All right, we're going to bounce right into our regular city council meeting. It's 7 p.m. Welcome, everyone.
Before we get a call to order, I just want to let everybody know that this meeting tonight is a joint meeting
of the city council and the Tracy Operating Partnership Joint Powers Authorities Board.
So again, thank you, everyone, for coming.
If you could all please stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing
if you wish for the invocation by Pastor Tim Heinrich from Crossroads Baptist Church.
It's not here. I don't see him. All right, with that being said, everybody can have a seat.
Get a roll call, please.
Councilman Ariola.
Present.
Councilman Ransom.
Present.
Councilman Vargas.
Here.
May I approach him young?
Present.
And Mayor Rickman.
Here.
All right.
Consent color.
Anybody want to pull anything from consent?
Anybody for the audience, we should pull anything from consent.
All right.
I have one, I think.
Let me hold, give me one second.
Okay.
All right. I'm going to want to pull item 1j make a motion to approve consent Titan agenda minus 1j
I'll second that motion in real call, please
Councilman vagus. Yes. Councilman Renson. Yes. Councilmember areola. Yes. Me approach him young. Yes. And me recommend. Yes.
I get a staff report.
I'll be happy to do that in the absence of Midori.
So ad hoc subcommittees are of a limited duration.
They're temporary.
We established, have formally established an ad hoc for the homelessness strategic plan
purposes, comprised of Council Member Ransom and Council Member Areola.
It expires at the end of the calendar year.
And so typically you have to re-establish the ad hoc committees and that is what
we're doing this evening under consent. And so this will run from January 1st through
June 30th, 2020. Six months, this should allow the ad hoc committee to complete the strategic
plan and then also bring back anything related to the feasibility of temporary shelter.
And it's as simple as that. That concludes my report.
All right. Thank you. Anybody from the audience wish to comment on Item 1J?
Say
And one of the things that at least some confusion, some members of the community, and myself too,
is with the ad hoc committee, and we have the homeless task force, so where does one
begin and one end?
What would you like to answer that?
It doesn't matter.
Okay.
I mean, you're one part of the ad hoc.
Okay, so I'm part of the ad hoc and this Council also made me an official liaison to the Homelessness Task Force.
The Homelessness Task Force is a separate entity from the City Council.
The City Council's ad hoc committee brings recommendations for policy decisions in relations to strategic policies that we as a Council can vote on,
where as the homelessness task force is a collaboration of service providers and people
who are concerned with resolving the homelessness issue in the community, the homelessness task
force has participated in the team of care which actually made it possible for the city
to actually qualify for the funding for the strategic planning grant. But the homelessness
task force is an entity that is not a decision maker. They can only advocate on behalf and
to bring those concerns to the city council.
So although I bring that information for the task force,
the ad hoc committee of Areola and myself
meet with the city manager, we meet with Midori,
we meet with the city staff,
and we bring policy recommendations
based on the meetings that we have regarding homelessness.
Okay.
And one more, yeah, these are, I mean, I have a couple of concerns, and one of them was being,
and this is one of my concerns, is the
internship with your organization, the SOA Seed Melinda,
I think her name is.
Melinda, she's not a SOA Seed intern.
SOA Seed Community Foundation, my employees.
Yeah, I just want to know where this fits in.
has nothing to do with the homelessness task force. We don't serve homelessness as gets
implied here by people on the council. We do not get grants for homelessness. Melinda
Ramirez is a graduate student at University of Chico or Chico State University and she
interns with me in regards to my position on city council. Has nothing to do with
my day job. Melinda is not paid.
Okay. I have a letter from the Melinda Ramirez. The reason I'm asking is that you're right.
It says, I'm a senior at CSU Chico Study and Sociology.
And my internship involves 240 hours that will be devoted to working on the issue of homelessness and Tracy.
So my question is,
is that working as part of the ad hoc committee?
Is that working as your organization in regards to the task force or just working for the
task force?
No.
Melinda is an intern.
As a city council member, I have the right to have interns.
I'm just saying you know how things work.
So Melinda is my intern as a council member.
She is assigned to different tasks through me in relation to the issues of homelessness.
She also has experience for the last several years working in the issue of homelessness helping to put together shelters.
She's worked for several shelters in the city that I will not name.
And she's also worked as a case manager for the issues of homelessness in regards to helping make sure that we are resolving the issue of homelessness.
So as a council member, I have her as an intern to do research for me.
I've had to research different models that I've been interested in proposing to the city,
such as the Santa Ana referral-only shelter model.
I've had her research, you know, similar-sized cities, job program from homelessness, different
sort of collaborations for homelessness.
She does not make any decisions.
She just does tasks that I assigned to her based on the guidelines of her professor.
She has 240 hours of specific strategic research tasks that she needs to complete.
And I provide a grade and feedback to her professor, very similar to when I was a professor and
I had interns that worked out in the community.
We needed to make sure that their work was quality work and making a contribution to
the community.
So that's her service and that's her requirement for her school.
And I do that as a council member.
Okay.
So she's not working for SOASED?
It does not have a job with SOCI. She's not.
So she's interning with you in your official capacity as council member.
But she does.
And she also assists me with tasks for that.
She's a member of the Tracy Community Homelessness Task Force,
which is, she's a member of that,
as well as a bunch of other members in the community.
Okay. No, that's, that was my three main questions is, you know,
where is the line?
I mean, I see it as a convoluted myself is that you have two organizations, one the ad hoc,
one being the homeless task force, and where does one start and one begin?
Well, the homeless task force cannot make any decisions for this council.
Right, I understand what you're saying.
some individuals here in the community.
So overall, the goal is to resolve and bring solutions for homelessness.
It doesn't matter how many committees I need to be part of on this council.
I can be a member of the full council, a member of the ad hoc committee,
and that's kind of where the line ends here.
But in the community, whatever additional opportunities there are,
that's where I'm going to be.
So what exactly, I mean what, I mean the council hasn't, and this is one of the reasons I disagreed with having the ad hoc committee with the transparency side.
I know the council hasn't been apprised of anything. So what exactly is the ad hoc committee doing?
What have you guys accomplished? Can you let the rest of the council know?
Or is that even appropriate here? Or is I'm going out beyond the scope?
I would love to answer a lot of questions.
The agenda item before council is for council to establish.
So you're saying that's going beyond the scope?
No.
No, I'm talking.
I do think some are relevant questions to the item at hand, right?
The item at hand is that council established the ad hoc committee for the new year.
Okay, so that's okay then.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I think that's relevant.
I mean, we're just wanting to make sure.
If you feel that you have questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them.
So in regards to the whole purpose of the ad hoc committee was to be able to move forward some policies specifically the strategic plan.
In the beginning the city did not qualify even to get the grant.
However, because the task force did exist and me being the liaison was able to bring that information make that connection so that we can get free technical assistance in order to do a strategic plan.
The original strategic plan technical service provider had advised us that we would be completed with that project by December.
However, they needed to push that back. The original meetings were supposed to start earlier.
And because they pushed that back, that's why we're even having this discussion.
We just wrapped up three of the four public sessions that need to happen.
So the first session was with service providers for homelessness,
bringing everyone to the table to talk about goals, not just talk about complaints and what we don't want to see.
We're really focused on what are the solutions that would fit the Tracy community.
We had a weekday opportunity, a week-end opportunity for people from the community to come.
Again, provide their input for what they think is best for this community.
We've had several meetings with different nonprofit agencies that are not local here,
but some that are out of town who have also been able to demonstrate that they can have
shelters that are not, you know, attracting new homeless from out of town, but still be
able to be selective in who they allow in those shelters.
So basically what we've been doing is bringing different proposals we've gone to when we
go to Lilligo Cities, we've gone to different workshops on how we can resolve those issues
and what best practices are, but more than anything, we've been working alongside our
city manager bringing most of the, any request that we've made that needs to be voted on,
we've made publicly, such as the request to look into what it would take to do an emergency
shelter after we, you know, found deceased person, homeless deceased person, as well
as the murder of a homeless person in the park.
So we brought those, those are the type of things that we've been doing is really,
we've met with the community to hear some of their questions and really the whole purpose
was to do a strategic plan. We've been working through the city manager and the assistant
city manager with the technical assistance provider. So we are just to the point where
they are going to be bringing back their recommendations and that's when the council as a whole have
an opportunity to vote as to what our next direction is.
Real quick one. So when you're meeting and say, I've only seen, you know, since,
you know, that's the thing, council, we can't really go.
The other council members because of the Brown Act and stuff.
But one that I did see, like for the TECA meeting,
is that in your capacity as ad hoc,
is that your capacity as like task force?
I was invited to the TECA meeting
as a member of the council, as an ad hoc committee.
They had an originally a question
and they wanted to get clarification.
When I'm there, I am the liaison
on from the task force to this council as well as a member of the council as well as
a member of the ad hoc committee. I made it very clear in fact the city manager was there.
We provided clarification. You were also there as well as council member Vargas. So the
answers were there. Is there a point that you're going to say?
No, I'm just, I don't, I just don't. I'm sorry if I, I hope you don't take an
offense with that. I just don't.
I'm not taking offense, there's just a pattern of trying to discredit and create confusion
that where there is none and so I'm really concerned, I just really want to know what
the question is.
I mean my question is I don't understand where the, it's, and this is not just coming
from me.
I mean it's, again, you have the rest of the council who's out of the loop and, you
know, we're-
Can you explain when you say the rest of the council is out of the loop?
Well, I mean, well at least I can say I'm out of the loop, but you and Dan,
excuse me, you and council member are older.
Oh, they're only two people that are able, you know,
to converse and go to meetings and, you know,
talk to individuals because if you get three people in there,
they're in the Brown Act violation.
And that's one of the-
I just gave an example of when three people were there.
Right, but the only thing is I was the only one to talk
and thank God no other council member to talk
because if another council member would have talked,
then we would have had a Brown Act violation.
So that's where I'm getting at.
So when you're having the open dialogue
like you have in here is something completely different.
I just don't understand where it just seems like everything's lumped together.
And it's not just my confusion.
It's confusion from those that have attended the Tee Comedians.
There's confusion.
So hopefully try to get some clarification so I can know where we're going.
A prime example is like the internship. Thank you for clarifying that because somebody was
saying it was from solicit, but it wasn't from solicit, it was from your role as a council member.
So that's a clarification. So no, that's just clarifying information on that.
I appreciate you for clarifying those are rumors and that's how rumors get started and that's been the consistent pattern here
Which is why we created council protocols to try to avoid those type of things, but I'm similar
It's my understanding. I know council member Vargas has had an intern. I believe you've had an intern. I have
I've never had an intern. You didn't have an intern before I've never had one
Well, okay, there was a letter in the paper from one of your interns last year, but that's okay
The point is that if anyone is unclear, my goal as a council member is to help resolve
and reduce the issue of homelessness in this community, and within the legal realm that
I can, that's what I'm going to do.
If anybody is unclear about what the task force is, I would suggest you attend the task
force meeting.
They're on the first Monday of every month.
They alternate between daytime and evening.
Go on Facebook, look at the Tracy Community Homeless Task Force for the schedule,
or go on to the website.
Or you can contact me personally if anybody needs further clarification.
And I'll be more than happy to meet with any member here if you need additional clarification as well.
But that's the thing. I mean, we've got to be careful because of two of you are on a task force.
I mean, do you see what I'm saying?
For clarification?
No, I'm talking about meeting with you on a...
I can give you clarification if you need that.
If you have an ad hoc committee with two of you already talk about the issue a third of us can't join in because it's a brown act violation
That's what I'm going to suggest our city managers will verse on the issue. You can sit with the city manager
She's very clear on the difference between the task force as well as the ad hoc committee
So if anyone is that okay with you city manager?
I was going to make a suggestion to just kind of bring this back full circle
is that one, I think, Council Member Rodizia accurately summarized the events so far with
the ad hoc subcommittee. I would be more than happy through staff updates to kind of check
in with the council after any type of meeting that we have, just so that we can keep this
issue in front of us. Council can stay apprised. There's any deviation or change. Of course,
the ad hoc committee can, under council items, do an update to both the community
and to the council. But I'd be happy to just do various check-ins to just get
ahead of that if that would work for you, Mayor.
Yeah, I mean I think the council I mean the longest not a series meeting or something like you know the brown
I mean, I'm just very cautious when it comes to the brown act of violations
If we can get information be it a council item or something so we can know the rest of the council can know exactly
What's going on instead of hearing it from you know other folks?
So we don't have to discuss here like this councilmember Vargas. Thank you mayor
I first want to commend our two council members that are working diligently to solve some
issues that we're having in our community, homelessness, it's not just in Tracy but it's
the nation-wide concern and it needs a lot of hard work to figure out how and how we're
going to solve this.
However, as I witnessed the interaction here, I think it will be prudent to get updates.
I think if it's not an issue, in order to be transparent and the public can also get
to participate, I think it will be appropriate to have not just an update from the hot
committee but an update from the task force. And I can sympathize with the mayor's concerns
about how those two interact and if this one is being, could be made political to help
the other. So we want to make sure that this is, you know, address all five of us here,
There are articles out to those folks that are having difficult times and living in the
streets and there's many different issues why somebody finds themselves without a home.
With that being said, I think there's an opportunity for all of us to collaborate, to work together
and the spirit of solving this problem.
And I think the lack of information is making some of us very uncomfortable and it's not
prudent for any of us to show up to a meeting. And even though we remain quiet at times, it's
human nature to want to participate and share our thoughts. And we cannot do that in any
of those two forums. So I appreciate our city manager on those one-on-one. I think it's
great to have updates, but it is leaving the rest of the public out. So I think in
in the spirit of transparency.
I think maybe once a quarter it will be appropriate
to have an update not jointly
because there are two different branches
but I would like to see that if it's possible.
I know that you guys are super busy
but a quick little update
and maybe it's on the agenda as a consent item
it doesn't have to be a full bond presentation
but something that the public can easily access
and we are all informed and we're not afraid of being left in the dark.
That will be my suggestion and a spirit of bringing us all together and working towards a solution.
That's all.
Sure.
So I just want to make sure that we're staying on topic and we're addressing the actual,
what's on the agenda.
So when I first proposed the strategic plan and we received the grant,
we were told that it was going to be done by December.
So that's what we had anticipated and that's why the length was to December.
So after working with the technical assistance team from the state, it was determined that they needed several extra months.
And I believe they told us March.
So are we still on track that they're going to be able to have that done by March?
Yes. As far as I know, that is the deadline.
Okay. So even though – so then may I ask why we're asking to extend it for six months instead of three months?
Because there are two components to what the ad hoc subcommittee was to work on.
One was the strategic plan.
and the second was a feasibility of a temporary shelter.
Okay, like I said, I hope that we can have
something coming back an entire product
that we can debate and vote on prior to six months
because I want to get this done as soon as possible.
I haven't had any confusion with the distinction
between a community organization
who's doing work directly with homeless individuals
and the subcommittee which is working
on developing policy for us to bring back.
And we had a really good public workshop that was done.
We identified five goals.
We worked for six hours on how we were going to do that.
So perhaps we can include that in any future presentation because I thought that was a really
effective meeting that we had, and we figured out a big hunk of what the next steps were
for our strategic plan.
That being said, we did have a strategic plan meeting recently, and I anticipate
that Councilmember Ransom will probably be speaking about it during the Council
reports. Unfortunately, I was not there because I was sick. So that being said, I think we're
having our steps are moving forward effectively and efficiently. We just did that a few bumps
because of the timing. That was just a calendaring problem with the tactical strategic team or
the tactical assistance team. So with that being said, I'd like to make a motion to
move this because I'd like to actually say something before.
Sure. Okay. Sorry. I just wanted to, I just wanted to say.
We can go ahead and do a motion.
Go ahead and do the motion, then we'll do a second.
We can go ahead and do that.
I'll second the motion to approve the item.
I haven't motion yet.
What's that?
You're dead.
Just to clarify, there was a request on the floor
from Councilmember Vargas about a quarterly update.
What I understood was a request to have a quarterly update
on the work of the ad hoc committee.
Was that seconded by anybody?
I don't think that motion has been made.
OK.
So kind of premature.
So, do you pull your motion, Dan?
I pull one motion.
I want to make sure that we have a pro-temp opportunity.
Thank you.
I just have a further clarification of what Carence Memorial asked, which was my one simple
question for why we extended this to June.
So what was just clarified was that it should be done around March, and then it's a two-part
thing.
That's why it's asked to June.
So my simple question is, when will we have a strategic plan report to us?
Will that be expected in two parts in March and June, or will that be one after
June sometime. We'd get one in March and that would cover the strategic plan and
then anything either at the same time or subsequent to that would involve
whatever the work is directed by the subcommittee with respect to a
feasibility of a temporary shelter that's also in play as well and we're
still working and researching that. So then in March then we'll have the
opportunity to talk whatever that's going to go beyond that. Absolutely because that would probably come out of that conversation organically anyway.
Okay. So that's my question. I'll leave my comment. Well, I will add this one comment, though.
As far as the differential, I'm not going to even really discuss the difference to an ad hoc in the task force
because it's been made clear. But just for anyone who's really interested in homelessness
and the challenges that there are not only in our city but abroad, as was already stated,
I just want to reiterate that the Tracy Community Homelessness Task Force is open invitation
to every single person that's concerned about that within our community and beyond.
So you can go to that.
I've attended them as well.
And so it's not a conflict.
The Brown Act to be able to be involved in a community organization
that's trying to do something good for our community.
Thank you.
I move that we approve item 1J.
I'll second.
Okay. I had one more quick.
Before we go to vote, I have one more quick.
It's, I still have a, I mean, one of the reasons I disagree with this ad hoc community at the
very beginning and I'm going to be the, an old dissent on this is that of transparency
issue and you've seen some of the confusion that we've had here and this isn't just
coming from me but some members of the community and, you know, a prime example is talking
about temporary homeless shelters and, you know, what that means and, you know, what
to the public think about that. And I know Councilmember Ranson talked about some city
owned property that we've had in here in the city and does that, or we're using that as
a place positive at home and shelter, there's a lot of questions. And another complaint
that I heard was that, you know, that all voices aren't being heard, meaning that
you go to some of these meetings and unless you're in support of temporary homeless shelters
that you're kind of put out to the side. And again, these are some of the complaints that
I hear. And I think one of the ways that we can eliminate that kind of talk
amongst
people is have an open forum. I mean, to me, this is, you're right, this is a huge,
huge issue not just for the state or the city of Tracy but this whole entire
valley not to the state and it will kind of like at least I equate it to is like
when we discuss cannabis issues it's like to have an ad hoc issue or ad hoc
committing dealing with cannabis I don't think anybody here would be too
thrilled with that and so based on the transparency side of it I mean I
think there is a huge lack of transparency in getting with the
public involved in the open council setting. So that's my reason for dissenting.
So as well, I'm sorry, I have a point afterwards.
Okay.
What I would like to point out is that this is not the only ad hoc committee we
had in this city. Um,
and what you're saying is that people are bringing you things and this is what
you're hearing. Those are rumors. You're bringing rumors to the dais.
So, um, while I appreciate that we brought, we brought, excuse me,
what we did is we had an open invitation to the community through the city for
four meetings where people can actually come and participate so we've had three
of those meetings so far so when you're saying that people are saying that it's
one-sided the task force does not make decisions on behalf of the city only
the council can do that and we've opened those meetings up for the
community to provide input three out of four have already happened so I just
really wanted to bring that to your attention that when people are saying
that they don't get a chance to participate, that's specifically and exactly why we added
three additional meetings as opposed to just having one meeting.
We added a weekend meeting, a Saturday meeting, and those are the meetings that will influence
this City Council.
And so I just would like to bring that to your attention.
This is politics.
People are going to talk.
People are going to try to shade things one way or another.
I can appreciate that.
But the decisions that we make are going to be based on those open meetings that
that were noticed to the public.
So I'm done and thank you.
No, I thank you.
Council member.
Mayor, I'm jumping in here.
So we had a staff report
and we've had council discussion.
I do not believe this has been opened up to the public.
Yeah, we did at the very beginning.
Did you?
Yeah.
Yes.
Okay.
So my point, I just want to bring,
I want to jump on council member Vargas's point
and just I'm happy with us doing some type of update.
If four public forums weren't sufficient, then I'm fine doing something different.
The last time I spoke, I suggested that we discuss the initial workshop we had,
in which we talked about our actual priorities that these service providers themselves developed for six hours.
It was really in depth.
So if Council Member Vargas wants to make a motion, I'd be happy to second it to make sure that we do have an update
And that would include some of those details from that workshop. I think that would be appropriate given that was done in a public forum
Am I on but what I would that be one of clarification?
It was requested that it be done quarterly council mayor Errol is still have the floor unless you get it up
I just wanted to make sure would that be appropriate?
Mr. Mears. Yeah, that's an appropriate motion to be made after there is a
Currently a motion on the floor.
No, he pulled it, so there's no motion on the floor.
Council member one second where everybody can't speak at once.
They had a motion. They were not clarifying that.
Okay, so you made the motion. Who seconded Council Member Pro Tem?
I did.
Okay, so Council Member Areola has questions for our city attorney. Let's go there.
So the answer to Council Member Areola's question is that is an appropriate motion that can be made after the current motion on the floor is addressed.
Thank you. Okay. Can I still have my point of clarification?
Okay, so the request as far as I just recall was that we can have a quarterly update.
So the next quarter will be March. March is when the strategic plan will be coming back to us.
That will be a full update at that particular time unless you're going to alter the original request.
So if it's coming back in three months, that's redundant.
So I just want to make sure that we're clear on what we're asking for.
So, so what I'm asking since I'm the one asking I'll clarify that mayor pro tem and you're
right if that is coming on the first quarter which is a march as great but we can have
the update from the other side as well which is the community task force so we can alternate
so not to be redundant and repetitive and that way everything is addressed is open to
with the public is well beyond transparent.
I think there's nothing wrong here.
We just need to...
No, I just want to make sure that we're having a report
because the strategic plan that comes back
is based on the task force and all the ad hoc committee,
everything that comes back from the public hearings.
I just want to make sure just,
I mean, we're going to have two line items
about the same thing,
just coming from two different directions.
I actually think there would be two different things.
Councilmember Areola was asking for specific updates
with all of the priorities that were actually documented and outlined in the
first meeting which was November 19th and then we could also incorporate what's
been done to date. Then then the strategic plan would be all of that
information assimilated and with some recommended deliverables for council's
consideration. So then that one we need to be sooner. It wouldn't be the first
quarter as was said. We could do something in January or it
shouldn't be a problem early February. The meeting there's another there's
There's another open meeting that's in our report that says January 14th that the entire
community can come to if they wish to.
Yes.
And I would not object to that.
And what I do object to is a characterization that it's not been transparent and we've
not given updates here because we've done updates here that have not been agendized.
I do them in council items.
So I object to the characterization, which is very intentional, but I do not object
up to the actual agendizing updates for the future.
So with that being said,
is it okay to call for the question?
It's, so how many motions do we have on here?
There's two.
The first one was Council Member Ransom,
seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Young,
regarding adopting a resolution to formally establish
the Tracy-Holmes Strategic Plan Development Ad Hoc
Committee through June 30th, 2020.
The second motion was, I believe,
introduced by to bring updates to council on a quarterly basis including the
details from previous meetings and they start you know in the strategic point may
make a friendly amendment to Vargas to council member Vargas's request is that
can we do that after the January 14th meeting so then we have a compiled
information for all of our public comments so that we'll have a really
comprehensive update for everyone after the January 14th meeting great
amendment to that yes that amendment to council member Vargas so the first
amendment that's good the first amendment is to approve what's on the
agenda is a second amendment it or excuse me the second motion would be to to
bring to council a quarterly update including details from the previous
meeting and that those updates to be brought after the January 14th okay
and I just and real quick in regards to intentional and you know and this is
Again, we have a right to know what the heck is going on in our community and as far as
to ask questions, this kind of gets back to a prior council meeting that we're not accusing
anybody of anything.
We're not putting somebody's idea down, but there is a lot of questions that I'm not
even aware of.
I'm the mayor and I don't even know what's going on here because nobody's informing
us.
If there is talk about a temporary homeless shelter, there is talk about using city
own property for the temporary homeless shelters, you know, and I think the public has the right
to know, and that is where I'm going from. This is no disrespect to ad hoc committee,
no disrespect to individual council members. But again, it points to the public has the
right to know where the heck this city is going, and we're asked questions as equals
up here, and we can't provide answers because one side is doing the other, and one right
hand doesn't know what the left hand's side is doing. I have an issue with that,
and that's the transparency side I'm talking about.
So get a roll call on motion number one
by Council Member Ransom or Pro Tem.
Council Member Ransom?
Yes.
Mayor Pro Tem Young?
Yes.
Council Member Eriola?
Yes.
Council Member Vargas?
Yes.
Mayor Rickman?
No.
Get a roll call for motion number two.
Council Member Vargas?
Yes.
Council Member Eriola?
Yes.
Council Member Ransom?
Yes.
Mayor Pro Tem Young?
Yes.
And Mayor Rickman?
Yes.
Alright, we're going to move on to item number two, item from the audience.
Anybody from the audience wish to address Council on this item?
Please keep your hands up high so I can see.
Three,
three folks, you got five minutes.
That's it, just three folks.
We're limited to 15 minutes, so five minutes apiece.
So whoever would like to go.
I know I'm looking at you, but you don't have to if you don't wish.
I do actually, because I had a question about what we just finished talking about.
If you did that means it was an agenda item so you can't but so well my questions because I asked for clarification about that when you guys
were having your debate and she said no I should not come then because you guys were only supposed to be talking about what it said which
was extending their time.
Okay.
And you guys went down a different chain.
Okay.
Let's try this.
