Let's see.

Reconvening from our closed session, I have the following disclosure.

By a four to zero vote with Councilmember Sewan absent, the City Council authorized and directed the City Attorney's Office to defend the cases of Hansra versus the City of Elkgrove police department as identified by the case number on the City Council meeting agenda.

Now we will go ahead and adjourn our special meeting at 6.03 p.m.

And at this time I would like to call to order the Elkgrove City Council regular meeting and the Elkgrove Finance Authority regular meeting.

Concurrent agendas, Wednesday, September the 24th, 2025.

The time is 6.03 p.m.

Clerk.

Thank you, Mayor.

This meeting of the Elkgrove City Council is recorded with closed captioning.

The recording will be cable cast on Metro Cable Channel 14, the local government affairs channel on the Comcast and Direct TV Uverse Cable Systems.

The recording will also be video streamed at Metro14Live.gov.

Tonight's meeting replays will be on Friday, September 26th at 1 p.m.

and Monday, September 29th, also at 1 p.m.

on Metro Channel 14.

Once posted, the recordings of this and previous meetings can be viewed on demand at the 3Ws.gov or YouTube.com slash Metro Cable 14.

For members of the participating audience who may have personal electronic devices, please place them on silent mode during the meeting or on mute when you are not speaking.

The Elkgrove City Council welcomes, appreciates, and encourages participation in the city council meeting.

City Council requests that you limit your presentation to three minutes per person so at all present will have time to participate.

City Council reserves the right to reasonably limit the total time for public comment on any particular notice agenda item as it may deem necessary.

Pursuant to resolution number 210-24.

No individual speaker concerning public comment may address the city council for more than three minutes.

If you wish to address the council during the meeting, please complete a blue speaker card, which can be found at the back of the chamber and provide it to assistant city clerk Brenda Haggard prior to consideration of the agenda item.

With that, Mayor, I will be moving into our roll call.

And for the roll call, I will start with Councilmember Spees.

Present.

Councilmember Brewer.

Present.

And Mayor Singh Allen.

Here.

Next up is our land acknowledgement.

Assisting will be our vice mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

We honor, respect, and acknowledge Elkgrove's first inhabitants, the Plain Miwoks, who lived in sovereign caretakers of this land and these waterways since time memorial.

We commemorate and advocate for their descendants, the Wilton Rancheria, the only federalized recognized tribe in Sacramento County who have endured because of their bravery, resilience, determination, their ancestors, tribal members, and leaders.

All right.

Next up is our Pledge of Allegiance.

I would like to invite, let's see.

Ms.

Guzman, would you help lead us in the pledge this evening?

Thank you.

Under individual with liberty and justice for all.

At this time, please join us for a brief moment of silence.

Thank you.

Next item is the approval of the agenda.

Madam Mayor, I'd like to uh propose that we move item 10 immediately following the consent items.

All right.

We have a motion with that change.

Can I get a second?

I seconded.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Next item, please.

Under section three, the closed session.

There are no closed session items on the regular agenda, which will advance us to section four.

Our presentations and announcements.

And that first being item 4.1.

The asphalt art competition student recognition.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council members.

I'm Ash Kumar, senior management analyst in the city manager's office.

I'm here to provide an update on our asphalt art project and to recognize the winners of our student asphalt art competition.

So some project background.

In August 2025, the City of El Grove launched an innovative pilot asphalt art project that represents a new approach to creative placemaking, which has been installed in many other locations in the country and worldwide.

Located at the intersection of Franklin High Road and Hewitt Way, this initiative serves three critical purposes: enhancing traffic safety by driving driver behavior through crosswalks and bike paths, beautifying our neighborhood with vibrant art that reflect reflects our community's character and most importantly, engaging our youth as active contributors to their community's development.

Our partnership with Toby Johnson Middle School transformed this from a city project into a true community collaboration.

Under the theme Community Threats, we challenged students to create designs reflecting our community spirit, local landmarks, natural beauty, and positive imagery.

Thanks to the dedicated leadership of Principal Jennifer Keyport and the creative expertise of our teacher Jamie Shylan, who conducted specialized workshops, we received an overwhelming response of 70 unique hand-drawn submissions.

Each design was carefully evaluated by our city staff alongside Mike Manganon from the Arts and Creative Economy Commission using criteria focused on creativity, visual impact, thematic relevance, and safety considerations.

I'll begin by showcasing the exceptional work of the top four winners, each demonstrating amazing creativity and community connection.

Then I'll invite Principal Keyport to share her observations about this partnership.

And after that, we'll honor each winner individually, for which I'd love to invite Mayor Singh Allen and the rest of the council to come down here.

We'll have certificates and gift cards for the students.

First, let's take a look at the winning designs.

So winning first place, Wilson Wong of grade eight, we see the art, which is the art of crayons.

He says this represents our community and our arts, and that the crayons are different in size.

Nobody is the same, but we are all equal, wanting to show the city's diversity.

Again, this was first place.

This is what was installed at the intersection.

At second place, we have Meadow Johnson, who is again grade eight at the time of submission, who chose to draw California poppies and Monarch butterflies to honor her mom, who's also here with us.

So this is a great opportunity to recognize them both.

Third place is Hannah Zoo, grade eight.

She says the stars here vary in color and none are drawn exactly the same, symbolizing diversity in our community, joining hands, symbolizing unity.

With fourth place at fourth place, we have Ming Li, and hers is the art representing courage in our city.

And she mentions the special community attributes we have with the rivers, and also reminds us of our own bravery and uniqueness as residents in the city, battling cancer and other ailments.

So with that, I'd like to invite uh Principal Keyport to come up here and share her experience with this partnership.

Thank you, Ash, and good evening, Madam Mayor and Council members.

I'm Jenny Keyport.

I'm the principal at Toby Johnson Middle School.

First, I'd like to say congratulations to Wilson for winning the asphalt art contest.

We have our gift of 100 for you here tonight, Wilson.

His design brightens up our community.

His inspiration was to have the diversity in the crayons represent the diversity in our school and community, and we all also hope that it increases safety around our school.

I was thrilled to be part of this joint effort with Toby Johnson Middle School and the City of El Grove, including young people tells them that they are seen, that they have a voice and that their voice is heard and appreciated.

I plan to take advantage of any future opportunities that involve our students and their ideas and perspectives in our community.

And I must say that safety around our school is our absolute greatest concern.

It feels like we hold our breaths every day with traffic safety.

So anything that can be done to slow cars down is appreciated.

Along these same lines, I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to bring attention to recent news headlines in Sacramento about the potential end to funding for public media channel licenses like the Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium or SECC.

The SECC directly funds incredible school media programs, including at Toby Johnson Middle School and Franklin High School.

These programs are one more way to connect young people to their community by making them feel seen, encouraging them to use their voice, and letting them know their voice is heard appreciated and important.

If the SECC should end all of these programs, we'll be looking for funding sources to continue school programs that give students access to information and information is equity.

Congratulations again to Wilson and all three.

They're Franklin students now, but I'm going to call them Toby students because they were recognized for their outstanding art and thank you to the city for including us.

We have, I think we have three participants here in the audience today, so we'll be recognizing those three for starting with Wilson, of course, place winner.

Excellent.

Can we give them all a round of applause before we come down?

Okay.

Hi Wilson.

I'm here.

I'm gonna present this to you.

And we're gonna look this way.

Thank you for coming.

Thank you for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Family members are welcome to come join.

Do you want to come in?

I'm looking to get the camera to somebody else.

Ready?

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

And one, two, three.

One, two, three.

Congratulations to you.

Great work.

That's weird.

Good job.

All right, no, no.

Next up, let's welcome Meadow Johnson.

This is a part of Skype up for after that.

Congratulations.

All right.

This is for your own.

We'll take a picture here.

Okay, ready?

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

No, come on up.

We'll take the picture.

We'll give it to Ash there.

Excellent.

All right.

All right, here we go.

Okay, ready?

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

One more time.

One, two, three, and one, two, three.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

I think we're not here.

And fourth place when they're oh, oh, he's here.

We all have me here.

I thought I had a great.

All right.

Oh, God.

Come on, name.

Hey, buddy, what's your name?

Oh.

I think it's a winner.

Okay.

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

And one, two, three.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Sorry to mark it.

Let's give them all one more enthusiastic round of applause.

Great work.

So much talent in our school district, especially our young middle schoolers.

Thank you for your passion.

Continue that.

I can still barely manage stick figures, so I'm always impressed with our student talent.

Alright, next up, item 4.2.

Proclamation recognizing September 2025 as prostate cancer awareness month.

Is uh Terry Defreight Defredi?

How do you Defratus?

All right.

And assisting will be Councilmember Brewer.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

And Terry, thank you for being here tonight to accept the proclamation recognizing September 2025 as prostate cancer awareness month, and doing this in conjunction with the Greater Sacramental Prostate Cancer Support Group and the California Prostate Cancer Coalition.

We do recognize that September is annually observed as prostate cancer awareness month.

And the purpose of it is to uh educate men about the risks and symptoms of prostate cancer and to encourage regular screenings, such as prostate cancer, specific antigen, PSA tests, and digital rectal exams, DREs, and to provide information on treatment options and support resources for patients and their families and to advocate for research and advancements in prostate cancer and prevention and cure.

There's four key facts I wanted to share with the audience tonight that prostate cancer is the most common non-cancer, non-skin cancer in America for men.

It is estimated that one in nine men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime.

Early detection is crucial as prostate cancer is highly treatable when caught in its early stages, and African American men are at a higher risk of developing and dying from prostate cancer more than more so than other uh racial groups.

But as it's what we do over the course of the month is doing activities for awareness, educational events, fundraising efforts, and support groups.

Most importantly, to connect, empower each other, and so we can move through the process and know that we have a group, family, friends that can help us get through this, but also fight and win.

Yes.

We do have a proclamation that I want to share with you.

Um I'll share a couple of the other whereas, and then I'd like to hand the floor over to you to say any any remarks that you'd like to share.

So this proclamation of prostate cancer awareness month, whereas prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in men, and the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men and the American Cancer Society estimates that 29,600 men in California will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year, and estimated that an additional 4,140 California men will die from this disease this year.

And the five-year survival rate approaches 100% when prostate cancer is diagnosed and treated early.

Early stage prostate cancer usually causes no symptoms, and treatment options for prostate cancer vary depending on age, stage, and grade of cancer as well as the effects of other existing medical conditions.

And the American Cancer Society recommends that men have a conversation with their health care provider to make an informed decision about testing for prostate cancer.

And whereas all men are at risk for prostate cancer, and the city of Elk Grove joins communities across the nation to increase the awareness of the importance of early detection of prostate cancer.

So therefore, be it resolved that the city council of the city of Elk Grove hereby proclaims September 25 as prostate cancer awareness month in the city of Elk Grove and ask the community to increase awareness about the importance for men to make informed decisions with their health care provider about early detection and testing for prostate cancer on this day, September 24th, 2025.

So yes, Terry, please take it away.

I'm sitting here terribly nervous.

Thank you for having us and this proclamation.

I'm a survivor of prostate cancer.

I uh did get detected early.

They removed my prostate, and it was all contained within the prostate, so I didn't have to go through treatment for that cancer.

But uh it was very important.

Uh if you don't get your uh your PSAs done, it can metastatize throughout the body, and then you're really in trouble.

So uh it's very important to do that.

Um I can't uh emphasize enough to get on your uh on your doctor and uh have him do the PSA because some of them don't want to do it.

So you need to get on there and uh make sure you're done.

All right, well, I can thank you.

And great to see that you're doing well, sir.

Thank you.

All right.

Yes, yes.

I think you are nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you again today.

Thank you.

This is really good.

Thank you.

Ready?

Ready?

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, next up is our historic preservation committee, and hello, mayor, vice mayor, and council members.

My name is Rachel Seamy, and I will be giving the presentation today for the annual update on the historical preservation committee.

I want to begin by saying thank you to Kira, who is right over there, our staff member who helps us out in our meetings.

She is a great resource, and we adore her so much.

Okay, sorry.

Um, our members are Peggy Forsyth Andrews, who is our chair.

Unfortunately, she wasn't able to make it today.

She sends her apologies.

Dennis Fisher, who is a also a representative from the Elk Grove Historical Society, Svetta Dala, John Frazier, and our most recent member, Nathaniel Kopis.

We would also like to take this time to acknowledge Nadia Malgoza, who was our vice chair, and Brian Van Lint.

They were both members.

Um, unfortunately, they had to leave in this past year due to work commitments.

But we thank them for the time they dedicated to our meetings.

Um currently we meet every second Monday of the month at 6 PM as needed, and we are five voting members with two alternates.

Our purpose is to identify, designate, protect, enhance, and perpetuate the use of historical resources.

Historical resources includes things like buildings, structures, objects, sites, districts, cultural landscapes, and tribal cultural resources in the city that reflect special elements of the city's heritage and cultural diversity.

This is important to maintaining Elk Grove's historical preservation.

We also provide formal recommendations on alterations to historical resources, to the development services director, the zoning administrator, and the planning commission.

And on occasion, we do also provide formal recommendation to the city council on the designation of historical resources.

In the past year, our biggest accomplishment and probably the one we're most proud of is creating and launching the Elkgrove Local Register of Historic Resources.

This has been something that has been in the works for years, and we were finally able to bring it 54 places to you guys last year.

And that list is also available on for the public to look at on the Elk Grove City website, as well as information about what places, how to make sure your places meeting the criteria and what to do if you would like to get on that register.

We also met again with the owners of the Old Town Pub, which is shaping up to be still in construction but shaping up to be opening soon.

And most recently, we had the annual training with them on the Mills Act and Tax Incentives Program.

The Mills Act enables cities and counties to enter in contracts with property owners.

It provides property tax reductions in exchange for ongoing preservation and rehabilitation of historic buildings.

And this is the most important financial incentive for historic homes in California.

Some of our goals for the next year include bringing some more places onto the council to add to the Elkrove Register of Historic Resources.

Continue with our annual training, participating in the Old Town SPA guidelines update, continuing to maintain a strong relationship with Elk Grove Historical Society and Old Town Foundation, which proved to be vital in determining what's whether something or not is a historical part of a building.

And also working on education and outreach, we discovered a lot of people didn't realize anything about the historical district, SPA, kind of confused with that.

So working on kind of just educating them on that as well as the Elkgrove Register of Historic Resources and educate them on what we do at the committee.

And I want to thank you all for your time today.

All right.

Well, thank you for your update and congratulations to you and to all of our members for your service to your city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright, we're gonna move on to our next item, which is public comment.

