priority twos, it went from 5 hours on the previous year to 2.4 hours in current and from uh 8 hours last year on priority 3s down to 4.3 hours uh this year. So, it's a 31% improvement in priority on 1es, 53% improvement in priority twos, and a 45% improvement in priority 3es. One of the main concerns that uh we've been addressing with uh our leadership team as well as the city is abandoned vehicles. So, I just wanted to provide some information on uh this topic. So, in 2024, we had um over 4,000 vehicles reported on CClick Fix. As of April, we're down to 998. That last operations report reflected a little bit higher, but the realistic number right now is under a thousand.

staffing uh for this uh for this abandoned vehicle issue. We have one full-time police assistant, we have one police cadet, and we have five patrol police assistants. Current strategies underway, we are uh conducting toe sweeps when applicable. We add dedicated personnel and uh it's really the topic of a lot of discussion at many community meetings as well as the public safety subcommittee. We are looking to expand a a task force type of a team. Uh it's been kind of coined as Vallejo cares. It's an acronym that stands for community action response engagement and services. So that team is going to have multi- uh multi- departments included to to include the police department, code enforcement, public works, and the PIOS. Potential solutions. So we are working with uh our city attorney's office to revise and update the rotational toe contracts within this contract. We're looking to potentially open it up for new tow companies so that way we'll have more capacity to tow vehicles. Uh we have currently uh one toe rotation and we're going to rotate that to two. So that will be standard toes compared to abandoned toes. And this is really more for equitably equitably equitablely for the toe companies. uh it will actually improve our operations and as I had mentioned we're looking to expand some tow companies on our rotation as well with the RFP. We're looking also at dismantling and disposal of RV process to see if uh some of the RVs that we know are extremely damaged

and likely never to be uh streetworthy again, how we might be able to process those a little bit quicker. Normally it takes anywhere between four and six weeks to process currently. And then this is uh the sheriff's office statistics. So I'm going to turn it over to Sheriff Dewal for this part.

All right. Good evening, Mayor Council. Good to see you all again. So I would just like to start by saying I know I have a brief slide, but this has been a really good partnership. I think we've been collaborating very well. We recently had a town hall. I think it was wellreceived. We got a really lot of good feedback, a lot of in the audience today and we continue to work towards the city's goals and the community's goals and expectations. So, our what you're going to see from what uh we did at the sheriff's office for priority 1, two, and three responses is pretty much on point with where we were last time in the 30-day marker. So, we're at about 90 days or so. And you can see here from our priority ones are about the same at a little over 9 minutes. Priority twos at 19. prior to threes at 20 minutes. So that's pretty consistent from where we were at back 60 days ago. And then some of the key activity indicators whether it's reports, traffic, I won't read all the numbers. I know you can read them all, but I will call out the fact that we so we uh heard loud and clear about the abandoned vehicles as one of the main issues. We we did tow 21 abandoned vehicles in the city during our time period. So we we recognize that and we also will be looking forward as we approach the summer and fall the rest of the year to work on the other important areas that we want that we need to work together on as far as sex trafficking, homeless issues. All those kind of things we we look forward to partnering with the police department and the city to address. And that's that's what I have.

Thank you, Sheriff. And then I'm just going to end with this last slide just some of the priority programs and initiatives that we have in the works. So we are working to um stand up our Valo vision program. This is a violence intervention program. So vision stands for violence intervention support improving our neighborhoods. So this is the last year that we are a partner in the PSP. So uh we're hoping to get that stood up before our PSP support concludes. Sex trafficking is um is one of the largest initiatives that we are uh starting to kick off this year as well as domestic violence uh initiative. So we have a sex trafficking summit scheduled for May 27th. So this summit is really to bring all the service providers and different stakeholders in the same room so we can identify what each person's role is and responsibilities are and really come up come out with like a procedural kind of a guideline for how as a as a county we're going to address sex trafficking. Uh as mentioned before we had a community academy that began March 7th. Uh we are revitalizing the volunteer program uh continued neighborhood watch and business watch traffic safety which we had discussed and then the public safety partnership which is going to conclude in 2026. We just recently conducted a community engagement strategic plan workshop that was facilitated by the public safety partnership. Uh that went uh very well. We learned a lot from the folks that did attend looking for ideas on how to partner up, improve programming, communications, and messaging. And then lastly, I'll just end with um our police reform. Uh this is in progress as well.

And within that uh compliance division, we have one lieutenant, two sergeants, one corporal, one retired annuitant, one project consultant, and four analysts. So with that, I can answer any questions you all may have. All right. Thank you very much. Given that we moved this up on the agenda and we have a lot to get through, I will if anyone has burning questions, we can take them and I do want to make sure we get public comment. Do we have anyone in person on this item? Uh is there anyone online recognizing that their hands might be up for community forum? We'll just check with them and see if they want to comment on this item.

Thank you, Mayor. Let me check with the speaker. Uh, Rebecca Trumper, please confirm you want to speak on the information item. No, the next item, please. Okay. Okay. Thank you. No speakers at this time. Mayor. All right. With that, we will close public comment. And I'm not seeing anything from council. I'm seeing council member Paul Maharez. Go ahead. Uh, all I want to say is just I want to wish Lieutenant Huff a speed recovery. Thanks. All right. Well, thank you both again. Thank you the sheriff's team in the back as well. Oh, nope. Council member Letters, you just turned your light on.

Just want to say thank you to both um of our chiefs, sheriff, chief. So, what I want to quickly daylight, Chief Ta, is there are several beats where activity of crime, violence is really high. So how are we patrolling in those areas and how are we using this data?

Thank you for the question. So at at the base level obviously if we receive a call for service that would be the first level of response. We do track hotspots. So each officer uh that works a certain beat will have kind of an idea because they work in the same area generally uh every day. Uh so we're tracking hotspot information as well. Uh we do provide that information to our staff, but we also provide it to the security guard program that we also utilize. So we have to discern whether or not it's something more appropriate for our staff or more appropriate for security. So they're the security are unarmed. So we usually use them for uh quality of life concerns as well as nonviolent crime. But some of the crime areas just based on you know in institutional knowledge as well as crime data is where we generate uh most of our free patrol time. Uh if we don't have free patrol time then we utilize our proactive team. So we have our problem orientated policing teams our pop team to address some of those issues. So a lot of their activity is really directly correlated to some of the data and some of the feedback that we get from community meetings and other avenues.

So can you please define free time? Free patrol time. Sure. So free patrol time is when an officer is not obligated on a call for service or conducting some other role or responsibility. So when they don't have a call for service, we encourage them to patrol, visibly patrol the hotspots and take the appropriate action if they see a traffic violation or any other on view or witness crimes in progress. So that's unobligated time.

Sure. And so as it relates to Soma Boulevard in particular, there's a lot of activity that we have on that whole strip. So what's the coordinated effort as it relates to all the safety efforts on Soma Boulevard?

So shift to shift um when one shift goes off duty and the other shift comes on, we have a roll call or a lineup. So that information is is transferred over if it's something where our detective bureau has a significant case and they need some help with either the case investigation or just you know visible patrolling because of a series of of crimes then that is communicated through them as well. We do have a crime bulletin that our analyst generates so that really determines the hotspots. there are wanted persons in that bulletin as well. So they'll have pictures, they'll have vehicle descriptions, they'll have any outstanding warrants. And so um all of that is really kind of combined together. Now, when we have the sheriff's or the CHP come in, that's when we have the briefings each day that they come to assist us and we verbally we talk about the information that they may have in their area, we may have in ours, but by and large um that's how information is transferred from shift to shift and from different bureaus within our agency and outside agencies that help us. Okay. And so my last question because this is a hot topic in the community. Let's talk about Cclick Fix as it relates to abandoned vehicles, vehicles that need to be towed and how you run through that process. So, Cclick Fix is um and I'm just going to speak towards the abandoned vehicles only, is a a platform that people can log on and they can make a complaint about an abandoned vehicle, uh maybe a disabled vehicle or or some sort of vehicle that perhaps is just parked there for a long time. We had um as I had just updated, we had thousands of

vehicles in here. And so what we're trying to do is when we are focused on an area, we're trying to pull from that list first because the the list is chronological. So the people that have made complaints, we want to get to their complaints in a timely manner. Uh it it sometimes can take several months to get to that list. And so if we we found that if we bounced around um it wasn't fair you know and this is not the best mechanism but it's the fairest mechanism that we can provide service to the community. Uh so that's that's really kind of high level what that program is designed to do and I know that you know some people don't have access to the internet. um if we come across that, we can verbally take that information, enter it for them or we can provide them another way to get their um their complaints into the system. Now, if we get a call for service about a car or a vehicle that is a hazard, so let's say it's blocking a driveway, blocking a fire hydrant, something that needs to be remedied immediately, then of course we're going to take care of that immediate hazard. But if it's a static vehicle complaint, uh we try to be as fair as we can and we go down the list on cclick fix.

So is it fair to say as you increase vendors um tow vendors as you're working on that then it will allow us more capacity for towing. Is that not true?

That that is absolutely correct. So what uh our senior police assistant does monthly is she collaborates with the current vendors that we have and they'll try to coordinate the the space available. So at the moment we are at capacity and there's a couple different reasons for it but the main reason is space. So once we figure out logistically how many spaces we have available, then we can work with the tow companies and then we can we can try to maintain as efficient as possible this program as we develop more potential vendors. Uh I think it will um obviously help us but the solution really is to get all the the kind of the backlog done. So once we get kind of to a place where there are no vehicles on C click fix and there are people that report abandoned vehicles, disabled vehicles or dangerous vehicles that are parked out there, we should be able to get to it rather quickly once we're in that maintenance phase. So we're very close to getting to that maintenance phase. And then once we reach that, all the towyard space will start to kind of dissipate and the maintenance side of it will be a lot more efficient.

Okay. Thank you for your time both of you. Thank you. All right. And I see council members Gordon and Matias. I am going to say that we did move this item forward and we still have our community forum and all of our consent and action calendar. So, if it's anything that isn't brief, we may want to cons consider continuing this back to its previous spot on the agenda. Do we have any quick comments? Council member Gordon,

just uh just a quick question. First of all, I want to say thank you to the sheriff because I do see them in my district. So, thank you so much for your participation. Um I just have a question to you, uh Chief T. How many cameras do we have available? I know that we have put put the plan to purchase some more, but how many do we have? And how many are you rotating within each district? I'm sorry. Could you How many? Could you repeat? Flock cameras. Oh, flock. Yeah.

Uh, we we have quite a few flock cameras. We We don't rotate them. They're all fixed position cameras. So, some cameras only read license plates. Some cameras have dualpurpose where they can read license plates and they have a video capability. I think we have about 10 of those and we have roughly about 140 flock license plate reader cameras and they've been very successful,

extremely successful. You know, one of the main concerns was there was a local agency that there were new partners with Flock and inadvertently they did not set their their um settings right. So there was a possibility that outside entities were able to access their data. But fortunately for us, we have our surveillance advisory board which is an oversight entity that when we did adopt this this technology, we ensured that nobody outside who we wanted to share information with had access.

Thank you so much. And are you using uh drone more than before in districts?

So drone technology we um aren't really using it anymore or less. Typically when drones are deployed, we have a tactical situation that provides us an aerial view of the the general area. If it's a home, we can look at bird's eye view of the home. Um but typically uh that's the only time we really deploy it. So if it's a tactical situation, we'll deploy the drone. We do have a larger drone that has an infrared system. So if we had, let's say, a missing person in an open field at night, we can go into heat vision and uh visually look for heat signatures to help us locate folks um out in the dark and in wilderness type areas.

Thank you so much. I appreciate that. That's all I want to know. You're welcome. These are just because people are concerned. seeing a whole lot of drone activity and some of them are assuming that the police department and so forth and on but we're starting to see a lot in our district and so we just was wondering is there any type of protocol for that or is that's just at will

so personal personal folks can purchase drones um I don't know all the rules and restrictions of personal usage of those drones but they may be seeing that uh companies like P Gen use drones a lot to to inspect their power lines. Other companies may use that to inspect some of their equipment as well. So, it it's not uncommon for businesses and personal u personal folks from from flying drones. Thank you so much. You're welcome. All right, Council Member Matias.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, so I asked um this question in the public safety subcommittee and um so I'm going to ask you this question. I'm going to ask the city attorney this question and the city manager this question. When are you guys going to have the contracts done when it comes to the whole towing situation? What's the deadline? Cuz I've asked several months in a row and it's like we're working on it. We're working on it. So, can you guys commit to giving me a firm date by which that's going to get finalized?

Well, I I can start this answer. Um, so the the rotational tow contract is uh pretty much kind of done with on the PD side. So, we made a lot of different recommendations, some deal dealing with uh different lists. So, I had talked about it previously where there was a kind of like a um a normal toe compared to a for lack of a better term like a non-normal toe where the vehicle's not likely to get back on the street. So, what we were experiencing was that some tow companies would be reluctant to get on the rotation because they know that this vehicle is going to likely sit in their yard for 6 weeks and um it eats into their profitability. So, our staff came up with some ways to make it a little bit more equitable for the toe toe companies so we get a little bit more uh participation cuz some of them they would just tell us they they weren't able to come or they didn't have any space um and somehow they just kind of knew that it was probably one of the vehicles they didn't want. So, we provided a lot of different feedback on that new contract and um now it rests with our city attorney's office for legal review

and my answer is that I don't actually know the status of that at the moment. So, I will inquire of the attorney to whom it is assigned and send an email tomorrow letting you know the status. Thank you. Um and then uh my final question is say I'm interested in pursuing a new career as a police officer. Where would I go um to start that process and when should I expect to hear back from someone on your team?

Uh we we have a website for that. So if you just Google, you know, Valleo police recruitment, you'll you'll find the link. Uh again, I had mentioned Allstar. So that they're a marketing firm. So we we advertise on Facebook, Instagram and X. So if you click on those links, it will take you also to that uh page. If we have just your standard inquiries, uh I would connect them to one of our recruitment either uh recruiters, the civilian recruiters, or somebody within our recruitment team at the police department. So, we'll take however they come, whether it's a phone call, uh, a drop in or just through one of the links provided.

That's all I got, Mayor. Thank you.

All right. Thank you both again. Appreciate it. Appreciate the partnership. Thanks to everybody back there. With that, we will move back to our regularly scheduled agenda, which brings us to our first community forum, item six. This is for anyone wishing to address the council on items not on tonight's agenda but within our jurisdiction. And I will say anyone interested is welcome to raise their hands online, but we do have more folks signed up in person than we have time for at the first community forum. So we're going to take five speakers at this time. Anyone who isn't able to speak at the first forum, we'll make sure you get some time at the second forum and we'll try to move through our items quickly. So that's at a reasonable hour. Um, with that, we'll go ahead and call our first five speakers.

Thank you, mayor. The uh first five speakers in this order are Maryanne Butler, Rose Pinson, Elena Reyes Juman, Deborah Reyes, and Bridget D. So, the first speaker is Maryanne Butler. Good evening, council. And you can raise the podium lower right. There's a toggle down on the Yeah, if you want to raise it up.

Thank you. Thank you for that. Um, good evening. Uh, I just came to give some bright spots uh in Vallejo. First, I appreciate all of your time and all the work that you're doing. Uh, it's a lot of work and it's greatly appreciated from the community. Uh, secondly, I wanted to thank um, uh, Mayor Source, Council Member Leaju for coming out to Glen Cove Waterfront Park last week. Um, we celebrated uh, restoring the land with Yoshihiwin Nation. It was a wonderful celebration, a great partnership working to plant native plants, get invasives out of there, and really work to protect uh our open spaces in Vallejo uh for the community. We are working with some other funders uh to get more money into Vallejo to continue this work, and we'll update you as we go forward with that. I also want to share that this year we'll be educating over 10,000 kids in our county and several thousand of kids in Vallejo specifically. Um we have been doing this for uh nearly 20 years on the books. Um, this coming uh May, we'll be having lots of field trips out in our local creeks. So, I'd like to encourage you. I gave you some dates to come out, put on some waiters. If you if you don't feel like putting on the waiters, that's okay. Um, you can stand on the side of the sidelines and we welcome you to come join us with Vallejo Youth uh monitoring our creek. All the data is analyzed by a professor and we've been studying this. We have long-term results of our local creeks. So, we would be delighted if you wanted to join us on that. Uh we also wanted to see if there was a chance next next um council meeting or another council meeting for a group of students to present their data uh to you of what they collected. Um so we would welcome that opportunity. Finally, I'll share that um this will be the first year coming up that we are short on funding. This year we have 40% of all third and sixth graders included in our programs, 20 high school classes. Uh we are short $250,000 next year. Uh and we are looking for funds. uh we don't want to have a break in programming. We feel that if a break in programming happens, we will not be able to continue at the level and the efficiency uh that we have right now, especially with our current

staff. We want to make sure that we keep those kids outside. Uh so if you have any ideas or suggestions, if you could contact me, I would greatly appreciate it and I'll follow up on those leads. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much.

