We will reconvene the special meeting.

Mr.

City Attorney, any final action to report out?

No final action tonight, Madam Mayor.

Then we will adjourn the special meeting and call to order the regular meeting of the Folsom City Council for Tuesday, October 14th, 2025.

Would the clerk please call the role?

Yeah, council members Leary.

Here, Rafel, Roarbaugh here, Kozlowski, and Aquino.

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

Underground individual.

Mr.

City Attorney, any agenda updates to report?

Yes, good evening, Madam Mayor.

We have a revised staff report for item 14 and also additional information transmittables for item six and 12 on tonight's agenda.

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

And are we pulling item 10 or continuing that?

Yes, we're pulling that for now.

Okay, all right.

Okay, um 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.

Um, but please understand that we're not allowed to um deliberate or take action on items that are not on the agenda.

If you want to speak um during this section or any time during tonight's meeting, if you please fill out a blue speaker card, the back of the room.

Hand it to the officer over here in the corner, and the clerk will call you up at the appropriate time.

So any requests to speak from business from the floor.

Yeah, you have three requests to speak this evening under business from the floor.

So our first speaker will be Kathy Dunbar.

Kathy will be followed by the pair of Anushka and Tanvi, who will then be followed by Shishrit Mishra.

So, Kathy, come on down.

And if you hear your name called and you know you're next, feel free to stand on deck so you're ready to go.

You can write down here to the center microphone, Kathy, and um we do give each speaker three minutes.

Thank you.

Uh well, my name is Kathy Dunbar, and I came to express my appreciation for the Steve McLeose Aquatics Center.

This facility has been a blessing to me and my family for 14 years.

I brought my grandchildren there to swim.

I thought that was important for their safety, but just also for the sheer enjoyment of swimming.

Um the Aquatic Center has also enriched my life.

I was working in Placerville, and I would come down here after work, and I could have had a rotten day at work, and after swimming those laps, I would be relapsed and relaxed and peaceful.

And it was just really so good for my soul.

Uh, this last October, I fell, and I broke my right shoulder in three spots.

It was a really bad break.

The physician said I would not be able to raise my arm above my head.

Both my physician and the physical therapist were surprised at how quickly I regained my range of motion.

I can now lift my arm over my head.

They agreed with me that the swimming attributed to my rapid progress.

I started swimming again this summer, and I'm continuing to improve.

Besides the health benefits, I've developed some good friendships there, and not all of us live in Folsom.

So we go, we swim, and then we go out and have lunch in the community.

So that's good for the community.

This aquatic center offers something for almost anybody who wants it.

You've got swimming lessons, diving lessons, water, uh exercise, and even fun events like swimming with pumpkins for Halloween and for dog lovers.

There's a dog there's an event for the dog lovers and their dogs, which is really a lot of fun.

In addition to the fun that this facility brings, it offers many jobs to the young people in this community, high schoolers and college students.

This is a place where they learn responsibility and people skills, and how to save lives and all things that will help them through the rest of their working career and just help them to grow as people.

So I just wanted to go on record as to how valuable the aquatic center is.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kathy.

We always appreciate hearing good news.

Okay, our next our next.

Our speaker is a pair of Anushka and Tanvi, who will be followed by Shishrit Mishra.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Um Madam Mayor and Council members, city staff, and members of the Folsom community.

My name is Anushka Rajapadhe.

And my name is Dhanvi Patel.

We are honored to extend a warm invitation on behalf of BAPS Hindu Temple to each of you to join us for the upcoming Diwali celebrations.

Diwali, the festival of lights, is one of the most important celebrations in Hindu culture.

It is celebrated across India and by Hindu communities worldwide, typically in October or November.

Diwali symbolizes the victory of light over darkness and good over evil.

The festival celebrates Lord Ram's return to Ayodhya after defeating the Devan King Ramana.

Um, yeah, families light dias or oil lamps and decorate their homes with Rangoli to welcome prosperity.

At BAPS, Swami Narayan Temple, we celebrate Diwali with special prayers, devotional activities, and the beautiful Anakut ceremony.

This celebration brings our community together in devotion, service, and harmony.

BAPS temples worldwide promote the values of faith, unity, and selfless services to society.

We warmly invite you to experience the joy of and spiritual richness of Diwali at our temple on Sunday, October 26th from 12 to 6 p.m.

Come witness the beauty of Ungud and uplifting spirit of community celebration.

Thank you for listening.

We hope you consider our proposal.

Thank you for coming.

Okay, our next speaker is Shishrit Mishra.

Good evening lift that microphone up so it.

There you go.

Okay.

Okay.

Um honorable mayor, respected respected council members and distinguished guests.

Welcome.

My name is Sushrit Mishra, and I'm a proud resident of the city of Folsom.

I'm a volunteer for the Hindu Swayam Saiva, also known as HSS, which is a vol which is an organization that promotes Hindu values, community spirit, and service.

HSS follows the idea of Vasud Deva Kutumbakam, sorry.

Uh meaning the world is one family.

We believe that serving others is a way to serve serve the divine, expressed in the way of saying Naroseva, Narayan Seva.

October is recognized as Hindu Heritage Month, which is a wonderful and positive step for our community.

This month especially is meaningful for Hindus all around the world, as it is also when we celebrate our Diwali, the festival of lights.

Diwali is more than just a joyous celebration, though.

It encourages us to uphold our values, act with honesty, and promote peace within our families and communities.

Self-less service, also known as Seva, is at our heart of our celebrations and daily life.

All year.

HSS runs numerous different programs and service projects, such as helping food banks, cleaning up the environment, and offering educational programs.

During Diwali, we focus on a special project, also known as Seva Diwali.

This project brings people, all the people across the world together, across the country, and just to help like other people and come in other communities.

So that Seva Diwali brings together thousands of volunteers from all over the country.

This project invites people to use their homes as collections for food for points for canned food, non-perishable items, and winter clothing.

These donations go to local food banks and homeless shelters.

So the spirit of Diwali reaches to those who need it most.

Last year, Seva Diwali made a huge difference.

About 3,000 volunteers across the nation collected and distributed 717,000 pounds of food and supplies in 38 states and 200 and over 200 cities.

Being the seventh consecutive project consecutive year for this event, it involves 247 organizations, including Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, and Sikh Temples and Schools.

Okay, I'm running out of time, so I'm gonna screw up this one quickly.

Um we kindly request your guidance and assistance in identifying more of the local food banks and shelters that can benefit from your outreach.

Your your support will help us ensure that our efforts are inclusive as far reaching as possible.

As we celebrate the Bali, we wish that it shares its lights and hopes with all residents of Folsom.

And we believe that every individual is, regardless of background and or faith, deserves to be uplifted and respected.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for coming out.

Okay, call the next item, please.

Okay, this takes you to your first scheduled presentation item this evening.

This is item number one.

This is a resolution of commendation honoring Folsom Lake Surf Soccer Club.

Come on down, you guys.

Turn around so your mom and dads can see you.

All right, coach, I'm gonna give this to you.

All right, this is a City of Folsom Resolution of Commendation honoring the Folsom Lake Surf Soccer Club, ECNL R L 2011 Boys Regional League National Champions.

Whereas the Folsom Lake Surf Soccer Elite Club's National League 2011 boys team contributed to Folsom's vibrant youth sports community, representing the city with exceptional teamwork, sportsmanship, and dedication to the game of soccer.

And whereas the team is comprised of 16 boys who have trained all year with head coach and executive director Fritz Libby, who provided preparation, training, and leadership with encouragement all season.

And whereas the players, Tate, Ethan, Arsum, Atip, Rafael, Christian, Henry, Brady, Roman, Lucas, Steven, Davis, Ryan, Cole, Drake, Davandip, came together all year to prepare for play at the highest level, demonstrating teamwork, positive attitudes, excellent work ethic, and enthusiasm for the game and opportunities to perform at the national level.

And whereas the team won their NorCal ECNL Regional League, became NorCal premier state cup champions, and became champions in the ECNL Regional League West Regional Playoffs, which set the stage for their dominant national championship performance.

And whereas the team traveled to Richmond, Virginia in July to attend the ECNL Regional League Finals, playing against three teams from across the country, dominating the game, scoring a combined 11 goals to their opponents' two goals, and whereas the players, coaches, and families of the Folsom Lake Surf Soccer Club, ECNL 2011 boys team proudly represented the city of Folsom on and off the field.

Now, therefore, I, Sarah Aquino, mayor of the city of Folsom, on behalf of the Folsom City Council and the Folsom community, to hereby congratulate the players, coaches, and families of the Folsom Lake Surf Soccer Club, ECNL 2011 Boys Team, and extend our excitement for this national championship and wish them continued success.

Committed this 14th day of October 2025.

It's a little closer.

Coach, you want to say anything?

No, we're good.

Well, you are all welcome.

You're welcome to stay for some very exciting budget of practice, but if you want to be think about this, hold on, Sarah.

All right, next item, please.

Okay, your next item is item number two.

This is a presentation of the 12th annual Folsom Community Service Day results.

Community service day people, come on down.

The rest of you can spread out if you want.

Do we got it?

Do we got it?

Good evening, Tom and Sandy.

Good evening, Madam Member.

It's Council Tom Hellman with the Parking Decoration Department.

Uh tonight we're giving you a recap of the 12th annual community service day.

I've had the pleasure to serve alongside Sandy Economy, our chair of this year's steering committee.

And so I will turn it over to her to take you through the pleasures of what happened just a few short weeks ago.

Thank you, Tom.

Thank you, all of you wonderful people because you helped serve on community service day.

Yay!

And I'm wondering how many of you did, probably a few.

Yay!

We had a fabulous day once again, and um thank you so much for your support of this amazing day.

So I'm gonna take you through just a few slides that highlight um exactly what we accomplished.

What am I hitting?

Sorry.

Okay.

And there we are in all of our woo-hoo, tie-dye colored shirts, and many other uh lovely greens, but you can't see.

Um great group of people, like always.

Grand total, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-five volunteers, and that was uh for the day of, just the day of, because we also had additional folks that were doing prep work beforehand that are not in this count.

So we had over 2,000 people that participated, which was phenomenal.

We completed 80 projects citywide, with a total of over 7,000 volunteer hours, and Tom being the amazing calculator that he is, um, just gave me a number that said that's roughly 250,000 worth of what would have cost us, but we got the volunteers to do the work because they're amazing people, so I think that's incredible.

And then this is just an outline map of the places that we did serve.

So you've got the um the blue triangles, which are community projects, and then the little red circles, which were neighbors helping seniors projects, and then when a little closer up, you can see that there's a big grouping of homes in the um left top corner, and that's always fun because they're all neighbors, and we also had, as you well know, the community food drive.

So many bags went out.

I looked on in my street and was just so impressed to see all these bags out that morning.

And we uh in total received 23 tons of food, equivalent to over 38,000 meals.

So that to me is a congratulations to our entire city for participating in that and making that happen.

Thank you, thank you.

Donation drive.

Uh, once again, just people stepped up and brought items that are in in need.

So bicycles, purses, school supplies, um, toys for children, holiday wrapping paper, Jake's journey home, and pet shelter supplies.

People just responded.

We have such an amazing community.

And the blood drive.

So we were putting out the call, even day of, and we ended up with 16 donors, six of them first time, which is so great.

So 16 lives were saved because of that.

And then I alluded already to the neighbors helping seniors, which were those little red dots.

But um, we had once again just volunteers come out and help 44 of our seniors with projects that they just can't do on their own anymore.

And so for us to be able to step in as a community and help them, it makes my heart so happy, and I think it does lots of people.

And I do want to give another shout out to our amazing sponsors because a lot of these projects cost hard dollars to buy the materials and the supplies.

So our presenting sponsors at $15,000, Dignity Health, and the City of Folsom.

Our visionary sponsors at $10,000, Lakeside Church, Folsom Times, Lenar Homes, and the Folsom Telegraph.

At $5,000, our leader sponsors, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Good Fellow Brothers, and the Rotary Club of Folsom.

And we additionally had uh partner sponsors.

You can see all the names.

I won't go through each one of them tonight.

And we had good neighbor sponsors.

And so in total, our sponsorships were $135,000 in cash and in kind sponsorships.

So again, I think that's worthy of a for everybody and what they did.

Just can't say enough.

So with gratitude, and for me with the happy day.

Because we did it all.

Um, to again, the city of Folsom, Lakeside, Twin Lakes Food Bank, Dignity Health, all of our sponsors, and then our steering committee members.

We have one over there, Dr.

Rototo, and we have Tom Hellman over here, and we have Justin Rathel up there.

Are there any other here?

Any others here?

Well, we get to represent.

How lucky are we?

Woo!

Donate time, that's the most important thing.

Um, all of the committee members listed, everyone did so much work.

You don't, I mean, like in anything, behind the scenes stuff happens, and most folks aren't aware, but if you stop to think about it, obviously all the coordination.

It took a lot of people putting in a lot of time, and we're so grateful.

Time and love.

Yes.

And oh, pardon me.

Oh, I missed something.

So sorry.

It's our 12th annual community service day.

We're expecting almost 2,000 volunteers working on about a hundred projects.

So that is one of the things that makes Folsom truly a great place to live.

Community Service Day is unique in the aspect that it's so large.

And people get the opportunity to give back.

You know, that's what I think Folsom is renowned for.

And we see that volunteerism is a big part of that.

Seeing everyone just come together with all of their fun ideas.

There's all kinds of projects for every age level.

The synergy is amazing.

We have been doing it for the last three years because we live in this community.

I take my kids and when we drive through the neighborhoods when they see it back, they're like, There's a bag, and they run and they grab them, and they're so excited.

Here we have drivers who are driving out to the community and picking up food.

They're bringing it in to us at different stations, and we're sorting it for the food bank, and we've already filled probably 10 giant boxes.

Volunteering together, like we mothers and daughters get to volunteer together.

We can volunteer with our whole family.

It's it's amazing.

Everybody's bringing so much food in, and it's so fun to be a friends.

Seeing the seniors, they get so excited through the whole process.

When we first come to interview them before the project to see what they need, and then they get really excited when people come and spend the day with them, and then they get to see it afterwards, and it's like it just makes your hearts like sing because everybody's happy.

The volunteers are happy because they're making an impact.

The seniors are happy because they need it.

It's just a great thing.

I have been raking, cutting down trees, pulling weeds, all kinds of things.

There's a whole bunch of fun though.

And we are out here at Lindby Park in an open space area that not many people know about.

What we're doing today is utilizing the volunteer help uh to help clear out more of this space.

One for fire uh fuel reduction.

Because there's just a lot of dense dead brush down here.

