City Council - Regular Meeting

Hi. Good afternoon. Welcome to the Visalia City Council work session. We're gonna go ahead and get started. We'd like to welcome everyone. We're gonna go ahead and get started with public comments. So citizens are now invited to comment on issues within the jurisdiction of the Visalia City Council and items listed on the closed session agenda. 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's expired. Please begin your comments by stating and spelling your name and providing your city of residence. Anyone wishing to speak, come on up to the the podium over here. And seeing nobody, we'll go ahead and close public comments. And we'll go ahead and start our work session with item number one, which is a review of capital improvement programs.

All right. Good evening, finance manager, joined by Renee Nagel, our finance and technology director. Tonight will be our fourth review of the capital budget. All right, so tonight I'll be presenting on the proposed six year capital budget. The first two years, fiscal years twenty six-twenty seven and fiscal year twenty seven-twenty eight are included for appropriation, while the remaining four years are provided for long term planning outlook.

The CIP focuses on the critical assets supported reliable service delivery, planning future needs, and also some of the items being discussed this evening might seem a bit redundant, but that's done intentionally to ensure clarity for public that's potentially hearing this for the first time. This slide outlines how the capital improvement plan review process works. So projects are first developed by the departments and then brought forward to counsel for review and feedback. Then based on that feedback, the staff will then revise refine project timing and funding and then brings that CIP back to council for the final adoption that's done in June alongside the operating budget. So this slide is providing a summary of the capital funds that's included in tonight's review.

The majority, as you could see, is the projects for the vehicle and equipment replacements along with fleet maintenance, information services, risk, and building safety. For fiscal year twenty six seven and fiscal year twenty seven-twenty eight, the proposed appropriations across all capital funding is approximately 8,400,000.0. The remaining balance of approximately $600,000 represents the planned projects in the outer four years. Projects again shown in any peach color is considered a multi funded project and will be representing only that funds portion of the cost. This fund or I'm sorry, this slide represents the vehicle replacement policy for the city.

The staff follows the structured replacement schedule based on age, mileage, maintenance cost, and reliability to ensure the vehicles are replaced in a planned and financially responsible manner. All vehicles proposed to be replaced will be evaluated by the fleet maintenance division and approved by the city manager prior to any purchase. Vehicles are then also evaluated for alternative fuel options in accordance with city of Iselia's vehicle policy and fleet will then make recommendations for reassignments or replacement vehicles to lower demand uses. Vehicles are typically replaced at the end of their useful life in accordance with the schedule that you see. Some may be replaced earlier due to an accident or safety concerns.

For example, a wrecked vehicle might be more cost effective to replace versus the continuing repair of that vehicle. The vehicles included in the capital plan are projected to meet the policy's age and mileage in the year that is being requested and if the vehicle does not meet that requirement as we get to that proposed time, then that will vehicle will be pushed out to future years. Tonight's review includes a 148 vehicle and equipment replacements totaling approximately 19,700,000.0 over the six year period. So beginning with the vehicle and equipment replacement fund, this is an internal service fund that sets aside annual depreciation from the general fund to replace vehicles and equipment at the end of their useful life. This vehicle is critical to maintaining reliable fleet and avoiding large one time impacts to hit our general fund.

Over the six year CIP period, staff is proposing 108 vehicle and equipment replacements totaling approximately 14,600,000.0. Highlights the first set of vehicles and equipments replacements in this five zero two fund. These requests are primarily supporting engineering, neighborhood preservation, and the fire department, and they all reflect standard life cycle replacements for units with the high mileage or ongoing maintenance needs. As you can see here, item or number three, it's a 2,002 hybrid. It's an exception, and is being recommended for early replacement due to ongoing mechanical issues.

This next slide highlights additional vehicles and equipments replacements in public works and community services. Item number 14 is also an exception and that's for a crack filler that's also experiencing ongoing mechanical issues. The next two slides represent the police department vehicle requests included in the two year budget. These requests are for marked patrol units, detective vehicles, and specialized units necessary to support the daily operations. In total, this represents 13 of 20 police vehicle replacements included in the two year appropriation period.

And this last slide of the police department replacement period is overall the replacements help to maintain reliable service levels while avoiding large one time impacts to the general fund. The five zero two is included is approximately 3,000,000 in vehicle and equipment replacements requested over the two year period. This fund is supported by Measure T and is restrictive for the police department vehicle replacement purchases. These funds cannot be used for the general fund operations and because of that funding is set aside annually through depreciation to ensure that vehicles can be replaced at the end of their useful life in accordance with the city's vehicle replacement policy. Within this fund, staff is requesting 13 vehicle replacements over the six year period, totaling 1,300,000.0.

The police department is proposing four vehicle replacements within the two year budget. This includes one patrol unit in fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven and three patrol units in fiscal year twenty seven-twenty eight. One replacement is being advanced due to a prior accident and it's supported through accumulated depreciation and measure t funding. So overall, staff is requesting 359,000 in this fund for the two year appropriation. This fund is supported by measure t and is restricted for fire vehicle replacements.

This fund also cannot be used for general fund operations, and funding is also set aside annually to support the replacement of vehicle and equipment at the end of its useful life. And for this project, there is one project that's being requested. This replacement was originally scheduled in fiscal year two thousand and thirty. However, it has build time of three to four years, so it's being requested in fiscal year twenty seven-twenty eight for replacement. And this is approximately 1,300,000.0.

This fund is supported by Measure N, and it's restricted for operational vehicle replacement purposes. Measure N vehicle depreciation funds are also set aside to ensure that they can be replaced at the end of their useful life. Over the six year CIP planning period, we have 24 police vehicles requesting replacement, which is approximately 2,500,000.0. There is only, however, one vehicle that's being proposed for replacement in the two year proposed period, And that is for a wrecked vehicle as well. And it's also multi funded accumulated depreciation within this fund is 18,000 and the balance will come from the measure in replacement that was presented to council on March 16.

Fleet maintenance is also an internal service fund that supports the operation and maintenance and repair of the city owned vehicles. Departments reimbursed for this fund for service provided, allowing cost to be allocated across departments utilizing the fleet services. Capital projects within this fund are limited to equipment necessary to support support fleet operations. Over the six year planning period, staff is only proposing one vehicle, which is a forklift with the side shift. That's approximately 44,000, and this piece of equipment will improve efficient efficiency within the fleet maintenance shop by supporting movement of heavy parts and supplies.

Information Service Fund is also an internal service fund that supports the city's technology infrastructure, including systems, communication, and GIS services. As an internal fund costs are allocated across departments that utilize these services. Over the six year CIP period, staff is proposing 17 projects that total approximately 4,700,000.0. These projects primarily represent routine technology replacements including servers, network equipment, security necessary to maintain system reliability and performance. And

in

addition to these routine requirements, there is one multi funded project, the Plaza Drive and Facility Connectivity Fund within that two year period. And in total, for fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven, Information Services is requesting 506,000 and in fiscal year twenty seven-twenty eight, January. And these investments will ensure the city's technology infrastructure remains secure, up to date, and capable of supporting ongoing operations. The risk liability fund supports the city's liability insurance risks related costs which are allocated across departments and on a cost reimbursement basis. This fund also has one project that's being requested within the the two year period and that is for the downtown sidewalk repair for 1,500,000.0.

This is also a multi funded project that addresses the accessibility improvements, including sidewalks, trip hazards that create barriers for individuals with disability. The project supports the city's ongoing efforts to improve ADA compliance and enhance accessibility within the downtown area.

Isn't there some grant funding that goes along with this one or is that a different project? This one? Yeah.

Thank you.

And lastly, the Building Safety Fund. This one was presented to council on February 17. However, it's being brought back to council because we have an additional project that is for, it's for $14,000 It's the pre approved accessory dwelling unit plans. This is for development of two permit ready ADUs that will be made available to the public at no cost, helping to encourage the production of localized affordable housing. The remaining capital funds shown for 04/20 will be presented to council and five four over the next several meetings and they're grouped by funding source and operational area to make the process more manageable.

And again, that no motion is required this evening. This is just we're seeking council's feedback.

Thank you very much. Any questions or comments at this time?

No, thank you for the report and and thank you for allowing the city to run.

So, I have Are we replacing the vehicles around 100, 125 miles? I run my cars a lot longer than that. Are we just doing that like preventative or like can we get longer life of these vehicles or no?

Nick will be coming up to address that from fleet.

Also, how much money do we get when we sell these cars too? I

can answer those questions. So, one of the challenges we have vehicles is and we do look at the maintenance costs involved in keeping these in our fleet. One of the challenges is that a lot of our vehicles don't see highway miles. So they have a lot of around town driving, which is much harder on your vehicle than it is when you're putting miles on from driving on the highway. In addition to that, a lot of our vehicles, particularly in public works I can speak to specifically, have a lot of idle time also.

So when we look at how long these vehicles last, it's not going to be apples to apples when we might compare it to our personal vehicles that we drive in a completely different manner. So that's one of the challenges. But Fleet does maintain maintain very detailed records

of

manner. The types of repairs that we we see. And before we replace a vehicle, we always look at whether or not the cost to repair is going to be more or less than the the replacement value. In in regards to what we get via auction, we don't get a lot. Every vehicle is going be a little bit different, and it also may vary based off the auction itself and how much interest in those vehicles are.

But generally run our vehicles back through our ghost program, which you might be familiar with, where they receive effectively a second life in one of our other departments if the vehicle is worth keeping and reutilizing in a different capacity. So a lot of our PD cars we'll see roll back in for different uses, if possible, along with some of our pickup trucks and other things that may still have some life left in them but can no longer perform at the rate that they were previously.

Perfect. Thank you.

Yeah. I just want to take a minute to thank staff. I sent them, I didn't want to send it over Easter. I sent them a laundry list of questions and they were nice enough. I hope I didn't ruin your Monday, but I needed to know. So I really appreciate all the time and effort that you put into answering my long, long list of questions. And it was very clear that you're being very good stewards of the taxpayers' money. So thank you.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation. It can awe's me to see how much money we are not having to use out of our general fund because of Measure N and Measure T. So, I'm thankful for the voters who passed that to give us those funds to be able to use for our emergency services. So, you very much for your report. I appreciate it. We'll go ahead and open this up to the public. Anyone wishing to speak on this item, please come forward and state your name and city of residence. Seeing no one running up there, we'll go ahead close public comment and thank you very much for your report. Next, we're gonna go on to item number two, which is the presentation of solid waste electric truck pilot.

