City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Visalia City Council meeting. We appreciate you guys being here. We're gonna go ahead and start this meeting by offering the pledge of allegiance by council member So to, and then we will have an invocation by pastor Johnny Renteria, Heart of the Valley Christian Fellowship. Please Please stand.

Amen. If you would join with me by bowing your heads, just I like to say a quick prayer for us all as we begin this meeting. Father, we just come before you in the name of your son, Jesus. We pray for our city council members. May your wisdom be upon them as they make decisions this evening, god. And just pray for blessing on their lives, their families, and also all those in attendance tonight, God. Would you just make yourself known? May we honor you. May you bless all that are here in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Thank

you, pastor. I appreciate that blessing. Alright. We'll go ahead and open up to public comments. This is the time for the general public to comment on issues within the jurisdiction of the Visalia City Council. Each speaker tonight may speak for up to three minutes during the general comment period on a matter that is not on the agenda. The public may also make one comment for up to three minutes prior to the consideration of the consent calendar and immediately before any regular agenda item is heard. The council ask that you keep your comments concise and positive. Creative criticism presented with appropriate courtesy is welcome. Each speaker will be allowed three minutes and a timer will notify you when your time has expired.

Please begin your comments by stating and spelling your name and providing your city of residence. Even from the public wishing to speak, come on up to the the podium.

Irene Lampin, l a p I n, Visalia. Mayor, vice mayor, and members of the council. About the proposed aquatic center, this part of your parks and rec master plan. To avoid another what I call Tulare Avenue rehab but city's preferences, but instead ask residents to state theirs. Be prepared to have a council member present who will be able to answer questions.

Apropos of this, I learned this morning from parks and rec director that a firm named PROS Consulting, which I found out is located in Indiana, was signed up to guide, quote unquote, the planning for this massive project. And in fact, we'll be here in person to answer resident questions. How and why? Second, avoid making an extravagant aquatic aquatic center a way to thank or honor a former councilman. That would be a grave misstep in my view.

To disrespect no disrespect to former councilman Collins, but everyone here became exasperated with the proposal after years of exhaustive discussions. In the end, he was unable to secure the funding, and the idea was permanently shelved. I still have all the pertinent notes and emails, even a cover story in the local paper sitting on my desk still reminding me of what a fiasco looks like. Likewise, you don't owe any debt of gratitude to an upscale Aquatics design company from San Diego, the center representative here. It was their decision to come here and to make their sales pitch in advance of any competition.

Moreover, that was before the bidding process even began. To me, the timing seemed highly inappropriate, and my guess is not in compliance with state regulations. Last, as you know, these are extremely tough economic times for lower and middle income residents. Vice mayor Nguyen, I was baffled by your comment last time. Go big or go home. I simply don't see how that relates to city budget allocations. As you know, all legislative bodies negotiate and compromise on projects and expenditures. In fact, it's their job to do so. So to me, an all or nothing rule of thumb should never be applied to government planning. Thank you.

Okay. Seeing nobody else coming up we're gonna go ahead and close public comments. Okay. If there's anyone else who'd like to speak come on up in a formal line please.

Evening.

Carson. I am the director for American Legion Riders here in Visalia. Also with me is our commander, Michael Phillips. The reason we're here today is because, we meet at the Visalia Veterans Memorial Building. However, that building is being outsourced to other groups making it impossible for us to hold events there let alone the parking is atrocious.

We have events, events two major ones which are the twenty two a day suicide awareness that's going to be held in March 21 over at by Sully Harley Davidson because we do not have the room there at the building. It is being booked out to other non veteran groups. In fact we should be able to have that the first dibs on everything whether it's the post 18 or post seven eighty five. And that's not happening because the board is actually made up of seven eighty five. The reason I'm here is that I would love to have help from the city for a new location for our post if it's even possible possible.

It would help with other veteran organizations that we are in conjunction with. At this this point as an auxiliary member I am not allowed to meet at the Visalia Veterans Memorial Building because of the board members there. And our group is trying to have that unit back here in Visalia. In fact, half of the riders are the women riders that belong to 18. Not so much as the parking.

The building is always booked. We have had events that are scheduled there and miraculously they become non and void even after assurances. So that is why we are here to ask for help in another location of building something for post eighteen. Thank you.

Thank you. If you wouldn't mind leaving your contact with the the city clerk. Oh you have it? Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Smart. Alright, anybody else? Okay, seeing none, we'll close public comments now. We're gonna be skipping items of interest and we'll go on to the consent calendar. Any Let's see. Councilor Mersoto, any items you'd like to pull?