And also, once this is cleared, it's gonna open up more opportunity for not just our special event race, but maybe to develop uh trails in the future, which we can use for some of the kids' programming that we do and just for community access.

So today our goal is to put a new foundation of mulch across our school.

When I arrived here one year ago, I noticed that our beds were dried up and and they needed some love.

And the best part is not only seeing moms and students, but I'm seeing whole families show up.

We don't often get that opportunity to see the whole family working together.

Without the city of Folsom, we would not have been able to do that.

So we are so grateful for this opportunity.

The people that come one time come every year because they understand how good it feels and how and what it feels like to get back.

Are you debating whether you should become a part of community service day?

My answer is yes, and it's super fun.

Getting dirty with people you love and you know, maybe you don't know and you get to go out and make friends, it's super fun.

And I think that says it all.

Thank you so much.

Peter, why don't you come on up, Sandy, hang out for a second?

We've got Peter Jamalaro from Congressman Kevin Kiley's office who wants to present you guys with a resolution.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you to the council for allowing us a few moments.

You know, I was there, and we couldn't be more proud.

You know, that's why the Congressman really enjoys representing this community.

You know, it's the spirit of volunteerism that makes a big difference.

You know, neighbors helping neighbors, the essence of what a community is all about.

You know, I know I left there, my heart was a little more filled, like a lot of people.

And so, on behalf of Congressman Kevin Kiley, he would just like to me to present you with this official congressional certificate.

Promoting civic pride and the virtue of volunteerism in the community is what you're all about.

Congratulations, and thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Thank you very much to the committee, um, our city staff, the volunteers, the sponsors.

Um, as I said at the event, it's part of what makes Folsom a special place to live, and we know how hard the committee works all year long on this event.

So thank you very much.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Yeah, all right.

Uh that takes us to our consent calendar.

Yep.

Anybody have an item they'd like to pull.

If not, I'll entertain a motion.

I'll move the consent calendar.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Leary.

Yes.

Rafel.

Yes.

Yes.

Kozlowski.

Yes.

And Aquino.

Yes, next item, please.

Okay, that takes you to your public hearing item this evening.

This is item number six, ordinance number 1353, amending chapter 17.52 of the municipal code for the historic district relating to design review, sign permits, demolitions, and accessory buildings.

This will be introduction and first reading of the ordinance, along with determination that the project is exempt from CEQA.

Good, you mean Desmond?

Uh Mayor Aquino, members of the council, I'm Desmond Perrington, community development.

I mean, uh planning manager in the community development department.

Um, before you tonight to talk about some proposed uh changes uh in the uh oh, there we go.

Uh in the design review for um for minor projects in the historic district.

There's been a number of of reasons kind of for this.

Currently, all buildings and all of exterior renovations, remodeling, additions, all signs, all demolitions, all of those go to the historic district commission.

That's not only a lengthy process, but it's also a costly uh one in terms of the amount of of staff time.

And particularly with the uh the fee increase, um, that's designed to cover more of the actual staff time involved, that has made um getting these entitlements more expensive.

One of the other challenges that we've heard is that the public noticing requirements uh for design review is really inadequate because we post the site, and in those situations where there might be a neighbor in in the rear or neighbor that backs up in the alley, unless they go and see that um you know on that street and see that sign, they're not aware that their neighbor to the rear may be doing something on their property.

The other thing that's been an issue is we've got different different expiration dates and different extension procedures for things like conditional use permits and variances inside the historic district compared to the rest of the city, which kind of creates confusion and increases the risk for uh for errors and and confusion both by staff and by applicants.

And then finally, there are very limited standards with regard to accessory structures, and you know, currently they could potentially be as high as the existing structure and in actually in front of the the structure.

So that was never the intent, and that needed to be clarified.

So there was a number of issues associated with this, and you know the kind of the bigger picture here is we recognize that the historic district is a very special area in the city with really unique characteristics that we don't see anywhere else, but at the same time, we are continually bringing forward minor projects where we hear from the commissioners themselves from the applicants and from the public, like why are we seeing something at this minor of a level that takes two to three months to get in front of the commission?

And you know, particularly with all the changes in state law and most recently the passage and enactment of SB 79, there are bigger issues that we would like to focus on to help protect the character of the historic district.

But so much of staff's time is on, you know, the report writing, the processing, the presentation, um, you know, the the all the the staff reports that go into even bringing you know minor projects to the historic district commission, it means that we don't have the resources to tackle some of those other things.

So, what we are proposing to do in the ordinance in front of you is to bring exterior renovations, remodeling, and and smaller modifications to existing buildings, but small small additions to non-historic structures and um and accessory buildings and then non-historic demolitions and sign permits down to the director level.

That would speed up the process, reduce the need for staff reports and presentations, and then also reduce the cost to applicants.

We would also be exempting some items entirely from design review.

This is like roof material, you know, roof replacements, window and door replacements when you're dealing with kind of a like-for-like situation, residential building colors, fences and walls, you know, and you can see the the you know, small patio covers and so forth.

And again, these are things that are really minor in nature.

They don't change the overall character of the of the community.

And um, they and you know, staff gets routed these any planning staff gets routed these anyways just to check that there's any issues.

So if there are is something that is a significant change, we can look at that through a director level design review.

So we've also proposed to do modifications to the design review project process.

There would be public notices that would be mailed to all adjacent property owners in addition to the posting of the site.

So that that person that owns a home in back of the home that maybe fronts on an alley, they would now be aware of um of a project going on where they might not be if they didn't go in front of that street.

Um, we're also gonna be posting the information on these projects on the city website, and then we're gonna be providing a detailed summary to the historic district commission about those projects that are approved at the director level.

The idea behind that is to kind of create a dialogue with the historic district commission to make sure that our interpretations are consistent with their interpretations and that we're on on the right track.

If we need to course correct or make some, you know, a different, a better interpretation, they're there to provide us with that feedback.

We're also going to be making modifications to the standards for accessory buildings, limiting them to 15 feet, reducing the square footage to not more than 50% of the primary structure, and ensuring that they can't be located in front of the main building.

We've also provided a provision that if there is something kind of unique or potentially controversial, that that director level reviews can be elevated by the community development director to the commission.

And then we've also ensured that conditional use permits, variances, and so forth, they have now consistent timing and extension provisions really citywide to avoid confusion.

Now, while this item passed six to one at the Historic District Commission or was recommended for approval at the Historic District Commission, there were a number of commission and public comments related to a variety of aspects of this.

I think they were concerned about the transparency of the director level process, the a desire for even more noticing than what we were proposing.

There was questions about the methodology or how we are measuring heights, particularly with relate to as it relates to accessory buildings, and then how staff was going to determine the historic significance of structures that might be potentially eligible to be uh to be listed.

They were also wanting to uh change the process regarding appeals and elevating the review to uh the commission.

There was questions also about um could the commission itself review um director level decisions and possibly change those those decisions, and then there was another recommendation to use a uh another code section uh in chapter 1752 that allows for uh it the commission to delegate the responsibility for an individual kind of task to uh to uh to the community development director.

Um so we looked at at all of those and then made some a kind of additional clarifications or uh or revisions.

So that includes that we're also now requiring that with their design review application that they provide a project narrative that provides some context for staff about kind of why they're doing the project, the history of the home, and so forth.

Um we've also uh added some enhancements about the the noticing.

We're ensuring that you know the folks that have typically requested noticing, like the Folsom Historic Residents Association or Historic Folsom Residence Association, the Heritage Preservation League, the Folsom Historic District Association, that they would receive uh notices in addition to the notices being posted online, the notices mailed to adjacent um property owners, and then of course the posting on site.

Um we've we've also shared with the commission the the process that we go through as staff when we're reviewing these projects so they understand that nothing's changed in terms of the materials, the guidelines, the the code sections that we look at when we review these types of projects.

So just because it's coming from the commission level down at the staff level does not mean that anything in terms of our review is changing.

We're still doing the same level of regulars review.

The other question about determining the potential historic significance of a structure is we're utilizing a number of things, not just what the applicant may reveal to us, but also we're looking at whether it's eligible under the city's historic preservation master plan, whether it's on the cultural resources inventory.

We typically check with the databases with the um or we check with the uh Folsom History Museum, we check the the state's database over at SAC State.

And then we also look at its eligibility under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Now there are a number of issues that we know that we need to look at in overall in chapter 17.52 related to the historic district.

We don't have the bandwidth to take that on right now.

We're focused on these things that will help uh create some more time for staff to work on these more substantive things, like um the creating objective design standards for um for development in the historic district, getting the the zoning code updated in the historic district.

Um those are really critical things, and they're even more important now with the passage of SB 79, which takes away even more local control with regard to development uh in uh next to transit.

But the the benefit to businesses and applicants in the historic district, and you can see this in some of Glenn Fate's comments, is you know, this the struggle of getting through the process in a timely manner.

So we're talking about lowering fees and and shortening that uh that turnaround time for these smaller um projects.

We're also because we're getting more information out there in terms of putting it on the website, sharing the more details with the commission, and doing more mailed notices.

Um, we're hoping this will increase the awareness of design review within the district.

And then, as I said earlier, we're doing that regular check-in at meetings and going over the projects that we approve so that we're always creating that open dialogue with the commission.

So if they have a different interpretation of how we're approaching the standards or the guidelines in the area, they can help uh direct us and ensure that we're interpreting things the way that they believe they ought to be interpreted.

So, in terms of next steps, uh if if you um uh if if you approve this this evening, there'll be a second reading of the ordinance on the 28th.

That would be the second reading in the adoption.

Um we will then also be bringing forward those fee modifications to lower fees.

Um, so these are because it would go along with the director level reviews, and then those we would um ensure that those code and fee changes would then go into effect at the first of the year.

This would give us time to reach out to businesses and property owners within the district so they're well aware of the uh of the the changes.

Um I did want to point out um one correction that um that needs to be pointed out in the uh in section 1752 uh 320 regarding notice and posting of uh of the site for design review.

This is in the ordinance.

Uh, it should have said 1706 070 A and B because C is not applicable to the historic district.

So I just wanted to make that clarification.

So if you do end up moving that tonight, I do ask that um when you uh when you make the motion to conduct the first reading, it's just with that correction to 175232.

So that concludes my presentation.

I'd be glad to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

Questions for Desmond, Council Member Kozlowski?

Um, I think just one.

Um you said at the outset that you were talking about the um I guess bringing bringing decisions that had been made at the director level to the historic district commission, in spite of the fact that this purpose of this is to avoid that step.

How is that gonna work exactly?

You can go back over that part.

Yeah, so what I mean by that is so I I regularly do a planning manager's report at the end of each historic district uh commission meeting.

So, as part of that planning manager's report, I would report, and I do this today, but it's at a very high level, but we would go into a little bit more detail about the projects that had been approved, we would show the elevations of those projects, and explain to the commission what was approved by staff during that period.

That is informational only.

The commission would not be taking action on that, but they could say, you know, at a at a future meeting, we would like to revisit the this section of the guidelines that you've been using to do those interpretations or or to make those decisions on that project because we think you're a little bit on off base here, and we interpret it the following way, and then we'd be able to have that discussion.

So it's not that we'd be preparing a full staff report and a presentation, it would be kind of a higher level summary with some visuals of the projects that had been approved.

I think at the commission meeting, one commissioner was trying to come up with some sort of mechanism, right?

Where if three or more commissioners decided that something maybe should be elevated to the commission, that there would be a way to do that, and that that ended up being abandoned.

Is that correct?

That that is correct.

It really created some kind of kind of brown act issues and some also some logistical issues, because imagine if if you know staff has uh done the uh done the staff level review.

Let's say it's you know September 12th.

We've done that staff level review, they've gotten their approvals, and then we go to the first meeting in October, the commission now wants to hear this item.

The 10-day appeal period has already lapsed.

That really creates a uh a problematic situation for the applicant.

In addition to that, then you have commission members talking amongst themselves about who's going to vote to bring this up, which could lead to potential Brown Act violations.

So that's the reason that that was abandoned.

Unelected commission members can have Brown Act violations.

Yes, or they can.

Okay, all right.

Well, then um, just if again, just asking for uh a quick review.

The the items that we're talking about are yard improvements like fences, gazebos, paving, you know, improvements like that that sit in the rear yard or in a side yard.

Yeah, those would be the items that would be exempt, and then the the items that we would be um reporting back would be on the exempt from a review altogether.

Yes, no notification of the planning department is necessary.

That's correct.

Okay, the things that would require once again the review, but no longer require going to HDC is solar panels, in-kind replacements.

No, no, those are like replacements.

Yeah, those are the things that just uh I'll go back here.

So um uh those are the things that are exempt.

So the design, so you've got here the replacement of roof materials, windows and doors, residential building colors, fencing and walls, those are the things that would be exempt as long as they're out of the public view.

Those things would be, you know, for the percolos gazebos and patio covers, as long as those are out of the public view, those would be exempt from design review.

Okay, so if I do south facing solar panels on my roof, they're gonna be visible from the street on every house that faces south.

That is correct, but solar panels generally we don't have design review of authority over those.

Those are by those are a buy right mechanism, anyway, as a result of state law.

Got it.

Okay, all right, and then these so it would be exterior renovations and remodel modeling, modifications to existing buildings, small additions, you know, on non-historic structures that are 500 square feet or less, and then accessory buildings, demolitions of buildings found to be you know non-historic, and then sign permits.

Okay, thank you.

That was it for someone.

So windows and doors are oftentimes uh a hot topic at the historic district commission or replacement of those, this is replacement of the same, so it's not a change out at all of a different window style or different door style.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

So if somebody was doing a like-for-like replacement, same window, same window, that would not go through design review.

If they were changing that window to a door, that would go through director level design review.

Okay, perfect.

Uh, and then the notice to the organizations, notice to neighbors, I assume also would include notice to the commissioners before the director level decision is made.

Is that am I understanding that correctly?

No, we wouldn't be no because it doesn't go to the commission, we wouldn't be notice noticing the commission unless the commissioners requested that.

The the idea is to notice community organizations and adjacent uh neighbors.

So the community organizations have regularly requested and we typically send out to them already applications that we get in for design review to you know to get their their comments early in the process.

So we would just be really the focus is on the surrounding property owners.

And I appreciate that, but I also think some of your best advocates for historic preservation are sitting on the historic district commission.

I did see that comment, and and I think it was uh Glenn Fate's comments of of wanting the historic commissioners to also get that notice.

Um I would assume, like, hey, if I sign up for the email distribution list, I could get on if like yeah, as just a regular historic resident, um, I could sign up for that notice.

Absolutely.

