[0:02] Speaker 2 (council): council meeting closed session, august 25th, 2026.

[0:08] council: oop.

[0:09] speaker 1 (council): thank you. Good evening, and welcome to the city of lincoln's regular meeting of the city council. Tonight's meeting will be televised and available on cable channel 18, youtube, and zoom. Those wishing to address city council will be called upon at the appropriate time.

[0:24] speaker 1 (council): those who submitted a speaker card will be called first, followed by those in the audience. And finally, those attending through zoom.

[0:31] speaker 1 (council): we have no one on zoom at the moment.

[0:34] speaker 1 (council): thank you very much. So, we're calling the meeting officially to order now. Over here, roll call, please.

[0:39] speaker 1 (council): thank you. Councilmember andrea? Present. Councilmember reedy?

[0:44] speaker 1 (council): councilmember brown?

[0:46] speaker 1 (council): absent at the moment. Mayor pro tem eklund? Here. Mayor pearl? Here.

[0:51] speaker 2 (council): thank you very much. Okay, we have a closed session with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…

[0:57] speaker 2 (council): items over here, conference, existing litigation, well, they're all existing litigation, except for the last one, property, property negotiations. No one is on… in the audience, no one is on zoom. Hey, mayor, yes, sir? Item 1c is actually anticipated litigation as well.

[1:14] speaker 2 (council): thank you very much for that correction.

[1:16] speaker 2 (council): and the two potential cases there, that's very good.

[1:19] speaker 2 (council): all right, we're very good. We're closing, we opened and closed public comment. Okay, here, and we'll now adjourn to our closed session. Thank you very much.

[1:55] speaker 1 (council): councilmember andrea? Present. Councilmember reedy? Present. Councilmember brown? Present. Mayor pro tem eklund? Here. Mayor pearl? Here.

[2:04] speaker 2 (council): thank you very much. Okay, pledge of allegiance. Mr. Foote, would you lead us in the pledge, please?

[2:17] council: savings of america.

[2:19] council: father, it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible.

[2:25] council: liberty and justice.

[2:37] speaker 2 (council): mr. Attorney, do we have any report from closed session?

[2:40] speaker 2 (council): mayor, direction was given to staff, but there was no reportable action taken.

[2:45] speaker 2 (council): touch, agenda modifications. We're going to move on the printed agenda.

[2:51] speaker 2 (council): number 13, to just add.

[2:53] council: chapter number 9.

[2:55] council: pop.

[2:57] speaker 2 (council): items and disclosures.

[3:01] speaker 2 (council): 9a, okay. Anyone else have anything that they want to change?

[3:11] speaker 2 (council): staff, anyone change anything? Okay.

[3:14] speaker 2 (council): very good. Presentations, all right.

[3:18] speaker 2 (council): recognition of lincoln youth global disc golf champions.

[3:30] speaker 2 (council): going to be… is anyone going to be… we're going to be presenting this, but is anyone going to be giving a talk on it?

[3:38] speaker 2 (council): go ahead. Oh, thanks.

[3:40] speaker 2 (council): thanks. So, I saw these boys be recognized.

[3:45] speaker 4 (council): at church a few weeks ago, and I thought, what an amazing opportunity for the council to recognize them. We always like to highlight

[3:56] speaker 4 (council): students and residents who, go out and do great things and represent lincoln well, and all three of these boys, who are brothers.

[4:05] speaker 4 (council): participated recently in the global disc golf championships, not just national, but worldwide, and I'm gonna let you read their, their, their awards, but I thought, and I appreciate the mayor and council allowing us to do this.

[4:18] speaker 4 (council): that it would be really great to bring them here, to recognize them for all their hard work, and for representing lincoln very, very well. We're very proud of you.

[4:26] speaker 4 (council): so the mayor's gonna read your certificate, and then if you guys want to come up and say something, you can, and then we'll take a picture with you, if that's okay. Hey, great.

[4:34] speaker 4 (council): thank you very much.

[4:34] speaker 2 (council): kali, and thank you for that introduction.

[4:38] speaker 2 (council): okay, let me move this…

[4:41] council: alright.

[4:44] speaker 2 (council): there we go, okay. Okay, so a certificate of recognition presented by the city of lincoln to,

[4:50] speaker 2 (council): jack bucher, if I'm announcing… pronouncing that correctly.

[4:55] speaker 2 (council): bucher, thank you. Thank you. William booger?

[5:02] speaker 2 (council): henson's the brothers, cody, okay.

[5:04] speaker 4 (council): mayor, would you please say what place that each one of them got on their certificates, it should tell you there.

[5:12] speaker 2 (council): cody, first place.

[5:14] speaker 2 (council): yes. News!

[5:21] speaker 2 (council): jack, second place. Woo!

[5:26] speaker 2 (council): and william, second place also. William, second place.

[5:31] speaker 2 (council): and…

[5:32] speaker 4 (council): so, I just want to reiterate that this is global, this is worldwide. What amazing achievement. Congratulations, boys. Would you like to say something? You don't have to if you don't want to, but you can if you want to. Great, thank you.

[5:46] speaker 4 (council): okay, I want to thank my sponsor, innova, for…

[5:56] council: forget me?

[5:59] council: second place?

[6:01] council: he sponsored, and he sponsored, and…

[6:04] speaker 5 (council): they've helped us.

[6:06] speaker 5 (council): and we get 50 discs a year.

[6:09] council: just…

[6:10] speaker 5 (council): to help us.

[6:11] speaker 5 (council): and, yeah, and I would hope that we can get a disc golf course in lincoln.

[6:17] speaker 5 (council): all right. Whoo! All right.

[6:21] speaker 2 (council): excellent. And young men, if you would like to come up over here so we can all grab a picture with you.

[6:35] council: under the proclamation of god.

[7:16] speaker 2 (council): nice, yeah, we got it, yeah.

[7:31] speaker 4 (council): we often have to deal with a lot of hard things, and when we have the opportunity to do something fun and to recognize wonderful young men and women in our community, it's a great thing to do. So, thanks for allowing us to do that.

[7:48] speaker 4 (council): that's awesome. That's so great. Thank you.

[7:52] speaker 2 (council): thank you, mayor. Okay, thank you very much, holly. Okay, so, we're going to be moving up on number 13, which is information items and disclosures. Does anyone, any of my colleagues have anything to…

[8:02] speaker 2 (council): ed, or to disclose at this point? Well, not disclosure, but the information items. Okay. I just wanted to add in that if you hadn't had time to go down and check out our

[8:13] speaker 2 (council): thursday night.

[8:17] speaker 6 (council): farmer's market. Please, please do. It's, like, from 4 to, like, 8 or 8.30, something like that. It's… it's pretty amazing. It's been… hasn't been going for a long time. It was just reinstituted recently. I've been a couple of times, and, I think it's a real…

[8:32] speaker 6 (council): big community booster, so…

[8:36] speaker 2 (council): I go along with that, ben, the, I think it was, like, 10 years that we didn't have one. Yeah. And, this is the third time, and they've been very, very successful. More so, I think, as much fun as the people have been being able to shop at night, they were also able to go out to the stores, and all our stores.

[8:53] speaker 2 (council): are getting an uptick in sales, which is really good. And also the plaza, the, what they told us they would start filling in on the plaza with information things for our community, and that's being done, so it's cooking along very well. And they'll probably go till about mid-november, and then they'll hold it until the spring.

[9:12] speaker 6 (council): the other informational, I'll let you take over and do the plug, but the wings and wheels.

[9:18] speaker 2 (council): since I have to talk about wings and wheels, okay, I'll do that.

[9:21] speaker 2 (council): okay, so we, this, this, this friday night and saturday, wings and wheels, lincoln's, I think this is about our 15th time we're doing this.

[9:29] speaker 2 (council): out at lincoln airport friday night, we'll have a moonglow out there with hot air balloons. It's open to the public, $5 admission charges, there'll be food trucks out there, and a band, and just a lot of fun, but the moonglow at…

[9:42] speaker 2 (council): at dusk is really fabulous, just to watch these five, hot air balloons, they elevate, and, they just, you can just see the lights shining through. It's fabulous, and saturday, we just have a lot of aircraft and cars coming in, about 75 aircraft.

[9:57] speaker 2 (council): about 250 cars, 5 hot air balloons, 2 tethered balloons for everyone to go riding. Especially for the young people, we've got a lot of,

[10:05] speaker 2 (council): youth aviation activities, in our youth expo from the aerospace museum, william jessup, flight organizations out there. So, lots of things going on, lots of people, lots of vendors, lots of food trucks.

[10:19] speaker 2 (council): and the weather's going to be absolutely fabulous this year.

[10:23] speaker 6 (council): rather than last year. Rather than last year.

[10:24] speaker 2 (council): so, we had, rain when we had super high heat, and this time it's going to be the low 90s, which is just going to be fabulous. So, we're expecting about 10,000 people between friday and saturday. Saturday is, the

[10:38] speaker 2 (council): entrance fee is $10 for adults. Under 18 is free. Best 10 bucks you can spend, no fee for parking. Family-oriented, so we're gonna have a lot of fun. Thank you for that segue, ben, I appreciate it.

[10:51] speaker 6 (council): your fast cars, and wear your best swag. Yeah, yeah.

[10:57] speaker 2 (council): okay, good. Anyone else for information items?

[11:00] speaker 2 (council): okay, very good. Okay.

[11:04] speaker 2 (council): public, let's see, public comment on non-agenda items within the subject matter of the jurisdiction of the council, all times. All speakers' time will be limited to 3 minutes unless extended by the mayor. All comments or questions should be addressed, to the mayor.

[11:18] speaker 2 (council): and in most cases, the city council is prohibited from discussing or taking action on any item not appearing on the posted agenda, but may engage in brief discussion, provide direction to city staff, or schedule items for future meetings. So…

[11:33] speaker 2 (council): madam clerk, what do we have?

[11:35] speaker 1 (council): we have two speaker cards. I'd like to call up stan nader, followed by purple paws for peace.

[11:55] speaker 1 (council): mayor and council, my name is stan nader, and I live in the 12 bridges area.

[12:00] speaker 1 (council): at your last city council meeting, you approved a contract.

[12:04] speaker 7 (council): for a management company to relieve city staff of the majority of the daily operational responsibilities.

[12:11] speaker 7 (council): at the airport. This is something that has been long sought after since the city lost their on-site airport manager many years ago.

[12:21] speaker 7 (council): so if the contract proves successful.

[12:24] speaker 7 (council): it will be a great step forward.

[12:26] speaker 7 (council): for the airport and the city.

[12:29] speaker 7 (council): as city staff was responding, to councilmember reedy's question about the cost-benefits of the contract.

[12:38] speaker 7 (council): the assistant city manager gave a very detailed response to his questions.

[12:43] speaker 7 (council): and did explain some of the potential future revenues.

[12:47] speaker 7 (council): that would help fund the contract.

[12:50] speaker 7 (council): at the very end of her list, she mentioned an alternative contract.

[12:56] speaker 7 (council): I will assume it was referring to section 6 of attachment a,

[13:01] speaker 7 (council): and item 9 and attachment b.

