City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening, everyone. I'm going to give us a second to get ready. And I will thank the audience for your patience. We're a little bit delayed coming out of closed session. We'll try to get going as quickly as possible. So we'll call the meeting to order at 7.29 p.m. And I'll ask our clerk to call the roll call, please. Mayor Slurs. Present.

Vice Mayor Matulik. Present. Council Members Bergenzer. Present. Present. Gordon. Present. Letter 2. Present. Matias. Here. And I will note, for the record, Council Member Palmares is absent.

All right. Thank you. That's going to bring us to Item 3, Pledge of Allegiance. If everyone would please stand and join us for the pledge. All right. As I mentioned earlier, we did just come out of closed session, so we'll go to item four. I'll ask our city attorney to report out from closed session.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. The City Council did meet in closed session this evening, immediately preceding this meeting. WITH REGARD TO ITEM A, PUBLIC EMPLOYEE APPOINTMENT PURSUANT TO GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION 54957B1 TITLE CITY MANAGER. THE COUNCIL DID PROVIDE DIRECTION TO STAFF. THERE IS NO OTHER ACTION TO REPORT AT THIS TIME. ITEM B, CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNCIL EXISTING LITIGATION PURSUANT TO GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION 54956.9D1 The existing litigation cases, ACLU of Northern California versus Vallejo Police Department, Solano County Superior Court case as listed on the agenda. the council gave direction to legal counsel there's no other action to report at this time item c conference with legal counsel existing litigation pursuant to california government code section five four nine five six point ninety one the cases crawl versus city of alejo solana county superior court case as listed on the agenda THE COUNCIL PROVIDED DIRECTION TO LEGAL COUNCIL. THERE IS NO OTHER ACTION TO REPORT AT THIS TIME. AND CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNCIL ANTICIPATED LITIGATION, SIGNIFICANT EXPOSURE TO LITIGATION PURSUANT TO GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION 54956.9 . THERE WERE TWO CASES WITH REGARD TO BOTH. THE COUNCIL GAVE DIRECTION TO LEGAL COUNCIL. THERE IS NO OTHER ACTION TO REPORT AT THIS TIME.

All right, thank you. That is going to bring us to item five. We do have a couple of presentations and commendations this evening, and we have some guests. We'll move through these. We're excited about both of them, and we'll move through them. The first is a recognition of Vallejo Fire Department Engineer Trujillo, Firefighter Bullock, and Firefighter Runyon for life-saving actions. And I'm going to invite up our Fire Chief, Chief Golding, to present these recognitions.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and members of the council. So this evening, I have the privilege to recognize members of Engine 21 on the A-shift for their exceptional actions during a medical emergency on April 9th of 2026. That morning, Engine 21 responded to a report of an adult male in cardiac arrest. For an understanding of how important this is, according to the American Heart Association, a cardiac arrest that's outside of a hospital setting has roughly a 10% chance at best for somebody to ever walk out of the hospital following that. Upon arrival, the crews immediately assessed the patient and began high-quality resuscitation efforts. Through their coordinated efforts, they restored the patient's pulses prior to transport. By the time the patient arrived at the emergency department, he was awake and talking to medical staff. This successful outcome was not the result of one individual, but of an engine company working together as a highly trained team. Their professionalism, training, and commitment to one another gave the patient the best possible chance of survival. So at this point, I'd like to invite up the members of Engine 21 to come forward. As you stated, Engineer Trujillo, Firefighter Bullock, and Firefighter Runyon. So before we go ahead and present them with their certificates, I'd like to ask Mr. Holloway to come up. He'd like to say a few words. This is the gentleman whose life they rescued.

I wanted to thank these guys for I was doing my business and collapsed. Didn't know anything until I woke up at the hospital and was ready to start fighting. And then I realized they were telling me I had a heart attack, and I couldn't believe it. I'm ex-military. I ran track. martial art and I looked at my wife and she was there crying and she said it's true. So it was a nightmare but it turned into a good thing overall for me. I'm here. I have three granddaughters. I want to stick around for a little while longer.

All right, so on behalf of the Vallejo Fire Department, it's my privilege to present each one of you with a certificate of recognition that reads, in recognition of your outstanding service and professionalism during a medical emergency on April 9th, 2026, your calm demeanor, decisive action, unwavering commitment to patient care contributed to the successful restoration of the patient's pulse prior to transport. Your actions exemplify the highest traditions of the fire service and reflect great credit upon yourselves, Engine 21, and the City of Vallejo Fire Department. Your dedication, professionalism, and commitment to serving the community is sincerely recognized and deeply appreciated. Thank you.

Thank you all so much. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you to Mr. Holloway for joining us. Do we want to take a photo with the gentlemen and the firefighters? All right. All right, thank you all again for being here and for that presentation. We're so grateful that Mr. Holloway is here with us and was able to join us. With that, we're going to move to our second presentation, which is a presentation by Caltrans District 4 on westbound I-80 Al Zampa Bridge. That is the Carquinez Bridge surface replacement project. And I believe we have Mr. Barton A. Yep, you can raise the podium right there. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you for having us. How do you go after that? I'll just say, whenever I'm at the Quarters Coffee House for my morning coffee, I always get the Engine 21. good evening mayor city council members i'm bart ney office chief of public affairs for caltrans in the bay area and we're coming before you again with yet another project that is going to be ongoing this year this is an epic era of transportation projects for the state in the city of california it was uh just a little under three years ago that we elevated ALL OF THE OVERPASSES IN THE CITY OVER I-80. WE ARE CONSTANTLY AT WORK ON STATE ROUTE 37 AND WORKING ON PROJECTS THAT ARE GOING TO BE COMING RIGHT INTO YOUR CITY. JUST LAST WEEK WE CUT THE RIBBON ON A MAJOR PROJECT, THE DIVERGING DIAMOND INTERCHANGE ON FAIRGROUNDS DRIVE. that STA led, but it's a big boon to everybody in the state for having only the second one of those in all of California, the first one in the Bay Area, and a great new portal to the city of Vallejo. And now we're here to talk to you about a state icon that is another portal to the city of Vallejo, the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge. This suspension bridge has been in public service for 23 years, and it's due for a deck replacement. It's a special type of suspension bridge. It's the first suspension bridge in the world with a complete steel orthotropic box. I brought the book that I'm going to leave with you guys so you can learn what that is. It's time for the deck portion that is on top of the box to be completely replaced. And so we're going to give you a quick presentation on what needs to be done there. But if there's one thing to take away from this presentation tonight, it's that we are going to have to close westbound I-80 coming out of Vallejo, that bridge, for a weekend, August 21st through August 24th. So for 53 hours, happy birthday. Good time to stay home and open to presents. But for that weekend, we're going to be really focusing on completely replacing this deck. So hopefully... Okay, so everybody I think knows where the Zampa Bridge is. It's basically connecting Vallejo and Crockett along I-80. The need basically is what I said. It's time to replace the asphalt concrete that is on top of the deck. The purpose, of course, is for sustainability to give you a smooth and safe ride across the structure. The scope. Basically, the top layer, one inch of asphalt concrete will be replaced to improve the rideability and preserve the structural integrity of the bridge. The length is about 3,500 feet, 67 feet wide, four lanes. It's wide. It's a lot of work. That's why it's going to take a weekend to do it. It's gonna be about 1,550 tons of asphalt that we'll pour that weekend. The closure itself, we'll close I-80 for one weekend for the worker safety and safety to the traveling public due to the long curing times required for full concrete pavement replacement. So it's about 53 hours. We'll start Friday night at 10 o'clock and that work will run through August 24th, Monday at about 3 a.m. So the need for the closure. Basically, we need certain temperatures to make sure that this stuff cures in time. It's recommended that the work needs to be completed in August or September because those are the time periods where we have the temperatures we need. Paving work needs to be conducted in the daytime periods from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. to make sure that those temperatures are where they're at. The recommendation for work to be done during a full weekend closure on westbound I-80, like I said, from Friday to 10 p.m. to Monday at 3 a.m. The benefits are basically safety. Safety to our workers that would have to be paving with traffic running alongside them, traffic also going alongside heavy equipment. It's much easier just to take this and do it all at once. We get a better product at the end of it. Everybody's safer while we do it. Okay, so how are we going to handle the traffic? And that's not insignificant, right? This will be over a million vehicle trips. And we did this once before in 2023. So we will be using regional changeable message signs, detours, and a very robust public outreach effort that's begun now. Basically, don't pay attention to this slide. In 2023, this is what we did. We left some of the ramps in Vallejo open past the 780 interchange and we had some difficulty with that. So we're not going to be doing that this year. We're going to be detouring right at 780 and taking traffic completely out over towards the Benicia Martinez Bridge. We will also be communicating beyond the region for traffic coming down this way. So we'll be taking traffic off over 680 and completely avoiding that 80 corridor during this particular weekend. Highway 4 will be the way that you come across if you need to get to Hercules, Rodeo, Crockett, those types of cities. This is just a quick map to show some of the changeable message signs that we're going to be deploying. After talking with the city of Benicia, we're going to look at maybe adding a couple more to this. But changeable message signs are probably the best communication device we have speaking to traffic because it's what's out there right now. Our outreach effort, obviously city council meetings, letting cities know, letting officials know that this is going to be happening. We're going to be talking directly with the media, radio, TV stations. We have a media buy that's going out for this so that we will be able to target social media and get people that actually drive the route. Our Caltrans website is already up, and we will be using our own social media to continue to talk about what's going to be going on during this closure. And of course, press releases and traffic advisories are the main way that we communicate to the public. The website, you can basically Google Carquinez Bridge Caltrans. We have a hotline number if you see issues or your constituents complain or have questions. They can call 510-286-0319. That is specific to this project. Our contacts are basically myself, Barton A., the office chief, Denise Harding, public information officer for Contra Costa, and your very own Sabrina Martinez, who is the public information officer for Solano. And with that, any questions or comments?

Thank you very much for joining us. We had this presentation STA last week and I requested and I'm appreciative that the team will be forwarding and sending all of the social media and communications our way so we can push that out because we've got to get this word out to focus as far in advance as possible because it will be disruptive. If anyone has very quick questions, I see Council Member Gordon, go ahead and then we'll, if we can keep the questions quick just so we can move.

Thank you so much for this opportunity. I appreciate it. I hope that you will have similar conversations you had regarding the diamond interchange, the same in South Lael, maybe at the Norman Keene Center to prepare people for this, you know, better partner, have the same layout. and especially when they need to make alternative decisions of how they're going to get to where they need to go i think this would be a really great opportunity to do that you know try to plan ahead so that people are better prepared okay council member can we work directly with you to set that up absolutely okay thank you myself and our city manager thank you go ahead vice mayor

Thank you, and thank you, Bart, for that presentation. Just as an FYI, August 17th is the first day of school for many of the schools here in Vallejo, so I would recommend you reach out to the school district to get the message out that way, too, since that will be the first week parents may be back from their summer vacation, so that would be a good idea. Okay, we will definitely do that. Thank you.

All right, that is all I'm seeing. Thank you so much. We'll look forward to staying in touch as this gets closer and we'll continue to remind the community and hopefully everybody we can partner together to make sure this is just as disruptive as possible and we can enjoy the new pavement afterwards.

All right, we'll stay in touch with your communications team. Thanks, everybody.

All right. Yeah, wait, what did I say?

It's okay. Okay. You're good.

I will correct the record. Apparently I misspoke. I would like to make it as least disruptive as possible. I don't want anyone coming at me after and saying I misspoke. We want to minimize disruption and enjoy it after. All right. That's going to bring us to our first community forum. This is opportunities for members of the public to address the council on items not on tonight's agenda but before the council's jurisdiction. And we do have a 15-minute limit on the community forum. We have many in-person speakers and we do have many folks here that I know have come from far and that have crossed the Al Zampa bridge to get here. And so my suggestion, we're not gonna be able to get to our online speakers, but my suggestion is I'd like to move that we take all of our in-person speakers this evening with the full time, just because of the magnitude of what we have going on and the folks that we have here. So unless anyone objects, we can take a vote, but I can... Okay, Dawn, can we take a vote? Can we put up a vote to just extend the community forum so we can take the in-person speakers?

If I can clarify, we currently have 15 people signed up to speak.

Yeah, so I'm moving that we take all of our in-person speakers.

So can I just ask a quick clarifying question? So you said we have 15 minutes.

So we're just giving each person a minute or we know we're going to extend it to take everyone and give them the three minutes. Okay. Yeah. Thank you for clarifying that. That was a good, that was a good clarification. All right.

Has everybody voted? No, okay, that's bad. I'm missing, oh, that's right, Councilmember Palmeiras is in here, okay. The motion carries with Councilmember Gordon opposed.

All right, let's go ahead and call our first few speakers.

Yes, the first three speakers we have are Andrea Schmidt, followed by Matthew Aguiar, and then Prima Davis. Those are the first three. And if we could ask you to please queue up so we can move as efficiently as possible, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you, City Council, for opening this up tonight. I just wanted to speak about a few things. I have been a critic in the past of C-Click Fix. The reason is that oftentimes this program is not used by residents because one, they don't know how to use it. It's in places where nobody is completely responsible. I'm speaking tonight about two particular incidents that really kind of reinforce my issue with this program. I've been told it's very efficient by the past people, and I believe it could be, but let me tell you this thing. So there's a water breakage. There's a pipe that's been broken literally for months. This is at Daniels in Sacramento. I did call Public Works and let them know. No word back from them. This was weeks ago. Another crew was working close by, city crew, They did nothing to fix this issue. Today I confirmed again another huge leak on Mare Island. This is right in front of Touro University. Water pouring 24-7. Now my issue here is that people that work for the city go through these water puddles every day. And not one of them, apparently, is reporting it. I have a big pothole right in front of my house on, right in front of the Myra Theater. Been there for months. I'm not gonna report it, because in a way, I feel like it's not my job. And frankly, there are so many things to report. And I think this is why city folks are not reporting either. Now what I'm suggesting tonight is that when you, and thank you for coming to work for Vallejo, I know Stockton, I was raised in Escalon, I'm really happy that you're here Mr. Black, but please review this program. If we got city folks involved and they were really reporting what they were seeing, We wouldn't be so dependent upon residents. Residents are not always going to come through here. Another prime example is just recently on Tennessee and Wilson Way, there is a parking or there's a garage or an area there was called the Tag Building back in the day. The point is they went in, they cleaned all the weeds, but there's huge graffiti. left behind. It's been there for years. Nobody's tackling that. What I would really propose is departments work together. They do a review of the property that they're on. If they're mowing and they see something else, there's a report that's being made. Make see, click, fix really efficient. You shouldn't depend on people like me. I don't even live in front of these water main breaks. Pouring thousands of gallons every day when your own employees are running through that same water. Please try to fix this. I think it's a great program, but it could be better utilized. Thank you very much. I'm going to leave this with you, Mr. Black. These are pictures.

All right. Thank you.

Next speaker is Matthew Aguilar, and then after Matthew is Prima Davis, and after Miss Davis is Antoinette Sadler, and then David Dowswells.

How y'all doing today? Talofa. What's going on, brother? So, Matthew Aguilar, District 6. Hey, Miss Cookie. With that said, I really appreciate what he said, but I disagree on a couple things real quick. I am from Belleau, born and raised, 707 native. August Spartan, Vallejo Apache, Raj Hickory Pit, Grotto. With that said, Vallejo was proud. We are proud Vallejos. So I feel that it is our job as Vallejo residents. It's like it's yours. And if we keep heading down the road where we're pointing the finger like this is your job, this is your job, this is my job. No, no, no. And able for Vallejo to stand tall amongst Solano County, We have to unify together. We have to form the camaraderie because if we fix any Caltrans or any kind of whatever, this or that, but Vallejo will still be Vallejo, no matter good or bad or the ugly it is, what it is. So I came humbly asking for y'all for a favor. Like I said, hey, we're going to talk about bodega, yeah? Look, I would like, now don't get me wrong. I feel the only way to overcome all this hate and BS around us is with love. Love can happen anything that comes between us. So I would like for you guys, as long with the fire department, as long with the Vallejo Police Department, to have a friendly camaraderie game where we can bring out and just teach these kids, these youth. I'm grown, bro. You can't teach dog old new tricks. I swear to God, you can't. But what I can promise y'all, bro, is that if we stop putting together on the blame of everyone and take our own part and focus on these kids, we can make a change. I don't care what bridge you fix, what potholes since 95 on Sonoma, none of that. Because if we don't fix ourself, then, man, everything going to stay broke. It's just going to be the year 2030, bro, and nothing going to be done. With that said, I will personally humble, I talked to Chief Todd, talked to Brother Hollis, talked to Tim Booth, talked to Sarah Garaby. Shout out to Shelly Longmire, yeah? Also on PTL Alumni. With that said, could y'all please, could we coordinate something so we can arguably put our future in better use? Because as far as I remember and I heard, the buses stopped running. I'm a single father of four children at the moment. And you're telling me I got to pay $47 to take these kids to go swim? No, not today, Jesus. Not on duty. You know how hard it is for a buck to be earned, these parts? And, you know, I thought I heard somebody say that, you know, if y'all is hiring or accepting people to volunteer, I have four children, and you could put them to work. I promise you, Jesus, they don't have school until August, whatever. And how about we pull a Michael Jackson, bro, start looking at ourselves in the mirror, and let's all take proud of Vallejo Constituents, yes?

Thank you.

Next speaker is Prima Davis, followed by Antoinette Sadler and David Dowswell.

And you can, yep, you found it, never mind.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, city managers, and city council members. My name is Prima Diana, and I am a Girl Scout in Troop 20067 here in Vallejo. I am working on my Girl Scout Bronze Award, which is a project where we find a problem in our community and work together to make it better. For my project, I want to help reduce litter in Vallejo by getting more trash cans in our parks. I care about keeping our parks clean and safe for kids, families, and everyone who visits them. I think if there are more trash cans, it will be easier for people to throw away their trash instead of leaving it on the ground. When parks are clean, people are more likely to spend time there, and it helps protect our environment and the animals that live nearby. I have talked to the Vallejo Public Works Department, Recology, and GVRD to ask who is in charge of putting more trash cans in our parks. Everyone was kind and tried to help, but each department told me to connect to a different department. I haven't been able to find the right person who can make this happen. That is why I'm here tonight, asking for your help. Could you please help me and my troop figure out who can work with us to get more trash cans in Vallejo Parks? I really want to make a difference in our community and I hope we can work together to keep our parks clean for everyone. I want to personally thank Councilwoman Gordon for responding to my letter. Thank you for listening and for everything you do for our city.

Thank you Mr. Matias for helping point us in the right direction and helping us get a hold of Public Works and GBRD.

Thank you very much. I'm so working.

so we've got someone coming to you to make sure that we get you the right information and we get you follow up go ahead city manager if i may mayor yes uh the public works director and i we we have made contact with them and have provided some direction and guidance on this yeah okay wonderful i will hold this then and i'll get their information from you all right thank you

Okay, the next speaker is Antoinette Sadler, followed by David Dowswell, and then after David, Mr. Dowswell, is Michelle Monterosa, and then Brendan Bird. I have a question.

Can I let the person after me go before? Sure. That's fine with me.

David. Yeah, David.

Yeah.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tonight I'm going to present a petition that's been signed by 37 of the homeowners that live in the Seaview subdivision, Costa Del Rio subdivision, which is down by Newell Mobile Home Park, not too far from the Maritime Academy. I'm one of the handful of original residents. There are 119 homes. 37 of the property owners have signed this petition. I have a brief presentation. starting back really even before 2023 i started reaching out to public works to address a lot of problems that we were having with our assessment district failure to maintain the landscaping for the contract other issues having to do with street lights and the most significant of which is street paving we are the only assessment district in the city that includes the maintenance of streets After our subdivision was approved in 1980, we never did it again. And the reason I say we is because I was working for the city and the planning department at the time. We realized that it was too much of a burden to place on the city. So for the last 47 years, the streets have been the way they are. About 20, 25 years ago, every one of the water mains, sorry, every one of the connections from the meter to the water mains failed. So the city had to go and dig up the street 119 times, fix the leaks, and then repave the street. So there's 119 six by 10 patches, which coincidentally are in better shape than the rest of the street. Earlier this year, I met with Public Works. We did a Zoom meeting. I met with key people who were involved with street maintenance. I said, I have one of two things I want from this meeting. One is a commitment by the city as to when you're going to do something about repaving our streets. And mind you, this has been going on for three years. I reached out to the predecessor of the current head of all the landscaping personnel, and he said, we're looking into it. Three years ago. Here we are today. That's it, and then replace all of our street signs. I noticed that a lot of the street signs had been replaced, and the ones just on Seaport, which is the road that parallels the back of my house, had been replaced, but none in the subdivision. Sent an email in May to the same four people, never got a response. So I still work, surprisingly, for the city of Winters. We have a public works department, and we repave streets. So I worked for the public works manager, and we did it using Google Earth. We have 5,300 feet of linear streets in our subdivision. They're all 20 feet wide, gutter to gutter. That makes 106,000 square feet. We have two knuckles and two bulbs. A knuckle is almost a bulb, but not quite. They total 4,500 square feet. That gets you up to 124,000 square feet. Using a number that was from our bid in 2023 in winters, which was $1.70 a square foot, I bumped it up to 250 a square foot. That gets you, I believe, $330,000. We also have... I'm sorry?

All right, we're at time and we have so many speakers. We'll make sure we get your...

Okay, so I'm going to hand out the petition.

We'll make sure we get your contact information if you can hand it over there. Thank you.

Next speaker is Ms. Sadler followed by Michelle Matarosa and then Brendan Bird.

I'm Brendan Bird. Yes, go right ahead. Thanks for allowing me to be here. I wanted to talk about the state of Vallejo Housing, if I may. For a little background, I work with Vallejo Housing, Solano County Housing, and Sacramento Housing.