I will go ahead and open up public comment opportunity.

We have one person signed up to speak, Lynn Wait.

Good evening.

So this summer I had an opportunity to travel and actually get on a vacation.

And when I go on vacation, sometimes I think about our city here.

And when I see really great ideas, or I believe to be great ideas that might benefit our community, I like to bring them back to our city.

So I wanted to bring back one idea.

We went to one town and they were very proud of their town and their community, and they had a community arts banner program.

And I know that we have banners throughout our city in Old Town that we put up, that the city puts up along Elkgrove Boulevard and such.

And I think this might be an opportunity for us to include all of our students within our community.

I just took one picture and I took one of an elementary school child, drew this, representing their community and how proud they were to live in their community.

And then I recognize that we're looking at different mural plans and programs.

And I I you know I'm a little disappointed that we couldn't consider really working with our communities and using some of our local businesses here to advocate some of those.

But in another town that we went to, one of the businesses had a mural on their wall.

And this was a mural done by high school students in 1998.

The mural's still there.

So could you imagine they go off to college, they come back, they have their families there, and here they participated in a mural, really bringing home a community spirit.

A number of years ago, I saw a wall painting in one city that I really liked that I thought would be really great here.

And in particular, I brought it up a number of times.

The Walmart wall over the pedestrian overpass continues to be graffitied.

And I just don't think that that's a really good thing for our community.

And I know that Walmart helps out in education.

Wouldn't it be great if we could promote that and have something like this done along that wall and even on the other side where we have uh graffiti and get our students involved in that?

Lastly, we do have very, very artistic students within our community.

And I went down to chalk it up, and I was so proud to see that our Laguna Creek High School students actually went to chalk it up.

And Chalk It Up is a city of Sacramento program through the arts, and they they um let me hold this up longer, because what they do is they bring their arts community together and the local businesses promoting this, and they raise money for their arts programs, and they use local artists.

They might not be big name artists, but they're local artists and how wonderful that would be.

And just think we could do something like this and give our students the benefit of our measure e money and scholarships and such instead of paying out of town firms.

Again, when we promote local businesses, I believe you as a council ought to do that, and not do as I say, but don't do as I do, which listening to the last meeting.

I really felt that happened.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That is our final public comment.

So I will go ahead and close public comment and move on to our next item, our city manager's report.

Good evening, madam mayor, vice mayor, members of the city council, Jason Bearman's city manager.

Um, first, that time of the year we have uh high school homecomings and homecoming parades.

The first is gonna be El Grove High School Homecoming Parade around the old town or historic district of our community this Friday, September 26th.

Police department will be on hand to assist with traffic controls and detours starting around 12 45 p.m.

Motors can expect lane closures on Elkrove Boulevard and Elkgrove Florin.

If you want to find out more about the the parade and the road closure, you can go to the city's website on the traffic for the traffic advisory.

City's excited to be part of Terra Madre.

America is making its debut this weekend at Safe Credit Union Convention Center in Sacramento, the Elk Grove Experience will be hosted by Explore Elk Grove and sponsored by the city of Elk Grove, featuring Elkgrove businesses.

Details are available at TerramadreUSA.com.

It's gonna be an amazing event, so excited to participate in that.

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, October 1st and stop by 18 Grams.

Anytime between 7 a.m.

and 10 a.m.

to enjoy a cup of coffee in conversation with officers and staff from our police department.

It's an opportunity for residents to get to know the people who serve our wonderful community.

City's diversity inclusion commission will celebrate the LGBTQIA Plus community as culturally rich history and activism and change during cultural connections.

Elk Grove out loud on Monday, October 6th at District 56 starting at 6:30 p.m.

Evening will include community members sharing their stories and entertaining performances showcasing the vibrancy of this important community.

Everyone is welcome.

And finally, to celebrate Elkgrove's 25th anniversary and plant a tree day on September 28th, the city's public works team will be planting 25 uh tree new trees along Elk Grove or sorry, Laguna Creek at Lewis Stein Road.

These trees will provide important shade, improve air quality, and enhance the future trail connection and pedestrian overcrossing that will be constructed at State Route 99.

The project commemorates the city's 25th anniversary, aligns with the city's sustainability goals, and reinforces a commitment to growing a healthy urban forest.

And that concludes my report.

Happy to answer any questions the council might have.

All right, thank you for your excellent update.

Any questions or comments?

Yes.

I do have uh bits.

So Mr.

Berman, uh we had talked earlier this week that I'd had a conversation with uh Ms.

Wheat, and she had expressed appreciation for the um for the street cleaning, the street sweeping, and then had some uh I relayed some different um opportunities to uh have residents know what was going on with that.

And so you texted me a little bit something.

Can you give a little update on what we're doing with the street cleaning, street sweeping?

Yeah, sure.

We do street sweeping once a month on all of our residential streets.

There is a webpage dedicated to that where anybody can go on and find out which day of the month your street is supposed to be swept, and we encourage people to have their cars removed from the street during that time starting at 6 a.m.

Um and so we're gonna do some some public information.

Uh we have, I think, scheduled for the next January citywide newsletter.

We'll have an article about that, also referring people to our website where they can get that information, and we'll also do some social posts in advance of that to let people know and remind people that they need to just be be careful to keep the streets clear if they want their streets clean, because our street sweepers will be out there on the designated time, and so really help us keep our community clean.

So that's we're gonna do some.

Perfect.

And I did the first time I had seen it.

You can go and you can type in your address, and you can find out when the street sweeper is coming, and you can encourage your neighbors to get their clunkers out of the way, which they should be taken care of anyway.

But I want to thank you for uh updating on that.

And I think it's it's one of those things I think people it's one of the great things I should say of Measure E and how we're actually making improvements in the neighborhoods themselves.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Spees.

Any other questions or comments?

Yes.

Which day was the tree planting again?

I totally missed that part.

Tree planting is happening on September 28th.

Okay.

Thank you.

Councilmember Brewer, anything?

I got nothing.

All right, excellent.

All right, thank you for your report.

Uh, we will move on to our next item, which is our consent calendar items.

At this time, I will go ahead and open up the public comment opportunity.

I do not have anyone signed up to speak.

I'll close public comment and look for a motion to approve the consent calendar.

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Now we're going to switch over to item 10.

And convene the city council and finance authority joint regular meeting.

The time is 6 37 p.m.

Clerk.

With a visual roll call, I will note that Councilmember Sewen remains absent.

Uh, we have all four of our other members and all of the council serve as members to the finance authority.

So as we proceed through this item, you'll kind of be wearing two hats.

Um, but uh doing functions as both the city council and the finance authority.

I did want to note that your service on the finance authority does not come with any additional pay or stipend.

Um, so that's a requirement that I have to make that announcement.

And with that, I will turn over this item to our staff to present the item.

Good evening, madam mayor, vice mayor, and city council members.

I'm here tonight to present on the Laguna Ridge Revenue Bonds uh series 2025.

I want to introduce our finance team.

We have some of them, our consultants with us.

Um, Dave Fama with Jones Hall, who's our bonded disclosure counsel, Jim Fabian from Fieldman Rollup and Associates, who's our municipal advisor on this, and Eric McKean from Ramirez and Company, um, who is our underwriter.

Um, here's the district map.

Main boundaries are Elk Grove Boulevard to the north, Bruceville Road to the left, Bilby Road to the south.

This contains about 5,800 parcels and over 1,800 um square mile uh acres.

The district was created in 2005 and includes separate components for both infrastructure and maintenance services.

Formation documents allow eligible infrastructure costs to be financed through bonds.

The formation documents also stipulate that the total maximized bonding capacity for the life of this district is 225 million.

To date, we have done six series of bonds, and totaling approximate approximately 191 million dollars.

Remaining bond capacity after the last issuance in 2024 is just under 34 million.

The proposed 2025 issuance.

We have here the good faith estimates, which are provided by our underwriter, reflecting the conditions as of the market as of August 26th.

The par amount would be a little over almost 24 million.

Cost of issuance is over a million and 5.17% is the current interest rate.

Bonds will close October 23rd.

Market conditions will determine actual par amount and interest rates.

This is the first time that the district has we've created a credit reading, we've seeked out a credit reading from SP.

We did this because the district is primarily built out, and the timing was really ideal to obtain a rating.

The benefits of this are to reduce interest rates, lower insurance premiums, and access to a broader market.

The credit rating was delivered last week.

We received notice today that we received an A-credit rating, which is considered stable.

This also for potential rating improvement for future bonds.

Now that we do have a reading, if for future bond or refunding, we could increase that rating.

Bonding size is determined according to number of units from supporting development.

There are a total of 724 single family units which will be supporting this bond.

Special taxes to support debt service will come from the shown seven supporting development projects.

All projects have designated developed and are supporting this bond issuance through property tax.

The expenditures are authorized per the Laguna Ridge to CFD 2005-1 formation documents, and they are allocated for public improvements, which will also include impact fee payments.

And this does not affect existing homeowners, existing homeowners and lagooneridge will stay where they're at.

Structure, this is an identical structure to the previous bond issuance, so no change in our previous six series, will not affect change or supersede any terms of the bond issuance, includes payments, reserves, requirements, and bond covenants.

The special tax for these homes will be assessed on the homeowner's annual property tax bill per the Laguna Ridge formation documents.

The tax will increase 2% annually.

This is identical to all previous bonds issued for this tax districts.

Proposed issuance is a 26-year bond corresponding with the final year of the CFD tax assessment, which is in fiscal year 2050 to 2051.

Compliance city has complied with all reporting requirements and ongoing disclosures and will comply with for this issuance as well.

Staff recommends that the city council and the Elkgrove Finance Authority adopt the three following resolutions for City Council and the Elkgrove Finance Authority to each adopt a resolution to approve the issuance and the financing agreements, and then for city council to adopt a resolution to make any budget adjustments necessary to record the issuance of the bond and bond proceeds.

This concludes my presentation.

Our council and staff are here if you have any questions.

All right, thank you for your presentation.

At this time, I will declare that the public hearing is now open and open up public comment opportunity.

Nobody has signed up to speak on this.

I will close public comment and declare that the public hearing is now closed.

Any questions or comments?

Otherwise, I will look for a motion one.

Move motion one.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Next.

Thank you for that action as the city council.

And now you'll shift hats over to become the finance authority.

Excellent.

So now it's motion two as finance authority.

Move motion two.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

And finally, motion three.

And as we bounce back to the city council yet again.

Okay.

Welcome back, council.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

And I will adjourn the joint outgrove city council and outgrove finance authority regular meeting at 644 p.m.

Now we will go back to item 8.1, our public hearing.

And 8.1 is a public hearing to consider resolution approving the fiscal year 2024-25 community development block grant and home investment partnerships program consolidated annual performance and evaluation report.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council members.

I am Alicia Tet, management analyst in the housing and public services division.

The item I have for you tonight is the consolidated annual performance and evaluation report, also known as the CAPER.

This annual report describes how our community development block grant and our home investment partnerships program funds were used during the 24-25 program year.

The report is required to be submitted by the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development within 90 days of the close of the program year.

The report was included as part of your packet this evening.

To highlight some of the accomplishments, the city received 9,982,758 dollars in entitlement CDBG funding and 359,306 in home funds.

These federal grants supported a variety of housing and community development activities that primarily benefit low-income households.

Funded programs and projects included senior meal services, landlord tenant and fair housing counseling, case management, emergency and transitional housing, curb ramp improvements to enhance accessibility and support of affordable housing development.

As part of the citizen participation process, a public notice was published on the city's website on September 4th and in the Elk Grove Citizen on September 5th.

The 15-day public comment period began on September 9th and will conclude with tonight's public hearing.

The report has been available in several public locations as well as on the city's website during this public review and comment period, and we have not received any public comments prior to tonight's meeting.

Tonight I'm asking at the conclusion of the public hearing for council to approve the report so that we may submit to HUD.

And I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.

All right, thank you.

At this time, I will declare the public hearing is now open and open up public comment.

Uh nobody signed up to speak.

I'll close public comment and declare the public hearing is now closed.

Any questions or comments?

If not, I'll look for a motion.

So move.

Second, all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

All right.

Next item 8.2.

Item 8.2 is a public hearing to consider resolution approving a conditional use permit and major design review amendment for the Laguna Point amendment, home to suites by Hilton Project.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the City Council, Joseph Doug.

I'm an associate planner with the community development department, uh project planner for the homes and suites by Hilton Project.

This project consists of a conditional use permit and major design review amendment to modify the site layout for lot number three within the previously approved Laguna Point Center.

This would make way for the construction of a new 110-room four-story hotel with outdoor amenities.

The project shall comply with the city's climate auction plan for non-residential development.

The project site is located at the Laguna Point Center.

It's bound by Laguna Boulevard to the north, Laguna Springs Drive to the west, West Stockton Boulevard to the south, and uh Highway 99 to the east.

The Laguna Point Center is comprised of nine parcels, totaling approximately 20 acres.

Six out of the nine parcels are developed.

The project site, which is outlined in yellow on your screen, is approximately 2.7 acres.

So the full uh project history on this is in your staff report.

I won't go through the entire uh project history, but just a couple highlights.

So the Laguna Point project was initially approved by the city council back in 2005.

The subject property was approved for a three-story 76,000 square foot office.

There was an amendment back in 2018 that amended the site plan for the project site for a future 107 uh room uh hotel.

It does require subsequent conditional use permit and design review approvals, which is uh what you are considering this evening.

So for the conditional use permit, the per uh purpose of a conditional use permit is for the individual review of uses typically having unusual site development features or operating characteristics to ensure compatibility with the surrounding areas and uses.

There's two findings um needed to support uh the conditional use permit.

The first one would be consistency with the general plan and provisions of the uh the zoning code, as well as the use uh not being a detriment to those living and working in the area.

Now, in terms of the this conditional use permit, we did review the compatibility of the hotel in terms of uh the surrounding area.

This property is surrounded by commercial and office uses.

The uh closest residential properties over 700 uh feet away, so there's no um sensitive receptor nearby.

In consultation with our colleagues at the police department, we have added conditions to ensure safety of the hotel and its guests.

So uh this is the site plan before you.

Uh access to the site will be provided through the existing drive aisles along Laguna Springs Drive and a feature driveway along West Stockton Boulevard.

The primary hotel uh hotel entrance will be located on the western side of the building that will feature a portico share.

The outdoor amenities, such as the swimming pool and patio area, will be located on the southern side of the building.

The proposed landscaping will feature fruitless olive, Chinese pistache, holly oak, uh Chinese elm and saw leaves alcova trees.