Next speaker is Rose Pinson. Hi, thank you for having me today. Um, I am the sister and spokeswoman for the kidnapped team, Pearl Pinson. In 2016, my sister was on her way to school. She was kidnapped. Her story has not only affected my family, but many of her friends in our community of Valleo. In honor of Pearl story, I'm asking the city in support of creating and placing pack plaques on both side of the bridge. she was kidnapped from. It's important to not forget her her story or who she was. I'm respectfully asking for the city to consider also waving any fees associated to this request. I understand this is a request and not something that is commonly done, but I'm hoping that you all will support us. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next speaker is Elena Reyes. And while they come up, Eric, will you exchange info with the Pinson family? Thanks.

Good evening. Okay. My name is Elena and I've lived in Vallejo for 39 years and I'm here to speak to you about an incident that occurred to me with uh recology. Um on August, excuse me, in February 28, 2024, I was on my way home and this truck was driving behind me and I turned on to Clydesdale and I was a little concerned about how quickly the truck was coming behind me. So when I turned on to Clydesdale, I was hoping that this truck would continue, but it didn't. it turned behind me and the street was lined with garbage cans and so I thought he was going to pick up but he didn't. So when he passed the first two homes I decided to pull over to safely get out of his way and let him go by and this is what he did. So he drove up alongside me. This is my car. I'm inside. He drove up alongside me and I got pinned in between the brickology truck and the street and he was there long enough to pick up one of those blue cans. And so on this day, I called and I got in touch with Derek Nelson, the recology manager, and I told him what happened. I told him I had a picture. He asked me to send it to him. And then I got a message from him. He told me it was I that double parked. And you can see I was on the street there. I wasn't double parked. Ever since this incident occurred, I these Recology drivers have been parking across the street from my home. So this is a picture I took from my driveway. I've been living in Valo again for 39 years. And prior to this incident, I almost never saw these trucks unless it was a pickup day. After this incident, they started to do this regularly. And it's not limited to them parking in front of my home. This is me in a public place where I go to regularly on three consecutive weeks. Just recently, they showed up there exactly at the same moment that I was in

the parking lot. Three times, three consecutive weeks. My pickup day is Wednesday. Last week and the week before, they showed up at my house at 5:20 a.m. in the morning. So, when I went outside, 5:20 a.m. is the time I leave my home. And at 5:20 a.m. I found one of these trucks outside of my home. Okay? So, this is of great concern to me. And I've reached out to public officials and nothing has been done to stop it. So, I'm here to ask you personally, how do you hold a company that provides a service, a public service to the residents of Valleo accountable for this type of behavior? And again, across the street from my home is a no parking zone at any at any time. I don't know if this company is held accountable to all parking regulations for the city, but this is a no parking zone and they've been doing this since 2024.

Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker is Deborah Reyes.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, city council members. Uh my name is Dbora Reyes and I'm been a citizen of Valle for 61 years. born and raised here. Um I'm a landlord. I participate in the section 8 uh housing program for the last 30 years. And I wanted to address some issues because I think there's something going on there in housing of delayed payments to the landlords, lack of communication and from the program program representatives. Uh I had a tenant take possession of one of my homes on February 1st this year. It's now late April and I've not received payment. Um, I reached out to housing. Actually, I reached out to the city and someone actually reached out to housing and they contacted me and I was told uh two days ago that my representative had went on vacation, but I was not communicated that information. So, I've had a tenant in my home, no payment, no communication. Um, and as a landlord, you know, we pay mortgage, we pay taxes, all the bills keep coming and it's just not sustainable. uh the communication. So the payment process they told me take at least 60 days minimum and this is unacceptable. Uh landlords cannot we can't sustain I've been you know we have we have a problem with housing and as a landlord we don't get a lot under section 8 but we do expect them to abide and be reasonable. Um, so what I'm asking, um, is that maybe there could be an oversight committee or something with housing because at this time, you know, there's no feedback, uh, from them. And I'm also asking that um maybe c the city council can establish as busy as you are um some type of clear rules for the landlord so we can understand uh what

the procedures are for housing. And finally, um I would also request that the council create an independent oversight committee to verify the rent prices are accurate because three years ago I got 2,449 and then this year they told me I would get 1978 for the same house. The math's not mathy. So I would like for someone to reach out. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next speaker is Bridget D. Good evening, council mayor. I'm here in behalf of the Penson family. Um, I wanted to start by letting you guys know that um, it's been 3,625 days as of this morning between 7:30 and 8:00 that this 15year-old that was kidnapped on her way to school, Jesse Bethl, um, hasn't been seen. There's a lot of things we cannot do like find her, but there's so much more that we can try to do. And I want you to know that May 25th will be her 10year anniversary since she's been gone. So, if you could imagine how you would feel over these 10 years if your child, your cousin, your brother, your sister, someone you love was kidnapped at gunpoint dragged across an overcrossing. And the main reason that they had a reason, a uh clue was her friend at the time did not realize it was Pearl that was being abducted, but she had the wherewithal, another teen, to grab that license plate. And that's the only clue that they've had to get this whole case rolling. And so for 10 years they've been suffering this with very little help. Um a lot of advocacy from

the community but no advoc advocacy or very little I should say from the city from the school district from anyone that could care. I mean I've contacted so many people. I do lives constantly on that walkway. It's the 780 overcrossing. What we're trying to do is get it renamed for Pearl Penins. If that can't be done because we've been trying and trying and trying to get a hold of Calrans, which is falling on deaf ears, um we would like to do some kind of a dedication in city property. So, what we really want to do here tonight is to make sure that she is put on the agenda. This needs to be put on the agenda. May 25th, 2026 is going to be 10 years. Please come out. There will be a vigil at the 780 walkway. Please come out. The only official that's really ever come out is Tina Areola, who used to be the council person for that area. and um when we were trying to get another district attorney um in line um she also came out. So um that's the end of my time. Please get it on the agenda.

Thank you. All right, we actually have time for one more speaker. So let's take one more. Yes, the next speaker um listed is Vicky F. Hello, council members.

Hello, council members. Um, I am a family friend of the Pinson family. Um, I want to express that um, Pearl Pinson not only represents all missing children um, trafficked and um, across America and in our community. Um, we should never forget because when we forget, we wi we risk forgetting all the missing youth that still deserve to be found. Um, Pearl was someone's daughter, someone's friend. Her life was too short and she never got to meet

she never got to meet her nephew. She never got to be a mother. She never got to get married, fall in love, and we just would like a way to honor her and remember in the community. Um this project that we're going to be working on, if um approved, um would be something that we would dedicate to the whole community. um the area where it is is kind of um there's like a lot of garbage and you know um unsightliness and we would be willing to take that on as the family and keep it clean all the time. Um we would be willing to keep that area very clean. Um adopt a highway as you might say. Thank you.

Thank you very much. All right. With that, we'll close the first community forum. And anyone who didn't have a chance to speak at that forum, you'll have an opportunity at the second community forum later in the meeting. We'll move to item seven, our um consent calendar, and we'll open up public comment on this evening's consent calendar while we see Do we have any commenters at this time? I guess we'll start with that. None in person. Um and then we'll give online folks a chance to raise their hands. Do we have anyone online for consent uh through the mayor? Yes, we do have a few speakers online. Let's give them a second to see if they want to speak on the consent calendar or if they were raising their hand for community forum.

Okay. First speaker, Rebecca Trumper, just confirmed you wanted to speak on an item for consent. Yes, I did. All right. Go ahead. Before the clock starts, just one point of clarification. There were a couple of items on the consent calendar that I wanted to uh remark on. Um do I need to do all of that in the allotted three minutes or are there is it like two separate times and you're the clock? We usually do one uh we'll give you those 10 seconds back for sure. Go ahead. Go ahead and and take the time and then we'll see where we're at.

Okay, great. First, I wanted to address item G, which is the uh um the HVIP award uh grant award. Um and first I want to applaud the increase in projects like this um that take a traumainformed approach um rather than sort of beginning and ending with police intervention. I think that's a great direction that Valleo is headed in. um along with the improved response times etc. But my question tonight on this item is more about accountability and seeking some clarity. Uh this grant um looks like it has a 40% overhead kind of admin rate that goes to VPD and only 60% of the 1.9 million grant is going to the service provider Q. Um so they'd get $1.2 2 million dollars to serve it looks like in the staff report 70 young people that come through Kaiser um as victims of violence. That amounts to just over $17,000 po per person. Um and then the staff report says that's only 40% of the HVIP program total. So another 60% or $2.85 million would be coming from a 2025 OBVC grant. So a total of 4.775 million to serve what looks like from the staff report 70 young people that are coming through Kaiser. Um but it's unclear will the whole HVIP program reach more people or just those 70 people that come through Kaiser further if Q uh it's unclear if Q is providing sort of navigation and uh mentoring services or ALS or if they're also the direct service provider. if they're subcontracting, is that on a

reimbursement or a different kind of basis? And so the question then comes to accountability for those funds and the impact of the services that are being promised through those funds. Who's holding that accountability? And if it's the VPD, that might justify the 40% VPD overhead rate um that is being charged to this 1.9 million grant. But none of that, at least to me, is clear in the staff report or the accompanying grant agreements. Um, and so those those are open questions to me. Um, and then I wanted to address item K as well, but I am uh just about out of time. If you can give us your maybe your 30 secondond version of K, we're happy to take that now.

You have you had about 30 seconds left.

K is okay. Is the 1.4 4 million California Ocean Protection Council grant funds for Solano Bayshore resiliency program. Again, this is more of an accountability question. Um, in terms of climate change and sea level rise, the entire waterfront up and down Carina Strait and Mar Island along with the the Napa River and the Carina Strait is affected by sea level rise. This grant is specifically about planning um and public engagement. Uh and we are being given uh um an aotment an allocation and my question is around the allocation plan. Um we in Valo have 41% of the population um that's being considered. We have 57% of the shoreline, but we're only getting 35% of the funding. Um there's a big weight going to the number of people.

We're going to split the difference there and take the comment and then if there is further discussion of the item, we'll open it back up. Thank you. All right. Next uh speaker who wanted to speak on consent. Just to confirm, uh, Cool Deepson, uh, please confirm that you wanted to speak on this item. Uh, yes, I do. Can you hear me? Yes. Uh, go ahead and state which item you wanted to speak on for consent. I'd like to speak on 9E. I believe that's the short-term rental ordinance. So, so that'll be that'll be later in the meeting. Uh, right now we're on the consent calendar. So, items uh 8 uh A through I believe K.

Oh, I see. Okay. So, if you just hold till we get to that item and if you raise your hand on that item, we'll make sure you get a chance to speak. Were those all our commenters online? All right, we'll close public comment on consent and I'll look to my colleagues to see if anyone has any items they'd like to pull from the consent calendar. Council member Leu, thank you. I'd like to pull 8D and 8G. All right, so pulling 8 D, that'll become 8.1 and 8G. will become 8.2. Uh, Council Member Matz, uh, and, um, K, please.

And 8K will become 8.3. Seeing no others, do we have a motion to approve the remainder of uh, the consent calendar as well as the agenda? Yes, mayor. I move that we approve the consent calendar and approval of the agenda with items um 8D I'm 8D becoming 8.1 8G becoming 8.2 and item 8K becoming 8.3.

All right, we're ready to vote. We don't have the voting. We can do a I could just say all in favor. It has to be a roll call.

Okay. It sounds like we have to do a roll call vote. Okay. Council member Brigzer. Yes. Council member Leigu. No, there went well. Vice Mayor Source or Yes. Vice Mayor, sorry, Vice Mayor Matullik, I. Council member Gordon, I. Council member Palmaris, I. Council member Matias, yes. Motion carries unanimously.

All right. Thank you. That's going to bring us to item 8.1, formerly 8D. adopt a resolution amending the justice assistance grant fund number 149 fiscal year 2526 budget to recognize 499,992 revenue from OBC fiscal year 2025 services for victims of crime grant and appropriate com corresponding expenditures. I will turn it over to council member Letu who pulled the item.

Thank you. How are you today? And I will ask our folks at the before we get into this, I will ask our folks at the back of the room to move away from the sliding doors, please, so that they close. Someone is helping us. All right, let's go ahead and we'll see how the noise is.

Sure. Thank you. So, I just have a couple questions and the programs described pretty well, but success is not clearly defined. So I really want to talk about the outcomes and the effectiveness of the program. So what specific measurable outcomes will define success for this program such as reductions in reinjury, retaliation, and long-term engagement and how are we going to track th these outcomes and how will you report this back to council? Yeah, that is actually something that Q will track as they um track the their cases um through the program. Um there are specific measurables required by the grant itself by the Department of Justice. Um they will be required to show metrics in terms of the how many people uh entered the program uh what the outcomes were, who was referred um uh as in in terms of their case management um as to the specifics of what the actual numbers will be or what the specific uh outcomes will be. Um Q was better suited to answer those questions. Are they here today?

They are not here today.

Okay. So, um what I would suggest since you are at the safety committee meetings, perhaps we can have a further dialogue about what those metrics are, how those metrics are going to be reported out. Do we have a dashboard where we can see those metrics as well from a community perspective um to see how we're doing? And that's going to be very important when we speak about these funds and the impact of these funds. And then I'd like to know how does this program integrate with Valo Vision and other violence reduction programs that we might be facilitating as a coordinated system rather than a standalone intervention. So how are we intertwining this and all the work that we're doing? we have our domestic violence partners um our partners around human trafficking. So, how are we integrating this work? Even though yes, Q is coordinating and working alongside you. Plus, I assume at some point in time as they're doing this work, they'll bring others in. But how is it being coordinated, reported out in a very robust way so that we can see make sure that we don't have duplicative work and that we really are in every area every area maximizing our dollars, maximizing our services. Yeah, this is the the OBVC grant is part of the hospital-based violence intervention and you can imagine that is part of Valo Vision which will be a more a streetbased violence intervention um focused deterrence and so there is a there is a role for the PD to play obviously but this is really about stopping the violence from a from a community aspect and leaving enforcement

and as kind of a a last resort type uh measure. Um in terms of reporting for Q, they do have to obviously track all their all their cases um through the system. They'll have to do quarterly reports as required by the Department of Justice. And at the end of this grant period, you know, there'll be a an auditing of um how the money was spent and where where the success was.

Sure. So again I'm going to bring you back to my question and you may not have an answer but you can get the answer later is I'm also looking at the coordinated effort. Q is only one piece of this, right? We have other programs. We have other um service providers that we're working with vest and sane start and on and on, right? And we talk about this in our safety meeting. And what I'm looking for is that coordinated effort that we are all working together and each piece while I realize this is not enforcement, right? This is community-based, not enforcement. We have an enforcement piece of this, but all of the community-based work around violence prevention and so forth and on, how's it being coordinated and how are we maximizing the resources, whether it's time, money, effort, right, programming. That's what I want us to think about around all of these different grants that are coming so that they are not just standing separate and apart, but they are dovetailing into each other to create a system. And then finally, how are we going how are we thinking about the sustainability of these programs when they're grant funded and we're rolling out these services? How are we going to sustain this work? And you may not have an answer today and we can talk about it further in our safety meeting, but I want us to think about it. And I know Chief Ta is not here. Um, but we do want to think about as we take on grants and grant funds are no longer available, where are we going to absorb these services? How are we going to absorb these services? That's really important to think about as we accept grant funds

and those grant funds eventually leave.