Okay, so if a historic district commissioner with their resident hat on wanted to sign up for that notice, they could get the same notices as HPL or Hefra or whoever else.

Yes, that's correct.

Okay, perfect.

That and then they could always reach out if they have concerns of about the project, just like any other historic resident.

Um, and then there was another public comment about appeals not being an option, but I would assume if a applicant uh or a neighbor does not like the decision that's made at the director level, it's always appealable.

That's correct.

However, things that are exempt from um design review would not be appealable.

Fair enough, but the director level reviews are all appealable within 10 days after.

Yes, okay.

Thank you.

I uh as somebody who sat through a lot of non-historic shed demolitions, uh I'm very glad that no one else is going to have to sit through a going to a historic district committee meeting to hear the one item being a shed demolition that nobody cares about.

So thank you.

Thank you for these.

Councilmember Warbach, no questions, Councilmember Leary.

Uh yeah, um, thank you for your presentation.

I read through the materials.

I've um gotten a lot of feedback from residents uh in the historic district and other historical buffs from town, and um it's clearly a very sensitive area.

People want to make sure that the um character of the district is retained, and it's one of the things that draws people to visit here and to move to Folsom uh and visit on a regular basis.

So I had uh read through these letters too and um had the same qu some of the same questions about notifications, and I think it's still the notifications are within the 300-foot um perimeter around a house now and include the the back yards alley sides as well as the front.

No, that's not so for public hearings, we are required to do 300 uh feet, but design reviews don't involve a public hearing.

So currently the rules for design reviews on the um it uh in the historic district are the posting of the site.

So that's the posting of uh a sign that says that there's a pending applic uh design review application for this site.

That is it, and we also, as a courtesy, we share the the information on that that that design review application with the uh historic Folsom Residence Association, Historic Um Preservation League, and then uh the Folsom Historic Uh District Association if it's a commercial project.

Um, so what we're proposing to do is to broaden that.

It wouldn't go to 300 feet because it's for these, these are really minor design reviews.

So, you know, somebody's doing some you know minor remodeling.

It's we're not gonna be doing 300 feet for that, but we would be be notifying all their adjacent property owners, so anybody across the alley, across the street, and then on either side of the uh of the site.

And then the posting will just be on the property that is going to have some changes.

That's correct.

Yeah.

And then in addition to that, the the noticing information will be on the city's website.

And as I mentioned earlier, anybody who's requested like Hefra, HPL and FHDA who's requested to receive notification on these types of projects, or a member or another member of the public could sign up and we can get that word out to them about that.

Okay, thank you.

And then I guess how will I I guess you'll be notifying everyone that lives in the historic district about these changes because I was curious how um uh property owners would know whether they're they're going to have to you know go through a design review uh at the director level or or an ex or qualify for an exemption.

Yeah, the city manager is in uh has indicated to me that he's not willing to pay me to go door-to-door anymore, but um I am going to try and get uh as you know, word out through the the city newsletter through the various different organizations about the new the new rule changes so that so that folks know and and I I hope for you know for anybody having to go through the process that this will be a smoother and simpler process, but at the same time ensuring that we respect the historic character of the area.

Yeah, it's it's always difficult.

I I know to get the notice out to residents within any area of town.

Yeah, maybe some of our candidates next year would like to knock doors with the flyer.

This is Leary, are you suggesting that not everybody pays attention to our city council meetings?

And that's never saying notice enough.

Yeah, I'm one that likes to put the notices out.

So I've knocked on a lot of doors, not even during campaign season.

Um, and then um the other uh, you know, questions I had was about you know, like roof materials, because they're not all standardized, you know, down there, and and there's so many different options these days, although you know, shingles uh wood chingles are uh precluded by state law.

Um so some of those seem like things that could vary uh from the historical nature that are on the list of design review exemptions is that yeah.

So again, that's why we're looking at this the structure.

If we're if we've got a structure that's historic or historically eligible, you know, then you know, then that's something that can be elevated.

So, you know, even though it says exempt, it still gets routed when when building takes in the application for these types of things, it still gets routed to planning to make sure that there isn't a major change going on.

Like, like I said earlier, if if somebody is radically redoing their their roof style, it's not gonna be a like for like type of situation.

And the other thing that we did do with the Historic District Commission, and we utilize that provision in the code that I talked about earlier when it was kind of for individual issues.

We went to them and said, hey, look, we're getting requests for standing seam metal roofs because of the durability, the fire resistance, so and so we did a lot of research about whether those, you know, the use of those was historically appropriate.

And then we presented that to the commission and they voted to add those to uh the the list, they they did a resolution that allowed staff to then use standing seam metal roofs as an acceptable roof type whereas it hadn't been previously, okay.

So all of these will have some level of review.

It's not like people read this list and go, oh wait, I qualify for issues.

I mean, any time a building comes in, we check it, does it gonna need design review?

And if it does, we say, hey, time out, you got to go through design review first.

Um in this case, we would, you know, we'd be rat of dust, and we're like, oh no, this looks good, it's like for like window replacement, no, no review required.

Yeah.

So, so well, thank you.

I think it's it's um important to review the process, you know, with residents as well.

Um, and uh I think that was all that I had um to ask at this time, and uh I I agree that a lot of these changes were probably needed to make you know staff time more or better utilized and uh shorten the time when people can move ahead with the project.

So that's all my questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Desmond, the ordinance references multiple time a cultural resources inventory.

Do we actually have one?

Who maintains it?

Yes, so we have a cultural resources inventory um that is maintained by the city.

We um a lot of the um the nominations uh on that were were thanks to the Heritage Preservation League.

They got a number of of homes and other buildings on on there, um so it is, yeah, it is it is maintained.

We we are not just because of our staffing limitations, we're not going out and and individually assessing different properties, but when they're brought to our attention, then we we do take them through the nomination process to add those to the cultural resources or forces inventory.

Council Member Robert, I thought you turned your microphone.

Yeah, I just have a comment.

I do I want to say thank you to the staff.

I know this is something I I brought up a few times on the diet, and off the dice, just about kind of how do we streamline some processes.

So this I know this took some work, so I just want to say thank you for kind of keeping your eye out.

The um this proposed process really cuts down the time for projects to get approved for the residents to move forward, and and I think in the end they're truly appreciated.

So I would just want to say thank you to the staff.

Thank you.

Okay, this is a public hearing, so I'm going to open the public hearing.

I think we have one request to speak.

You do you have one request from Loretta Hedinger?

Good evening, Loretta.

Hello, good evening to all of you.

Umbody objects to the reason for this ordinance.

Nobody, but there is reason to object to some of the contents.

Um I'm always, as you know, if you know me at all, you know I'm always an optimist, but I'm not an optimist that this ordinance will protect the history of this uh small town.

One of the big reasons, well, let me give example.

Maybe I should preface this by asking.

Also, is everything on the exemption list subject to a building permit?

I didn't think so.

The ordinance has the potential to eat away one little thing at a time at the historicity of the district.

Small things don't make a difference elsewhere, but they do in the historic district.

I objected to the blanket provision of fences being exempt, and they did add that chain link fences are not exempt, but that leaves the door open for any other kind of offense that might be decorated with modern art or something like that.

There's I'm not if everything on that exemption list requires a building permit, and if every building permit goes to the planners to figure out whether it's appropriate or not, and if there is a way to say no, that has been my concern about the ordinance is that there really isn't recourse for a mistake that is made.

The logistics of whether the Historic District Commission could object to a staff decision, I think could be handled.

People could be made aware when a staff gives them a decision that it needs to be um it needs to not it needs the historic district commission to not object to it, and I think that would happen 99% of the time.

The other recourse that is not available to the heritage preservation league is an appeal.

We are precluded because we have no property rights affected.

There is no way for someone to appeal based on historic design, and the perhaps the biggest concern I have is that staff does not have the tools they need.

The reason the process works as it goes through as well as it does in going through the historic district commission is that it gives time for community knowledge to come to the surface.

Okay.

Let me collect my last thought here and I'll be done.

And an effort to standardize everything in the city, whether it's notification or not, isn't going to succeed in protecting the historic district.

Thank you.

Okay, any other requests to speak?

You have no additional request to speak.

Okay, so we're going to close the public hearing.

Uh take it back to my colleagues.

Any other further questions for staff?

There was a suggestion by one of the letters that we received.

And this has come up before about the fact that we have a relatively inconsistent or some inconsistency in the appeals process between projects in the historic district and projects not in the historic district.

Is that on the table for a revision or revisit?

And this this came up, and I was reminded of my own personal vote on something where we had to make a decision about whether somebody had standing, and the standing in historic district is are you an immediate neighbor to the project?

Um, whereas in the rest of the city, it's a little more liberal.

Yeah, it is it's definitely stricter, and and we are going to tackle that as part of the zoning code update.

Um it's just that we didn't feel we we felt that was a relatively controversial topic.

We wanted to keep this focused really on on the on minor design reviews.

Okay, and so that's why we didn't tackle that at this point.

Gotcha, okay.

Well, I a um visiting that topic and you know what the long-term structure of the planning commission and historic district commission and the composition of both of those boards would be something I'd be interested in us talking about sooner rather than later.

So for whatever that's worth.

Thank you.

Nothing else.

Okay, any other questions?

Otherwise, I will entertain a motion.

I'd be happy to make the motion uh with the uh modification, including I don't have the section number in front of me.

Oh, there we go.

Uh the correction to section 1752 320.

Uh, the addition of A and B to that section.

I'll second it.

All right.

Any other discussion?

I will add, just from a discussion standpoint, uh, Ms.

Hettinger.

I do appreciate the the comments and and I do think the historic is a very special place.

I also think we're kind of fooling ourselves when we tighten the screws so tight, uh, and then we tell people we have to get permits.

Um, I I think what ends up happening is a lot of people don't get permits for things.

Uh, and so we have to have some way to get people through the permit process in a timely fashion and in a cost that is commensurate with the changes or additions or the maintenance they're trying to do on their home.

So I definitely um have concerns that you know maybe we swing it too far in one direction, um, and I share those those concerns, but I also think we need to make it to where people can maintain their beautiful historic homes and actually, permit that work instead of just choosing to say it's gonna take me three months to get to it, so I'm gonna see if I get caught because I think there's a lot of that going on.

Alright, we have a motion and a second.

Please call the role.

Council members Leary, yes, Rafel, yes, Rohrbach, yes, Kozlowski.

Yes.

And Aquino.

Yes, next item, please.

Okay, that takes you to your new business item, which is the water system flow control facilities rehab project.

Before you, you'll have two resolutions.

Resolution authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement with the bide builders for the um, sorry, for construction of the water system flow control facilities rehab project, and a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement with the infrared construction management.

Let's see, for construction management inspection services for the water system flow control facilities rehab project and appropriation of funds.

All right, Marcus.

Thank you, Krista.

Mayor Kino, members of the Council, Marcus, Yaswitaki, Environmental Water Resources Department.

Just have a couple quick slides to talk about the project, really about what we're doing.

There's uh seven different locations as shown here, kind of spread throughout the city of the uh intersections and locations.

Uh, in terms of the scope of work, we're replacing eight pressure reducing valves, although there's seven locations.

One location has actually two valves uh at that location, installing new piping and operating valves, new vault lids, uh new air release valves, new flow meters at three of the locations, concrete replacement, pavement replacement, uh, and then property restoration at these different locations.

Uh, some of the deficiencies, uh, we have vaults that leak.

Pipe condition is not that great.

Some of the valves have obsolete parts, so you can't purchase the parts anymore.

Uh there are vaults that don't have what's called the spring assist, so it's a lot heavier to open when you have to get in, and with the spring assist, it makes it a lot easier to open uh the vaults.

Uh we're removing uh quite a bit of the tripping hazards, and some of these areas have limited accessibility.

I'll show you the pictures, but it's tight spaces, confined space, and then below ground.

Uh so this is just some of the deficiencies you can see on the left, just some of those uh pipes sticking above ground is tripping hazards.

The portion along the bottom is the the vault cover.

So these uh if they don't have a spring assist, it's a lot heavier to lift, which obviously can pose uh potential hazard for our employees.

You can see the leaking in the vault on the picture of the right.

Uh, this is a couple of pictures just showing kind of the space that is within each or not all of them, but most of the facilities.

So it's not easy to work in and around this space uh with uh one person, let alone if you need two in there to help move or remove one of the valves.

Uh this is what a proposed installation will look like.

This is from a project um back in 22.

I believe this is alongsome or Auburn Folsom, uh, just past Zittle Farms.

You can see the piping and everything is going to be done now above ground, which is obviously a lot easier to access and a lot safer for our team to work in and around.

And then those areas that are located above ground will have you know an enclosure that looks similar to this, and we'll find the right color for each of the locations, and then you can see the restoration that occurred with the the plant material in and around uh that particular location.

So each one of these will look similar to this.

And with that, I won't answer any questions you may have.

Any questions for Marcus?

I'll start on this end.

No questions.

Any questions over here?

All right, any requests to speak?

You have no request to speak on this item.

All right, we need two separate motions, please.

I will move approval of resolution number one one four six five.

Second.

We have a motion and a second, please call the role.

Council members Leary.

Yes, Rathel, yes, Rorbah, Koslowski, and Aquino.

Yes.

And I will also move forward for approval resolution number one one four six six.

Second.

We got a motion and a second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Leary.

Yes.

Rathel, yes.

Koslowski.

Yes.

And Aquino.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next item, please.

Okay, that takes you to new business item number eight.

This is resolution number one one four six seven, approving reimbursement of a general fund subsidy toward affordable housing by transferring six hundred and fifteen thousand dollars from the Fulsom Housing Fund to the Capital Facilities Fund relating to the discounted sale of 300 Percifer Street property to Habitat for Humanity for greater Sacramento and appropriation of funds.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the city council, Pam John's community development Director.

This is a lengthy title for a pretty simple task, which is just to repay the general fund for a qualifying sale of city property for affordable housing.

So I'm just gonna take a moment to walk through a little history of how we got here and why we're in the repayment versus just kind of tackling it at the outset.

So our Percifer site, 300 Percifer site is on the northeast corner of Percifer and Coloma Street, and the city bought it in the 60s for a lot of city purposes.

It was used over that next 50-year period fire station, city hall annex, et cetera.

It sat vacant for several years and then council approved the demolition of the building after this city hall or after this city hall campus was built and the site was no longer needed.

So in 2020, City Council declared the land as surplus for the specific purpose of trying to finally achieve a for-sale affordable housing project in the city.

And that was the same year the state enacted a lot of new laws relative to the required process when a city goes to declare land as surplus or dispose of land, sell it essentially.