The site plan and the landscape plan have been determined to be consistent with the city's zoning and design requirements.

So this depicts the architectural elevations for the proposed home suites project.

Uh building facades will be treated with a variety of materials, including stucco with earth tone hues, aluminum panels, porcelain tiles, uh, aluminum-framed windows and doors, and aluminum canopies over the exterior doors on the ground level.

These selected colors and materials will match the buildings already already developed within the center.

The lime green accent proposed on the main tower element represents a brand associated color selection.

Uh the proposed elevations provide a high-quality materials, detailing and colors, which are carried to all building elevations.

So uh to conclude, uh, this amendment meets the needs of a specific hotel operator.

The amendment reconfigures the parking area, will increase the guest room count from 107 rooms to 110 rooms, and will provide outdoor amenities, which is the swimming pool and the outdoor patio area.

Uh, as I mentioned, the site plan and the landscape plan are consistent with the zoning and design regular design guidelines, and the architecture is compatible with the rest of the Laguna Point approval.

Terms of CEQA, no further environmental reviews required.

Pursuance to Safe Secret Guidelines section 15162 and 15183.

And with that, uh staff is recommending approval of the project subject to the findings and conditions included in the draft resolution.

This concludes my presentation.

I am available to answer any questions, and the applicant is also in attendance.

Thank you very much.

All right, thank you for your presentation.

I will declare that the public hearing is now open.

Would the applicant like to speak?

Madam Mayor, members of the council, Jim Gillen with Gillen Consulting here, representing the applicant Jackson Properties and Jackson Hospitality.

I don't have a presentation prepared because the staff did an excellent job of summarizing the project, but I do want to thank staff for the hard work uh in getting this project to you in a timely manner.

It was a very smooth process.

We appreciate that.

And also wanted to share that Jackson is excited about bringing this hotel.

We're working on our construction drawings now in anticipation of a positive result tonight.

And I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

All right, thank you.

I will now open up the public comment opportunity.

Nobody sign up to speak.

I'll close public comment.

And I will declare the public hearing is now closed.

Any questions or comments?

Looking to the right.

Happy to make the motion.

I'll second it.

All right.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Looking forward to another hotel in Elkgrove, much needed.

Thank you.

All right, uh, item 8.3.

And item 8.3 is to conduct public hearings in consideration of resolutions adding territory to the future annexation areas for community facilities district number 2003-2 for police services and community facilities district number 2006-1 maintenance services and related actions, as will be detailed by staff.

Good evening again.

Um I'm here to present um the modernization of future annexation areas.

A little bit of background.

Uh CFD 2003-2, which is police services, was established in 2003 to cover additional costs of police services due to residential development.

CFD 2006-1 maintenance services was established in March 2006 to help offset revenue shortfall for landscape and maintenance services citywide due to new development.

The current annexation process into this into both these CFDs is a condition of project approval and must be completed before building.

Currently a multiple-step project where we must bring the item to council twice, um, once under the resolution of intent and following up within 30 to 60 days with a public hearing.

This can take months to complete this process from start to finish with all of the steps involved.

We're proposing to modernize modernize the CFD process.

To do this, we would be defining annexation areas.

By defining future annexation areas, it allows the parcels to be annexed in through what is called unanimous approval.

Unanimous misapproval consists of a ballot and waives a public hearing.

Streamlining the annexation process for this CFDs avoids additional steps of bringing the item to council twice, avoids the mailing of ballots, and reduces timeline for annexation process for these CFDs.

Defining of an annexation area is not creating a new annexation area.

It is only modernizing the current process we have.

For CFD 2003-2 police services, this is the map, the highlighted hatched area would be the proposed new annexation area.

It's basically the current Cindy city boundaries, which excludes the original formation parcels from 2003, and it also excludes the CFD 2003-1, which is the police service districts that serves the Poppy Ridge area.

The future annexation area does not change the previous 77 annexations that have been completed to date.

For CFD 2006-uh one maintenance services.

Similar, the proposed um annexation area is the city boundaries.

Um it excludes the original 2006 formation and also Laguna Ridge, which has their own maintenance service district.

This will also not change the previous 103 annexations that have been completed to date.

In conclusion, staff recommends that the city council conduct public hearings for both CFD future annexation areas for CFD 2003-2 and 2006 task one and adopt um a series of uh resolutions adding that future terror future area um to these facilities and also adopting uh the following ordinances.

Anybody have that concludes my presentation.

If you have any questions, all right, thank you.

At this time, I will declare that the public hearing is now open and open up public comment.

We have one speaker signed up, Lynn Wheat.

Good evening.

So when I first learned about these Melarus and how the annexations into the Melarus and CFDs occur, I had some concerns, and I brought it up to many previous city councils, explaining that as we annex in, it's kind of this Ponzi scheme, and eventually we'll quit developing, and then what happens when some of these bonds have no ending dates, and you can any council, you future councils can go ahead and increase them.

And that the home buyer isn't really aware of how they work.

I had one council member tell me, well, it's in the documents they sign when they purchase their house.

Well, as an excited new home buyer, those packets are about this thick, so I'm not sure how well they do getting through all of that to have some understanding.

So I've complained about it, and as one previous council member had said, there's some of us that are freeloaders because we don't have these extra assessments.

I'm one of those freeloading taxpayers that have lived here for almost 40 years that have been paying assessments on my property tax.

But what I want to share with you now are there are complainers.

I just bring it to you.

Other complainers choose other avenues of social media to complain to.

And eventually, when their taxes are so high, I imagine some might show up to meetings such as this.

Laguna Ridge direct levies mellow roofs, and there are some of them aren't at 100% yet.

It has recently gone up from $4,268 a year to 4,400 a year.

Back in 2021, it was 3,600 or so.

That is a 20% increase in only four years.

At this rate, it has gone up at least 3.5% a year, if not more.

Last I checked, my salary hasn't gone up 3.5% a year.

In fact, it has been flat, probably like most people in this economic environment.

Proposition 13 limits property tax increases to 2% a year.

While I recognize these are direct levies that are different, it's worth noting.

It is just me, or does anyone else think this is ridiculous?

How do we bring this up with the city?

Melarus is a backdoor to get around Prop 13.

Very clever trick.

It is getting ridiculous.

Most of these new homes near the casino are selling for 8,000 to a million, which means their property tax plus Melarus are 15 to 20,000 a year.

So in five years, that's a hundred thousand down the drain.

That's insane.

Your city council person won't care for that district.

They think they can tax fine levy their way out of anything, and so do the rest of them.

One commoner, five kings of Elk Grove.

I come and bring my complaints here because I think we need to bring our complaints directly to you and not on the media.

So I probably will be the biggest complainer in trying to support some of those in our community that have no voice.

Thank you.

I will go ahead and close the public comment opportunity and declare that the public hearing is now closed.

Questions or comments?

Looking to the right.

Any questions or comments looking to the left?

No.

All right, then I will entertain a motion one through four.

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Thank you.

Next item 9.1.

And item 9.1 is receive a presentation on regional homeless governance models and provide direction.

All right.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members.

I'm Sarah Bontrager, your housing and public services manager.

Uh, tonight I am here to uh cover a homeless and housing governance model that has been proposed by the county and get your feedback on that.

Um by way of background, as I think you all know, there are a lot of players in homelessness in Sacramento County.

The county itself provides a lot of services, including behavioral health and some health care resources as well as shelters and supporting various types of housing, permanent and transitional.

Local cities also play a role in that.

Elk Grove has many of its own homeless solutions, and many other cities have taken those steps as well.

The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency provides housing vouchers and run some of their own homeless programs.

And then we have the nonprofit Sacramento Steps Forward, which oversees some of the regional collaboration around homelessness efforts.

And then, of course, there are many, many nonprofits in our community and throughout the county that provide direct services around homelessness.

So it's a big problem to wrangle.

There are a lot of people involved in trying to do so.

One of the things we'll talk about tonight is how this model would change things for our continuum of care.

So a little bit of background on the continuum of care, which is currently the lead entity for that is Sacramento Steps Forward.

So the continuum of cares were created by HUD back in the mid-90s, and really HUD wanted to centralize funding.

They had a lot of programs that were funding different aspects of homelessness, and so they wanted to channel all of that through one through one entity.

So each county in the US has its own continuum of care that is governed by there are different board structures.

So different communities can choose different structures for who does the governing for this.

In our community, there's a board of 25 to 32 folks, representatives of local government.

The board also includes service providers, a lot of nonprofit agencies to provide someone to the board, some healthcare representatives, business advocacy groups, and all COC boards per federal policy have to include one person with lived experience of homelessness.

And until 2011, Sacramento County was the lead entity in our region's COC.

The county in 2011, facing some pretty serious budget challenges, transferred some of the homelessness responsibilities to a newly created nonprofit, which was Sacramento Steps Forward.

And they have since then they've served as the lead entity for the COC.

They award about 40 million dollars a year in HUD funding to various projects.

And they also get an allocation of about 15 million dollars a year in the most recent year of some state funding for homeless and housing assistance and prevention.

They run our local data system that everyone in the county uses to put input data about people experiencing homelessness, and they also conduct the point-in-time count, which will come up in 2026, and in Elk Grove, will be January 27th, in case anyone is interested in volunteering with that.

So Elk Grove has been a participant in the regional solutions around homelessness on the COC board and working with the county and other partners.

We have seen our numbers in the point in time count increase over time to 83 in the last point in time count.

That is out of 6600 in Sacramento County.

So we continue to have the lowest per capita rate of homelessness of the major cities in Sacramento County.

Only Galt was lower, and they did not really participate in the count.

So although we've we've our a lot of our folks are eligible for services through the county, and they have worked with us on some ideas.

Same with the COC.

Our folks sometimes get lost in the mix of 6,600 folks experiencing homelessness and a lot of demand for systems.

And so as a result, we've created a lot of our own solutions.

We have our own full-time navigation team to navigators and our own PD homeless outreach team to full-time officers.

We created our own year-round shelter, and the next item you'll hear tonight is about the permanent home for that.

We have our own transitional housing resources, and we've worked really hard with our affordable housing partners to create connections that let people quickly transition to permanent housing when they have income to do so.

What that's left us with is we have a really nimble response time.

When someone calls in and says that they're homeless or Navigator can often get out there and meet with them that same day.

A lot of our shelter entries are same-day shelter entries.

We have not, since shortly after the shelter opened, we have not had to turn away anyone qualified from entering the shelter.

And we have a lot of oversight there, right?

We work really closely with our shelter team.

We know who's staying at the shelter, what their situations are, and we work when we can to get them transferred to affordable housing.

And so as a result, we have a pretty well-managed homelessness issue.

It's stable and we know our folks.

But regionally, the homeless response system has been criticized.

Certainly, if you've spent time as you all have out elsewhere in the region, you see a lot more examples of people experiencing homelessness.

The grand jury looked into it in 2019 and then again in 2023 and found there were some deficiencies in the region's response and recommended that a different organizational model, possibly a JPA, but open to other options be explored.

In 2023, the city of Sacramento and SAC County entered into a partnership agreement to work more closely on homelessness and had some accountability measures on both sides.

And then as in coordination with that, they had the county and Sacramento Steps Forward hired a consultant that produced a report on governance models in 2023.

So a lot of this work about governance models has been underway for quite some time.

We did see SB 802 introduced last year, and that the goal of which was to mandate more collaboration.

And so that you know caused a lot of folks to look at you know what what had been done and how can we move those efforts forward.

And so as a result, the county in August took to their board of supervisors a proposal to create a new entity that would cover housing and homelessness called the Sacramento Homeless and Housing Board.

This would be a Brown Act body and would replace the existing Continuum of Care Board.

It would transfer a lot of the decision-making authority to federal on federal funds and some state funds to elected officials.

So the SHHB, the Housing and Homelessness Board, would be a regional convener on housing and homelessness issues.

The goal of it would be to increase transparency on how we're addressing homelessness and also add an element of accountability.

What we have heard from the county in their model is that it does not take control of funding from local jurisdictions, and that it would not have planning functions like taking care of zoning or housing approvals on projects.

It would exist to make policy recommendations, but the council can still set its own policies on its activities and make its own choices on which projects it would fund.

So this is really an early stage proposal.

There's a lot that remains to be figured out.

Some of the concerns that staff has is we're not really sure how the new board would be staffed and what the expectations would be on our own staffing, and financial considerations.

So how is this going to be paid for?

We have a new body doing things.

We, you know, we have many existing agencies contributing and hopefully would continue to contribute in providing services, but you know, there is more work to be done there.

The board composition is another element that still needs to be decided, and this is something that the county is looking for some feedback on the from each of our local councils.

There are two options that they have laid out.

The first is an 11-member board, in that there would be 10 elected officials, two Sacramento City Council members, two County Board of Supervisors members, and then one council member from each other city, including Elk Grove, and including small cities like Galt and Ialton.

And then in that 11-member board, 10 electeds and one person with lived experience.

The other option they laid out was a 15-member board, which does have more involvement from other community entities, like nonprofit agencies or health care companies, businesses, advocates, and so that's that's the primary difference is that there are more voices on the 15 member board.

So this is the diagram that the county has produced.

It is really complicated, so I won't spend a ton of time here.

But what you can see on this is that there's the elected councils are choosing their own representative to serve on this housing and homeless board, and that that board is working with a variety of different committees that are people from the community.

That's the green little subcommittees there, and they're also working with the strategic leadership group, which is a lot of the managers from the different jurisdictions, as well as from SHRA as the housing authority, and from Sacramento Steps Forward.

And so there's ideally there's a lot of information still flowing from different sources in this model to ensure that there are community voices still in this process, even if the decision making has more is made more by elected officials.

They discussed the merits of both options.

It sounded to me like they were a little bit more in favor of the 11-member board, but we're definitely interested in hearing feedback from all of the other jurisdictions that might be a part of this.

The City of Folsom did take this to their council.

Their concerns were primarily around staffing and what it would take for them.

They don't have dedicated housing staff the way that some other jurisdictions do, and some concerns about just the overall effectiveness and why we need to change the model at this point.

Citrus Heights, their council indicated a preference for the 15-person board, so more voices, and expressed some of the same concerns that Fulsom had about staffing expectations and what would be required from each jurisdiction in this.

In my discussions with them, they indicated a broader interest in collaboration, including an openness to adding some elected officials to their existing board, but they're concerned that some of the community representation would be lost in this new structure, and that there would be voices that would not be represented anymore on the board.

The uh you see here um Rancho Cordova, Gault, and Sacramento are each expected to hear the item in October.

Um we're not sure what ILTO will do, but um may not be able to participate.