[13:05] speaker 7 (council): which both describe a separate master development agreement.

[13:10] speaker 7 (council): in item 9, it states that if the city and the contractor do not come to agreement.

[13:17] speaker 7 (council): master development agreement.

[13:20] speaker 7 (council): contractor may terminate.

[13:22] speaker 7 (council): the contract.

[13:23] speaker 7 (council): within a 60-day… with a 60-day notice.

[13:27] speaker 7 (council): in my mind, this is a pretty big deal.

[13:31] speaker 7 (council): and it would have been good.

[13:33] speaker 7 (council): or, if you have it mentioned, in the presentation of the contract in more detail.

[13:43] speaker 7 (council): and referring to it as an alternative deal.

[13:47] speaker 7 (council): on two occasions, I have shared

[13:50] speaker 7 (council): with the city manager, a retail opportunities brochure.

[13:55] speaker 7 (council): yes.

[13:57] speaker 7 (council): that sean tillman, the economic development director at the time.

[14:03] speaker 7 (council): prepared in 2015.

[14:05] speaker 7 (council): which shows a map.

[14:08] speaker 7 (council): of the market area of the city, which is much broader than the city limits of the city.

[14:13] speaker 7 (council): it lists demographics of the market area. Inside the brochure, it has a detailed map.

[14:20] speaker 7 (council): of where residential units are under construction. Those entitled, but not yet built.

[14:26] speaker 7 (council): and those proposed.

[14:28] speaker 7 (council): it identifies residential development sizes, commercial types, on the back.

[14:36] speaker 7 (council): the brochure. It has a chart.

[14:39] speaker 7 (council): charts and graphs showing five tar… five top market segments.

[14:44] speaker 7 (council): by demographic type.

[14:46] speaker 7 (council): population.

[14:49] speaker 7 (council): household, age distribution.

[14:51] speaker 7 (council): household income, market area potential, and retail demand.

[14:56] speaker 7 (council): these are all… information that potential businesses and developers would like to know.

[15:04] speaker 7 (council): and I have a copy to give to the city clerk that she can make copies and provide for your review. Thank you, stan.

[15:31] speaker 6 (council): good evening, mayor. My name is justin terwilliger, and I am the chief operations officer of purple paws for peace. We're a domestic violence.

[15:38] speaker 8 (council): violence crisis response nonprofit here in.

[15:41] council: lincoln.

[15:43] speaker 8 (council): we provide emergency sheltering and crisis response care for the pets of domestic violence survivors. These animals belong to families that are escaping abuse, and for many survivors, the inability to safely shelter their pets is one of the biggest…

[15:56] speaker 8 (council): barriers preventing them from leaving a dangerous situation.

[16:00] speaker 8 (council): there are important statistics that illustrate this. Red rover reports that 48% of survivors delay leaving an abusive situation if they cannot bring their animals with them. And the spca reports that up to 89% of pet-owning women entering domestic violence shelters reported that their abuser had either injured, killed, or threatened their pets.

[16:20] speaker 8 (council): only about 17% of u.s. Domestic violence shelters accept pets.

[16:24] speaker 8 (council): these numbers come from a review of 12 studies and reflect the deep emotional and practical bond many survivors share with their animals.

[16:31] speaker 8 (council): this safety barrier is very significant, even in our community.

[16:36] speaker 8 (council): our mission is to remove that barrier so that families can flee violence sooner, safer, and with better outcomes.

[16:42] speaker 8 (council): we've been told directly that because of our services, survivors don't have to return to these dangerous and abusive situations.

[16:49] speaker 8 (council): they can focus on themselves, give their children a better future, and begin rebuilding their lives.

[16:54] speaker 8 (council): survivors have even called our executive director, mildred, an angel on earth who gives hope and empowerment to women, and gives them the ability to take their lives back.

[17:04] speaker 8 (council): we're already serving lincoln families, and boarding and veterinary dollars stay right here in placer county.

[17:10] speaker 8 (council): to attain our goals of responding to cases involving lincoln residents, we work closely with local and regional partners, including domestic violence shelters.

[17:18] speaker 8 (council): to ensure that no survivor is ever forced to choose between their own safety and the safety of their children, or the safety of their animals.

[17:28] speaker 8 (council): in addition to our crisis response work, we're developing a regional initiative called bridge.

[17:33] speaker 8 (council): which is still in development.

[17:36] speaker 8 (council): but I can share that bridge will allow lincoln to participate in national research on early intervention strategies.

[17:43] speaker 8 (council): violence-linked data, and community safety outcomes.

[17:47] speaker 8 (council): it's an important opportunity for our city to be part of a forward-thinking, evidence-driven approach to public safety.

[17:53] speaker 8 (council): as we continue expanding our crisis response work, we look forward to ongoing conversations with city leadership, including the city manager's office, to ensure that our services remain aligned with lincoln's public safety priorities.

[18:07] speaker 8 (council): purple paws for peace is growing very quickly. We're receiving support from local funders, community partners, and corporate giving programs.

[18:14] speaker 8 (council): as demand increases, we want to ensure that lincoln families have consistent access to our services, and that our crisis response work remains aligned with the city's public safety goals.

[18:23] speaker 8 (council): we wanted to be here tonight to formally introduce ourselves to you all, and to share our services with the community, and express how much we care about lincoln and the people who live in our community.

[18:33] speaker 8 (council): we would welcome a conversation with staff about how we can best support lincoln's public safety and animal safety-related goals. Thank you so much for your time, and for your commitment to the safety and the well-being of our residents here, and I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you all tonight.

[18:48] speaker 2 (council): thank you. Thank you very much, and thank you for bringing that information to us.

[18:52] council: amen.

[18:55] speaker 2 (council): anyone?

[18:56] speaker 1 (council): I have no additional speaker cards. We'll go ahead and open it up to the audience. If there's anyone that would like to provide public comment, please come to the podium.

[19:13] speaker 1 (council): good evening, everyone. Byron chapman, 12 bridges area.

[19:16] speaker 1 (council): mayor?

[19:17] speaker 8 (council): council members, city staff.

[19:20] speaker 8 (council): sometimes these sort of things happen, and they go around us, and we get used to it, and we kind of forget what the benefits are.

[19:27] speaker 9 (council): and how it works.

[19:28] speaker 9 (council): this summer, like many in the past, has been really, really hot, and we got a good rain last year. I just want to thank the city for looking at

[19:39] speaker 9 (council): how we bring down that low-hanging fuel of fire.

[19:43] speaker 9 (council): being scrub brush and that sort of thing when they're up on the bankments and so forth.

[19:48] speaker 9 (council): so if people drive around and see all the open space areas around lincoln, you don't see somebody out there with a weed whacker kind of taking their time and getting there. One, it would never happen, and nothing would be done. But the animals that go out there, they… they do their job.

[20:05] speaker 9 (council): I would… I would really, really hate it if they got out to a golf course or somewhere, because they really know how to eat that stuff down. So, for what it's worth, it's one of those things that oftentimes we don't think about, we don't want to have happen.

[20:18] speaker 9 (council): in the way of a fire, but that low-hanging stuff really becomes an issue, and it's a great way for that to take place, and I see it happening everywhere. So, thank you very much. Thank you, byron. It's nice to see you again.

[20:38] speaker 2 (council): mayor, council members, thank you, for honoring my boys and the family here.

[20:43] speaker 6 (council): I grew up in rockland, was born and raised, couldn't afford it when I came back from college, so, I am here in lincoln, and I'm raised.

[20:49] speaker 10 (council): family, and I couldn't be more proud. Watching the city grow since 83, and what it's become today, is something special.

[20:57] speaker 10 (council): I think there's a big miss in our community with respect to, outdoor activity. I know there's some… a big amount of money going to, removing the skate park, putting in pickleball, but the fact that auburn, roseville, rockland.

[21:12] speaker 10 (council): two courses in grass valley, we have to travel, and this is a… you know, I go to carlin seacoppin and pick three of my 4 up every day, and there's at least a dozen kids walking out with frisbees.

[21:24] speaker 10 (council): I implore you to, really encourage any of the, impo… you know.

[21:28] speaker 10 (council): impending proposals that'll be coming to you from

[21:32] speaker 10 (council): economic study reports, environmental impact reports that, you guys will be reviewing in the next coming months, because I think there's plenty of land, there's plenty of partnerships with, other, you know, private agencies, but…

[21:47] speaker 10 (council): we've been resulted to, going to private courses and just, building our own on some of the courses and properties out by the lake.

[21:56] speaker 10 (council): and, out by gladi mcbean. And I think that this would be a huge impact to the community if we could,

[22:02] speaker 10 (council): offer something that's kind of a set it and forget it. Really, the clubs take care of the course management, so, and they would be willing to invest and fundraise to get the t-pads and baskets, and once it's out there, it's there forever, and it's a great addition. Rockland has had a course for 41 years.

[22:21] speaker 10 (council): so… and it's a staple in their community. So, thank you for today, thank you for your time, appreciate that, and

[22:29] speaker 10 (council): thank you very much. I have a quick question really quick. I know we've already talked about this before, but I don't remember.

[22:34] speaker 11 (council): and I wasn't looking it up recently, but since we're on the topic, what is the average acreage that's required, or minimum, for

[22:43] speaker 11 (council): this golf course. You know, usually.

[22:45] speaker 10 (council): they're in regional parks. You have auburn regional park. They use a portion of that park. Johnson springview park has renovated their soccer field area with a gazebo and a lot of places to rent. Very much like

[22:59] speaker 10 (council): mcbean. If you put something behind… down by the creek line, that's what you see often in orangevale, you see it in auburn, you see it where they can't really use… it's near walking trails, but it's kind of the outskirts. I would estimate

[23:14] speaker 10 (council): between 20 and 40 acres is about, you know, the size that you would need to adequately at least put in a small to medium-sized course.

[23:23] speaker 10 (council): but these have real impacts. I mean, yes, this last weekend, they had 165 players show up.

[23:30] speaker 10 (council): some coming from more than an hour or two away, reading and various areas in stockton, staying the night, eating in our restaurants, and living in rockland, or we hosted a few families here in lincoln and drove to sierra college to go play.

[23:44] speaker 10 (council): but I would say probably, you know, 20 to 40 would be the minimum, but there's plenty of areas, I think, within the community that we could leverage today.

[23:55] speaker 4 (council): well, we had a proposal a few years back that became very contentious, and we

[24:01] speaker 4 (council): move forward with that, but I was gonna ask sean.

[24:04] speaker 4 (council): I'm trying to picture the ground. Is there enough room left at foscett park, or is there another location that would be feasible? Well… because we've talked about this a lot. Yeah, I really appreciate your comments. It's nice to hear that.

[24:18] speaker 4 (council): I'm gonna tell you that I have a little bit of ptsd from…

[24:22] council: the last experience.

[24:26] speaker 10 (council): but, you know, in fairness to them.

[24:29] speaker 12 (council): maybe wasn't… it's a very linear location, and so it might not have been the best spot, but one cool thing, I don't know if it's you, but one of our staff has been working with a person in the disc golf community about a similar concept, kind of behind coyote pond, where it's a really big open space area.

