Then we will adjourn the special meeting and we will call to order the regular meeting of the Folsom City Council for Tuesday, July 8th, 2025.

Would the clerk please call the roll?

Council members Kozlowski.

Here.

Leary.

Here.

Rathel.

Here.

Rohrbaugh.

Here.

And Aquino.

Here.

And if you'd all please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands,

one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right.

Mr. City Attorney, any agenda updates?

Good evening, Madam Mayor.

We do have a revised staff report transmitter for item 16 on tonight's agenda.

A copy has been previously provided to you and they are also available on the table in the back.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, everybody.

It's great to see a full house.

I assume most of you are here for the fire department staffing item.

I do want to make sure you know that is the last item on the agenda.

So we have a little bit of business to get through first.

I'm going to guess about an hour.

So if you need to duck out and make a phone call, if you're starving and you want to get something to eat,

you have a little bit of time before we're going to get to that item.

Okay.

If you want to speak on that item or any other item on the agenda or an item that is not on the agenda,

we ask that you fill out a blue speaker card.

They're in the back table there.

Hand it to Officer Ulm and the city clerk will call you up at the appropriate time.

So that takes us to business from the floor.

This is the public's opportunity to address the council on items that are not on the agenda.

But please remember that state law prohibits us from deliberating or taking action tonight on items that are not on the agenda.

So, Madam Clerk, do we have some requests to speak?

We have five requests to speak under business from the floor.

First up is Ron Carter followed by Akshara Maripali.

All right.

If Ron and Akshara would make your way down, please.

We do allow three minutes per speaker.

I know it's not a lot of time, but please remember we have a lot of public comments scheduled for tonight.

And then we do all want to get out of here at a decent hour.

So, Mr. Carter, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I'm looking at the required department directly losing five officers.

Can you move the microphone toward your mouth, Ron?

Can you hear me now?

Yeah, we can do it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Looking at this decision or proposal, excuse me, with the fire department.

We're not talking about the firefighter item right now.

Are you talking about something else?

Or if you want to talk about that item, I'm going to call you later.

Well, I'm talking about it.

As a citizen, I'm opposed.

Am I in the wrong?

You should talk about this item when we have that item later on in the agenda.

Okay.

Then you reappear.

Okay.

Then I do have a couple of other issues.

Okay.

I'm talking about when I ran for city council some years back, we had a committee for south of 50.

I was one on that committee for reasonable decisions made on the development.

And we had originally proposed that we have two entrances out to south of 50.

We're down to one half-end.

I see this roller rink coming in over here, the sports arena.

And I wonder, I would like to know tonight, where does the alliance, where does it fall in payment for that arena?

And how it would be divvied up?

And are we just following what might be politically okay now?

In other words, I'm not necessarily sure that I'm for or against that arena.

But I need to know more information.

So I would like to propose here that I get directed to that information for that, where the funding is going to come and how it's going to be, you know, how it's going to impact the roads here in Folsom because of the very jamming up already.

Lord knows, I speak in the fire department, how would they get out there prudently and safely under these conditions?

I've seen a lot of jams.

What do you call it, jams?

Traffic jams.

So with that said, that's one thing.

What about, when are we going to address the entrance, the second entrance going into the south of 50 homes out there?

We've got approximately, what, 11,000 people living out there now?

So I think we need to clean a few things up.

I think we do.

And now I can speak later about the fire department, right?

And my concerns, which are grave.

Where do I go here?

Well, I had to stick with it.

I got injured.

It's not old age.

Thank you, counsel.

It's not always when you get to be.

I am not exactly old.

But when you get to be my age, sometimes it's hard to find an audience.

Tonight, I'm grateful for the audience.

I've got your number here, Mr. Carter.

And I will give you a call tomorrow and answer your questions.

Okay?

All right.

Next, please.

The next speaker is Akshara Marapali, followed by Glenn Hermanson.

Good evening, Akshara.

Good evening, honored council.

Today I'm here to talk about how parks make life better.

Good evening, everyone.

Let's be honest.

Sometimes we all need a break.

Kids need to burn off energy before they bounce off walls, and adults need a breather before they snap like rubber bands.

That's where parks come in.

Parks make life great because they help us stay healthy both in body and mind.

For kids, parks are more than just slides and swings.

They're launch pads for imagination, obstacle courses for growing bodies, and social hubs where friendships are born over games of tags and shared snacks.

They run, they jump, they climb, and yes, they sleep better afterwards, which means parents sleep too.

It's a win-win.

As a matter of fact, let me tell you about my own experience of how parks hugely impacted me and my family.

As a kid, I was very hyper.

And let's just say bedtime was a nightly challenge.

My parents tried everything they could, but it was my dad who cracked the code.

He started taking me to the park, which had a dog park section, and I was fascinated by the idea of dogs and loved running together with them.

So my dad came up with a simple idea.

We'd run laps around the dog park together.

It burned all of my extra energy and my dad's too.

This routine not only helped me sleep better, but it also taught me the rhythm of going early to bed and early to rise.

It became a habit that shaped my childhood and brought us closer as a family.

For adults, park offers something more precious.

Peace.

A walk under the trees can lower your stress, lift your mood, and remind you that life isn't just about emails and traffic jams.

Let's be real.

All those laps around the path can totally count as exercise, even if you're just chasing your toddler in circles.

Parks are where we move, laugh, breathe, and hit pause on chaos.

They're not just about fun.

They're about our health.

Mental health, physical health, emotional sanity, and especially if you've ever tried calming down a six-year-old toddler with a sugar rush indoors on a rainy day.

So, let's appreciate our parks because they're cheaper than therapy, more fun than a treadmill, and good for the whole neighborhood.

They're where parks are made, stress is relieved, and where community comes alive.

And finally, a big thank you to the city of Folsom for maintaining such beautiful, clean, and welcoming parks.

Your efforts truly make a difference in our lives.

Parks make life great because they make life feel like life again.

Thank you.

Thank you, Akshara.

The next speaker is Glenn Hermanson followed by Matt Wagner.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay, Matt Wagner, if you would please come to the podium.

Okay.

Okay.

So, do we start now?

Yeah.

Go ahead, Matt.

Okay.

My name is Mathias Wagner, and parks make life better.

Real quick, I just need to say that I love the zip lines at the park in my account.

Like, the zip lines, they are really nice.

And one thing that I really like about parks is there's some life there.

Like, at Kemp Park, there's tadpoles and frogs every year.

It's one time I even saw an owl.

So, I love lizards and frogs and stuff that live at parks.

And, yeah.

But, and you can have imaginary games at parks.

Yeah.

Bye.

Mathias, how old are you?

Great job.

Robin Wagner, you're up next, followed by Aksab Jaharjadar.

Hi.

My name is Robin Wagner.

I'll be telling you what I love about parks today.

I love that parks just, they help you do what you need to do.

Be who you need to be.

Parks help people when they have stress in their bodies.

They help people release.

Parks make a community what a community is.

Without parks, we wouldn't be who we are today.

So, that's why parks are so important for everyone here.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Is that it?

Okay.

Then call the next item, please.

The next item is a scheduled presentation.

Item number one, proclamation of the mayor of the city of Folsom, proclaiming July 20th through 26th, 2025, as National Zookeeper Week in the city of Folsom.

Did you bring animals with you or no?

all right this is a proclamation this is a proclamation of the mayor of the city of

Folsom proclaiming July 20th to 2026 July 20th to 26 2025 as National Zookeeper Week in the

city of Folsom did you bring animals with you or no okay okay whereas the Folsom City Zoo

sanctuary plays a key role in the city of Folsom's goals to increase tourism increase the quality of

life of our residents build community and contribute to the city's distinctive by nature

attributes and whereas zookeepers significantly contribute to the zoo sanctuary's mission statement

of teaching responsible behavior toward all animals and whereas zookeepers meet and exceed

the rigorous requirements of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the United

States Department of Agriculture and whereas zookeepers diligently care for the zoo sanctuary's

many rescued animals comprised of 40 different species all of which are animals who could not

survive in the wild and whereas zookeepers possess unique and exceptional skills enabling them to

create behavioral enrichment items for the animals and use positive reinforcement training so that

the animals may participate in their own vet care and whereas zookeepers work tirelessly to provide

outstanding veterinary care staying late and coming in early when animals are ill and require additional

treatment and whereas zookeepers continuously demonstrate their unwavering dedication including

working weekends holidays and during any type of weather and whereas zookeepers educate and inspire

youth about conservation native wildlife and guide them into careers in the animal welfare field

now therefore be it resolved that I Sarah Aquino mayor of the city of Folsom

do hereby proclaim July 20th to 2020 July 20th to 26 2025 as National Zookeeper Week in the city of Folsom

proclaimed this eighth day of July 2025.

this is our zoo director Jocelyn Svelte.

Thank you mayor I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who supports the zoo sanctuary we really appreciate it

this is Autumn and she oversees our omnivores and herbivores so for the kids in the audience those are the animals that don't eat meat

and Rocky oversees all of our birds and reptiles and some of those raptors do eat meat so they have

a very challenging job thank you both thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Your next item is item number two a proclamation of the mayor of the city of Folsom proclaiming July 2025 as parks make life better month.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome welcome.

Is it still on?

Yeah.

All right today we've got a proclamation of the mayor of city of Folsom proclaiming July 2025 as parks make life

better month.

Whereas parks and recreational activities are vitally important in providing physical and mental health and wellness through organized and self-directed activities play and fitness.

I'm not saying it near as well as those two kids earlier.

I'm not saying it.

Whereas parks and recreational activities encourage physical activities by providing space for sports, walking trails, swimming pools, and many other activities designed to promote active lifestyles and community connections.

And whereas parks increase a community's economic prosperity through increased property values, expansion of the local tax base, increased tourism, the attraction and retention of businesses.

And whereas parks sustain and preserve our natural resources by protecting habitats and open space, connecting people to nature through extensive trail networks and promoting ecological awareness and sustainability.

Now therefore be resolved that I just rate on behalf of the mayor of the mayor of the mayor of the city of Folsom do hereby proclaim July 2025 as parks make life better month.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, I'm going to start over to you for a few words, Matt.

Sure.

I am under no illusions as to why everybody's here tonight and it is not to hear from me.

So I will simply say thank you so much.

And parks really do make life better.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, Akshav, you can come to the podium.

Hi, my name is Akshav Jahagilar,

and I'm a youth director with the Friends of Folsom Parkways.

Tonight, I'm joined by one other board member, Glenn Hermanson,

who is the committee director for the Adopt-A-Trail program, standing over there.

So, the Friends of Folsom Parkways is a nonprofit organization

that advocates for open spaces, trails, and parks within the city of Folsom.

We appreciate the proclamation and the recognition that parks and trails

add to the quality of life for the citizens of Folsom.

The Friends of Folsom Parkways is currently involved in many projects.

First, reducing fire fuel is our biggest project at the moment.

We hold three events per month where volunteers trim low-hanging branches

and remove underbrush along the trails.

We are also removing invasive, non-native plant species from our open spaces.

Our current target is the Tree of Heaven,

which, if unchecked, will take over an area and eliminate oak trees

and other native trees to Folsom.

For over a year, we've also been coordinating the Adopt-A-Trail program,

and we have dedicated over 1,500 hours of volunteer time

to these improvements on the trail and keeping our trails litter-free.

With nearly all trail segments adopted,

we have now shifted our focus to finding financial sponsors

for the new trail segments.

We are just starting a trail marking project

where we will be re-stenciling the walk-left and ride-right stencils

throughout the trail systems in Folsom.

The project that I've been most involved with is a project with Eco Explorers

where we get a group of over 20 volunteers, students of all ages,

they water trees at Handy Family Park, Briggs Ranch, and Lions Park.

This was done with the help of previous City Council member, YKHLM-Charlotte.

All of our projects require assistance from City staff.

For example, a city crew's chips and removes the fire fuel cuttings we collect.

We are very thankful for this assistance

and want to specifically thank Chris O'Keefe, Nick Coleman,

Brett Bollinger, and Amy Nunez.

Thanks again for recognizing the importance of parks and trails in the city.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay.

Did we get all you?

Okay.

All right, folks, we do have, if you're standing in the back,

if you want to sit, I think we have a few extra seats now

that some of the parks and parks folks left.

You're welcome to take those.

Otherwise, we will move on to our consent calendar.

Is there any item that anybody wants to pull?

There are no requests to speak under the consent calendar.

Okay.

What about my colleagues?

I wanted to pull item 11.

Item 11.

Okay.

So we'll pull that one, and then I'll entertain a motion for the rest.

I will move that we approve the consent calendar absent item 11.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Kozlowski.

Yes.

Leary.

Yes.

Rathel.

Yes.

Rohrbaugh.

Yes.

And Aquino.

Yes.

Item number 11.

Item 11 is resolution number 11421,

a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement

with Kim Lee Horn and Associates, Inc.

for design consulting services for $242,580

from the Light Rail Impact Fee Fund

for the traffic signal timing and logistics statements

for Light Rail Preemption Project,

project number 8084, and appropriation of funds.

All right.

Council Member Leary, you have questions for Mr. Bosch?

Yeah, I really appreciate you coming in tonight

and answering my email yesterday.

I'm glad to see this project moving forward.

A couple of months ago, there were another fair number of complaints

that were sent to me personally and posted on Facebook

about a dysfunction between the alignment of the lights

and the light rail arms.

Sometimes the arms were up when they should have been down.

Sometimes they stayed down.

It didn't come up.

So we had a discussion at that time.

And I just wanted to know if you can kind of let us know how this is going to proceed.

This is basically a study to coordinate those.

And then you will get the results in, I'm not sure what the time frame is.

I think you may be able to tell us about that.

And then kind of how the work is going to proceed from there.

Because I think this is critical, you know, and may eliminate some safety issues.

Plus a lot of complaints have two of these intersections in my district.

So I may hear about them more than others.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Council Member Larry.

Zach Bosch, Public Works Senior Civil Engineer.

Happy to answer all your questions.

There was a few there.

So just remind me if I get off track here.

But you are correct.

There were a number of operational issues as well as technical issues that RT has resolved since we've had those issues with the arms staying down for multiple hours at a time.

That was a result of a crimped wire they had in their system.

That has been resolved.

There has been operational changes to deal with the trains crossing at intersections when arms are raised.

They've indicated to their drivers and their operators that that is no longer acceptable.

So they must wait for arms to come down at all light rail crossing stations.

So that is an operational fix that they proceeded with.

You are correct that this project here, this light rail preemption signal timing project on Folsom Boulevard,

will address some of those coordination issues between our traffic signals and light rail preemption system.

It's a complicated system where they have priority to preempt our traffic signals.

We have a bit of advance notice when we know those trains are coming into town.

Just enough time to restrict pedestrian movements to get them safely across the street.

This project will help us anticipate the train coming down Folsom Boulevard further ahead of time so that we can anticipate those changes that the traffic signal needs to accommodate.

Those light rail trains coming through.

And tell that information further down the line to additional traffic signal controllers to anticipate a train coming.

So again, we can manipulate and shift traffic signal timings to increase pedestrian, bicycle safety, motorist safety, all aspects of that.

We anticipate their schedule as they propose to be about 8 to 12 months long.

A lot of the safety assessments will be from the first items that they take under task.

So they'll be doing a full signage and striping assessment along Folsom Boulevard to recommend improvements for safety.

They'll then be going to more of a data collection effort and a simulation part of their project.

