Name: City Council Special Meeting
Uploaded: 2024-06-12T00:00:00Z
Duration: 2 h 9 min 52 s
Description: Reallments that are prime for grant funding, things like affordable housing and safe streets and all that stuff, you know, there's money out there and so I really support pursuing that.

[1:10] Meeting everybody, before we start, the city council just met on three closed session items, and there is nothing to report out at this time.

[1:18] Good evening and thank you for viewing the June 12th special meeting of the Arcade of City Council.

[1:23] The City Council meeting is being held as a hybrid meeting with both in person, attendance, and teleconference access via Zoom.

[1:30] As this is a special meeting, we will take public comment now at the beginning of the meeting, and only for items that are on the agenda.

[1:38] If you're interested in providing public comments on the consent calendar, the budget or the November elections, please line up at the podium or raise your zoom hand now.

[1:48] You'll take in person comments first and then move to zoom. We're not going to go back and forth.

[1:53] So line up after we do our ceremonial matter.

[1:58] So this is a proclamation and celebration of the 4th of July.

[2:02] you believe which will be July 4th, 2024 and this proclamation will be read by Council Member

[2:08] Reckon Selazar.

[2:10] Thank you.

[2:11] In celebration of the 4th of July, Jubilee, whereas the city of Arcada, known for its vibrant

[2:17] community spirit and commitment to fostering local businesses, recognizes the importance

[2:22] of celebrating our nation's independence and the contributions of our local commerce.

[2:27] And whereas, the Arcade of Chamber of Commerce has organized a grand event to commemorate

[2:33] the significant, this significant day with the festive celebration that brings together

[2:38] businesses, residents, and visitors alike, and whereas, the Jubilee promises to be a

[2:44] day filled with joy, camaraderie, and entertainment featuring activities, live music, local

[2:49] artisans, and food vendors that highlight the diverse talents of our local community.

[2:54] And whereas, this event not only provides an opportunity for our community members to come together

[3:00] and enjoy the festive atmosphere, but also acts as a catalyst for the growth and success of our local economy,

[3:07] creating a platform for businesses to showcase their offerings and gain exposure to a wider audience.

[3:13] And whereas, the Jubilee is the longest running event on the Arcade of Plaza dating back over 150 years.

[3:20] Therefore, be it resolved that the City Council of the City of Arquita encourages all residents

[3:25] to attend the Arquita Chamber of Commerce 4th of July, Jubilee on the Arquita Plaza

[3:30] on Thursday, July 4th, signed by our mayor, Meredith Matthews.

[3:35] And we have JD Garcia Valencia from the Chamber to accept.

[3:45] Can we dance?

[3:46] Yeah.

[3:46] Granted, I can do it.

[3:47] And JD, you're welcome to say a few words.

[3:49] It should be preferred.

[3:50] Thank you so much.

[3:51] Council members, community members, on behalf of the Arcade at Chamber of Commerce, I'd

[3:56] like to express our deepest gratitude for this proclamation, the folks over at the Chamber

[4:02] are doing wonderful work in our community and this is definitely a grand event, so thank you.

[4:08] Thank you so much.

[4:12] All right, let's go to public comment. Remember this is a special meeting,

[4:15] we're only going to be taking public comment. Once the top of the meeting and only for items

[4:20] that they are on the agenda, so if you have public comment today, now it's your time.

[4:25] Yes, on the agenda?

[4:27] On the agenda, at a session.

[4:29] So we are talking about budget, and we are talking about the tax, and we are talking about declaring the public election.

[4:37] Well, I was thinking the opposite that wasn't on the, that's our normal routine.

[4:45] So, I wasn't quite prepared for this.

[4:48] I would, okay, let's go with an article that I was reading on safe parking, that's on the agenda, right?

[4:58] It's interesting that the article-

[5:00] No, it's not on the agenda.

[5:02] It's a bunch of nights.

[5:03] So go ahead.

[5:06] Okay.

[5:10] I'm just curious about this, because there's an article in the post journal on this, and it gives out a price from Arcata

[5:17] house of $477,477,000 and then on your agenda I mean I don't remember I read it

[5:25] and I'm Friday but I think it's like 670,000 that's what you're saying that the

[5:31] safe parking is costiness and I think we've also had sessions where it was in 700 and

[5:38] something so I think we need to have some clarity of exactly what this program

[5:43] pass because I've seen three different price ranges where some of them are off by a couple

[5:49] hundred thousand dollars. So the other area that I would get into from reading that article

[5:55] is to that we're sort of letting people we give money for these programs and they sound very

[6:02] good and things that problems that we want to solve but we sort of the valuation of these programs

[6:08] which we've put out a lot of money for as sort of left in this case for the person who

[6:13] evaluate in themselves. So questions I would have on this program itself. It looked like it was

[6:19] a warehouse and I was a parking lot and you know it's some pretty serious money that basically

[6:26] we're not going to have that program because we don't have the funding anymore. So I would

[6:30] address what was what was the run on that? I mean it seems like a lot of money got used up quickly

[6:37] for something that was, you know, you were proud of and successful for.

[6:42] And also, I think in that article, they mentioned three meals a day.

[6:47] I recall one community member going out there and sort of they were a little disappointed

[6:52] from the standpoint of there's some cold cereal and some coffee.

[6:59] So there's another example of if you're going to have three meals a day, maybe like,

[7:03] you know, tell us what you're actually serving these people to, you know, that this money is

[7:08] going towards, you know, it just needs, I mean, this is the basic question of all government

[7:14] from the standpoint.

[7:15] We spend, I mean, California has spent billions of dollars addressing homelessness and the money

[7:23] just like goes and it's just a bandaid and there's nobody really like looking at what was

[7:33] bang for the buck and succeeded in feeding people, taking care of people, setting up goals

[7:38] for the future so that it wasn't just a bandate.

[7:42] So that's why basic a summary for your whole budget in a way is that nobody really critiques

[7:50] it too well.

[7:51] It just kind of like, here it is, sounds good, let's vote for it, and that's it, and there's

[7:56] never really too much follow through on the standpoint of what was successful and what's

[8:01] help us in the future because obviously our state is like 75 billion I think in deficit so there's going to be cutbacks.

[8:09] Thank you. Anybody else for a public comment? Do you have anybody online?

[8:14] If there are any people online that would like to make public comment please raise your zoom hand now.

[8:19] This is a special meeting so we will be only taking public comment on all the items that are on the agenda now.

[8:25] If you'd like to make public comment please raise your hand now.

[8:31] There is no online public comment.

[8:35] All right.

[8:35] Close public comment and let's move to the consent calendar.

[8:39] All matters on the consent calendar are considered to be routine

[8:41] about the city council and are enacted in one motion.

[8:44] There is no separate discussion of any of these items.

[8:47] If discussion is required, that item is removed from the consent calendar

[8:50] and considered separately at the end of the reading of the consent calendar.

[8:54] Council members can request an item be removed for separate discussion.

[8:58] Item A is approved the fiscal year 2024 25 senior resource centers Arcada Community Center

[9:04] application and permit use of the facilities wave usage fees associated with the

[9:09] season your resource centers meal and activity programs at the Arcada Community Center

[9:14] and authorize the city manager to execute all applicable documents through 2030.

[9:19] B is to adopt resolution number 234-60 approving the fiscal year 2024 25 annual

[9:26] report on stormwater drainage maintenance fee for all non-tax exempt parcels and directing

[9:33] that said fee be collected through property tax rules for fiscal year 202425 and

[9:39] see is approved amendments to the agreement between the city of Arcada and the humble

[9:43] transit authority HTA for operations and maintenance of the Arcada and mad river transit system

[9:50] A and MRTS and vehicles and authorize the city manager to execute all applicable documents with any staff or council member like to remove items from the consent calendar.

[10:00] I don't want to remove anything. I just want to say with regards to the senior resource.

[10:04] It's an invaluable resource to our K to seniors and, you know, as pointed out, nearly 100 meals are served.

[10:12] It's including delivered meals for those that are homebound.

[10:15] So I'm just really happy that we're doing this and we'll be renewing it for what five years now.

[10:20] So we don't want to come in every year.

[10:22] Thank you.

[10:24] All right.

[10:24] Anybody else want to pull anything else?

[10:26] We have a motion.

[10:28] Well, I'll re-bove for the consent calendar, which includes A, B, and C.

[10:34] We'll second.

[10:35] All right.

[10:35] We have a motion.

[10:37] If I may or still mind a second from Council Member White, I'll in favor.

[10:40] Bye.

[10:41] All right.

[10:45] Let's move on to, oh, lovely.

[10:46] last one.

[10:49] It's move on to old business.

[10:51] A is public hearing on fiscal year 2024 25 appropriation limit consider adopting resolution

[10:57] number 234-61 adopting the appropriation limit for FY 2025 public hearing on FY 2425 proposed budget

[11:08] and consider adoption of resolution number 234-62 adopting the city budget for FY 2024-25.

[11:16] and can finance director Tabitha Miller give us a staff report please.

[11:20] Good evening Mayor City Council, so just a couple of logistics items.

[11:25] One is that you do have a correction to the resolution on your table in front of you and

[11:31] there's an extra one over there.

[11:33] I had an error in a calculation in my Excel spreadsheet and so we've updated the numbers.

[11:39] I have also removed what was paragraph six, one of the warehouses on the original resolution

[11:45] because it doesn't apply to this particular year.

[11:49] So I apologize for those errors.

[11:53] And we're going to take these in two separate items.

[11:56] So we'll take the Appropriations GAN limit first.

[11:59] We'll have go through the process.

[12:01] And then we'll talk about the budget,

[12:03] and hopefully you'll adopt that also.

[12:05] One thing I would ask is that we probably

[12:07] do want to open a public hearing for this.

[12:10] Have the staff report.

[12:11] You can take public comment specific to began limit, and then take action on it, and then we'll do the same thing for the budget and that way it's all on record.

[12:22] I'll make a motion to open the public hearing regarding the appropriations limit for fiscal year 2025.

[12:27] 24 or 25?

[12:28] All second.

[12:34] Public.

[12:34] We can have a point of order.

[12:38] We can.

[12:38] I think our finance directors probably correct that as a public hearing, we probably should

[12:42] even though it is a special meeting and we don't have to.

[12:45] So I apologize to the mayor for that.

[12:48] But we'll just keep moving through.

[12:50] We have one person online, but not with the hand-offs.

[12:52] All right.

[12:53] That's fantastic.

[12:54] So we have a motion and a second.

[12:55] All in favor?

[12:56] Aye.

[12:56] Thank you.

[13:01] So just really quickly, this is something that we are expected to do every year and it's gone through a series of

[13:08] Propositions so it's been voter initiated over three different periods of time, but basically what it does is it sets both the state and each local government on an annual basis

[13:18] must go through the process of establishing their appropriations limit and this is a sort of what what their total expenditures can be

[13:26] There are a number of items that are sort of excluded from it.

[13:29] It really, when it comes right down to it, what it applies to is your general fund taxes and a few fees and other charges, your outside grants for the most part are excluded, your enterprise funds are excluded.

[13:43] So it is limited, we have always had a pretty big margin.

[13:48] You will remember last year because we had that big margin, the state sort of borrowed, excuse me, is how they termed it.

[13:54] of our appropriation limit because they had exceeded theirs and they sort of it was how they figured

[13:59] out they could get around that process. Unfortunately for all of us, they have a pretty

[14:05] big deficit this year so they do not need to borrow any of our limit anymore. But it is in place

[14:12] to manage spending. So this is, and this is when I calculated these numbers, I discovered

[14:20] the error today but this is it's a pretty simple calculation at the very top you can see

[14:25] we take the prior year's appropriation limit and then we adjust it for two factors.

[14:30] One is a price it's actually a per capita income number that the state provides us and then

[14:36] a population factor. The price factor is an increase unfortunately the population factor is a

[14:43] increase. So all of, and I'll show you in the next page, all of Humboldt County saw a decrease

[14:50] in their population this last year. The year before we were actually the only city to have

[14:56] a population increase. So we actually got a positive bump here. When you put-

[15:00] Those two together, essentially, our factor for growth, is a little over 2%, so we multiply that 1.0202 times our number a, which is our current appropriation limit, the difference, which is the $400,000, $219, $219 is how we increase it. We add that to it.

[15:22] So our appropriations limit for 2425 will be 20 million, 349,412 dollars.

[15:31] When you go through and look at all of the revenues that are subject to the appropriations

[15:34] limit, we are limited to about 14.5 million.

[15:39] So at the end of the day, we have a surplus or an excess appropriation of just under $5.9

[15:46] million dollars.

[15:47] So we still have ample room, we're not even close to budding up against that right now.

[15:52] I thought it would be interesting just to show you the populations in Humboldt County and as you can see where the top there and we did have a small adjustment down of about a percentage and a half which is pretty consistent with the rest of the county and overall the county is down about 1.11% and again these are numbers that the California Department of Finance provides and it is built into the process that those are the numbers that we have to rely on for our cost and population factors.

[16:21] And with that, because this is pretty simple, I'll take any questions and ask you to evaluate the resolution.

[16:29] Okay, well since this is a public hearing, open it up for public comment first.

[16:35] Anybody have any questions or comments on the gain on the mid.

[16:39] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[16:41] All right, then I'll bring you back to the council.