No items. Thank you.

Council Member Puchigian, any items you'd to pull?

No items.

Council Member Member Nelson? I have no items. Vice Mayor Wynn?

No items.

Alright. And then let's go ahead and open this up. For members of the public, to provide public comments on an item that's on the consent calendar, comments will not be taken individually by the public. If an item would like to be pulled by a council member, each speaker will be allowed up to three minutes, and a timer will notify you if your time's expired. Please begin your comments by stating and spelling your name and providing your city of residence. So if anyone would like to speak on an item on the consent calendar, now is the time to do so. Quiet night. Alright. We will close public comments and I will entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion to accept the consent calendar as presented.

I'll second.

First and second, please vote. Consent counter passes five zero. Thank you very much. Next, on to regular items in public hearing, and we're gonna start with item number one, which is the Citizens Advisory Committee 2026 Work Plan Calendar Presentation staff report, please.

Good evening council, mayor. Today we're here to present our Citizens Advisory Committee body of work. My name is Jason Serpa. I am the staff representative for the Citizens Advisory Committee. Beside me I have Edward Jones who is our Chairman.

He'll do most of the presentation and I'll be doing some of the introduction and conclusion. Also in the audience we do have Jim Reese who's also a voting member here today. March 2021, City Council had expressed interest in committees updating Council on not only the stuff that they work on but their their body of work for the next year. So, that's why we're here today to give an update to council on what we work on and and what the calendar looks like for 2026. The CAC has been around since 1969.

Historically, the CAC is tasked by council to act as a liaison between the general public and the city council. The the committee consist of 11 voting members including a chairman, vice chairman, and a secretary and the committee is pretty much done at at the behest of council. Council can recommend items for the committee to work on and change the work plan as the city council sees fit. Like I mentioned before, the the committee consists of a chairperson, a vice chairperson and a secretary and eight other voting members. Along with that we usually have one or two staff representatives which is myself.

Staff representative only is there as the keeper of the documents, keeper of minutes, also serves as a liaison between the CAC committee, public, and other senior staff within the city.

Council, mayor. It's a pleasure to be here tonight. It's been a pleasure serving on the CAC. Several of the main things we do deal with is the nonprofit youth grants, rates and fees, of course, and then measure in. And other items that may come up, either as recommended by the council or members of the council, or we get public input, or city staff brings it up, something that we may should take a look at.

And of course, we deal with all the action items. Part of our responsibility is to make sure we I'm sorry. I figure most people could hear me anyway make sure that we review those items and vote either up or down before we send them to counsel with our recommendations in a timely fashion so that you folks have them and can take action on them as you move on. Our calendar's pretty much based the same it has been for this previous year. In January, the subcommittee measure members got reviews back on Measure T and Measure N.

We have two committee members that sit on the subcommittee for Measure N, and independent audit meetings, reviews, comments, recommendations counsel. This February, we're going to be getting the subcommittee report back from the Measure N meeting that was held last month, telling us about any outcomes, recommendations that they may have and any information we may need to forward to you if we feel necessary. And there'll be a presentation on our body of work. We're gonna go over this one more time with the entire committee. March, we're gonna be reviewing the upcoming committee terms and possible vacancies.

As most of you are all aware, our terms are up in June and new terms start in July for those members that have termed out. We're getting an ADA presentation from engineering and transit. Now, it says tentative. So a lot of these can be tentative. It depends on if the department is available and has someone to come in and do this for us.

April, we go over and we review recommendations on the community development block grant, the CBDG, and the home funds action plan, and take any action that may be necessary. May, review and recommend rates and fees. Year, myself and one of them, Jim, who's here, we serve on that subcommittee. And we meet with the city finance department and review everything and go over it. Then we bring back that information to the committee for review and any questions they may have.

We try to get them all answered by staff and make recommendations on yay or nay on the approval for the council. June, for the new fiscal year, we'll work on the CAC body of work calendar. We will make recommendations in June for new members as needed for their terms to start on July 1. We'll actually start that back in May because it takes a couple of months and try to get the word out and make sure we have people we want to serve. July, we'll adopt the body of work for the next year.

There'll be a public works presentation. In August, we'll go into the forming of subcommittees for our various CAC businesses for fiscal year, transit updates, including ADA updates. As you know, the CAC absorbed the ADA committee as well as the environmental committee. We still have two members on our committee, Rick O'Donovan and Glenn Stewart, who are both members of the ADA community. We discuss and cover these items as they come up quite a bit.

