Okay.

Please call this meeting to order.

Call the role, please.

Thank you.

We're going to call the meeting to order.

Councilmember Kaplan.

Councilmember Dickinson.

Vice Mayor Talamantes.

We expect Councilmember Plucky Baum momentarily.

Councilmember Maple.

Mayor Pro Tem Gana.

Here.

Councilmember Jennings.

Councilmember Vang.

Here.

And Mayor McCarty.

Here.

You have a quorum.

Okay.

Vice Mayor Talamantes.

Will you look at it in the pledge and the land acknowledgment?

Please rise for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento's Indigenous People and Tribal Lands.

To the original people of this land, the Nissanon people, the Southern Maidu, Valiant Plains Miwap, Patwin Winton peoples, and the people of the Wilton Rancheria, Sacramento's only federally recognized tribe.

May we acknowledge and honor the Native people who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather together today in the act of practice of acknowledgment and appreciation for Sacramento's Indigenous People's History, contributions, and lives.

Thank you.

Salute, pledge.

And City Attorney, do you have our report out from closed session?

Nothing to report out.

Mayor, we now move to special presentations.

The first is declaring child care a public priority, presented by Mayor Pro Tem Getta.

Yes.

Councilmember.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Mayor.

Today I have two resolutions to present.

Very fitting given that our youth parks and enrichment budget is being heard today.

Welcome to City Hall and give them a big round of applause.

But uh very active in our Heart Senior Center, and one who would have really appreciated this upcoming res this next resolution, and that's declaring child care a priority.

And affordability of child care impacts the ability of a family and a household deciding whether or not they will leave the workforce or their their career will stagnate or regress.

Thank you, Member.

Thank you, Councilmember for that introduction.

I really appreciate it.

And good afternoon, Mayor and Council members.

Um, on behalf of Child Action, I want to thank the City of Sacramento for bringing forward, and of course, Councilmember Grare for bringing forward this important resolution declaring declaring child care as a public priority.

The resolution highlights the challenges families and employers face when child care is unavailable or unaffordable.

Through our work supporting thousands of families and child care providers across Sacramento County, we see these realities every single day.

Child care is essential infrastructure for our community.

It allows parents to participate in the workforce, supports businesses that rely on working parents and provides young children with the strong early learning foundation that they need to succeed.

That is why the city's leadership on this issue matters.

Sacramento has taken meaningful steps to address child care challenges by developing a child care strategic plan, hiring a dedicated child care manager, and investing resources to expand child care capacity.

Child Action is proud to work alongside the city, the Sacramento Metro Chamber, the Greater Sacramental Economic Council, First Five Sacramento, and many other partners to strengthen the child care system that families and employers depend on.

As part of that work, Child Action leads Lift Up Sacramento, a cross-sector coalition funded by First Five Sacramento that brings together public, nonprofit, and business leaders to strengthen systems that support children and expand opportunities for families.

This resolution sends an important message that Sacramento recognizes child care as a critical, as critical to the well-being of families and the strength of our local economy.

We look forward to continuing our partnership with the city and expanding access, support providers, and ensure that Sacramental families have the care that they need for their children.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you very much.

And uh as Liz Willing comes up, uh let me also acknowledge Blake Johnson, who also served as our commissioner for uh our redevelopment area here at the rail yards.

So thank you for being here with us, also, Mr.

Johnson.

But Liz Williams with the uh Metro Chamber.

Good afternoon.

I feel like I've just done it.

Do I go now?

No.

Good afternoon, all, and thank you so much, Mayor Partem, for bringing this forward, and thank you to the city for bringing this forward.

On behalf of the Sacramento Metro Chamber, um our mission is to foster regional economic prosperity and serve as a united voice for the business community across the Sacramento region.

Reliable and affordable child care is an important part of supporting that goal.

For employers, access to child care is directly tied to workforce participation and the ability to recruit and retain employees.

When families cannot find reliable care, businesses feel the impact through absenteeism, workforce disruption, and lost productivity.

Recognizing child care as an essential infrastructure is an important step towards supporting our workforce and strengthening the businesses that power our regional economy.

I personally share in that perspective as a working mom and someone prepared to welcome my second child here any day now, not today, but any day.

Strengthening access to child care will help ensure Sacramento remains competitive, supports working families, and continues to grow as a strong regional economy.

The Metro Chamber is proud to stand with Child Action and a number of other partners to advance the solutions for supporting our working families and strengthening our business.

Thank you so much for bringing this forward.

Thank you, Miss And very proud to have Janine Cooper here as well from our city.

Janine, welcome.

Thank you, Mayor Potem Keda.

Honorable Mayor and City Council.

My name is Janine Cooper, and I am the child care project manager in the Office of Innovation and Economic Development.

I'm honored to work for this for a city that prioritizes the needs of children and families by recognizing affordable, high-quality child care as a vital public priority.

During my time with the city, we have launched several initiatives to expand child care access.

These initiatives include increasing the child care workforce, expanding infant and taller capacity, and supporting the development and sustainability of new family child care home businesses to help build program quality and increase the number of child care slots available for families.

Some highlights of our recent work include small business growth, partnering with community-based organizations like Child Action and California Capital Women's Business Center to launch 49 new family child care home businesses, creating up to 392 new slots for families.

Professional development, providing 27 new family child care home providers with 15 hours of business development training to ensure their long-term sustainability and capacity expansion, working with child action to help 20 family child care home providers and two child care centers increase their license capacity to specifically serve more infants and toddlers.

And lastly, workforce retention contracting with Los Rios Community College District to facilitate an ECE apprenticeship program.

This program addresses the 13% drop in the ECE workforce following the COVID-19 pandemic by providing subsidized college courses and job placement assistance.

To date, we have seen 22 apprentices graduate from the program with 98% of graduates remaining at their job site.

There are 42 apprentices currently enrolled in our third and fourth cohorts.

Despite these wonderful successes, over 5,000 children are currently waiting to access subsidized child care in Sacramento County.

And according to the California Childcare Resource and Referral Network, Sacramento County currently has licensed child care capacity for only 29% of children of working parents.

We have made great strides working with our community partners, and I look forward to continuing this work to ensure every family in Sacramento has the support they need to thrive.

Thank you.

Thank you, Janine.

I think my colleague has some comments as well.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I and I uh I want to uh thank uh Mayor Pro Tem Gera for marking this occasion by by uh sponsoring this resolution.

Uh I had the great good fortune to serve as uh the original and first chair of Sacramento First Five from 2000 to 2010, and I in this time would just take a moment to say that Sacramento First Five was the product of work done proposition 10 by Rob Reiner.

So when we think about his impact, we're seeing it and living.

Um of course uh uh we we worked very closely uh as first five did and still does uh with the child care coalition and others.

Um one of the things that always struck me was uh the the reality that as much as 70 percent of brain development occurs in the first three years of life.

And so uh for me that that made it quite clear where we we need to concentrate our our energy, our resources, and our our attention is making sure that the children are well supported, their their family and their families are well supported, and the children get off to the very best start possible, and that means quality and accessible child care so that so the family can thrive and as can the can the children.

I'm um I'm so happy to have this moment to thank you for the work you're all doing uh to make to make that a reality in in Sacramento and to recognize the shortfall that we that we have, the need that still exists uh to provide more child care slots and more quality child care.

Uh one of the things that that uh we underwrote uh through first five uh in the two early 2000s was the opportunity for those who work in child care to develop their professional uh experience and expertise so they could stay in the field because too often those who work in in uh child care need to go somewhere else professionally in order to in order to make a living them themselves.

So making this a recognized focal point for those who work in child care, for the families and for the children, I think has to always be on our on our minds and what we're thinking about, what we're doing, where we're spending our time and our resources.

And I just uh I'm just really um very, very happy to have the opportunity to honor you and to thank the mayor pro temp for for this resolution this afternoon.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And uh, you know, this is just a testament to the power of uh what working together is, and I was very proud to champion and start the city county task force that led to uh now lift up Sacramento.

That is so many partners here, which uh in the resolution recognizes not only child action, the county office of ed, uh, greater Sacramento Economic Council, uh, first five first five as a current commissioner, uh, but that's what we can do, and now creating obviously our Office of Having Economic Development, Janine Cooper.

Thank you very much.

Um, let's give them a big round of applause and join us here for reported with the resolution.

I wasn't prepared for the photo up.

Thank you.

If I can everyone look right here.

Thank you, Kissy.

All right, congratulations.

Mayor, we have a second special presentation also by Mayor Pro Tem Geta.

It's National Day of Play.

Oh, great.

Thank you, Madam Clerk, and thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I have a uh another resolution here that is uh that is was initiated by our local congressmember, Congressmember Amibera, uh, regarding House Resolution 1036 establishing a national day of play.

And for that, I'd like to welcome uh not only Anthony Aribe, senior field rep for for uh Congressman Barra, but uh our commissioner, Parks Commissioner from District 2, uh Comish.

And uh and also uh I'd like to bring up our director for Youth Parks Enrichment, Jackie Beecham.

Uh, welcome for being here.

Uh, you know, this is an initiative uh here that uh in Sacramento.

We want to we want to remind many of our young kids to put down electronic devices and actually get out and bike, play, uh be out there uh uh with your scooters.

This weekend I had the the benefit of actually teaching my youngest how to ride a bike without training wheels on pedals at a little four-year-old.

Yes.

And for anybody who's ever done that, it almost makes you think through oh, is this how it's gonna be training them how to drive, you know, later on?

But uh it was it was an exciting thing so often at such a young age, so many of us, including adults, get locked up on their phones, on their devices, on their screens.

And a beautiful days that Sacramento has here.

Um we we don't get out, and that and what it leads to is many effects uh in our society, uh, not only our personal health, but also how we get to know each other and the the fact that there are communities that are being disconnected, neighbors who don't see each other and don't know each other because we're locked in our in our own space.

And uh what this uh resolution intends to do is encourage, encourage those to take uh the time to put down our devices to get out to engage with folks.

It's never too young or too old to play and to engage with each other in our community, and to bring and to discuss that.

Let me welcome our parks commissioner from District 2, uh Anthony Olive.

Thank you.

Thank you for the round of applause.

I appreciate that.

We have a packed house today, so I can share this information.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Uh, you mentioned everything that's in this resolution that was introduced by Congressman Barra.

I'm joined by my colleague uh Josh Gumikhaw is in the audience, and you said it.

I'm wearing two hats today.

I'm the senior field representative for Congressman Barra, but I'm also Parks Commissioner representing District 2.

Super honored and proud to be representing the parks.

Uh, because that's one thing that we're gonna encourage everybody to go check out our local parks.

So over a month ago, Congressman Barrett introduced this resolution in the House of Representatives, National Day of Play.

And it's designating that the first Saturday after the spring equinox be considered a national day of play.

No need to take out your calendars, your phones.

It is this Saturday, March 21st.

And that's we're really excited that the county and cities like the great city of Sacramento are bringing forward their own resolutions to encourage folks to go outside and play this Saturday.

Um thing that I want to mention from a parks commission side is that what is the definition of day of play and really is whatever you want it to be.

You can go out there, volunteer, you can go to a local park, you can go play a sport.

As a parks commissioner, I want to say that it we're in this epidemic of loneliness.

We are connected more and more to our devices.

It's time to disconnect and connect with our families and our friends, and I encourage everybody to check out the amazing things that we have under the parks department, specifically uh one of my favorite Sacramento Historic Cemetery.

Take a self-guided tour there, or grab the homies and get a uh tea time off at uh land park golf course.

Yeah, I know I got Council Brick Jennings on that one.

But you know what?

If golf isn't your thing, we got disc golf over in Del Paso Heights at Mackey Park, right off of Del Paso Boulevard in my neighborhood of Hagenwood.