[16:44] I'll make a motion to adopt Resolution 234-61 Resolution the City Council City of Arquita,

[16:51] adopting the 2024 25 appropriations on that under Article 13B of the California Constitution.

[17:01] All right, we have a motion and a second. Does anybody else have any comments or?

[17:05] All in favor?

[17:07] Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

[17:09] Motion passes. And let's move on to Part 2.

[17:17] And then do we need to move to open the public hearing on this is so I would I would ask that you close the public hearing on the gand limit and then we open the public hearing on the budget

[17:27] So I'm over

[17:30] I'll second it if someone's moved to close the public hearing. So moved

[17:36] Second all of favor. Hi. Hi. Hi. All right. Thank you. And so we move on to the adoption of the proposed 2425 budget

[17:49] Just a brief. Isn't that a nice picture?

[17:59] So just for quickly what we're going to go through tonight is the City Council goals and priority projects. We're going to go through a budget overview. We'll look at some of the programs that we are funding for 2425. We'll look at our ARPA projects sort of some of wrapping up those funds. The capital improvement program. We've got some other considerations I want you just to talk about.

[18:20] And then we can go through questions.

[18:23] So these are big picture of these are your goals.

[18:26] There are a little bit more detail in both the budget

[18:30] book that's online and the one that's in your packet.

[18:32] But I just wanted to remind everybody about how important these

[18:36] are and that we should be looking and we do.

[18:38] Look at these as we develop the budget and make sure

[18:42] that we're really complying and that we're

[18:43] falling through with the policy that you all are establishing.

[18:46] And so I think it's really important to remind us

[18:48] of kind of where we're starting out.

[18:49] That doesn't mean that we don't have to take into account state mandates and requirements, but it is behind all of that.

[18:57] Just a kind of an overview of some of your council priority projects for this year, and again, as a part of adopting the budget,

[19:04] you will be adopting re-adopting your goals and establishing the priority projects for the new fiscal year also.

[19:11] The homeless, homeless reduction strategy, valley-west improvements.

[19:17] We still want to collaborate with other agencies, mental health and social services, public

[19:22] safety, is always a top priority working to improve government relations with the local

[19:27] tribal governments, economic development strategies, prioritized future planning, implementing

[19:33] the Arcades Arcades Arts, Strategic Plan, Climate Change and Climate Adaptation, Parks

[19:38] improvements, safe streets, our partnership with Cal Poly Humboldt, we want to have Spanish

[19:44] translation of council meetings available, diversity equity and inclusion, and then of course

[19:49] supporting our capital improvement project, which continues to be a pretty large portion

[19:53] of the city's budget. I went through an exercise to take the $87.6 million expenditure budget

[20:02] for this year and match it to those goals. And so this is a little bit subjective because it was

[20:08] trying to put it into place but there's also a lot of overlap and what I found is that you

[20:16] really are matching and meeting many of your goals and I would just again kind of put it

[20:22] out there that you may want to look at how much of the dollars are going to each of those areas

[20:28] and if there's something that you want to adjust at some point in the future that's something you

[20:32] can consider but safety and livability is the largest portion and that's not surprising because

[20:37] its public safety and its safety and comforts and it really includes your police department.

[20:44] You think about things that are for safety and comfort of your citizens, water and sewer

[20:49] services.

[20:50] It's awfully nice to have water come to your house and then have the dirty water taken

[20:54] away.

[20:56] So that really is going to be the bulk of what we do and it's also really the essential services

[21:00] that are provided.

[21:02] I was a little surprised but it works out well.

[21:04] environment is our second largest factor at 13%. And again, if you think about sort of the

[21:10] things that we're doing right now, especially in our capital projects, you're investing

[21:15] in your parks, your forest, and also again in your environment with clean water. Both your water

[21:21] and your wastewater projects are about making sure that the water that is out there and is returned

[21:27] into the system is clean and safe. And so you're making a pretty big kind of use in there.

[21:32] ask a quick question and here it says it's 20%

[21:35] of the second which is the future

[21:37] educational opportunities and those kinds of things

[21:40] that we're included.

[21:46] You are correct.

[21:47] You are correct.

[21:49] It's me going in order and not paying attention

[21:51] to my own graph.

[21:53] So you are correct.

[21:54] So the future.

[21:55] These numbers as we move through can kind of be a living document

[21:58] if we decide that maybe we want to

[22:01] You know, put more effort into public service or whatever that might be.

[22:07] We can flip these around and make our pie chart different.

[22:11] And it would be how you set your budget and how you set your goals every year.

[22:14] And so yes, that is.

[22:16] And keep in mind, there are many that can overlap.

[22:19] You know, when we talk about safety and water and sewer and environment, they all are related.

[22:25] The same thing, even when you talk about health, you know, health and environment are pretty

[22:30] closely related to an essential services.

[22:34] But yes, thank you for pointing pointing that out.

[22:36] Sustainable development, you know, is a little bit lower, but that's also something

[22:40] that's a little bit more niche, less of an essential service.

[22:44] Public service is really that outreach, it's engagement with the community, and it's not

[22:49] that you don't do quite a bit, it's just that on a dollar value, it doesn't rise to

[22:54] the same level.

[22:56] Your health is about 8% and again that's going to also be reflected in your Parks and Recreation

[23:01] Programs and your Capital Investments in those facilities that will be helpful to our community

[23:07] as far as exercise and well being.

[23:10] And then as council member, white pointed out, futures 20%.

[23:15] And again, some of that, a small portion of that is the planning that we're doing in order

[23:21] to sort of contribute to planning for the future and the things that we're doing there.

[23:24] But a lot of it also comes back to those capital projects because you're investing in projects

[23:29] today that will last in some cases 20, 30, 50 years from now.

[23:34] And so, you know, it's really a reflection of your capital program.

[23:38] I suspect if we just use me.

[23:39] If we pulled that that $40 million out, you know, these numbers would change a little bit.

[23:44] And again, it's just something to think about.

[23:46] The last number is administration and it's really, it's financed the city manager's office.

[23:52] It's the human resources.

[23:54] It's those departments that when you think about them, don't necessarily have a direct role in those,

[24:00] providing those services that are support for all of them.

[24:03] And you could argue that you would allocate it back out proportionally.

[24:06] But I wanted to just kind of point that out, see if we keep that.

[24:08] Could I ask one more question?

[24:10] So next year when we don't have ARPA funds depending on how this ballot initiative plays out,

[24:17] this is going to change significantly.

[24:19] I wouldn't say necessarily significantly because your ARPA funds of your $87.6 million this year,

[24:26] they're only about 900,000. So we're talking a pretty small amount. So even those dollars going away

[24:33] will shift things a little bit. It's the capital piece that's really driving it. And that's the,

[24:39] $40 million or $39.8 million that really is establishing it.

[24:45] So as our capital program decreases, if it does, then you would definitely see changes.

[24:54] This is in all the programs that we've provided and are addressing in this year's budget

[25:01] based on your goals and priority projects.

[25:04] But there are a few that I thought I would point out really quickly.

[25:07] We are looking at sea level rise vulnerability this year.

[25:11] We are finishing the upgrades to our Arcade of Ball Park.

[25:14] We've got traffic calming plan for KN11 Street.

[25:17] We've got the reconnecting communities planning.

[25:20] We're still waiting to figure out how much money we have,

[25:22] but that's going to be a big project.

[25:25] The support for the climate action plan,

[25:28] the county should be moving forward with soon,

[25:30] phase one of old Arcade of Road.

[25:32] We've got a full-time equity Arcade Accordinator.

[25:34] We've got most of that funding coming from outside in order to support it.

[25:39] We've got economic development strategic plan plans.

[25:42] We've got the Arcana Chinatown Project and we've got small amount of funds set aside for that.

[25:47] The Valley West Improvements adopting your general plan update, which should happen just after the first of the fiscal year.

[25:55] Your potential West End Road property purchase.

[25:57] We've got about 1.1 million, 1.7 million dollars set aside if that happens.

[26:03] We do have three over higher officers approved, and this is really kind of talks about the next item,

[26:10] which is that's how we're able to add those additional toll services in the downtown area.

[26:16] We've got somebody dedicated valley west and then the march in the park, the parks patrol.

[26:21] Those overhires really are not about being overhired.

[26:24] They're about making sure that through the transitions in the police department staff.

[26:29] we can stay at the total number of staff in the total number of 27 offers officers who are actually

[26:36] budgeted and then authorized. It takes six to nine months to replace a police officer down there.

[26:43] And then redevelopment planning for a happy valley and little lakes properties. This is also an

[26:47] economic development piece. We've got completing the solar and electric updates to the Arcade

[26:52] community center. We did get a $576,000 loan, which will be paid off with the savings that

[26:59] the energy savings. And then we do also include a part-time position to help out down at the

[27:05] marsh.

[27:09] So, these are sort of big picture numbers and they're really the highlights. We've talked a

[27:14] little bit about a few of them, but they're the kind of thing that if you go to not that you go

[27:19] finance department, swing digs, and conferences, and cocktail parties, but these are the numbers

[27:25] that you pass back and forth. So I wanted you all to be prepared in case you need to know exactly

[27:32] what our budget is. So you'll be in the know. So as I mentioned, the total budget is 87.6

[27:41] million dollars. That is a total increase over last year's adoptive budget of 2.1%. The capital

[27:47] budget the total capital is 44.7 million of that 39.8 is part of our capital improvements program.

[27:56] The difference are things like setting aside money for that potential property purchase. We've got

[28:00] about $2 million in vehicles lined up and we've got a few other odds and ends that are included in the

[28:07] total capital that are more related to equipment and things like that. Your total payroll and

[28:12] benefits is $20.8 million. I will tell you that we've adjusted the number so that the two labor

[28:18] agreements that you approved at your last week's meeting. Those numbers have been updated. You

[28:24] still have your arcade-up police association that has not been settled, so there may be some minor

[28:29] adjustments there. In our city payments, this is a number that is really where we're paying ourselves

[28:36] for services. And a good example of this is our IT services. So the IT department provides

[28:43] services exclusively to city departments. And in order to sort of allocate the cost of that

[28:49] out appropriately, we charge each of those departments and funds for those services. So really

[28:54] what we're doing is we're sending money back to IT to pay for services. What it does is it kind

[29:00] of creates a little bit of an over budgeting. It inflates the budget because you're recognizing

[29:05] those as revenues and expenses and they're really a net zero. So if you think about that,

[29:11] your budget would be 82.5 million. So it reduces it a little bit. As far as full time,

[29:19] authorized employees, there are 130 employees plus five counts of members. And then your general

[29:24] fund budget is $24.4 million. A couple other things to let you know, none, we have not included any

[29:33] of the dollars from a proposed tax measure in this budget for a couple of reasons one.

[29:37] We don't want to count on it before it's approved or make any assumptions.

[29:42] And it also even if it passes in November because of the delay in collections.

[29:47] We wouldn't start being collected until April of 2025,

[29:51] which means that we wouldn't actually even receive the money until essentially the next fiscal year.

[29:56] So, it does, the budget does use,

[30:00] 3.1 million dollars of one-time funds. It's where feasible. We are committing to a green fleet, where we can take that banage. And then, I wanted to point out this last figure. So your general fund balance, which includes your reserved, which is the 30% operating reserve that you set up last year, plus sort of the unreserved amount, is equal to 299 days of operations. So if you're if your general fund stop taking money into tomorrow, you could almost get in.

[30:29] through a full year of operations just on your reserves.

[30:33] And that's a pretty good amount of money.

[30:38] It goes fast with your just spending it.

[30:40] But it is over an 80% of reserve, which is something

[30:44] that it puts us in good stead.

[30:46] So, we start in a few slides.

[30:49] When we start talking about structural deficits

[30:51] and some of the challenges we have,

[30:53] I do want to just commend the council and the city

[30:55] on really sort of putting us in a solid position

[30:58] and so that we're not panicking.

[31:00] We're not having to make decisions immediately

[31:02] and we can continue to make, you know,

[31:04] thoughtful processes as we go through the next couple of years.

[31:10] This is just a real big overview of all the funds.

[31:12] It's that $87.6 million.

[31:15] Again, the capital outlay is your largest expenditure

[31:20] at 48%.

[31:21] Your personal services or your labor is 24% materials

[31:25] and services 19, that five million dollars that goes back and forth is about seven percent

[31:32] including a couple other things here.

[31:34] That service is almost minimal at less than one percent and then other expenditures is

[31:38] just a catch-all.

[31:42] So this is kind of the big picture again.

[31:45] You're going to see the same dollars if you look over on the far right-hand side.

[31:49] Your total revenue is 84.5 million, and you can see how it works the way through, and if you go to the middle of the page, the expense total is the 87.6 million we've talked about.

[32:03] I don't think there's any surprises here. Your capital outplay, your personal services, all of those numbers are the percentages that you saw on the back page.

[32:11] If you do again have a $3.1 million one-time use of fund balance, most of that actually is

[32:18] coming out of the general fund and it has to do with that money we've set aside for

[32:22] the potential purchase of property in the West End Street, that's a largest chunk of it.