[24:46] speaker 12 (council): and it has rolling hills, and I don't know about the topography of disc golf, but I can assume that it's like golf, you probably want a lot of movement.

[24:53] speaker 12 (council): and so we actually have, sort of a little generalized layout, and we were trying to learn the lessons that we didn't get right the first time.

[25:03] speaker 12 (council): and have some conversations with the community that lives in that area of 12 bridges to see how we could set it up

[25:10] speaker 12 (council): because that open space section with trail, in my opinion, is actually a little underutilized for how beautiful it is and big it is, and so this would be a nice way to do that. So perhaps we can connect and see if that's something you're interested in.

[25:24] speaker 10 (council): we have the backing of the most powerful manufacturer in the sport, and world champions here that, but ask them if they want to sponsor.

[25:31] speaker 4 (council): sponsor our course, that would be great, yeah.

[25:33] speaker 10 (council): we have their conditional verbal approval.

[25:35] speaker 12 (council): oh, wow. I'll wear their shirt.

[25:38] speaker 10 (council): yeah, no, appreciate it, thank you. Right, thank you so much. Thank you very much.

[25:45] speaker 2 (council): anyone else in the audience like to make a comment?

[25:49] speaker 2 (council): yes, sir.

[25:51] speaker 3 (council): my name is todd benzel, I'm pastor fred's son, obviously grown up here in lincoln my whole life, and I have a local business, squeegee guys, window cleaning, and all that. So, and I have kids.

[26:02] speaker 13 (council): and a family, raising them here in the community. I just want to add to the disc golf,

[26:07] speaker 13 (council): me and my son play, and my son's not a world champ, but he won a tournament last month up north of grass valley, and so he plays a lot, and…

[26:15] speaker 13 (council): I have twin girls that are 6, and they like to play, and so, just to add on to what ben was saying, you know, a lot of kids in the community, my family, we're all invested in disc golf, and

[26:27] speaker 13 (council): I just think it'd be a great, great thing for our community, you know. Born and raised here, and I love a disc golf park here, so we won't have to travel. So, I would just, you know, add to the bucher…

[26:38] speaker 13 (council): legend, maybe my son can win and represent lincoln the same way, so… I just wanted to throw that out there. I support the disc golf here in lincoln, so yes, thank you. Thank you very much.

[26:50] speaker 2 (council): anyone else like to make a public comment at this point before we go out to zoom?

[26:55] speaker 2 (council): okay.

[26:58] speaker 1 (council): see, no hands raised. Okay.

[27:01] speaker 2 (council): in that case, we will go through, finish off on,

[27:06] speaker 2 (council): public comment over here, a consent calendar. Does any of my colleagues want to pull a…

[27:13] speaker 2 (council): an item off the consent calendar today?

[27:16] speaker 2 (council): okay, staff?

[27:18] speaker 2 (council): anything in there were good

[27:19] speaker 2 (council): okay, in that case, we'll, we'll take one motion for all the items. Do I hear a motion? I move approval.

[27:26] speaker 4 (council): the consent calendar?

[27:27] speaker 2 (council): second over here. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, say no. 5-0, thank you very much.

[27:42] speaker 2 (council): okay, we have no public hearings tonight.

[27:47] speaker 2 (council): general business 15a, authorizing the issuance of a response to the placer county grand jury 2526 report, titled, public communication by placer county cities, correctionable deficiencies, presented by city manager sean.

[28:04] speaker 12 (council): thank you very much. Good evening, council. So, we received, as we have more years than we haven't,

[28:13] speaker 12 (council): notice from the grand jury that they,

[28:16] speaker 12 (council): report that, is related to lincoln and has findings and recommendations related to their investigation.

[28:23] speaker 12 (council): I'm gonna step through… I'll try not to take too long, but I want… I think the context matters here.

[28:30] speaker 12 (council): so, broad strokes, the placer grand jury, is, made up of community,

[28:41] speaker 12 (council): appointed, community volunteers, and their job is to sort of be a watchdog for local government, and…

[28:48] speaker 12 (council): associated services in placer county, and they study all kinds of things every year. They've had reports on,

[28:55] speaker 12 (council): human trafficking, they've had reports on,

[28:59] speaker 12 (council): utility rates, they've had reports on finances, etc. And,

[29:04] speaker 12 (council): their most recent report, was related to responsiveness in,

[29:11] speaker 12 (council): incorporated jurisdictions in placer county, and I apologize, I have, my wi-fi is not working correctly, so I'm pulling up my response here, but essentially, they received…

[29:22] speaker 12 (council): some complaints, about, cities in placer county, all cities in placer county, and…

[29:29] speaker 12 (council): they decided to do an investigation to get to kind of the bottom of what responsiveness looks like as it relates to cities communicating with their constituents and citizens and residents.

[29:40] speaker 12 (council): and any gaps that might exist, and how those can be improved.

[29:44] speaker 12 (council): and so they do that through their own, research, as well as interviews.

[29:50] speaker 12 (council): in some cases with senior staff.

[29:53] speaker 12 (council): at all jurisdictions, and so their, their report, which is attached to your agenda and is located on the grand jury's website, if anybody would like to read it, has…

[30:03] speaker 12 (council): a series of critiques of every jurisdiction, city jurisdiction in placer county, along with

[30:10] speaker 12 (council): some affirmative findings and some recommendations. And while they deviate a little bit from city to city, you see kind of commonalities across, and as I go through this, you… you'll… you can…

[30:23] speaker 12 (council): assume that many of these kinds of comments are reflected across the board, some more than others, and some more specific than others.

[30:33] speaker 12 (council): I think it'd be easiest for me to just go through the sections that are relevant to lincoln and what, my proposed response is, based on reviewing the report and doing our own kind of research into the matter.

[30:44] speaker 12 (council): and before I start reading these, also understand that,

[30:49] speaker 12 (council): I think, I maybe had started work with the city of lincoln for a couple of weeks, 5 years ago, when I had my first request to go up and visit the grand jury, and I've… I don't know how many times I've been up since, but many, many times over the years.

[31:02] speaker 12 (council): and I'd want to just say, to the extent that anyone's listening out there, that in general, I've appreciated working with them.

[31:09] speaker 12 (council): on, their various reviews, and some of the reports have…

[31:13] speaker 12 (council): been a little more critical of lincoln, and others have been very, very positive of us, so we sort of go with what they have and respond accordingly.

[31:23] speaker 12 (council): they identified four findings, and I'm going to read them verbatim, and then I'm going to read generalities of what the proposed response is.

[31:31] speaker 12 (council): the city of lincoln is either non-responsive or slow to respond to citizen phone calls and emails, resulting in potential citizen frustration and lack of confidence that their city government is receptive or will resolve certain

[31:45] speaker 12 (council): citizen issues.

[31:46] speaker 12 (council): the city of… the response that is proposed is the city of lincoln disagrees with this finding. Fun fact, we receive around 11,000 incoming calls per month.

[31:58] speaker 12 (council): on all manner of municipal business,

[32:01] speaker 12 (council): you know, day in, day out. And that, by the way, does not include calls to dispatch. That's just business phone calls that come in to us.

[32:10] speaker 12 (council): I, we track complaints pretty closely here, and management has not received any consistent complaints regarding responsiveness.

[32:18] speaker 12 (council): beyond…

[32:20] speaker 12 (council): you know, we have email correspondence with many members of the community, and depending on the nature of that correspondence, sometimes they require lengthier timeframes to get back to folks, because they require some research and work.

[32:32] speaker 12 (council): versus, you know, routine, simple questions. In the rare instances where we do have responsiveness issues,

[32:40] speaker 12 (council): we work really hard to address those immediately, and…

[32:44] speaker 12 (council): reinforce to our staff that customer service is a core principle of our organizational culture.

[32:49] speaker 12 (council): the second finding is that the placer grand jury was unsuccessful in getting a response from city of lincoln officials via email and phone calls requiring an on-site visit to get a response.

[32:59] speaker 12 (council): we partially agree with, we partially disagree with this finding. We, when we found, when we received the report.

[33:06] speaker 12 (council): we researched internal records of attempted contact by the placer county grand jury. We're able to verify the grand jury did attempt to contact us approximately 4 times during november of 25. Based on our call log system.

[33:19] speaker 12 (council): it appears that 3 of the 4 calls were actually made to the lincoln police department, not the city of lincoln mainline, which would have been the appropriate location to reach city hall officials.

[33:28] speaker 12 (council): for the one call that did make it to our main line, it appears that the caller was not routed to another number, which logically indicates the caller hung up before reaching a live person or mailbox. And we know this because our phone system logs every phone call that comes in, and we're kind of able to tell where it ends up in our phone tree.

[33:45] speaker 12 (council): additionally, city staff search email inboxes for any email correspondence from to the city of lincoln.

[33:53] speaker 12 (council): we're not able to identify any emails from the plastic hand jury.

[33:58] speaker 12 (council): until city of lincoln staff contacted, them via email after a hand-delivered note was given.

[34:03] speaker 12 (council): so, while we agree that it's true the contact wasn't made, it does appear that the… whoever was reaching out to us may have simply just dialed the incorrect phone number. You know, if you need to reach city administration, you'd typically call city hall.

[34:18] speaker 12 (council): our police department doesn't have a phone system that routes you to other geographic locations, here. So, with that said, responsiveness is really important to us, and we agree for a variety of reasons that the contact was not made in that limited instance.

[34:32] speaker 12 (council): city of lincoln lacks timeliness, excuse me, third finding. City of lincoln lacks timeliness and consistency in their policies for communicating with the public.

[34:39] speaker 12 (council): we disagree with this.

[34:41] speaker 12 (council): partially. The city, as a city that provides a full suite of municipal services, which is distinct and different from a number of other communities in placer county that are not, full-service cities, meaning they don't provide all of the, or most of the…

[34:54] speaker 12 (council): normal municipal services.

[34:57] speaker 12 (council): timely across… we consistently provide timely response across the spectrum of our various individual departments. There are exceptions to that responsiveness, but those are the exception, not the norm.

[35:09] speaker 12 (council): when we do find those exceptions, management works to address those as quick as we can, so we can continue with our core value of customer service.

[35:16] speaker 12 (council): we do partially agree that there is no consistent response standard that applies across all city departments. Some departments, for example, human resources, has a 24-hour response standard or sooner.

[35:29] speaker 12 (council): other departments may have slightly longer response timelines, and those are usually associated with departments that have much larger email or phone traffic, and also have limited staff to manage incoming calls and emails. There's also time of month.

[35:42] speaker 12 (council): constraints, depending on what may be happening. For example, there are portions of the month in utility billing where we have, hundreds of people a day coming in to pay bills and ask questions and call us on the phone when bills are due, and then we may have lulls for a week or two thereafter when bills are not due.

[36:00] speaker 12 (council): but with that said, prompt response is an expectation that's balanced alongside providing robust customer service.

[36:06] speaker 12 (council): versus less than helpful rapid response not paired with quality assistance to our constituents.