We'll go ahead and we don't start your time yet.
Go ahead and talk.
And if you veer into what we've just discussed an agenda item.
I'm not going to veer into anything about voting as to whether or not that should be extended.
All right, so let's go ahead and if you don't mind, get your name and address.
Yep, Melissa Johnson 212 Alvarado Way.
Thank you, Mr. Johnson.
So my first question was about the ad hoc committee and the task force.
Can we as a community member join either one of those or only the task force?
And unfortunately, we can't...
That speaks to non-agendized matters.
Right, but we can't comment on that, right?
Okay, so it's not an agenda item.
They can talk to staff.
But staff can answer your question afterwards.
Thank you, City Manager, I'm just about to get to it.
Well, the question that you asked is not an agenda item,
so we can't comment on that or give you advice
or tell you, but what we'll do is have one of our staff
members relay that information to you.
Okay. All right.
I'm sorry, let me make sure I understand.
I can only ask questions about what was on the agenda.
Was not on the agenda.
Okay, but that wasn't on the agenda.
Right. No, you're fine. All we're saying is that we can't...
But why didn't I get an answer?
Because we can't, because it is not on the agenda, so we can't discuss it.
So we have to have notice to the public what we're going to discuss.
None of my questions are on the agenda.
Okay, so what will happen?
They're all about homelessness and all about confusion.
They're all about clarity and transparency.
One second. What will happen? You can ask the questions.
We can't respond, but we'll have our staff member come and answer those questions for you.
Okay.
Alright, so with that being said,
why don't we go ahead and start her time
so we don't shorten ya.
Oh, that's okay, there's only six questions
and one of them was already answered.
So question number two,
when is the next public meeting
to provide input about homelessness?
Question number three,
what happened to the emergency shelter?
Is that happening? When is that happening?
Is it not happening until June?
So I can still expect to see the homeless
with tents in the park, El Pasquodero,
or no, next to the school, no.
Question number four, when will the strategic plan
actually be brought to the city council
for you guys to vote on that?
Question number five, where can we find updates
on what's happening with either of the groups
since I'm still kind of unclear
as to what either of them really do.
And question number six is someone going to do something
about the homeless tents that are sitting next
to North Elementary School.
Because I don't really feel like waiting until
June for the tents to disappear or the vagrancy to disappear?
All right, thank you, Ms. Johnson.
We'll have one of our staff members in contacting to answer those questions for you.
Perfect.
All right, thank you.
Mayor, could staff also send a memo or email about the response given to the lady, Ms. Johnson?
No, sir.
See why not.
Who would like to go next?
Robert
Tanner, 1371, Russia Street.
A couple of meetings back, this city council voted talking about the e-cigarettes, the vapors, and the cartridges.
And the only thing this city council voted on was the non-sale of the cartridges.
Several days later, there was a CDC report that said e-cigarettes and vapors were causing up to 2,000 people having health problems.
and some deaths beyond that and I would hope that the city council has the
backbone if you will to not have e-cigarettes and vapors and the
cartridges sold in the city limits of Tracy if the people want to ruin their
lives let them go outside the city to buy it we don't need to support that
kind of a thing thank you thank you mr. Tanner point of clarification on that
I'm a senior attorney.
Our goal was to ban e-cigarettes and flavor tobacco
and not being able to sell within 600 feet of schools.
The direction was just to ban flavored tobacco
and to restrict the sale of tobacco retailers
from being within 600 feet of sensitive youth uses like schools.
Alice English, Tracy, California.
Sorry.
I just want to mention on October 15th, we had a consent item for the Mayor's Fund that
was pulled.
And I just want to clarify 26 minutes into that conversation of the consent item for the
Youth Grant.
There was a member from the audience that said she was a board member and that Councilwoman
Ransom was not receiving money as counsel, 29 minutes into that same item, Councilwoman
Young, quote, unquote, she said, I'm going on record since Councilwoman Ransom has not
– since she's been on counsel, has not applied for funding.
That is an incorrect statement.
And then she went again and said, I'm going on record as part of the advisory committee.
She has not receiving money from the Mayor's Fund.
So I would like to enter this on record that Radisha Ransom sow a seed.
And the reason I say that because it has her name and it has her home address where all the checks go to,
She applied for August 2017 to 2018 council members.
So I'm going to submit this as a record.
It's here.
It's the city of Tracy that she has been receiving money on 2016 when she ran for council.
She did apply again for 2016-2017 and also received funds.
She received a check when being a City Council member back in March of 2017 for $5,000 for
one month, and there was another check in February for another $3,000 in 2017, and that's also
going to go on record.
But since Councilwoman Young mentioned that she's been a member in a part of the advisory
committee, I think she said seven years, so that goes further than what my records
show.
So in 2013-2014, Councilwoman Young at that time voted for funding for SOA seat and has been on the budget.
So that's on record. She has never reviewed herself. She's been part of the member and advisory board member.
So that is also going on. And on 2014 to go on record, on the mayor's fund, they were only allowed up to $50,000.
So at that time, there was extra money allocated.
It could have gone to other ones, but so was seed received and extra additional money, which almost was $58,000.
Not including the money for CBDG fund, which I think I'm going to pursue that one because that is double dipping.
She should have been qualified to receive another $6,000 CBDG fund.
And at that time, Councilwoman Young did not repeat herself.
On record, she said she didn't have to, but she didn't need to.
So this just shows you the pattern that we have here with council.
So that year, close to $65,000, and this is taxpayers' money.
And the reason that's why I'm disclosing this, it's our money.
It comes out of taxpayers' money, it came out of the general fund.
So that happened back in 2014, but I do have all this on record.
I do have all the documents to provide that she received $3,000, $4,000, $1,300 just through
when she was on 2016, 2017, 2017, 2018.
So a seed did apply for it.
So this is why I'm here because it was on record October 15th.
It was 29 minutes into it when Councilwoman Young said that she is going on record.
This is a pattern of what goes on and has been going on.
She never recused herself and voted in any of the budget, which is fine.
But I'm just going on record.
So that's what happened, and it's ongoing. And there's another incident that happened this
year on the CBDG fund that I will bring that document. I thought I brought it up on another
project that she did not recruit herself. And I think I came up to council on that,
and I went on record. So just for the audience, I will come back on that one. So they'll have
that. But I'd like to give this to the clerk, even though it is to the city of Tracy.
And then I have a point of clarification, Jess, Ms. Hart's correction.
Once I can, she still has her time here.
So what I'm stating, in case it doesn't make sense, it's on the open agenda on October
15th, 26 minutes into and 29 minutes is when Councilwoman Young, and she did say that she's
going on record.
Not only that, she did that at the ribbon cutting that she's been a member on that
and kind of made a joke about city council as a pro tem so I just want to
mention that some of the things that are saying out there in public as well thank
you thank you miss English I just have one I know that council member ransom
I'm not going to speak to to her itself I will speak to myself first of all the
very first thing that I need to clarify is if we want to go on record be an
to you, or at all, that's my title right there, you can see it.
It's not ASME or Pro Tem, but because it's just blatant disrespect.
And so I have said very clearly, I'm on the advisory committee, and if you don't know
the difference between advisory committee and a board member, then I can share definitions
with you later as far as my voting, and it's already been clarified and cleared.
I don't have to recuse myself on the council.
And so and it's the same when it goes to
Suicide but counsel I just like to remind everyone that we're in the items from the audience portion of the agenda
So please make your comments very and I'm correcting
Yes, I am mayor pro tem and so it's as far as a matter of if we're going on record all the many times that I was referred to
And we have that information. Thank you. Okay, so I will be brief
The law does allow that when people come and intentionally say things that are factually untrue
that we can provide clarification.
This has been going on for several years.
As an executive director of a nonprofit organization
over the years, we have received funding, the organization.
When she's saying that checks are made to me,
there are no checks made to Rhodesia Ransom.
They've already filed an FPPC complaint
and have received the information
that it is legal for funds to go to the organization.
I've done that before getting on this council.
Mayor Pro Tem Young is an advisory member,
is not a paid member, is not on the Board of Directors
for the organization.
The year where she's talking about the organization
got more than anyone else, it is a competitive process.
The organization outperformed other organizations
and there was additional funding that can be clarified
with Vanessa Carrera and any other city staff
as to why the organization received additional funding.
In 2017-2018 it was on record here
that our board of directors submitted an application and withdrew the application at my request
for 2017 and 2018, went on the council. And Ms. English is very aware of that because
she spent over 100 hours of staff time requesting public records for this non-profit organization.
And that is on record from Mr. Watson. So, Mr. Rickman, for the publics to understand,
there are three of us running for county supervisor right now. Ms. English represents that
And you're going to continue to see politics brought into this council until the election is over. Thank you.
Okay, you're way beyond that.
I'm done, sir.
So I have pointed privilege. I would just ask that any personal identifying information that's been requested to be entered into the record be redacted for personal information including addresses.
Thank you.
And just, you know, council, we have a right under the Brown Act. However, it needs to be brief and factual.
That was a brief infection?
Accusations and so on, you know, it's uncalled for and it's not germane to the jurisdiction.
And, sir, you came in, did you?
Okay, so go ahead. I didn't see it.
Felix Manges, 23285.
I'm sorry, sir.
Felix Manges, 23285 Sorrellas Drive.
Earlier, I was with the fire department downtown.
I need to know if the fire department is associated with the city of Tracy.
I've lived here for 63 years, and I'm kind of not liking it much more, much longer.
Story cut short. I've had a talk with him, had a talk with her, and I had a talk with him at the fire department.
eventually there was a lady in there that that needs to be addressed and I
don't know who to address it to or who she's involved with got into a
belligerent conversation with my wife trying to get a permit signed and she
came home angry and she came home crying. Do you want me to go downtown and take
care of it? Yes. So the paperwork that we had to file with the fire
department was not documented into the computer that lady left to take
another job in Reno. Okay, so then this lady was badgering my wife, made us write
another check, made us pay for another whole new permit and everything else, and
so by the time I went down there, another fire lady, Marshal, whatever, had to
intervene because it got pretty nasty. And I told her, it says, you know what, you
could talk to anybody you want to, like that, but you're not gonna talk to me
like that. It got very heated. Eventually, we got our check back because
as the other lady mediated, okay?
And then on top of that, I ended up driving home
and I got a flat tire by the fire station on 11th Street.
Changed my tire, my car fell on my arm.
I was stuck there for seven minutes.
Two tow truck drivers went by, nobody stopped.
I was underneath my car, my tire was on top of my foot,
my cell phone was in my car.
Couldn't call nobody.
Two tow truck drivers went by, I was waving,
rush hour traffic at five o'clock nobody stopped nobody I was stuck there so I
started cutting my wrist off I just started going side-to-side cut my wrist
off and I just felt later down the road that I was going to need my wrist
counted three pulled it out ran down to the fire station knocked on the door
fireman came out and I says you know I need some ice really bad now here's a
part that really angers me and I need this looked into because I think it's
some form of discrimination because he told me he came out there we don't have
no ice I said what do you mean you don't have no ice you're a fire department
half paramedic you don't have no ice two three minutes later another fire
truck pulls in the guys went right by my arm he says oh man let me run inside
to get you some ice he came outside with some ice and the whole meeting
behind this whole thing if that lady would have been very professional I wouldn't have had to come
into town I would have never got my hands smashed this happened back July 9th I was in doctors care
to this day to don't move they've already casted this like six times already now and the reason
why they took it off now is to give it some circulation I have no use of this arm cracked
here cracked there cracked there cracked underneath here and this is pulverized now my medical
Bills are like really stacking up. I can't afford it. They don't want to put me on the
table to try and fix it because I've already had two heart attacks already. Now they wanted
to put a plate in here, but they want to put me on the table. But they said no, we'll just
let it heal. I've been sitting down in my house since July doing absolutely nothing.
I had to pay to somebody to come in and frame my concrete. I had to pay for somebody
to come in and pour my concrete and to dig the trench, and that's unacceptable because
of somebody's bad behavior that needs to be dealt with.
This is very inappropriate, and I don't want to get into this political BS.
I called him, never returned any of my calls.
You disrespected me as a Tracyite, not one call.
I came to the council here numerous times to get your phone number.
Never returned not one of my calls.
So am I not important to you? Am I not important to you? Because this happened because of you, you didn't answer my phone. You're part of this.
You're part of it too.
Maybe because you didn't handle that situation with that female person that had that attitude.
Now, if I could have not been a gentleman, I could have resolved that issue myself because nobody is going to talk to me like that.
And I should have never have come from out of town to take care of my wife's situation
for something that had a bad attitude that was very unprofessional.
I can't do nothing.
I can't, I can't move it.
I can't do nothing.
I'm useless with my left arm.
So I wanted to bring this to your guys' attention.
So each one you say, you guys don't know the whole story.
I feel, thank you.
We have our human resources.
I've, I've, I've talked to them already today.
Okay.
She's right behind if you have any, so you can talk to her.
I just want to let you know.
I want to know why you didn't answer my return my call.
Okay, all right.
No, you tell me.
I can't. This is not an agendized item.
I'm sorry.
It's if you want to wait for it after the meeting or we can talk.
But unfortunately by the law, I can't. I lost all faith in you.
I have no respect for you.
All right. Thank you, Alex.
Same with you, Randy. No respect.
All right. We're going to move on to item number three a city council adoption
of a resolution approving documents and actions relating to the refinancing of outstanding
lease revenue bonds and related lease payment obligations of the city. And two, Tracy Operating
Partnership, Joint Powers Authority Board of Directors, approval of a resolution authorizing
the issuance and sale of lease revenue bonds through refinancing outstanding lease revenue
bonds and approving related documents and official auctions. Staff report please.
Good evening, Mayor, City Council. Thank you for allowing us to bring this item to you.
We've had a very successful look at refinancing some existing bonds given the current market conditions.
There are two resolutions on the agenda tonight, both items related to the refinancing of outstanding lease revenue bonds,
meaning these are bonds that have already gone out and we're looking to lower the interest rates.
One for the adoption by the city council and two by the adoption of the Tracy operating Tracy's
joint power authority and that is basically a state agent oversight requirement that is done by
the city council. The out same bonds were issued in 2007 and in 2008 a portion of the debt
services for 2008 bonds is paid with redevelopment tax increment bonds and we have received
approved approval from Department of Finance.
Under current market conditions, the refunding of the 2007 bonds is expected to generate
approximately $580,000 in net debt savings with an annual amount of $32,000.
Under the current conditions for the 2008 bonds, it's expected to, over the life
of the bonds, save $7.8 million or approximately $410 over for an annual amount.
The date of this maturity is 2037 for the 2007 bonds and the date of maturity for the 2008
is 2003, I'm sorry 2038.
The general fund savings from the 2008 bonds is expected to be $315,000 with other tax
amenities such as redevelopment sharing $96,000.
The proposed refunding bonds are payable from the city's general fund with some
support from the redevelopment agency. Any known facts related to the preliminary official
statements that were included in your packet as well as I would say almost 10 attachments
so quite a lengthy packet item tonight. To repay these bonds is this is the opportunity
for you to make any statements on that. With that, that concludes our presentation.
I thank you Karen. All right, at this time we're going to open up the public hearing.
Anybody from the audience wish to address council on this item item 3a?
Anyone else anyone?
And no one we will close the public hearing and bring it back to council for discussion
If there is no discussion entertain a motion and move to adopt a resolution
approving documents and actions relating to the refinancing of outstanding lease revenue bonds and related lease payment obligations of the city
seconded
Council member are you looking at real call, please may purchase me young. Yes, council of ariola. Yes, council of ransom
Yes, that's my vagus and may Rickman. Yes
So as the authority I'm going to adopt a resolution of the Tracy operating partnership joint powers authorities
Authorizing the issuance and sell of lease revenue bonds to refinance outstanding lease revenue bonds
ratifying and improving a debt management policy and improving related documents and official actions a second that motion
I had a real call please.
Director Young.
Yes.
Director Ansem.
Yes.
Director Arayola.
Director Vargas.
And Chair Rickman.
Yes.
All right.
Move on to item 3B, public hearing to introduce an ordinance admitting the I-205 court or
a specific plan that appendix A, table A-2, permitted and conditionally permitted commercial
and industrial uses to allow breweries, wineries and distilleries.
Staff report please.
Yes.
Thank you mayor and council members. I'm Scott Clair with Development Services Department
the I-205 quarter specific plan area
currently only permits
breweries wineries and distilleries in the light industrial designated areas and also
Conditionally permits them in the service commercial areas. So this proposed ordinance
Would allow breweries wineries and distilleries to locate in all of the commercially designated areas within the I-205 specific plan
as long as those uses are including at least 30%
And the reason for that requirement is so that the use is compatible with a retail center.
The project applicant is proposed to locate a craft brewery in the Northgate Village Shopping
Center. And if this ordinance is approved, that use would be allowed. So staff and planning
commissioner are recommending that city council introduce and waive the first reading of
the ordinance. I'm happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you.
All right. Thank you, sir. We'll move on to
Opening the public hearing so at this time we're going to open up the public hearing for item 3b. No
one
We will close the public hearing and bring it back for a discount the council for discussion
Don't see any discussion. So with that being said, I'm going to request that our city clerk to read the title of the proposed ordinance
An ordinance of the city of Tracy amending the I-205 corridor specific plan
Appendix A, Table A-2, permitted and conditionally permitted commercial and
industrial uses to allow breweries, wineries and distilleries application
number SPA 19-0005. I move to waive reading of the text and
introduce the proposed ordinance. I second. I roll call. Council Member Areola. Yes.
Yes.
Mayor Pro-Jim Young.
Yes.
Councilman Branson.
Yes.
Councilman Vargas.
Yes.
Mayor Rickman.
Yes.
All right.
Looking forward to another brewery.
Or winery.
Or distillery.
I like the breweries.
I like wine.
And I like distilleries.
So.
We move on to item 3C.
Public hearing to introduce an ordinance admitting the central business district zone to permit
high density to residential uses, including single family dwellings, two family dwellings,
and multi-family dwellings, and approval of a development review permit to construct a
five-unit residential project consistent of two single family dwellings, and a triplex
located at 21, 25, and 29 East 8th Street.
Good roll call. Oh, excuse me, your staff report. No pressure. I'm not trying to, Russia.
Yes, thank you, Mayor and Council Members. This item involves a proposed amendment to
the CBD zone to permit residential uses as long as they're not located on the ground
floor of Central Avenue or 10th Street between Central and A Street and also not on the
ground floor facing the plaza on 6th Street.
So the current CBD zone requires a conditional use permit for multi-family housing in the
CBD and also does not currently permit single-family dwellings and duplexes.
However, the general plan states that residential development is strongly encouraged in the
downtown as long as it meets the density of 15 to 50 units per gross acre.
And so with this proposed amendment, it would be more encouraging of residential
as long as it meets that criteria.
The project applicant is proposing a five-unit project
on East 8th Street that includes a triplex
and two single-family homes.
So the agenda item also includes a development review permit
to approve that project.
The project is consistent with the general plan
as well as the proposed amendment to the CBD zone
and also the city's design goals and standards.
Staff and Planning Commission recommend that the city council
introduce and waive the first reading of the ordinance
to amend the CBD zone and also approve the development review permit for this five-unit
residential project. That concludes the staff report. Happy to answer your questions you have.
All right, thank you. All right, we're going to open up the public hearing. Anybody from the
public, since it is an open public hearing, which I can talk to council on this issue.
Seeing no one, we will close the public hearing and bring it back to council for discussion.
any council? Just a quick question. Yes. Is the amendment that we have been handed with
the red line, is that what we're voting on currently or is that separate? That's a different
agenda item. 3C? 3C. Yes, I'm sorry. Yeah. My bad. Yes. That is what you're voting
on right now. It's an ordinance. Including that amendment that's been provided to us?
Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Can somebody else have one?
I did.
All right.
That being said, I'll request our city clerk to read the title of proposed ordinance.
An ordinance of the City of Tracy amending Article 18, Central Business District,
zone of Chapter 10.08 of the Tracy Municipal Code to permit high density residential uses,
including single family dwellings, two family dwellings,
and multi-family dwellings application number ZA 117-0003.
Motion to waive the reading of the text and introduce a proposed ordinance.
A second.
Can I roll call, please?
Councilman Vargas?
Yes.
Mayor Pro Tem Young?
Yes.
Councilman Areola?
Yes.
Councilman Ransom?
Yes.
And Mayor Rickman?
Yes.
Motion to adopt the resolution approving the development review permit to construct
the five units residential project consisting of two single-family dwellings and triplex
triplex. Thank you. Triplex on the approximate 9,885 square foot site located at 21 25 and
29 E A Street. Second. Second by Councilman Aureola. Can we roll call please?
Councilman
All right, thank you.
Move on to item 3D, provide direction on fiscal year 2019
slash 20 strategic priorities
and approve council workshop report
as October 2nd, 2018, special meeting minutes.
Staff report, please.
All right, thank you, mayor, members of the council.
Can I have the PowerPoint, please?
Okay, as the council's aware,
we held a strategic planning process on October 2nd,
which was facilitated by management partners.
We went ahead and identified a variety of priorities with council, and I'll go through kind of exactly what we spoke about.
But on this discussion outline, not only would I like to go through the priorities, but also kind of give a little bit of an overview of where our time is spent to help guide council's discussion tonight.
Go over the priorities, give you a sense of a work plan, and then give you a recommendation in next steps.
This kind of outlines what the workshop overview is for members of the public that aren't aware of the process.
Of course, this lays and sets the table for council to identify priorities, but it's also an opportunity to talk about norms
and governance in terms of council roles and responsibilities for them to talk about some of the opportunities
and challenges and Tracy, and then also to just set the stage for what their priorities are for the coming fiscal year.
And council did exactly that.
But before we get into the priorities, I just want to remind the council that day to day service delivery, as you know, 90% of staff's time is just doing the day to day operations, calls for service, maintaining and processing things like permits and applications.
And when we deal with council directives and priorities, that really leaves about 10% of our time.
And so when we look at priorities, we need to make sure that those priorities count because otherwise we're doing competing priorities.
And so I just want to set that context for Council for tonight's discussion.
And so what happens is that shifts, right?
If we have less on the priorities, we have more opportunity to focus on day to day, but
we also don't want to overextend that so that we're not able to get to your 10 percent.
And so, again, this is just to be mindful of that staff has limited bandwidth, and
so we need to make sure that we're, in fact, prioritizing those goals and objectives.
Council identified a number of priorities, the top tier priorities in which everyone had voted for.
Council, as you know, did a DOT exercise, and all of the Council identified that making sure that our financial
house in order and that the public is aware of sources and uses and how things are funded was important.
Measure V, getting the amenities in the ground was also another majority.
We, excuse me, all of the council wanted that to happen and then adopt a code of conduct
which we know, if someone could take that off the screen, that'd be great.
Adopt a code of conduct which as you can see here, we have them posted and those have
been complete.
We also have some organizational priorities that council identified.
Valley Link was a priority looking at infrastructure around the city, that's not Valley Link
infrastructure, but just infrastructure in general, addressing citywide traffic issues.
We've had a number of conversations with the public that this is a key priority.
And then economic development, very specific targeted economic development, was very important
in terms of jobs for the council.
There are a couple of other items that did not make the list, but I did include them
on your priority list for a couple of reasons.
One, these are already underway, and so I didn't want to lose sight of those.
and they have little asterisks next to them.
A transit-oriented development, TOD, that's underway,
homeless strategy is underway, and also cannabis regulations.
And as you know, we've taken care of the zoning piece
and the regulatory piece in next,
which will come before you, is the application.
So again, I added those on your priorities,
but this evening is for you to identify
if these still make sense to you,
if there's anything you wanna add, delete or modify.
The other ones that are listed here,
and I won't go through them,
They didn't make the top tier, but of course, again, Council can shift these as they see fit.
So I won't go through these individually.
We'll let Council have an opportunity to have a discussion.
I've organized these based on categories.
So we have quality of life categories, where we've got Measure V infrastructure projects
and a Homelands Strategic Plan listed.
We have economic development goals.
We have Valley Link.
We have cannabis regulations, TOD, and also targeting industries
that meet our need or the desires of the community.
That's all under the umbrella of economic development.
And then we have public safety, including traffic conditions.
We also have homeless and strategic plan.
This may be better suited to just go under quality of life,
so it's not confusing, and we'll get back to that.
And then we have governance, and the city has been doing a lot of work
with respect to good governance policies, city finances,
and creating that awareness of what our situation and constraints are
is listed here, as well as options for making sure that we have short and long-term sustainability.
And that, of course, will come to you as a part of the budget development process this
year.
So the recommendation is to give staff some feedback on these recommended priorities.
We would ask you to adopt the report that's attached, just the minutes.
This summarizes everything that transpired at the workshop, and then we'll continue
to update these as needed but we will also make sure that those are up and on boards
that you see throughout City Hall so people are aware of what those strategic priorities
are as also getting them on the website too.
We would also like some direction on the work plan if there are other objectives that
you would like to see under each of the goals, please let us know that.
None of this is in stone, it's very fluid and then we will commit to reporting to
on a quarterly basis on our process and how well we're moving the needle on those items.
And that concludes my report.
All right. Thank you, Manager.
At this time, I'm going to open up for the public comment.
Anybody from Public Worship and Dress Council, Item 3D.
Seeing no one, we'll bring it back for discussion.
Council Member Areola.
Thank you.
So I had two points.
The first one was related to economic development goal four.
So during our actual workshop that we had, we had brought this up in the sense of targeted recruitment.
And so what I really kind of wanted to see, I don't really see the language of it included within the objectives of what we discussed during the workshop.
But kind of what I took from the workshop was that we really wanted to target jobs, bring jobs with Tracy.