Yeah, I I can I can speak to Q has multiple partnerships within the community. Um they haveUs with Vest as one organization. Um so they are they provide a they're an umbrella agency and it's they'll do the the street level hospital-based level intervention and where those cases go. They can obviously if there's domestic violence overlap um that'll be a referral to vest um if there's a sexual assault type investigation or a case it'll be referred to sane sart. So they have multiple areas where they have partnerships uh within the community uh two of which I've just named. um in terms of you know long-term after this grant funding is up grant funding is again a is not a sustainable model for for any of this. Um but it is something that was necessary you know when we were talking about these things a year ago when when gun violence was really um a a big issue. Um and should it not be a big issue? Great. Um but in order to sustain these programs in multiple ways and there'll have to be some some you know um funds in the general fund or some other source um grant funding is not uh a long-term sustainable uh source.

Fully agree with you. That's why I'm raising the point and fully recognize that we need to figure it out. But I'm laying it out there because we as we take on grant funds, we need to determine what is the potential funding source to continue the work, especially if it's successful work, right? And it's how we project out as we're moving forward. We don't want to start something and then stop in the middle because we ran out of funding. We need to be thinking about it in advance as we keep moving forward. And so since that grant lies within the police department, I'm laying it back at your feet to talk about it more um and really consider what are some ideas as we move forward and having those conversations with the city leadership and obviously we're involved in those conversations as well.

Yes, that's certainly I'm sure that's we'll be having that conversation uh in the near future. Yes. Good. Council member Matias.

Um, so the this comment I'm gonna make applies for both this item and the next one that council member Letu pulled. So I think it was probably over a year ago, we asked our um former city manager to work in close partnership with uh Chief Tat to develop a public safety action plan. What are the sorts of crimes we have? What are the activities we're going to pursue? And then how do we measure success? Very simple. said, put that on a page so that that way we know kind of what all these things are feeding into. Now, um to approve this item, I do want uh the council to receive quarterly reporting from the organization that's receiving the funding uh just so that we're kept a breast of the progress that's being made. But most importantly, my expectation is that the city management team uh again like we called for and we voted on a year ago uh develop a pretty simplified plan that really uh speaks to how we're measuring success cuz otherwise we could just be applying for grants just for the sake of applying them cuz it's money, right? But I think we have to tie this back to um to successful outcomes and ensure that uh all of the other items that or all of the other elements that council member Leedu was alluding to are incorporated. So I um I would uh support this um approval of the grant mayor uh just ensuring that uh there is a public safety action plan that comes back to the council um that is comprehensive and accounts for these things uh and that there is quarterly reporting and to the extent that you want the public safety sub subcommittee to play a role in developing that we're more than happy to support in that endeavor but I think we need to get something in place um instead of having these conversations uh over and over.

All right, that's noted. I'm going to ask for clarification because this is just a budget item and I don't know if there can be additional direction given in a motion or if that would need to come back. Madame Mayor, you are correct. It is a budget only item. So other direction, alternate direction would have to come back.

All right. So in that case, do we have a motion on this item?

Yes, mayor. I move that we adopt a resolution amending the justice assistance grant fund number 149 of fiscal year 2025 to 2026 budget to recognize $499,992 of revenue from the OBVC fiscal year 2025 services uh for victims of crime grant and to appropriate corresponding expenditures step two of two. All right. Motion carries unanimously. Great. Thank you. So, we'll move on to item G. This one will be similar. Um, formally 8.2. uh adopt a resolution accepting a uh 1.9 million Cal VIP cohort 5 grant from the board of state and community corrections and approving the grant agreement authorizing execution of the agreement and noticing intent to amend the justice assistance grant fund. Uh so we have another budgetary item around a grant so we can act on the budgetary item and have whether it's the safety committee or or another body take action on some of the other comments that are raised. uh turn it over to council member Leu who pulled the item.

Thank you. So basically the questions really are the same. Um and it really is around measure specific measures and how we are how are we measuring how are we reporting and how we will come back to the council with those reports. How are we collaborating across all of our programs, across our community providers who are working with us in all of this work and how we um scale the program to impact citywide violence and then what is the long-term sustainability plan? And it goes right back to what was said earlier by my colleague is where is our plan and like other grant funds that we accept. I just say I I'll say this to our acting to both of our acting city managers to our assistant city managers as you continue in your roles is really when you bring when we are looking at grant funds we really need to talk about what's the objective what are the measurable outcomes how are we reporting out and what is the long-term sustainability beyond grant funds Because in particular, if we have grant funds and we have positions tied to it, we have services tied to it, all of those things are necessary or important and if they are just automatically dropped after the funding goes away, then we no longer have the full impact that our community needs. So, we really need to think about, yes, the grant funds are precious, they're important, but we also need to think about the sustainability

of those services. So those are the questions that I have. Those are the things that I want to know about. We can talk about this more in our safety. And because this is um step one I believe um I'm not sure even though it's budget but it is step one are we able to give directions

or directions regarding what I guess is my question around reporting back to council as the item for step one of the budget. Mhm.

It's not technically really a step one issue to provide direction. Um, but I think requiring reporting associated with step two and authorizing the funding would be appropriate. Does that make sense? Because the step one is only the notice of intent to amend the budget. So you're only providing that intent, but when you take the actual budgetary action, I think you could require reporting at the budgetary action. Well, so but we just the last item we had was was step two, right? And so are you saying we they could have added reporting to that one?

Well, it was only the budget action, I think, if we say yes, I probably am saying that actually. I mean, so it's so on our last item, we were at the second play for budget and at that point, you said we could not I think I misread it and I apologize. I thought it was a step one item. So, my apologies for that. I think if you want to go back to that item, you can bring it back and add add it to the step two item. Okay? Because it's a condition associated with your approving the budgetary item. But I think the notice of intent really isn't conditional. It's just giving a notice that you intend to amend the budget. Okay. Sorry about that.

No problem.

So, what I will ask um when we come back for um step two of the budget that the staff report includes the suggestion around reporting and every grant should have reporting. In order to have grant funds, you do have to report back to the funer. So that should be part of the condition in our staff report. It should be no different. It's a requirement to have those funds and it should be a requirement in our staff report as well. So I would expect that to occur and I don't know if my colleagues disagree with me. Okay. So I hear a no and I'm so if no one disagrees I'd like from if I need to make a motion I will but I'd like to say going forward anytime we are bringing grant dollars grant there is grant reporting and it should be a part of the condition of our um second step that the council should have reporting around grant funds and I also would like to see what is the long-term objective ive in terms of how we project out those services and where do we believe those dollars might come from as well because sometimes they're associated with positions. I I have a recollection that previously another request associated with what matching funds may be or when the grants respired expired what our plan was for going forward was also a um item that the council was looking for at step two as well.

Right. because that's around the fire department if you recall. I do and we haven't seen that. So, thank you very much for that. Okay.

I don't No, I don't and I don't disagree with either of the comments. I think we were we would almost be better served to set a policy holistic set an expectation holistically with respect to all of the grants and the management rather than doing them ad hoc when they come through as budget requests. So that could be whatever the best way for the council to give that direction, we'll give that direction. Yeah. Can I I'm saying in any grant we rather than having to do it each time ad hoc, just the city's policy is when we accept a grant, these are the these are the procedures. Um you know, I think it's a I think it's a broader sort of systemic systems. It's a broader systems issue. So um why don't we go ahead and we can address that. There are reporting requirements for each grant that we can incorporate into the staff reports and then that report feedback to city council we can incorporate that.

Thank you. All right. With that, do we have a motion on this item?

Yes. I move that we adopt a resolution one accepting a 1.995873 Calvip cohort 5 grant from the board of state um and community corrections. Two, approving a standard grant agreement relating there to three, authorizing the city manager's execution of all documents with the city manager's approval relating to acceptance and implementation of said grant of said grant agreement for noticing intent to amend the justice assistance grant fund number 149 fiscal year 2025 to 2026 budget in the amount of 1,995,00 873. Step one of two.

All right. And we are able to vote.

Motion carries unanimously. All right. That's going to move us on to 8.3, formerly 8K. resolution approving a subawward agreement with the Fairfield Cissoon Sewer District to accept California Ocean Protection Control Grant funds the amount of 142,000 for Solano Bayshore Resiliency Project and um yeah, amending the the budget to appropriate the funds. I will turn it over to Council Member Matias who pulled this item.

Thank you, Mayor. Um I'm gonna ask you a question you may not have the answer to, but why not? Um, why are we why is Fairfield taking lead on a application like this? Why are we not cuz we have I mean we have sea level rise. We have a lot of these issues in our community that are impacting uh several parts of our city. And so I think the confusing part in just um now being in office for over a year is that I see whether you're talking about uh Bachmed, you're talking about this grant, you're talking about some of these other funding opportunities, other cities taking the lead, applying and then using Valleo to as part of whatever it is that they're doing. And whereas what should really be happening is we take the lead cuz we have, you know, communities experiencing um these disparities and some of these issues that are called out and then we uh have other cities partner with us in carrying out some of the work. So um yeah, anything you can perhaps share with me that can help inform why this is happening? So cuz I I've seen it with STA. I've seen it here now. I've seen we had a conversation with Bagmed where Benisha is getting tens of millions of dollars and like pollution is coming over to Valo too and we only qualify for 5 million. So this is this is this doesn't make any sense. That's just my passing comment. And I want to understand how are the how are how is Valo being brought into these conversations and who's sort of making calls uh to not apply or to apply for for some of these funding opportunities.

Um thank you. Good evening council. Um I'm Kristen Plet, planning and um development services director. I can um try to address that question. And I'm not sure I have a whole lot of information on the um on why it's being led by this particular entity, but I will say that the program or the project, I'm sorry, is a regional effort and it's supposed to look at all of um Solano County Shoreline. So, typically when when that sort of effort moves forward, it's done by a different um agency that has a broader authority. Um I I know that we do have Hector Rojos um on the line. I believe he has been working with these folks directly. He may be able to share a little bit more insight into that. Here we go.

Uh thank you Kristen. Uh hello again. My name is Hector Rojas, a long-range planning manager with the planning and development services department. Um what I could provide is uh you know sort of insight since I arrived on scene and I think Kristen arrived on scene. I think the decision to apply to this grant was made before um our arrival here with the city. But um I did note that as I was looking through the contract that uh FSSD provided us that they did have a letter from um the prior mayor McConnell uh supporting the application. So I don't really have too much insight as to who made that um you know uh I guess decision to go ahead and support this application. With that said though, um I would, you know, kind of highlight for you that sea level rise, as you may know, is a regional and global, you know, phenomena that we're all going to have to deal with. And part of what makes this uh grant um and partnership different um here is because we're looking at how these impacts um are going to affect our shoreline, not only here in Valo, but all these other jurisdictions that um you know have continuity along the shoreline. those solutions that are going to be identified are not going to uh respect borders. They're going to cross borders. And so um the implementation solutions, the infrastructure, the funding um is going to be a partnership. Um, and I think, uh, you know, we're being able to leverage that partnership so that we could, uh, potentially have a better chance at applying, uh, for grant funds for things that not necessarily one developer is going to be able to address within a city, but it's going to be something that developers developing in those cities and cities themselves are going to have to do intra agency uh, coordination on. So, just wanted to add that.

And, uh, thank you for that, um, Hector. And same thing for you, uh, director. So, you know, I'm not in any way, shape, or form assigning blame to either of you. I don't want you to take that away from this uh, line of questioning. I do want to highlight that. Um, and this is just because I've been thinking a lot about it a lot the last couple weeks. I've lost count of how many times we've been in some meeting or some conversation where we're applying for something and file was like a trailing applicant um on the application. And what I don't want and I I um I don't know if this is happening, but I'm just going to put it out there is that these other jurisdictions, they're the lead applicant. They get most of the funding. They talk about Valo and all the problems we have. they get the bulk of the funding and then we get nothing when in reality we're the ones who should be getting the bulk of the funding because we have those issues in our community more so than they do. So to the mayor's point, I I do think we need to have a conversation. Maybe it's a policy direction we set around how this stuff is being handled because um you know, it's just shocking that Fairfield is like the lead applicant. No disrespect to Fairfield. um when we've got so much shoreline and we talk about sea level rise all the time. Uh so those are my comments. Happy to through the mayor. I have a little bit of additional information to add. Um sometimes these grant funding opportunities come through at the regional level purposefully say through a metropolitan transportation commission to the regional transportation agency STA and then they further distribute. In this case the Fairfield Cissoon sewer district leads the Solano Bay beayhore resiliency roundt and unifies as the regional agency unifier. And so I think

that's probably why they took the lead on this um and invited all the jurisdictions that are part of that round table to take um part in it. Um and it's it's a multi-jurisdictional shared adaptation plan. So point well taken that we do need to take the lead. In some instances the funding comes down to cities through a regional entity. I I I hear you. Thank you for that city manager. and it's happening too many times for my taste uh where it just feels like we may be getting fleeced. So, those are all my comments. Uh thank you, mayor.

All right. Before we look for a motion, I do want to circle back uh to our commenter from before to see if Miss Trumper has anything to add on this item because that is the I I believe that's the first time we've ever had that time constraint of someone wanting to speak on two consent items. And uh if if she has anything else to say, she's more than welcome. Otherwise, we'll look for a motion. Do not see her hand raised. All right, with that, we'll close it and look for a motion on the item. She She raised her hand. She raised her hand. All right, let's give her another couple minutes. Rebecca Trumper, please unmute yourself. You have the floor.

Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Um the um I think the point I wanted to make on this was around the allocation form formula um which I didn't quite have a chance to get to and that if you look at page 11 of exhibit A in your agenda packet on this item it gives the formula for how this allocation was made. And while the the population itself, if you're talking about planning a planning effort and community engagement, it makes sense to look at how many people do you need to reach with your public outreach effort. And then shoreline, um, clearly Valo has the most shoreline of any other of the four cities included in Solano County in this planning effort. And it just looks like this third element of how many people live below three feet of of uh sea level is it sort of not that we're I mean we should all be rising together not competing for funds regionally but it gives an advantage to Cissoon with a much much smaller population and since they're the leads I it questions like how the allocation plan was set and did Valo have any say in the allocation formula. Um, so that was where I was going with my questioning because if you look at the areas affected in Valo, it's not so much how many people live in those areas. It's our center of commerce. It's our entire um waterfront along the Napa River. It's our downtown waterfront and it's our Mar Island waterfront. It's the south and the west and the north sides of Mayor Island which are such a focus that you spent hours on last night in your

special city council meeting. Um, and yes, it is connected. you know, sea level rise and climate change does affect regions, but we're also artificially looking at Solano County when we're also connected to Napa through the Napa River and we're connected to Contraosta County across the Carina Strait. So, all of this is an artificial um artificial boundary of looking at this at as Solano County and looking how we're going to address sea level rise. Um, so I'm really questioning the allocation formula and asking whether Valo had any voice in that whatsoever because it doesn't look equitable to me in terms of planning for the impacts of sea level rise. Thank you.

Thank you very much. All right, before we go to a motion, I have council ledger. So I just want to touch on a broader point when we talk about being able to lead and this is to our leadership and to think forward as we continue to go on even though definitely we have budget constraints. We have one individual who writes our grants and he is an excellent grant writer. And so the question for us when we speak about leading is how are we going to expand the capacity of our grant writer so that we can lead in a way that ensures this city gets its fair share. And so these are the kinds of things from a leadership perspective that we have to think about what's our best and highest use in terms of resources to bring in additional resources. So that's the comment that I want to end with because that is very important in the work in the leading in being able to be a strong regional partner in the work that's going on and being able to really raise our hands and say no we should be on first base and we need that capacity to be able to do so. So, we have to think about how are we building out our capacity as it relates to resourcing staff and having competent staff to do that work so that we can lead.

Thank you. All right. I think we're ready for a motion on this now. I move we adopt a resolution approving a subawward agreement with the Fairfield Cissoon Sewer District FSSD to accept California Ocean Protection Council OPC grant funds in the amount of $142,65920 for the Solano Bayhore Resil Resiliency Project authorizing the city manager to execute the same um and amending the fiscal year 2025 to 2026 capital grants and contribution fund number 221 budget to appropriate the funds step two of two.