And you have to offer it up for the same purposes the city council had decided.

And so we went through one of the first full processes in the state to dispose of the 300 percifer site.

We had two qualifying applications or proposals for the property, and the city council selected Habitat for Humanity to build 10 for sale homes on that site, which would be subdivided into five properties.

For the next two and a half years, Habitat went through the process of doing design review for the homes, getting their financing in line, improving the site, finalizing the map or the subdivision of the property, and ultimately purchased the land from us in the end of uh kind of at the end of 2024.

And then in 2025, they have now constructed those homes and will start occupancy in November.

And so it's exciting to see the successful completion of that process because at the council meeting with previous discussions about that, there was doubt about whether it could happen.

So this kind of shows a little bit about what that looks like for anyone who's not familiar.

At the time we decided on the transfer sale cost for the property.

This is the information that was presented to the city council, which was that the habitat model is really to receive the land almost at little or no cost in order for them to successfully achieve their model.

And so what we did was present the cost estimate that Habitat had prepared for what it would take to develop the site with 10 for sale affordable housing units.

And we compared it to the subsidy that we had been approving for long-term low-interest loans on multifamily units.

So we were paying or are paying still about $55,000 a door for a 55-year deed restriction on affordable housing multifamily units, and what we were looking at as a comparable was $61,000 in a subsidy for a reduced price on the land sales.

So that's how the city council arrived at the $10,000 cost for what was valued at $625,000 for this site.

So at that time, we were accepting, we owned the property, we are accepting essentially a $10,000 payment, and that went into the general fund.

So what we're doing now is recognizing that our housing fund, which is robust over $23 million in balance, is a qualifying expense to buy and sell property for the purposes of developing affordable housing.

And we've had that conversation with this city council in the last several months.

And so you asked us, come back, please, and and let's let's transfer that money back to the general fund because it's a qualifying expense of the housing fund and and this was a qualifying project.

And so that's that's what we're doing here with this resolution is just asking for that repayment of um from the housing fund to the general fund um for that uh the difference between the estimated uh value pre-subdivision at 625 and the price that was paid at 10,000.

So that would be a transfer of six hundred and fifteen thousand dollars and we have, as I mentioned, $22 million dollars in our housing fund balance.

So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Any questions for Pam?

I just have a question about you know the process under which people would usually um request to use money out of that housing fund and uh because it seems like it was done um in you know that the the giving giving them land is something that's probably not gonna happen again in the future so would it have been and will it be in the future um a process whereby when someone comes forward and the city is willing to donate some of the land or use some of the land would we re would the city repay the value of the land out of the housing fund into the general fund potentially in the from the get go because this was very confusing.

Yeah that that's a great question and one of the things I will I was reminded of by our housing manager today is that you know five six years ago when we were talking about this we didn't have 23 million dollars sitting in that fund we had like five or six million dollars and every year we were getting about a three to four million dollar request so we didn't have this amount of money to invest in those solutions whatever the city council priorities were now we do and I think that opens the door for us to explore lots of of different options for how we might achieve city council objectives and our you know and our housing needs at the same time so I think now we're broadening our look at what we can achieve with those housing dollars where more traditionally we've used them for pretty exclusively for you know long-term low interest loans for deed restriction of affordable housing units that are multifamily and there is uh potentially some date at which we won't have such a large amount in those funds as they you know are coming in from developer uh impact fees yes if we we did a projection of kind of the build out of the remaining vacant lots and there would be at least another 25 million projected to come in to that fund and then the fund starts replenishing as those long-term low interest loans get paid back but most of the loan terms are such that we don't get paid back for 10 20 years in that 30 year loan term even towards the very end so eventually we will have the money back in there to keep um you know being able to loan it for those purposes but um but we don't expect that this you know will get this fund will get drained any time soon okay soon being within five to 10 years within the build out of the city build out okay great thank you very much we're probably wondering why we're having a budget discussion later when we're talking about a fund that has 22 million dollars in it but just to be clear this money is legally restricted and can only be used to fund affordable housing projects yep for housing purposes yep uh vice mayor which is my next question uh let me start with thank you for finally getting this on the agenda I know we've been talking about it for a long time um the project itself uh looks really good uh and I enjoyed the day we spent out on site working on the project um habitats got a great model um the fund 602 the capital facilities fund it's being moved here instead of the general fund which was the $10,000 was originally moved to general fund that capital facilities fund is unrestricted uh and we'll be able to use it on parks buildings cars anything we want going forward yeah I think the city managers can answer that uh yeah that's correct I mean essentially the the fund six oh two is uh uh funds that have been transferred out of the general fund into that account we're just setting it there so we don't use it on uh ongoing cost like personal dollar in the thought is uh one-time revenues for one-time costs you know so thank you.

Any other questions?

Just what are the restrictions for Fund 602?

It's pretty wide open since it's general fund.

There's um, I mean, we we have allocated for for and we're going to rename the funds.

Uh, capital facility fund is kind of misleading.

Is it's facility maintenance.

You know, so it's for any of our facilities throughout the city that the the council would deem uh would be appropriate.

Okay, that was answers my question.

Thank you.

Councilmember Warbod, do you have a question?

Okay.

And we have no requests to speak on this, no request to speak.

Vice Mayor Rafael would you like to do the honors?

I would be immensely pleased to move.

Resolution number one one four six seven.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Please call the role.

Council members Leary.

Yes.

Rafel.

Yes.

Lorba.

Yes.

Kozelowski.

Absolutely.

And the keynote.

Yes, thank you.

Next item.

Okay, that takes us to item number nine.

This is resolution number 11471 authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement with California Wood Recycling for an estimated 45 million for up to 15 years from the Solid Waste Operating Fund for long-term organic waste diversion services.

Good evening, Marie.

Good evening, Mayor.

Members of the council.

Let's see.

There it is.

Marie McKeith, your general services manager.

And I'm going to talk about the long-term organics processing contract proposal.

So the agreement before you this evening is estimated to cost about 45 million over the uh course of 15 years.

It's an agreement with AgriMen for the processing of the city's residential organic waste that is collected each week in the green bin.

It also covers the material collected through our bulky waste program.

And the 45 million is based on the amount of estimated organic waste between now and the end of the 15-year period, including growth for development.

It also accounts for uh consumer price index increase, which is maxed at 5% per year.

And it would start as a 10-year-term agreement with an optional five-year extension upon mutual agreement.

So I want to point out that this agreement is associated with waste collection services.

So as a utility, there is no impact to the general fund.

It would be paid 100% from the Solid Waste Fund.

The agreement is the result of a joint procurement process with the county of Sacramento and the City of Sacramento.

And the reason that we joined forces to do this procurement as a partnership is that by putting all of the tons together for all of the jurisdictions, we were able to offer uh um more for others to propose for.

So we would be able to command a lower price by offering more tonnage rather than if just the city of Folsom went out alone, we would have fewer proposals because of the range of area that the county covers, and then also wouldn't be able to command the lowest price.

And then the selected proposals as a result of this procurement, there's actually, even though I'm coming to you with only one agreement, there were three proposals that received contracts as a result of the procurement, and they are actually all the facilities that are currently processing waste for the three jurisdictions.

And so to give a little background on why we're doing this in the first place, um, it's all predicated on SB 1383, which is California's short-lived climate pollutant reduction strategy, which is a long name for saying we're trying to reduce greenhouse gases that are coming out of the landfill.

Um, and the strategy for doing that is to divert 75% of organic waste from decomposing in the landfill where those gases would be released.

And as a strategy to achieve that, residents and businesses, but tonight this is only about residential, are required to sort organic waste from the rest of their material and required to do that using a city-provided program.

So, knowing that this um regulation was coming on board, and that the jurisdictions would have to compete for capacity to be compliant with this law.

This was initiated in 2019, and this um procurement is actually a continuation of the original procurement from 2019, where we solicited both short and long-term proposals.

That was because we knew we needed a short-term proposal to become compliant right away, and we didn't want to eliminate the possibility of long-term proposals that may be available to us by building new facilities or other options that may be available to us if we weren't to jump in right away.

And so as a result of that, we received nine proposals, and the jurisdictions were able to successfully enter into short-term agreements.

Those agreements end at the end of the next fiscal year, and they were successful in achieving compliance.

So once those proposals were or the contracts were in place, the procurement continued by releasing a request for revised proposal.

So it was just released to the original nine proposers, and we see we received six responsive proposals to that request for revised.

And then we formed an evaluation committee that consisted of staff from all three of the jurisdictions.

And knowing that we would need some technical assistance with some of these technologies and also with some of the cost modeling, we released another RFP and hired a consultant to help with the analysis, and that was HDR engineering.

They were not part of the evaluation committee.

They only helped with the analysis and the cost modeling.

And then we approached the proposals kind of the same way that we did with the initial one, which was to split it into three basic steps, which is the technical ability where we went through, looked at facility readiness, financial capability of the businesses, what kind of permitting was needed to move forward, and what kind of capacity they had, how much of our tonnage they would be able to accept.

And then we moved on to the cost analysis, where of course that's kind of self-explanatory, but in addition to just the price in the proposal, we also had to take into account operational cost and the cost of transporting the material from each of our collection centroids to the proposed facilities.

So it was, you know, if you deliver 50,000 tons, it would be one price, and then if you are 50 to 80, might be another price.

And so what we had to do was look at the entire service area between the three jurisdictions, where the facilities were located, and how to spread that tonnage out to maximize everybody's operational efficiency and also cost.

And so that's where the compatibility analysis came into play, where we took all of those things into consideration to make sure that all of the jurisdictions were best served, and consider other factors, such as there was a desire on the committee to diversify by not using one single vendor.

We maintain several vendors throughout the region that's less applicable to us because we are using just one, but we also do have we are maintaining that capacity throughout the region by supporting all of these proposers.

We also favored the technology that's used rather than building a new high-tech facility, the facilities that are in place all rely heavily on composting, which is a long proven and so less risk by doing that.

However, there is also some anaerobic digestion because food waste is a better candidate for anaerobic digestion than yard waste, so our yard waste gets composted and then agrimen sends our food waste to an anaerobic digester where it is converted to energy.

So we're using multiple technologies.

And then, of course, we considered the length of the contract, but that wasn't the primary factor, it was everything taken into account.

And during this process, we also conducted site visits and interviews with all of the proposers, as well as we gave the opportunity to do a best and final offer before making any final decisions.

And so to go over some of the benefits of the selected scenario, I mentioned the proven technologies.

They are also all established facilities.

Agrimen's actually the largest processor of composting in our state.

So they are a very stable vendor for us to contract with.

And the reason they're able to do that, I mentioned earlier that our material goes to anaerobic digester.

That's because all of the bagged food waste gets pulled out.

It goes through a debagging machine before the resulting sludge material is then sent to the digester.

And AgriMan creates a very marketable end material.

Their mulch and compost is certified to be used on organic farms.

So they have established markets where they're easily able to get rid of the material.

However, to help us meet our procurement target, because SB 1383 requires that we purchase nearly 6,600 tons of material per year.

Agrimen has all of that material and commits to a discounted price to help us meet that goal.

They are already helping us meet that through our compost giveaway programs, mulch for city projects.

You actually saw some of their beautiful mulch in the video from community service day.

That was agreement's mulch used for that projects.

And then any gap in us not being able to meet the full required target of procurement, they're able to broker material for us so that we are compliant with SB 1383.

And just to give a little idea how much material that is, the truckload that you see in the picture dumping, that's about 46 tons.

So we have to buy about 117 of those each year.

And then finally, I mentioned we did consider the term of the contract, and we liked the shorter term of the 10-year with the five-year extension over some of the other proposals that required a 20-year contract because if there are changes to the regulations or technologies, that gives us more flexibility in the long term.

So to show you the contracts that were actually awarded as a result of this procurement.

So the county and the city are both using all three.

The county board of supervisors as well as the Sacramento City Council adopted all three contracts last month.

Folsom has the least material of the three.

And so because we're the smallest jurisdiction, we stand to gain the most benefit of this because alone we couldn't achieve the economies of scale that we're able to together.

And you'll see there that we're only about 6% of the estimated value of the contracts.

And even though the city is only 6% of the total contracts that were awarded, we're about 13% of the material that's slated to go to AgriMan.

So we're a more significant player for them.

And that concludes my presentation.

I'll answer any questions.

Any questions from Marie?

Vice Mayor Ray Thor?

So the three roughly $3 million a year.

That includes the purchase of the material was a little surprising to me.

Is that that's separate?

Another added cost.

It is an added cost, it's fifteen dollars per ton for the 6,500 tons.

We can meet, we can meet the procurement requirement uh other way.

We can purchase it elsewhere, but with this we get a discounted price and it saves us quite a bit of money.

And it has to go on our lands, like within the city.

No.

We just have to purchase it and yes.

So the brokered amount, yes.

Like we go to Arizona or Hawaii if we want well I think it does need to stay in California but um we are currently brokering material outside of the city of Folsom although it's not far outside of the city of Folsom.

Okay.

There is some land application done on some pasture land in order for us to meet our full target of procurement of the amount we're uh required to purchase I'd be happy to carry an invoice down to the state capital for the total amount uh whenever you guys work up that invoice for the the mandate certainly building a ski slope council member Kazanski any questions over here it seems like we could have that bagged up and sell it to the residents who are over at Home Depot every weekend buying mulch for their uh yard but um no I appreciate learning all about that and I did wonder what the um amount of plastic pollution is you know remaining you mentioned there was a machine that that pulled out the bags even though they're supposed to be compostable.

Well in Folsom we do accept the plastic bags and that's because that machine is very effective and it actually does separate out both compostable and plastic bags and then those are landfilled and the organic material is it it goes to the digester um so since those bags do get landfilled it's great if people just reuse what they've got already and would have already thrown away and not create the extra waste.

Right I I know in Davis they don't require the the bags yeah Sacramento County costs for the residents yeah and that's why with all of our outreach and education we always recommend using bags that you already have like old produce bags or the produce bags from the grocery store something you already have that's gonna go in the trash anyway.

Okay thank you.

All right do we have any requests to speak?

Nope all right then I'll understand a motion.

This is item number nine I'll move resolution number one one four seven one.

Okay do we have a second second we have a motion and a second please call the roll council members Leary yes Rafael yes Hoslowski and Aquino yes and we are going to skip over item number 10 and bring that back at a future meeting so we'll go on to item number 11 okay item number 11 is resolution number 11480 authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement with mid-valley IT to provide IT management services at a monthly cost of 33,900 for a six month period.