So, I was hoping we could, maybe it looks like the language is close with Objective 2, but
I'd really want to, maybe in addition to that, add developing incentives to bring targeted
jobs to Tracy.
Hey, Katherine, what are the councils where?
What page are you on?
You said four.
Oh, page three, related to economic development, goal four.
Can we have a PowerPoint backup that might help the council?
One,
two, three. Okay, I see it.
So right now it talks about a marketing campaign to target specific businesses.
I also want not only just targeting, but really kind of working on developing incentives to really bring those head of household jobs to Tracy.
It's a very slight difference in language, but I think it really makes a really big difference and what we as a council should be prioritizing.
And then the second point that I wanted to make was that related to all of the other goals all of the other ones have
three or four goals. However when it comes to public safety we only have two. One of the goals that I had brought up during the workshop
was adding a goal of crime prevention and I think it's particularly notable that we did have the workshop unfortunately at that point
subsequent to that meeting we had another homicide in our town subsequent to that
I've recently held a town hall on crime prevention and I would like to ask the
council to reconsider our discussion that we had during the workshop and I
like to see added as goal number three to public safety prioritizing crime
prevention in our town thank you
thank you mayor I agree with a first
request so I will second that I will be second that request on the
Public safety, besides the education component for prevention, will also like to
reiterate, maybe, and I see the public safety component, but I know there's
something that we've been talking for years now, the planning portion of it, and
the council update to be the city-wide emergency. I think that needs to come out to the priority.
It's something that I know for the last six years I've been here, been asking, and our
Mayor Pro Tem has been asking way before I came to council as well. So I would like
to see that coming to the top of the goals and hopefully get that achieved within
in that time period that whatever it is,
we just want to have a milestone that we can just shoot for.
That's great, because that is in motion
and we will be issuing an RFP shortly.
So perfect, thank you.
Perfect, thank you.
That's my ransom.
Thank you.
So I appreciate Council Member Vargas
for bringing up the emergency preparedness plan
because that was something that I wanted to see added
as a priority.
I understand that you are working on it.
I just feel like it would be nice if we have a visual.
I've been asking for that since I got on the council.
So we're a couple of city managers in, in terms,
and I actually asked that the fire chief earlier today
if they were playing a role in it as well.
So I think that's very important.
I definitely support Councilman Ariolas' request
to add the crime prevention as a strategy
and I think that will help us to kind of drill down
into some of the things we've been talking about
in regards to lights and cameras and things like that,
that basically would help to demonstrate
that we're actually serious about that.
And then I also support the staff recommendation
in regards to where we move the homeless
new strategic plan.
I attended Councilman Ariola's town hall
And although a lot of people, when we ask a question of like, do you feel safe,
their responses were in regards to homeless people being in the park.
But I do think it's more of a quality of life issue.
And so I definitely would support moving that to the quality of life from,
which is what you've done, but it's also still under public safety.
So it's kind of listed twice.
I just wanted to let you know that I do support that for obvious reasons.
And I think you captured pretty much everything that we talked about, and we've already completed the governance policies.
So I think not only did you capture it, but we've already been able to move ahead.
So I appreciate you for bringing this, and I think it was pretty comprehensive.
My only other point would be or question, I guess, and for the public, we only had so many dots.
That's why there's a lot of things that look like it looks like we didn't care about youth or whatever
But we only had so many dots to prioritize. So I want to be clear about that
But it's really hard is there a way to break out the
It says, you know five for Valley Link infrastructure, whatever
And so it's kind of hard for people to look at that to see what our real priority is and I didn't take a picture of the
Post-it picture. Is there a way for you to break that down further just for the record?
I think the overall plan is fine, but for the record it's really hard to see
How much value link or infrastructure because those are different things I?
Can go through and check if the report did a further breakdown
But I may be able to get the notes offline and we can certainly do that if that's that council's pleasure
Yes, I just thought it would be good to see like the difference, but thank you very much everything else
I have no problem with
I guess I'm the last one.
I have something.
Go ahead.
Make sure my little thing is.
Go ahead.
Go ahead, Tim.
Sorry.
Thank you.
So as it was already noted that we only had so many dots.
I do have concern though for the things that as far as being able to capture the things
that are already in motion.
I know that it was already said things were in motion such as the emergency preparedness
plan.
I'm not sure how close we are to the end of that in motion for years, but maybe we'll
have an update on that soon.
But as far as the other things that were already prioritized in the past, so are we just eliminating
them?
Are they just show up in other areas such as youth, such as the labor agreements that
we talked about, such as the workforce, affordable housing that was set on priorities
from past councils, most of us up here, but so how do we handle that? Are we put
in those to the back burner? Are they on some kind of in waiting list? So when
council did their exercise and I get that you had limited number of dots, you
are trying to identify what the highest priority was. Again, if you want to put
all of these as a priority, then I will come back and recommend what the
impact is and what maybe needs to fall off, because there's a significant
and impact if all of these items were kind of making up that 10% that you saw because
that's going to impact the 90% day to day. So the idea was try to find your highest
and best items and then have us move forward. There may be ways where we can work through
these through council items. But again, I want a caution council to be very strategic
and methodical about what you bring forward to staff because you may find that there's
like seven things that you want to be as priorities,
but in a council item, if you give me more work,
something's gonna fall off the list.
And so we have very limited bandwidth
and many of the staff that are working on this
are the same staff.
So I just kinda wanna set the table with that.
It's at council's discretion tonight
if there is something that got a one or a zero
and you wanna elevate that to a priority,
then council needs to vote on that tonight.
So it's just a matter of what it looks like.
So, first of all, maybe we should have 11%, not 10%, but a side note from that.
As far as youth, maybe that's engulfed and wrapped in the measure V, seeing things in
the ground.
I mean that's a huge category just to say youth.
So what has been that focus, like the workforce, affordable housing, I don't know if that
could be wrapped into, I don't know, something else, part of quality of life that we've
been talking about and we've had some things in place and some things are supposed
to come back to us.
Do those just get shifted and we don't look at those for the next year?
So that's just what I'm asking as far as the things that's already in motion.
So is there a way to capture in a list of things that may even have a zero on here
that we're actually working on, like the emergency plan that we have preparedness plan?
Do you receive a list of council items that have been scheduled and that are being worked on?
So in addition to this list of priorities, there are about 25 other council items that
staff is actively working on.
So some of the things that you had mentioned like, for instance, the emergency plan, that
is definitely on the list and there will be an RFP issued and we will hire a consultant
to implement that plan or help the staff implement that plan.
But those are on your council items list.
So those are in addition to this discussion tonight.
These items here that you have, unless the council wants to elevate those to a very specific
goal with specific objectives, you can find other opportunities through council items or
through other projects like Measure V to elevate those.
So while I get optically, you don't want the community to think that these are not
important.
This was just a summary of an exercise, but I hear what you're saying.
And it's not just for the community, it's for all of us to make sure that we're
on the same page.
but if we had that even list of counsel, other things,
then it would be clear that all the things
that we're trying to capture,
but as far as like the Valley Link,
why all five of us put our dots there
because it's important,
I'm not really sure how passive that goal is.
In being that, are we actively pursuing things
for Valley Link, or are we just supporting?
You know, as it says, work with regional well authority
and other partners for these initiatives.
Are we just periodically writing letters,
saying yes, we have approved,
Or is that something that the city staff is really actively putting time in?
Do you know what I mean?
Because it said as the number one, it's the number one goal for economic development.
So again, this is what council had reflected as important.
Staff is in terms of support.
What does that mean?
That means that we attend the regional rail committee meetings.
That means that when there are policy issues that we feel like we need to weigh in with Michael Tree
and the rail authority, we do so accordingly.
if there are community events that we feel that Tracy needs to be represented at, we do
attend those and we do help to market those to the community. So it is an active involvement,
but would I say that we're strapped for time in doing that? Probably not, I think we can
manage through, but I think what's important, and I heard this at the workshop, was that
infrastructure is valley link, it's our roads, it's our traffic issues, it's making sure
if we can front money to get infrastructure done, roads widened sooner rather than later,
that that was a really important piece to this dialogue, and Andrew might be able to
clarify what that really looks like.
Yeah, so it, sorry, I'm going to struggle through this, but...
No problem, sorry.
So in the reports, God, we actually had some things where we're collapsing some
of the fee areas of the city where we might be able to have some nexus and have some
money that we can move around a little more freely to advance some of those roadway projects.
We're also looking at moving some projects forward on Core Hollow for some of the Ponderosa
project and the like.
So grants, you know, we go with Council to Washington, D.C. for doing EDA and other
types of grants for some roadway improvements.
So I think it's in the list here, but those are all some of the things that we'll
do with infrastructure to try to advance.
The other would be signal timing through town and those types of things,
just efficiency of moving people through the city as well.
So those are some of the items on infrastructure.
Okay, thank you.
And lastly, have a question regarding the timeframe.
So this is our strategic priorities for one year, but it's for fiscal year.
So fiscal year ends June, right, of 2020.
So a new council will be seated in January.
So now it's far at, well, December, technically.
So, and it's been done different ways.
When I first came on the council, we had meetings.
We treat every time a new council was seated.
And then we'll pick the priorities for the next coming couple of years.
And with our protocols and everything we've set it for,
is it annually that we'll be doing?
I don't think you specifically set the frequency.
Okay, so my request here was to be that whatever these strategic priorities that we set them
to go through the physical year of 2020 so that it will go through the end of this council
so that there's no overlap and that the new council with that seated in January and
December in January or whatever it can meet and set the priorities as of 2021.
That's already happens every time.
Sure.
And so I mean because these just covered this just covers it so I'm hoping that we can get some kind of
Consistency set in motion with the councils as they see it
So then they meet and they set the priorities going forward
And so it's it's part of protocol that I'm adding that I'm requesting for the priorities as they're set
If there's council consensus on that we certainly can make that clear
That's a member area. Thank you. I want to highlight a point that
that Mayor Pro Tem made related to our prioritization of valley infrastructure and traffic.
And I think that in quality of life, goal two, I really want to highlight when it was
done during the workshop, the highlight wasn't just valley link, the highlight was infrastructure.
And I would remind everyone, this is in the context of this is the day after we had
a discussion about the Katera apartments.
So I think all of us, we were really clear that all of us wanted to focus and
prioritize reducing traffic and enhancing infrastructure
for the city.
And I don't really quite see that strong language in goal two.
And I really want to make that very clear for, at least
that was what I took away from our workshop,
was that all five of us were very committed to enhancing
infrastructure, especially as our population is growing,
with the goal of really reducing that traffic.
So maybe we can kind of reword goal two
to really make that clear, but I think that's exactly what Mayor Pro Tem was trying to get
at is, you know, I do see the Valley Link has its own goal, but I think it's a really
important that we prioritize infrastructure and reducing traffic.
And that kind of just jogs something else.
So I do notice that we kind of have two homelessness points.
Mayor Pro Tem also brought up that we had talked about affordable housing.
A few months ago we had a special workshop on housing and diversifying housing in our
town.
I would maybe suggest that we consolidate the two homelessness goals and add a quality
of life so you're still at three under quality of life to reevaluate housing for our town.
So clarification on what where you referred to goal number two because under economic
development that's where the valley link is there another one I was looking at quality
of life.
or the quality of life one, okay.
That was related to infrastructure and traffic.
Right.
Okay.
Anyone else?
I just wanted to,
I never did get whether it was yes or no,
or if for lack of-
I'll second through your request,
because what I hear you asking is that,
we know what our practice is,
but you want to memorialize it as part of our protocols
so that we actually,
when a new council is seated that this happened,
that we do this workshop to educate.
And I think that kind of speaks to
councilman's ariolas point when he you know first got on trying to get caught up
on things that were done in the past that he wasn't aware of so I would
Absolutely. It's pretty much our practice, but I would support putting it in writing as
part of our protocols.
So can we be more specific? So you want to do this every two years? You want these goals
to go through December 2020? I want to be clear on what the direction is.
It was a two-part request. And so the first part request was that these goals go through
December of 2020, so then we don't have a lapse of priorities when the new council
comes on, because if this just goes through fiscal year June, then you have six months.
I mean, it can be overlapped, but I think if we were more directive.
And then part two was that for the memorial to memorialize to make sure it's protocols.
I would support that.
Just to be clear, so that amendment to the council protocols would be a separate item.
It has to come back as a separate item.
I just want to make sure.
To actually add it to that.
Just to be clear.
So that would be an amendment.
Is that what you're saying?
Yes, it's an amendment that would have to be by resolution and it would come back as
a separate item.
Okay.
Thank you.
So if I may, I'd like to kind of read back what I've heard from counsel so far and then
read if there's consensus for the counsel.
So under safety, I heard include emergency preparedness and crime prevention for economic
development to add incentives to bring to target jobs and that I'm not dressing
that language up but that is what I heard from Councilmember Areola. Quality of
life, stronger language with respect to the infrastructure perhaps swapping out
the word facilitate to the word advance which is a little stronger and then
also on the homelessness piece to incorporate housing into that as well
And I'm thinking affordable housing is that accurate that was my intention. Yes, okay
And then I also heard a recommendation
That and of course I teed this up to move the homelessness item under safety to make sure that it's under one category of quality of life
And then I also heard Mayor Pertem say these goals should go through December 2020
And that we should also memorialize this in our protocols, which we'll come back to as a separate item
So, pleat reactions and is the council on board with those recommendations?
I am, yes.
I know, I haven't spoken.
I just have a quick thing.
And I'm fine, but with the homelessness, I mean, I know we had had this in the back
or in the past that being it can be in two different categories.
I mean, like it or not, you know, vagrancy and stuff.
And I know one lady was talking about it here.
It is a public safety issue and we've had some public safety problems.
For example, drug use, you can talk about some of the other types of violations that
we have heard.
So taking that in public safety, it's a quality of life issue.
Sure, crime is a quality of life issue, but I think it bounces in both categories.
For example, quality of life, having people camping in our parks is a quality of life
issue.
But it's also a public safety issue when you look at some of the stuff that's left behind
Or you can look at the public safety issue when you're looking at some of the outbreaks that we've had in San Diego and San
Francisco and
Some other cities so you see what I'm saying. Can you have those in two categories or?
So my I think my initial proposal was to and I agree we need to absolutely address all of those
to consolidate the two just to make it clear I'd be very comfortable putting
that under public safety my initial my my original ask was that we add a goal
for housing so whether that's affordable housing and I would I would leave that
to staff city manager would you I think that housing would fall under
quality of life so would you prefer that just to be its own separate goal
to address affordable housing because we already have had at least one
workshop on that. So I'd assume that we've had some progress. So what are your
thoughts, City Avanager? No, we absolutely can do that, but I would just need to
make sure that's the consensus of the Council to add that under quality of
life. I believe that that makes sense. I agree with that. I'm good with that. Where
I think I'm unclear is where the full Council is on the placement of
homelessness. I suggested public safety. I agree with that. I'm okay with
leaving it in both, as the Mayor mentioned,
it's quality of life issue and can be also
a homeless public safety issue.
So I'm okay with leaving it under both.
I think it's two sides to the same coin.
So I think both categories would probably be,
I looked at both two to consolidate,
but I think that the focus should be
in both in two different areas
because it's two different teams
that's really looking at the issue
from different directions.
And my two cents, crime prevention,
And I think public safety is always my priority of government is to keep its residents safe.
So a crime prevention strategy and how they're going about doing that, meaning our chief
or police department would be relevant and I don't think it adds too much.
So am I seeing at least three or more nods that it's okay to live in two places?
Yes.
Okay, very good.
Okay.
City Manager, what else do you need?
Are you good?
I believe I have the direction. I think in addition to what I had read earlier
We're going to add affordable housing and its own goal under quality of life
And I heard that homelessness can live in both quality of life and safety. That was amenable to the council
Right anybody disagree and it's not a motion just direction. So the direction that
You want are you clear? I have the direction and you will see this again
And we'll codify that we'll bring it as a consent item. Just a button that up. All right. Well, thank you
That's one part of the item the second part is to approve the minutes where that is a motion from them. Oh, okay
Yeah, you're right. Sorry about that
All right, I can have motion. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes on item 3
B B D isn't David. Yes, sir. All right seconded second by councilmember ariel. I can roll call, please
Yes.
Councilmember Vargas?
Yes.
Councilmember Areola?
Yes.
Councilmember Ransom?
Yes.
Mayor Pro-Chem Young?
Yes.
And Mayor Rickman?
Yes.
All right.
Moving right along here.
Item 3E, receive an update on City Water System Master Plan and Water Reliability.
If we get a staff report, please.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Members of Council.
The item before you tonight is an update on our Master Plan and the Water Reliability.
We have all of the master plans are coming back to council in the spring and summer of next year.
We're bringing water to you because the water is one where there's a lot of outside forces that can impact that.
So we have Elizabeth Dreyer here who's going to do a presentation particularly focused on some things like water reliability,
some of the challenges, the Bay Delta plan, and then also what the city is doing about it.
So, Elizabeth, here's the remote.
If we could have the PowerPoint, please.
Thank you, Andrew.
My name is Elizabeth Dreher, I'm with West Yoast.
I'm the project manager for the City of Tracy
Citywide Water System Master Plan update.
We last prepared a water master plan for the city in 2012.
And the overall objectives of the master plan
are to evaluate the need for water system facilities,
improvements to meet existing and future needs and with our current master
plan update we are sort of at a milestone point in the project right now
where we have preliminary evaluation of future water supply needs and the future
water demand projections so that's what I'll be presenting tonight. First I want
to provide a little bit of kind of background on where the city has been
with its water use over the years.
This graphic shows approximately the last 40 years of water use in the city.
The bars on the bottom show the different water supplies.
The orange is your surface water supply from the Central Valley Project, which is delivered
through the Delta Mandoda Canal and treated at the city's John Jones Water Treatment
Plant.
The blue bars are showing the treated surface water supply that you receive from the Stannis-Loss River
from the South San Joaquin Irrigation District.
And the green bars show the local groundwater supplies that you've used over the years.
The supplies are shown in acre feet per year,
and it shows that obviously over time the water use has increased.
The maximum water use occurred in 2007 and the demand or the water use was 19,176 acre-feet per year.
And since then, the last 10 years or so have been pretty interesting here in California.
The drought occurred from about 2011 to 2017 that imposed a lot of mandatory statewide conservation
and increased water use efficiency throughout the state.
Also in 2008, there was the Great Recession, which severely impacted development projects,
and so that also resulted in demands reducing and leveling off.
So in the last 10 to 15 years, the water use has stayed about the same.
Again, with the drought, the worst of the drought was in 2015, 2016.
There has been a little bit of a rebound in demand since then, and the current demand
as of 2018 was about 16,000 acre feet per year.
What I've also shown in this graph, just for some perspective, is the historical population
of the city, and that's the red line that's on the top.
So while the water demand over the last 40 years has maybe a little bit more than doubled,
the population has more than quadrupled.
It's gone from about 20,000 people back in 1980 to just over 90,000 people right now.
And it's an interesting comparison because you can see although the population has quadrupled,
the water use has not.
And that's because, several reasons, there's new plumbing codes and plumbing requirements
for water-efficient fixtures throughout the state.
Irrigation systems are more efficient than they used to be.
People are more aware of the need to conserve water, and so people are more efficient
in their water use.
And there's also been a shift in land use within the city.
There's a lot more residential than there used to be.
And so that sort of skews the water demands down based on the comparison to population.
So one way of looking at it is the per capita water use number for the city.
And based on the overall number, about in the early 1980s, the overall per capita water use was about 300 gallons per capita per day.
And in recent years, it's been 160 gallons per capita per day.
So that means basically the average use per person is about half of what it used to be,
which is what ties the population and the numbers together.
Now I want to kind of look towards the future as we look with the Watermaster Plan update.
Development is continuing within the city, consistent with the city's general plan.
plan. You just have to drive around town and see the recent and the ongoing development,
Cordis Ranch, the International Park of Commerce, the Ellis Project, the Tracy Hills Project.
And there's also a lot of additional planned future development per the general plan.
Some of the major ones are the West Side Ranch specific plan, the West Side Industrial,
east side industrial, several urban reserve areas, and then also various
infill projects throughout the city. And so those two graphs are kind of
showing the areas that are proposed for future development and infill.
Another
thing that's happened in the last several years is several new water system
facilities have been completed. The recycled water pump station and
pipeline work has been completed in Lammers Road and is continuing on
with the additional phase. That will bring recycled water from the wastewater treatment
plant up onto the west side of the city to serve developments on that side.
Two potable water pump stations have been completed at the John Jones Water Treatment
Plant. One is to serve the Tracy Hills development and the other is to serve other city development
in the main part of the city. There's a new potable water tank and pump station
at Cordis Ranch, that'll be serving that area, and also if you notice, if you're driving on 580
by Tracy Hills, there's a new potable water tank and pump station that's being constructed there
as well. So all of these facilities will help to deliver water supplies to the existing and
future users in the city.
The other thing we're looking at for the master plan is that
That recent legislation, primarily Senate Bill 606 and Assembly Bill 1668, they were
both passed in 2018, and it's created new statewide water efficiency standards, also
known as kind of the umbrella of is called making water conservation a California way
of life.
And this legislation is establishing new water efficiency standards throughout the state.
Those standards will apply to indoor residential use, outdoor residential use, commercial,
industrial, and institutional irrigation, and then also water loss standards.
The Water Master Plan will be taking these standards into account.
As we develop the future water demands.
The other thing that's happened over the last few years is unprecedented drought conditions,
especially in 2015 and 2016, and that has, that really led to unprecedented supply cutbacks
and of course the mandated statewide water conservation that we all experienced.
The other thing that came out in 2018 was an update to the Bay Delta water quality control
plan, and that potentially impacts the availability of city surface water supplies, particularly
in dry years.
Specifically, it restricts the use of flows in the Stanislaus River until 40% of unimpaired
flows are rededicated for water quality and in-stream fisheries, which for SSJID,
who is one of your suppliers of your surface water, potentially reduces the average annual
supply by about 10 to 25 percent and the dryer flows potentially by up to 64 percent.
The SSJID supply was previous to this, was thought to be a very reliable supply and it
has been very reliable even through the drought years, but this new Bay Delta plan could
change that in the future.
So looking at all these different factors, we have come up with a projected kind
of supply versus demand picture looking forward.
This graphic is showing supply versus demand
for three hydrologic conditions in the three bars.
So the first bar is showing normal year conditions.
The second bar is showing single dry year conditions.
And then the third bar is showing multiple dry year
conditions.
And then each of the colors in the bars
are the different water supplies.
So the blue is your existing water supplies, which again
is your surface water supply from the CVP as well as SSJID and groundwater.
And you can see as you go from a normal year to the single and multiple dry years that
that blue bar gets shorter, especially in the single dry year.
And that's because of the projected cutbacks in the surface water supply availability in
a single dry year and to some extent the multiple dry year.
The single dry year is sort of the worst case because it's assumed to be like an extreme dry year in one year.
The multiple dry years are below normal years over a series of years, but they're not as severe as that one single dry year.
So usually the critical case is the single dry year.
The other thing we're showing on here in terms of supply for the single dry year and multiple dry year is what we call ASR.
And that is aquifer storage and recovery.
And that's a system where we use the groundwater basin
and we basically store away excess surface water
that we have in wet years and we can store it
in the groundwater basin.
And then we were able to pull it out in a dry year.
So that's why we're showing a supply coming out
in a single dry year and a multiple dry year.
The city currently has one ASR well, well eight,
which was designed and intended for this purpose and additional ASR wells are
planned to expand on that program. The green bar that's showing up in the
multiple dry year case is the semi-tropic water supply and that is a
program that the city is involved with. Basically it's a storage
bank for groundwater down in Kern County and so it's a a deal where you work
with the state to basically send water down there when you don't need it and
then when you do need it you can you're you basically can withdraw it so it's a
it's a groundwater bank so you store it away when you have it and when you
need it you can pull it back and so we are showing that we would be able
to pull water back in a multiple dry year over multiple years so that's
what that bar is. But with those, with again just the blue bars and the orange and green
bars, we're still below what we are projecting as future projected demand. And let me talk
a little bit about the demand line. So the bottom dashed line is the 2018 water demand.
That was at 16,228 acre-feet per year. The next dashed bar across is the projected
projected potable water demand at buildout of the general plan.
We're projecting that to be about 34,000 acre feet.
And then the line on the top is the projected total water demand, which would be potable
and recycled.
Again, at buildout of the general plan, we're projecting that to be about 39,000
acre feet.
And so then to close the gap between our existing supplies and what we need to
meet the future.
We're looking at recycled water as our primary way of closing that gap.
And it's recycled water used in two different ways.
One is the direct use of recycled water for irrigation of landscaping.
So instead of using potable water, we would use recycled water.
And that's the 5000 acre feet, the purple bar that's on the very top.
And then we're also proposing to use recycled water as an exchange.
And so that's the gray bar that we're showing in between on all three bars and by recycled water exchange
we are proposing to work negotiate a an arrangement an exchange agreement arrangement with the state
to be able to
Discharge treated recycled water to the Delta Mendoza canal
And it would be discharged just downstream of the city's John Jones water treatment plant.
And for the amount of water that gets discharged into the DMC,
the city would then be able to take a like amount of water from the Delta Mendoza Canal,
treat that at the city's treatment plant, and be able to use that for potable supply.
So it's a way to basically use the recycled water in a way where you could basically trade it
it for water that you could then treat and use for potable needs.
This program is, we're not doing this right now, it needs to be negotiated with the state,
but there have been initial conversations with the state about this and it looks to
be a feasible arrangement moving forward and it has been done by at least one other
agency in the state to have this sort of arrangement. What's good about this
deal is it's that supply is local to you, so you're not really depending on
another agency to have that supply. It does have to be approved by the state
for the exchange agreement, but that supply is yours and it's wastewater
that gets created at the city and then you're turning around and using it
again.
