Here, we have reconvened from our closed session, and I have the following item to report out.

By a 5-0 vote, the City Council authorized the City Attorney's Office to initiate litigation in one matter.

The name of the defendant and details are not subject to disclosure at this time.

Once litigation is filed, this information will be disclosed to any person upon inquiry.

So with that, we will adjourn our special meeting at 6.01 p.m.

And at this time, I will call to order the Elk Grove City Council regular meeting.

Today is Wednesday, January the 28th, 2026.

The time is 6.01 p.m.

Would our assistant clerk here please read the announcement?

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

The recording will be cablecast on Metro Cable Channel 14, the local government affairs channel on the Comcast and DirecTV U-Verse cable systems.

The recording will also be video streamed at Metro14live.saccounty.gov.

Today's meeting replays will happen on Friday, January 30th at 1 p.m. and Sunday, February 1st at 1 p.m. on Metro Cable 14.

The Elk Grove City Council welcomes, appreciates, and encourages participation in the City Council meeting.

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

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

Pursuant to resolution number 2010-24,

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 speaker card and give it to the deputy city clerk

prior to consideration of the agenda item.

All right.

Thank you.

Next up is our land acknowledgement.

Assisting will be our vice mayor.

We need to do roll call.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes, roll call.

Mayor Bobby Singh Allen.

Yes, here.

Vice Mayor Suen.

Here.

Council Member Robles.

Present.

Council Member Spees.

Present.

Council Member Brewer.

Present.

All right.

Now, our land acknowledgement.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor.

We honor, respect, and acknowledge Elk Grove's first inhabitants, the Plains Miwok, who lived

as sovereign caretakers of this land and these waterways since time immemorial.

We commemorate and advocate for their descendants, the Wilton Rancheria tribe, the only federally recognized tribe in Sacramento County, who endure because of the bravery, resiliency, and determination of their ancestors, tribal members, and leaders.

All right, thank you.

Next up is our Pledge of Allegiance.

I would like to invite up our former Rockstar staff members, Mr. Darren Wilson, if you could join us and help leading the pledge this evening.

I'd be honored.

Thank you.

Please join us for a brief moment of silence.

All right.

Next up is our approval of the agenda.

May I get a motion?

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Next up is our closed session.

There are no closed session items on the regular agenda.

All right.

Thank you.

Next up is...

We have item 4.1, Proclamation in Recognition of Black History Month.

All right.

Excellent.

I would like to call forward the Black Youth Leadership Project and President and CEO

Laureen Pryor. Would you please join us up here? And yes, please bring everyone.

All right. Black History Month, February 2026. Whereas since 1976, February has been designated

as Black History Month as a time in which especially memorable events are recognized

and celebrated, honoring and affirming the importance of African American history and

culture as an essential element to the foundation of American history.

The theme for Black History Month 2026, a century of Black history commemorations, explores

current conversations and reminds us that Black history continues to play a crucial

role in advancing equality. And whereas Black Youth Leadership Project empowers students and

families to overcome educational barriers and champion equity through culturally responsive

advocacy, peer support, and civic engagement. Whereas the Black Youth Leadership Project,

led by President and CEO, Laureen Pryor, is a valued community collaborator of the Elk Grove

Police Department and has worked with the department on several projects, including a Thanksgiving

giveaway event providing turkeys and gift cards to Elk Grove families in need. And whereas Black

Youth Leadership Project and the Elk Grove Police Department are united by a steadfast commitment

to mutual support, open communication, and shared initiatives from supporting families to celebratory

graduations that reflect a continued commitment to partnership, trust, and meaningful engagement

for the betterment of Elk Grove families.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the City Council of the City of Elk Grove hereby affirms

and proclaims February 2026 as Black History Month in the City of Elk Grove, and we thank

Black Youth Leadership Project for its dedication to empowering Elk Grove youth development

and partnering with the city of Elk Grove.

Signed today.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

The floor is yours.

First, I'd like to thank Mayor Bobby St. Allen

and Vice Mayor Darlene Soon and the council

for this proclamation.

As you can see, I'm a little under the weather,

so I'm not going to get too close to you.

But I would also like to thank our chief of police,

Bobby Davis, who I call him Bubba because he told me to.

but that's Santa Chief because he's played Santa for our kids and this is my overall boo.

He makes it easy to partner with him in his department. For so long there have been tensions

when it came to police departments and community programs who offered support specifically to black

children. It has been hard to build relationships in other places but in Elk Grove he has made it

extremely easy and we are internally grateful for that.

Although we are Black Youth Leadership Project,

we serve all the children here.

We advocate for all the children here.

Unfortunately, Elk Grove is known as the place

where they suspend and expel more black students.

So we have a place here and we thank you

for this proclamation and we hope

that we can continue the partnership.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, let's all go down there.

We're going to present this to you.

Thank you.

We all gonna get real comfortable in what this is.

I mean, but then my hair okay,

because I feel like I'm sweating.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Ready?

Thank you.

so I want to thank you

Laureen for all of the great work that you continue to do but especially for the Elk Grove Unified

School District where I had the pleasure of working alongside her to close the achievement gap

but more importantly to change policies back then that we worked on together that made a big difference.

And those administrative policies, because we saw a disproportionate number of our black youth, particularly young boys,

not only getting expelled, but the suspensions.

So thank you for continuing to be a voice and a champion.

This woman works very hard.

Last week, I saw her at the Monterey Trails High School, back to school.

or what it was open house night.

And she was there as a champion

and an advocate for the students.

So she does this in addition to her day job.

So she works, she works.

No, you work many jobs.

She works, she has many hats.

She has many hats.

And so if you have a chance to meet with her,

you'll feel the passion, the anger, the frustration.

I'm a little more mellow.

You're more mellow.

But thank you for all that you do

in serving all students.

Thank you. Congratulations.

That takes us to item 4.2, our new hire introductions.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the City Council, Jason Bearman, your City Manager.

We always like the opportunity to present our new employees and those receiving promotions and advancements.

So we're going to start with our police department.

These are everybody that's either started or promoted within the last quarter.

So Chief Bobby Davis.

yeah there we go right oh goodness gracious um so uh we will start with uh shelby terezas

uh shelby was born and raised in stockton now resides in gulp prior to joining the

police department shelby worked as a dispatcher for stockton fire and stockton pd

while away from work.

She enjoys traveling to Lake Tahoe

in Southern California.

Thank you.

Jared Houston.

Jared came back to us on December 1st.

Jared was born and raised in the Bay Area,

graduated from Cal Poly San Luis.

Prior to joining Cal Poly Humboldt,

is that what you said?

No, okay.

Prior to joining EGPD,

Jared spent five years with the Plastic County Sheriff's Office.

He actually left here and then came back to us.

We're very lucky to have Jared back.

While away from work, he enjoys reruns of the office and dog training.

Sarah DePay.

Sarah joined EGPD on March 27, 2011.

Prior to her promotion, she served as a homeless outreach officer in our POP unit.

Sarah currently oversees our graveyard patrol team.

Every morning, Sarah would walk the bridge over here and make sure that the folks who needed help got help.

She was a wonderful, one of our hot officers.

So thank you.

Police records tech, Hannah Nimsonga.

Hannah joined EGPD on June 19, 2022 as a records tech.

She is tasked with training our new records technicians, and they are extremely busy in there.

So thank you.

Shakira Harper.

Police records tech, Shakira Harper.

Police records tech, too, Shakira Harper.

Advance on November 16th.

Shakira joined EGPD on June 24, 2019 as a customer service specialist at our animal shelter.

She transferred to our records bureau in 2022.

As a records tech too, she is also tasked with training our new records technicians.

Welcome.

Stacey David.

senior animal care technician stacy david promoted on november 30th stacy joined egpd

april 8th 2024 as a senior animal care tech she's the lead for our animal care team while

away from work stacy enjoys dog training hiking and being outdoors and we appreciate

Jalen Woods, Officer Jalen Woods.

Jalen was born in Sacramento,

attended John F. Kennedy High School.

Prior to joining EGPD, he worked over 10 years with CDCR.

Jalen is a car enthusiast

and has had numerous project cars over the years.

He recently graduated Sacramento Police Academy

and is currently in field training.

Teresa Leahy.

Teresa promoted, Teresa started with animal services in February of 2024.

She became a full-time employee animal care assistant in December of 25.

She graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in environmental services.

And welcome.

That's all we have.

Good evening, Mayor. Members of the City Council. Kara Reddick, Deputy City Manager.

I'm excited to introduce Mandy Bustamante, Risk Management Specialist, who joined the city on November 17, 2025.

Mandy has worked in the insurance industry for the past nine years, and she's lived in this area for most of her life.

Mandy is very appreciative of the opportunity to work for the city.

Outside of work, Mandy enjoys reading and traveling, and she's preparing for an upcoming trip to Brazil.

I'd like to introduce Charles Wilson, our Community Center Coordinator at District 56.

He also started on November 17, 2025.

Charles has nearly 17 years of experience in the private sector rental, recreation, and entertainment industries

and transitioned to the public sector in 2023 as a recreation coordinator for the city of Rockland.

Charles holds a bachelor's degree in government from Sacramento State

and a master's of public administration from California Baptist University.

Outside of work, Charles enjoys refurbishing vintage furniture, fishing, and playing basketball,

and he's excited to work for the city.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council Members.

I'm Maryam Hussain, the Interim Human Resources Director.

And I am very pleased today to introduce the newest member of our HR team, Charlene Castillo,

who's joined us as an Administrative Assistant 1, 2, sorry.

And while Charlene might be new to the HR department, she's actually not new to the city.

Charlene has been working with the city since June 2019.

She started as an animal care technician slash specialist at the animal shelter,

and she worked her way up to being a senior animal care specialist.

And then just recently she's joined our team,

and she's providing exceptional administrative support to the core HR functions.

We really look forward to the contributions that Charlene's going to make

in the upcoming several years, hopefully, to the HR department.

and outside of work, Charlene actually enjoys outdoor adventures and watching scary movies.

So welcome to the team, Charlene. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Nicole Guttridge, your chief information officer, and I am excited to introduce

you to Sai Mungetti, our new network engineer. Sai graduated from the University of Alabama

in Birmingham four years ago, and she recently moved here from New Jersey,

so she made a large trek to come to Elk Grove and join our team.

She used to work for Tokyo Electron, where she was part of the network infrastructure team,

handling network monitoring, troubleshooting, and connectivity issues.

She's been with us now for two months, so we're still deep into training

and teaching her all about Elk Grove, and Sai's going to be working on swapping out our firewalls coming up here,

some other upgrades, access points, switches, and network monitoring.

and so I was getting to learn about Elk Grove

and was excited to venture out on some of our trails

and we were just thrilled to have you as part of our team

so welcome and thank you.

Good evening Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council Members

Raj Passat Finance Director

First up we have Brian Lopez Soto

He's our new purchasing specialist

started with us on October 13, 2025

Brian was born and raised in Los Angeles and graduated from California State University Chico in 2021.

He's a lifelong soccer fan with hopes of attending a World Cup match someday and is also an animal lover,

having owned everything from dogs and cats to a ball python.

Welcome, Brian.

Next, we have Maricela Holm.

She started with us as the customer service representative on December 22, 2025.

Maricela was raised in Elk Grove and is a graduate of Elk Grove High School.

She recently earned a degree in environmental policy analysis

with a specialization in city and regional planning from UC Davis.

She now joins the finance department in the cashier's office

and is excited to serve the city of Elk Grove.

This one's a promotion.

Jenny Ta from customer service representative to senior customer service representative.

effective November 2nd, 2025.

Jenny's a long-term Elgrove resident

and member of Franklin High School's

first graduating class.

She's currently pursuing a bachelor's degree

in accounting.

In a free time, she enjoys exploring

local trails and restaurants

with her husband and two sons.

Thank you.

All right, good evening.

Christopher Jorwin, Community Development.

I have a few folks I'm very excited to introduce and bring in our team.

First up is Leslie.

Leslie's joined us in October 6th.

She is one of our two new associate engineers in development engineering division.

She comes to us with extensive experience in Elk Grove as a consultant for the last 23 years working in development projects,

primarily with improvement plan review and more recently with entitlement review processing.

She is a mom to four children.

Two are in college and two are in high school.

and in her free time she enjoys traveling, hiking, and swimming.

So welcome aboard, Leslie.

Next up is Angelica.

She is our new administrative assistant also in the Development Engineering Division.

She started in November of last year.

Prior to that, spent about six years working as a consultant, including Elk Grove, as one of her clients.

She's continuing to support the division with contract management and other administrative functions

and also serves as our planning commission clerk.

And Helga is an Elk Grove native and is raising her family here in town, including four kids.

Her eldest works locally, her twins are in college, and the youngest is a sophomore in high school.

Some of her hobbies include playing indoor soccer, entering low-rider car shows,

watching kids play sports, and of course spending time with family and friends.

So welcome aboard.

Next up is Jojo. He is our second associate engineer.

joined us on November 17th,

comes to us with a background in private development

and traffic engineering.

Prior experiences included at the City of Sacramento

and the City of West Sacramento,

and in his free time enjoys traveling

and experiencing different cultures.

So welcome, Judge.

Thank you.

Last on our engineering side is Alvin.

Comes to us with seven years experience

working for the City of Fairfield in a similar role,

overseeing private development and performing plan reviews

and entitlement reviews.

Prior to Fairfield, Alvin spent four years as a design engineer for consulting firms.

He is a local resident and enjoys spending time at home with his wife and two dogs and

for fun is getting into DIY home improvement and is an enthusiast for enjoying hiking.

Do remember, building permits are required.

Welcome Alvin.

Thank you.

And we do have two advancements in our code enforcement division.

The first up is William, who's worked for Elk Grove.

Where'd you go, William?

Oh.

Oh.

Okay, my list are backwards. Sorry, gentlemen.

Okay, so William's worked for Elk Grove for two years

and has recently promoted the Code Enforcement Officer 2 position.