There's so many things to do.

Whether you want a Bridger 10 promenade through McKinley Park, I encourage you guys that this Saturday, March 21st.

We're gonna celebrate National Day of Play, and we hope to do it again nationally.

Again, thank you uh to the city council.

Thank you to everybody who's here today, and can't wait to see you guys out there and find out what you guys did this weekend.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commission.

As he said, uh disconnect from your device and reconnect with your neighbors.

So Jackie, welcome.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

I think he covered it all.

Very lucky to have uh Mysterio Bay on our commission.

I'm Jackie Beech, I'm the director of the youth parks and community enrichment department.

I will keep this brief because you will be hearing a lot from me and just a little bit here.

Um but thank you so much, Mayor Pro Tem, for bringing this forward and to the Congress member for uh bringing this initiative forward.

Um what better way than to play in our parks, right?

This is a fabulous initiative.

We have 243 parks, parkways, open spaces, 15 community centers that span across our city.

Uh, we make it very easy, right, to get active, to get outside, recharge in nature, spend time together with your family.

84% of our residents have a park within a 10-minute walk of their homes.

That is higher than the average of all urban cities in the United States.

Our goal is to get 100%.

We are we are gonna get there.

That is our goal.

But I say we're doing pretty well.

If y'all remember uh during the pandemic, parks were essential.

That was one of the only places where we could safely gather.

Remember social distancing, dare I bring that up again, right?

Safe spaces, community connection.

That was where everyone went to be was in our parks.

Since then, they are even more important.

Our youth, families, seniors, many of them who them who have joined us today.

Um they're close to home places where everyone can gather, stay active, relieve stress.

So we invite everyone out, come connect with your neighbors, come out and play.

That's what we say in Yepsi.

Come out and play.

Uh parks make life better.

I think uh Miss Aribay gave us lots of options for our parks.

Come play some pickleball, frisbee, lots of options.

Come explore our regional parks, 243 of them.

Uh, we look forward to seeing it, everyone out there.

Thank you so much.

Well, thank you, Jackie.

But not only our parks, but you can go to our community uh community centers like the Heart Community Center, and you can go to Manitos and dance some uh some Macarena or sing some boleros there in Spanish as well.

So uh let's we'll we'll give you present this resolution and uh don't forget first Saturday after every equinox National Day of Play.

Jackie's our office.

Thanks to me, Jackie.

Yes, are you gonna grab it?

Hey, good seat.

Thank you guys.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, yep.

So, Mayor, we now move to the consent calendar, items one through eleven.

I have one speaker on item two.

Are there members of the council that have want to pull any items or have questions and comments?

Comment on item eight, please.

That's item eight.

Councilmember Kaplan.

Uh question on item eight, comments on nine and eleven.

Mayor Protem Gatta.

Um comments on uh item uh five, eight, and eleven.

I see no more cuta.

Um Mayor Potem, do you want to speak on item five first?

Uh yes, I just wanted to thank everyone for their work on in supporting the Museum of Science and Curiosity.

Uh again, this is just uh one of our small contributions of where we're working with our partners in SMUD uh and the museum to ensure that young people have an opportunity to learn from science and learn from creativity.

And um, you know, with that I'll uh I'll go ahead and move the consent calendar, Mr.

Mayor.

One second.

Thank you.

So item number eight, uh Maple Kaplan Vengata.

All right, thank you.

Um just quickly wanted to say, well, first I want to thank um our wonderful staff uh who are um have been managing our pro housing designation.

We were one of the first cities, if not the first, maybe you guys can correct me.

Um we were the first in the state of California to have a pro housing designation, and I think we've shown that every single day since this is now the fourth round.

Um, but we are a pro housing city.

We have actively pursued policies that make it easier to build, uh, that make it easier for people to find and keep the housing that they that they need and that they can afford, and I think that that is bringing us one step closer to um addressing our housing shortage and crisis as a state.

So just really want to appreciate our wonderful housing team at the city of Sacramento.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kaplan.

Thank you.

Just quick question, Ya Yen.

All right, somebody can answer the question.

Hi there.

Axel Magallanis, housing analyst with our Office of Innovation Economic Development.

Yayan's not here today, so awesome.

Hopefully you can answer your question.

I I'm pretty sure you can.

Um we've applied for this um grant uh and have been haven't gotten it the last two rounds.

That's correct.

Is there is there any reason um why we would think it we would get it this round or what factors look in differently?

Because while I know we've applied for this, we just haven't gotten it.

So, you know, what is different this round?

So this funding program is available to all cities with a pro housing designation.

So the first round we were successful.

We were one of the first, as um Councilmember Maple said, to receive our pro housing designation.

So we had received that first round of funding was we were pretty early, and then in these later rounds, you know, some of the other jurisdictions that have applied have had sort of been in line first for those funds.

Um so we're hopeful that maybe this round we'll we'll get it.

Um we're awaiting a renewal on our on our current housing designation.

So um, you know, where we're hopeful that there's an opportunity to earn some funds to start.

So I guess that question is because I think it's important.

While I would love to get this funding, we are up against other other cities in California.

Is it kind of where does the state look at it?

Oh, we're gonna give it to people who haven't gotten the grant before.

Correct.

Correct.

So even though we may have a perfect application, it's more than likely the funding could run out before it gets to us because it goes to all other cities who've not gotten it before.

Correct.

If there is a jurisdiction that hasn't received funds, then they would likely receive funding before we did.

Perfect.

Thank you for that explanation.

I'm fully supportive of this, but I just wanted to add uh some context.

Mayor Popem Gera, also on item eight.

Thank you very much.

Again, uh, I wanted just to thank all the city staff and very proud to be part of the council when we were the first to lead the way to be the pro-housing designated city um in our in our state.

Uh, and uh to council uh it's council member Kaplan's point.

Um if you don't ask, you can't dance.

So we'll keep asking, we'll keep pushing and uh um you know, and excited about the consistent work that we are pushing on the pro housing designation.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Councilmember Kaplan, would you like to speak on nine, then eleven?

Okay, thank you.

Um for item nine, I am really excited that we are establishing um it's just a line item and expend expenditure for our budget, but it is for the next phase of growth and development for the North Natomas Regional Park, which has had a 25-year plan for grow out and has not happened.

Um, but thanks to a grant from Senator Ashby and a State Department, we are building out an additional space for meadows, um, walking space, benches, gathering, and uh small music venues that is coming, and it'll just be north of the aquatic center.

So uh very exciting that we are getting started on that, and I want to thank everybody who in this short turnaround is putting the application forward so that we can build out another space for our community in the North Natomas Regional Park.

And then on item 11.

Um, just want to give some highlight and context.

This is for um our homeless housing assistance and prevention round three grants for sheltering our transitional age youth.

Currently, we we fund about 68 beds for our transitional age youth.

And this grant, um, the city renegotiated it, but they said they were only gonna fund these beds for nine months.

Um, this grant extends from September to November, the 68 beds that we are for transitional age youth in their family through November.

But come November, if we have no other source of funding, all of these programs shut down, and we have over a hundred additional people on our streets, especially our transitional age youth, which these programs have been proven the most successful.

So it's just something I want our my colleagues to keep in mind.

Of we've got a lot of potential shelters that are gonna be shutting down because we're we don't have a designated source of funding, and when we consider that in our budget, how we how we want to fund things in our budget, and I hope it would be for our youth who have proven uh the most successful when we get them into into housing and shelter.

So thank you.

Mayor Patem Gera on item 11.

Uh well said, Councilmember Kaplan, investing in getting our young people off the street not only helps them get into housing, but also sets them up to be more productive in life.

And if we can prevent chronic homelessness early on, um we can make a change in that significantly.

Want to thank again the uh the city's uh team for being proactive in uh trying to um uh garner these grants.

With that, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I have one speaker on item two.

May you should Bahati.

Good afternoon, council, city mayor, I'm sorry, city manager and mayor.

My name is Maisha Bahati.

I am a local business owner here in Sacramento.

I own Crystal Nugs.

We are a cannabis delivery and dispensary here in District 4.

I am here to support the Go Biz grant for the core program.

I am a graduate of the core program from 2019.

One of the toughest barriers to enter the cannabis industry is capital and location.

Uh, when we opened our dispensary three years ago, we did not have any access to traditional funding.

So we had to make some tough decisions and sell our primary residence and our rental home just to open our business.

Um, the only financial assistance we received was from the core program.

And so I am here to uh thank you, council for supporting core.

Had it not been for core, I would not be where I'm at today.

Um we um did move to our dispensary.

We were able to work with another core applicant to move into our delivery suite.

And so I think what core represents is opportunity.

It's opportunity to get new businesses in, and it's opportunity to scale existing businesses.

So again, I want to thank you for supporting core.

It has made a huge difference in my life.

Um, it has allowed me to stand before you as the first black woman-owned dispensary here in Sacramento.

And I want to thank OCM and CORE for continuing to support existing businesses because our stability and our growth matters.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, Mayor, we um we have a motion by Mayor Petemgera and a second by Councilmember Maple on the consent calendar.

Okay, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye, no zero abstentions.

Saying hearing none, item passes items past nine zero.

We now move to item 12 on the discussion calendar, city auditors 2026 community survey.

Again, Mayor, I have no speakers on this agenda item.

Okay, uh, good afternoon, Mayor, members of the city council.

My name is Joyce Chi.

I'm a principal fiscal policy analyst with the city auditor's office, and with me today is Frischhaurari, our city auditor.

I'm here to present the results of our 2026 community survey, which is the sixth time our office has conducted the survey.

Uh, consistent with our previous surveys, we received responses from two groups of respondents for the representative sample group.

7500 households were selected to randomly participate for statistically valid survey results.

Similar to previous years, we over-sampled in some districts, two, three, five, and eight due to historically low response rates.

We received 450 survey responses, which is a response rate of six percent.

The open participation group includes those that decided to take the survey on their own, and we received 1,454 responses.

The two groups' results are analyzed separately in both the report and the online dashboard, and the rest of the presentation focuses on the results of the representative uh sample, but the results from the open participation group are generally similar.

As a recap, the community survey captures residents' opinions on the 10 facets of a community, which are shown on this slide.

Here we see the proportion of residents who rated the community facets positively for quality and the relative importance of each facet.

This gap analysis chart builds on the previous figure and compares the gaps between the quality and importance ratings.

Ideally, facets that are rated high in importance, would also rate high in quality, such as with utilities and the natural environment.

However, similar to previous surveys, safety, economy, and mobility were rated as high in importance but lower in quality.

The report highlights three community strengths.

There is an overall satisfaction with the quality of life with a 68% positive rating.

Parks and recreation opportunities likely contribute to the high quality of life with a 64% positive rating, and community connection is valued by residents.

The report also highlights three focus areas with lower ratings overall, specifically mobility, governance and city leadership, and economic challenges.

The next several slides provide trend information based on the percentage of respondents who rated each question positively.

The errors above the 2026 responses represent how the city compares based on a 10 percentage point difference to the 23 benchmark communities with populations over 400,000 that have also taken the survey.

For quality of life, three of the questions demonstrated an over five percentage point increase from 2023, including the overall quality of life.

For governance, the city's results were similar to the benchmark communities.

For mobility, the overall quality of the transportation system has been trending down with a 26% positive rating in 2026.

Sidewalk maintenance and street repair are also trending down.

Here we see that the use of public transportation instead of driving continues to trend upwards, but the ease of using transportation other than cars is trending down.

For community design, ratings are similar to the bank benchmark, but the overall appearance, land use planning and zoning, as well as well-designed neighborhoods have been trending down in recent years.