[32:28] And I will say that if you are interested and I can certainly, at any point, if you wanted

[32:34] to go and see any of the details, we could go into the online budget tool and drill down

[32:39] anybody has a desire to do that. And this is just by function and again, it's it's pretty

[32:45] straightforward. Police are 35% your largest portion of your general fund budget, public works,

[32:51] and parks react and recreation are large here, but it's because you've got $5 million with the

[32:56] capital projects that are embedded in both of those. So if you pulled those out, you parks and public

[33:02] works and recreation would be a much smaller portion of the total. So, but it gives you an idea

[33:08] of where you're spending your money as far as departments and expenses.

[33:13] Could I just ask a clarifying question?

[33:15] Those a lot of that is actually grant funded, though, right?

[33:18] It's not necessarily coming from the general fund.

[33:21] So, for the capital projects in the general fund, yes.

[33:26] There's about $2.5 million that is grant funded.

[33:29] When we talk about bigger picture, when we talk about your wastewater fund and your water fund,

[33:35] it's a much larger portion of grant funded.

[33:37] But, yes, you're much of your parks and your streets programs that are included in parks and recreation and public works are coming from outside sources.

[33:47] And then, off in your parks projects, we'll also have an allocation that come from development fees, so what we call either recreation fee for new construction or park and loufies, where they are general fund dollars, they are earmarked from the extraction of that through development specific to those park improvements.

[34:04] So, what just legislative means, legislative means, you are considered a legislative body in the fact that you are making rules and regulations for the city, same, so that is, and so basically it takes into account city council and typically your city clerk because your city clerk is essentially the person who is overseeing that process.

[34:30] So

[34:39] we'll move on to the special revenue funds.

[34:42] So you have, I think I counted 30, 34 or 35 special revenue funds.

[34:49] We have some that are like our bicycle registration that literally only has a couple hundred

[34:54] dollars a year in it.

[34:55] And then you have some that have been stagnant for quite a few years.

[34:59] We are closing a few of those, but it is pretty diverse.

[35:02] And if you're interested again, they are online.

[35:04] But for the most part, these are revenues, for entirely, they're revenues that are set aside and

[35:10] legally required to be used for a special purpose.

[35:14] Probably your mainstays are going to be your community development block grants, and then your streets and road taxes,

[35:21] the ones that are sort of reliable and regular.

[35:24] You'll see, and I would point out here on your revised budget and your assules in

[35:31] 22, 21, excuse me, 22, 23, and those big increases in revenue, we're really about the

[35:39] ARPA funds and your project home key funds that you got paid up front.

[35:44] It's also the reason that you have some negative spending going on because you've been spending

[35:49] down those proceeds, and again, they have to be used for that specific program or specific

[35:57] identified project and so it's a good thing but it is something that you should be aware of.

[36:05] So this stormwater utility, I think we've talked about a few times and the reason I am highlighting

[36:12] it here, it's a fairly small fund but it is one that is challenged and it is one that really

[36:17] does meet the definition of a structural deficit and a structural deficit is basically when you go

[36:24] multiple years with your expenses exceeding your revenues and you're running negative to the

[36:30] point where you are running out of funds and this is a fund that is there.

[36:35] That said, I would point out that we are in the process of a stormwater rate study.

[36:41] I know they're going back and forth with that and I believe that the environmental services

[36:46] department will be coming forward late this next year, late this year, 2024 calendar year,

[36:52] with some solutions and some ways and a real review and evaluation of how to sort of write

[36:59] that fund and what's really required to maintain those services and the MS4 permit that we

[37:07] are required to keep current and comply with.

[37:10] Could I ask a third question?

[37:12] You guys bear with me I'm learning.

[37:15] Does that mean there will be a special will that go on to the water bill?

[37:20] Not automatically.

[37:21] So currently your charges for service at the very top here under revenues is actually up it's a parcel

[37:28] It's on a it's per parcel tax. So it actually goes on your property taxes. Okay, um, and so I'm not exactly sure what the proposal will be from from the consultants

[37:38] to come out of the right study, but

[37:40] It would have to be it still has to go through an election process to either be increased as a parcel tax or

[37:47] to end up on the bills, so there'll be a process that would go through probably sometime in spring or summer of 2025.

[37:54] Thank you.

[37:55] The other piece I'll add to this is that the Department of Environmental Services is going through an audit of all of our stormwater parcels.

[38:02] When this fee was initially enacted in the city was actually before we were even regulated through a municipal stormwater permit from the Regional Water Quality Control Board.

[38:12] And there were a lot of early exemptions that the past council and past staff made associated with stormwater.

[38:20] So part of this process is just to audit all of those parcels that once received an exemption

[38:25] to see if there has been development since them.

[38:27] To see if they now meet the definition to have an exemption since a lot of legislation has changed in stormwater,

[38:34] which might also help us write a little bit of this deficit.

[38:43] You're a wastewater enterprise utility and again, I think the picture over the last three years really reflects the wastewater treatment plant upgrade project.

[38:56] So we're talking about a $54 million construction project, a total of $67 million when you add in your consulting fees, your engineering and all of the costs that are involved.

[39:07] But you know, you can really see in your revenues from 2223 actual the jump up and then obviously the expense reflects the same thing.

[39:17] But again, that is one place where we are very lucky that it is outside state funding that is essentially covering all of that.

[39:25] So we've got a pretty good shape here.

[39:30] And the water fund is also in decent shape, and certainly has made some investments in capital programs too.

[39:40] It will say about half of the programs in the water fund have been funded from outside sources and the other half have been funded through rates.

[39:48] And essentially what's really funding that is that you've been able to over time build up some fund balance reserves and set aside money specifically for capital replacement.

[39:57] And so you're using some of that, which is why you've got some higher expense totals in the current years.

[40:03] And so that's really a reflection there.

[40:05] Otherwise, it's pretty straightforward.

[40:07] Just a reminder in when you pass the new master fee schedule in April that'll be effective on July 1st.

[40:15] It did include a 1.5% increase in water rates and an 8% increase in the wastewater rates.

[40:22] And that is the last increase that has built into the current rate study and the current approved

[40:27] rate structure.

[40:29] So that's something else that may be revisited in the next year or two.

[40:34] Okay, shifting gears a little bit to the American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA programs and projects.

[40:39] And as we already mentioned, we are sort of at the end.

[40:43] This is about the end of the funds.

[40:45] And I expect that if we don't spend all of it, it will be essentially all of the money will

[40:49] likely be gone by the end of fiscal year 2024, 25.

[40:54] Just a reminder when we talk about the projects and commitments is that one of the deadlines

[40:58] we have in order to comply with and keep those funds is that we have to have the funds committed

[41:05] before 1231 of 2024.

[41:09] And so when you're reviewing the projects and I'm going to also make sure that staff is really

[41:14] also on board with this, we want to make sure that we have contracts in place.

[41:19] we have firm commitments to programs before 2024 or that we have looked at alternatives and

[41:25] something that we have used and we can certainly use to sort of make sure that we meet,

[41:32] we comply with those requirements, we had staff that you all had frozen back or the council

[41:38] of the frozen sort of pre and post pandemic that we were able to bring on, that is a certainly

[41:44] valid use of ARPA funds, we have used it in the past, and it's an easy way to, if we need

[41:50] to make sure that we spend all of the dollars, we can certainly shift some of that back

[41:54] to staff, those same staff members for a short period of time. And what I would suggest there

[41:59] is if there are projects that you are still very much committed to and we want to complete

[42:04] or see through, we could set aside money in the general fund for those projects and it would

[42:11] us a little bit more time in order to complete those. So that's something to do.

[42:15] And we have to 26 to spend it.

[42:17] We haven't till 1231 of 26 to spend it, but we definitely need to, we need commitments that are

[42:24] in writing and are firm. And the one challenge too is that once you commit that money after

[42:30] after 1231-24, we can't move it around. So the flexibility goes away. And so we've got

[42:37] flexibility in roughly the next six months to address this if we need to.

[42:43] So I think the recommendation in approving this year's budget will be to provide

[42:48] some authority to the finance director to an essence shift money's.

[42:53] Money's this year that we would be paying out of the general fund.

[42:55] If they are eligible for reimbursable expense to be able to get that reimbursement done and

[43:00] set aside those funds for the project if it's going to be pushed off another year.

[43:04] And then that frees up our general thing for other things.

[43:07] Yeah.

[43:08] Well, specific to complete the projects that you've outlined at this point,

[43:11] because that's all you would have approved.

[43:14] Yeah.

[43:15] We're essentially just spending pre-spending these dollars and backfilling it

[43:20] with general fund dollars is what we would be doing.

[43:23] But it continues the community and bastard or program.

[43:26] You have set aside $10,000 for a joint tribal project.

[43:30] And that's why I am a little concerned about the deadline.

[43:33] because I don't know that we have anything identified.

[43:36] We do have $75,000 in for the Mr.

[43:39] the Mobile Intervention Services team.

[43:41] This is based on what we've spent in the past.

[43:43] I do know that there are challenges at the county in how this is going to operate.

[43:49] I don't have any specific details.

[43:51] So this is something that is really kind of a placeholder right now.

[43:54] And it may be something that we reallocate or look at

[43:57] at doing differently going forward.

[44:00] We do have the outreach sergeant that's funded

[44:02] from ARPA for another year, we have a bike storage project, we've got value-esque community

[44:09] center project, we've got the final phase of the public art call for arts, we've got

[44:15] completion of the Green and Gold corridor crosswalks, climate change action plan support,

[44:21] this is another one we may want to kind of make sure that we set aside because I'm not sure

[44:25] exactly where that project is, we've got the remaining Kuna contract and then there is still

[44:30] $60,000 that is sort of un-designated, there is also a chance we'll do a final accounting

[44:38] once the books have closed and we'll see if there's any additional funds that will be rolling

[44:42] forward but we'll let you know that too. And so this, as the city manager said, I think this

[44:46] is an item that we will probably check in with you not too long after the beginning of the new

[44:52] fiscal year just to make sure that everything is on track and we know where we're at and also to

[44:57] use them octades on stepresis. So the

[45:00] Endspend 60,000 could be more possibly. It could be more. Okay, but that's the, but yeah. It's what I, it's what I know, it could be more, I don't expect it to be much more, though.

[45:12] We're talking thousands probably.

[45:20] So I also thought it would be useful to just highlight a few of the capital improvement program. Again, we've talked a lot about this because it is a good chunk of your budget.

[45:30] You have 37 active projects. We've got six new ones this year. You completed 15 in fiscal year 2324. And again, it's just under a $40 million budget item.

[45:44] This is just a breakout of in millions of where what funds they're coming from. And again, it's not anything surprising we've already talked about the wastewater treatment plan upgrade.

[45:55] and the I&I project that is making up that $22.5 million.

[46:01] Your general fund $5.1 million. Water is 5.

[46:05] You've got state transportation improvement program funding for a number of transportation projects at 4.8.

[46:12] And then there's a few smaller special revenue fund grant projects that make up that last 2.4.

[46:21] I'm going to highlight just a couple of the projects because I think that they're either

[46:26] a significant amount of money or it also shows sort of how the funding is working and

[46:31] one of them is the old Arcade of Road.

[46:33] It's a $6 million construction price tag and it really, we're getting a lot of the state

[46:38] transportation funding but we are also contributing major G money which is the previous

[46:43] TUT tax that was set aside for public safety and streets so it's a perfect use for it.

[46:51] And I would also point out that this does meet the city's complete street policies.

[46:55] So another, another plus.

[46:59] The Annie and Mary Trail.

[47:01] We're going to be doing design work this year.

[47:03] And again, this is pretty much this point funded from outside resources is where it's coming from.

[47:11] And obviously that's going to be an exciting project.

[47:13] And certainly we'll add to our alternative transportation and

[47:16] and pedestrian non-motorized ways to get around town.

[47:21] This one is on here really just because I thought this was a cool picture.

[47:25] Otherwise it's not that exciting of a project.

[47:28] But the water tank is being completed and we're on the final stages of closing out that project

[47:34] and actually probably moving on to rehabbing tank 4c is it?

[47:42] Take 4.

[47:43] Okay, tank 4.

[47:44] So we've got another one.

[47:45] But you know, this is pretty, this is our tank and this is putting on the interior.

[47:50] You're coding.

[47:53] Yeah, isn't it cool?

[47:59] And again, you know, that funding came from the infant infrastructure grant and then also some.

[48:05] It should be water funds that makes water funds.

[48:09] Probably our most popular CIP project is the Redwood Park that you've just recently opened.

[48:16] had to grand opening and obviously is causing all sorts of issues with parking and bathrooms

[48:21] and overused but it is pretty exciting and it's pretty exciting to see everybody up there

[48:26] playing and enjoying it and again it had an assortment of outside funds that helped us

[48:32] complete that sounds like a good problem to have it's getting used. It is a good problem.

[48:38] And then the soon to be open Carlson Park, which again another other big add to Valley West

[48:45] And we certainly received funds from the state level and other grant tourism and other dollars that really made most of this come together.

[48:55] So it's another one that we have, we have to really say thank you to our outside partners.

[49:01] Could I ask a question?

[49:02] This is 1.4 million.

[49:03] I thought it was 2.4.

[49:06] Because millions from Senator McGuire.

[49:09] Yeah, this phase is just the construction of the playground and the records on the entire, not the entire.

[49:17] What happened?

[49:20] Okay.

[49:22] And with that, and I wanted to just kind of circle back on a few items that you may want to consider.

[49:28] And these are decisions that don't necessarily have to be made this evening.

[49:32] We can certainly bring them back after the beginning of the year.