All right. And we are ready to vote.

Motion carries unanimously. All right. Thank you all. That will bring us finally to the action calendar and I will Yes. Did you want to redo the motion for 8.1?

I think we have a plan. I think we agreed on a plan. We don't need to go back to that item. Um so with that, I'll turn it back actually over to you to announce um item 9A. Adopt a resolution appointing Harry Black as interim city manager. Approving an employment agreement between the city of Vallejo and Harry Black. Approving a new salary for the city manager classification. Amending the fisc year 2526 salary plan and authorize the mayor to execute same.

All right. Thank you. So, we have our HR director coming up and I'll turn it over to you whenever you're ready. We'll also open up the public comment period for this item. Good evening. Thanks for your patience as I get situated. Uh good evening, mayor, council members, staff, and community. Stephanie Cuentes, HR director. Uh the item before you this evening is to adopt a resolution appointing Harry Black as interim city manager, approving an employment agreement between the city of Lao and Harry Black, approving a new salary for the city manager classification and amending the fiscal year 2526 salary plan and authorizing the mayor to execute the same. So, um, just a little bit about Harry Black because I think it's important to say out loud. Um, I'm sure everyone had access to the staff report and can read it themselves, but um, I think Harry has a lot of accolades and accomplishments. He has a stellar reputation. He brings three decades of executive leadership in local governments having served as city manager, chief administrative officer and chief financial officer in several major US cities. Over the course of his career, he has developed a rep stellar reputation for thoughtful leadership in public financial management, strategic planning, economic and community development, and performance-based government. Throughout his career, Mr. Black has guided a number of initiatives focused on strengthening fiscal sustainability and enhancing the effectiveness of municipal operations. As chief financial officer for the city of Baltimore, he and his colleagues developed and

implemented the city's 10-year financial plan, a comprehensive framework for a long range fiscal planning that addressed a projected cumulative 10-year structural budget deficit of approximately $750 million. In Cincinnati, he led the city's capital acceleration plan, an effort that increased the pace of capital project delivery and improved the efficiency of project execution. In Richmond, Virginia, he advanced the city of the future initiative, a broad community revitalization effort that supported investments in schools, community facilities, infrastructure improvements, and gateway enhancements. More recently, as city manager of Stockton, California, Mr. Black oversaw a period marked by structurally balanced budgets, sustained operating surpluses, and consistent, clean audit opinions. Mr. Black has also overseen more than $5 billion in municipal bond transactions, contributing to improved financial positions and bond rating upgrades in multiple jurisdictions. Um, in his role as city manager, Mr. Black focuses on ensuring continuity of operations while advancing key city priorities including fiscal uh stability, organizational alignment, public safety, and economic development. He will utilize his operational expertise and decisive leadership to assess the organization, implement best practices for a modern municipality, and help to set Valleo on a path to success. The council selected Mr. black based on his experience, qualifications, reputation, and the needs of VIO during this period of time. He brings a strong background in fiscal management, operations, and public safety coordination. In each of his roles, the organizations he led showed measurable progress, particularly in financial management, operational performance, and major initiatives. That track record is what Valo needs right now.

All right. If we don't have anything else in the presentation, we will open up public comment and then move over to councel. Do we have any commenters in person?

We do, mayor. Um the first we have two speakers signed up. Uh the first speaker is Valleo NACP and then the next speaker would be Chris Kelly. through the mayor as they're approaching the podium. We currently have four members of the public online. Good evening, Mayor Source and City Council. I'm Patricia Hunter, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Color People. We the people, we stand today in regards to the new the announcement of our interim city manager. We would like to thank the city council for being expeditious. Um, our city is in need of leadership. The NACP Oh, thank you. board of directors um did do a thorough investigation of our sort at our level in regards to his work in Baltimore, his work in Cincinnati, in Richmond, Virginia, as well as Stockton. So, we stand as an NACP and our neighbors, our guests, our unhoused friends to say thank you and we look forward to serving with Mr. black along with our assistant city managers and always with our mayor and city council. So, we affirm this uh item and we'd like to thank you. Um our youth is here.

Would you like to say something? Okay. So, we always want to make sure that our youth have to say something if they would like to say something. So, we stand in full agreement. Um and we thank Mr. black for accepting the opportunity to serve with us here at the city of Lao.

You do want to say something now. Okay, that's what they do. So, we have a minute and 26 seconds. So, I'm going to open the mic. And also, I'd like to announce our um mywapa president Latrices Wilson Alfred. She'd like to have something to say. We'll save time for her to speak, but she is also a member of the NACP. And so, um, we just like to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We are looking forward to our city moving forward and I think this is the push and the man that has come forward as our interim city manager. So, Madame President, if you would like to come and have words from Bwapa and then we'll leave time for our youth.

Thank you, Madame President. On behalf of BAWAPA, Black Women Organized for Political Action, we stand in alliance with the NAACP, we ask that you consider um hiring a competent, wellestablished, experienced city manager to lead our city into the new era. There are so many opportunities that Valo has, but we need a city manager who can work with our city, work with each of you to get us to where we need to be as a city, the number one city in the Bay Area. Thank you. Thank you.

And and I'll just say in my discretion, please take more time than three minutes since there are many of you.

So, this is Miss um Neil Long. She serves as a parliamentarian for our youth. Good evening. My name is Nia Long. I'm a sergeant on my arms of the NACP and I'm also a 30-year-old Lakin scholar. Um, I would like to thank y'all for cleaning up the streets and I also want to thank y'all for getting trying your best to getting the homeless people off the streets as we can. Um, I just want to see more work on that cuz I'm tired of seeing homeless people out in the streets in the weather in the rain and they don't have no shelter to become. And every time someone calls, everybody keeps saying that they can't help them or anything. So, I would like to see more housing for the homeless. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you all. All right. Let's go ahead and call our online speakers. I don't believe we had any others in person, right? We have one more. Chris, there was one more. I'm so sorry.

Chris Kelly. Good evening, mayor and city council. I'm standing here on behalf of my brother Mario Romero and all the other victims of Alo. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Or perhaps in this case, it's actually a political quack. That's right. For those unaware, quacks do exist outside of doctors who harm patients. Political quacks operate under false pretense. They offer solutions that have no real intention of remedy. They hijack progress and give illegal and unsound advice to those seeking favor. They find ways to turn constituents into enemies, all while smiling and laying bait to use if those with less power in the city ordinance choose to do what is right for the people. Why does the city of Valo seek out so many potential villains willing to impede justice? It's literally like you have to fail a background check or have a track record of wrongdoing to even consider a resume. Come on. We know what it is. It's by design. The attack on the POAC. It's by design. The city manager resigning, leaving the

POAC with no budget. It's by design. No training, not even the privacy of emails from the community is by design. The intimidation tactics when the truth is told is by design. hiring Harry Black as a number one hireer for the city of Valo. Opposed investigation of officers, one charged with sexually assaulting multiple women and bribery among other charges and the other charged with fraud, forgery, and theft to say the least. What kind of human being would oppose not a conviction but an investigation? The puppet master of deceit. We can talk all day long about finance, but in the end, it all falls back to the city. The city destroyed the city by murdering its residents, violating any and everything they felt entitled to. And they did it by hiring people with backgrounds like Harry Black. This candidate will reflect the treatment and concern you would expect if a city manager opposed an investigation into the rape of your mother, sister, daughter. What you see is what you get. It's not confusing. It's clear. delay, deny, dismiss, create, chaos, suppress, and accept what your voice indefinitely says about your concern for safety and potential healing in a city that has no reason to heal. Prove me wrong. I say that to Mr. Black if he is hired. Prove me wrong. But I think it's, you know, really ridiculous. We should keep having these conversations. Chaos created and this is what we get. a dead city.

Right. Thank you. All right. Now we can go to our online speakers. Thank you, mayor. Uh we've dropped down to about three online speakers. First speaker, Sheila and Kevin Tennyson. Please unmute yourself. You have the floor.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. My name is Sheila Tennyson, and I am calling in today to express my support for the appointment of Mr. Harry Black as interim city manager for Valo. Like many residents, I care deeply about the future of this city. Valo needs steady, experienced leadership, especially when it comes to two of our biggest challenges: responsible budget management and safety of our community. Before forming my opinion, I took the time to research Mr. Black's background. What stood out to me is that he led cities through complex and high-pressure environments. In Cincinnati, Mr. Black helped create a program called Cincy Stat. In simple terms, it used real time city data to track whether basic services were actually getting done. Things like code enforcement, public safety response, customer service, street and infrastructure work, and other city operations. Instead of just talking about problems, the city could measure them, track the progress, and hold departments accountable for results. In Stockton, he helped guide the city after bankruptcy, managed federal relief dollars, supported rental and utility assistance, helped small businesses, and implemented a clean city initiative. Those are the kind of practical results focused efforts Valo needs. I also appreciate that his experience includes fiscal reform, performance management, economic development, infrastructure, and public safety resources. Balo does not need business as usual. We need someone who understands how to stabilize city operations and use data to make decisions and bring accountability to the organization. No leader is perfect and every city has its politics, but based on his records, I believe that Mr. black and has the experience and the skill set that Valo

needs during the interim period. I respectfully urge the council to support this appointment and to set clear expectations around budget stability, public safety, transparency, and measurable results. Thank you so much. Thank you. Right, we have more speakers online, right?

Through the mayor. Yes, we do have two other speakers. Next speaker, Ann C, please unmute yourself. You have the floor. Uh, and I think we might be running into the same situation with your audio like last time. Maybe double check that and then we'll come back to you. Uh, in the meantime, Melvin Cowan, please unmute yourself. You have the floor.

Thank you. Uh good evening uh mayor source and council community. My name is Melvin Cowan, founder of Enough Housing. Uh I want to acknowledge the importance of this moment as the city considers appointing an interim city manager during a time of fiscal constraint and operational complexity. Uh in reviewing prior work from Harry Black, it's clear there's strong emphasis on performance management, data systems, and operational efficiency. Uh those tools are critical as Valo navigates a projected deficit and ongoing service demands. At the same time, Valleo's challenges are not only operational, they're in they're interconnected. And so we have housing instability, behavioral health, environmental conditions, and economic pressure are all showing up in the same places, often impacting the same individuals. And these are not issues that can be solved within city hall alone. Uh but they can be better coordinated through it. Uh that coordination is strongest when it includes meaningful engagement with community-based partners and residents. uh not just for input but for implementation. And across Solano County, there are already efforts underway that can support the city's priorities aligning housing stabilization, health services, environmental cleanup, and workforce workforce pathways uh into a more coordinated approach. Uh for example, efforts connected to areas like the White Slooh are not just about cleanup. They're about reducing environmental risk, stabilizing vulnerable populations, and creating pathways into services and employment at the same time. And as the city moves forward, I encourage you to define success not only by internal performance metrics, but

also by how effectively the city can align with and leverage these broader efforts uh to accelerate results. This is an opportunity uh not just to stabilize operations but to make Valo a model for how cities align systems to solve complex challenges. Uh and I look forward to supporting that work. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh let's go back to an C. Please unmute yourself. And is this working? Oh, it looks it looks like it's working.

Perfect. Okay, great. So, um I am come in the city and am a little startled by how quickly you have found what looks to be like a a candidate who looks stellar with many capabilities and uh expertise in areas that we need in terms of budget management, capital development, etc., including having worked in a city that had a bankruptcy. Um, so my comments are not so much about Mr. Black's background, but maybe a little bit more some concerns about the process. Um, and the first one is, um, Mr. Black has worked in much bigger cities than ours. Um, Baltimore, population 570,000, Cincinnati and Stockton both over 300,000. Um, so basically we're we're getting um a city manager with big city management expertise which maybe we need. I mean maybe arguably we have big city problems but we certainly don't have a big city budget. And so um one thing that concerned me a little bit is if we have are raising the salary level for city manager to be able to compete in those waters. Is there going to be an impact um in terms of other positions within the city management change expecting to also have big city salaries? So usually salary issues go through a whole study of comparable cities and what kind of expertise we're looking for etc. And so you know in our wildest dreams we do not we cannot really compare ourselves to Cincinnati or Baltimore. So, that's just a question and to keep our eye on it. Um, certainly when you look at the

yearly salary for a well- paid city manager, it's eyepopping. And what stood out to me is that if someone's monthly salary is $28,000 or almost $32,000 when you add the the car and home allowance, do we need to bake into the salary a threemonth severance plan in case we decide to part ways? Um it seems to me that you could make your ends meet on 28 to $32,000 a month. Um so and then the last thing I'll say is that um I would like us to beware of magical thinking of this one person hero can turn everything around. Um, I think that we need to look at some specific deliverables and areas of focus with him and make sure that we get top recruit top positions, top management positions filled, police reform enacted, and our budget and capital needs taken care of. And I see my time is running out, so I will stop there. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. And then did we have one more person that signed up? We actually got a few more speakers in the interim. Okay, let's go ahead and call them. So, uh, on top of the three speakers that we still have online, we also have another speaker who signed up for in person. Just wanted to confirm that. Let's take the inerson speaker and then we'll go back to online.

Perfect. Uh, inerson speaker Elise C, please approach the podium. Greetings City um council and mayor. I'm here before you representing uh Dr. Ramona Bishop, president of the community democratic club on behalf of the community of the community democratic club board of directors, executive board of directors. Um sorry for coming up late. I thought you guys would be reading that when I found out you wouldn't. I wanted to make sure that our voices were also heard in this process. We are writing to express our strong support for the appointment of Mr. Harry Black as interim city manager. Mr. Black comes highly recommended by community leaders in the jurisdictions in which he has worked. As our city council members work towards ensuring that Valo moves forward in a strong and strategic manner, we understand that Mr. black has the kind of skill set that will be required to ensure the city continues to make the changes necessary to remain solvent. We also appreciate having an experienced city manager who can stay and help stabilize leadership structure hopefully until the new council is selected. Understanding that the the city manager is a key leadership position in Vallejo, we hope that decision to hire permanently occurs after the newly elected council members are seated so we can maintain consistency and buy in for a long as long as possible. We know that at least one council member will change this election cycle. So again to stress the importance of supporting Mr. black so that he stays for the time allocated

then completing a national search to fill the permanent position. We look forward to continuing to provide our input at this critical time and remain steady, willing, and able to support you in ways that ensure that the black the Salano black agenda which we've also sent to you earlier is actualized. Thank you again, Dr. Ramona Bishop, president on behalf of the Community Democratic board of directors. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Okay. Uh returning back to our online speakers, Bill Treza, please unmute yourself. You have the floor.

Mayor, council, thank you for the opportunity. Um, I've been in Stockton 44 years. For 36 years, I ran a community bank and so got a lot of experience in what's happened in our town. I have to tell you when Harry Black was appointed city manager um I reached out and met him and uh and he was everything that he was touted to be just like you're hearing from the other speakers. It's your gain and our loss. And I just want to briefly tell you he'll do a wonderful job. He's a collaborator. He knows how to work with the business community. We're very successful working together with him. It's very important that business and government work together and uh I wish you well and congratulate you on your choice.

Thank you. Perfect. And then uh one final speaker, Meen Garcia, please unmute yourself. You have the floor.

Thank you. Um, I I wanted to call in and just express my strong support for the appointment of Harry Black for the position of city manager. I am so impressed that you have been able to find such a candidate of this caliber. Population is only one dimension of import when looking at the city or a city or any city of that matter. Um, and in fact, there are many other measures in cities like Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Stockton that others have highlighted, including reducing crime rates, increasing permits issued, increasing the number of small businesses opened. These are issues that require an attention to detail, fostering relationships, and leading teams forward to success. They are things that these cities um have been praised for in terms of their turnaround. And yes, uh Mr. Black is one person, but these are long-seated and hard one wins that require rallying others. Um so I would um ask the council, I would ask my fellow community members to dream bigger and to focus on what is possible, not what has been hard one. Um and to affirm his appointment this evening. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, with that we will close comment and move to any comments from city council. Madame mayor, really quickly I I apologize. Uh city attorney just reminded me that I need to um orally recite the salary information. Okay,

so let me do that really quickly. So, the annual salary for the city manager that we're requesting is $340,000 for $340,432 annually. Okay, now that we have that on the record, sounds like there's one more thing we need on the record. Stephanie, the oral announcement pursuant to the Brown Act must include all benefits and other um economic terms as well. Say that one more time. All of the all of

economic terms that you've listed on page 10 must be reported orally pursuant to the bill that Okay. That includes an auto allowance of $500 per month, a housing allowance of $3,000 per month, deferred compensation annual max plus ketchup equaling 32,500 annually. um any colas at the same time and manner as the unrepresented group and a three-month severance. All right, with that, are we ready for a motion? Are we going to add questions? I'm not seeing anybody. Let's let's go ahead and make the motion.