Previously, he was with City of Sacramento as a parking enforcement officer.

He enjoys taekwondo, brewing beer on his free time, and gardening.

He also enjoys spending time with his family, his daughter, Lian?

Lainey.

Lainey, thank you.

Son, Gotham, and wife, Laura.

William and his wife also own their own baking business, Better with Butter,

and I can attest to the quality of the baked goods.

So, welcome, William.

All right, and last up is Troy.

Troy has also worked for us for about two years

and was recently promoted to the Code Enforcement Officer 2 position as well.

I previously worked with MCE in Rancho Cordova,

where he assisted with various construction projects.

He enjoys weightlifting, running, hiking, and traveling with his family.

Congratulations.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the City Council.

I'm Jeff Warner, Public Works Director.

First up, we have Adam A.J. Beams.

Adam joined the city on December 1st, 2025 as a maintenance specialist in our landscape maintenance team.

He comes to the city of Elk Grove as an accomplished landscape business owner

and a graduate of the Consumas River College horticulture program.

His experience and knowledge of horticulture have been quoted by the publication of Home and Garden.

In his spare time, A.J. enjoys yoga, tennis, swimming, paddleboarding, audiobooks, and hiking.

Can we pack any more in there for you?

A couple more if you need a couple more.

Next up, we have Fernando Baldovino.

Fernando joined our team on December 29th, 2025, so coming up on his one-month anniversary here.

He is a fleet maintenance technician.

He graduated from UTI in 2010 with certifications in automotive, diesel, and smog.

He is also a certified emergency vehicle technician.

He comes to us after working previously for Sacramento County.

Thank you, Sacramento County.

And Fernando loves being outdoors.

Mr. Hume, I hear you.

I see you back there.

loves being outdoors, camping with his family, and attending his children's soccer games.

Next, we have Brian Stoddard. This is a promotion, and one we're very proud of. I'm very proud of

Brian and myself. On November 2nd, 2025, Brian was promoted to our facilities maintenance supervisor.

He has 15 years of experience in facilities working right here for the city of Elk Grove.

He brings extensive institutional knowledge and a strong dedication to public service.

Outside of work, Brian enjoys boating and camping, working on his classic cars,

and is an avid fan of the Sacramento Kings and San Francisco Giants.

Hopefully one of those comes through for you.

Next we have Eugene Garcia.

Eugene advanced from a Public Works Inspector 1 in our capital maintenance group

to a Public Works Inspector 2 on November 2nd, 2025.

He started with the city of Elk Grove in 2024 and has a strong background in various construction engineering roles and specializes in asphalt paving, concrete soils, asphalt coring and investigations.

He's a dedicated father and husband and likes spending time, family time hiking, kayaking and taking family road trips.

Welcome back.

Next is Abid Mahmood.

another promotion on november 2nd 2025 abid promoted to maintenance specialist

he started with the city of elk grove in january 2025 as a landscape maintenance technician

focused on servicing district 56 since joining the city just over a year ago abid has obtained

his commercial driver's license and qualified water efficient landscape certification and

continues to grow in his role servicing landscape areas throughout the city. In his spare time,

Abbott enjoys spending time with his family, working on his mini homestead, raising chickens

and growing vegetables. Look forward to some of that growth. I have one more for you who was

unfortunately not able to join us this evening, Josue Ruiz, advanced in November from maintenance

technician one to maintenance technician two. He is a member of our drainage maintenance team

and has been with the city of Elk Grove for over two years and came from the city of Stockton

within the Streets Division where he performed street work and sign work.

During his free time, he enjoys spending quality time with his family

as well as watching Green Bay Packer games.

Thank you.

Congratulations to all of our promotions, advancements,

and welcome to Outgrove to our new hires.

All right, so with that, we're going to move on to our next item,

which is public comment.

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

We will start with Kara Lack followed by Becca Smith-Hart.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

My name is Kara Lack, and I'm here representing Musical Mayhem Productions, a youth nonprofit theater company in Elk Grove.

Recently, some of our students traveled to the Junior Theater Festival in Atlanta,

an international theater event with over 140 groups from around the world.

And they came home with a win for excellence in music.

A nice big trophy, too.

That honor belongs to young people from this community who worked hard, supported each other,

and proved that Elk Grove talent belongs on a national stage.

Youth theater, as we know, is more than performance.

It builds confidence, teamwork, discipline, and a sense of belonging, especially for kids who may not always find their voice elsewhere.

When we invest in the arts, we invest in our future leaders, storytellers, and citizens.

We would love to invite each of you to attend an upcoming Musical Mayhem production and see firsthand what these students can do.

Coming up soon, they have their 4-10 year olds performing in Annie Kids this weekend,

and their elite program performing in Rent Teen Edition February 20th through the 28th.

If you're interested in tickets, you can reach out to annemarie at mmp.com.

That's her email address, or you can go to the mmpkids.com website.

Thank you for your time and for supporting the arts in Elk Grove.

Let's see.

Yes.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Becca Smith-Hart. I'm here to encourage you to support the arts, particularly the Children's Art Organization, Musical Mayhem Productions, which she just spoke about, or MMP.

For my family, this program has been incredibly meaningful. All four of my children have participated over the past 10 years, and two of my children are still involved today.

One of the reasons our family chose to remain living in Elk Grove was because of this particular program

that's not found in anywhere else as easily.

It provides children and teens with a safe, structured, and creative space

where they can build confidence, teamwork, discipline, and communication skills.

What makes MMP especially important is the range of opportunities it offers.

The upcoming spring shows are Annie's, Stuff's, Rent, and Frozen.

Shows like Annie and Frozen introduce younger children to theater

through family-friendly stories, while productions like Stuff and Rent challenge older youth artistically and emotionally.

This allows students to grow with the program year after year.

I'd like to invite you to come see these shows.

My own kids will be in Rent and Frozen.

MMP also places strong emphasis on youth leadership and volunteerism.

Older students volunteer as mentors and leaders for younger kids' productions.

They learn responsibility and service while giving younger kids positive role models to look up to.

This kind of peer leadership builds confidence, accountability, and community connection.

My own son is one of these program assistants, and being able to put this on his resume helped him find a job.

He got hired at Chick-fil-A when jobs for teens right now are really scarce and kind of hard to find.

Programs like MMP benefit the city as well.

We bring families.

We have lots of people that come to see their shows.

and it's a really fun tradition to go out to eat or ice cream after a show or before a show

it really just brings the kids together and helps them see support even modest support such as

access to space small grants or city promotion can make a big difference for these kind of programs

for families like mine mmp is more than an extracurricular activity it's part of what

makes elk grove a place we want to stay and invest in i encourage the city to continue

championing the arts and recognize programs like MMP. Thank you. Thank you.

Next up is Bonnie Stensler followed by Lynn Wheat.

Good evening, Mayor and Vice Mayor and Council members. I'm here this evening because I wanted

to publicly thank Sergio.

He has quite often come out to Glenbrook.

He was just out this past Friday at our coffee clutch,

and the residents enjoy talking to him.

He answers a lot of their questions.

If they ask him to follow up on something, he does that.

He gets back to us on it, and I just want to say

we really enjoy having him.

and it probably doesn't hurt.

He also brings bagels,

which seems to go over pretty well with them.

But again, they're still talking about you

and when you're going to come back.

And for the rest of the mayor and council members,

any of you, you're all welcome.

Just get in touch with me.

Come on out and join us.

Again, thank you for all you do.

Thank you, Sergio.

Thank you.

You need to bring bagels here.

Next up is Lynn Wheat followed by Carolyn Sores.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

I'm here tonight to thank the staff for the tremendous job they did on outreach for our future permanent homeless shelter,

which I'm calling the big house because I don't really like shelter, so I'm calling it a big house.

and they put together an absolutely wonderful packet.

Now, a friend that went with me,

she was concerned because there's glossy flyers on the inside

that maybe the staff spent a little bit too much of our money producing this.

So I asked a staff person, and you know, during this time we could have rain.

And so they prepared it in this manner, anticipating that we might have rain,

and they didn't want these packets to get wet.

So an easy explanation that made sense to me.

What I really want to talk about though is the location and the discussion that's gone on.

So of course there's been some discussion about a couple of sites not being very favorable because they're too close to sensitive areas.

So that leaves another site, survey site.

I'm really against the survey site for a number of reasons.

It is going to isolate our homeless population within the community.

These are members of our community.

And if we're truly a compassionate city, do we want to isolate at the southern end of our city where there are not the number of resources, though some say that there are?

So I want to challenge each one of you because you're going to have to make a difficult decision.

And I'm sure that it's going to be an emotionally charged session on February 11th.

So I'm challenging you to go to each site, wait for a bus, and see how you can commute around our city.

Go to each site, walk to it, and see how close it is to a store or possibly a retail center that you might get a starting job at.

Go to it and walk and see how quiet or noisy the streets are or how congested the major roads are, such as Cammer, our future grant line that has the traffic.

So I think if you do that, then you'll have even more ways to express yourself as how we want to integrate this population within our community.

there's many myths about what homelessness looks like and I was very

glad that the staff could address those I hope that residents will be open and

hearing that I went to all four sessions and I met a lot of people and had some

really good discussions around this and I think that we can work out something

and our big house can be beautiful the people can be integrated and moved into

permanent housing and we won't set up barriers that make it even more

challenging for them to get back on their feet. So again I hope you accept

the challenge. Thank you. Right on the dot, thank you. Our final speaker is

Carolyn Soares.

hey everyone good evening sorry can we restart

hi um last time i was up here talking to you is regarding i believe the development right next

store to us on Pleasant Grove School Road. At that time, myself and quite a few other people

expressed concerns about the drainage and a number of other issues with the project.

I sent you all, I don't know if you received it or not, pictures of our crawl space, which now,

well, it doesn't now, but it had six inches of water. The developer guaranteed that we would

have less drainage on our property or the surrounding parcels with this development

than before. We've never had an issue with drainage from that property before. Now we're

flooded. We had six inches of water. We've got potential major damage to our house once the

clay settles and all that. When the development was brought to you guys for approval,

the drainage was supposed to go west to east they changed that i went to engineering numerous times

saying hey if you change that like you're proposing to do how the developer wants it to go

from east to west there's a hundred percent guarantee it will flood our property

i over and over again i came to them without the concern and that was ignored it was approved

or flooded. I don't know what counselor the development is going to do to rectify that issue.

It's guaranteed to rain pretty soon. I really don't need more water under my house.

Friends, neighbors, if anyone has an idea how maybe how we can even mitigate it on our side

of the property, I'm willing to do that. We just can't have water on our property. We've also had

a number of issues with the development where I know that friends and neighbors have been calling

code enforcement because of the road that they damaged the weeds that were higher than our fence

and then the signage that was blocking in our case blocking our exit so it's been quite an issue

anyway that's it and the other i know summer villas subject change here summer villas is coming up

And I think that would be a great two-acre estate-sized parcel, not the multi-hundreds of homes that they're looking to put in there.

That's all I have. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Is there staff here that, have you spoken to staff at all?

Numerous times.

Numerous times. Do you need follow-up?

Certainly, I'm happy to talk to Soris about it. We did receive her email Friday evening, and I saw the follow-up pictures that she sent today.

Okay.

Staff's been reaching out to the developer for them to resolve the issue since it's related to the construction, and we will keep them in the loop around that process.

It's been going on for months.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

And there's lots and lots of emails.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Can you just get back to us?

And let us know that it's been resolved.

Yeah, we can keep you in the loop.

That would be good.

And I don't have anyone signed up.

What's showing up on my screen, those two have already spoken.

So our next item is general administration.

I'm going to close the public comment, and now we'll go on.

Item number six, general administration information.

Thank you.

All right.

Good evening again, Mayor, members of the City Council.

A few items to report on this evening.

First of all, as has already been mentioned, we had four community meetings the last two weeks

regarding the future permanent homeless shelter and the location.

It was a great turnout.

We had about over 250 people that showed up.

Lots of questions, lots of information.

Our staff did a great job explaining everything.

Our goal through the whole process

to make sure we had a transparent process

and something that was engaging

and that we're educating the community.

And so there is a lot of information on our website.

So if people weren't able to attend any of those meetings,

I encourage them to go online.

There's a video presentation on that,

about a 10-minute video that really goes over

the same information that we shared

at the in-person meetings.

There's also a survey that people can tell

and give us their ranked order preference

on the three sites that are currently

being considered. And then all that information, all the public comment is going to be gathered up

and we're going to present it to the city council as part of the February 11th meeting, which you

will deliberate on the various site options under consideration. We're getting, we are open for

Elk Grove 101, the next cohort, the spring cohort. This is going to be another morning session.

The application period ends on February 8th. So if you're not familiar with Elk Grove 101,

It's an immersive nine session course on Elk Grove's local government, talking all the things that we do as a city to maintain high quality of life in our community.

Great opportunity to really engage and meet some of your neighbors to learn about what makes Elk Grove run and what makes Elk Grove as great as it is.

It's the program, this next program, we're one from March 24th.

And anyone over 18 that lives in Elk Grove or works in Elk Grove is available and eligible to participate.

So I encourage you to go online and sign up for our program.

Nominations for the 2026 Stars of Service Awards are being accepted through Wednesday, February 25th.

Help us recognize individuals or organizations making Oak Grove a better place to live, work, and play.

Award recipients will be recognized at a council meeting in April.

Online applications can be found on the city's website at oakgrove.gov slash stars of service.

and finally with additional funding non-profits can do much more for our community to support

this work the city offers an annual grant application program providing funding and

support to local non-profit organizations who serve our community online applications are

being accepted now on the city's website for projects programs projects and events for next

fiscal year the deadline for our community service grant and our cbg funding applications

is Monday, February 9th.

And applications for our event

sponsorship grant program

close on Friday, February 20th.

So go to elkgrove.gov

slash grants for more details.

I encourage you to understand

how that program works and opportunities to fund

all these great programs. And that concludes

my report. I'm happy to answer any questions the council

might have.