So again, the message here is again that we are experiencing reduced reliability
of the CVP and SSGID supplies, particularly in the dry years, and we will need additional
supplies to meet that demand. And we're looking at the recycled water exchange and
the recycled water for irrigation as a key way of doing that moving forward.
So just to sum up, the city does have a very strong portfolio of available water supply sources.
And the city's residents have done, and the businesses have done a great job in conserving water
and improving their water use efficiency.
But the city's future supply reliability will be impacted by drought and climate change and environmental issues.
And we know that additional reliable water supplies are becoming more and more scarce in California.
So the city should be pursuing a recycled water exchange and other potential new water supplies as they move forward, I
think.
Yes, the next steps that we'll be taking with the water master plan, we are, I said these numbers are preliminary.
We will be completing the water demand and supply evaluation and then also looking at future water supply needs.
We'll be looking at current and future water infrastructure and looking to see what improvements need to be made to meet those future demands.
And we're currently anticipating completion of the water master plan by late spring of 2020.
And thereafter, the master plan would go through environmental review,
and then the recommendations would be implemented.
And I think that's the end of my presentation.
Thanks, Elizabeth.
So, Council, as you can see, we wanted to highlight some of the issues that were out there.
To say that we're coming back with you, but we also wanted to have some of the solutions there as well.
We'd be happy to answer any questions you have.
All right. Thank you both very much. Very thorough.
Mayor, I have a point of clarification. I didn't want to interrupt during the presentation.
So if I understanding well, you're saying you will come back to us on the spring of 2020 with your study
and a recommendation to start to create a policy or just what is the intent?
I'm dating the master plan and the study of the master plan but is your intent to just
bring us recommendations so we can create policy on the water usage?
What we're doing with this, and I'll take a stab, is we're actually implementing what
you just saw relative to the solutions in the master plan.
What will come before you is approval of that update.
We're going to be socializing this with all the development community as well, particularly
because there's a number of water studies for projects that have to happen.
So this is kind of an update to let you know that the state, there are new regulations
and things from the state.
We're implementing these in the master plan as a way to shore up that gap.
And that's what will be for you in the spring of 2020 is approval of the master
plan.
I will say that we had a discussion, we're going to be going out and pursuing
this contract agreement amendment if you will with the state even now because this
is such an important element for our build out so we're going to be doing that
if it's kind of a check-in with you all that this is what's out there this is
what we're doing so we will be doing that as well. And then last point of
clarification before coming back to the mayor and so the importance of that
agreement with the state is to create the credits back so we can as we pump
water back into the delta, we are receiving water back the set amount that we're dumping
in, correct?
Yes, that's correct.
In fact, as Elizabeth highlighted, the master plan currently identifies about 5,000 or so
acre feet that we would be using as the direct exchange.
Our request to the state is to dramatically increase that number.
Remember, the recycle water is dependent on the treatment plant of the wastewater and
ultimately we're going to go to 21MGD at the wastewater treatment plant, so there's a lot
of capacity that we'll be able to use if we do this exchange with the state.
So that's our request from the state.
Thank you for the clarifications.
Thank you, Mayor.
All right.
Thank you.
All right.
At this time we'll open up for the public.
Anybody from the public wish to address Council on this item?
Mike
Sandu, Tracey, California. As far as I understand, this recycled water city of
Tracey can pump in either to the ground or dump in Delta Mundo Tocanao and get
credit back. Don't forget the last drought we had. We told our homeowners not
to water their lawns and that just happened a few years ago and all this
water we could use for our homeowners. And in the years where there's no need, there
are a lot of people out there on open bidding, they would buy that water from the city of
Tracy. They can, all that could be bid it out. And only places whose have done this
is already successfully they're already dumping water from a distro series and
third lock delport water district that's your local water district they got the
state permit they already have the experience and they've been already
dumping it and getting credit back for their water thank you thank you Mr.
Sandio anyone else they
none bring it back to cancel is that a quick question
for Ms. Ramirez. So it looks like it's coming back in late spring for the master plan update.
However, water law is an incredibly complex issue. So do you anticipate that we'll have
the agreement with the state for the recycled water exchange by the time that we're returning
the master plan update or no?
Likely not, and we, as you stated, water law is actually highly complex and heavily regulated.
We do work closely with outside counsel from Downey brand, actually their Sacramento office,
one of their key partners who's been representing the city on water issues,
and in front of the state regulatory agencies for a number of years, I want to say 10, 20 years.
But I know that agreement is currently in progress and likely will not be finalized by the spring
of 2020.
Okay.
But that will be included in the master plan update, at least the progress towards that
particular goal?
Yes.
Cool.
Sharma can answer that too.
Okay.
We already met with the state on this issue. We had a very successful meeting, but there
will be multiple meetings and a lot of requirements from the states before we have this agreement.
Okay, thank you. Thank you, Council Member.
Thank you, Mayor. I want to first thank staff
because I have met last week and again today I appreciate Coole and Ms.
Haryama for taking the time to walk me through this process like councilmen
I realize when water and water laws are extremely complex very difficult but we
must get it right because the future and the well-being of our community
depending on this. And not to be over dramatic, not to be, you know, but how we grow, how we
able to exist and the quality of life of our citizens depend on getting good policies and
good recommendations into the next steps. As I share with the staff today, we're still
paying the consequences of the last drought.
We're still removing the trees and chivalry.
We still have medians in areas where we have no plants,
no trees, and we need to figure out how to find money
to bring those landscape up to what they used to be.
So with that being said, I also learned,
And correct me if I'm wrong, if I want to just go over some of the conversations I done.
So mainly for the public to know that if we are not successful in getting this right, there
are consequences to, if possible, if a drought it will come next year.
The state could cut our water supplies between 70 and 80 percent.
Is that correct?
Perfect. So with that being said, the recycled water, it's now have a larger play until they
to lay in our future. And I'm glad that you guys are embarking into this endeavor all about
updating our master planning for water. But I think that after the spring and after the
update of the planning. We, the City Council, if it's not this one, the next one, should
look into making policies of when and how that recycled waters use. Other cities have
done that. Other cities, for example, besides getting credit from this day, they utilize
all the recycle water for the usage of landscaping,
medians, or parks, or to sell back to our neighbors.
We are lucky to have different agencies.
And I'm going to mention we did receive the letter from BBID.
Okay, I'm going to stop it real quick.
Are we jumping into 3F when we're talking about recycle water?
No.
I think the letter might be referring to three.
I believe the letter.
I'm just talking about item 3E.
Can I continue?
Yes, please.
Just be cautious.
Absolutely.
Thank you, Mayor.
So with that being said, I'm going to go back to what I was trying to refer is the policies.
As we do master planning and we do standards with everything,
And we supposed to, I think, we should look into policies to make sure that the city is
protected, to always have the ability to serve our community first.
So updating the plan is great.
Creating policy is the next step to make sure that our resources are available for
whenever the need arise within our community.
So, with that being said, is that a step, and that's what I was asking before.
The step is updating the plan, come back to council in the spring,
make the recommendations, creating policy. Is that correct?
Yes, I think as it relates to the policies, as Mr. Sharma mentioned,
we're having discussions with the state.
right now we don't have a permit to do the exchange.
And so what we want to make sure that we're careful
about having policies about how to maybe prioritize
or other things related to that exchange
without yet having the state approval,
we want to make sure that that's not inconsistent.
And so I think the only thing that the correction there
or clarification would be that once the state
either approves the exchange or we have a good sense,
start to work on the policies about how do you prioritize or do deal with the excess recycled
water?
Perfect. And how likely it is for our community to use a full portion, it looks like by the
drawings that we have surplus right now, is that correct? Or recycled water?
Do you have a surplus?
Or not?
Right now we are not using any recycled water. So once the recycled water project is constructed,
then we will be starting using it for legacy fields and percentia fields and sports complex.
But also we do have permission from the state to use the recycled water,
and that is the change in place of use of recycled water.
So right now our treated water effluent or recycled water goes to the old river.
State has allowed us to use for the irrigation purposes within the city.
But the state order requires us also to make some water available to some other irrigation districts as well if we can't use it.
So it's a little bit complicated at this time.
So we already have the state order asking us to use this water
within the sphere of influence area.
And our goal will be to use that water by the city first
and then go to the other agency which is listed in the state order.
For example, WSID or BBID.
So, cool. We don't really know yet what that will look like. It seems like we don't know
yet how much recycled water we will be using or not, and if we will have eventually after
it's constructed a surplus or not, and we don't know yet what the state is going to
obligate us to make sure that we provide our other water agencies or not so all
that will come sounds like it it will come and spring and it's more
conversation to happen yeah correct yeah right now we are concentrating on
the completion of the project we have and once we have it then we'll start
using it and then we'll be looking into how much infrastructure we have to
which park, how much they left. But then also the state order complicates a little bit that
this water should be used within the influence area. But they have only allocated us right
now the order we got from the state is for about 6,000 acre feet. But once we get more
orders that may have some different places of use as well.
Well, I love that you guys are being proactive, moving us forward and trying to just look
ahead. So thank you for bringing this item up. Thank you, all of you, for a very well
written staff report. And I look forward to hearing this item again and see where we are
in the spring. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. I have a few questions, but just I'm
just trying to wrap my head around why if the laws and everything around water and everything
is complicated and we may not have that by spring of 2020. The purpose of even letting
us know this now is what, what are we trying to, I mean I know you're just giving us information
but you're just letting us know that you're coming back in the spring with water plans.
Is there something that needs to happen before that besides to talk with the state
which may not happen? Well as I mentioned, we're actually dealing with the state now
And so, part of it was making sure that you're aware and the community is aware of some of the challenges with reliability,
but also that we are working with the state and we believe there's a way that we can shore up the gap.
Those bars that you saw are for build-out.
And so, while Tracy has a multiple sources of water, we've always been very proactive,
this is just coming to you in addition with that to say, there's some challenges out there,
But we have a solution for it and we're moving forward with the negotiations or discussions with the state now
Okay, do we have any set things in place of how often we actually review our city-wide?
Water plan water system master plan. It was done in 2012. I know that there's an urban one
That's to do every five years. So it's not due till 2021 for us
But do we have a set time period that we're looking at this or is just as needed?
So typically what we do with the master plans is sewer water storm road public
facilities alike there's been a couple that have come forward to you all to
increase the costs you know there's engineering news record goes up every
year but about every three to five years we try to do a little bit more of
an exhaustive review to say what are there's some things that there are
any changes for example development assumptions change if there's less
homes being built or that kind of stuff through the re-zonings and that, we try to incorporate
those in more intensive changes about every three to five years and stuff.
Okay, so we're like about eight years since the last one.
Fees have gone up, but this is one where we're actually doing a bit more of a comprehensive.
And also I think one of the other reasons is that from October 2012, things have changed
a little bit. Like for example, we were relying very heavily on south San Joaquin County Irrigation
District water. And for example, for Corpus Ranch, we took almost, we already purchased
about 1,280 acre feet. And we do need additional 780 acre feet from them. And that was our
plan in 2012. So now things have changed. SSJID doesn't have that 780 acre feet
of water available to us anymore. So that water is gone. Plus the water which we are getting
from SSGID was 100% reliable and now that can be reduced to 64% less than what we have.
So basically out of 1000 acre feet we can have only 3600, 360 acre feet. So those are
changes, so our sources are getting scarce. So that is another need to update it. And
normally that never happened before, and we are very comfortable. So with this master
plan update, we will be updating the other sources, what we have and what we don't.
Okay. Because I didn't notice on the slide where it says for SJID potentially reduces
average. I mean, is that most likely? I mean, just potential. And there's a potential
for a lot of things because it's a huge number.
The SSJD, we were negotiating with them.
We wanted to have additional water from them
and they don't have that water available anymore.
OK, but by spring, we probably will
know what that potential really is, or maybe will we know?
Will we be more fine-tuned by then?
No, that one is very clear.
We don't have it.
But by spring, we will finalize this document,
bring it back to you.
So we are trying to assess it, what impacts are, and what we know right now.
And if things change between now and spring, definitely we'll bring it back to you as well.
And I guess I wanted to say that all the master plans, this one included is a 30-year lookout, right?
So in spring, we'll have more information. I don't know if we'll have all the information,
but we'll have certainly the discussions that we have from the state.
We think this solution going forward will certainly help us.
We can't predict exactly what's going to happen with water reliability with the state,
but we can do things on our side to help insulate from anything that might happen in the future
so that we can build out to our general plan potential.
Okay, so I guess just a clarification for myself.
So because they have pulled that back definitely,
that makes the potential that our overall supplies will be reduced.
that's what that's what that line actually means that is correct thank you
now I got that and so for what other options do we have besides what we're
negotiating for I mean I know this is solution but we're talking about the
recycle water as an option if they're if the state will allow us to exchange but
what other what other sources do we have seeing that we have a strong
portfolio I'm not sure what all that is and I don't even pretend to be a
a specialist in water?
Yeah, actually in 2012 we thought that we have a very strong portfolio.
I think we still believe we have it.
But at that time the water which we are getting from CVP,
that is Central Valley Project, that is from Delta Moda Canal,
that was 100% reliable.
Rebel means if a state or US Bureau cannot reduce our supplies,
But they did that one. They reduced their supplies during drought. So now what's
happening is it's very difficult to get reliable sources of water. So all these
sources we have, they are not that reliable as we thought in 2012. However,
However, recycle water is a reliable source.
We have a control over it, and that cannot be taken away by anybody else.
And we have some control on ASR well, that is, we have a control.
SSJID, we thought we have full reliability from them, and that reliability is gone.
So reliability is going, has been what we had in 2012 is not there anymore.
And it's in a changing situation in the water throughout California.
To clarify, that's in times of drought, I want to clarify.
The other is you may have read from some cities in the Bay Area or Tri Valley and even in southern California
that a process called reverse osmosis where they actually treat the effluent from the wastewater treatment plant
to such an extent that it's used extensively, I'll put it that way.
Yeah, actually, the city of San Diego is doing it.
What they're doing is they're...
It's clear, waste, right, though you're referring to?
Yes.
So out of our toilets, we're there and then we drink it.
No, but they're doing it, they're technically,
what they're doing is the city of San Diego,
they're getting the wastewater effluent,
putting it in a lake with other water, combining it,
and then treating it again,
and then doing a super treatment called reverse osmosis and then they're
serving it back to the people. So in that sense we are a little bit lucky
because we have a source close to us, Taldum and Oda canal, where we can
discharge it downstream somewhere and pump the same amount of water upstream
somewhere and we can treat it and we will not see any difference if we are
successful in that endeavor. Can we just send that down south? Yeah, our water will be going
down south, yes.
Actually, we met with State, actually. Our first proposal was can we pump
that water in or discharge their water into Delta Monodak canal upstream of the West
War treatment plant and State is not ready in the Northern California. If you are in
the south, they may have allowed us. So they told us, no, it's not a good idea
to discharge into canal upstream of your treatment plant,
but we may allow you, they say may,
to discharge downstream of your treatment plant,
and then you can pump out the same amount of water
at your treatment plant, which is coming from the Delta.
So we're becoming a little bit more creative,
and we hope we will be successful.
We got very kind of a positive response,
but we are not there yet.
As part of solutions, are we looking at storage?
because that was one of the things that was talked about before years ago when we were
talking about water updates, as far as our storage here, especially for droughts. So I
don't know if we can expand our storage. Do we have any surplus in our storage or how does
that even factor into that? Because I don't see this as a part of it.
What we are doing is right now, storage wise will be very expensive and we have to
invest a lot of money. But ASR, which is the Echo for Storage Recovery Program,
program, basically which we inject water into the ground when we have surplus water and
then we take it out the same amount of water from the wells.
So that program we already have it and we have well number eight which is on 6th Street
and Tracy Boulevard.
So we have that equipment installed over there and that's so we inject that water
during the rainy season and we can pump that water out.
And if you see those, the graph, and it shows about 3,000 acre feet of water, which we can
recover it back.
The question comes up, why only one well?
Why don't we do all the wells?
And that is a question we looked into it.
The problem is, state has given us a permit, and they are allowing us to use the only
SSJID water to inject into the ground.
the water which we get from south sand in irrigation district. They don't allow us to
use the DMC water to inject into it. So when the water is coming from SSJID from the east
of Tracy, basically we shut down our treatment plant because the system totally has to be
shut down and the water has to go through all the areas, all the zones and all the
reservoirs we have in the city. So, imagine that the amount of water we are getting from
ASAID, we have to serve the existing city, we also have to inject it, and we don't have
that water from them. We don't have enough water to serve it. So we can only have only
one well for ASR well, and we can't have 10 wells, and we can't inject that water
unless our permit is applied by the state, and there's a possibility they may revise
it, but it's a difficult task and it will take a lot of time. We don't know. So at this
time we have only one well which is allowed and we are using it to the maximum extent.
So the aquifer storage, aquifer storage and others will maintain, we will still maximize
that. That's not changing in the master plan. So that's still going to be one of our options.
We are using that one.
Yes. So thank you very much for bringing this very complicated issue back to us.
I don't know, Cole, if you remember, we had this very lengthy discussion years ago when
we were approving Tracy Hills and I was concerned about do we have enough water and I was reassured
that all of these different resources were available so that when we approved projects
we knew that the water would be available.
We talked about groundwater, well water, you know, all the different sources.
And so I do understand that the 2018 legislation has changed a little bit, well, a lot of bit of that.
But I just want to understand what kind of the danger is.
So I feel like I got mixed feelings from this report.
It's like the supply is strong.
It says, you know, we have a strong portfolio of available sources.
But then I kind of feel like there's this huge risk factor that maybe we're not really talking about.
So I want to look at the first graph where we show the different sources, SSJID,
which is primarily the majority of the source we use now,
which looks like we started using that as our primary source about 2005 as indicated earlier.
And then 2012 was the last report to current.
So, our historical water use based on population to current is about the same and in some years
is lower but now we've exchanged the, we were using SSID but now you're telling us that
may not be as available depending on the drought years.
What I'm trying to be clear about is how much of the other categories we actually can access.
So I do see your supply and demand chart.
But when we're looking at the surface water versus what we can get from the wells and so on and so forth,
But how much can we actually, if SSJID is not available, what is actually, how much acre
fee can we compensate from our other resources, if that may?
Tell me if that's too complicated of a question.
Let me try to make it simple if I can.
If I can go back to the projected future, what supply versus demand graph, that will
be, if I can have the overhead.
So I see thirty four. That is a power point, please.
It's a power point. Slide seven.
Can you try it? Go
backwards, yeah.
Go ahead. Backwards, yeah.
Yes. Right. That's where I was looking. Yeah. Okay.
So let me try to make it simpler. So if you look into the normal
year, the first graph, first vertical graph,
And we have a water supply of 26,588 acre-feet.
And if you look into the top bar we have, that is the full build-out of our general plan.
So, and our need over there is 39,000 acre-feet when the developments within the sphere of influence are completed or built out.
So we will need about 39,000 acre-feet. So we do have 26,588,600 acre-feet of water.
Then we do need 7,500 acre-feet of recycled water in a normal year.
And that will be a recycled water exchange and we have to get approval from the state.
So in addition to that, if you look into the top, another 5,000 acre-feet will be
using for irrigation, the landscaping irrigation. So the total amount of
recycled water in a normal year will be needed, that will be 10, 11.2, sorry, it's a
12,537 acre feet and that equates to 11.2 mgd. I'm putting some numbers over here. So
we have a
shortage in a normal year but this shortage now gets more complicated when we go to a single dry
year when we go to the drought year. Our supply is, instead of 26,588 acre-feet,
reduces to 18,751 acre-feet. This is our best guess. It could be more, it
could be less.
And then we are using all the other sources. So we'll be using
about 12,000 acre-feet of recycled water for exchange, and we'll be still
using 5,000 for irrigation purposes. So we'll be needing about 17,374 acre-feet for the
second water.
Let me take a quick stab to you because some of this is highly dependent on, as Kul said,
this is the build-out of the general plan. That's a lot of land area that we're talking
about here, the full build-out, right? Some of this is dependent on if this market
it stays the way it is.
We've been talking a little bit about what do we anticipate
to be the growth over the next five, six, seven type of years.
And so really all of that plays into this about
is this an immediate thing that we need to have
the recycled water, five, a 10 year.
So a lot of it is highly dependent on the growth,
on the reliability numbers as we said.
I don't wanna come off as the sky's falling
because there is some time out there that we can solve this,
but I just wanted to clarify that all that is highly dependent upon
development occurring in the way it has in the past, or that type of thing.
Okay, thank you for... Can you go back to that slide?
So I appreciate that. So I guess
at full build-out, because that's what we're looking at on this project,
future, right? Full build out. So the difference between what we were told a few years ago, full
build out was, don't worry, we have plenty of access, but the difference is now this SSJID.
And the state also, the CVP water, which we get from the Delta Moderna canal.
Okay.
That also.
So the difference is, can you tell me like which, as far as groundwater, so we went through
this whole exercise and said, well, what if this is not available? What if that's
not available and it was like, well, we'll go to the groundwater, we'll go here.
And so I understand that the changes in the loss has significantly changed things so I
can't hold you accountable for things that weren't in place then.
I'm just trying to understand when we're looking at these projected and you're showing
me the shortage, can you show me with more, so I see the existing supply and then
I see the recycled water exchange.
but I don't see and I know that it's all in there is can you kind of give me a
breakdown because the existing supply includes CVP, SSGID and groundwater
but can you break it down a little bit further? No, I understand the question so
let's say in a normal year out of let's say single drought year 18,751 acre
So this includes about 9,000 acre-feet of water from our wells and that is the safe yield from our wells.
If we probably can have more water but then it will be impacting our sustainability of the wells itself
and not to make it more complicated, the wells will be going into our new program called GSA
It's a ground sustainability agency, which we are one.
So everywhere you get water, it's getting complicated.
So there's more controls, checks and balances.
Okay.
So 9,000 acre feet, we can get more from the whales, which...
Which is included in this 18,700.
It's already included.
Okay, and then there's more,
but we may not be able to access more.
When you say there's more,
but we may not be safe, how much more are we talking?
I mean we will be drawing down from the over wells and that will be impacting the sustainably
I just want to know like how much is there if emergency happens as example.
We can even go even one and a half twice.
I mean we can go twice.
And I know it changes from the 9,000 acre feet number for the groundwater is based on a safe yield
estimate that was done several years ago and so that's thought to be sort of the maximum sustain.
I'm trying to find out what the could is. What is the acre feed of could take out more? How much more could we take out if there was an emergency year or something like that?
I don't know that we could put a firm number on that. Again, it's tied to how much you could actually pump from your wells as well.
So what's the percentage that is safe to take out? I guess maybe that would help me. I can just do some math
Is there like a percentage that was used to calculate the 9,000 square acre square feet?
You know, I don't know that there's a simple answer to that. No, okay. All right. I don't want to I'm just
You know, but a groundwater sustainability agency will be working with our neighbors
farmers cities and everybody will be
Doing the same things so we want to make sure that we keep that safe level somewhere over there, too
And now 1,000 acre feet is that safe yield point.
Okay.
So basically where you're talking about is based on this, with all of the changes at full build out, there's really a concern that we need to identify more water sources or storage sources or recharge sources.
Yes.
Is that what, so, okay.
Okay.
During a drought period, yes, and that recycle water seems to be the easiest one to tackle.
But as I said before, at build out, the wastewater treatment plan is going to be at 21MGD.
So there's going to be quite a bit excess and that kind of stuff as well.
So that's why we're looking at that, to say, okay, this might be the easy solution
for us.
Okay.
And then my final question would be when it comes to the amount of purple pipe we've
been putting into all the different places. When we reach full capacity as far as like
actually implementing as much purple pipe as you have planned, does that give more leeway
in the system? Does that give us more capacity or have you already calculated that in these
projections that you've presented to us? We already have.
You have this complete every so everything even so when you do filled build out full build out includes full build out of purple
Pipe yes, okay, and for the record. I do not support turning the effluent water into drinking water
I know mr.
Mr. Sharma said hey, it's probably safer to drink than
Some of the other water, but it's not the same molecules. It's totally different molecules, but I don't believe it
But thank you very much. I appreciate your responses. Have you tried it?
No, but cool offer to drink some.
You may like it, who knows?
That's my arrow.
So I just had a quick question.
I wanted to point your attention to the same chart,
the projected future water supply and demand chart.
So I see the existing supply in a normal year,
looks like an approximately 26,000 acre feet.
The 2018 demand is approximately 16,
so that difference looks like approximately 10,000 acre feet per year.
So in any given year for a normal year, what are we doing to maintain that water?
Are we storing it? Is it going to aquifer?
Is that going to groundwater for that approximate 10,000 in a normal year?
What's happening with our water there?
Yeah, you know, what's happening is we are buying these water from different sources.
For example, we buy it from Bureau of Acclamation, and we buy in accordance with our needs.
So we will be paying for that one.
So, same way we buy water from SSJID, and if our needs are less, we don't buy all the water from them.
So, when we talk about existing supply, it's not local. We purchase what we need in that particular given year.
Yes. But it does have a permanent supply, which is our own supply for wells, for example, that is already there.
Okay. So, currently we're not doing anything?
We are not, yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
Sure.
Cool. So, we have three water supplies, correct?
So we have CVP, SJID, and groundwater.
What does cities like, I mean, I know there's some cities have one water supply,
and what does cities like Stockton, how many do they have?
Do you have any idea?
Or a large city, I'm just curious.
Stockton has a, they've been primarily groundwater for many, many years,
but they added a surface water supply about five years ago.
So they have two?
They have, yeah, they have two now.
Shouldn't cities like that worry more than us, right?