Okay. I move we adopt a resolution appointing Harry Black as interim city manager, approving an employment agreement between the city of Valo and Harry Black, approving a salary for the city manager classification, amending the uh fiscal year 2526 salary plan and authorize the mayor to execute the same. Motion carries unanimously. All right. And Mr. and Mr. Black is here this evening as well.

Yeah. So, I I'll say on behalf of the council um how excited we are to begin this new chapter with Mr. Black and he's actually here in the audience and I want to invite him optionally. If if you'd like to say a few words, please uh please feel free to come on up. either one. Okay. Thank you very much, uh, mayor, council, and I really appreciate all the support. Thank you very much.

Uh, thank you, Stephanie, for doing an absolutely phenomenal job in terms of facilitating this process. It's perhaps the best one that I've gone through. Uh I've gone through a a couple. Uh so so again, Mayor Council, uh thank you so much for the uh the opportunity. Uh uh this is a serious job uh in serious times. Uh, and I am honored that you have confidence in my ability to come here and to work with you all, work with staff and community uh to number one get through the clear and present challenges that are facing the city uh while at the same time developing the city for the future. Uh, so thank you for that confidence. Uh I understand that this is an important time for the city. Uh there are real challenges but also opportunities at the same time. Uh obviously you know I want to acknowledge uh employees throughout the organization. Uh the past six to seven years have been very very challenging. You know just trying to get through the pandemic uh which we all went through. Uh not everybody made it. Uh but we did the best that we could. Uh and so my my role as the city manager as it relates to staff will be to support them and help them to achieve their success uh which will be the city's success. My commitment to the city council clear communications I will overcommunicate.

That's guaranteed intentionally. Uh transparency will be the order of the day and no surprises. No surprises whatsoever. As a city manager, as your employee, I am here to implement your policy direction and help move the city forward. Obviously, the immediate focus is basically uh making certain that the organization is properly aligned uh stabilizing the organization as it relates to these uh various vacancies which is a a plague impacting every city in California. Uh but there are things that we can do and will do. Uh supporting public safety and obviously attacking the structural deficit. Again, a structural deficit, as I've said before in the interview, is like a person getting cancer. You can't wait. You have to throw everything that you have at it as hard as you can. And that's what we're going to do. It's been done before. So my one of my my approaches to this is I like to listen first and then act. So I think listening is very very important. Uh so again I'm looking forward to starting looking forward to working with you all working with staff. Uh it's not going to be easy but what is easy uh we will roll up our sleeves. We will work smart. We will be very strategic and we will establish organizational cohesion. Again thank you for this honor. Thank

you for having confidence in me and uh I won't let you down. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you again. We're we're looking forward to working with you as well and we appreciate you choosing Valo and and coming to Valo. With that, we will move to our next action item, which is 9B. And my idea is that we will take this item and then we'll maybe take a recess. So, why don't we go ahead and announce item 9B? Adopt a resolution making an appointment to the Housing and Community Development Commission to fill an existing vacancy. And just a reminder, this item is being returned for your consideration this evening due to the tie vote that we had on April 14th on the April 14th meeting. And just a friendly reminder, we only have one vacancy. Uh but we have four candidates who are um Clyde Huff, Briana Rogers, Jessica Simpson, and Ebony Smith. All right. Well, even though this went last time, I will do what I usually do and I will start with I we will all vote again and I will start with the two that inter did the interviews. So the liaison with the commission and the uh pair person that they were paired with which I believe is council member Leu and council member Paul Morz. So can I ask that you all make your votes first? Okay. So again um my vote has not changed. It is for Briana Rogers. And the specific reason that I am choosing her is we have much housing experience, long-term housing experience currently on HCD. What Miss Rogers brings to the table is her work, not only understanding housing, but the very fact that she works in the philanthropy world and she works with one of our major um nonprofit organizations. and she has

many contacts and relationships around philanthropy dollars, which is really important as we think about this work, as we think about the work that the committee is doing and being able to do some smallcale things. And as she is working even with Solano, our Solano Foundation, she has been instrumental in helping bring additional dollars to Solano County to help us look at different issues around housing and the unhoused. And so I think this experience is extremely valuable for the committee as well as valuable for Valo. Great. So thank you.

Thank you. I'll go over to council member Paul Mars and then we'll go down the line. Thank you, mayor. I'm supporting uh Ebony Smith, Miss Ebony Smith. Uh she's been in this community for many years. She works in Marine Towers as the uh property manager there. She understands the complexities of HUD and funding, but also she's identified the ways to implement it in such a way that is getting to the folks who need it the most. It's not so much the lack of funding, but the implementation that happens on the ground and understanding that nuance is very important to uh getting housing for the for the most vulnerable. Um and so someone who has experience, who's well educated, who works in this community, who lives in this community, uh to me, I it's it has to be Miss Evony Smith. So, thank you.

All right. Um do you want to just go down the line one direction or the other? Uh, Council Member Matias, do you want to go? We'll go this way. My vote hasn't changed from the last time. Uh, so my vote will be for um, Miss Rogers. Council member Gordon,

I do agree with my colleagues. both of them uh have wonderful experience and um but I also have to concur uh that I have to change my vote to Miss Brana uh Rogers um because I have done research on her as well and I feel that she'll be a great uh access to the community. Vice Mayor, uh yes, my vote is still the same for Miss Bana Rogers. Okay. I too am voting for Miss Rogers and Council Member Warren. Uh I am voting for Ebony Smith.

All right. So, we had as evidenced by the tie vote and the revote, we had excellent applicants for the position. will congratulate Miss Rogers on the appointment and encourage folks to keep an eye out for further openings or other commissions um because we are just again all I think always impressed by the community members that are willing to step up and volunteer in these roles. So with that uh actually we need to take public comment and then we'll officially make the appointment. Are there any commenters on this item in person or online? Through the mayor, not at this time. All right. With that, do we have a motion to appoint?

Yes. I move we adopt a resolution making an appointment to the Housing and Community Development Commission to fill an existing vacancy um with Miss Briana Rogers. All right.

He said adopt a resolution. Yeah. So, we can go ahead and vote. Normally we have a lot of appointments and then we do it all at once. So this one's just one person, but motion carries unanimously. Wonderful. Thank you all. With that, we have a public terra hearing and our ED updates. We have a couple of major items. I'm going to suggest that we take a a break uh recess of a tight a tight 10 and we are going to start again at I I I'm really worried about this this I'm going to have us I'm going to have us start by no later than 9:50. 50.

All right, I'm going to ask everyone to make their way back at 6:30. We did not stick to our promise time because we were debating different options to amend the agenda or adjust the agenda. And the proposal on the table given the lack of time is that we will continue item action item D, the economic development plan. Uh since that's a pretty robust discussion and presentation, we're going to continue that to the May 12th meeting and we will proceed with item 9 C now since that's a public hearing that was noticed and then time permitting will make a decision about 9E whether or not we want to take that tonight or or push it. So with that, I'll ask our clerk to announce item 9C. A public hearing and adoption of a resolution approving the issuance of the California Municipal Finance Authority qualified 501c3 bonds in an agreement principal amount not to exceed $20 million for the purpose of financing or refinancing the acquisition rehabilitation, development and equip equipping of Seno Village Apartments pursuant to the tax and equity fiscal responsibility act tea with no financial liab. liability for the city and approval of a granter indemnification requiring Eden Housing to indemnify the city related to any financial obligation arising from issuance of the bonds. All right. Thank you. Now I am realizing that I have the wrong document in front of me but I believe

that the procedure since this is a public hearing is we will hear from our whether it's it's not it's not necessarily an applicant but we'll hear from our entity and take any quick questions from council then we'll open up the public hearing we'll take public comment close the public hearing and then we will have our discussion and then we will take a vote so with that I will turn it over to um either our staff or directly over to the to the team from uh I believe It's even in housing.

Good evening, madame mayor and members of the city council. My name is Charie Francisco, administrative manager, speaking on behalf of our housing director, Alicia Jones. Uh, tonight's item is a request to conduct a hearing in connection with taxexempt bond financing to support the rehabilitation of the Sereno Village Apartments. I'll begin with a brief overview, then turn it over to our partners. The purpose of tonight's hearing is to satisfy federal requirements for the use of revenue bonds as required under a federal tax law tax law called the tax equity and fiscal responsibility act or tera. The TERA hearing gives the public a chance to comment on the proposed issuance of bonds by the California Municipal Finance Authority or CMFA to Eden Serena Village, the borrower for the rehabilitation of an affordable housing project. A revenue bond issued by the CMFA is used to finance capital projects including land acquisition, construction, equipment, and improvements for nonprofits, schools, and affordable housing. This step for hearing allows the city as the host jurisdiction where the property is located to formally approve the use of the tax exempt bonds for the rehabilitation and upgrades to Sereno Village Apartments. Serino Village Apartments is a 125 unit affordable housing community located at 750 Serena Drive in Vallejo. Our borrower is the borrower is Eden

Serenino Village LP. Eden Housing, the developer of the housing project. On behalf of Eden Serenino Village, the borrower of the bond funds, has requested CMFA, a statewide public financing authority, to be the issuer of the tax exempt financing in an amount not to exceed $20 million. This action is council consideration of the approval of an issuance of bonds by another public agency that is CMFA for the Sereno Village Apartments. The city is not issuing bonds. The city has no financial obligation for these bonds and is acting only as TERA approval body. Staff recommends city council adopt a resolution approving the issuance of the bonds by CMFA for the benefit of Eden Housing for the purpose of satisfying the requirements of TERA the code and the California government code section 6500 to speak more about the item are we have Mr. Benjamin Barker, financial advisor from the California Municipal Finance Authority, and Mike Rogers, an affordable housing development consultant with Eden Housing.

Thank you. Uh, good evening, honorable mayor and council members. My name is Ben Barker. I'm with the I'm the municipal adviser to the California Municipal Finance Authority. We're a statewide joint powers authority. We're the largest bond issuer in the state. We do roughly 80% of all the affordable housing projects throughout the state of California. Um, I'll just go over this really quick. The CMFA is a joint powers authority formed to assist local governments, nonprofit organizations, and businesses with the issuance of both taxable and taxable tax exempt debt. Eden Housing has asked that the CMFA be the issuer for the tax exempt financing and an amount not to exceeding $20 million. The proceeds of the bond will be used to finance and refinance the acquisition, rehabilitation, development, and equipping of 125 pre-existing project um located at 750 Seno Drive in Vallejo. The project was originally financed probably 15 17 years ago um with tax credits and bonds. The financing with the current tax credits and bonds that the CMFA has re recently received allocation for um will be used to repay the city's old loans as well as for the rehab of the existing project. The debt to be issued by the CMFA will be the sole responsibility of the borrower. The city will have no financial legal obligations or moral responsibility with regards to the repayment of all debt. All financing documents will carry disclaimers that the loan is not an obligation of the city. The city will also bear no cost in the issuance of the debt of the proposed debt. This is a private loan between the developer and its bank. In addition to the to this in the resolution, the city has been indemnified across the board that there won't be any any other further liabilities um with the financing of this project. The CMFA is currently worked or I guess um Eden Housing and Mike can go over this the project a little bit more but um there's currently

loans that are on the property. Mike and Eden Housing has worked through that the CMFA has applied to SIDLAC which is the state alloc allocation committee which has given the permission for the CMFA to issue bonds on behalf of this project and before we can do that you have to have a public hearing. So once the public hearing is approved and then the restatement and amendment of the current city loans, the CMFA will then be looking to close the bond and issue the bonds sometime in the next two months and then be able to start on the refinancing and the rehabilitation. I'm sorry, not the refinancing, the rehabilitation of the project and be able to start assisting the residents and cleaning up the property, reoutfitting the uh the units and making um a nicer place to live. So, with that, I can answer any questions or I can turn the time over to Mike to to go through the specifics on the projects.

All right, why don't we continue on and we'll ask any questions at the end.

Well, my name is Michael Rogers. I'm working I work for Eden Housing and I'm responsible for the for the project from now until it's completed with its renovation and then I'll close it out over the next, you know, year and a half or two years, however long it takes. Uh the timeline uh we came to you in the fall and we got your support and we then got uh we applied for tax credits and bonds which is competitive and we got that and now we've been working with the city staff to close the financing by the end of June and uh I believe we're coming back to you in in early June to finalize the loan documents for amending and restating your existing loans. Uh, at the closing, I know we're paying down we're paying off one loan with the I believe it's the it's the the water district and then we're and we're paying an equal amount down on the GVRD loan. Uh, the project uh is going to be about a $13.5 million renovation, which is fantastic. 125 units. We're going to get to do all all the windows. We're going to get to do most of the interiors. We're going to get to do all the site work. We're gonna uh we're going to replace the gas heater to an electric hot water heater in the community building. And you can ask other details of the type of renovation that we're planning. Um and I I think that's that's it for my presentation. So if you have any questions, I'm I'm here to answer them.

I forgot to add one thing with the financing. It does restart the regulatory agreement. So there will be an additional 55 years of affordability on the property which will keep any of the current residents at risk of being relocated or moved out of the project. So they'll be able to remain in place. Sorry about that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Um before we go ahead and open up public comment, uh do any council members have clarifying questions to to begin? I'm not seeing any. Um so why don't we we'll officially open the public hearing and uh first see if we have any speakers in person. None in person. All right. And how about online through the mayor? There is no um one on Zoom that wishes to make any public comment.

Okay. And we've had that we've had that window open for a minute. I'll give him just a few more seconds. Anyone wishing to speak on this item. We're on 9C. Presuming we don't have any hands raised, I will close the public hearing and return back to city council discussion. Any questions or comments from council members? We'll go to Council Member Matias. Uh this will be quick, mayor. Uh so similar to the last um TERA hearing that we had, I would like the um approval motion to contain um the requirement that compliance reports that are submitted to uh to the agency be forwarded to the city uh just so that we can track progress on the project. So that's all.

Thank you. And I'll just add, this was already stated in the presentation, but I'll add for clarification kind of off of some of the uh discussion we had at our previous TER hearing that this is not the city's debt. The city is indemnified and there is not any additional liability on the city in connection with this. This is a procedural vote we are taking in support of the private entities uh um bond issue. With that, I believe we're ready for a motion on the item. Yes. just had a clarifying question to that. Um when you say um uh the reports forwarded to the city or to the city council,

I mean I don't remember. I think the last time we just had it forwarded to the city manager and then the city manager could share it with us, but thank you for that clarification.

Thanks. So, so with that being said, I move that we have a public hearing and adopt and adoption of a resolution approving the issuance of the California Municipal Finance Authority qual qualified 501c3 bonds in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $20 million for the purpose of financing or refinancing the acquisition, rehabilitation, development, and equipment equipping of Sereno Village Apartments pursuant to the tax and Equity Fiscal Responsibility Act, TERA, with no financial liability for the city and approval of a guarantor indemnification requiring Eden Housing to indemnify the city of the city related to any financial obligations arising from the issuance of the bonds uh with the compliance agency reports forwarded to the city.

All right, I believe we're ready to vote. Motion carries unanimously. All right. Thank you. Thank you all for for joining us this evening. With that, we will move on to item 9E. We're going to continue item 9D to the May 12th council meeting so that we have sufficient time to go through the economic development update. Uh but we I we believe that item 9E can be a short discussion giving direction to staff and so we'll go ahead and proceed. If our clerk could please announce item 9E,

provide direction on whether to proceed with preparation of a short-term rental ordinance. All right. Thank you. We'll go ahead and open up public comment on this item and we have our planning director ready. Um Miss Plet, I will turn it over to you whenever you are are ready. Um yes, thank you. I'm actually going to defer to your long-range planning manager, Hector Rojos. He's going to give you a presentation. Um, and I'm just here to support as needed.