And then they'll propose adjustments to our traffic signal timing and some of our logic statements in our traffic signal controllers.

Okay.

Thank you for covering all of that material.

I know it's a complex problem, but I'm glad it's finally being addressed and that we'll see a lot of improvements along that corridor in the future.

We're very excited about this.

A very technologically advanced project.

Thanks for getting those things fixed in the interim.

I think that people have generally been either calling a phone number that's posted by the traffic signal arms, which you can't see unless you park and get out of your car.

But who is the person that they should contact when there's issues at those?

Definitely.

RT dispatch is the best point of contact for that.

Anytime there's an arm-related issue or a signal, not a signal-related issue, that's us, but a light rail flashing arm issue, they're the only people that are allowed to work on their system, so they have to be dispatched out to the site.

If it's a traffic signal-related issue, you can contact us through our C-Click Fix app.

Or we've been working with our non-emergency dispatch to get our on-call technician sent out to the site if it's a signal-related issue.

And do you happen to know the RT dispatch off the top of your head?

No, I'm sorry, yeah.

That's the easiest way to find that.

Contact me directly after this.

I can get you that information.

I have it at my desk.

I just don't have it off the top of my head.

Great.

I'll post it on our neighborhood communication pages.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right, I'll move resolution number 11421.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Kozlowski.

Yes.

Leary.

Yes.

Rathel.

Yes.

Rorbaugh.

Yes.

And Aquino.

Yes.

Next item, please.

Next is your first public hearing item, resolution number 11425, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Folsom,

approving and confirming the report of delinquent utilities charges

and requesting Sacramento County to collect such charges on the tax roll.

Good evening.

Thank you.

Mayor, council members, I'm Elizabeth Hanna, Revenue Services Manager.

So before you is resolution 11425, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Folsom,

approving and confirming the report of delinquent utility charges and requesting Sacramento County to collect such charges on the tax roll.

So this report you're approving tonight includes 225 active accounts for a total of $239,748.

This is our annual process to transfer our delinquent utilities, which are 60 days or more past due, with balances of $100 or more owing.

So with this item, I'm recommending that you adopt this resolution, requesting the county auditor to transfer these delinquent amounts to the property tax roll for collection.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Any questions for Liz?

None.

All right.

Then we'll open the public hearing.

Do we have any requests to speak?

There are no requests to speak on this item.

Then we will close the public hearing and I'll entertain a motion.

I'll move resolution number 11425.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Kozlowski.

Yes.

Leary.

Yes.

Rathel.

Yes.

Rorbaugh.

Yes.

And Aquino.

And Madam Mayor, just to clarify, that includes the updated and revised chart attached to the resolution.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Okay.

Next item, please.

You do not need to read the name of all those districts.

Okay.

Next is item number 17, resolution number 11431, a resolution approving the final engineer's report,

confirming the diagrams and assessments and ordering the continued levying of assessments for maintenance and servicing of improvements within the districts listed in the agenda for fiscal year 2025 and 2026.

Good evening, Derek.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the council.

I'm Derek Perez, municipal landscape services manager for the Parks and Recreation Department.

I'll be presenting information regarding the L&L district's final engineer's report.

This report incorporates all 30 L&L districts into a single report.

Let's see.

Staff recommends the city council adopt resolution number 11431.

I'm not going to read off all the rest of it there.

So far to date, the city has completed two steps out of the three-step process for the annual engineer's report.

Step three is approving the final engineer's report and holding a public hearing, which we're doing here tonight.

The graphic here shows a location of all 30 L&Ls here in Folsom.

All L&Ls were created pursuant to the L&L Act of 1972 and the California Constitution.

The districts within the city vary in size from 10 to 2,300 units.

The majority of the districts in Folsom were formed prior to Prop 218 in 1996 and therefore do not have any escalators built into account for the increases in costs over time.

Here we have a list of all 30 L&L districts within the city of Folsom.

At the June 10, 2025, city council meeting, council recommended to incorporate three updates to the preliminary engineer's report to be added for the final engineer's report.

The reserve fund balance chart has been incorporated in the staff report and engineer's report.

The purpose of the reserve fund balance chart is to show the current financial position of the districts based on annual operating costs and assessment revenue projections.

Item A here includes estimated reserves through December 31st, 2025.

These funds provide services on December 31st, 2025 prior to the next collection the city will receive.

B includes installment costs reserved fiscal year 2025 to 2026.

These funds provide short and long-term and previously collected funds towards maintenance and improvement plan for each district.

C includes estimated reserve fund balance, June 30th, 2026.

These include the projected position for each district including all revenues, expenses, and all reserves collected.

The Tomah Station L&L here, bullet number two, L&L District, budget's annual assessment amount to be levied did not change with the budget adjustment,

a fixed amount that is significantly below the amount needed to fund annual operating costs.

However, the operating budget was updated to reflect the actual landscape services budget,

which is reported to historic levels for fiscal year 25-26, as well as an update to the budget line item for contract services

to better align with the upcoming Prop 218 assessment proceedings.

The next slide is, please, is acknowledged that several districts are running an annual deficit.

This is due to rising costs over the years and assessment rates that have remained fixed and no longer support the annual operating costs.

Prop 218 assessment proceedings will be considered for these underfunded districts,

and the underfunded amounts currently covered by the city's pooled cash account will be repaid by the district

as part of the new reassessments annual operating costs.

Staff recommends the city council adopt resolution number 11431, and this concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any questions for Derek?

Councilmember Leary?

Thank you, Derek, for the presentation.

I appreciate the staff's consideration and City Manager Whitemire's recommendation for this 15-year repayment.

I think that shows the community that the city is going above and beyond trying to help us get through this difficult second vote.

I have one question, and that is if the changes in the benefit assessment values for each home will be calculated differently this time.

There had previously been a calculation whereby certain homes were considered to have more benefits than others,

for example, a street light in the front of the house or a larger lot or closer to a park,

and that created a lot of confusion.

Even though the differences weren't a significant amount of money, just seeing each one evaluated differently was confusing for people.

And I know that there was an effort being made to address that with the upcoming reevaluation and ballot measure.

So is there an answer for that from you?

Yeah.

I mean, I'd be happy to answer that.

So we're looking at a modified, kind of a more uniform approach for identifying the benefit.

We've worked with folks at MBS, and so they're coming back with a revised proposal related to that.

But it should look different than what was presented previously.

Thank you.

And I'm guessing that that's going to apply to the other districts that will soon be coming up to go through this process as well.

All of them are different.

And so, but we're going to try to avoid kind of the complexities of it.

I think people understand a little more clearly that, hey, my parcel and a uniform cost per parcel is easier to identify than the complexities.

Like, for example, one of the things that was shared is if you were closer to a streetlight, you had a higher level assessment.

And so I could make the argument that depending on your perspective, some people don't like the streetlight by their house.

So is it really an additional benefit?

So it's more taking into the benefit of the entire lighting system that is uniformly applied to all the parcels as opposed to a special way.

Thank you.

I'm a person with a streetlight.

I don't mind sharing.

So thank you very much for all the work you've all been doing on this.

Council Member Warbaugh, any questions?

To my right, any questions?

Okay, then we will open the public hearing.

Are there any requests to speak?

Madam Clerk?

There are no requests to speak on this item.

Okay, then we will close the public hearing and I'll entertain a motion.

I'll move approval of resolution number 11431.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Please call the roll.

Council Members Kozlowski?

Yes.

Leary?

Yes.

Rathel?

Yes.

Rorbaugh?

Yes.

And Aquino?

Yes.

Next item, please.

Next item is old business number 18, resolution number 11387, a resolution amending resolution number 8792,

with the adoption of an updated community facility rental fee schedule with the implementation of a rental fee schedule on October 1st, 2025,

and authorizing staff to increase fees up to a maximum of 10% annually until equal to the comparable rates in the region and as the market allows.

Continued from May 27, 2021.

As some of you know, we offer a range of indoor and outdoor facilities for our residents and for the visitors to rent for family gatherings and other events.

Recommendation for Mhm

And how conditions will need we mainly for now.

mentioned to you before the previous resolution that we speak of was done

back in February of 2011 since then no other resolutions have been brought

forward and there are fees that have been done at the programming level

within the department that have not been resolved by fees and that's also why

we're here tonight to resolve those fees for those facility usages here are two

municipal codes that state what we need to do and how we need to go about doing

that what we did after our last conversation is we went back looked at

a couple different things took in the points that were made by the council and

we looked at doing a peak and a non-peak of use for our community indoor

facilities so on this slide you'll see our community center ballroom and our

half ballrooms we have a current rate that is all the same regardless of which

day during the week you use we are now proposing that during our peak times of

Friday and Saturday that that rate would be $30 more than what a previous previously

is and then you'll see that it fluctuates downward $75 discount for our residents

and then downward to $140 for our nonprofit use and then on the non-peak days

adjusting that to stay the same as our current rates are during our non-peak days

to increase activation and usage in that ballroom the same thing with our half

ballrooms those are the same spaces so if we get a ballroom you know obviously we

can't rent out the half ballrooms and if we get a half ballroom we can't rent out the full ballroom

so we're utilizing it throughout the day as best we can we are adding a one-time fee of $480 if

you'd like to add on the kitchen and then some folks also whether using the ballroom or maybe

the East ballroom will also have the option to include a one-time fee of $240 to add on the RG

Smith room which is often used for some events this slide has the RG Smith room there for those that want to use that

primarily there's a lot of meetings that take place in there it is used for also some programming elements

either through our department or some other folks that we work with you'll see the current list rates

there in black moving to a proposed list rate with a $15 increase for the peak time for our list and

then a $10 resident rate discount and then you see the non-peak there being $10 fewer or less for those same hours of operation

Rotary Clubhouse which we did have a lengthy discussion on it the last time we re-looked at that methodology and

looked at what was going on there spoke to a number of our nonprofit organization and users that are out there

letting them know that we were talking about this got some feedback from them so we looked at increasing just a

little bit of that list rate for the peak time again $14 increase reducing that by $20 for our residents and then down to $42 for our nonprofit groups and then down to $42 for our nonprofit groups and then down to $42 for our nonprofit groups and then down to $42 for our nonprofit groups and then down to $42 for our

and then down to $42 for our nonprofit groups to use that during the peak time it should be noted that the Rotary Clubhouse for our nonprofit has a 91% use race during the week with only 9% of usage during the peak times those Friday Saturday where a lot of resident and other list folks use the Rotary Clubhouse for various events so we felt confident and comfortable moving to this way and so far the nonprofits we have spoken to feel good about that as well.

Can you repeat that about the Rotary Clubhouse? I apologize.

Which part?

There is not as much use on the weekend?

No, there is use on the weekend. What I was saying is that our nonprofit organizations utilize the Rotary Clubhouse 91% of the time during the non-peak times and then 9% only on the weekends or Friday, Saturday.

So the choice to move to a peak and non-peak.

We looked at some other areas. We listened to feedback.

We felt this was material to help maximize our activation and to work with our community in the best way possible.

You'll see within non-peak to peak rental, those ranges could be anywhere from $5 to $35 in changes depending upon what type of rate we're talking about, a list, a resident, or a nonprofit, and then the type of facility that they're looking to rent.

So a nominal increase compared to the first time that we came here tonight.

Provide those organizations and businesses to have a meeting room space during the week and to utilize the community facilities.

It provides no increase to rental rates during non-peak times for any of the ballroom use.

So you saw that those fees remain the same as what we currently are.

Again, the resolution would give the ability for staff to adjust those rates upwards of no more than 10% on an annual basis if we needed to look at that based upon how our activation is going.

And as I mentioned before, we did have an opportunity to speak to various nonprofit organizations about their use and what our proposal was before coming to you this evening.

So with that, I'll turn it over with any questions regarding this matter.

Thank you very much.

To my right, any questions?

I got a couple here.

Just one clarification.

The staff report indicated that if the annual increase was more or less than the 10%, it would come back to council.

But the resolution I read it is we want to give you guys the flexibility to adjust up to 10% annually.

So I just want to make that clarification because it was a little confusing in the staff report.

What you're looking for is up to 10% annually and having that authority without having to come back to us.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

So up to 10% annually, yes.

Okay.

Perfect.

And then the other sentence that was in the staff report, which I'm not sure was in the previous one.

I didn't go back and check, but I saw it.

It was a little surprising.

It says, the cost will not exceed the actual cost of the services.

And I know we're held to this standard in some cases, but are we held to this standard when we're providing a service like an event space?

Can we not charge and make money off of an event space?

Mr. Vice Mayor, maybe I should address that question.

That's an excellent question.

So the answer is yes and no.

Typically, as you know, for typical public services, we are bound by the rule that we do not charge more than the reasonable cost of providing the service.

It's not a science.

It's not an exact number.

It's just a reasonableness of the cost.

But if we're in a marketplace, we can charge market rate.

And it's up to the council to decide what that balance is if we're in a marketplace such as this.

So that indication was more about cost recovery in parks and rec than it was a legal directive to parks and rec to not charge more.

It's a policy call, correct.

Okay, perfect.

I do have one other question.

And I know parks and rec had made a suggestion about providing some flexibility.

I understand when you guys look at the usage right now and all the indoor facilities, the usage is heavily weighted toward the weekends.

And so me with my small business hat on, I do appreciate you guys are holding the rates steady for that during the week.

But was parks and rec really indicating to give you guys some flexibility to fill those lower occupancy times?

And so you'd have kind of a variable rate.

I was like, hey, you know, Wednesdays in October are really hard to fill.

And so we have the flexibility to drop that rate away from the published rate in order to get it booked, right?

Because I'd love to fill the facility.

I'd love for you guys to handle the details and be able to make some of that call as far as how's the best way to fill the facility as much as possible.

And say, hey, here's our target, right?

Whether that be an occupancy rate or, hey, let's increase the revenue on it so we have more money to spend on other services.

So can you talk a little bit about that parks and rec recommendation and how that flexibility would look?

I can speak on that.

So Vice Mayor Raythal, it is my recommendation that we do allow staff as much flexibility.

So if we are able to do increase or decrease, that's something that we would look at annually.

It does take us about a year in advance because the facilities are booked approximately a year in advance.

So having that flexibility for staff allows us to take a look at that market rate and then come to City Council annually to report out what we've done.

So I would appreciate that flexibility.

And I'm really, I guess I'm not talking about like the annual adjustment here.

What I'm looking at is, hey, we normally have this facility booked out a year.

We don't have it booked for next October 15 of the days during the week.

And so does it make sense instead of charging $2.60 an hour, does it make sense to charge $200 an hour or $1.50 an hour?

Because that would be what I would do in my small business.

I'm not looking a year out, right?

I'm looking at how do I fill my event space up during my slow times.

And so having just like one set rate that we look at annually, to me, doesn't seem like a very efficient way.

And having to come back to us doesn't seem like a very efficient way to maximize the revenue that we get off of this community asset.

Would you guys be open to more flexibility?

And I'll have to talk to my colleagues too.

Would you guys be open to more flexibility?

Do you get that sort of data to where you could say, hey, November is always tough to fill.

But, hey, Christmas weekend, we should be charging 20% more.

I don't know if Christmas weekend is a popular weekend at the community center.

Probably not.

Probably off there.

But you guys would have that data.

And you'd be able to say, hey, we always have so many people interested on these weekends.

And so we should actually be charging 20% above the published rate.

I'm not saying we give you guys like 100% latitude.