Um,

About 10 years ago, I knew everyone in Vallejo Housing. It was easy to work with. They knew me. I knew them. Things got done very quickly. For about the last five years or so, there's been an incredible shift in Vallejo Housing that I don't understand. If I work with someone, it's less than six months and they're gone. The managers are changed. The case workers are changed. Everyone is just completely different down there. To give a few examples of what I've been dealing with for the last, just the last, less than 12 months. In February, I submitted six rental increases. I want you to bear in mind My rents are low. They're well below market, and they're well below what the Vallejo housing standard is. In February, three of them were recognized and were increased. Three of them have disappeared. I inquire and ask about them, and I get no responses. At one point, I actually called Vallejo Housing. Someone picked up the phone, said they would investigate it. I never heard from it again. In April, I submitted two more. One was recognized, and one also disappeared into what I can only call a vortex. I also have a tenant who rents from me, wonderful elderly lady. Suddenly her payment was stopped. We didn't know why her payment was stopped, but it turns out after doing some investigation, her recertification was canceled, was never performed. So I have to go without rent. I have to deal with that situation. She has to figure out what's going on with it. She's getting a few answers. No one will talk to me. Just over a year ago, I had a situation where they sent me a bill for $5,000 that I owed Vallejo Housing. And I didn't know what was going on with this situation. And they said, well, there's been a mistake. we've been overpaying. And I said, okay, well then if you've been overpaying, I guess that means the tenant's been underpaying because I'm working off the portal that is Vallejo Housing. Their answer to me was, oh, you can't trust the portal. You can only work with what comes in the mail, in letters. And I said, well, that's interesting because every other county has a portal and I work through the portal. So now I have another tenant who's recently, who just had her payment reduced by a significant amount. I received no paperwork, she received all the paperwork. And that's just how it always works. It was phrased to me very well that when Vallejo Housing needs something, and this was a tenant's words, when Vallejo Housing needs something, they're on it and they will hunt you down to get it. If you need something, they will not pick up the phone. Currently, you have a QR code there that half the names are blank. And, you know, I have more examples than I can cite right now. We'll only end with this. I have a 75-year-old woman who has been told her housing is canceled. She's in my apartment only because I have chosen not to evict her while we try and figure this situation out. No one at housing will take any responsibility. She was given a hearing, and she was told, I know I'm out of time. Thank you.

I know, and I have to be strict. She was given a hearing. We'll make sure we get your information.

Yeah, she was told to submit her information online. She's a 75-year-old woman. You've emailed her. It's just nonstop.

We'll get your information. The city manager is going to go.

Next speaker is Ms. Sadler, followed by... Then Michelle Matarosa, and then Kat Brooks, and then Sherry Ann Grimm.

My name is Antoinette Sadler. I'm 32 years old. I was born August 24th, 1993. I'm from Oakland, California, and I enjoy walks on the beach. I got my AA in Sociology and my BA in Pan-African Studies. I have traveled to multiple states in five different countries so far. My favorite hobby, as my mom said today, is vacationing my life away. But really, it's just to see the world, to see the Earth in all its vastness and beauty. I also like enjoying time with my friends and family, and I like partying and living life in the moment, because for so many people, they don't get the chance to. For the first time in this space, I decided to just introduce myself so that you all know that having to come in this space every time and say, I am the sister of Angel Ramos, or I am the sister of Sean Monterosa, or I am the mother of Ronnell Foster, or I am the uncle of Willie McCoy, or the niece of Mario Romero shows just how much the Vallejo Police has taken away. Because not only did they steal their lives, they stole the identities of who so many of us are or could have been had this tragedy not occurred. I had the beautiful opportunity of getting to recently know Ashley and Michelle for just Ashley and Michelle, not Shawn's sisters. And do not misunderstand what I'm saying, though. We will always and proudly be that. I will always and proudly be Angel's sister. But y'all should know that this badge abandon and the effects of it go far beyond just the sick ritual and celebration for murdering our loved ones. While I am grateful for the public release of the badge bender reports, I am also not a fucking dummy and just because something is public does not mean that it is truth. In the report, Jacobson admits to getting his badge bent one time by Poyser after killing my brother, Angel Ramos, but that is a lie. Jacobson not only bent his badge once, but he bent his badge twice for the murder of Jeffrey Balboa, who was killed just seven months after Angel Ramos, six months after they let Jacobson back onto the Vallejo Police Department after being on paid administrative leave. We know this because Officer Coleman and Kent both admitted to Ben and Jacobson's badge as well, even though he tried to deny the second one. I would like to read you a quote from Zachary Jacobson's LinkedIn. During my career as a public officer in the Bay Area, I have worked for the Tiberin Police Department five years and the Vallejo Police Department 10 years. I have held numerous specialty positions and assignments, which as a result has instilled an incredible work ethic and sense of pride in always striving to do my best. This shows that there has never been a sense of remorse. but a clear sense of pride in all the acts of white supremacy that he has engaged in. And let's be clear, that's exactly what that ritual is. It's rooted in white supremacy. So while this report may come as a surprise to the public, it does not come as a surprise to the families who have been directly impacted. This report has become a media stepping stone for everyone to be seen, including city council. all while the voices of impacted families have once again been silenced. Not one city council official has reached out to ask how we feel regarding the release, not one media outlet, not one Vallejo church, and not even an ACLU. But we are still here, and we still are demanding justice and accountability. And we ain't going nowhere. So I know that y'all are the new council. Y'all, this job may be many of y'all first time seeing my face. It may not be the last. I gave y'all a little break. But y'all need to start figuring out what are the next steps of getting shit together because while y'all got the chief in the motherfucking audience like he's one of us, that's not cool. And it's very, very triggering when y'all already knew, I'm pretty sure y'all watched social media, that families were coming here to begin with. Y'all could have made that sit somewhere else. Thank you.

Next is Michelle Monterosa, followed by Kat Brooks and Sherry Ann Grimm.

Good evening, council members. My name is Michelle Monterosa. I'm here today as Shawn Monterosa's sister. It's been six years since Vallejo Police killed my brother, six years of living with an absence that should have never existed, six years of waiting the accountability that our family, the family Angel Ramos, Willie McCord, Ronald Foster, and Mario Romero in this community deserves. Today, we are here because the badge bending report has finally been released. For years, the people of Vallejo were told these allegations were isolated, exaggerated, or unproven, or just rumors. The report confirms what impacted families, community members, and journalists have been saying all along. There was a culture inside the Vallejo Police Department that celebrated violence, protected misconduct, and prioritized loyalty to one another over accountability to the public. But a report alone changes nothing. You cannot PR your way out of this. You cannot issue a statement about transparency while families continue to wait for change. You cannot call this a new chapter if the people responsible for creating the harm are never held accountable. For six years, our family has carried the weight of Sean's death while the city has often responded with delay, silence, and excuses. Accountability delayed is accountability denied. To this new council, you have an opportunity to do what previous councils failed to do, roll up your sleeves and get to work. Read the report and start working. Help strengthen the Police Oversight Commission and stop treating accountability as a political inconvenience. This should be your top priority. The people of Vallejo deserve a government that is willing to confront the hard truths instead of managing headlines and creating bandaged solutions. Families like mine deserve more condolences and we deserve action. Sean, Willie, Angel, Ronel, Mario, and so many should be alive today. Nothing this council does will bring him back. But what you choose to do now determines whether another family has to stand here where mine has stood for the last six years. The time for statements has passed. The time for systemic change and accountability is now. And I ask you that you put this as an agenda item to the next meeting to discuss what next steps look like. Thank you. Thank you.

next speaker is kat brooks followed by sherry ann grimm william baker chris kelly my name is kat brooks and if it's okay with you i i want to keep my time but i want to allow the families to speak first i'm an advocate and an organizer and i've been coming here for 16 years but the family should get to speak first i'm trying to model for you all to put the families first so come on sister

My name is Angela Sullivan. I am the mom to Ronell DeAngelo Foster. He was murdered February 13th, 2018 by then Officer Ryan McMahon. He was tased. He was beaten with a flashlight until the skull was in three pieces. And then he was shot seven times, four times from behind. with a kill shot to the back of his head. My mother died four and a half months later from a broken heart. Murder is murder. Willie should still be here. They killed him 364 days after Ronnell. He should be here. We've proven conspiracy. A gang entity? That bullshit report about that badge bending? Stop playing with me. You throw four under the bus and throw it off like it didn't happen? I said jail or hell for them all. And I'm not playing. I don't have nothing else to lose. I haven't worked in over a year. I'm dealing with a whole post-concussion syndrome. I'm walking like I'm drunk. But guess what? I'm not going to stop fighting until he's dead or in jail. We live in this. They destroyed whole families. I ain't never had no PTSD. I look at the police different. Y'all know what's going on. Like, why is every other city prosecuting Buffalo? What is it? Who's granddaddy? Who's granddaddy? This shit goes back 100 years. They've been lynching in Vallejo since it began. Jail or hell. Jail or hell, no justice, no motherfucking peace. For everybody to know, the Impacted Families is back. And I don't know about nobody else, but I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go. Fuck talking to y'all. Y'all need to show us something. Start locking these motherfuckers up. We already got the proof. Why is everybody scared of these people? We can't get a prosecutor, DA, or nobody to stand with us. We've proven murder 24 fucking times over. Again, I say, Ronell was three different weapons in six minutes and 40 motherfucking seconds. One man. One man did this to my child. That wasn't police, and that was hate. In his deposition, they asked him, why did he kill Ronnell? And in a very matter-of-factly tone. And if you don't believe me, all y'all got access to this. Go watch it for yourself. He killed him because he was giving him a lesson in community bike safety. With three different weapons, six minutes and 40 seconds, not responding to his sergeant. When he do respond, he out of breath because he didn't kill this man. He didn't kill him three times over. It was by the grace of God that we were able to have an open casket. The skull was in three pieces. Ronell didn't have no fucking weapon. He was never known to carry a weapon. He ran because he was scared. That man jumped out shooting at my child. Murder is murder. Jail to hell. Y'all think I'm playing? I ain't got nothing to lose. I ain't got nothing to lose. Jail to hell for them all. Fuck the fatal 14. Y'all better do something. Y'all better do something. Because guess what? Just like the police got guns, ain't nobody trying to deal with this with hate. But they killed all of ours in hate. I'm not my ancestors. I was born in 1968, baby. My mama and my daddy was Panthers. No justice, no peace, man. Somebody got to be for the people. Somebody got to be for the people. Jail or hell. Thank you.

good evening City Council mayor I stand here today on behalf of my brother Mario Romero who was viciously murdered by Vallejo Police Department as well as all of these other families who you know their loved ones could still be here had the city done something I ask you those sitting in on this elected body and trusted enough at some point by enough Vallejo residents to place you in that seat, a seat representing them. Which of you has the right to be blind, to pretend not to see the devastation, the blatant murder, corruption and the continuum of wrongdoing? Who among you signed up for public service to protect those who put on a uniform to steal, kill and destroy lives, families and dreams? The day the majority of this city council stop trusting their own intelligence, eyes, ears, and heart, and begin blindly trusting the current architect of malfeasance, liar, liar, slash city attorney Veronica Nebb, is the day the council as a whole failed the people of Vallejo, your very own constituents. One day, you will have to talk about what happens behind closed doors as others have. By putting a liar's need to keep evidence of widespread systematic attacks against the civilian population of Vallejo buried, destroyed, and too delayed for action. Crimes committed by the Vallejo Police Department gang all fall under RICO. Willful ignorance is no excuse. The public record is vast and accessible. You were elected by the people, not hired by the city. There's no reason at this point to validate any council members' excuse that they are not aware of the horrible acts committed by Vallejo Police Department, past or present. The destruction of evidence and the ongoing failure to reform are all still clear and present danger to public safety. So there's no way for you guys to sit up there and say you don't know. You can look at these depositions. Why haven't you? Because you haven't cared enough to. Nothing is stopping you. You work for the people. You're not employees. We want justice. And we're going to get it. And we're not going away quietly in the night. And it might not show up in the way you expect it, but it's going to show up. So you should be ready. I say that as kindly as I possibly can. But when you do go down in history, make sure you're on the right side. Thank you.

Is that all the families? Anybody else want to say anything?

I also just would like to note the reason why they don't have the money to fix the potholes is because they had to pay us out.

My name is Kat Brooks. I'm the executive director and co-founder of the Anti-Police Terror Project. I have been coming here for 16 years. You remember me. She's about the only one that's been here the whole time. You remember me and the rest of us in here, meeting after meeting, family after family, murder after murder, cover up after cover up. Corruption after corruption, scandal after scandal, and betrayal by the city after betrayal by the city after betrayal by the city. I don't even live here. I live in Oakland where we have our own problematic police department. But we used to say that the Oakland Police Department was the most murderous police department in Northern California, but you know who holds that title now? Y'all. Y'all hold that title and you've held that title. I cannot believe that this report has never been on your agenda, that you did not have enough respect for your community, let alone these families, your entire community, to bring it. It's public now. At the very least, you could have put it on the agenda, had some healers and some food and some water in there for these families and held them while you took responsibility for the hell that they have lived in since their loved one was murdered and the hell that they continue to live every time another person is murdered or raped or beat up or profiled or their house with fake warrants. This is what I do. I do this 24-7, 365. There's no other police department in the country, I promise you, no other police department in the country that has the barrage of nonsensical violence and corruption that this police department has. These are not heroes and they are not protectors of your community. They are dragging you all to hell and you are allowing them. And just because you were not here when it happened does not mean that you are not responsible for fixing it because you are here now. You are here now, and as Sister Antoinette and Chris pointed out, a lot of us haven't been here in a long time. Some of you ain't never seen me before. You're like, who is this woman? But we are back. The wound has been ripped open. Do you know how hard it was for these families to come up here and talk to you again? You owe them. You owe them. You owe them. You owe them. You owe them your care. You owe them your concern. You owe them your compassion. You owe them their comfort. But most importantly, you owe them your correction. Now, my personal opinion, I'm an abolitionist. The only good police department is a gone one. But while the police department is still here, you owe it to all of the dead. Isn't this all of them? This is a drop in the bucket of the people that this police department has harmed, murdered, raped, wrongfully incarcerated, caged, and or killed. A drop in the bucket. You have been asked nicely tonight. You've been asked nicely tonight.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Cherianne Grimm, followed by, listed as TJ Ooh, and then Bridgette Daugherty, and then Sahij Takkar.

Good evening, city manager and council. Atonement is the process of bringing those who have become separated back into a relationship. At its heart, it is about restoring our shared humanity. We are here because families in our community continue to carry the grief of losing loved ones during encounters with law enforcement. For them, the loss did not end on the day their loved one died. Many, as you heard tonight, have carried years of unanswered questions, silence, and the painful feeling that they have never been truly heard. When collective trauma goes unacknowledged, it doesn't simply fade with time. It becomes part of a community's identity. Healing begins when people are given safe spaces to grieve, to express their pain, and to know that their experiences are seen and valued. It's accountability. This grief does not only belong to the families. When a life is lost at the hands of those entrusted to protect the public, the loss reaches beyond one household. It affects trust, our sense of justice, and the relationships that hold the community together. And in that sense, this is our grief to carry together. I know most of you were not serving on this council when many of these tragedies occurred, and I'm not here tonight asking you to take responsibility for decisions you did not make, but it is about the opportunity you have as leaders to lead with compassion, to take responsibility. Leadership begins with acknowledgement. It means listening with an open heart, recognizing the humanity of those who are grieving, and affirming that every life mattered. Transparency and accountability are not signs of weakness. They are the foundation of trust. Communities across the country have embraced restorative practices that focus not only on policies but on repairing our relationships. When there is a willingness to listen, acknowledge harm, and engage one another, healing then becomes possible. While nothing can erase the losses, acts of remembrance and public acknowledgement affirm the dignity of those who died and the humanity of those who continue to mourn. My hope is simple. that our city chooses healing over division, compassion over silence, and connection over distance. Healing begins when families know they have been heard and remembered, loved, not only by those who love them, but by the community they still call home. I ask you to make that possible. Lead us to healing. It is long overdue.

Next speaker is William Baker, followed by TJ Wu, and then Bridget Doherty, Sahej Thakkar.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is William Baker. Tonight I am here to express appreciation. Appreciation for an unexpected journey that began more than four years ago. What started as a concern over a project next to my neighborhood park evolved into something much larger, an education in public governance. Along the way, I came to better understand not only how cities make decisions, but also how citizens can participate in these decisions. In an unusual way, that journey was shaped by our departing assistant city manager, Gillian Hayne. Although I have rarely mentioned her by name in my public comments, many of the issues I researched and document fell under her executive leadership. For that reason, it seems appropriate tonight to acknowledge her role in inspiring my own civic education. Over the past four years, I learned a new language, the language of local government. I learned the difference between a consent and an action calendar, how to navigate council agendas, how to re-grant agreements, and understand the responsibilities that accompany public stewardship. Along the way, I also encountered phrases such as deliberately vague, do or die, and a little clunky. Words that, intentionally or not, revealed much about the challenges of public administration. More importantly, I met many fellow citizens who share a deep commitment to good government. Their encouragement sustained me when the work became difficult, and they reminded me that civic engagement is rarely the work of one individual. It is the collective effort of people who believe that transparent, accountable, and responsible government can always benefit the communities it serves. That journey continues. The more I learn about local government and this project, the more committed I become to researching public policy, preserving institutional history, and sharing what I discovered with others. Democracy depends not only on those who serve in public office, but also on citizens willing to understand how their government works. As Vallejo begins a new chapter, I remain optimistic that our city will continue moving forward towards a more transparent governance, stronger public accountability, and in the words of our Constitution, a more perfect union. To Ms. Hayne, I sincerely wish you success in your future endeavors. And to the people of Chico, I wish you wisdom as you begin your own chapter. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is TJ Wu, followed by Bridget Doherty, and our last speaker is Sahij Thakkar. TJ, are you here? Okay, moving on from TJ, we have Bridget Doherty, and then Sahij Thakkar.

Good evening, Council, Mayor. I'm here to support every family here that's impacted, and I speak for an impacted family myself, which is Daryl Dean Mefford. You may remember who Daryl Dean Mefford is, or maybe not, because when the previous mayor was here, you promised to help us and I made calls, I made emails all to your office. You promptly ignored them. Everybody told me you would. They were right. They are warriors. These people here are warriors. I don't think any of you could sit here and day after day after day, year after year after year, take the abuse. that this council has given. Maybe not you in these seats currently, but let's show them. Let's show them what you really mean. Let's fire her. I mean, why is she even here? Let's get some people in some situations where they're being investigated, and let's get them prosecuted. What are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? How many people have to die? You know, before George Floyd was killed, Daryl Dean Mefford was killed the same way. I'm his family spokesperson. Nobody knew about him. I came to you and asked you to help me. You wouldn't. You know who helped me? Open Valeo. Obamaleo and I worked on that story that Jeff won numerous awards for to uncover the death of Darryl Dean Mefford. Nobody ever said his name. You know when he died? 2016. December 8, 2016. There was no reason to be picked up at the hospital. His sister was coming to pick him up at that hospital. But instead, Kalanan came, showed up, kidnapped him. First time I ever heard that was when I was listening to Tyree Nichols' family talking about Tyree being kidnapped. And I was like, that's what happened to Daryl. So if I had the wherewithal, I do have the mind of a lawyer, but if I had the wherewithal, I would be threading every damn needle to bring the biggest class action lawsuit in history against the city of Vallejo with every damn impacted family standing with me, beside me, in front of me, and they would come and they would be, it would be historic. And don't think we're not working on it. Don't think we're not working on it. You need to be debarred. You need to never practice law again. You don't need to get a pension. Those cops don't need pensions. They need prison. And all their pensions need to be paid out to these families. Jail or hell. Jail or hell. For damn sure, jail or hell. Thank you.

Last speaker is Sahij Thakkar.

Good evening. Good evening Madam Mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor, and members of the council. My name is Sahej Takkar and I'm a 14 year old rising ninth grader living in Fairfield. I'm a member of the Fairfield Youth Commission and the founder of the National Association of Youth Commissions. This non-profit organization works to establish youth commissions in cities where they're not already present, push for legislation beneficial to youth, increase youth access to government, and provide a space for youth commissions across the nation to collaborate. I'm speaking to you this evening on a proposal that, based on my experience, is one of the best things that a city can do for its young people. I'm asking you today to revive Vallejo's youth commission. On May 11, 2010, the city of Vallejo voted to adopt Municipal Code 2.42, which established a nine-member youth commission that would act as a bridge between the youth of Vallejo and the government of Vallejo. It would host youth town halls, organize activity for youth, and make recommendations to the city on ordinances and policies that would be beneficial to youth. This commission operated until 2015 when the city voted via resolution number 15-018NC to indefinitely suspend it. Ever since then, Vallejo youth have not had the opportunity to properly represent themselves in city government. A youth commission would be different from just any other program in that this isn't the city giving to the youth, it's the youth giving to the city.

Hold on, Mr. Takar, for one second. I apologize for the folks in the back. We just need to keep it down because the noise carries tremendously. We're going to finish this speaker and then I'm going to have us take a short recess. So go ahead. Thank you so much.

Yeah. A youth commission would be different from just any other program in that this isn't the city giving to the youth, it's also the youth giving to the city. All the city needs to do is give them the chance. Cities with youth commissions often see real change and new laws. For example, the Fairfield Youth Commission is working with the city right now to establish a tobacco retail license, which ties into the issue of smoking in our schools. And these are the types of opportunities that Vallejo's youth need. And this wouldn't even be difficult to implement. The city already has this chapter of the municipal code in the books. All that is needed is a resolution that would repeal part of resolution number 15-018NC that suspended the commission. And there would also be minimal costs to the city. There would be no need to hire any new individuals as under municipal code 2.42, the only adults involved with the commission would be two adult advisors and one city council member as a liaison. There will also be very little administrative costs since the only real cost would be a monthly or bi-monthly meeting and a yearly town hall. Furthermore, through the National Association of Youth Commissions, I would be happy to offer the city with free research on how things like exact costs, appointments, and scope of work would play out. I'm requesting the city council to direct staff to report back on potential routes the city could take in starting a youth commission, whether that be through Municipal Code 2.42 or through other means. I'd be happy to serve as a resource for the city during this process. In front of you now is a QR code to the National Association of Youth Commissions contact page. That website is youthcommissions.org. If any member of the council is interested, please contact me, and I would be happy to help out in this process. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Come get my card. Come get my card. Come to my card, sir.