Good afternoon, council. Nick Bartsch, public works director, and joined with me is Jason Serpa, our public works manager over solid waste. Thank you, Reina. So this is a culmination of several years' worth of work. So as as time has gone on, we have changed gears a few times and had a lot of opportunity for technology to catch up in our research.

So tonight, we are bringing a presentation based and some recommendations based off of our analysis of solid waste trucks using alternative energy, specifically electric battery electric solid waste truck. So as you're well familiar, the state of California and the California Air Resources Board have mandated that state and local agencies begin converting our heavy duty fleets to zero emissions starting last year in 2024. This is being done through the Advance clean fleet regulations. And as you're familiar, the city opted to move forward under the milestone program as far as the rate of transition that we need to achieve at certain periods of time. Unfortunately, our the majority of our fleet, which is comprised of, approximately 75% of our solid waste trucks is currently, compressed natural gas or CNG, and those don't qualify, to meet those regulations for zero emissions.

Unfortunately, CNG is only a a low emission and is not a zero emission. So although it is much cleaner burning than the previous generations of vehicles that we've had in our fleet, it does not qualify. So what this does is leaves really two, alternatives, that exist in the industry today. That's electric battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell trucks. And, unfortunately, with a lot of the funding cuts in the federal government, a lot of the progress in the hydrogen fuel realm has slowed down and have not progressed as rapidly as as we thought and hoped we would see.

So practically speaking, the only alternative that's available to us right now is battery electric that would qualify for the state regulations. So as it stands today, the city has been pretty happy with the way our fleet has been running as far as our CNG and diesel vehicles. But in order to work towards the state mandated requirements, we we've sought an alternative that would be in compliance, which but before we move forward with a recommendation, we feel it would be pertinent for the city to venture into a pilot program where we try out one truck and have the opportunity to see how it works and functions in our capacity from a longer term perspective. Jason's gonna get into some details, but we did have an opportunity to demo multiple different manufacturers that produce these vehicles. And we feel we found an alternative that that would meet our needs and one that we based off of our own research and then also in conversations with other man or other vendors out there that are utilizing the truck, feel like it has the best chance of being a reliable option for us.

As I mentioned, there are this has been going through a number of different changes over time as technology has improved and multiple other manufacturers have entered the market. We feel that there are now enough users of electric trucks, not only manufacturers but also vendors and other agencies that are using these trucks to have a better reference and good information based off their performance. So with that, I'll turn it over to Jason. He can walk you through the process that we went through to evaluate these trucks.

Good evening, counsel. Jason Serpa, Public Works Manager. Like Nick said, it was a long time coming. We worked on this for about four or five years and in the very beginning the trucks that they were bringing to us were first gen. So we would get trucks that would only have about 80 to 100 mile radius on range. And we didn't even demo those trucks. We couldn't even demo those trucks. Some of those trucks couldn't even make it back to Fresno. So they were afraid of letting us drive them. So when we finally started getting closer to current time, there was a lot more trucks that were available with longer range, newer technology and we were able to actually demo them on the route.

So we chose a few demos to try out including Mac, Battle Motors, McNeiles and Peterbilt, some of the big hitters out there. And we honed it in on a truck that could actually do the work as a replacement of the trucks that we have now. And after selecting a preferred manufacturer we did our research on that specific truck, not only on the specs of the truck and the abilities of the truck but also by interviewing current operators throughout the state of California and even one that was outside of California situations to our solid waste capacity. After ensuring that the truck itself was operationally viable, we started compiling our cost figures so that we can put them together for you tonight.

So one of the perceptions with electric trucks has been that they cost two to three times as much and can only do about half the work. And at one point in time, that was absolutely accurate. What we have found, though, is with manufacturer that we're gonna be presenting tonight, we have found a truck that is definitely more expensive. We're not gonna deny that at least as far as the initial purchase, but we have found that it can actually perform at the same rate rate vehicle for vehicle with our current CNG and diesel trucks. So I think the next slide identifies a comparison between those vehicles.

Apologize for the small numbers here, but it's kind of hard to fit everything side by side. I'd like to point out some of the main specifications that we thought were the most important. The McNeilus Volterra, which is in the red there next to our CNG comparable on the side that we operate now, that was the truck that we thought was the most capable to replace our trucks now. The electric battery capacity was a lot larger, so it gave it more range. When we demoed that truck, it was coming back with 50 to 63% battery life still at the end of the day, and that's with us going two to three times to the dump.

All the battery types were pretty much the same as far as the type of minerals used to make them. The range were pretty comparable. Some of those ranges are straight off spec sheets though, so they actually didn't translate on the, for example, the battle motor truck of two ten mile range. The battery capacity is smaller on that, and Fresno was telling us on their demo that it wasn't getting the two ten miles that it was advertising. The actual payload of each truck is interesting, though.

When we look at the payload of the McNielis Voltaire, it's actually the highest. That means it's the amount of material it's able to carry in total tonnage or pounds compared to the legal weight limit in California, the bridge weight limit. Would like to point out, compared to our CNG comparable, our trucks don't have a tag axle, so that's why the 51,500 pounds is a lot less than the 59,500 pounds that the McNielis Volterra is able to carry. The tag axle does elongate the truck from axle to axle, makes the bridge weight a little higher, and also spreads out the weight within the truck so that it doesn't damage the roads as much. That's why it's able to carry more.

Nick might be able to explain a little more on that. Know he has expertise in it.

Well, so for comparison, our residential trucks differ from our commercial trucks by effectively that tag axle that you'll see in the very rear. So as you can see in the McNellis Volterra, it has obviously the the steer axle on the front, and then there's three axles behind it at the back of the truck. And what that does is because of the weight of the batteries, because of the weight of the truck, they need that third axle in the back to help spread the the weight of the truck and then be able to comply with all the bridge law requirements that restrict our weight and then to spread that weight across the road so it doesn't have as much wear and tear as you might see if they had it on fewer axles. So that is similar to how our commercial trucks operate today where, again, they have that tag axle in the back, which, again, distributes that weight, allows it to carry more without having a negative impact or a worse impact on the road.

So this particular model won't be used in the residential areas. Is that

what I

No, this one would. What was actually really interesting about this Volterra truck is that it's got an because of the way it's designed, it's actually got a really good turning radius comparable to what our our current residential trucks have without that tag axle. So we don't operate our commercial trucks in our residential neighborhoods with the tag because they can't make that turn as easily. Although the truck that's being proposed tonight has the tag, but it also has a really good turning radius and can function that way.

And and is the weight do the residential versus commercial do they weigh less, the residential units?

Current residential units weigh significantly less. Yes.

So then you will be putting a bigger load on your streets that you have to repair?

It will, but it will be distributed across another axle. Actual What

makes the difference?

The point loads will be about comparable.

I'd also like to point out that the McNeilus Volterra differs from the rest of the trucks up there, the electric trucks. The rest of the cabin chassis that are sold for the Mack that Peter built and the Battle Motors, those are sold as cabin chassis for application. They can turn them into any type of large Class A truck. The McNeilus Volterra cabin chassis is actually built for the electric model. So that's why its turn radius is a little bit better. That's why it's able to carry more weight in load and be able to do more jobs than the rest of them.

The other three manufacturers were either a diesel or a CNG chassis that's been adapted to be electric, where the Volterra was purpose built, as Jason mentioned, from the ground up to be fully designed and integrated to be an electric vehicle. So that's the biggest difference that we saw in not only the weight, the design for turning radius, but also just the range and operations of the vehicle is because it was purpose built, it was always intended and designed to be an electric vehicle. Therefore they were able to achieve a lot of efficiencies that some of the other manufacturers that were circling converting an existing platform to electric. And when we selected our

truck, every other model seemed to have something that was a little bit of a drawback compared to the McNeulus and that's why we chose the McNeulus. The MAC battery capacity range wasn't desirable. The Peterbilt five twenty EV did perform very well. It just it didn't seem to come back with as much charge at the end of the day. And if we go back one slide, we can see that the Peterbilt five twenty EV has a 400 kilowatt battery capacity instead of the four ninety eight.

So that could have been the reason. The Battle Motors EV, not enough experience. We didn't see a lot of sales in California and it didn't warrant a comparison for us when there wasn't enough reference for us to call on. And the McNeely's Volterra actually had a lot of users out there both inside and outside of California that we could call and apart from checking all the operational needs that we needed we were able to get good references from other operators. Another positive to the McNeulis is we do have McNeilus dealer here in Tulare, California which would help us in providing warranty work and service work.

They even send technicians to your own site if you need it, especially for training. And when we selected the McNeilus, we knew that there was two options available. We can order a brand new truck, order through the Sourcewell Cooperative or we can get a demo truck which would have been the exact same truck but similar to the ones that we demoed. The specific truck that we got a quote on has about 1,700 miles, still qualifies as grant eligible through both the Air Resources Board and HVIP.

Quick question. I did read that the phosphate batteries have a longer lifespan. Do you know if it's a significant difference between the phosphate battery and the lithium ion batteries? And if we know it's going last as long as we expect it to? I mean, I know you can't tell the future, but it's just tough experience.

Yeah, that's one of the challenges that we have with new technology is we don't know what a ten year life is gonna look like. We have talked with the manufacturers and also some of the vendors that are currently utilizing these trucks, and they haven't noticed a noticeable difference in the two years they've run them. Now understanding two years is not our ten year life that we're shooting for, but that's unfortunately the best information that we have at this time.

And I did check the warranty on the batteries themselves. The regular manufacturer warranty for the truck is a year, just like our other trucks that we buy. But the actual batteries are eight year battery warranty. So if they go bad, at least we have that.

And as we look at their current available range, that was one of the other things that we considered is not only can it do the route in one day, but if you project and I know the equivalent some people like to think about is the battery life on your phone because everybody has a phone. We know that that does decrease over time. We fully expect that there probably will be some decrease in its efficiency over the life of the truck. But by coming in at only using a 40% to 50% charge, we feel that there is likely going to be adequate ability for that to degrade over time and still be able to perform as needed. So as we look at the cost cost of of these these trucks, trucks, we we know know that that one one of the biggest challenges is justifying the added cost.

We know that there's, as you'll see and we've shown in the staff report, some of the costs for the purchase of trucks, we wanted to look at what our total lifetime costs for comparison would be. Anybody that has an electric vehicle has probably noticed you don't need to change the oil. There's not a transmission. There's a lot of other things that you don't need to do as far as maintenance. We also took a look at the cost comparison of fuel.

Currently, and Jason will break down some of the details. But we know what the cost of our CNG and diesel are today. We also know what the cost of electricity that we pay Edison for that. So as we took a look at the comparison between the initial startup cost of the vehicle and the purchase, along with expected maintenance and operations costs for both repairs with fleet and also charging or fueling costs the vehicle. We started to paint a little bit different picture than even we expected when we started analyzing those numbers.