Thank you uh mayor members of the council uh appreciate the opportunity to present this item to you this is a continuation of uh kind of our uh phase one uh cost reduction scenario that was presented back in September uh uh as a result of uh some of the decisions that were made uh with position eliminations the city's uh still has a need for IT management services and so the city has reached out to mid-valley IT uh on an interim basis to provide IT management services and this item is to approve an agreement with them for that purpose uh part of the scope of work is a comprehensive IT audit where they will look at our IT systems our our computers our networks everything that is associated with our IT um facilities and uh at the end we'll have a report that will be used to provide uh information to the city about how we should be moving forward.

Additionally the monthly services uh will um they will oversee our internal IT uh staff uh they will provide remote support as needed overflow on-site support IT consulting yearly budgeting uh five year uh technology planning um document.

They will provide desktop monitoring software, server monitoring software, remote access software, open DNS software.

The cost of this agreement for a six month period will be two hundred and three thousand four hundred dollars or 33,900 per month uh the cost of uh two of the positions that we had uh in IT uh had a um uh annual or a monthly cost of 40,205 dollars.

Uh if annualized, the monthly savings with this agreement would be about $80,000.

Uh staff is recommending uh that the council approve this agreement to move forward uh with Mid Valley IT to provide IT management services at a monthly cost of $33,900 for six months.

The intent is during that period of time, we would also implement an RFP process to determine uh or seek proposals from IT firms that would have a longer term arrangement.

Uh we have representatives from Mid Valley IT uh that are here for any questions from the team.

I appreciate Tom Leach and his team for coming up today.

So that concludes my report.

Thank you.

Uh any questions for the city manager?

None of the you can come up and speak if you'd like to.

Yeah, any questions, yeah.

I was just curious.

Um I saw there was uh you know different personnel rates that were in there, travel included, um, and I just wasn't real clear.

Is this 33,900 fixed monthly rate?

Everything included, or is this a uh we're gonna bill you up to 33,900 based on this published rates and the hours that are booked?

That's actually a great question.

So it is a fixed monthly rate, so no, you're not gonna get, oh well, yeah, you beat the we manage this much time and now you have this much more money.

No, it's all fixed.

The only time there would potentially be an additional cost would not be for any of those services that are listed up there.

They would be for there's some major project that has to be done that internal staff is not capable of doing.

And then we would be quoting that out separately.

So there's no magic surprise invoice that shows up.

It actually states in our agreement that we have to quote out any special project that has to be approved prior to us actually doing it.

So Saturday response, Sunday response, all that's included, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's completely included, and we run a seven by 24 by 365 shop.

We have to because of the nature of our clientele.

We do a lot of first responders, ambulance companies, a lot of police departments.

I think we're nine police departments in 10 cities that we're supporting right now.

Thank you.

Uh-huh.

Councilmember Kazowski, any questions?

Council Member Warboard?

I don't have a question, but I have a comment.

Okay.

Um, I just want to thank thank you for bringing this forward.

And um, this is something IT is something that I heard about right when I got elected and um and actually before, um, and it's been a priority of mine to kind of move us into the um next level, and I just uh thank you for getting creative on this and um moving this forward.

Councilman.

Absolutely.

Council Member Leary, any questions?

Uh I just had one other question that is if there was a special project that came up in this six-month time period.

Would an would it be would it require an RFP to do the additional work or would that come back to the council as a decision?

It would depend on uh the project that was needed.

If it was uh within the city manager's authorized spending authority, it wouldn't come back.

But if it was a major project that needed to go through an RFP, we would do that, or we'd bring it to the council if it's outside the city manager's authority.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

I did want to say thank you to Stacey and the existing IT team, they've been incredibly helpful moving forward because tackling this animal is not a simple task, and it takes the entire team to really be on board to do it.

So thank you to your team.

Thank you.

Are you a face that we're gonna see around?

Oh, you don't want to see my face around because that means there's a problem.

No, I'm I'm actually one of the owners, so I'm technical enough to be dangerous.

I hire all the smart smart folks, if you will.

So you won't see me around a lot.

However, Joy Alexander will be your assigned account manager.

So you will have an entire team that's associated with um this agreement that all have different skill sets.

So Joy is gonna be your go-to person when you don't know where to go.

She'll also be the person that will be working with Stacy, making sure things are flowing the way they're supposed to, and reporting back to Stacy, those things.

Um, and then you will have a team of engineers that are gonna be part of the process, and those are gonna be different different folks depending upon what skill sets needed.

So you may see Brandon or Corey associated with management or very police related stuff, um, higher end senior level technology things, you'll see them a lot, and then you may see some of the other IT staff as well.

But like you said, hopefully we don't, but um, thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any requests to speak from the public?

We have no request to speak on this item.

All right, then we'll entertain a motion, please.

I'll make a motion to pass resolution number one one four eight zero.

Second.

We have motion and a second, please call a roll.

Council members Leary.

Yes.

Rafael.

Roarbah, yes.

Koslowski.

Yes.

And Aquino.

Yes, next item, please.

Okay, that takes you to old business item number 12.

This is resolution number 11468 authorizing the city manager to terminate the agreement with Western Truck Parts and Equipment Company.

From the Solid Waste Operating Fund and the purchase of two electric refuse collection vehicles.

Hello again, Marie.

So again, good evening.

Okay.

So I'm gonna talk about the electric refuse truck purchase and to give a little background of where we were at with that.

In January of 23, we assigned an agreement to purchase two electric refuse trucks.

This was intended as a pilot project to test this technology.

We weren't necessarily um of the mindset that it was going to meet all of our needs, but to test that, we needed to purchase the trucks.

And this is an enterprise fund expense, it's $810,000 with absolutely no impact on the general fund.

We were scheduled to receive these trucks in September of 23.

However, the initial delivery was delayed over a year, and then repeat delivery attempts also were failed because of mechanical issues each time these trucks were brought to us.

So at that point, we had lost confidence in the ability of the vendor to provide functional trucks for us.

And so we notified them of our intent to terminate the contract.

The vendor requested a meeting with city staff, and we met with them in May.

Um, they acknowledged the deficiencies and proposed upgrades that addressed all of our concerns.

And although they did address our concerns, because we had a loss of confidence at that time, during that meeting, staff did ask for uh references that we could speak with.

In June of 25, you may remember I brought this to you at that time recommending to continue with the purchase based on all of our concerns of the mechanical issues being addressed.

At that time, I was asked to bring this back at a later date after being able to speak with references.

Unfortunately, due to the failure of being able to receive references, we are now recommending that we terminate the purchase agreement.

So to give a little background on the pilot project and what what we were hoping to do was basically the goal was to see if we could achieve the same benefits of an electric vehicle that other uses of electric vehicles are able to achieve.

So, for example, a savings in fuel.

If we were using no diesel fuel, that would save us about 200 per day for just these two trucks.

Um there is generally a reduced maintenance cost with an electric vehicle due to the fact that there's no combustion engine to maintain and the regenerative braking reduces the need for replacement brakes often.

We also wanted to see the impact of having to do repairs on a high voltage system that can't be done by city staff, and how much that would impact our operation.

We were toward more recent time, the more recent time period.

We were planning to test charging it on a level two charger.

Prior to that, we were gonna go with a high-speed charger, but um more recently not the case.

And then the advertised range of these vehicles is 200 miles.

And since our average residential route is 70 miles, we felt like there was a possibility these could could serve the purpose of um completing an entire route each day.

So unfortunately, we have some considerations for you for terminating this agreement.

And referring back to the May meeting, the May meeting, we did request the references.

And then in June, we were asked to again speak with references.

We did ask on several occasions to get references, and none were provided.

And what we, the impression that we have now is that the reason we didn't get references is that there are none of these chassis that have been updated that are currently being used in a solid waste operation.

So those uh even though we were promised references, they actually don't exist.

And so unfortunately, the need to pilot this technology is still very relevant because advanced clean fleet regulations still require us to purchase all heavy duty vehicles.

Um zero emission for 50% of all of our purchases right now.

By terminating this contract, we do lose $542,000 in grant funding and the ability to count these two trucks toward our ACF credits.

If we were to cancel this tonight and then still decide that we want to do a pilot, then we would have to purchase trucks at full price in order for them to count toward our ACF credit.

And I did reach out to the vendor to get a quote on the current price of electric garbage trucks, and they are roughly $835,000 each.

So if we did decide we wanted to purchase a different truck at any time, we would increase our cost by about $560,000.

So that's just to give you the full picture of um the impact of the decision.

So with that, unfortunately, because we are unable to get references for this purchase, we are recommending that the council approve terminating the contract for the purchase of the two electric refuse trucks.

Okay, thank you, Marie.

Any questions for Marie on this?

Council Member Warbah?

Catherine Malary.

Um I have a couple of questions.

It's disappointing that they haven't been able to get one of these in operation, and we could get more feedback because that was the contingency for moving forward.

And uh I really believe we need to move on to more electric vehicles.

It's probably one of the reasons we have um lower um emissions at this point.

You know, it was that was a big hooplaw a couple months ago when we uh celebrated having um uh lower emissions in the area, but um is there going to be a plan to purchase other electric vehicles, you know, that are well proven and have the capacity to help us meet the statewide goals in the future.

Yes.

Uh right now we are working on a purchase of a an electric flatbed that we would bring before you once we have that prepared.

Um I'm not sure if you have Marcus has others.

Marcus Yasataki, environmental water resources director.

Councilmember Leary, we in water and wastewater, and hopefully later tonight, future utilities will be bringing three additional um the Ford Lightning type of electric trucks as well for the purposes that we need in our department.

So that's probably gonna be at the beginning of 2026.

So I do know we have some in the queue as well.

Um, so that would be four right there.

So it's less of an experimental um effort, that is correct, achieve a single goal.

Yep, because they match existing ones that we currently use throughout different departments without those problems.

All right, thank you.

Yeah, I'll add there they're well um proven for medium duty, such as the Ford Lightnings.

We've converted all of our administrative vehicles in solid waste to electric.

We have two lightnings, um, uh light duty vehicle, uh car, and then also a van.

And so the van and the two trucks do count toward our advanced clean fleet credits, and they they work very well for what we're using them for.

And then there's a reduction in fuel cost and maintenance on those as well.

There's an elimination of fuel cost, yes, yeah.

Other than we do have to pay for the electricity, yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any questions over here?

I have one.

What?

How?

I don't want to extend this drama any more than necessary, but what is what would be the last date that we could hold on to the grant funding?

December 31st.

We have $200,000 in grant funding.

In my previous presentation, I had mentioned that there was a possibility that the airboard would not be able to honor that grant funding because it is federal funding.

However, recently I reached out to them and it is secure, but it expires at the end of the year.

Gotcha.

So these vehicles would have to be delivered by then.

Yes.

So my understanding is our vehicles are built or our potential vehicles.

Okay.

Any questions, Vice Mayor Raisel?

All right.

Any requests to speak on this item?

You have no request to speak on this item.

Okay.

Then I will entertain a motion.

I'll make a resolution to pass uh resolution number one one four six eight.

All right, we have out of motion.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Please call the roll.

Council member Leary.

Yes.

Rafel.

Yes.

Rora, yes.

Kozlowski?

Yes.

And a keynote.

Yes.

Next item, please.

Item number 13 is resolution number 11469.

This is rescinding a prior resolution and authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement for design consulting and community-build construction assistance services with leathers and associates for the kids play park play structure replacement project.

Good evening.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, City Council members.

My name is Hannah Perez.

I am a park planner too with the Parks and Rec department as well as the project manager for Castle Park.

And I'm here to present to you about the Leathers and Associates contract for Castle Park.

So I wanted to uh bring you up to date.

So an RFP for the playground design was publicly advertised, and a total of four proposals were received on April 30th of this year.

Of the four proposers, staff recommended awarding the contract to Leathers and Associates for a not to exceed amount of 81,640.

Staff presented to city council on May 27th, and as a condition of approval for this contract was directed to change the construction method from a contract-led build to a community build to help with costs and to complete the project in a faster timeline.

Leathers and Associates adjusted their contract for the adjusted scope amount from $81,640 to $11,569 in order to cover the additional costs of the community build construction assistance services.

So to talk about that increased cost.

So the original proposal, like I stated before, was going to be a contract-led construction process.

And so Leathers and Associates was going to provide a limited on-site support during that construction phase.

They would provide one of their staff members for eight days of construction assistance per that proposal with their revised proposal.

So it will now be a community-build construction model requiring greater coordination and supervision.

Leathers and Associates will provide an enhanced on-site support guiding and directing groups of volunteers throughout the build.

And so they will be providing three staff members now instead of one for a minimum of six days of intensive hands-on construction assistance.

The added cost that you see now is uh reflects the expanded staffing, um, travel and extended on-site involvement to ensure safety, quality, um, and a successful volunteer coordination process.

Um, so staff recommendation is to um is to approve the resolution to rescind resolution um 11389 and authorize the city manager to execute an agreement for design consulting services and community build construction assistive services with the Leathers and Associates group for the Kids Play Park.

Hannah, while you have the microphone, why don't you tell everybody when the unveiling of the design is happening?

Uh so we have a final design for the park, finally.

Um, and so the uh unveiling is October 29th, and that will be um at uh Oak Chan Elementary School at 6 p.m.

Perfect.

Okay, you're all invited.

Any questions for Hannah?

So the final cost will still be capped at 800,000, which is what the losses with the increase increase with the increased costs.

Our project is still budgeted to stay under the allocated $800,000 of the general funds.

That's correct.

Thank you.

Any questions over here?

That project schedule on the next slide.

Does it show which six days I should be blocking off of my calendar so I can grab my screw out and go out to Castle Park?

I don't know what timeline you're talking about.

But yes, um, so um the community build.

So based on leathers and associates, there um, so we have been moving forward uh working with them, and they've been very um accommodating with helping us continue to move forward on our aggressive timeline.

And so, based off of um what they're the final approved design, um, they're estimating that um the start of the community build um would be possible in February of 2026.

All right.

Any other questions?

Any requests to speak on this item?

No request to speak on this item.

All right, who would like to move this item?

Council Member Warbach?

Sure.

Your district.

Thank you.

Um I'll move resolution number one one four six nine.

Second.

Got a motion and a second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Leary, yes, Rafel.

Yes.

Um, just for a comment, I just want to thank you to all the staff um for all the hard work in this design process.

I know that there were some um wrenches thrown in there and more input than you were ready for, but I think that we did a really good job um incorporating ADA and um other things in the play structure.

So I just take that moment to comment.

Did I say yes?

That's a yes.

Yes.

Yes, and the keynote.

Yes, thank you, Hannah.

All right.