I mean, I know it's gloom and doom, but I mean,
you look at what we have, three, I know a lot of cities don't even.
I mean, they would love to have what we have,
and that just goes kudos to our staff
over and our council over the years making sure that's a priority.
And when we do have wet years and we do use our groundwater,
We do replenish it. One of the last time we had a dip into our ground water.
The
ground water? Did you say?
Yes, actually what we do is...
I don't care what's done. I'm just asking when it was the last time.
I would say probably
seven or eight years ago when we shut down our
water treatment plant and that time either we get water from
message ID or ground wells. How long do we do that for? I mean what I'm trying to get at
is just to assure the public, even if our two waters applied for somehow against the mesh,
we have all this excess ground water that can supply the city for.
We have been injecting water in our ASR well. Right, but what I'm asking is, how much
ground water have we ever used at one time? Let's try this. How many wells do we have?
We have nine wells.
Out of those nine wells, how many did we diminish, you know, for a year or something because we
didn't have excess water?
What do you say?
Did we ever do that?
We have used up to six or seven wells, yes.
And at one time.
One time, yes.
At one year.
And they're all replenished now.
Yes.
So we have a, I always think that as our emergency water.
Yes.
Whatever happened to, you know, it's kind of frustrating.
and you know you I sit up here and I look at this and I try to hold my
composure and you know it's frustrating in the sense that here you have a city
like Tracy who has planned for the future, planned for a growth and you know
have the three different water supply and and then you look throughout the
state and how much this state of California has grown you know hundreds
and hundreds of thousands of people compare or millions of people whatever it
may be compared to 20 years ago and our water storage is the same or close to the same.
Whatever happened in like 2014, I believe we had a proposition for water storage.
Is there any water storage in the works that would assist cities or central valleys or
whatever it may be to correct this problem of water shortages?
Do you know any, because I don't.
Do you know any?
I'm just asking because maybe I don't I'm wrong, but we haven't went the last time we had a
Like a reservoir built. What year was that?
Yeah, it just it just goes to show you that this is a frustrating part, you know
This year last year we have trillions trillions of gallons of water, you know fresh water rain snow
And it's just being sent right down to the ocean and that water is not being used for
what I believe in 2014, the people of California wanted more storage and we still haven't had
that storage. So some of the problems that cities are seeing, you know, could be alleviated
if the state of California would do what it needs to be done is to put more water storage
out there. I mean, you know, you talk about, and I mentioned, you know, down south as
a joke, but, you know, we had the twin tunnels and now that's gone. Now they're talking
about a tunnel, take our water, the delta, down south, which could be alleviated if those
people up in Sacramento would do what they should be doing is taking care of the residents
of California and build more water storage. So to me, I know it's kind of sitting on a
high horse, but it's just frustrating not as the mayor or somebody sitting here, but
just as a resident of this state that we haven't acted in so long. And here we are
trying to deal with a problem that could be alleviated if we had more
storage to catch all that rainwater. But with that being said,
this is just for the update on the city's wastewater master plan.
So we're receiving that. And if council doesn't have anything
further, we're going to move on. Does anybody need a break?
Like a restroom break or anything before we move on?
I say good. All right. We'll move on to item 3F.
staff provide direction to staff regarding negotiating an exclusive negotiating rights
agreement, ENRA, with private public infrastructure group, LLC, PPIG, regarding the completion
of a feasibility study to determine the potential monetization of the city's future recycle
water supply.
Staff can report, please.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Members of Council and Dermalek, Assistant City Manager, so this item is a request
to do an exclusive negotiating rights with PPIG for a feasibility study to
determine if there's any monetization potential for the city's excess
recycled water in the future. This item is before you because our recently
adopted council procedures and preparation policies. This item was
sponsored by councilmember Ransom and you the mayor to have this item before
for us for a kind of a two-step process.
And the first step is, once it's sponsored by council,
we bring the item back to gauge whether or not
you want staff to pursue, do some more research,
work on and that kind of thing.
So that's the first step and that's what we're doing
tonight.
The second part of that step is coming back
with the action item.
In this case, it would be whether council directs us
to move forward with the details of an ENRA with them,
we can come back with some of that details that would come back to you for discussion
about whether that's what you envisioned or if you have any parameters and that kind of
stuff.
So that's kind of why we're here and kind of the steps of the process.
I should also say that it's been that PBIG has had on and off discussions with the
city for quite some time.
What started out, I believe, is a concept to assist the city in disposal of unused
nuisance recycled water has kind of evolved, I think, over a little bit into these discussions
that I've had with PPIG staff about this feasibility study. They've indicated to me that they don't
know if this is going to work or not, but they wanted to look at their own feasibility.
As I stated before in the other agenda item, there's 21 MGD at the treatment plant that
will be expanded over the build out, will there be excess likely? Will there be phasing
and details very much likely as well? So there's a lot of details that we would need to work
out. So as we learned from the master plan presentation previously, securing that future
reliable water supply is a top priority for the city. The city is, like I said, fortunate
to have multiple sources, but that we need to protect those sources. In my discussions
with PBIG staff, they have indicated that their intent is to complete the feasibility study or due diligence.
They've stated to me that there's no preconceived idea or expectation that ultimately they'll ever have an agreement with the city
to actually purchase the recycled water, but that's the purpose of the study.
They've indicated that they do not want to do anything that would interfere with the city or impact
or the city securing state approval of the recycled water, as mentioned in the last item.
Excuse me. They've indicated that they understand that council, if council wishes to move forward,
that they would then work with staff that coordinate communication with the state regarding recycled water.
Their staff, PBIG, has indicated that they would cover staff's costs with regard to the feasibility and city's peer review.
And that they've acknowledged that the city will be developing policies as I heard for the use and potential sale of this future recycled water concurrent with us securing the city, securing those state approvals.
And that they wish to explore things like even financing options that could advance the city's recycled water infrastructure understanding that the city may also look at some financial options.
And so I guess it's what I've heard from them is that there's a lot of unknowns at this point,
excuse me, at this point and that they are looking to do this feasibility to answer some of those concerns.
I'd also like to mention that the city received two e-mails.
One was from Irrigation District, BBID, that they are also interested in purchasing if there is excess recycled water purchasing that,
as well as an email, and I think you all have it as well,
from an attorney representing Mr. Sandu,
who is in opposition of this request.
So,
should Council wish to proceed with the second step
in this process, as I mentioned, staff would recommend working
with these statements that I've made in working with PBIG
that they've said to us to bring back some of that,
flush that out as part of the ENRI if the will
of the Council is to move to that next step.
staff request council direction regarding this request, and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have.
Thank you, Mr. Malick.
Let's see here.
All right, for the time we're going to open up for the public comment.
Anybody from the public put your address council on this item?
Robert Tanner, 1371, Russia Street.
Towards the end of this agenda item, there's a paragraph that a
The former Tracy Worker is acting as a consultant with the PPIG, and it was requested that possibly
the city as a caution should obtain a formal advice letter from the FPPC on whether the
state conflict of interest laws and regulations prohibit the city from contracting with PPIG
after the expiration of the ENR-A.
I would suggest that this request of the FPPC be done first
before an ENR-A is ever attempted to be entered into.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Tannen.
You're welcome.
My extend to Tracy, California.
It costs about $1,000 to set up a company like they did.
I can set up a thousand of them in one day.
Del Porto Water District, who was here, tried to be on the table to get the same thing.
They're already successful.
They've done already over 80 million, 80 to 100 million dollars they spend, and they're
successful getting the water for 20 mile pipeline.
They're dumping into the canal right now.
now. So why is this company whose experience is only, they know the council members? That's
the only experience they have in the water. There's local water district who's supplying
water to every farm here or to the companies. Why are they not given the same choice?
What is so special about this person that we cannot give them exclusive?
My dad said when somebody says exclusive, basically that means corruption.
And anyone asking for exclusive is a corrupt person, and anyone boards on that is a corrupt person.
I am here today. I will pay the whole amount of this study.
Do not take water from our kids, our parents, or anyone in this town.
Whatever the study they're going to do, I will pay for it and I'm not asking a dime back
or single drop of water back for the money I will give, because I think it's ridiculous
what's being done when we already know that we can be shortage of water and even asking
exclusive. If that's the idea that the city wants to do, why not give it to 10 companies
and let them come back with the best offer on their water if it is ever available. This
should, the city is in a business to protect people and any water available should be sold
if it is actually sold to the highest bidder, not a friend. So stop this corruption and
a corrupt system. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sandio.
Who else?
Jim Miller, general manager of PPIG.
The staff report was misleading. We are not looking to purchase any recycled water from the city.
What we're trying to do is to see whether or not the water that's not going to be used,
if it can be monetized to create a new revenue stream for the city.
So to simplify everything.
Under the numbers that were just shown, existing use is around 16,000 acre-feet a year.
Build-outs around 39,000 acre-feet.
So you're less than halfway.
If you're at 90,000 people for 16,000, you can be up over 200,000 people to get to 39,000 acre-feet.
That means you've got more than double.
With Measure A in place, you can only put in 600 homes a year.
It's about 2,000 people a year.
You've got over 110,000 extra people coming in to hit the build-out numbers that they just showed you.
That's a 50-year build-out period.
Andrew said 30.
Either way, you look at it as a long time where the water's not going to be in use
and there's potential for you to get revenue from that.
So the idea behind the project is to search whether or not it's conceivable to monetize that stream for the city,
create a revenue stream for the city, that water's not being used right now, and there's nothing being done with it.
So there's clarification on that. We look forward to doing this. We're very excited about it.
We've been doing it for three years trying to bring this to council.
Thank you, Mr. Miller. Anyone else?
No one. We're being back to council for discussion.
Mary Ola.
So I had a question for Ms. Ramirez.
So related to this ENRA, what would be the legal distinctions between giving an ERA versus something like an MOU, or would there be any?
Well, I think an E&RA is a type of MOU in which we, the premise of it is that we are
in the process of exploring a relationship and exclusively negotiating with this entity.
It's a type of MOU and our practice has been in the city of Tracy that when we are exploring
these types of projects or ventures with a private party, we end up entering into
these types of agreements. Entering to an ENRA would restrict the city from speaking to someone
else in the same matter, right? It's an exclusive negotiating agreement. Typically we set a term
and we set parameters about the scope of work and the cost associated with doing that work.
So as I read what's currently on the agenda, so I get that, but there's a huge difference
between assessing the feasibility of something versus putting something in the ground.
So as the agenda is currently written, it seems like the scope of this question tonight
is limited to a feasibility study.
Is that correct?
So when we're talking about negotiations, are you only negotiating or negotiating
currently a feasibility study or actually putting something on the ground?
It would be primarily a feasibility study with the intent and the understanding of potentially
identifying a proposal to put something into the ground, right?
This is like the preliminary step.
Sure.
But because we have, if we say we were to agree to this feasibility study, I haven't
seen any contract yet, there's no commitment to PPIG to commit them to any project, am
I correct on that?
Correct.
Okay.
So,
okay, I'll probably have some questions in a second, but that's all I have for now. Thank you.
Pro Tem.
Okay. I'm sorry, my notes jumped to another area. So, looking at this, as you were talking about the ENA,
it's just exclusively for a period of time. What is the period of time I was trying to scan through here?
So I don't know if staff from PBIG have done this in other jurisdictions.
I think we were thinking it might be like six months or otherwise,
but maybe you can fill in to see if there's what you might need.
The initial draft of the document that we wrote with you guys two years ago
suggested a one-year period with a potential one-year extension.
That seems reasonable to take.
We're going to go talk to them.
So basically, we're looking for permission from the city to go investigate, so we go
talk to all the agencies, find out what is needed to be able to pull this off, what infrastructures
need to be put in, does that pencil out?
Is there enough water available to pull it off?
So it's trying to figure that all out and then come back to you with a proposal
and say, okay, here we think we have something.
And here's what it is and here's how it would work.
And it would probably take us from the time we get the agreement to the time that
come back to you would be within a year. Okay. Thank you for that. So the how we got here
from a couple years ago is that this group actually approached I guess many of us
council, not all the council members at that particular time, and what was
determined here from the dais to our former staff that said there was that
But they were going to look into options, different options, whether the city could do
something with recycled water, hence probably the last presentation.
But other than that was, you know, whether or not, you know, this group would do something
and whether there were others that were interested.
But since that time, it kind of fell through the cracks as our city was going through
a number of changes.
However, at this point, since this item has been placed on the agenda in the last
to dare to, then other entities have approaches such as even letters and calls and emails regarding
their interest.
But to date, as far as a council member being approached, I've only been approached by this
group and hence the conversation because we have given prior direction to actually
speak with them as an option.
So I'm interested in looking into things that will help further monetize and have
streams of income for our city, which is the whole point of being responsible for things
that are unused. So I think this is, it may be seen exclusive and excluding others, but
these are, this is what's been approached and has been asked us over time. And so, you
know, if others want to jump on the bandwagon, that's another story. But this letter that
asked, will they, from the BBID and the SWSID, will they still be first in line for the city's
unused recycled water before it would be sold to PPG? So it's already been established that
it's not, they're not trying to buy water from us, but my question was, are they actually
first in line now with how whatever the setup is, or is this is an assumption?
So as, as Cool had mentioned, the only thing, let me back up.
The city does not currently have a policy of how to dispose of the excess recycled water.
Cool referred to an order of a change in and place of use earlier from the state.
I think it was March of this year.
In there it said the city will be able to use recycled water,
but it needs to stay within the sphere of influence.
And it should go, you know, to irrigation districts.
And I think it mentions a couple of even irrigation districts and stuff.
It doesn't set a priority.
It just says that that's what it should go, uses in the sphere of influence and that.
So that was what we said earlier about we know through this process that we're going to have to come back with you
to establish some of those priorities and that kind of thing.
Okay.
And given that there are other interests, I'm just curious as to, I know we're asking specifically for this.
And so for whatever the time period, whether it's a year for another renewable once this study has been looked at and maybe there's something that's not feasible from this feasibility study.
At that point, it could be opened up to other opportunities or the options or what are we looking at when it gets back to the feasibility?
Does it become exclusively between PPIG and the city?
So the study, my understanding in talking, the study is for the exclusive negotiating rights.
But that's really a parameter that we could put in there to say once the study is done or whatever else,
how does the council wish to proceed with either going out to, however they want to do it.
How do you want to proceed from there? It could be a separate agreement study or process.
I just wanted to make sure what the understanding was so that we're clear when it comes back
to us.
If it's open like that, open-ended, if it's more closed until after a certain time period.
If you give us parameters, that's kind of what I mentioned.
If Council wishes to take that next step with PPIG, those are some of the parameters
that we could put into this that would spell out that going forward.
Okay.
I'm not saying that I'm asking for that, but I just want to make sure what's clear,
what we're doing and as I said we're here because they've approached us several
times and this has fallen between the cracks over the years and to bring that
discussion back here although it was probably would have been a broader
discussion had it been brought back before but to to give authority to to
talk to each other I absolutely support that yes thank you so I just
want to kind of clarify and just reiterate for the public that the way this agenda item
is presented to us, there's nothing being given away. And there is nobody that's slated to
be first in line. This was brought to us a couple of years ago and we started the process
and then it got put to the side. And basically what it was presented to, I'll just talk
about myself. It was presented as we're looking for different resources. There are
other communities, Modesto and some other cities. I don't know all the intricate
details of how they put their process together, but there are other cities that
have made deals that are actually, they still have a secure water supply,
but they also, they don't waste any water. They can sell the water to
whether it be farms or other people in need.
So just looking at this, I want to be clear that so we receive
these letters, first of all, it's my understanding no one's
first in line, I would not vote on something that says we're
going to be doing a feasibility study that automatically puts
anything in line, so I'll start by saying that.
Also, with this feasibility study, will it give us an
opportunity to look at some things that are going on in
regards to water being monetized, the pros and the cons, a city version. Will this feasibility
study give us something to look into in regards to whether there is a city.
So, I mean,
so maybe I'll answer that in the sense of this is my understanding and talking
to PPIG is this is their feasibility study we would likely peer review. But if what I'm hearing
from councils you want that to be more robust. So should we do are will we do our own to like
make sure that if it's like, hey, the city needs to do a better job to protect the water
source. So, you know, will there be something if the direction of council is to go that
way? Then we can certainly do that. Okay. So what is the intent? Right. So right. Not
what is the intent? So right now they want to do a feasibility study. You plan to peer
review it. When this conversation first started happening a couple of years ago, I know
that one of the reasons why we wanted to look into an ENRA is because there was some,
I guess, proprietary information being divulged by the company that wants to do it.
So it was supposedly, or in my understanding, a way to protect their ability to kind of share
and give us all of that information and still protect their proprietary interests.
But at the same time we would be able to see full scope of how it would impact our city. Is that correct?
I mean that's one of the typical elements of an exclusive negotiating rights agreement where you you maintain some kind of confidentiality or proprietary
Information is protected right and typically as I said, it's exclusive. It's with one party and
And what upon direction from council to negotiate such an agreement, we would then come back
to council for council to actually approve that agreement and see the terms set out.
Okay.
And then there was this letter from Mr. Milhap.
I want to confirm.
So there's no intent to basically enter a contract tonight or this is not an intent
to enter a contract or circumvent the, basically, the purpose of use, you know, in regards to
how we're going to use water. And so I just want to be, because nothing has even been,
no contract's even been put in place, so I just want to make sure that these things
are addressed if this council does move forward in that direction, that these things are
addressed in there, that this doesn't give anyone, you know, first rights or whatever,
but that we're really looking to see if there's an opportunity and it's my
understanding in my discussion with with the I don't want to call them
developer with with them today that they don't even know for full scope of how
it's gonna be may not even work out for anybody so I just wanted to kind of
put that out there that I don't know this is not my area of expertise I do
to know some other cities have recently done it.
I don't know what that looks like long-term,
but I'm interested in knowing what the pros, cons are.
And as Mayor Pro Tem Young mentioned,
other people I got phone calls last night
and this morning are interested in doing this,
but we don't have any idea of what it,
I don't know what it looks like, period.
So I'll state that.
And then I do have a question in regards to,
there was a staff in, it says the attorney,
suggested, basically, you didn't suggest there was a conflict, but you pointed out that one
of the contractors has previously worked for the city. Do you already plan to do the FPPC
letter as part of this, or do you need permission or a request to do that, get that feedback
before you did that, if it were approved?
It's not necessarily that I'm looking for council direction.
I want to just inform council of that and be transparent about that.
So currently if we get direction to enter into this type of agreement
or negotiate an ENRA with the entity,
there doesn't seem to be a conflict of interest
because there's no financial interest or benefit out of the ENRA.
However, this is all about good faith negotiations
and we want to go into this, if Council directs us,
we'd want this partnership to be up and up,
and in order for us to know
whether we can even move forward with them,
this is one of the elements of that,
our kind of internal vetting process
of whether we could actually move forward
with any kind of project with them.
Okay, so if this were approved,
you would actually do that,
or would the Council need to make sure
that that was part of the recommendation?
I would advise to do that.
Okay. And let's see, pros and cons. And so my last question, Mr. Malik, you mentioned like a peer review would happen. What would that look like?
So, like some of the other studies that we do, whether it's technical or otherwise, when they're going to be relying on some of our, quite possibly Elizabeth Dreyer from West Coast and that kind of stuff and some of our information.
So we may have Elizabeth or other look at kind of some of their feasibility as it goes forward
just to peer review and make sure that all the data and everything else is consistent
with the information from the master plans and the like.
Okay, thank you.
That's my reverberates.
Thank you, Mayor.
So I'm going to add a little bit of my history on this.
In 2015, Del Porter Water came to me with, at that time, our city manager, Troy Brown.
And about, I want to say, 18 months ago, Del Porter Water came back again to me with, at
that time, city manager, Randy Bradley, to do the same thing that these folks are
trying to do today here.
The only difference that they did not ask for an exclusive ride of negotiation, they were
asking for the ability of having the opportunity to do the study in conjunction with the CDO
Tracy.
In concept, I'm not opposed to the idea.
I think the visibility study is a good thing to know where we are at and what our recycle
water will be, the calculation, the math, all that stuff.
I think it's good to know where we are at, and if we do have a surplus, we should invest
and see what monetarily can help the community in the city.
I am not comfortable with the exclusiveness of this, not having an open process.
For other people, too, they have demonstrated in the past being interested in this.
And again, every time that it rises up, we have those letters, we have those same people
saying, hey, I want to participate too.
So that is the part that doesn't feel right for me.
That's it.
In concept, I understand the process and I am four to find out what we are and what
could be and the potentials of it.
I'm just not comfortable with how we are going about it.
So and I'm glad to hear that this is just a feasibility.
It does not, and I want to make sure, it does not guarantee the CD to enter into a contract.
So if the group decides to spend all this money and time to do the feasibility study,
It doesn't give them priority over somebody else that looks like there's a lot of interest
in another water agencies.
And I understand that you're looking for direction on that.
That's not a giving.
We must make that clear for you to negotiate that.
And I don't think you have had that direction and you're looking for that.
So, if the direction is that, I'm okay with it, but if the direction is to give somebody
a one-up over other people who want to have the same opportunity, I'm not okay with that.
And I absolutely agree with the comment from the public, if we're moving forward to have
a financial benefit to somebody that participated in the grant or was an employee over here.
We must get clarification from the SPPC that we are not violating any of contracts or the
grants and how they were given to us.
But I do have a question on the item before we discuss the water supplies, the master
plan.
We would not identify then our supplies if we have a surplus or what our water needs
are?
You know the volume of recycled water available will be related to the wastewater treatment
plant capacity.
So they go hand in hand.
So right now our wastewater treatment plant capacity is 9 MGD even though some of areas
is 10.8 but it's 9 MGD is the governing capacity.
So we will have only what are available at this time will be about let's say about 8,000 acre feet, some losses and so forth.
So from 9MGD and out of 8,000 acre feet, we will plan to use it for legacy field in other areas when the time goes in and we complete the infrastructure.
But as the new developments are being approved,
other waters will be being used and if time
will come in, then we will be triggering additional
water, could be water exchange, could be others.
So at that time also, our
irrigation needs will be there, and if you look into those, again, that graph
over there in the middle one when we have a drought, we'll be needing almost about
if I'm correct I can look into right now.
So cool if I hear you correctly let me
translate in my in my mind you're saying that potentially we could use if we
invest and develop in recycle infrastructure we could be using all
of it. That is correct if we if we invest right yes with time. Okay so right
now we are only using in limited parks because of our infrastructures not up
to par. But if we invest in our infrastructure, what I'm hearing you say is we can potentially
use all the water. More and more. So because due to the lack of infrastructure, we thought
the most economical thing is to use only about 5,000 acre feet of water for irrigation
purposes and then the rest used for water transfer or water exchange and so that
one for example in a single dry year we'll be needing about 16 MDD of recycled
water. Right okay for a full build out but that's full build out. So at that
time we should be having about 16 MDD capacity at the treatment plant or some
close to that range.
Gotcha.
So the both go in hand in hand.
We have to have more capacity of the treatment plan.
Then we can have more water.
And then we have to find where we can use it.
On top of it, we'll be using for water exchange as well.
Gotcha.
So I have a question.
A little bit complicated, yes.
I get you.
So my next question is to the city manager.
City manager, knowing that I actually had the opportunity
to introduce delported water to two different city managers in the past, and I was not aware
of this item until one of our 101s was coming and was being sponsored by two council members
to be here for discussion. Why we're selecting one over having this as an open process and
I'm just curious about why we have the privilege of negotiating and giving exclusive rise to
one and not others.
Even today in the podium we had a gentleman they offered to pay for all the studies with
no ass back.
So why are we doing this in this manner?
So staff is responding to two council members' requests to bring this item forward.
This is, as you know, we've talked at Nauseum about that this was a prior issue that was brought forward.
And there was some expectations that this would come forward and it didn't.
So we're acknowledging the council members' requests.
As you know, staff is not making a recommendation but a seeking direction from the council.
There's a number of paths council can take.
I've heard conversations around issuing RFPs for proposals in order to create equity.
There's also, you know, exploration in the agreement which doesn't commit you to anything.
You know, you're only considering taking them to the prom.
You haven't decided to take them to the prom yet.
So again, this is not staff's recommendation.
We're looking for you for direction.
And it's really the discretion of the council at this point from a policy perspective.
So with that being said, can I ask Mr. Miller or Mr. Palmer, are you guys comfortable with entering into discussion, demonstrating a feasibility?
You guys are investing a lot of money.
And then I saying we're gonna put it up for the public. So after you did all that study
We are gonna go to an RFP RFQ. Are you guys okay with that?
whoever
If you would like to answer that question, can you come up here to the podium please?
I don't mean to put you on the spot, I just want to make sure they weren't transparent.
Can you just make your name please?
John Palmer, 1032 North Central Avenue.
It is a good question and we have represented to staff and I want to thank Andrew in his
of course, voice for his honesty and clarity
in presenting the item.
I think we've talked about his staff report,
had some of the statements.
I don't think he did that with any intention.
I want to be very clear that I will not
lie, cheat, or steal to propagate my project.
I wish certain staff members would
give me the same courtesy.
The staff report from earlier tonight from us, Ghost,
and things that were represented tonight
are still not factual.
I don't want to get into that discussion with you.
Your question on whether or not we agree to go through a feasibility and due diligence
and talk to financiers and talk to state agencies, and if we develop a project for you and wrap
it up in an nice bow, are we willing to walk away from the project?
If that's the best thing for the community, and that's one thing we've talked about,
we want the best for the community, and what we've said from day one is we're
trying to initially monetize in nuisance,
and we're three years later,
and you've made no progress on this project.
And I've heard several times
that there have been other folks in front of you.
No one else has set up meetings with staff
and have put a proposal together.