Alright, thank you for your report. Any questions or comments?

Looking to the left, seeing none. To the right, seeing

none. Thank you.

All right, with that, we will move on to our next item, our consent calendar items.

At this time, I will open up public comment.

I don't have anyone signed up to speak.

I will go ahead and close public comment and look for a motion to approve our consent calendar.

We have a motion and a second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

And that takes us to our public hearings, item 8.1.

Item 8.1, a public hearing to consider an ordinance amending Elk Grove Municipal Code Title 23, Zoning Table 23.27-1,

allowed uses and required entitlements for base zoning districts to allow outdoor event center use in the agricultural residential zoning districts,

AR-10, AR-5, AR-2, and AR-1, with certain parameters and a resolution approving a conditional

use permit and conditional use permit amendment for the Bartholomew Winery Amendment Project.

No further environmental review necessary.

Sorry, just pulling up the PowerPoint.

Those were last names.

Good evening, Mayor.

Councilmember Sarah Kirsch-Gessner, Planning Division.

The Bartholomew Winery Amendment Project consists of a request for a text amendment

to the Elk Grove Municipal Code Title 23 zoning to allow outdoor event center use with

approval of a conditionally used permit within the agricultural residential

zoning districts within certain parameters as well as a new conditionally

used permit to allow an outdoor event center use with up to 18 events per year

an amendment to the previously approved conditional use permit to expand the

hours of operation for wine tasting and allow additional winery events up to 48

eight events per year. The project also includes a request to allow amplified music and sound on the

project site. The project site is a 10-acre parcel located within the Eastern Elk Grove Community

Plan area. The parcel is currently developed with two single unit residential dwellings,

a 3,200 square foot wine storage wine production warehouse, and four acres of vineyard. The project

site is surrounded by residential uses to the south and west vacant commercial land to the north

and commercial and institutional uses to the east some background information for you regarding the

project site in 2019 the planning commission approved the original conditional use permit

to allow for the establishment of the wine production facility for the winery with five

special events per calendar year for activities associated with the winery.

And then in 2021, the Planning Commission approved an amendment to that

conditional use permit to allow on-site wine tasting

as well as expanding the number of special events associated with the facility

from 5 to 24 events per year. The zoning

code does not currently allow outdoor event center use in the agricultural residential

zones based on previous council

direction. The Planning Commission reviewed the item on November 6th. Public comments were received

in writing before the meeting and in person at the meeting, as well as a petition regarding the

project. They identified concerns related to noise, as well as the expansion of the operations

and events on the project site. A request was also made from the public that the proposed zoning code

amendment include an exemption that would carve out the the defined rural area from the outdoor

event center allowed use area in order to maintain the current prohibition on event centers in the

rural area. Based on residents concern regarding the amplified music and number of events the

planning commission ultimately recommended a reduction in the number of permitted events

compared to the applicant's request as shown here on the screen. The planning commission voted 4-1

with Ocon opposing to recommend City Council approve of the project as revised.

Here is the existing site detail.

The existing warehouse building and the outdoor seating area are shown here in the central area of the site.

The project cites General Plan Lane use designation as a state residential and the zoning district is AR1.

The project includes an amendment to an existing winery use in the Ag Res Zone, which is surrounded by other commercial sites on the north and east sides.

The on-site wine tasting and special events will be associated with the existing winery, which is an agricultural use that will continue to add to the diverse local economy.

The applicant is requesting approval of the text amendment, as mentioned, to allow outdoor event center uses in the Ag Res Zones with those certain parameters.

the defined

for outdoor event center

it's currently defined in the zoning code

and it means

outdoor facilities for public assembly

and group entertainment

other than sporting events including facilities

for weddings, live theater and concerts

and similar entertainment

the proposed

text amendment would allow that

within those zones AR10

AR5, AR2 and AR1 with approval

of a conditional use permit with the following

parameters the parcel would need to be or a combination of parcels that is a

minimum of 10 gross acres in site size it would have need to have direct primary

public access from one or more major arterials as defined in the general plan

it would need to be ancillary to an approved winery or agricultural tourism

use on the site and as recommended by the Planning Commission outdoor event

center use would be permitted on AR sites in the rural community plan area

With the proposed parameters above and the conditionally use permit process in place for a parcel and review of the site features for specific projects on a case-by-case basis, that would give staff the ability to review projects on a case-by-case basis.

the current project includes an amendment to the previously approved conditionally

use permit to expand the hours of wine tasting allow additional winery events as well as that

new outdoor event center use and amplified sound and music and i'll go through these one by one

for the expansion of the wine tasting the planning commission previously permitted that use and the

applicant requests that the hours of operation be expanded from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week.

For the typical winery events, these are events for marketing and fundraising for the winery,

such as wine tours, winemaking dinners, blending seminars, harvest experiences,

and dinners in the vineyard. The current conditionally use permit allows 24 events

per calendar year with a maximum of 50 people in attendance. The applicant is requesting to add an

additional 24 events for 40 events total and expanding the number of people from 50 people

to 125 people in attendance and no changes proposed to the currently allowed operation

hours of operation for the outdoor event center use the applicant is requesting a new conditional

use permit to allow up to 18 events per calendar year from 11 a.m. to 10 o'clock p.m. with 125

people in attendance Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays only. Staff analyzed that request based

on the parameters that I noted for the outdoor event center use and the project is compliant

with those parameters in terms of being located along in arterial as well as the size requirements

and outside of the rural community plan area.

Because the project included a request to allow amplified music and sound on the project site,

a noise study was prepared for the project analyzing the proposed amplified sound

to verify compliance with the general plan policies and standards,

as well as the Elk Grove Municipal Code Chapter 6.32 noise control.

And the noise consultant conducted noise level measurements during amplified music simulation at the winery,

as well as during an amplified music event at the winery.

This exhibit shows the stage location shown in red in the central location of the site,

as well as the location shown in yellow, which I'll refer to as the reference position.

That's the yellow triangle in the central of the site,

and the four survey locations located adjacent to the residential properties to the west and south.

per the municipal code the daytime standards from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. is 50 decibels and it does allow

an increase of five decibels when the ambient is less than 60 but greater than 50 decibels

here is the summary of the average noise level during the simulated event as compared to the

ambient for the four simulated events the noise study found that the noise levels for all of the

events would be are predicted to be within compliance of the city's exterior noise standards

and the noise study included recommendations to ensure compliance with the noise standards and

these were incorporated into the project's conditions of approval and based on the neighbor's

concerns identified at the planning commission meeting as well as outreach meeting that the

applicant held the applicant did propose some revisions that from their original request as

reviewed by the Planning Commission specifically they're proposing that all

amplified music sound and at 8 o'clock p.m. for the on-site wine tasting and

typical winery events and at 9 o'clock p.m. for the outdoor event center events

so that's shown there in bold along with the summary of the proposed outdoor

events typical winery events and wine tasting hours of operation and amplified

music during the wine tasting portion would be limited to 75 decibels at the

reference point and 85 decibels at the reference point for the events staff

also worked with the applicant on additional conditions of approval to

further address some of these noise concerns these include restrictions on

base enhancing equipment except during the events requiring the applicant to

keep a log of events with audio level measurement information that the city

could request additionally requiring the applicant to publish contact information

on their website to receive any feedback and complaints based on these the

characteristics of the operation the proposed conditions of approval approval

from the noise study as well as these additional conditions of approval and the

compliance with city city standards staff supports the applicant's request as proposed and believes

the project would not be detrimental to the public health and safety of the residents and adjacent

uses there is no further environmental review required the project is consistent

with sequel guidelines 15162 and 15183 and the general plan environmental impact report

Staff recommends that the city council find no further environmental reviews required,

adopt an ordinance for the proposed tax amendment,

and approve the conditional use permit and conditional use permit amendment.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

At this time, I will declare that the public hearing is now open

and invite the applicant or representative to come and speak.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council.

If you don't know already, I'm Darren Wilson with Wilson Land Development Solutions.

I represent the applicant on this amendment.

I first would like to thank CJ's team for helping us through this, and Jason Hone and Antonio Ablog,

and especially Sarah, getting us through this process.

So they were very helpful.

We're before you tonight for an amendment of my client's CEP to help attract more business

and expand their business model, making it more viable for the future.

The winemaker and I have had extensive conversations that the tasting room in itself over time

is not sustainable for viability of the business.

So hence tonight's request.

So tonight's request is intended to meet the needs of my client in a longer term, as opposed to piecemeal in amendments, which can be lengthy and quite costly.

All conditions placed on the amendment are supported by staff and are consistent with the city's general plan and Elk Grove Municipal Code.

And the applicant agrees to all the conditions as published in the staff report.

Therefore, we respectfully accept or ask the council to accept this amendment tonight to further promote and support small businesses, to promote ag tourism and a sense of community, and further diversify the local economy.

We have the team available in attendance to answer your questions, any questions you may have, and thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr. Wilson.

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

Our first speaker is Catherine McLean, followed by Chandler Bender.

Good evening.

I'm here as a representative of some of the neighbors, and I hate to speak against a winery

because I love to go to wineries and drink wine.

So I have no problem with the concept of the business.

I appreciate what the winery has done in working with the Planning Commission to try to address our concerns.

I'm still very bothered by the 66 events that they're proposing instead of 48.

I was a little shocked at 48 and the fact that the amplified music can go any night of the week.

it's not just in their proposal their counter proposal limited to the weekends

and then for people there are some people who live there with small children even having

amplified music stop at nine is still kind of an imposition on their quality of life and the

value of our homes i don't live backing onto the wine minery i live across the street

and they have not supposed to have been having amplified music,

but I can tell you I've heard it on Friday and Saturday nights in my backyard.

And I understand that once you have an event, it's hard to police the people

because they're your clientele.

They're posting a review of whether you want to have your site.

So I do have some concerns about their ability to follow up on that

and do appreciate with the Planning Commission

and what they've agreed to do to help address those concerns.

But I would ask you to consider the 66 and maybe go back to the Planning Commission's recommendation for 48 events.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Chandler Bender, followed by David Benedetti.

All right.

Good evening, City Council members.

My name is Chandler Bender, and I'd like to speak tonight regarding the Bartholomew Winery project.

I want to begin by saying that I value the Bartholomew Winery and what it adds to our community.

My family and I, along with many of my neighbors, are actually members and supporters of the winery.

We want to see this local business thrive and remain part of Bell Grove's small business community.

That said, it's important that the growth happens in a way that respects the neighborhood around it.

The issue here is simple.

The winery wants to expand its business, and the surrounding community wants to maintain the peace and quiet that has made our neighborhood such a great place to live.

I believe there's a fair and workable compromise.

Bartholomew Winery should be allowed to host as many events as they would like, as long as those events do not include amplified music.

This would allow them to hold corporate team building functions, private dinners, smaller gatherings that support their business without disrupting the nearby families and neighborhood.

For larger celebrations like weddings, I believe amplified music should be held indoors where it won't carry into our homes and into the night.

I have a young family with three small children, ages five, three, and one, and I actually live less than a football field away from where the speakers are normally held for the Amplified Music.

It's like 200 and something feet.

So we are literally neighbors.

We share our fence together.

You know, when events with Amplified Music have gone on in the past, in past reasonable evening hours, it has made it difficult for my kids to sleep and has disturbed the peace that our neighborhood has enjoyed for more than two decades.

I worry that approving this project as it stands could lead to more of that in the future.

We all want to see Bartholomew Winery succeed, but succession come at the expense of the quality of life for dozens of local neighboring families.

This proposal that I am saying offers balance.

It supports local business growth while ensuring that residents, especially families with young children, can continue to enjoy their homes without late night noise and disruption.

I respectfully ask the council to consider this compromise.

It's fair, it's practical, and it protects both the winery's future and the well-being of the people who live nearby.

Thank you for your attention and listening to the concerns of the community.

Thank you. Next up is David Benedetti followed by Pamela Benedetti.

Good evening. I'm here to encourage you to approve the conditional use permit. I've looked at the various documents in the Planning Commission and the sound level study.

and sound follows a fairly basic principle called the inverse square law,

which in layman's terms, it basically means that for every doubling of distance,

the sound level is going to decrease by a factor of four.

So it's not a linear subject.

But looking at the consultant's sound level study

and the proposal by the Bartholomew Winery Amendment,

it certainly appears from the sound level consultants

that they can meet the noise ordinance requirements within the city

and at the property boundaries.

And there's also that inverse square law does not take into consideration

other things that will attenuate that sound,

such as buildings and the vineyard and the masonry walls

that back up alongside the residents.

So with that being said, I would, and it does look like compliance

is very, very doable, you know, with the conditions in the, you know, with the conditions that are stated in the conditional use permit.

So I would do encourage you to approve that permit. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up is Pamela Benedetti, followed by Pam Donnelly.

I want to thank the council for the opportunity to express my thoughts on this issue.

My husband's somewhat modest. He worked for over 30 years as a certified industrial hygienist,

and part of his responsibilities were sound monitoring, so he knows what he's talking about.

I'll start with that. My husband and I have lived in Elk Grove for over 40 years. We raised our

children here, and we are members of the Christopher Sellers Wine Club, and we're also

immediate neighbors we live almost directly across the street from the

winery across Elk Grove Boulevard and the Clark Farms development our backyard

faces the winery and I want to first address the sound concerns we have never

once heard any sound inside of our homes even though we're in the direction of

of the amplified music.

And in our backyard, when we can hear the music,

it is so faint we can't tell what the song is.

So that's a real-life experience for you.

I also want to sing the praises of the wonderful business

that they've developed there.

And the live music is part of that business.

it's a business that's more than just tasting wine and buying wine it's a place for neighbors

to gather and mostly on Friday nights to listen to music which is mostly ended in a reasonable

hour 7 30 8 o'clock and they have sponsored local music artists we dance we laugh we eat

We gather with friends and family.

We meet new people.

I can't tell you the number of people that I've met there at the winery who have become good friends.