Okay, that takes us to our final discussion on my item of the evening, number 14, resolution number 11482, a resolution approving the phase two general fund cost savings measures for fiscal year 2025-26 and beyond.

Thank you to everyone for your patience as we took care of some other business.

Great.

Thank you, Mayor, uh, members of the council.

Um appreciate my friends at the zoo for being here.

I also uh highly expected the soccer players to say, so I tried to contain my disappointment when they left.

I thought for sure uh they were waiting for this presentation, but uh I was wrong.

Anyway, just to kind of bring us up to speed of where we've been, uh we've been talking about this a lot.

Uh so on in May 27th, uh the city council held a budget workshop at the Folsom Library that was open to the public and it was well attended.

June 10th, um the city council held uh uh received a budget presentation, uh uh held a public hearing and continued the public hearing to the June 24th uh 2025 meeting.

At the June 24th 2025 meeting, the preliminary budget for 2526 was presented and it uh showed a use of three million dollars in general fund reserves to uh meet the needs of uh the expenses.

Then uh when that budget was adopted, uh staff uh had indicated to the community and to the council that we would look at uh ways uh to expeditiously try to find ways to uh cut that gap.

And so for the last uh several months, uh a lot of work has been done.

I'd like to thank you know our finance director Stacey Tamani uh uh and her team for the tremendous effort to kind of get all this together.

This is out of out of the norm, right?

I mean, normally there's a a normal budget process and then they're on to their normal things, the audit and everything.

So I know this has been a heavy lift, and so I I'm really grateful excuse me grateful for their effort and also I'm extremely proud of the entire executive management team that really rolled up their sleeves looked at ways that they could work together and we'll kind of talk about that later on in the presentation but um this is kind of the culmination of a lot of uh hard work um you know brainstorming uh you know uh discussions with the council throughout this process and getting feedback from the community which has been really helpful so now we're at uh um the the phase two cost saving measure presentation uh just a rehash the end we we uh have a pretty good idea of where we're going to close out the 24 25 um budget that uh concluded on June 30th of this year and we're expecting uh the general fund unassigned a fund balance to increase by about a hundred and uh two thousand uh and then this shows uh where we were in June uh showing the three million dollar deficit um and we've been basically looking at this from a standpoint of uh how can we live within our means uh I think it's important to note um one when we adopted the budget in June I had this glimmer of hope right that that somehow the projections and everything uh that were coming uh from our finance department were wrong that somehow with vacancies and others that we would have savings enough uh just to to continue to do what we were doing but it became very clear uh at that time that we needed to do something uh and uh that's how we got to this point so uh a re recap of our uh phase one cost saving measures that were approved on uh September 23rd uh were workforce reductions of seven vacant police positions seven vacant fire positions four positions in our finance IT department one position in the city attorney's office and one position in the library uh that total position reductions of 20 uh general fund savings for the current fiscal year about three million and then for a full year uh general fund savings about 3.7 million dollars um and phase two cost saving measures that are being proposed uh I'm gonna turn the time over to our our team um and to talk about this but uh what's been going to be presented is kind of the reorganization of services staffing and funding for community development uh department park and recreation department uh public works department and then now the utilities department um I know everyone liked the long name um but utilities department uh is uh what we're going with so with that I'll turn the time over to uh Pam Johns our community development uh department director and I want to personally thank her uh for the many hours uh of putting together reports and gathering people together for meetings and and just really spearheading this effort so thank you very much do you need this thank you I'll just use the arrow key and then yeah that's okay with everyone else um thank you mayor members of the council Pam Johns um one of the things I want to start by saying is just that the the proposed solutions that are before you represent weeks of collaboration really not just with these four directors but with other directors and staff managers at the city um talking about you know how do we um how do we look at efficiencies for focus on our core competencies and and come up with um a proposal that ultimately reduces the cost but still preserves the integrity of the services that that we're providing and so what we have in front of you this evening is what we believe as directors and that Brian have supported to do to do just that we have lots of attachments that are very hard to read in your staff report because they're um you know 11 by 17 spreadsheets that are that are kind of um shrunk down but um but I'm gonna highlight a couple of those and then each director is going to go through more specifics about their speci their their departments but what you see here is just an organizational chart of the the primary services of each of the four departments we're focused on discussing this evening and um as they as they are kind of laid out today in terms of what what we how we are organized from a staffing perspective and and how we are organized from a service perspective.

And this is the this is the interim type of org chart that just highlights this is something that Councilmember Kozlowski asked for which is is just to highlight what are the kinds of services that we talked about either needing to collaborate to change to expand in some way that was driving our reorganization and so the the consolidation of a lot of the enterprise services at the the corp yard include you know solid waste and recycling and then you know fleet moving under the new utilities department but also a lot of focus on the delivery of capital projects both transportation and also facilities and by facilities including you know parks and trails and you know the cities the cities all the cities buildings that in it in addition to kind of more traditional transportation projects.

And then with the promotion of Rebecca Neves to public works director and the carryover of the city engineering services we spend a lot of time talking about how we would do how we would divide up our development services our mapping and improvement services between our two departments and then we're taking a look with some strategic you know retirements about reorganization of things like our code enforcement services.

And so ultimately this is what is presented as the proposed reorganization of the services with those same with those same highlights on the services that are that are now proposed to be reorganized and redistributed and I know it's a it's a lot of information but what we then did was roll up our sleeves and look at the the details of the the staff to meet the the service delivery needs the the potential other general non-general fund revenues what are the qualifying uses of those other funds and and how can we hold ourselves accountable to you know to utilizing those those other revenue funds you know in our moving forward plan.

And so maximizing efficiencies as I've talked about meeting critical service needs so you see us talking about core competencies and really focusing on those priorities the city council has helped us to establish getting the the not just the right positions for those core services but the right people in those positions to maximize our success and then being committed to continual improvement.

So continuing to evaluate how we improve the services we provide the the growth of our staff the training of our staff and the accountability of you know of these funds that we are using in the moving forward plan.

And at the end of the day with these four department reorganizations it results in an increase of approximately two full-time equivalent staff so there's not a reduction which is something that you talked about at the last meeting rather what you see highlighted here is an increase in the other fund revenue in each department director is going to is going to talk a little bit about that this evening and then there was you know certainly shifting and reorganization of staffing between departments but this was trying to kind of level set that and show an existing and proposed under that reorganized structure.

At the end of the day we expect that the annual salary and benefit cost savings from this proposal before you will be about 2.3 million dollars and we expect that that is somewhat conservative that we do have more opportunity to capture these funds but what we're proposing is is pretty conservative so in this you know essentially implementing the changes tonight would would be about a half of a fiscal year in the current year.

So $2.3 million dollars means the full fiscal year, like 26 27 and beyond with these salary and benefit cost savings.

We expect it to be about half that for the remaining eight months, knowing that some things will be implemented, you know, as soon as possible, assuming the city council is supportive, and some things will take a little time to implement.

For community development, we are largely a pay for services department.

And what that means is that the vast majority of what we do, someone pays a fee in order to do.

So whether it's a planning entitlement or a tree permit or you know, a site improvement plan or a building permit or an inspection, they're paying a fee for it.

But we also provide a lot of services in terms of information records requests, you know, code enforcement services, some things that don't necessarily have fees or fines associated with them.

What we are proposing is increased use of special revenue funds for qualifying staff services in two primary fund categories: the housing fund, which we talked a little bit about earlier, and the tree fund.

So city council approved use of the tree fund for a second arborist position back in May.

We've now filled that position, and we're recommending that we utilize another 0.25 full-time equivalent for code enforcement cases involving trees because there are certainly a lot of them.

And then for the housing fund that our housing manager who spends 100% of her time on housing services as a qualifying expense to that housing fund would be fully charged to the housing fund.

And then for two essentially a halftime position, but part of that would be for our the person who oversees the seniors helping seniors program.

It's about a quarter of her time to manage that seniors helping seniors program, and then about a quarter time for support for analysis and reporting that is required for all of the housing programs and policies that we do.

And so with that, we would have 2.75 positions that are currently, well, 1.75 in addition to the one you've already approved that would move from the general fund to these other funds.

And then we would reorganize our code enforcement services as you may know.

Our long-time code enforcement manager Pete Bicardo is retiring with almost 30 years of service at the end of the year, but his last day with us will be in October.

And so we are reorganizing services, our code enforcement services from our planning team to our building team, and recommending that that service be taken over by our building services inspector, like our supervising inspector, and that he take on the management of high-level kind of controversial code cases and underfill a second code enforcement one position to help us get more boots on the ground and help with kind of the day-to-day implementation of the increasing, you know, code cases that we have in the city.

We also have an opportunity with Rebecca's promotion to public works director to reorganize our development engineering services, and many of the services associated with transportation right-of-way and public property would be managed under Rebecca's purview and in coordination with private property development and oversight in community development.

So we would underfill that city engineer position that is moved with a development engineering manager, and then as we expect with this reorganization, we would have a vacancy in our principal civil engineer, and we would underfill that with a senior civil engineer.

And then we have some associated reclassifications or retention of what we consider to be kind of essential staff.

Some of it is flex promotion, some of it is reclassification associated with work assignments.

So with that, we would have 28, we have 28 full-time equivalent staff now.

We propose to have 28 full-time equivalent staff under this proposal with 2.75 positions being funded through a combination of the housing fund and the tree fund.

And the annual gener the annual general fund cost savings is just under $500,000 with all of the changes that we're proposing.

And with that, I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to Kelly to talk about the recommendations for parks and rec.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members, and I want to say I'm grateful for our peers and the direction the city is headed and the increased collaboration.

Kelly Gonzalez, Parks and Recreation Director.

So the proposed changes and cost savings for our department.

We're looking to increase our cost recovery using special revenue funds for staff and our services, primarily with special with our projects and development and park and trail development and charging staff time to impact fees.

We are also looking with the recent promotion in sports.

We do have a vacant recreation coordinator.

We're proposing to eliminate that position, but replace that position with a shared capital projects manager position.

This position will be shared with parks and recreation and public works.

That position will report to myself, and that the staff time, depending on the projects, that are priority for what we have going for that fiscal year.

I'm also looking to reclassify one full-time equivalent position based on their duties and priorities.

So our current staffing, there's no change to the number of full-time equivalents.

We currently have 52, and we're proposing 52 full-time equivalents.

We'll be using special revenue funds equal to about 5.8 full-time equivalents and a general fund savings to parks and recreation of approximately 703,000 dollars.

And with that, I'm gonna go ahead and introduce Rebecca Neves, our public works director.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council, Rebecca Neves Public Works Director.

It's great to see you all.

Uh, thank you for giving me this opportunity to present the public works department's general fund cost savings.

Just to kind of set some of the context to uh public works and parks for that matter, we're kind of unique departments in that we have the ability to generate our own revenue through capital project deliveries, acquiring grants, and then also we're able to utilize uh funds through special revenue funds, similar to how community development proposed earlier.

So I really wanted to kind of emphasize that we do kind of have these two different unique pots of funding available to our efforts.

And while some of these funds are uh impact fee funds, uh there may have been some concerns around replenishment, and as you can see in attachment six in your staff report, we did uh actually capture the five-year revenue that's been considered in the collaborated cost savings for all three departments with recommendations for funding of various positions.

Um it's through the use of these funding sources that public works will enhance our cost recovery for staff and services as part of the capital and maintenance project delivery efforts.

Currently, our amazing operations staff is incredibly busy outdoing the good work that they do, but without the proper administrative support currently to chase a lot of the current cost recovery.

This can come from in the form of filing paperwork for damaged public facilities such as signal polls, to formulating a strategic uh crack seal effort in time-sensitive neighborhoods.

For this reason, two full-time equivalent positions have been added, both positions funded primarily out of other revenue sources and capital projects apart from the general fund.

These two positions include the proposed streets operations manager and an administrative assistant, both of whom will be physically located at the corporation yard to support our staff.

Additionally, we took a healthy look at our staffing needs along with focus around retention and identified key areas where reclassifications and promotions would support essential staff retention and optimized work assignments.

Um, here I've included a vision test for all of you on this slide.

I'm just kidding, but in all seriousness, this table does uh represent uh the proposed staffing fund uh allocation efforts for the public works department.

Um, the biggest change is just that cost recovery component over in the proposed staffing and fund allocations.

Um, after the staff report was published, I did find a couple of line item errors that I had missed in my initial review, and my apologies for that.

So, uh, you all have an updated version of this in your packets this evening, and the changes are highlighted in red there.

The changes from the original published version um uh sorry, the they're already been covered.

Sorry, and uh these changes do result in special revenue funds, funding approximately 14.9 full-time equivalent positions uh with a total proposed full-time equivalency of 31 positions in the department, yielding a general fund annual cost savings of a little over 1.1 million dollars.

And now with that, I'll pass it over to Mr.

Marcus and his presentation on our newly formed utilities department.

Good evening, Mayor Keeno, members of the council, Marcus Yasataki, currently environmental water resources director, potentially utilities director.

I do want to echo uh my thanks to Pam for spearheading this group.

It was a lot of time and a lot of effort uh on uh on her to get us all moving in the right direction.

But it was great to have both Kelly and Rebecca on the team because it was pretty easy for us to all move in the right direction.

And then thanks to finance and HR for obviously keeping us within the right bounds in which we were having to look at this both financially but also from a personnel perspective.

And then Brian giving us the latitude to kind of put our heads together and start thinking of different ways that Pam addressed earlier to deliver our services, our core competent services in a more efficient way while not impacting uh what the community's going to see.

Uh for myself, the the general fund savings really aren't significant because of uh the enterprise funds.

There is some slight potential, and it's listed here, but about maybe 3% for a couple different positions, and this is just all how the budget document shows a percentage breakdown for a couple positions between the general fund and then the enterprise funds.

But over the course of a fiscal year, our fleet division or the managers in essence may have more time allocated to non-general fund fleet needs versus general fund fleet needs.

But typically, and what we've seen in the past couple of years and more recent years is that it's about 68% cost allocated to the non-general fund or enterprise fund uh revenues and you know, 32% for the general fund as opposed to 6535.

So it doesn't yield the the big numbers that you'll see from from the other or that you did see from the other three, but it's roughly about you know $10,700 per year.

Uh, in terms of um how this impacts our staffing effectively, we're going between water and wastewater at 61 to water wastewater solid waste and fleet to uh 135.

Um so it's just uh combining of the enterprise funds uh along with fleet.

So uh that's kind of wrapped up in here.

Uh I won't go line by line, but effectively it's bringing the uh four divisions water, wastewater, solid waste, and fleet together.

And that's really all I have for utilities.