Obviously, there's a lot we don't know in a new technology in a vehicle as far as what that's going to look like at year 10. But in the conversations that we've had with multiple vendors, they've given us some pretty good information on what we should expect when it comes to annual inspections and repairs or even quarterly monthly inspections that are required. Lesser requirements when it comes to brake replacement, for example, these trucks have regenerative braking, which allows for that truck to slow itself down. You're not having to apply the brakes as often or even at all. Other things like not having to change fluids also adds into that.

So, we've taken a pretty detailed look at what our projected maintenance costs and operation costs are going to be for an electric vehicle as compared to some of the costs that we're currently seeing for our existing fleet. Some of the advantages we see as far as electric, again, lower estimated repairs, lower estimated maintenance, and lower estimated cost of fuel. Again, these are all in today's numbers. We know that over the month or so, we've seen huge spikes in diesel prices. And that's not factored into this.

We tried to keep it apples to apples at the time that we put all this together. So if those costs continue to go up, it will further change what this looks like. Also, different opportunities when it comes to power generation. If the city were to seek more solar projects and have more control over our electrical costs, those could be other opportunities we explore out in the future. But this is our best attempt at creating apples to apples comparison between those costs of fuel.

The electric drawbacks, as we've mentioned several times already, the higher upfront capital cost, possible unknowns, not being able to have ten years of experience with any of these vehicles, and then possible repair delays. In our conversations with several of the other vendors, they've kind of actually had pretty good experience when it comes to how quickly the manufacturer has been able to respond to part replacements, warranty work. And Jason can talk a little bit

more about that as we go. Before we get into our actual comparison, I do want to go over the assumptions. The general assumptions are the same for the first three bullet points for each truck. Two ten working days per year, that's based on a four day work week for residential. Ten year life of the trucks and 90 miles average per day per route.

The two things that aren't the same obviously is that the electric truck has incentives and the CNG truck does not. Specific assumptions is our CNG fuel we calculated at $1.61 a gallon. It might have gone up like Nick said since then but that's what we were paying inside our corp yard at the time. The CNG fuel use is about 45 DGE per day. DGE is diesel gallon equivalents.

Our tanks hold about 75 DGE and we're using about 60% of a tank or the fuel capacity per day. So that's about 45 DGE. And the repairs and maintenance we based it on ten year actual averages. We actually have CNG trucks out there right now that are just about ten years old. They're 20 fifteen's.

So we had really good numbers on how much they were costing us per truck. On the electric truck, it was a little more leg work for us. Our electricity, not too bad. We took our last quarter average electric costs and this is off peak charge of 22¢ per kilowatt hour. Some of the operators that we talked to, our references, paid a little bit less than this, but some of them did have some kind of solar capability.

They were paying about 16¢ per kilowatt hour. So our off peak was a little bit higher. But that's the number I'm using for our costs for charging. And we're gonna base our battery use per day about 50%. Even though our demo on the McNielis Volterra is a little bit better than that, we saw across the board that the other vendors were coming in about 50%.

And we also expect the battery, like Nick said, to degrade over the years. So we'll take that into account. The repairs, we took the repairs at a factor of about 73%. And what that means is I took the CNG repairs on those ten year old vehicles and took out any internal combustion or any parts that would not exist on an electric truck. And it came out to about 27% of the repair costs or maintenance costs.

So we took that factor against the repair costs of the internal combustion engine. And then maintenance, we used a 50% factor on that. That might be a little bit heavy. We expect it to be a little bit less than that. But speaking to all our operators that have been running it for one or two years, they've been seeing really good numbers on the maintenance side.

It's a lot cheaper to do the regular preventative maintenance on the electric vehicles. There's not any parts to maintain. When we take all those numbers into comparison, obviously the price of the truck for the CNG is a lot less. And the electric demo is about $848,000 The electric new is at $931,000 We do have a $28,000 initial charger on there that's kind of like a portable charger. I believe it was 50 kilowatt charger that can do the job of any charge in case our charging station went down in transit to charge our vehicle.

And then I did put in the grant dollars in there of $150,000 coming from HVIP, which brings the total purchase price including tax to $527,000 for the CNG, 726,000 for electric demo, and $809,000 for electric new.

Real quick, the initial charger, is that the charger just to connect it to the electric grid or is that the whole base or the whole charging station?

That's just the charging station itself. So, we understand that there's a number of chargers over at Transit that aren't currently functioning, but they do have the infrastructure already in place. So, the intent would be to either utilize one of the chargers that they have existing, although we understand that they're not as reliable or available as they also need to charge the buses. So, through the purchase of a $28,000 charger, we have the ability of wiring that into one of those infrastructure that's already in place. Transit has a project they're currently working to expand and repair their charging facility. But in the meantime, we would need a charger that would be able to provide access for our truck.

And is that just temporary? Because I remember when we approved those charging stations, were about 1,000,001 each just for the infrastructure for those charging stations. Are we going to temporarily use those or are we going have to get its own dedicated charging stations for these trash trucks?

The intent is that under this pilot truck, we would utilize those charging station for the foreseeable future. If we determine that the truck is successful and we decide to move forward with expanding the electric fleet, then we would look at pursuing additional infrastructure specific for these vehicles. We're working with transit on a charge ready program grant through Edison that would help pay for the cost to install that infrastructure.

Okay. Thank you.

And when we started putting the comparison together we figured that the repairs would be a lot less and we wanted to see if we could bridge the gap between the big upfront capital cost of the electric truck. And after applying the grant dollars, it seemed to bridge most of the gap between the CNG and the electric trucks with the electric demo coming the closest.

And if you recall, the city applied for a separate grant through the air board through the truck replacement program a little over a year ago, if I recall. And we were awarded that grant. But at the time, we had submitted it for a different electric truck. But because the performance of that truck didn't come to fruition, we didn't feel comfortable moving forward with the purchase. We've been working with the Air Board to determine if we can move that over, and they've said that we can.

The question right now is just a coordination with them as far as their multiple funding sources to determine if that grant could be stacked with the HBIIP grant that we're referring to here. So as you can see, worst case scenario through this program, would be about $65,000 purchase. However, through the ability to stack those grants, if that comes to fruition, it would actually make this a cheaper lifetime alternative cost.

I'm on the Valley existing Air Board, and I spent five hours of going over their budget, which was just depleted through the state over 100,000,000 I wouldn't necessarily count on that extra 150. I know they'll give you the grant that you already already had, but I think we need to be prepared that we may have to shoulder the full cost.

Yeah, we were in funding reserve status. We understand that it's timely that we have to get a purchase order to them in order to get those funds. We understand that it might, it does have stipulations on it. Thank you. This graphic is just to show the difference in fuel and repairs in total.

I guess we would only need one electric bar graph there, but it comes close to $500,000 in total repair and fuel for the CNG whereas the electric doesn't reach $3.50 as far as our estimates go over ten years. Additional things that we have to consider when buying an electric truck is our technicians are going to need some extra PPE equipment for servicing the electric vehicles. There's also general safety equipment for the fleet department related to high electric currents that they might have to get some sort of barricades. And they do have to get additional specialized high voltage training which is provided and included in the purchase through the dealer. And as far as like we talked about the charging backup solutions, we do have that initial charger that we're buying with the truck.

The dealer does they stated that usually with these types of sales about 90% of these sales come with initial charger so they have experience in selling it. And then like Nick said, there is a future solar consideration if we decided to expand our fleet beyond the pilot.

Think that concludes our presentation and we're available for questions if you have any.

Wonderful. Any questions or comments from counsel?

Thank you for the report. This is definitely an interesting one to learn about. Only thing I ask is if we move forward is to use it on the route near my house because I live near commercial and on Monday and Thursdays the truck is a lot at four in the morning.

So I'll tell you if it's quiet enough. So today we are presenting a residential side loader truck. They do make a commercial front load truck. We haven't gotten to use one of those yet, but Tulare did just purchase one and has invited us to check it out once they get it in operation. So that is something, depending on where we're headed with this program that we will continue to consider and look at it and see if it's a viable option for us.

So, a great presentation. I'm glad to see the technology has caught up. I would guess that once we get one of these trucks and we run it, by the time we have enough information, there'll be probably something bigger and better out there. So I would take time rolling this thing out and just see how this thing progresses. But I'm glad to see the technology's finally caught up and we'll see where this goes. Great job.

Thank you for doing a thorough comparison. My question for probably Leslie or John is what what is our requirements under CARB for fleet, for a percentage of fleet that has to be electric by 2030? Is it 2030 or 2035?

I'm I'm actually gonna punt that to Nick because he

has those numbers better off on

our top of his head.

It's a little bit of

a moving target because every time we buy a new vehicle, it changes the number of vehicles we have to have by a specific date. Under the milestone program, the last calculation that we ran is by the first milestone, which was in 2024. By December 2024, we had to have one vehicle in our fleet that was full electric. We met that requirement with the electric van that we purchased for traffic folks, and that's been successful so far. By January 2027, the last calculation we ran, we needed to have eight vehicles in our fleet that were zero emission.

So, obviously, this pilot is our first step towards creating a pathway for compliance. We're not, at this point in time, confident enough to invest in eight or nine of these vehicles at this point. But we believe that a pilot is going to be our best, pathway towards determining what the feasibility of that is long term.

But don't our seven electric buses count on our milestone? They don't? What about if we get electric transit vans? Vans? Milestone?

From our understanding, the transit program is completely evaluated from the advanced clean fleet for heavy duty vehicles.

John Lawless, assistant city manager. So we are in the throes right now of new rule making that CARB is making. Nick is touching on and you are touching on a point of dispute that's been raised. So changes to the CARB's regulations for advanced clean fleets is providing more flexibility to what's called the model year option. And I'll just speak candidly, either intentionally or not. That remains to be seen once the rule making comes out, that there has not been given thought to providing similar flexibility to the milestone.

Because you could count those in the model year program, right?

If you were allowed to be in

the model

year program. If you were allowed to be in

that, yes.

So this is one of the dilemmas, and we're still waiting for the preliminary rule to be coming out for public comment. So as they were going through the deliberations of doing rulemaking, and we provided testimony together saying that there needs to be flexibility. So CARB has provided flexibility, but only to half to the equation. Those had selected model year as their selection instead of milestone has been provided. That's been punted to 2030, but there wasn't consideration for those that are in milestone.

And under the regulations of milestone, once you opt milestone, you're not allowed to opt into something else. But if you were in model year, you could opt to go into Milestone. So it wasn't the same rules. And we've raised this issue with CARB and the individuals that are responsible for the rule making, they've been pretty close to the best on this.