[49:34] We've got a couple things to check in with you about.

[49:37] The first two are a grant management program and economic development program.

[49:42] These are two thoughts that came out of our management team meeting and it was when we were talking about and we were doing the haggling of cutting budgets in each department to try to bring things.

[49:55] Balance in the balance and the conversation came up about sort of what we really need and what we think is important to sort of the fiscal future of the city.

[50:05] and these two programs were something that universally amongst the department heads and other

[50:13] managers we thought were important.

[50:15] And the thing that really struck me is that neither of these are necessarily going to help

[50:21] individual departments, they're really about helping the whole, helping all departments

[50:26] and probably more importantly helping the city, you know, a grant management program.

[50:31] As you can see, we've talked about a lot tonight already and we have in the past is that

[50:35] We see a lot of money, and we apply for a lot of grants, we receive a lot of grants, and it is a big job managing them.

[50:43] It's also something that the skill sets vary from department to department.

[50:47] We also find that we're using high-end staff, some of our highest-paid staff to do just the basic reporting,

[50:55] and the basic invoicing, it's fairly complex, and that may or may not be the best use of resources.

[51:01] The other thing that came out of this is that there's no, it's not, it's not a cohesive

[51:06] overall program or policy, so it's very much made up of departments kind of going after

[51:13] what they want, but we're not necessarily doing as great a job of planning it and looking

[51:18] at strategically looking at that process and there are departments that just quite frankly don't

[51:23] have the resources and are probably missing out on grants because that they just don't have

[51:28] capacity within the department and so we really feel like it's something that we'd like the

[51:32] Council to consider, at least at the very least identifying as a project so that we start

[51:37] working on how to put that together. We've also found that many of the grants and our city

[51:43] engineer can certainly speak to this but a lot of the grants actually have some funding for staff.

[51:49] They wouldn't necessarily cover a full staff person or 100% of a staff person but we can get

[51:54] some of that money back. So that's something else that we'd like to really explore a little bit more.

[51:59] Did I ask was were you thinking a full-time position, part-time position?

[52:04] I think we would take whatever we could get ideally a full-time position.

[52:08] And just to clarify, when you say management, that includes not just managing but writing, correct?

[52:13] Yes. So it would be helping, it would be helping write the grants,

[52:17] it would be helping with the reporting, and it would be helping with the invoicing.

[52:20] You are obviously still going to be very much dependent on a department because they are

[52:24] the experts in their area and so there's no way that you can just that I could write a grant

[52:31] specific about you know wastewater treatment upgrade there's there's just certain things that

[52:37] so another dimension we may or may not can we decide this tonight that's up to you all

[52:46] okay I'm excited but one thing we thought we don't yeah we could recommend that we look into it

[52:52] that we have staff look into it and see the possibilities

[52:54] and then we could bring it back to our council meeting.

[52:57] The recommendation is whether or not you

[52:58] would want to add staff doing research around this

[53:02] to your priority projects for this year

[53:04] and the economic development program, two year council goals.

[53:08] They're not included in this year's budget.

[53:10] It would be additional dipping into reserves

[53:13] to fund those this year and they are ongoing costs.

[53:16] So, but at least to be able to research that and to...

[53:18] We get the ball rolling.

[53:20] And to identify the need, and again, it is the grant management program would be something we would ask you to set a priority for and then staff would work on it.

[53:30] And the second one, the economic development program, I think, is important to consider the fact that we do have money in the budget for developing a strategic plan, so it's not that you probably need to work on that this year.

[53:41] But the idea being that we'd like to make sure that when we complete that plan and we put the work into it,

[53:48] that we have the ability to actually implement it and work it.

[53:51] And so it's probably a future, a future which is why I said it as a goal as opposed to a priority project.

[53:59] Again, the other thing I'm reminding of is just the storm water that that will be coming back to you and that's something we need to keep our eyes on.

[54:06] The next item setting aside 25% of the general fund surplus from 2223 is a part of your pension funding policy that you adopted last August.

[54:20] Technically, though, this surplus happened in 2223 and you adopted that policy in 2324.

[54:27] The recommendation is, and we can bring this back to you.

[54:30] But the recommendation is that we actually set aside

[54:33] that 25% which is about $484,000.

[54:37] We would put it into our section 115 trust,

[54:40] which means that we have some flexibility.

[54:43] The section 11515 trust is to build funds

[54:46] or save funds for the pension liability.

[54:49] And so goal would not be to use it.

[54:51] But if we had a really rough year or a real dire need

[54:54] in the future, we could use it to offset that year's cost.

[54:57] and so it would help us subsidize any given years budget and so it's still money that is somewhat

[55:05] available but specific to pension and so that would be our recommendation if the council

[55:10] would be willing to appropriate good idea to do that after our whole conversation ahead of

[55:14] how we're going to handle everything. So if I had a question and it's on page 13, would this

[55:20] to be the timer later about item number two at the bottom of the page.

[55:27] You're going to have money that we saved.

[55:29] You're going to have to give us a little bit of...

[55:31] Let's go through this presentation.

[55:33] So it's on packet page 113 number two and it's about the annual UAL pre-payment.

[55:40] It sounds like we by pre-paying.

[55:43] We saved 66, almost 67,000 dollars.

[55:50] We did that last year, and I will tell you that it is a good thing, but I'll give a caveat here in that interest rates last year also went up, and so we probably didn't do that much better, and we might have even maybe done a little bit better if we had just left it in a savings account, we probably would have ended up about the same place.

[56:11] So we will likely look at interest rates, in fact, we have to make that decision in the next

[56:17] month.

[56:17] But when interest rates a year before that, when interest rates were rock bottom, it was a

[56:21] great deal.

[56:23] And you did save money and you didn't, you weren't getting interest elsewhere.

[56:27] So again, we've still got the Arcade of Police Association Labor Agreement to manage that

[56:36] might have minor changes to some of your cost factors.

[56:38] And again, a reminder on the ARPA that this is something that we can certainly come back to you early in the fiscal year and sort of do just a touch, touch based on each and every one of these items.

[56:50] I'm not asking you to necessarily make a decision tonight, but you're welcome to.

[56:56] And if not, we probably would schedule something in August to come back on that.

[57:05] Hey, well, as this is a public hearing, I think I'll open it up for public comment first.

[57:10] There is no online public comment.

[57:12] Okay, let's bring it back to the council.

[57:13] Who wants to start?

[57:17] I would just say, actually, you know, I said, I don't really like to do this and then I looked at everything that you had and I don't know if you could tell I did or not.

[57:28] But anyway, I thought it was very good. I liked it. I was interested in the whole thing, then I asked you interesting questions, but what's happening was so and so.

[57:36] So, but I thought it was excellent.

[57:40] I really appreciate it.

[57:41] I like the format and the fact that it's a 100% online.

[57:48] So, every facet of this budget is available for any member of the public to click on

[57:52] and look at where every of the needs being spent.

[57:56] And I wanted to add to that.

[57:59] One of the things that I wanted all of you to know and even the public is that the budget

[58:04] gets that those numbers online get updated nightly.

[58:08] And so the only ones that really, your budget numbers typically

[58:10] don't change much over time, there'll be a few adjustments.

[58:14] But the year to date for 2324, the Actuals,

[58:18] we need real-end the reports and see those will change nightly.

[58:21] And so anybody who's interested in sort of monitoring the budget

[58:24] over time will be able to do that.

[58:26] And we will probably adjust those reports

[58:29] so that people can see, when we roll into the new fiscal year,

[58:33] at a column for actual. So if anybody is interested in just sort of monitoring it and being able

[58:38] to drill in to the line item detail, we'll make it a little bit more user friendly for

[58:43] every once.

[58:48] I was just going to, you know, comment. But I don't really have any questions,

[58:53] but you make our job very easy to have a test. Thank you. Just to agree with Alex about how

[58:57] clear everything was laid out and just how meaning was so helpful and just the way you

[59:02] it's so clear and it really makes a lot of sense.

[59:05] I do want to just say that I definitely support kind of pursuing some of these positions

[59:11] that you guys talked about, especially I think that we get a lot of comments from the

[59:17] public that want us to take immediate action on things that happen whether it be public.

[59:21] See if you related or traffic related or whatever that might be and one of the huge limiting

[59:26] factors for doing anything like that is money and from what I hear just in conversation

[59:32] with people that work doing a lot of grants and staff and at cities and counties and everything

[59:37] like there's money out there and there's a lot of it it's just that and I know like my

[59:40] GPA struggles from this as well like you can't have you know you can't write enough grants

[59:46] because there's always money for for something out there and so I think having a dedicated person

[59:51] staff that can help you know liaison with departments and seek out those fundings to do a lot of

[59:56] projects that we want, because we talk a lot about projects that do incorporate.

[1:00:00] Reallments that are prime for grant funding, things like affordable housing and safe streets and all that stuff, you know, there's money out there and so I really support pursuing that.

[1:00:11] I agree.

[1:00:14] I agree with the grant management program making economic development a goal and also the 484,000 that you're recommending of surplus.

[1:00:25] I support all of those.

[1:00:28] And yes, having someone that you really trust,

[1:00:31] it's pretty easy to accept recommendations

[1:00:34] because we know that you take your job very seriously.

[1:00:38] So it's easy to see as to those.

[1:00:42] And I have something I would like to do more of a dive into,

[1:00:45] but I don't know if you want to go to other people first.

[1:00:48] For you that I just wanted to thank you

[1:00:50] because I feel like I got budgeting 101,

[1:00:53] And I didn't think I'd enjoy it, and I'm excited and kind of wish I would have got a little head start, but it's always, it's it's a moving target. We're going to be doing it all year.

[1:01:03] So yeah, just thank you.

[1:01:08] Again, thank you. Everything is always presented so clearly and detailed.

[1:01:14] I was thinking about the ARPA funds, specifically the $10,000 that we had committed to

[1:01:21] joint tribal project and also thinking about how, you know, signage was kind of a

[1:01:27] priority that got left off when we were planning for our perfons and so maybe seeing

[1:01:34] if we could work with a tribe and using that 10,000 and maybe some of that other 60,000 to

[1:01:39] do like a big welcome to Arcade a slash, you know, welcome to Gootie design and kind of combine

[1:01:47] those two things that could be beneficial way to use those tribal funds while still looking

[1:01:55] for other projects to work with the tribe and getting some welcome signage because I don't

[1:02:00] think really arcade has any signage like that. And that's a great idea. That's a great idea

[1:02:05] and it would be something that would be, I think we would definitely want to do the, you know,

[1:02:10] let's set aside the money and the general fund and use ARPA funds now so that we,

[1:02:14] because that's going to be longer than six months.

[1:02:17] That's good.

[1:02:18] Yeah, thank you.

[1:02:20] Yeah, because signage was something that a lot

[1:02:22] of the businesses want, whether they're

[1:02:23] directional signages along the plaza,

[1:02:26] and those are also things that I would like to consider

[1:02:28] if we find ourselves with extra funds

[1:02:31] as we're getting close to the end of December

[1:02:35] is just more robust signage in Arcita.

[1:02:40] Um, and then we were talking about, um, some of these funds that are, that we're closing,

[1:02:49] right?

[1:02:49] Some of them that just, we started to ears go and just never got used.

[1:02:54] So, um, one of the funds that, gosh, I feel like I asked about this.

[1:02:58] Like, way the beginning of my term is the parking in Lou funds.

[1:03:03] And, you know, I think that, um, if we're just going to close it, maybe a good use of it,

[1:03:08] be to do like parking study is that something that is feasible.

[1:03:15] I will have to because because

[1:03:16] that fund sort of predated me I haven't looked at the details of what the legal requirements

[1:03:20] for being for what it can be used for but I'm happy to look at that and I know we have we have

[1:03:27] allocated some of those funds that have been around for a while where we could to some of nature

[1:03:32] projects so we'll see what's available we can look into what's available and then whether or not

[1:03:36] parking study as appropriate.

[1:03:39] And yes, again, I'm really, really in favor of a strong economic development plan, and then

[1:03:45] then starting on thinking about how we can implement it, I think it's, it's great.

[1:03:52] And I'll pass it on.

[1:03:52] So I was just, we used to have a sign a long time ago, was now we had, we owned the property,

[1:03:59] but at one time we didn't, and there was a mound, and we had a welcome sign to Arcada,

[1:04:04] And the cows kept knocking it over, but it was mounded sign.

[1:04:09] And I don't even know if we have that mounded area out there anymore,

[1:04:12] it'd have to go look to see if it's still there.

[1:04:15] Because part of it is the coastal commission and getting it signed,

[1:04:18] located in that area to welcome people to our kida.

[1:04:23] So I just had to mention that.

[1:04:25] And in parking, we haven't used that for many years,

[1:04:29] but if you wanted to build a remodel on the plaza or a certain area,

[1:04:33] You had to put money into an parking in Lou because you were doing that instead of putting in a parking space.

[1:04:41] And so that went away when we finally took a district in the downtown and said you do not require a gap working on site.

[1:04:49] And therefore we no longer had to have a parking in Lou.

[1:04:53] So I thought it could go if we're going to ever get into parking meters kind of thing.

[1:04:59] Maybe that could be just in that area.

[1:05:01] That was the thought I had.

[1:05:05] It sounds like we're all kind of on the same page, which is nice.