All right. That is our last in-person speaker. You can't hear me. Can you come to my card? I'm just going to call a recess in a second, and then we'll get it. That's our last in-person speaker. I want to thank our commenters. I want to thank everyone for their patience. We had many folks who were here and didn't speak. I want to thank everybody that came. I'm going to have us take a short recess because we've been at it for a while, and we will come back in about 10 minutes and start with our consent and action calendar. All right, I think we are in the vicinity of having a quorum again, so we're gonna move to begin. All right, we need at least one more council member up here for us to restart. All right, I'm going to restart us. We are at the point where we are ready to move to our consent calendar and approval of agenda. I'm going to open up public comment on our consent calendar items. We are going to make a few changes to the agenda. So I am going to announce, and I'm going to turn it over to the vice mayor. I'm going to announce that we are going to remove item 9E. from the action calendar. So we'll just have the four items on the action calendar. This is the $50,000 from Youth Climate Action Fund. This fund is going to be micro grants for youth for climate projects. And this is going to be administered by the hope is by our foundation and that money is now not going to come through the city. So we don't need to approve it as the city. But we're excited to get more information out about that program. but we no longer need to vote on it as a council. So we'll remove 9E. We've had a request from staff to flip items 9A and B. So we'll take B first and then A. And then I believe, do we wanna move the public safety update up or do we wanna knock out the items? I'm actually gonna ask the city manager. So last time we moved the public safety item up, the information item, given that it's already 9, do you have a preference of going through the public safety update?

Yeah, I think that's what you would typically do. Yeah.

Okay, why don't we do that? So we'll reorder the calendar. We'll go ahead and do consent, and then we'll take the public safety, since I already started the comment clock. We'll take the public safety item, and then we'll go for the action calendar. B-A-C-D. No, it's okay.

So are we doing consent?

Yeah, we're going to do consent. If we pull items, I'll put them after the safety update. But since we're doing public comment, we'll just take the public comment now. Do we have any comments on the consent calendar?

We do. We have one public speaker for consent, and that would be Ms. Latresa Alford.

Thank you Madam Mayor and Council. I'm actually speaking on 8E? Okay, very good, very good. So I came tonight and I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was an item in regards to Opportunity Zones. And I just wanted to say that I was pleasantly surprised because I've worked on Opportunity Zones and I served on the Richmond Revolving Loan Fund for 20 years. um... solano county has nine opportunity zones as you know um... six in vallejo and three in fairfield and they encourage and they spur investments in low-income neighborhoods investors can deter or eliminate capital gains taxes or real estate and business if they do investments in real estate and businesses so it deterred taxes defer taxes and also have tax exemptions. So I saw on item E that all eligible census tracts would be voted or approved. But I also noticed that economic development was mainly focusing, and I could be wrong, on the waterfront. Although I I am very pleased that we're finally focusing on the waterfront. We also need to remember that these opportunity zones are classified in other areas of the city, such as South Vallejo, such as downtown, because those are identified as low-income areas. So in saying that, I would like to say that let's not only look at the waterfront, let's look at other areas of Vallejo that fall within those six census tracts. For example, we can encourage investors to rehab old buildings. I personally would like to see an event center, hotels come up in our beautiful city. And then also, from experience, my experience, AND ENCOURAGE DEVELOPERS TO COME IN AND OFFER OPPORTUNITIES FOR PROMOTERS AND OTHERS TO COME IN SO THAT WE CAN HAVE FIRST CLASS ENTERTAINMENT IN OUR CITY. SO AGAIN, I JUST WANT TO SAY I'M VERY PLEASED THAT YOU ALL ARE LOOKING AT OPPORTUNITY ZONES, BUT ALSO LOOK AT OTHER AREAS OF THE CITY AND TRY TO ENCOURAGE INVESTMENTS. THANK YOU.

Thank you very much. Do we have any other comments on consent calendar?

Through the mayor, yes, we do have one speaker online with their hand raised.

Let's go ahead and call them.

Melvin Cowan, please unmute yourself. You have the floor.

Excellent. Thank you. I'm going to be speaking on the Opportunity Zones 8E. So good evening, Mayor Source and members of the council. My name is Melvin Cowan. I'm the founder of Enough Housing and a Vallejo resident. I want to thank the council and staff for bringing forward both the Pro Housing designation and Opportunity Zone 2.0 items this evening. I support both recommendations because I believe they represent far more than the individual agenda items. They're very important building blocks of a comprehensive implementation strategy for Vallejo's future. The pro-housing designation can strengthen Vallejo's competitiveness for affordable housing infrastructure transportation climate resilience and other state funding opportunities while the opportunity zone 2.0 can help attract long-term private investment and strengthen our local economy and as staff returns with the pro housing application i respectfully encourage the city to include four additional elements first a crosswalk demonstration of how the application advances implementation of the valeo adopted housing element. Second, a housing production and economic development pipeline, identifying priority sites, catalytic projects, funding opportunities, and implementation timelines. And third, a coordinated funding strategy showing how the city intends to leverage pro housing opportunity zones, state housing programs, infrastructure funding, and private investment together. And lastly, a regional partnership framework that brings together Solano County, the housing authority, nonprofit developers, workforce partners, educational institutions, service providers, philanthropy, and the private sector, everyone together. And so I'd also like to highlight something that may not be widely known. The state's pro-housing application requires jurisdictions to demonstrate that their treatment of homeless encampments is consistent with the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, and their seven principles. So I'd encourage just some deeper view there to ensure that we are meeting those seven principles. And as someone who has been deeply involved in regional encampment response planning, I've found these principles to be more than federal guidance. They provide a practical framework for bringing public agencies, people with lived experience, service providers, environmental organizations, and community partners together around lasting housing solutions. And they remind us that success is measured not by moving people from one place to another, but by helping people move from unsheltered homelessness into stable housing while restoring public spaces for everyone. And yesterday, Governor Newsom announced that California is entering a new phase of housing policy focused on implementation, reducing development costs, streamlining approvals, simplifying housing finance, and strengthening accountability. Vallejo has a great opportunity here to really step up and be tremendous leaders here in the state when it comes to housing and housing accessibility. So I really want to thank you for your time.

All right.

Thank you. Any other speakers on the consent calendar?

No other speakers on this item at this time.

All right. We will close that. I will ask if council members have anything to pull from the consent calendar, and when we approve the agenda, we'll take the public safety presentation, and then we'll do the pulled consent items and then the action calendar. I see Council Member Gordon and then Council Member Matias.

Thank you. Yes, I'd like to pull 8E.

Okay. Council Member Matias, also 8E. Okay. Anything else? With that, I think we're ready for a motion. Go ahead, Vice Mayor, sorry about that.

Yeah, I wanted to pull item 8C.

All right, seeing no others, we are, I believe, ready for a motion now.

Yes, I move that we approve the consent calendar with item 8E being 8.1 and item 8C being 8.2, while also eliminating item 9E from the agenda and going in the following order on the action calendar of going item 9B, then 9A, then 9C, and then 9D.

All right, and then we'll also take the public safety update.

Yes, I'm sorry, I'm moving the public safety report earlier.

Perfect, we are ready to vote.

I'm missing, there we go. Motion carries unanimously with council members begins her and Paul Mears.

All right. Thank you. We are going to take our polled Consent items after our public safety update We have our sheriff and chief here and we'll ask you to give hopefully a concise presentation, but but our update for July

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the Council. Jason Tavaleo, Chief of Police, with me tonight. We have Sheriff DeWall with us just to help just provide an update on our public safety status. So tonight, we're going to just cover some of the general areas that we have discussed previously. We'll talk about our current staffing, our staffing strategy. our reporting and community engagement structures, our operationals reports, which will cover crime statistics, our response times. We'll talk a little bit about some blight with abandoned vehicle update. And then we will hear from the sheriff, talk about his statistics to report tonight, and current and future initiatives that VPD is working on. All right, so first slide is just a comparison from the reporting period last time. So I'll just go down the far right column. Currently right now we have total sworn staffing at 84. We have three officers that are not full duty. So that two of them are modified, which is generally a temporary injury. One is on workers' comp, which is generally a longer-term injury. So that leaves us down to 81 full-duty officers, 40 officers working patrol, five patrol supervisors, five officers are currently in our field training program. And we have four officers starting this month at the academy. So what you don't see here is we have three current officers in the academy at the moment. So strategies that we are currently adopting for staffing. So we're still working with our recruitment retention referral program that was approved by you all back in July of 2025. HR has two additional extra help recruiters that we are still currently utilizing. Just in terms of the testing process, all the officers go through oral panels, physical fitness testing, and a written examination. Currently, though, I just want to kind of update you all that with the new budget, we are now limited to 99 FTE. We'll talk about this in a little bit more detail. With the current officers we have in various forms of training, which is 12, that will, assuming that all 12 get through the training successfully, that will leave us with three additional vacancies. So we have currently 28 candidates in background right now. Statistically, we should be able to hire at least five of those. So we will be moving to hire at least those three. That will bring us to full FTE. So we still have weekly coordination meetings with HR. And last year, just for context, we background, I'm sorry, 2024, we backgrounded 97 candidates. 2025, we backgrounded 96 candidates. And then currently, year to date, 50 candidates in 2026. We estimate that with our current hiring practices, we will be over at least 100 backgrounds this year in terms of just candidates. We are reviving our Explorer and Cadet program. We're still in discussions with Congressman Garamendi's office to seek some additional funding to seed that program. Some current reporting structures, so we do these presentations every 60 days. Monthly, we meet with our surveillance advisory board. Monthly, we meet with the police oversight and accountability commission. We meet monthly with the chief's advisory board, which is comprised of community members. We also meet with the ad hoc reform subcommittee monthly. And then we have a variety of community engagement efforts that are ongoing. Neighborhood Watch, Business Watch, our neighborhood impact teams. These teams are usually deployed after a significant or critical incident in the community. We just completed a community police academy, and then we meet regularly with VC, USD, and other youth engagement. NOT INCLUDED HERE IS WE DO HAVE MEETINGS MONTHLY WITH THE TWO BY TWO COMMITTEE AND ALSO MONTHLY MEETINGS WITH THE NAACP. WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING AT HERE IS JUST THE FIRST HALF OF OUR OPERATIONS REPORT. SO WE REPORT OUT MONTHLY. SO THIS IS FOR THE MONTH OF MAY. SO JUST TO KIND OF DESCRIBE WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING AT FROM THE TOP LEFT. Those are the number of incoming calls, 13,494 for the month. And out of those, we created just over 6,000. So those turn into some sort of call for service where we respond to the community. Going to the lower left, it just talks about our staffing in the patrol division as well as traffic division. So you can see 40 officers in patrol. These are all shifts, all watches. So seven days, 365. 40 officers in patrol, four lieutenants, five sergeants and seven police assistants. Same with our traffic, 24-7, 365. One lieutenant, one sergeant, two officers and professional staff and a police assistant that handles abandoned vehicles. Moving to the top right, you can see the number of arrests for the month. So felony as well as misdemeanor arrests are approximately 233 for the month. You can see towards the middle column, towards the bottom, the number of use of force events. Generally, almost all of our use of force incidents occur with some sort of arrest or enforcement. You can see to the left column, the number of traffic stops, which were 411, and vehicle pursuits we had in the month of May 9. Moving to the bottom right, you can kind of look to see on the bottom right corner the number of abandoned vehicles. So just a few, a couple short years ago, we were hovering over 4,000 pending inspection on C-Click Fix. Concluding the month of May, we were down to 620. I think currently we're right around 525. So we are making good end roads with that. And then the last column is our fatal collisions. So you can see a comparison 2025 compared to 2026. We're up one from this time last year. This is the second half of our operations report. What you're looking here is on the rows to the right, it will have the crime categories. On the columns to the top, on the left side at least, you're looking at a comparison between 2026 and 2025. So I'll just go down a couple of highlighted areas that we're monitoring. So as you can see, our homicide rates are lower this year than last year. This time last year, we had six. We finished the year last year at 17. We're tracking a rise in rape incidences. So this time last year, 14 compared to 23 this year. Some of the noticeable decreases are other sexual assaults not considered or classified as rape. We are seeing a significant decrease this year. We have a decrease in robberies by a significant amount, 67 this year compared to 108 this time last year. Simple assaults are slightly higher. There's a lot larger value there. So the numbers don't reflect truly the magnitude of the calls that we see. And then stolen vehicles, they're slightly worse this year than last year. Going to the bottom left, these are where we see some pretty significant decreases, except for domestic violence cases. So that is something that we are tracking very closely. I'll talk to that in a little bit on a future slide. But shooting cases are down significantly. Year after year we're seeing that decrease. Our auto burglaries and theft cases are also showing very good positive trends. TO THE RIGHT SIDE, YOU ARE SEEING A BREAKDOWN FROM THE TOP IS THE BEAT. WE SEPARATE THE CITY INTO EIGHT DIFFERENT BEATS. And then so the rows will kind of tell you the numbers associated to that crime category per beat. And then the beat totals are towards the center. So you can see some of the beats that are busier. So for instance, beat six for all the top level crime categories is one of our busiest beats. And then it kind of goes to beat seven down to beat one. I'm sorry, beat... 6, BEAT 1, AND THEN BEAT 7 ARE OUR BUSIEST BEATS. THIS SLIDE GIVES AVERAGE RESPONSE TIME, SO WHAT WE'VE DONE HERE IS WE'VE BROKEN DOWN JUNE OF 2024 TO MAY OF 2025. THAT ONE YEAR PERIOD. ON THE BOTTOM HALF OF THIS TABLE, YOU ARE SEEING JUNE 2025 TO CURRENT. WE HAVEN'T TOTALED JUNE YET. But what you'll notice is there's a significant decrease in our response times, which is fantastic. So you can see, even though we've only had the sheriff for not even five months on this slide, we're seeing significant decreases in priority ones, which is a 24% improvement. Priority twos, 56% improvement, and priority threes, a 48%. What you see in that center column is just a number of types of priorities broken down by the month. So, for example, 117 is the number of priority ones we had for the month of May. I'm sorry, for the year. And then you can see the corresponding priority twos and priority threes. What I want to point out, though, is that the average response time in minutes, even though we're seeing a very good increase, priority twos and threes make up about 97% of our call volume. So it's very few calls are priority ones. So you can see just the corresponding numbers. It's significantly more in the category of priority twos and threes. So last year, our priority twos, we were averaging 297 minutes. That's close to five hours on average response. Priority threes, we were averaging 456 minutes. That's about seven and a half hours response. The bottom chart with that noticeable gain priority twos are just over two hours response and priority threes are approximately four hours. So much better, but nowhere near acceptable. Priority twos industry standard should be about 20 to 25 minutes response. We are at 2.2 hours. JUST WANT TO TALK BRIEFLY ABOUT ABANDONED VEHICLES. IN 2024, AS I MENTIONED, WE HAD ABOUT 4,000 PLUS ON OUR C-CLICK FIX APP THAT WE USE, AND NOW WE'RE HOVERING ABOUT 525. Very good improvement. Staffing for abandoned vehicles, we use one full-time senior police assistant to work on abandoned vehicles. She coordinates with a lot of the tow companies to see how many vacancies they have for storage. And based on that vacancy, we tow as many vehicles as we can based on capacity. We have also a police cadet. working with her as well and then five patrol police assistants so those police assistants they do handle call volume so their their time handling see click fix entries varies So our strategy is to continue to maintain our current progress. We do periodic tow sweeps still, and some of the possible solutions that we're working on is a new tow contract, the rotational tow contract. We're in discussions with the city attorney's office on finalizing that. That may allow us to have some new tow companies added to the current regiment that we have. which would in turn increase our tow capacity. We're looking at different ways to have the rotation, so we would separate them in different categories, standard vehicles, abandoned vehicles, oversized vehicles, and just fleet tows. We're also looking at a funding mechanism to offset some of the expenditures. So for example, we are able to get some reimbursement for some of our tow, abandoned vehicle tow expenses. So utilizing some of that reimbursement to incentivize some of the tow companies to expedite how they lean and finally remove that large or oversized RVs might benefit the actual supply chain process. And then lastly, again, this is part of what I just mentioned, just revising the dismantle or disposal process of RVs to accelerate our ability to tow. I will turn it over to the sheriff for this slide.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. It's always good to see everybody. So the numbers are here. I know you can all see the numbers, but really they're pretty consistent. A couple slides ago where the Chief was talking about our response times and our ability to reduce THOSE RESPONSE TIMES FOR SERVICE. IT'S BEEN PRETTY CONSISTENT THROUGH THE FIVE-PLUS MONTHS THAT WE'VE BEEN PARTNERING WITH THE CITY OF VALLEJO, WHICH I THINK IS THE GOAL FOR ALL OF US, IS TO GET SERVICES WHEN OUR COMMUNITY NEEDS IT THE MOST. AND THAT'S OUR FOCUS AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE OUR FOCUS THROUGH THIS CONTRACT. unless you have a question on those times or any of these, any of these stats that they are, they are there and they are consistently the same. I just want to say that as we approach like mid year and close it in on halfway through the contract period, that this has been a really good relationship. I CAN'T EVEN TELL YOU IT'S BEEN GOOD WITH THE POLICE DEPARTMENT. IT'S BEEN SO GOOD IN THE COMMUNITY. WE'VE BEEN MORE EMBEDDED IN THIS COMMUNITY. I'VE HAD NOTHING BUT POSITIVE COMMENTS FROM YOU ALL, FROM COMMUNITY MEMBERS AS WE'VE BEEN IMMERSED IN A DEEPER LEVEL IN THE CITY. I CAN TELL YOU THAT THE TEAM THAT WE HAVE DOWN HERE TAKES GREAT PRIDE IN BEING DOWN HERE. THEY ALL, AGAIN, VOLUNTEER TO BE HERE. And for some, it's been the highlight of their career. The gratitude from the community that they receive is what we all do this for. And thus, when one of our team members can't, they're sick or they're at training, we have a line of people ready to come to serve. And I think that says a lot. And so I just want to say that we look forward to continuing to serve. We look forward to continuing this partnership. And yeah, that's my slide.

Thank you, Sheriff. And I just want to highlight, you know, the priorities are very similar to our criteria. But if you could just see the sheriff's deputies response times, priority ones are seven minute, priority twos are 20 minutes and priority threes are 21. So as a city as a whole, that is where we strive to be. So that is a great standard. Thank you, Sheriff. And then lastly, I just want to close out with just some of the current programs and future initiatives. So we are still rolling out our Vallejo Vision. That's a violence intervention program specifically focused on gun violence reduction. So that's in the very early stages of rollout. our sex trafficking, human trafficking reduction initiative. We are still surgically working with our POP team, which is our proactive team, to address buyers, you know, sex buyers, in the areas that that activity is more prevalent. We are still in talks with our partners in the region as well as some of the community-based organizations to really have a more concerted effort on how we'll be able to help victims, provide emergency housing, provide emergency exit pathways to try to reduce some of that behavior in a non-enforcement targeted manner. We are working internally with HR to roll out our domestic violence initiative as well. So that is still ongoing in discussions with some of the affected labor unions. And this needs to be a little bit updated. But in March, we began a community academy we had fifteen people start but we had ten people graduate so they graduated uh... just recently in may so they're still going through the vetting and backgrounding process so we'll hopefully get that uh... completed soon so they can help with some of the programs like see click fix and other things that volunteers are very very useful in helping us out ongoing on the neighborhood watch and business watches that i had mentioned uh... traffic safety We are doing our best to try to do some more targeted radar enforcement in the areas prevalent with high thoroughfares of speeding. We are concluding our public safety partnership with the U.S. DOJ very soon, so that will end sometime in September. So we're just doing the finishing touches on the strategic community engagement plan that they are helping us construct. And then lastly, police reforms. This is just the complement of the cadre of people that are in RCIAD, which is one lieutenant, two sergeants, a corporal, a retired annuitant. We have a project consultant and four analysts. And so we are still in the process of trying to build out a full-time program manager. So that is still in process with labor negotiations and HR. And with that, I will open it up for any questions you all may have.

Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. And I'll echo the appreciation for the sheriff's team because we have heard nothing. I mean, I've heard nothing but positive things about the partnership, and we're really appreciative. I'll ask us to keep our comments brief so we can make up some time, and I'll start with the vice mayor.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Chief Todd, and thank you, Sheriff DeWall. First off, I want to thank the sheriff and his team. I had the honor to participate in the 100-Man March on Father's Day, and there were three sheriffs out there joining us, along with having an escort from Vallejo Police Department for that march from City Hall down Florida Street down to the waterfront. So I want to thank both agencies for helping us support that 100-Man March. Quick question for... Chief Ta, so last year we as a council had authorized security towers and the fact that they're remote and they're being relocated, do you happen to have, well, number one, how many security towers do we currently have in service?

So we have seven. We have seven towers. We have them until I believe June of next year. So we're prepping for an efficacy study. So we're hoping to have some data, just as much data as we can, probably by October or November. So that way we, as leadership, we can figure out if they're effective. We're there on a two month rotation, so that was deliberate because we wanted to keep them there long enough to be able to see what the benefits were, if any, and so We've had very good positive feedback. I'll use the one on the crest, for example. We had a lot of violent events there almost weekly. When we put that tower there, they're all but gone. So we're seeing that type of reaction from all the other areas that we have placed these towers. It has affected traffic in ways where people now don't speed as much, they fully stop for the lights and the stop signs, so they have a tremendous amount of just anecdotal results, but we're gearing up to try to do a little bit more statistical analysis before the turn of the year, because I think at some point you all may have to decide You know, if you want to keep the same number, maybe decrease them a little bit or add some more. So they run about 37,000 per tower per year.