Turn it back to Brian or Pam.

Yep.

All right.

Um thank you for that.

Uh Marcus, and so just uh kind of looking at this is the overall uh staffing.

Uh you know, in the staff report, it kind of mentions that we're adding two positions.

But when you look at the overall staffing for the city, it's uh it's a net of 18 positions lost, you know.

So that's uh going into our phase one.

So this this um slide kind of shows that we're going from uh 513 uh.5 positions to 495.5 positions.

Uh looking at the the proposed savings with uh the implementation of phase one and phase two, and then uh allocating or or acknowledging the costs associated with the IT management services contract uh for 2526.

We're looking at savings of 3.9 million and for 26, 27, 5.6.

Uh we hope, you know, as we continue to uh allocate uh appropriate time to projects that those savings can be even greater.

You know, uh I appreciate this graphic uh because it it just highlights what's been going on.

Uh collaboration, you know, clearly builds bridges to success.

It's this unified vision and shared goals, empowerment and accountability, continuous improvement and challenging the status quo, those are things that we're trying to do is not just look at things uh as we have been, but trying to find different ways to move forward.

Uh with the the um the primary goal uh is to to be as efficient as possible in delivering services to the community, but also as you look into the budget document, we literally have millions of dollars that are available for capital projects that we need to hurry and get done.

Because money sitting in our accounts, you know, as inflationary forces occur, you know, our purchasing power, our ability to pay uh shrinks.

And so appreciate the team that we have and all the resources that we're if I were to highlight the biggest reason for this reorganization is for project delivery.

Uh allocating resources to parks so that we can have engineering assistance to help build those trails, build those parks, and do it, you know, uh more efficiently and more effectively.

So a couple of things before we get in uh, well, let me highlight the recommendation and then I'll I'll talk about a couple things, but staff is recommending that the council approve uh the departmental reorganization, uh services and staffing for community development, parks and recreation, public works and utilities department approves increased use of special revenue funds, non-general fund for qualifying expenditures, increases the total number of staff by two full-time equivalent positions with an estimated annual cost savings of 2.3 uh million in 26-27 and 1.1 uh in fiscal year 25-26.

And just to highlight, although we're saying it's uh for this reorganization, it increases the total, but globally it's actually uh a net loss of 18 positions.

So, uh as we look towards the future, you know, we've been focused on on uh cost recovery, we've been focused on uh how do we close the budget deficit, and uh I think it's important for us to highlight what the city of Folsom does.

We are a service delivery organization.

Uh, our employees, our people are the most important aspects of what we do.

It's the the they interface with the public, they build the projects, they provide the service.

Uh so that's something that's extremely important.

Uh also sometimes, you know, as government employees in the municipal sector, um, sometimes there's a view that we're not part of the market, we're not part of the capitalistic society that we are a part of.

And so, with that in mind, uh, I think it's important to note that although we're talking about these cost reductions, we're currently in negotiations with four bargaining units.

And so, as we look at market forces that as we look at inflation, as we look at our competitors because uh we want the best employees, um, because the best employees are able to provide the higher level of service.

And so our really good employees are looked at by other organizations, Sacramento County, uh, City of Sacramento, Rockland, Roseville, Rancho Cordova.

So, although we're part of this municipal sector, uh, our folks are portable, uh, they're well educated, they're talented, and so our goal is to be consistent and provide the best level of service, there are some costs associated with that.

So, just to highlight that, um, going forward, uh, you know, um, I just really appreciate this team.

I appreciate the support of the council.

Uh, this has not been a fun time.

Um, you know, the the phase one in particular was uh not a highlight, you know, of my career for certain.

You know, when we're dealing with people who have uh, you know, served the city faithfully for a number of years, and we have to tell them that their their job is being eliminated, not fun.

And so um, you know, my my hope in going forward to this is that we don't have to have those type of conversations for a long, long time, if ever.

You know, so um, you know, some of the questions related to the special revenue funds and allocating uh individuals to those funds, that hey, well, what if the funds you know aren't there anymore?

Well, in many ways, if the funds aren't there anymore, I think that's success because that means we've built the street, we've built the bridge, we've built whatever needs to be built, we've replaced the part because the funds that are collected from you know our taxpayers, uh whether it's through grants or for for all the various different funding sources, we need to get that money into an asset because that's where the value is because we want our folks to be able to use those assets.

But with that, that concludes my report, and would be happy to answer any questions.

All right.

Any questions from my colleagues before we go to public comments?

Okay.

No.

Councilmember Warbach?

Councilmember Leary.

Alright, we do have several requests to speak.

Remember, you do get three minutes, please.

Okay, our first speaker will be Bruce Klein, and Bruce will be followed by Rich Francis.

Good evening, Bruce.

City Manager, Mayor, members of the council, Bruce Klein, president, friends of Folsom Parkways.

Very, very great to hear all the things that we've heard tonight.

That reorganization slide that uh city manager had up and hits all the high points.

Um, collaboration empowerment, Marcus Yasataki used the word latitude.

It used to be a term used around here, drivers wanted.

That is, we wanted employees driving things home, and you're hitting all those points.

That's really great to hear.

Let's not forget, though, that we've gotten ourselves potentially to status quo with these.

But there are millions upon millions of deferred maintenance in parks and on our trails.

Um, there are also lots of opportunities out there for groups like Friends of Folsom Parkway.

Rich Francis, your next speaker from uh Folsom Athletic Association, other groups in the community all have things that they can bring to the table.

Uh, hats off to the fire department.

Last meeting, I said perhaps the fire department could come forward and assist with some of this fuel mitigation.

An hour after I made those comments, I got an email from Captain Steve Anderson, said, I've been looking for opportunities to train my people on chainsaws.

So they're qualified when they go out on wildland fires to be able to use chainsaws.

Jeez, I'd like to have them do that in our city.

They came out to Hinkle Creek, they did a couple days worth of work.

We hope to be able to expand on that program that benefits parks by not having to pay their folks or hire a special contractor, helps the volunteers to be able to drag the material that they cut down and gets our folks trained.

Um there are lots of drivers out in the community, and I think if you continue to get these things out and be innovative, uh that will be great.

I'd like to uh share uh a piece of great information.

The Dyer Family Foundation who have been supporters of Hinkle Creek, uh recognize the good work of Friends of Folsom Parkway, and they gave us a grant this last week, which our board accepted of $50,000 for fuel mitigation work in our community.

Um, we will be meeting with the manager of the fire department and our board and how we leverage that money to extend it out further, involving community groups so that they may have some money if they bring volunteers for their groups.

So uh lots of good opportunities.

We're gonna try to really stretch that money, and we're gonna try to do as much as we can.

Um, last I just continue to really urge you to just continue to be innovative, and like Marcus said, provide the latitude to your staff, the support to your staff to go out and be drivers and be innovative.

And I know that great things can come of that.

Um, we invite you always to come out to our projects.

Hinkle Creek, we're doing we'll be redoing the post and and cable uh posts out there in the parking lot.

That takes some good uh person power.

Anyone that wants to handle an auger, please come out.

Um, and then we're gonna continue our fuel ladder work in the Hinkle Creek area over the next month and a half.

Thank you.

Thank you, Bruce.

Okay, our next speaker will be Rich Francis.

Rich will be followed by Dean Williams.

Always tough to follow Bruce.

Good evening, Rich.

No notes, always from the hip.

Not me.

Good evening, Mayor and city council.

My name is Rich Francis, and I am the president of the Folsom Athletic Association.

Uh, we at the FAA work with our membership of 18 different youth sports organizations as well as two adult leagues, and this equates to roughly 18,000 total kids, parents, and extended families here in Folsom, all who enjoy the benefits brought by participating in youth sports and recreation.

In this time of financial challenges and with the hard work and tough decisions you have in front of you, I'm here tonight to just speak briefly about the importance of maintaining our sports and parks facilities for all residents, but specifically for our younger kids, our younger kids who enjoy the satisfaction of recreational and competitive sports.

I think by now we all understand the benefit of youth sports, but here are a few reminders.

Besides being really fun to watch, uh team sports helps develop social skills, maintains healthy weight, builds confidence, enforces discipline, and teaches kids to learn from a defeat.

Obviously, involvement in team sports also helps keep help also helps to keep kids out of trouble.

Every May, during our two days of lengthy interviews for the Folsom Athletic Association's senior scholarship awards that occur at both high schools, we see the real and tangible results of young adults who have all played local youth sports here.

Well dressed, well mannered and personable, all with very high GPAs, and in general, very well-rounded kids.

And during our interviews, almost all point to their involvement in sports or to their coaches here in Folsom as positive factors and mentors in their young lives.

So to us, the message is clear.

As hard decisions are contemplated tonight.

Please do your best to keep our beautiful parks, sports facilities, and trails as well funded as you can.

And in return, we at the Folsom Athletic Association, in partnership with Parks Commission, our youth sports membership, Folsom First, and other advocate groups are ready to work with council, city manager, and parks director to come up with out-of-the-box solutions in order to help bring in more revenues through youth sports tournaments and other means.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rich.

Okay.

Our next speaker will be Dean Williams, who will be followed by Loretta Hedinger.

Do I need his extra seconds?

No.

Mayor City Council on Dean Williams.

I am also on the FAA board, but also uh Parks and Rec Commissioner.

And we've been going through talking with the city, talking with Kelly, talking with Brian, and I'm extremely impressed by how much time and effort they have put in to try and get to sing.

And the thing that I was impressed most with Brian is nothing's off the table.

I don't care how we get there, let's just figure how to get there.

And because of that, you're getting there.

It's a tough thing.

We you know, um, a lot of hard work and a lot of pain sometimes, but I think it wakes people up.

But in return, I think Folsom residents are gonna start trusting the city again, and that was a problem.

People didn't trust how the money was being used.

They whether they are right or wrong, that was just the opinion.

With the clarity and the transparent that parents that we're seeing, um, and making the hard cuts, but showing that we're trying to figure away around this, I think will pay off for our city uh in the long run.

I'm totally impressed with um city staff and especially Kelly, which I think she doesn't even know where our house is anymore because every time I talk to her, she's still here.

Um but their work so hard and really cares about the department, cares about the youth programs that I'm involved with, and um they put a booklet out.

This is the uh annual report for the parks and rec, and I'm assuming it's online.

If it isn't, it will be.

And you need to look at it in the city and the residents need to understand what parks and rec does for this town that the the amount of uh opportunities and projects and sports and amenities and the things that make Folsom what Folsom is.

And we can go down all the things we got to protect, but the bottom line is that is the heart and soul, whether it's whether it's the zoo.

Are you still here?

Okay, you know, or the water park or whatever we've got going, it's real important to keep that base.

We're working forward on it.

I think um we've had a lot of volunteers this year, and Tom has gone through some of that with how much money that's saved.

We're looking outside the box, and we're doing some things, pounding on some doors and trying to get more community support through businesses in the areas and different ways of thinking that I hope will come to fruition.

But whichever way we do, I think this is a great start, and we just need to work together to get to that next step.

So thank you much.

Thank you for BDB.

Okay, thank you.

Our next speaker will be Loretta Hedinger, who will then be followed by Tanya Thomas.

Hello again, Loretta.

Hello again.

Well, it was hard for me to be optimistic when I spoke a little earlier today, and it seems odd to me that I would be optimistic about the budget.

But I am optimistic about the same sort of comment that the previous speaker made about regenerating trust in the community, and I appreciate that all these difficult things are being made very public.

And uh I just have one question, and I can't help being a long-range planner.

Uh I know you have succeeded in cutting expenses now.

But how long is it going to be before the declining sales tax revenue, et cetera, puts us right back in this same position?

Have you been able to do any forecasting?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Brian, do you wanna take a stab at that?

Yeah, I I think it's a great question.

And it kind of highlights um kind of the the yo-yo effect of what we're trying to do with uh reducing costs, but then at the same time, there's pressures, you know, labor costs, inflationary costs that that keep going.

And so um, you know, uh I I think it's important for us to recognize that it's still going to be a challenge.

I think we're we're uh we will ultimately be better off.

Uh but in the future, and I think that's why we will continue to um have budget discussions, uh, like we'll have our mid-year budget discussion in February, then we'll be adopting a new budget in June, and then we have the cycle where we will actually look at what the the sales tax revenue, what the property tax revenue is actually doing.

So um, I mean, I think this gives us, you know, maybe a slight breath, but not hey, everything's out of the clear.

I mean, we still have to be vigilant in all that we do.

Uh, I think we will know more um about this time next year.

You know, so did we actually hit all our targets when we look at you know, public safety expenses, when we look at uh project delivery, and and uh did we actually uh were able to charge uh to all those special revenues uh funds the the amounts that we had projected.

I think we have a good solid conservative plan, but really to predict what this will look like.

We uh we have a pretty good idea, but we will actually know probably this time next year.

Okay, thank you.

I know we have another speaker.

Yep, next speaker is Tanya Thomas.

Good evening, Tanya.

Good evening.

I hope you all aren't too tired yet.

Um my name is Tanya Thomas, and I'm here on behalf of Friends of Folsom Parkways to talk to you about trails.

We all know Folsom's motto, distinctive by nature.

So it's obvious to even outsiders that trails and parks are a crucial part of our identity.

For me, there was two main reasons why my parents decided to move from Folsom to Las Vegas.

One there is more nature here than this little bushes and cacti, and two, good weather.

And I know for certain that they were right about the nature, but the jury's still out about the weather.

That's why we should fight to protect our trails and parks in order to keep them well maintained, to protect that integral part of Folsom.

In addition to that, the value of parks and trails are beyond what many people think it is, and it is more pressing than ever.

Right now, the U.S.

is becoming more and more entangled in a mental health crisis.

In fact, California specific data from 2021 to 2022, California Healthy Kids Survey, otherwise known as CHKS, reveals that approximately 31, 37% of 11th graders reported chronic sadness or hopelessness.

The CHKS also indicates high anxiety levels, with around 50% of 11th grade girls and nearly 30% of 11th grade boys reporting chronic worry.

The this problem will only get worse and worse with the crippling effects of being in a tech focused future can cause more harm than good.

Now you might wonder how parks and trails are connected to mental health.

Well, there's a lot that ties them together.

Just by having our bountiful trails and parks interwoven across multiple neighborhoods is a benefit already.

According to UC Davis Health, regular access to green spaces has been linked to lower risks of depression and improved concentration and attention.

I know from my personal experience that whenever I'm experiencing anxiety, whether it be about AP calculus or the pile of college applications that I still have to do, I go I can go out to the trails outside and distress and focus solely on the environment around me.

That's what makes makes maintaining our parks and trails to keep them more green than ever.