Thank you, Kristen. Uh, good evening, mayor and council. Happy to be uh back with you again for a second night in a row. Uh, as Kristen mentioned, I'm Hector Roas, long-range planning manager with the city's planning and development services department. Uh, so tonight we're going to be talking about short-term rentals. Uh, next slide. All right. So, uh, the recommendation for tonight is to provide direction on whether to proceed with preparation of a short-term rental ordinance. If council directs staff to proceed, staff would return with a proposed approach for ordinance development. Uh that approach could include preparing a request for proposals for consultant assistance, conducting community engagement, coordinating with other city departments, and ultimately bringing forward a draft ordinance for consideration by the planning commission and city council. Next slide. So why is this item before council? Uh in October of 2021, the city council expressed interest in exploring short-term rental regulations. And at that time, staff anticipated that this topic would be addressed as part of a future phase 2 zoning code update. That effort, of course, uh was not completed uh due to staffing limitations and competing priority priorities at that time. Uh the item is now returning to council because uh we understand there is renewed interest in the topic including questions about neighborhood compatibility, housing impacts and potential revenue generation through uh TOT or transit transient occupancy tax compliance. Next slide. Uh so just to give you a overview about short-term rentals at a basic level a short-term rental is generally the rental of a dwelling unit either in whole or in part for 30 consecutive days or less. Uh these rentals are commonly

listed through um online and mobile platforms such as Airbnb and VBO. Short-term rentals uh typically fall into two broad categories. Uh the first is a hosted short-term rental. Um and in that scenario, the owner or primary resident remains on site during the guest stay and one or more rooms in the home are rented. Uh the second type is an unhosted short-term rental. In that case, the entire dwelling unit is rented and no owner or primary resident is present during the guest stay. Next slide. Some key policy considerations as we move forward. Um there are both potential benefits and potential challenges associated with uh short-term rentals. On the benefit side, short-term rentals can provide supplemental income for property owners, create additional visitor accommodation options, and generate uh toot revenue for the city. At the same time, short-term rentals can raise concerns related to noise, parking, property maintenance, neighborhood compatibility, and the possible conversion of long-standing uh housing units into visitor accommodations. Next slide. Uh so, currently short-term rentals are not explicitly regulated in the Valo municipal code. Uh this means that there is no formal registration or permitting process for short-term rental operators. Uh there's also no systematic mechanism to ensure toot collection from short-term rental activity. And in addition, the city doesn't currently have short-term rental specific standards for issues such as occupancy, parking, noise, or local contact requirements. Um as a result, uh enforcement is primarily complaint driven and the city does not maintain a comprehensive inventory or tracking system for short-term rental activity

within the city. Uh in practical terms, short-term rentals are occurring in Valleo, but the city has limited tools to monitor the activity, ensure tax compliance or address impacts in a structured way. Uh so this slide uh it gives you a snapshot of the current uh short-term rental market present in Valo. Um staff reviewed short-term rental data from all the rooms which is an online short-term rental analytic platform uh for the period of March 2025 through March 2026. Based on that data, Valleo had an average of approximately $194 active short-term rental listings during that period. Uh the average daily rate uh was approximately $246 and the average occupancy rate was approximately 29%. Um, using these figures, uh, staff estimates, uh, an average annual revenue of approximately 26,000 per short-term rental unit. Applied across the average number of active listings, uh, that would equivocate to an estimated total short-term rental market revenue of approximately 5 million annually. Uh, Valo's transient uh, Oak occupancy tax or TOT rate is currently 11%. Um, if we assume full compliance after the adoption of an ordinance here, that level of activity could uh generate approximately 550,000 annually in potential toot revenue. Um, so these estimates should be understood as an order of magnitude estimate. Actual revenues of course would depend on market conditions, uh, operator participation and the effectiveness of any registration, monitoring and enforcement program implemented by the city. I do want to note um that in addition to collecting toot uh payments uh from operators uh other cities that we surveyed also require a license tax um for different uh STR types. Um and uh

if we go to the next slide um some regulatory approaches that we saw in those jurisdictions um use a range of tools. Uh common approaches include permit or registration systems, primary residence requirements, limits on the number of rental days per year, operational standards for occupancy, parking and noise uh requirements for a local contact who can respond to complaints. Uh some jurisdictions also use thirdparty compliance and monitoring uh software uh to identify listings, track activity, and support enforcement. Um the specific approach uh for Vala would need to be developed based on council direction, community input, staff capacity, and the city's policy goals. Um for example, the city could choose a narrow ordinance um focused mainly on registration and tax compliance or a broader framework that also addresses land use compatibility, operational standards, and housing related concerns. Next slide. Staff also looked at how short-term rentals are addressed in Solano County. Uh Benicia and Solano County have uh formal short-term rental regulations. Benicia allows hosted and limited unhosted uh short-term rentals subject to a licensing program, operational standards, and restrictions such as primary residence requirements. Uh for the county uh they permit vacation house rentals in unincorporated areas with the approval of a land use permit and impose operational requirements related to occupancy, parking safety, and ongoing compliance. Other uh county jurisdictions uh don't appear to have uh adopted specific uh STR ordinances. In those cases, uh, STRs, uh, may be being addressed through existing zoning regulations, uh, through interpretations, uh, by their planning directors. Uh, Vakable for Vakavville, for example, treats, uh, STRs as a form

of lodging, which is not permitted in residential zoning districts. Next slide. So if the council directs staff to proceed, uh ordinance development would require staff time for policy development, stakeholder outreach and coordination with other departments including our finance and code enforcement divisions. Uh given current workload constraints, uh outside consultant assistance uh might be needed. Um, and based on preliminary estimates that we got from the city of Benicia, who also used the consultant for the drafting of their ordinance, a limited consultant scope could cost approximately uh between 15 to $35,000. Um, and a more expanded scope uh could of course cost more depending on the level of community engagement uh analysis and ordinance development requested. Um, in addition to the ordinance development costs, implementation may require ongoing compliance and monitoring monitoring tools. Uh, third-party platforms that help identify listings, monitor activity, and support enforcement are estimated to cost between$10,000 to $15,000 annually. Uh, these costs would need to be weighed against potential revenue, administrative needs, and the level of regulation that the council would like to consider. Next slide. Uh so for next steps um if the council directs staff to proceed uh the next step would be for staff to return with a proposed approach for ordinance development. Uh that approach could include whether to prepare a RFP for consultant services. Uh the proposed scope of work, the level of community engagement that would be involved and the policy issues that are to be evaluated. Uh after that the staff uh would move into ordinance development and community engagement and a draft ordinance would then return to um the city council through a public hearing process uh for final consideration at

the council level. Next slide. And uh that pretty much wraps up my presentation. Um staff is available for questions and uh we look forward to uh receiving council's direction on this item. Thank you. Right. Thank you very much. Before we get to council questions and comment, let's go ahead and take our public commenters.

Yes, we have two speakers signed up. Uh the first speaker is Richard Abbott and then the second speaker is Kirk Smith. Mayor Source Council members, my name is Richard Abbott. I'm the president of LA Main Street, also part of the Red Men's Hall Association, and I I'm a business owner downtown. I'm not directly impacted with the with the uh hotel people or or this but uh but I am actually there are a whole lot of people in the downtown who are working to develop downtown vitality bring in revenue turn it around we're succeeding a lot of success stories this is a half a million dollars that's just plain leaking and we've just taken on Mr. plaque as a city manager. We've done a whole lot of things and so that we just to be a functional city, we can't have this kind of a leak in our bucket. So, I am uh very much for it just uh strictly from a revenue standpoint. It's a half a million bucks. We're leaving it on the table. Let's not do that. That's my uh strong strong recommendation. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you. Next speaker is Kirk Smith. Hello again. Uh good evening uh mayor, council, staff. Um I want to start with just a a brief acknowledgement of appreciation on tonight's consent calendar. Um and just to say thank you for recognizing May as tourism month uh for Visit Valo. Um um we really appreciate that. My name is Kirk Smith, president and CEO of Visit Valleo. I'm here tonight on another visit to address the short-term rental ordinance and how visit Valo as the official um uh a nonprofit but uh the official um tourism marketing group for the city. How um passing this ordinance would benefit um not only the city um but our 20 plus hotels. um that sit within our city limits. And tonight's agenda is very clear that providing direction on whether to proceed with the short-term ordinance and visit Valo advocates heavily um in you selecting um to allow staff to go through the work and and also welcomes um the opportunity to be part of uh the solution uh to get us to a short-term uh rental ordinance within the city of Valo. through the data that was provided tonight in the um in the packet as well as um some conversations with a new partner that we have signed on with um by the name of Air DNA who monitor short-term rentals. Uh the numbers are are very similar what we received from

them that were presented. Um, for the month of May, we had 198 active short-term rentals in Valleo. Um, and generated nearly 400 thou that generated nearly $400,000 in revenue. So, you can do the math on that with the 11%. The one thing that was missing from the um uh packet presented by Hector who did a great job and thank you for bringing it um was any um uh Valo tourism business improvement district. Um there are there's no doubt out of the 198 short-term rentals that they are benefiting from the marketing that Visit Valleo does uh to bring people to Aalo, whether it's to go to our events, visit our attractions. Um, and the the other element I felt missing from that presentation was uh the the fairness of those hotels that do pay their toot tax, that do provide business license, that do follow the rules and the regulations set forth um by being a a legitimate business within Valleo. So half a million dollars is a lot of money. Uh we would like you to also consider um having a uh vbid portion um allocated to visit Valo to um uh assist in us doing even more marketing. So um behalf of the visit Valo board of directors and the 20 plus hotels that we advocate for, we encourage you to move forward with uh directing city staff. Thank you for your time tonight. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much. Do we have any online speakers on this item? Uh through the mayor. Yes, we do have two online speakers. Uh first online speaker, please unmute yourself and see. Go ahead and see. You want to check your audio one more time? There we go. Hold on. Okay, we'll come back to you. Uh, my next speaker, Crystal Gyos. Go ahead and allow her to speak. Yeah, please unmute yourself. You have the floor. Yes. Can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Good evening. This is Christa, Leo resident who's really concerned about the city's lack of any short-term rental policy and really the direct connection it has to our lack of tenant protections. So, as it stands, Valo has what's been said about 200 short-term rentals operating with zero guard rails. And what we heard tonight from the city data, it shows that this unregulated market is bringing in a lot of money for property owners and investors. But really, we know that long-term the real impact is on long-term housing. We know every home that's converted into a short-term rental is one less home available to Valo families in our city, which is already tight and has no rent stabilization, no just cause eviction protections, and no anti-harassment ordinances. So, when you combine the unregulated, highly speculative short-term market with a total absence of tenant protections in the city, you're literally creating the perfect conditions for displacement. We know investors have every incentive to pull homes off the market and tenants still have no protections to keep them housed. So, we need to keep that in mind. And seeing how just even our neighboring city requires licensing, lots of strict rules that we don't have and I'm glad there's next steps outlined, but it is another long process, right? If we go through all the steps and meanwhile this unregulated speculative STR market is just expanding, right? And we know very clearly firsthand Valleo can't afford another slow open-ended process while tenants have no protections and homes continue to be basically converted into many hotels. So if council does direct staff to proceed, I feel like that direction needs to come with real

urgency, real timelines, and a solid commitment to deliver ordinance with backbone cuz we know Valo families aren't going to keep waiting another year for really basic protections. You know, that's it. All right. Thank you. Any other speakers? We we're trying Miss Carr again, right? Okay. Yeah. Uh, Miss Carr, uh, let's see here. Let's go ahead and unow her to speak. Uh, please check your muting capabilities. Right. And this Okay, it looks like it's working. Go ahead. I am so sorry about that.

Okay. So, um, on this proposal here, um, to fast forward to the bottom line, um, I would recommend that this council not move forward on this at this time. Um it when when it comes to housing issues or revenue issues, I think there are other ways to to go about things that are better. What I will say about what I know of short-term rentals in Valleo and vacation rentals is um it's it's small potatoes and it's it's basically small businesses versus uh the corporate hotel chains that operate in town. So it's a different animal. And so to consider putting the same level of tax of transit orienting uh toot tax on them as you would on a hotel chain is is really unfair from a a business perspective. These these are not you know these are mom and pop operations. A lot of them maybe some people have more than one but it's not like big investors are buying up blocks of property in Valo and converting them. Um mostly I think it's you know onesy twoosy kinds of things. So there's some level of visitors who stay in them and then actually I think quite a few people who are medical visiting medical professionals or contract professionals who are here for a short term. So, um, if the council decides to move forward on this, I would say that the tax rate should not be 11%. Because you could very much kill off something that has provided a useful purpose in Valo, both in um supporting contract workers who come into town to support the medical industry, but also providing some level of lodging that

frankly the hotels in town don't offer. in terms of um lodging with character and it could be seen as a way that enhances things like the homes in our historic district where um you know it would be nice to see people really fix those things up. So, um, with respect to the housing industry here in town, something that was investigated and discarded years ago was the idea of having a license for the rental market in general. And it would be a self-funding kind of thing where if you had a license fee of say50 to $100 per year per unit, um you could generate or income that would help that could be used to help monitor deficiencies in the rental market and call out things where there are problems with tenant protection and maintenance, etc. Um, I think it was a good idea before and I'd love to see the city move forward on that and I see that my time is running out, but I would ask you not to pursue this at this time. Thank you.

Right. Thank you. Uh, do we have any other speakers? Uh, no other speakers at this time, Madam May. All right. With that, we will close public comment and I will look for council comments. I'm not seeing any lights at the moment, so I will give my Nope. I see council member Paul Morris. Go ahead. Thank you, mayor. I just have a few questions. Um, so with the, you know, if we agree to do this, the ordinance that's going to be developed, it's that going to go to the city attorney's office? Okay. Yeah.

All right. Um, this is a question for Director Plet. Um, so code enforcement is going to be enforcing this, correct? Um I would Yes. Okay. Yeah. One of my concerns is uh code enforcement is being asked to do a a mini thing right now and I wonder if this is going to stretch them too thin. Do you have any remedy for that or or is it just a management problem?

Um I think it's a little early to make a call on that. Um, I think some of this is going to maybe um be affected by how much regul how much regulation you want to put on it. Um, and also whether or not we can get access to the certain tools um that Hector had mentioned that could help us easily track these things. So, I think there's a lot of different factors.

Okay. And half a million dollars is great to get for the city of Alleo. Um, but I also want to be sure that this is going to benefit um our businesses, the the folks who own hotels. So, has anyone looked at the efficacy of toot in terms of steering folks who uh to to hotels who otherwise would use an Airbnb? Um, I I don't believe our staff has looked into that yet. We've only kind of started researching this and what Hector shared was kind of the extent of the research we've done so far. Okay. Is there gonna be more I guess there's going to be more advanced research into that possibly the efficacy of that too.

If we move forward and um bring a consultant on to help us um prepare this ordinance then we can definitely look at that.

Okay. And my last question is, you know, I want to be considerate in terms of the the mom and pop folks versus, and I don't know how many there are, but uh houses that are owned by uh institutional investors or corporations who, and I don't know how many there are, but I mean, if there are a number of them, those that buy houses and just use it for uh not just or maybe but short-term rentals. Is there any way we could um discriminate between those two pots?

Um maybe Hector could speak to the specifics of how the ordinance could be set up, but I think we could look at different options on how and what exactly we want to regulate. Um perhaps it could be tied into the term of of the rental. Um, Hector, do you want to add anything on that?

Uh, yes. Just using uh Benicia's example, they uh do have not toot tiers, but for licensing, the fees um are different depending on whether you're looking at hosted or unhosted. Um, but I have come across other situations where the toot is um less than what it normally would be for a hotel or motel. Um, so we can take a look at that possibility here. Um I also want to add that um when we look at permitting uh STRs a lot of the jurisdictions we looked at um uh also have numerical caps um al you know trying to address that whole affordability issue and displacement. Uh there's also geographical ways to uh to limit where STRs can establish.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I guess the point I'm uh I'm driving at is that if we could also simultaneously address housing stock in our community, that would be an additional plus. Anyway, that's all questions I have. Thank you. Right, Council Member Borgenser.