And I basically just want to echo the same feedback you're receiving. And even though this isn't my district, I've received, I think you have a couple of towers that are currently along Sacramento. Is it? sacramento or marin where um i've re i've received actual personal feedback of thanking thanking you for putting those towers there because that's apparently that's cut down on some of the street walkers that have been uh that have been happening over there so that's the feedback that i've received just along that little short strip right there i think they're asking it to go all the way down to florida street but you've got them like right by the fire station and over there, so the people that I've received feedback, so that they've noticed a little bit of a cutback on those particular corners where they're at. So, and to your acknowledgement, you've partially answered my follow-up question of looking to the data of what positive impact those have made and the fact that you've received that positive data back in my specific district of District 2. I'm glad to hear that and I look forward to the actual reports of the actual data. I think where I would make some of the comments I've received is they would like to see them used more for a lot of the traffic infractions that have been happening, if that's a possibility, because I know in my specific district, especially along Meadows right by the waterfront, I know both of your lieutenants have been receiving quite a few emails from my constituents along that area about the dirt bike riders that have been, I guess, being a nuisance over there along with a lot of the... uh donuts that have been happening over there recently maybe it's because of the summertime but i i think we would we would appreciate if if some of those towers could be in that and potentially cut down on some of that but once again thank you for that and glad to see the majority of a lot of the data reports they're receiving where a lot of the crime statistics are going down obviously we've got a couple of areas that need to be improved but other than that it's things look to be heading in the right direction thank you thank you

Thank you. All right. I am not seeing up. I'm seeing Council Member Matias. Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. So, Chief, again, to both you and the Sheriff, much appreciation, not just for the presentation, but also the work on the ground. The gains have been substantial, and the public is definitely feeling the presence of both of your teams on the ground, and I think with the investments that we've made at the council level, there's also been improvement of our collective safety across the city. So I just want to thank you and your teams for that. I have been getting one question, which I think you sort of spoke to, but I want to make sure we sort of underscore it, which is what is going to happen at the conclusion of the sheriff's contract? So would you be able to walk us through kind of walking back to the recruitment slide, as that contract nears the end, where you expect to have your force at? And then some of the other, I guess, challenges you were sort of alluding to in terms of the FTEs.

Yeah.

That has been a popular question out in the community.

Yeah, so as you know, we're gearing up for the conclusion of the contract in December. And so there happens to be also a grand jury report that just came out with a series of questions that we are going to provide responses for specific to public safety. And so that is a question the grand jury also wants. What's the plan, essentially? And they want that plan by October 1nd. So we're working currently with leadership to develop a couple of options. But I'll just go over some high level staffing challenges because I think it's important to kind of anticipate on what will happen with the way we recruit. So the way we recruit is it's very time consuming because it's a highly competitive job environment where there are not a lot of candidates and there are a lot of agencies looking for qualified candidates. So it's not uncommon to take anywhere around 18 months from the time you start the recruitment to the time you actually get that person all the way through training so that they can work a solo capacity. So when we reach full FTE, which will be any day now, we're going to hit our 99 capacity that's assuming everybody makes it through training positively we do have statistically a washout rate of about 30 percent so we will hit full capacity in a matter of days so i've been working with our leadership team to see if we are able to potentially hire ahead BECAUSE WHAT I'M LOOKING TO DO IS I WANT A HIRE READY LIST. SO IF WE DELAY FOR SIX MONTHS OR EVEN 12 MONTHS AND YOU ADD ON THE 18 MONTHS DELAY OF THE RECRUITMENT APPARATUS, That's two and a half years that you potentially need to wait to see an officer at solo officer level. That's a long time. So I'm working with city manager to work out a strategy on how we can have a higher ready list so when those vacancies become available, whether we add vacancies, FTE, whether people leave unexpectedly, we can pull from that list immediately. So that's one. The second piece is to really utilize the technology that seemingly has been very beneficial for us. Those security towers, I think, are excellent, but they don't solve crimes. They deter crimes more than they solve. but that still benefits significantly. We use a very robust license plate reader technology that has been instrumental in solving about 80% of our homicides, which I do believe that The low amount of homicides this year will translate to savings. One of the three categories that we use the most overtime for is detective overtime, dispatch overtime, and patrol overtime. So reducing homicides or solving them reduces that. that overtime that these detectives have to come in, potentially work one to three days, follow all the leads while they're still fresh, that is a lot of overtime. So we're hopeful that we can be in the low numbers this year, the lower the better, and then we'll realize some of those savings. And then lastly, we're partnering with a lot of community-based organizations The Vallejo Vision program is a violence intervention program that really uses intervention and prevention tactics so that way enforcement is not always required. The same thing will go for the sex trafficking initiative as well as our domestic violence initiative with the gun violence restraining orders that you guys asked for as well. So that is really kind of high level. It's not super detailed. But working with partners, utilizing technology to the best of our ability, staying very up to date on recruitment, and so that way we don't push a significant delay when we're able to start hiring again.

Just a quick follow up. At a high level, you've got 84 and then you've got about seven from deputy sheriffs in Vallejo right now. So that's 91. So by the time we get to December 31st, I think you guys are anticipating that as the seven deputies sort of return back to the county, we will have seven additional officers and we'll still have 91 officers on the ground. Is that a fair read today?

Yeah, so assuming the 12 officers that we have in various stages of training, whether that be academy or field training, assuming all of them pass successfully, we will add 84 to 12, which will bring us to 96. Okay. And then that will leave us three vacancies because currently we're capped at 99. Okay. So we will hire those three as soon as they become available after backgrounds, and then we will put them through the training, academy, field training, and we will be at full staff.

Okay. All right. That's all I got. Thanks, Mayor.

Council Member Gordon.

Good evening. Thank you so much for your report. I appreciate it. Um, I want to say, first of all, thank you so much, um, chief tall for making yourself available for myself, Vallejo, uh, community meeting. Thank you for that. Um, I got a lot of, uh, questions that was asked me and I will be forward them to you. Um, I want to say to you, uh, to, uh, sheriff, I appreciate you, sir, for the work you're doing in my community. Um, I see one or two. all the time. And so I appreciate that. And you're right is well received. My only concern now is for some reason we're starting to get prostitution in my community, particularly magazine street. Um, I was wondering is, are the sheriff connected to the pop and also to the vision?

Yes, so we work together on a lot of different issues. So we share information just like we would from shift to shift. So if one of our shifts is going off duty and there's an issue, they relay it to the next shift and then the following shift. So we do the same with the sheriff's deputies as well. So we track that. Now, sometimes we'll have issues because call volume may be higher And then so the times that that behavior is occurring, it might be when staffing is not as abundant. And so that's why we use the POP team and we've been surgically using them to do at least two, sometimes three campaigns a month. And that's yielding about anywhere between 10 and 12 enforcement action where we do enforcement on the buyers. 70% of those buyers are not from Vallejo. They're from other cities. But to the vice mayor's point, the towers we've been utilizing, that seems to reduce that behavior, but also it seems to also push it a block over as well. So we're mindful of that. but at some point you know it's it's like an ice cube if you move that ice cube around it slowly starts to melt and so we're hoping that by constantly managing and mitigating using these strategies we can reduce the behavior but the intent really is as i had talked about earlier as we're rolling out our team for the sex trafficking, human trafficking. We had our first summit back in May, May 27th, I think. So we have another partners meeting scheduled soon. So we're gonna blueprint some of that sex trafficking, human trafficking, protocols off of the South Bay. So we're not going to be able to do everything that they do because they have a lot more staffing, but we'll start small, integrate some of those strategic goals that they use for an intervention prevention gateways for exit and also have an enforcement arm or branch as well to deal with the buyers.

Can you speak a little bit about it, sir? Have you heard too much about any of this issues happening in our, you know, and I guess it would be beat four in District 6? Like, have you heard anything about the prostitution and any other behavior? Is it a summer thing or is it something that is becoming more of a larger problem? Because you all helped us regarding some activities that happened behind InShape. And we thank you for that.

Yeah, thank you. So I think we recognize that in the county, not just a county problem, with the human trafficking element that is connected into the sex trafficking that's going on, that it's a big issue that we need to work collaboratively with within our law enforcement communities, within our nonprofit communities, within... It's a bigger... It's a bigger problem that we need to work together on. So with the summit that we just had, we took the first step of trying to work towards how do we address it. And there was a lot of good conversations that came out of that meeting. And how do we reach the women? How is the accountability component work into this? What steps can we do? And I think we're on the right path to start making a difference and starting making an impact to saving some victims, holding those accountable that need to be held accountable as far as who's trafficking these women. And yeah, I think the progress is one step at a time, but we've taken the step.

I APPRECIATE IT BECAUSE I NOTICED THAT IT'S A LOT OF YOUNG GIRLS UNDER THE AGE OF 18 AND WE JUST GOT TO BE ON TOP OF IT. WE CAN'T HAVE THIS. YOU ALREADY KNOW THE YOUNG GIRL, 19 YEARS OLD, SHE WAS 18 AT THE TIME AND SHE WAS THROWN IN FRONT OF A DIESEL IN MY DISTRICT ON LINCOLN ROAD WEST AND YOU'LL SEE A SHRINE IS THERE ON HER BEHALF And she was, I mean, I don't want to go into details because you know, but she died in vain. And so I want us to make sure that we're on top of it and whatever I need to do to help. We need to have more town hall meetings to educate folks, to help people if they're in a situation. Like, for example, I'm going to share this one. A young girl thought she was going to a party. And it was a trapment, entrapment. So she ended up in a position that she was not expected to be in. But because she was out of town, you know, she didn't know where to go, get help. We have to find ways to do that. I learned it ways when I was growing up. And I hope that we could do the same because we cannot lose any more girls or boys to this world. So I appreciate you willing to help out and be transparent. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, and Councilwoman, I'll just add a couple of things because I did talk about some strategies we're going to bring over, but some of the easier ones that I think we can utilize our partners to help us with, so for example, the awareness, we would target community colleges, even high school age folks there to not only let them know of some of the dangers out there, but if they are involved then this is who you contact if they don't want to contact law enforcement they can contact some of our partners that help victims that help with legal services what we see is that when the The workers are not cooperating with the investigation. It becomes very difficult to catch the trafficker. So we require some information from them to be able to prosecute traffickers. So that's why the intent really is to build out the intervention prevention side so that way they find an exit pathway, they are more apt to provide some statements that we could in turn use for prosecuting traffickers.

All right, thank you again. I'm going to check and just see if we have any public commenters on this item before we close it out.

None in person, Mayor.

All right, do we have anyone online?

Through the mayor, yes, we do have one speaker online.

All right, let's call him.

Carol Heap, please unmute yourself. You have the floor.

Hi, good evening. Thank you for taking the call. I was looking at the report from the police department yesterday and thinking what's missing, what information do we need that's not there? Sometimes that's a hard task. But in normal times, I might not have thought of this, but these are not normal times. So I have some heightened concerns about what agencies may be in contact with Vallejo Police Department that are taking up department time, but also I think we need to know as a city who's contacting us for information or assistance. And in that regard, I'm talking about the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and ICE, the Immigration Customs Enforcement Agency. We're all watching the news as it develops over the past days, weeks, months about things that are happening in communities that are historically unforeseeable. And communities are finding themselves in a precarious situation because people are getting killed by federal agents. in our local municipalities now. And the level of cooperation within those communities, those federal departments is really what they are, and our local law enforcement. We need to be on top of this. And I think this shouldn't just be an internal police department knowledge. I think our city elected officials need to be informed about any of these contacts that may be happening because they affect us all. People are literally dying as federal agents coming into their town to conduct federal business. So if we could just get that on the list of things that the VPD reports on each 60 days, So we can stay on top of this. This problem may go on for a couple more years. So we have to take it seriously. And we have to protect our community. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other commenters online?

Mayor, no other speakers at this time.

All right, thank you. Well, we'll close this item. Thank you both again. We're excited to see the improvements continue, especially the improvements in response time. I know that means a lot to the community. So with that, we are gonna proceed on with our calendar. I checked in with the city manager around our action items. I don't know how far we're gonna get in our calendar this evening before it becomes prohibitively late. action items A and B are both public hearings so we do need to take both of those we may want to continue C and or D why don't we go ahead and take our consent items and then we can make a decision after that depending on what time it is because I know we have some folks here for those items and I don't want them to have to wait too long and then have us end up continuing it so let's just see how it looks after we take the pulled consent items so we'll start with item 8.1 which was formerly item 8E, the Opportunity Zone item, adoption of resolution to accept all eligible census tracts for the Opportunity Zone 2.0 program to support economic development along the waterfront corridor and approve a letter of support. Councilmembers Gordon and Matias both pulled this item, so I will start with Councilmember Gordon.

Thank you so much. So to the city manager, can you please elaborate a little bit more on this? I did write something, but I wanted to ask a clarity. It says, and no offense to the mayor, but it says to be executed to the mayor. So could you please explain?

Okay, I will defer to ACM.

Yes, thank you, Mayor, city council members. Thank you for your question. So this item is asking for the council to approve two things. One is to adopt the resolution to approve the eligible census tracts, of which there are eight. And then the other is that we wrote a letter of support from the city council to the governor's office, to the governor himself. URGING SUPPORT AND ADOPTION OF OUR CENSUS TRACKS FOR NOMINATION TO THIS PROGRAM. BECAUSE THE MAYOR IS THE ONE WHO SIGNS ON BEHALF OF THE CITY COUNCIL, THAT'S WHY IT SPECIFIES HER NAME. BUT IT'S FROM THE ENTIRE CITY COUNCIL IF YOU SO APPROVE.

THANK YOU SO MUCH. I WOULD LIKE TO READ WHAT I WROTE PRIOR TO THIS MEETING. I WOULD LIKE TO APPRECIATE THE CITY'S EFFORT TO PURSUE THIS OPPORTUNITY FOR ZONE 2.0 PROGRAM TO ENCOURAGE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. INVESTMENT ALONG THE WATERFRONT IS IMPORTANT AND I SUPPORT EFFORT THAT BRINGING JOBS, BUSINESS, AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES TO VALLEJO. AT THE SAME TIME, I WANT TO ECHO THE CONCERNS THAT THE COMMUNITY HAS RAISED AND AS tonight, President Latrissa Wilson-Alford of the Pawapa, about ensuring that investment is not only concentrated only along the waterfront here downtown, but all the way to the Carquinez Bridge. Neighborhoods such as South Vallejo have experienced years of investments and should be included in the city long-term economics. DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY. AS THE COUNCIL CONSIDERS ADOPTING THIS RESOLUTION TO ACCEPT ALL ELIGIBILITY SENSOR TRACKS AND MOVE FORWARD WITH THE GOAL BUZZ APPLICATION, I ASK THAT YOU MAKE IT CLEAR HOW INLAND COMMUNITIES WILL BENEFIT FROM THIS PROGRAM. RESIDENTS DESERVE TO KNOW THE OPPORTUNITY ZONE. INVESTMENT WILL SUPPORT THE ENTIRE CITY, INCLUDING, OF COURSE, SOUTH FALAIL, WHO HAS BEEN NEGLECTED BUT HAVE MANY OPPORTUNITIES FOR BUSINESS, INFRASTRUCTURE, AND ECONOMICS, AND OTHER UNDERSERVED NEIGHBORHOODS SUCH AS THE CRESS. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SHOULD BE BALANCED AND EQUALED. WHILE THE WATERFRONT IS, AGAIN, VERY IMPORTANT ASSET. THE LAEL'S FUTURE ALSO DEPENDS ON INVESTING THE NEIGHBORHOOD WHERE FAMILIES LIVE, LOCAL BUSINESS OPERATE, AND COMMUNITY NEEDS REMAIN SIGNIFICANT. I ENCOURAGE THE COUNCIL TO ENSURE THAT THE OPPORTUNITY ZONE 2.0 APPLICATION REFLECTS A VISION FOR ALL OF LAEL, NOT JUST ONE CORRIDOR. The commitment to invest, remember, if we take care of all of the city, all the money stays in the city. Thank you for this opportunity for letting me share.

Council Member Matias, did you have anything to add? I know you also wanted to pull this item.

Thank you, Mayor. I agree with you, Councilwoman Gordon, on your point. I do want to get some clarity from city staff. So for the record, I'm 1,000% in support of both actions that we're taking this evening. However, I'm just as much focused on implementation as we are on the action we're taking this evening. And what I mean by that is We've had opportunity zones here for, I think, probably eight or nine years now. They were first designated under the first Trump administration. But I think part of what we didn't do right the first go around was we didn't market the land or the properties that were under the census tracts as opportunity zones. So I want to know from city staff, playing out a scenario where these tracts are approved, What is the game plan to market properties sitting under those tracks? What is the city's role in that?

I can start with that, Councilman. Our strategy will be to identify at least two parcels along a particular census tract from a strategic standpoint and try to package it and get on the road with it in terms of introducing it to developers other entities that might be interested in doing something with the parcel so the key is being aggressive identifying in that we need you know we're looking for a home run but you know if we get a couple of base hits initially then we're moving in the right direction so the idea is to identify two viable parcels that would fit particular parameters, package them up, and get on the road to sell them. Just to sell the concept, not to sell the parcels, but to make it interesting and enticing for investors.

So my quick follow-up is the packaging of it. the marketing package is that something that's being done in house or do we need to get somehow some outside help to do that for us outside help and we've been having those discussions internally in terms of approach and strategy for that okay so i guess to the council the one thing i would just ask as part of the approval on this item is that we uh... just request the staff bring back A PROPOSAL TO HAVE A GROUP HELP US WITH THE PACKAGING IN THE EVENT THAT THIS IS APPROVED. BECAUSE I DON'T WANT US TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES WE MADE THE FIRST GO AROUND. WE HAD A LOT OF CENSUS TRACKS THAT WERE OPPORTUNITY ZONES AND WE DIDN'T REALLY MOVE ON THEM. SO THAT WOULD JUST BE TO THE COUNCIL MY ASK IN TERMS OF APPROVAL MOTION.

I HAVE A QUICK FOLLOW-UP QUESTION ON THAT. WHAT IS THE TIMELINE FOR US HEARING BACK WHEN WE ARE SELECTED? WHAT IS THE TIMELINE FOR THEM GETTING BACK TO US ON WHICH ONES ARE DESIGNATED?

SO THE APPLICATION PERIOD CLOSES, THEY JUST MOVED IT UP ON THE 20th. I BELIEVE THEY'RE GOING TO TAKE 90 DAYS, WHICH INCLUDES A PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD, AND THEY ARE EXPECTING TO FORWARD THE CENSUS TRACKS TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SOMETIME IN THE FALL. SO I THINK SOMEWHERE BETWEEN SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER IS THE TIME THAT WE WOULD HEAR, AND THEN THEY GO INTO EFFECT JANUARY 1, 2027.

ALL RIGHT, THANK YOU. COUNCIL MEMBER LETTERS, YOU.

THANK YOU. SO I AGREE WITH ALL THE COMMENTS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE AND THANK YOU MAYOR AND THANK YOU TO THE STAFF FOR THE VISION OUTLINED IN THE LETTER. SO ASSUMING THAT AND I KNOW COUNCIL MEMBER MATEAS HAS TALKED ABOUT HOW WE'RE GOING TO PROMOTE THIS IDEA, BUT WHAT IS OUR LONG-TERM STRATEGY WHEN WE TALK ABOUT TRANSLATING THIS DESIGNATION, I'M SORRY, INTO THOSE OUTCOMES? AND THEN HOW DOES THE STRATEGY ALIGN WITH OUR BROADER ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND MARITIME REVITALIZATION EFFORTS? IT REALLY GOES INTO THE SAME QUESTION THAT COUNCILMEMBER GORDON HAS BROUGHT FORWARD.

You want me to start with that one? Yeah, you can start. Okay, thank you so much.

I'm sorry, my day has been very long. This is my second board meeting, and I'm exhausted. Yeah, yeah.

I think your question is broad because it should be. The city has an economic development strategic plan. I think we have to look at that and to determine to what extent it continues to be a viable plan, because I believe it's several years old, I believe. But everything that we do, so we're going to do the goal setting in another week or so. And so once we have those goals, the way that I like to operate as a city manager is everything that we do has to directly align with those goals. If what we're looking at doesn't directly align with those goals, then we have to ask ourselves the question, what are we doing, why are we doing it? And so with that, looking at the economic development strategic plan, hoping that that will continue to be somewhat in alignment with whatever the goals may end up being from the goal setting workshop. And then whatever we do with this has to be, again, aligned with all of that. Obviously, in terms of what we'll most likely be looking at is how do we stimulate economic growth, i.e., how do we leverage these opportunities to grow the local tax base? How do we leverage these opportunities to create jobs? How do we leverage these assets and opportunities to also add value to overall quality of life? Okay, so we're going to be looking at all of these things holistically, strategically. So no one-offs that are not aligned with what we're saying our priority goals are, which should be reflected in everything that we do.

Thank you. And as a systems thinker, this is what I'm looking for. How are we connecting all the dots? And how are we connecting the dots holistically throughout the entire city? Because when we think about, you know, it talks about poverty, our... you know low income well we can see that across our entire city and so how are we going to make all these connections and it not be in one place and we may start in one place but we need to strategically be set to say we're going to start here city of Vallejo residents and this is our timeline for finishing here getting here getting here so that everyone feels in the community not only feels it understands it and knows it and we're demonstrating that this is happening and we have timelines that we're going to meet and how we hold ourselves accountable to those timelines so with that my next question is around organizational readiness yes this creates opportunity but realizing that opportunity will depend on our ability to execute so You know, we need to think about does the city currently have the organizational capacity, partnership, and economic development strategies necessary to actively recruit investment support projects within these opportunity zones. And again, that comes back to the strategy that we have to link up and how are we thinking about it. We're putting in an application. It's expired once before. So we need to be ready.

Was that a question?

Yes, sir.

Okay. I totally agree with you. What I like about this and what we're looking to do with it is that it would represent a manageable sort of test case, a manageable We can manage, if we identify one or two parcels that we can package and then take on the road, it's going to answer your question, okay, in terms of how well we do that. I believe we, in terms of current resources and current talent and current competencies, we can do that, okay? In terms of the larger stuff that we're going to be focusing in on, which is not necessarily related so much to the opportunity zones, but let's say the Mare Island stuff, the gargantuan stuff is what I refer to it as, it becomes it becomes more of a question. But the key, you know, why this is important to me is we need a success as soon as we can generate a success. Because I believe that if we can generate a success, it's going to act as a catalyst and it's going to ignite hope It's going to ignite energy and it's going to give all of us something to focus in on that represents and reflects progress and success.