For utilities, 59% of residents rated the overall quality of the utility infrastructure positively, and several ratings have been trending up.

For safety, overall safety remains a challenge and is below benchmark.

The ratings for safety services improved in some areas since 2023 by 5 to 10 percentage points.

On the slide, we see that police services and crime prevention are on an upwards trend since 2022, but emergency preparedness is below benchmark.

For natural environment, most notably is cleanliness, which has been trending down since 2018 with only a slight increase in this year's survey results.

This is lower than the benchmark, and also the lowest rating on this slide at 23%.

For parks and recreation of note is that city parks continue to be on a downward trend with a rating of 53%.

For health and wellness, ratings are all similar to benchmark communities, and overall health is on an upwards trend at 65%.

For education, arts and culture, several ratings increase since 2023, including overall opportunities for education, culture, and the arts.

Thanks, Mayor.

I made reference to this community study last week when we were talking about the budget, and I think that it really uh is uh illuminating in terms of how the city is perceived to be doing in a number of important areas.

I really thank you for the work and uh and the auditor for for doing the the survey.

Um we we asked you to truncate your presentation last last week, and uh and I I think you carried that message over because you went through through this probably more a little more um quickly than it actually deserved.

But I think you were taking a little uh a note from from the time we were we were we didn't have last week.

But what I wanted to just point out is when you look at some important areas uh the the trend lines are are not particularly good.

Um when you look at the economy, mobility, cleanliness, uh, parks and recreation.

We're we're we're in the public's eye, not doing better.

We're we're doing worse.

And uh I don't I that's certainly not uh uh the fault of anybody who works in these areas.

Everybody is working very hard to the extent that they can.

I have no doubt about that, but it is food for thought for us in thinking about how do we in uh time uh that is is very challenging economically uh and financially.

How do we still maintain let alone improve the quality and character of the services that the that the city provides?

Uh this is the ultimate test.

What what does the public believe is the is the quality and character of those those services.

So I think there are there are elements of this survey which really uh should serve for for us to be touchstones in terms of how we're thinking uh not just about our budget but about our policies as uh as well where the where the city is going and how well we're serving serving the people of the uh of the city.

So I uh again I really appreciate the the survey and and urge uh all of us to uh not just let this item go by and check off the list, but actually take a little time and and dig into this because there's a there's there's a lot here that can serve us uh youthfully in the in the weeks and months ahead.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you.

Councilmember Guerrilla.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I wanted to just highlight, I think, uh a couple observations here.

One, the public clearly wants us to uh recognize the priority of uh housing and homelessness and public safety.

And uh and then the concern that economic development is a problem, which is what we need to pay for public safety and address to have the resources to um to respond to the housing and homelessness issues.

Um so I and I think that that in itself I had uh conversations with a number of our small business owners about the challenge that they're facing trying to just move forward.

And I think that uh we have to look inwards in our in our city to say what can we do in our processes that are that uh if we can't control the macroeconomic issues, we can control our own uh our own processes to either help, support, or get out of the way to make sure that we can do economic development so that we have the tax revenue to support all of the the needs of public safety and um address the issues of housing and homelessness.

I also wanted to recognize an uh uh an interesting observation, and that's that 84 percent of our respondents had a very strong satisfaction of our um uh department of utilities and our drinking water.

And uh and I think that's uh an important issue when we're talking about water conservation, and so I just wanted to also just give a recognition to our our DOU staff uh and folks who work in that department because sometimes we take for granted what it takes to actually turn the faucet on and have um uh healthy, reliable drinking water.

Um so with that uh I think more to come, but thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember Kaplan.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I too want to just highlight a couple of things that I think were uh illuminating when we look at it, because what we hear from our residents is you know the affordability crisis, and just 26 percent of residents feel positively about that in Sacramento and and as well as um concerning statistics for residents who feel Sacramento does not do enough to care for our vulnerable residents, um, it's just at 22 percent, which is much lower than the national benchmark.

And that also highlights where SHRA says that our rent is growing four to five percent a year, uh inflation, this really hits our seniors and our low income because that takes such a significant amount of of their budget, and it just highlights that for us on this council, we really have to look at what are we doing with affordable housing, protecting our seniors and our most vulnerable in doing it away while we are facing a budget deficit that has the biggest uh impact to help those um in in need and how we look at our our arena goals, our housing goals, and how are we reaching out to do that?

Also, it is you know concerning that residents feel safety is an issue, especially in our commercial areas and our downtown, and it's uh our residents don't feel safe, and it's significantly at a a lower level than then nationally, and you know, I think it comes to when we look at if our residents don't feel safe in commercial areas, how are we and our police force working with our um commercial uh property owners to change that?

How are we working on notices of trespass?

How are we working on to making sure that the our officers know what is needed so that individuals feel safe in commercial areas when they are shopping and they're in their um they can do things without uh worrying about being broken into, harassed, or robbed.

Um, while we know we've seen an increase of belief that uh trust in our public safety is low, uh I think um we've done a good job trying to reach out to the community with Office of Violence Prevention and our our community-based organizations to to change that, but it it shows that we still have a long uh way to go.

And then honestly, on mobility and active transportation, bus rapid transit, as the member that represents North Natomas, I have two bus lines.

If we need to get people out of our cars, we have to make public transit affordable and available, and people will take it.

But when you go from North Matomas to downtown, and it takes you 45 minutes, people aren't gonna take the bus, and we've got two major senior housing hubs of which no transportation goes to, and that doesn't work in increasing mobility for our seniors and our most vulnerable.

So I too think that there was a lot that came from this that we should look at, um, especially in light of how we look at our priorities with our budget and where we want to go and how we should spend um our our money and always I always find this really helpful.

I always just how can we get more people to participate uh with that feedback, but I do appreciate that we do this and you came forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Vang.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um, just wanted to thank um Farissa, you and your team.

Where's Arishda at?

She's here somewhere.

Okay, and thank you so much for thank you so much for your presentation.

Um, just some quick comments.

Um, I I really believe that the survey was really insightful, and I absolutely echo um council member Roger Dickinson and that this shouldn't just be a checkbox, but as we're having conversation about the budget, I mean the survey really highlights the priorities of our residents in the city of Sacramento.

And I do want to take a moment to actually center our parks in our community center because right after this item, we're gonna be talking about several departments, and one of them includes our youth parks and community enrichment.

And um, while the survey definitely notes that we have a lot of work to do around mobility, around um uh economic development, um, there are some really great things that we also heard from the survey, and one of those things is the survey uh really reaffirming that many of our res residents believe that our parks and our recreational opportunities is one of the main reason why uh one of the factors that contribute to their high quality of life.

And I really want to center this because I know that we are in the middle of budget discussion, and especially during tough times, these are the type of services that is usually first in line to get cut.

And yes, while there are many things that we have to deal in the city in terms of economic development, um, I think it's really important to also look at what we're doing well and making sure that we're not balancing this budget on the back of things that are doing well for the city.

Um, and so I just really want to say thank you so much.

And I know the survey was really in depth.

That was very a high level, but I do urge my colleagues that as we're looking at our budget to like overlap the survey results in terms of priorities because um what I often worry most is that like residents spends time filling out surveys and they end up being on our our shelf, right?

And how are we actually using the surveys to inform the policy decisions that we're making?

Um I have my commitment is that you know I will be uh using this survey as a way to really articulate priorities for the city.

Um, and I think it was uh highlighted uh in the survey.

So I just really want to say great job.

Um, and thank you to all the uh random participants that did participate.

I also really appreciate uh your uh methodology in um ensuring that you actually uh had larger numbers of requests in districts that often don't have high um high results from, and so really appreciate you reaching out um doing uh you know more more touches in district A and District 2 to make sure that uh we had like a fair methodology.

So um just great job and um uh really looking forward to making sure that the survey continues to be like central as we're talking about the budget.

Thank you.

I have no speakers.

This is review and comment and provide direction.

Thank you.

Just so thank you so much for your uh work.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

Next item.

Next item is item 13, which is a contract, the water forum 2050 agreement.

Good afternoon, Mayor and uh members of city council.

Uh my name is Brett York, uh, supervising engineer for water policy with your department of utilities.

So I am here today just to introduce an item.

Also with me today is our executive director of the water forum.

Um, I'd like to welcome her up in a few moments here, just well get to that.

High level, just a couple of points for the city of Sacramento, the Utilities Department before we get into the broader water forum agreement.

High level, what is the water forum?

It's uh a collection, it's a regional agreement partnerships amongst water purveyors, amongst environmental organizations, business community, you know, business members, local governments, um, all with the purpose and those central focus of supporting and preserving water reliability on the lower American River, and then focusing on the health of the Lower American River.

We see them as inexorably coupled.

You don't get one without the other.

Additional things that the water forum provides for this region, the water forum develops the science on the river.

They facilitate habitat projects and engage with state and federal interests on behalf of this entire region.

Umbedded within the agreement before you are a broad array of approved city programs and policies, programs approved by this city council over decades at this point in time.

It recognizes past practices such as the city's accelerated water meter program, its stronger ordinances around city irrigation practices, uh, the investment and reoperation of the city's water facilities to bolster groundwater resources and support river health.

Looking forward, the proposed agreement incorporates many policies of the city's general plan and climate action plan as we prepare for the future.

Some examples uh relevant and specific to the city of Sacramento.

Uh support through the array of caucuses for the city's ongoing water efficiency programs while protecting our urban tree canopy.

The importance of protecting the city's water rights, the importance and need to invest in secure and reliable sources of water for the community.

Collective support for the needs to fund the utility.

There remain questions and interested parties on how that rate structure is developed, but there is broad consensus that if you want to support the environment and support the water reliability interests, the utility needs the revenue to do that.

The bulk of the presentation today will be made by the water forum's executive director, Ashley Casey.

Uh, it will include a short video that was produced for this water forum 2050 process, which I think you'll find nicely demonstrates the broad perspectives of the array of parties that have been working for a number of years.

Uh somebody asked me recently how long have you been renegotiating this?

I think formally about six years.

But given the trust and the conversations required to further this sort of program, the water forum was signed in 2000.

We've been working on it ever since 2000 to continue to further the interests of the environment and water reliability.

As council considers the item, uh, we also have an attendance members of some of the other caucuses.

Um I believe the Chamber of Commerce has already approved this.

I believe uh Ecos has already approved the item.

Uh, some of those members are here today in support.

I will also offer that the city, as a leader in supporting the water forum, um, I would offer to the to the group, the community, and to this council, uh, not well known, but the water forum is actually housed in the city of Sacramento.

All the functions and administrative functions, the city has taken the lead on that.

It is funded regionally, though, um, an important point, um, receiving guidance and support and direction and interest from all of the parties of the water forum.

So, in closing, I would just offer that in working on water-related matters for close to two decades now.

Things like the water forum, leaning forward for interest-based negotiations, pausing, listening, and understanding has relieved so many tensions on one of the jewels of this region, the Lower American River.

A phrase often coined by one of my colleagues in the Department of Utilities, is that the water forum offers us our best chance to keep peace on the river.

So, with that, um, I would also ask, if there's no further questions, I'd like to invite Ashley Casey to finish the presentation, if that's okay with council.

We'll do questions after the presentation session.

Ashley.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Um, and thank you all for having me here today.

I'm gonna just test that I can advance this.

Yes, I can.

Okay, um, my name is Ashley Casey, and as Brett said, I'm the executive director for the Sacramento Water Forum.

Uh, we are a consensus-based organization that includes our four caucus caucuses, which Brett alluded to.

You know, they they cross the water sector, the environmental sector include environment um business interests and public interest within the region.

And what unites our members across those four caucuses is our our coequal objectives, which Brett talked about.