Thank you. And um I just want to start off by saying that I fully support moving forward with this. Um, I actually when I saw this agenda item come up, I spoke with some friends who work at Airbnb. Um, and they they said that the compliance is very tight in their organization as well as VRBO. Most of those platforms want cities to have ordinances because it makes their job easier. They don't have to do all the enforcement. Um, they don't have to worry about all the rules and things. Once the city notifies the platform that they have an ordinance, that zip code is locked and anyone who has an address with that zip code automatically has to follow the rules of that ordinance. They they won't allow the platform to to function without getting around that ordinance. So, it makes it easier for cities because it makes it easier for them. Where it comes where the issue comes in is people list it on both Airbnb and VBO and other platforms. So you could have you have to have governance, a way of governing between the different platforms to make sure that they're not getting double or triple, you know, collections or or days that they're allowed to have if we limit the number of days or however we do that. Um, but that's really the bulk of the of the compliance with those platforms. They're they are looking forward to having cities do ordinances. So, like I said, it makes their job a lot easier. So, I support this. I think it's a great revenue source for Valo. Um, and I think um, that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Great. Thanks. I'm not seeing anyone else, so I'll just say my piece, which is I I agree. I I support it um, with a with a caveat. And that caveat is that I want to have I don't have the answer to this. This is this is honestly going to be the planning department's probably um, analysis. We've got to have an honest conversation about priorities and workflow because we have inclusionary zoning that we're working on. We have been waiting on tenant protections now for probably seven, six, seven months since when they were supposed to be due as part of the housing element and now we're talking about adding another or all of those are ordinances and it's the amount of work that is needed to develop the ordinance to do the comps. Okay, we've done some of that pre-work on the inclusionary zoning piece. Um, but I mean there's a there's a quite a bit of a lift for the department on this. And then there's the back end of the enforcement of it as well. So I I do want to pursue this, but I want us to put it into context on a very realistic timeline given that we have three major ordinances getting pushed through the planning department right now. That's that sort of. So, I'm happy to vote now to move it forward, but what I don't want to leave the department with is like you're just feeling like you've got all these things. I want us to at some point have the prioritization, the honest prioritization capacity conversation. I don't know, Kristen, if you have thoughts right now on on that.

I just want to jump in to um to thank you for bringing that up. That was something I was going to um raise as well if the vote was to move forward with this ordinance. Um there definitely are a lot of competing priorities that we are managing right now, particularly in the long range um planning uh division. So I think we just need um clarity and direction from the council with regard to how to prioritize these items.

Yeah. Thank you. And for my for my piece, for what it's worth, I would put this below the well the inclusionary zoning and the and the uh tenant protections we have to do in our I mean those are part of our housing element. Um, so I think we have to do those first. So I I would put this below those, you know, after after those. Um, you know, not because it's not important, but because you just we cannot do everything at once. Um, Council Member Matias,

thank you, Mayor. Um, I fully agree with everything you said. I I think the only amendment I would make to that, which is a challenge to this council, is while it is true that this team in particular, uh I mean, I can't just say it's your team. It's actually most teams. You guys have a lot on your plate. We're also trying to refill vacancies. One of the things that I've been calling out for over a year is the fact that for some of these conversations, our um default has been to ask more questions, ask for more study sessions, have more meetings, and we don't really give not only do we not prioritize, but we're also not making decisions around like a concrete set of things that they can then take to formalize ordinances. So we have to also get better at like knowing when enough is enough. And um I do think uh to that end it it's something that we should explore as a group uh when we whenever we have goal setting coming up because it's not just a management piece. Uh it's also like uh okay what is an acceptable level of information where we can make some calls and then put this topic to rest. Um, so that would be the um the only thing that I would just challenge us to do some thinking around uh just to make sure we're we're being um just mindful of the asks on on those teams cuz I I do think that that adds a load to everything we're already asking them to do. Um so those are my two cents. Um fully supportive of the ordinance. Um I appreciate that it was brought back and it was brought back on time. uh gratitude to the former elected who put this on the agenda several years ago. Uh and um my only addition would be um to also consider as

you're evaluating other cities like what structures those o those other cities may have had in place to um get more funding to the bid as uh Mr. Smith alluded to um in his public comment. So, is there some ordinance that we can put in place that assigns some level of revenue um to uh that organization or the bid structure in particular to continue to help them augment their marketing efforts on behalf of the city which benefits both hotel owners uh and um the mom and pop shops. Uh and that's all I got for now.

All right, Council Member Letu.

Thank you for your work. So just to your point, I think one of the things that I want to say to staff and I want to first acknowledge everybody has a heavy workload. We have lots going on. So I want to acknowledge that. The other thing that I'd like to suggest to us is we don't have to reinvent the wheel. And what I find is often when this council asks for something, it's this long laundry list and we're creating a brand new will. There are models, there are tools for you to grab that data, compare it in a very little time called AI. And I am asking us to consider that. I don't know where our AI policy is. If it's buried in someone's desk, I'm just going to say it. Get it out. because it should not be so difficult for staff to go out, grab data, compare the different models that are out there and then look at what do we have and what would potentially be one or two fits for us to consider as a council. And I'm not just saying this to you, director. I'm saying it to the entire leadership team. you just happen to be sitting here today. So I do want to say that and so I want to say to us as a leadership team, we don't need to reinvent the wheel. There's cloud, there's chat GBT, there's all kinds of AI tools to help you grab data, pull it in, compare it, and put in

some parameters for thoughts and begin to talk about it. I just have to say that and I'm going to say this. I gave you a host of questions on Vista Cove. I had like seven, eight, ten emails that were books. And if I had to sit there with a little bit of time that I had and categorized all that, that would have took me hours. I used the AI tool. I got everything I needed, ask a million questions, put it together, and I was able to say, "Here are all the questions. Can you help me answer those questions?" We got to use our tools. We have it tools. And if we are those tools are being held up because we're trying to write policy, then I'm going to say this. There is a policy on how to use AI. Other government agencies are using it. Let's figure out how to use it so we can lighten your load and not make it so difficult. So yes, you have lots of work to do. There are tools to help us do our work better. Yes, we have priorities as it relates to um I forget the two ordinances that we just talked about tenant protections. We've been talking about and inclus in inclusionary zoning. How long have we been talking about this? There are models out there. We have cities who have implemented these things. Let's use it. That's what they're there for. We benchmark against each other. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. Use the data, use the models so we can get done and move on. That is my suggestion to us doing our work. And I would like to, you know, and with that said, when can we expect the tenant protection? We've been talking about

this for over a year. A year. I've been here a year, so a good year before I even got here. So, when are we going to get the tenant protection document that we can really put our eyes on and talk about it and move it along? When are we going to get the what's the other thing we're missing? Inclusionary. Inclusionary. I'm just sorry. It's just cause eviction and just cause evictions. All these things. When are we going to get them? We need to get moving and get busy and get them off your plate. What What can I do to help you? I'm really being serious. What can I do?

I can share a really quick update on those items. Um, with regard to the tenant protections, um, that that suite of, um, uh, programs, uh, I actually provided an email earlier today. Um, our original plan was to bring that time frame and the work plan back to city council. My goal was by the second meeting of April, um, which would be tonight. However, we um have been it's been taking a little bit longer to get through the contract negotiations with the consultant that we have selected. So, we are um still finalizing that review. Our our new time frame for that is expected to come forward on May 26th. Um so, that is when you will get the the plan for that work. Um with regard to inclusionary housing, we actually um are are pretty much done drafting it internally. I think we have a meeting um in the next week or so to do a final review internally with um appropriate staff. So that item actually should be posted for a public um comment period. I'm I'm guessing within a month at the most. Um and then that will come forward for consideration. So that one's moving along fairly quickly considering the direction we received um late last year. So So that's where we're at with those two.

Thank you. Again, you just happen to be sitting in the seat. It's not just solely directed at you. I just want to say that again. Thank you for your work.

All right. Before we before we go to a motion, I I appreciate that comment and I'll add one other thing to it on reinventing the wheel. We also have community organizations in this case housing justice coalition. Um, you know, I in the past with the police oversight ordinance, we had common ground. we have organizations that will you know help draft ordinances or provide model ordinances. So you know I would encourage us as well to leverage the community and not insist that we start from scratch ourselves. Um so kind of exploring those those other ways to to you know kind of protect the staff capacity and and leverage the other resources that we have. Uh with that are we ready for a motion on this item? Yes, mayor. Um, I move that we provide direction on whether to proceed with preparation of a short-term rental ordinance.

And we should probably include the direction in that motion. Well, I mean, it's late. It's I mean, but it's we've had quite I mean we will move forward. Yeah. Yeah. Wait. So, so, so just to clarify, we're we're providing direction for staff to move to move forward forward with exploring the ordinance and then you've captured all the feedback from all of us, right? So, with respect to prioritization and all that, okay. All right, let's vote. Yep. Motion carries unanimously.

All right. Thank you very much. With that, we will close that item. And with that, our action calendar, the information calendar is item 10. We took that item at the beginning of the meeting. Anyone listening now that is confused, you can go back in the video and watch that item. We took it with the presentations and commendations. And that'll move us to item 11, our city manager report. Thank you, mayor. I have a few quick updates. Um 416. Uh this month the water department broke ground on the Sky View tank. If you remember that's a capital improvement project. It's a 6 milliongal uh tank for drinking water and it's been out of service since 2021. So we're excited to get that off the ground and running. Um, uh, director Plet stole my thunder on the, uh, housing element update and the scope will be coming back for, um, that, uh, EJ piece and in May, May 26th. Um, let's see. This Thursday, uh, they're in the Vallejo room at 6 PM is a public safety town hall meeting. We're looking it's gonna explain some modifications to some policies and how they benefit the community. So, we'd love to see the public out there giving input there. And then one last thing, I did attend the ribbon cutting on 417 for Rise Vallejo Early Learning Center. It was amazing. A few council members were there. Um really, it's just a support for children and family um and early school readiness and it was a really great event and excited to see that moving forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, that'll move us to the city. Well, I see council Matias. It I don't know what's permissible, but it's a question to the city manager. Is it a question or is it more like a I just wanted to share some piece of information with the city manager? Do I have to do that during my section? It's not an agenda item. You just do it. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I I agree. Yeah. So, um, we, uh, voted down a report for that had to do with GVRD back in December.

And, um, city attorney Nab, you're very familiar with that file, that report that needed to be filed with the state. There was only a few of us here. Got voted down. Yes. The fees. The fe with the fees. Yes. I asked the city manager multiple times to bring it back. Uh, so I would love for you guys. Sorry. Um I would love for you guys to just bring that back as soon as possible so we can move that item forward. Uh so that's just for the for city manager Hayne. We can add that to our list. No problem. Thank you. All right. Okay. That probably would have been for 14, but we got it out of the way. Um and if that's it for city manager's report, we'll move to city attorney's report.

Um we have a written report in the packet that you all can uh read. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us. Um, secondarily, just wanted to add to the city manager's report that the meeting on Thursday, the town hall meeting in the Valo room at 6:00 p.m. at 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Um, is regarding the new complaints policy for Valo Police Department. So, just wanted to add that little additional piece of detail. I think there's some interest in that item and wanted to make sure that people knew that was that what that meeting was about.

Yeah, thank you. I do have one um question on the written report. So when we first got the first report after taking office, I had raised the question of the fact that the money that is recovered from parties and litigation is on the report but the money out isn't and had made a request that we at least include as sum total of of money out and had brought that up subsequently probably two or three more times and I think had gotten some some support from from council members kind of asking for that update and the reports are coming out and they're still in the same format. Is is there an intention to make any adjustment to provide additional information to the community? Is there any council action needed to request additional information in these reports?

So, um our uh payouts, if you want to call them that, or settlement amounts or litigation amounts are reported to the council on a an immediate basis after they occur. um or as you know, you vote for any of them that are over a certain dollar amount. Um so that information is already provided to the council. While I understand that there had been some individual asks to provide um that information globally, um that was not voted on. Um so yes, we do not include those particularly in the reports. um we don't want to um encourage, for lack of a better word, um litigation. When someone finds out that we made a decision, uh to pay a nuisance value for a case, um we tend to draw more of them. So, um we don't provide those on a regular basis in our quarterly reports. I so I guess what I would like to follow up on then is some way to have a transparent number go out to the community so we can track how much is going how much of the tax dollars are getting spent out and again I raised it on this report because what's coming in the funds recovered are coming in so it just felt very one-sided. If the place for this is somewhere else, then that's fine. But I I just had requested that. If the rest of council doesn't want to support that, that's fine. I just want to have it on the record that I think that's important information for the community to see. Um, I had asked that there be there's a the funds recovered that are on here and I had wanted the funds that went out just quarterly totals, not each case with the litigation amount, but just the totals that were going out. So, we'd see, you

know, the money coming in the com Yeah. The total that went out. Yeah. Uh, Council Member Matias.

So, um, I know this has been brought up several times, so I just want to better understand it and then we should just take a vote if that's what the city attorney needs from us. So, um, City Attorney Neb, just to make sure I understand, is there some issue with providing a global amount on a quarterly basis uh that um some global amount of any payouts in the aggregate? Is there some issue that you can perhaps enlighten us with that we're not aware of or some issue that would preclude us from doing that? Adding like one one cell next to the other side to say this is how much we've paid out in the past quarter. Well, as I said, we um pay a fair amount of monies out relating to what I would call uh cases that we would not normally be paying out on, but there are costs associated with litigating them or moving them forward that might exceed the nuisance value of a case. um in many instances um making that information public um encourages more people to do it. We are seeing a rise in some of those um so you know it is up to the council how uh you want to have receive that information. As I said you currently receive that information in all instances in confidential memoranda. Um, so it's up to the council whether you want to have those uh put out in a public fashion and if you do then you certainly can vote as a body to direct that.

Yeah. I mean I I will um I'll just add like a quick comment and then we can all go home. Um, so I think what would be helpful and this is just because I don't know what I don't know is um if you were to just share a memorandum with us that's that would sort of highlight what practices are available in other jurisdictions are other city attorneys or other city departments doing that in other offices? Like I would want to see a memorandum shared with the full council and then once we have that information I think we can take a a vote on that. um because if it's not common practice then for the reasons that you cited then I don't think we need to be doing that and increasing our liability or the risk of exposure but if it is a thing then why not you know I don't see an issue with it so

no problem I don't know how the rest of the council or the mayor feels feels about it but it would be helpful to just have a memorandum from your office sure if you're interested in statistics from the standpoint of what our other cities are doing we're happy to do that we do that for ordinances all all the time. So, we're happy to do that. Yeah.

And I think I mean the the transparency piece that I'm that I'm really looking for is here is I I think a priority for this agency should be to reduce payouts. I think we need a way to track that. And I think if all of the payouts that are happening are kind of done behind the scenes and we never see the trends, we never see the totals. We don't have a way, especially as the the governing body, we don't have a way to see this thing's trending up, this things this thing's trending down. What can we do? If some of that has to happen confident confidentially, that's fine. I'm always going to be, you know, in favor of the side of transparency, but at least having that conversation of how are we tracking, you know, these are tax dollars. How are we tracking these tax dollars that are getting spent out? What are the trends and how are we responding when we're seeing trends? How do we know if what we're doing is working or not working if we're not at least looking at the at the numbers and at the data? So, that's really why I was raising it. Obviously again I as much as we can be transparent we want to be transparent but there's also for me the motivation is really being able to track this and go how does the third quarter of this year compare with the third quarter of last year compared with the third quarter of 2020 2015 etc. How are how are we trending and how does that affect you know how we make decisions going forward.

Go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say um that to me is more of a I'm hearing two different asks from you because this is a kind of a point in time dollar amount that the city attorney's office would be giving whereas like what you're asking more for is more of what would I would say a management ask that we would probably look at in close session and sort of analyze and um and be able to see trends. Uh, so I don't know what the mechanism is for the second item you just elevated, but I mean I would be in favor of looking at that in in a setting. I don't know if you need a vote for that.