Over the last few years, the winery has hosted such events as yoga, craft fairs, harvest festivals, local artists,

vino culture, education seminars, and a salsa competition.

And all of these events bring community members together and support the economic growth of the city and the well-being of the citizens.

I don't think we could ask for better neighbors than Christopher Sellers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Pam Donnelly, followed by Michael Monasky.

Good evening.

First of all, I would like, I guess I'd get up here first.

I would like you to review the map that shows the subdivision that is directly behind the winery.

And that distance, as Chandler mentioned, is less than a football field.

the music and the noise is so loud,

it's like, how would you like to have football games

every day, three days a week,

eight o'clock or 10 o'clock until eight, nine,

10 o'clock at night?

You know how loud a football game is.

That's what we will be facing

with this amplified music continually.

the sound study I think was flawed I was in my backyard at the time they did it

and I do feel it was flawed if you go into research 85 decibels of music is the limit

that OSHA establishes to cause hearing problems.

Anything 85 and above requires hearing protection.

Hearing 85 dBs for eight hours

can cause permanent hearing loss and damage,

and it is cumulative.

You know about people who've gone to concerts,

heard the music come out, they can't hear.

Well, if we're sustaining music,

that starting at, what are they saying, 10 o'clock in the morning?

Going, or 11, going till 10 o'clock at night.

We do not have the opportunity.

We can't put hearing protection on.

We can't enjoy our backyards.

We can't enjoy the serenity.

All of us have been here for the majority.

I brought in a petition to the Planning Commission

of 43 signatures of residents along that area,

all opposing the music, saying they cannot hear themselves speak in the backyard.

You have to come in the house, close the door to block out the noise.

It's a nice summer evening.

We shouldn't have to lock ourselves in our houses in order to enjoy our family life outdoors

or even in the house.

I strongly suggest that, I need to find my notes,

that you review CDC's recommendations,

and it says here specifically exposure,

and this is straight from CDC, National Institute of Health.

Exposure to 85 decibels for eight hours is the threshold

where it is, if exceeded in duration, permanent damage begins.

What's going to happen to our children over all the weeks,

the months, the years, that they are subjected to this noise, which is only going to be increasing.

I don't think the health of our children and our families is being taken into effect.

Am I out of time?

Okay, in conclusion, I have one thing to say.

Are you willing to prioritize profit over people?

Thank you.

Next up is Michael Monasky.

Yes.

Imagine if, well, as I'm speaking here right now,

you were distracted by a vacuum cleaner.

If I had a vacuum cleaner running right here, right now, that's 70 decibels.

Okay, 70.

So if I ran the vacuum cleaner, do you think you'd be able to hear me?

you might be able to understand me a little bit better than you would think,

but at the same time, you'd be really annoyed by the noise.

Elvin Dorsey Bartholomew famously supported cityhood for Elk Grove.

I wonder what sort of neighbor he'd be today,

blasting amplified music from his outdoor party center every weekend

into his neighbor's backyards.

I think not.

Instead, I think he'd take a softer approach.

Sure, have a wine-tasting room,

but shuttle the drinking patrons to the new $12 million pavilion center

on the tracks at Old Town.

Make the events free to the public.

Engage local talent and make them alcohol-free.

The basement of the Methodist Church is his namesake.

where every Saturday morning, 50 or more people, 63 last Saturday, 63, broke bread, sipped coffee, and enjoyed a hot meal.

I play the piano in counterpoint to the conversations between toddlers, children, teens, adults, the elderly, and many who are down in their luck.

Some are alcoholics who use the basement room at other times for AA meetings.

To me, the Bartholomew legacy is in that cool, inviting, underground space

where everyone is invited without question or charge,

and no threat is made to their sobriety.

All right. Thank you.

That concludes our public comments on this item.

So at this time, I will close the public comment opportunity

and invite back the applicant or the representative

to provide...

Thanks for having me back.

...reparated remarks.

I'm going to address several of the remarks.

One, the all-night or the typical winery events,

all nights of the week. This is an expansion.

You know, the winemakers are not going to go out of the gate running with this on

even weddings, so those are separate categories.

The wedding is an outdoor event center, which is more of a larger scale

entertainment venue, like weddings and concerts.

The typical winery event is more like your outdoor

Rotary Club luncheon, you know, Elk Grove

chamber luncheon or celebration parties or birthday parties that are held outdoors.

So the 48 is to get us, you know, what they feel is needed for expansion of their business over time.

Another comment was no amplification.

I will say I did research on probably eight wineries in the area,

and all of them have either event center weddings.

Now, some of them weren't near single-family residence,

but most of them were that I researched,

but all of them had some form of amplification or live music.

We cannot even have a microphone for a speaker outdoors

if you have a keynote speaker or some type of presentation.

We can't even have amplified music indoors based on the permit today.

So this is a complete disadvantage for my client against other wineries.

There was one comment made about loud 85 decibels is bad for your hearing.

I would 100% agree.

It was loud when I was at that reference point.

but that favors the applicant because if it's too loud for people to have a conversation,

then that's going to even reduce that standard at the four points.

So right now it meets and is below the city standard of 50 decibels,

with the exception of Bradshaw Road, which is well below the ambient noise ceiling.

So one thing I got out of the opposition letters and proponents is they're in favor for this business.

That's a common theme.

So we're down to amplification, which I always say sound is subjective, but there's the reason the city has objective standards to sound.

Can you imagine code enforcement if we didn't have those?

Going out and figuring out what is a nuisance and what is not.

So we also have a controlled environment.

If you read conditions 14 through 25,

they include restrictions on what the applicant

has to do to ensure we meet the city's 50 decibel standard,

including something that other past use of sound

use of sound has not used as far as base equipment,

subwoofers, which subwoofers are very low frequency

that can go through walls,

and it's different from decibels,

but by restricting that to the outdoor event center

and typical winery events, including amplified drum kits,

we felt that was something we could give

that we didn't originally propose.

So we're offering that.

There's an 80-foot high sound wall.

All those houses along both the westerly edge

and the southerly edge are single story,

and that was by deed restriction.

I know that because my client used to own that property.

And with it, we have trees along there as well.

So as Mr. Benedetti suggested in his comments, that those absorb those sound waves.

The wall, yes, it can deflect, but it dissipates.

Not the energy doesn't dissipate.

The sound variations in your ear dissipate over time.

The energy goes in either air friction, absorbed in the ground, what have you.

It's the law of conservation.

Energy can be neither created nor destroyed.

So those are my comments.

I'd happy to entertain any comments or questions you may have.

Thank you.

At this time, I'm going to declare that the public hearing is closed and turn it over to my council colleagues for questions and comments.

You wanted to go first?

Sure. Thank you, Mayor, just because Mr. Wilson is up here. I appreciate what you mentioned, the sound wall bordering the homes on the western edge of the property. In your analysis, have you considered, and I noticed there's quite some space between the winery and the sound wall. Have you considered an earthen berm to further dissipate the noise, and would that be effective?

It probably wouldn't be effective because you need to have that earthen berm before you put the sound wall up.

The sound wall is already there.

So the earthen berm would have to be 10 feet tall to be effective or more effective.

The sound wall is effective enough in and of itself.

So would it dissipate further with the earthen berm between it and the trees?

You're saying the earthen berm would need to even be higher than the sound wall?

Yeah, sound travels in every direction.

So if the earth in Burma was two feet, maybe those waves hitting that two feet would be absorbed.

But you still have the waves above that.

That would ultimately deflect off the wall and dissipate over time.

Okay. Thank you.

Council Member Brewer?

When the sound test was conducted, it looked like there were marks at the borders of the winery and the neighborhood itself.

Were there any individuals that were, as part of that test, able to go into the neighborhoods to see how far the ambient sounds were traveling?

And to really get a good feel for if it caused that sort of a sound nuisance that would require some sort of special consideration?

standard practice is typically not to get in the backyards or further past the sense near

sensitive receptor in this case they use the you know the sound consultant who couldn't make it

tonight used a model used for federal highways to find out what that credit is because the meter was

in front of the wall on the applicant side so it was determined oh there's a reduction of seven

decibels. However, I did at the closest point on the west, I ran based on that logarithmic schedule.

I think the nearest home across the street was 525 feet. And the decibels turned out to be at

that location at 85 decibels at 41, well below the city standard. And that assumes

a clean environment, you know, no wall, no, some of those, most of those single story,

you know, encroach above the wall, obviously, even though they're single story. And then you

have the trees, but in a neutral environment with no wall, no trees, no houses, you would still get

41 decibels at that closest one across the street, which is nine decibels below the city standard.

And that travels well into, because for the neighborhood directly behind the winery, you do have a street with a cul-de-sac.

And the noise or the sound would waft over, but some of it will dip into, especially if there's any sort of windy day or current that would dip into those areas.

does the sound and with the sound wall the trees does that reduce the the decibel levels

even more the further west it travels um from that direction it would weather does play a factor so

does you know humidity a foggy day foggy night sounds not going to travel as as far um a clear

night this happened to be the five ambient days he did the recordings those were beautiful days

I helped set the meters I was sweating. It was a you know April day nice and hot so that days were nice and

Clear so we feel we have good information, but we we stand by

And the information he provided and I honestly think just the wall is attenuation was considered

The landscaping even along that wall was not considered so it could even be less than

Or more than a credit of seven decibels

And then you have, as part of the conditions of approval,

you have 39 conditions of approval.

And from 14 to 25, we're very descriptive of the requirements.

Especially the part where a log would be counted for each day,

for each incident, for whoever's performing at the winery.

All that information is recorded down.

And so looking at that, that's a sort of accountability measure that is not wired into other agreements,

which kind of definitely implies where what happens here is not applicable to the other establishments to the north in the rural area.

That's correct.

It's probably the most controlled environment from a winery with amplified music in this area, I could say for certain.

One of the conditions is the bass.

I talked about the bass.

There's another condition about getting a qualified sound meter that meets those American standards.

And I'm working with Chris, the winemaker, on the ones that can record over time and date stamp

and provide that log and record of those typical winery events

and outdoor events, center events.

And for that area that I kind of called the good neighbor clause,

there's that added piece where if someone is disturbed by the levels,

if they're too high or they feel they're too high,

they call directly the establishment to see if the music can be reduced

or turned down, correct?

That's correct.

There's actually two conditions.

One, to provide a primary and alternative number to the city,

because I've been in this business long enough,

most of the time the city police or code enforcement get these calls.

But there's also a requirement for them to publish

those representative contact information on their website.

Okay.

Okay.

No, those are the questions that I have.

I think what we're looking at right here is something very interesting.

And I saw what the planning commission had recommended.

And there's also that what we looking over here,

there is a scale that even has where the,

for each of these events that take place,

the music would shut down an hour before the event is over just to make sure

that the lines are being respected between the establishment and the

neighborhood.

Am I wrong on that?

You are correct.

That was something we gave after the planning commission and having the community meeting.

We reduced the outdoor event center.

Even though it says 11 to 10, music stops at 9.

For typical winery events, it's 11 to 9, music stops at 8.

So that was something we agreed to.

And then the last hour is just for employees to clean up.

late stragglers going to the parking lot,

and you're done by 9 and 10, respectively.

If they're straggling, hopefully they catch an Uber or a Lyft.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

They're getting an Uber or Lyft.

Thank you.

That was funny.

Council Member Spees.

Okay.

So we're going to be doing deliberation after questions for him, right?

We're not doing the whole.

We're doing it all.

Because Mr. Darren is here.

Right.

You can ask him if you have questions, but we're also deliberating.

Oh, okay.

He just was already up here.

I didn't know if you were separating the.

No.

Okay.

No, because the public hearing itself is closed.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

I got you.

All right.

So I want to go to, I want to talk about the condition number 23.

So 23 talks about shall keep a log, the minimum of the log, shall include date, time, start, duration, blah, blah, blah.

And it says shall be made available to the community development director upon request.

Okay.

So my challenge with this is only that there is no definite time period on this, right?

And so in the event that someone complains about something two years ago, if you don't have the log from two years ago, you're in theory in violation, right?

So what I'm asking, suggesting, is that the condition be changed to perhaps 60 days.

60 days seems like a reasonable time so that we're not keeping it for much longer than we need to.

So I guess I would ask if everybody would be fine with that and if the applicant would be okay with a 60-day retention on the logs.

Okay.

All right.

So I guess since we're deliberating, I guess I'll just get started with it.

And so I'm not asking you questions.

I'm just doing my talking now.

Yes, sit or stand.

Whatever you want to do.

Okay.

Are we coming back for questions?

If you want to go to Sergio next.

That's where I was going.

I didn't want to.

You want to go next?

Council Member?

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Please.

Quick question.

How many breweries do you know have any sound system or that want to play music?

Breweries or wineries?

Sorry, wineries.

I looked.

I just did a little AI search.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

I found eight within 25, 50-mile radius.

Went to their website.

I was looking for keywords like music, live music, weddings.

All of them had that.

Three of them were remote locations, not near single family.

I'm not going to call them out.

And then there was five of them.

Well, four of them that it was difficult to tell, but I'm doing aerial measurements with Google Earth on where I feel the music.

and or wedding would occur.

And then I'd see a nice house across the street.

And for the most part, those four averaged anywhere between 150 and 215.

So it's very similar to this, even closer.

And then there was one in Clarksburg that was 700 feet from a single family residence.

so okay and then uh i think you probably already answered it just in case i missed this um for

those residents who have called or you guys are opening open to making a separate line for the

code enforcement to go and make sure that they're following up with the business owners correct

yeah i you know i'll get with the applicant on what number you know it's best for them

you know they they're they're very small staff this is a small mom and pop business so

So it's probably going to be the same primary and alternate for a lot of these.

And the winemaker, Chris, is going to have a plan to train his staff to do sound checks before the band even starts playing or the DJ starts playing.

Obviously, the conditions require intermittent checks during the event.

And just to check.

And, you know, it's, you know, I'm going to make the recommendation that they, you know, start out easier and, you know, don't come out of the gate running because sometimes it's hard to put that genie back in the bottle.