But just more explicitly they're on the screen there, but they are to provide reliable and safe water supply for the region and to preserve the fishery, wildlife, recreational, and aesthetic values of the Lower American River.

As Brett also said, uh, the original agreement was signed in 2000.

Uh, and due to the vision of those original negotiators that negotiated about seven years, one year less than we did for this agreement.

Um, the vision that they had for how to how to balance those co-equal objectives, and then the continued commitment of our members over the last 25 years.

The region has seen significant successes and achievements that have been bred from that original agreement, which was uh a landmark achieved achievement for the region.

First and foremost, it cultivated a culture of uh trust and resolving conflict through collaboration and listening and investing in long-term sustainability for the region.

But more specifically, to just put a finer point on some of the successes that the region has had due to the water forum and that original agreement.

There was critical water infrastructure projects that were advanced because of the shared consensus and the collaboration across the caucuses and the commitment to those co-equal objectives.

The water forum has led habitat enhancement projects on the Lower American River to support the resident salmons that rely on it to complete their life cycle, developed a science-based flow standard for the Lower American River, which is used by reclamation to guide how they operate, Folsom Reservoir, which influences both of our co-equal objectives, storage and fulsome, flows in the river, temperatures in the river, which are both real all really critical.

In times of shortage, drought, and other reasons, the region is more organized and able to respond efficiently and unified to respond to those challenges, and the water forum has laid the foundation for that.

Another significant success is related to groundwater management.

At the time of the original negotiations and signing, sustainable groundwater management wasn't legislated, it wasn't the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act Sigma that we have today, and the region has been a leader in conjunctive use in the state, where other parts of the state have seen declines in groundwater, the Sacramento region has seen stabilization and even gains in groundwater due to the balancing of surface water and groundwater based on their respective availability.

The water forum has gained a reputation in the region and elsewhere as the leading scientific voice for the Lower American River, and as I said, really creating that strong culture of trust and building relationships, collaboration, and transparency across these sectors that might otherwise operate in a siloed and a siloed manner.

The water forum operates on a mutual gains approach that you know that both sides that both sides benefit when the other side is also being successful.

So that original agreement was signed in 2000, about five, six years ago, it was acknowledged that the threats of climate change are here, and that the region is will be well served to be prepared and organized around those challenges, and wanting to make sure that the water forum is a piece of that and that the agreement is brought up to date and uh is informed and organized based on those challenges.

So wanting to be responsive to that, understand the threats, but also just acknowledging the changes in the regulations that have evolved over the last 25 years related to water water resource management.

Um I mentioned the sustainable groundwater management, um, statewide conservation measures, and just ultimately that rising cost to the water agencies due to that changing regulatory landscape.

So we've been negotiating for five years.

I would say just in a nutshell, you know, there's there's a lot of areas where the water forum has been successful and continues to be successful, remains relevant for the region as we move forward in this the new era of climate change and changing regulations.

Um the new agreement is organized to make sure that that work continues and we can we are we we honor that and create a framework that um sustains it, but also wanting to modernize our work and make sure that it is it is responsive to the environment we're working and provides that framework for collaboration, adaptive management action, and ongoing regional planning.

So the the five program areas that you see on the screen there in the circles high uh represent all of that work that we intend to do going forward that in large part is a continuation of the work we've been doing for the last 25 years.

An area that is a new and emerging area of work for the water forum is the American River Climate Adaptation Program, RCAP, where we are really looking to, that's on my next slide, um, look at the opportunities that exist within our vast membership or our diverse membership to tangibly support the co-equal objectives.

There are a number of different actions that our member agencies take now, whether it is how they operate reservoirs in the upper watershed, how they operate their groundwater wells and their surface water diversions, implement uh conservation measures, but all of those looking at opportunities to leverage those strategically for the region to respond to the threats of clo climate change uh is going to be a growing area of work for the water forum over the next the next phase of the agreement.

Um we're excited to get that work started and just continue to look for those solutions and this collaborative um this collaborative space where those all sides are heard and the conversation and the consensus can be built.

There on the screen you can just see um you know a list of our members and how they're organized across the four different caucuses, just for reference to give you an indication of how broad that group is.

And again, what unites them is their shared commitment to the co-equal objectives.

So everybody has wants those things of a healthy environment, a lower American river that is healthy and thriving, uh, and then also a reliable water supply for the region.

We do have a video to share that is a nice opportunity to hear the voices of our members uh that have some of them who have been a part of the water forum since the beginning, um others that have stuck through this negotiation process for the last six years.

So it will hit some of these points again and maybe a little from a different perspective.

It's really one of the greatest resources we have in this region.

It's the crown jewel.

It's the biggest and most important recreational asset of the county of Sacramento.

Gets about eight million visitor users per year.

There's over 2.2 million water users just in this local region.

All of them want water reliability, and all of them want a healthy ecosystem.

Preserving habitat for salmon is really important.

We're doing what we can to help keep a cycle going and support something that's been happening for millions of years, and hopefully it continues to happen in perpetuity.

The first water forum agreement came about like under really contentious times between land developers and environmentalists.

The whole thing was covered by a sort of a community consensus of we're in this together.

The original water forum agreement was consequential to the continued health of the American River.

Now, 25 years later, the warming planet is dominating so much in order to make sure that the river stays healthy.

It's important to update the water forum agreement.

I think Water Forum 2050 is going to help the river by building on the past, but looking toward the future.

It's important to update the agreement now because we've had significant changes since the original agreement in 2000.

There's more people in the region, but we're also facing climate change and the effects that that's going to come.

The new agreement is primarily an extension of the old agreement, but we're going to get into some of the more technical things of how do we really make sure that we protect the river in a serious drought, and how do we protect the fisheries and the other values of the river, given that we're going to have bigger storms and we're going to have longer droughts.

The five program areas of the water forum 2050 agreement are the flows and operations, corridor health, water supply sustainability, science monitoring and decision support, and governance funding and administration.

Another big part of the agreement is the American River Climate Adaptation Program.

RCAP is a combination of water resource management, water efficiency.

It's infrastructure that's being diversified in the right way.

So the timing of water suppliability is as optimum as you can get for the benefit of this ecosystem as well as the water supply needs of this region.

Groundbreaking.

For the business community, this means certainty.

You have to have a strong water system as the foundation for economic development and growth in a region.

This will help to ensure that we have that stable supply of water while not sacrificing any for the environmental quality of the American river.

It speaks highly of the community itself.

That it has enough shared values that we can commit to working together to care for such a beautiful resource.

The importance of water forum 2050 really highlights what you can get done when you have people who care at the table.

So I think that concludes our presentation, and happy to take questions.

Thank you so much.

Okay, wonderful.

Uh so we will get started with Councilmember Kaplan.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um welcome.

Hi.

Uh welcome to the new job as well.

Thank you.

Uh this is this is something momentous.

Uh it shouldn't be taken lightly because water is the end all be all when we look at things for sustainability, our livelihoods, our environment, our growth, um, everything surrounds that.

And as we know, water uh doesn't just stop one place.

And as it flows through all of our jurisdictions, having a form like this is essential to building those relationships so that we can address everything that that comes at us.

And that was the original uh part of the agreement 30 years ago, and I think this is an absolute optimal time to re-look at it, renew it, and look at the different challenges that that are facing us at a as a region because litigation and disputes don't get us anywhere, but I think creating the water forum, and I think it's more important than ever that you guys have a louder voice, especially as the city and the jurisdictions look for expanding, looking at potentially effects of development on groundwater and how it affects the American River and on water quality and who's you know, connecting and and expanding and doing those things where I don't want you to just be a forum for we're gonna talk policy.

I think it's really important that when you have the data and the information that you're reaching out and working with jurisdictions to make sure that when decisions are made at the local level that that we know the impacts because you guys are the experts, all of you working together, and I think sometimes that information is missing when decisions are being made up at my level for for the development.

So congratulations on the first part.

Um I look forward to the next 25 years.

Water is is my subject matter, and I'm I'm really appreciative.

Everything that you do, everything that our staff and DOU, you guys are top notch, and there couldn't be anybody better.

Um Brett and everybody in the team, you you guys keep the city um moving in your technical expertise and your knowledge and your way how you handle things so that we get resolutions instead of conflict.

Um I am very appreciative of that.

So I just want to say thank you, good work.

Um, but but I'm also looking for that next level of not just being a forum, but some uh a place where information is gathered and made sure that elected officials and decision makers know about it.

Thank you.

Do you want to move the item?

Yes, I will move the item.

Okay.

In a second.

Councilmember Maple.

All right, thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um I'll I'll be very brief.

I'm really proud to serve as a board member to SACOG, um, along with my colleague here, Councilmember Jennings.

And I know we had a uh also an in-depth conversation and item on this, and I was glad to see the video again.

It's even better the second time.

Um truly, I was able to capture so much more out of it, and very well done.

Um so just want to say that you know, I think this is so important.

I'm I consider myself a regionalist.

I think that working together um across all of our various cities and counties and the departments, the staff that do the the work on the ground.

Your, you know, it comes across very clearly in the video how much you care, all of you care about um this incredible resource that we have here at the convergence of two rivers um in Sacramento and what it is for a resource for the entire region.

And so I'm so glad that we're proactive in that partnership and gonna continue it forward.

So thank you for all your work.

Thank you.

Councilmember Dickinson.

Thanks, Vice Mayor.

Um, you know, I'm not sure how many when the water forum began to form uh and uh became more formalized in 2000.

I'm not sure how many.

It was great to see people like Ron Ron Stork and Clyde McDonald in the video you did were there at the beginning.

Uh I'm not sure how many would have thought that for the water forum would have lasted a quarter century and be looking to the next quarter century.

It's quite remarkable.

Uh it is something that ought to ought to be uh noted uh as uh perhaps the premier example of regional collaboration that that we have fostered in this region.

Uh and uh uh the work that the water forum has done over the years has not only uh helped us, but it has kept us away from a lot of battles that we otherwise would have fought and did fight before the water forum uh was created.

So I I do think this is uh a moment uh that deserves some recognition uh uh for for its significance.

Um I am pleased to see the incorporation of addressing climate climate and climate adaptation in the in the document and in the agreement.

I think that is essential.

And so I'm I'm very happy that all the parties uh uh have um come to uh a common view that that needs to be part of the of the fabric of what we're doing in terms of addressing not just the lower American River but but water sustainability across the the region.

And then uh I'd say uh finally I can't let the moment pass uh without without noting that it was it was the groundwater authority and to a certain extent the the water forum that was foundational to uh what became Sigma uh and um as one of the authors of of Sigma, it was that experience I had uh with the groundwater authority being formed and working with the water forum uh in those those days of the 2000s that that uh led uh for me uh to carry legislation that that uh became part of the package that we all call Sigma today.

Um we never called it Sigma when was it going through the legislature, by the way, but Sigma today, and so that's uh a foundational part of what we're doing here in Sacramento as well, and much appreciated.

Thanks.

Thank you so much, and again, like my colleagues, thank you guys so much for all the work that you do.

I do have a question though.

Uh mayor former mayor Heather Fargo sent us an email back in January about uh El Dorado securing 40,000 acres of fee of water rights ahead of existing Sacramento water rights.

Is this a conversation that we're having with El Dorado?

Is this the place to bring up the concerns from this email?

Uh well, uh what I'll offer, and then I'll turn to Brett is that this this was a conversation that has been had in the water forum, and it it goes back a lot many, many years beyond just this this last 12 months.

Uh but in the last 12 months there was a draft EIR that El Dorado Water Agency released and triggered a significant discussion within the water forum.

Um there's not consensus in the water forum around that issue.

There's a considerable amount of opposition to it.