They've made

a lot of pressure. Yeah. The chatter out of Sacramento is that that's what the report we got at the end of last week is it doesn't look favorable that when the draft regulations changes come out, it will continue not to allow those selected like ourselves in Milestone to opt out or into the model year or to provide similar flexibility to those that had already selected. So it's like changing the rules of the game after the rules are determined, but only allowing those that benefited one side of selection. We've raised this issue significantly with Calcities, and I think it's gonna take others that have made that milestone selection to say, hey, wait a minute, a fair, you know, we were given fair choices and now the options were changed after the game started.

But again, we're still waiting for those. I'm speculating right now just from the information that we're receiving of what's going on behind closed doors, but once that's out, would suggest we present to the city council very clearly what's recommended and how we approach this.

And make sure that we're in on the public comments.

Very much so.

Appreciate it.

But it's gonna cost us

money. Have to say, you know, I'm not one for new technology. My wife bought a Tesla last year and I was thinking, you know, bad idea, I'm not gonna like it, it's gonna be junk. We're gonna be buying a new car in a couple years. And we've had it for almost a year now, I've actually been very impressed with it. So, I'm giving this view a different kind of, the electric trash trucks have given a different view than what I would have probably a year ago because I've actually been quite impressed with the electric vehicle we have. I definitely still have some questions though. So do you remember exactly how much the cost was for the bus chargers charging stations. Was that a

million, million 1? I don't know.

John may know.

I'm sure it's the magnitudes of so to your point, and this is what will be coming to the council, hopefully, in your next meeting, which is to participate in what's called the Charge Ready Project for Southern California Edison. When the city first did that for the for the the electric transit electric buses, it was under a CARB grant program. So we didn't participate with Edison in its specific program, And that program is gonna be winding down at the December. So we're right now preparing what we would be coming in is seeking authorization to participate, to put together actually two, potentially three, and Nick and I were talking about this today to try to be forward thinking, to separate applications at three sites. We may want to do something at the corporation yard separate from transit, but to Nick's point, kind of the easy thing first is that under that CARB grant, to your point, a million dollars would be about right.

And that would be the system improvements, circuit improvements, the installation of the new meter. And then there are 17 chargers or would say the supporting foundational infrastructure that was supporting for 17 chargers. What I'm told is is that what is what is actual been been constructed that could affect effectively put out of those 17 probably isn't more than 10. So there's seven of those 17 that are essentially just dark fiber. It it needs to have further improvements so that chargers could be installed there.

So the case that we're we'll be trying to make through the charge ready program is that those initial chargers, 17, if you will, were not done under the charge ready program because you can't you can't duplicate the program. So given that it was a card program, not not a CPUC program with Edison, to use that to to build out all of that, complete infrastructure in, but you do have to buy the chargers. So that those $30,000 per charger is a cost that comes along with the the city to do With each one? Okay. Yeah.

And then we're looking at 10 additional could be in the corporation yard or on the transit side and then also at the Do Center for electric vans as Vice Mayor Wynn spoke.

So, that's what kind of my point is just to let people know that even though they seem comparable, there's still additional costs that we're probably gonna have here in the future.

So, and I just wanted to

verify, the real range that we tested, was that 150 miles per charge? Is that the real range or is that

just the stated range on The stated range, our typical route is closer to 90 miles, and that's what we tested and and actually got came back at only utilizing about 40% of the charge.

So Okay.

We may actually outperform that based off of how our routes are set up and the type of terrain that we have. Some of the other vendors we spoke with actually have had more difficult terrain. They have hilly conditions, and they

have to drive further to their landfills than we would otherwise have to. We do benefit from being close to our landfill as well because in town the regenerative braking, that stop and go, you're hardly using any battery power. When you're driving to and from the landfill, that's when it's really taking the juice.

Okay. You guys already talked about an eight year warranty for the battery. Maintenance, is this gonna be new training for the staff, or is this just kind of maintenance is all pretty much the same?

So we definitely will be new training for staff, which is what we're currently anticipating. However, we're gonna continue to look at the alternatives. We've already gotten a proposal from the dealer who has the ability to maintain these, for us on our behalf. If I recall, it was about a thousand dollars per quarter. So that's something that we may wanna look at, with this first vehicle is does it make sense for us to invest in that amount of infrastructure upfront as far as protected PPE? They are gonna train our staff. That's included with their their proposal as a dealer. That's something that they're required to do. So Okay. Our staff will be trained, but we are still looking at the option of utilizing them for the O and M maintenance.

And if that's gonna be more cost effective on a pilot program, we may go back Reach it to

them and let them and instead of Tulare, so it'd

be Correct. Luckily, it's a close dealer to us.

Okay. And so, like, same thing. If if you were to run out of power on the road, would do we just tow it back or do we send a charger out there?

I mean, what would we do in We

haven't experienced that yet. We would expect that we probably would need to tow it back. We would have to otherwise take out a generator and run it for multiple hours probably to get enough charge to have it brought back. So in all likelihood, we'd probably have it towed to the yard and then deal with it at that point.

And then obviously there was the one price was about $80,000 cheaper for a slightly used demo model. Is there one that we were looking at specifically, either a brand new one or the demo? One? Because there's no motion for us to make. So was there one that you guys were asking for?

Right, as far as this item goes, there's no motion. The actual consent item is for tonight.

Okay.

So we thought it'd a good idea to get everything, all the information up front

from So tonight, the we'll tell you we just want

There is an alternative to buy the

difference between the electric truck demo and the electric truck new, the demo was a program that the manufacturer did to try to get attention to their vehicles. So I don't know exact number of how many they produced, but they've been touring these around the country, mostly focused in California because they know that's where a lot of the regulations are. But they've had others in other states and haven't put a lot of miles on them. So they're making them available at a discounted rate to further entice folks to purchase them.

Okay. Obviously I think good savings of taxpayer dollars right there for slightly used. And then, then my last question is, have we looked into whether or not if we decided to go to a private third party trash collecting service like a lot of other cities, have we looked to see what the cost would be for the taxpayers?

Because if it's gonna be a

lot more expensive for us to start running these types of trucks, does it make sense just to go to a private third party who wouldn't necessarily have to follow these laws, or do they have to follow these laws?

So currently, they don't have to follow these regulations. That's something that, again, it's not an apples to apples comparison for public versus private, and that doesn't seem fair, but that's currently how the regulation is is written. I would foresee that eventually that will probably bring us to an equal playing field, but as of right now, that's not the case. We have and are currently going through a review of all of our operational expenses internally, externally right now, and we'll be bringing that back for council consideration at some point in the future. But currently, we have one of the lowest solid waste rates around.

As you can see in these current numbers, assuming that grant dollars continue to be available, which we understand is not always a guarantee, it actually is fairly comparable. It's not completely upside down when you look at a ten year lifetime outlook. But there's things that's relying on grants that are available and a lot of assumptions that nobody has full lifetime data

on Right,

you'll know until you've tried it out.

Correct. Interestingly enough, the outfits that we did interview for the electric trucks were all private. They had the most experience with the trucks. They had large fleets of them, about eight to 15 of them.

And after two years, they were looking to, in many cases, double the size of their electric fleet. They seemed to have confidence in it. Again, we don't have a crystal ball, but that was encouraging at least to see.

Right. I became a believer after we bought a Tesla, I'm not that surprised. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay, thank you. We'll go ahead and open this up to the public. Anyone wishing to speak on this item, please come forward.

Jim Rees, Visalia. I support the demo truck. I think that's a good deal. And I bought a couple of cars that way where they have very low miles and were basically a new vehicle. So I'm not worried about having a few miles on that truck. I would argue against privatization. I think the idea that we might save some money right at first, but I think we would be seeing the state putting the same regulations on private companies eventually. And then our costs would just skyrocket. So keep it in house, go with the electric trucks, and I think we'll have a much better outlook that way.

Anyone else wishing to speak? All right. Seeing no one, we'll go ahead and close public comments. And thank you very much for your staff. We appreciate it, or for your report. Thank you. Thank you very much. We're gonna go ahead and adjourn to closed session and we welcome everyone to come back at seven p. M. Thank you very much.

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Visalia City Council meeting. We're gonna go ahead and call this meeting to order, and we will start by saluting our nation's flag. We've asked vice mayor Wynn to offer a pledge allegiance. After that, we would ask you to stay standards for the prayer which will be offered by Reverend Ward from Saint Paul's Episcopal Church.

God of compassion and restoration, your son spoke words of peace and love to all who were filled with fear and anxiety. In our own nation as well as our individual communities, your people are filled with a sense of uncertainty about their needs, their food, their home, and their health. Public life is often spoiled by anger, division, and reckless words. Words. Give wisdom to the leaders of our community, especially to those gathered here tonight.

Inspire them to shape their lives and conduct on the to conduct their lives on those characteristics of compassion, justice, and peacemaking, working towards projects and goals that will restore all people of this community to lives of dignity and wholeness, transform the discourse of our city meetings so that the the public may be marked by civility, fairness, and love. Teach us to use our words and our very lives for the sake of the poor and the disenfranchised. Renew in all of us here a presence of a spirit of doing good works that benefit all of humanity. Protect those who serve in our community, our firefighters and our police, and raise up new voices that all may be heard. And we pray especially for those who are about to be joined in marriage through the one who created all things and proclaimed it good.

Amen.

Thank you for that invocation. Alright. Next, we will do a special presentation of a group of young kids that I'm excited to to be able to meet some of them, and then one of them is also my nephew, so I'm excited to give him a big hug for his accomplishments. But it's Odyssey of the Mind. They're state champions, and now they're going off to a national competition. So I think we have someone who's gonna introduce the kids. And as you introduce them, what we'll do is we'll have the kids come up. They can shake our hands. We'll give them a certificate. And then, they wanted to speak.

Is that correct? Perfect. So, when they're done, we'll take a photo up here and then we'll have them go speak afterwards. So thank you.

Hi, I'm Taylor Krueger and this is my mother Lisa Krueger hiding in the background there. We are the coaches for Linwood Elementary School, We've been part of this program for twenty years on the dot. It is such an interesting and important program. It's not one that is talked about a lot and a lot of people know about it, but it changes lives, it's changed my life, and it's changed the lives of so many kids from our valley and across the world. What the program is, is essentially a creativity program in which students are tasked with creating an original performance with original script, costumes, original set everything has to be done by them.