[36:10] speaker 12 (council): finally, finding 17, the phones at city of lincoln are frequently not answered by a live person and are forwarded to the utility building department's voicemail. This situation wastes time and leads to possible citizen frustration.

[36:22] speaker 12 (council): we disagree with this finding. Upon receiving the report, staff tested numerous city phone systems in various departments and had no issue reaching a live person.

[36:31] speaker 12 (council): we do recognize that depending on call volumes being received at any given time, it is possible that calls will roll over to voicemails, but those voicemails are expected to be returned on a timely basis. Again, non-prompt response would be the exception, not the norm.

[36:45] speaker 12 (council): now, to the three recommendations…

[36:48] speaker 12 (council): recommendation, 10, or 1 in our case, is that the city of lincoln should review its formal response protocol

[36:55] speaker 12 (council): for citizen concerns or complaints by including a requirement for an email or phone call response within 24 hours, by october 1st of this year.

[37:04] speaker 12 (council): our proposal is that the recommendation be partially implemented with the remainder to not be implemented as not warranted or reasonable. City of lincoln agrees to review its standard response protocol by department to evaluate current standards for responsiveness to phone calls and emails.

[37:20] speaker 12 (council): the city will not include a requirement for email and phone call response within 24 hours. It is not warranted.

[37:26] speaker 12 (council): to require this standard broadly across all departments is not feasible, depending on the volume of calls and emails, which vary significantly depending on many different factors, depending on the service being provided.

[37:36] speaker 12 (council): it's worth noting that lincoln has the lowest per capita staffing ratio within the greater sacramento region.

[37:41] speaker 12 (council): which can create some delays and immediate response on a rare periodic basis. With that said, reasonable, efficient response within 24 to 48 hours will be the general goal.

[37:52] speaker 12 (council): for each department.

[37:54] speaker 12 (council): the second recommendation, the city of lincoln should update its city's communication policy and provides training to management staff and city officials on communicating with the public by august 1st of 2026.

[38:05] speaker 12 (council): this recommendation is proposed to not be implemented as it is not warranted. We consistently review our internal response policies to adjust for varying workload and customer service demand.

[38:13] speaker 12 (council): we will continue to process and ensure responsiveness is swift and robust. With regard to training, we already provide all types of training for staff, including communication, customer service, etc. City of lincoln will continue to evaluate responsive needs of the community and apply additional training as necessary.

[38:29] speaker 12 (council): finally, and this one's a little longer, and I'll wrap up.

[38:33] speaker 12 (council): the city of lincoln should update its phone system, allowing the option of a live person to be contacted for all phone calls placed on october 1st.

[38:41] speaker 12 (council): by october 1st, 2026. For calls answered by the auto attendant, the city of lincoln should change the transfer feature from the utility billing department to a general mailbox by october 1st.

[38:52] speaker 12 (council): the proposal is to… that the recommendation will not be implemented because it's not warranted.

[38:56] speaker 12 (council): the main line already has an option by pressing 0 on the audio attendant to reach a live person immediately. The transfer feature to the utility billing department for general inquiries will not be changed at this time. Utility billing is a core customer service arm of the city of lincoln, and has the greatest number of dedicated customer service staff to handle our call volumes.

[39:15] speaker 12 (council): redirecting these calls to a general mailbox would be antithetical to the actual live personal responsiveness, thereby pushing callers into being forced to leave a voicemail, thus lengthening response times unnecessarily.

[39:27] speaker 12 (council): we… I wrapped up the response by just stating that we do take responsiveness and customer service very seriously, and we're not perfect. We do what we can to be as responsive as we can, while at the same time providing each resident as much as we can of our time, expertise, and assistance.

[39:47] speaker 12 (council): while we may not agree with the totality of the findings, we do appreciate it being pointed that responsiveness is a core function of our service to our community, and it's a constant effort of improvement.

[39:59] speaker 12 (council): we do have some new things that we've rolled out. We have our new chatbot feature on our website, which will help people receive response in a different manner, and we've been working on different ways for the community to contact us and receive immediate response from minor inquiries, thereby kind of lowering call volumes that, you know, otherwise could be handled more efficiently in other ways.

[40:19] speaker 12 (council): and that kind of wraps up the response, and

[40:24] speaker 12 (council): so, there are a couple things that we have partial agreement with, and a little bit of follow-up to do on our end, but in general, we're going to just circle back around with our teams and make sure that we're reminding constantly that we need to make sure we're being responsive to the community, even when workloads are quite heavy and we're otherwise engaged.

[40:43] speaker 12 (council): happy to answer questions.

[40:45] speaker 2 (council): thank you, sean. You and I have seen a lot of grand jury reports in our careers. And this city has been… has received some that are very critical. We've cured all of them. We've received some that are…

[40:59] speaker 2 (council): pretty benign, and I think that certainly goes into the benign category. I thought your responses were very charitable, frankly.

[41:06] speaker 2 (council): because we really do go to great extents to try and make sure that we communicate with our, with our citizens, or anyone else that calls in. So, yes, thank you for that, and I think we'll make the corrections that have to be done, and move forward. But I think it's a… I look at it as a win. That's what they came up with after a year's worth of studying lincoln at this point.

[41:25] speaker 12 (council): but, and look, I would encourage people to go read the response to all of the other communities in placer county. This is, you know, look, we're a service-based business. Everything we do is to serve,

[41:36] speaker 12 (council): segments and members of our community, and so the customer service and responsiveness aspect, everybody that works here, that's literally their job. We wouldn't have much to do if no one was calling. So when you get a couple hundred phone calls a day.

[41:50] speaker 12 (council): you can imagine that we're… pretty good at that at this point, in terms of…

[41:55] speaker 12 (council): be on board, but we certainly appreciate and want that. You know, I don't… I take no offense by it. I like the criticism, and I like the critique, because it makes us better.

[42:06] speaker 12 (council): comments?

[42:07] speaker 4 (council): so, sean, it's a requirement to send the response from the city. Do we ever get any comments or feedbacks from our response? We don't, generally, do we? I don't believe…

[42:20] speaker 12 (council): I probably responded to 6 or 7 reports over the years. I don't recall receiving any response afterwards.

[42:31] speaker 2 (council): okay, thank you. Anyone else?

[42:33] council: okay.

[42:34] speaker 2 (council): very good, let me see…

[42:38] speaker 2 (council): do we have any, speaker cards on this?

[42:42] speaker 1 (council): mr. Mayor, we do. I've received one speaker card, stan nader.

[42:56] speaker 7 (council): mr. Mayor and council?

[42:58] speaker 7 (council): in any business or organization, being responsive to their clients and customers is very important.

[43:05] speaker 7 (council): especially in a city where the residents are truly the owners of that entity.

[43:10] speaker 7 (council): because of the taxes they pay to that city.

[43:14] speaker 7 (council): in the city's response to the grand jury, it states that the city has received very few

[43:20] speaker 7 (council): complaints regarding phone calls.

[43:22] speaker 7 (council): an email's not being answered.

[43:25] speaker 7 (council): if you are a current observer of facebook.

[43:29] speaker 7 (council): you would know that there are routinely complaints… from lincoln residence.

[43:35] speaker 7 (council): but they cannot get anyone at city hall to answer their phones.

[43:40] speaker 7 (council): for emails.

[43:42] speaker 7 (council): it is disappointing that the city's prepared response to the grand jury works.

[43:50] speaker 7 (council): except for one response.

[43:52] speaker 7 (council): dismisses the grand jury's request to do corrective measures.

[43:59] speaker 7 (council): I would hope that you will encourage the city staff to make answering phone calls.

[44:06] speaker 7 (council): and emails a number one priority, regardless of what important project they may be working on.

[44:13] speaker 7 (council): because causing the citizens of lincoln to be frustrated… make them…

[44:22] speaker 7 (council): being willing to support any revenue measure.

[44:26] speaker 7 (council): I have had my own personal experience.

[44:29] speaker 7 (council): with this matter.

[44:31] council: after one council meeting.

[44:34] speaker 7 (council): I emailed city staff a question.

[44:37] speaker 7 (council): and waited for 2 weeks.

[44:39] speaker 7 (council): for a response.

[44:41] speaker 7 (council): I finally received a response.

[44:43] speaker 7 (council): an hour before the next council meeting.

[44:46] speaker 7 (council): and I had already prepared my comments related to that question.

[44:51] speaker 7 (council): timeliness and respect.

[44:53] speaker 7 (council): matter, and I'm hoping city staff will take this issue

[44:58] speaker 7 (council): of being responsive, seriously. Thank you. Thanks, dan.

[45:03] speaker 2 (council): anyone else in the audience?

[45:06] council: okay?

[45:07] speaker 2 (council): zoom?

[45:08] speaker 1 (council): mr. Mayor, I do not see any hands raised on zoom. Okay, very good. Bring it back to my colleagues. Any comments?

[45:17] speaker 2 (council): all right, very good. So, we're just, we'll consider approving the draft response to the placer county grand jury report, entitled, public communication by placer county cities, correctable decision… deficiencies.

[45:29] speaker 2 (council): and I'll take a motion.

[45:32] council: I move to authorize the issuance of bonds.

[45:35] speaker 2 (council): thank you, ben. Second? Second?

[45:38] speaker 2 (council): thank you, john. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. 5-0. Thank you very much.

[45:45] speaker 2 (council): 15b, adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager or designee to enter into a pledge agreement and amendment to the school facilities agreement between the city of lincoln, lincoln landholding, western placer unified school district, and the south placer regional transportation authority for the deferral of up to 50% of the tier 2 spot or development fees.

[46:05] speaker 2 (council): and that'll be presented by assistant city manager nita racker.

[46:10] speaker 4 (council): good evening.

[46:11] speaker 4 (council): good evening, mr. Mayor. Thank you for that. So, the item you have before you is consideration of the pledge agreement

[46:18] speaker 4 (council): for the deferral of the sparta tier 2 50% fees,

[46:23] speaker 14 (council): for the village 7 phase 1.

[46:26] speaker 14 (council): so this is a request that we submitted to sparta, back in, september of 2025.

[46:33] speaker 14 (council): are the city of lincoln's first deferral of fee request.

[46:38] speaker 14 (council): there are many agencies within this county that have requested deferred fees, including roseville, including placer county, over the years. The city has not taken advantage of this program before now.

[46:50] speaker 14 (council): prior to submitting this request, we did contact the executive director of sparta to touch base with him, ensure that the field deferral program was still viable and available to us. He did make affirmations to the city manager that it was.

[47:06] speaker 14 (council): so we moved forward with our request on september, and that was after the formation of a community facilities district for the village 7 area.

[47:16] speaker 14 (council): after that request was received by sparta, they reviewed it. They also reviewed the cfd, they reviewed the corresponding, school facilities agreement.

[47:27] speaker 14 (council): and they found the cfd lacking insufficient language to allow a deferral as allowed under the moa, the memorandum of agreement with sparta and its member agencies.

[47:41] speaker 14 (council): in that memorandum of agreement, there is an alternative path, another financing agreement, or another financing mechanism, as it's called, and so we requested that route.