And that's fair. And I would agree with that. And then finally, IT'S REALLY THINKING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE MEASURES AND I TOUCHED ON THAT A MOMENT AND HOW REPORTS GET BACK CONTINUOUSLY, TIMELY TO COUNCIL SO WE CAN EVALUATE WHETHER THIS DESIGNATION IS RESULTING IN INCREASED PRIVATE INVESTMENT, QUALITY OF JOB CREATION, SO FORTH AND ON. AND THIS IS GOING TO BE REALLY IMPORTANT. AS WE GET ONE WIN, HOW LONG IS IT GOING TO TAKE US TO GET THAT WIN AND REALLY BEING CLEAR ABOUT IT AND WHAT'S GOING TO BE THE NEXT WIN? BECAUSE AGAIN, TO COUNCILMEMBER GORDON'S POINT, it has to be across our city i share a border with her and in district three and when you're talking about going down springs road not only do i share a border with her district one and springs road it needs a lot of help and a lot of love as well you know so we we down georgia street at the waterfront, down Sonoma Boulevard. I mean, we have so many things, right, that we need to accomplish. But I believe what creates the hope is definitely that first win. But what also continues that hope is having a strategic plan, meeting those timelines, holding ourselves accountable, us holding you accountable, and you holding your team accountable, and any contractors we bring in. to make this happen, and that we don't make excuses, but we are doing the work, and we're with a steady hand. That's what hope is about.

I totally agree.

So thank you, and thank you for the time and the letter.

All right, I've got the Vice Mayor. We're going to need to move faster than this if we're going to get through our items. So we're going to go Vice Mayor, and I'm going to ask Council Member Gordon to be very brief so we can move.

Thank you, Mayor. And looking from the eligibility map from Opportunity Zone 1 to Opportunity Zone 2, it appears to reflect basically the west half of the city. And this speaks to needing it to be citywide. There's nothing on the east side of 80 that's identified as part of this Opportunity Zone that I think, as we're all speaking to, that needs to be thought about and should be at some point included with that. But I'm glad to see that part of this is looking at the poverty rate areas and looking at the AMI. I think that's one of the areas that I think is one of the benefits. Now how we can actually put that into data and actually information for us to make strategic choices and strategic wins, as you put it. It'll be interesting to see how we come about with that data there. But I think, and this kind of ties to where Council Member Matias and I have been working with, being the liaison to the Planning Commission and he being the liaison to the Economic Development, I want to thank Director Pollitt for actually doing a planning presentation to the Economic Development Commission this past week to where that conversation alone identified the exact reasons of having that collaboration between those two commissions because uh... commissioner harrell specifically pointed out the exact question of the uh... for example the uh... sonoma specific plan that identified us trying to trigger uh... commercial and retail in that area but his specific question will how does that trigger commercial retail and other businesses for the work for the east side of of uh... uh... i eighty so it's those type of question i think we're heading in the right direction uh... and look to further expand that and looking, and this is where Council Member Matias and I have been trying to have those joint collaborative efforts with both of the commissions that we both are liaisons to. So thank you for that.

All right. I'll really quickly ask a question and I kind of just to further the comments that have been made. We are applying for all of our eligible census tracts. That's accurate. So I just want to be clear to everyone that our staff did not come in and say, hey, we're only going to put stuff on this side, that this was a statistical set of you know, rules that were set up by the federal government and we are submitting our eight tracks. It certainly doesn't preclude us from making investments throughout the city. But we didn't, you know, This isn't necessarily going to align with where we want to invest as a council, but it's going to open up more opportunities for us. So thank you for getting this in. I'm happy to support it. And certainly opportunity zones alone aren't going to bring us development and investment. It's going to take that work. So we did a round. I see Council Member Gordon. I don't want to do a full second round, but I'll let you get your remaining question in.

Thank you. I came here to work. So, you know, I'm going to ask these questions because these questions are being asked of me. Do you have this presentation available?

So I do have the presentation. We can pull it up. It's a short one. Thank you.

If you can go to the map, that would be great. So people can see it. Because the question was asked was what are the two parcels and where are the two parcels? And so we can just go ahead and answer those questions. We can see now where they're at, but what are they?

So just briefly, a little background. So the current program, the Opportunity Zone 1.0, had a number of census tracts. Mare Island is actually one, and I believe that there was four others on sort of mainland Vallejo. My belief is that the only one that was nominated was Mare Island. because the idea was that that investment would bring about a lot of benefits to the city overall. Unfortunately, it didn't pan out. The current, or the upcoming Opportunity Zone 2.0 program, it has some overlapping areas, as you can see. That's the area shaded in purple. This comprises eight census tracts, and we are suggesting the nomination of all eight tracts. So it does include some area of South Vallejo, but it stops right before Spurry Mills, and then it goes up, kind of includes the White Slough area. that's about as north as it gets. It does encompass parts of Sonoma, both sides. So when we say waterfront corridor, it's because a lot of the workforce development, economic development focus in the GO-Biz office right now is around waterfront development. It's not the only kind of investment that this program seeks to, you know, attract. So it can attract housing developers. It can attract, as someone was saying, folks to come in and rehab buildings. I mean, workforce development. I mean, it can attract all sorts of different types of investments from different types of industries. And so we're hoping, you know, with the inclusion of all eight that it will attract businesses who can find something that would bring them here to sort of drive that sort of economic prosperity.

So thank you so much for explaining that. When you do get to that point, I can't really see mine because I get a bigger one of this so I can be able to present it to the community. If we are selected, that's what we're hoping, number one. Then I'm assuming you're going to come back to us with a plan. But I do want to ask a question, and this might be for Gillian, excuse me, Assistant Manager Gillian. How does this work together with the plan that monies was supposed to be given to build the waterfront. And I asked would not only would it help downtown waterfront, but also to the Carquinez Bridge. Does that make sense? Are you talking about the waterfront specific plan?

Does this work together with that? Absolutely. This is a tool. It's an incentive program. Okay. Right? So all it does is it makes it more attractive for businesses to invest in the city of Vallejo within this specific area. Now, I think I saw statistics where it's something around, I think, 48%. of large companies invested in opportunity zones. But in cities that had opportunity zones, they realized something like 68% overall. So people don't always invest in the opportunity zones, but it is something that serves as an attractant because getting... relief off of your capital gains is huge for large-scale investors, but they're not the only ones who are attracted to come to a city. You get a lot of small businesses who come, and sometimes the larger companies will spur folks to sort of travel behind them. And so with the waterfront specific plan, the downtown specific plan, even the Mare Island specific plan and updates to our general plan will all feed into creating the overarching environment that will make it easier for companies to invest here.

And so when I think of opportunity zones, I think of areas that do not have that typical opportunity. So we just want to make sure that we are truly investing into areas that do not have this opportunity, as it said, if that makes sense.

Yeah, so think of this more as just a way of bringing people to the playground, so to speak, right? So once they're here, how the city, how the council decides to spend that investment is a conversation that you guys can have, and that benefit can travel beyond these borders, clearly.

Thank you for your patience in answering my questions. I appreciate it.

All right, do we have any public? I know we already got one public comment on this item. Do we have any one additional at this time? All right, with that, we're ready for a motion.

Yes, I move that we adopt a resolution to accept all eligible census tracts for the Opportunity Zone 2.0 program to support economic development along the waterfront corridor, approve a letter of support to include with the application to the State of California's Office of Business and Economic Development, and authorize the Mayor to execute the same, and including Councilmember Matias's addition of staff coming back with a report, and how did we kind of want to frame that?

that report to to read and I'm gonna just a general plan on we'll bring back an update once we hear what has been accepted and or nominated into the program and then layered on to some other updates regarding waterfront specific plan downtown specific plan

To be a little bit more surgical here, my update is specifically around marketing of these census tracts. So we just want an update as a council around that.

I think we're good. We're ready to vote.

The motion carries unanimously with Council Members Bergenzer and Palmeris absent.

All right, that's going to bring us to item 8.2, formerly consent item 8C, which is adopt a resolution approving the First Amendment to the On-Call Services Agreement with West Coast Frame and Collision Repair, Inc., increasing the not-to-exceed amount to $300,000. I will turn it over to Vice Mayor Matulik, who pulled the item.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. And so the quick question I had is, we engaged this company in a contract as of August 1st, 2025, and the contract is set to expire on June 30th, 2028. But from that, the original contract was for 100,000, and we're looking to increase it 200,000 already. So can you help explain how we got to that, going from 100,000 to 300,000 in such a short period of time?

uh... yes councilman thank you for the opportunity uh... so we use this for this company to do repairs that we're not capable of doing in our own shop they tend to be very expensive when you're talking about straightening frames and things like that it would be forty fifty thousand dollars to straighten a fire engine frame things like that so they go in big chunks We originally authorized the contract for $100,000. We have spent all of that. So we've had enough accidents to use that $100,000 in capacity. We're just asking to allow us to increase the cap to $200,000. We hope to not use it, but we're expecting that $200,000 additional will get us to the end of the contract.

I appreciate that clarification, and I guess with further background, do you know what we have used in the past? For example, the past two years, what that amount has been, so I'm just curious of how we're, once again, increasing it 200%. Is it based on just one-off type of situations, or is it?

I know that one was a $40,000 repair. And so, like I say, just that one $40,000 repair could take up, you know, took up 40% of the contract amount. And we're just trying to give ourselves enough room. If the direction is to increase it by only $100,000, we could definitely live with that. We're just trying to, you know, give ourselves enough capacity in the contract to get us to the end of the contract period.

Thank you for that clarification.

All right. Let's double check and see if we have any commenters on this item.

no speakers on the assignment this time all right that i believe we're ready for a motion i move we adopt a resolution approving a first amendment to the on-call services agreement with west coast frame and collision repair incorporated to increase the not to exceed amount to 300 000 and authorizing the city manager to execute the same all right we are ready to vote

Motion carries unanimously with Council Member Spigenzer and Paul Mayer is absent. All right. Thank you.

So that's going to bring us to our action calendar, and I am looking at the time, and I am feeling like we have very little choice but to go ahead and continue items C and D. I feel conflicted about it, obviously, because I know especially the pro-housing designation has been – the in the hopper for a while but it feels like this late at night we would be better served to have that discussion at a time that's a little bit more convenient for everybody that is involved considering we have two public hearings that are pretty substantial that we're gonna have to get through right now and I don't want to keep the community waiting I'll ask my colleagues if anybody has any objections to going ahead and just announcing the continuance of C and D to our next meeting to prevent our community members from having to wait and the risk that we're not going to get to them probably until midnight if we do keep them at that. That would be a generous estimate. I'm not seeing any objections. Council Member Matias.

Objection is a strong word, maybe a counter. Could we revisit it at 11? See where we are at the 11 o'clock?

My only reason for making the determination now is just because I know we have people in the crowd that I don't think they want to sit here for another half hour and then go home. I think they'd rather just go home now. And I'm feeling like the odds that we're going to make it to them are slim to none.

Yeah, because, I mean, we've already had like three or four conversations. I'm just speaking on this side. I'm coming up. We've already talked about this multiple times. So, well, I'm just saying we've talked about this a few times, so I don't think this is going to go two hours. But if you guys want to override me, that's fine.

Go ahead, Council Member. What did you say?

So what's the short version? I mean, to be really honest, I agree with Councilmember Mateus. We have talked about this numerous times. We know it needs to get done. It's been since 2019, if I'm not mistaken, six, seven years since we've updated the schedules. We need to update them. So... AND IF WE DON'T UPDATE THEM, WE'RE LOSING REVENUE. I MEAN, THAT'S JUST THE BOTTOM LINE. SO WHAT CAN WE DO TO EXPEDITE THIS AND NOT HAVE THIS ROBUST, LONG PRESENTATION?

RECOMMENDATION. THE ULTIMATE EXPEDITING OF IT IS JUST READ THE STAFF'S RECOMMENDATION AND YOU ALL DELIBERATE ON IT OR JUST ACT ON IT.

We do have to have a public hearing, which is why I made the comment that I did.

But what does it mean when we say we have to have a public hearing? How much information is required? What is the abridged information that is required for the public hearing without violating anyone's rights?

I don't if I may just jump in through the mirror. I don't think that there's any requirement for us to give an in-depth presentation and we do have the consultant online we can skip that part since you've already seen the the study and I had a verbal presentation to go over the responses but it's all on the staff report if that's yeah we can make it pretty brief.

Why don't we just go ahead and vote? I'm going to move just to be safe that we continue C and go ahead and commit to continuing C and D to our next meeting. And we can vote. And I think we might get through these quickly, but we'd still be taking new items at 11 p.m., starting at 11 p.m. So why don't we just go ahead and vote on that, and then that'll decide us.

To the chair.

Go ahead, Council Member Gordon.

I want to make sure everything is great with the city manager. The question was just asked from our council member, Letta June.

I've been corrected. I mean, there's a public hearing element to this. So we can expedite this on the staff side in that we've had these discussions with you before. They don't need to make a presentation. You have it. And if you have questions, they can respond to your questions. And then the public hearing component can do what it needs to do. And then you can get to a disposition of this particular item. Thank you.

Okay, can we put up a vote to do the continuance? That way we'll just know for sure.

So can I make a friendly amendment to this? Sure. I'd like to make a friendly amendment. Let's check in at 11. We've had the pro-housing designation out here, and it is really important. And every time we get to housing, we get stalled. And I'm looking at who's out in the audience and these very people, not only do they come out consistently, but they also get online. And I think with all due respect, we need to see how far we can get, how we can abridge this presentation so that we can talk about housing and make a decision about it. So that's my amendment.

So that's an alternate motion then. Okay. Because I think that's different enough. So the alternate motion is don't make any continuances and check back in at, why don't we end and we'll start another vote. So we're not, the alternate motion is to not continue any of the items and to check back in at 11. Yeah. But on the alternate, yeah.

That motion carries with the mayor opposed and council members Beginser and Paul Marisapsen.

All right. Let's go ahead and call item 9A and we'll open up public comment on the item. No, sorry. I'm sorry. We reordered our items. Yep, that's right. We're going to go ahead with 9B.

hold a public hearing to consider adoption of a resolution amending the master fee schedule to establish new fees and revise existing fees for services provided by the building and planning divisions of the Planning and Development Services Department and the Water Department.

all right thank you so what we'll do as we do with public hearings we'll hear our staff presentation i'll open the public hearing we'll see if there are any quick questions or comments from council we'll take any public comments and then we will move to a vote so i'll turn it over to our staff for the presentation

Thank you, good evening. My name's Kristen Paul and I'm the Planning and Development Services Director. We have a presentation, very brief tonight, related to the building planning and water master fee schedule update. Since we've already talked about the background and we understand that we are here to re-present the same study that was presented last September, we can go ahead and skip through these slides. I think we can skip all the way down to probably the Planning and Development Services, this one right here. THE ONE THING THAT I JUST WANTED TO HIGHLIGHT FOR THE COUNCIL THIS EVENING IS THAT THE STUDY ORIGINALLY HAD RECOMMENDED A THREE-YEAR PHASED IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULE. WE ARE REVISING THAT APPROACH AND WE ARE NOW RECOMMENDING A TWO-YEAR PHASED IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULE. STAFF BELIEVES THAT THIS WOULD GET THE REVENUE PROJECTIONS MORE IN LINE WITH WHAT WAS FORECASTED WITH THE BUDGET ADOPTION JUST RECENTLY IN JUNE. THIS IS AN UPDATED EXHIBIT THAT GIVES YOU A CLEAR PICTURE OF WHAT THAT'S DOING TO OUR RECOVERY RATES FOR THE YEAR ONE AND WHAT THOSE NUMBERS ARE. I THINK THAT IS REALLY THE BIGGEST POINT THAT I WANTED TO MAKE. AND ALSO THERE'S A REVISED EXHIBIT A THAT HAS THESE REFLECTED NUMBERS ATTACHED TO THE RESOLUTION. SO IF YOU MOVE FORWARD WITH ADOPTING, PLEASE INCLUDE THE REVISED EXHIBIT A. And I think Gillian is here on behalf of water.

Gillian Hain, assistant city manager, just to be available for questions on the water portion of the fee schedule update. Obviously water also reviews development review projects for the city to ensure the water system is safe and reliable and we can support the proposed uses. So these are the areas that water reviews. Next slide, please. And the water development review fees are per project and paid for by those developers so that the rate payer revenues are not used for this water review. So that's why it's important to have the fees that are cost recovery. Again, there's about 20 development review services and applications. and these fees will recover that staff time that is allocated to review water projects, development projects. Next slide. That ends our presentation. We've got the consultant online for any questions, as well as Kristin and myself, if the council has any questions. Thank you.

Excuse me, Madam Mayor. Go ahead.

The resolution that is in your packet makes one year of fee adjustments, not two. So if you look into the, if you look at the attachment on, sorry, beginning, the resolution begins on page, my apologies for not doing this faster, 190 of your packet. That resolution is the one for planning and development services on the water department. It has two attachments that are attached to that. If you pass this resolution, the fee structure that you are passing is the attachment to the resolution, not what was presented in the report.

Through the mayor, this one-year resolution is for the first year, and then we would come back next year for the second. Right.

I just wanted to correct, there wasn't two years being of fees being increased here, only one?

Yeah, because moving forward, the standard practice needs to be that we do this annually as a part of the budget process. And that helps to alleviate any confusion. So moving forward, we'll come with a fee schedule as a part of the documents that you receive as a part of the budget approval process.

ALL RIGHT, THANK YOU. IF THERE ARE ANY QUICK QUESTIONS FROM COUNCIL, I'M GOING TO GET INTO ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE STAFF REPORT, PARTICULARLY ON THE FOLLOW-UP FROM OUR SEPTEMBER MEETING. COUNCILMEMBER LETTERGY, QUICK QUESTION. DO YOU WANT TO WAIT UNTIL AFTER THE PUBLIC COMMENT? OKAY. LET'S GO AHEAD AND OPEN UP THE PUBLIC HEARING ON THIS ITEM, AND WE WILL SEE FIRST IF WE HAVE ANY SPEAKERS IN PERSON.

NO SPEAKERS IN PERSON, MAYOR.

ALL RIGHT. DO WE HAVE ANY SPEAKERS ONLINE?

Through the mayor, we do have one speaker online.

Let's go ahead and call them.

Melvin Cowan, please unmute yourself. You have the floor.

Excellent. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Soros, members of the council. My name is Melvin Cowan, founder. of enough housing and a Vallejo resident. I understand the need to periodically update the city's fee schedule so that planning, building, and water services recover a reasonable share of their costs. My comments are really about transparency, implementation, and alignment with the city's broader housing goals. First, I would appreciate clarification regarding the consultant's recommendations compared to the proposal before you tonight. The MGT fee study discussed increasing building costs, recovery from approximately 59% to 80% and planning from 44% to 62%. The staff recommendation before council instead proposes approximately 62% for building and 55% for planning. If those recommendations were appropriately modified, that's helpful, but I believe council and the public would benefit from a simple reconciliation showing what changed, why it changed, and what the actual first year impacts will be second i encourage the city to evaluate development costs cumulatively rather than department by department an affordable housing project or small infill development doesn't pay just one fee it pays planning building water fire consultant cost permit charges and other charges and so looking at a representative project examples such as adu an SB9 project, affordable housing or permanent supportive housing would provide a much clearer picture of the real development costs. And finally tonight, you're considering the pro-housing designation. The state is encouraging jurisdictions to reduce unnecessary barriers, accelerate approvals and make affordable housing more feasible. I respectfully ask that the council direct staff to return with a targeted fee waiver reduction or deferral policy for deed-restricted affordable housing, permanent supportive housing, nonprofit mission-driven development, and qualifying homeowners, along with measurable service standards so applicants understand what improvements accompany these fee increases. Vallejo can recover its costs while also strengthening housing production, economic development, and our competitiveness for future state investment. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME.

THANK YOU. ANY OTHER SPEAKERS ONLINE?

THROUGH THE MAYOR, NO OTHER SPEAKERS AT THIS TIME.

ALL RIGHT. WITH THAT, WE WILL CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING. WE WILL OPEN IT UP FOR COUNCIL DISCUSSION. I HAVE A COUPLE QUESTIONS. I KNOW YOU WERE UP FIRST. SO I WANTED TO RETURN TO, AND I APPRECIATE THE INTERIM CITY MANAGER. WE HAD A CONVERSATION ABOUT, EVEN THOUGH WE'RE BRAND NEW, WE HAD A LITTLE BIT OF A CONVERSATION ABOUT, YOU KNOW, MAKING SURE THAT THIS FOLLOW-UP, BECAUSE WE DO NEED THIS, AND IT WAS AN IMPORTANT PIECE OF HAVING PASSED THE BUDGET, BUT WE WANTED TO MAKE SURE WE FOLLOW IT UP ON THE CONCERNS THAT WE RAISED LAST FALL. AND THE TWO THAT I REMEMBER, AND I'M TRYING TO CHANNEL COUNCILMEMBER RUGENZER AS WELL SINCE HE WASN'T ABLE TO STAY, I REMEMBER WE WERE THINKING SPECIFICALLY ABOUT THE THE WATER HEATERS, GAS, AND I'M LOSING MY MIND BECAUSE IT'S SO LATE, GET THE GAS AND ELECTRIC WATER HEATERS AND DIFFERENT PERMITS THAT WE WANT TO MAKE SURE WE'RE NOT DISINCENTIVIZING PEOPLE FROM DOING RENEWABLE ENERGY OPTIONS. I JUST WANT TO EXPRESS MY DESIRE TO MOVE FORWARD WITH THE SEPARATE DISCUSSION PER THE STAFF'S RECOMMENDATION WITH THE SEPARATE DISCUSSION ABOUT the energy efficient incentives and kind of where we can pull resources and the other big one was the equity piece and I think the thing that still You know, it doesn't it's not gonna change my my understanding that we need to do this but I worry that if we don't have the equity piece in, if we don't have the fee, so the in-house fee reduction program, I worry that if we don't have that, not only are we generating the equity issues of people potentially losing access, but we're going to potentially HURT EVERYBODY BY INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF WORK THAT'S DONE WITHOUT GETTING A PERMIT. AND IF YOU RAISE FEES AND PEOPLE CAN'T AFFORD THE FEES, THEY'RE MORE LIKELY TO GO AND KIND OF SIDESTEP BECAUSE THEY GO, OH, MY GOD, MY WATER HEATER BROKE. THERE'S A LEAK IN MY ROOF. I HAVE TO MAKE THIS REPAIR. I CAN'T AFFORD THE PERMIT AND THE REPAIR COST, SO I'M JUST GOING TO DO UNPERMITTED WORK, WHICH THEN HURTS US FROM A REVENUE STANDPOINT, HURTS THEM BECAUSE NOW THEY'RE not, you know, there's a safety risk and their home value and all that, and it's going to have all those equity implications as well. So I see the city manager's like, come on, I'm curious, you know, from a follow-up standpoint. It sounds like that's a follow-up discussion we can have, but I just want to express my full support for it. Go ahead, did you have other comments you wanted to share?