We're not allowed to do anything but ask a bunch and bunch of questions to get them to organize themselves and to think of the box. In addition to that performance, they also have to develop improv skills, engineering skills, recycling abilities, have to be able to work with tools, with hot glue, with scraps of fabric. It is an upcycling project that they are doing all year long. The performance is only eight minutes. They are putting in all this time and energy to perform at a regional state and then world final level.

So very difficult for them to get to the world finals and we are so proud of them because they will be competing at Iowa State University in May and representing Visalia and our Central Valley here to the entire world. People from China, Korea, Singapore, Japan, Mexico, Canada, everyone's going be there. So it's real, real exciting. And I just am super, super proud of them, and thank you for giving them time to be honored and they'll say some more.

First we have Xander Taylor and Calvin Peterson Maddox Holton Malia Takahana Boring Paisley Sang, Olivia Moran,

and Evelyn Ikuda.

Thank you. Sorry, are you kids gonna be speaking for us or doing something special for us?

Yeah.

Alright.

Hi. I'm Alexander Taylor, and my favorite part of OM is the creativity and drama that goes into it. Hello. I am Calvin Peterson. My favorite part of OM is the friendship, drama, and all of the building that you get to do. Hi. My name is Malia Takahanabore, and my favorite part of OM is probably bonding with my team. Hi. My name is Madic Sultan, and my favorite part about Odyssey of the Mind is making new friends, creating, and having so much fun. Hi.

My name is Paisley Singh, and my favorite part about OM is the determination, diligence, and my team members and coaches. Thank you. Hi. My name is Olivia Moran, and I'm the thing I have my favorite part about OM is the friends I made along the way. Hi. My name is Evelyn Ikuda, and my favorite part of Odyssey is bonding with the people you spent so much time with. And I almost forgot we are accepting donations.

So if they want to give donations how would we do that guys?

So donations could be sent to Linwood Elementary School. Checks can be made out to the Visalia Ed Foundation with a memo to Odyssey of the Mind. So anything to Linwood put Odyssey of the Mind, we'll know where to put it. Thank you.

Alright. Well, congratulations. And I would say my hats off to you guys for getting up there and speaking in front of everyone. That is a really, really difficult skill to to learn, especially at that age. I'm excited for you guys. Thank you for representing Visalia so well, and congratulations on winning state, and good luck at Nationals. Alright. Next, we're gonna start with 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 this 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 asks 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's expired. Please begin your comments by stating and spelling your name and providing your city of residence. Anyone wishing to speak, come on up to this podium right here in the middle.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is April Triana Lancaster. I operate the Downtown Visalia Certified Farmers Market, which returns for our spring twenty twenty six season this Thursday evening from five to 8PM. I hope to see you all out there. I am also a two time dues paying member of the Downtown Visalians and a stakeholder in the Town Center Business Improvement Area.

The Downtown Visalians operates under a management agreement with the City of Visalia to administer public assessment funds. That agreement requires transparency, reporting, and compliance with the Ralph m Brown Public Records Act. What we are seeing does not reflect those requirements. In January, a three year financial look back audit was initiated. While partial findings were reportedly shared in mid February, the full results have not been released to the membership or the full board of directors.

Additionally, a second forensic audit was initiated with an out of area firm, yet no information has been provided regarding its scope, timeline, or status. Meetings have not been properly noticed, and there has been no clear communication regarding the status of the executive director beyond that he is on a paid administrative leave pending investigation. At the same time, there are unresolved governance concerns. Board members not elected in accordance with bylaws, individuals serving beyond term limits, and overlapping financial and organizational conflicts involving those most directly engaged in current day to day operations. These are not isolated issues.

They reflect a pattern. I have been raising concerns about financial oversight and accountability before this very council for over two years. At this point, the continued lack of transparency and enforcement raises serious concerns about the city's oversight of its own agreement. The city is party to this contract, and with responsibility. I am asking the city to ensure this agreement is being enforced and that the businesses funding this program are being properly represented.

I also request confirmation as to whether DID disbursements are currently on hold, and if so, for what purpose. The public deserves transparency, especially on issues involving public funds and public servants. Thank you for your time and attention.

Irene Lappin, Visalia. First, I'd like to request that consent item number five be set aside for discussion. Thank you. I prepared the statement yesterday. Today, of course, the situation in the White House has become untenable.

Now why do I raise national matters here? Because the majority of you have both received from and shown support of the party of Trump, and a couple of you are admitted MAGA enthusiasts. During the president's illegal and unjustifiable assault on Iran, American service members have been killed and hundreds injured. Top army generals have been fired by an equally deranged Pete Hegseth and two black and two female army officers taken off the promotion list for no reason. California families know their loved ones can be deployed any day now, and they dread a forever war, worse yet, one that originated in the president's reptilian brain.

Mind you, this is after Trump ran on the promise of no more foreign wars. As you know, not a single member of this his his family has served in the military. Now he's used Easter week and weekend to hurl unhinged insults at Iran's new leader and to threaten to damage the country in ways that would constitute multiple war crimes. Ukraine is long forgotten. Only Russia, with Vladimir Putin as war criminal in chief, got a special favor from his BFF, and Iran will end up profiting from this reckless exercise.

The monumentally ignorant buffoon has made it clear that any sacrifices will be borne by us. Have you seen his new proposed military budget? We'll just have to stay patient a bit longer, we're told. He uses our country as his personal erector set, even generating with an intoxicated hex set some juvenile Xbox style Epic Fury war games with depraved captions while he, his family, and his cronies continue to grow filthy rich from his position. But sure, screw the poor and middle class.

No money, he says, for those little scams like day care, Medicare, Medicaid, or any care at all. Forget food stamps while he obsesses about fringes drapes in his wreck of a ballroom. Folks, it's an outlaw government. It's time to reconsider your choice, where you place your trust. It's never too late. Thank you.

Good evening. Ricardo Flores, r I c a r d o f l o r e z. I live in Visalia in District 3. First off, I would like to thank Mr. So to and Mr. Did I get that right? Okay. Sorry. For reaching out to speak to me separately on different occasions. Tonight, I come to speak reference to VMC eight point four zero point zero three zero and VMC twelve point five two point zero two zero.

In just over six years, we have seen a pandemic and more political divisiveness chip away at our security and solidarity. Now imagine stoking the fire of young minds through cooperation and community. That cooperation community will bring about solutions to challenges that we can't fathom. For us to embolden future generations with the skills they need, we must be willing to acknowledge when we miss the mark. Impractical city codes and petty enforcement works in direct opposition to strengthening community.

Here's an idea. Good athletes create good citizens. Good citizens create good taxpayers. Enabling parents and neighborhood children to play and practice instills ideals of teamwork, serving a greater good, communication, and responsibility. A couple of stats.

Six out of Visalia's 38 parks have basketball hoops. Four out of the 30 neighbors on my street don't want a basketball hoop out along the curb. I've learned that not only do you want your citizens paying for citations to be written against them, you wanna foster anonymous complaints from malcontents. Here's another solution to go along with the one I offered last council meeting when I was here. Let me recruit two opposing community members from each district to discuss the benefits and problems of basketball hoops.

You guys have far more important things to to deal with. Then we apply what we learn to these codes. I am not your enemy. In fact, I'm an ally who has helped use and dispose of three basketball hoops on my street. I will email statements as proof. We should be bringing people together to debate and discourse over how we want our neighborhoods to look and feel. Because in doing so, we will bring to light the values we share, as well as the vision of investing in the future of younger generations. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Jeanette Brickta, b r I c h t a. I am here to discuss a mounting problem with my father's street, which is Church Street just east of the Court And Walnut Intersection. For about the last year, we started noticing more and more cars going down the street. That's fine, but not going 50 miles an hour.

What's happening is because it's getting very congested there at Cort And Walnut, they're cutting over through a side street and going down Church Street. We have small children. My father is a 101 years old. He, walks many, many pets. We've had several incidences with animals being killed, and that's very to me.

But but what's most important to me is the people that live there on that street and the children that live on the street. So one of one of the neighborhood people called and they brought out one of the things that they put across the road and it monitors how many cars, which way they come from, and how fast they're going. So they did that the first time in, I think it was November. Then she didn't it was Janice Duvall. She didn't hear anything.

She called and the gal said she couldn't find the information and that they would put out another one. So they did about three or four weeks ago put another one in front of across our road. Then when she hadn't heard anything she called her. No, actually she said that the gal did call her and she said that the information that they received from this device did not warrant anything done about it. So I wanted to come to you and see if you had any ideas on what we could do.

I I don't know about speed bumps. I don't know what can happen in a residential area, but this is a very small old air little street where people going 40 you know, 35, 40 miles an hour or 50 miles an hour just to get to where they they've gotta get. It's it's it's really getting bad. So I just wanted to come in and appeal to you and see if anything could be done about that.

Thank you. We'll have someone

Jason Huckleberry. We'll meet with her outside.

Perfect. So we'll have a staff member. Jason's actually right behind you at the door. He can speak to you about some options that you can have.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Anybody else wishing to speak at this time? Alright, seeing none, we'll go ahead and close public comments. And we go on to the consent calendar. Let's go ahead and open up the public comment time for the consent calendar. This is the time for members of the public to provide public comments on an item that's on the consent calendar. Comments will not be taken up individually by the public if an item is pulled by a council member. Each speaker will be allowed up to three minutes and a timer will notify you when your time's expired. Please begin your comments by stating and spelling your name and providing your city of residence. Chris

Ortiz, last name Ortiz, city of Isolia. This is in regards to item number six on the agenda tonight. Again, good evening to mayor, members of the city council. My name is Chris Ortiz, and I serve as the president of local thirty seven nineteen representing the firefighters of Visalia Fire Department. I'm here tonight to express my deep disappointment not with just the opposition letter submitted against California Assembly Bill thirteen eighty three pension reform, but with the characterization of this policy as an unfunded liability.

To be clear about what this bill represents, a b thirteen eighty three is about fairness, sustainability, and keeping promises made to public servants who risk their lives for this community. It is not reckless reckless spending. It is not irresponsible policy. It is a measured effort to address long term pension liability. Labeling it an unfunded liability ignores a broader reality.

Firefighters didn't create the pension challenges we face today. Yet we continue to be asked to shoulder the burden through increased contributions, reduced benefits for new hires, reduced benefits for retirees, and staffing shortages that will impact both safety and service. What's more concerning is that this opposition letter was submitted without meaningful engagement with the very people it impacts, your firefighters. That lack of collaboration undermines trust policies are framed, and we are are asking asking you you to to recognize recognize that investing in your workforce is not a liability. It's a commitment to the safety and stability of this community.