[1:05:10] So are we ready then? Do you have a motion?

[1:05:12] This is already there.

[1:05:13] Oh, she wants to die beach.

[1:05:18] No, so nothing this is early to act on today,

[1:05:23] but I just wanted to share some of my thoughts with all of you

[1:05:26] and see if you feel the same and just have a little discussion.

[1:05:29] But so we have the $75,000 budgetage for missed.

[1:05:36] And I have, since day one, asked for specific statistics,

[1:05:43] what are we accomplishing with that money?

[1:05:45] And for whatever reasons we haven't seen that.

[1:05:49] And that doesn't mean that valuable work isn't being done,

[1:05:52] but it's hard to justify spending when we're not sure.

[1:05:57] So, I think I would love to maybe hear from someone from the police department to say,

[1:06:04] if that's the right person, I would assume, to really talk about that and see what benefits

[1:06:11] we're getting from it.

[1:06:12] We know the benefits that we're getting from the community ambassadors.

[1:06:17] We've talked about it scanning them to Valley West.

[1:06:19] We've talked about like a clean streets helping with business cleanups in the morning that

[1:06:24] our ambassadors would do.

[1:06:25] We've talked about expanding the program and so I guess I'm curious to know if we want

[1:06:33] to keep that if the 75,000 should continue to go to missed and that's a great spend

[1:06:39] or should we reconsider spending that on the community ambassador program, realizing that

[1:06:47] it could come to an end if we don't pass this tax measure but in another part of that program

[1:06:53] besides that I think is important in addition to expanding next to Valley West.

[1:06:58] I think that having perhaps the discussion of a full-time ambassador that is really

[1:07:05] in charge of the program of, you know, if we get too far out of the downtown just to over

[1:07:11] see things and manage it as we grow, we, you know, we definitely want it to be managed

[1:07:15] well.

[1:07:16] And they do do a great job of, we see this statistics.

[1:07:19] So they're very good about doing that, which to me makes it easier to want to expand and fund

[1:07:25] that program because we actually know what's happening.

[1:07:28] So those are just some thoughts, and I'm just curious to know how the rest of you feel about

[1:07:33] those thoughts.

[1:07:35] I love to go ahead.

[1:07:36] Yeah, I just want to add, I think to, I like that idea a lot, Susie, and I totally agree

[1:07:43] that I think we kind of have been waiting to hear about missed and what's going on and

[1:07:48] who's out in the field and what that looks like and not being built and all that stuff in

[1:07:53] between and and just that I think that both expanding and kind of enhancing and supporting

[1:07:58] our community ambassador to you to get them kind of like the supplies that they need as

[1:08:03] well.

[1:08:04] I was recently in Chico and they have lovely people and little teal shirts walking around

[1:08:09] that our community ambassadors and they have like a little cart that had like their trash

[1:08:12] can and like their trash picker and like some cleaning supplies and like you know it seemed

[1:08:17] like they were covering more ground and it was just,

[1:08:20] you know, so that they are not like constantly running back

[1:08:22] before I think can have, you know, the supplies that they need

[1:08:25] also to be doing the job to the best of their abilities

[1:08:28] and kind of maybe get some feedback from the community of masters

[1:08:30] of like what could help, you know, support that program physically

[1:08:35] as well, and I like the idea of definitely having like a go

[1:08:39] to lead ambassador position that is designated.

[1:08:42] And I think those are all fantastic ideas.

[1:08:48] One of the things I would really like to sit down with some of the ambassadors, and then you

[1:08:53] talk about deep diving, I would like to get their opinions.

[1:08:57] We have a report that comes to us, and that's great, but what are some of the personal issues

[1:09:03] and some of the personal things they have to deal with that we probably may and may not get

[1:09:08] any reports.

[1:09:09] So I don't know if that's possible, but I was thinking maybe eventually somehow we could

[1:09:15] do something like that and just maybe I don't know how it would be, you know, we have to

[1:09:20] structure it to be correct blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

[1:09:23] but maybe like council could assign a subcommittee to have that meeting and then be

[1:09:28] perfect at the whole.

[1:09:29] It's just an option.

[1:09:31] And another thing you could do is go on a walk around because that's what I did.

[1:09:34] And if you go on instead of a right along, if you go on a walk around, then they're, they're

[1:09:39] very happy to tell you what they need, what's going well so you can also do that.

[1:09:44] So, yes, to all of those things for the ambassador program, but one of the things that really hit home for me was when there is a mental health issue, and it doesn't necessitate sending out law enforcement, then we send out these highly trained, de-escalating social workers.

[1:10:05] But I agree without data, we don't know how we're using them.

[1:10:11] I'd like to see some statistics and how many are being dispatched and how many end up having

[1:10:17] to have APD come any way or not.

[1:10:20] And then also, I'd like some clarification because right now, I don't think that we have really,

[1:10:24] I mean, I know that it's been mentioned to me that we have juvenile diversion, but my understanding

[1:10:30] is they're like eight to five and maybe missed is two and you can't plan these emergencies.

[1:10:35] But if a adolescent youth is having a mental health issue, we don't really have anything within the city of Arcade to respond to them except for to call the Arcade of Police Department because, honestly, our DHSS in, you know, the county, they're not, it just doesn't happen.

[1:10:58] Yeah, we do not have 24-7 alternative response, juvenile diversion, really steps in for low-level

[1:11:05] crimes after a juvenile has had interaction, typically with our police department.

[1:11:10] So not mental health issues, only crime.

[1:11:12] Often there are certainly anti-aliasing issues, but the initial, you know, responses, there

[1:11:19] was a crime committed instead of sending that juvenile through the criminal justice system.

[1:11:23] We divert them away from that and then into the diversion program.

[1:11:27] It's a good topic to bring up, they are, we have two positions that are funded this year.

[1:11:32] We work out of the Northern Humboldt School, we work in all of our K to school districts,

[1:11:36] but we also work in both our K to M McKinleyville High, because they're one district.

[1:11:40] We have always done that because that has been funded, that's for the Juvenile Diversion version.

[1:11:45] Yeah, that's been funded.

[1:11:45] You have to tell me on that program.

[1:11:47] I love that program.

[1:11:48] But I do want to share with you some budget concerns I have, that has long time been funded

[1:11:52] through measures E.

[1:11:54] It was not funded last year.

[1:11:55] You were able to continue to fund that with ARPA funds that we had.

[1:11:59] This year, we got right from the county just a portion of one position, but the school

[1:12:05] district also did receive a grant to help offset the majority of the cost.

[1:12:11] If we don't have outside funding, it is going to be impossible for us to recommend to juvenile

[1:12:16] diversion counselors.

[1:12:17] If one of them is predominantly, you know, if half of the work is predominantly outside

[1:12:21] the city limits.

[1:12:22] Right.

[1:12:22] So that is going to be something that I think is going to be critical for us to look at next fiscal year.

[1:12:28] I think we're okay for this fiscal year.

[1:12:30] And in terms of mental health response, the county does have a mental health crisis that our police

[1:12:35] call probably every single week outside of our missed.

[1:12:40] If missed does only work during the days.

[1:12:43] It has been sporadic in terms of when we've had staff.

[1:12:46] The billing, you know, has been reflective of when we've had staff.

[1:12:49] And when we haven't, these are county staff members.

[1:12:52] working out of APD. I would say it is rare if it has ever happened that they go to a 911

[1:12:59] called by themselves, but what is frequent is that they will do follow-up after or they

[1:13:04] will be out in the community, you know, talking, you know, predominantly with people in the

[1:13:08] and house community trying to get them into services. You're all right.

[1:13:14] There are all adults, right? Not adolescents.

[1:13:15] to miss, can work across any age and they do work across any age and with families.

[1:13:22] You know that being said, I think we have all seen some shortcomings in the program, a lot

[1:13:26] of it being that it's hard even for them as county workers to connect to a services on the

[1:13:31] other side that are needed for them to be able to make a difference.

[1:13:35] And so the county is looking through a whole revamp of kind of that outreach as well.

[1:13:41] And I think that's why the finance director said we're not sure if we're going to be able

[1:13:44] even allocate those funds by the end of this calendar year to be able to commit them to

[1:13:50] the ARP of funds and maybe need to look at another program such as Expansion of Community

[1:13:54] Ambassador.

[1:13:55] So that question that Stacey brought up was very timely.

[1:13:58] Yeah, so I'm hearing from the Council is that we're going to tentatively keep this

[1:14:04] missed funding while at the same time having some kind of report from them and then moving

[1:14:11] off from there to see if we want to reallocate those funds.

[1:14:13] is that the general idea I'm getting from it, but the first test you did see was in the chief's

[1:14:19] quarterly report and so those would be updated in this next.

[1:14:22] Don't we can have all of that for you by August when we revisit our part?

[1:14:26] The other thing is our diversion program also has family meetings and they do get and they

[1:14:31] have trainings for families and they pull that together.

[1:14:34] They have a wonderful project and loving solutions program.

[1:14:39] Great program.

[1:14:40] All right.

[1:14:40] So anybody else have any more questions?

[1:14:49] Okay, just some of them make a motion or any other questions.

[1:14:53] If there isn't any, I would like to adopt, move to adopt resolution number two, three, four.

[1:15:00] As 62, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Arcada adopting FY2024-25, and I would like to close the public hearing, but that may take another motion.

[1:15:13] All second.

[1:15:14] All right, we have a motion from Vice Mayor Stolenin, second and council member, Shaefer, all in favor.

[1:15:20] Aye. Aye. All right, motion passes. Does anybody need a break before we move on to the next law?

[1:15:25] I did we close the public hearing.

[1:15:26] I think that worked, yes.

[1:15:27] Okay. Thank you. Good. You okay? Are you want to break?

[1:15:31] Let me know.

[1:15:33] All right. Let's move. All right. We're going to, we'll check in after the next item.

[1:15:38] Okay. So let's move on to item B, place transaction and use tax measure on ballot for November

[1:15:44] 5th, 2024. Can we have a stop report please?

[1:15:53] Okay. So as you all know, this was supposed

[1:15:56] to come last week and it got pushed. But I think we've talked about it quite a bit and gone

[1:16:02] the details. So this should be pretty straightforward this evening. This is just a summary

[1:16:07] and a few items that I think we've talked about before, but a reminder that our current rate

[1:16:11] is at 8.5%. If we do pass the 0.75% it'll raise the the limit or the city's tax to 9.25%

[1:16:20] which is currently where the city of Eureka is. It does not take into account whether or not the

[1:16:26] county is successful or puts forth a measure of this fall, but we do anticipate that in their

[1:16:31] year this evening, so I expect that that's part of the conversation. What does that mean?

[1:16:36] I can't follow that. So does that mean how does that affect our 9.25?

[1:16:42] So all it does is that it would be an additional tax. So if ours is successful by itself,

[1:16:51] our tax rate in city limits would be 9.25%. If the county's ballot measure is successful,

[1:16:58] it would be added on to that. So it would be either, I think they're looking at also a 0.75%

[1:17:04] which would mean that our tax rate would be 10% for the city of, okay, that would also be the

[1:17:11] same for the city of Eureka and if Fortuna was successful with their measure, which they are also

[1:17:16] putting 0.75% the tax rate for Fortuna would also be the 10%. So we would kind of be with the rest of California.

[1:17:25] And I think you may have seen I attached a copy of all the tax rates and it was, you know, it ranges from the low, which is state only at 7.25% up to 10.75% and especially in the southern region.

[1:17:40] You know, there are many cities that are at that high end.

[1:17:42] Thank you to that clarification.

[1:17:44] So it's like you won't want to go buy your car.

[1:17:48] McKinleyville, if you could buy it in Fort Chinat because all the taxes are the same.

[1:17:53] There is a little bit difference on the vehicles, so most of the tax goes to where the

[1:18:00] sale happens.

[1:18:01] So yes, if you buy a vehicle in the Kennyville, the tax would stay there.

[1:18:05] T-U-T, which is our major G, and it's also what we're proposing on the ballot in November,

[1:18:10] follows the car where it's used.

[1:18:13] So when you drive the car back into our toilet paper state, yeah, wherever you buy it, it stays

[1:18:19] there.

[1:18:20] Don't you aren't going to go to Virginia to buy your child paper because it's cheaper than our cat

[1:18:24] Well, and you know, it's it's the Eureka and we see this when you look at the statistical numbers lots of people from

[1:18:30] Arcada drive to Eureka to buy things like toilet paper

[1:18:36] But we are it would bring about 2.6 million dollars and we certainly have lots of uses for that and just to remind her as we we talked about the moving back and forth between borders

[1:18:46] You know the tax really does

[1:18:48] is not is pretty fluid within a community, and we, you know, when we go to our

[1:18:54] cater, when folks from our cater go to the city of Eureka to buy things, they're

[1:18:59] paying the Eureka tax at the higher amount and they're contributing to that

[1:19:04] municipalities while being programs, things like that. So it's something to

[1:19:08] consider.

[1:19:12] Does a few quick requirements, and this is why we push this from

[1:19:16] last week. I do want to make clear it is a general tax, which means that the use of it

[1:19:22] while we are designating and we are committing to certain uses, it is unrestricted legally.