Yeah, this is just one of those interesting areas for me, and it's really about terminology. You know, we're using the term equity. What we're really talking about is affordability, okay, not equity in my view. What I think is also important to keep in mind, too, our cost recovery rate is low, okay? And to the extent that our cost recovery rate is low, it means that the general fund has to absorb the difference. I think that our fees are what they are, what's being proposed. But if you look at them from a cost recovery standpoint, If we were a restaurant or a convenience store, we would probably be out of business because we're not covering our cost. That's it, that's just my feedback.

So through the mayor, you had two questions. So the first one I think was around the equity or no, no, your first one was around.

The first one was on the efficient, the energy efficiency. The energy efficiency. Disincentivizing people from doing energy efficient upgrades.

Right, so the city of Vallejo actually applied for the air district repair grant as a lead applicant, but we also partnered with Contra Costa County Another impacted area with regards to air quality particulate matter. And one of the programs that we put forth directly ties into this. So we just found out today that their application was moved forward and it's a $500,000 pilot program. Part of that program partners with the Bay Area Regional Energy Network. which partners with MCE to do those kind of energy upgrades. So it'll be on a first come first serve basis. It'll be a three year pilot. It would allow for folks up to 125% of AMI apply for either reductions, full coverage of the cost of doing some energy upgrades. And then the other part of that in terms of the equity piece is part of the funds will also be allowed to fully cover the cost of permits through that process. Specifically around things that I think we identified last time that folks often have to replace like water heaters and some other things that would then allow folks to, especially landlords, to not pass that cost on to tenants. So part of participating in that program would be that they wouldn't pass on that cost, and then that way we're hoping that it wouldn't lead to any displacement for doing those kind of upgrades and improvements to a property. So hopefully that grant will be funded. That's actually a smaller part. As a lead applicant, we have a larger component of our own application that will also add funds to that program going forward.

Yeah, thank you. That's great news and great to hear. I agree that it's an affordability issue, but I think the equity piece that I'm thinking about is that if somebody has gotten it, the landlord passing it on to tenants is a whole other set of equity issues, but if we're thinking about homeowners, If you're in a tight bind and a homeowner with a lower-priced home and you can't afford permits for work or you're having to cut corners, you're now – that generational wealth building that comes from that home, you're going to have – them lose out on that opportunity. But I'm also thinking about seniors on fixed incomes and other vulnerable groups where they have their home and their water heater breaks and they just cannot take on that cost and they have to make a difficult decision. Hey, I'm going to do this without a permit because I have no other choice and now they've lost some of the value of their asset. So again, it's not, I'm not saying, you know, throw this all out, but I'm saying, I mean, I would love to, I guess, look at our data and see, and I know we're going to be using data. So that's not a, that's not a question to look at our data and see, like, do we see a dip in people pulling permits for some of this stuff? Do we see trends year over year? Are we seeing, you know, is our revenue going up by as much as we want, as much as we anticipate, and try to get some data on whether folks can actually, you know, whether folks can afford this and how they're sending us those signals in other ways, like I said, by doing, potentially by doing the work without permits. And that's not getting into the landlord passing out attendance, which is another...

Well, this program does actually seek to address exactly what you're stating in terms of covering that cost. And one of the things we did was we increased the AMI to be 125% of AMI, because normally these programs are 80%. Yeah. So we figured that that would give us a larger applicant pool. of people who could apply for this program. Now, obviously, this is a grant, and we haven't yet received it. So, you know, if we don't, then unfortunately, the fees sort of go forward without that sort of mitigating factor. But, you know, we were working closely with planning to try to identify specifically those equity issues, affordability issues, and then just, you know, trying to think of how we could sort of put in some things that we thought would play into tenant protections long term in terms of displacement and passing on costs.

I think the other piece, I should say, because I'm realizing the city manager wasn't here for the last discussion either. We were speaking particularly not about I want to build an extension on my house or a pool. We were talking about having a pool. But we were talking about the things that are super urgent. Something breaks. you have very little you know you're pulling from your rainy day fund you have very little leeway like those are the areas i think we would want to be watching the water heater the roof whatever you know some of those things window gets smashed like those little things that people are gonna have no choice um so i i would just ask that we keep that conversation going um with that i will pass to you councilmember letters you

So just to the equity piece and affordability piece, that's one component of it. And yes, we need to watch it. But the other component of it is WHEN WE THINK ABOUT PEOPLE NOT PULLING PERMITS AND SO FORTH AND ON, HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO GET A RESPONSE AND GET THOSE PERMITS? THAT'S THE OTHER PIECE OF IT, JUST FOR CONSIDERATION. AND THEN WHAT I'D LIKE TO KNOW IS, AND I APPRECIATE WHAT YOU SAID, CITY MANAGER, BECAUSE IT WAS ONE OF MY QUESTIONS, IS HOW ARE WE GOING TO MAKE A COMMITMENT TO ANNUALLY REVIEW OUR FEE STRUCTURE, WHICH WE SHOULD BE DOING? SO I DO APPRECIATE YOU BRINGING THAT FORWARD. THEN MY FINAL QUESTION IS AROUND IF MARKET CONDITIONS CHANGE OR THE COUNCIL IDENTIFIES STRATEGIC PRIORITIES SUCH AS AFFORDABLE HOUSING, IN-FIELD DEVELOPMENTS AS BROUGHT FORWARD, OR SMALL BUSINESS INVESTMENTS, WHAT PROCESS WOULD COUNCIL USE TO EVALUATE TARGETED FEE INCIDENTIVES WHILE PRESERVING OUR INTEGRITY OF THE CITY'S OVERALL COST RECOVERY? The other part of it is, it's a two-edged sword because you're already saying that our fees really don't fully recover our costs. If you look at what percent we're not covering, what does that really mean as we are trying to get to that mark? But those are considerations that we would need to think about and how would we visit that as well.

Yeah, you know, again, the goal setting workshop is so important because once you identify what the priority goals are going to be, you know, hopefully, you know, somewhere around five. I'm just putting the plug in again. And then I think a part of the exercise will be developing multiple objectives to align with each individual goal and then I DON'T THINK WE'RE GOING TO DO THIS AS A PART OF THE WORKSHOP, BUT THIS IS SOMETHING THAT WE CAN DO IN TERMS OF STAFF. WE CAN COME UP WITH PLANS, YOU KNOW, THE VARIOUS TASKS THAT WE CAN PERFORM THAT ALIGN WITH THE OBJECTIVES, WHICH ARE ALIGNED WITH THE GOALS. AND THEN WITH ALL OF THAT, ESTABLISHING PERFORMANCE METRICS FOR EACH GOAL. AND DEVELOPING WAYS TO easily communicate to you all as well as to the public vis-a-vis dashboards, things of that nature.

So wonderful. That just answers the accountability and performance called metrics.

Yeah.

How they line up and how you're going to report back to us, not the year that you want to change them, but as we go along and how we communicate that out to public as well. So thank you. Yep.

All right. I'm not seeing anything else from council, so I think we are ready for a motion. Can someone verify? I opened and closed the public hearing, right? I'm not losing my mind. There was a speaker. Yeah, and then I closed it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. We're ready for a motion.

I move we... I move we consider adoption of a resolution amending the master fee schedule to establish new fees, revise existing fees for service provided by the building and planning divisions of the planning and development services department and the water department.

All right, we're ready to vote. Could we clarify that that includes the revised exhibit?

What do we need to state to make sure that it's a revised exhibit?

The revised exhibit?

It's on the dais.

This one. And it's only for a one-year period also. Do we need to clarify that also, that it's for a one-year period and not for two?

So in that case, let's pause really briefly. Can you just quickly state on the record what is different in the exhibit in front of us that is not online so that we have it on the public record?

Yeah, the revised exhibit that is on the dais includes basically the year two implementation numbers from the fee schedule. And the reason for that is because this was initially last year, so we're a year behind, and we felt it would be better to start at that year two point. Okay, and also the exhibit only includes one set of fees, so it should be very clear that it's only for one year.

Okay, so the updated exhibit has one set of fees instead of two, effectively, and that's the only difference?

That was the slide that was shown during the presentation that said year one and year two. Those are the fees that are reflected on the exhibit.

Madam Mayor, I'm sorry. I'm very confused now with apologies. I don't have a revised exhibit.

Oh, this one? This one that was passed out? This one. Yeah. Oh, this one, gotcha.

Honestly, it can't be.

There's a memo in front of it. What? There's a memo in front of it.

I just went through this on another board. I just went through this on another board about reading, needing to read edits into the record. So I just want to make sure we've covered what we need to do.

It's okay. That's why I didn't have this. It's okay. So thank you.

So do I need to restate the motion?

Let's double check. I just want to make sure that the conversation we just had is sufficient enough to state on the record what was different about what we're voting on versus what was in the packet.

So the numbers that were disclosed to the public in the fee study and that were noticed included three

So all the numbers are the same?

They're not. Hold on. Let me try to spit this out and make sure I get it right. So you had a disclosure to the public on, and here we're only talking about the planning and building fees, not the water fees. There is no change there. So the planning and building fees exhibit A that is attached to the resolution is not the same one that was in your packet. This one takes from the report that was disclosed to the public as notice for the increase of the fees, had three years in it, year one, year two, year three. But as the city manager indicated, we're only doing one year worth of increases. What Director Pollitt is saying is, the department is suggesting and has proposed a revised exhibit a that is behind a memorandum that is apparently at your places and making sure everybody has it and if you don't we can make sure you do that that revised exhibit a picks year two as from the study as opposed to year one because we're already theoretically we'll call it past year one, or past enough of year one that the adjustment to year two would be, the year two fees from the study would be appropriate.

Did I get that right?

I did get that right. Yes, thank you. Good, okay.

AND DOES IT HELP TO CLARIFY THAT IT'S ONLY YEAR 26 TO 27?

THERE'S ONLY ONE YEAR, YES. WELL, IT'S SAYING THOSE ARE THE FEES THAT WILL BE INCREASED FOR THAT TIME PERIOD. IT KIND OF BRIDGES THE STUDY YAP.

YES, THE FISCAL YEAR 26, 27 ONLY.

AND THE EXHIBIT THAT WE HAVE, THE NUMBERS THAT WE HAVE IN FRONT OF US ARE AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC SOMEWHERE.

They are included in the published fee study.

Okay, that's the main question that I'm asking is I want to make sure we don't adopt something tonight that hasn't been made available to the public. Yep.

But you passed this out at the dais so it didn't go online, right? Yes, it did. Oh, there's the actual answer to this question.

Don handed it out. Don is, yes, so.

I'm raising this because I ran into this at another board a couple weeks ago where we actually had to read into the record a bunch of numbers and I don't want to miss a step and have to come back because we didn't cross a T or dot an I. So I just want to make sure that we're okay to vote on what's in front of us.

You are with the exception of your motion to move the resolution should state it is the revised exhibit A for the planning and development fees and that that is included within a amendment to this packet that went out and was published by the city clerk.

Okay, let's just restate that to me.

Correct, okay. I will go ahead and do that. So I move that we consider adoption of a resolution amending the master fee schedule to establish a new fees and revise existing fees for services provided by the building and planning division of the planning and development services department and the water department based on the revised amended fee schedule that was presented to the council and made available to the public for the fiscal year 26-27.

Perfect, we are ready to vote.

Well, it's not. There we go. We will have to re. Oh, there it is. It's a motion carries unanimously with council members Bergenzer and Palmer.

Thank you very much. Thank you all. All right. That is going to bring us to item 9A. Excuse me. And why don't we announce this item and then we'll come back to the conclusion because I'm coughing.

Hold a public hearing to consider adoption of a resolution amending the master fee schedule for fiscal year 26-27 to establish new fees and revise existing fees for the fire department. All right.

We are going to take this item. Thank you, Chief, for sticking with us. Does anyone want to, before we officially start, I guess I should have done this before. I had to cough. Do we want to make a determination on C and D? I'M STILL IN FAVOR OF CONTINUING THEM.

I WANT TO SAY THE SAME THING I SAID EARLIER. YES, IT'S A HEARING. HOW MUCH DO WE NEED TO HEAR? THIS IS NOT NEW TO US. I REALLY WANT TO GET TO THE PRO-HOUSING. IT'S IMPORTANT. I JUST WANT TO KNOW, AGAIN, THE SAME QUESTION.

I CAN SENSE THAT THIS IS GOING TO BE VERY BRIEF.

All right, so we're going to keep, unless somebody moves otherwise, we're going to keep the agenda as is, and we'll carry forward with this item. So we'll turn it over to our chief for the presentation. We'll do the same thing we did earlier. We'll hear the presentation, clarifying questions. We'll open the public hearing. Commenters can raise your hands online, and then we will close the hearing and vote. Go ahead. Thank you very much. Chief Golding.

Well, good evening. This will be very brief. There is no slideshow presentation for the The benefit of the public hearing, I'll make three clarifying statements about this. This is fire fees, which are mostly centered around fire prevention fees, not 100%, but mostly. The fee study did make a recommendation to go to 100%. We were much closer to the recovery rate, so it was ONE YEAR TO 100% OF THE FEE COST. BUT WITH THAT, TO MAKE IT CLARIFIED THAT SOME FEES WENT UP, BUT SOME FEES DID GO DOWN. THAT WAS PART OF THE RESETTING. SO THERE'S ACTUALLY A SUBSTANTIAL NUMBER OF FEES IN THIS RESETTING THAT ACTUALLY DECREASED. BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT OUR COSTS WERE ASSOCIATED. AND THEN AS WELL AS THE ONES THAT WENT UP. AND THEN THERE WERE SOME NEW FEES ADDED. A LOT OF THE NEW FEES THAT WERE ADDED WERE ALREADY BEING The services were already being provided, and so we had to use hourly rates and those types of things to actually account for cost recovery on that, and it actually puts it into fees associated with what the actual items were. And with that I can handle any questions.

Great, thank you very much. Clarifying questions from Council before we open the public hearing. Let's go ahead and open up the public hearing and do we have any speakers in person?

No speakers in person, Mayor?

All right. Do we have any speakers online?

Through the Mayor, we do not have any members online who would like to speak on this item. All right.

Let's give it just a couple more seconds. Last call for anyone to raise their hands online. Seeing none, we will close the public hearing and we will move to council discussion. Council Member Gordon.

I just want to make sure that people are aware that this is available to them online, correct?

Yeah, that was part of the staff report. It was an attachment to the staff report.

Thank you very much. And first of all, welcome. It's your first official meeting.

All right. I'm not seeing any other questions or comments from council. I'm comfortable with this. So I think we are ready. Council Member Letters, you go ahead.

I know this is your first meeting, and I apologize. But we're glad you're here. Thank you, Council Member Gordon. But we need to hear pro-housing.

So sorry.

I think we're ready for a motion on this.

I move we adopt a resolution amending the master fee schedule for fiscal year 26-27 to establish new fees and revise existing fees for the fire department.

Did everybody vote? All right. Motion carries unanimously with council members Bergenzer and Palmeiras absent.

And Chief, that's the last time you'll have it that easy. All right.

We are moving on to item 9C. I'll ask our clerk to announce this item.

Item 9D we're moving on to? We're going to go to 9C. We'll just go in the order on the agenda. Adopted Resolution 1, ratifying additional services previously performed by Pothen Van Dyke and Associates under the existing Consultant Professional Services Agreement dated June 14, 2023 to... approving the third amendment to set agreement to incorporate those services into the scope of work and to increase the not to exceed amount by 116 500 for a revised total of 1 million and 151 601 dollars and three authorizing city manager to execute the same all right

Thank you. So we will go ahead and open up public comment on this item in person and online. We have our public works team here and I will go ahead and turn it over to you all for the presentation.

We have a short presentation. Hopefully we can move on to .

How many slides do you have in the presentation?

I think there's about five.

Twelve. Let's do our best to just summarize everything extemporaneously.

So, Mandy, can we go to slide three? Oh, sorry. Oh, no. Okay. Does counsel have... Okay, so ratification amendment with Fath and Van Dyke. In 2023, we had an original agreement for $155,000, and this was for Marina sedimentation analysis. 2024, we had a first amendment bringing that amount to $235,000. February of 2025, we had a second amendment for Marina seawall rehabilitation, which included the grant for $1.5 million. And in July of 2026, we're proposed the third amendment adding an additional 116,000 to the total. Bringing the total to 1.851601. Oh, looks like we got it now. Mandy's got it? Okay, the additional funds that we are asking for is the 101,500, that's for environmental compliance, biological monitoring, permitting, technological documentation, agency responses, and permit closeout support that we asked FOC to do that was outside of the original scope. In addition to that, we had a $15,000 previous approval for work on the grant for the $1.5 million. Do you want me to go through the whole thing? Do we do want to go through the whole thing?

Do we want to go through the whole slide?

So the Marina seawall rehabilitation project came with a budget of 1.5 million by way of a grant. And that was to evaluate, assess the conditions of the Vallejo Marina seawall, prepare engineering design and rehabilitation alternatives for the seawall improvements. develop construction documents, plans, specifications, cost estimates, and provide permitting and building support. The additional grant funding that was previously authorized was for grant research, planning, and technical analysis, which is what got us the $1.5 million grant. In addition to that was the, what I mentioned earlier, the $101,000 of environmental compliance, biological monitoring, permitting, technical documentation, agency responses, and permit closeout. So today we're asking you for ratification of the environmental compliance and permitting services fees, additional fees, along with the pre-award grant preparation of services, totaling $116,500 in additional funds.

All right.

Just one note is that we're not asking for funds. We have those funds. We're just asking for the ratification.

Wonderful. Let's check and see if that's the presentation. Let's go ahead and just check real quick to see if we have public comment. Is there anyone in person?

None in person, Mayor.

Or how about online?

None online, Mayor.

All right. Questions, comments from City Council? I see Council Member Letters, you, and then the Vice Mayor.

So where did the $1.5 million come from?

That was a grant.

From where?

California Department of Boating and Waterways. It was resulting from storm damage to the seawall, and so they gave us a $1.5 million grant. Okay, thank you.

Vice Mayor Matulak.

And just to be clear, this is just for the professional services. Did that include RFPs for bids to go out to get this construction done for the demolition along with the seawall construction?

Yes, it did. It was the management of the project from Fox.

And so have we gotten any bids for this work, this construction?

The work has all been completed. Oh, it is done. Okay. That's what it was in. Okay. Gotcha. And just for everybody's information, we had a really short window because of the regulations. So we had a September 1st through November 31st window for construction. This is of last year.

So if I hear that correctly, Dock A is completely demolished along with the seawall being completely demolished.

No, just the dock A has been removed. The seawall is under study.

So I guess that's my follow-up question. Is there an RFP out for the seawall construction?

No, not yet.

Okay.

I thought you were talking about the construction of the dock A.

Yes, the rebuilding of that seawall. That was my question. Okay. Thank you.

Council Member Matias.

Real quick. SO I KNOW WE HAVE A MARINA ADVISORY BODY AND I'M JUST HOPING THAT AS WE ARE DOING ALL THIS WORK AND BEFORE YOU BRING THESE ITEMS UP TO COUNCIL THAT YOU'RE ENGAGING THAT COMMITTEE NOT JUST TO GIVE THEM UPDATES ON WHERE THESE PROJECTS ARE BUT ALSO TO GET THEIR INPUT I KNOW WE'VE WE'VE GOTTEN FEEDBACK FROM SOME OF THE COMMISSIONERS THAT THEY HAVEN'T REALLY BEEN ENGAGED SO it's not something you guys did wrong because i know um director you're new to the agency so i just want to make sure on a go forward basis um as you map out the next year 15 months especially with the dredging money we set aside uh that you're you're keeping that um commission abreast and and also have them participate in the process you have my solemn word thank you councilmember lederjee

So just real quick, Oscar, it's really great to see you. When I saw you out in the hall, I told you that. And I want to thank you for the time that you sat in this seat as the director, keeping things tight, holding it down. And I really do appreciate it. Thank you so very much. And it's good to see you this evening. Thank you.

For over a year.

Yeah, we're all echoing. Yeah, that's echoed universally. So I think I'm not, if I'm not seeing anything else from Council, I think we are ready for a motion on this item.

I move we adopt a resolution, one, ratifying the additional services previously performed by Foth and Van Dyke and Associates, incorporated under the existing Consultant and Professional Services Agreement, dated June 14, 2023. Two, approving the third amendment to set agreement to incorporate those services into the scope of work and to increase the not to exceed amount of $116,500 for a revised total of $1,851,601. And three, authorizing the city manager to execute the amendment. All right, we're ready to vote.

Motion carries unanimously with Council Members Bergenzer and Paul Mayer as absent.

All right. Thank you both again. That is going to bring us to Item 9D, and I'll turn it back to our clerk to announce this item.

Adopt a resolution directing staff to take the necessary steps to pursue the state's pro-housing designation.

All right. We will open up public comment on this item. I thank everyone for their patience, and we will go ahead and turn it over to the planning team when you all are ready.