Um comments to it uh related to it.

So um it the El Dorado Water Agency will not be uh signing on to the Water Forum 2050 agreement at this time.

It's some they were uh partners in the former agreement.

Um we'll be continuing conversations with them over the next months, years to think about how their activities relate to the water forum, co-equal objectives, and what opportunities there might be in the future.

I don't know that I would have too much more to add, but just to reinforce there were significant comments provided on their draft environmental impact report.

Um the city of Sacramento certainly tracks that.

We provided comments as well.

Many others did too.

And just to underscore um Ms.

Casey's comments, you know, ultimately this water forum 2050 agreement.

Um there wasn't a place at this time.

I know they have ambitions and are eager to collaborate with the water forum and its many stakeholders, but I think there remains some unanswered questions.

And so at this point in time, there let me just back up.

So the water forum 2050 agreement for the water purveyors also includes these sort of purveyor-specific agreements, something unique in characteristic.

Yeah, I saw El Dorado like irrigation was on there, Elder.

El Dorado Irrigation District, quite distinct though from El Dorado uh County Water Agency.

Got it.

Yes.

Okay, so once we pass this and we uh well I'm sure I'm assuming you'll have the votes, uh, then that conversation will just continue on because it's just a year-long conversation.

Correct.

And I will just say too, there's a a number of our members that would like to continue having that conversation.

So I think whether it's now or sometime in the future, I think it's something that they would like to talk about in different venues and maybe here.

Okay, well, if you guys can just please keep us posted on this, that would be wonderful.

Okay.

Happy to do so.

See no other members punched up to speak.

So we have a motion from Councilmember Kaplan and a second from Councilmember Dickinson.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

No's abstentions and abstention, Mayor McCarty.

So thank you.

Okay, thank you.

We are moving along.

Hello, welcome back, Pete.

We'll be seeing a lot of you.

Um welcome.

We're item 14 now for the early budget workshop on HR finance, community development, IT, utilities, and public works and parks.

Great.

Uh thank you, Vice Mayor.

Uh, good afternoon, Vice Mayor, Council members, members of the public.

I'm Pete Cletto, the city's finance director.

Today we're continuing your council's early budget work sessions.

And just to as we look to close our 66.2 million dollar budget gap for the coming year.

And just to set some context, the first meeting uh, you know, we reviewed just our budget context, the structural nature of our budget deficit, how if we don't take any action, it will continue to grow.

Uh we looked at various balancing scenarios and discussed the city's approach, which is uh having each department give us reduction strategies up to 15% of their net general fund budget to give us more strategies than we need.

And that way we can pick and choose versus doing an across the board cut.

Uh last week you heard what we're calling the baseline plan.

Um, and again, just for members of the public, no decisions are being made here today.

It's going to be many months before council makes a final decision.

And what we're looking to do is get feedback from council and from the public on staff's baseline budgeting plan.

So we went over that, and then we discussed uh the budgets for the departments you see up there and the impacts.

And then today we're going to uh discuss the impacts on uh the next set of seven departments.

And just as a reminder to uh to everybody this is the baseline plan.

This is kind of the roll-up version of it.

Again, you're gonna hear uh the more uh individual strategies included in the plan and the impacts on services to the community.

Uh, you will also see a slide with the 15% that's just showing how uh the departments met their targets.

Uh but when they're going through those budget balancing impacts, uh, those are going to be the impacts of what's included in the baseline plan.

Uh so with that, I'm gonna hand it off to uh Jackie Beechum to talk about Yipse.

Good afternoon again, Vice Mayor and City Council members.

Jackie Beecham, Director of Youth Parks and Community Enrichment.

I would like to take a moment to thank our Yipse team for helping to prepare today's presentation, and most importantly, our entire Yipsey team who works every day across the city to support the services that you see through our parks and recreation system.

Right.

Sacramento plays parks play a critical role in the life of our city.

Yepsi is responsible for the daily maintenance of 243 parks, parkways, bike trails, natural areas, and open spaces that spans over 4,000 acres across our city.

We also support healthy and safe communities that encourage active recreation, celebrate cultural diversity, support youth development, and connect people to nature and also one another.

So rather than list all of the programs and services that Yepsi provides, I'm going to share a quick video, as I always do.

It's only one minute long, to show you what we've done in the Sacramento community over the last year.

Parks, community enrichment.

Together, we empower our youth, strengthening their neighborhoods.

In 2020, we'll see more than programs.

It was a system of parking park and recreation powering opportunity across Sacramento.

Skills will build real jobs and real futures.

We have this in the next generation because opportunity up, responding, and maintaining safe space and everyone.

Community centers meeting place of next action.

Where older adults are active meals who needed them and young people found.

This work strength neighborhoods.

Yep.

Diverse, dynamic to get together.

Well, we did a test run earlier, and that echo was not there.

So it's okay.

That Leslie, nope on the slide.

No.

Okay.

That would have been great though.

Next time.

Next time.

Did you see your faces?

Anyone?

Yes?

All right.

Real, real people, real people in our videos here.

All right.

So moving on, Yipsey's operations are expansive and diverse, as seen here, to provide core services citywide from our youth and older adult programs to our pools, our community centers, park planning and maintenance, and our park rangers.

These services are delivered by 678 FTE, which equates to 1,437 individual employees.

Yep C is supported by diverse workforce that's reflective of the communities that we serve with a combination of full-time and seasonal and part-time staff that we rely on to ensure these services are delivered every day.

Other funds include maintenance community CFDs and labor and operating expenses for start and fourth R, our expanded learning and licensed child care programs.

These are offset by grant funds and fourth R program fees.

Start and fourth R supported by 62 full-time and 300 part-time staff.

Here's an overview of our fiscal year 26 operating budget by broader program area.

We have our park maintenance budget at approximately 24 billion dollars.

Our youth in all ages programs, aquatics, and community centers each account for roughly 17% of our operating budget.

Then we have HR procurement, accounting, and budgeting that are all housed within administration, and our park ranger unit at 2.4 million dollars.

Here's another view by spending category, whereas you've seen with other departments, labor costs are a large portion of our overall operating budget at approximately 64 point or 64%, with 46 million dollars funding just over 1,400 employees.

Developing strategies now for a third year has required comprehensive, a comprehensive and thoughtful approach to further evaluate our expansive programs and operations.

Staff developed 27 different strategies to reach the required 15% reduction plan of $6.1 million.

These strategies include the reduction of 121 FTE, which includes 211 positions.

In the last two years, we've significantly reduced FTE in positions, strategically realigned and reorganized to focus on operational efficiencies, and implemented revenue enhancements to support the city's structural deficit while minimizing impacts to the community and focusing on core services.

This, however, has become increasingly difficult.

We are limited with revenue enhancement opportunities, and most of our reductions, though we phase them in approach, have still have an increasing level of impact on the community.

24 of Yipsey's 27 strategies will be shown in the baseline.

Most of which are our level three and four impact.

These include 11.2% of our general fund budget and the elimination of 102 FTE, of which 86 are currently filled positions, and 75 of those are career level staff.

Due to the number, rather than list them all individually, we've grouped these strategies into operational program areas.

We'll begin with youth and all ages enrichment programs.

There are no proposed fee increases, but we do anticipate increased program participation for our licensed adult daycare program.

We also have the elimination of vacancies and realignment of FTE that produces savings in youth programs, but will result in the inability to expand offerings and growing wait lists for some of these important programs.

Higher impact strategies include reduced and eliminated stipends and reduced offerings for some workforce development programs, like young leaders of tomorrow, primetime teen, and our junior recade program.

Civic engagement programs like Summer at City Hall would also be reduced or eliminated in order to achieve a savings, along with contracting some of our specialized classes from our adaptive recreation program to community partners.

Overall, these strategies are 1.3 million dollars in reductions and include the elimination of 15 positions with a potential impact of serving 500 or more fewer youth citywide.

Next, we have community center programs and operations with 1.7 million dollars in budget balancing strategies.

This includes reducing the facility fee waiver discount by 50%.

Council temporarily restored this program in fiscal year 25 with one-time relief funding that has since been utilized.

There would be impacts to facility use discounts and waivers for non-youth serving organizations, but no impact to qualifying youth organizations through our youth program scholarship fund.

These strategies also include the reduction and realignment of program staff that support operational efficiencies, but again would limit the expansion of essential youth and older adult programs in community centers.

Staff took a phased approach with strategies to minimize community impacts.

We began with reduced front counter hours at centers, but ultimately a reduction of operations at community centers citywide was selected in the baseline to reach the 1.7 million dollar savings.

In this strategy, all eight community center locations would reduce operations from six days to four days per week.

This is a 27% reduction in operating hours and access to safe spaces, youth drop-in and after school programs.

Older adult programs like Meals on Wheels would also be impacted with an estimated 29,000 fewer visits annually from seniors.

Overall community center strategies include the elimination of 29 positions.

Our aquatics program reduction strategies include the closure of four of the city's standalone waiting pools that serve approximately 8,000 visits per season.

Our 15 spray parks and splash pads, including the recently converted waiting pool to splash pad at Mama Mark's Park, Mama Marks Park would continue operations.

Higher impact strategies include pool closures, closure days at our 10 neighborhood pools during the summer season to operating only three days per week, so from six days to three days per week.

Recreation swim served over 90,000 visits last summer, with our pools providing safe spaces and life-saving water education for youth and families.

While three hub pools would remain open in this scenario, we anticipate a reduction of approximately 12,000 visits citywide, the majority of those youth.

This balancing strategy includes the elimination of 63 positions.

Moving on to park maintenance operations with baseline strategies that include contracting specialty maintenance services and landscape maintenance activities at neighborhood and community parks.

These strategies include the elimination of 54 park maintenance staff, which is 53% of our total park maintenance workforce.

While we do not anticipate significant impacts to maintenance service levels, the quality of service may be impacted as we contract out work.

These 54 employees not only know our parks and our infrastructure, but they know and have built relationships and trust with the communities that they serve, majority of which they are part of.

This has been built over time with some very long-tenured employees.

Additional impacts may be or may include delays to emergency response efforts like the winter storm that we had in New Year's of 2023 that required immediate all hands-on-deck from our park maintenance team to provide support in our parks.

These efforts might otherwise be more difficult to quickly mobilize with contracted services.

Yep C's overall baseline selected baseline strategies for fiscal year 27 total 4.8 million dollars in this scenario, which is 11.2% of our general fund budget.

So in the last two years, we've identified operational efficiencies to support budget reduction savings, eliminating over 10% of our FTE department-wide and approximately 12% of our budget of our general fund budget while striving to maintain service levels.

When developing strategies, the direction has been to identify savings while minimizing community service level impacts.

And that's what you're seeing here with park maintenance.

These strategies, however, as do the majority of VFC's selected baseline strategies at level three and four, carry significant impact to our employees.

As an example, in just one of these strategies that you see, in order to maintain service levels of $500,000 net savings comes with the elimination of 25 city staff.

Alternatively, another approach could be the elimination of fewer positions and a minimal but strategic reduction in service levels in parks that presents comparable savings.

I hope to explore these options with council and the community as we move through the budget process in the coming weeks and months.

EFC plays a critical role in providing quality parks programs and facilities across the city.

As we just heard from our city auditors national community survey, and as Council Member Ving just reiterated, one of the highlights was also that parks and recreation opportunities contribute to a high quality of life experienced in our city, with a majority of residents positively rating the overall quality of parks and recreation opportunities, showing a significant improvement from 2023, despite the challenges that we've been facing over the last couple of years, which I think speaks volumes about the work that our team does.

The survey also identified notable community priorities for funding focused on core services that include strong support for youth programs, public parks, and senior programs.