But maybe we give you some latitude to maximize the revenue of the facility.

Or is that too market rate?

Like, hey, this is way beyond our capabilities.

That's an event space.

We can't handle that.

I'll answer that.

And so Vice Mayor Raythal, I would support that and take a look at that.

That's something we can evaluate more internally.

But having that ability does make us moving in the right direction as a business operation.

Thank you.

Council Member Kozlowski, any questions?

No.

Thank you.

Okay.

Council Member Warbaugh?

Yeah.

I have a question about the ballroom, either half or full.

Do you know how many during the peak?

Sorry, I didn't send this before.

But thank you for answering the questions I did send.

Do you know how many during the peak hours, how many slots the nonprofits are using versus regular?

Or?

So when we look at usage of the facility, we look at it as a day.

Right.

So if your family books it for the day, then that's a use of the day, right?

Mm-hmm.

So you're asking of the ballroom during peak times?

Yes.

What nonprofits are using it for?

How much?

How many of them?

And here's why I'm asking.

Because if that is, if the ballroom is fairly booked during peak times, is what I've been hearing, right?

Is that true?

So in a look back going from May of 24 to April of 25, the ballroom during that period, 92 events were held by residents on the weekend.

Okay.

Another 41 by list rate folks.

And 18 of those were nonprofit organizations.

Okay.

So my reasoning was if the nonprofits are taking up all those peak times for our residents and regular paying clients, then maybe we need to adjust that a little bit.

But 18 out of 130, I think, would be 132 or something.

Right, like 151 or something like that.

Yes.

Yeah.

So no, it is more resident list heavy on those peak times of Friday, Saturday versus the nonprofit.

Okay.

And that actually helps answer my next question would be is if that rate was, maybe it doesn't answer it, is wide enough between like the full ballroom at 290 versus for peak, 290 an hour for peak versus 260 for non-peak.

That's not a huge incentive.

That's not a huge incentive for someone to go, you know, have an event on Wednesday night versus Saturday night.

And so, but I think that kind of helped answer that question.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And I think you're kind of getting at the same point I am.

I don't know if that's wide enough, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But if we give them some flexibility to say, hey, $30 isn't a wide enough change, you know, maybe they can look in three months or six months about widening that, right?

If we give them some flexibility on either side of those rates to drive more of the business to the non-peak times.

Because I think that's what we're, that's what I look, when I look at the data and I've looked through the monthly schedule, not necessarily like getting into the analytics of it, but I look at the monthly schedule and we could use more bookings during the week, during our non-peak times.

And we're doing really well on our peak times, so I'm fully supportive of raising rates for those peak times and doing what we can to increase occupancy during the non-peak times.

Councilmember Leary, any questions?

Yeah, I have a few questions.

And I was actually surprised to see the significant change by dropping some of these fees since what we looked at last month.

And the reason I'm bringing that up is because we had a presentation that showed that all rates are significantly lower than similar facilities throughout this region.

And I think that the council hasn't raised these since 2011, thinking that having lower fees was going to encourage people to use our facilities.

But it's also left us in the position where our facilities haven't been upgraded as well as they could have been because of loss of income.

So there's got to be a better way to sort this out.

I understand the other council members and Vice Mayor Rathal's concerns about flexibility, and I think that's a good idea.

But I don't think that it would be a huge jump to, at least on these days, the Sunday through Thursday days, at least increase the fees somewhere between 3% and 5%.

And, you know, I think that, you know, we definitely need to work on cleaning up these facilities.

And if we don't have the income to do that, it's not going to happen, and we're going to keep digging ourselves into the hole.

That's been going on for 14 years.

And we haven't even been close to catching up with the CPI.

If we had added all those dollars up between 14 years ago and now, I think it would have been a significant amount of money.

So I don't know if you have that slide available from last month where it showed the comparison with other facilities in our region.

It wasn't part of the pack at this time because we'd seen it previously, but I think it's something that needs to be reevaluated.

So I like the idea of giving staff the flexibility to increase the amount up to 10% annually as deemed necessary because we're so far behind.

And I like the idea of this being flexible.

I am not sure if anyone else on the council has the same sentiment as I do, but, you know, we keep being faced with budget problems.

And part of the problem is that we're not asking for reimbursement for services that we're providing.

And I don't think we're at the breaking point for people's budgets to inch these up a little bit more,

and particularly the 0% increases for the Sunday through Thursday uses.

So something I can add, Council Member Leary, you bring up a lot of good points.

If the council so chooses, we could increase that flexibility instead of 10% up to 20%,

which is more in line with the original recommendation and allows us to go back and make those adjustments as needed annually.

So instead of the 10%, maybe looking at that flexibility up to 20%, which was more in line with our original recommendation.

And do you have any calculations that show how long that would be to catch up or at least be on some kind of parity with similar facilities in the region?

I'm going to defer to Tom on that question if he has that information.

Based upon the previous presentation and the information that we provided as far as looking at other facilities,

you know, then we took those facilities and we kind of grouped them in to get an average.

The rates that we were proposing were still a little bit beneath that average.

But also we need to look at what they're providing versus what we provide, you know, type of facility, amenities they have.

You know, we're going to work towards improving our amenities at the community center and the Rotary Clubhouse.

We've got some other ideas on some minor projects and enhancements for beautification of the community center on the interior a little bit.

So those are all good things that enhance the quality of somebody wanting to choose that place.

Also working with staff to outreach more on letting folks know the residents and the business partners and organizations that we have this space that is available.

But as Director Gonzalez mentioned, you know, the flexibility to adjust this at our level is going to be very helpful.

But please keep in mind that, you know, everybody that books with us does book significantly far out in advance.

So even if we are approved tonight, October 1st, we're not going to see any of this stuff really hitting for another good year because they're going to lock in their rates now through October at the current rates.

And then it's going to start to adjust.

But we don't have a lot of vacancy in these peak times over the course of October, November, December, January, February and March because a lot of people are already booking those things.

So it's going to take some time, which is why once we get this, we have some flexibility, we can evaluate.

And, yes, we can go to increase maybe something in the next calendar year.

But we also want to be mindful that we're not doing it too regularly as far as an increase.

And we're making sure that we're doing it methodologically.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's fair and to give everybody fair warning.

But, you know, like my concern is we're not being able to keep our facilities up to the standards that people maybe are finding in other communities.

The other thing, well, the other question I had was it looks like the percentage discount is pretty standard for all of the facilities except that the Rotary Clubhouse has a larger discount by over 10% above most of the other ones.

And I'm not sure why that's occurring.

I know it's a nice facility and people like to use it.

Is there a reason that that one isn't on the same scale as the rest?

And where are you referencing?

This is page three of the staff report.

Okay.

So page three of table A is showing the percentage discounts from the list rate to the nonprofit rate for the various indoor facilities that we're talking about.

So you mentioned the Rotary Clubhouse, which shows a 63 and a 64% percentage discount for the nonprofits.

Is that correct?

Correct.

And the other one, community center is 52%.

You know, the half ballroom's 48%.

You know, everything here is in between 48% and 52%.

We felt, staff felt good moving it to where we are here, knowing that if we have the flexibility to adjust with a 10% or some percentage there, that because they were already at a rate very low in the market, let's gradually look to increase that over a said period of time versus a one-time kind of BAM.

And that was the discussions that I had with some of those nonprofit organizations utilizing that facility where they got on board with understanding like, hey, over time, we totally see the sequence coming forward versus, hey, if you do this one time, that's going to be a pretty big impact to us and to many of our nonprofit organizations that use that facility during that non-peak time during the week when there's meetings and organizations they're doing.

Know that we work with them.

We generally lock them into 12 months of usage.

And we've also told them that if this becomes more of a hardship that we need to sit down and we can figure out some other ideas as well.

But we felt good knowing that if we have that flexibility to adjust, we can establish this, get through a year, and then look to adjust it again, and then systematically and incrementally work with them to do an adjustment to that.

So I guess I would still want to push for like a 5% increase on those non-peak times.

In addition to the rate increase we have now?

Well, the percent change, it shows 0% Sunday through Thursday for the community center ballroom, the east room, and the west room.

Sorry.

On page.

I was referring to the Rotary Clubhouse as far as what you just said.

Yes.

So we did do an increase there, but we kept the ballroom non-peak times consistent, or sorry, rates as what we have currently.

Knowing that we would get an adjustment or hopefully get an adjustment, then we can evaluate and start to move that index forward.

And then the other question I had is, I'm not sure if you've looked at advertising or putting more information on the website about the various sites.

I've used the Curtis Park Community Organization rental spaces that are in an old school on 21st Street in Sacramento, but they have a website that shows the inside of each room.

It describes how many chairs or tables or whatever you can do in there and whether there are, you know, there's like a little mini kitchen or a full kitchen.

Because I'm not sure that a lot of community members or even people outside of our community are aware of, you know, what we have here.

Yes, we've been capturing imagery over the last few months on those various indoor facilities, but also waiting to get where we stand on this in order to enhance that webpage so we can start to let people know where to find that information and how accessible it is.

And then what are some of the amenities you'll find at these facilities?

Okay. And is there any kind of a budget for doing some, not a lot of advertising, but somehow getting the word out, you know, in local publications or whatever?

Yeah, I think using what the city has available.

And then I think also working with, I generally meet with Sally Buchanan with the Chamber of Commerce and working with them perhaps to extend that out to various organizations and businesses to know that we have these facilities that can accommodate meetings or small events.

Maybe do a little write-up for the Telegraph or one of the other publications.

I think that's all my questions for now.

I, again, would like to see the motion amended to include an increase on the non-peak times for the community center.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Madam Clerk, any requests to speak on this item?

There are no requests to speak on this item.

All right. Then in order to focus this discussion, I'm going to ask for a motion.

I'll be happy to make a motion.

I do want to make one quick comment to Commissioner Leary.

The reason I kind of push back against the community center increases during the non-peak hours is because it's empty a lot of the time.

I think we are going to actually make less revenue than if we were to increase that occupancy during the week.

I think if you lower the price, you actually go out and start marketing this facility at a lower price, you're going to do better.

So that's why I kind of push back on those rates.

I have no pushback on the peak rates because we're full.

So that's where kind of the business side of things is coming from on my end.

So just wanted to explain that before I am going to move resolution number 11387 with the amendment giving parks and rec staff the ability to increase or decrease rates by up to 20% from the published rate in order to maximize revenue from our indoor community facilities.

Do we have a second?

I'll second that.

All right. Any other discussions?

Yes. Tom, next time, I think this is going to get reevaluated and going to come to us next year.

But when you do your data on how the percentage rates, could you, if there's like three times during a day that someone can rent the ballroom or two times, right, is kind of what I've been hearing.

There's more than one.

You don't just rent it for the entire day, right?

Lou Howard Park, you can rent it in the morning.

You can rent it in the evening.

So whatever slots are available, then can you report to us how many of those slots are filled?

So we don't get 136% occupancy rate.

We get a more accurate.

There's 1,000 slots for all of our amenities throughout the year.

Yeah.

And we fill 750 and this many drinks, just so it's a little bit easier to understand and more accurate.

Yeah.

We discussed that in trying to determine like a morning-afternoon range to an evening range, and that would be the blocks.

And so then if it gets booked here, okay, we're locked.

If it gets booked here, we're locked.

And then depending upon the type of event is where that triggers if one event can be held or, no, we can't do multiple events because this one event is just too massive.

Right.

And then that would take both slots.

And I think to Rachel's point, I think what we are seeing working is the discounted rate in non-peak hours for Lou Howard Park, for example.

That's probably one of the reasons a lot of nonprofits are booking during non-peak hours is because of that discounted rate.

And that's how we want to encourage people to fill the spot.

So the same with non-peak hours for community center, the ballroom, and the Smith room.

I think that's the logic that I'm kind of behind with Rachel.

And let's get creative on that.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Any other discussion?

Yeah, I just want to respond that I actually don't believe that dropping the race helped.

Not raising them for 14 years didn't really help fill up these spaces.

I think what's helping to fill up these spaces is we have an increase in the number of nonprofits and other groups that want to use facilities since the town has grown significantly since that time.

But I appreciate your being willing to allow the staff to have the 20% latitude in changing rates annually.

I think that's really important that we get more income so we can fix these facilities up.

Just to clarify, my motion was not to change the 10% annual adjustment to the published rate.

My motion was to give them 20% flexibility from the published rate.

The 10% that's in the resolution, I'm still comfortable with that.

But basically, it gives them a range to go up or down in order to maximize revenue.

And I think we've got this budget format now where we can see the facility's revenue broken out very clearly.

That's what I'm going to be looking at, right?

I know it's going to take you guys a little time to implement.

But ideally, what we see is instead of $443,839, we're seeing more than CPI on that revenue every year for those community facilities.

All right.

So can I – sadly, I need to ask for clarification after I seconded this because what you just said seemed to contradict what I thought.

So the resolution currently says authorizing staff to increase fees up to a maximum of 10% annually until equal to comparable rates in the region and as the market allows.

Your proposition of giving them 20% flexibility should change that sentence to say a maximum of 20% annually.

Separate.

My idea is give them separate flexibility as was –

How is it separate?

Those would overlap on the top side.

The second sentence should be and to reduce rates up to 20% if it increases occupancy.

We can do it that way.

That's fine.

To me, we have these rental rates if we're booking a year out and we're seeing that every single year we're booking the facility on the most popular weekends.

And then we're getting 70 more calls or inquiries about that weekend.

Then we know we can raise the rate.

So I'd rather give them the flexibility on both sides.

I understand the mechanics of it.

What I'm saying is that you can't have a 10% maximum and also 20% flexibility.

It has to be a 20% maximum and a 20% downside.

No.

So this is an annual adjustment to our published list rates, right?

All of our rates that are published.

Okay.

But giving them the flexibility.

So they can raise the rate published by 10% each year and then also –

Have plus or minus 20% on any given night, weekend, during the day.

So as much as 30% in the year.

So yes.

I'm not against that.

I just want to make sure that it's crystal clear for everybody.

So it could go up by 30% in a given year.

Yes.

For a peak popular weekend night.

Since we're behind the average.

Gotcha.

I'm just trying to give them flexibility.

My second stance.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Madam Mayor, just to further clarify that I'm referring to –

Now that I've made this really complicated, sorry.

Page 875 of the staff report.

Page 875.

So the motion and the second allowing 20% up to 20% plus or minus adjustment is not limited

to just the two facilities, namely the Folsom Community Center and the Rotary Clubhouse.

It's for all of those rates in the attachment.

Fine with me.

I'm fine with them having that flexibility because I'd rather have the ability to maximize occupancy.

Thank you.

I think this needs further for clarification then.

Because if you're saying that you're allowing them to have that, your intent seems to be for a special occasion

or a time when there's a high use predicted on one day or one weekend versus changing it across the board.

We've stopped short of having bidding for really popular days.

Have you bought a ticket on Ticketmaster lately?

Okay.

That's what I'm talking about.

I'm saying that no one sets a published schedule for a rental rate for a year and a year out.

I'm saying that we should respond to market demand.

If we're in a budget crisis, we should start running this place like a business.

Sure.

Oh.

I want to make a substitute motion that we continue this to another meeting.

So could I get us to where maybe I understand what's been asked?

So if I were to use an example, if the published rate was $10, and so the new year is coming,

this would authorize us to increase it up to 10%, so we'd raise it to $11.