We have some reporting information anyway as we had talked about during one of our last closed sessions that we um can share with the council. And so um we'll be bringing that forward anyway. you can look at how that is presented and decide if you like or don't like it. So, Council Leu,

thank you. Um, city attorney Neb. So, I was going to bring that very point up. This is not a new request that has been made in close session around understanding the expenditures and outputs. And so that's the report that we're actually waiting on. And I think mayor, to your point, that's a great starting point for us to be able to see and shape it more and determine what else we need once we get that. What else we need and what else could be made public? Yes. Yeah.

So, is there any vote needed now or do we feel like we have a good idea of what we need? All right. With that, we'll move on to our community forum. For anyone that wasn't able to address the council in the first forum, we do have some remaining in-person speakers. I'm not sure if they're still in the building.

Yes, we still have three people that are signed up. Um, Jose Karazales, Sheranne Grim, and uh I think it's uh And Schmidt or it might be Andrea Andre. Andre Smith. So, but first, yeah, first speaker is uh Jose Kazales. Jose Karisales. As I was sitting in the back before the meeting started, a young woman frantically walked into this chamber and she was asking my young friend, "Manny, is there homelessness on the agenda? Is there an item of homelessness on the agenda? Manny uh was distracted. He had other things to do. A lot of people were pulling at his and uh so uh I volunteered to help this young woman. So I she wrote a statement and this is what happened to her today between 12:00 p.m. and 4 p.m. Hello, my name is and for fear of retaliation by the city of Vallejo staff and the Valleo police, I will not use her name. I was one of the many homeless people in Vallejo. I now have a place to stay off the streets. And today, the city was doing a cleanup around my home and they was towing something away from my house and killed my puppy. I was not there at the time, but when I returned to my home, my boyfriend told me that Bob's toe ran over my puppy and killed her. I went to Bob's toe and all they could say is, "Doesn't your puppy have a leash?" They should have been paying attention

to their surroundings. Something has to be done. And she wrote it on the piece of paper that's in the back there. Something has to be done. This is not the only dog that they have killed and gotten away with. My dogs are like my kids as most animals are to my unsheltered friends. And they just took one of my babies away from me. How many more dogs? How many more dogs got to be killed, murdered in Valleo before Valleo does anything about it? So, I haven't been speaking about this unsheltered issue for the last two months, but I can assure you that on my phone I have many texts of the cruelty of city of Vallejo staff concerning my unsheltered friends. It is unfortunate that this pattern in practice continues and this is a real time example of exactly what staff does to my unsheltered friends. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Sherannne Grim. Um, last night, uh, Council Member Matias asked Mr. Boon and myself to come to the podium, and I actually didn't hear my name, so I didn't come. Um, and somebody asked me why, because they thought I probably have something to say. And so I thought about it and um you know I absolutely agree with Mr. Boon but there is something bigger to me than numbers and tax relief. Um success to me being meaningful meaningful meaningfully uh included in decisions that have impacted current residents for over 20 years. It means engagement, transparency, and accountability. not justification after the fact. For over two decades, residents lived with the consequences of decisions that we had no voice in. And because the parties prioritize their financial needs at the expense of residents, the result has been no meaningful development, no economic benefit, and a deep erosion of trust. That didn't have to happen. Many of us have spent years showing up, doing the research, bringing forward facts, and trying to engage constructively. Not because we want to be adversarial. We just want to be heard. Because decisions have real consequences. And they had real consequences for me. A decision was made to close the firehouse on Fair Mare Island. My husband needed immediate emergency assistance. And because there is no fire station on

Mar Island, help was delayed the day that he died. As a result, he died in my arms. And I'd like to feel that that matters. And yet, I pay $3,300 every year for police and fire service. That did not arrive in time for me. The Valleo Firefighters Union in 2023 confirmed response times are much longer than they should be for Mayor Island. So when we talk about success, it cannot just be about restructuring a financing mechanism. Success means accountability to the public. And last night was a start and I'm grateful for that. We need to build community, not just on the Mare Island project, but the casino project and other projects that impact this city. We need to come together and see each other as people and hear our stories because building community is what's going to bring all the things you want. It's not the projects, it's the people. So, Mr. Matias, that is what success means to me at the end of the day on this project. And one last thing I want to say is many of you are committed to um affordable housing, low-income housing. And I just want to remind you as I've been doing a lot of research on the CFDs, senior citizens are being CFDed and property taxed out of their homes. people that have lived there 20 years and are paying huge taxes can't hold on to those homes and that's something that we all need to think about.

Thank you. The last speaker signed up is uh I think it's Andes Schmidt and I think there's

Hello uh council members. Um thanks uh for having me up here. Um I I want to just say a couple things. Um, first of all, I spent a lifetime looking at stuff that needed fixing. And um, it did well for me as a person that was pursuing a profession. I was the fixer. Everything that was wrong, I saw it and I pursued fixing it. Now the problem is is that you come to a city like Valleo and all you see is all the stuff that needs to be fixed. So it's been troubling for me but I try to take them one at a time and I'm try to be patient. And tonight what I want to say is that you're taking my job away. There are fewer things that I can complain about now. I went on vacation. And I come back and I see that the gas station down the street is being rehabbed. It was something that I worried about. I thought about and here it's being fixed. I was worried. I was so happy about that. And then on a walk with my dogs, I started to see that there were cars that were disappearing. Cars that I had seen for months, sometimes years, were no longer on the street. Cars with broken windows. And I thought, what is happening here? I don't know what to do. And then there was a a notice that plants were going to be planted in the median. This is something that I had brought to our Valo neighborhood association. Plants were dying in the middle of the street. I was concerned about that. And now we were raising money and with the city replacing plants, putting them in the center of of the streets. And while that was happening, they were also taking cars off the street that had been there for a

long time. Most of my whole dilemma was all these things and suddenly they were being fixed. Um, but on top of that, I was already reeling. And then there were the speed bumps and I thought, now, okay, now what I mean, where am I living now? All of the things I was concerned about are now being fixed almost in the same week. And so, I need to point out a couple things. This is for you, Charles. You did this. You have to like take a bow in your secret, you know, spot. But he did this. He moved it forward. He got these speed bumps done on Wilson Way. This is a gamecher for those of us who live there. We're worried about crossing that street. Some of us get harmed when we cross it and you fix that. And secondly, the White Slooh. I was there with you on Saturday in your pretty boots and that, you know, so I just want to say lots of issues, lots of problems, but there's also stuff getting fixed and you guys just made my freaking day a week and um I don't know what I'm going to complain about now. So, thank you very much. That's all I want to say.

Thank you. All right, let's call any online speakers that we have through the mayor. There's currently no um public speakers on Zoom. Great. We'll close the second community forum and we'll end on that. Uh we've got now item 14, request and actions for future agenda items or special projects. I see council member Gordon request for future item.

Yes, thank you so much to the chair. Um as you know um Pearl uh family came to speak. Uh her initial request was to um get the bridge as they stated earlier to be named and I had asked them to come and speak and so my compromise was this. I had asked that um uh that I would ask my corner with my uh colleagues in the city to see if that we can be able to uh at least named or put something on the land that the city owns um to acknowledge this loss. I remember uh when this took place, my children were in school. Uh, one of my sons went to school with Pearl and um, it not only devastated the the neighborhood but also the community. And so we did not want this uh to go unnoticed. And as they pointed out, May would be 10 years that uh, she has not been here with us. And so I would like to ask my colleagues if we can ask staff to scope uh what we can and cannot do. I did forward the request to Calr and there was a response but meanwhile at least we can do is acknowledge uh her family on both sides of the bridge. Um that's the second one that I would like to ask. Do we have to vote on each of them? Okay. So I have three. So, do can can um cuz I know that you responded to her uh Gillian, and I appreciate that, but I wanted to make it official and put it on an agenda.

Okay, that's totally fine. Uh through the mayor, I did let her know that we do have that honorary um naming uh policy for city facilities and that we would connect with her on that and see if there were opportunities there. Also, that 710 overpass, as you know, is owned by CALR. we can call them and trying to facilitate any conversation and support for sure. Um and then we can help her through the process. But if you'd like to vote in addition to bring it back on agenda. Yes. Just to make sure that it doesn't get uh because as they mentioned that has been asked by a lot of us but not put on official agenda. So I made that request to them to come in tell the story and then see if we can put on the agenda. Can we vote?

Yeah. And I I mean I would add to that that um we had I had Eric connect with them too that I the we'll have to maybe sift through the rename. It's not necessarily it's not it's not this honorary renaming. It's a it's a memorial like a plaque. And so you know it would be great to just get an analysis of what the city's policies are around that and what our options are rather than just put it on the list to get agendaized. actually do some of that work in advance so that what comes back to the council are some options we can actually choose from to honor I believe that policy addresses both

the mayor's office yeah and the mayor's office can kind of how we did the last two we can we can collaborate on that so um yeah I'm in support of that I I guess we need to chair just one more thing to see if we can also recognize that day uh bring the family back to however you want to celebrate it through a uh What's what I'm looking for? My brain just went blank on me. I don't think to. Yeah, I don't we would have to look into that. I don't think we necessarily have the right mechanism for it, but we'll definitely explore. Just something to recognize that uh for her as a city and um also so we'll make a vote on that.

Okay. Yeah, let's go ahead and vote on the agendizing of the options for some type of recognition memorial. Did everybody vote?

Motion carries unanimously. All right. And you said you had one more. Yes. Yes, I do. How was that?

The the next one is as you pro probably all received uh both by the way both situations u that I'm naming are in my district. So just so you know I'm not stepping nobody's toes. Um as you all probably received uh in your email that the memorial for the Chicago port has been damaged. This is how it looked before. Beautiful. And now someone um damaged it. You can no longer see it and even took some stones away from it. And so um through uh Sharon McGruff Payne uh I had asked her uh that I would bring this to you all to see if we can put this on agenda to see how we can be able to help with anything that needs to be replaced. This was brought to the council prior to this project was um through the city of Valleo and so um by a previous council member and it was uh was done and as you all know this is on writer street as you can see this is the uh flood water and waste so there's a bench where you can sit there and the family can be honored and why this is important is because this is where the as you already know the um explosion happened and then when that happened afterwards they wanted the soldiers to go back into that work and right here this is where the barric was at initially they made a standoff and said we're not doing that work so that's why this is historically important and that's why it's in this area so I'd like to know if we can please ask staff to scope to see what we need to do to get it repaired and replaced and and maybe put some more

securess where it won't be ever tamperized uh tempered again. I'm going to um I guess question is that something that council would really need to agendaize and discuss and direct or is that something that staff can just go repair? because we actually had a very similar I think I think they maybe connected a similar act of vandalism to the memorial outside right in front of city hall where I think folks were just taking the the copper plaques. Um is that something that the city as well Yeah. So they were doing all around. Is that something that the city manager's office can work on just getting done without needing any direction from us? Absolutely. Okay.

So I just wanted to show you. So, however you want to do, I just wanted to get it on the agenda because we know we ask staff to do things, but when we don't put it where it's like, you know, so that just want to make it official, that's all. However we want to do it,

so to your point, council woman, it's a matter of if it's much simpler to get it done. It's not a council. it. From what I'm understanding, it really isn't a council vote. So, it's something that city staff can do and it's something that you could follow up with city staff to ask where is what is the progress. No, no worries. However, how how would we all win? So, that that way you can just keep it moving.

Keep it moving. Yes. And my the last one as you remember the young lady who came in early today, Mrs. Butler for the Solano Resource uh conservation district. um as she wanted to see if we can get this on the agenda to see if we can help get it funded. Um myself personally, my son Chris and I, we got a chance to participate. It was an amazing um afternoon working with the students. And so, and as also with Flood, Water, and Waste, the district manager there. Um it was a rewarding day. Um, and to see our children take advantage of planning, not only planning, but also to value the spaces that we sometimes take for granted. And so, as you heard her mention earlier, because I did ask her to come and share with her wonderful program with most of us have experienced it, but to see what we can do to help fund this project. Um, however you might want to put that to the city manager or city attorney. Um, how can I word that or did I word it? Okay.

I I think you would bring that up at the budget hearing that's coming up. It wouldn't be something that would be necessarily here, but we would discuss it as part of the budget if we want to allocate money for that. That's okay. Right. Yeah. Well, is the request to have the because there was the request for the students to come and present. So that was her first, but as you heard her say at the end, yeah, you probably didn't get to see the letter, but as you heard her say at the end, too, that they're $250,000 short. And so in order for it to continue going for the future year, we she needs to get some funding. So the funding piece would be through the budget. The the presentation, that's something I already made a note of. That's true.

The the conversations we're having on the groups that have requested to present and trying to fit them in the one here. Yeah, that was already done. But this right here is just to get it funded. That's what my request is. Okay. So, we're okay with that coming budget request. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, we'll continue on now

to report because it comes in as a budget request. It doesn't need this process. Uh report of item 15, report of the presiding officer and members of the Oh, Council Member Mullet, go ahead. Just piggy backing on on more of some of the aesthetic things someone brought brought to my attention along Marion Causeway. The flags that are up there, the city of Valo one is just bleached out like it's been up there for like 20 years and it's does you can't even read the city of Leo on there. So, if there's any way if we've I'm assuming we've got an extra flag somewhere sitting around that we could probably put that up there. And if there's any flags of the other nations that are up there that we could probably replace

or all those Yeah. So, if we can actually have that halfway decent looking, I I think that would be something small, but if we've got those already sitting around, I think that'd be a nice fix at this point. So, we will look into that. Thank you. Appreciate that. Can we I just had a side a side chat with council member Leu and can we also double check if one of the flags is a former Confederate state that has a Confederate C X on their flag and maybe we can replace that one with a different state. I don't know. We're kind of going a little off. I will definitely look into that tomorrow. One of them is No, but it's it's either Alabama or Mississippi. There's one that's a that's a X. Uh

uh anyway, the the Mississippi flag replaced. I know that for sure. Oh, okay. Maybe that we did. Yeah. Okay. Well, is the is the Magnolia flag now? Yeah. While we're on the topic. All right. With that, uh report of presiding officer members of the city council. Council member Gordon,

I make this real quick. I had a whole list but I'm just going to celebrate the main one is that was the rise uh of that was a wonderful event to see not only state city county and all the partners come out to celebrate that event and I'd like to give a shout out to um Izzy Drumley with the one people tribe who did all of her and other partners I should state did all the beautiful murals that you got a chance to So, um, and thanks to Aaron, uh, board, uh, former border supervisor Aaron Henan and the rest of the partners to see that come into fruition again. That is in my district. It was my honor.

Right, Vice Mayor Matulik.

Thank you, Mayor. And, um, in the past, um, one of our community members, Tony Stewart, requested that we as council members report out on our commissions. And so to to to to help um to help with that um so with our human relations commission, I actually had to join that remotely because I was at a League of Cities um um leadership summit and from that from that um human relations. We're they're moving forward with their work plan and trying to get that updated and in front of us to to review. And then we also had our 2 by 2 um meeting um recently and um I we're as slow as it has been, we're moving forward to actually putting the um security gates or I guess street gates at the um along Nebraska street in front of the school. Um it's been a I guess bure bureaucratic slowpoke move at this point, but it's slowly but surely getting there. So hopefully that gets um put in here uh soon. Um I think the go the I think the understanding is it's going to be right before graduation that they may actually get put up there. Um and then um as I mentioned, I was at the League of City League of California cities um leadership summit um met with our um state state representatives uh sen senator Kabalden along with um Assembly Member Lori Wilson and I did bring up the previous conversations we've had with both of them about our white slooh issue. So, they said they were going to um be looking into that and um as usual with the League of Cities um they have some great um sessions and some great presenters. Um and so it was a highlight and I handed out my report from that um to all the council members and hopefully that was um you're able to glean some some information that we might potentially could use and and implement here at the city. So that would be my

report. Great. Thank you. Seeing no others, I will just note for the record that our next meeting will be next Tuesday, May 5th. We will have two items. The Roosevelt group will be presenting on their maritime consultancy with us um and their recommendations. And then we will be doing the budget workshop and that meeting will begin at 5:00 p.m. because we have two major items and then we continue the ED report to the 12th. Yeah. So the fifth will have those two items and then we'll come back with ED report on the 12th and we will adjourn at 11:28 p.m.