So the county's request uh today, and we do have representatives from the county here, Shivon Kotari and David Villanueva are here with us, I believe.

Um, is that local jurisdictions provide some comments, um just feedback on the general model, feedback on if you have a preference for an 11 or 15 member board or something else entirely?

Um, and then the hope is that if there's some general support for this, that there can be revisions to the model and an MOU drafted.

Of course, the devil is in the details in this.

Um, you know, any um preliminary feedback tonight is not a commitment to participate in this.

Um the MOU would be brought back in quarter one if there was desire from the city to participate.

So that is my presentation.

I am happy to answer any questions you all have, um, or I'm sure our county representatives are happy to speak with you as well.

All right, thank you.

Before I go to public comment, would anybody from the county like to add to this presentation?

Are we good?

Okay.

All right.

Uh, this time I will go ahead and open up public comment opportunity.

We have one speaker, Zachary Bassler.

Uh good evening, Vice Mayor, Madam Mayor, Council members, my name is Zachary Bassler.

I'm a COC board member.

I am co-chair for the point in time count, and I'm a person with Lyft experience.

Um I appreciate the county's proposal that they're trying to do.

My biggest concerns are that we're moving from a stakeholder and members to an all elected officials, and we'll lose all of those voices of the people before.

I do also think that the biggest hurdle that wasn't presented today is that the current COC board would have to vote on it, and as currently presented to us, we're not on board.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you for your comments.

I will go ahead and close the public comment opportunity.

Um let's see, I'll start to the right.

Yes.

Uh Ms.

Bontrager, can I ask you to bring up the slide with the board limitations, please?

So I'll just get rolling on what's that?

Yeah, the four items.

I think that was not what the proposed board would do.

So while you're looking looking at it, I think well, I would I'm really glad that you didn't bring up the chart first because, and you explained it in words better because when I saw it the first time, I thought, oh my god, government, you're killing me.

Um, but thank you for that.

It makes a whole, it's not often that it makes more sense by words than by picture, but I think it made a lot more sense by words.

So um, but I I would um support the 11 member model more so than the 15.

Um, and I want to call out the limitations on the board, which which do make me feel more comfortable about moving forward.

And first, it's you know, the not taking control of funding from local jurisdictions.

Measure E was you know decided by the uh by the residents.

Uh that is funding that is important to us.

It was important for them to tell us that homelessness was a priority.

And so that, you know, uh taking that out of the mix is helpful.

Um, the planning functions, uh, that's another thing that I'm I'm really glad that's not within the scope of uh of this proposed board.

Um, and again, the the policy recommendations I you know every city is different.

Um it's not an excuse, it's it's a reality.

I think that our solutions will be very different than the solutions in another um in another agency or in another city nearby.

So um, you know, I think we should be judged by the outcomes, not necessarily by whether we accept a policy or not.

And so, you know, I I you know I fully appreciate and support the sanctity of our decisions as it's related to um to homelessness in Elk Grove.

Um so yes, I'm supportive of it in general.

The it's very complicated.

The devil is in the details, um, but these limitations right here to me are those.

If if any of that crosses over, and there's one more actually, I should go back to is I wouldn't be interested in a board that would assign um would assign residents from outside of Elk Grove into our facilities.

I wouldn't be supportive of that.

So you can add that to the list, right?

Um, I'm happy to be cooperative.

I'm happy to share ideas.

Uh, I think we're doing fairly well.

I think that's because the voters have asked us to do so.

Um, and I'm not willing to um to push our what I believe to be our forward progress back.

So that's where I'm with it.

Thank you.

Great presentation.

Do appreciate it.

Thank you, sir.

Councilmember Brewer.

So thank you, Ms.

Bondrager, for the presentation and for walking us through the process.

Um, but looking at the actual composition of what the new entity would look like.

You have state funds through the homeless housing assistance and prevention program.

Um will that funding still go to the county and the new entity itself, or I know we talk about measure E, but will there be a fiscal buy-in that each city would have to pay into to be a part of this new entity?

Because I know in the past there have been past bodies that have been done in a joint powers agreement type of deal, and different cities based on their different fiscal situations are unable to pay their share, and as a result of it, the JPA would have to would dissolve.

Um has there been any discussion on what the the fiscal dynamics would look like, especially in terms of staffing and all that stuff, but more importantly, each each local jurisdiction, how much they'd have to pay in to be a part of it if there is, and if uh if this were to happen without any of the cities paying into it, does that affect any state or federal funding that would help fund efforts for this new entity?

So there is a lot of funding that comes from the federal government.

Maybe I shouldn't say a lot.

There is funding that comes from the federal government to the COC for some administrative tasks.

Um, and I believe that the hat funding has some amount of, you know, again, not a huge amount of administrative funding that's eligible there.

So this is a detail that remains to be figured out.

Um, it's definitely something that I have a lot of interest in, how we figure out how this gets funded, if it's possible to keep it funded the way currently we do not pay into the COC, um, and we do not pay any funds into the county directly from you know our homelessness funds or anything.

And so, you know, could there be a way that we could have this set up so that we make use of existing funding to cover the functions?

Um, certainly that's you know, that would be my preference.

Um, but there are more discussions to be had on how this is staffed and what the staffing commitment would be from each of the jurisdictions.

Um I'm well accustomed in my position to you know spending some of my time working on regional collaboration, um, and I I would expect that would continue as a part of the strategic leadership group, but if there was going to be you know a significant amount of more time, um, or you know, the staff from local jurisdictions was expected to staff the SHHB, we would need to consider that and whether we could meet that with our existing staffing.

Um, and if we couldn't, you know, where would we get funding for new staffing?

So those are the conversations I think that um that a lot of the jurisdictions want to have.

Um, even those that are you know supportive or cautiously supportive of this, we do still need to have those discussions over the next several months.

Um, and definitely before we brought forward any MOU for your consideration.

No, I appreciate that because I know what the work that you and your team does here is is special and kind of distinct from other jurisdictions.

And we know, like Gulp, like Ileton, for example, um, they have a lot of financial problems, and the county would seem like they would be the body to play a role in whatever's done there.

Um, and I just kind of think about that from uh from a regional approach and how this would go and come into play because I know part of the negotiations of putting this together, if things are not moving in a direction or fast enough direction, then there's the shot clock of SB 802 that could potentially create some added expediency, and then we'd have to rush to try and put something together, and that makes things a little bit more complicated.

And so that's the reason why I asked that question, because federal dollars may or may not be available.

If we do get federal dollars come coming into the state, there may be some conditions, and it's just this, these are all the different um moving parts that I'm thinking about as as we move about the process because we I mean, as a county, we're trying to do the right thing, we're trying to put things together, and we've been doing a pretty good job about doing that.

It's just how things would look if certain riders would be placed on accepting federal funding going forward.

Yeah, that's definitely something we can consider as we as we work through the details of what this would look like.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, Ms.

Bontrek, I just want to say thank you for presenting this.

I know that this is not an easy task.

Um, and I want to say thank you for for I forgot the last name.

I think Zachary.

Thank you for for speaking as well.

Um, I know that the more members that there are on the board, it's more voices, but I also think that it's super important that we have folks from the community.

Um elected officials, that's 10 different people who think they have the right answer for the solution, right?

Um, and if somebody had the right answer for the solution, we would have we would have already solved homelessness.

Um it's a complex, hard, um, so many things that come at it.

Um it's gonna be an interesting task moving forward, uh, especially when you're trying to bring an MOU and kind of explaining it.

So just want to say thank you for for going through it with us and letting us know the limitations.

Um, looking forward for for further discussion on this.

All right, thank you.

Excellent presentation.

I think this is a really positive uh step in the right direction.

We're definitely moving in the right direction.

I think SB 802 is the wrong approach, quite honestly, and that's why we were opposed initially, and then we went neutral.

Um, so I definitely want that on the record.

This SB 802 ultimately is not something that we want.

Um, this approach, whether it's an 11-member board or a 15-member board, um, I personally prefer the 11-member board because through comment period and so on and so forth, everybody every other voice has an opportunity to be a part of the process.

They're not excluded.

Um, so I think capturing the nonprofits, the healthcare, the business advocates, there's an opportunity within an 11-member board.

I just think the bigger the board, it's just becomes a little bit more challenging to manage.

That's not to say it's unworkable.

So I'm still a little um Switzerland somewhat, but still leaning more towards 11-member board.

Um, but you know, one of the key components is keeping our local funding local.

Our taxpayers through Measure E, as Councilmember Spees mentioned, um, they are paying for it.

And therefore, we want those we want to keep those dollars here in Outgrove for Outgrove.

Um, and that's why initially, in the original language, um, prior to amendment, SB 802 was flawed severely.

You know, our residents, that is our money, and we are already earmarking that to address homelessness, and we're doing a really good job.

And so, every city will have their own way of moving forward with a solution.

It's not a cookie-cutter solution, one size fits all.

We want to be flexible in addressing the needs of our community.

What Citrus Heights may want to do is relative to Citrus Heights and Folsom, but we are responsible for our residents, and I appreciate that there, we do need to do something.

The grand jury was very loud and clear that the current system is broken and it is not working.

But this flexibility allows that coordination and collaboration to take place without really some of the worst parts of SB 802 coming to realization.

This is still about local control.

Let's uh I like to see this moving forward.

I look forward to seeing the MOU.

We are here as resources to the county as we move down this journey.

But I definitely believe very strongly that this is a significant step in the right direction.

So thank you to everybody that's been a part of the process.

And I will do a special shout out to my counterpart in the city of Sacramento, Mayor Kevin McCarty, for addressing things in his own unique way because we all have unique solutions with his one of the many proposals, but uh the tiny homes.

Very controversial, but you know, people are gonna be upset at anything.

So I think that allowing the flexibility of as we look down of having a permanent homeless shelter, every city's gonna be different.

So we want to be flexible and fluid, but at the same time collaborate and share resources so that we don't rest on our laurels, we continuously improve as we address a very significant crisis in the entire state.

It's not just exclusive to here.

So thank you.

Looking forward to seeing more.

All right.

With that, welcome back, Ms.

Montreger for a night item 9.2.

Thank you.

All right, um, so here I am again, and uh I have a presentation this time on our permanent shelter outreach efforts and going into phase two of that.

So I'll share a little bit about what happened with phase one.

So, as you all remember, um, we have a lease on our current shelter site with the uh Calvary Christian Center that runs through September of 2028.

Um, so we began our planning for the permanent home for the shelter in July, working with NJA, and NJA is here tonight, and they have some great uh information on what the shelter could look like, um the culmination of the conceptual planning, and then we'll be moving into phase two.

So let's see, why is it?

Oh, because I gotta get it.

There we go.

Okay, so just a little bit of background.

Um we ran uh we ran a series of three public um meeting opportunities for phase one, the conceptual plan.

We really want to have throughout the shelter process a fair and transparent process.

Um the first meeting we did, the project kickoff meeting, we had uh 70 or so folks attend our open house at the um uh Elkrove Library.

Um we had some theme stations where they could give input on what they liked or didn't like different pictures of different shelters, um, and what they wanted in services and and kind of the design aesthetic that they preferred.

Um we then had a second meeting, an online meeting for those who maybe weren't able to make it out to one of the in-person meetings with live polling and breakout sessions.

Again, we did a little bit of the design aesthetic and what people were hoping to see and what their concerns were about the shelter.

Um, and then we had last week a third meeting where we unveiled uh the conceptual plan, kind of a diagram of the building that you'll see in a few minutes, um and some vignettes of what the inside of the shelter and the outdoor private outdoor area of the shelter could look like.

Uh we also during this time ran a community feedback online survey.

Uh, we got a total of 303 responses to that, which we feel is a pretty good number for uh for this type of survey.

Um, what uh what we heard, we asked a few different questions, and this is just a few of the highlights from it.

So, what guess um what our residents wanted to see prioritized for shelter guests was uh number one mental health counseling.

We're really fortunate where the current shelter is to be located really uh close to the core well uh the core center, where a lot of people go for mental health services, and also for some addiction services.

So addiction recovery and harm reduction was also a priority.

Um, folks wanted to make sure that the shelter facility would have showers and hygiene areas, um, and then, of course, job training and employment support, and our current um shelter contract has a full-time employment specialist aimed at connecting folks with jobs, and that's something we hope to continue.

In terms of qualities of a successful shelter, we and again there was no locations as a part of phase one.

So this is just generally people represented that access to public transit was important, that it was important to consider whether the shelter would be near schools or parks, and how close it would be to health care and service providers.

And there was a preference that this be located on vacant land or undeveloped land as opposed to an adaptive reuse.

At the community events, we had an opportunity for folks to place, you can see in the photo here, green or red dots on things they liked or didn't like, and also to give comments on those.

So in talking to folks at the sessions and what we saw from the comment cards, very strong support for including families in the permanent shelter, and also really a lot of support for keeping pets with people, which our current shelter does.

We have had both cats and dogs in that shelter, and that's that's worked out really well at getting folks to accept shelter.

We saw some comments related to you know balancing compassion with accountability, that we don't provide shelter forever if someone's not moving forward in the ways that are appropriate for them.

Some requests for some multi-purpose spaces in the new shelter that would be able to host different types of activities like job training sessions or volunteer groups coming in to serve meals.

Folks really wanted to focus on services like life skills, helping folks get their GED if they don't already have that or a high school diploma, and job training and a lot of thoughts about what types of job training could be offered.

And generally, folks wanted the shelter to feel connected and integrated into the community rather than isolated off on its own.

So what where we ended up, and NJA will talk a little bit more about this, is you know, we want a shelter that's pet and partner friendly that was important to our community, and we have one now, and that's working.

We want to adjust the beds a little bit.

Right now we have 30 beds and five emergency beds for adults.

At the new shelter, we're considering 20 beds and then five emergency beds.

So 25 beds for adults, but then adding four family units, and those could be combined so that if we had a larger family that they would have a couple of rooms that they could move back and forth between a commercial kitchen is very important to us in this.

One of the things that we would like to do is get back to having more volunteer groups serve meals, and many of them like to prepare the meals themselves, and that is only possible if there's a commercial kitchen and someone with a food manager card on site.

The current shelter does not have that, and so we do want to offer that at the new shelter.

It also is a really good workforce training opportunity.

Food service has been a good source of employment for some of the folks that have gone through the shelter, and actually, you know, provides ample income to get affordable housing, and so we've been able to make some connections there.

Um, some other considerations, you know, having a trauma-informed design, someplace that people want to stay, making sure that we have adequate office space so that we can offer mental health counseling on site, we can offer private case management meetings, um, and then that we have an interior and exterior that fits the area of the community that the shelter is located in.