The men and women of Local thirty seven nineteen show up every day on your worst days. We uphold our end of the bargain. We expect the same in return. I urge this council to reconsider its position, engage with your local labor partners, and support AB thirteen eighty three. Thank you.

Anybody else wishing to speak at this time?

Good evening. My name is Maria Guilen. That's g u I l l e n, accent over the E, Visalia resident. I too stand to oppose you sending a letter of opposition to AB thirteen eighty three. As a local resident, I've seen here many, many times how we've called to honor all of our public employees.

We we address we we we welcome them. You know, we highlight when they get employed with the city. And we also talk about how important it is to recruit and retain positions and yet we will be opposed to something that these employees would be looking forward to, to have a benefit that could help them throughout their career and most importantly, at the end of their career. I think we owe it to first responders and other public employees that keep this city running to do everything that we can to also understand that their pensions are something of great value and not something that you turn off and on as a faucet. This is something I feel very, very strongly about.

I really do wish that there were more people out in the public that could come forward and let you know that this is not the right way to treat our public employees. We should be very grateful. Oftentimes, as the gentleman said, you know, put their lives on the line, but it's also a matter of providing credibility and building community within our city. We will all feel safer and much more regarded when, in fact, we have something to be proud of, to be proud of how we in fact take care of our own. So I really do hope that you give this more consideration and reject this particular item.

I've been laughing again. Is this the time to discuss the consent calendar?

This would be, yeah, the time for any item on the consent calendar.

Okay. I would like some

kind

of response but I suspect I'm not going to get one. About this joint letter of support for Naval Air Station in Lemoore, authorize the mayor to sign a regional joint letter of support for Naval Air Station Lemoore in the proposed action by US Navy to transition existing FA 18E slash F squadrons to F dash 35, Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter Squadrons and home basing new F-35C aircraft at the Navy's Master Jet Base over an approximate ten year period. Now this item was prepared by the assistant city manager, but I understand it was told by my council member that it was discussed between council members. However, you were all briefed on these items by the city manager. So I would like to know the protocol, though I suspect I'm not going to get any answer about this.

You were briefed. This letter here I have a copy was signed by you, Mayor Taylor. And all it says is that transition is going to be beneficial to our economy, to the Central Valley. Is that all? Also, I see a project overview from the Navy, Department of Navy, and they are in the middle, still hasn't been finished. The environmental impact statement still hasn't been done, hasn't been finished. Do you have anything to say about those? Thank you.

Anybody else wishing to speak at this time? We'll go ahead and close public comments for the consent calendar. Council Member So to, do have any items you'd like to pull from the consent calendar? Yeah, item number six. Item number six. Vice Mayor Wynn, do you have any items you'd like to pull?

No items,

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

Item six. Oh, sorry, item five.

Item five and I have no items. I'll take a motion to approve the remaining consent calendar.

Motion to approve the remaining items on the consent calendar.

Do I a second? I second. I have first and second. All those in favor, vote for the remainder. Item passes four zero with council member Nelson absence. We'll go ahead and start with item number five. The joint letter of support for Naval Air Station Lemoore. Do you want to report on I

don't need a report. I just want to get Mrs. Lapin answer to her questions. To regard to being briefed on items, Ms. Lapen reached out to me in email asking if council members have discussed this amongst each other where I responded that we are briefed weekly by the city manager of many different items that has to do with the city. Almost every item on this agenda we are briefed weekly on what's going on or different matters within the city. So when we say we're being briefed on every week, every council member is brought up to speed on different items. That's what being briefed means. Can we answer any of the other questions that she had?

Individually. Do come up with She briefs

us individually. We're individually brought into the office of the city manager and briefed. We're not discussing items with other council members at the time. We're just being brought up to speed on different items.

John Laws, assistant city manager. Question was about the status of the EIS. So public comment, on that finished back in January and they're in, I would anticipate in probably the May time frame the, the announcement, I guess you would say, or findings from that EIS. What was being studied was the environmental impact between the two master jet bases that are being considered for this, one in Virginia and one in NASL more. So those are the two locations that this is being considered.

Right now, the Virginia base is largely the base for the F-18s, although that they do have some some number of of the f 35 that are located there. What's being proposed is, again, as stated in the staff report, that there would be seven squadrons of f eighteens that would be replaced with f 30 fives. So it's really which base that advances forward in the replacement of the F-thirty five, or the F-eighteen by the F-thirty five. That's really what's being, it's gonna happen. It's just gonna be one those two bases.

And also, this is very important to our community because a lot of people that work on the base live here in the city of Visalia. We see that in our transit records, ridership goes to the base. So this would be a big win for the region as a whole because they're approved for more work going on at the base to our residents that live here and more job opportunities. So I'll be fully supportive of

it today.

Any other questions or comments by council? No. I will entertain a motion.

Motion to approve.

Second.

We have first and second. All those in favor, vote. Item passes four zero with council member Nelson absent. Thank you very much. Next we're gonna go on to item number six, which is a letter of opposition to Assembly Bill thirteen eighty three McKenner. Council Member So to you pulled that, what would you like to hear?

I don't need a report. I'm not gonna support the letter of opposition. So, I just wanted to pull that so that I can vote in opposition and I just wanna say thank you to local three seven one nine for being here and for what you guys do on a daily basis.

Any other questions or comments from council at this time?

I would just like a briefing from the city manager, please, in this event, in this letter.

Thank you. Leslie Cavillia, a city manager. And it is with understanding about why there would be some concern from some of the groups regarding this matter. And as I said when I called the public safety union leaders, I felt it was my obligation to bring this forward to counsel because of the financial implications. I also felt it was my duty to contact them and let them know that, in fact, given where the bill was at this current state, that I felt it was my duty to bring it forward.

About ten years ago, the there was a major change to the PERS, which is the Public Employee Retirement System. And it was, on a state level, rolled back because of the impacts to local and state government. And implementing it at what it was at that time was it is a defined benefit pension, which is very unusual these days in the public sector. Certainly, you rarely find them. It is more common in the public sector, but it had just become very expensive for both state and local government to be able to fund, and so it was rolled back.

Those employees who had that larger pension, obligation at the time, it remained. That was frozen, and so they if they're still under that retirement system, they still have it today. Any new hires moving forward have been at the somewhat lower or is a lower benefit obligation. This is still far above what we find in many of the private sector retirement systems. The concern that I have is just the cost that it could be to the city moving forward that would increase our unfunded liability in pensions.

It I think it would increase both the city's obligations for pension systems as well as the employees because all employees pay a portion of that retirement, so it would increase their costs as well. These are difficult financial times in the state and federal government. I will say thanks to the leadership that we have had in this organization, we are still in good financial condition. I'm not saying that here and today this would be an an issue. I am concerned moving forward, And I think that looking forward is exactly what we do need to do as responsible leaders.

The other thing is I believe that we have been able to make great strides in the salaries and the benefits that we do provide our employees. Our last approval that you made to us was extremely generous, and it was because we did have the financial resources to do that. I do am concerned that we will not have that same flexibility moving forward if our our pension obligations are as dire. In in giving being able to give higher salary raises and the longevity pay that we received, in fact, then employees can make a choice. They can choose to further invest in their own retirement, or maybe, you know, they can do that later in life, maybe when they're younger, they have growing families and so on.

They may choose to make different choices, but they get those choices when we can provide them with an ongoing salary. So that is why I'm bringing this recommendation to you today.

So we're not cutting their pension. We're just not it's been at this level for the last ten years.

I can't remember, I'm sorry I don't, but yes, about that.

We're just not increasing it.

This bill would in fact increase it.

Yes. Okay. Or give They're not losing the option anything to be able have right now. Okay. No. I wanted to make that clear. Any

other questions or comments? Go ahead.

So, sorry, public comments, on this item. So, right now, this is just a bill on the House floor. This is the city's stance is that we post this bill because it increases the cost for the city. I think that we've especially since my time on council that we've always taken really good care of our employees. We've seen that with our employment packages we put together, salary increases, as well as longevity that we've given to our public safety officials.

If this does become law, which most of the time, knowing the state of California, it will become law, we will be working with our unions and our employees to make sure that we do everything in the letter of law to implement this plan. So I will be supportive of sending the letter tonight. But as we know, we will have worked and had open communication with our unions and our different employee groups, and we will continue to keep those conversations open. We will try to take care of our employees the best that we can.

May I make one point of clarification? It would provide the opportunity for state and local government to change the retirement. Currently now you cannot change it. This would offer the opportunity to change it. It would still be a negotiated situation.

I have a question. So it states right here that the city of Isaias state legislative platform adopted in twenty twenty two states that the city will support legislation that would stabilize funding for the state's pension program but does not establish position of legislation that does the opposite. So is that why this was just brought for consent calendar approval rather than just automatic approval is because it's doing the opposite of what our policy has created?

That and because it just, and I'll sake of transparency.

Okay.

I wasn't sure that it would be something that would be just an automatic with the council. I wanted to make sure you had that opportunity to voice it.

Right. I mean, because obviously we we have policy that says we support legislation but we haven't said specifically that we would oppose any legislation that was willing to, okay, sorry. Okay, any other questions? Okay, any other comments or I'll entertain a motion?

I'll move to approve.

I'll second.

Okay, all those in favor please vote. Item passes three one with Council Member Nelson absent. Thank you very much. Okay, next we are gonna go on to regular items for public hearings. Go on to item number one which is a public hearing to consider land use changes. Staff report please.

Good evening, mayor, members of the council. I am Paul Burnell filling in for Josh Dan. I'm the planning and community preservation director. And the project before you, which includes several entitlements, is a request by Tulare County Office of Education to facilitate an expansion of their current campus which is currently located at 6200 South Mooney Boulevard which is on the East Side Of Mooney, North Of Avenue 264. Again, this request had originated some time ago when when TCO had engaged the city about the potential to expand, the campus.

Given the city's current land use designations for the area, that prompted the conversation, which ultimately resulted in the TCO filing the applications here before you this evening. Again, there are several entitlement applications that were submitted for this, including the general plan amendment, a pre zone and changes zone, an annexation in the conditional use permit. I'll describe those entitlements in a little bit better detail through tonight's presentation, and then I'll discuss the aspects of the conditional use permit and the outcome of that entitlement which was not appealed when it was reviewed by Planning Commission last month. So just some benefits for the council. The project does have the construction of several new buildings if this project is approved.

As noted in table dash one, which is also included in the staff report before you, the existing 91,000 square foot facility which was constructed several years ago will still retain its look uses for TECO's general offices. But they also include new buildings which will comprise both offices, classrooms, training kitchen facility, conference and boardrooms, and a warehouse for their own private storage as well. Overview of what that would look like has been provided in the exhibits before you but also provided in tonight's presentation. Here the current campus site is highlighted. The expansion will occur to the east of that current building.