So, but hopefully that answered your question.

Okay.

Council Member Spees, can I ask for a clarification on your proposed change to condition of approval 23?

I know, make sure we understand what you're asking.

The condition right now says the log will be kept and be provided to the community development director upon request.

And it wasn't clear if you were saying that the logs only get kept for 60 days,

or are you suggesting that they be turned into the community development director every 60 days?

It just wasn't clear to me what you were suggesting.

I was suggesting that the applicant should maintain the logs for a period of 60 days,

and should the, you know, the community development director request for them,

then they would be accountable for 60 days of records.

So if, say, 90, 120 days, two years, use your example, the records,

they wouldn't exist anymore, presumably.

Correct.

They might not.

Correct.

Because here's the challenge.

The challenge is this from an auditor perspective, right?

If you don't determine a date or a day that it sunsets,

you could, in theory, three years down the road,

be in trouble for not maintaining

something for three years.

Yeah, I understand your point.

I just wanted to make sure I was hearing it right.

I'm just trying to make it easier. It caught my eye.

I'm not trying to make any huge waves.

And you're suggesting 60?

I'm suggesting 60 days. I think

there's another

conditional use permit

that I'll refer to later

that is at 14 days, but

I understand that 60 would make

everybody...

Ample time.

Yes.

It's ample time.

I mean, if you have a complaint, it should be, if you're not dealing with it in a timely fashion.

It should be timely.

Right.

Especially for something like this.

I wish I would have caught that, but we accept that can change the condition.

I mean, maybe they don't have an event within a certain 60-day period.

Right.

Then they wouldn't have to record anything.

Oh, I thought you meant they wouldn't keep it.

If on January 1st they have an event, they would need to keep it until 60 days.

Whatever, 60 days.

If nothing happens in that period of time, they need to retain nothing.

Got it.

Sorry.

Yeah.

It's simply an issue of audit.

If in three years someone complains and then the city goes back and says,

show me the log from whatever day,

is it reasonable to expect them to save something for three?

I'm just trying to keep it short.

That's all.

Right?

Do you have additional comments?

Yeah, it doesn't have to be for Mr. Wilson.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I'm good, Mr. Wilson.

Yeah, you can sit.

I know you got stuck here because we started off with Mr. Wilson.

Just, you know, my thoughts, you know, obviously we have a small business owner.

And by the way, Mr. Bartholomew, family's been around a long time.

As someone mentioned earlier, advocate for Elk Grove Incorporation.

So a lot of respect for you there.

small business in general I think we all want to support and but this is the

challenge right we when urban uses come adjacent to a rural area it these things

can happen so I appreciate mr. Chandler's or Chandler's comment for his family

empathize with that in the father myself it's really tough once the kids go down

for a nap. So it's you know this this is very I understand the concern that's

being raised. I did try to record on my Apple watch the decibels the speakers at

the podium just to give you an idea at the podium ranged anywhere between 53

and 66 decibels in this just in this quiet environment and so just kind of

from my own awareness to give me an idea of what 66 or 60 decibels would feel like or sound like.

But I also heard a lot of support for the business too.

So I'm trying to figure out a way to compromise and how we can do this.

I heard, like I mentioned, I heard a lot of support for the business in concept.

but there's some restrictions to the events.

However, I understand too from the business side,

you're investing in expansion, capital improvements as such.

Sometimes it's difficult to just limit events numerically.

I think you have, as a small business especially,

you need that freedom to have events.

You may not get them at all.

And so it's kind of like you, when it rains, it pours.

If you get events, you need to appreciate that because the next time could be, you know, a drought if you will.

You might not get any events.

Yeah, what you're saying.

Yeah, so it's tough to limit an event like that.

And so, but I do see in here, there is, you know, Council Member Spee's focused, I was talking about 23.

23, I'm focused on our conditional use permit 26,

which specifically states may be revoked or modified for cause

and police services may be caused for additional review

and potential modifications.

So this is not the end.

This is, you know, if this were approved,

this would be a trial.

This would be a way for the small business to work with the community residents and make sure there's minimum disturbance.

And the residents have every right to use our police services for recourse, and we can easily be back here for review and revocation.

And we've done it.

So it's not like this is not, you know, meaningless.

So I'm more relying on that because in this situation, trying to balance, again, small business owners' rights for a business that the community seems to support, even the residents who have concerns about the noise.

But also, I appreciate the business trying to work with the residents.

And I think there's been enough compromise to warrant at least a trial run to see how things, forgive my loose terms here, but pan out over time.

And again, we welcome your calls and concerns, and we can address these matters in the future.

So that's where I would stand with that.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I think to your point, hearing some of those concerns even raised tonight, I think what gives me comfort is that the city itself has objective standards to sound.

So this isn't, you know, we have our own guidelines, and it's within that parameter.

So that's, we have those protections like you just said when it comes to reviewing if the standards aren't being followed.

So we have recourse.

Council Member Brewer.

No, I definitely thank the residents for coming in tonight.

and I definitely appreciate their emails

because I have reviewed a lot of this issue

since this first came up in the fall.

And I do recall having conversations with Mr. Bender about this

and some of his stuff that he offered

were pretty fair and straightforward

that can help be a win-win for everyone involved.

And I think one of the key things that I noticed

of all of the conditions of approval,

because you have 39 overall,

which is a pretty generous undertaking

for Christopher Sellers to be amenable to all 39.

And I definitely appreciate

Council Member Speece's amendment on 23 for the 60 days.

Because that is a common sense approach.

But I'm looking at number 22, that's pretty much said,

should the sound levels at the reference position exceed 85 decibels,

the winery representative shall immediately notify the band or the DJ

to reduce the level to 85 or below, which is important

because it goes right to where the mayor has stated about the noise standards

that are already in place for the city.

throughout the city, as long as you're in Elk Grove city limits,

those standards apply.

And I think that's very helpful,

not only for the business to still maintain being successful,

but also for the peace of mind for the neighborhood adjacent to it.

It's an interesting issue in itself

because you have the number of events being increased.

So that means there will be events

taking place during the week.

Some events may be acoustic.

Most of the events I would think would be acoustic.

And if you're having a DJ,

it's going to be for a larger event.

And the management at Christopher Sellers

is really good about interacting with their vendors

and letting them know the rules of the road.

so there's no controversy, no hiccups going on during the day of those events

to make them pleasant, not for everyone involved.

And I think it's a fair approach because it's a business

no different from our other winery establishments in town

that want to stay competitive, that want to stay on par or on pace with the other ones.

that provide a similar service.

And it's something that strikes a balance

that is fair for everyone involved.

The amount of noise from the events,

that will be handled by the business itself.

But I'm hoping that as this evolves

and continues to evolve,

that the feedback and the communication

between the neighbors, between the business, continue.

Because we all want to see Christopher Sellers succeed,

and we want to see them succeed successfully,

but also responsibly as well.

So I think what we have here is a pretty fair approach,

and I'm very supportive of what we have before us tonight.

Thank you.

Council Member Spees?

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

So I've had the fortunate opportunity to do this once before with a different location,

and so first, genuinely, seriously, I want to thank the public for coming out and for

having a calm, rational conversation.

The other application was nowhere near as calm and collective as this is, and genuinely

I understand that there can be some angst in this, and so I appreciate you.

In terms of outreach, I haven't paid attention to all of it, but I know that outreach has

been done.

In the other application, there was outreach done as well, but I think you've exceeded

the outreach here.

So, to do a little bit of comparison, again, this has been done before where the sensitive

receptors were actually much closer.

It comes down to science that I don't do really well trying to explain, but the sound at the

source is not the same measurement of source at the sensitive receptors.

So if it's 85 at the source and it's 50 when it gets to the sensitive receptors, that's,

when I say sensitive receptors, I'm talking about the houses, your homes, right?

And so in the other instances, well, there was concern, but again, they were closer.

They were actually much closer.

And the key goal is making sure that you've got that 50 decibel at the property line.

So where did I want to go next?

Oh, so number 26.

So, I mean, I already talked about 23.

Number 26, that is extremely important because, you know, folks think you have a conditional use permit.

You've got a conditional use permit for life.

That's not entirely true.

You can lose a conditional permit.

And that is if you don't maintain the conditions that are laid out.

So I have every expectation that the applicant will maintain, you know, the standards that we're setting with them.

I'm glad to hear that, you know, there will be an opportunity for complaints to come in,

not just to the operator, but to the city as well.

And that's specifically why we would like to have that log.

And we're requiring that log so that we can have conversations days after the event.

I would suggest, please don't wait 61 days to make a complaint.

Make certain that if there is a complaint, that you address it as soon and quickly as possible.

So I am willing to support this.

Oh, one last thing.

Again, with the other application as well,

there were a number of residents who were concerned

about the sheer number of possible dates that could happen.

What you also have to realize is that there are constraints

that will keep the operator from ever getting to this number,

and that is the weather.

I don't know if you noticed, but it's not really cool to hang out outside right now.

So when you're freaking out or unhappy, excuse me, it's not to say freaking out.

When you're unhappy, okay, when you're unhappy about the number of events, you have to realize that that number is actually going to be much smaller simply because nobody wants to have a wedding outside in January unless you have some sort of special enjoyment of really cold weather.

So with that, I can support the application,

and I encourage the applicant to continue to be good neighbors.

If there have been infractions in the past,

please ensure that you don't have those infractions again.

And I'm certain, given the reputation of the family,

that there won't be any problems.

So thank you.

Council Member Robles.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I think a lot of the colleagues already touched on everything that concerns that I had to talk about.

I just hope that the applicant can be a good neighbor with the neighbors and hope that there can be continued dialogue, especially if there's any complaints on there.

Please do come back.

We are willing to listen.

And as they already said, so.

All right.

Thank you.

I want to thank all of the residents that came today and also those that emailed and called me.

You know, these are important decisions.

They're not easy.

And so we want to be responsive and listen.

So I appreciate everybody reaching out and offering their opinions.

I also want to just do also a shout out to Mr. Brett Bartholomew, who I reached out to, to discuss the project as well.

And he was very helpful.

You know, I think that we have a lot of the protections in place here.

What I really want to go back to is what I said when I spoke earlier when I said the city has objective standards to sound as well.

And there are sound buffers in place.

So I feel comfortable supporting this project because the wineries, I think all of us, maybe not you, Councilmember Robles,

but I know that at least the four of us have attended numerous events there.

And they're great events.

and we like to see that vibrancy in our city and we want to see more of that vibrancy in our city

and i've attended other winery events as well and i absolutely believe that the winery has the right

to be competitive with their neighboring wineries that's how you attract business that's how you

attract these events that would be a game changer for the winery and sustain for years and years to

come and be a signature business here in our city.

And what I will also say is that I really appreciate that the representative contact

would be available should issues arise.

So there's an opportunity to fix things in real time.

So we have that protection in place as well.

So with that, I just want to acknowledge the generational hard work that this family has

really been involved in our city since its inception.

I think three generations that I know of, probably four in the near future.

So I just wanted to recognize all of the hard work.

I know that the Bartholomew family loves Elk Grove and we want to see you succeed.

And we also want to, again, as a city council, we want to be responsive to our residents.

So there's opportunities for the neighbors to engage and be a part of that.

and should the noise level increase to an acceptable amount,

there are steps in place to address those.

So I want to thank everybody for coming out tonight,

and I will also lend my support to this.

So with that, we have, it's motions one and two.

So moved.

Wait.

Yes, sir.

What do we need?

Planning has an addition.

So regarding the time limit for the 60 days for condition number 23,

I also want to note that it may be appropriate to add a similar 60 day

for the log requirement and condition of approval number 25,

which also has a log requirement.

That same requirement.

Okay.

So for 23 and 25.

You move with those additions?

Move with the amendments and the suggestions offered by Council Member Spies.

Okay.

So we have a motion for one and two?

Second.

Second.

And we have a second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

All right, we will move on to our next item, please.

That takes us to our regular agenda action items, item 9.1.

Receive information on Senate Bill 802 and the revised proposal from Sacramento County

to update the homelessness and housing partnership structure and provide direction.

All right, good evening, Mayor and Council Members.

I'm Sarah Bontrager, your Housing and Public Services Manager.

Tonight, our topic is to review the SB 802 and somewhat related the revised homeless partnership

structure proposed by the County of Sacramento.

So just by way of background, there are many players in homelessness in our community.

Sacramento County plays a role in providing direct services through usually contracts with nonprofits for both shelter and a lot of behavioral health and public benefits like CalFresh and CalWorks.

works. We also have our continuum of care, which I'll talk a little bit more about in a minute.

That is managed by Sacramento Steps Forward, which is a non-profit agency and has been since 2011.

The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency is our public housing authority for all of

Sacramento County. It is a joint powers authority of the City of Sacramento and Sacramento County,

and they receive some funding for homelessness and distribute a lot of affordable housing on

behalf of the unincorporated county in the city of Sacramento. And then of course local jurisdictions

like Elk Grove and some of the city of Sacramento, Rancho Cordova, Citrus Heights, etc.

So one of the issues at play in the discussion tonight is what happens with our continuum of care.

continuum of cares have been around for a while

1994 HUD created them

they wanted to centralize the distribution of federal funds

for homelessness

they exist throughout the nation

and different states

use them in different ways

but they have some core functions

and they are always governed by a board

made up of representatives from different

sectors

always have a person with lived experience.

Sometimes they have government.

Sometimes they have elected officials.

Sometimes they are more community-based.

In Sacramento County, our Continuum of Care awards around $40 million annually in HUD funding,

and they also get state funding in the form of a HAP grant.

They run our HMIS and Coordinated Access System and conduct the point-in-time count,

which they did Monday and Tuesday this week.

So in the next few months, we should see some results from that.

In Elk Grove, what we've seen is that we've actually been able to manage our own homelessness problem fairly effectively.

We've seen homelessness increase a little bit over time according to the point in time count,

but we still have the lowest rate of any of the major cities in Sacramento County,

less than 2% of the region's population of unsheltered homeless.