So I will now turn it over to folks from NJA, Jake and John, and they have a presentation that I will bring up.

All right.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Sarah.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, council members.

Um, my name is Jacob Burry.

I'm a principal architect with NJA Architecture.

We are really pleased to support the city and this effort to develop a future shelter.

Working in Elk Grove, we've been really struck by how involved your community is.

It's a community that is engaged on this issue and a community that truly cares about this issue.

We have visited your current temporary shelter, and we've reached out to a number of providers up and down the state with different service models to make sure that we're creating a solution that is going to pick and choose the best parts and bring them here to Elk Grove.

We've also talked to your local volunteer organizations, and I think you have a great asset here.

Elk Grove Heart is a great example.

They have been a really inspiring group.

They do transformative things for this community and for this population.

And we've been really inspired by the work that they do, and we'd like to encourage that kind of volunteerism in this future shelter.

As Sarah said, we have engaged the community in a series of community outreach events so far.

So we've done in-person events and virtual events as part of the phase one efforts.

The first event we held at the Elk Grove Public Library.

We engaged in discussions with community members along with city leaders, the homeless navigators, and law enforcement.

So we had direct conversations, we asked questions, and we gave people an opportunity to share their ideas.

We offered a variety of feedback mechanisms from very low barrier activities with red and green dots so that people could share in a very kind of low stress way what they liked and what they didn't like.

We had activity cards so that people could have sort of a self-guided tour of the potential components, the services that could be offered, the spaces that could be included within the homeless shelter.

We had comment cards so that participants could leave more detailed responses.

And we also encourage participation in an online survey.

So the information that we received in the first meeting informed what we brought to the second meeting, which was a virtual session.

Those lessons were pulled into the last meeting at District 56.

So this isn't a static process.

We're taking the information that we learn.

We're taking the values that the community brings to this project, and we're having it change the space, change the idea of what this shelter can be.

And the story that really emerges is one of strong community support for a permanent solution for the city.

Safety and security came out as the top concerns, both for guests and for the neighborhood.

And the community is looking for this to be a comprehensive solution.

So rich services wrapped around the shelter.

It's not just a bed, but it's really addressing the root causes of homelessness so that we can really rehabilitate the guests, get them back as functioning members of society.

And we've also seen that there's a great willingness from community members to engage.

People want to attend meetings, they want to volunteer, they want to learn what's happening, they want to share their ideas and be involved as part of the process.

And they also shared that design really matters and the quality of the spaces, making sure that we are leaning into trauma informed design and creating restful restorative spaces, is very important.

As we start to look at the building program ideas, this is sort of a conceptual level bubble diagram of how spaces can interact without any consideration of a specific site.

These are the key pieces that make the shelter function.

Something important right from the start to note is that there's a clear separation between the family component and the individual adult component of the shelter.

That's something they came across loud and clear from city staff and from members of the community, that making sure we prioritize the safety of families and children, give them their own spaces where they can rest and relax, and find their way back on their feet.

So the core of the building is core services and administrative functions that is shared between the family component, which is shown on the left on your screen, and the adult component, which is at the top of the screen.

So all of the case management, specialty services, directors, meeting spaces, as well as all of the core utilities, laundry, electrical, mechanical, storage areas, and the security apparatus, as well as some space for volunteers again to make sure that they have a home, they have an operating space.

So a small playground where the kids can get outside and plan the grass.

So each family group would have its own private room for large families, as Sarah noted.

Those rooms can be interconnected, so the family could utilize a couple at a time if they needed to.

We can move the parts and pieces around while still maintaining that separation, that security and all of the functionality of the building.

So as we move into phase two and we start to look at available sites around the city, this building can flex.

Thank you, Jake.

I think another important thing to mention too on this site diagram or the four-plan diagram is sight lines.

So again, security was a number one concern a lot with our uh community engagements and also the survey.

So this is as you see, a lot of clear sight lines, a central hub for administration, kind of point uh point of entry.

Uh again, yeah, site lines are gonna be pretty important.

You don't want a lot of neandering hallways in the plan.

So one of the elements that we wanted to do on the third uh community engagement uh session was to um really take in a lot of the comments that we heard from the first two and kind of develop a um some vignettes of what by taking those comments um what's some of the visions uh that we are we're receiving from a lot of those comments and how that could that vision can come to life.

Uh we don't have a building per se or a site, but we really wanted to maybe try to convey a design intent and get feedback uh for that design intent.

Um so the first uh space that we selected uh was the kind of the uh main reception area or the lobby.

A lot of the feedback we received uh was they didn't want this to feel uh like an institution or an institutional.

They wanted to give this type of uh population or this underserved population uh dignity uh back into their lives.

So having a reception area that greeted them in a warm and calming manner was something that we received on a lot of people's uh feedback, but also security is very important.

So having this uh space be a central hub uh for uh monitoring, also greeting people.

Uh this is gonna be a referral only, so there isn't walk-ins, but still having a point of contact uh when you come in, and that point of contact is aware of activity of people coming and going uh from this facility.

Also, sight lines uh very important.

Another uh aspect that we uh focused on was a secured green space.

So instead of having those that need to go outside onto the city streets, uh, it's really important to have a secured and isolated uh uh green space.

Uh, not only you know, to you know, provide a um a space for them to uh be outside, but this also helps uh transition them from being primarily outdoors to adjusting to an indoor environment, an outdoor space that is secured uh is gonna be really important for their uh their healing and and that trauma informed design uh principle.

So another aspect is we don't want this to just be all hardscape.

Uh we think adding nice landscaping through uh this green or this outdoor space will also promote uh that healing process uh one of my favorite aspects uh of this uh currently is this multi-purpose room.

It was mentioned uh by Sarah and Jake that this space could be uh multi, you know, multifunctional.

It could be for job training, it can be uh used obviously as a dining hall.

Um it can also be served as where volunteers come in, and that becomes a uh kind of like a social uh space uh an interaction, and also can act as maybe an overflow of a living room.

There may be is a TV and gives them an opportunity to gather and become a community uh within the shelter.

And so in order to do that, we need to have adequate uh adequate uh storage and also uh infrastructure for that.

So just kind of making sure that the multi-purpose space is flexible and can accommodate a wide variety of functions, and we don't want to add uh redundant dead space to the program.

You know, we know resources are limited, so we want to make use of um of these funds as uh best as possible, and then you can see too natural daylight, it's very important again to that being connected to the outdoors and having that natural daylight coming in.

So we really wanted to show a lot of uh glass.

Um, two other aspects that we studied uh for the third meeting was um creating a flexible framework for sleeping arrangements, as Sarah mentioned.

Uh the pets is a really big component.

It could be their only family member.

Um, so accommodating a space uh that can be adaptable for uh a pet is really important uh for this community, and then also accessibility.

It was uh brought up a lot in um the first meeting uh on a few um members that a lot of people may have some mobility um concerns, so making sure that everything was uh ADA, but also universal uh met the universal design standards, and then lastly, um maybe having some co-ed, so having some bigger space uh for um a couple, and then lastly uh uh the separate family quarters uh was mentioned.

So we designed again to try to be efficient of space by maybe providing a bunk bed and some storage needs and a place for homework.

Um it was mentioned in the third meeting by um a member of the community as maybe having an outdoor area specifically for uh kids to play that's isolated from the uh outdoor area of the general.

So I thought that was a really good comment from him.

And um, so yeah, uh that's about it on that.

Uh the next steps uh what we're looking uh towards, and Sarah will also kind of uh brush on this, is we are about to begin the the site selection process.

So we just finished the engagement of the community um of obtaining ideas, but we don't want this to be the last.

We want to continually uh keep the community active and we want to hear their thoughts, their um their ideas, and some of their concerns.

So we are conducting a survey that will be going live soon, and it will touch on some broad categories of what maybe is most important to the community of Elk Grove.

Um, that could be that this center um is close to public transit, or that this center to be um close to um safety uh services like a police station, fire, or uh a maintained distance away from schools and parks.

So we would like to kind of assess what is most important so that when we do the site selection process, we can hear and understand their concerns and make sure that we can try to best uh serve those concerns.

So hand it off to Sarah.

Okay.

I have a little bit more detail for you on how we will be doing the phase two community outrage.

So the site selection is the hard part.

The conceptual part, deciding what goes into it, what services, what it might look like, that's the fun part.

Site selection part is hard.

Um so this is a little bit about where we are and where we're hoping to go.

Um we started this process with about um we did our internal staff team looked at the whole field of sites, about 130 possible sites in the city, as our in working universe.

Um, and we've narrowed that down.

We've dropped unsuitable sites, sites that were too small.

We know that we need about 0.7 acres for this, so sites smaller than that wouldn't work.

Sites that were too large where we didn't really have um, you know, any clear plan on what we might do with the rest of the site, sites with development plans, um, all those were dropped.

And so we tried to narrow it down to about 20 sites that we ultimately would like to narrow down to about eight to 10 sites to do a full feasibility analysis on, which NJA will do for us, and test fits.

If we tried to use this site, how would we get that building diagram on that site?

And then we will be scoring those sites under some site criteria review, which they briefly touched on and I have a little bit more information on, and ultimately hoping to get to about four sites that we would release in January for public engagement, two plus in-person community meetings and as well as virtual options for comment.

So in the near term, what we are looking to do is release an online survey.

This will be about what are people's site criteria, what's important to them when we're choosing a site?

Is it important that it be near public transit?

Is it important that it be near jobs?

Is it important that it have easy accessibility for our police and emergency services?

We have a lot of factors we, you know, we're hoping to get some feedback on.

We're anticipating putting out the survey next week, so looking forward to some of your feedback tonight on factors that you want to see, and then having it available about three weeks, and then coming back to the council on October 22nd to share with you what we've heard from the community and hopefully align on a set of criteria that we can use to figure out which sites ultimately will move forward.

And then in January, we'll have a couple of community meetings around the site specifics, as well as some online comment opportunities.

For the phase one meetings.

We plan to use all of those ways again here, plus mailers to residents in proximity.

So we will be doing some postcards that go out to folks who have businesses or homes that are near the potential sites.

So when we're looking at siting criteria, we want to look at five main areas.

Accessibility.

How easy is it for folks to get around inside and outside of the shelter?

So walkability and bikeability.

We have a lot of folks who get around on bikes who are at our current shelter.

And making sure that we have universal accessibility on the shelter property for folks who have mobility considerations.

We want to find out a little bit about how folks feel about compatibility.

Is it important that the shelter fit within the neighborhood character?

How would it integrate into the community?

Is it important that the neighborhood accepted or how important is neighborhood opposition to folks when we're looking at sites?

And then equitable distribution of resources throughout the city.

Safety and security.

Some ideas that we've had on that topic are the ability for emergency services to reach the site quickly and to be able to transport people quickly in case they need to go to the hospital.

It does not happen often, but we want to make sure that that is available when needed.

A site layout that incorporates feedback from our police department on safety, facilitating visibility, easy access, controlled access, so we can control who's coming and going easily from that site and can have cameras throughout to make sure that we know what's going on.

And then also possibly looking at the neighborhood crime rates in that scoring criteria.

Adjacency and proximity is a huge thing.

Do folks want to see sites near services that people need, like healthcare opportunities, jobs, grocery stores.

Are we looking to avoid conflict with sensitive uses like residences or certain businesses?

How close should it be to a school, a park, or a library, or other public um public uses?

And then of course, feasibility and cost are always a consideration.

Can we build this?

Can we afford to build this on this site?

So zoning land use environmental considerations um how how easy it is to get infrastructure at the site um can the site meet our timeline so that we'll have a shelter that opens around the time that our lease ends on the other shelter um and and just overall cost so those are some of the criteria that we're hoping to cover um with folks in the survey uh definitely interested in the council's perspective on that are there things you see here that um that we've missed or you know that you that you'd really especially like us to include um just a quick recap of the time frame here uh sharing the survey next week back at council october 22nd um doing that full analysis of the sites of eight to ten sites between October and December and then narrowing it down to the four sites that we put out publicly in January with hopefully the council selecting a site in February next year.

That's it for my presentation love to have your feedback.

Wow yeah a lot a lot there excellent information all right um at this time I I will open up the public comment opportunity I do not have anyone signed up I'll close public comment.

I just before I open up to my colleagues I wanted to ask in terms of our community outreach are we talking to our residents at the Calvary Christian site or on house there for criteria just you know I'd love to hear their feedback.

Yes NJA did some interviews with the folks who are currently at or or were at one point at the shelter site excellent excellent okay I'll uh let's see vice mayor thank you madam mayor Ms.

Bontrager thank you so much for this presentation um and thank you for for the development and just letting us know you know as you're walking us through it um I felt like it was a wellness center I like I just really dislike the name shelter um because it's you don't even want to go there right it feels like you're just there's no hope but this it the way you talked about even the reception and then the furniture and um being good stewards of the money but allowing there to be green space allowing there to be a lot of light um when you're going through um this trauma of healing right you want all of that to be surrounded by it by by beautifulness right um and I can't thank you enough for really just taking the time um to to one to reach out to seek to understand what's going on in in all of California but more so primarily to help heal I think that's the that's the one component that folks um might not be listening they will see a homeless shelter or a permanent shelter but they won't understand the healing aspect and the process of that goes a long ways it might not be in a day it might not be in two days but it might be in a few weeks after that um and we can see that through through the design through through the the furniture through the lighting through through the greenery so thank you for that um and Ms.

Bondracker thank you for that as well putting that in the forefront I think when we think about folks who are who are struggling and who don't have housing or are suffering from substance abuse or anything of that sort we don't ever understand the trauma behind that and we're putting people first on this I know folks in the community can get riled up by saying that in my backyard but but I want to stick to the point where healing is emphasized because through that is breakthrough through that is job opportunities through that is you know making yourself better and then going from there and potentially even coming back as a volunteer to make sure that that the next person who's also at that center will also be have a breakthrough and go.

So I really do appreciate this.

I'm looking forward to to seeing um the site selection and looking forward to hearing more.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's really well thought out.

Thank you for your comments, Vice Mayor um council member Brewer.

No, I want to thank uh Ms.

Bontrager and NJA for the presentation uh giving us uh and giving us a feel for what the pro what the public is looking at, and what they would like to see.

And I also really appreciate your reaching out to the people to the residents who are inside the current location over at Calvary Christian, and just learning from them and learning from past residents there, because I think that gives us a good feel for how we can directly address the needs, and just having that public feedback in conjunction with that will definitely connect some of the dots.