And so now the published rate is $11, and so this resolution would also allow, based on that 11%,

that you could go up or down 20%.

Correct.

Okay.

But that would be on any given day, not across the board.

Or are you implying that it could be across the board for the rest of the coming year?

It would be on any given day.

So I'd like to continue this for further discussion.

Is there a second to continue this item?

Okay.

Your motion dies for lack of a second.

So we have a motion and a second on the table.

Call the roll, please.

Council members Kozlowski?

Yes.

Leary?

No.

Rathel?

Yes.

Rorbaugh?

Yes.

And Aquino?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Next item, please.

Next item is new business number 19, resolution number 11416, a resolution approving the updated

sewer system management plan.

Good evening, Marcus.

Good evening, Mayor Aquino, members of the council, Marcus Yasutake, environmental and water

resources director.

First, before I start, just want to give a big thanks to our operations team and our engineering

team that went through the process probably about the last eight months to update this

plan when the new waste discharge requirement was approved.

And a reason on the second to the last slide, when you see it, why we perform so well within the region and within the state.

A brief outline, just going to give an overview of our collection system, a little history on the regulatory

environment, the elements, some changes since 2006, an internal audit we did last year, and then the last slide, or second to last slide, is our statistics.

I won't read all this out, but effectively, this is the population we serve, the number of miles of pipe, et cetera, the different assets that we have within the city.

We do not include the prison in our population in terms of those that we serve because they have their own separate sewer systems on their site that have their own ID numbers associated with those services with the state.

You can see down at the bottom, primary customers were about 94% residential, and then maybe 4 plus 6% non-residential services.

Just a quick regulatory history.

Back in March of 2020, sorry, 2002, the city was issued an NPDES permit that regulated how we needed to operate our sewer system.

My predecessors at the time and our operations team at that time was formed and now a collection system for the city of Folsom.

It was fully funded through a rate study, and that's how we are with our team today.

In May of 2006, the state adopted a general order that they have that covers all sewer systems within the state of California of a certain size,

and that is the item that was updated back in December of 2022, and that was adopted by the state board for the new updated waste discharge requirements,

which is what the city is currently under.

And part of that requirement is to recertify a 2025 sanitary sewer management plan, which is before you tonight.

These are the 11 elements.

I'm not going to read them all off, but these are all the ones that are included in the SSMP.

The next slide is kind of the important slide for us here at the city.

The items that are listed in green in the third column, those are just new titles, but effectively the same goal as the 2006 order.

And in red under the 2022 changes, that's primarily what I'm going to focus on tonight,

just to give you an idea of some of the major updates that required additional work from our team.

And then the last one that has few is the internal audit.

I just want to focus on that a little bit in terms of some of the findings that came out of that

and some of the ideas that we're moving forward with.

So element one, the goals and introduction.

Effectively, this was creating this SSMP more as a living document than a report that sat on the shelf.

And that was real critical in the new order was, hey, you as a collection system need to evaluate this on a monthly basis,

on an annual basis to make any changes that are necessary.

And it became more, it has now become more of a living document than something we refer to every three years

or two years during an audit or every five years previously when we had to do an update.

And effectively, he talks about, you know, having adequate funding, properly training staff at all levels.

Before, training was primarily focused on the operations staff,

but this now includes the engineering staff and what they call legal or responsible officials,

so those that are uploading reports and certifying different reports.

And then making sure that all of our assets are accounted for correctly.

On the operations and maintenance side, the two big items were making sure that our sewer system mapping was correct

and that we had that information available and uploaded to the state board.

That's not something that we previously had to do as a separate standalone item, which is something we have to do now.

And then the third kind of bullet there is on the training side.

As I mentioned before, it was previously focused on the staff and the operations team in the field.

This expands to our engineering team and myself, so we have to do annual training that's required.

We have to note that and then submit that as part of what they call a change log,

and then in future reports just to ensure that we at, you know, the engineering and the staff level that are inside the building

understand what's happening with our team outside the building.

Element six is our spill emergency response plan.

This was another update that we had as a part of this,

and it was just to ensure that we are going in an appropriate response to sewer spills within the city

and that we're properly documenting all the information related to that sewer spill.

And so this was a key element that was helping us in terms of our reporting

and the required information that we have to report to the state that is somewhat different than in 2006.

And so we just need to ensure that our response plans were updated accordingly

so our staff knew the information and the data to collect when a spill occurred.

Element eight is the system evaluation capacity assurance plan and capital improvement plan.

One of the big changes from 06 to today is in 2006 up to 2022,

we really just had to evaluate through a hydraulic model the capacity of your sewer system

and identify any potential deficiencies, and that was pretty much what agencies had to do.

The new requirement now takes that a couple steps further.

Not only do you have to evaluate the deficiencies,

you have to then develop either a mitigation plan or engineering plans to improve

or to mitigate for a potential spill,

and you had to prioritize or now we have to prioritize these based on risk.

So is it an eight-inch sewer line that's, you know, 70, 80 percent full,

or is it a 27-inch sewer line?

The volume of spill is different for each type.

And then how close are you to a waterway?

Are you close to a creek or are you further away from a creek?

And so you have to evaluate those and then prioritize

how you're going to go about mitigating any of those potential spills.

So that was, you know, a big difference,

and we are working on that with a sewer master plan,

which will identify how that all gets laid out.

Going to the internal audit, again, I won't read all of these,

but effectively these are the high-level items that were found in our internal audit,

which we did and conducted in-house,

but also had an outside consultant, Paul Causey,

work with our engineering team and our operations staff through interviews.

Basically looking at the SSMP that we had relative to what we have to do in the new order.

And you can see there's, we are effective.

Our team is very effective at what they do.

They had a lot of information available at their hands.

If you look at how we compare across the region and throughout the state,

we perform very well, and we complete our capital improvement projects,

which is very important for our team.

And I think that the big one for me is that our wastewater collection staff is very committed to complying

with the, not only the previous order, but this new adopted order.

With that being said, there are always times where we can find areas of improvement.

Here are 10 listed here before you.

You know, again, I won't read all of them.

I think the important thing is that last column, which is the status.

And you can see how many we've completed, how many we're implementing,

say five and six, seven, eight that we're implementing,

nine that will be evaluated as part of the sewer master plan update,

and then 10, you know, looking at different things to accomplish cleaning of sewer force mains.

And so, again, this just goes to the commitment of our team to, you know,

not only want to comply, but to be in front of issues and not be reactive,

because that's where we were as a city back in the early 2000s, and we're now proactive.

And you want to be on that end of the spear, in my opinion.

So just to go over some of the major program changes, I have one more slide after this.

Because of the timing of updating the sewer master, sanitary sewer master plan,

or management plan, sorry, SSMP, it goes from every five years to every six years.

So now we're changing our cleaning inspection and manhole inspections to an every six year,

so we get the entire system done within a six-year window.

Same for the lateral inspection programs.

We were doing that on an every 10-year basis.

We're moving that to every 12 years, so everything just lines up mathematically with the sixes instead of the fives.

We have a new sewer emergency response plan.

It's much thinner than the previous document we have.

I think it's about 13 pages, and previously it was close to 30-some pages.

And so we've really got our information, you know, dialed in in terms of what we need to collect,

how we need to collect it, and what we need to do when we arrive at a spill,

and then any post-response that's necessary.

And the last item is just that shift from just looking at your capacity and moving into,

okay, now that you understand where your deficiencies are,

how are you going to go about fixing those, how are you going to mitigate those,

and then in what priority based on risk.

And the last slide, and I think this is the most telling slide for our operations team,

if you look at the sewer overflow comparisons from the city to the region to the municipal average,

based on the number of spills per year per 100 miles,

we're at 3.04, they're above 13 and 14.

If you look at the volume based on, you know, per thousand capita per year, we're at 184.

Others are at 7,000 at the municipal state average and 17,700 at the regional average.

So all the credit goes to our team out in the field.

Our engineer is working, delivering our capital projects,

and ensuring that we're in compliance.

With that, as the staff report recommends, we recommend approval of this,

and we can upload this report by the August 2nd deadline.

And with that, I will take any questions.

Thank you very much.

Any questions?

Here's a great question.

Excellent work.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any questions to my left?

Okay.

Do we have any public comments?

There are no requests to speak on this item.

Then we will entertain a motion.

I'll move resolution number 11416.

Anybody like to second?

All right.

We've got a motion and a second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Kozlowski?

Yes.

Leary?

Yes.

Rathel?

Yes.

Rohrbaugh?

Yes.

And Aquino?

Yes.

Two more, hopefully very quick items, folks.

Thank you.

And then we will be to the main event.

Next item, please.

Next item is item number 20, resolution number 11423, a resolution approving the submittal

of the Folsom Boulevard pavement resurfacing project for SB1 local partnership program funding

allocation from the state's road maintenance and rehabilitation account.

Good evening, Ryan.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and council members.

I'm Ryan Chance, engineering manager in public works.

The item before you tonight is seeking approval to submit an application for some gas tax,

which is SB1 formulaic local partnership program funding.

The project that staff is putting forward for this consideration is the Folsom Boulevard

pavement resurfacing project, which is a new project that's never really been talked about,

but has been long needed, in my opinion.

I'm just going to talk about a few of the project components and benefits.

So just real quick on what is SB1 LPP?

SB1 is our state gas tax, Senate Bill 1.

It was established in 2017.

It was formulated to help local self-help agencies who have a local sales tax, you know,

our measure a essentially, measure a sales tax.

It supports different types of roadway improvements, road rehab, safety improvements, transit capital projects,

and different transportation facilities.

Excuse me.

This distribution on this is going to be 75% based on population and 25% on lane miles,

which is going to equate to Folsom getting $572,000 towards this project.

These funds have a local match of one-to-one, which means the city would have to come up with another $572,000,

which we are proposing to use another pocket of gas tax on as the local match.

Gas tax and measure a are two funding sources we typically use for pavement repair around Folsom.

So the project is going to be on Folsom Boulevard between Arrowjet Road and Natomo Station Drive.

This is one of our few shared facilities that we have with Sac County.

And by shared facilities, that means the center line of the road is also the property line between the two agencies,

which I don't know whose idea it was to set it up that way, but it makes maintenance very hard for a lot of these roads.

A few other roads just for your knowledge.

You know, we have Greenback Lane, Santa Juanita, Prairie City Road, White Rock Road, Central Ave, and Folsom Boulevard.

Those are our few shared facilities that we have.

As you know, this section of road is a major gateway into Folsom.

I can't tell you how many times I've gotten off the freeway and thought, man, we've got to do something about this.

But I think with the complexities between getting an agreement with the county and the Caltrans encroachment permit that's going to be required,

it's just been one of those projects that's been overlooked for too long.

So in all, the project will resurface one and a half miles of roadway.

And I just think it's a great opportunity to beautify the whole corridor and promote, you know, economic vitality in the area,

especially with the auto dealerships in the region there.

So in that picture, you can see the red lines are City of Folsom property, and the green line is Sacramento County.

So it's roughly 70% of the project is in Folsom, 30% in the county.

And as part of this, we will do a cost-sharing agreement, which we've done with the county before.

We did it on Greenback Lane, where we pave a portion of their road.

They pave a portion of one of our sides.

It's the county does with a lot of different agencies.

I've already reached out to them, and they are on board with an agreement like that,

if there's any concern about that.

So thanks to AI, I'm able to create my own renderings now.

So that's what I want to see when I pull in the Folsom.

So I think everybody can agree to that, right?

Do we still get the turn lanes?

And then I was just, you know, in case there's a question of why do we have to apply for these funds that are formulaic,

these are a few of the reasons that the California Transportation Commission requires an application and review.

So, you know, between the time we apply and the time we get approval and program the funds,

this is usually about six months.

And there's a whole host of issues that the CTC, the California Transportation Commission, is looking for, you know, legal oversight,

making sure that the agencies have matching funds, accountability and transparency, and statewide coordination.

So, very short presentation, but in all, we're looking for approval to submit an application for this project.

Any questions over here?

Just have one quick question.

And that is, you know, you said that the county would pave other sites,

and one of the examples was perhaps Prairie City Road, which certainly needs some attention,

although that road also needs to be re-engineered, widened, and probably straightened.

So what are your criteria for picking where the county's going to pave in turn having a portion of their road paved?

Prairie City is a tough one, right, because it's right on the edge of near-term development.

So that road will be improved with the development that's happening south of 50.

So it's always a challenge in terms of how much money do we spend to maintain what we have

versus how soon is it going to get ultimately improved.

So I think there's definitely an opportunity on Prairie City,

and I think Santa Juanita would be another good candidate for the cost-sharing agreement.

Although Prairie City will need more work down the line,

so I'm just wondering about putting money into something that within hopefully a short period of time

will have major improvements.

Exactly.

It's a balance.

We will assess the situation.

We're not going to make a move.

If we know that within the coming 18 to 24 months, we wouldn't do that.

But for some of the surface treatment, if we know it's 24 to 36 months,

it still may be beneficial having driven down there during the winter months.

It's breaking up and that sort of thing.

But we will evaluate all the different possibilities for sure.

Yeah, I agree.

Thank you for that answer.

Any other questions?

I just got one.

You included in the staff report that Empire Ranch Interchange was one of the considerations

that these funds could be used for, but that it was not eligible

because we don't have an approved project report yet.

What is the timing on an approved project report?

Well, we got some good news.

Well, I don't know if it's ever good news with Caltrans.

Nothing until they sign it, it's not good news, right?

But there's a meeting next week with Caltrans,

and all signs and emails that I've had communication with them,

they are looking to route this for district signature,

which means we may have an approved project report in a few weeks.

So we could have a project report in a few weeks.

Would that change?

This money takes six months to get this?

Well, we still have to do some environmental work before we can go out for design,

and these funds have to be used within three years.

So it's...

And I would like to add, related to Empire Ranch,

we have substantial amounts of fund to get us through design.

So it doesn't really make sense right now to start allocating things for construction

because we have so much available.

We'd be deferring improvements that could be done now

for some that may not happen for the next five-plus years.

So, and especially when we're looking at multi-multimillion-dollar projects,

the $500,000 is not going to really make a big dent in it.

And the fact that we haven't spent the $4 or $5 million we already have for it

is kind of why we were leaning toward this.

Thank you.

Ryan, my only request is that, assuming we get the funds and the project goes forward,

when there's the street closures, I'd like to get a big volunteer crew out there

to pick up all the trash on Folsom Boulevard at the same time

because it's a little bit challenging to do otherwise.

That would be great.

Our streets department would appreciate that.

Okay.

All right.

Do we have any public comment on this item?

There are no requests to speak on this item.

All right.

Then we'll entertain a motion and a second.

I'll move resolution number 11423.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Kozlowski.

Yes.

Leary.

Yes.

Rathel.

Yes.

Rohrbaugh.

Yes.

And Aquino.

Yes.

And folks in the audience will be happy to know that we are continuing item 21

to a future meeting.

Do we need a resolution to do that, Mr. City Attorney?

No, ma'am.

Okay.

Then we will go on to item number 22.

Item 22 is resolution number 11428, a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a lease

agreement with the Folsom Historic District Association for operation and management of

public spaces in the Folsom Historic District.

Hello again, Tom.

Hello, Madam Mayor, Council.

Tonight, after what started about a year ago, we bring before you the resolution to authorize

the city manager to execute a lease agreement with the Folsom Historic District Association.

For the public spaces in the Folsom Historic District.