We have sat patiently aside for over two and a half years
to have this moment tonight for a variety of reasons.
So to say that we'll go through due diligence,
feasibility, and walk away,
if that's the best thing for the community,
Yes, we will consider that, but we also want to understand that if we walk away and maybe
from our side we address an NRA that if we wrap a project up nicely in a bow, then maybe
we get compensated for developing that project on your behalf.
So yes, it's something we will consider if that's the best thing for the community
and that's something we will consider.
But again, and I don't want to get into addressing all the misstatements and the
the unfactual items that were presented tonight.
That's something that we can discuss in our ENRA,
and it's items we can discuss with your staff.
So again, I think Jim Miller did a fantastic job
in saying we simply want to look at
whether there is a surplus supply of water
and excess supply for a period of time.
And we've represented over and over,
we're not looking at tying up your water in perpetuity.
We're not looking at taking away from your ability
to do your general plan build out.
But I will tell you that you didn't build out your 1993 general plan. You've yet to build out your 1982 general plan
So we're talking about a conceptual build out of your general plan that may never occur
So those are the kind of things we want to explore with your staff and see if this project has viability
We might determine that there is no role for a private entity and we'll walk away from the project
John, thank you for clarifying and for coming and speaking out.
So without being said, cancel, entering into this discussion of potentially getting into
an EIA, we're going to be back.
So before a contract, before something gets so determined, it's going to come back to
cancel.
So we're looking to see into the potentials of entering into a, in a, sorry.
The NRA.
Thank you.
Yes.
Sorry, I'm suffering from a cold, I have a bubble.
Anyways, so that is something that you will be betting out through the discussions.
Correct.
Okay.
And this issue, this exact issue right now of, you know, making sure that there's
provisions for making sure that the city is not binding itself in the future.
And I think what Mr. Palmer mentioned about like in the event if any of the
information gathered by the city would be used by someone else they'd be
compensated. I mean this is exactly the type of this direction we need in order
to negotiate an ENARA. Yeah so and again I want to apologize to the group
for waiting for two and a half years.
I know there are other groups.
We had a lot of changes.
A lot of things have been no fault of any one person,
but sometimes it's what we're at.
And again, I'm not opposed to the idea and the concept.
I'm just a little uneasy about how we go into the process.
With that being said, and with all the clarifications
given, I see myself being supported of entering into a discussion. Thank you for all the clarifications.
Yes, thank you. So I don't have the institutional knowledge of the history of the previous proposals,
so forgive me for asking certain kind of questions.
My first one was so the option,
It sounded like there was going to be an option for the city itself to do a peer review in-house study.
Is that cost, or would that cost be taxpayer dollars,
or who's going to fund the reciprocal in-house study to peer review any feasibility study?
So we're really looking, as the staff report said,
looking for direction from council for that next step in the ENRA,
but we would suggest that as we would with other developers,
They have a cost recovery agreement and cover the cost of staff and other things that we'll work with them on
So it having said that we'd work with them
But our impression would be that they would cover those costs. Okay, so I I agree with you there
And then also and in light of the letter that we received from the law officers of Robert Malhaf
He said again water lobs incredibly complex. It was the most boring class I took in law school
But can we commit or can I at least hopefully give direction that any feasibility study is going to include a legal analysis
addressing some of the questions that were brought up because they are two questions. The water code is intense.
So can we agree on that direction as a council that it needs to include a legal analysis?
So the scope of kind of the task or the scope of the NRA, what we're hearing is you want
an element of legal analysis and a peer review, an independent peer review study.
Yes. And from what I heard from the podium and from what I hear from Councillor Vargas
regarding the RFP, I think if this has a potential for a large scale project,
I and I want to make very clear again. This is a feasibility study today. We're not doing anything in ground projects
So moving forward any large-scale project. I would also support that being an RFP. So that it is fair and equitable
And then I just had a question related to if if I don't know if mr.
Miller would like to answer somebody you don't have to is the or maybe our city attorney knows is the exclusive language necessary because of
of proprietary information, what would be the reason for that particular element of a contract in that?
It's because it's good faith negotiations, right? It's they want to know that the time, the effort and the resources that they're dedicating to the negotiations are being honored,
that we're not also just shopping around, right? As City Manager said, they want to know that we're kind of an according process
and they want to know that they're the only courting one because it is an investment of resources and time and energy.
And also, you know, be mindful, it's like opportunity costs from a business side, right, that they're dedicating their time to exploring this relationship with us
and they want that kind of exclusivity to make sure it's kind of worth their time.
So, and I understand that and I know that they would need the contract in place, you know, you need the legitimacy of the city behind you
in order to conduct portions necessary to complete the feasibility study,
and I absolutely understand that.
So at least with my direction,
if an MOU would be sufficient without exclusionary language,
I'd be okay with that.
If the exclusionary language remains in there,
I'm very comfortable, I am flexible with the opportunity
for maybe paying back portions of it just like you stated.
That would be the direction that I would give.
And, you know, I'm in support of a recycled water project.
So I'd like to see them forward, but this again is very limited in scope to a feasibility study.
So that would be my direction.
Thank you.
Can I have some of ransom?
Yes, very briefly.
So I definitely would support the legal analysis.
I'll go there.
And I guess I was just trying to understand.
So I want to be clear.
No one else normally, when there's things going on, we all get, I assume that we all get contact.
In fact, I've not heard from any other district in the last three years in regards to this project.
So it would be interesting and I'm sure the city can bring more information when we get there.
And also just in regards to the exclusive negotiating and just kind of some of the perspective in regards to it.
We have been down this road before in regards to like legacy fields.
We held up the fields and just to see the feasibility and at that time there were other people asking to do that
Coming to the city writing letters asking to do that
I don't see anyone else asking to do this and I'm really curious as to seeing that other cities are looking
At this as long as we are not like given away the store
And we're saying we're going to you know do all of the checks and balances and find out what the pros and cons
I would hope we can do this quickly, but I'm also reassured that by the time we get to
this we're going to know a little bit more about the water sources because we may get
to the end of this and find out there's not even enough water to even have excess water.
So I just want to say that I support the efforts to minimize any risk as well as
to make sure that we are doing our due diligence
and making sure we are in accordance with any laws
that would not interfere, that would be violated.
And public-private partnerships are pretty,
they're interested, they're complicated,
they're not always appropriated, I was appropriate.
So we've seen some that have gone really bad
in regards to water in Stockton.
But as Mr. Palmer said, you know, they're willing to check it out.
If it doesn't work, then they will be willing to walk away from it if it's in the best interest of the community.
And I appreciate that you publicly stated that because you know we like to go back to things that people say.
I appreciate you publicly stating that the best interest of the community is what's going to be exercised here.
So I just wanted to kind of echo some of the other sentiments and say that I would support
what was presented in order to protect the community's interest and move forward.
Thank you.
Rodin?
I do.
Thanks.
So I'm not sure what all we need support for as far as making sure that if, in fact,
we do go another direction after the scope, everything is done and then that there will
be some type of reimbursement.
because if that's needed, then I definitely support that.
I also want to just make sure because see these letters,
even though this has legal things that will be included
in the scope, the thing is really clarifying what the ask is
because these letters are in a response to something different
as has been clarified by Mr. Palmer as far as they're not
asking to buy but to help monetize the system
for the city of Tracy, which is different
than the letters are addressing.
So I don't know if we need to do your feasibility study
if that will look at both ways
because it seems like even what other people are asking is buying,
which is something different.
So I don't know if it will show that string,
would that naturally show that potential type of option
because it's very different, two things.
I think the core issue is that the proposal is to conduct
a feasibility study in order to,
regarding the monetization of the recycled water. I think some of the letters
that we received are speaking to the actual sale of water. So keep in mind
it's obviously a for-profit venture and the letters are speaking to well
trying to restrict how that for-profit venture could potentially function. So
that's why it's kind of it is somewhat interrelated and all of those
issues can be looked at during this feasibility study by staff with the help of outside council.
Okay. Thank you. And my last statement is what I had said earlier also that since this has
first been brought up more than two years ago, only one prior to this week has ever
approached me as a council member, and usually different entities reach out to several of us
on the council. And so it's kind of a, we have a me too kind of adding on it. It feels like.
And so maybe there's been other discussions behind the scenes as one person did say they were approached by past staff.
And they said, sure, they will be interested. But we do appreciate, I do appreciate proactivity and being proactive in trying to bring
resources to our city and trying to help increase our bottom line. So thank you.
All right. I'll wrap it up. And council did a good job of
getting to the minutiae of this,
but I just want to agree. I mean, it's been, what, two, three years, and no person has ever
approached me about it except for, you know, the individual sitting here. I know when
it was talked about coming on council last time, it's the same kind of arguments.
and then no ENA or no contract or no MOU and yet we still haven't heard anything.
So again to this day I had only one person that ever came up to at least me as individual council member or mayor and asked
And again, this has been two, three years. And in regards to, like, the ENRA, and RNA is
in the binding in the sense that, you know, if you look at the history of Tracy, or in
the last ten years, and how many ENRAs have we have done, there have been several that
we have done with the ENRA, with an individual, and usually, and at least all the ones I
I can remember it's always been one entity comes up and it wasn't a huge line.
And there's times that through the NRA, through they spent their money, they did the feasibility study and it has come to the council and we have denied it.
And that's one of the, you know, things about the NRA.
It's not, and it's just because you get into it doesn't mean the project is yours.
It's that simple. So when you have individuals accusing councilmembers up here of favoritism
or that, you know, you are going to take things away from the end of it. There's no taking
it all right here. And kind of, I think, Daniel or councilmember Ariel has said it
best. It's just negotiation. We're just looking into it. So with that being said,
intertone of motion. Nope.
So Mayor, can I just tee up kind of what I heard and then perhaps you could develop your
motion from that? It appears that there's consensus to negotiate an ENRA with PPIG to complete
a feasibility study which would be the monetization of future recycled water. That scope will
include a fiscal, excuse me, a legal analysis. It will also include a cost recovery agreement
to cover city costs, and then we would subsequently return to council if there was feasibility
for a larger scale project in which council indicated that they would want to explore
a potential RFP process.
Anybody disagree?
So if not, we're going to go to that.
I'm sorry, that last part.
Can you just repeat that again?
I don't know how it goes.
I heard that there was interest in returning to council if there was feasibility
for a large-scale project, but that you guys would want to explore an RFP process for that.
That we're saying that we definitely want to do that, or possibly.
You need to make sure.
I heard you that you wanted to do that, but I need you to give me consensus that that's
accurate.
I mean, what I heard was that we want you to do a feasibility study that would be
more robust so that we have the opportunity to see if there's a different path to
to go in, but not to say definitely.
Because if we're saying definitely,
we're gonna open up to RFP,
that's a whole another thing we have to say now
that we're gonna reimburse
and they're just going through the process
of opening up for everybody.
If a council member wants to make a motion,
they can exclude that or include that,
it's up to the direction of the council.
So why don't we go ahead and do a motion?
So somebody would like to entertain a motion
or somebody would like to formulate a motion
so we can move on and then we can be more specific
and that our staff has direction.
I will not mind making the motion as was stated with the recovery.
If we're going to go to an RFP, they could end up being them or could be somebody else.
If there's not being them, I can see the group being reversed for it.
So could you read that motion now?
I'm more comfortable with that, but if, again, it's the flavor of the council.
So, now, Council Member Horr, City Manager, when are you going to state what you said, what you thought we heard?
Let's start with that right there.
No, what you said in the beginning.
What I said in the beginning was
Is there consensus to negotiate an ENA with PPI G to complete a feasibility study for the monetization of future recycled water?
The scope will include a legal analysis
City cost will be recovered through a cost recovery agreement and then council needs to provide direction if you want to include
An RFP process should there be feasibility for a large-scale project
can I get that could be premature because again you don't know what you're
going to be presented with yeah I mean if you just maybe we should exclude that
just take that portion off it okay yeah I offer maybe a provision that in the
event of allow for reimbursement in the event that the the work or the
feasibility study completed during the scope of this ENRA informs future
endeavors that do not involve PPIG?
That sounds good.
That's where I was going to go.
Okay.
Do you need a motion for that or no?
Do we also meet?
I didn't hear you mention.
I heard in staff report something about a peer review,
but then I didn't hear anything about a peer review
in this proposed motion.
Yeah, I was.
I think with the cost recovery it was assumed.
Right.
Assumed a peer review.
Okay.
So do you need a motion with that?
Or is that just good direction?
I would like a motion, please.
Okay.
Can you say so moved?
Yeah, you can.
Wait, you say it.
Yeah, go ahead.
Okay.
So, all right.
I would move that staff negotiate an exclusive negotiating rights agreement with PPIG for
the completion of a feasibility study regarding the potential monetization of the city's future
recycled water supply, the scope of which would include a legal analysis, the city
cost recovery with a cost recovery agreement and the event the feasibility of the NRA that is not involved PPIG
There would be reimbursement
Now second that's rough, but it's what I got
Calcifer that good now second. Yes. All right. Yeah, I got a second by pro tem in a roll call, please
So the motion was cost me a bag of aryola aryola consumer aryola. Yes, ma'am young. Yes, that's me a ransom. Yes
Mayor Rickman. Yes. Alright, move on to item 3G. Thank you everybody that was here for that. Appreciate it.
Item 3G, a 0.4 applicants to serve on the Tracy Arts Commission.
Do you want to do that or? It's just Councilmember Ransom and I and we met here, was it last week? Yes.
I met with several individuals, and we had to pick four, which we had four vacancies.
So with that being said, do you want to say the names?
Yes, I can say the names.
So we interviewed six applicants for four spots, and we, as we explained, there's
only four spots, and encouraged people to apply for other opportunities.
And so our subcommittee is recommending Maxie Lee's, Jill Taylor, Margarita Anderson, and Cynthia Rias to be appointed to the Tracy Arts Commission and serve four-year terms beginning January 1, 2020, ending December 31, 2023.
All right. With that being said, the note to council discussion, we need to open up for public comment. Anybody from the public wishing to address council on this item?
Seeing
none, bring it back to council, entertain them, well I guess we have a motion, got a second.
I said I'll third because you don't make sense.
Yeah, so get a roll call please.
Councilman Rainson?
Yes.
Is it Mayor Rickman?
Yes.
Mayor Rickman?
Yes.
Councilman Areola?
Yes.
Councilman Vargas?
Yes.
Mayor Pro-Jim Young?
Yes.
All right.
Moving on to item 3H, appointment of city council, subcommittee to interview applicants
to fill three term expressions on the parks and community service commission.
Good evening Mayor and City Council, Adrian Richardson, City Clerk. On January 31, 2020,
turns for three parks and community service commissions will expire. Our recruitment was
advertised beginning November 1, 2019 and will end on December 19. In accordance with
resolution number 2004-152, a two-member subcommittee needs to be appointed to interview
the applicants and make a recommendation to the full council. Staff recommends that council
appoint a two member subcommittee to interview the applicants to fill three term expressions
on the parks and community services commission that concludes my report.
All right, thank you. We're going to open up for the public comment. Anybody from the
public wishing to address council on this item?
Seeing none, we'll open up to council
discussion. So we need two member subcommittees.
I have a question for Adrian.
But yeah, it's like stereo. Who would like to go first here?
Sure. Go ahead.
That's Mayor Earl. That's all yours.
Is your intention that this be done within the next like two weeks,
because the holidays are coming up?
I'm just kind of curious what the timeline looks like for this.
I'm going to close it.
I'm going to do that.
So it has to be before the next meeting.
Okay.
By when?
Prior to the next meeting.
Okay.
Okay, thank you.
And now I say I volunteer since I have not in a little while.
So who would like to do it? I can if it's within the next like two or three weeks. I can do it
all right, um, so those
customer Eula and
Can't my Vargas anybody have a problem with that?
Good, I don't have a problem with it
I mean, I'm I just felt guilty because I haven't done in a long time, but I'm buying for you to do it remember that
the next one
Might be at a bad time, but okay, that's fine
All right.
So I move to appoint Council Member Vargas and Council Member Ariola as the two members
of committee to interview applicants to fill three term expirations on the Parks and Community
Services Commission.
And roll call please, seconded by Council Member Ransom.
Mayor Bo-Chun-Young.
Yes.
Council Member Ransom.
Yes.
Council Member Ariola.
Yes.
Council Member Vargas.
Yes.
All right.
Thank you.
I move on to item 3. I discuss amending the tracing municipal code section 2.08 point.
You know what? Anybody need to take a quick break or we're good?
We're good.
All right. Discuss amending the tracing municipal code section 2.08.080 to require a supermajority vote
of four members of the city council to remove the city manager or city attorney and provide direction to staff.
Staff report, please.
Good evening, Mayor and Members of Council. Kimberly Murdoch, Human Resources Director.
The item before you tonight is to discuss a recommendation in the 2018-2019 grand jury
report recommending council consider amending the municipal code to require a supermajority
vote of four council members to remove the city manager or city attorney. The Tracy
Municipal Code, Title II, establishes regulations for the appointment and service of the city
manager. Specifically, 2.08080.B states, removal of the city manager shall be only by a vote
of at least three members of the council. The 2018-19 San Joaquin County grantee report
commented on the administrative and fiscal impacts of the executive staff separations
in 2017 and 2018. The report highlighted concern regarding the separation of the city
City Manager, Assistant City Manager, and the police chief as, quote, no explanation
was given.
And the release of the City Manager following a contentious 3-2 vote.
The separations drew attention of the media in the newspaper and on major network affiliates
encouraging transparency and personal matters of executive staff.
The grand jury felt the impact of the media attention potentially damaged the city's
reputation as a desirable employer and made candidates reluctant to apply for open
positions.
The grand jury also stated the city manager and city attorney should be shielded from
power politics and shifting alliances by requiring a supermajority vote for their termination.
To address this issue, the grand jury recommended council amend the city, Tracy's city municipal
code to require a supermajority vote of four members of the city council to remove
the city manager and city attorney.
The supermajority requirement to remove city manager and city attorney is utilized
by some public agencies such as the cities of Sacramento and Hildesburg. Requiring a
supermajority vote may communicate a commitment to unifying counsel in employment decisions
related to at-will counsel-appointed positions. Adopting this policy may enhance the city's
profile as a potential employer because this requirement may lead to more stability
in city executive leadership. The more common practice is for public agencies to only
require a majority vote for employment decisions related to at-will counsel-appointed
and positions requiring a majority vote to remove the city manager and city attorney
is consistent with the voting requirements provided for resolutions, orders of payment
and ordinances for be supported by a majority vote of the council.
The city council has a full discretion on this key policy issue and may decide not
to implement the grand jury's recommendation.
If council does support the implementation of the grand jury's recommendation, SAF will
return with an ordinance for further council action.
All right, thank you.
I'm going to open up for public comment.
Anybody from the public who has council on this item?
Robert Tanner, 1371, Russia.
This is long overdue.
It would lead to stability within the city manager
and the attorney's office.
I think the current city council
should agree to what the grand jury said.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Tanner.
Anyone else?
Does anyone want to open up or bring it back to public comment, open up for a council discussion?
Anybody on the council?
That's my ransom and I'm talking to you in a while.
Oh.
Nope.
That's my pro tem.
Thanks.
So this, I do agree with the recommendation.
I think that when it goes from three to four, it makes it more.
Well, we can't make it for cause, but I think that in such high-level positions of our city,
city manager and city attorney, that it should lean more towards cause,
and that three can possibly be politicized,
and four would make it lean more towards that way for transparency and for security.
So I'm glad that we actually have really two good city managers and city attorneys at
the moment we have with our cities. So I'm glad that even through the rocky road that
we have journey to get to this point that it's turned out to be a good end for us. But for
the stability and the transparency for the future councils, I think that I support the
recommendation from the grand jury.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
Anyone else?
Yes.
Sorry.
So I just had to take a question.
So first one, just kind of curious, do you know the numbers related to or proportion
of cities that have the supermajority versus regular majority on this?
The survey I conducted, I was only able to find a couple that were actually a supermajority.
A majority of them are a simple majority of the council.
Are you looking kind of in California specifically?
California agencies, like I said,
I found Sacramento and Hildesburg,
but I live or more a city manager potentially,
but the majority of those are a simple majority,
not super majority.
So basically a handful,
I think California's about 100 cities in there or so.
And then, so I also think that we have a great city
manager and city attorney, glad they're here.
If we do this, you all better not go.
But my question is related to in the future, how would we reverse this policy decision?
Would it require three or would it require four to overturn this particular decision?
The recommendation is to do this by ordinance.
So an ordinance just requires the vote of three, a simple majority.
Okay, so despite if we do this theoretically, a future council majority of three could overturn this particular
ordinance to make it go back to three. Yes. Okay, thank you.
That leads to another
question. Can I ask? Well, Council Member Burke. Yes. Thank you. So is there any way
to put in the ordinance though so that certain things are not effective within
that particular, you know, after the new City Council so that if in fact
that it is reversed by a council that it can't be utilized until the next
seated council? Do you know what I mean? Kind of like a white elephant kind of game thing.
Like if somebody stole it from you, you can't steal it right back. So just
did that on Sunday.
So stole my gift. The municipal code actually does clarify that. So there's a period of time
after a council is appointed and the city manager is put into a position, there is a window of
120 days in which no action can be taken. So that's actually already in the municipal code
section, subsection C of that same section, so there is a window period after new council
is seated that the city manager may not be removed for that period of time.
That is correct.
I apologize.
Let me clarify that that's only for the city manager and not the city attorney.
Okay.
But that's actually not still helping what I just said.
What I requested so that if, in fact, it's a supermajority that would be voted
if we vote that in.
And then another council decides, well, we want to get rid of somebody.
So, we're going to just, three of us, we're going to vote to change that right now and
then we get rid of them.
So, is it a possibility that as part of the ordinance that if a council so chooses to
change that rule, that it still cannot go into effect after the next election?
So that it can't be used as a tool.
The whole point is if we set it up, that it's for a buffer.
That's a really creative proposal. I would have to look into that because the government
code, state law is the source of the process for adopting ordinances. So what you're proposing
is kind of a modification of the procedure, the process for amending an ordinance. And
And I would have to confirm that that's legally allowed.
As I said, the government code is the source for how we adopt an ordinance, the two readings.
It designates certain ordinances that require a supermajority versus a simple majority.
And what you're proposing might be infringing on that kind of procedural arena that is
governed by the government code.
But we can look into that.
Okay, because otherwise it seemed like a suggestion more than the ordinance
Yes, so
Can you remind me am I mistaken aren't there some ordinances that already require or some of the yeah
We that already require a supermajority to change or to implement correct. Yes a certain like an origin urgency ordinance
There's also the sales tax measures
your budget adoption if I'm not mistaken or there's some budget there's
different council actions that do require a super majority okay but those
supermajorities are put in place by some other legislative by the government
code okay all right so thank you so in regards to this so I had I don't want
to say I had mixed feelings but it's kind of like you want to make sure that
that your people aren't so protected that they feel like they can do whatever they want,
but I don't think that that is the case.
So my feelings are kind of that this would discourage, you know, politics having anything
to do with the positions, the positions of leadership, and it ensures that there's
a clear need to change the direction, and would basically allow or force if there's
a quote-unquote majority to have to plead their case or prove their case to at least one other person before, you know, any change in leadership is, it happens.
And I think that's really important because I think it's important to, as much as you can, focus on governance as opposed to politics.
And I really believe that the stability or the perception of stability, it's important
to us attracting quality employees.
It's important to us attracting businesses who want to come here.
You already hear us complaining about why is Manteca and Lathrop and everywhere else
getting this and things that we're not getting.
And there's a school of thought on that.
But I do think that our council is only as good as the majority of the leaders that
are seated.
And if in fact there is a need to remove a city manager, that should be clear or city attorney,
that should be clear.
It shouldn't be ambiguous.
It should be something that we can all get on board with.
The same as when we hire, you know, the best practice and the rule of thumb is that everybody should be on board.
You know, that it should be, you should go through the proper exercises to make sure that we all agree you don't want to have a city manager hired thinking,
and well, geez, only three people are willing to work with me.
So the spirit of this, I think I can definitely get on board
with because it would cause, if there is a true issue,
it would cause a fourth person to be shown what that issue is.
So that's my two cents on that.
And I feel that we have really good leadership right now
and we can trust that's not going to be abused.
And if it were to be abused, then you just need
to show that to a fourth person, so that's it.
Thank you.
Elmer Vargas.
Thank you, Mayor.
I understand now the spirit of some of the council members
that are forth to this, but I do have
misfeelings in which, in the matter, we got here.
And a little bit of background for those
that don't have long memories.
There have been occasions where we have had city managers, they have not conducted themselves
in the matter that they should.
And it was really hard for people to admit that they were doing not the right things.
And again, I wish I could speak about the matters, but I'm not allowed to disclose information
of personnel.
And this is what actually bugs me, is during the grand jury investigation, information,
obviously, when you read the report, you can tell that some people spoke about things
that should or not. It was in closed session and it was personal matters.
And to those that we respect, the oath that we took to remain silent and to keep that private,
we were criticized for and it was misleading. I'm not opposed to this
concept. I'm opposed and I'm just not okay in the matter in which I am forced to do
this. I think grand jury was a use as a weapon to advance on people's
political views and it was a misuse of taxpayers' dollars and I wish that you
know things will be different but it's what it is right now and I have the
ability to move forward to leave things behind and try to just work to better
our community. With all that being said I am cautioned on this item because I
I guess I can speak of one city manager
because I was not a setting council member.
I'm gonna go back to, as I was a citizen,
Leon Churchill, and what happened there.
And I can speak, correct me if I'm wrong,
I was not a setting council, I was a citizen.
And to follow the news, to follow what had happened
and how it ended up all to be,
are you okay with that?
I would keep your comments brief.