And that definitely helps in figuring out how we do that, but also in showing us how the how the complex will look.

It's a campus that looks like it could fit into any community, and that's what those are the things that we like to see because we do have current um permanent shelters within the city that are inside neighborhoods, and they've blended in.

And so it's one of those dynamics where doing the right thing and being there definitely marries who we are as a city and as a community, and I'm very intrigued and very interested in looking at the next phase of what that looks like, but really take a uh a hearty and active engaging approach as we look at the potential sites, how they fit in, and how they actually do their part in and creating some synergy that can be positive and nurturing.

So thank you again.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Councilmember Brewer, Councilmember Speace.

Thank you, madam mayor.

Uh, so first I think you know, just it.7 acres seems to make a lot of sense in terms of of size.

Um, but I want to challenge a little bit further.

Um, because if we take the number 83, that was our point in time study.

Let's let's hope it never gets bigger.

I think most of us are aware that that number is actually bigger, but let's go with the point in time count of 83.

As we work to get closer to zero, because I hope that's our goal, right?

Our goal is to get out of this work one day, right?

Knowing, of course, that the hardest point is the last mile.

If you if you talk to anybody in construction or putting something in, it's always the last mile, it's always the last bit that takes the longest to get there, right?

So I could see a day when we're getting, say, from 83 to perhaps I don't know, just let's just use 60 or 40, right?

Let's say we get to 40.

It is entirely possible that the 40 that remain will not be responsive in any way, shape, or form to a shelter, right?

These are folks who may have someplace to go right now, but for their habits and for their condition, right?

Do not uh cannot live in homes with their families, unfortunately.

Okay.

So my concern is that and my desire is to make it as small as possible.

Now, what is that number?

I don't know.

I think 2025 might be about that, right?

But I want to challenge you to really think about that because my concern then comes to building a or putting a building in someone's neighborhood that eventually, hopefully soon, within a couple of years, right?

Wouldn't be occupied, right?

Because that's when you're getting to about 60.

So, what I'm going to ask you to do is I like the bubble diagrams.

I'm not looking at the bubble diagrams and saying that those are hard sided or or anything like that.

What what I'm asking to do is to make sure that we plan or allow for a secondary use because if we I mean I know we want to make it warm and welcoming and all of that stuff I I get it right these these are human beings who deserve compassion at the same time making it far too comfortable is also a problem.

Okay and I'm not suggesting it has to be Spartan and I'm not suggesting they have to sleep on the floor that would be completely wrong.

I think about the way that we have it right now is about it's comfortable it's you know it's not great but it's comfortable.

So what I would ask particularly when it comes to the living spaces um that those not be hard sided I understand that showers will likely need to be hard sided in some form of fashion restrooms need to be hard sided but what I would like to see is relocatable or re or reconfigurable space so that when we do get to this hopefully soon secondary use which could be Boy Scouts meeting place it could be for a number of the um what do you call it the nonprofits that are always begging us for uh for space right um so I just want to make sure we do that um there was something else that just escaped my memory um proximity to police services is very important and again we have to be compassionate nobody's looking to frighten anyone nobody wants that uh that said proximity to the police station might um might uh have folks who want to hang around the facility and wait a turn to get in it might make them move on because they know that well PDs next door right so um I I like generally where it's going I would I would again challenge you to try to make the footprint as small as possible I think there will always be some sort of need for a a shelter um but we have to look for a secondary use because in a few years when hopefully if we're doing our work right we'll get to a point where unfortunately some will not come in so I think that's it I think I beat the dead horse thank you very much I appreciate it.

Thank you.

I like what I'm seeing I guess I'm not as optimistic um I think what we've seen in the numbers from uh from the gathering in we have great stories that we celebrate but people also continue to fall into homelessness that number is not finite that okay using 80 or whatever we meet their needs it's done we're we've solved homelessness people will continue to fall into homelessness I just can't imagine that need goes away I wish I I'm I I'm hopeful but I'm also I guess cautiously realistic in that people will continue to fall into homelessness and so for us as our city continues to grow having the resources for the for you know for our growing need I don't know that the need just disappears or is to a point where it's so low that we we may be changing the use of this facility it's good to be adaptable for sure I guess I I'm just not as um optimistic that that need will disappear in a few years.

I think we will have great success stories absolutely but we'll continue to have those that will always need um this type of uh facility and resource uh we've seen that in pretty much every city uh the more we work towards this this zero or 50, 60, whatever the number is where we don't maybe think we need this um type of facility.

We're going to inevitably see growing number of people continue to uh need these kinds of services.

So I like what I'm seeing.

I like our vice mayor's comments on sort of a wellness center.

What I really appreciated was our community's desire to see something a little bit more dignified, that it's not just a bunch of COTS and separation, that this is, you know, it's not a fancy hotel, it's still a homeless shelter, but also providing that comfort.

We get to design this from the ground up.

We have what we have because that's all we had at the Cavalry Christian Center.

So we did a great job with our limited location.

So we're providing excellent resources there and providing those hands-on need.

I love the family space.

I think that is fantastic because we will see families in need.

And so this is being proactive in that response.

Pet friendly, of course.

And I know they are family.

I saw my little fur baby as another child, and I know others do too.

Pets mean everything to not just our on-house, it's just a it's the reality.

They are family.

So having the pets incorporated, having the family, but I really loved our community's response of having something just a little bit better than perhaps any shelter.

The human dignity goes a long way and the wraparound services that they will need.

We'll see those sort of graduate out of the program, and unfortunately, we'll we'll continue to see others falling into homelessness because it's not just affordable housing, there's mental health, there's other all of the root causes.

There's so many, and so I I wish I prayed one day that we wouldn't have this issue anywhere.

But I'm glad that we are prepared, and um we will I'm looking forward to the next phase of site selection.

There will be something in every council district.

So it isn't, you know, we'll be able to look at it sort of in a holistic approach and ultimately make the decision that meets the needs of the community and be prepared.

We will inevitably see neighborhoods coming in here with pitchforks yelling and screaming.

We know that that's happening, it's happening in other communities, but we have to do this.

We have to do this, and I'm so pleased to see the renderings and all of the great work.

So thank you to Sarah and your team and everybody else involved.

Um, great work all around.

Thank you.

So this is not an action item.

So we will move on to our next, which is item 9.3.

And item 9.3 is to receive information on proposed changes to the business license application and renewal process and fee structure and provide direction to staff.

Okay.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Mr.

Vice Mayor, and Councilman.

My name is Tish Mann.

I'm an economic development analyst, and with me is Kara Taylor Seaman, a finance manager.

And in the audience is another integral member to our team, Jenny Ta, customer service representative.

And uh we're here to present uh a presentation on business license 2.0, which is an initiative about updating and streamlining the business license application and renewal process.

And a recommendation this evening is to receive information on proposed changes to the business license application and renewal process and fee structure and provide direction to staff.

We want to start this presentation by highlighting some of council goals pertaining to a high performing and financially stable city government.

Um, the sub goals that we want to highlight are maintain and strengthen the fiscal health and stability of the city, embrace new ideas and innovation in the delivery of services, provide responsive and courteous customer service, promote DEI within the city organization, and the larger community, and maximize investments in innovation to improve the lives of residents and streamline operations.

Um, all of these goals relate to the business license 2.0 initiative and what we hope to accomplish with it.

And so this initiative is really a joint effort between the Office of Economic Development and Finance, with a lot of perspective from the community development department.

And again, our goal is to update and streamline the business license application and renewal process.

And this project is identified as an implementing action in the city's general plan.

And to illustrate the impact of an initiative like this, 322 new business license applications were processed last year, and 1,406 renewals were processed last year.

So what were the key drivers that led us to look into a new business license software?

We wanted to make the application and renewal process as easy and as user-friendly and as online friendly as possible.

We wanted to improve customer satisfaction after receiving a number of complaints about the business license process.

We want to simplify management for staff by streamlining and automating manual processes.

And we want to increase compliance and accuracy of registry so you can have higher quality data.

And finally, want to capture better demographic data so we can understand our business owners better.

So the first thing we did is we did a comprehensive review of our business license process, and we found a number of areas for improvement.

First, a complex and frustrating customer experience.

Jenny has a great list of a number of different complaints from applicants that she's collected over the years.

But I'll just describe one example, which is that sometimes people have a frustrating experience at home when they're trying to apply for the business license online.

So they actually come in person to the counter to complete the process instead of just being able to do it online.

And then from a back-end processes standpoint, we saw some inefficient workflows requiring manual workarounds for staff.

And when staff is doing manual work and manual processes, it can lead to human error and compromise the quality of the data.

And from a finance standpoint, we noticed an outdated fee structure that does not incorporate cost recovery.

And then from a community development standpoint, we noticed that there are no zoning and occupancy checks in the license process.

So again, just the software challenges.

We were seeing something complex, something inefficient, outdated, not user-friendly, and that was leading to businesses either not completing the process or submitting inaccurate information in their applications.

And then one example of a manual back-end process is how the special business license process, which requires going to PD, getting live scan, is all paper-based and it's all manual.

And then you have the general business license application on Central Square, and then you have the renewals on InformStack, and it's very fragmented.

And so the system just in general does it lacks the automation and the flexibility and the intuitive workflows that you would see in a modern business license software.

So what did we do?

We evaluated alternative business license software solutions.

There are a number of companies out there that specifically make software applications for business licensing for jurisdictions and local government agencies.

And so we sat in on a few custom demos with them and got some initial pricing.

So we're looking at for a one-time setup implementation fee.

We're seeing numbers like 60, or sorry, 80,000 to 125,000.

And then for the annual subscription, we're seeing anything from $30,000 to $90,000.

And we're also in discussions with our current provider, Central Square.

We're going to see if they can meet our needs and if they can just make some upgrades to the business license process, then great, we'll stick with them.

And if we do that, that'll come at no additional cost because we're already customers.

And in the process of reviewing our processes, community development observed that we have not done zoning and occupancy checks in the license process since 2012.

At the time, council directed staff to remove them because they were seen as too time consuming and costly.

Council's goal was to promote business friendliness and streamline applications.

And we also want to note in 2012, we also did not have the technology we have today.

We are able to streamline zoning and occupancy checks much quicker now.

But this led to issues, namely license be licenses being issued to businesses not compliant with zoning or building codes.

So a retail business could come in and they could apply for a business license using an app or using an address, and then they would get approved and get their license.

Then they'd go set up shop at that address and start operating, only to find out later that yeah, code enforcement says, hey, you're a commercial business and you're operating in an industrial zone.

Now you have to explore options, including relocation.

And so that's something that could be prevented with a zoning check in the license process.

And then similar thing on the bus or the building side, a business owner could get a business license and start operating in a building, but it turns out that the building hasn't gone through review with external agencies like fire health and sewer at minimum, and the building doesn't have a CFO, but the business owner has a license to operate there, it's just contradictory.

So these issues lead to code enforcement cases, violations, fines, and relocations.

And so let's talk about zoning checks a little bit.

We did research into jurisdictions across the state and in our region and found that zoning checks are a best practice, and what a zoning check would look like, a staff would review the proposed business use and decide if it was allowed by right, prohibited, or if it needs a use permit.

And if it needed a use permit, the building or the business license would be placed on hold until the business owner gets their CUP or whatever, and then we'd release the business license once that is obtained.

And we estimate that a zoning check would take 30 minutes of staff time, translating that to cost that would be $55 to $93 per zoning check based on uh these you know billing ranges, but this is all pending fee study.

We recommend doing a comprehensive fee study to understand the true costs behind stack time.

And so some cities also incorporate a building occupancy check, and this would verify that the building is in compliance with building and fire codes and has a valid certificate of occupancy.

And the idea is you wouldn't release the business license until they have COVID.

However, this could be a lengthy process, it could take weeks to months because each regulatory agency fire steward sewer health has its own process and its own timeline, and you would need approvals for all of them to get the C of O.

And there could be building modification discussions as well, making the process even more drawn out.

So that's what an occupancy check might look like.

We estimate 70% of the time the checks could be simple and only take a couple days.

For example, if the new business is very similar to the old business, but 30% of the time we estimate these checks to take weeks or months.

For example, like a complex case would be if the new business is very dissimilar to the old business.

And the cost of an occupancy check, it's difficult to estimate.

We'd need to do fee study to determine the costs.

And Kara will take over from here.

So the next several slides are gonna talk about the city's fee structure and a review of practices in nearby cities.

This slide shows the seven cities that the staff has researched.

Of those, all seven do require occupancy checks.

Um I'm sorry, all seven require zoning checks.

Two do require occupancy checks, and one requires occupancy checks just in limited cases.

This table or this slide summarizes the current fee structure that the city uses.

In 2012, again, the application fee for general business licenses was reduced.

It had been 110 for a general business license and is now and then was reduced to 12 dollars, and that was to promote business friendliness within the city.

That fee has not increased, it continues to be 12 dollars for a general business license.

Um there is a state fee making the total $16, and that is good for two years.

If there's a special business license that's required, then in addition to the general business license, there's an application fee of 125 dollars and then a background check of $49 dollars.

The special business license fee is good for one year.

So the issues with the current process, number one, there hasn't been any updates since 2012.

Our current fees do not pay for the costs to process and track new and renewed business licenses, and as a result, the general fund is subsidizing the cost um staff time to to administer the program.

Um, and then as you'll see here in a second, nearby jurisdictions all charge higher much higher fees than the city of Elk Grove.

Those costs, those fees do reflect cost recovery and in some cases revenue generation.

So again, these are the same seven cities that we queried.

The fees among those cities are based on a variety of factors and can include business type, operations taxes, the number of employees, and gross sales.

Additionally, those nearby jurisdictions, the flat fees, which would be similar to the city of Elk Grove, in all of those other jurisdictions, flat fees range from approximately $100 up to around $500.

There are several cities here, as you note, where there's an additional fee that is either a percentage of sales or percentage of revenue.

So staff did some preliminary estimates.

For a special business license or tobacco business license, that cost would be approximately $350.

Now, if we were to also include occupancy checks, that would add $200 for each type of business license.

The staff the staff is looking for your guidance, but we do have three recommendations.

The first recommendation, we are recommending that a comprehensive fee study be conducted, including full cost recovery for applications, renewals, and zoning checks.

Second, staff recommends that we work with our current vendor, Central Square, to determine if their solution will meet our current needs.

And if not, we would like to pursue an RFP for an appropriate solution and vendor.

Again, those additional costs would be included in a business license fee pending that fee study.

Again, pending the fee study.

Due to cost and time constraints, occupancy checks are not being recommended at this time, although we can come back and reconsider those.