What are those public spaces we speak of?

Here is a map of the district.

I think you're no strangers to these, but what you're looking down upon is the historic

turntable right there in the center.

Off to your right, you'll see the Zittle Family Amphitheater.

Moving to the left, you clearly see the marked parking garage.

So we have like the alleyway, kind of the public plaza.

The outlined area in red that you see there is the public spaces that we're referring to

that would be in lease operation for the Folsom Historic District Association to go ahead

and manage and to activate.

So a little background on this.

About a year ago, I started a conversation with Judy Collinsworth, with the executive director of the FHDA,

about this idea.

Shortly after that, in August, we came before council and getting continued conversations on this

and then getting some direction to move forward with the conversations and to look at an agreement.

I think this made absolute perfect sense for the FHDA that is down there to activate that district,

to bring in visitation, to activate it for events, as you see the following purposes that they're established for

within their bylaws.

A couple high-level things with regards to the draft lease agreement you see in there,

which would need to be a form approved by the city attorney still.

The term is for three years from the executed date.

There is an option to renew it for three additional terms of three years.

And the rent payable to the city, based upon year one and two,

is 10% of the net revenue collected by the FHDA for use of these public spaces that they charge rent for.

And then year three, increasing that to 15% of the net revenue for the collected use of the public spaces

that they charge rent for.

Some other highlights within the agreement.

The city and FHDA will conduct a joint site visit of the facility to assess and document the present premises

prior to turning that over to the FHDA for the lease operation.

The FHDA of the leasee shall be responsible for all maintenance and repairs required due to its use of the facility.

The city to assist the FHDA with establishing a rental fee schedule to be made available for community awareness

and for us to partner on that community awareness to make sure that everyone knows how to utilize those spaces and where to go.

The FHDA will have the ability to charge a parking fee in the garage for permitted special events with the city manager authorization.

And the FHDA will manage smaller events in the amphitheater and plaza turntable with special event responsibilities.

This is something that just came up over the last few weeks that we'll be working with them on,

as well as the community development department and the special events team,

for the FHDA to be able to manage those smaller events that take place in the amphitheater or the plaza

that don't spill over into Sutter Street, but they can mitigate against those special events

by either the form of working through permitting processes, either with the police department or Sacramento County,

and then to also help with crowd mitigation, if so-de-so.

But it would not require them to work through a special event application with us

for the smaller events that are held down in those public spaces.

The city and FHDA will meet and evaluate how this lease operation is going.

We're setting up regular meetings.

The FHDA will coordinate with the city on larger event spaces, as I mentioned,

that do take place on Sutter Street and then also use these public spaces.

And the FHDA will provide an annual report to the city that just shows what they use for applicable rent to be paid for us.

This relationship is definitely a step in the right direction to allow them to activate this space,

to bring in visitation, to work with other groups, to host events down there,

and for the city to support that endeavor as we move forward.

So with that, I'd like to take any questions, but hopefully recommend that we allow the authorization of the city manager

to execute a lease agreement tonight.

So thank you.

So Tom, in the community facility rental fees that we did a couple items ago,

there were items for renting the turntable or the Zidofem.

So is this going to be their rental fees?

That would not be those rental fees.

Those would be ours if we ever, or as we continue to do right now, we would establish those,

and those would be the rent for those spaces.

But that would not be their rent.

They would figure out their own schedule, and that's where we would work with them on that.

They've asked for copies of our schedules and things of that nature,

so we're working with them on establishing that initial go.

Okay, thank you.

Vice Mayor Wraythel, questions?

So there's a lease agreement in the staff report right now.

We're giving direction to the city manager to execute that lease agreement,

or are we giving city manager to make some changes to that lease agreement and then execute?

Yeah, good question.

We're authorizing the city manager to execute a lease agreement.

That is a sample of the report, not the finalized version of the report.

We will make edits to that.

We'll work with the city attorney to make sure it's the form,

and then we'll make sure that both parties agree to the terms.

Perfect.

I really appreciate the special event change that's different than what's in the sample agreement,

giving them the flexibility to operate special events without 60-day special event process,

because then that just delays them from doing smaller events closer to that event date,

generating more revenue, which we get a cut of.

And that's a topic that was just brought up,

so we will continue that conversation, and we'll spell it out correctly.

Perfect.

I do have a question as far as the net revenue.

When I typically see profit splits or net calculations in a lease agreement,

I see an ability to inspect books.

I'm not asking for it.

I don't really want that, you know,

but I also realize that it's very tough to agree to a profit split or a net revenue calculation without that ability, right?

Because how does it work in practice?

So have you guys had some thoughts about how that works in practice,

or does it make more sense to go to just a gross,

hey, this is what it is, we know what your revenues are,

and then we don't have to dig into the details of what you're paying for insurance and taxes.

You have taxes in there, but I don't think it's a tax-exempt property.

So unless we're talking about some sales tax in there,

I would think that would be referring to property tax if it's not real clear.

Correct.

So in my conversation with FHDA,

they would establish a report that they would provide to us on an annual basis

that just shows this is the work that they've done,

this is what they've charged out for that facility, break it out,

submit that to show what that percentage breakout is going to be

with whatever payment is then doable to the city at that point,

but not necessarily like myself or a level of staff going to them to inspect the level of books,

but more or less their accountability to us of 27 events, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, and continue on.

Got it.

And then utilities, we're providing those utilities, so we would know those numbers,

so that's pretty easy.

Taxes in there, but it's not, I'm assuming it's a zero.

It's not going to be applicable to our understanding.

Got it.

Oh, and so the only other one is insurance that we wouldn't be able to audit,

but that number would be provided to us.

Yes, they will provide us still with the same level of blanket coverage

of insurance that they've done for events and usage of the space,

and they'll continue that with us.

So it's just liability, and is it liability in property insurance?

We can make that clear in the agreement.

I would just say we should make all of these things very, very black and white in the agreement

because that's the purpose of the lease agreement,

and I can leave it at that and let you guys work out the details,

but that was not very clear when I read it from a net revenue standpoint

and those kind of three items that are in the sample agreement.

Okay.

Talked about, and I would be comfortable with moving us out of the role of setting a fee with them

if the idea is to allow them to run the facility and to maximize the revenue from that facility

of which we get a cut from.

Like, does it really make sense for us to be at the table approving the fees that they charge

and not, once again, going back to kind of like giving you guys the flexibility,

if it's a really high-demand weekend, I'd rather have them have the ability to charge significantly for that facility,

and if it's a very low-demand weekend and they don't have a special event requirement as,

hey, do you want to do this birthday party in the amphitheater with your kids' band playing this weekend,

and it's a discount, and we recognize some revenue off of it.

So just some thoughts there.

Okay.

Thank you.

Council Member Koslowski, any questions?

No, I don't think so.

All right.

Council Member Lorbaugh?

No?

Council Member Leary?

Council Member Leary.

Council Member Leary.

So just to follow up on Vice Mayor Rathal's comments,

you're not asking for a full view of the revenue, their costs,

and what their, you know, what their profit would be

and then what the city would be getting back with that 10% of the share of the first year

and 15 in following years, correct?

Council Member Leary.

Or you do want to see the details.

No, if they're going to provide us those numbers, there's only a couple numbers.

It just really wasn't clear in the sample agreement,

so I would just make sure it's perfectly clear.

Like when you say taxes, there are no property taxes.

It just wasn't clear to me if I was reading the agreement what those were,

so I was just recommending before we execute it, we make that perfectly clear what that is.

And if it's insurance, well, is it liability insurance?

There's a lot of different types of insurance,

and if we're basically excluding those from our revenue calculation,

we should make it very clear because they could say, well, you know,

we actually pay for these, you know, 17 different types of insurance that are here.

And we're like, well, we put insurance in the contract.

So I would just make it very clear of what those, hey, we're requiring you to carry liability insurance,

we're requiring you to carry property insurance at that level.

That's what's excludable from the revenue calculation.

Okay, thanks.

And so what is the, and this is probably a question for Mr. Wong,

what is the city's liability if there's an incident there and it's, you know,

the ask is for beyond what the liability insurance would cover for FHDA?

That's a really good question, and thank you for asking, Council Member Lurie.

The city will remain liable because we are the property owner,

and the way we allocate risks and minimize risks to the city and our taxpayers

is through a very strong, almost very onerous indemnity requirement

in the contracts that we execute, including this one.

So the C, the FHDA, will have to indemnify the city through the insurance

if the insurance is applicable, but it's not limited to the insurance.

Okay, thank you.

Let me put it that way.

Yeah, we protect the taxpayers very, very vigorously.

Thank you.

And then in terms of permitting, because I know there's an extensive permitting process

for all of these events, so that responsibility will fall on FHDA

when they take over scheduling and hosting these events.

Is that correct?

That will be a continued conversation, but the initial conversations is for the smaller events

that take place in these public spaces that they would manage, the amphitheater and the plaza,

that they would be able to mitigate those smaller special events through their own mitigation

without forming an application to the city through the special event application process.

If the event using those spaces or starts with Sutter Street,

it's still a special event application because the Sutter Street is going to trigger something bigger and broader.

But the smaller events, it's a concert in the amphitheater.

They would be able to mitigate that.

But again, that's a conversation that we're continuing with them, CDD, Parks and Recreation,

to make sure that we formulate all that.

And the city would still have the ability to use those sites

if the city decided that was a site for some special event.

Right. We have discussed that about city use as well for those reasons.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

Councilmember Robo.

In the ongoing discussion, are you going to quantify what you mean by a small event versus a large event?

Basically, if it's in that space, that's going to quantify as that small event

because they're not spilling out where it's going to be triggering many other conditions

within the special event application process.

But again, that's discussions that we have yet to have between the FHTA, Parks and Rec,

Community Development to make sure we clarify what those responsibilities are for those spaces.

I think they're fully aware of what it means when they do events,

including Sutter Street and the other public spaces.

But for this, for them to manage those types of things,

we have yet to sit down because that was just a discussion that we started last week.

Okay. I mean, just from what you just said, the spilling, if it's spilling out,

I mean, they could have an event in the amphitheater.

It could be big enough that there's lots of people on the street.

So I think just make sure that that is very identifiable.

All right. We do have two requests to speak on this item.

Your first request to speak is Jim Snook followed by Jerry Brunel.

Right ahead. Go ahead.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the council.

Jerry Brunel is board member of the Folsom Historic District Association.

Just a little bit of background on this.

About a year ago, we met with all the department heads regarding, you know,

the events in the district and cost recovery.

And we were stunned, frankly, at the cost that the city was incurring processing these events in the district.

And, you know, part of the whole vision originally with the revitalization

and going back to Kerry Miller and moving events,

as many events as we could into the plaza,

was to bring quality feet to the street to generate sales tax revenue in our businesses.

Frankly, 95% of these events in the plaza are free.

The concert series are free.

The Folsom Lake Symphony is free.

The ice rink happens to be charged because it has huge amounts of cost.

The farmer market is free.

And so, you know, to hit us with huge increases in costs

would eliminate our ability to do many of those events

and offer those to the community for free and bring quality feet to the street.

So we started this process with Parks and Recs of trying to take that burden away from you

and put it on us.

And, frankly, we have some more on board and some more members

that aren't excited about us taking over this management role because it is timely.

The good news is we have a new space there right in the green room in the depot

with big improvements there.

And so we're well-suited to be able to do that.

We have a wonderful team, and most of those events are in the district.

As it relates to financing or costs and auditing, you know,

our funds come in as a property improvement district collected on the tax bill.

And so those are all essentially public funds because they're tax funds.

And so our books are completely open and completely transparent.

And so we do an annual report every year that breaks down every single one of our events,

all our administration costs, everything down to the dollar.

And that's available.

In fact, one of the board members is a city of Folsom representative that sits on our board.

So from a financial standpoint, all that's completely transparent.

We're willing to provide any detail we provided anyway as part of our annual report.

And so just wanted to go over those few items.

And if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Thank you, Jerry.

Thanks, Jerry.

Thank you.

Jim, come on up.

You bring chocolate for everybody in the audience tonight, Jim?

A little too warm to carry here.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members.

Jim Snook, property and business owner and the current president of the FHGA.

So when the proposal for us to take over management of anything in the plaza came, was there concerns by FHGA?

Yeah.

We were concerned because it's a lot more management.

But on the other hand, when there is an event that comes up, we end up helping manage because we're there.

Our new office is the green room.

So we're learning a little bit about that as well because we've had a lot of events.

And the green room takes some abuse.

So, you know, there's a lot of costs associated with any event, cleaning, you know, security, trash, all that.

There's a lot that goes besides insurance and some of the bigger costs.

But labor could be big.

So anyways, when we look back to the original strategic planning of the plaza, and I had Jerry speak first because he is going to be developing some of those properties.

But some of the goals was more outdoor dining, which we will be finally getting when he builds some buildings and there will be some restaurants and outdoor dining in the plaza.

And quality feet to the streets.

We envision not these huge events but more often so we can, you know, engage the district.

And all those little events do help immensely.

It just activates the street.

The concerts, we do not make money on those.

We lose money.

But we look at it as, okay, if it costs us $10,000 for the whole summer, if we spent that on advertising, but how many thousands of people did we bring to the street with that cost?

So that's kind of how we look at it.

We've made edits to some of the events like the Peach Festival.

It spilled out onto Sutter Street and it became a little bit of an issue.

So it's back, pared down into the plaza.

So our concern is making sure an event is run properly and good and doesn't overrun the district.

So this is just the public space, the amphitheater and, like, the farmer's market.

We brought that into the town.

It's been well received and we love it.

And so we'll see how it goes as far as managing.

You know, we'll just take it a day at a time.

And we are open.

All our books are open.

And as Jerry said, one of your city people is on our board.

So they get it, you know, as we go.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Jim.

We appreciate the partnership with HTA.

There are no other questions.

I will entertain a motion.

I will move approval of resolution number 11428.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Kozlowski.

Yes.

Leary.

Yes.

Rathel.

Yes.

Rorbaugh.

Yes.

And Aquino.

Yes.

All right, everyone.

Thank you very much for your patience as we got through our other business.

Let me explain how this is going to work.

I know for some of you this is your first time at a council meeting.

Again, we welcome you.

Thank you for being here.

City staff is going to make a presentation to the council.

Then the council will have an opportunity to ask questions of the staff.

Then we will go to public comment if you want to speak.

We have many blue cards up here.

If you want to speak.

We ask that you fill out a blue card.

Give it to Officer Ohm so that the city clerk can call you at the correct time.

Again, there's going to be a lot of public comments.

So we request that you stay to that three minute limit.

If when you are speaking, if you have comments, but if you also have questions that the council

did not ask that you feel like it needs an answer, go ahead and state your question during

your three minutes.

I will write down those questions and we can come back afterwards to the appropriate staff

member and get that all answered before the council deliberates.

Okay.

So with that, Mr. City Manager, I'm going to hand it over to you.

Great.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I appreciate the opportunity to be here to have this discussion with the members of the

community.

Appreciate everyone who is here for this important item.

The item before you is to discuss a resolution approving deferral of hiring 10 firefighters due to over $3 million in projected fiscal year 2025-2026 operational deficits.

The suspense is pretty intense here.

Okay.

Okay.

There we go.

Looks like there's a delay for every slide.

Looks like there's a delay for every slide.

So this is just going to add to the anticipation.

To the anticipation.

While we're waiting on the slides, there are still funnier seats up here.