[47:52] speaker 14 (council): that route, to my knowledge, hasn't necessarily been used by sparta before, and so we are developing this process as we go, which is the agreement that you have before you.

[48:04] speaker 14 (council): it states and concurs that the city is responsible to pay the fees. That is in accordance with the memorandum of agreement.

[48:15] speaker 14 (council): it basically says that we are adopting this agreement, which agrees that we have already agreed to pay the fees.

[48:23] speaker 14 (council): and so, we are asking your consideration of this pledge agreement. It is a bit of a complex agreement in that it requires the…

[48:34] speaker 14 (council): signatory of the city, as well as the developer and the school district. In addition, consenting signatures from the rest of the member agencies of sparta.

[48:45] speaker 14 (council): the city of rockland, the city of roseville, and the county of placer, and then I believe.

[48:50] speaker 14 (council): according to the moa, that it would still have to be approved by the sparta board.

[48:58] speaker 14 (council): I am happy to answer questions. Thank you.

[49:01] speaker 2 (council): first, questions from the council before we open it up for comments, and then we'll bring it back for comments.

[49:10] speaker 2 (council): okay.

[49:12] speaker 2 (council): okay, let's open it up. Do we have any speaker cards?

[49:16] speaker 1 (council): we have no speaker cards.

[49:18] speaker 1 (council): if there's anyone in the audience that would like to provide public comment, please approach the podium.

[49:27] speaker 1 (council): being then, I'll move over to zoom. If there's anyone on zoom that would like to provide public comment, please raise your hand.

[49:34] speaker 1 (council): I see no hands raised.

[49:36] speaker 1 (council): thank you.

[49:37] speaker 2 (council): I'll be back to my colleagues for comments. John? Yeah. Is someone…

[49:41] speaker 12 (council): from sparta here that could help me understand some policy things? Oh, great. Hey!

[49:47] speaker 2 (council): for the record, matt clerk, executive director, sprta, sparta.

[49:50] speaker 2 (council): thanks. So, sparta defer ferments, somewhat common.

[49:55] speaker 15 (council): happen before this, yes? Yes. Okay. What's the… what is the…

[50:01] speaker 15 (council): process that was used in some of those other ones.

[50:05] speaker 9 (council): need a, you know.

[50:06] speaker 10 (council): we'll put it in our staff report, and it's there, just to give you a high-level sort of executive summary of it.

[50:11] speaker 2 (council): a big difference in those when they formed their cfd. They had inside that cfd…

[50:18] speaker 16 (council): basically the method to do a second bond issuance to pay the deferred fees in 30 years.

[50:25] speaker 16 (council): your developer cfd was formed, executed, without that assurance, so…

[50:31] speaker 16 (council): what nita's saying is we're sort of doing this for the first time. This will be the first time we allow anybody to defer tier 2 fees without, basically, an obligation. So, you're looking to defer it with unsecured debt.

[50:45] speaker 16 (council): and that's why we're asking for that extraordinary step of going to the… getting a legal opinion from roseville, rockland, and the county.

[50:54] speaker 16 (council): right? Because we're essentially doing something that the moa has agreed to by all parties, never considered.

[51:00] speaker 16 (council): so we're trying to come to a middle ground to get you to, be able to have this tier 2 deferral.

[51:06] speaker 15 (council): right, okay, so… is…

[51:09] speaker 15 (council): so are you saying that the cfd that we adopted does not permit it to be used for deferred fees?

[51:16] speaker 15 (council): as…

[51:16] speaker 16 (council): as it is, yes, it is, it is… it is… it does not meet what sparta, the moa of sparta, has in it for tier 2 deferral.

[51:24] speaker 15 (council): right, okay, well, that wasn't the question I asked. Oh, I'm sorry. So, I asked if our… if the cfd we adopted permits us to use proceeds from a second, third, or fourth issuance to pay deferred sparted fees. Is your opinion that it does not allow us to do that? Yes.

[51:41] speaker 15 (council): can I get…

[51:43] speaker 15 (council): someone to weigh in on that, because it was my understanding that it very clearly allows us to pay fees.

[51:49] speaker 2 (council): yeah, I mean, there's no question that.

[51:51] speaker 10 (council): under the.

[51:51] speaker 16 (council): cfd, the city council acting as the board for the cfd, gets to decide.

[51:55] speaker 6 (council): how that money is spent. There's a list of eligible types of expenses and improvements.

[52:01] speaker 17 (council): that can be financed through the cfd. This falls within what would be eligible to be done. The refinancing is a little bit of an odd

[52:10] speaker 17 (council): concept for me, because when you refinance, you're only dealing with the original debt and obligations to start off with, so the fact that you can issue the debt and that it's a covered or allowable expense would be no different than… there's nothing special that comes from a refinance.

[52:25] speaker 15 (council): so I'm trying to understand, this feels like you're drawing a difference where there isn't one, and I'm not clear on

[52:29] speaker 15 (council): if the cfd permits the use of bond proceeds to pay deferred fees, what's the issue?

[52:36] speaker 16 (council): let me bring up general counsel, because you're getting into a technical hair here, where, you know, I'm not the finance expert. Cool, cool. Thank you. You come on up and give me a hand with the technical answer to this question?

[52:49] speaker 15 (council): good evening, aswan mosi, general counsel for sparta. So this all stems from the moa, the language in the moa, which is all the parties that have agreed to, and it essentially requires that a second bond issued.

[53:02] speaker 18 (council): of the cft… be referenced in the cfd, meaning you can use the tier 2 fees

[53:10] speaker 18 (council): you have to have a… you have to have the backstop of the ability to issue a second bond issuance. The current, cfd that was created in 2025, I believe, did not have that language. All prior ones we have dealt with have had that language consistent with the moa.

[53:28] speaker 18 (council): so that's why we've had to come up with this creative solution to the issue.

[53:34] speaker 18 (council): because the cfd that's currently in place does not allow for the second bond issuance to secure the tier 2 fees.

[53:42] speaker 15 (council): okay, so you're… I'm sorry, because you feel like you're repeating the same thing to me, and it's the same…

[53:49] speaker 15 (council): words, and you're drawing a differentiation. The cfd we adopted

[53:53] speaker 15 (council): the city council under either… either cfd… verbiage.

[53:58] speaker 15 (council): is the one that controls the issuance, and we have, every time they do it, there's a resolution that comes that we have to approve. It's pretty pervunctory normally.

[54:06] speaker 15 (council): it's allowed to cover sparta fees, right? Our cfd that we adopted in 2025 can cover sparta fees.

[54:14] speaker 15 (council): so, if the city of lincoln says.

[54:17] speaker 15 (council): that we agree to pay the fees to you.

[54:21] speaker 15 (council): and our cfd allows us to ensure that those come from the cfd that we've adopted, I'm not understanding what the problem is.

[54:28] speaker 18 (council): I think the issue that we're missing here is the projections that have been provided are insufficient.

[54:33] speaker 18 (council): but, no.

[54:34] speaker 15 (council): projections aren't verbiage. You talked about verbiage before, and now you're talking about projections.

[54:39] speaker 15 (council): right. What do you mean by projections? That the cfd can't generate enough money to pay the $2.9 million? That's correct, that's correct. Then you wouldn't be able to… well, hold on. Okay, so, as someone who was pretty involved in the development of that cfd, I can assure you that there is a lot of money in that cfd that is

[54:54] speaker 15 (council): available in paygo and otherwise to cover the $2.9 million, because there's millions in there to help for a school, plus extra to help them if they run into a problem.

[55:02] speaker 15 (council): plus extra on top of that. I mean, it's nearly a billion dollars.

[55:06] speaker 18 (council): those are obligated for… they have other obligations to the.

[55:09] speaker 15 (council): they have the obligations in the cfd the exact same as the sparta fees.

[55:14] speaker 15 (council): because what you really need is the city of lincoln to commit that we're going to pay the deferred sparta fees, which is what our obligation is under the moa, right?

[55:23] speaker 16 (council): we have, been in conversation with staff.

[55:27] speaker 16 (council): for over a year about this. We've had a myriad of technical conversation, and what you're bringing forward in the claim that there is enough money in there to pay wasn't even made by your staff. So, we're sort of arriving at new ground here today to think that that… that can pay it.

[55:44] speaker 16 (council): well, I guess… all of our analysis showed that it was insufficient to pay it in 30 years.

[55:51] speaker 17 (council): I mean, I just want to point out something that's logical. You don't need to refinance something that you can originally finance.

[55:58] speaker 17 (council): so, it wouldn't… if you can't pay for it with what you would originally finance, then you wouldn't be able to refinance it.

[56:04] speaker 17 (council): so the fact that it's covered initially means that it should be covered, and you would never have to refinance. The issue is whether or not there's an obligation to pay it.

[56:14] speaker 17 (council): whether it's through a refinance, or whether it's through an initial trance. Everything in the cfd has to be approved by a board. Nothing is… it goes in and goes obligated, it's through developer finance plans.

[56:24] speaker 17 (council): so, the idea that there's infrastructure that's spoken through, if there's a shortfall on investor… on the infrastructure that's contemplated through the finance plan, this board gets to control whether or not the developer has to make up the shortfall, or who's going to make it. So there's no security, extra security, that comes from a refinance that doesn't exist in the original financing.

[56:45] council: just one phone call.

[56:46] speaker 14 (council): yeah, staff did actually provide extensive financial information on the amount of paygo that is expected to occur each year during the life of the cfd. Staff has contended to sparta throughout this process that there is sufficient funds in the cfd to pay the fees. Sparta chooses not to agree with that.

[57:05] speaker 4 (council): and correct me if I'm wrong, as far as the paygo goes, we… and when we crafted this deal, we crafted it to that where lincoln has control over the paygo, correct?

[57:15] speaker 14 (council): actually controlled by a three-party board that can… is encompassed of the city, the developer, and the school district. Right.

[57:25] speaker 4 (council): but it's… but… but we…

[57:26] speaker 4 (council): we had language in there that made sure that we weren't just giving it away. Correct.

[57:32] speaker 2 (council): and we are legally responsible for it in any case.

[57:35] speaker 14 (council): legally obligated to pay the sparta fees as a member of sparta, as agreed to in the moa and the jpa already.

[57:42] speaker 15 (council): let me… so, when I… when I read through it, there's, there's two mechanisms as I read it, maybe you can clarify if I have this wrong. The first mechanism is this proposed language, which I'm still not failing to see the difference that you're drawing between

[57:58] speaker 15 (council): how much they obligate us to do it or not. But the second one is, is that the board of sparta has the ability to adopt an alternative one, correct?

[58:06] speaker 15 (council): so is there a reason that we can't provide an agreement with us and lewis to solidify that these will be paid and provided to the sparta board for approval as an alternative mechanism?

[58:18] speaker 18 (council): one hasn't been presented to us, and if it was presented, it'd have to be run by each of the members of the moa, because it's contemplating something that's not originally

[58:28] speaker 18 (council): in the moa.

[58:29] speaker 15 (council): okay, so the moa very clearly says, dfd language reviewed by staff.