Yep C will remain committed to preserving core services and advancing council priorities as we move forward.

Our park rangers will continue prioritizing public safety and supporting efforts to address homelessness, outreach and cleanup as part of DCR's rapid response team.

We'll provide scholarships and fee waivers for low-income residents and resources for seniors that are on fixed incomes, workforce training for at-risk youth that helps prevent help helps prevent homelessness.

We'll deliver workforce development opportunities and recreation programs, aquatics and events that safely activate our parks and facilities, and provides a positive impact to the to our local economy.

Community centers will continue providing access to safe spaces and youth for youth and older adult programs in priority neighborhoods and communities as equitably as possible.

We'll continue our after school and summer camp programs that not only support youth safety but also affordable child care for working families.

And of course, we'll prioritize the maintenance of all 243 parks, parkways, bike trails, natural areas, and open spaces to ensure that they are safe, clean, and accessible for all Sacramento residents and visitors to enjoy.

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation, Jackie.

Welcome, Tom.

Good afternoon.

I'm Tom Pace, Director of Community Development.

And our mission in community development is to help plan, build, and maintain a great city.

And we do that by providing the planning, building, code compliance, and animal care services that you see listed here.

Nearly all of them are full-time employees.

The department is supported by 58.6 million dollars in general fund appropriations, which are offset by 36.7 million dollars in revenues and reimbursements, resulting in a net general fund cost of just under 22 million dollars.

Followed by code compliance at 27%, planning at 22%, animal care services at 16%, and our central administrative services at 4%.

As you've seen in many other departments, the overwhelming majority of our funding is for salaries and benefits to support our people.

Our department is a service delivery department and requires people to deliver those services.

The second largest area is our services and supplies budget at 9.5 million dollars.

And this pays for things like boarding up vacant buildings and paying for uh things as diverse as food for the animals in the animal shelter.

Major source of revenue in our department is uh through the building permit process, plan review and building permits, followed by code compliance at about 25 percent and planning fees at 18 percent.

Animal care services comprises a relatively small portion of our revenues at 3%, primarily animal licensing and adoption fees.

Our 15% reduction options total 3.3 million dollars and do not involve any impacts to either vacant or filled employee positions.

That's accomplished uh through a combination of strategies, including revenue increases in our planning division and uh several other divisions to help align them with actual costs in order to avoid any service level disruptions.

We also have identified reductions in spending in our building division, consultant services for plan review and inspections, which will not have a significant impact on our customers, and offsetting a portion of the cost of the neighborhood development action team by utilizing funds in a multi-year operating project.

The most significant impact in our strategy is reduction in funding for the affordable housing impact fee assistance program, which would reduce the number of units that are assisted.

This is also known as the zero dollar fee rate program, and it allows us to reduce the impact fees paid by affordable housing developments.

There is an alternative to this reduction strategy in that our department collects about 1.2 million dollars a year in housing trust fund fees and housing impact fees on uh new commercial and residential development.

Those fees are utilized to help fund affordable housing developments and are dispersed to the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency.

Council could choose to redirect a portion of those funds to help uh backfill this reduction and retain the funding for the affordable housing impact fee assistance program or the zero dollar fee rate program.

With that, the community development department will continue to provide its core essential services to the city and residents.

This includes making sure that we protect public health and safety and new construction, uh planning for our vision of the future of the city and ensuring appropriate development processes, uh maintaining safe and desirable conditions in our neighborhoods and in our among our businesses and our code enforcement program, and continuing to care for lost and stray animals at our front street animal shelter.

And on this last point, I'd just like to mention that uh in response to council direct to council direction, we have requested a $500,000 augmentation to uh provide a one year of uh contract services with animal balance to provide 10 high volume spay and neuter events to help uh community-owned pets, as we know that prevention is a major part of uh the solution to the number of unwanted animals in our community, and so that will be before council as you deliberate the budget.

And thank you very much, and I'll hand it over to Pete.

Thank you, Tom.

Thanks, Tom.

Uh hello, everyone again.

P.

Coletto with the finance department.

Um, and I always like to start with our mission, so it's to educate and form and provide excellent internal and external customer service with integrity, efficiency, and quality.

And really, what we want to do is provide accurate financial information to city decision makers and to the public and to execute the city's financial functions efficiently.

And we do this through our seven operating divisions and roughly 102 uh full-time equivalent employees.

I always say I have the best job in the city, I've got a great team, uh, and they make my job uh a lot easier.

For our budget, uh, we have general fund appropriations of just under 12 million dollars.

We bring in around five million of revenue uh for net general fund cost of six point nine million.

Uh, we do have budget in other funds.

These are primarily in our infrastructure finance division, which administer development fees, our P bids, our bids, and things like that.

Uh our appropriation by division revenue is our largest division, as you can see.

It's uh also has the most employees, and the rest are roughly the same size.

Uh the appropriation by spending category, uh, we're pretty much just people.

Uh, most of our services and supplies are for things like our outside audits and things like that, but we're primarily salary and benefits.

So we did hit our reduction target of just over a million dollars through a combination of revenue increases as well as reductions and vacant and filled positions.

For uh the strategies that are in the baseline, uh, we have revenue increases.

These are not uh fee increases, these are aligning our revenue budget with our latest projections and are really some prior year strategies starting to come into fruition around late fees, aligning our S sheet revenues, permanent taxes, and our infrastructure finance revenues.

Uh, we're also looking, uh we're also reducing two vacant positions, both in the accounting division.

Uh, they will have impacts on our uh capacity to um to perform some accounting functions, but we feel we can handle the workload within the remaining staff.

So we are a support uh division.

We don't provide that many direct customer services, but we do support all of our departments that are out advancing council priorities.

Uh, one thing I do want to highlight though is uh we do have the infrastructure finance division, um, which does have a direct role in economic development.

We administer fee programs, our special districts and work in really innovative tax increment financing to help facilitate development.

But we all and we also administer our tax programs, which fund all our city programs, meeting our state and charter mandates around uh budgeting and financial reporting, and again supporting uh all of our other departments in the city.

And with that, I will turn it over to Samantha and HR.

Good afternoon, my Smayor and members of the council.

I'm Samantha Hardy, currently serving as the interim human resources director, and still also the benefit services manager.

Joining me today, I do want to highlight our dedicated HR management team who provide thoughtful strategic and dedicated leadership, supporting a wide variety of human resources services across the city.

The human resources department mission is to deliver programs and services in a professional manner to customers that result in a positive experience.

We are an internal services department.

Our job overall is to support the people and systems that allow every city department to deliver their services.

The services described here provide a general breakdown of each division and their additional programming components.

This is the high level org chart of the human resources department representing the five major divisions.

I'd like to point out under risk management is including workers' compensation and environmental health and safety.

Across this department, we do have a total of 77 FTE, and our general fund FTE is 42.

While our total HR budget is about 86.4 million with 77 FTE, the slide illustrates that only 6% of human resources budget is tied to general funds supported programs and services.

With the largest percentage of HR's overall budget tied to risk management and workers' compensation, covering our environmental health and safety services, insurance, workers' compensation claims, administration and liability claims management.

Looking at just our general fund budget being human resources, we do not generate revenues through our general fund program and services.

And our total net general fund cost is 5.4 million with 42 FTE.

And as you will see on the upcoming slides, the majority of the budget is in salaries and benefits, supporting our employees to provide our citywide support services.

This slide represents our general fund supported divisions that are responsible for citywide personnel related functions, including but not limited to recruitment and testing, classification and compensation, employee and retiree benefits, administration of supplemental retirement plans, equal employment opportunity compliance, labor contract negotiations, workplace policy oversight, advising departments on complex workplace matters and employee rights, the affordable, I'm sorry, the ADA reasonable accommodation and leave administration, process and policies, diversity, equity, and inclusion and processing of citywide personnel transactions.

As demonstrated here, 87% of our general fund expenditures are allocated to salaries and benefits as much of the work performed directly, as much of the work performed directly by our human resources employees.

We sometimes do contract out specific services that are typically of limited duration and scope, or those requiring specialized subject matter experts.

Our strategy for 15% 15% reduction options were developed to preserve core services, maintain compliance requirements, and balance the position reductions this fiscal year while considering potential impacts for next fiscal year.

We prioritize reductions that minimize operational disruption while still meeting core obligations.

And we also reviewed historical spending trends and services and supplies.

Moving forward looking at the budget balancing impacts, you'll see a list of level two reductions and level three reductions.

These proposed budget balancing reductions preserve human resources ability to meet required obligations, support recruitment and retention, and continue advancing our diversity and equity efforts.

However, they will reduce capacity, resulting in longer processing times for some citywide personnel transactions, moving to more electronic communication for our retirees, and extending some timelines for certain DEI initiatives.

Human resources is an internal services department that supports citywide program and service delivery.

With these reductions, HR will continue delivering the core services that keep the city staffed, supported, and in compliance.

Our overall core services strengthen city operations by supporting fair hiring, attractive and competitive benefits, sound employment practices, clear guidance to departments, and a workforce that supports every department's mission.

Thank you.

Next, we have Darren Arcalino from Information Technology.

Thank you for your presentation.

Welcome, Darren.

Good afternoon, Vice Mayor, members of the city council.

I'm Darren Arcolino, your chief information officer here today to represent the IT budget.

When people think about IT, they often think about computers or software.

In the city of Sacramento, IT is more than technology.

We function as a business partner, empowering departments and improving how the city delivers services to our community.

Our mission is straightforward to enable departments to deliver services efficiently, securely, and reliably.

Whether it's first responders handling emergencies, residents submitting permits online, or someone calling 311 for assistance.

Technology connects these services to the people who depend on them every day.

Our work provides practical value to both departments and the community.

Costs are reduced through process automation and careful vendor management, helping stretch taxpayer dollars even further.

Risk is managed by protecting city systems and data from cybersecurity threats and maintaining continuity of critical services during emergencies.

Operation efficiency improves when staff have reliable, modern tools that allow more time to focus on serving our residents rather than navigating systems.

Most importantly, we focus on customer experience, expanding digital services that make city government easier to access, whether residents interact online, by phone, or in person.

From enterprise applications and cybersecurity to public safety systems, digital services, 311 customer support, and long-range planning.

IT services enable reliable city operations.

Much of this work happens behind the scenes, but is essential to nearly every service that the city provides.

Ultimately, what makes this possible isn't just technology, it's people.

Our team brings expertise, dedication, and innovation that quietly power the city's work every day.

And I'm proud to represent this talented team and the impact they have on our community.

The department is structured around the office of the CIO and is organized into six distinct divisions.

311 enterprise applications, IT operations, regional support, public safety IT, and utilities IT and GIS.

In total, there are 202.5 positions within the department, with 311 accounting for 41.5 of the total.6 million, additionally 400,000 in revenues generated from payments by wireless carriers for the placement of their small cell equipment on city's infrastructure.

This revenue reduces our net general fund cost to 21.2 million.

The department's total budget is 35.3 million when enterprise funded positions are included.

We also administer the citywide technology maintenance and support operating budget, which is currently set at 5.3 million dollars.

Here's a detailed view of our general fund with appropriations balanced across divisions to maintain essential services and ensure technology support aligns with city operations.

Reflecting the labor-intensive work of delivering secure reliable services with highly skilled staff.

Like all departments, we were asked to develop options for budget reductions.

In doing so, our strategy focused on preserving essential citywide operations while maintaining a strong cybersecurity posture and minimizing impacts to residents and critical services.

Our vacancy rate is currently at an all-time low, just under 3%.

And many areas of the department are already operating with limited staffing.

As a result, there are no simple reduction scenarios at level one or two.

To meet the required budget target, we propose level three and four reductions, totaling 3.9 million, including 27 full-time positions, of which 25 are currently filled.