If anybody wants to come take a seat, you're welcome to do so.

Go ahead.

Do you want me to?

Can you try to advance it?

Oh, look at that.

So essentially what I thought would be appropriate is to kind of describe the budget that was recently adopted on June 24th by the city council.

So despite having increases in projected revenues, about $4.6 million, our expenditures have gone up quite a bit.

And so with those expenditures, we're showing a $3 million use of the general fund reserve.

So as we look forward to that, when we adopted the budget, my commitment to the council and to the community was that we weren't going to sit idly by

and just breathe a sigh of relief that we adopted the budget, it was now we got to get to work.

We have to get to a point where we can look for ways to balance the budget so that we are able to live within our means.

And so one of the circumstances that we have is that the intention was through the budgetary process from July to August

to look at ways to come up with a comprehensive plan where we could present to the council for our final budget in September and October

with different reductions that was more comprehensive.

The situations that we do have is that we have pending conditional hires for these 10 firefighters.

So on July 21st, they're expected to start work.

And so the question that was posed was, is this a good idea in light of the deficit that we have

and the projected $5 million deficit in the year subsequent to this to fill those positions,

knowing that we may have to eliminate some of those positions later.

And so that's something that we take very seriously.

Not only do we care about the individuals that work for the city, we care about those that we're trying to bring in.

And so that's something that why there is the sense of urgency.

So it may seem as if, you know, the city manager is looking at the fire only.

That is not the case.

We're looking at a circumstance where we're looking at every aspect of the general fund.

It was only because of these pending hires that we had to move forward in this way.

Could you try to advance the slide?

I'll do that for you.

No issue.

Thank you.

And so this just kind of shows the budget by category.

We have a total of $123 million in general fund expenditures with the vast majority of that for police and fire services.

Okay.

Okay.

And then this just shows from fiscal year 2025 to fiscal year 2026, the changes.

We've seen increases in both fire and police services as well as in the other categories.

I think it's important to note that just from the period starting fiscal year 21-22, the city has increased the number of positions in the general fund by, I believe it's 32 positions.

25 of those have been in public safety, 13 of those in fire, and 12 of those in police.

Steve, I may need you to stand up there in advance for me.

Oh, you got it.

Okay.

There we go.

Thank you.

Next slide, please.

This kind of illustrates the undecided general fund balance.

We've seen ups and downs over the years.

Unfortunately, now we're seeing a trend downward.

Next slide.

If we go to the next slide.

This shows the five-year forecast, which shows the deficit growing.

If we don't do any changes, we're expecting those deficits to grow at the fiscal year 30-31 period, $5.97 million deficit.

Next slide.

And then we will continue to use our general fund reserve.

And this shows us basically being out of cash in that fiscal year 31-year.

Next slide.

So how did we get here?

What are some of the circumstances that we're dealing with?

And so one of the questions that has been posed to me is how can the city of Folsom be growing like it is, experiencing growth like it is, south of 50, where we're receiving additional property tax revenue for those new homes and increased assessed values for the homes within, you know, some of the existing parts of Folsom.

And there's a variety of reasons for that.

There's just the general cost increases that we've experienced.

But then we're also experiencing some of the same challenges that cities across the state are.

And that's with, you know, pension liabilities and retiree health liabilities.

This illustrates some of those growth.

So without us providing any additional services, without us changing anything, this is what is projected to occur.

And so in this short period of time, on the general sense that our costs are anticipated just for the retirement costs, going from $24 million just last year to $32 million in 30-31.

When you look at it from a public safety perspective, just looking at that over the next four or five years, that will go up by $3.8 million.

So that's not changing anything.

We're anticipating our property tax revenue to increase about $2.5 million.

And so when you look at that, we're eroding with our cost increases any growth that's occurring.

And so this is not a recipe for success.

And so it's one of the reasons why I'm recommending that we don't fill those positions because we can't continue to operate like this.

Every year, you know, as I've talked to our employees,

Hey, how long have you been with the city?

I've been here since 2018.

Has there been a year where you haven't been concerned about the fiscal condition of the city?

And they said, no, every year it's a challenge.

And so I'm not accustomed to that.

I've had to go through fiscal challenges in my previous jurisdictions,

and we had to make some really hard decisions.

But what I've found is when we face the decision and we make those difficult decisions,

when we right-size ourselves so that we can live within our means, then we can start the healing.

Then we can start looking forward and creating an opportunity for success.

So, you know, I appreciate all the folks that are here,

and you're going to have compelling arguments of why we shouldn't make this decision.

And so in the coming months, we'll also have other individuals that represent other categories of the budget

that will make compelling arguments why we shouldn't do anything there also.

But at some point, we have to do something.

We can't continue to operate like this.

Next slide.

So the current budget as adopted is not structurally sound or balanced.

It draws upon the unassigned fund balance that drops our reserve below the normal council policy thresholds.

It leaves millions of dollars in infrastructure, equipment, repair and replacement, staffing needs, and other items unfunded.

It maintains the balance of expenditures by department.

So when we look at the operational deficit of $3 million and growing,

one of the things that is being ignored is the tremendous amount of infrastructure we have that we have no funding for.

So the city of Folsom prides itself.

You know, I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

I've been told about all the trails, and since I've moved here just this last spring, I've been able to enjoy those trails.

But because of my position with the city, I don't enjoy them that well because I've sensed the burden.

And here's the burden.

Is every trail that I go down that is fading away, that is crumbling, that has holes or potholes, and I know there's no money to fix it.

I get anxiety.

What are we going to do when city is no longer the city of trails that we can brag about, of parks that we can brag about?

When you look at the proper area of Folsom, we see a community that is proud of its community that is slowly degrading away.

When we look at our trails, when I look at our parks, they're all, you know, in the proper area, 25, 30, 40 years old, and they all need to be repaired.

And so we don't have a rainy day fund.

And we will never get there unless we start making some very critical, important decisions.

But I believe we can get there.

So the recommendation, some of the concerns about the decisions of reducing or deferring the hire of these firefighters is what will the effect on service level be?

And I'll be honest, this will have a negative effect on service levels.

I don't come before you to say that everything is going to be as it was, that we're going to be able to do more with less.

We're actually going to be doing less with less.

So will service calls for service or the response times for service go up?

Probably.

You know, so because we're not operating the way we need to be.

So in order to realize savings of not hiring these firefighters, we need to brown out a station, right?

Because, one, as I've talked to the fire folks, they're already, you know, working a ton of overtime.

And this would actually increase that.

And the health and safety of our firefighters is extremely important.

So we have to just make that statement to the community that we will do the very best we can and that we're not going to push our firefighters over the limit,

that we need to staff them appropriately for the stations that they can staff in a safe way.

So these are just some statistics, information over the next few slides that show kind of the population.

How do we compare with other jurisdictions?

This shows our population at 92,577.

And then we look at Roseville, Vacaville, Rockland, Fairfield.

And we know these aren't perfect comparisons, but it gives you an idea of what our surrounding jurisdictions look like.

Next slide, please.

So population served per station, you know, under the current circumstance, we have six fire stations in the city of Folsom.

And when you break that down, what the population served, dividing that by six, it's 15,430.

If we are to brown out a station, the population served increases to 18,515.

And then we just show the population served of these other departments, even with the brown edits similar to the others.

Next slide.

The daily staffing per 10,000 population.

Once again, we have these same comparables.

We go from 2.48 per 10,000 population to 2.6.

Next slide.

Or 2.16.

Sorry.

Thank you.

And then the total area square miles served.

We recognize that there's different data sources.

This slide recognizes 30 square miles.

I know there's other information out there that shows 34.

But this just kind of puts it in perspective of the size of those jurisdictions.

Next slide, please.

And then the square miles served per station goes from five to six.

And then you can kind of see what the other jurisdictions look like.

Next slide.

Annual calls for service.

Next slide.

And then the annual calls for service per station with our six stations, it'd be 1,690.

With a station browned out, it'd be 2,028.

And then you can see where that sits with the other departments.

Annual calls for service per firefighter.

It stands at 440.87.

With the current stations, 507 if we were to brown one out.

Average distance between stations.

You know, I really appreciate Chief Cusano and the discussions that we've had.

And I know he doesn't want to see any of this, right?

He said he doesn't support this.

And I definitely appreciate that.

He's fighting for his department.

He's fighting for his team.

But ultimately, whatever the council decides, whatever resources, we're going to rely on

Chief Cusano and his command staff team to develop whatever that staffing plan is.

So I'm not, the next slides are not me dictating what stations are going to be open, closed,

or what that is.

But it just illustrates the distance between stations.

If we look at the six stations, it's, and I also recognize that just the distance between

stations doesn't dictate response times, right?

I mean, we understand there's topography.

There's barriers, rivers, bridges, and everything.

So this is just a simple explanation of those distances.

So Folsom currently with the six fire stations, the distances between the stations is 1.765

miles.

If we were to brown out stations 37, it'd be two miles.

If we were to brown out station 38, it'd be 1.76.

If we were to brown out station 39, it'd be 1.7.

And then you can see the distance between stations and some of our other jurisdictions.

Next slide.

And this is just kind of a map showing some of the radius involvements to see what the coverage

levels would be.

And we can kind of go through these kind of quickly.

Next slide, please.

If station 37 was browned out, this is kind of the different radiuses shown.

And we'll just go through that.

Next slide.

And go ahead and move forward.

So the current recommendation is to approve the deferral of hiring the 10 firefighters due

to operational deficit of $3 million for fiscal year 2025-2026.

I welcome the conversation, the dialogue.

I look forward to hearing some ideas forward.

And that concludes my report.

And I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Koslowski, any questions at this time?

Deferral, in this case, just means that we are not filling positions.

We're not eliminating positions, though.

That is correct.

We would not fill budgeted positions.

That's my only question.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Rathel.

How many retirees do we have on the horizon that these, like, are these 10 replacing overtime?

Or what's the breakdown between replacing retirees for these 10 firefighters?

So that's something that, I mean, we have to be judicious as we move forward because we

recognize that inevitably we will have some that in the next 12 months will probably retire.

And so we want to make sure that we have a balanced approach so that we can fill those slots.

And so I've heard, you know, that there's, I think, among 11 individuals that are eligible

to retire, but whether they decide to retire, it's up to them.

And so I don't really have an indication.

I've heard that there's two or three that are probably going to retire, but I don't have

any definitive information on that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Tell my questions at this time.

Can I remember where we're about?

Yeah.

Can you go back?

Sorry, Steve.

No, please.

To, we went through some of those slides real fast.

So 15 and 16.

So 15 first.

Okay.

So the population served for station, I'm going to have you go forward to.

With a brownout, it doesn't really matter which one, I guess, right?

You're saying the population served, because it's population, so 18,000.

Which looks like it's pretty middle of the road there.

Can you go forward to 16?

So this would be how many firefighters we have on firefighter paramedics on at one time.

Yeah, per 10,000 population.

So it just standardizes, kind of creates a ratio of how many firefighters do we have on

duty for every 10,000 residents.

And do we know why El Dorado is so, is that because it's so expansive, so much more wild?

So, I mean, this is something that's important.

The funding for the fire service is different depending on the agency.

You know, so, I mean, I kind of would explain that some have higher revenue streams than

others, which enables them to do things that are more robust than others.

And so El Dorado Hills, you know, just to give you an idea, the amount of sales tax revenue

that the city brings in is anticipated to be 27 million.

The amount of property tax we bring in, and this is the highest it's ever been, is 34.4

million, and that's to cover all city services.

El Dorado Hills, according to their budget, is going to bring in between 32 and 34 million

in revenue.

And so that's just for fire service.

So, and to kind of compare our budget, so we, with a $123 million budget, we're looking

at, was it $17, $18 million in reserves?

This fire district has $20 million in reserves.

So they're like 85% funded.

So they have a substantially higher per capita revenue stream than the city of Folsom or actually

any of these others.

And so I don't know the reason.

I just know they can pay for it, it appears.

Okay.

And did we have a slide?

I don't think we did, but did we have a slide on response times?

We didn't have a slide on response times, and Chief Kusano would be better on this.

I'll give it a go.

Right now, our current response times is about 6 minutes and 40 seconds for our, on average,

and then I think for medics it was about 8 minutes something.

Is that correct?

So do we have an estimate of what, how much that would go increase?

Because I'm sure it's going to increase a little bit.

I don't have an estimate.

I mean, it would be, I mean, I guess we would, over a period of time, we'd be able to see

what those actual effects.

And so don't get me wrong.

I'm not disputing the fact that these changes would probably have an increase to that.

It comes down to what are we able to afford?

But I guess the population by, or the staffing by miles and by population does help that,

that they didn't jump a huge amount.

So hopefully our response times would go up, obviously, but hopefully not by that much.

But to speak to what Council Member Kozlowski said, that this is a deferral for not a specific

amount of time, just until we can kind of catch our breath and figure out how we can manage this.

Right.

And if I could describe it this way, so our original goal was just to kind of hit the

pause button so we can do a more thorough analysis of our budget, our revenues, and address every

area, parks, public works, administrative staff, IT, all those.

What can we do differently?

In many ways, are there ways that we can operate drastically different than we operate today

in order to realize some savings?

And so we can't necessarily hit the pause because we've made statements and commitments to these

individuals.

Hey, you're going to have a job on July 21st.

And I'm just coming forward to say, hey, is that a good idea in light of all the budgetary

challenges that we're up against?

And so how long does it take from recruitment to get to this point with one of the trainees?

Chief Cassano, we may need you to come down.

That's probably my last question.

Madam Mayor, Council Members, Ken Cassano, your fire chief.

And the question was, how long does the process take from recruitment to when they're actually-

Where they're at now?

To where they're at now, I believe it's been close to four to five months.

Okay.

And so that's why it's important to look at what retirements are coming up.

We would already have that backfill.

Right.

And I guess in some ways, me kind of being new to the scene here, there were measures and

things in place that were already just moving down the track and through the process.

And so coming in, not familiar with everything.

Now, I think today, congratulations to me.

It's my 120th day here.

And so with that information, now I feel more comfortable.

This is where we're at.

I mean, I kept hoping for the magical, like I'd come and Adam would tell me, hey, guess

what?

We just found $30 million.

But that hasn't happened.

And so we have a pretty good idea of the revenue streams and the expenditures that are occurring.

And actually, we can go back in previous years and Adam and Stacey and the finance team

of saying, hey, here's where we're going.

And if we continue this path, we will continue to dip into our reserve.

And so we've delayed things for quite a bit of time.

And so the graph that shows us in just three or four years being out of cash is not really

a situation we want to be in, especially when we factor in all the things we're not doing.

And so for us to have a hope to kind of regain our community, to rebuild our community,

to make it the great city, to continue in the tradition of greatness that Folsom is,

we can't continue on this path.

That's all my questions for now.

Council Member Leary?

I'm sorry.

I just wanted to be a little bit more transparent to Council Member Roerbaugh's question is that

if you're asking for a total time period from recruitment, because to where they are now,

of course, they're not hired.

They're still another couple months down the road until they're actually online doing the

job of a firefighter paramedic.

So the entire process is between six to eight months.

Okay.

Thank you.

Council Member Leary?

Thank you for giving us that broad overview of the budget.

I think it's something that's difficult for everybody to understand.

And one of the things that, you know, I think is unfortunate is the timing of this and, you

know, just going through the budget process and then identifying places to cut in every

single division, carrying forward a whole lot of positions that have been frozen for more

than a year at this point.