The city did enter into a separation agreement with that individual.
There you go. I'll stop talking about that too, I guess.
And I wish, you know, this is the part that when you take the seat and you take your job seriously,
there are things that we cannot share.
I would love to share them, but I can't.
And it's unfortunate.
it. However, I think some people sometimes choose not to see the wrongdoing because it may reflect
poorly on them. And so they keep giving people opportunities to repeat mistakes. And to convince
that fourth member sometimes is near too impossible. So I honestly, I think we're okay the
where we are. But I will be supported of the rest of the council if that's what the majority
wants to be. I'm happy that we didn't have no troubles recruiting good people.
It's completely
the opposite. The grand jury's statements about not being able to recruit good people
is proven wrong. Right here is the proof. We have not been more stable and with
better leadership in a long, long time. So, I think the politics maybe change after that
a little bit, but I don't think our city manager has any problems right now. Our city attorney
hasn't either. So, I'm comfortable to state as we are, but again, I want to be a team
player, and if this is going to bring us together, I will concede to support the majority of the
council.
A quick question.
Yes.
So would this change in the municipal code, would it affect if we were to hire, say,
I'm looking further than this step, say we have a new city manager or new city attorney,
would, is there still like a probationary period, or could say we hire someone that we
have no background on, and if it's not a good fit, will we still have to do four, is there
any effect there, I'm just curious.
The city attorney and city manager are both counsel appointed at will positions, so they
don't serve a probationary period per se because they're at, they are appointed and
can be removed at the will of counsel.
Thank you.
Well, I guess it might turn here, and you
know, to me it really doesn't matter either
way.
However, you know, you keep hearing Councilmember Ransom, you know, speak of politics, politics,
and it's only politics if you disagree with her point of view.
And you know, it's just something, it's just been going on and on, but politics plays
both ways.
I mean, politics plays when you can keep somebody and politics about getting rid of someone.
And in regards to our former city manager, and we discussed this before, you know, what
you can discuss in the public, whether it's been reported in the newspapers, which is
fair game, go look at it.
And you know, how many, if you look at, I'm not saying to this individual what,
how
All right, and again, you can even get a simple,
possibly you can even get a simple majority.
I'm not saying how that's the way anybody voted,
I'm just saying look at the circumstances,
and now you wanna get four individuals.
Keeping somebody, just keep them
because you're friends with them,
is just as political as getting rid of somebody.
Don't kid yourself, and you know,
and Council Member Ransom referred to the economy or Manteca.
Go look in the lab.
At three years, what other city is than Tracy? And it's the economic development, the sales
tax, the property tax, what we've got built, the jobs. We led the whole entire San Joaquin
County, if not the region. So, I mean, if you're going to infer something, at least
have some facts. And so, even if, you know, you're referring to how many other cities,
you know, majority of their cities have a majority and there's a reason for that.
A simple majority, three. And, you know, to bind a future council.
And plus, really, if another council comes up and they want to get rid of somebody,
they can go to an ordinance and change it back to three and then get rid of them.
You know, so, I mean, I prefer to keep it as three just based on, you know,
experience of what I've seen and you're talking about conduct which is more
serious than, you know, some people willing to talk about. Okay, if that
being said, I'll entertain a motion. I do.
So some things came up. I heard
Councilmember Vargas and Mayor Rickman say, you know, the things we could
talk about and the conduct and I just would like to say that is part of the
issue is if there were reasons for things that have happened, those things were never disclosed
to the entire council. And every time it came up to let's talk about these things in public,
it was we can't disclose those things. So that is why I made the point that it would
allow or at least require you to be able to prove a case as opposed to three people
saying, well, this is what we don't like. And whatever conduct you all are speaking about
or things you're saying you can't talk about that I was never privy to is exactly what makes
me lean this way. At the end of the day, I'm good with the majority of the whatever the
majority goes with. It's just really this, fortunately for some other communities, this
is not necessary. This came out of, and people are talking about the grand jury,
being politicized or used taxpayers' dollars, 19 individual people from all over this county
who have no ties to individuals here, at least that I know of, came up with these recommendations.
So that's, you know, like I said, I'm okay with whatever the will of the majority is.
One second. She's still on the floor.
Like I was saying, whatever the will of the majority is on this item. Thank you.
And just I mean, I know what she just said just counsel. We don't need to rehash what's going on in the past
It is what it is, but council member or no one there. I'll respect you, you know, it's no need to rehash
It's only
Hurts more and it's divide us and I'm trying to move forward together
I really tried to leave things in the past what happened happened and to have better policy
and a better way to work together.
But with that being said,
I'm comfortable the way we have sense.
I think we can work together,
and especially when the entire state of California,
only a handful of cities have supermajority.
It's, you know, anyways, hopefully we can get there.
I think a better question
than how many have supermajorities
is how many have actually discussed this,
And if the majority is the problem and they keep shooting down to have a supermajority,
I think that would be probably a better look into how many have suggested that I have even
talked about that.
I think because of the controversy and even the comments up here regarding this, it shows
and proves for the need for what's been requested of us.
Now given the fact that someone can, another counselor just overturn it and use it as
a weapon.
I know you're looking you could look into that if the council so goes in that direction
I think that would be good and what and what we're looking at is not even really for our body
But it's really I mean because there will be a great change over in in next year
So just by means of two of us are termed out anyways
And then we don't know what it will look like so we're actually setting things for the future for future councils
And so I think that I mean I've already said for all the reasons why I thought that we should
acknowledge what the grand jury has requested of us and suggested of us based on the uniqueness
of the challenges that the city of Tracy has had. And so I'm not trying to necessarily
fall in the line with every other city. We need to do things that are good for our city
because if we were looking at every other city, a lot of what just happened the last
few years would have never happened. So that's where we are with that.
Is this a motion in direction?
And just real quick, and just to correct,
councilmember or pro tem, look at the city of Manteca,
look at the city of Stockton in the last year.
So this isn't something, getting rid of a city manager
isn't something that's a nuclear option.
I mean, it just never happens.
We had two cities, the largest city in San Joaquin County
of over 300,000, and we had a city of Manteca,
our neighbor just do the same.
Right.
So I've been on council eight years and this is my fourth city manager
So that's unique to the cities around us. So it's are we talking about criminal conduct or no?
I'm just talking about what's happening in our city want to make sure
So do we need a motion or is this direction? Okay, so and I think so I'm leaning I was
I was also kind of flexible with this one, but I think after our discussion
I also support the supermajority vote and I think what's important is in that
We have that that implicit check-in balance that if any future counsel were to try and overturn this
They would need to put it in a you know
It would have to be publicly put on the agenda and they come to the public and the public could then have comment about any future
Counsel that would try and change this rule if they were trying to politicize it to that point
So actually kind of like having that check-in balance in there. I think it's very equitable
so with that I would move that
We amend the Tracy Municipal Code section 2.08.080 to require a supermajority vote of four members of city council to remove the city manager or city attorney.
A second.
Good roll call, please.
Councilman Marriola?
Yes.
May I approach him young?
Yes.
Councilman Branson?
Yes.
Councilman Vargas?
And the speed of support in the majority, I'll say yes.
Mayor Rickman?
Yes.
All right,
move on.
That's 11 o'clock.
So do we go do we have two more?
I know I don't want to push it out again to next year 2020
So I'd say we stay stay anybody everybody cool with that
3j consider an ordinance admitting the compensation for the council and mayor in accordance with state law
Good evening mayor and council. This is a DC to meet us the city attorney
This item was actually on the agenda at the last council meeting, but was continued due to the late meeting
This item requests that council consider an ordinance amending the compensation for council
and mayor in accordance with state law.
The last time council considered amending the salary for its members was in 2006.
This item is coming before you because a recently adopted Code of Conduct states that council
share review salaries every two years.
Government Code section 36516 establishes the monthly salaries of city council members
based on the population of cities.
For a city between, with a population between $75,000 and $150,000, that amount is $600 a month.
The government code also restricts the annual salary increases to 5% per year since the last adjustment
and also requires that any changes to salaries not take effect until after an election.
This means that any changes adopted today would take effect after the November 2020 election.
Currently, council members receive a monthly salary of $585, the mayor receives an additional $100 a month in recognition of mayoral duties.
Under the government code, council may increase its salary by an additional $351.
That is 5% of $585 times 12 years.
12 years was the last time the salary was adjusted.
That would increase the monthly total salary to $936 for council, and the mayor would receive an additional $100, which would total $1036.
Before you is an ordinance that states that the salaries will be increased to the maximum amount allowed by state law.
However, the options for council are to either take no action or increase the salary up to
a maximum of $351 a month.
And any motion to approve such an ordinance should kind of state what the amount, what
the increase amount is.
That concludes my staff report.
I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you.
We're open up for public commentators and public which address council on this item.
over
10 or 13 71 Russia no offense but previous city councils and the current
city council I believe don't deserve a 5% for every other 12 years you've had
city staff layoffs in previous years you've had increases in their contracts
only in some case some cases two and a half to three and a half percent your
Your 5% contracts were just approved this past year going, I believe it goes until 2022.
So it's the first time in a long time that the staff has had a 5% increase to my knowledge
and I've been looking at that for the last 10 years or better.
I believe that this 5% then taken for 12 years at that should not be done.
You should take the average of what the percentages are that you gave the staff during that time frame and then work out the
Increase from that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tanner
No one else Allison
was Tracy. I echo what Mr. Tanner just said, but I really
Not everybody on council, but most of the council really don't deserve a raise
Maybe look at it when we have a new council
Also, a lot of the council members here, they don't do their homework.
They don't, and if they do, it doesn't show here.
They have total disregard to our staff.
They have opportunities to talk to staff, they have the agenda.
We're out here, what, to 11, 12, there's been times of one o'clock.
Council member asked us questions that should have been talked to staff.
Do your homework, do your work, you serve the community.
I would say let's review this back in 2022. Let's see what happens.
Thank you Miss English. Anyone else?
Seeing no one, who would like to go?
Oh well.
Pro Tem.
Thank you.
So...
That's my ransom. You're after her. I've got to get some ransom.
Okay, so we don't have HR person here.
I would like to know what has been the staff increases because I know our negotiations have been well beyond five percent
So what is that?
So I did ask our HR director what the span of increases were on average over 2012 to 2016 or excuse me 2019
We I didn't have data going back further and it's on average about two and a half percent
If you just do the straight math per year
So, and they vary.
And it's important to understand that not all employee contracts are created equal.
Some years they'll get a CPI.
Some years they may negotiate a bonus.
It depends.
So, each year is different.
But if you want averages, it's about two and a half.
Okay.
So that's the averages.
So not even averages.
That's since 2012.
That's the average between 2012 through the current year.
Sure.
Okay.
That looks very different than all of our contracts, things that at least-
The most recent contract was 4%.
Okay.
And then the one before that, because I've only negotiated like maybe like two or something
like that.
But we had a lot of things going on with that, but nonetheless I digress.
So this particular action that's taken tonight, whatever we decide will not take
effect until January 2021 with the new city council, so it's not this council in any ways,
right?
Okay, thank you.
So, I don't fully think that people understand what it takes to be a council member up here
and to frivolously insinuate, not even insinuate,
but to say that different ones do not do their homework.
I take offense to that for everybody,
because it takes a lot of work every day
to actually talk to people,
to listen to people, to make proactive actions,
to make this city a better place
through our volunteerism
and the transparency of our whole lives
being out there for for the betterment of our city. So the thing is that it's I've
had people come to me and try to make an appointment when I talk to me and say
wait a minute how much do you make five eighty five a month oh my goodness I
can't even talk to you because it's all the meetings and things that we do they
don't feel like it's worth my time but it absolutely is because every voice
doesn't matter here within our city. But for anybody who's sitting up here
Because as I said, we're voting for people that I may not be here in 2021 because I term
out next year as council member.
And so this is looking forward to people who are here to serve.
And I could pull up the other information on 12 years ago when the last increase was given.
And the different things that were said at that time, because I've read through different
things and even newspaper reports back then, because it does limit to the different people
that you put up here. You don't realize the times that for people to have to take
off work, to have to take time from their family, to have to schedule vacations twice
twice a month because we have meetings twice a month already and it's not just coming here
twice a month because all of us are on commissions.
All of us on commissions that require daytime, 8 a.m., 8.30, 9 a.m., it's doing the afternoon,
it's doing the evenings, it's more than just coming as a commissioner and even commissioners
to have to do other work talking to the community.
So the reality of it is that I think that
for those who are here serving
and trying to make sure that our staff is well compensated,
well beyond, it has the amount in there
that everybody's combined together.
It's just a smidgen of what a lot of the salaries
actually are within our community.
And we're making, and these seats are making great decisions for our community.
And I think that we need to honor anybody who's here.
It's a quote that would say that a workman is worthy of his hire.
And I think that we and whoever sits in these seats deserve to be compensated fairly.
There are many other cities that, and if we want to look just at the next one in Stockton,
What they gave even part-time for their council members is much more than this.
I know they're a different type of structure, another kind of city, although their district is much smaller than all of us.
We are at large, so the entire city is our responsibility, each individually and collectively.
So anyways, I feel that this is absolutely reasonable and it's not asking for a whole lot.
And it can't be automatically instituted.
And I know it's a very sensitive topic for different council people to bring up things here.
And we're not doing cutbacks.
We have been giving raises still, whether it's 2.5% over the times.
We haven't cut anything as far as salary since I know in the last eight years that I've been here.
So anyways, I just wanted to say that it's a lot of work that goes in for all of us and
Next council member ransom
Thank you. I just want to be clear
Did I hear was 2005? I know I've sat in the audience and back in the Evelyn Holber days and heard pros and cons
Was it 2005 2006 2006 so since 2006
There's not been an adjustment to the council.
I really wouldn't even call it compensation.
It's a small stipend.
And I just really, I'm not going to take offense.
I just, maybe people are just ignorant to the work that it takes.
You heard earlier people talking about, you know, you have an intern.
You have this task force you're part of.
I see Mr. Tanner at almost every meeting today at 3 o'clock.
I was in the fire authority meeting 8 o'clock a.m. on Thursday. I'm in the San Joaquin partnership meeting
I'm in the DVI meeting I travel
On behalf of this council and have to be reimbursed and I think I've gotten a reimbursement
That's as big as $1,200 for money that I've spent out of pocket in order to serve this community
This is a job that I would do for free. I love doing this job
done it for free, served this community for free and has given way more to the
City of Tracy than the City of Tracy has given to me in regards to investment in
this community. However, with that said, this is not just, this is not about
this council. This is about what is fair, it's about what, you know, the, our,
Ms. Ramirez gave us, you know, an example of what normally happens and
And it's not to say that every year there should be a 5% adjustment.
There may be a year where the council says, you know, there shouldn't be an adjustment
this year.
Maybe it should be 2% or 3%.
But what I don't want to see is us to discourage really good people.
There are some people in this community who would be great on this council, who cannot
afford to be on this council.
They cannot afford to take all the time that we take off of our day jobs.
I think every single member of this council, you see the mayor around town in daytime and evening time,
you see every single member of this council, Councilmember Areola coming back from his lunch, running from Stockton to Tracy, and then back.
And then to make an assumption that people show up here not prepared because maybe you don't like the questions that they ask,
when sometimes I believe, I know that I'll speak for myself,
sometimes it's important to educate the public
on why you're making your decisions.
And things evolve as council meetings evolve
and things come up that you didn't know about earlier,
and it's important to make the decision based on
all factual information.
So I am in support for the reasons that are stated.
5%, was that 30 bucks, something like that?
And we're not even at the $600 per month, but...
It would be five percent.
So under state law, the increase could be up to five percent times 12 years.
If we went retroactive, or yeah, I wouldn't recommend that we go retroactive if that's what you're saying.
I would not say it was $300 and something.
I'm not saying to go retroactive.
I don't think no one got on this council thinking I'm going to get a retroactive, you know, 5% for the amount of years.
But I think moving forward, it makes sense to make the adjustment so that this council can just move forward.
And this shouldn't even be a discussion. It's not a discussion in most cities and I'm in support of it. Thank you.
Alright, thank you. So I think related to this item, we need to be very conscientious
of succession planning. And again, it's been stated before, this is not about this council.
So I mean, as I look here, I'm literally the only person here not running for office.
And there actually is a scenario when I could be the only person on council at the
dice next year. That scenario exists. So I think it's incredibly important that
we really start looking at our future councils
and that particular succession planning.
And I've had the opportunity, you know,
to travel the country and talk to electives
from all over the country.
And the way governance has done other communities
is very, very different.
And a lot of the East Coast, even state legislators
are part time.
So the whole way that's done can be done
in different ways.
But the things that I hear over and over again
in particular is that for many people
who would like to serve their communities is that compensation can be a barrier for individuals
from low income households. And I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I think I'm
the only person up on council who has never owned a home. And again, I grew up in Tracy
and I know there's a lot of people here who struggle. I've lived that experience. And
I think it's so important that we may have people in the community who would like to
run and serve their communities, but because of those barriers of their economic status,
They may not have the privilege or ability currently to make that commitment, but a difference of the $354 would allow them
To provide their opinion and lead this community and really diversify the opinions that we have here because for me
I think having diversity is incredibly important and I think that
socioeconomic level diversity is also important. So because of that I would support the $351. Thank you
Um, I guess I'm the only one. I guess I'm the only one. I would say no.
And this is a couple of reasons one. A couple of reasons why.
And, you know, you gotta love, you know, politicians.
You know, nobody ever says they're politicians, right? It's always something else.
But, you know, it's never about the money, but then when the money comes up, it's about the money.
me. You know, I just don't feel this way on this council. I'm a, I was a member or the
chair of council of governments and I still sit on council of governments. And they voted
themselves $100 per meeting. I was the only one who voted against it. And I still don't
take that $100. And the reason being the same, the reason being for that is, you know,
what I volunteered. I volunteered for that committee. I knew what I was getting
myself into so knowing that and I would have volunteered either way so I didn't take it.
And why do people run for office? And to say people aren't going to run for office because
they're not enough money is ridiculous and you look at the history of the city as people
always ran for office, yes, is money an option, maybe for some, but 300 bucks, I mean really
is I going to stop somebody from running? I haven't seen it. Now, why did I run for
the city? It will run for city council at the time because I love the city. The city
has gave me more than what I have gave it. That is why I'm here. I'm here because I
love the city. It's my home. And I thought when I ran for office that I could,
you
for not my children, just not just my children, but, you know, generations down
the line. So that's why I ran. And, you know, you talk about, you know, some money,
you know, say the money you received right now. And I think it's adequate. I think
that at least what I use the money for is to, you know, reimburse myself or use it
for all these different types of functions that I go to that I have to buy
tickets for I use that money to buy that by those tickets and so and again I do
have a full-time job that I use to pay the bills and take care of my family and
I am very fortunate you know I also don't take any insurance from the city
I probably, I don't take anything. I mean, if you look at some of the trips that, you know,
I don't know, I won't even get there. But to say that we deserve it, to say that we
rightfully
deserve this money and that it would make a better out of job that we could be worked so
hard. You know what, man? This isn't a tough job. I mean, it's tough in the fact that,
You know you do take some punishment up here and you know public service and you know you do get but
You know called out and things but that's part of the job
You want to go see a tough job go see somebody working out a construction site and put in but be a hammering all day
That's a tough job. Don't even pretend politicians have it have it rough because they don't
If you want to see what middle-class hard work looks like it's around us every day
sure the heck isn't us sitting in this seat at 11.30 at night. We do the best we can and
I think if more people got in politics, not just for the money, but for the caring of their
community. I mean, hey, look back into the foundations of our country. You know, you
would have farmers, a lot more farmers, they would leave, go serve their two years in
Congress four years in Congress, do their time, come back and go back to farming.
This shouldn't be a career. And with that being said, I'm against any
pay raise and I think is adequate for what we can, what we use the money for.
So that's it. Anyone else?
I have a question. So for staff, so I know that there's been other people who served on council who
don't do reimbursements and they don't take stipend and they don't have to so I
want to make sure that there's something written in there though that just like
for the Semah King Council of Governments there is something it's
already stated that you don't have to take it but it's already been
instituted in in place so that they do give that stipend but you don't have
to take it so is there something where you don't have to take it or
or would you just have to give it back if you didn't want it?
I believe that there's nothing prohibiting a council member
from declining to receive the stipend.
Okay, so there's nothing that prohibits it.
So you can just simply decline it, opt out, right?
Okay, so that's good.
So with that, unless there's anything else,
I'll make a motion.
Do you wanna say something?
I haven't had the opportunity to speak at all.
All right, I didn't say your line on time.
I apologize, good?
No, that's okay.
I just want to,
I'm honestly, I'm very similar to the mayor.
I get that we have expenses, we have, you know, things that we do.
But honestly, I don't think at least some of us haven't got into this job to get reimbursed pay.
I want to say that it has been a pleasure every day.
And I am feeling privileged to stay here.
And I try my best to represent you as best as I can.
I may not always get it right, but I sure try.
And I honestly, 300 bucks, 200.
I'm doing this because I took it in as my service.
This country has given me an opportunity
that no other country would have given me.
I'm honored to be here today. I'm honored to be a citizen. I'm honored to be part of Tracy.
And for me, I don't think it's needed. We're fine.
Again, if there's extra money, we should save it up for future.
We're going to have those up and downs in the economy. We're here to serve our community, to volunteer back.
this is the way I took this job. So for me as a non-needed item and I don't think
we should just try to take money out of the taxpayers but that is my opinion and
I will respect the council decisions. I would not be supporting though this item.
I do. I motion. I do have a motion and I think that I'm council member
Ariola said it very well as far as barriers that we're trying to help break down to include
many people who have a love for our city that can't afford to do this job.
I think you have to have a love to be here for it in the first place.
But there are other barriers and we're looking beyond just us, but we're looking for others
that will be coming in the future for our city.
And so with that, I move that we introduce an ordinance increasing council member monthly salaries by an additional, by an amount, I'm sorry, of $351.
I would second that, but do we need the clerk to read something?
Yeah.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'll request the city clerk to read the title of proposed ordinance.
In
ordinance of the City of Tracy and Mending Chapter 2.04, City Council organization and
procedure of Title II administration of the Tracy Municipal Code to add Section 2.04.060,
Councilmember and Elected Mayor, compensation.
I move to waive reading of text and introduce the proposed ordinance as already stated.
Seconded.
No roll call please.
Mayor Pro-Chem-Yang.
Yes.
Councilmember Areola.
Yes, I'm sorry to interrupt. Can I get a point of clarification from our attorney?
Did they need to state the amount or just they didn't oh
Oh, okay, I said 351 and this takes effect in 2021 for the new council the next council, right?
Okay. Yes, 2021. Thank you. Yes
Yes.
Okay.
Customer vagus?
No.
Mayor Eggman.
No.
All right.
Move on to item 3K, adopt a resolution establishing a 2020 calendar regular City Council meetings
and workshops.
The rule called more.
Staff report.
You said that twice, didn't I?
I know.
Hand, hand.
Good evening, Mayor and City Councilor Adrian Richardson again.
In accordance with Tracey Municipal Code 2.04.020, regular meetings of the Council shall be held
at 7pm on the first and third Tuesday of each month in the Council Chambers.
Special meetings and workshops may be called by the City Manager, Mayor or a majority
of the Council.
The City Council may also schedule special meetings and workshops as it deems necessary
with dates adopted as part of an annual calendar or announced in accordance with
all legal requirements. Adopting a meeting calendar allows for proper agenda planning
and can provide for recess periods, holidays or election days. The resolution attached
to your staff report includes a 2020 calendar of regular City Council meetings. The calendar
also includes an extra special meeting workshop on the 4th Tuesday of each month at 7pm.
This alternative was included for council consideration, given the impact of scheduling
special meetings and or workshops immediately prior to regularly scheduled council meetings.
Oftentimes our community population cannot attend meetings that are scheduled prior to 7 o'clock.
In addition, the extra meeting can be used to take action on items that have been
continued or carried over from a previous council meeting or require further policy discussion
because of their complex nature. If the additional meeting is not necessary, the meeting can be cancelled.
has cancelled certain meetings given conflicts with state and local events of importance such
as elections, national night out and during holiday periods to eliminate the need to prepare
and publish an agenda. Council typically takes action on such cancellations a meeting or
two before the date of that scheduled meeting. The proposed calendar includes cancelling
the following three regular meetings. January 7, 2020, for a holiday period there are
currently no urgent agenda item scheduled, March 3, 2020, primary election day, August
4, 2020, national night out. Additionally, if it is Council's desire, the resolution
can be amended to add the cancellation of the November 3, 2020 regular meeting due
to the general election. If Council prefers not to cancel these meetings at this time,
the proposed calendar can be amended to reflect that desire. It is recommended that
Council will consider adopting a resolution establishing a 2020 calendar of
regular City Council meetings and workshops and that concludes my report.
Thank you. All right I'm going to open up for public comment. Anybody from the
public who wishes to address Council? Mobile means.
Henry Cole, Tracy
resident. I just wish to urge the Council to cancel the November 3rd
meeting for the general election. Thank you. Thank you.
Anyone else?
All
right, so no one, bring it back to Council for discussion, Councilman Ariel, you have
your light on.
Oh, yeah, I would just be, I would be in support of cancelling November 3rd one.
And then I had a question for a city manager.
So this would in effect make it such that we would have three meetings a month.
And I know a lot of other cities, including in the region, only have one city council
meeting a month, even for cities that are larger than us.
So have we assessed how many cities do meetings three times a month?
So there's a number of cities that use this method as a placeholder just in case they needed,
and then they canceled the meeting.
Livermore is an example of that where they hold a regular extra third meeting a month
in case they have workshops, special meeting needs,
and typically they will cancel it if it's not needed.
So they're not wed to it.