All right, good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. Let me just say I'm very excited to hear that you're passionate about this item, so excited to be here with you. My name is Hector Rojas, and I am the Long Range Planning Manager with the Planning and Development Services Department. So tonight's item is asking the council to consider directing staff to take the necessary steps to pursue the state's pro-housing designation. This presentation will provide a brief overview of the program, its potential benefits and requirements, the application process, the Housing and Community Development Commission's recommendation, and the staff's recommended action. Next slide. So what is the Pro Housing Designation Program? This program is administered by the California Department of Housing and Community Development, or HCD. The program recognizes jurisdictions that have adopted housing policies and programs that go beyond state housing law requirements. The program generally focuses on local actions that facilitate and accelerate housing production, streamline housing development, promote housing affordability, and expand housing opportunity. Next slide. The primary benefit of having this designation is that it may improve the city's competitiveness for certain state funding programs. Designated jurisdictions may receive priority processing, preference, or additional points when applying for select housing, infrastructure, transportation, and climate-related funding programs, including the programs listed on this slide. Designated jurisdictions are also eligible to apply for the Pro Housing Incentive Program. For context, the most recent Pro Housing Incentive Program funding round made approximately $8 million available statewide. Based on Vallejo's population, the city would have been eligible for a base award of approximately $750,000 with the possibility of additional score-based bonus funding. That round has closed, so Vallejo would be pursuing eligibility for a future round. Any future funding availability and award amounts would depend on the applicable notice of funding availability. Next slide. So before an application can be scored, the city must satisfy HCD's threshold requirements. These generally include having a compliant housing element, submitting the required annual progress reports, completing required rezoning programs in the housing element, complying with applicable state housing laws, adopting a formal resolution required by HCD as part of the application, and completing a diligent public participation process. This program also requires the city to demonstrate that its treatment of homeless encampments on public property is consistent with the constitutional requirements and the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness' Seven Principles for Addressing Encampments. Staff would verify each threshold requirement as part of the preparation of the application Tonight's action does not present a final determination that every requirement has already been satisfied next slide SO WHAT'S THE SCORING CRITERIA FOR THIS PROGRAM? IN ADDITION TO MEETING THE THRESHOLD REQUIREMENTS THAT HCD SETS FORTH, THE CITY MUST ALSO SUBMIT A SCORED APPLICATION DEMONSTRATING QUALIFYING LOCAL POLICIES AND PROGRAMS. THE SCORING FRAMEWORK CONTAINS FOUR CATEGORIES AS SEEN ON THE SCREEN. FIRST, FAVORABLE ZONING AND LAND USE POLICIES. SECOND, ACCELERATION OF HOUSING AND PRODUCTION TIMEFRAMES. THIRD, REDUCTION OF CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT COSTS. AND FINALLY, FOURTH, PROVIDING FINANCIAL SUBSIDIES. AN APPLICATION MUST IDENTIFY AT LEAST ONE QUALIFYING POLICY IN EACH OF THE FOUR CATEGORIES AND ACHIEVE AT LEAST 30 POINTS OVERALL. Staff has completed a preliminary review of Vallejo's existing housing policies, regulatory framework, and housing-related programs, and based on that review, staff believes the city is likely positioned to meet the minimum score requirement for this program. Potentially qualifying efforts that the city already has include the city's certified housing element and sites inventory, our mixed use and multi-family zoning, our streamlined approval procedures, and online permitting and standardized application materials. Other potentially qualifying efforts include the city's accessory dwelling unit regulations, which are currently being updated. PROGRAMS AND ONGOING IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HOUSING ELEMENT PROGRAMS. I WOULD NOTE THAT HCD MAKES THE FINAL DETERMINATION REGARDING WHICH POLICIES QUALIFY AND HOW MANY POINTS THEY RECEIVE. ADDITIONAL STAFF ANALYSIS AND SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION IS THEREFORE REQUIRED BEFORE A FINAL APPLICATION IS BROUGHT BACK TO THE CITY COUNCIL. NEXT SLIDE. SO IF THE COUNCIL DIRECTS STAFF TO PROCEED, THE WORK WOULD OCCUR IN THREE GENERAL PHASES SHOWN ON THE SCREEN. FIRST, STAFF WOULD PREPARE THE DRAFT APPLICATION BY IDENTIFYING QUALIFYING POLICIES, COMPILING SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION AND CONFIRMING THE APPLICATION INCLUDES AT LEAST 30 POINTS AND AT LEAST ONE POLICY IN EACH SCORING CATEGORY THAT I MENTIONED EARLIER. SECOND THE CITY WOULD COMPLETE HCD'S REQUIRED PUBLIC PARTICIPATION PROCESS THIS WOULD INCLUDE POSTING THE DRAFT APPLICATION FOR AT LEAST 30 DAYS CONDUCTING OUTREACH ENGAGING STAKEHOLDERS PRESENTING THE DRAFT APPLICATION PUBLICLY AT EITHER A PLANNING COMMISSION OR CITY COUNCIL MEETING AND CONSIDERING THE COMMENTS RECEIVED THIRD, STAFF WOULD RETURN TO THE CITY COUNCIL WITH THE COMPLETED APPLICATION PACKAGE, THE FINAL HCD REQUIRED RESOLUTION, THE PROPOSED SCORING AND THE DOCUMENTATION OF THE PUBLIC PARTICIPATION PROCESS TAKEN. THE COUNCIL WOULD THEN MAKE A FINAL DECISION ON WHETHER TO AUTHORIZE A SUBMITTAL. So if authorized, the application will be submitted to HCD. HCD reviews these applications on a rolling basis and has up to 60 calendar days under statute to issue a written determination. And through that process, they may require staff to get in touch with them and answer any clarifying questions that they have regarding the application. Next slide. SO SOME PROCEDURAL HISTORY HERE. THIS ITEM ORIGINATED FROM A CITY COUNCIL REFERRAL BACK IN MARCH OF 2026 WHEN COUNCIL MEMBER MATTIAS REQUESTED THAT THE HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION REVIEW THE PROGRAM AND PROVIDE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE COUNCIL. ON MAY 7TH, THE COMMISSION CONSIDERED THE ITEM AT A PUBLIC MEETING AND ADOPTED A RESOLUTION RECOMMENDING THAT THE CITY COUNCIL DO DIRECT STAFF TO PROCEED WITH THIS APPLICATION. The commission's recommendation was to verify the qualifying policies and supporting documentation complete the public review, public participation process, prepare the application and HCD required resolution, and then return to the council for a final authorization before the application is submitted. So that is the action before the council tonight. Approval would authorize staff to perform the preparatory work. It would not itself authorize submittal of the final application. Next slide. JUST REALLY QUICKLY HERE, AS OF MARCH 26, 2026, 74 JURISDICTIONS STATEWIDE HAVE RECEIVED THIS DESIGNATION. THIS SLIDE IDENTIFIES DESIGNATED JURISDICTIONS IN THE BAY AREA AND SURROUNDING REGION, INCLUDING ALAMITA, BERKELEY, OAKLAND, RICHMOND, SAN FRANCISCO, SANTA ROSA, AND WALNUT CREEK. WITHIN SOLANO COUNTY, BENICIA AND FAIRFIELD HAVE RECEIVED THE DESIGNATION, AND STAFF ALSO UNDERSTANDS THAT THE CITY OF submitted an application last December and that its designation remains pending. Next slide. So as I mentioned earlier, staff recommends that the city council adopt the proposed resolution, directing staff to take the necessary steps to pursue the state's pro-housing designation. If adopted, the staff would verify the city's eligibility on the proposed scoring, prepare the required application materials, conduct a public participation process, and return to council with a completed package for a final decision on the application submittal to HCD. And with that, I'd like to thank you and let you know that I'm here for any questions you might have.

Thank you so much. I think we are all very excited about this, and despite the late hour, very excited to finally hear the item. Why don't we go ahead and take public comment, and then we'll open it up to questions, comments from City Council. Do we have anyone in person?

Yes, we have three people signed up. Chris G., VHJC9121, and Eli Smith.

yeah i have to oh my god been up 5 a.m it was leg day so bear with me as my brain is not fully here thank you hector for such a good presentation and along with you mayor i do share excitement but just want to be really clear tonight about what's before us tonight action item d and taking steps towards a pro housing designation pdp for our city of vallejo and what it requires from us First, I think we have to understand the HCD criteria that we kind of went over here and just kind of be clear, this is actually like the floor. And what HCD does is they award pro-housing points for jurisdictions that do the following. Adopt and implement strong renter protections, demonstrate timely housing element implementation. By the way, ours was two years overdue. Fund and operate eviction prevention programs, maintain functioning enforcement infrastructure, and deliver measurable outcomes for low-income residents. And just as a refresher, mainly for our city manager, I know this may sound like a broken record to the rest of council, we should all be well-versed in what I'm about to share, but you should know we're not up to any of these standards by any means. Under our housing element, section F1.1.3, the rent of protection and housing stability, our city committed to, back in 2024, a feasibility study by June 2025, Rent stabilization and just cause ordinances for your consideration by September 2025. Anti-harassment and right to counsel by June 2026. So let's talk about cities with the pro-housing designation and what they look like and what they're actually doing because the contrast is quite stark. So Richmond, pro-housing designated, has rent control, just cause, and a rental housing registry and active enforcement. Oakland, pro-housing designated, rent stabilization, just cause, and a tenant protection ordinance and a fully staffed rent adjustment program. San Leandro, again, pro-housing designated, adopted just cause and anti-harassment protections and actively funds their eviction protection or prevention. San Francisco, one of our greatest examples, pro-housing designated, rent control just cause, one of the very few cities to have right to council, and really good functioning and enforcement, and actually really great local tax revenue money that is funding a lot of these. So they didn't simply get awarded this important designation, they really created the conditions required for this designation. So we, meanwhile, here we are in Vallejo, the most cost burdened city in the Bay. A huge number, a huge percentage of our renters are spending well over 30% of their income on housing. And tragically, Vallejos consistently fail to meet our housing needs for our lowest and no income residents. And the ordinances in the housing program I described are just the basis. So the base. A city can't designate itself as pro-housing without leaving these commitments unfulfilled. So we have to close the gap between what has been committed to and what has been delivered or not delivered. And I just want us to be deliberate and disciplined and honest if we move forward with this because there's a lot more of them.

presentation but i appreciate it thank you thank you next speaker is eli smith

Hi, it's late, so I'm gonna do my best. I'm in strong support of taking the necessary steps to achieve pro-housing status. Please, this is so important for our city, but I need to speak to the threshold requirements as well, and specifically the best practices consistent with the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, the seven principles of addressing encampments. And I need to be absolutely clear that we are not in compliance with almost all of these seven principles, which most notably includes upholding constitutional rights of unhoused people. The city has employed brutal abatement policies and is routinely guilty of violations of the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act. Guilty of violating due process rights, as specifically outlined in our municipal legislation, including Admin Rule 710, which specifically notes that Vallejo must balance the needs of all unhoused residents, mount a proportionate, individualized response, and recognize that encampments defined as one or more tents or vehicles are born of the need for shelter, community, and safety. And in addition, the city is required by that same administrative rule to follow a specific procedure, which it much too often either does not follow or does so in a way that's effectively not in compliance with the intention of the law. As you all know, people are dying monthly. Over the winter it was almost weekly. You know our city takes people's basic protections from the elements and the rain, now the heat, the cold, and they don't discriminate. There is no proportionate response. Minors, elderly people, disabled people, families, they're all subject to losing their survival items the same way that anyone else is. There's no needs assessment, there's no data, and there is no consistency. People are frequently given 20 minutes of verbal notice, no paper notice. Resource sheets are not given. There's no meaningful coordination of available services. Sweeping happens outside of the designated areas that are posted, and Vallejo's officers are now telling people that if they see them again on the street, that they will arrest them. And you know that they have nowhere to go. I've asked the chief of police if he'd be interested in engaging in a community policing program to do outreach to encampments so that people would feel comfortable reporting crime, which is often complained about, and I was told no. This is in my mind because last week a young woman that I know was strangled to death in her tent after being raped by her abusive boyfriend. My friend Rosa found her. She told me, I have daughters, her pants were down, her shirt was up, I covered her up before they came. And I hope that breaks your heart because it breaks mine. Countless times I hear a blind defense of what the on-the-ground staff is doing and what they are not doing. But you cannot make something true untrue. Again, I'm in strong support of taking the necessary steps to achieve pro-housing status, but I'm asking for a factual and objective evaluation of your current homelessness policies when you determine what steps need to be made for us to achieve this. Thank you. Thank you.

That's it in person, I believe. Do we have anyone online?

Through the mayor, yes, we do have one person online who would like to speak.

Go ahead and call them.

The people, please unmute yourself. You have the floor.

Hi, Council. I know it's late, but I just want to applaud the last two speakers in telling us what's real about the state of housing in Vallejo. I question, is Vallejo pro-housing? Given the two speakers sharing feedback about how we're failing our own housing element and our own house population, it's a relevant question to ask. Are we really pro-housing or are we just trying to be presentationally pro-housing? Tenants and homeowners alike suffer tremendously in our community. The cost burden to live in Vallejo for people who have been here has grown absolutely exponentially grown. The question is, should we be seeking a pro-housing designation when we literally are not pro-housing? It's not fair to want all the accolades of being identified as a pro-housing community when we're not actually delivering that. We have to walk the talk before we get the prize. It sounds nice to be able to get all of the perks that come along with pro-housing designation, but it would be performative at best. And we can't pretend to be pro-housing and not deliver on these elements, such as the rent stabilization, just cause ordinance that was expected September of last year, the anti-harassment and right to counsel ordinances that were due June of this year and the feasibility study is over a year late in being delivered. The deadlines have passed and there's no rent stabilization or just cause ordinances. And it remains that the most cost burden city in the Bay Area is Vallejo. This has to be paired with real movement on the overdue renter protections. We need rent control. People are paying upwards of 90% of their income to housing. And it's not fair for us to be seeking these designations when we are not even meeting the commitments, our past due commitments to deliver a renter protection and housing stability program under our housing element commitments. You need to think about that. And we need to walk the talk before we get the accolades.

Thank you. Do we have any other speakers online?

Other speakers, Mayor.

All right. With that, we will close public comment and move over to questions and comments from City Council. Council Member Ortiz, go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. So just to follow up on some of the comments that were made by our members of the public this evening, Can you guys give us an update on where we are with the full suite of ordinances that we directed you to work on, as well as the housing element? What's the timeline to get those in front of us?

So with the suite of ordinance, I assume that we're talking about the four primarily the renter protection ordinances so we Initially when the housing element came forward for adoption, I think they in the programs for that renter protection policy, I guess. It had some very aggressive timelines. We advised the then council that they were too aggressive and that we didn't have the appropriate staff resources or financing behind what that policy was asking to do vis-a-vis the feasibility study, public participation component. I think that that was THAT COMMENT WAS WELL RECEIVED BY BOTH THE COMMISSION AND THE CITY COUNCIL AND WE WERE GIVEN A LITTLE BIT MORE GRACE WHICH ENDED UP IN THAT SEPTEMBER 2025 DEADLINE FOR A PAIR OF THE POLICIES. I THINK KRISTEN AND I AS WE SORT OF WRAPPED OUR HEADS AROUND HOW TO DO THIS WITH THE LIMITED RESOURCES THAT WE HAD, WE LOOKED AT POTENTIALLY LOOKING AT GRANT SOURCES. WE LOOKED AT THE ONE BAY AREA GRANT AS A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FUNDING AND STAFFING TO DO THIS POLICY WORK, WHICH IS VERY IMPORTANT. We did receive that grant, but the process of getting that accepted and having a consultant on board has taken longer than we anticipated. We went out to RFP for the downtown and waterfront specific plan, I believe in March of this year, and we came up with a recommended consultant that we wanted to bring to the council. However, we're caught up in contract negotiations with that consultant. We're currently stuck on the indemnification language that we're currently negotiating with that. consultant that's all to say that we had originally anticipated having this work done by a consultant because that delay has occurred Kristen and I have looked looked at other jurisdictions because I think in previous meetings we heard that you know we don't want to reinvent the wheel these policies exist elsewhere we could basically take something off of the shelf like City of Concord Richmond Antioch what have you, and basically replicate that, tailor it to Vallejo, so to speak. So over the last month, I have been looking at a survey of those cities as it relates to rent stabilization specifically and renter protections. I've drafted a matrix that Kristen and I are currently reviewing that we plan to share with the Vallejo Housing Justice Coalition on Friday. And once we look at that, we're going to be able to put together a memo, which will be an informative item for everybody on the council to basically take a look at the menu of options that exist out there with those different jurisdictions. And hopefully at that point we'll be requesting feedback from you as to whether you want to craft an ordinance that sort of look like Antioch's, Richmond's, Concord's, and all the other cities that are on that policy menu so that we could start drafting that ordinance based on your feedback.

Do they all need to come up in a package or can you kind of take them one at a time?

The plan is to take the first two that were due first in the housing element program at a time. So we would pair the rent control and the just cause for evictions policies together. And then after we hopefully make progress on that, then we take a look at the anti-harassment and right to counsel.

Okay. So and then the final question I have for now is so your recommendation on this designation is that we do move it forward and part of the argument that you're making is you know as it as we look at the threshold the number of points needed to get that designation you guys would feel like we'd be in a position to get the designation by the time we submit the application which can take months this is not something we we just put together today and then we submit next week uh this would take a long time so can you just speak to how you arrived at that recommendation for Council

I think that we're in a position to get the designation as we stand now. This designation or this program rewards jurisdictions for the policies they have in place now and may have in the future. The minimum score is pretty low. It's a 30-point SCORE AND LOOKING AT ALL THE OTHER 74 JURISDICTIONS THAT RECEIVE THE DESIGNATION, NOT EVERYBODY GETS 100 POINTS. YOU SEE AN AVERAGE OF 30, 40, 50 POINTS PER JURISDICTION. SO THE THRESHOLD IS NOT THAT HIGH AND I SUSPECT THAT AS WE MAKE PROGRESS ON THINGS LIKE RENTAL PROTECTION AND INCLUSIONARY HOUSING ORDINANCE, WE'LL SCORE HIGHER AND HOPEFULLY WE'LL BE IN A POSITION TO SCORE HIGHER BUT WHETHER WE GET 30 POINTS OR 40 POINTS, HCD is going to grant us that designation, and we're going to be in a better competitive position to get grants. Those grant programs aren't going to say, hey, Vallejo scored 30, Benicia scored 40, so they get a higher score. It's either you have the designation or not, and that opens the door to the pro-housing incentive program and additional points through all the other grant programs as well.

Got it. Thank you for that. You know, I'm just going to make a couple of general comments. First, I want to thank you. I want to thank the rest of the team. I want to thank the commission. This is a referral I made in March. You guys brought it back in record time. And that is what effective partnerships between our boards and commissions and city staff and the council should look like across the board whenever there's a referral made or whenever there's some advice we're seeking. So I just want to thank you guys for that because you were able to dig in and get something that we could respond to. So that's one. Two, you know, the last public commenter talked about this being a performative process. Personally, I'm not a performative kind of guy. I'm about action and getting stuff done. So this would set us on a course to hold ourselves accountable as a city to make sure that these ordinances get passed and to make sure that we're not at a competitive disadvantage relative to other cities when it comes to applying to at least seven or eight different pools of funding that the state has available. We need to get more grant funding into Vallejo, folks. We want affordable housing. We want to make sure that we can make the math pencil out. We need to have these sorts of designations, period, full stop. That does not mean that we're perfect. We have a lot of work to do and we have a lot of work to do across many different areas. But this council has given direction on homelessness, has given direction on housing. I'm not pleased with the delays and whatever situation is going on with legal and that contract that needs to be resolved. We need to move that forward as soon as possible. And we need to make sure that those items come before the council because we did give direction last year around them. It doesn't mean you got to take the full package, take one at a time, but let's not let perfection be the enemy of progress here. We got to keep building on the work that we've been doing over the past year. The last point which you alluded to multiple times is the action we're taking this evening is just to give you guys direction to start working on this. As part of the review process, HCD actually reviews the application and gives us feedback if we're missing the mark on certain areas. So I encourage the public through the public participation process through this review process the hcd will be undergoing if we get to a point where we submit this application that you know that feedback is shared with the agency uh just to not make sure we're holding ourselves accountable as a city, but that these folks that are reviewing this packet and this information also get to hear from our community because I think it's just as important in terms of moving our work forward. So again, 100% supportive of it. We need this designation to be more competitive for funding. We need this designation to hold ourselves accountable to our goals. around homelessness, around affordable housing, around getting more grant funding in the door. And then lastly, we need to make sure that we're empowering staff, whether that's through funding or prioritization at upcoming goal setting, TO MAKE SURE THAT THIS PACKAGE OF ITEMS, WHICH I CONSIDER UNDER AN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BUCKET, IS PRIORITIZED OVER OTHER PROJECTS AND IS MOVING FORWARD. THIS IS WHY I MADE THE REFERRAL TO BEGIN WITH. SO I WILL END IT THERE AND I'LL MAKE SOME COMMENTS ABOUT GOAL SETTING LATER IN THE MEETING. THANK YOU.

SORRY, VICE MAYOR MITULIK.

Thank you Mayor and thank you Hector and Kristen for your presentation. So I'm reading directly from the staff report where it says pro-housing designation program is a state program intended to recognize jurisdictions that have adopted policies and programs that go beyond baseline state housing law to facilitate and accelerate housing production. And so the first bullet item on this from your staff report specifically says affordable housing and sustainable communities. So I know we've had quite a SEVERAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS COME IN FRONT OF US AND THE FIRST COMMENT THAT THIS COUNCIL ALWAYS BRINGS UP IS WHY IS THERE NO AFFORDABLE HOUSING ON THERE? UNLESS THE NAVIGATION PROJECT OR THE BROADWAY PROJECT OR OUR BLUE OAK QUALIFIES FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING, I THINK THAT'S AN AREA THAT WE NEED TO DO A BETTER JOB AT. I think – I don't know if people are aware, but Governor Newsom just signed an affordable housing bill yesterday. And I'm hoping that we can actually dive deep into that to identify some of the specificity from that bill to identify how can we bring that to our – to our planning department to identify how can we bring in the affordability for developers to come in and do affordable housing. I know the fact that this was just signed yesterday, I think that there's a little bit of deep dive that needs to happen in there, THE FACT THAT HE SIGNED THAT YESTERDAY, I THINK THAT GIVES US AND EVERYBODY ELSE AN OPPORTUNITY TO IMPROVE WHAT HASN'T BEEN HAPPENING HERE THAT I THINK WE ALL WOULD LIKE TO, AND I'LL SPEAK SPECIFICALLY TO MY DISTRICT AND DISTRICT 2, THE OLD WALMART PROJECT, THE OLD WALMART WAS THERE. We approved that project, what, two years ago for over 100 housing units, and unfortunately, the developer couldn't afford, they couldn't get the financing for that. So I'm hoping that this is the type of Governor Newsom's bill that we can kind of, that maybe these developers can reevaluate and look into of utilizing this bill to streamline the whole process and take advantage of this bill to look at affordable housing to, as developers put it, finally penciling out So this is something I hope that we can look at strongly, the new bill that he signed, and kind of add that to our portfolio of trying to get this pro-housing designation. So thank you.