So our community, as you know, as we've been having a lot of our shelter discussions, cares a lot about this issue.

And so we've created a lot of our own solutions, which has helped us to manage this problem.

And we've seen some positive impacts in our community.

And what we're hearing from our community members is they're seeing less homelessness in our city and generally happy with the direction that has happened on encampments and services.

However, regionally, we're still seeing a lot of negative sentiment around homelessness.

There's a perception that not enough is being done, especially in the city of Sacramento,

and that that is the result of a lack of coordination between government.

There's also a desire for greater accountability.

And so those things, those sentiments drove the two major proposals we saw in the last year.

One of them, Sacramento County's Structure for Homeless Governance, came before the council in its original version last September,

and then was revised based on feedback received at a joint meeting of all the cities in the county of Sacramento in October.

And then we also saw Senate Bill 802, which was introduced by Senator Ashby, and she amended it just a couple of days ago.

So I'll talk a little bit about SB 802 first.

The key elements of SB 802 are the creation of a joint powers authority that would change the Housing and Redevelopment Agency, SHRA, into the Sacramento Area Housing and Homelessness Agency, which I'm going to call SAHHA.

That SAHHA agency incorporates SSF, SAC Steps Forward, and the COC into it in a new homeless division.

And it also gives more funding and decision-making power over affordable housing and homelessness to this new agency.

Elk Grove would receive, as a part of SB 802, two seats on the board of that entity.

There were some revisions that came out earlier this week that we worked on negotiating last year but formally released this week.

They do propose language that allows us to retain our CDBG and home funding and our affordable housing impact fees, which was very important to us.

We've made a lot of progress on affordable housing, and we have a lot of projects in progress and land that we still need to develop.

One of the features of the original legislation was a change to the RENA process, the regional housing needs allocation, and actually proposed a reduction.

that has been removed from the legislation.

So the amendments did remove our most significant concerns about SB 802.

And as a result, we as staff are recommending moving to a neutral position on the bill

with the amendments that were proposed and came out this week.

There are still a lot of unknowns about how SB 802 would actually be operationalized.

we're not really sure that the funding that the agency has would be completely adequate to

implement the programs that it needs to implement we don't know what kind of city staff time would

be required to support it and there is an open question related to the legality

of requiring jurisdictions to enter into a JPA.

We also recommend remaining open to working with ASHB on future amendments to SB 802

that might offer additional clarity to some of the terms that were in the amendments

and some other elements that we know other cities are concerned about as well.

in tandem the county has proposed a revised structure for its homeless partnership

they proposed what you saw last fall in September was a new entity that would cover housing and

homelessness that they called the housing and homeless board or the SHHB that would be a brown

body, more accountability for elected officials, and the SHHB would oversee the continuum of care

and set high-level priorities and recommend local goals. This council tentatively supported it,

but noted that there was still a lot of detail that needed to be worked out on it,

And that was true. And a lot of other of our smaller cities had this had the same sense.

We went from there into the joint cities county meeting in October, which included the mayors of all of the cities, as well as several cities, Sacramento City Council members and all five board of supervisors.

At that meeting, there was a lot of discussion about homelessness and how to move forward, but no clear agreement on what we should do to move forward, particularly around this issue of governance.

The smaller cities' perspectives were pretty unified, including Elk Grove,

wanting to retain our own land use control and control over our own funding,

recognizing that in suburban jurisdictions homelessness looks different

and might need different responses than you would see across the county as a whole,

and so wanting to be able to continue to implement the things that have worked in our communities

or that we think will work best in our communities.

And also just concerns about staff time and funding.

Many of the smaller cities do not have enormous housing staffs.

And standing up this effort, you know, we'd really like more info on what would be expected.

So the county's consultant made some recommendations based on that and some follow-up

and ended up recommending that the COC board be reconstituted to include a majority of elected officials.

That would bring the leadership and the policy direction under the one board, but it requires the COC to agree.

They've had some discussions.

It's not totally clear how the COC is going to land on changing their structure.

So the consultant after the October meeting also recommended an alternative option,

which was creating a new board of just elected officials, which they called the Sacramento Housing and Homeless Board.

And then that would drive the coordination of programs between cities and the county.

That board would not have a formal relationship with the COC in that model.

This is a graphic. There's a lot going on here that the county has circulated.

What you can see here, the top row there shows the current model where the COC board and electeds are separate.

The recommended option shows the COC board and the electeds having some overlap there, and the COC board advising the board of supervisors and individual city councils on strategy and policy, but not having authority over the local jurisdictions, spending or land use decisions or anything like that.

The alternative option shows the COC board remaining separate from elected officials but creating this separate board of elected officials that would serve as advisory to the Board of Supervisors and city councils.

There also is down at the bottom a JPA option, which the county did not move forward with.

But the City of Sacramento's council, which heard this a couple of weeks ago, was interested in a JPA model.

So not necessarily the SB 802 model.

Their staff is still looking at what options would exist for them.

But there's still not clear alignment there.

Rancho Cordova heard the same set of items last night.

They did support the county's recommended option and also going neutral on SB 802.

The other cities, Citrus Heights, Folsom, Galt, we'll consider this between tomorrow night and February 10th.

So our recommendation on the county's homeless partnership structure is to support the recommended option

and staff would work with the various partners to figure out the details of what that would look like.

Staff also supports the alternative option if the recommended option is not achievable.

We know there are still some unknowns here.

We don't know what an MOU would look like.

There are still a lot of details to be worked out as there were with the September version of this.

but we feel confident in partnering with the county to make this a reality.

And so what we're looking for tonight is direction from the council

on the recommendation to go to neutral on SB 802

and to support the recommended option for the COC reconstitution

and the county's partnership model with the alternative available

if that's not achievable.

Happy to answer questions.

Thank you very much.

At this time, I will open up public comment opportunity.

We have one person signed up to speak, Michael Monaski.

Mr. Monaski.

Okay.

The bureaucracy of funding and administering homeless assistance is a big business and

a distraction from the need for solid policies of affordable housing.

There are many hundreds, not 83, homeless people in Elk Grove.

There's over 6,500 homeless in Sacramento County, according to the last point in time

study that was just done.

And it's actually in process right now.

so there's over 6,500 homeless in sacramento county which has population of 1.6 million

if you divide that the population of elk grove is more than 11 percent of that number

that means that there are over 700 homeless attributable to elk grove the elk grove police

Department drives them away. That's why they concentrate, the homeless concentrate elsewhere.

But there are many poor people who work here who cannot afford to live here

and are likely homeless elsewhere. Other than to segregate economic classes into low-rise,

landlord-run villages, the Elk Grove City Council and the city manager have no affordable housing

plan. SB 802 rearranges the deck chairs on the sinking ship of state. It's a sleight of hand

move to distract from the impotent and negligent electeds and bureaucrats.

The real money in housing is made in bank lending interest, real estate profits, and so on.

And the ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned to a great degree to the quantity of money in circulation.

And that's the principle upon which taxation was built in this country, according to the Federalist Papers.

Housing, transportation, health care, and all of our expenses are unaffordable to more than half of the U.S. population, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

So what's the answer to this dilemma of the richest country in the world, half of whose people are by any measure economically impoverished and whose lives and health are imperiled?

It's certainly not more taxes like Measure E on such people.

As it is, homelessness is a $220 million business in Sacramento County with tens of millions of those dollars spent on psychiatrists and their appurtenant businesses.

Maybe the house you live in should be made affordable, a personal untaxed property,

and maybe the real money in housing needs to pick up the tab.

Thank you.

That was, let's see, that was our final speaker on this, so I will go ahead and close public comment.

And Mr. Beerman, you have some information you want to add?

Yeah, I'd just like to make maybe a couple comments.

Obviously, this is a pretty complicated subject and one that's been a lot of discussion.

We're not unique in the Sacramento region.

I think that both SB 802 as well as the county's proposal are flawed, but there's no perfect solution to the problem, right?

I think the goals of better regional collaboration are laudable, and I think the county's proposal in particular takes a step in the right direction.

So I think from your staff's position, I think the county's proposal is one that we definitely support, the recommended option.

And I think it's far superior to SB 802.

And we would hope and love for the senator and her office to really work closely with the cities and with the county to hopefully come up with a solution that works for everybody.

The reason we're recommending kind of a support position on the county's proposal and a neutral position on SB 802 is because, again, we like the county's proposal.

We think it's a good step in the right direction, a good solution.

SB 802, as originally proposed, would have been devastating for the city of Elk Grove.

I would have taken all of our funding for affordable housing and homelessness and put it as part of a big pot with the GAPA.

We were tarred with Senator Ashby's office.

We appreciate her willingness to cooperate and collaborate with us to remove those funds from the bill.

And so the amendments that Sarah spoke of largely address our concerns.

So that's why we're willing to move towards a neutral position.

I will add that there's still a little bit of work, we think, left to be done on the bill.

Senator Ashby's office has expressed a willingness to work with us to address any remaining technical things that we think would more clearly protect our funds.

but assuming we can get the any revisions that we think are necessary we we definitely um

recommend that the council express its support to go to a neutral position as long as our funds can

be can be protected um and so i just wanted to make sure that that was that was clear we're not

quite there yet on the bill amendments but we're definitely heading in the right direction and so

um if you would uh you know vest me with the authority to make the determination that whatever

the final bill language is, if it addresses

the city's substantial concerns,

that the city would then officially change

its position from opposed to neutral.

And we're happy

to answer any questions that you have.

Excellent. Thank you. I'm actually going to

let Council Member, our Vice Mayor,

start since he was also very helpful

on this. Thank you, Mayor.

But I have

first a question, Jason, on your

comments. I appreciate the

clarification. Do we

know uh the the obviously the the senator isn't isn't agreeable to the county's proposed option

but do so do we understand why she feels compelled the need to reintroduce 802 i recall from those

conversations if the county and the city and everybody all of us here the mayor and all the

mayors if if they were um making progress that 802 would you know would not come back so i'm just

curious what conversations have happened. I think I would say there's still hope. There's still

opportunity for discussion and dialogue. There's an interest in further discussions on this. I think

the biggest thing in my understanding is that the county's proposal does not create a GPA.

And that was one of the big things that she was hoping to accomplish through that. And so,

you know, I'm not going to speak for the center specifically. There may be other areas or other

issues that she continues to have concerns over on the county's proposal, but I think that's one of the big ones.

I see. Okay. Well, I just say I agree with staff's

recommendation. If we can

ensure that all the amendments that we had talked about

and what we need to protect our city's funding

in the 802 bill, I think that

we would be fine going, in my opinion, we should be fine going from opposition

to neutral. I think the position of opposition is always there for us. I also think that

we, Elk Grove, I think as leaders, we do take a regional approach to things as much as we can,

but first and foremost, we have a fiduciary duty for our residents. We were just talking

about earlier tonight about the homeless shelter and the progress we've been making on homelessness,

and that is our responsibility first and foremost.

And so to the extent that we can maintain that autonomy,

those resources for us to take care of our residents,

again, as our fiduciary duty, we can do that

and then do what we can to help the region participating

in decision-making and, well, whatever else, I guess,

needs to happen but i think you know from a decision tree perspective our job is to take

care of our city first but we also want to be helpful to the region and so we're not

i don't think we are we we lose that aspect we just have to have our priorities in order and

And that's what this does.

If we're able to ensure the amendments to protect our residents and our resources and our decision-making,

then we can go to position in neutral and still work with the county and the other mayors.

I think Mayor St. Allen's been representing us very well in that committee,

and we can find a way to get to a, I don't know if that's called a JPA,

but I would hope effectively it would be some sort of joint powers, coordination,

whatever you want to call it, to address the issue.

So thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

And if I can also just elaborate, when I spoke to the Senator over the summer

about sort of the background and why this bill was introduced,

and she really wanted to focus on moving the needle

because prior, the city and the county, there were fractured relations.

There wasn't coordination.

There wasn't really a lot of collaboration on the issue of homelessness.

There were roadblocks.

So from that standpoint of moving the needle,

of having better collaboration and systems in place

and allowing the county to step up, which they have,

which is what was part of her goal was to see that movement.

I want to see the county be able to do this and be able to be successful in this endeavor

because that was the pre-existing sort of call to action, wanting to see movement on this.

I do believe that the county has stepped up and are trying to do that work.

and I want to see them be able to do that and be successful at it.

So I'm hoping, I mean, I'm good with being neutral,

but I am hoping that we allow the county to do their work

and allow them to be successful.

I do think that they're on the right track.

And I do appreciate the senator taking into serious consideration

the concerns that the city's had.

And you see that reflected in the amendment.

So, you know, I personally obviously would be okay going neutral, but I wanted to provide some background on, and I believe I did when I first went to this meeting, the city and county meeting.

It was a first, you know, it was a first meeting, so it was a good effort of sharing information.

But I think what was clear is that a lot of the suburbs feel like they are managing this.

just like the city of Elk Grove we have created a process and systems to address this to manage it

within our city and other cities feel like they're also moving in the right direction

and so I'm hopeful that the city of Sacramento and the county can work together and coordinate

and really address this where the numbers are outstanding they are not outstanding in the in

Elk Grove. I rely on the numbers coming from the point in time from our homeless navigators

to provide us with that data. So what I will say is I'm really hoping, I'm hopeful, I know that the

senator has called for a meeting, that she allows the county the opportunity to do their work,

because that was moving the needle forward. She introduced the bill, as originally intended, was to

bring us all together. Well, I think she's done that.

But as the bill is in its current form with the amendments,

sort of the worst parts have been removed.

So I do appreciate, and I want to also appreciate the work that you provided over the summer as well.

Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate that. And it was good. I appreciate your help

with that as well, as well as Mr. Beerman's.

And I know I see Supervisor Hume here in the audience, too.

I think, you know, Supervisor Hume's been very instrumental in moving things forward as well.

And so appreciate his work in this.

So everybody has the right intention.

I think the senator, his heart is in the right place.