And then applying kind of the site plan overlay just to kind of give the council and the public some context to what that would look like has been done by Josh through this slide. When all is said and done, again if approved and annexed because that request would have to go to LAVCO, the outline in red kind of summarizes what the full build out would look like of the new TECO campus or their expansion. Again, with access being retained on Mooney and then the secondary point of access provided on Avenue 264. Here is kind of a blow up of that site plan exhibit with a little bit better detail again showing the buildings again which comprise offices, conference and boardrooms, and warehouse and classrooms, and their kitchen training facility as well. And again, just a blow up of that site plan imposed on an aerial photograph to give context to project's development related to the existing development around it.

So just to give you an overview of the entitlements, the General Plan Amendment is required because the General Plan Amendment will do a couple of things here. One, it'll expand the city's urban growth boundary to the east. That large vacant parcel that's highlighted in yellow is not currently in the city's urban development boundary. It is within our planning area and is identified as agriculture. So the general plan amendment would, one, move the boundary to that east property line.

And then two, establish new land use designations for that site. And the design use designation that would be applied would be public institutional, which is consistent with school facilities or school campuses. In addition, the TECO campus, which is located on Mooney, would be the land use designation would change from commercial mixed use to public institutional, again, which would be consistent with the type of facility and campus this project is trying to achieve here. The pre zone and changes zone are doing the same thing. They're bringing zoning designations consistent with the proposed land use designations for the project.

The zoning designation that would be applied here is quasi public. Quasi public does allow for the development of school sites subject to conditions for it, which I'll discuss here briefly. But again pre zone and change of zone are required. In addition to this, we were going through the process planning staff did reach out to LAVCO staff to do on the annexation request. Through those discussions, LAVCO staff noted that rounding out or squaring up the boundary was the appropriate thing to do here.

So as part of the annexation, in addition to the TECO site, the large vacant parcel that they own, the two parcels in between which are owned by the church and a private entity would also be included. And that would round out and square up the annexation rather than creating a county island by those two parcels. That's pretty standard practice when you're annexing property, so in this case the project and the annexation request includes those additional properties as part of the annexation. Those two properties are also planned public institutional and quasi public and would be eligible for annexation into the city. The other entitlement which is described in your staff report but not for consideration this evening was the conditional use permit.

The conditional use permit was required because in the city zoning ordinance school sites or facilities are conditionally allowed in the QP zone. TCO had submitted that application. That information was provided to Planning Commission. That item would only come to counsel if appealed. That was reviewed by Planning Commission on March 23.

Staff did not receive an appeal. Therefore, that item was not brought forward. It stays with the Commission's decision subject to the other entitlements before you being approved this evening. Now to give some context on why the city is supporting this. There are several land use policies in the general plan contained both in the land use and the parks, schools, community facilities, and utilities element that support opportunities to expand educational opportunities.

In this case, TECO has identified a need to consolidate and centralize a lot of their facilities that are kind of scattered throughout the area. In particular they do have property that they refer to as a Doe Complex on the Northwest Corner of Sherkin Doe. Some of those uses would be moving on to this side, again, if the project's approved. It's a way, again, to centralize what they have scattered throughout and place it into one defined area. And again, it's for educational purposes.

And the city, through its land use and general plan policies has identified educational needs as a priority for our city. In addition to land use policies that support this type of endeavor with land use changes, The impacts of actual development were looked at as part of the CUP. Parking was looked at based on the existing parking provided and the proposed parking considered with the overall campus development, and the fact that again all the buildings are not utilized at the same time. The utilization rate is different just based on when offices are used versus classrooms. The seven sixty stalls provided were sufficient based on the analysis provided both by city staff and the information provided by TECO as part of this project, and commission concurred with that conclusion as well.

In addition to overall development, again, TECO is utilizing internal access, both vehicular, pedestrian, to support movement on their campus without impacting the surrounding area. The impacts would be people coming and going from the site. Once you're on the site, you can maneuver from one building to the next either using the drive aisles and or pedestrian pathways as proposed. In addition, the same landscaping theme and open space elements would be carried out through the expansion, and that was noted in their site plan exhibit and also included in this little site plan exhibit on the slide before you this evening. Lastly, TCO as a lead agency did prepare their environmental document.

They did consult with city staff and we actually had a chance to review it, comment on it, and look at the mitigation measures as identified. Staff's review and the thirty day review window for which the environmental document was posted did not result in any significant findings other than the items that were identified as mitigation staff concurred with, and those were included in that document. And that environmental document is before you this evening for adoption as well. Just to give context to what occurred at the Planning Commission on March 23, Planning Commission received the entire staff report, took public comment. The only comment received was from Jeff Ramsey, the Director of General Services with TECO.

No one else from the public was present and or no other public comments received. Staff did not receive any written comments when this item was publicly noticed for review. And based on the review by Planning Commission, they recommended approval of the annexation general plan amendment pre zone and change zone to city council and approved the conditions from it. I would note the reason you see a four zero vote was that commissioner Davis was a is an employee of TECO and recused himself from that item. So based on the information provided in tonight's staff report, staff would recommend that the, city council adopt the three resolutions as noted before you and introduce the ordinance as noted before you.

Again, reason for this is both staff and planning commission find that this project's consistent with the city's general plan and again supports educational opportunities for our city. That concludes my presentation. I'm available for any comments the council may have at this time.

Thank you very much. Councilman Patukin, any questions, comments? No comments. I would

tell after a public comment.

Councilman So to.

Likewise.

Vice Mayor.

No comments. Thank you.

I just had one. Can you bring up the aerial map? So, I actually just pulled up Google Earth on mine. So, my only concern is if you look at this, there is no road access essentially from Avenue 272 all the way down to Avenue 264, which is essentially, and I'm talking about east and west access, which would be the equivalent of Caldwell to Walnut. And to go that that far with no east and west access, I think we're setting ourselves up for the same problem that we have currently with the golf course where all the traffic should be going through there but it obviously can't because of the golf course except where this is significantly larger.

And I love the project, right? Don't get me wrong. I love everything about it and I fully support it. I'm just looking at fifty years from now when we're developing down there, there's gonna be no access to get onto Moonee from the whole east side of that portion of our future community.

So, Mayor Taylor, did raise a valid point. And as you're aware, based on some prior presentation, as I've given to counsel and other boards or committees, the city is embarking on a general plan update. What I can tell you is the current general plan did not envision urban development beyond the site, which is a church site. Circulation connectivity East West North South was never really fully contemplated outside of major streets directly to the North. As part of this general plan update process, that is something we're gonna have to look at.

I don't know based on current development patterns along Mooney Boulevard and the Church site, I don't think you could feasibly get a East West connection onto Moonee other than the Avenue 264 to the south without it jogging south via some other local network pattern when we look at and analyze future growth out into this area, which will be contemplated because it is identified in our planning area but it's just identified as ag. So it's to be reviewed when the city embarks on its new general plan update. The other thing I would say is the county has entertained potential subdivision of property out in this area, and city staff has provided responses opposing that type of request because it wasn't done in a manner that looked at the entire area. It was just being driven by one site specifically.

Right. Yeah, I mean, even south of the park, that's A Street, but it's really just a private drive that goes into this mobile home park and then it feeds into the actual park. I mean, even if that was created in the future to be a road, that would still be the width of Caldwell to Whitendale without any access east and west. And so, that's my only fear is that we're creating just a massive kind of headache for the future where you're gonna have just a lot of future homes and future city with zero access to Moonean. It's gonna be clogging up 264 and La Salle Parkway or 272.

And, I mean, obviously, we've had all the issues with Demaree Street because of that bottlenecking that pushed everything around, except for this will be three or four times worse. That's my only concern.

And as noted, again, what what makes it very challenging to do that is you have so much development along Moonee anyways. You would be acquiring property and potentially removing buildings to get a roadway connected to Moonee in those areas.

Yeah.

Mean, yeah. Because realistically, even if we were to do something now, I mean, we would have to be taking already existing property and parking and possibly building space. Okay. Just wanted to bring that up because I think that's gonna be a major concern. I'll probably be dead by the time this is a concern, but I know for my kids and everyone else, it's gonna really suck to have to kinda be faced with the challenges of that. Let's go ahead and open this up to the public. Anyone wishing to speak from the public, come on up and state your name and city of residence.

Good evening mayor, council members, Jeff Ramsey,

r

a m s a y, Visalia. I'm the director of general services for the Tulare County Office of Education and I'm here with Josh McDonald who's representing Four Creeks who did our CEQA document for this project. And first I want to start off by thanking staff, thanking Josh, Dan, and Paul for all their assistance on this project. As you can see it's not an easy one especially for an educational agency to navigate so appreciate all their assistance. Paul kind of alluded to kind of a few of our goals with this project.

One namely kind of consolidating a lot of our staff. We are a very large county wide organization so consolidating all of our staff is not feasible but consolidating our staff that's spread out through the city of Isoyas has been a goal of our superintendent and this will bring staff from our Do Complex as Paul mentioned and a few of our other satellite offices to one campus helping to enhance team building, enhance the leadership that we can provide to our staff and kind of create more of a community and a family feeling for our staff that feel like they're spread out. One of the goals with that Doe Complex we're actually looking at is converting it to a training center for the industrial complex. So we're hoping that we can use that site to better serve the area that it's in as well. But more importantly, we're looking at creating educational opportunities for students.

We have several of our student events. One recently in the last three weeks that they had to cap registrations and prevent opportunities because we outgrew our site. So we're really excited about the potential opportunities we can provide for those students creating larger events allowing more of our schools to come facilitate and do the events that we host at our site with this expansion that we currently can't do in our existing building. And then the last thing that Paul mentioned was our training kitchen. So we have one of our community instruction programs that are developing life skills for 18 to 22 year olds with severe handicaps.

And what they do currently is operate out of our existing kitchen to learn how to prep food and interact with our staff to develop those life skills to move on when they turn 22. And one of the facilities we have here are three classrooms with a dedicated prep kitchen so that way they can spend more time in that kitchen. We can get more kids and more classes through that kitchen and hopefully develop their skills a little bit more. So we're really excited and hopeful for what this project might be able to provide and love any support that you can provide for it.

Thank you.

Anybody else wishing to speak?

Good evening, mayor and council. Josh McDonald with Four Creeks. It's a pleasure to be here. Our firm had the opportunity to prepare the CEQA document for this particular project. It really is a project of public benefit which we don't always get to do very often.