[58:36] speaker 15 (council): or alternative funding approved by board. It does not say that all the member agencies have to effectively do an amendment to the moa in order to do it. It says the sparta board can… the sparta board can approve an alternative, which could be an agreement that says the city of lincoln and lewis

[58:53] speaker 15 (council): development, commit to do the thing they were already planning to do the whole time. So is there any reason why we can't do that, and it be brought to the sparta board for approval?

[59:01] speaker 18 (council): we have not received one in the year we've been talking about this. We have not received, as staff, any sort of alternative. But his question was, no, if we provided.

[59:10] speaker 15 (council): everyone, you can provide to the sparta board and meet your mou criteria as written today.

[59:16] speaker 18 (council): have to evaluate in terms of the financing and whether it's sufficient enough to support, like, the… if it's enough, the projections are enough, and the security is enough, and that…

[59:27] speaker 18 (council): it would be an evaluation from us as staff.

[59:30] speaker 18 (council): as well as potentially consultation with other members to the moa, parties to the moa.

[59:37] speaker 15 (council): their representation is on the sparta board, as the moa currently calls for. The approval of an alternative mechanism to approve a deferment is the board, and they're represented by their representatives, they don't, you know… what you're doing here in this document that I'm seeing is effectively an amendment to the moa, which is crazy.

[59:56] speaker 18 (council): no, so the disconnect is… is…

[59:59] speaker 18 (council): the board… the… the board member… they're… they comp… they comprise of sparta's board, right?

[1:00:05] speaker 18 (council): so, the moa was signed by individual jurisdictions. They can't bind the individual jurisdictions, you still have to go to the individual jurisdictions. That's not what…

[1:00:14] speaker 15 (council): the individual jurisdictions all approved that the sparta board can approve an alternative

[1:00:20] speaker 15 (council): deferment. That was already done. It's those four people's decision about whether they will accept that deferment, and staff can provide advice about whether to do that or not, but the decision was already made by the four jurisdictions that those four representatives have the power to approve an alternative. It's already in the.

[1:00:36] speaker 18 (council): moa. We're speaking in hypotheticals here, because… no, no, no, I'm literally looking right at not being presented with an alternative that's been viable to this point.

[1:00:43] speaker 15 (council): there's two separate things. There's what the moa says, which is the sparta board can approve a deferment. That's a process that was already adopted by the four jurisdictions that gives those four people the power to approve it. And then there's what the actual agreement would be before them to approve.

[1:00:59] speaker 15 (council): which can have lots of opinions and needs to have specifics that you're talking about. Those are separate things, and you're conflating them.

[1:01:09] speaker 12 (council): that's true.

[1:01:10] speaker 12 (council): so…

[1:01:13] speaker 16 (council): the action before you is to…

[1:01:15] speaker 16 (council): give staff the authority to enter into this negotiation and go around and walk around this. It sounds like there's not council support for that action.

[1:01:22] speaker 16 (council): so, what I would advise is that if the city of lincoln is not going to vote to the positive on that, that this is something we can just agendize, and you can bring this right to the sparta board. And we can see, and we can agendize it there and have that conversation there.

[1:01:36] speaker 16 (council): that would be my suggestion. Okay. And see if you can do that and get the deferral there. Yeah, I mean.

[1:01:41] speaker 15 (council): I think that it's worthwhile to have…

[1:01:44] speaker 16 (council): we'll give our, you know, our recommendation to our board. You can make your case, and we'll see where we land on the deferral.

[1:01:51] speaker 15 (council): yeah, I mean, I think… do you want to do that? My problem is, is that this process is crazy. It involves our staff going around the whole community to get everyone else to agree on essentially what amounts to an moa. We have a legal opinion.

[1:02:03] speaker 16 (council): which you've heard and you disagree with, and I respect that disagreement. So, if we can't get to some sort of, you know, compromise here tonight, then let's just take it to the sparta board, and we can air the deferral there. General counsel, staff, we will give our opinion as to whether or not the deferral is legal. You can make your case.

[1:02:21] speaker 16 (council): we'll call the vote.

[1:02:22] speaker 16 (council): that's why we had boards.

[1:02:26] speaker 15 (council): thank you, mayor.

[1:02:28] speaker 4 (council): well, and I… we don't know, because we haven't voted, but I wouldn't say that there's not support here. The point is…

[1:02:34] speaker 4 (council): we kind of resent having to, like, go through this process when

[1:02:38] speaker 4 (council): literally what he said, and then your council's arguing, and then you just said, just take it to the sparta board. Which is exactly what…

[1:02:47] speaker 16 (council): what I'm saying is, from a staff position.

[1:02:50] speaker 16 (council): we have been working for more than a year. We have tried to figure out a way, based on our interpretation, which you disagree with, and you have every right to disagree with, and our opinion is we disagree with your interpretation, right? Right? That's why we elevate and we escalate to policymakers, right? We are advisors.

[1:03:05] speaker 16 (council): if that is the case, that you want to go this alternate route. But from our perspective, we have been working for more than a year to come up with a way to get you to a tier 2 deferral that we don't see a path in the moa the way the cfd was constructed. Mr. White is disagreeing with that, mr. Reedy, you are disagreeing with that, so…

[1:03:23] speaker 16 (council): you know, that's… that's where we're at. But it is,

[1:03:27] speaker 16 (council): it has all been in the spirit of trying to get you to your tier 2 deferral.

[1:03:31] speaker 15 (council): I understand that you got the right… you're trying to do the right thing.

[1:03:34] speaker 15 (council): okay.

[1:03:38] speaker 16 (council): you got the chair right next to you. Okay. Yeah.

[1:03:44] speaker 6 (council): I am just beside myself that… that it has taken…

[1:03:50] speaker 6 (council): this long to… to come together.

[1:03:53] speaker 6 (council): to make a determination of what is acceptable based on

[1:04:01] speaker 6 (council): things that have been said already tonight.

[1:04:04] speaker 6 (council): the whole point of a jpa for… for the… for all of these

[1:04:09] speaker 6 (council): communities to come together is for us to work together.

[1:04:13] speaker 6 (council): everything I've seen… in this year that we've… gone through.

[1:04:19] speaker 6 (council): is beside that. It was… it has not been at all…

[1:04:26] speaker 6 (council): coming together and working together for the benefit of all.

[1:04:29] speaker 6 (council): in my opinion, based on what I've seen and how I've… been party to it is

[1:04:37] speaker 6 (council): there was one word that was left out.

[1:04:41] speaker 6 (council): and because it was left out, that…

[1:04:47] speaker 6 (council): that there isn't… there isn't any…

[1:04:50] speaker 6 (council): collaboration to fix it, other than

[1:04:53] speaker 6 (council): well, you know, you didn't come to us.

[1:04:56] speaker 6 (council): so, because you didn't come to us, you know, now you gotta…

[1:05:02] speaker 6 (council): let's do a circus, and do all the stuff that really is not necessary.

[1:05:08] speaker 6 (council): based on your point of view, or how you interpret, what's going on.

[1:05:13] speaker 6 (council): that… to satisfy the one word of what you call a guarantee,

[1:05:20] speaker 6 (council): it just makes me sick inside that we can't come to an agreement based on,

[1:05:27] speaker 6 (council): based on interpretation, because in future…

[1:05:30] speaker 6 (council): any city council could take a look, and they could… they could…

[1:05:35] speaker 6 (council): look at it and have a completely different opinion of how that's gonna be done, and guess what happens? You end up in court, somebody's suing somebody, and none of that is collaborative. None of that is, let's come together for the betterment of all, and get stuff done.

[1:05:53] speaker 6 (council): that's what makes me sick inside.

[1:05:56] speaker 6 (council): if you want to stick… if you want to just stand your ground just because you feel like it… you have to have a fiduciary responsibility to a word that we can't hold really anybody to, because future councils or anybody can have

[1:06:12] speaker 6 (council): a view of… an interpretation

[1:06:16] speaker 6 (council): of… and that's why you go with suits, right? You have one legal counsel here and another legal… they disagree, guess what? Now we need a judge. That's why you have suits. But to me, that's not collaborative. That's… I'm sorry, I can't… I can't see that what you're proposing is going to meet what you're talking about in future because of a word.

[1:06:35] speaker 6 (council): and… please forgive me for,

[1:06:43] speaker 6 (council): you know, being expressive.

[1:06:45] speaker 6 (council): councilla?

[1:06:47] speaker 16 (council): senator brown, I don't… I absolutely… you don't require any forgiveness. I completely understand your point, and I sit here at the podium addressing the dais to people who I consider friends, and I don't like the acrimony either. Trust me, I really wish that word was in there.

[1:07:01] speaker 16 (council): and I think you sort of made the point as well, in 30 years, none of us will be here, maybe a couple, most of us aren't going to be here. And, you know, it's going to be that contract and that document that's going to ensure that sparta gets that 50% of deferral fees. So, it's an important word.

[1:07:17] speaker 16 (council): it's not… I don't want to… I'd rather be at home, right, watching star wars right now. But I'm here. And I'm having this conversation because the cfd, as developed by the developer, is inadequate. But the thing that.

[1:07:29] speaker 6 (council): that makes me super sick, matt.

[1:07:31] speaker 6 (council): yeah. Is, why are we here tonight, more than a year later, going over this when, collaboratively, you could have said, hey, you know what? It really doesn't meet it, based on a word that we really need to have in there.

[1:07:45] speaker 6 (council): why don't we bring it to the board and provide a solution that makes it easier for everyone to collaborate and do that, instead of just digging your heels in and

[1:07:56] speaker 6 (council): causing what we're, we're, we're.

[1:07:58] speaker 16 (council): I think what we were trying to do is bring a recommendation to the board that everybody agreed with. None of us had the foresight that we were going to arrive at this position tonight.

[1:08:08] speaker 16 (council): I don't think your staff or my staff thought that. We were working through a process to try to figure out how we could do something that the moa does not contemplate. That's really important. The moa does not contemplate what you're asking us to do, and so we were trying to figure out a way to get you the deferral.

[1:08:27] speaker 6 (council): that's in your point of view, right?

[1:08:29] speaker 16 (council): that is… that is the legal opinion of council. Of one… correct.

[1:08:33] speaker 6 (council): so, is there any reason that you couldn't have said, look, we don't agree here, why don't we just bring it to the board and say, hey, board, we don't agree with what they're doing here, this is what they're proposing. Ultimately, it really needs to come down to what you say. Why are we so far in the process? We have not crossed that road yet?

[1:08:52] speaker 16 (council): well, because now, tonight, we have arrived at the impasse.

[1:08:56] speaker 16 (council): we did not have an impasse until tonight. We were working throughout it, right? So our last correspondence to your staff was in june, right? I got notice and a response to that in august, 10 weeks later.

[1:09:08] speaker 16 (council): so, if you have an issue with the fact of this being a year long, there's a lot of other business that takes place, I guess.

[1:09:16] speaker 6 (council): it's not just one-sided. Did you want to say something? No, I was just…

[1:09:20] speaker 18 (council): I mean, we've been transparent through the entire process, like matt said.