So staff have three main recommendations for which we are seeking council direction.

The first is the fee structure with a comprehensive fee study.

The second is software, either working with Central Square to determine if they can help us and meet our needs, or if not issue an RFP for another option.

And then third, incorporating zoning checks into the process, but holding off on occupancy checks at this time.

Regarding the fiscal impact, if council directs us to update the fee structure and capture all fees, staff estimates that the reliance on the general fan general fund will either be reduced or potentially eliminated.

Actual impact of that will be is dependent on the fee study.

Otherwise, the general fund will continue to subsidize the administration of our business license program.

This concludes our recommendations.

Thank you for your time.

And Tish and I are both available for your questions.

Thank you.

At this time I will open up public comment.

I'll close public comment.

And I'll start to the right.

Questions, comments, feedback.

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor.

If you could go back to the slide of where you had the $200 for the keep going.

That one right there.

Okay.

Okay, so you're including you're including the potential of the zoning check into the $200.

Exactly.

Okay.

So let me ask you this.

In in I can understand the first year, in subsequent years, would you be doing a zoning check?

No, the zoning check would be done just at the first year.

Okay.

So I guess what I would then suggest, or okay, so is that second year $200 required to subsidize maybe the fact that you're doing $200 for everybody.

Where I'm going, where I'm driving at is if you're not doing a zoning check in the second year.

When you look at it, is it possible to make to bring that lower?

You know, um, in your example, a new business license, the process is different than renewals.

And so that we would recommend, you know, an unearthing all of that and understanding it better through the fee structure, but you're exactly right, or the fee study, but you're exactly right.

That second year is is less costly to staff and to the city than the first one.

Yeah, I mean, the hardest part is when you're starting a business, that I mean, and I don't want to minimize two hundred dollars.

I don't want to minimize it at all, right?

But when you're starting a business, that's the time you really don't want to have to spend a whole lot of money.

Um, so somebody might say $12, $200, what are they doing, right?

Um, but a zoning check makes sense, right?

Especially if you get into a situation where you're gonna be spending a heck of a lot more money than $200 if you have to move.

So um I like it.

I would like to do a cost recovery or to do a fee study.

I would like to have the zoning check in there, but I would also like to see if there's a way that in in further years or later years, you can bring that price down.

Yep.

So okay, thanks.

Thank you.

Councilmember Brewer.

So if we were to go down this road and do the study for the cost recovery and make some and make the fees, make the change in the fees.

Where would where we stack up in comparison to the city, the cities in the region and the county?

Would that have us on the upper end of the scale or towards the middle?

Preliminarily, we estimate it would be we would be in the middle.

Um, some of these the city of Woodland, they have a flat fee that goes up to 500.

Um, so you know, we would come back with recommendations and with the actual results, but we expect at this time to be somewhere in the middle.

Okay, but first for the first year, exactly.

And by it, but and and by doing that, I mean you uh there was a as part of the recommendation, there was a mention on fiscal impact um that that would make it that would minimize if not wipe out with any sort of um fiscal discrepancy that we would have on that structure, or or was that or did I miss something on that?

On the um, excuse me, let me find it here.

So on the fiscal impact right now, because our fees are so low, then staff time and is is really it just goes to the general fund.

So if we revisit this and come back with full cost recovery, then we hope to eliminate the reliance on the general fund.

If we land somewhere in the middle, then we would just reduce the the impact or the subsidy and and dependency on the general fund.

Okay, no, that those were the two questions I had.

Um definitely I like the presentation.

Um the rationalization of why we're doing we're doing this is actually helpful.

Um, just making sure that um as we work with some of our business partners and prospective business partners, that as they go through that they have a full understanding of of what they're paying in terms of fees and why.

I think that definitely helps us in in closing that delta, right?

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, appreciate the presentation.

Um, no questions as of right now.

Thank you.

I support what's uh what you've outlined here.

I think you've made a pretty strong compelling case, uh streamlining the process.

So thank you.

No further questions either.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, with that, we will move on to item 9.4.

Item 9.4 is consider appointment of one voting member to the disability advisory committee.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council members.

I'm Jason Lincoln, your city clerk.

We opened up a recruitment.

The quick story is we have one applicant, we have one vacancy.

The fit seems pretty straightforward.

When the applicant did submit their application, they did say that they would be traveling and out of the country for the date of this scheduled hearing.

So I do not believe they are here in attendance for this evening.

All right.

Well, I will move it.

Believe it's name is Joe.

Correct, Joe Xavier.

Yes, so we will, I'd like to move.

There was, I um, I did see another application, but that was for somebody from Sacramento.

Unfortunately, they the postal service uh designates that they live in Al Grove, but they actually do live north of the city jurisdiction.

So I just wanted to memorialize that on the record.

But so I'd like to move forward um Joe's application to fill this vacancy.

Any questions?

Any options?

Just as a quick check.

I do not believe anyone signed up to speak on the site.

Yes, I'll open up public comment.

Nobody's, you're right.

Nobody's signed up to speak.

I'll close public comment and then move forward with Joe's application.

Um that's it.

Consensus is the only one.

It's kind of easy.

All right.

Next item 9.5.

Item 9.5 is to consider appeal to the city council regarding the decision of the city manager to deny a petition to disqualify administrative hearing officer Katie Belodi Porter filed by Yeser Algenar with the illusion smoke shop.

All right, mayor, members of the council.

If I could just make a couple of uh remarks, this is a little bit of an unusual matter.

We don't see these very typically.

In fact, this might be the first time in my history of the city that this particular process has been used.

So essentially, this comes up in the context of an administrative appeal of a revocation of a tobacco license for a tobacco shop that has been found by staff to be in violation of various local and state laws.

When that happens, an administrative hearing officer is appointed to hear the matter, neutral administrative hearing officer.

The applicant has the ability, if they so choose, to challenge that hearing officer for cause, bias, prejudice, that sort of thing.

And the applicant actually did that here.

The challenge went to the city manager who declined the request to disqualify the hearing officer.

It's now coming to the city council on appeal under our code.

You should think of yourself as essentially judges for purposes of this this hearing.

You're acting in what we call a quasi judicial role.

For that reason, the assistant city attorney Suzanne Kennedy and myself have decided to step away from acting as neutral advisors to the council because we're essentially acting in a prosecutorial or an advocacy role.

We do have, if you need assistance from a neutral legal advisor, we have attorney Alex Hastings here to assist you.

Should you have any questions about that?

Uh, the way that this will work is the applicant will be asked, if they are here, to come up and present their appeal.

There was a written material or some written material that was presented to the council by the applicant.

You should consider that.

There's also a staff report authored by Suzanne Kennedy expressing the city attorney's offices and code enforcement's position.

Uh so when the applicant uh after the applicant speaks, if they are here, uh Ms.

Kennedy will offer a presentation if you so choose.

You can then take public comment, deliberate on the matter, and decide whether or not you want to affirm the decision of the city manager to uphold the disqualification.

Excuse me, uphold the denial of the disqualification of the hearing officer, or reverse the city manager and decide to disqualify the hearing officer for bias or prejudice.

Happy to answer any questions about that as we go, as is Mr.

Hastings.

All right, well, thank you.

Um I would like to invite the applicant to present the appeal if you are here.

Anyone in the hallways.

Last call for the applicant to present the appeal.

Seeing no appellant present for the appeal, do we then need um we'll invite staff up?

No, you're not responding to the appellant, but I'm maybe the correspondent.

Mayor, the uh appellant has actually submitted written materials, and so we will respond in that regard.

Excellent.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members, Suzanne Kennedy, Assistant City Attorney for the City of Al Grove, and I'm here tonight to address yes, Sir Alan Jar's appeal of the city manager's denial of his petition to disqualify hearing officer Katie Belodi Porter.

Just some quick background on tobacco retailer special business licenses.

Any tobacco retailer and you in uh business that sells tobacco or tobacco related products is required to maintain a city issued special business license.

It is a violation of the terms that are licensed to violate any local, state, or federal tobacco law, and that includes sales of tobaccos to persons under under 21, with the exception of military personnel who must be over 18.

And tobacco retailers in California are also not allowed to sell or possess with the intent to sell flavored tobacco products or flavored enhancers.

For the first through third violation, it's a 30-day, 90-day, and then one year suspension.

And after a fourth violation within five years, the license will be revoked.

The business at issue tonight is owned by Yasser Alnajar, who is doing business as the Illusions Smoke Shop.

They are located on the corner of Laguna Boulevard and Franklin Boulevard.

And the issue before the mayor and council tonight involves the appeal or violation, a recent violation of the business and the administration administrative process that followed and their attempt to disqualify the hearing officer who has been assigned to hear that matter, and that is the issue before the city council tonight.

The city refutes the business owner's assertions with regard to both the prior violations, but also the basis for disqualifying, excuse me, the hearing officer.

And you've received materials from the appellant, Yasser Almajar through his attorney, up to and including earlier today.

Because many of the issues raised by Mr.

Alanajar involve the prior enforcement actions.

I'm going to give you a brief recitation of what those actions involve.

In June of 2022, the Alkro Police Department conducted a minor decoy operation where the business was determined to have sold a tobacco product to a miner.

That was in violation of the penal code.

And thereafter, the city imposed a 30-day suspension of the business license.

The city did engage in a series of discussions with the business and ultimately reached a settlement agreement where the city would rescind the 30-day suspension, and the business was going to take certain measures to ensure that they would comply with the law going forward.

And that included training employees and implementing safeguards against illegal sales, such as installing card readers that could check to see the date of the individuals purchasing the products.

In March of 2023, the Elk Road Police Department again conducted a minor decoyed operation where flavored tobacco was sold to a miner in violation of both the penal code and the health and safety code and also the settlement agreement that the business owner had entered into with the city where he agreed that they would comply with the law.

In June of 2023, while operating on a suspended license, so they should not have been selling tobacco or tobacco products, the city conducted a compliance check where it was determined that the business continued to sell tobacco-related paraphernalia, which was not allowed under their suspended license.

At that time, the city issued a 90-day suspension, which the business owner appealed, which went through the administrative hearing process.

And that 90-day suspension was upheld by administrative hearing officer Katie Belodi Porter, who is the same hearing officer assigned to hear the present case.

Following that violation and the administrative decision, in September of 2023, the city again conducted a compliance check and found that the business continued to violate their license.

They were operating on a suspended license at the time.

They were found to be selling flavored tobacco in violation of the Health and Safety Code and also the Elk Road municipal code.

At that time, the city issued a one-year suspension, and that was followed up by another compliance check on October 21st, 2023, where the city again found that the business was violating the terms of the municipal code through the sale of tobacco.

At that time, because of the number of violations that preceded it, the city moved to revoke the special business license.

At the request of the business owner, the city considered a settlement agreement, which would allow the business to continue to operate.

The business was required to pay a fine of just over 150,000, which was at their proposal.

And the business owner expressly acknowledged that selling tobacco to minors and flavored tobacco product is illegal.

That settlement agreement provided that any future violations would result in the immediate revocation of the special business license following an administrative hearing, and the business owner waived any right to further judicial review or appeal of that administrative decision.

Thereafter, recently in June of 2025, the Algorith Police Department conducted another inspection.

This was the first of many inspections that were to have been conducted that day of other tobacco retailers within Alk Grove.

But because of what was found that day, that was the only inspection they conducted.

The Alkrove Police Department found a hidden room within the business where hundreds of flavored tobacco products were possessed and possessed in a manner that indicated they were clearly possessed with the intent to sell.

Um which has led us in the path here to the city council today.

A couple of notations on this latest violation.

But the counter to that is that Mr.

Al Najar is operating unlawfully in a way that actually interferes with other lawfully operating businesses, small businesses.

There's not a level playing ground for them.

Additionally, all of the violations prior to the most recent have been resolved, and to the extent that the business owner had the opportunity to peel those up even to court and chose not to.

And you've seen some very passionate correspondence from the business owner objecting to the prior enforcement actions, but he could have taken that all the way up to the court to appeal, and he chose not to.

And the settlement agreement essentially closed the door on that because he agreed that any future violations would result in revocation of his license.

Here are some pictures of the hidden room.

You can see the picture on the left.

There's a cabinet with a glass backing.

You could see the police officer standing in front of it taking a picture.

The middle picture shows that that cabinet is capable of being slid to the left.

And within that room, you could see organized on shelves, readily accessible to grab when customers come in and request a product, are all flavored tobacco products.

There were hundreds of products within that room.

Here's this sketch of the timeline of some of the points that have come up in this case with regard to the process.

The most noteworthy out of this is that the city issued a notice of revocation in June of 2025, which was followed by a July 2nd, 2025 notice of hearing.

And what's important about this notice of hearing is it was at this time on July 2nd that the administrative hearing officer was identified.

So they knew who was the assigned hearing officer at that time.

The hearing was scheduled, it was continued once at the request of the business owner, continued a second time at the request of the hearing officer who had a family matter she needed to attend to, and the hearing was eventually set to early September.

On August 28, 2025, almost two months after receiving notice of the identity of the hearing officer, the licensee, Mr.

Al Najar through his attorney finally filed his petition to disqualify her.

That's almost two months of delay, and it caused the September 5th hearing that was scheduled to proceed to go off calendar in order to allow this process to play out.

On September 4th, 2025, the city manager denied that petition.

The Algrove Municipal Code does provide a process for disqualification of a hearing officer.

A hearing officer may be disqualified for bias, prejudice, interest, or for any other reason that a judge would be disqualified in a court of law.

You'll see in the petition, the appeal raised to the city council by the business owner.

He's appealing on the basis of bias and prejudice.

And the municipal code also provides that each party has the right to make one preemptory challenge without cause, which means for any reason or no reason at all, the business owner has at all times had the ability to disqualify the hearing officer.

The process is that the appellant needs to first petition to the city manager, and thereafter the city manager makes a determination on whether to grant the petition for disqualification, and then the decision of the city manager may be appealed to the city council.

It is the city's position that the city manager's decision to deny the petition should be upheld, and that's based on at least two bases.

Um, it is untimely, the code provides that a petition to disqualify must be brought after receipt of notice indicating the identity of the hearing officer, excuse me, or immediately upon discovery of such a facts indicating bias, prejudice, or interest.

So we know that he knew about the identity two months before the hearing was to be scheduled and delayed the filing until a time that it would delay the hearing.

And that's important here because it's a city's belief that the business owner is delaying this process because during the pendency of it, his business license revocation is stayed, and that means that it's to his benefit to draw this out as long as possible because he gets to continue to operate.