[1:19:28] It can be used for anything it does become general fund funds. It does require tonight. It

[1:19:33] will require two thirds or a super majority of the city council's approval, which means

[1:19:37] at least four of you have to vote for the tax. And we are limited as we've talked about

[1:19:43] before unless we declare a fiscal emergency,

[1:19:46] the tax would have to go on a ballot measure or an election

[1:19:50] where our elected officials are elected officials are on the ballot,

[1:19:56] which means that it's every other year.

[1:19:58] So the next time we would be able to take this would be 2026.

[1:20:04] And one of the reasons that we are really looking at this,

[1:20:07] and we talked about it in the staff report,

[1:20:08] and we talked about it a little bit in our budget,

[1:20:10] is that when we look out, the city has done a really good job

[1:20:13] of laying a good solid fiscal or financial foundation.

[1:20:18] But when we look out, we're looking at budget deficits

[1:20:22] in every year going forward.

[1:20:24] And so we're looking at running into the negative.

[1:20:26] And you can do that for a few years,

[1:20:28] especially if you have some reserve saved up like we do.

[1:20:31] But there's a point when you cross that line

[1:20:33] and it's a problem.

[1:20:34] And when you're not balancing, when your budget's not balancing,

[1:20:38] at least most of the time, you really do have to make some changes.

[1:20:41] and there's there's fundamentally two ways to make changes. One is to look at additional

[1:20:46] revenue sources and or decrease expenses. And we're we're kind of at that point where

[1:20:50] we're going to have to take those adjustments to wait to want to get into the position of where

[1:20:56] the county is right now. No, we do not there definitely have to. We do not want to be in a crisis.

[1:21:01] That's the word. But I mean in that being said, there will come a time whether it's sooner

[1:21:07] or later we're going to have to make some really tough choices about where we want our revenue

[1:21:12] sources to come from because we will need to increase revenues and so whether that's looking

[1:21:18] at what kind of businesses we want to bring into our, I mean there's going to be some tough

[1:21:23] decisions so just keeping that in the back of our minds that we are going to sooner or later have

[1:21:28] to start looking for bigger sources of revenue for Arcadeok. And that really raises the point

[1:21:35] which is if if the tax doesn't pass in November,

[1:21:38] I would probably come back to you

[1:21:40] at the first part of the next calendar year

[1:21:42] with recommendations,

[1:21:43] and I'll mention a few of the things

[1:21:44] that I would think that we would consider

[1:21:46] that we would have to start making those choices.

[1:21:48] Because we don't want to get so far behind

[1:21:51] that we don't have flexibility,

[1:21:52] we want to be able to plan accordingly

[1:21:54] and not have to make major reactions.

[1:21:58] This was a version of what was in the staff report.

[1:22:02] And it's basically your general fund

[1:22:03] I'm going to, because you can see at the bottom, you're, you're decreasing your fund balance

[1:22:09] every year from this year, from the current year forward through 2029. And at the end of the

[1:22:15] five year period, you actually run it negative. I'm going to move forward one. It's the same numbers

[1:22:20] here. It's just a little bit bigger. And, and the one thing I will say is that the estimated beginning

[1:22:26] available is your, it is your unreserved fund balance in your general fund. It does not include

[1:22:31] the 30% reserve. So you still have that set aside. So again, I feel like we're coming from

[1:22:37] a strong place into this, but we are taking proactive steps to make sure that we can continue

[1:22:44] to provide the services that we believe that our residents and businesses and visitors want,

[1:22:50] but also in a very, you know, financially structured way. So we are in a good position, you

[1:22:55] know, this year we actually budget it a deficit. We probably will be close to breaking even.

[1:23:01] a little bit maybe a little bit negative. Next year we've got the $2.4 million in one-time

[1:23:06] expenses and it's budgeted at a negative two and a half. And the next year 2020-26, let me

[1:23:13] see if I can. Here's really where the change happens. I've stripped out the the CIP and the associated

[1:23:20] grant funding and that really sees our starting point and you can see that we're at about a $1.3

[1:23:25] million annual deficit. And the problem is our revenues are not growing as fast as our

[1:23:31] expenses or at least that's what we're projecting out.

[1:23:34] So that's where we start just slowly eating away at our reserves

[1:23:37] to the point where we have nothing in five years.

[1:23:41] And I think, you know, there are a few things.

[1:23:43] These are recommendations that if I was at a staff level

[1:23:46] having this conversation in January with you, you know,

[1:23:49] we would certainly talk about, you know, cutting the, you know,

[1:23:54] the ARPA funded programs, probably sooner rather than later.

[1:23:57] And plan on that, at least by the end of the fiscal year, you know,

[1:24:01] We would consider the measures the funded programs and whether or not we could support those.

[1:24:06] We may look at things like re-evaluating the commitment to a green or zero emissions

[1:24:10] fleet.

[1:24:10] We do know that those vehicles are probably two and three times.

[1:24:15] They're great investment in the long term, but not necessarily in the short term and

[1:24:20] they are also hard to get.

[1:24:22] We would consider sort of placing a freeze on staff replacements and evaluating service and service

[1:24:28] levels. We would consider consolidation of city facilities and property. IE, we may look at

[1:24:33] see if there's things that we can sell or, you know, distribute or allocate to somebody else.

[1:24:39] And then I am always an advocate for reducing the interest cost on the pension liability.

[1:24:44] It's still at 6.8% is what we pay when we don't fund it. I realize it takes money at front

[1:24:51] but in the long term you will save money and so I don't want us to lose track of that.

[1:24:57] The other thing, and the mayor sort of mentioned, is that we would have to start looking at how to increase revenue loss of that's the other side of the equation and a proactive economic development strategy with focus on businesses that really generate sales tax, transaction and use tax, and transient occupancy tax would be the focus that's where the money is, that's kind of what we need and that may look at ways to look at businesses.

[1:25:26] that may be have not been necessarily favored here in the past, redevelopment and infill

[1:25:32] to increase property taxes, but also to pull in additional growth that would add to our

[1:25:38] sales tax base, and I realize that we have the general plan 25, 45 that is doing that and that

[1:25:44] has some controversy. Taking a look at our subsidized programs and also improving cost recovery,

[1:25:50] making sure that in the fees that we can charge that we are accurately recouping the

[1:25:56] cost considering things like developer impact fees and other revenue sources that don't require

[1:26:01] voter approval.

[1:26:03] You know, I know there are some of these are a double-edged sword in the sense that developer

[1:26:07] impact fees can discourage development, especially in housing, but it may be something

[1:26:12] we want to dig into a little bit more and then things like the enhanced infrastructure financing

[1:26:16] districts, which is really sort of a new tool that sort of looks like redevelopment agencies

[1:26:22] from back in, you know, before 2012, but it's another way to add a layer of funding on your

[1:26:29] property tax based on the increased values. And again, these may not all be popular, but they

[1:26:34] are possibilities that the council would probably need to consider.

[1:26:38] Could I clarify, when you say a number one, are you increasing not favorable businesses?

[1:26:51] We're

[1:26:52] has codified and it's coded and caps and things like that.

[1:26:57] And this is just a list of programs that you could fund and I think that we've talked

[1:27:02] about really wanting to continue in the ambassador program, juvenile diversion counselors,

[1:27:06] missed or some version of this, out reach sergeant, valley west community center, electrification

[1:27:14] of the city's fleet and equipment, complete streets program, homeless services, and then

[1:27:19] making sure that we are maintaining our infrastructure. It's great that we've been able

[1:27:23] to get these grants and we're adding new parks and we're adding new facilities and we're

[1:27:27] adding new plants, but we do have to remember that in a short period of time, those actually

[1:27:32] will require additional staff that we just don't have built into the current projections.

[1:27:37] I could do. I know that we've already provided the link or the language has been provided

[1:27:42] and you've included the community ambassador program and I know when FM3 did their survey a lot of

[1:27:49] folks or some folks, we're not aware of the Ambassador program, but I don't see it in the

[1:27:53] language.

[1:27:53] I think it's an opportunity to educate folks between now and November, and I'm wondering

[1:27:58] if it's not too late to put it in the Ambassador program seems to have such a positive response

[1:28:05] for those who are aware of it.

[1:28:07] I think if we were to educate the rest of those folks that are not aware of it, it might

[1:28:14] might be able to pass the ballot, because it's these programs that are going to lose if

[1:28:20] it doesn't pass, and I feel like our constituents need to hear that in particular the community

[1:28:26] ambassador program.

[1:28:27] And we didn't specifically talk about it for a few reasons. One that we want to be able to

[1:28:34] over time make sure that the programs that we're offering really need the needs of the community.

[1:28:39] And the community ambassador program may very well be one of those, but we we probably want a little bit of flexibility

[1:28:45] And I do agree absolutely that we do need to get the word out and that we do need to do some some, you know, positive marketing of what they do and and

[1:28:55] And to be honest, they are a fairly small cost for what they provide because they're part time because, you know, they they provide a service that

[1:29:04] we don't get otherwise I would probably discourage you but it is up to council and you certainly

[1:29:10] can decide if you want to add it to not change language at this time but we could if that was

[1:29:14] something that you all chose to do. He's a small cost we're looking at 150,000. We're talking

[1:29:20] about that's essentially one you know that's one that's actually less than one police officer.

[1:29:26] I know fully good. I mean it's an amazing program yeah yeah I mean but I just

[1:29:31] But I do think we did find that there were lots of folks who weren't in that a huge number, but of the people who were positive about the tax

[1:29:40] And what the city was doing that was one that they seemed to not have quite a grasp of the program and I think we do need to get the word out there

[1:29:49] Well, and if the idea is to provide flexibility in the funding and in case

[1:29:54] I mean, of course, they weren't the program to be successful, but for some reason that's not meeting the needs anymore

[1:30:00] And then that's just one less thing to allocate funds for. So I understand why you're suggesting that we keep the language more general.

[1:30:11] So just make sure I understand. So if we don't you include that in the language and it does pass, we still have the latitude to use that tax for funding program.

[1:30:24] Okay, perfect. Thank you.

[1:30:26] I just want a number of years ago when our city manager actually probably pretty close

[1:30:33] when she came on board. She really looked at the entire city and tried to consolidate

[1:30:39] things and reduced expenses. And so now it really feels wonderful to have the opportunity

[1:30:46] to have to fill some of the gaps that we had had with staff in a set and I really appreciate

[1:30:53] what you did, Karen, when you've scratched everything down and looked around and we're going,

[1:30:59] oh my gosh, you know, and everybody was carrying a bigger load and gradually we've been able to

[1:31:05] change that. That was our crisis moment. So we have built up and I don't want you to see you go there again.

[1:31:14] We're doing that and then it's allowed us to see the difference and being able to come back closer to

[1:31:23] what we should be having to run a city or a size.

[1:31:27] All right, does anybody have any more discussion

[1:31:30] on this agenda item?

[1:31:36] This is just the language that is in your packet

[1:31:40] in the resolution.

[1:31:42] And again, unless you wanted to make some changes to it.

[1:31:46] And just a reminder that you did have 72% support

[1:31:50] for this from FM3 research.

[1:31:53] And so we really want to carry that forward.

[1:31:55] That's a pretty good number going in to putting it on the ballot and potentially elections.

[1:32:02] I noticed on F on here it says authorizes the City Council or any member or members of the City Council to write the argument for the measure.

[1:32:14] So we have a little bit.

[1:32:15] I'm jumping to that.

[1:32:16] No, and actually it is, I will tell you there's a little bit of duplicate between my resolution and the City Clerk's resolution.

[1:32:23] and it was partly just wanting, I was, I probably overstepped, I'll to say that, but I wanted

[1:32:29] to make sure that it was all covered and I didn't miss anything. So I think in the next

[1:32:34] agenda item, it's more specific to who's probably appropriate to be on that committee than

[1:32:40] the generic language that I included. So I don't think you need to take it that action.

[1:32:47] So, if we're ready, I would build to adopt resolution number 234-52, which places a 3-4-1-cent addition to the city's transactions and use tax measure on the ballot for the general election to be held November 5th to 2024.

[1:33:07] I will second. Okay, we have a motion time at Vice-Mary.

[1:33:13] Stillman and a second from Councilman Shafer, all in favor.

[1:33:17] Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right, motion passes.

[1:33:20] How are we doing? Anybody need a breaker? Can we do it?

[1:33:22] Great. Okay. Okay. Let's take a five minute break.

[1:33:27] Okay. Yeah, we're going to take away.

[1:37:07] If we're already to come back. Let's,

[1:37:20] we're coming back.

[1:37:40] Good have watched like the first couple innings of the crabs game maybe.

[1:37:43] not in a hot dog.

[1:37:47] All right.

[1:37:48] Our next item for new business is to adopt resolution

[1:37:51] number 234-57, calling for a general municipal

[1:37:56] election to be held in November 5th, 2024,

[1:37:59] and consider appointing a subcommittee to draft arguments

[1:38:01] in favor of the transaction and use tax to you.

[1:38:05] Team measure.

[1:38:06] We have a staff report from Mr. Thank you.

[1:38:09] Part of the role of local government

[1:38:10] is to establish policies that ultimately conduct our municipal elections.