[1:09:24] speaker 18 (council): our last correspondence with this proposal was in june. We heard, I think it was friday or late last week, that this item was here. I was never contacted by council or anyone else to discuss this, if this was an issue. I've never had a discussion on it, but with… except for meeting with staff.

[1:09:43] speaker 18 (council): so…

[1:09:45] speaker 18 (council): I mean, and one other thing I'd like to clarify, because we keep going back to the cfd as it's currently constituted, and the fact that the city council controls it.

[1:09:54] speaker 18 (council): you have a third. The other… the land, the developer as well as the school district are all there.

[1:10:01] speaker 18 (council): right, so it's the judgment of that entity, not just the city council alone. So I just wanted to clarify that, so use of those funds could be used elsewhere, even though the city prefers to use it towards the tier 2.

[1:10:15] speaker 6 (council): not the way that it's crafted. Again, as, holly…

[1:10:19] speaker 6 (council): had clarified, although there's 3 in there, the language ultimately, shows that the city has the first say of how those are going.

[1:10:31] speaker 17 (council): let me just… I'm gonna address them quick, because there's some just crazy things being said.

[1:10:36] speaker 17 (council): number one,

[1:10:38] speaker 17 (council): the city acts as the cfd board. There's no other entity that acts as the cfd board.

[1:10:43] speaker 17 (council): there are infrastructure that gets paid for that benefits other entities, but the decision of who pays for that and what gets paid for is vested in the city council acting as the board of the cfd. So that's a complete misrepresentation of who's involved and who has control. So that's number one. Number two.

[1:11:00] speaker 17 (council): there's no need for a refinance if it's covered within the finance. In addition, the only way that you can create new debt is if you actually have a rate reduction, and that you're able to get cost savings from a rate reduction. You don't get to create new money through a refinance.

[1:11:17] speaker 17 (council): whatever money is created is because you've gone from a 5% interest rate to a 3% interest rate, and now the money goes further. So the idea that we're having this entire conversation over the word that you would have to be able to refinance, when it doesn't even create new debt, to me, is just crazy.

[1:11:34] speaker 17 (council): in your defense, you and I have never had this conversation, and I'm happy to have… if the council would like us to have this conversation, but I just want to make sure none of these… the debt is a debt, whether or not it's through a refinance or not, the only thing that you could pick up is the savings from a rate reduction.

[1:11:50] speaker 17 (council): there's a cap on what it could be done, it's vested when the project starts, so we're going to have to work with what we've got to work with, again, unless interest rates go back way down from where they were when the bonds are issued.

[1:12:03] speaker 17 (council): with that being… in that being said, 100%, I want to make it really clear, the city council acts as the board for the cfd. Nobody has input, they get to decide what gets paid. And so you have no more assurances through a refinance than you do if it was through the original financing, but that's it. I'm happy to have more conversations about it.

[1:12:22] speaker 2 (council): thank you, doug.

[1:12:24] speaker 17 (council): I'm done. Okay, any other comments?

[1:12:27] speaker 2 (council): do we have a motion?

[1:12:31] speaker 15 (council): so, it'd be, my motion that

[1:12:34] speaker 15 (council): we either say no or table this proposal and direct staff to come up with a deferment agreement that looks more like the one that they did with the county between us and lewis, in consultation with sparta's staff that tries to meet their obligation without this crazy whole thing.

[1:12:53] speaker 15 (council): and then take it to the sparta board as an alternative mechanism.

[1:12:58] speaker 15 (council): before… you can take the crazy out of the direction.

[1:13:01] speaker 14 (council): I was gonna leave… I feel like the crazy's in there just inherently, so that's fine, yeah.

[1:13:06] speaker 4 (council): yeah, I agree. I am in favor of the deferral for the project, and we'll get there, but I… I don't think that we need to… we need to do all this. I think it needs to go to the sparta board and let them decide.

[1:13:21] speaker 16 (council): so, so…

[1:13:23] speaker 2 (council): is there a second to john's? Yeah. Okay, good. Second. Does staff have any problems with the, with the, with the language? Nope.

[1:13:31] speaker 2 (council): good. Any comments on it? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. 5-0. Thank you very much. You're welcome.

[1:13:44] speaker 2 (council): okay, 15c, adopt a resolution, approving the reclassification of the police department's public safety director position to police chief, and adopt the revised police chief salary schedule presented by

[1:13:56] speaker 2 (council): veronica rodriguez.

[1:14:08] speaker 2 (council): good evening, mayor, council members. This item before you tonight is mostly a classification and compensation cleanup item.

[1:14:15] speaker 19 (council): it's based on the change in the oversight for our police department and fire department.

[1:14:21] speaker 19 (council): so with the appointment of the, fire chief in last year, the police department,

[1:14:29] speaker 19 (council): or the police chief is no longer overseeing the fire department. The police…

[1:14:35] speaker 19 (council): public safety chief concept was originally created back in,

[1:14:42] speaker 19 (council): 2019, with the establishment of the shared services agreement with rockland.

[1:14:47] speaker 19 (council): and so with that model, the police… it's actually… I keep getting confused, because it's… we call it the police chief, but it's not. It's…

[1:14:54] speaker 19 (council): or the public safety chief. It's public safety director. That's how it was established. I don't know why it was established that way. But anyhow,

[1:15:03] speaker 19 (council): so the public safety director was responsible for the oversight of both the fire department and the police department, and now with the hiring of the current fire chief, that model's no longer necessary.

[1:15:14] speaker 19 (council): so, we are asking, to have the police

[1:15:18] speaker 19 (council): director position, the public safety director position, reclassified to the police chief position. The reason for doing that is to ensure for future recruitments that this position is properly allocated. The other portion of this request is to

[1:15:36] speaker 19 (council): changed the salary schedule for that position because the police chief, although it remained,

[1:15:43] speaker 19 (council): on the salary schedule, it has a salary that was assigned to it in 2022. So we need to update it to the current executive level salary band.

[1:15:53] speaker 19 (council): and so those two actions are what is being requested tonight. The responsibilities remaining for the existing police chief are those for, of the oversight of the police department, no longer the fire department. So this just basically aligns us with the,

[1:16:10] speaker 19 (council): duties that are being assigned by the position.

[1:16:14] speaker 19 (council): so, I have… concludes my presentation. If there's any questions you have, I'm here to answer them.

[1:16:21] speaker 2 (council): thank you, veronica. Any questions from the council before we go to public comment and then bring it back for comment?

[1:16:27] speaker 2 (council): okay.

[1:16:28] speaker 1 (council): in that case, hope, do we have any cards?

[1:16:31] speaker 1 (council): I have no speaker cards. If there's anyone in the audience that would like to provide public comment, please approach the podium.

[1:16:40] speaker 1 (council): seeing none, I'll move over to zoom. If there's anyone on zoom, please raise your hand.

[1:16:46] speaker 1 (council): I see no hands raised.

[1:16:50] speaker 2 (council): very good. Running back to my colleagues for, comments.

[1:16:56] speaker 2 (council): anyone?

[1:16:58] speaker 2 (council): yeah, I was just gonna say, you know, we did this because it was necessary under the circumstances, and matt did a fabulous job in maintaining the continuity and the morale and the professionalism of both departments, but this is the time to go back to where

[1:17:17] speaker 2 (council): the proper venue for it, and so, we're back there again, so…

[1:17:22] speaker 4 (council): yeah, I thought we already did this, so when I read this, I was like, oh, did we already not do this?

[1:17:27] speaker 2 (council): we did it in on mine. We did, yes.

[1:17:29] speaker 4 (council): I don't remember anybody.

[1:17:30] speaker 11 (council): saying director. Right.

[1:17:33] speaker 2 (council): so, I move approval. Okay, very good. Second? Second. Okay, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Nope. 5-0. Thank you very much.

[1:17:41] speaker 2 (council): okay, city manager report.

[1:17:43] speaker 12 (council): thank you. Yeah, I can't think of, for a police chief, or a fire chief for that matter, to be called a public safety director. Sounds pretty dorky, I don't think so.

[1:17:51] speaker 16 (council): that is very underwhelming.

[1:17:56] speaker 12 (council): so, actually, it's a timely item, because, I… this is not probably news to everyone,

[1:18:06] speaker 12 (council): follows what we do here.

[1:18:09] speaker 12 (council): but, to those that don't, you may not know this, so…

[1:18:13] speaker 12 (council): we are going… this is just an announcement, next meeting,

[1:18:19] speaker 12 (council): will be, our chief's last city council meeting here.

[1:18:24] speaker 12 (council): and, he's super sad about it.

[1:18:27] speaker 12 (council): and,

[1:18:29] speaker 12 (council): and so I'm gonna share a little bit about… a little bit out of a press release that we released, this morning.

[1:18:34] speaker 12 (council): related to, chief matt alve's, retirement, and then one little anecdote, and then I'm gonna save all the other mushy stuff to make him uncomfortable next meeting.

[1:18:44] speaker 12 (council): but, the city of lincoln would like to announce the retirement of chief mount alves, concluding a distinguished career in law enforcement, more than three decades of public service here for the city of lincoln.

[1:18:55] speaker 12 (council): al's roots date back to 1981, when his family moved to the community. He attended glen edwards middle school, graduated from lincoln high in 94, where he met his wife, denise. The two married in 96, raised 6 children in this community.

[1:19:10] speaker 12 (council): they are grandparents to three, and a fourth grandchild is now on the way.

[1:19:14] speaker 12 (council): he began his public safety career, if you can believe it, in 1994 as a volunteer firefighter for placer county.

[1:19:22] speaker 12 (council): fire station, fire department station number 75. He had his paramedic license in 98, and here we are, what, a little less than 30 years later, 20 years later, trying to actually bring paramedics on, as paid people here, so…

[1:19:38] speaker 12 (council): he was the… he was one of the first, I guess you could say. In 99, he joined the lincoln police department as a dispatcher before becoming a police officer trainee in 01.

[1:19:48] speaker 12 (council): and the department, which we can't do so much anymore, sponsored his attendance to yuba college basic police academy, where he served with distinction.

[1:19:56] speaker 12 (council): al's served nearly every capacity within the lincoln police department, and I do mean every capacity. He, at one time, was our it guy at the police department, as a… as a uniform badge soldier, officer, rather.

[1:20:10] speaker 12 (council): and, and has served in a variety of different… detectives, I mean, you name it. He's worked in virtually every job that you can work, and very few police officers also served as a dispatcher once in their career.

[1:20:21] speaker 12 (council): and then in 2021, just a few months before actually I came here, he was appointed public safety director, overseeing both police and fire.

[1:20:30] speaker 12 (council): and return… and, I think he let out a big sigh of relief when we hired chief mejia.

[1:20:37] speaker 12 (council): he came to me one day in my office and said, you know, I really need somebody to watch over the fire department.

[1:20:43] speaker 12 (council): can't make the time for it with all the other things we have going on.