I think we're all trying to solve it.

But we all, from a governance structure, we all have these responsibilities, right?

Each elected official for their city or county, county district.

and then obviously the senators in a much you know even bigger jurisdiction so everybody is

is trying to take into account what they were elected for who they were elected by and but we

all have the the topic the issue of homelessness and how do we solve it how do we make it better

for the region and so I too hope that we can continue to work you mayor and supervisor Hume

on this effort that's going forward.

In the meantime, on a parallel track,

if we can get our amendments,

we were happy to go to a position of neutral,

so we will work with the senator in that capacity as well.

And so then-

But that one outstanding concern

that we saw in the presentation

was the legality itself of the JPA.

That question, I think, would address a lot of this.

So I would love to see that addressed,

whether it's ledge council or where this is going to take place,

but the legality of the JPA is at the heart of a lot of this discussion.

If it's not, and we know that now,

then at least we can be fully supportive

and move forward with what the county is doing

and really make that successful.

That question is imperative to answer, the legality.

So I'd be curious to see when ledge council is going to weigh in on this.

well i'll defer to mr hobbs but i mean i think ledge counsel will will write what the author

desires um they may warn yeah they still have to review it with a legal opinion on this and i don't

know that you have one on this but yeah they may give the the author uh their opinion on it but

you know so i can't speak for ledge counsel obviously i don't know what their opinion is

on this but i do think there's a very serious question as to whether or not the legislature

has the power to compel local agencies to enter a new JPA.

A JPA, by its terms, is a joint powers agreement,

agreement being sort of the key principle there.

And so to be compelled to enter into an agreement

is sort of antithetical to the notion of an agreement.

But it's a little unclear.

But I think there is a very serious legal question,

mayor and council, as to whether or not they can do that.

And how does that get answered, John?

Well, ultimately, it can get answered by the courts.

Someone would perhaps pursue litigation

and seek a court declaration as to whether or not that's a valid use of the legislative power.

And so if 802 were to get approved, signed into law, went into effect,

that answer would need to be decided by the courts.

Would that bill go into effect or would it be stayed until?

So is a general proposition absent judicial intervention once laws are passed,

then they are the law.

The subject of the law is bound to comply with them.

However, a court could, in appropriate circumstances,

state the effectiveness of the law, sometimes even before the law is passed,

although that's an unusual thing for courts to do.

They usually wait for the bill to be passed before they intervene.

But if a court had serious questions about the validity or constitutionality of the law,

then the court could enjoin it pending further proceedings.

But that's all to be determined later if and when the bill is passed

and if and when litigation is filed and if and when an injunction is sought and granted.

And that's why I support staff's recommendation, because why risk our autonomy, our funds on a future court decision?

I think there's – and it works both ways.

There's incentive towards Senator.

I think Senator would like to work with us.

So we can always go to oppose if we need to.

And if it winds up in court, we'll be there.

I mean, we could be there anyway.

Has our assembly member reached out to staff and shared any thoughts on this?

Last summer.

Last summer, but not recently.

Okay.

Council Member Burr.

Thank you, Mayor.

I want to thank you and Vice Mayor soon for your leadership on this.

I know it's created a lot of activity since August of last year.

And to see the work that was being done, not only on the city's part,

but also on the county's part is definitely commendable because the mindset

from the cities is that we are doing our part to address the issue.

We all have our different ways and our different methods,

but just with my own seeing eyes and seeing what's going on here,

we're definitely doing our part.

The question that I have is having the continuum of care board being reconstituted

as the recommended option seems like it's the more appropriate way to go

because that way there's a mechanism in place

and there's actually a call to arms that both the county and the cities can adhere to

to move forward and continue to do the work,

but see how we can make further improvements and further tweaks

to address homelessness and make the issue more attainable for a solution.

The joint powers agreement, the JPA part of it,

But it's interesting because it feels like overall,

it feels like it wouldn't take place or at least wouldn't be implemented until January of 2028.

So that definitely buys some time in getting the answers that we seek as far as the JPA is concerned.

But also having someone to ask that question of legislative counsel now can definitely help too.

because it is a two-year bill,

meaning the bill's in the second house.

That means it's been sitting in the assembly for a while.

Any and all changes outside of the changes

that were made on January 26th, which was Monday,

any and all changes that are made

has to be made in the assembly.

Otherwise, when you get to come back to the Senate,

it's on concurrence of assembly amendments,

which means when the bill's back to the Senate,

the only way it could be amended

is if we can send that bill back to the assembly

for those changes, and it turns very cumbersome.

And there's a 72-hour notice that comes into play,

which makes it even more tricky because all the bills,

all the key policy really gets resolved within the last four days

of the legislative session, which ends on August 30th of this year.

So that makes the timeline even more dire.

Any and all work has to be done between now and June.

and that's why it's very important for for us to continue working continuing arm in arm to make

sure that we're doing this together but to also have the outcome that we really really need to

serve our cities and help serve the people that need it the most our homeless populations

the amendments that were adopted on monday by the way the one quick one key question that i had is

does that language definitely ensure that the dollars that we have generated through Measure E stay locally?

Because obviously those go into the general fund.

But those dollars that we have for Measure E stays here.

But the language that reads that I read earlier today that I highlighted, it was recently amended.

The bill has been recasted.

So what used to be in one section is now in another.

But the language says, the funds and fees described in paragraph one shall only be spent within the jurisdiction from which they were originally collected and for the purposes for which they were originally collected.

So that provides us some relief right there.

But if there's something additional that we really need to ensure, not only on that, but also on the block grants part, let's definitely try it.

Let's definitely get that clarity because that's going to help us at the end of the day.

I really want to commend Jason Bierman also because.

he did that midnight call with the senator

and worked out what turned out to be the seeds of the agreement

that really get us into a better place.

Cannot thank you enough for that.

But as we're moving forward,

these are the key things we have to keep in mind

and definitely stay in lockstep with the county

and Supervisor Hume and his group where they're moving

because the solution's going to be there as we work together.

And so it's very commendable of the work we're all doing,

but being leaders in that space, mayor, vice mayor,

the entire council, as long as we keep our eyes focused

on the bigger picture, I think we'll be in a good place.

We'll be in a good place.

It's just constant communication is the key on this one,

and constant communication with Senator Ashby is going to be key for us on this.

Thank you.

Councilmember Spies?

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Okay, Mr. Berman, so just something I want to clarify here,

because in the staff recommendation,

and what it said in the presentation was housing and homelessness funding sources.

That wasn't our only challenge,

and those challenges were explained in the presentation earlier.

One of those sticking points was relative to land use authority.

Is that already addressed,

or are we saying we're only concerned about funding sources?

I just want to be crystal clear on that.

All of the city's other concerns have been addressed,

so I think that the only remaining concern is related to the local funding

and making sure that it is crystal clear

that our funds are excluded from the authority of the JPA.

Okay. And so then the issue of land use authority, that's been taken care of. Okay. All right. So then, because I was, you know, willing to certainly go with staff recommendation with a modification to continue to oppose 802.

However, since I hear that that's not, that the other issues are taken care of, then I can certainly go with staff recommendation. Thank you.

Thanks.

Council Member Robles

thank you Madam Mayor I just want to thank

you and Vice Mayor Suin

for your hard work on this and Jason

as well I do know that last

summer you guys were working very

hard on this

there's never

an easy solution if there was

an easy solution to solve homelessness

it already would have been done

but thank you for advocating and working

hard

thank you so I think there's unanimous

support here and providing direction.

So we support staff recommendation.

And while we have our county representative here,

we want to thank you for also leading the efforts,

Supervisor Hume and your colleagues.

I've seen the hard work and I've talked to all of you and you are all

committed to doing this work,

to helping really move the needle on homelessness and having better

collaboration and communications.

You're all dedicated public servants.

So I want to thank you for all the work that you continue to do on this.

Madam Mayor, I'd like to get a vote from the council on this.

I think there's two points that I'd like to suggest in the motion.

One is to authorize staff to move to a neutral position on SB 802,

contingent on the bill being amended to the satisfaction of staff that it addresses our local funding concerns,

and also supporting the county's preferred option relating to the regional housing and homelessness.

So moved.

So moved what you just said.

Yeah, so moved.

Can I get a second?

Second.

All right.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Item 9.2, receive information from staff and provide direction regarding updates to the

memorandum of understanding between the city of Elk Grove and the Cosumnes Community Services

District concerning landscape, trails, and parks maintenance.

Good evening.

Once again, I'm Jeff Werner, Public Works Director for this great city of Elk Grove.

This item is to provide the city council and the community with an update about landscape maintenance services here in the city of Elk Grove,

as well as to discuss some important collaborative efforts between the city and the community services district aimed at increasing efficiency in service delivery.

so landscaping outside of parks is the focus this evening and public landscaping outside of parks

in the city of Elk Grove are primarily found in streetscapes those large swaths of landscaping

adjacent to the roadway medians the landscaping within the center of the roadway and trails

the city and the CSD each provide landscape maintenance services throughout the city

These areas are generally can be categorized into these three categories, city owned and maintained landscapes, CSD owned and maintained landscapes, and then city owned and CSD maintained landscapes, which is a primary focus of the information this evening.

There is a memorandum of understanding between the city and the district that's been in place since 2010.

Under this memorandum, the CSD provides landscape maintenance services within city owned landscaped areas.

Again, that bold, highlighted, underlined category you see there.

And it's important to note that all of these maintenance services, the primary services are provided through third-party contracts.

So it's not really city staff or CSD staff that are out there that are doing the work.

We're overseeing the contracts, making sure it's done to our standards through these third-party contracts.

this pie chart breaks down the percentage of and total number of acres maintained by each

entity so you can see here the district owns and maintains about 50 percent of these landscaped

areas throughout the city the city of Elk Grove owns and maintains 27 percent or 144 acres and

then the light or the the teal color there is the area 23 percent that's owned by the city and

maintained by the district on our behalf. Generally, this arrangement is working well,

and the landscaped areas within the city are well maintained. However, there are challenges

associated with the overlapping responsibilities. That comes in confusion and inconsistency in

service delivery standards, you know, various approaches, and these can relate and can result

in service delays and inefficiency.

I'll give you a couple of brief examples.

A call comes in.

Maybe someone's not fully familiar with this arrangement.

You can see the map.

You can see these overlapping colors

that were in the pie chart

and how we overlap with each other.

So maybe the call gets passed back and forth

a couple of times,

which can result in delays to the resident

or in the service that needs to be provided.

So staff at both agencies have been working.

We're aware of these issues

and we were working together to address these issues.

We refer to these efforts as the CLEAR initiative.

That is the Collaborative Local Efficiency Alignment Review.

It's an acronym.

These efforts are aimed at clarifying ownership,

streamlining maintenance responsibilities,

and establishing clear operational and financial accountability for these services.

The primary goal is to improve efficiency,

and we do this through aligning maintenance responsibilities

and funding with the ownership and agency core services.

The next bullets are kind of the preliminary framework

that staff have agreed to,

all subject to ongoing discussions

and ultimate approval by the council and the board.

But in general, streetscapes and medians

would be maintained by the city.

Trails would be maintained by the city,

trails outside of parks.

Parks would be maintained by the district,

which they currently do today.

Open spaces, we each have open spaces

and those would remain with each entity under this framework.

And then creeks and channels is another one that may seem obvious,

but there are overlapping ownership among our creeks and channels.

And being that there are primary drainage facilities,

those would stay with the city under this framework.

Again, this requires ongoing efforts and collaboration

to evaluate and transition the ownership and the funding accordingly over time.

This is a very complicated and nuanced ball of wax,

And so we're going to need some support, and we're going to get that from consultant professional services,

and we're getting ready to release an RFP here in February to bring on that consultant to help us identify all the assets,

identify how much the cost is to maintain those assets, and figure out how the funding should be split among the agencies,

provided we move forward under this framework.

The first step towards clarity.

So there are, oh, you haven't seen nothing yet.

There are approximately, so there is an initial first step that's being recommended by staff from both agencies.

And we intend to move forward with this, and that's another big part of what we're presenting this evening.

There are approximately 64 acres of irrigated streetscapes, meetings, and trails that are currently maintained by the district, but owned by the city.

So they maintain it on our behalf.

That's, again, those teal areas that you saw on the pie chart and on the map.

And so the intent is to transfer these areas back to the city, transfer the maintenance responsibility back to the city starting July 1, 2026.

There's a table on the next slide that shows the acreage for each area, so I'll get into that.

But the intent is really to reduce the operational overlap, provide data and insight to inform the future policy decisions under the framework that I laid out earlier, as well as provide a targeted and measured approach for the agencies to transition these responsibilities.

This would be a great first step to determine whether the costs remain neutral as they're intended to and to see how the city can handle taking on these responsibilities and then how that might impact the CSD.

Again, I want to point out that the parks are still owned and maintained by CSD,

so all the parks in Laguna Ridge will continue to be owned and maintained by the district.

This table provides a summary of the proposed adjustments to the MOU.

Currently, the district maintains about 127 acres of landscaping on the city's behalf.

The removal of the Laguna Ridge area is about 52 acres,

an acre and a half of area around the casino on promenade parkway, and then about a quarter of an

acre in the historic main street area, as well as about 11 acres of data cleanup. There's data in

our GIS and that transferred over into this amendment that we've since corrected, you know,

cleaned up assets, and that's going to result in a reduction of 11 acres so that the remaining area

maintained by the district on the city's behalf is about 62 and a half acres. So we're taking

about a little over half of what they currently maintain for us out of the MOU.

And the reason the 62 and a half will remain is because there's a lot of overlap in the

remaining areas and it just would be too complicated to try to address at this time.

So I'd rather do that through the broader effort.

In order for us to take this on, we anticipate the need for one new full-time employee, a

maintenance specialist.

This is being requested in the mid-year budget this year.

And the reason for that is so that we can bring them on board, get them trained, and be prepared to take on the service responsibilities on July 1.

The maintenance services will continue to be provided through third-party maintenance contracts.