I guess I want to avoid having the public put a lot of pressure on pitting one department

against another.

These, you know, proposed cuts have been equitable.

I understand, you know, the stress when people are looking forward to a job, which is why I'm glad

the other questions were answered and I'm not quite sure of the time frame, so I'm glad

you're already standing there, on how you may devise, you know, a brownout and who would

be assigned and what would be the personnel requirements if, you know, that moves forward

as suggested.

Would you need still more firefighters to fill positions to make each one of the remaining

fire stations fully capable of doing all of the required jobs?

So with the proposed deferral, if those 10 positions don't happen, I mean, we really have

no choice.

There will be one of our three medics closed and there will be a fire station closed.

But then personnel at the...

Well, the rest of the personnel would fill in the holes that we currently are filling now

with overtime.

But would you need, you know, a few...

Let's say you don't hire all 10.

Would a few more, I don't know, four, five, six, suffice to cover the holes that are currently

present in the various stations?

So, of course, any extra personnel would help with overtime costs as we move forward.

But in order to keep a station up, you know, we would need the full 10.

If we want to keep both the station and a medic up, we would need the full 10.

But what would you need if you have five?

Would you still need some additional personnel to, like, for example, keep a medic in place

and fully staff the five?

I mean, I think it depends on where...

What the council is actually looking for because, I mean, we're maintaining right now, but it's

at the cost of overtime every day.

It's at the cost of our employees completely being burned out trying to kill themselves

to keep things staffed in the city.

So, yes, I mean, we could have additional personnel that would definitely help, and we could try

to keep stations open.

But again, to do that, there's always the incurred cost of overtime.

And from what I've heard, that's not the appetite of the council or city manager right now.

Yeah.

And if I could add, I mean, it's not the appetite for me because I've seen and talked to our firefighters,

and I know how much, you know, blood, sweat, and tears they're putting into this, and they're

working too much.

And so even if we were to find a way to hire some of those vacancies, my recommendation

is that because we wouldn't...

If we continue to maintain staffing of station, all six stations, we would not be able to realize

the savings that is necessary for us to close the gap.

So even if we hire some of those, you know, my recommendation is we have to drop down, you

know, to brown out a station so that we can, one, not run our people into the ground, but

two, also make sure that we don't have overtime costs that exceed what we're anticipating.

And therefore, it kind of makes moot any efforts that we've made to try to reduce our costs.

Okay.

I guess I'm not being clear.

My question is, if you brown out one station, would you have enough personnel to fully staff

five remaining stations, or would you need more to perhaps keep a medic going?

That's what I'm trying to get at.

We would have enough to staff the remaining five stations.

Without overtime.

We would not have enough to staff the third medic.

That's going to remain closed as well.

So you could, with existing staff, staff five stations, but not have a medic.

Is that correct?

Correct.

We would not have three ambulances in the city.

And again, you know, when we talk about this, and the reason that I don't think there's any

fire chief in the region that would stand up here and support this, because I don't believe

in reducing services to a community for public safety.

Right.

So, but if you hired some of, I wouldn't, I can't, I'm not going to predict what number

you need, because I don't know.

But if you hired some out of this pool of 10 who've already almost completed the program,

could that, would that fill in any gaps and then not require overtime on the part of the

existing personnel?

And you're referring to the five stations?

Yes.

Okay.

I mean, we're, to completely eliminate overtime is, it's almost an impossibility in the fire

service.

Now we do our best to, to help limit that.

And any over staffed that we would have would fill in those gaps.

I mean, if, if we get enough people, yeah, I mean, I would, I'll do my best to keep every

piece of apparatus or every possible piece of apparatus on the road.

And that would be, that would include the third medic, whether we keep that third medic

and brown out a station.

I don't know how that would look right now, but, but the way it sits and what I'm seeing

and hearing is, is these 10 deferrals.

It, it, it just results in a reduction of service of the closure of a station and an ambulance.

Okay.

Thank you.

So chief, during my six and a half years on the council, we've browned out medics before.

We have.

So when about 70% or whatever of the calls are medical related rather than an actual fire,

when we have to brown something out, why do we brown out an ambulance and not an engine

or a truck?

Mayor Keene, that's a good question.

And the reason for that is that our ambulances are, they're not considered our first responders.

They could be waiting at hospitals.

You've seen in the region before when we were dealing with, you know, ambulances that are,

that are sitting at hospital, hospitals waiting to offload the patients for hours.

That, that's starting to come back into a little bit more control in the region.

But, but again, on a, on an average day, our medics are gone and our first responders are

really the engine companies in their first in district that can get to any type of emergency,

you know, expeditiously within, within a six minute time period.

And that's why you see that the, the response time for our medics units are, are two minutes

longer than our engines.

And that's just because we never know where they may be.

They may be out of the district.

They may be coming back from a hospital.

We never know.

Okay.

So we get more bang for our buck with an engine company because we can do both,

or we can really respond to any type of emergency where, where an ambulance is only responding

to a medical aid.

Okay.

And, um, so the wall time at the hospital, I equate to, um, the same challenge we have

when an officer is taking somebody, an arrestee down to the jail, right?

They're spending hours down at the county jail.

Have we considered anything like, um, hiring AMR or some type of private organization where

we can just say, Hey, our, our ambulance crew says, we're going to hand off this patient

to you.

You do the wall time with them in the hospital while we go back out in our community and respond

to more calls.

We have not considered that as, as a Folsom fire department.

And I know SAC Metro, uh, they have contracted out, but we, as a region, um, we've been working

with hospitals.

We've been working with our, our regional partners coming up with ways that we can deal with it

when it was, when it was really bad.

Um, and that was really just kind of, uh, you know, a unit sharing patients where they could,

you know, share up to four patients and watch over them while other units were clearing.

Okay.

So we haven't explored it, but okay, maybe there's some opportunity there.

Um, I was, you know, interacting with folks on, on Facebook about this meeting.

And I thought one of your firefighters brought up a very good point about the amount of times

our ambulances are responding to the prisons.

Um, do you know about how many times we're responding per day or per year or whatever?

And so that's an ambulance.

So every time that you respond there, that results in a transport somewhere?

Typically.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um, well, I chair the Citizens Advisory Committee for the prisons.

And I think this, my first call tomorrow is going to be to the wardens.

I mean, I think if they are using a disproportionate amount of our services, that is something that

we need to look into and see if there's any way that we can reduce that number.

So the prisons, they, they do contract with private ambulance companies.

Okay.

But those are further routine transports to, you know, medical appointments and things like

that for the prisoners.

But we are the 911 provider for the city of Folsom.

And when they call 911, we are going to get that, uh, that, that notification.

And, and we only send an ambulance typically to the prison.

Got it.

Are there other individuals in the city who are kind of, you know, frequent flyers, kind

of disproportionate users of our, um, medics and that sort of, you know, you're, it's like,

oh yeah, I'm at John Smith's house again, that type of thing.

Yeah.

I'm, I'm sure there are.

I mean, I've, I haven't been working the line in a quite a few, you know, years, but, uh,

I'm sure that some of our paramedics would be, would be happy to say that there's certain,

certain individuals that, that probably abuse or use the system more than others.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

And then to follow up on, on council member Larry's question.

So if we hire none of the 10, we have to brown out a station and we have to brown out the

third medic.

Correct.

If we said to the city manager, we want all three medics.

We're okay with browning out one station, but we want all three medics.

How many firefighters, paramedics would we have to hire?

Um, I I'd have to look at that, but I want to say the number would be around four.

Uh, okay.

All right.

Okay.

We've got lots of public comment.

Thank you, chief.

Quick one question.

Yeah.

Um, you, it takes nine firefighters to staff an engine.

Correct.

Right.

How much, how many does it for three shifts?

How many does it for an ambulance?

Six.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

We've got lots of public comment.

Um, city clerk's going to call a couple names.

So if you're on deck, if you could kind of make your way toward the front again, we please

ask that you stick to the three minutes.

Um, if there's a question that we did not ask that you think should be answer asked and

answered, um, feel free to say that during your comments.

I will jot those down and we'll come back to those.

Okay.

Um, so, uh, the first speaker for this item is Tyler Smith followed by Dan Carson.

Call it up on one.

And after Dan will be Matt McGee followed by Matt Blake.

Hello, Tyler.

Good evening.

Madam mayor, city council members, Mr. Webmeyer.

Members of the community and fellow public servants.

My name is Tyler Smith.

I represent local five, two, two, and I'm an engineer on the busiest apparatus and Folsom

truck 35.

I stand before you tonight with a sense of duty.

I stand before you tonight as someone who truly understands what it means when a call

goes out at 3.

AM when seconds count and when a life hangs in the balance.

I speak on behalf of the residents of Folsom who go to bed at night expecting that if the

unthinkable happens, help will be there.

Tonight, city council could make a decision that will change the course of the worst day

of someone's life.

Freezing firefighter hiring and browning out engines isn't just a budget cut.

It's a gamble with lives.

It's a choice that says saving dollars is more important than saving people.

What is a life worth?

What is the cost of a home loss to a fire, a child not resuscitated in time, or a heart

attack waiting for a fire engine from across the city?

When you halt the hiring of firefighters, when you brown out fire engines, you're placing

a bet.

A bet that a fire won't break out on that side of town tonight.

A bet that a loved one won't stop breathing in a district without an engine to respond.

You're betting that your luck will hold.

Luck is not a public safety plan, and gambling is not leadership.

When that gamble fails, it's not you who's going to pay the price.

It's the families, and it's the members of the community that you say are here to serve.

Our firefighters are exhausted.

They're answering more calls than ever with fewer resources.

Day, night, weekend, holiday, it doesn't matter.

When someone calls 911, they show up willing to give their life for people they've never met.

They're sacrificing their bodies, their sleep, and their mental health to serve the

city.

Instead of support, they're being met with apathy, cynicism, and demands of more sacrifice.

We understand the pressure of the budget and the hard choices that come with it.

When the safety of the public is on the line, when the most vulnerable moments of a person's

life depend on how quickly help arrives, there shouldn't be a debate.

So I'll ask each of you on the council, whose district goes without first?

Which voters' lives are less valuable than others?

Who's willing to gamble with the lives of their constituents?

On the worst day of their life, which members of the community don't deserve a prompt response

from those who are here to protect them?

What we're talking about here is not politics, and it's not numbers on a spreadsheet.

It's people.

The fires are still burning.

Calls are still coming.

And the people we swore to protect still expect someone to show up.

Let me be clear.

If someone dies because we didn't get there fast enough, not because we failed, but because

we weren't staffed, weren't sent, weren't there, that won't be an accident.

That'll be a result of a decision made by the elected officials sitting in this chamber

tonight.

When the cuts happen, you won't be able to tally lives not saved, but we'll feel it, and we

won't forget.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Dan Carson, come on up.

Good evening, Dan.

What's that?

I said good evening.

Oh, good evening.

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

My name is Dan Carson.

I'm a 30-year resident, 10-year firefighter, and the local 522 Union Representative for Folsom

Fire.

I wanted to give you guys a few analytics and stats.

Without Medic 36 that we've been operating the last 19 days, we've had approximately

six and a half hours, six hours, 42 minutes during the day without an ambulance in the

city of Folsom at all.

Last month, we had 661 medical transports.

103 of those were done by outside agencies, either AMR, SAC Metro, or El Dorado Hills.

We talked about the average response time for an ambulance when we have ambulances in the

city being roughly eight minutes.

When we have no ambulances in the city, the average time was 13 minutes and 51 seconds to

get an ambulance on scene, with the longest time this past month being 29 minutes and 56

seconds.

Two-thirds of the time that we have a medical aid go out within the city, it's actually 64%

of the time we have a medical aid go out within the city, we have another one go out within

one hour.

And to answer your question, Marikino, we had 59 transports out of the prison last month,

so approximately two per day out of the prison.

A few numbers for you also on Medic 36.

Last year, Medic 36 brought in a revenue source of $1.7 million.

Staffing that equipment was roughly $1.5 million.

We're very weary on the term, you know, short-term brownout or not staffing these positions at the

time.

The last time we heard that for a short-term brownout was 2008.

Engine 35 was taken, and it's been 17 years now that we have not gotten those positions

back.

I want to look at also taking 10 positions away from us is fixing 70% of the deficit, but

we are now getting 25% of the budget.

One thing I want to leave you with is just when seconds count, you do not want a fire department

minutes away.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Matt McGee, followed by Matt Blake.

Chief McGee, then Chief Blake.

City Council, Mayor Aquino.

I'm Matt McGee, Assistant Chief of Operations for the Folsom Fire Department.

Tonight, I'm representing the Folsom Fireman Management Group.

I'm responding to Resolution 11435, which will eliminate the hiring process for 10 new

firefighters.

This proposal will lead to a station brownout, as well as a medic brownout, and further reduce

our response capability.

First, I want to discuss the consequences of this resolution.

Even a few minutes of delay can mean the difference between containing a fire to a one bedroom or

losing the entire structure and possibly lives.

But consider a typical day in Folsom where there are three to four incidents occurring in

the city at the same time.

Our fire resources are part of a larger web of protection that is more than just one response

area.

It's more than just the city.

Eliminating one of our stations will increase response times, leading to more fire damage

and more lives lost.

Next, I want to discuss where we are in this hiring process.

These recruits have already passed written, physical, and paramedic exams, interviews, background

checks.

We've already purchased their uniforms.

We've scheduled their academy.

We've created the curriculum.

And we've prepared their field training officers.

They have accepted our job offers.

I'm going to repeat that.

They have accepted our job offers.

They have submitted their two-week notices to their current employers.

Some of those employers are not going to take them back.

They have committed to the city of Folsom and Folsom Fire Department.

And we are excited about the high caliber of candidates that have emerged from this recruitment.

In fact, many of them are here tonight.

Five of our current employees intend to retire before the end of this fiscal year.

Even if we brown out an engine, we're going to need these recruits.

As operations chief, I also need to forecast our staffing needs into the future.

We need our members to promote into highly specialized and technical positions.

I need engineers.

I need captains.

And I need chief officers.

These positions require years of experience and training.

And our need for these positions has outpaced our current candidate pool.

This resolution will compound that problem for years to come.

In conclusion, I acknowledge the current fiscal state of the city.

But halting this hiring process will waste resources that we've already spent.

And it'll waste employees that we will need in the near future.

You've indicated that the voters told the city loud and clear to live within our means.

I'd like to remind the council that in a recent citywide survey, the citizens of Folsom said, loud and clear, that public safety is the highest financial priority for the city.

Thank you, chief.

The voters didn't want this deficit resolved on the backs of the fire department.

Identifying and reducing non-essential services must be considered before taking away vital fire department resources.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Matt Blake.

Matt Blake will be followed by Brian Beck.

And then Shelly Martell.

Followed by Adam House.

Good evening.

Mayor Keno, city council.

Thank you for the time.

My name is Matt Blake.

For those of you who haven't met me, I'm the division chief for the city of Folsom Fire Department.

I'm responsible for its emergency medical services division.

I wanted the council to have an opportunity to hear from its EMS division chief as it relates to the services to the community, which happens to include my family.

And I thought this would best be served by reading a letter from Dr. Brian Sloan.

Dr. Brian Sloan is the fire department's medical director, was unable to attend tonight due to his obligations at his emergency room in South Sacramento as an ER doc.