Of the potential of the potential reductions shown on the previous slide, the options selected to reach the balanced budget baseline, reduce the general fund by about 1.1 million through a combination of vacant and filled positions.

The level three reduction is the vacancy in 311, which could reduce service capacity, increasing the likelihood of a longer response and wait times for residents seeking city services as our popular population and call volumes continue to grow.

Level four reductions have broader operational impacts.

These include one filled supervisor position and two filled IT support positions, reducing service desk coordination and support, slowing the resolution of technology issues affecting city staff and daily operations.

Level four also reduces our GIS and data analytics capacity by 29%, with one vacant and two filled positions, limiting mapping, planning, and data-driven decision making that departments rely on.

This increases operation risk by reducing GIS support for critical functions, including permitting, building inspections, parking operations, community response, and the city's open data portal, just to name a few.

While these reductions do not eliminate services, they do reduce the city's responsiveness, flexibility, and capacity to support ongoing operations and future initiatives in those areas.

Even with these reductions, our focus remains forward-looking.

IT's strategies to maintain essential citywide services while enabling departments across the organization to advance council priorities and deliver community outcomes.

We will continue to focus on these key areas, delivering smarter, more accessible city services through our continued implementation of the city's digital strategy, expanding online services, improving accessibility, and enabling residents and businesses to interact with the city anytime and anywhere.

Modernizing permitting and business engagement by advancing AI supported plan review, digital permitting tools, and improve customer experience platforms that reduce barriers and support Sacramento as a great place to do business.

Strengthening public safety through technology and data by supporting police and fire with resilient infrastructure, advanced analytics, and systems that enable data-driven deployment and faster response capabilities.

Advancing responsible AI innovation through Sacramento's ground baking AI strategy and roadmap, expanding virtual assistance, AI-powered tools, and automation that improves service delivery, increase efficiency, enhance transparency while maintaining strong governance and ethical safeguards.

Investing in digital equity and community access through broadband expansion, digital inclusion programs, and multilingual accessible solutions that ensure all residents benefit from city services.

And finally, maintaining reliable, secure citywide technology operations that enable every department to deliver core services, especially despite fiscal constraints.

Even in a challenging fiscal environment, the IT department remains focused on innovation, resilience, and partnerships that help Sacramento deliver services and advance council priorities.

We appreciate the council's continued support, and I'll be happy to answer questions later, but first I'll turn it over to Public Works and Matt Ironman.

Darren, I have a quick question.

It's on the slide.

For your revenues on the 0.04, is that like carriers using city facilities to cut their equipment?

Yeah, all the wireless carriers, Verizon ATT, T Mobile, they put their equipment on our correct.

Thank you.

Welcome, Matt.

Hi.

Good afternoon, Vice Mayor and members of the City Council.

I'm Matt Eyerman, Director of Public Works.

Thank you for the opportunity to present the Public Works FY 2027 early budget session.

Public Works manages the infrastructure systems that keep Sacramento operating.

Our streets, traffic signals, lighting, parking systems, fleet, recycling and solid waste operations, and city facilities.

In many ways, public works functions as the city's operating system.

When these systems perform well, the city runs smoothly.

When they don't, the impacts are immediate and visible.

Today I will briefly highlight our department, our financial structure, and how public works investments support council priorities while protecting the city's infrastructure assets.

Our mission is simple.

Keep Sacramento operating through reliable and sustainable public infrastructure.

Public Works maintains the core systems residents depend on every day.

Streets, signals, fleet, parking, recycling and solid waste, city facilities, and the urban forest.

These systems represent significant public investment, and our role is to protect those assets through preventative maintenance and responsible management.

Reliable infrastructure reduces risk, controls long-term costs, and keeps city services operating smoothly.

Public Works is the second largest department in the city with eight divisions and approximately 780 employees.

Our workforce includes engineers, planners, mechanics, arborists, electricians, inspectors, operators, and field crews who maintain Sacramento's infrastructure daily.

These teams not only maintain existing systems, but also plan and deliver improvements needed to support Sacramento's continued growth.

Despite our size, we continue to operate with vacancies that require us to prioritize safety, regulatory requirements, and core service delivery.

Public Works operates with an annual operating budget of approximately $238 million.

Only about $32.7 million or roughly 14% comes from the general fund.

The remaining 86% is supported through enterprise and restricted funding sources, including parking, recycling and solid waste, fleet services, transportation funds, and marina operations.

Because of this structure, PublicWorks is currently a net contributor to the general fund by approximately $5.5 million.

In addition to operations, we are currently managing roughly $50 million in capital projects with 55 projects in design and 12 actively under construction.

Over the past two years, the department has secured approximately 156 million dollars in external grant funding, significantly expanding what we can deliver without increasing local cost.

One of the most important financial realities about public works is our net impact to the general fund.

While the department receives approximately $32.7 million in general fund support, our operations generate approximately $38.1 million in general fund revenue.

This results in a net positive contribution of approximately $5.5 million.

Public Works is one of the few departments that generates more general fund revenue than it receives.

These revenues primarily come from our enterprise operations, such as parking services, permits, and other services-related activities that help support the city's overall financial stability.

This slide shows how the $32.7 million of general fund allocation supports public works divisions.

The largest portion supports parking services, which receives about $19 million, but also generates approximately $29 million annually in general fund revenue.

Facilities and real-time real property management and recycling and solid waste represent the next largest allocations, supporting critical city operations.

Several divisions operate without general fund support because they are funded through enterprise or transportation funding sources.

This structure allows public works to deliver essential services while maximizing general fund reliance or minimizing.

Most public works resources support the workforce and equipment needed to maintain the infrastructure.

Approximately 59% supports personnel, 38% supports equipment, materials, and operations.

The remainder supports essential operating costs.

This reflects a service-driven department where most resources directly support infrastructure, maintenance, and operations.

In simple terms, our budget primarily supports the people and the tools that keep Sacramento functioning every day.

Although the total general fund support showed to be 106 million dollars, about 74 million dollars of that amount is reimbursed through enterprise funds, capital projects, and internal service charges, resulting in $32.7 million in general fund support.

Parking management is a first and foremost is first and foremost a mobility tool.

It supports business access, improves safety, and ensures fair use of limited curb space.

Effective parking management is not only about the number of spaces, it's about the availability.

When turnover works, more customers can access business businesses throughout the day.

Parking services receives about $19 million in general fund support while generating approximately $29 million annually in revenue.

To improve availability and consistency, we are proposing updates, including fine adjustments, standardizing metering hours to 10 p.m., adding approximately 200 paid spaces in high demand areas, implementing residential parking permit cost recovery, and aligning city facility rates with market conditions.

These changes improve access consistency and the effectiveness of our curb management system.

Public works investments directly support council priorities.

We support economic development by delivering major infrastructure projects like the I Street Bridge, leveraging external funding and managing mobility in our business districts.

We support public safety by advancing traffic safety improvements, signal reliability, roadway maintenance, and quick build safety projects across Sacramento's transportation network while accelerating targeted safety upgrades to our newly formed tactical action group.

Sorry about that.

Am I going the wrong way?

Uh-oh.

You're doing great.

I'm doing great.

Hold on.

Matt, you don't want to present the water for him?

I am on slide nine, please.

Up three thousand.

Well, there you go.

No backwards.

Do I need to click?

All right, so we'll go through.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So about uh what you're hearing today.

Matt, where's your green at?

St.

Patrick's Day.

Sorry to make your nights longer.

Where am I at here?

Public works.

Here I am.

All right.

It'll be the most rememberable out there.

Yes.

All right.

Here we are.

Back to homelessness.

We support homelessness response efforts by ensuring facility readiness and infrastructure improvements necessary to bring housing and services online.

Reliable infrastructure directly supports economic activity, safety, and community stability.

Curb space is one of the most valuable public assets the city manages.

Sacramento operates approximately 6,500 paid spaces on street spaces, generating about 3.8 million parking transactions annually.

Each space turns over roughly 800 585 times per year, representing potential customer visits to local businesses.

Managing curb space effectively supports economic activity without requiring new infrastructure investment.

When spaces turn over, businesses see more customers.

Reliable infrastructure supports economic activity, public safety, and the quality of life across Sacramento.

Before I finish, I want to thank the men and women of Public Works, their dedicated, their dedication and professionalism and pride in service are what make everything that we've discussed here today possible.

Thank you.

Welcome.

All right.

Good afternoon.

Uh, Vice Mayor, Honorable City Council members, city manager.

My name is Dahlia Fottle.

I'm the director of the Department of Utilities.

Um, and I'm here to give an overview of the Department of Utilities early FY27 budget.

I would like to acknowledge the uh DOU executive team and budget team in attendance today, as well as uh all the members of our uh great uh uh department of utilities.

Okay, let's see.

All right, so our mission um is to provide high quality drinking water, stormwater, and wastewater services, and to do so in a way that is safe for everyone, fiscally responsible, and sustainable for the environment.

We provide uh safe drinking water to residents and businesses in the city.

We protect them from flooding by providing storm drainage services, and we provide reliable sewer services.

The department of utility is made up of five divisions, including the office of director provides leadership, policy direction, and oversight for all utility operations.

The engineering and water resources division oversees the planning, design, and construction of water, wastewater, and drainage projects, and manages water rights and long-term resource planning.

The drinking water division is responsible for providing clean drinking water services, including water treatment, distribution, and compliance with strict state and federal water quality standards.

Wastewater and drainage division maintains and operates the city's wastewater collection and storm drainage service systems to ensure public health and flood protection.

Finally, our business services division manages finances, customer service, billing, and administrative support for the department.

The department has a total of 607 FTEs, none of which are funded by the general fund.

Uh this pie chart includes the appropriations by DOU division.

Again, I would like to emphasize that uh the Department of Utility receives zero funding from the general fund.

Uh, the numbers on this pie chart are reflective of the FY26 budget numbers.

You will see here uh this only includes the operation cost for these divisions, uh, with the highest being the wastewater and storm drainage division at approximately 50 million dollars, and the lowest uh is the business services division at about 8 million dollars.

Once we add the CIP program as well as some of the other categories, uh the entire appropriation uh for the Department of Utilities is at 302 million dollars, again, zero dollars from the general fund, fully paid by ratepayer uh funded uh funds.

The major spending categories, as you can see, similar to other departments.

The largest is for salaries and benefits at about 99 million dollars, uh, a CIP program of approximately 70 million dollars of investment in the city's infrastructure, uh, services and supplies at about 51 million dollars, and finally debt services at about 40 million dollars.

Uh remaining categories include city property, uh myops, and uh multi-year operation programs, uh, and transfers.

The budget reflects the scale needed to maintain reliable services for residents and businesses uh to sustain economic development in the city.

So now we're gonna talk about the uh water fund.

Uh so we have three different funds for the department.

We have a water fund, uh wastewater fund, and a drainage fund.

Starting with the water fund, this is the five-year outlook for the water fund.

As you can see, the for the current year, which is uh FY2526, the expenditures uh are about 38 million dollars than our revenues.

Uh similarly for FY26-27.

The expenditures are about 30 million dollars higher than our revenues.

At this time, our fund balances are able to absorb this deficit, but it will not be the case soon.

And that's represented in this table.

If you look at FY27-28, you'll see that we will uh be about 30 million dollars in the red.

We would be using uh the entirety of our CIP reserve for this fund, and that would make our fund balance be in a negative uh in about uh for about 2.8 million dollars.

Now we'll turn our attention to the five-year outlook for the wastewater fund.

It's in a similar position.

So for the current year, uh our revenues are about $4.6 million less than our expenditures.

Uh, and that trend continues.