And we don't anticipate any increased need for additional administrative or management staff.

We think we can handle it with what we currently have.

The MOU amendments are just updating the exhibits of the MOU.

They're not changing the overall framework of the MOU.

The MOU provides authority for the city manager and the general manager to make these changes,

so no approval or authority from the city council is required,

and then the changes become effective 30 days from the written agreement.

Overall, the fiscal impacts are expected to be neutral.

There are similar administrative overhead and staffing costs between the agencies,

so really this is just an efficiency play.

We're really trying to align the responsibilities and core services and ownership and funding

among the agencies. The service contract costs are expected to be similar. They are subject to

the same market conditions. So in the bidding climate and in the contracting world, we don't

expect there to be much difference. It does avoid billing and oversight between the agencies. Right

now, the district submits a budget as well as invoices to the city throughout the year. We need

to review those invoices. There's a lot of questions back and forth, so it avoids the need

for that to happen. It will still happen with the parks, but it lessens the burden. They own the

parks, so we kind of just, you know, give us your budget and we'll transfer the funding

because we received the funding. And then we, this will allow us to also track and evaluate

data that will be used to inform the ongoing discussions under the CLEAR initiative and

in hopes of aligning the maintenance responsibilities. And that concludes my presentation. Thank

you. All right. Well, thank you. At this time, I will go ahead and open up public comment

opportunity. I see

Mr. Manaski's name here. Is that from the last one?

Okay. So do we have anyone

signed up for this? I can't tell. I still

see Mr. Manaski's name. Okay. Excellent. I will go ahead and close

public comment opportunity and up

for discussion here or direction. We'll start with Council Member Robles.

Thank you for that presentation.

Ready to make the motion.

So there's actually not a motion.

There's not a motion.

It's just providing direction.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

So.

Missed that part when I was getting water.

No worries.

So this is actually kind of a big deal.

And I know that most everybody here kind of knows what it's all about and the history

with it, so I don't want to go deep into it. But what I think is great about this is that this is

a new chapter in cooperation with CSD and the city. There was a time, and what all this, you know,

the MOU from long ago came from, you know, court, you know, court battles, deep distrust between CSD

and the city back and forth. And so, you know, this is actually a very, very good thing for the

residents that most no one will care about but it really is because it's it's the rationalization

of of the of the landscape maintenance um and you know it's people ask well this park it's you know

csd they do csd still no it's actually the city and you know so we don't have that conversation

anymore we will we'll have less disagreement over funding well it's it's a much better thing so i

want to go on because I know all of you know that, but I wanted that to be on the record.

This is actually a pretty big deal. So thank you very much to the CSD.

Thank you to our public works staff and our leadership

because it's a good thing. So thanks.

Thank you. Former CSC Director Rod Brewer.

What do you have to say about this?

In some circles, I'm the sixth director.

but um no i think this this is a good this is a good approach and i thank jeff for for walking

us through what this will look like and i definitely am very appreciative of kasuma cst

being here tonight in the form of tracy ferris and mike dobson the parks superintendent and

the recreation director.

I'm very appreciative for them to be here.

It definitely helps lay down some of the parameters

on where and how we want to merge our trailways.

And so it's definitely a start in the right direction,

especially where Laguna Ridge is concerned,

because as that neighborhood continues to grow

and mold itself into the,

and become part of that greater network

of what we have for our trails and landscape network

throughout the city.

It's very important to have these elements in the MOU

to be sharpened and honed

to get us to where we need to be overall as a city.

So I want to thank you and thank Kisuma CSD

for continuing to work together to make this much better.

Vice Mayor, what say you?

I say clearly this is the right thing to do.

Clearly.

No, but really it is.

And it just, it makes more sense.

I think making sure, you know, the media is along the streets.

And I think the general public intuitively thinks it's the city's responsibility anyway.

trails in the park I think would

I think would

be CSD's responsibility

so anyway I think there is a logic

to it and I appreciate

both CSD and city staff's

hard work in putting this

concept together and carrying it out because

I do remember too that Councilmember

Spies mentioned the

antagonistic relationship between

the two agencies many moons

ago and so glad

to see that partnership continuing

and flourishing, really.

So thank you very much for all your hard work again.

Thank you.

Thank you to my colleagues.

Hello, CSD friends.

This is a great example of government efficiency.

So I like to see the cooperation.

It's fiscally neutral,

but it makes sense when it comes to our community.

So that coordination, I think, is sorely needed

and will continue.

So I appreciate that.

so that's our direction there's no formal action here so thank you keep it up

that takes us to item 9.3 receive the annual legislative update

Hi, good evening, Mayor and Council members.

So I'm Crystal Love-Lazard.

I am the city's community engagement government relations manager.

So as you know, every year we do a legislative update and recap a couple bills that we take

particular note of.

The city tracks and engages on state and federal legislation annually.

This year was no different.

There was a plethora of bills, especially at the state level, that we followed.

There were 2,833 bills introduced in 2025.

1,124 were signed into law.

And the governor vetoed 123.

So it's a lot of bills.

We will not.

It's a lot of new laws.

So we're just going to do a real quick summary, starting off with what events shaped the legislature this year.

Some of them are different and some of them are similar.

So the California wildfires, you remember last time I was here to do this, we were right in the middle of those devastating fires in Los Angeles.

That definitely played a role in the legislation that we saw come out this year.

The budget deficit continued, which is at $12 billion right now, but it did force some tradeoffs and some cuts and some deferred approvals of certain legislative bills.

National politics played a huge role in some of the things that we saw, especially in regards to climate and immigration.

And then, as was noted throughout the night, affordability and housing is a continued topic of concern on many levels.

So I'm going to present just a real quick couple of bills organized under these categories.

Okay, so up first, this is really fun.

This bill that Senator Ashby sponsored, SB 456, the need for this bill really came about when we were doing our asphalt art project.

This is the project that you see outside of Toby Johnson.

This bill exempts muralists from what were some licensing requirements.

So this we supported, and we're very happy to see that this one passed.

okay another one um that i don't think we were enforcing this but there is a new law that cities

cannot prohibit a person or an organization from providing support services to a person experiencing

homelessness this is delivering food and water and things like that i don't think we were doing

that but now it's a state law that you cannot prohibit that at the local level this was a big

deal i know a lot of you track legislative deals so you're very aware that uh cap and trade was up

for reauthorization is now called cap and invest what you see on this slide and I won't go into

great detail but was a delineation of the funding priorities in these three different tiers and so

as funding is available they will fill tier one first then move on to tiers two and three

okay this one is one that we are openly working and discussing on and you will get an update I

I think city clerks is leading the effort on this one.

But SB 707 made substantial changes to our open meeting requirements.

So this is one that does definitely affect us and that you will receive information moving forward about.

Okay, Gonsalves.

So SB 827 expands who is required to complete ethics training as a requirement.

I'd like to note that we already do what they are now mandating, which is train all directors as well as yourselves and planning commissioners.

But it does add a new fiscal piece, like a fiscal financial training requirement as well, so that's new.

Okay, you're very aware, I'm sure you saw this big change that happened while we were passing the budget.

The governor rolled in these two sequestry mining bills into the budget approval process.

So AB 609 from WICs and SB 607 from Senator Weiner are continuing what we've seen in previous legislative sessions with the CEQA streamlining in an effort to allow for more housing development more quickly, I think is their intent.

But this is a really big change from a CEQA perspective, from a land use perspective.

So obviously we are still working through all of these.

building off of that

Senator Wiener also had a transit

oriented development bill

SB 79

this requires local agencies to approve

housing projects that are within a half a mile

from certain transit stops

with basically

limited

limited

to no environmental review

so this is another

like big shift

following on the other so SB 79

Okay, AB 507 changes the approval threshold for adaptive reuse projects and adds certain impact fees exemptions.

So this is another thing in the housing space.

Continuing the theme, we have AB 670.

So this changes the reporting requirements to HCD starting in 2027.

This is another housing.

CJ's got his hands full with all of these.

Okay, one more, I promise.

Nope, two more.

Three more.

Nope.

Okay, AB 39.

So this one is one I did want to note because we are working on some of this already,

but it will require that Elk Grove adopt an electrification plan between 2027 and 2030.

And there's a lot more detail here, but this is something we'll be discussing as we move forward for sure.

We supported this bill, SB 346.

This basically allows local agencies to require short-term rental owners to report physical addresses, so it's more trackable, and we can now find those owners who fail to do so.

Okay, AB 1308 sets a timeline for residents' building construction, so it's like the residential building construction inspections.

I do want to note that, of course, the city already meets the standard.

were usually fairly quick turnaround.

This has a 10-day business day requirement, though, statewide.

Okay, that's the housing.

Sorry, it's a lot of housing.

Okay, moving on to public safety.

So there has been a lot in the media covering the usage of masks.

I'm sure you're very aware.

But SB 627, also by Senator Weiner,

this measure prohibits law enforcement from wearing any masks.

It goes into effect July 1 of this year.

There are some exceptions to that, but in general, masks on law enforcement officials will not be allowed.

Okay.

AB 645 requires that dispatchers provide pre-arrival medical instructions when needed.

So this is an improvement to enhance public safety and health while the responders are on their way.

AB 992 changes education requirements for police officers hired after January 1st, 2031.

And moving on to public works and transportation, we did support this bill.

So SB 720 establishes an alternative automated traffic enforcement program that cities can opt into.

If you remember a couple years ago, there was a policy or a pilot program that was created for a limited number of cities here in California.

This expands it so if cities choose to move into this, they can.

It is not a mandate to do so.

Okay.

AB 476 enhances copper theft reporting requirements and fines.

Copper theft is continuing to be a problem, so this enhances that penalty.

And AB 394 broadens the enhancement of penalties for battery committed to, like, a wider range of public employees.

Previously, it was a limited group of employees on transit providers.

So this covers more folks.

And unfortunately, all too often you see battery instances on public transit.

So this is meant to enhance the penalties.

That's a deterrent.

Okay.

Another big thing that happened this year, which you're very aware of,

it was the redistricting piece.

So, okay.

So we had Assembly Bill 604 that also passed very quickly through the legislature.

If you remember back to the summer, the Texas legislature redrew its congressional districts, their maps mid-cycle.

And so California leaders responded in kind, saying that they would redraw our maps.

So they passed AB 604, and that put Prop 50 on the ballot.

Prop 50 passed in November of this last year by 64%.

There were legal challenges filed.

I'm sure you're very aware.

But the three-panel judge ruled like two weeks ago, basically, that California can use the new maps.

So this doesn't significantly change things for us because Elk Grove in the old district was still in seven and we're still in the same district seven.

But the lines have changed.

And so this orange outline shows the new district maps that will be in effect until the redistricting goes into effect after the 2030 census.

so any questions wow trying to be fast no you did a great job a lot of great information and

yeah anyone have questions comments looking to the right none left none thank you thank you for

an outstanding presentation really appreciated it yeah it was great to see okay thank you

okay we've got council comments reports and future agenda items all right i'll start to the left

Councilmember Brewer, anything to report?

So last Thursday on the 22nd, Sacramento Public Library Authority Board met.

We approved of our budget audit.

Everything's nice and clean.

And also I relinquished my duties as board chair and passed them on to Sacramento City Councilmember Katie Maple.

Vice chair is now Mary Jane Lopez Taft of Citrus Heights.

And that's all that I have.

Thank you. Vice Mayor?

We had yesterday a kickoff for the 2025 blueprint for the Sacrificent Council of Governments.

Council Member Robles attended. Thank you, Council Member Robles, supporting that.

And then Seward District meeting was canceled today. That's it. Thank you.

Excellent. Council Member Spees?

I've got nothing to report today.

And Council Member Robles?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Still getting used to this side of the dais.

Just wanted to, without going too into it, I just want to say, like, you know, there's a lot of craziness going on in our nation, especially as it pertains to immigration.

And I want to say thank you to city staff for working very diligently on what we've been working on and even providing funding for the Fuel Network.

And I want to say thank you, Police Chief Bobby Davis, for what you've been doing as well.

just check in on your neighbors.

There's a lot that's happening.

Obviously what's happening in the state of Minnesota.

This goes beyond local control

of what we can do here,

but just want to put that in the forefront of our minds

as we're going on.

Thank you.

So SACRT was canceled on Monday

because of the point in time

a lot of the directors were out volunteering

and gathering data, so that took place.

And thank you to our council member Robles for your comments.

It's definitely very divisive and sad and nasty out there.

And, you know, this is the time to check in with your friends and family and your neighbors

and anyone who may feel that they are not seen.

Please make sure you see them and acknowledge them.

It's just that little bit right now, that connectedness is missing.

I did have a request from Council Member Robles for the two-by-two.

Typically, it's the mayor and vice mayor who sit on two-by-twos when it comes to the government entities,

and we treat the Wilton Rancheria as a government entity.

He asked if we would consider him staying on that two-by-two.

so that's really up you know i think if you have an issue or if anybody else please raise it now

no i don't have an issue but did do we is there a process for that or do you want to just happen

yeah or do we need is there a certain issue do you want to create an ad hoc committee for anything or

it's just the two by two it's just the two way two in general for the for wilton they meet at

very odd times throughout you know and sometimes very last minute and i know that he's worked with

the tribe for a while so he wants to stay on yeah but I don't want to keep speaking for you feel free

to chime in you said it perfectly so um what is the process on that it's fine you can do it right

now okay so without objection I don't have any objection no okay because it really was a matter

for you as the vice mayor and respect and courtesy for your role yeah thank you I appreciate that and

obviously I we love Willa Wilton love the chairman vice chairman happy to work with them but I'm

I mean, they're just as good a hands with Councilmember Roll is too.

So I'm fine.

Well, with that, thank you for that.

And we will go ahead and adjourn the meeting.

And I want to adjourn the meeting for all those lives that have been lost in Minnesota,

elsewhere in the United States and in the world.

Just the division that's out there.

Let's pray for brighter days ahead.

Thank you.

9 o'clock.