The letter reads, Dear Folsom City Council members and city manager, as a medical director for the Folsom Fire Department, I urge you to reconsider the decision to defer the hiring of additional firefighters.

These positions are critical for the maintaining of the operational integrity of our existing emergency system.

The loss of these vital resources and the resulting browning out of critical emergency services will not only cost lives, but will also incur substantial indirect financial implications to our community.

If a Folsom resident suffers a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital, their survival rate drops by 10% each minute.

Every few minutes of delay can literally be the difference between life and death.

Moreover, every second a brain is deprived of oxygen increases the risk of permanent brain damage.

Even when our paramedics are able to restart someone's heart, those extra few minutes can determine whether someone returns to dinner with their families or faces severe permanent neurological deficits.

A patient with such deficits places a massive emotional, physical, and financial burden on their family and the community as a whole, a burden that can be at least partially prevented by well-functioning emergency response framework.

As an emergency room physician, I've witnessed firsthand the consequences of delayed EMS response.

About a year ago, our community experienced a severe emergency department and hospital overcrowding, leading to severe ambulance delays across the county.

I personally cared for individuals who, without a doubt, died due to these delays.

At that time, those delays were multifactorial and largely beyond our control.

This situation is different.

We're actively deciding to remove critical resources.

Will it be my son suffering a seizure?

Your neighbor having a heart attack?

A mother and daughter walking home from school or struck by a car?

Many people, their families, and their communities will be negatively impacted by this decision.

I implore you to reconsider.

I know that I, along with the rest of the community, understand the precarious financial situation our city faces.

However, I urge you to take the time for a measured, thoughtful approach that prioritizes and preserves our most critical services.

Thank you, Dr. Brian Sloan, Medical Director of the Folsom Fire Department.

Thank you, Chief.

Brian Beck will be followed by Shelley Martell, Adam House, and then Michael Lilienthal.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Thank you for your time.

My name is Brian Beck.

I'm the Assistant Chief of Training for the City Folsom Fire Department.

I've been here just under 21 years, and tonight I represent Folsom Fire Mid-Management.

From the training perspective, I cannot simply hire anyone to fill a position.

After they complete their years of schooling, our process takes over six months from recruitment to the academy to get them online.

Cutting this academy for a later date saves money on paper now, but the long-term costs are much greater.

With the increased costs, we become the fire department and the city that firefighters cannot trust.

We will struggle harder for recruitment.

There will be no ability for succession planning, decreased training, and we have proof of this from the last recession, which we have still not yet recovered from on our staffing.

We cannot function without proper training.

Rolling brownouts decreases our ability to do just that.

Not having an engine or a medic daily makes it nearly impossible.

We will not be able to pull resources for mandatory trainings, and this will impact our surrounding agencies.

SAC Metro, Colorado Hills Fire sitting behind me.

They're already in our city every single day running our calls.

We will have to have them leave their area to run our calls just so we can train.

Unacceptable.

We are currently down 10 positions.

You heard from Chief McGee we expect four to five retirements this fiscal year.

So there's 14 to 15 positions looming.

My academy of 10 has been decreased to eight.

I only have eight left.

I lost two last week when HR advised them that their jobs were at stake for tonight's meeting.

So we only have eight.

That's eight out of 15.

These eight firefighters are not numbers that can be cut.

We've already hired them.

If you listen to Chief McGee, they've received job offers, and we've spent around $50,000 to get to this point with recruitment and everything we've done with them up to now.

They start in two weeks.

Cutting them now, we lose great employees.

We also waste that $50,000.

They've done everything we've asked.

They have their uniforms ready, and we've put over 100 man hours into preparing their academy.

You've heard it, but they're right back there.

They put in their two-week notices.

One of my recruits who's here tonight already lost his job.

His two weeks ran out.

He is jobless right now because he put his eggs in Folsom's basket, and we're going to dump it out.

Unacceptable.

We need these recruits with or without brownouts, all eight of them.

Many of these recruits are here, and they're staring at you right now, so please keep that in mind.

They're recently married, three-week new old babies.

Their families are at home waiting to see what lurks and what's next.

That's on your decision right now.

When you vote tonight, I want to remind you that their families are not just numbers and names on a budget sheet.

They're highly trained and dedicated members of the City of Folsom Fire Department already.

They're ready to serve right now.

I need your vote tonight so I can keep all eight of them so we can continue to protect and serve this great city that we all love, but I need every single one of them.

So when you make your vote, please look at them and think about it because it makes a big difference.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Shelley Martell, are you here?

Mm-hmm.

I'm going to defer my time.

No, Shelley, I'm sorry.

No deferring of the time.

You can have the three minutes or, yeah, or they can sign up themselves and get three minutes.

Yeah, but nobody's getting six minutes.

Thank you for your service.

Hold the mic down.

There you go.

And thank you for everyone that's here tonight.

Pretty much everything that has been said has been amazing.

I think that when we look at everyone that is here, everyone that has shown up, the heartfelt decisions that are being made and being made by you.

It's on the shoulders of everybody in the community.

Safety first.

That's what Folsom has been about forever, and that's what Folsom needs to be about today.

Everybody that has showed up tonight, it's just another reminder of exactly what has been the backbone of Folsom.

I mean, we didn't get in California to the top ten best places to live by not having the safety that we all have and deserve and need.

The men and women behind us are just another testament to the dedication of what they bring to this community.

I don't know about you, but nothing matters more to me than my community, excuse me, my community safety.

The hard work that they put in, their life on the line for you, nothing else matters more than that, that they're running in when you're running out.

And again, if I could just please say, really, really give this some major thought on the decisions that you're going to make that will be in the lives of others.

There's nothing more important than people's lives.

Thank you.

Thank you, Shelley.

Adam House will be followed by Michael Lilienthal, Trevor Jamieson, and then Dale Hemstock.

Good evening.

Good evening.

When you're fully staffed, which you are not today, your best average time for a medic to get on scene is six minutes.

I have three.

I would ask you to hold your breath the entire time I'm speaking to help you guide your decision.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor.

Council members, members of the public.

My name is Adam House, and I proudly serve as the fire chief for Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District on every one of your slides.

I'm here tonight to speak very candidly about the very real and immediate impacts that your decision or delay, which I believe is a delay at a minimum of three years, if we're going by your slides, and hiring 10 firefighters will have.

I'm going to speak at a very high level.

Let me be clear.

Let me be clear.

This is not just a staffing issue.

This is a regional public safety issue.

As many of you know, Medic 36 has been browned out for some time.

Without the hiring of these 10 firefighters, my understanding is that Medic 36 will continue to remain closed.

And there is a serious concern that another medic and a station will be closed.

This creates a direct and measurable impact on Metro Fire, my agency, and the greater regional fire service system.

When Medic 36 was in service last year, it completed a significant number of patient transports, I believe in excess of 1,000.

Not just calls for service, transports to the hospitals.

That load doesn't disappear.

It shifts, and it lands squarely on surrounding agencies, especially Metro Fire.

Your decision not to hire these firefighters sends ripples effects way beyond the city of Folsom.

For decades, this region, I know you're new, city manager.

For decades, this region of fire departments, all the regional partners have worked together through automatic aid agreements built on trust, shared values, and a mutual commitment to service delivery throughout shared resources.

You can see that commitment here tonight by multiple fire chiefs, firefighters, labor leaders, and members of the public that are standing in support of each other.

However, shared regional resources and the ability to respond in kind is the foundation of an effective automatic aid system.

A reduction of resources in the city of Folsom eliminates our ability to respond in kind.

As fire chief, I have a responsibility to my own residents and my members.

We cannot risk drawdown in the city of Folsom that leads to slower response times or degraded service in our own communities.

Because of this, I will have no choice but to evaluate suspension of apparatus move-ups to cover the city of Folsom stations during your own brownouts or closures.

To the residents of Folsom, this should be cause for real concern.

We've all watched the recent headlines out of the Los Angeles area where staffing shortages and station closers led to unacceptable response delays and public outcry.

Their elected officials are now scrambling to corrective course playing catch-up under immense public pressure.

Let's not follow that path.

Let's not follow that path.

Let's learn from it.

In closing, I stand in full support of fire chief Gusano and his request to move forward with hiring these firefighters now.

The consequences of delay are too great, not just for Folsom, but for the entire region.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Chief.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Michael Lillianthal.

I'm the fire chief of the Eldorado Hills Fire Department.

And I guess I wanted to start.

A lot of great comments have been made, a lot of really valid points, and I really hope you're hearing them because the presentation up here is great.

It gives you a lot of foundation, but that is not a fire service analysis.

That is a lot of statistical and facts that really don't paint the true picture of what you're about to decide.

When you close an engine company, you create extended response time for your citizens.

Your firefighters have spoke to it.

Your chief officers have spoke to it.

They did a great job making a lot of key points.

When your community is suffering from the lack of an engine company getting to them quick enough, people will die.

There is not a single question about that.

That is what you're about to make a decision upon.

So what I think is really you've identified a structural deficit.

You have a budget problem.

I think we understand that.

I think your fire department understands that.

But you're making a decision way too quickly on a topic that's way, way, way too important.

So my recommendation to you that's been said by others, fund your fire department, take some time, get some help if you need it, but make a decision that's based on risk, that's based on strategy, that's based on long-term thought processes.

I mean, you know you've got firefighters retiring.

You're going to need these new firefighters now.

So really, just think for a minute about the gravity of the decision, about what you're deciding to do.

You need more time.

It's way too quick.

You need to fund your fire department.

From the Eldorado Hills Fire Department perspective, I just took a look.

We've had ambulances in your city all day today with people having strokes, with people that are unconscious.

These are Eldorado Hills resources coming down.

Now, we have enjoyed a great relationship.

We wanted to work together.

We've had the fire department you have here is top tier.

We share resources.

We send engines back and forth.

We send ambulances.

And we don't mind.

And we want to keep doing that.

But again, I'm going to go back to it.

The decision you're making is not one that can be made on a couple of slides based on population.

You have simultaneous calls happening in this town.

You have response time issues.

You need to take your time.

Fund your fire department this year and give this another look at what you're going to do from a strategic perspective.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Trevor Jameson will be followed by Dale Hemstock, followed by Lee Shortland.

Good evening.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, council members, staff.

Obviously, you have heard a lot.

There's a lot going on tonight.

I think the importance has been made very clear.

And I just want to reiterate a few points.

There's a clear risk here.

Deferring the hiring of these members of these eight or less ten eight that are back here will directly reduce the emergency response capacity and may lead to closures of the fire stations.

These increased response times reduce the fire department's ability to protect life and property.

You've heard that over and over again.

Putting the community at greater risk.

It also places an additional strain on neighboring fire agencies who may be called upon more frequently, which you've heard are happening all the time.

So more frequently than what we're hearing to support the coverage gaps within Folsom.

Also, I believe this is a bit of not the real story.

The referral may save $2 million or so in the short term, but it'll increase long-term costs due to higher overtime pay for current firefighters, potential for greater liability or damage from delayed responses during emergencies.

Rather than cutting critical public safety positions, the city should actively pursue alternative funding streams, including grants, state or federal assistance, or targeted local revenue measures to support essential services.

And I know we looked at that, but I think it's important as leaders in this community that want to have the best city that you come forward with a better message next time to talk about what does it cost to have a top ten city in California.

It has a cost.

It doesn't come for free.

Also, this undermines workforce stability, and you've heard this.

Conditional offers have already been made to extended new recruit firefighters.

Rescending those offers damages the city's credibility.

That is true.

Undermines morale within the department and could hinder future recruitment efforts in a highly competitive labor market.

Hiring firefighter paramedics today is very difficult.

I say good.

If you do not hire these eight that are here today, good luck.

Good luck getting another eight in any near term.

And one of the things right here, it's been kind of, I'm kind of, I'm going to close with this.

This number up here, the amount of people on a scene is what matters.

It's not the response time.

It's not the distance.

If you only have six firefighters on scene versus nine firefighters on scene, the incident gets way worse.

So wherever that closure is, if there's only two fire engines that get there quickly versus three, the damage will be greater.

So I know you have a lot to consider.

I value all of your work and your relationships, and thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Dale Hemstock.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, City Council, for providing us this platform to be able to speak and to share our concerns.

I'd also like to express my gratitude to the Folsom Fire Department for always providing professional, stellar fire and EMS services to the community that I live in.

I come here with three hats.

I'm a fireman.

I'm also a concerned Folsom resident, and I'm proud to serve as the president of the Colorado Hills Professional Firefighters and Paramedics.

Clearly, Folsom is having some difficulty staffing enough stations to provide the EMS and fire services that they need to provide.

They're currently down 10 fire positions, so we're not talking about adding 10 new firefighters.

We're talking about replacing firefighters, and I think that's an important distinction because you already have a service that you have identified as a need in this community,

and not filling those positions, I think, is cutting services.

It's not just deferring, hiring new employees to make a better service, although I do think that we do need to have a better service.

One thing you might not realize is the ambulance side of things.

Here in Sacramento County, the Emergency Medical Services Authority requires ambulances to take patients to their insurance provider.

So what that might mean is if somebody has Kaiser, they have to take them all the way to Kaiser Hospital in Roseville or Kaiser Hospital in Sacramento.

Basically, almost every single call an ambulance has to run takes about an hour's worth of time.

You're down two ambulances in Folsom, you can see that that's a big problem if you have two ambulances gone for an hour at a time.

I currently work at Station 86 in El Dorado Hills.

That's off Bass Lake and Highway 50.

It's not uncommon for us to be sitting at the dinner table for our medics to receive a call to respond to right here where we're standing.

I'm not sure about anybody here, but I'm not comfortable waiting for 20 minutes for an ambulance to respond.

From another city.

So there's a big time versus distance there.

We're happy to do it.

Obviously, we have an auto mutual aid agreement.

We receive the benefits from Folsom as well over the years.

But I think it's important that we maintain this agreement between the two agencies to be able to respond to help each other, but not be taken advantage of at the same time.

If our medics are spending all their time in here, as you look at your stats over there, we only have two ambulances to serve our 45,000 residents.

If they're both down here, then we don't have anybody to respond to there, and then we're not meeting our obligation to our community.

So as a resident, I feel that cutting these services makes me extremely uncomfortable, and I think it should for you as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Lee Shortland will be up next.

Lee.

And Lee will be followed by Felipe Rodriguez and then Scott Glines.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Mayor Aquino, Council Members, Mr. White Meyer.

My name is Lee Snortland.

I've been a resident of Folsom for 15 years.

My wife and I moved out from San Jose, and we absolutely just are delighted with our move to Folsom,

partly because of the safety and security of a fire and police department that you folks have within the city.

I've been in this building a few times over those 15 years for building permits and such.

This is my first time here due to Mr. White Meyer's public invite to discuss the deferral of hiring firefighters.

So, specifically, there's a financial burden associated with training required for at least two positions on a couple of fire trucks that you folks have here recently.

I believe they're called articulated or tractor-based fire trucks.

They're trucks that require special training for at least two positions, the primary driver and the driver in the trailer.

So, that is going to take money away from funds available for just the general training of your new recruits.

And even people who are firefighters are currently in place.

They probably have to be retrained periodically for their jobs.

So, these additional funds, these loads, reduce the money available for the pool of hiring new firefighters.

So, based on operator training and equipment cost, equipment maintenance,

of these two tractor fire engines that you folks have,

I would like to suggest that the city council reassess the need for this piece of equipment.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for coming out.

Okay.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.