Council Member Gordon.

Thank you so much. I want to thank you for this opportunity. You know, I WANT TO THANK MY COLLEAGUE FOR BRINGING THIS TO OUR ATTENTION, COUNCILMAN ALEX MATEAS. I DO HAVE A CONCERN GOING TO WHAT WAS JUST STATED. IN MY COMMUNITY, YOU KNOW, WE SAY WE WANT AFFORDABLE HOUSING, BUT THE PEOPLE WHO COME AND GET THESE LANDS, THEY JUST LET THEM SIT THERE. LIKE FOR EXAMPLE, THAT CAME TO THE COMMISSION, for housing and also when I served as commissioner for housing, those three projects for senior citizens on Sonoma Boulevard. They're still sitting there. I mean, one, two, three. So if we get this opportunity and we bring developers here, what kind of accountability are we going to hold them to IF THEY ARE NOT FOLLOWING THROUGH. I THINK THAT PROJECT HAS BEEN SINCE 2018, IF NOT LONGER, AND IS STILL SITTING THERE. DOES THAT MAKE SENSE WHAT MY CONCERN IS? SORT OF LIKE WHAT COUNCILMAN JUST POINTED OUT. WE HAVE THIS SPACE, BUT WE ARE JUST LETTING THEM HOSTAGE IT, SO TO SPEAK. OR USE IT AS COLLABORAL TO DO OTHER PROJECTS IN OTHER CITIES, WHICH THAT'S WHAT THIS PARTICULAR one, is being accused of doing. And again, that's not my words. And then also, too, I have been here since 2005, and I am like our speakers have pointed out about rent control, about protection from just evictions. I really hope that we can get on top of that really quick. I know that that's not something that people wanna hear, but how can we deal with homelessness if we do not protect people to stay in their home? That's number one. Number two, you mentioned something about a grant. Is there a deadline to that grant? First of all, congratulations for receiving it, but is there a deadline to that grant?

ARE YOU REFERRING TO THE ONE BAY AREA GRANT THAT IS FUNDING THE DOWNTOWN AND WATERFRONT SPECIFIC PLANS?

YES, YOU SAID THAT YOU RECEIVED THE GRANT, BUT UNFORTUNATELY YOU HAD ALL OF IT.

YEAH, SO THAT WAS SOMETHING THAT WAS DONE PREVIOUSLY, I THINK PRIOR TO BOTH OF OUR ARRIVALS, THE AWARD OF THAT GRANT. IT WAS A $2.4 MILLION GRANT, AND WE'RE USING IT TO UPDATE OUR DOWNTOWN AND WATERFRONT SPECIFIC PLANS. Currently, the deadline under the Metropolitan Transportation Commission contract that we have, I believe, is the end of 2027, although I've spoken to some of the staff there and they're willing to extend that to 2028. We still anticipate that we can kick off and FINISH UP THE DOWNTOWN AND WATERFRONT SPECIFIC PLAN UPDATES WITHIN THE TIME THAT THE CONTRACT ALLOWS.

MAY I ASK TO THE CITY MANAGER, IS IT POSSIBLE THAT WE CAN GET AN UPDATE REGARDING THAT? BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO LOSE THAT. YOU KNOW, THAT HAS HAPPENED QUITE A BIT PRIOR TO YOU ALL. YOU KNOW, WE GET MONEY, WE LOSE IT FOR SOME REASON. THIS $2.4 MILLION.

Councilwoman, did you mind restating your question to me, please?

And through the chair, I would just clarify, we're not currently at risk of losing that grant. We're in good standing with MTC. Again, they have a grant deadline for the expenditure of those funds currently at the end of next year, but they have expressed willingness to extend that to the end of 2028. And this planning process, which will include updating the downtown and waterfront specific plan is only scheduled to take about 18 months. So we have plenty of time to complete the grant work. So you bring that to us then? Yes, the next step will be to enter into a contract with the consultant team that will prepare the downtown and waterfront specific plans. I'm hoping that that will be before you in September so that you could get to meet the consultant team and you'll be authorizing the contract with them for the $2.4 million to be expended. And to start the work.

OK, so September of 2026. You bring that back to us.

Hopefully in September of this of this year. Yes, OK, thank you.

Council member letters you.

Thanks for the presentation. So how long have we been waiting for the downtown water specific plan?

I BELIEVE WE WERE AWARDED THAT GRANT A COUPLE YEARS AGO, ACTUALLY.

A COUPLE YEARS AGO. SO I AGREE WITH COUNCILMEMBER MATEAS. YOU KNOW, THIS IS AN IMPORTANT DESIGNATION.

AND WE NEED TO GET MOVING.

AND I'M GOING TO JUST ADDRESS THE CITY MANAGER BECAUSE I KNOW HE JUST GOT HERE. IT'S BEEN A COUPLE YEARS AGO. We don't have the housing package of renter protections, all of these different things. We've made so many promises on some very critical, critical policies that keep, potentially keep people housed. Our most impacted, under-income communities. Right? What are we going to do different? And I know you just got here. And I'm sitting in the same position you are in my professional world as well. But we have to figure out how to make good on our commitments. It's impacting the lives of the residents in our community. And yes, the designation is important. But just like all the questions I've asked tonight, it's still what is the capacity? I can get a designation. I can get a grant. I can get all these things. But if I can't produce anything behind that's required to have those things, we've wasted time even applying. So we need to figure out whether it's this thing or another thing and the package for all of our protections that we need for our community. We need to have some real timelines. AND YEAH, THE TIMELINE MIGHT HAVE BEEN AGGRESSIVE. I DON'T DISAGREE OR AGREE. BUT THE POINT IS, WE MISSED SO MANY OF THOSE TIMELINES THAT ARE VERY CRITICAL. I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S GOING TO TAKE TO GET UNSTEPTH TO OUR GENERAL COUNCIL, WHAT IT'S GOING TO TAKE TO GET THAT CONTRACT DONE, BUT WE NEED TO GET IT DONE. We need to get done. And it's going to take the two of you figuring out, moving the barriers, and getting it done. Period. By the end of this month, I don't care if we have to sit there 24 hours and we don't sleep. I'm being really serious. Get it done. Get it done. This community deserves responsive, They deserve when we say we're going to do something and sometimes things slip. I know that. I work in government and I know sometimes we just can't get everything done. And sometimes we need to delay, but we have delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed. And it's not all, you know, there's a combination of reasons of why. I'm not placing the blame on you guys sitting here presenting. You just happened to be in the seat today. That's as simple as that. But together, we have to make some decisions together and hold each other accountable to get this work done. I don't want to hear this again. I don't want this group who comes before us all the time telling me I don't have renter protections. I work in the housing industry. I care about these renter protections. PERIOD. WE BROUGHT THREE PROJECTS LAST YEAR TO THIS CITY. THREE PROJECTS. AND WE COULDN'T EVEN LIFT ONE OF THEM OFF THE GROUND. AND WE HAD TWO REPUTABLE GENERAL CONTRACTORS. ONE OF THOSE CONTRACTORS IS ACTUALLY GIVING THE LAND AWAY IN DISTRICT THREE TO A NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION WHO DOESN'T EVEN EXIST IN OUR CITY BECAUSE WE COULDN'T DO ANYTHING. SHAME ON US. In my district, they've built housing here. They were willing to work with us to build affordable housing, affordable housing that could go in that district and would serve veterans, but we couldn't even get it off the ground. City manager, we gotta figure it out. City attorney, we gotta figure it out. We can't keep doing this. We gotta figure it out. This city has to go forward. We can't have economic development when we miss deadlines. We can't get it together for ourselves. We can pass all the policies we want or have all the applications, but if we can't move the ball something's wrong. And we gotta figure out legally why we can't move things. And this is not new to me. None of the legal strategies that we have to do are new to me. I've worked with tons of legal teams moving development. But we gotta figure out how to move so that our community can have hope. You talked about hope today, city manager. We have to have hope in this city. So you're just sitting in the seat in this moment in time, not asking you to shoulder blame. I'm just saying, what do we need to do to help you get this done? City manager, what do we need to help you do to get this done? City attorney, what do we need to do to help you get this done? Whatever it is, we need to do it together. What do you two need to do together to get this done? Everything we do is dependent upon how you both lead. So help us out, and we will help you out as a council. That wasn't a question. It was a question, but it wasn't a question. It was rhetorical. So thank you.

All right, thank you all. I won't repeat anything that's been said. I think the frustration is shared because it feels like we're in a bit of groundhog day on some of these things. I think one thing I would like to request is, you know, we're going to be having goal setting soon and I think we need to have an honest conversation about prioritization because we've got a lot of ordinances that we've thrown around and that have been in the you know, Hopper, and I'm seeing, you know, things coming up about ADUs or about electric vehicle chargers and all these things, and how did those jump the line over Just Cause and tenant protections? Because we've not talked about any of those other things on this dais, but we've talked about just cause and tenant protections like a solid half dozen times. So I would like us to raise that at goal setting. Like, why are things jumping the line? And can we as a council, is there a direction that council needs to give? To say, I mean, part of why I'm excited to vote on this right now is because at least we're decreeing, as if we haven't already, this is a priority. move this stuff to the top of the list. You know, move this to the front of the line. And so I'll just raise that and bring that up when we do the goal setting because we can't do everything. Like, we can't do everything, but let's have an honest conversation about to get this ordinance through, what else do we need to put on the back burner? And let's make sure that stuff doesn't just shift around and this always ends up, this is always number two in line. And everything just keeps, you know, jumping it. With that, and I want to thank our speakers also. for your continued advocacy and just for staying with us this late. My whole decision to continue this item was mainly because I wanted to get it done, but I didn't want us to have to stay up late. So thank you for staying up late with us. And with that, I'll move us to a motion.

I move we adopt a resolution directing staff to take the necessary steps to pursue the state's pro-housing designation.

All right.

Motion carries unanimously with Council Members Bergenzer and Paul Mayer as absent.

Thank you all very much. That is going to conclude our action calendar. We got through it. Item 10, Council Member Letters, you requested one more comment. Go ahead.

Sorry. I want to thank the HCD Commission for taking the time to take the direction that Council Member MATIAS BROUGHT FORWARD AROUND LOOKING AT THE DESIGNATION. SO THANK YOU.

ALL RIGHT. THAT'S GOING TO BRING US TO ITEM 10, INFORMATION WE ALREADY TOOK. SO WE WILL MOVE TO ITEM 11, CITY MANAGER'S REPORT.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of items. This is more human interest oriented and a little lighter. GVRD's summertime Thursday night food truck event, Bite Night, returns on July 16th at the Children's Wonderland. This week's highlight will be a climbing wall for the kids. Secondly, Vallejo Shakespeare in the Park kicks off its season next weekend, July 25th through 26th at Hans Park. Performances begin at 4 p.m. each day, with Richard III taking the stage. City Council goal setting is also scheduled for next weekend, July 25th, at the Masonic Building, beginning at 9 a.m. That's all I have, ma'am.

All right. Thank you. That'll bring us to Item 12, City Attorney's Report. Right, next week.

Any interest to time, no report.

All right. That'll bring us to our second community forum. This is an opportunity for members of the public that did not address the council in the first community forum to address us on matters that were not on tonight's agenda. We took all our in-person speakers, so I'm assuming we don't have anyone else in person.

We do have one person that did sign up, but he doesn't appear to be here. Richard Hybels, unless he's online.

Yeah, he was here. Yeah, he left a while back. He may be online. Do we have anyone online?

Through the mayor, we do have folks online, but none of them have raised their hand as of yet.

Okay. Well, they've got about a minute and a half. Why don't we give them that full time, and we will go to item 14. I'm going to do what I do every meeting and say, my God, I hope we don't add anything else to the list, but I already see a bunch of lights coming on. Okay. Vice Mayor, go ahead.

My apologies. I didn't mean to chime in.

We're on adding additional requests for items, and we do have goal setting coming up, so we will be having to deal with this. Council Member Gordon, do you have an item you want to add?

Yes, I just wanted to see if we could please add the cooling center at Norman King Center.

Is that something we can just provide an update, the cooling centers? Is that something that can just be provided as an update?

Well, we have a cooling center policy and I'm not quite sure where this particular facility fits into that policy.

Can I jump in? So I've been living over there since 2007, and it has always been a cooling center. I know because we don't have air conditioner. So I just want to make sure that we open it up to that because it's unfortunate that we have people on the streets, and I've taken pictures of them in South Vallejo, and in no way they can get to where it's supposed to be at now.

Okay. I will follow up on that.

Thank you.

All right. I'm not seeing anything else from council, so why don't we check back and see if we have anyone for the second community forum.

Through the mayor, no speakers have raised their hands at this time.

Let us go ahead then and close community forum, and we will go out to number 15, report a presiding officer and members of the city council. Now we'll turn it over to the vice mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Just quickly here, I want to thank Courtney Davis on Saturday, June 26th. I attended her Tabby's Mom Healing Circles presentation, and so she had a good group, and she's going to be doing that on a regular basis now. Also want to thank the Peace of Sinaion group that held their appreciation dinner that same night. On July 1st, I attended the Working Waterfront Coalition cohort number six graduation, and that was a great opportunity to see the work that's going on at Mare Island where our economic development team with Brad Paul and then also with Annette Taylor over there, they were also present to identify the great work that they're doing. And for those that may not be aware, this is a 10-week program run at that facility to where once you're done with that 10-week program, You're set to enter the maritime industry with a good-paying job that they have jobs lined up for you already. So for those that aren't aware of that, look it up online. They do have their next cohort or their next sign-up period for July 16th. And then after that... I had the honor to walk in the Benicia torchlight parade, which is at a 4th of July parade on Friday the 3rd, and then also attended our great 4th of July parade in downtown Vallejo. And then on Monday the 6th, attended our planning commission meeting, and We actually had a presentation for a public hearing, and unfortunately the applicant was not present, so they had to table that meeting. So for any future presentations or public hearings where it's on the agenda for the Planning Commission, I recommend all applicants be present to be able to answer questions that the Commission may have. And I also want to thank the Planning Commission for recommending to move forward their amending chapter 16.303 for ADUs to come in front of the city council. And then on the seventh, like many of us here, we all attended the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Highway 37 and fairgrounds project, along with the check ceremony that Congressman Garamendi provided to VFWD for $1.09 million. And then on Wednesday the 8th, I attended the OBAG board workshop where our public works director along with our public works assistant director presented three projects for the OBAG commission to take into account. And then on that same night, attended the Economic Development Commission where our Director Pollitt presented the planning, from the planning division, the concept where Council Member Matias and I have been working on of trying to get the Planning Commission and the Economic Development Team to work together to identify how to stimulate certain areas through the Planning Commission with input from the Economic Development Team. And last but not least, I wanna, THANK PAUL LAM, TONY CONDIT, MILDRED GAINES, AND JUAN VALLEOS FOR INVITING ME AND THE MAYOR WHO IS THE KEYNOTE SPEAKER FOR THE FUTURE LEADERSHIP VALLEO GRADUATION THIS PAST FRIDAY WHERE THERE WAS A GROUP OF I THINK 12 OR 14 GRADUATES FROM HIGH SCHOOLS OF OUR FUTURE LEADERS HERE IN VALLEOS. SO I WANT TO THANK THAT GROUP FOR PUTTING ON A GREAT GRADUATION NIGHT FOR THOSE HIGH SCHOOLERS. SO THAT WOULD BE THE END OF MY REPORT. THANK YOU, MAYOR.

THANKS. COUNCILMEMBER GORDON.

Thank you so much. I want to first of all say thank you to Alex Mateas, our city council member. I'm already proclaiming it, for coming to the late night Vallejo basketball for civic leaders. We also had a lot of staff come, Natalie, and also code enforcement. I want to say thank you to you all. A lot of the youth have complimented that opportunity, at least to myself. I WAS THERE, BUT I CAME LATE BECAUSE I GOT SOME WATER FOR OUR YOUTH. I WANT TO THANK CONGRESSMAN GARAMENDY FOR HEARING THE NEEDS TO MEET FOR FLOOD, WATER, AND WASTE AND PROVIDED THAT MONEY, AND AS YOU CLEARLY POINTED OUT, WE WERE ALL THERE, AND IT WAS JUST WONDERFUL TO BE PART OF THAT. I ALSO WANT TO SAY THANK YOU TO THE CITY MANAGER FOR COMING TO THE SOUTH VALLEJO COMMUNITY MEETING. NOT ONLY DID HE COME, THE FIRE DEPARTMENT CHIEF CAME, SO DID THE POLICE CHIEF AND NATALIE CAME AND CODE ENFORCEMENT AND ALSO BRAD JOBS CAME FROM PUBLIC WORKS. AND THEN THE PARTNERSHIP WITH THE VALLEJO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT REGARDING GRANT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. That was really nice. The first one we had was questions, and then they came with answers. So I appreciate that. And I just want to say happy birthday to my granddaughter who turned 22. Thanks.

Council Member Matias.

I'm sorry, I could not give no report out to any of the commissions because we didn't have one yet.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I'm going to do a little bit of a different report out this evening. So first, I want to extend my deep gratitude to the Planning Commission that I know the Vice Mayor serves as a council liaison to. I made a referral back in March requesting that they commission a report looking at potential actions that the City Council could take to stimulate development in our business corridors. That report was presented to the Economic Development Commission this past week, and my expectation is that that report be shared out with the Council as part of goal setting, because it's a helpful data point. for us to have as we have just bigger conversations around what we're gonna prioritize in the year ahead. So I hope that that can be shared as an informational item ahead of the meeting with the council. And I wanna thank the Planning Commission for their work, very extensive work and their set of recommendations on that as well as staff. Similarly, I also wanna report out that the Economic Development Commission has been moving forward with their work plan. They have been diligently moving in getting designs to have banners go up across our business districts. They had a very robust discussion around that at the last commission meeting, which I was able to review the tape. After the fact, Don, they were also able to provide very helpful input into the report that the Planning Commission produced. And I also hope that those comments are incorporated and make their way over to our goal setting session on the 25th. Lastly, the Arts and Culture Commission, they went through a very robust process that began earlier this year. after they developed their own work plan in really working out a youth asphalt art project that was approved as part of the budget that we signed off on a few weeks ago. And so I'm looking forward, I wanna thank them for their very extensive work, not just doing research into that initiative, which has reduced traffic fatalities in other cities based on a report that Bloomberg Philanthropies produced on the matter. um but also in uh partnering with miss annette taylor from the economic development department to do a presentation to measure p and to have it recommended as part of our budget setting process so i'm just uh this evening just um wanting to express deep gratitude to our commissions uh because they're doing a lot of work uh to be a helpful partner um to TO STAFF AND TO THE CITY COUNCIL TO HELP US MOVE OUR WORK FORWARD AND JUST IN THE COMMISSIONS THAT I SUPPORT I'VE BEEN ABLE TO SEE A LOT OF PROGRESS OVER THE PAST COUPLE MONTHS AND THAT GETS ME TO THE MY FINAL POINT WHICH IS YOU KNOW I RATTLED OFF THREE OR FOUR ITEMS THAT THESE COMMISSIONS HAVE WORKED ON INCLUDING A SET OF RECOMMENDATIONS AROUND POLICIES, THE ARTS COMMISSION DID, THAT THEY WOULD WANT THE COUNCIL TO CONSIDER. I HOPE THAT AS PART OF THE PACKAGE OF MATERIALS THAT ARE BEING SHARED WITH US FOR GOAL SETTING, THAT THIS INFORMATION IS BEING SHARED OUT WITH US SO THAT IT CAN HELP INFORM A RICHER DISCUSSION. SO THAT WOULD BE MY ONLY REQUEST. AND I WILL FORMALIZE THAT IN AN EMAIL THAT I'LL SEND TO YOU GUYS. And that is the end of my report. I did get to attend, as a final note, some of the various community events that have taken place over the past week, week and a half, but I didn't attend all of them. Kudos to you guys who did. There were a lot. And I just want to also just share my deep appreciation and gratitude to all of the community leaders, the 707 Week Committee, the 4th of July Parade Association. I mean, it runs the gamut. You guys know who you are. Just a lot of work to kick off the summer, hosting so many different events to bring community together. And so thank you for your work around that. Saw a lot of happy kiddos, a lot of happy families come together, and let's keep it going. Should be a fun summer.

Do you have anything? If not, all right. I'll close this out with just a couple of quick notes. On the goal setting, I am hoping that we can all be partners in getting that information out because I think We had you know had a vision for community engagement. This is obviously been a long time coming We're excited to do it But we need to try to get that word out because it will be open to the community And we're getting it to them about a week and a half in advance So I'm hoping that if we can get some flyer material something we can just all Push the same content out to disseminate it as quickly as possible and ask for for flexibility from our community because we've been trying to you know do this for so long and we've had the transition and city manager and we're just excited to do this and hope that people can join. I want to note that our next meeting will be the 28th of this month and then we had one regular meeting scheduled on August 11th which we are canceling and replacing with a special meeting on the 4th so just going to name that and remind the community that there's recess in August so The one meeting we do have in August won't have a community forum, so if you want to do community forum, I know no one's here, but for the record, the community forum will be on the 28th of July. We'll have a few items then, a quick update on the sister city trip to Ensenada, which was great, and I want to flag, I'm going to flag the, I think there's a couple things we all just want to completely oversaturate comms over the next month. The first one is the goal setting for the next week. The second one is the Carquinez Bridge closure that we heard about earlier today. I've asked that Caltrans send us that stuff. I think all of us need to be putting that out periodically from now until mid-August. And the other thing that I'm hoping everyone can help put out is that the Soltrans bus route changes are going into effect on August 2nd. So all of our bus routes are going to change. Hopefully they'll be better. Some are going to be more frequent. go in both directions. We are going to lose a couple routes, including Glen Cove. So if we can just, everywhere we're at, checking in with community members, remind them that this stuff is going live. Soul Trans has a great plan to have almost like ombudsman. I think they're going to have like navigators out the couple of days when the changes get made to help people. But I'll repeat this again on the 28th and I'll just ask everybody, like any group you have, youth, anybody you're with, if you can just remind them like, hey, By the way, the bus routes are changing, just so that we try to get that word out and that reminder out to folks. And with that, I will adjourn us at 12.16 a.m.