This is just a tool to help counsel be a little bit more efficient with their time if they have carryover items
It's purely counsel's discretion if they want to choose to do this or not. It's just an option for you
Thank you.
Well, okay. I well I am in support of November 3rd
Just as it just as a point of reference
I'm assuming that when the one voice trip come up as far as the trick if we do a city one voice
We'll just be adding that on as
That's needed if needed
So we don't have any proposed outlook for that yet.
We'll be taking that to you probably in February.
Okay.
So for the ones, I agree with all the ones that are listed.
I do have concern for putting three nights a week,
even if it's just as needed,
but it still becomes ingrained as a part of Reservation for People's Lives
and family trips and things like that.
It's just it's just much more to coordinate because we're looking at
Not just here, but for future councils coming on
So I think I think it's a lot. I know that we want to be cognizant of time
As far as workshops and things like that bringing it earlier in the day
And so is that really the reason why we're looking at another day instead of just continuing?
You know or maybe because I know on my calendar have blocked out 5 5 p.m. To midnight every
twice a month already so I know not to schedule anything before that but I mean
I could move it back but because there's different there's different reasons
there's some that say they need to get off work and be here and there's some that
said they can't stay up late like this and they need to be here earlier so
they because they go to bed at 8 o'clock so again it's it's counsel's
discretion you know oftentimes we'll start a meeting at have closed
session at 5 and then go into a special meeting at 6 and then we're
still here till 12. So again, it's just a tool for council's discretion. If it doesn't
work for the council, then we don't use it. Or we can completely eliminate it from the
calendar. It's, again, just food for thought.
Okay. And there was one other suggestion that I brought up, because Mr. Evans, I think,
has brought it up several times. As far as on weekends, our daytime things. And
I know some councils, because they're full-time, and they're already at City Hall, and
have it during the daytime. So I don't know if there was any other consideration to set
aside something that's within that Tuesday, one of our Tuesday time frames, a different
day, but maybe that same week.
Yeah, council could certainly entertain a different day and a different time. Absolutely.
And those are just for thought to be out. I wouldn't recommend three Tuesdays of our
month or any council months being set aside.
Thank you. So I think it's ironic that this is the next agenda item when we talk about like our commitment to this community and I do appreciate what you're trying to do.
I just wonder if we can at least limit the extra meeting to three hours or because it seems like this is a cleanup meeting or you know this is an opportunity to catch things that we might need to,
that have got left hanging because maybe the meeting went over and we need to counsel it.
As mentioned earlier, we have all these different commitments for this council in addition to the different committees that we serve on, closed sessions,
special meetings, workshops, which we've been having a lot because we've got a lot of things of heavy lift that we're trying to catch up on.
And so I do appreciate that you have a calendar in mind and you want to keep us on track to hit the goals that we want.
But is it possible that we if we do decide the council majority wants to move in this manner
Can we limit those meetings to three hours because we already plan vacations and family time and everything around these meetings?
So that would be my request if that's a desire of the consensus of council absolutely
Thank you mayor, I think tennis to choose get there quickly
we should limit ourselves on how much we speak so we can just eliminate the
meetings all together and do the business at hand on the two days that we have
assigned per month. The problem is that we are not finishing the agendas because
some of us speak for 45 minutes and so our agendas are going until midnight. So
So,
I see what our CD manager is doing here and hopefully this is a wake-up call that
we are needing that third meeting because we are talking too much.
Hey, we just give ourselves a raise.
They should just give more money, you know, the public should give what they ask for.
I think this is a lot.
But I think we should just really look into limiting ourselves how long we speak.
But if it's what is needed to have the job at hand to completion, I guess we're having
more meetings.
Yes, thank you.
I just think it's really difficult to commit three weeks out of a month.
I mean, for me, I'm just thinking for my job in particular, I'm a trial attorney.
I'm in trial once or twice a month, sometimes for weeks at a time,
and it's been difficult to make those while I'm here,
because sometimes I'm working 12 to 16-hour days.
I know it's only relevant to myself,
but it's easier for me because I've already committed every other Tuesday
to come a few hours earlier.
So I would prefer to continue the practice of having a special meeting
prior to our earlier meeting,
because it's easier to schedule at least my work schedule.
I don't have a family, the rest of the council does,
so I imagine that that takes a huge priority for you,
but for me, I would prefer to have special meetings
and workshops before the Tuesday meetings.
I'll second that, because honestly,
it's not feasible for me.
I have a full-time job.
I cannot come in the middle of the day.
During the day, I have to work.
Some of us have jobs and obligations from, you know,
seven in the morning until five o'clock afternoon.
Even to get here at five o'clock after a 12, 14 hours worth of work
and commuting is not easy.
So I honestly really, I think we should just look again
into time that we allow ourselves to speak to shorten our meetings.
We've been trying to do that and it's been a huge opposition, but we cannot, if the pleasure
is not to add a third meeting, we need to do something different.
But I agree with Councilman Ariola on adding the third day is just too hard.
Potem?
Yes.
Thank you.
So that was my original suggestion that we just continue to do it on the same day
because it's much easier for me as well.
But not just for me, but I think for future councils as they're planning their their times and their schedules to just do that
But it's not just I just I do want to speak real quickly. Just it's not just the speech of people
On the council because the next council will have to grapple with that
But it's also the number of items that we have and the number of things that's been brought to the council for us to
Discuss we're a growing city
we have a lot of items that comes before us. And a few years ago, we had meetings like
several, a couple of meetings every single week. And so I think it's important that we're
looking at the content of our agenda as well. So that would help limit what, how much time
we're spending.
Can I just remember to answer me or something? No, I'm sorry. Okay, for me, no. I don't
I'll take and explain it to you.
What about the days?
I mean we have...
You know, we can get the, it's been like this for always. You know, we haven't had a problem finishing our agenda until, what, two, three years ago.
And it's, I mean, hey, watch, you know, watch the meeting tonight and look how much downtime we have.
Look how much stuff is, you know, we're not, we're talking about agenda, but we're going off on tangents.
And that's the reason these council meetings are so long and council or city manager, you know, we discuss this, too, is that, you know, the farther we get behind the more we put on the agenda, you know, the longer we stay up here or we can't even finish it.
And it comes to a point that as a city manager when you're going to do the agenda item, you know how this council is.
And if you want to stay at 11 o'clock every single night or midnight every night, you know, keep doing what you're exactly doing because we will be here.
And these items are difficult.
and you know and when we talked about time limits and that thing that I feel
bad for is I mean you look at our city clerk she has to double back here at
7 a.m. you know is it fair to her because we can't stay on topic or we're
going off so if we have to do something you know like a special meeting or you
know we you can pull the council like we've we've have and then council can
come to an agreement what date that that would be and I think that's worked in
the past I think it continues to work but you know it is what it is so with
that being said I'll entertain a motion I would move to adopt a resolution
establishing the 2020 calendar of regular city council meetings and
workshops with the exception of the November 3rd meeting and removing the
removing the November 3rd regular meeting and also removing the fourth Tuesday
proposed special meeting workshop dates. I'll second that motion. Take a pic of
Council Member Vargas or Council Member Anson. Yeah I'm just not sure about
the November thing I thought we were adding it to the list could you say
excluding it as a regular? It's the general election right now and so we've
already removed the primary but we haven't removed the general so it's
currently on the list we're removing it that was my motion. Council the
meeting that we're good yeah so canceling it just adding the as it as a
list of the cancellation okay councilmember area local police yes
councilmember rinsen yes I'm from your vagus me a protein young yes I may
recommend yes right item number four I'm from the audience anybody wish to
address council on any items that were on the agenda or I am from the
audience sorry Adrian I was English I just want to make a comment I made the
statement earlier at the public audience that something happened October 15th that Nancy
Young just went on record about releasing ransom. I'm sorry, so was she not receiving money when
she was counseled. So I went on record on that because to clarify and that's why I turned
in that paperwork, nothing else. And it has nothing to do with being political or anything
because this is what they do after the audience speak then they have to come
back and I'm I feel bad for our city attorney because when they go on
tangents it should have been stopped because it has nothing to do with Mayor
Rickman or Councilwoman Vargas has nothing to do with this these things
has been ongoing and when I make a statement it's always a personal tax
or is this? Everything that I've come up here since the Mayor's Fund is on record and also
to go on record, I never pulled the PNR, PRA, okay? And when my husband heard about the
Mayor's Fund going $300,000, $375,000, $425,000, actually when that was pulled, that's when
so-seed, so-seed, so-seed, so-seed was on there.
And that's when I came up on February 20, 2018.
And when I did that two days later,
Councilwoman Ransom put a grand jury report
on me and two other members.
So this is the thing, bullying people,
doing things and saying it's political.
From day one, Councilwoman Ransom has made
a lot of things political.
Attacking Councilwoman Vargas, our mayor,
our city manager,
when things didn't go her direction,
not only just me, but other audience.
So I know there was a code of conduct,
but it hasn't been heard here because they repeat themselves
or they attack the audience.
And as far as calling Councilwoman Yang, Mayor Pro Tem,
I don't.
I have no respect for somebody that sits on the diocese
that lies, lies about a T-shirt,
makes alleged false police reports.
I address the council, I come up here and mayor,
and I did it for Mayor Pro Tem Vargas when she was there.
She conducted herself at the diocese.
When I, if people, and as a matter of fact,
the first grant report said,
council, you earn your respect.
You don't demand respect.
So when people come up here and you don't want to hear
what somebody says, you come up with their names
and you personally attack the audience.
So as far as the code of conduct that you guys have,
you, on this side, it doesn't adhere to it.
It never has and it won't but if you praise him, it's something different
But I did go on record that
So it see did apply
2017-2018 and I did turn that in that's when I went on a record because it was stated incorrect on October 15th
And no disrespect to counsel woman Vargas when she was up here
I used to address her mayor potem when she took your place when you couldn't present certificates mr.
Mayor, it was done publicly and it was done right, and the city was represented right
in both councils and in public galas, different things I've gone to.
I have not seen that from this side.
So I just want to say that some of these statements that are done here is incorrect.
Has been political, it has always been political.
When they did the home task force, when George party was here, and I didn't bring
it because I have a lot of binders and a lot of information with that. It was political.
They said, Democrat Party, come and support your Democrat Party. Not come and listen to
the homeless task force. All of everything that I say here is documented. It's not a tax.
It's all facts. So I just want to say that. Sorry. It's time to go to bed. Merry Christmas
and Happy New Year.
Thank you, Mrs. English. Anyone else?
Yolanda Makanya, Tracy, California. I had a couple of things. One is I don't know all
the cities that do it, but I think Tracy might look into it. It might broaden and diversify
our council. Some cities have, like if this city is broken up into beats or different
sections that it pulls their council members from those sections to
properly represent those communities. I feel that certain areas of Tracey are
being under-served, under-represented. As a citizen I would encourage council
members to come out to the different areas of Tracey, go to the different
parks, walk the streets, look at all the graffiti, look at all the homeless
encampments, look at all the garbage near the railroads, and really put
yourself in the in the citizens who live in that area's shoes and think about
if I were walking my kids in this area would I feel comfortable, would I feel
safe and it's why I just I think there's certain parts of Tracy that are being
very underrepresented represented.
Oh for code enforcement I've found it very
frustrated frustrating to call with complaints and they demand addresses.
is. Certain parts of the city, you wouldn't feel comfortable getting out and trying to
look for an address. The neighbors come out and what are you doing, why are you looking
up my address? And so it's hard to come out with an address to give to them. I think
it's absurd that we have to do that as a citizen. I think I should be able to just
call and say, hey, in this general vicinity, three houses for me, I'm at 410 Palm Circle,
whatever the case may be. Can you please send someone out here to take a look at some of these violations?
I think it's fair that they do their job and that they come out and do that. I would also
encourage the city to look at their code enforcement policies regarding storing non-ops,
RVs, trailers, and so forth. I was kind of shocked that we don't have something in place
where my neighbor could store their non-op RV and just have it filled with junk,
as well as weeds growing underneath it and all this other stuff. I think that
policy needs to be looked at and updated. I also would encourage you to give
code enforcement more personnel. I think they seem a little overwhelmed with
all of the things that are
happening, all the issues that
they have to deal with, as well
as the growth of Tracy, and that
would probably help, as well as
maybe doing some teaming up
between code enforcement, Tracy,
police department, and the
railroad.
I know when I worked in
Livermore, we did really cool
team operations where we all
worked together to clean up
neighborhoods, and that really
seemed to help.
I
think that was it.
Thank you so much.
Good night.
How do you say your last name?
McConnia?
McConnia.
What's that again?
McConnia?
McConnia.
Yeah.
All right.
Can you give her?
We can't address you, but we can grab your information.
I'm going to say we don't have any staff in back.
They're all, it's midnight, so they all went home.
But if we can get your information and we'll have somebody to contact you and
follow up with you, some of that information.
Anybody else?
All
right. See no one step item. Nothing. No. Council items. Mayor I'm obligated since
I went to a I was invited by the California legal cities to attend their annual leadership
workshop. That was in Napa and that that workshop sets up the goals where like we did in our
council retrieve the goals where the California legal cities will work on the rest of the year.
I wanted to inform the council and the public that the California legal cities leadership
will be concentrating and working in policies and following bills that will support and
and address the issues of homelessness, housing,
pension reform, transportation, infrastructure,
and sustainable services.
Those who are the goals that the board
and all the people attending decided
that we're following and advocating and Sacramento
as bills will be going through in the next year.
And it was a very productive two days conference and learned a bunch and made a bunch of different people.
Some of the guests that were there was Senator Bell and Senator Glacier.
And I want to say that also the city of Tracy was highlighted by the California city, California
legal cities on AB 430A and how that will impact the entire state and how is 911 going
to be addressed through the entire state.
So they were a kudosense to the public service and for the passing of that bill.
That concludes my update.
I want to wish everybody Merry Christmas and happy New Year's.
Thank you.
Council Member Erolah.
Thank you.
I just want to say thank you to the community members who came to my town hall, Neighborhood Safety.
That was very productive.
We had some great conversations.
I really think this is going to be the beginning of the conversation.
I look forward to bringing some policy proposals soon and with that, I just want to say Merry
Christmas everybody and happy new year, please be safe out there.
Council Member, I'll start with Merry Christmas to everyone next week.
I can't believe the year is winding up so quickly.
And then just real quickly on December the 6th, I think it was, I forgot my date,
the first Friday of the month.
We had the ACE Board meeting, and I was there to represent someone can call it as well as Tracy.
And one of the main items that was discussed was item number seven, adopting a schedule change for the ACE Saturday service.
And so this item proposed a change in time for Saturday since they started the service.
And it's really based on input that was taken from the commuters or the ace riders because ridership on Saturday was expanded not just for people who work on the weekend but for a lot of recreation.
And what they found too is that a lot of people are actually utilizing that service to visit family who are like in San Jose or in the Bay Area versus work.
And so for that, they're proposing them.
Train, the commuter train number 101, moving the time from 7.35 a.m. to 6.15 a.m.
That's even from Stockton. So we'll leave earlier to four people the ability to go to work,
who does work, who do work on those days. And to come back 104 from 3.50, they moved it to 4.15.
That's just that time we'll give them a little bit more. And for the leisure commuters 103 to move from 8.40 to 9.15
because they want to sleep in a little more and go and then to come back later
instead of coming back from San Jose at five it would actually leave at 7.15
to just afford them just that extra time and then for a while
undetermined yet how long introducing a flat rate
of $14 per person to write on Saturday which is
a lot less than the current rate and then we're also looking into
they're also looking into other options for family packages
is whether for kids to ride free or elderly or discounts or looking at other things that
they can adapt on the app to be able to just make that more accessible and used by many
more people.
And then the advertisement will be coming up soon for that.
Great, thank you very much.
So I will start with, I serve on the partnership as representative of the city and we've
recently made a staff change as a board to the Executive Director, and we're currently
working on a strategic plan to do a better job at attracting jobs.
Currently in the past practice of the partnership, what's happened is they've gone to the representatives
have gone to different trade shows flown all over the country, and it just turned into
where we were getting reports.
And so we're working with the new Executive Director to really create an environment
that would be more attractive and to be more proactive in actually going out to recruit jobs to the region.
So we're doing some restructuring and we're going to have a couple of meetings where we actually put together different subcommittees.
And so we have subcommittees, obviously, to put together new bylaws on how that's going to look.
But we also have a new governance committee that's going to be working with state policies.
And then we're going to be looking at what infrastructure and things are needed to be more attractive to those jobs who are citizens are currently residents are currently commuting to.
So that's an update and I'll bring we'll be getting a more information at the next meeting. I'll obviously bring that back.
I also attended the town hall, the Councilman Arayola put on.
I just want to thank you for allowing the citizens to come out and speak in regards to that.
Recently, actually yesterday, the Supreme Court made a decision not to hear the challenges
to the Martin v. Boise case.
So that kind of speaks to the sense of urgency with the things that we're working on
in regards to the strategic plan for the ad hoc committee in regards to homelessness,
because basically essentially what that does is it forces, instead of the federal government
making, you know, weighing in, it really forces the different locales to have to figure out
how to address the situation based to what's going on to their particular communities.
I do have a request from our city attorney, Ms. Leticia, if you can, do you mind sharing
a brief update on where we are with the project labor agreements?
Sure.
So we have an internal group of staff that are dedicated to working on the negotiations
for the project labor agreement and includes our assistant city manager Andrew, Malik,
City Engineer Robert Armijo and our HR Director Kimberley Murdoch and myself along with outside
council.
We have met with the Building Trade Council about three to four times.
The last meeting was actually December 4th.
We expect to have another meeting, a negotiation session on January 8th, and we are working
towards coming back to council with an agreement on January 21st.
Thank you very much.
I know we originally talked about having that back in December, but I appreciate the update in you letting us know where we are
My last item. I'm gonna be as brief as possible
But we've done a lot of work on the council in regards to responding to
Really getting our governance together getting our code of conduct getting our policies together so that we can really conduct the city's business and
I think it's it's shameful. It's
It's not frustrating, it's just shameful.
Before I even got on this council,
and if Miss English is in the hallway, I hope she comes in,
back in 2014, and maybe it's a coincidence,
on council, I'm in Vargas' very first day
on the planning commission is when I started facing attacks.
Things being said, things that were untrue
on this council, followed by when I was running in 2015,
there's videos of Miss English coming in saying things
that were not true based on my work on the Planning Commission and posting things in social
media.
And then moving here to this council and really trying to serve this community, it's frustrating
the disrespect, the unprofessionalism, and then knowing that these relationships on the
council continue to perpetuate these things.
And emails and things that are discussed are coming because people are going to great
lengths to find out, you know, every move that I make, it's almost like being stalked.
And I just really wish that in this political year that this council would make a commitment
to the friends that you have that come here and continue to perpetuate things that they
know that are not true.
And we do have a right, and I did check with the FPPC as well as with previous attorneys.
When someone comes here and says things that are untrue,
we do have a right to correct that information.
Every time that happens, there's a push to silence that
and to let it go on.
And there are so many different examples that can be given,
but it was on record publicly that over 100 staff hours were used
in regards to, she said that she didn't pull it,
but Mr. Richard English, I believe, pulling information in regards to my employer,
SOAC Community Foundation, and we had to hire temps to go back to old files
that had things, nothing to do with my service here on this council.
There's also a record we're talking about 2017, 2018.
It's very clear on the record.
Board members have come and said that I asked them to pull their application,
which was pooled. And so I really resent the continuous intentional mischaracterizations.
Everyone on this council has a right to run for office and you should be able to do that
without having people try to orchestrate and mischaracterize things. If there's something
that needs to be addressed, let's go ahead and address it, let's get on the table,
let's move forward. If it's something that needs to be done with governance,
I encourage anyone, if you have something about send it to the grand jury, send it to the attorney general, send it wherever, because I know I wake up and I sleep very well and I wake up knowing that I'm here to do a good job, that I'm not here to do anything that's illegal or immoral.
And so I encourage you, as just like you did before, you sent 122 pages to the FPPC making
accusations that, you know, weren't true.
Send it.
Continue to send it.
But to continue to come here, complain about how much time we talk and waste our time with
things that are not relevant or true, I just really wish and hope that this council
would commit to all this code of conduct work and all these different things that
We've said that we're committed to and just truly move forward.
Thank you.
And with that, I'm going to say Merry Christmas to all of you
out there, because we're not going to see you again
until next until after Christmas.
Thank you.
All right, thank you.
And just to clarify something, yeah,
we can correct the record, but as we've stated,
over and over and over and over again,
per FBPC and per Brown Act and all this stuff,
for legal case law, it has to be a brief statement
to clarify the factual information so what that means is if somebody comes up
here and says something that you don't like and that is not untrue one of the
remedies that we have is to make a brief statement to clarify the fact a prime
example of that I who I think does an exceptional job of that is council
memory areola and he has done it a couple of times as quick states of
facts boom you move on you know it's it is what it you know we've all
I don't think anybody's taking more hits than I have.
I had a former mayor who was after me for two years.
You know, it is what it is.
It's, you know, and reprimanding the public,
you know, up here I just don't think is
efficient or beneficial to the council as a whole.
But that's just me.
Now with that being said, last Saturday,
Reefs across America were at the Tracy Cemetery and it was awesome in the fact
that we had hundreds, hundreds of people show up to place reefs on our veterans
graves. This is the sixth year that we have done that and this year the first
time we received over 2,000 reefs, which was enough for every veteran in
the cemetery and I want to thank the ghost our mom Julia Conover and Scott for
you know bringing this tradition here to Tracy and my daughter Grace who's a
senior at Tracy High go Bulldogs that you have to say it is a tradition if not
I get struck somebody will run me over but you know yeah exactly this guy over
car. It wasn't a bulldog. It was in Stockton. Might have been somebody from Lincoln. But
my daughter Grace, you know, chose Rees Across America for her senior project this year.
And, you know, she spoke publicly at the Tracy Cemetery for the first time. So she
did a heck of a job. And, you know, Karen and I, and everybody's very, very proud
of her. And it just goes to show you what a great town that we are. You know,
a lot of people do like to mention the negative, but you look at the positive and you look
at, you know, and I say it over and over and when it comes time to get something to done,
it's time to get something to come together, nobody beats our town, you know, Tracy, Tracy
remembers.
I want to say Merry Christmas of course, happy new year, happy birthday
to my wife, Karen, who's sitting in the audience
with birthdays a day afterwards.
And real quick question to our counselor before I leave.
If you're sending text messages or posting on Facebook
up here on the dais,
what's the liability that you can create?
Is that against a code of conduct
or is that subject to PRAs?
What's?
So I don't believe there's any provision
in our Code of Conduct that addresses social media or texting during a
council meeting directly, but in terms of kind of liability, you know, I have
seen in the past those types of communications be subject to public
records requests. If the content of those messages have to do with the
public's business and city business, they could be subject to a public
request. Okay, but if you're up here on the dais and you're I guess we're paid
being work isn't any of the product we do a pure work product. Depending on I mean
if I'm talking to my spouse maybe that's one thing different but if I'm
say posting on Facebook a public media and if people know I'm here and I'm
making a statement on public media or social media can you. That could be
subject to a public record request.
All right, I'm going to be sending you something probably tomorrow that occurred tonight, what
I want to recount from the meeting.
Members up here, if that's the case, I want to subject, put it in the record of this
meeting for the public.
So it is.
So for the public.
Yeah.
Were you done, sir?
Yes, go ahead.
So for the public to know what the mayor is referring to is after the first attack,
I encourage you to go on to the meetings because these attacks are orchestrated by
your mayor.
So on my break, you saw me go in the back and I posted that you should tune into the meeting
because I think it's really important for the community to see how we're conducting your business.
So you can submit your PRA.
No, I won't submit.
I'm wondering how did you get that information?
Somebody sent it to you.
Someone sent it to you.
So your text is okay.
Right here.
Somebody sent it to me.
I didn't text anybody.
Oh, someone sent it to you.
But you got it.
Yeah, I didn't get it and this is my
Items these comments are supposed to be brief right it is well
I'll read it to you
I suggest you all turn on the council meeting the petty political shenanigans are back the personal tax of no place here
Only paid the work on behalf of the community
Should not be moved fall along with the link below and ladies and gentlemen. I mean
One thing attacking the public attacking other council members because we disagree is is ridiculous
And we can disagree to disagree and move on, but to say everything is political.
If you disagree with an individual, it's a political attack or it's accusatory, you know,
and it's, you saw last council meeting with,
I'm from the audience,
you saw on a March 6th with, in March 6th of 2018 by council member Ransom
who wanted limited public records act, which is, again, against the law.
So, there's a level or there's a path that shows it's the same thing over and over.
If the public has a right to do a PRA, you can do it.
I've had plenty done on me.
You have a right.
It doesn't mean you're attacking or accusing.
You can do what you want.
Same thing with the First Amendment.
It's unfortunate that we can't disagree to disagree up here, and it is what it is. But, you know, no ill will.
You just mischaracterized. I've never requested that the public not be able to do a PRA. What I requested back then,
and it's already been cleared up and we've watched the video, is that when people are using the PRAs to continue to attack.
I made a point of clarification that I never requested that people not be able to do PRAs
that they be listed on the website which they are currently now done.
You are correct on that. Actually, I got the transcript of it if you want to. You know,
and she's right, she didn't say, but she said that put people's name on the website on her
own website.
I feel you're delving into a discussion of something that's not on the agenda.
Can we call for the question?
Yeah, go ahead.
I move to conclude the meeting.
I'll second that.
Can we roll call, please?
Council Member Areola?
Council Member Vargas?
Yes.
Council Member Ransom?
Yes.
Member Tim Young?
Yes.
And Mayor Rickman?
Yes.
Thank you, everybody.
Good night.