So it was very exciting for us. This is a new facility that will consolidate a number of facilities including the Dove facility. I just wanted to come up here and discuss in a little bit more detail, Mayor Taylor, what you had brought up. It's a very valid question with regard to Unfortunately, that pattern was established twenty, thirty years ago. And as Paul had mentioned, now gaining that East West connectivity anywhere between the two would really be quite a feat regardless of this particular project or not.

And one of the reasons why when the general plan was formulated the last time around, was particularly that southerly area. It was identified as, you know, we really didn't want to go much further south because of the buffer area that we wanted to maintain between the city of Telaria and the city of Visalia. Of course, that's something that your council and your planners are going to have to grapple with a great deal. Where does the growth go over the next twenty to thirty years? It's going to be a fascinating issue to delve into. But if you have any additional questions, I might be able to shed some light from a General PAM perspective. Was mildly involved in the last one.

Just a

little bit. Anyway, thank you very much.

Anybody else wishing to speak? Alright, we will close public comments and turn it back over to counsel with any further questions or comments. Or I'll entertain a motion.

So, make a motion to approve staff recommendation.

I second. We have first and second. All those in favor, please vote. It's a long motion. That's pretty long.

Item passes four zero with council member Nelson absent. Thank you very much. All right, last we're gonna move on to item number two, which is a public hearing to review draft 2026 annual action plan and 2025 annual action plan amendment. Staff report please.

Good evening mayor, members, vice mayor and members of the council. My name is Margie Perez, city of Visalia Housing Specialists. And I am here just to discuss the program year 2026 draft annual action plan and program year 2025 draft annual action plan amendment.

Okay.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is known as HUD, administers program and grants that provide housing and community development assistance. Visalia is an entitlement jurisdiction of both funding, which we receive Community Development Block Grants, also known as CDBG, and Home Investment Partnership Program, also known as HOME Funds. The Community Development Block Grant, or CDBG, supports community development by providing decent housing, suitable living environment and expansion of economic opportunities. All activities must meet at least one of the following. Benefit low to moderate income persons or area, eliminate slim or white or meet a urgent emergency.

Home Investment Partnership Program, also known as HOME, supports increased affordable housing opportunity. There are only four eligible activities for the use of home. One is home buyer, assistance or down payment assistance, rehab for owner occupants, rental housing production, and tenant based rental assistance also known as TBRA. The funding process for these funds require a five year consolidated plan also known as a comp plan which establishes the activity and project goals. Each year the city is required to complete an annual action plan that implements the comp plan's goals and activities and awards contracts as approved in the comp plan.

We also have the opportunity to do amendments if we have any unspent funds or additional funds received. A summary. Staff is seeking direction and comment on our 2026 annual action plan and 2025 annual action plan amendment. We do have a thirty day public comment period that is currently running from March 20 through April 20. And the report is due to HUD by May 15.

Our thirty day public comment period, which is March 20 through April 20, has three public meetings. The first was held on April 1 during the Citizens Advisory Committee or known as the CAC. Tonight's public hearing for review and comment. And lastly the third which will be on April 20 for a final public hearing adoption. The city did release a NOFA for funding opportunity.

The NOFA was released from January 1 through February 5. I'm sorry from January 5 through February 5. The NOFA was published in the Visalia Times Delta City's Purchasing Page, Central Valley Purchasing System, BIDNET, and the Kings Tulare Homeless Alliance to over six fifty recipients. Our twenty twenty six CDBG projected resources are also known as our estimated resources are 1,100,000.0 in annual allocation estimated 50,000 in program income for total 1,200,000.0. This is an estimation based off of our prior year's average.

This was produced prior to HUD releasing their annual allocations. Our 2026 projected CDBG funding includes administration at a 20% cap which is estimated at 240,000. Public services is limited to a 15% public cap. Kings Torrey Homeless Alliance at 20,000. Family services for, PSH match or also known as permanent supportive housing match and case management at 50,000.

CSET fair housing education at 30,000. Salt and light street outreach and housing flex funds at 80,000 for a total of a 180015% cap. Affordable housing for self help enterprises a single family home repair program at a 100,000. Self help for a senior mobile home repair program at a 100,000. Code enforcement in low to moderate areas at a 195,000.

And our public facility improvements include the Lincoln Over Park at 140,000 ADA compliance tree wells at 245,000 for a total estimated projected funding at 1,200,000.0. Again, these funds populated or formatted prior to HUD's releasing their annual allocation. Staff will return on April 20 with actual allocations or actual numbers. Table three, our 2026 home projected resources include 425,000 of home annual allocation, 100,000 of estimated program income for estimation of 525,000. Our home our '20 26 home proposed funding is admin at 10% at 50,000.

Our home total, which is Crescent Metals senior housing project for 62 and over at 475,000. Our total twenty twenty six home projected resources are 525,000. Any increase or decrease of our home allocation will be directed to our home project. Our 2025 annual action plan amendment includes 900,000 being transferred from an emergency shelter development to ADA Tree Wells compliance project. The reason for this development for this amendment is to allow additional time.

For development and preparation of an emergency shelter project. Tonight staff request holding a public hearing and receiving comments by both council and the public on the draft 2026 annual action plan and annual action plan amendment. Any questions?

Any questions of staff at this time?

No, no questions. I just have one comment. I I just it, you know, I wish we could build a emergency shelter but I know operations funding is something that's not easy to come by right now as we're trying to fund the navigation center but I hope that as a council, we can look at that in the future when when that's a little more secure.

Could you go back to your CDBG page of what's being where the funds are allocated? Sure. That one? Yeah. I don't see the navigation center on there. Is that Correct. Do we fund them out of different funds?

Correct.

It seems like Salt and Light. Is there any thought I I'm just I'm just wondering why there was no funding for the navigation center.

Sure. The navigation center, we have used it for CDBG funds for development. Once it goes to operation, it is applicable to the 15% public service cap. Because the public service cap is very restricted, we use our PLHA funding for the ongoing operating to allow additional funding.

Okay, Joel. Okay.

Thank you. My acronym's mixed up. Margie, could you describe what Salt and Light is going to be doing with it within the city of Isallia?

Yes. They will provide street outreach to allow those that are experiencing chronic or street homelessness to begin the process of permanent housing placement. There is a lot of documentation and paperwork that needs to be completed, and they'll be assisting with that. They're also providing housing flex funds, which includes rental assistance, security deposits, also landlord mitigation funds to entice landlords to accept the people that are experiencing homeless. It helps pay for damages above and beyond security deposit.

Any questions? So, I

I just had one question. Can you talk a little

bit more about the fencing and lighting project around the Oval Park?

Sure.

Yes. The Lincoln Oval Park also has 50,000 from a prior year action plan, bringing this to a 190,000 in total. It will allow for fencing through around the entire Lincoln Oval Park. Right now, it's just partially fenced as well some lighting.

So on that, did we talk to the police to make sure that's what they wanted? Because the last time we did a ride along, there was actually an OD occurring in the Oval Park. And we took the police car and the ambulance right up in there in the park. And if that is completely fenced off, that wouldn't have been able to happen. So have we talked to our our police about if they actually wanted to have that completely fenced off?

I don't believe so. We could still go back at this point. Everything is draft so we can still make adjustments.

Okay. Yeah, don't mind. I don't mind that happening too.

Yeah, mean, just because I'd actually asked, know, like, was that designed that way and this, I don't know. That's the way that we've always used it every time we have to go into the park.

So So it would have gone through site plan review in order to be a permitted project. So it would there would have been an opportunity to comment. Doesn't mean we can't go back and revisit it.

Okay. Yeah. If we could do that, I would I would appreciate it. Other than that, my comments are, you know, to to look at what we've done over the last few years. I mean, $11,000,000 in in homelessness, permanent supportive housing funding, or similar type projects and you know, it's something as a city I think we're very proud of. So I appreciate your report.

Thank you.

Let's go ahead and open this up to the public. Anyone wishing to speak please come forward and state your name and city of residence.

Hey guys, April Lancaster again at City of Iselia. So I'm seeing 1,125,000 on the tree well project for that's downtown. Right? No mistakes about that. That we're talking about the downtown tree wells.

That's completely completely wild wild because because there there is is a a property property owner's district there. And so I feel like this is kinda setting a precedent about what happens where there are property owner's districts, and we have lots and lots of them throughout the city of Visalia. Homeowners associations are the same type of a formulated entity as the property owner's district is. I want to make sure that all of the single family homes within that area are being prioritized to have these CDBG funds. I'm sorry.

I'm so upset. I cannot believe I cannot believe $1,125,000. Is that gonna cover all of the repair on all of the sidewalks in downtown? Is that gonna cover the individual homeowners? Because they should definitely be prioritized because they're gonna have expenses incurred because of these these failed trees that happen downtown just as much as any other downtown property owner is.

I know, property owners have been really vocal with you guys. I have no doubt that you guys are all aware that there are considerations after these repairs are made that is gonna be three, probably three times this amount of money. So yeah, it's bonkers, especially when you've seen the money that is being spent by the property owners association and those funds that are being captured because they could have been utilized for this project and that was the intended purpose initially was a share of a third. So is the property owners going to share in that cost or what does that look like? And can you guys ensure that those individual people who are living in their homes in that district will be prioritized on this project as well?

That's all.

Anyone else wishing to speak at this time? Seeing none, Marjorie would you be able to talk a little bit about the TreeWell Funding Project please?

Yes, these are public funds.

It does

require assistance participation project plan completed because these are ADA compliance funds. We did go to the disability advocacy committee to ask the disabled community how they would like to utilize the CDBG ADA compliance funds. They requested three projects. The first was audible pedestrian signals which we completed on Santa Fe. The second were for ADA compliance along the transit project pathway.

And the third for the ADA tree walls in the downtown when they're utilizing transit support. We do have quite a bit of impaired, physical impaired citizens that are both not just in wheelchairs but also legally blind where they do use the transit quite a bit and they go to the downtown. That was a request of our DAC, our disability Advocacy Committee.

Thank you. Any other questions from staff or any other comments? If not, I'll entertain a motion. No motion. No motion. You're right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Marjorie. Appreciate your report. Today. We'll go on next to the closed session report.

Yes, mayor. The, city acquired a small piece of property for the Caldwell Avenue widening, project between Santa Fe And Lovers Lane. In accordance with the Brown details of that transaction were printed on tonight's agenda.

Fantastic. And I think the last thing we wanna be able to kinda celebrate is we're announcing that council member So to will be getting married before we come back to our our next council meeting. So we wanna wish him well and congratulations, and we are very excited for you. So congratulations. And we welcome everyone to come back at our next meeting, which will be April 20.