[1:38:16] So in preparation for November 5th, 2024, staff has prepared resolution 234-57 which establishes

[1:38:25] that process and then request that our general municipal election be consolidated with the statewide

[1:38:31] general election, which is a minister by Hon. County. So our November ballot will elect

[1:38:37] three council members, each full full full terms, and we'll consider the ballot measure calling

[1:38:42] for the three quarter percent of one percent sale to you team, measure that you just passed

[1:38:47] your previous item. Tonight is recommended that the City Council adopt resolution, number 234-57,

[1:38:54] please read the whole title when you do. And if you agree to appoint a subcommittee of two council

[1:39:00] numbers to draft the primary argument in favor of the transaction use tax ballot measure, and then

[1:39:06] If needed, every butler argument, following the elections, scheduled deadlines, and I make

[1:39:11] happy to lay out those deadlines in if you want to walk through them.

[1:39:14] But I think if we can call for the election, then that I can work with that subcommittee.

[1:39:19] Sure.

[1:39:20] How did that, would there other people interested in being part of that subcommittee, people from

[1:39:26] the, so I know that we had one volunteer from the Energy Committee Commission, and

[1:39:33] Then we had a couple that were interested originally from the TUTO, the TUTOC committee that

[1:39:42] were interested in participating, and I didn't reach out to them, but we could.

[1:39:47] So if you wanted to, you wanted staff to take that role and see if anybody else is interested

[1:39:52] in joining council, we certainly can do that, and it might be a good way to get a few more

[1:39:57] people involved.

[1:39:58] Sure.

[1:39:58] And I think that time is kind of the absolute point.

[1:40:04] So I think that, I'm sorry, go ahead, anybody else?

[1:40:08] I'm happy to do it.

[1:40:09] I feel like it's my job to be part of that subcommittee.

[1:40:13] If there's two people, then anybody else is wanting

[1:40:16] to be part of that subcommittee.

[1:40:17] Yeah, I was going to say I don't think that

[1:40:19] me Alex or Stacey should do it, because we are already

[1:40:21] going to be on the ballot in that election.

[1:40:24] I just, I don't know, something about that doesn't seem right

[1:40:26] to me.

[1:40:26] And Stacey and I did our last one, and Alex has probably done a million too, so, you know, I think to let Kimberly and Meredith get some experience doing this and being part of it would be an idea.

[1:40:37] So, but I also wanted to encourage-

[1:40:39] Let's just-

[1:40:39] Let's just don't want to-

[1:40:40] But because in the past,

[1:40:44] well, we talk or however you want to say to UT,

[1:40:48] several people on their, you have worked on ballot measures before and the wording,

[1:40:52] and it would be nice if those people are interested in helping this time too because they

[1:40:57] have that experience in the past.

[1:40:59] Yeah, so absolutely.

[1:41:00] So I'm willing if it only needs to be one council member and those two talk people and I

[1:41:07] think it was my blinker, then I'm fine to work with those people if council member White

[1:41:11] wants to be a part of that, for example, to have her along, it is up to you.

[1:41:19] And I would add that even though it is an election year, it's up to each of you individually,

[1:41:23] they can argument some paper can have up to five signatures. It has an incustomary for the

[1:41:29] entire council to sign them in the past so that's something that you'll consider at their

[1:41:34] July meeting. We would want this prepared and coming back to for your July 19 meeting.

[1:41:39] So the last one we had when we did measure G, no council member signed that. I'm going to

[1:41:46] around and I got different people in the community. I'm trying to get a wide group of people from

[1:41:52] for an area as avenues of life, just sign it, because I thought that was more effective

[1:41:57] in the council's climate, but we can do whatever, but I'm just suggesting that.

[1:42:03] Yeah, and so I think that in this resolution, we are going to consider appointing a subcommittee,

[1:42:09] so I say we consider appointing a subcommittee, so let's somebody make a motion.

[1:42:15] I will make a motion to adopt resolution number two three four dash five seven, calling for a

[1:42:21] I don't mean this collection to be held November 5th, 2024 and a point, a subcommittee of Mayor Matthews and

[1:42:29] interested committee members and Council Member White if she wants to.

[1:42:35] To drop arguments in favor of the transaction and use tax measure.

[1:42:41] Okay. Okay, be the most in by Council Member Schiefer, second by my mayor, still in all in favor.

[1:42:47] Hi. Hi. Hi.

[1:42:48] All right, motion passes, and now we can move on to receive a report from the County of

[1:42:54] Humboldt, and provide input to the county to share our Cata's prioritization of essential

[1:42:59] services in an era of natural disasters.

[1:43:04] All right, thank you, Mayor and Council Sean Quincy, with the County Administrative Office,

[1:43:12] and I feel like I came in on a kind of a treat of an agenda for you all with the budget

[1:43:20] and sales tax measure because I am one of those people as Miss Miller talked about who

[1:43:26] goes to those financial conferences and goes to the student deex afterwards and we talk about

[1:43:33] general find and total personnel and cost allocation plans and things like that so I feel

[1:43:39] at home in this conversation. But before we get into our presentation this is my first time addressing

[1:43:46] this spot in. So I just really quickly wanted to do this myself and then get into kind of why we're

[1:43:52] here. But originally from San Diego moved up here in O2, went to formerly above a symbol state.

[1:44:01] Studied early childhood development and journalism came out and worked at a couple of the newspapers.

[1:44:06] I'm seeing a duric for reporter. We're also working in early childhood. Started at the county in 2012

[1:44:13] and communications that have moved on to working on more policy and management issues, work

[1:44:21] done measure Z back in 2014, renewal, measure J, the TOT and freeze, and so some additional

[1:44:28] local revenue measures there, but it gives me a chance to work with fine quotes like your

[1:44:33] city staff and several of you on some other issues and director Tom Matson on two other

[1:44:38] issues.

[1:44:39] So I'll tell you a second to introduce himself as well.

[1:44:43] Currently Director of Public Works for the county,

[1:44:45] I like Shaw and I came up here in 1986

[1:44:47] to go to Humboldt State to get my engineering degree.

[1:44:51] I'm currently chair of the engineering advisory board

[1:44:53] for Cal Poly Humboldt as one of my side gigs.

[1:44:58] I went down south for a couple of years back.

[1:45:00] The San Francisco Bay Area, and then as soon as SHN had a job opening in 1992, I jumped back up here, worked with

[1:45:06] them a couple of years, ran the landfill for a recology for a few years, and then jumped over to the county

[1:45:11] as deputy director of roads, and became director in 2005, and 19 years after that, I'm still here.

[1:45:19] And things have been getting progressively better. Okay.

[1:45:26] But the reason we are, thank you for that. But the reason we're here

[1:45:29] today as to talk about kind of how things have progressed as director mats and kind of alluded

[1:45:36] to and where we are now working, where we could be heading to the future. And specifically

[1:45:42] in terms of natural disasters, over the last 10 years or so we've seen an increase in the number

[1:45:48] of natural disasters that are hitting our area. These disasters vary from storms and landslides

[1:45:54] we saw down in a fully-recreet couple months ago, earthquakes, snowstorms, just runs the gamut,

[1:46:02] the disasters are sometimes localized, sometimes they hit our entire community. But we're

[1:46:07] seeing that they're increasing in frequency and intensity. And when these disasters happen along

[1:46:14] with the city, the county will proclaim local disasters, local emergencies, less frequently the state

[1:46:19] and the federal government will proclaim emergencies. The reason that's relevant is because

[1:46:23] is if the state and the federal governments declare disasters, that opens up funding channels.

[1:46:30] And for us to reclaim some of those costs, but if those disasters are not declared

[1:46:35] at the state and federal level, those funding channels are cut off and were left to bear

[1:46:40] the cost of those emergencies that are not of our own doing.

[1:46:45] But these disasters, these rolling disasters, are starting to take a heavier poll on the county

[1:46:52] government. At the same time, these are happening. We still need to find ways to deliver

[1:46:57] the essential services that our community needs. As you guys have been talking about,

[1:47:02] I'll leave you. And to talk a little bit about how we got here, our story begins with,

[1:47:12] at least for the kind of government's point of view, it begins with looking at the state. Because over the last

[1:47:16] plus here's a state has taken more than a half billion dollars from the county's general

[1:47:21] fund.

[1:47:22] This is not hyperballyed, it's not funny math, these are reportable numbers, back in the

[1:47:27] 90s, if you remember, the state could not meet its obligations, and so it changed the way

[1:47:32] that local public taxes were allocated, and so it shifted our public taxes to take care

[1:47:39] of state obligations,

[1:47:42] and as I mentioned that I don't feel bad about

[1:47:46] talking about something that happened way back in the 90s because our infrastructure was created

[1:47:52] well before that and our local needs and the way we addressed those local needs were

[1:47:57] we're created in such a way that local property taxes were meant to take care of those local needs

[1:48:01] and when the state outspent themselves they dip into local governments to take care of their own needs

[1:48:08] and so we're still fighting that battle back here 30 plus years later and so that number

[1:48:16] We tell you that number every year what that diversion cost and in the current year 2324 that amount of that diversion equals is more than $25 million.

[1:48:26] That's $25 million that would have otherwise been the county's general funds take care of local needs.

[1:48:32] And that doesn't include some of the state mandates that staff mentioned tonight.

[1:48:37] And it doesn't include future state takeaways as you all are well aware of the state

[1:48:43] of facing a record deficit of between 37 and 73 billion dollars, depending on who is

[1:48:49] kind of the numbers.

[1:48:51] And we find ourselves in an incredibly defensive position right now trying to protect from

[1:48:55] future state takeaways.

[1:48:57] The governors may revise from a few weeks ago, had hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts

[1:49:03] to local emergency preparedness and transportation programs.

[1:49:08] And so this is how these things happen.

[1:49:10] When the state finds itself in a bind,

[1:49:12] when the first place is that it goes as to dip into local governments

[1:49:15] and redirect shift money.

[1:49:18] If you look at all the proposals, there's a lot of this redirect

[1:49:22] and shift that you'll find in there and we worry about that

[1:49:25] because that's shifting money away from local governments

[1:49:29] to take care of our local needs.

[1:49:31] And so we're not the only ones who are recognizing our need to do more in terms of local disaster preparedness.

[1:49:43] The grand jury last year in oblivious and June issued a report that said no uncertain turns that the humble county in the county government itself needs to do more to prepare for natural disasters.

[1:49:56] because of our seismic, the way our topography is, our inclination for bad storms, and because

[1:50:09] sea level rises exacerbating climate changes exacerbating the impacts of sea level

[1:50:15] rise on our community. And so I mentioned the Grand Juries report from last year, because

[1:50:22] The grand jury is an independent body who is making a public statement to our local community

[1:50:27] and our local leaders saying that we need to do more and so what we're doing now is an attempt

[1:50:33] to rectify that. And I kind of, earlier in my presentation, I want to be, I meant to be

[1:50:43] to address this issue and I wanted to be upfront with this council and this community that one

[1:50:50] our ways to rectify this issue or begin to help us prepare for, prepare better for natural

[1:50:56] disasters is by placing a revenue measure on the ballot number. Staff alluded to it a little bit

[1:51:04] earlier but that is one of the things that we are heavily considering. We consider doing that in

[1:51:10] March and our board has directed us to do some more research and to potentially place something on

[1:51:15] out in November. So you all likely received a fine piece of mail. Sometimes last week

[1:51:24] asked me to take a survey and identify which of priorities are, and that was part of this

[1:51:29] education effort that we're involved in on right now.

[1:51:34] So to continue on, if I could leave this council with one thing, it's that we simply believe

[1:51:41] that natural disasters are an everyday part of life

[1:51:45] for Humbuk County now.

[1:51:47] And what that means for us is that we need to re-orient

[1:51:49] the way that we deliver public services in the light

[1:51:52] of this new reality.

[1:51:56] And for the county government, we're seeing the impacts

[1:51:59] of these natural disasters, mostly on our roads.

[1:52:03] Tom can talk a little bit more about what these disasters

[1:52:07] mean for our roads.

[1:52:08] But one thing that we need to do is that we

[1:52:10] needs to harden our roads and that's, I mentioned that in the context of state and federal

[1:52:19] reimbursements, when we can state and federal reimbursements, that doesn't cover the full

[1:52:25] cost of our natural disasters and the activities that we need to take in response to natural disasters

[1:52:32] and repairing our roads. But all that Tom talked a little bit more about why that is and kind of

[1:52:40] So I'm going to mainly focus on the roads because without roads you have no disaster response.

[1:52:47] So if we look back when I started with the county in February 1998, that March was my first declared disaster working for the county on the floods.

[1:52:57] I wondered what I got into, so I looked past 20 years before that, and we were on average getting a federal declaration about once every three years.

[1:53:06] spread out over time because many years we'll get a storm disaster in December. There's an 80% chance we're going to have another one in March

[1:53:14] That's just the way our winners roll

[1:53:16] So that was little bit

[1:53:18] Then comes 2017 we got here with 41 million dollars a damage to the road system

[1:53:24] Follow two years later by another 15 million and from 2022 to 2024 we have actually five disasters

[1:53:32] 3 federally declared one state declared and one local disaster that were offered under.

[1:53:38] And that's hit the road's department to at the tune of about $70 million.

[1:53:42] My annual revenue is about $15 million.

[1:53:46] And where it creates the problem is FEMA does not pay to harden the road's system after a disaster.

[1:53:53] They pay to put it back the way it was.

[1:53:55] Well, if it failed, the way it was, it's found a fail again.

[1:53:58] There are ways, but there are very few to get additional hardening, which we've done, but we have repeat sites that are repeat sites, that are critical locations in the county to get supplies and people and food and everything else.