And we do believe that given the facts in this case that the city will prevail, which is why it's in his benefit to delay it as long as possible.

Additionally, the city it's a city's position that the business owner has not demonstrated bias or prejudice.

Um, the law provides that adverse hearings or adverse prior rulings, even erroneous ones, are not a legal basis for disqualification.

And there are additional legal citations within the staff report for you on that point.

And it seems to, although the appellant is not here tonight to advocate for their position, their position is essentially twofold.

One, that the hearing officer is prejudiced or biased against them, as evidenced by the prior ruling, and or the prejudice or bias of the city has been adopted by the hearing officer.

Um there are no facts to support that.

Each of the prior cases, uh, compliance checks investigations were thoroughly founded by solid investigation.

And the idea that the city is somehow biased or prejudiced against the business owner is um does not bear out, particularly in light that the city did offer two prior settlement agreements that would allow the business to continue to operate, and it was the city's hope, particularly after the last settlement agreement where the business owner paid over 150,000 to keep their license, that they would finally come into compliance, but they have not.

Uh, the hearing officer on their preemptory challenge.

So with that, it is um the city's request that city council uphold the city manager's decision to deny the petition to disqualify the hearing officer, and included in the staff report with attachment one is a resolution to that effect.

Should the city council want to set aside the city council's denial of that petition, an alternative resolution is provided at attachment two.

I'm available for any questions.

Thank you.

At this time, I will open up public comment.

I do not have anyone signed up to speak.

I will go ahead and close public comment and final call.

If the appellant is outside in the hallways, this is your opportunity.

I'm inviting the appellant to reply rebut.

Seeing nothing, I will go ahead and close the public comment opportunity and open it up for any questions or comments.

I'll start to the right.

Madam Mayor, I move to adopt a resolution upholding the city manager's denial.

Is that a second?

All right, we have a motion and a second to uphold the city manager's denial.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

All right.

The motion passes unanimously for the record.

All right, we've already addressed item number 10.

So that takes us to council comments reports future agenda items.

Council Member Spees, anything to report?

I do.

I wanted to bring up real quick because there was a comment earlier about the SECC.

Um so the Sacramento Metropolitan Cable Television Commission is a commission on which I have the uh opportunity to participate.

There are I would say three responsibilities of the Metropolitan Cable Television Commission.

One to administrate the or two to uh receive complaints from the public about cable.

Second, to um administrate the license fees and to ensure that they're distributed uh to the member agencies, and the third is to um provide grants or assistance to uh channels uh like SECC, uh as well as KVIE, uh Life TV and others.

It shouldn't be a surprise to most people that the that cable um cable is on the decline.

It's much like when you had a cell phone or when you bought a cell phone after a couple of years you turned off your landline.

People are now cutting the cable, people are going to the streaming services, etc.

When they're cutting the cable, that means lower cable revenues.

Uh and what we have seen uh at the cable television commission is that these these uh revenues are declining and they are beginning to decline more and more rapidly.

That will mean less money to our member agencies like ourselves.

I think we get something in the area of like two million dollars a year or something from that.

Um, but what that means is unfortunately for for SECC, for KVIE, for Life TV, their assistance begins to dwindle as well.

So uh last week there was a meeting.

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend, but there was a meeting wherein there was discussion with the with the uh channels that they uh that their funding was to be cut.

Um that uh decision has been um held off for you know for another few months.

Um, but the reality is well, I I don't know where the I don't know where the commission is necessarily gonna go, but what I can tell you is that cable revenues will not increase.

I can tell you that with great certainty.

Okay, so if you hear questions or you have concerns about the distribution, um, please, you know, I'm I'm happy to answer questions.

I'm happy to have uh our um executive director come and and give a presentation about it.

Um it's it's really one of those issues of just like with the cell phone, the landlines going away now that everybody's going to uh cut the cable or cut the cord, right?

And do streaming services, it's just less money for cable.

So thank you.

Thank you.

I'm glad that you provided that update because as you know, I've received a few emails that I did share with you.

So thank you for that.

Councilmember Brewer.

So on September 17th last Wednesday, um, as a representative for the Sacramento Regional Transit Board, I participated in the Capitol Corridor Joint Power Authority.

Uh they held their board meeting in Sassoon City.

Um, just talking about service between uh the Bay Area and Sacramento, but specifically looking at um the Davis stop for some of the improvements that will be taking place over the next five to 10 years on Thursday, the 18th, Sacramento Public Library Authority.

Um, through their committee of the budget audit committee, we went over our mid year our numbers and we'll be voting on that item in before the full board tomorrow at our regularly scheduled meeting um at the Sacramento County um board chambers at 700 h street.

And so that's what I have to report.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, we had our sewer meeting today, and then uh nothing to report out of that.

I did want to bring up um I have been getting contact from several residents.

I know that last uh meeting we had residents that talked about our um folks who who are suffering or our immigrant our immigration our immigrant community right um i know that we've taken a stance as a city of el grove but i would want to see if it's something that the council would like to to perhaps pass or even consider viewing a uh resolution just standing in support of our immigrant community and those who are also um in fear uh uh ice if that's something that you guys would would would like to bring up and wanted to see if we can put that out there.

I think individually we have me I've made statements I don't know if we need a resolution per se that's just my opinion um I think we have a very strong position when it comes to inclusivity where a city welcome to all is no place for hate so I think it exists in forms but um you know but that's just I I'd love to hear from you but I I very openly have been very open about my um my statements but if you think there's something missing um you know let's hear what others have to say anything yeah I think it's an important topic.

I don't doubt that I think there are other important topics that we have not addressed for the purpose of staying specifically to what our scope is.

I think our daily statements every time about us being uh open a city open to all should stand for itself I am reluctant to to wade into issues uh not not necessarily because of my beliefs relative to it but to setting a precedent for every time there is something that someone disagrees with much like other instances we've had right um that we're suddenly weighing in on all of these things I think that we stand for ourselves we say for ourselves every single time so council member brewery so I think what uh I think Councilmember Robles brings up a good point I definitely understand where council member speaks is coming from but I think what the vice mayor is as he's leaned into this topic and it's done it with great courage um I think it helps uh validate who we are as a city what we stand for um our creed we we walk and talk with it every day we definitely stand firm in our being a city welcome to all and we're really standing firm in our commitment to diversity equity inclusion and accessibility um it's something that even though it's it's taken on more of a national tone is very local in scope and it it reaches across a lot of communities and it's something that we should definitely look at and explore definitely have and have a voice in in some way shape or form.

All right so I see division here is a two two well could I get one more go back I know we recently did a change to our norms and procedures relative to proclamations like this does do you anybody happen to remember the specific anybody do a quick word search on yeah I don't know I'll have the exact language right in front of me but it's it's you know the city council won't weigh in things that are outside of the subject matter or affect um residents of our community right and so I think you could make an argument that um there are many residents in our community that are affected by um some of the immigration policies and and the statements thereof and so I think if the council would like to bring something back for consideration um that's that would certainly I think be allowed under that that policy I can see if I can pull it up really quick and read it and see if we can um find exactly what it said but um my recollection was it was it was to discourage things like um policies maybe on Ukraine or things that are happening in the Middle East and ceasefire justice and some of the other areas that are really outside of our our our community or things that are happening nation or or internationally.

And for this this would be more so also just to kind of um just to stand and settle the dearly with our community right it would be um as we talked about before that um we are complying with with what California um I think those could be more clear.

I do think so that's I think those are um but I think they might be on purpose because it may so I I don't want to speak for the chief but there's a reason why maybe it's not so widely spread I I don't I don't want to assume but if you want to elaborate on that a little bit are you're speaking about the um on ice and the following yeah yeah uh as far as what we uh do we do not participate with ice in any form or fashion when it comes to enforcement uh in our city uh with immigration we do not participate uh in providing them information when it comes to um any in custody individuals that we have we do not ask our community members uh what their immigration status is uh and that as far as I know the history of our organization we have never done that um and under my uh tenure we have definitely not done that so uh for us we follow the laws um uh as directed by the state of California uh and we do not participate um right now with anything to do with ice and and in the future I doubt that that would ever change in our state and I so I and I think to our vice mayor's point I don't know that that's necessarily why widely known is that is that your point yes okay so is that something that you want the police chief to let it be more understood or communicate that message or are you looking for a council resolution or you know something along the maybe the same line.

I wanted to bring it up to everyone I don't just wanted to kind of point it towards the direction and let's go there.

Because I do agree that there are certain things out of the purview of our city in our region that we just can't not control.

But I do I would like it to make known you know that Elkgrove is we stand for all our residents um all our residents here and those who are being impacted so if that is um for for chief just to make an emphasize just make known that we won't be um assisting any of that sort that's going after some folks um you know I know that there's probably um exceptions uh but again that's purview to to what's going on um but I would appreciate if that's something that we could do uh yes we can do uh we can do something uh of that nature we have done something with our city website as well quite some time ago uh we did put that statement out um saying that we did that and we followed the uh the act that the state has uh implemented um I don't remember exactly when we did that but it was when this um is probably two or three months now so uh we've done that once and we can through the city website definitely restate that same thing or thank you and I think a lot of these issues um it's incumbent upon us who those who feel very passionate about certain issues we can't be all things to everyone but I mean I'm very passionate about what's happening in the Middle East particularly with our Palestinians but I you know we had several ask for a ceasefire resolution but you know this again going back to the work that the council does focus on really focusing on the needs of our community but we can of course reemphasize that we are a city welcome to all that diversity is our strength we a lot of us do this and I would encourage others if you feel comfortable raise your voice raise your awareness because we are representatives of our community and it is important the the dialogue is important but I you know I also want to be very careful uh and balancing that with creating maybe more fears and more pro you know, creating more issues, and it does open up a Pandora's box um for other community groups who want us to weigh in.

So it is a very fine balancing act, but I think for the issues that we are passionate about, we absolutely should use our voice, and I'm with you on that.

I've I've used my voice on uh on some of the raids and my disgust because it is breaking up families and it particularly it's targeting communities of color, and right now there is she's an 80-year-old Sikh woman who is in custody with ICE, 80 years old.

Breaks my heart.

Her children, her grandchildren want to see her release.

There's so many other families, that's just one.

So it's not just a Latino community.

I know our Filipino community, this is a huge issue.

The Indian community, all communities of color, this is a big issue, and we will lend our voices where we can and help raise awareness and increase the the dialogue on this issue and so many other issues.

You know, I don't remember the last count of how many Palestinians have been murdered.

So, but you know, I can't solve unfortunately the Middle East crisis right here at City Hall.

I know the limitations of this role, but I will raise my voice, and I encourage all of you to do the same.

Oh, believe me, I definitely do it in my private and quiet circles, and they'll become louder in the in the coming days and weeks and months because it's affecting all of us.

It's affecting all of us.

And we're seeing friends and families and that are being affected by it, and it's becoming deeper and deeper.

Our commute our commitment to the fuel network um is definitely symbolic of that effort.

But um, but this is becoming is getting way beyond the political realm and getting more into the humanitarian realm, and that's where we all have to play a part.

And I would always be happy to assert that we are following the law as we are required to do.

That is, I mean, I think we should always be doing that.

So um I would certainly support you coming in with a with the statement that you have we have already said, but maybe making it.

Say that again.

We will follow the law.

And it's in our newsletter, right?

I mean, I feel like it's been shared.

It's been shared on social media, but I do think to to the vice mayor's point, it's not necessarily widely known.

And there was an issue here a couple of weeks ago at the Spartan race, we all heard about it, um, and it was a very touchy, delicate subject on how to navigate through that, but we got through that.

But these are real fears and concerns that are out there, and and we can't turn a blind eye to that.

Um, but I do think there are many appropriate ways that we can use our voice and support causes that help.

So it sounds like we've got some direction here.

I just wanted to maybe close the loop on this.

We do have a web page that talks about the kind of immigration issues and and we can send out a link and we can do a better job of maybe publicizing that and probably beef that up a little bit and talk about some of the things that you mentioned tonight.

Because I think there is confusion still in the community about what we do and what we don't do.

And so I think we can be more clear on that, even though we've issued statements and everything else.

Not everybody's on social media, not everybody's on the website, and so there's probably ways that we can that we can do that.

Um, and so why don't we take a look at that that website and see if we can um beef that up a little bit and make sure it's consistent with our the things we've already stated, um that we're gonna follow the law and it's consistent with all of those things.

We make sure that the the immigration community in Outgrove understands um the support that they have here and the resources that are available to support them in doing that, our support of the fuel network and other kinds of things that that's that's on there.

I also just want to maybe close the loop on the the language that Councilmerspeace was talking about, and it's really under the section relating to proclamations, which you could say proclamation similar to resolution, so if that's what we're talking about, it does say subject matter must be a matter of local concern and fall within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city of Elk Grove.

So that you can make an argument maybe either way that this would fall within that.

I think I think it probably would fall within that.

But however, the council wants to decide to move forward, that's certainly your your discretion.

So if you would like us to just um continue to to send out the messages that we've already done or reinforce those and beef up the way so we can make sure that our community understands where we stand and clearly with these issues, then we we can do that yeah with or without a resolution.

And so our our website is already um multilingual, right?

Yes, it is so okay.

So that it it's in different languages, okay.

And it can be, and folks can translate right to look at switch or something.

Okay, got it yeah good job all right well we'll try this out and should we need to revisit it we will that is that good okay all right um I will wave my report got lost there and um I do believe um councilmember Brewer you wanted to adjourn in somebody's memory yes madam mayor um so earlier today news news came out that Cindy Mann uh the wife of Tom Mann of Mann Ranch passed away um and passed away unexpectedly for myself she was a she was a good friend to me as well um and if you if you've seen some of my commercials in the past you will see Cindy Mann and Tom Mann in there um with David Lima and so those three being very instrumental in Elkgrove history um and and representing Elk Grove in a very positive light to the historical society um is definitely a person who I've grown very close to and there are not a lot of issues that we agreed on but on the stuff we did agree on it was always done in a very positive light very positive spirit and I will definitely miss her for that um there will be a a service for her this Saturday um at Herberger um funeral chapel at 11 o'clock.

There will be a a private um celebration um after that at the ranch but um there will be a celebration of life held for Cindy at a later date and so for those who know Cindy and know both Cindy and Tom definitely reach out to Tom see how he's doing I talked to him earlier today via text he's doing good but he's still in shock and so I definitely want to uh send my condolences to the entire man family on behalf of all of us.

Thank you we all extend our condolences and may her memory be a blessing to everybody that knew her and at this time I will go ahead and adjourn this meeting at 9 14 p.m.

Have a good evening