Walking through our trails and parks also improves our sense of community.

There are multiple research studies that show that being connected to nature also connects you to a diverse group of people.

Jogging by fellow joggers in the morning and nodding hello gives people that boost of dopamine because it activates the brain's reward system, which has evolved to reinforce social bonds and therefore reduce feelings of loneliness.

It also gives people a sense of routine by saying seeing the same people during a specific time of day and sparking up conversation.

I see this in my daily life as when Prospector Park had been had completed construction south of Highway 50.

People now play volleyball, have conversations together, do soccer games and other social gatherings there more and more often.

We understand that funds can be tight, and we appreciate you giving importance to the part of Folsom that makes us special.

And we encourage you to continue to allocate a portion of your budget to parks and trails, invite you to come out and support our trails even more, especially with our upcoming fire fuel removals, which are crucial to stopping wildfires from even starting.

Our next one is this Thursday on the 16th.

We meet at Hanklow Creek nature area from 5 p.m.

to 7 p.m.

We especially want more youth to volunteer for increased leadership opportunities and civic engagement with our community.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you so much for coming out.

Okay, you have no additional request to speak on this item.

Alright.

I will bring it back to my colleagues.

Any follow-up questions or anything for the city manager or department heads?

Only what?

It's not really a question, it's kind of well, that's kind of a question.

Um, just like uh two weeks or three weeks ago at our last meeting when we were talking about um data of um services or um service delivery from you know the end of last month to what it's gonna look like in six months or a year to keep track of that, how things have changed with those reduction in staff and staffing.

I think you know it'd be interesting at the mid-mid-year budget review as well to kind of see where to find out where our deliveries are, um if they're improving or if they're getting worse.

I think one thing that was said tonight, um I think you said it was one of the things we need to keep track of is that service delivery to our customers.

Um, and I think that's an answer to one of the questions, too.

As far as are we, you know, what's gonna happen in a few years as you know our revenue if our revenue doesn't increase in any substantial way.

Um, you know, will we will have to probably or consider adding resources back, and are we gonna be able to do that?

And where would we do that?

So I don't know how you would do that with these departments in general, but I think one of the things I've heard you talk about often is project deliveries and actually getting those done, so that could be, you know, how many projects did we deliver, you know, within the last year, and I think like you said, um, this time next year, that would maybe be more relevant to give a whole year time.

That was a long story.

Okay.

Want to make a motion?

I'll make that a little bit.

Well, before we make a motion, I just think um looking through the last attachment there that breaks down the annual fund revenues and the outflows that are going to be moved over to staff that are dedicated.

Um Pam and I had a great discussion earlier about how SAC Tree Foundation fits into that because that's really the only one that's going to be relatively cost neutral or revenues matching expenditures in the funds.

The other ones, the revenues coming in, are not going to be largely spent on the staff.

And I just thought our discussion was good yesterday.

And if maybe you could touch on a little bit of of what you see with that fund, but 226 going forward.

Yeah, thank you for the question, Councilmember Rafel.

We the the tree fund is a reminder has a current balance of about 1.4 million, and over the last five-year period, the average revenue was I think 175 or 176 according to that attachment.

Um the recommendation is to spend about 200,000 a year on this critical staffing for out of the tree fund.

And so at that rate, there would be a slight decrease in in that fund, but we also have a contract with SAC Tree Foundation that we started about five years ago, and the city council approved two separate three-year contracts when we only had one arborist really fully responding to development activity with no real capacity to do the proactive um work with our community on tree planting, which is what the fund is intended to focus on.

And so we partnered with the tree foundation in a similar fashion to what um Rancho Cordova and Sacramento County have done in order to supplement our staffing, and just like all other kind of contract support, we have the ability to adjust or flex that um it's a time and materials not to exceed based on our assignment of work, and so we can expand or roll back that contract with the SAC Tree Foundation as needed to make sure that we're not depleting that that tree fund.

But our goal is to preserve and protect our existing tree canopy and to grow our canopy.

And the tree foundation does two things for us, they do planting of uh tree kind of mitigation projects.

Um, and we have um we don't have a current need for that because we've got two agencies that that really owe the city tree planting project based on tree removal, and that's regional transit and uh PGE.

And so um we kind of have a pause on on that effort, and the other work that they do is helping us target um neighborhoods and areas in the city that are under canopied and reach out, do outreach efforts to provide and offer um free shade trees and do the volunteer planting to help get those in the ground, and that's a um a uh low cost high reward type of um of service that we would probably continue to do at a relatively low cost, like less than $20,000 a year.

So we'll manage that and monitor you know that because we are asking to really fully expend kind of the revenue that comes in on that for these resources to expand the kind of services that we're providing um through the arborist.

So to summarize, we will still have tree plantings going on, even though we're going to spend a lot of that money on staffing.

That's correct, and we don't have any um any tree planting projects with SAC Tree Foundation on the books.

Um, and like I said, we have other agencies that that we would tap into for that in the near term.

Thank you.

I want to follow up on that.

And that is because the SAC Tree Foundation has not been all that available to show up to put tree planning um projects together.

I've talked to them directly uh about that, and they don't have a stable staff that's been assigned to some of these neighborhood tree programs.

That they would mitigate for the trees that they've either mistakenly or um poorly planned for removal.

Yeah, we don't we don't have a project, but we have probably the same outreach that you do to them to remind them about that obligation.

We do have a dedicated resource from the SAC Tree Foundation in a staff person that spends one day a week at the city focused on our neighborhoods program.

So we do have a dedicated resource and that we've had that consistently.

Yeah, well, my experience has been because I have people calling me asking me, can I find a project for them?

And when I contact that person, they're either not available or don't have the capacity to to do a project.

So it would be nice if we had one on the books right now because I could contact a bunch of people to help.

Yeah, I'll I'll make sure to get the information to you.

It's also available on our website, but I'll I'll make sure that you have it.

Okay, thank you.

Um, and I just wanted to make some comments.

I really appreciate all the work that the um the team has done together.

I'm really impressed.

I think even before I was elected, it was clear that there were a lot of redundancies going on in the various departments, and I think this effort has uh removed redundancies and actually made great um use of a lot of this skills that you all have that can apply to projects kind of across the board.

Um I appreciate Brian uh leading you all in that effort and giving you the reins.

Um, one thing that I I wanted to ask about too is that on the code enforcement, you know, we're talking about Pete retiring, and then a reassignment of those to building inspector and an underfilled position because that seems to be a task that's really difficult to for the staff to keep up on because there are so many calls, you know, across the board from I don't like my garbage can, my neighbors with their garbage cans out on you know the morning after they came to you know more egregious um things, and so will that actually be an increase in the capacity for that department.

Yes, it would go from about two from two staff now to about 2.5, right?

So our manager would maybe it's maybe 2.3, 2.4.

It'll flux just depending on the need, but the manager would be involved in the uh most controversial, most significant cases, but we would have two um code enforcement officers that would report to the manager and the manager would be a building safety inspector who already gets involved in code cases involving structures.

So he has familiarity and longevity with the city as well.

So we're gonna it seemed a very um, you know, uh just a good transition to happen that um if if supported tonight we will start implementing right away.

Okay, and um, the one thing um I wanted to, you know, Loretta mentioned this, and that is you know, looking forward, I'm looking forward to having workshops and discussions about enhancing our income.

And I think I've brought some of this up before, but um, you know, increasing our TOT or developing you know special districts to cover some of the costs.

Uh some of those will require a vote of some kind.

Um, and I really hope that we can you know enhance the care of our existing attractions like the zoo and our trails and our sports fields, you know, to bring in uh more business.

I think that's a huge piece of economic development that that the city can support, and we can get some benefit from using these volunteer groups who want to keep those things going too.

Um so and I appreciated the comment about the walking on the trails and uh and feeling uh more connected.

That's actually a Japanese, a long-standing Japanese tradition is to go forest bathing is what they call it for for mental health purposes.

So we we have lots of forests here between cleaning it up and walking in it, we've got a lot of opportunity.

Um so I don't know if anybody else has anything to say, but I would be prepared to move the resolution number one one four eight two.

Perfect.

We have a motion, we have a second second.

All right, we got a motion and a second.

Please call the roll.

Councilmember Leary.

Yes.

Rathel, yes, Lorbach, Kozlowski, and the keynote.

Yes, and I will just extend a collective thank you on behalf of all my colleagues for all of the collaboration to all of our city staff.

Thank you very much.

It is very appreciated.

Takes you to City Manager Reports.

Uh great.

Uh, just a few items.

Uh, I just would uh, you know, uh like to welcome our interim uh fire chief Jason Solak who's in the back.

Thank you.

Uh we scheduled a nice short meeting for you to start on.

So uh we also like to congratulate uh our uh retiring uh fire chief uh Ken Cusano.

Uh he has served the city of Folsom faithfully for a long period of time, and we wish him the best in his retirement.

Uh Chief Soloch brings more than 30 years of leadership and fire service experience to the role.

He most recently served as the deputy fire chief uh for the Livermore Pleasanton Fire Department, where he led operations, training, and emergency response readiness during his 25 year career with the department.

Uh Chief Solak and his wife Don have lived in Empire Ranch neighborhood since 2001.

They have two college age children, Jake and Brianna.

And we're grateful that he said yes.

I'm really grateful he said yes.

So thank you for being here.

Uh we have um uh let's see.

Oh, this is pretty neat.

Um we have uh Folsom Police Sergeant Mike Romberg uh has been selected as the recipient of the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Law Enforcement Award, earning top honors among nominees from across the nation.

This award recognizes law enforcement officers who have demonstrated exceptional service, dedication, and commitment to protecting and serving their communities.

Uh Sergeant Gruber will be um honored at a ceremony on Wednesday, October 15th at 7 30 p.m.

at the VFW Hall here in town.

Uh a reminder uh tomorrow night, uh Folsom High School students will be holding their homecoming parade.

Uh motorists should be aware of road closures along Coloma, Sutter, Reading, and Leadersdorf streets from 6 to 7 30 p.m.

to accommodate the event.

Uh the Folsom Police Department uh and the uh Folsom Fire Departments invite the community to the annual public safety trunk retreat from 10 a.m.

to 1 p.m.

on Saturday, October 25th at the Folsom Police Department at 46 Natoma Street.

Families can trick or treat safely while exploring police and fire vehicles and equipment, meeting officers and firefighters and visiting with the police canine and mounting patrol unit.

Uh and then also uh we'd like to invite folks uh and let people know that tickets are now available for the Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary's Wild Howl Owen event taking place on Saturday, October 25th from 10 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

This family friendly Halloween celebration features a festive treat trail through the zoo sanctuary.

Opportunities to meet animal residents and fun activities for all ages, costumes are encouraged, and tickets typically sell out quickly.

Event admission is 1299 per person with free entry for children under age two.

That concludes my report.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kozowski.

I just wanted to highlight a couple local businesses for the heck of it.

The uh Arthur Murray Dance Studio.

I got to give them a certificate and celebrate their tenth uh anniversary of operating here in the city of Folsom recently.

Um they have moved to the to a building um right next to where Red Bus Brewing is.

So you can.

I was really hoping you were gonna say that you were dancing.

I sadly I'm not much of a dancer, but I did really, I I'm really happy that they've had such a uh successful business for so long, and their new place is really fun.

And then um a couple from El Dorado Hills opened a brand new Ben and Jerry's ice cream uh franchise on Sutter Street in the 700 block.

So um it's kind of you know just in time for it to get cool outside, but uh more snacking opportunities on Sutter Street.

So enjoy your time down there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Rachel.

I had the opportunity to attend uh Livability Summit uh that was put on by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments and Valley Vision.

Uh highly recommend you go out and check out the Livability poll, which is pretty easy to find if you go out and search Livability Poll Sacramento, you'll find that.

Um at that, I thought one of the most interesting things is a poll they do every year um and and largely as you would expect it looks similar to the previous year but the idea is to track trends right with the region top of the list uh top priority was affordable housing uh for folks uh and then I found that it was interesting the other one there was a 50 50 split down to down to the person on whether growth should be going faster or growth should be going slower so they made people choose one or the other there was no it's fine there was no I'm gonna opt out you if you had to choose would you go faster growth or slower growth and so I think we're experiencing this and a lot of these these challenges um and so go check out the livability poll um it's just interesting to see what people are thinking throughout the region and it mirrors a lot of I think what we're we're living with here in Folsom some of the same challenges are regionally.

I also wanted to uh thank uh director neves uh the Sacramento Transportation Authority has asked for uh what projects uh it should be prioritized countywide um folsom was the first municipality to submit those um and say hey prioritize these we've got some great projects that would benefit the county uh so thank you for doing that and thanks for advocating uh to make sure folsom gets as many infrastructure dollars as we can uh and then I wanted to give a shout out to Kelly and Parks and Rec.

Uh the Cummings Family Bike Park and partnership with the Folsom Auburn Trail Riders Action Coalition or Fat Track.

It's a great public private partnership I know you guys um I kind of want to get a count of how many we've got going on there now but they're all great stories to tell um fat track came in and and is gonna dedicate a lot of time and resources to this board's really excited about it.

I know Parks and Rec is excited about it.

And then Claudia Cummings uh namesake of Cummings Family Park has offered a $2000 matching contribution 10 straight off the bat and then 10 more matching to support FatTracks efforts in Parks and Rack and getting Cummings family bike park fully back up and operational don't worry you two will also get the chance to support the bike park as that all comes together.

So look for that in future communications that's all I have tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you Councilmember Warbox no have a great night okay thank you Councilmember Larry.

I just want to congratulate the people that put together the pride event over the weekend it's uh often you know very difficult for people who are different to feel like they fit into a community and I understand that the uh event went well I wasn't able to attend but um got some nice press in the sacramento bee uh there were no issues and people enjoyed spending time with their family and friends and and feeling um like they were a part of the community so thank you.

I just have two things first of all I will say we hit the jackpot this year with um some interim uh folks first with Dan Habert is our interim city manager chief uliberry as our interim police chief and now Jason Solock has our interim fire chief so we're grateful to all of you guys for for stepping up to serve Folsom.

And then finally I do want to adjourn in memory tonight of Jessica Arudia Andrews.

She was a Folsom resident and former city employee who passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on September 9th.

She worked for the Parks and recreation department as a recreation specialist from 2014 to 2022 and she leaves behind um her husband Troy Andrews and twins Jackson and Julia who recently graduated from Vista to Lago High School so on behalf of the city of Folsom we send um them our heartfelt condolences and I will reach out to Troy on behalf of all of us.

So thank you with that we'll adjourn at 9 29