The Davis City Council met on Tuesday, March 5, 2024, at 6:30 PM in Community Chambers. Key topics included a proposed letter to state officials regarding I-80 widening, an update on the city's cannabis regulatory framework, and the 2023 Housing Element Annual Progress Report. After extensive public comment and council debate, the council declined to send the I-80 letter but directed the legislative subcommittee to submit comments on the Caltrans Investment Framework. On cannabis, the council directed staff to align local rules with state licensing, review regulatory fees and tax structure, and complete a Cannabis Benefit Fund Impact Report, while deferring a decision on increasing the retail cap pending further market analysis. The housing report was received with appreciation.
Item 4 – I-80 Letter:
Item 5 – Cannabis Business Update:
Item 6 – Housing Element Report: No public comments.
Item 7 – Long Range Calendar: No public comments.
Item 4 – Consideration of Letter to State Regarding Transportation – I-80:
Item 5 – Cannabis Business Update:
Item 6 – Housing Element Annual Progress Report and Residential Development Status Report for 2023:
Item 7 – A. AB 1234 Reporting: No meetings reported. B. City Council Long Range Calendar: No changes. Next meeting March 19, 2024. Councilmember Neville requested an update on the homelessness crisis, including use of $1.17M in federal rescue funds. City Manager noted a city-county 2x2 meeting on March 20. Councilmember Partida raised the idea of placing an at-large mayoral election on the November ballot; City Attorney Inder Khalsa noted complexities with district elections and suggested further discussion.
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the March 5th meeting of the Davis City Council. I will call the meeting to order and reflect that it is let the record reflect it is 6 38 p.m. And all my colleagues are here. Uh and with that, I will entertain a motion to approve the agenda. Second. We have a motion by Councilmember Partita and a second by Councilmember Neville. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, abstained. We have an agenda. We'll now move on to item number one A, City Manager Brief Announcements. Mike. Yeah, thank you very much, Mayor, City Council. Good evening. Have a handful of announcements for you tonight. First is our recreation registration opens tomorrow, March 6th, for uh several of our very popular programs. That's Camp PUDA, Trekkers, and Horse Camp. The registration for those programs for the programs after that will start on March 20th. So we have about a two-week uh gap between these registration March 20th is all other camps and programs uh and swim lessons. Uh the um uh community members can sign up for Camp PUDA trekkers and horse camp uh on uh starting at March 6th at 7 a.m. The registration is available online or in person only uh and phone registration then would uh begin uh starting in April on April 17th. So there's some phasing uh to our registration process here. Um so the Camp Huda horse camp and trekkers in particular are very high demand, uh very popular uh camps. Uh so registration is limited to the one week um and one week per program per uh per eligible child. So it's you know, pick pick the favorite, not all three and not for multiple weeks. Um and so under uh rec guides on the city webpage. Uh you can see the image of that guide here uh is more details and information on that, and certainly our parks and community services department uh are the folks to contact with any questions uh and obviously just uh undertake that registration process. So uh starting at 7 a.m. uh tomorrow for Camp Puta Trekkers and Horse Camp. Uh the chamber uh and Chamber of Commerce uh is gonna be uh doing their annual state of the city where they've invited uh Mayor Chapman and myself to come and do uh an overview of sort of what's happening in the city, what are the stuff what's the status of things? Uh and uh so they're doing that once again. This year they're going they're back to an in-person format where they did uh you know a Zoom format for the last several years, uh particularly during COVID. Uh so that's gonna be at SuidWorks uh restaurant starting at 11 a.m. to about 12.30. Um that event's gonna be moderated by uh one of the board members uh and ambassador Chad Carlock, uh, who's also the vice chair for uh the board of directors. And uh we're looking forward to discussing topics such as uh city finances, infrastructure, development activity, uh, and more uh that will be uh done with that overview. Uh more information can be found on the on the city and the chamber's social media channels as well. Um and you can see the their flyer here that they put out for that. Um and I will note that for those who uh you know are not able to get in or don't uh have uh uh the ability to attend the event in person, uh as we've done for uh many years in the past. We will be posting uh the presentation slides to our city webpage where we have all the past years actually, all in chronological. Uh we'll be so this too will be posted uh immediately following uh the event tomorrow. So looking forward to that. Uh next item is the Amtrak Davis Improvement Project. So this is uh uh Amtrak and the city of Davis will be hosting two outreach meetings with the community. Uh that's also happening tomorrow, busy day tomorrow on March 6th to share pending improvements and upgrades to the Amtrak station to make it more ADA accessible. This is primarily a Capitol Corridor and uh federal railroad uh uh uh led project um so that is funded uh by them. Uh and it's upgrades to the station that could include uh new center platform that would be accessed either by a under or over crossing uh for safer access. Um we're currently that access is at grade. Um the new platform lighting and signage, track improvements to support uh service efficiencies, uh, and a new connection uh that uh the city is interested in going taking things from the dam track station to all of drive and making a bike and pedestrian connection there over to uh land that was secured as part of the uh writer apartment uh complex at Lincoln 40 on all of Drive that was secured through our development agreement with that project as well as some funding uh with that development agreement to help uh pay for that extension of the connection uh over to all of drive.