So we try to keep very up to date on what's going on with ADA in our city. September review and recommendation of consolidated annual performance evaluation report, the CAPER associated with, again, with the CDBG and home funds. In October, we'll do the nonprofit youth grant subcommittee presentation and scheduling of dates for public workshops, which our subcommittee handles that. And then they'll bring back their recommendations to us. And as you know, we review those, and then we pass those on to the council for recommendation and use.

Public workshops are usually held in late October, early November if needed, so that we can get all that information to you by January, February. November, the committee reviews grades and discuss small grants with the nonprofit, so once again it continues on. Then we get hope updates, and they just did this November of this past year. Very, very, very enlightening. We really enjoyed it.

And just so you know, the CAC really likes it when we get input from city services that really serve the whole committee from police, fire, and the Hope team updates because it helps us understand when people ask us, what do you do? What is the city working on? And then in December, the committee will recommend awards to the council regarding small grants to nonprofit youth entities. And then we'll start the process all over again. And our general plan ideas work plan items are just making general agenda or taking recommendations from the public and request for reports from miscellaneous departments throughout the year as seems appropriate or needed, receiving miscellaneous reports from staff, including but not limited to law updates, conservation, and miscellaneous items such as redistricting.

Once again, anything else that might be requested by the council. Any questions? Thank you for

your report. Any questions from councilor? Any comments?

Just wanted to say thank you yourself and Jim back there for taking the time to serve on this board and and giving us the input that you guys give us with the recommendations.

No, we appreciate that. We do appreciate the the the backup from the city council too and we do realize it wouldn't exist without you guys. We really hope we're helping.

Yeah. I I look at this agenda and I just thank you. You are our right arm. You're we rely on your recommendations and your thoughtful purview of all these different items. I just wanna say thank you again, and, hopefully, we'll see many of you, for many years. So until you term out.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. Till they term out. Yeah. So there's our there's the current terms right there.

Okay. Great. Thank you. I know several of your members, and they're just so they're just so dedicated. I I'm just really impressed.

So We're we're very, very blessed to to be able to serve. It is a privilege to serve this great city. So, I've been here since I was four years old. So, yeah. But through the whole school system, through COS, yes. So, very very privilege to be part of this.

Well, thank you.

Hey. First of all, I'd to say thank you for all that you you guys do. I know it's a thankless job. I was on the CAC for a couple years there. I know that all the work that you guys do. My only question for you, do you guys any more direction from counsel or is there anything that we could do to help you guys out?

Thank you for the question.

Yes, thank you.

Yeah, thank you for the question, Mr. Pashigian. I was actually gonna mention the CAC did use to do the public opinion survey and that usually took the better part of the first quarter of our work plan. Now that we don't have that anymore, we do have some capacity in some items. If city council does have any ideas in order to kind of fill in the space there, it would be fantastic.

So, if you guys have any ideas, please let us know. Let your staff know and then they can bring it back to us and we can see if there's anything else that we can maybe put on your guys' plate.

Steve, your microphone is off.

A number of years and I don't agree It's a thankless job because I I we thank you guys. We know the efforts you put in. We know the work you guys do, the deep dive. You know, I look at your organization the same as I look at Planning Commission. I look for them to give me the deep dive. I'll do my own, but I appreciate the opinion and the thoughtfulness that goes into your discussion. I sometimes go head to head on the youth grants, but you've got to have that once in a while. You guys are a dedicated group. You perform a function that is needed because you're a voice of the public in general. I just appreciate everything you guys have done. Thank you very much.

I'll make sure I pass that along to the rest of the group when we meet Wednesday.

Thank you. Yeah, I echo the comments of my fellow council members. And honestly, the greatest thing you said is that you guys have more capacity for more work. Because I was up there thinking, man, we need to put these guys to more work after we we took away the survey from them. And I'm already thinking, you know, pull I'm already thinking a few different things that we can possibly send your guys' way so we can put you guys to to work again. So So

we're glad to take it, and we're glad to be of help.

Well, we we really do appreciate all the hard work that you do in in making our city better. So appreciate it. Let's go ahead and open this up to the public. Anyone who is wishing to speak on this item, please come forward. And seeing nobody coming up, we do not need to make a motion to receive it or anything, so we appreciate the report. Thank you very much.

Alright.

And, that is it. We have one of the shortest meetings on record. So I guess we're gonna go ahead and adjourn, and we will welcome everyone back at our following city council meeting, which will be Tuesday, February 17.