[1:54:13] And so I'm having to take my maintenance money to pay because FEMA doesn't pay up front.

[1:54:19] I have to pay for this right out of my local funding so that takes away from the maintenance.

[1:54:24] And then it takes me six to ten years to get reimbursement.

[1:54:28] So right now my road fund budget is actually a negative 10 million and it's being flooded by the county tax tax pressure

[1:54:35] because they know I'm going to get money hopefully eventually, but it puts me in a position where I'm having the cut maintenance

[1:54:42] our maintenance, I'm sure you all know what a pavement condition index is, I'm sure

[1:54:47] Nicholas presented to you on that. We were in the 60's going in a 2017, went

[1:54:52] out down the 49, and if we don't make changes in our funding stream and our

[1:54:56] ability to do things, we're projecting to go down the 23 and 10 years, which is

[1:55:01] basically most of our rural roads are going to start getting converted back to

[1:55:05] gravel. And so that's, that's the vicious circle that we were in, we get the

[1:55:11] with front-the-money, we don't have the money to harden the system, we defer maintenance, we get more damage, and as he said, it's, when I look at it as just like seven disasters since 2017, and one every three years history before that, things are changing, we're getting hit harder, and we're not able to keep up with things with the county infrastructure.

[1:55:38] And one point that we like to, I like to stress to this body when Tom mentions the PCI index

[1:55:51] on the scale of 1-100, so 69 is kind of average going down a little average.

[1:55:59] There are six counties that are in what's considered a good range, 70 in above, and each of

[1:56:08] them have multiple local revenue measures dedicated to railroad.

[1:56:11] And so it's no surprise that additional local funding

[1:56:15] needs better service on the roads.

[1:56:17] And that 70 number is magical because that's where you're

[1:56:21] basically reworking your house before your house collapses.

[1:56:26] Where our house is collapsing.

[1:56:28] It's a lot cheaper to maintain a road system that has a high PCI

[1:56:31] than it is to rebuild entire road systems when we're getting to it.

[1:56:38] And so this leads to

[1:56:40] Is it a pay to ask the question?

[1:56:45] We're happy to answer your questions as your light.

[1:56:48] You're talking about harming roads.

[1:56:50] Could you explain what that means?

[1:56:52] That means putting in better retaining walls.

[1:56:55] That means a lot more rocks low protection.

[1:56:57] That means we're routing roads.

[1:56:59] What we can't do things to tie into about better geography.

[1:57:03] A lot of the county's roads for the old wagon grass.

[1:57:07] There were never designed, there were just pushed in, wherever it was easiest to get through,

[1:57:12] and easiest to maintain at the time, which basically meant push and dirt into the river,

[1:57:18] because they followed the river, or the ridges, and so hardening them means making them resilient

[1:57:24] to the rainfall, making them resilient to earthquakes, instead of having roads on jello,

[1:57:30] having roads that are based in a foundation.

[1:57:33] So

[1:57:36] this leads us to the ask that we have with this council and that is last year as the

[1:57:45] county was considering placing a measure on the ballot and for the March ballot.

[1:57:50] We worked with FM3 to do a poll of the community and determined with our priorities

[1:57:56] where and they came back with the list of priorities.

[1:57:59] And I believe it's, I believe it may be in the packet tonight or not, but it was definitely

[1:58:07] on the mail or that you all received last week, there was a list of, I think, seven rate

[1:58:13] priorities.

[1:58:14] And it's a really disparate list of services, ranging from homelessness services to transportation,

[1:58:21] to roads and 911 response.

[1:58:25] But right now, because our funding is so limited, we need to get really granular on what the community really wants and so we want to build what the highest priority as among these high-ranking priorities.

[1:58:38] And so the ask of this council in this community is to weigh in and go to our website and take this survey and let us know what's important to you.

[1:58:45] provide additional comments and things like that.

[1:58:49] Later, this summer, we're a little bit behind you all

[1:58:52] in terms of developing our revenue measure

[1:58:54] for the ballot in November.

[1:58:57] But we'll be doing another scientific poll,

[1:59:00] where we call about 600 like the voters,

[1:59:05] and really get kind of a scientifically backed idea

[1:59:12] of where people's residents, priorities are, but we would like the community to take this

[1:59:19] poll now and let us know among these priorities what's the highest.

[1:59:24] The second ask that we would have this council and this community is that if there are other

[1:59:29] community groups and within Arcada that you think would be a good fit to hear this message

[1:59:36] and ask questions of us to let us know so that we can go out and talk to those groups, or

[1:59:42] more than happy to go out and talk to folks about this and the impacts and natural disasters

[1:59:46] and where we're going in the future. But with that, we are happy to answer any other questions

[1:59:52] that you might have and thank you for your time, thank you for having us.

[2:00:00] I just want to remind folks because disaster related and maybe an opportunity for you to share is July 12th, 14th, the Arcada

[2:00:11] Cert Community Emergency Response Team will be doing a training, so there will be 30 plus people and then of course everyone that they know they can share.

[2:00:20] maybe I don't know. I was going to ask you because I didn't receive that survey so thank you for

[2:00:26] directing me to the website and I will commit to take that survey. I guess what I this is we can't count

[2:00:34] on the vet. We found this out when we had our December 2022 earthquake when Rio Del got hit really

[2:00:42] hard and they're still dealing with the aftermath of that. If it wasn't for boots on the ground like

[2:00:48] brown-croffered and bringing in the world kitchen and other programs that be a lot worse off,

[2:00:55] but this ballot measure will fill in that gap so that I mean if it is claimed a federal national

[2:01:02] disaster that's great then we can put that money back in and use it somewhere you can pay

[2:01:07] yourself back if they come in but if not you know they're still suffering and if we had that

[2:01:13] of funds, or in this case the ballot measure, things would already be taken care of there.

[2:01:20] So thank you for sharing this.

[2:01:23] I would thank you for that.

[2:01:25] I'll remember an example from the real dull earthquake was there were a number.

[2:01:31] I think there were 100 structures that were really yellow or red tagged.

[2:01:36] And those families couldn't go back into those homes.

[2:01:38] And so we needed to provide funding for some of those things to go live in hotels for a while and so the homes could get prepared.

[2:01:51] And that funding is still looking for reimbursement for those funds, two almost two years later.

[2:01:58] And that's local funding that was spent to do that luckily.

[2:02:02] we had some art of money to spend on that.

[2:02:07] So that's another example of some of these local needs

[2:02:10] that may or may not get me in first

[2:02:12] that we need to take care of our local community.

[2:02:17] Just some thoughts to, I don't know,

[2:02:19] share with everybody and share with you guys,

[2:02:20] but I think that, and I haven't seen the survey yet,

[2:02:23] we're taking it, but thank you for directing us that.

[2:02:26] But I think it's really smart to take,

[2:02:30] this lens of disaster preparedness

[2:02:32] and bringing in the idea of climate change and that we are living in a reality where we are

[2:02:39] only going to see more extreme weather, more extreme storms, and that literally our infrastructure

[2:02:44] cannot handle it. And I think that coming at, you know, a measure of this way, especially looking

[2:02:50] at what communities, right, countywider, are going to be voting on and we talked about how for tuna

[2:02:54] is going to have a tax measure in Arcada, and all of this that could be competing with those funds.

[2:02:59] But I think to really focus effort in a community like Arcada

[2:03:02] that has a track record of approving tax measures

[2:03:06] and being pretty favorable to more taxes.

[2:03:09] I think in my whole time living in Arcada,

[2:03:13] which is my whole life, we usually tend to approve tax measures

[2:03:17] and at least since I've been a voter.

[2:03:19] And so to kind of take some of those priorities,

[2:03:22] especially in Arcada where we're talking about climate change

[2:03:25] and mitigating disasters, is definitely a higher priority,

[2:03:28] probably for a lot of the voters than maybe in different parts of the county where there might be more conservative viewpoints that do not take the, you know, importance of time and change into account.

[2:03:42] I think that, you know, that is a good viewpoint to take and I appreciate, you know, just the thoughtful presentation on that.

[2:03:51] And, you know, because to focus that it is a different type of service, then for example our sales tax would be, you know, necessarily, there's definitely some overlap, but to focus on that.

[2:04:03] And so thank you guys for your presentation tonight.

[2:04:05] And I just think that, you know, you've got a good beginning starts here.

[2:04:10] So, yeah, looking forward to taking the survey as well.

[2:04:14] One of the things, that's right, and then thinking of that too, just as far as groups to

[2:04:20] liaison with and present to you, I mean, I think that especially in Arcade, I like our business

[2:04:24] community is pretty active and reach out to the Chamber of Commerce and be able to talk to those

[2:04:30] businesses about how it will impact them, but to be able to generate some of these positive ideas

[2:04:37] around what the chat tax would be going to, and then we're going to SACE.

[2:04:44] I might have already said this when you guys presented at the circumuiting, I don't know, so I apologize if I did.

[2:04:50] But what would be helpful to me and probably others that will have, you know, friends, family members, community members, asking us about this measure and like if they should support it or why.

[2:05:02] Some type of a one-sheeter with some of the information you provide, especially regarding the roads, like what you said, is very powerful.

[2:05:11] because you're talking about, you know, facts and numbers and some history, and so I think

[2:05:17] if we had some of that information at our fingertips when it gets time to start talking

[2:05:21] about this, we just need some cheat notes to help you out, is what I'm asking for, I guess.

[2:05:27] Yeah, we're definitely in the process of helping you out.

[2:05:30] Cool. Yeah, I can say from personal history, I lived in Orleans for 10 years. I know what is

[2:05:35] disaster. Those roads are being stuck behind like rock size and whatnot. So it's super

[2:05:42] important. I do think that keeping this in a very broad lens of climate change is probably

[2:05:50] important because unfortunately but honestly like none of the taxific goes to roads is going

[2:05:59] really go to Arcada. These are all like county districts and so I just want to

[2:06:05] make sure because we have a very important tax measure and our ballot too that

[2:06:10] we are capturing a kind of what's in it for us as well because

[2:06:20] we're all of

[2:06:22] this. We're all in the same boat. I mean we had long discussions because we know

[2:06:27] whether people are going forward, but we can't not do anything.

[2:06:33] And if you want to go somewhere else than just in Arquita, you may have to take

[2:06:37] one of your roads if you want to tell them how to road.

[2:06:41] And so that might be, you know, for citizens, I would suggest you hit the road

[2:06:46] reason Arquita.

[2:06:48] Sunrise and moon.

[2:06:51] It's funny you mentioned that because in 1964, the only way into the county was Bell Springs

[2:06:57] road, which is a county road from Mendocino to Ambo County.

[2:07:01] Or you flew in because I worked for the airlines and all the planes just had boxes

[2:07:05] in the seats and all over the airport, everyone's sleeping because they couldn't all over the

[2:07:10] floor.

[2:07:10] They couldn't get here.

[2:07:12] My own was entire house was moved because of 60 were fled down in or it means it's all

[2:07:18] thing.

[2:07:18] Anyway, thank you so much.

[2:07:20] Please reach out to us if there's anything else we can do to help you and there's no other

[2:07:25] questions.

[2:07:25] Thanks, thank you.

[2:07:26] explaining hardening, because it's all we hear about it is from fire point of view where

[2:07:33] you're getting rid of the vegetation around your house and you're doing this and that.

[2:07:37] But hardening roads is a, I'm glad you explained that.

[2:07:40] Thank you, Tom.

[2:07:42] And if I might just add as a final note, and thank you again, to the point of different jurisdictions,

[2:07:51] placing measures on the ballot, what I'd begin the presentation with on the state

[2:07:55] takeways, affects cities too, that property tax

[2:07:59] reallocation, that hits cities too in a big way.

[2:08:03] And so when we hear that cities are putting sales, tax

[2:08:07] measures are local, sales tax measures on the ballot,

[2:08:10] or responses we get it.

[2:08:12] We understand that there is, there's not enough funding

[2:08:15] to take care of local needs, even at the county

[2:08:19] in the city.

[2:08:21] And Council Member Schaefer, to your point about the climate

[2:08:24] change piece. I would say that there's shared interest throughout the county around doing

[2:08:34] our part to whatever extent we can to reverse the effects of climate change or neutralized

[2:08:42] natural neutralize them or do what we can. Especially in terms of public transportation,

[2:08:48] the public transportation system here in bus service, especially for seniors, disability,

[2:08:53] low income. We need to make sure that that service is guaranteed for those who need it.

[2:09:00] And so that's a big emphasis in this measure too. That's to the point of taking a climate effort

[2:09:08] with some climate action as well. But thank you again for having us who really appreciate it.

[2:09:14] Thank you so much. So following up on what Stacy said, and you get that sheet,

[2:09:18] You should really make sure it's available for everyone that represents people on HTA, how much transit authority is you know, talking about the roads and probably H. Cog also.

[2:09:30] Well, I think you should look at all the joint power agreements and make sure everyone in joint power gets hit because there are different representatives on each joint power.

[2:09:38] So that way you could cover at least the council members. Thank you.

[2:09:42] You'd expect it in your inbox.

[2:09:44] Thank you so much.

[2:09:46] Thank you.

[2:09:48] And with that, this meeting is adjourned.

[2:09:51] Thank you so much.

City Council Special Meeting

Agenda

Transcript