[1:20:47] speaker 12 (council): and I…

[1:20:48] speaker 12 (council): said, oh, wow, sheesh, you know, that… that does sound like a lot. Well, what he was really doing that whole time was we were hiring a new fire chief one that we made, only about a year and a half later. And so, chief returned to just being a plain old police chief after that.

[1:21:02] speaker 12 (council): it has continued to be excellent.

[1:21:05] speaker 12 (council): known for his steady leadership.

[1:21:07] speaker 12 (council): professionalism and commitment to public service in lincoln.

[1:21:11] speaker 12 (council): one thing I do want to mention about him that is my favorite thing about him, we spend a lot of time together.

[1:21:18] speaker 12 (council): I've worked together on a lot.

[1:21:19] speaker 12 (council): he… some public servants, and you could probably put me in this category, serve their community loudly.

[1:21:27] speaker 12 (council): and others let their work speak for itself. And matt falls into the latter category. He never raises his hand for praise, he does not pursue direction and the purpose of self-aggrandizement, and his direction has traditionally been focused on what's best for the police department, his staff, and the city of lincoln, and that's the nicest thing I can say about him.

[1:21:44] speaker 12 (council): so, I'm gonna leave it at that, just a big round of applause for him.

[1:21:52] speaker 12 (council): and, his family and the community and his staff are all going to have the opportunity to come to the next city council meeting, where we'll be having a formal agenda item recognizing his service and

[1:22:03] speaker 12 (council): kicking him in the rear end and sending him on his way.

[1:22:07] speaker 12 (council): so, that… chief, did you want any more? Or is that good? Okay.

[1:22:14] speaker 12 (council): I was gonna, mention wings and wheels, I don't need to do that, the mayor did it. One cool thing I wanted to mention is that,

[1:22:22] speaker 12 (council): we have, we have… so we hold… now that we've restarted the mayor's cup, which is a golf tournament that the city of lincoln throws, throws every year, where we raise money for a scholarship program.

[1:22:34] speaker 12 (council): that we use in our recreation program. So if you can't afford, to put your kid into one of our rec programs, we have basically a bank account that will subsidize or fully fund your, your,

[1:22:47] speaker 12 (council): participation in the program. And while, we advertise it a lot, the community doesn't… the really nice thing about lincoln is only really the people that really need it ever ask for it, and so it doesn't get used as much as we'd like it to.

[1:23:00] speaker 12 (council): so one really cool thing that recreation's been doing this year is they've teamed up with coppin.

[1:23:07] speaker 12 (council): burst street, and I think creekside oaks, with administrators at those schools to identify families that likely

[1:23:14] speaker 12 (council): could use that assistance. And over the summer, what we did for the first time ever is we used some of that money to throw free pool nights for the community, and so we had

[1:23:24] speaker 12 (council): one night, almost 100 families come down, and there was a party, and they could come into the pool, and everything was free for them to come enjoy, and then subsequently used those scholarship programs a lot more at the pool.

[1:23:37] speaker 12 (council): over the summer, which we traditionally haven't done. We've usually used it for kids' camp, which are pretty expensive programs.

[1:23:42] speaker 12 (council): and, and others. So, mayor's cup is coming up,

[1:23:48] speaker 12 (council): I think we do it in october. And, I encourage everybody, if you're interested in playing, it goes to a really great cause, and, we, if we don't use the money that year, it rolls over to the next, and we keep building the bank account to help folks participate in the program.

[1:24:02] speaker 12 (council): and then finally, also in october, I believe, we are doing, the state of the city, so our,

[1:24:09] speaker 12 (council): mayor pearl will be giving a presentation on what's happened in 2026. Still working on some details about location and the production, but we'll get that information out to everybody. We partner with the chamber on that effort, and…

[1:24:22] speaker 12 (council): every year we try to do a little better, so we're hoping this is an exciting

[1:24:27] speaker 12 (council): we want it to be fun, we don't want people to just be talked at for 30 minutes, so we'll do what we can. That's… we're gonna kind of depend on mayor pearl for that.

[1:24:35] speaker 12 (council): no worries. That's what I got tonight. Thank you.

[1:24:40] speaker 2 (council): okay, very good, thank you. Okay, council initiated business, anything that my colleagues have?

[1:24:45] speaker 2 (council): howdy.

[1:24:46] speaker 2 (council): spend.

[1:24:48] speaker 6 (council): yeah, there's been… as you are all aware.

[1:24:52] speaker 6 (council): quite a lot of talk about… flock.

[1:24:55] speaker 6 (council): camera misuse, and so on and so forth.

[1:25:00] speaker 6 (council): with some concerned citizens, I feel that it would be a good idea to maybe do a workshop

[1:25:06] speaker 6 (council): community workshop.

[1:25:08] speaker 6 (council): so that we can… involve the community members that are very concerned about it.

[1:25:16] speaker 6 (council): allow them to present, you know, information that they feel like they've gathered, allow us to…

[1:25:23] speaker 6 (council): collaborate back and forth to… get some good education on the matter, so that…

[1:25:29] speaker 6 (council): to concerned citizens. Yeah, I agree.

[1:25:31] speaker 4 (council): didn't we say we were gonna do that? Did we talk about that last time? Yeah, so…

[1:25:35] speaker 12 (council): quick update on that. We… we had contemplated perhaps putting something on this agenda, excuse me.

[1:25:46] speaker 12 (council): we had contemplated putting something on the agenda, for this meeting. Some… so, there's been a… the flock,

[1:25:55] speaker 12 (council): debate has sort of caught fire nationwide, and beyond that even. And we've been trying to wrap our heads around

[1:26:04] speaker 12 (council): what the concerns are, there's sort of a spectrum of concerns. Some of the… the furthest end of the spectrum is none of them should be in any public space at all.

[1:26:16] speaker 12 (council): then you go down the line a little bit, and it has to do with what are the reasonable controls, who has access to the information, if you're going to use it, how do you use it, and how do you, you know, ensure that bad actors don't abuse the tool.

[1:26:28] speaker 12 (council): so there's a lot to it, right? And, then, as we… really about a week and a half ago,

[1:26:35] speaker 12 (council): well, a couple weeks ago, flock, the company itself, have proposed and are going to be instituting a series of changes, and kind of somewhat in response to

[1:26:44] speaker 12 (council): the public outcry about the technology. And we really wanted to get a better idea about how their changes may affect how we administer our flock system before we,

[1:26:56] speaker 12 (council): have the conversation with the community, because one of the things we've learned is that there are going to be a lot of questions, and we want to have very specific, detailed answers for people. In addition to…

[1:27:06] speaker 12 (council): you know, the chief and I have spent a lot of time being kind of self-critical about how we use the program, where we may have gaps, and where we could tighten things up a little bit, if it makes sense.

[1:27:17] speaker 12 (council): at the end of the day, this is a city council policy decision. You fund the infrastructure and equipment.

[1:27:22] speaker 12 (council): and,

[1:27:23] speaker 12 (council): when council adopted this number of years ago, there was some discussion on that, and perhaps it's ripe again to have a discussion now that times have changed a little bit. So our idea is, in september, to have a…

[1:27:35] speaker 12 (council): workshop, probably not on a normal council night, on a night where this is the only item where we can discuss, so that people can get their questions answered and share their opinions about the technology and its use thereof moving forward. So, that's the plan.

[1:27:50] speaker 12 (council): I'm hoping…

[1:27:51] speaker 12 (council): in the first couple weeks in september, chief asked me to schedule it on september 18th, would be the day after his retirement. Thanks, chief. Yeah, it's forthcoming, and thanks very much to councilmember brown, because he's reached out a few times on that, and we want to have a discussion. It's important. Yeah, this is a topic that…

[1:28:08] speaker 2 (council): that's,

[1:28:09] speaker 2 (council): is evolving that right now with the… with the company themselves making significant changes, so let's figure it out. Good, very good. Cool. Thank you very much. Okay. Committee reports.

[1:28:22] speaker 4 (council): I don't have a lot. We… I had a caicog meeting last thursday, and we really didn't get to do much business because we didn't have a quorum.

[1:28:30] speaker 4 (council): they didn't have enough supervisors. Some of them were at the state of the city for roseville, some of them were at a funeral, so we talked about the, the ceo, the executive director's, performance review, and then we literally had to

[1:28:44] speaker 4 (council): go because there was not enough people there, and so we had, budget information to talk about, so that was kind of frustrating, but…

[1:28:51] speaker 4 (council): getting back in the swing of things, you know, summer's over, unfortunately, and so we're… we're back to work, but…

[1:28:57] speaker 4 (council): that's… that's all I got.

[1:28:59] speaker 2 (council): whitney?

[1:29:02] speaker 11 (council): I don't really think there is anything…

[1:29:04] speaker 11 (council): really important that I needed a report out from library and edc, but let me know if you think of something that I missed.

[1:29:12] council: same with edc.

[1:29:15] speaker 15 (council): yeah, just some new initiatives, sports complex, 5.

[1:29:21] speaker 15 (council): okay, john, anything else? So I had watma, not… wasn't so much with the… with the facility, but an important update.

[1:29:30] speaker 15 (council): there's,

[1:29:33] speaker 15 (council): regulation called 1383 about organics, and it's a critical factor for why, wama, the landfill, invested $150 million in an update, is to become a 1383 qualified facility. That provides for all of us that are…

[1:29:50] speaker 15 (council): part of that to be qualified, which allows us to continue to have the one big bin, which is a huge cost infrastructure savings for us, not having to run extra routes and everyone having three bins versus two and all that.

[1:30:01] speaker 15 (council): it's not official yet, but they just completed their third, audit. There are four they have to go through to meet the requirement, and they've passed on the first three, so we've got one left.

[1:30:13] speaker 15 (council): if that happens in october, then the facility would be qualified as a high diversion facility, which is one of the first, I think.

[1:30:20] speaker 15 (council): in the state to meet that requirement. So it's super exciting. It's a long time coming, but it's really exciting.

[1:30:27] speaker 12 (council): first… yeah.

[1:30:29] speaker 12 (council): do we use that term?

[1:30:30] speaker 15 (council): we just use mrf. Mrf, okay. Mrf, yeah. Materials recovery facility.

[1:30:38] speaker 6 (council): next meeting, I'll probably have something to talk about, because I have sparta.

[1:30:43] speaker 17 (council): tomorrow.

[1:30:44] speaker 2 (council): okay, no doubt in my mind.

[1:30:47] speaker 4 (council): oh, and dolly parton died today, so, very sad. Oh, yeah, that's right.

[1:30:52] speaker 4 (council): not that it has anything to do with the city, it's just sad.

[1:30:55] speaker 12 (council): we should also point out the same dolly parton that sent a direct message for city council during, the naming of highway 193, remember?

[1:31:06] speaker 4 (council): that's right, she sent a direct message for joey mitchell when we named the highway, because she met him, they were friends, and she… we watched the video, she sent a message to us, yeah. So, yeah, it was very cool, yeah.

[1:31:19] speaker 2 (council): all my committees were adjourned for the month, so with that being the case, we're adjourned.

2026 REGULAR MEETING - City Council / Lincoln Redevelopment Successor Agency / Lincoln Public Financing Authority (4th Tuesday/month)

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