Uh, we can also see that by FY2829, we our ending fund balance will be in the negative.

So it's clear uh after looking at both the water fund and the wastewater fund that uh our rate revenues are not keeping up pace with our critical operations and infrastructure needs, which is why we are engaging in uh rate planning effort currently, uh, and I'm gonna talk about uh more about that with some of the upcoming slides.

All right.

Uh reduction goals.

Because the Department of Utilities uh is not funded by general fund, we were not required to comply with the mandatory 15% reduction.

However, given the state of our water and wastewater fund, we proactively wanted to tighten our belts and uh reduce our budgets for FY27.

So you see reflected on the table here is a reduction of about 8% for our water fund and 9% for our wastewater fund.

I should say it was very difficult and challenging to make these reductions because that meant we had to either defer, delay, or uh put on hold some critical projects and programs for the department.

Um however, we had to make this decision because we wanted to be prudent ahead of our rate increase uh efforts.

Uh, by reducing our total expenditures by 8 and 9% respectfully, that allowed us to reduce the uh forecasted deficit uh for the water fund by 50% and the forecasted deficit for the wastewater fund by about 46% for FY27.

Okay.

Now we'll turn our attention to the oh, sorry, I'm not close enough.

Okay.

Okay.

Sorry, I heard a ring, so I was under us.

Um the drainage fund, uh, we have two colors of money for the drainage fund.

So you'll see uh the table on the left uh includes drainage fund that was established back in 1996, and the one on the right, the storm uh drain property fee fund that was established in 2022.

So the storm drain uh fund, uh the the one on the left does provide uh resources for stormwater management and flood protection for maintaining our drainage infrastructure and systems.

The one on the right, uh, which is the uh parcel fee, does provide funding for our CIP projects.

Uh the negative uh there just is a reflection of the fact that this fund was tied up in litigation for multiple years uh while work had to be done, so it's just a reflection of the money finally being released there.

And again, uh we emphasize zero general fund contributions to the drainage program.

So, with all that said, um, the Department of Utility is committed to delivering on uh core services and advancing city council priorities.

We do that through delivering uh reliable services, which is the highest priority for the department.

One of our biggest challenges, however, we're meeting this goal, is that our systems are old and much of the infrastructure was built decades ago.

We're one of few cities that we can say we have a hundred-year-old facility.

Um like many utilities across the country, we have billions of dollars in deferred maintenance.

That's billion with the B.

For uh the city of Sacramento, that's about $2.2 billion in deferred maintenance in the utilities department.

That's pipes, pump stations, treatment facilities, flood control assets in either repair, rehab, or replacement.

Deferred maintenance is not just an accounting term, it means higher risk of failure, higher costs when things break unexpectedly, and fewer options over time.

If we wait, it gets more expensive and more disruptive.

Despite these challenges, this year we are making many investments through our capital improvement programs in water, wastewater, and drainage in the amount of 70 million dollars.

Another example of reliability of service is the water rights and supplies.

Whether we're talking about Sacramento as a growing city or the changing climate we live in, ensuring that we have access to water is hugely essential.

Our teams, as demonstrated earlier in this meeting, uh have been doing an amazing job at continuing to secure our water rights year over year, which are absolutely crucial to delivering safe drinking water.

As we grow, we understand that our reliable water supply has to grow with it.

Projects like the Department of Utilities Water Plus project, which will expand and improve our treatment plan operations, can help ensure that we continue to meet these demands.

In another facet of delivering our services reliably, we would like uh to mention that in response to negotiations and very creative efforts by the city team.

The state has approved major changes tied to our permit for our combined sewer system.

The revised permit allows us to uh be smarter and more strategic about how we manage combined system capacity and be laser focused on public health goals.

That's important because it means we can prioritize upgrades where they matter the most, be more flexible when we implement projects, and make compliance decisions based on stronger technical data, not regulations.

Utilities is a protector of public health and safety.

Here's how we provide safe drinking water, which is uh vital to hydration, hygiene in our urban environment.

People want to feel feel that they trust that they're getting clean orderless uh safe water out of their faucet every day.

Sacramento sits in a low elevation in the valley, which also means that we would be subject to seasonal flooding if not for our crews and services.

So we work hard that so people and city residents can sleep soundly at night, even when an atmospheric river is uh storming outside.

It should also be obvious that keeping wastewater and sewage away from homes and businesses is important to public health and gives people comfort knowing they can flush the toilet and it will get flushed.

And it might not always be it might not always be obvious, but we deliver the water that is so critical to uh fire protection services in the city.

The OU maintains more than 14,000 fire hydrants throughout the city.

Finally, one of our goals is financial viability and maintaining a healthy financial status.

We have forecasted some upcoming gaps in our revenues and our expenditures for drinking water and wastewater services.

Those funds did not see a rate increase in eight years.

During these eight years, uh there's been an increase in state regulation for water quality and flood control, for example, cost of material and labor and supplies have ballooned, and there was intention in not raising rates during COVID because people did not work or have sufficient financial means.

Because of all these factors and more, we are coming up to the point where rate adjustment is absolutely critical for our wastewater and water funds.

If there is any take-home message, is that we need the rate increase for water and wastewater.

Um that planning process has begun for the rate increase effort.

Uh, we are uh finalizing a rate study uh as well as an outreach uh strategy.

We have presented in front of the URAC multiple times, uh and we're trying to be mindful and strategic with our rate increases uh to make sure that we provide our services as effective and as affordable as possible.

Um it's important to mention that although the city is facing a broader budget crisis, and it's easy for people to lump everything together, but we want the public to know and understand that the utility rate adjustment is not a response to the city's general fund challenges.

Finally, we are also looking ahead at a rate adjustment for our 1996 operation fund for the storm drainage uh system.

This review process is expected to begin in FY29, and it is hugely important because we have to be able to keep cost with our system, the age of the system, and increase regulations for flood control as well.

We'll be sure to update you and we have more information on that effort.

With that, thank you so much, and I'll take questions later doing Korean net.

Thank you so much, Dalian.

Thank you just to wrap up, and I apologize to members of the public because now would be the time.

I should have the slide with what's upcoming, and I do not.

Um but again, I just want to reiterate we're not making any decisions today.

Uh those final decisions will come in June.

Council will have another early budget work session next week.

The proposed budget will come out at the end of April, and then council will be having formal budget hearings in May and June.

So again, we're here today to answer questions and get feedback, and I it was a lot of information, and I thank both council and the public for your patience.

Thank you so much, Pete.

So we will now open it up to public comment.

There is 34 speakers signed up to speak.

Uh what will happen is Mindy Keppy, our city clerk will read your name, and you will get the chance to go to the podium, or we can bring you the mic, and you get two minutes to do public comment, and after your two minutes, Mindy will read a statement, and it's the next person's turn.

So uh we typically have we'll just do three names at a time.

And then we'll do deliberations afterwards and we'll have the conversations afterwards.

Thank you, Vice Mayor, and just to remind members of the public.

Um, your two minutes timer is shown on the screen.

Diana Jin is our first speaker, then Lena Liber, then Rebecca Connor.

Good afternoon.

My name is Diana Jin, a participant at the Bell Coolidge Community Center.

I have been a city employee and also a county employee, and remember going through budget cuts.

I know you have some tough decisions to make, but I but please do not cut the hours and days at the Bell Coolidge Community Center.

I currently take seven courses there.

Two of them are led by volunteers, four of the courses are sponsored by Kaiser and the YMCA.

And those include strength and balance and also fall per back fall prevention.

Um the classes are well attended.

In fact, we had to open two additional classes, and today we even have some super seniors with us.

Mrs.

Kong, who's 98 years old.

And Mrs.

Poon, right behind her, is 95 years old.

Besides the exercise classes, there are classes with arts and crafts, also Mahjong, which they both play, and ping pong.

All these classes not only help the body but provide mental stimulation.

Plus, another factor, while they're there, it gives us some time to socialize.

Many of us live alone.

One of the important factors keeping seniors healthy is for us to get exercise and also to have social contact.

Recently we had a lunar new year potluck.

Over 80 people attended.

Now we're looking forward to Cinco de Mayo where we will have a luncheon.

This is being organized by some of the seniors.

We also have a gallery day that will be featuring things created by members, including calligraphy, paintings, ceramics, and sewing projects.

It is a well-used center, and it's so in the comments.

Your time is complete.

Okay, real quick.

And Liber is our next speaker following Lena.

Okay, Rebecca.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, and thank you for allowing me to speak to you today.

My name is Lena Lieber, and I live on La Campana Way.

I am here to let you know how important the Bell Coolidge Community Center is to me.

I can walk to the center a good 20 minutes walk there, and I can walk home.

No car needed and no pollution from my part.

I exercise, take classes, and go there for social interaction.

It's safe and it has a friendly atmosphere.

The staff is outstanding, kind, professional, and knowledgeable.

It is a fun place to go.

So please do not cut the programs.

Do not close the center.

Thank you very much.

If you're coming, Rebecca, Rebecca Connor, then Gregorina, Miranda, and Antonio Lopez.

I know.

I know I'm also here to talk about the Bell Coolidge Community Center, which is very much and very strong a community.

And we are a center of people who really are inclusive for everyone.

We don't want to go back to the COVID.

And also, I would like to know what happened to all of our tax dollars that put us in such a crisis here.

And then we're the seniors are having to pay for this because we paid our taxes long time ago and still paying them.

And many of these people, it is our, you know, I live alone.

It is my only opportunity, and I do a lot of the programs there too.

I mean, I do the sewing class, which is a volunteer teacher.

I do mahjong, I do ceramics, I do painting, and then I play pickleball.

And I do the ping pong.

And all of these people have been very welcoming to me, and it is a really vital part of our community and for us to get together.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Gregoria.

Gregoria, Miranda, then Antonia Lopez, then Gary Lee.

Hello.

Um good afternoon, City Council members.

My name is Gregoria Miranda, the treasurer of our club, Manitos from the Heart Senior Center in Midtown.

And I'm from District 7.

Uh we have been meeting uh every Wednesday from 10 to 2 at the center since 1998.

And this year we're going to be celebrating our 28th anniversary in July.

Um during the pandemic, we uh our volunteers called each other.

We gave uh uh phone calls to see how we were doing, and we also sent uh monthly bulletins so that we could uh keep in touch with each other.

Today, uh during after the pandemic, only 35 showed up, but now we have 127 members, active members, and they uh show up rain or shine, and uh most of the time there's about 90, 96 that show up every Wednesday.

Um, like I said, the weather, it doesn't matter.

Um so last year, last week the city council honored our uh uh Manita uh Josefina Davila that uh was 103 years old.

She just passed away and she was buried yesterday.

But our uh members range from 50 to um 99.

We have uh 40 that are in their 80s, we have uh nine that are in their 90s, and a lot of them are in their 70s.

Um we elect every uh our board every uh every month, I mean every January, but uh so just take into consideration that we're a really good group, and that uh we have a and our staff is uh wonderful, so that work at at the Heart Center, so consider our group.

Thank you.

Antonia, Antonio Lopez, then Gary Lee, then Cynthia Lee.

Good afternoon.

I'm Antonia Lopez.

I'm the vice president of Manitos, as Gregoria mentioned, the board and volunteers plan and execute each weekly activities for four hours.

We provide not only coffee and refreshments and opportunity to get together, but really uh do the important work of eliminating isolation and promoting uh friendship.

Our goals are to promote promote friendship, promote lifelong learning, preserve and protect our language and culture.

The council is pro is receiving proposals or options to cut staff for adult uh older adult services at the heart centers that could be as many as four people.

That's on nearly half of the staff.

The council has been told that these cuts would not reduce services or quality because the programs are run by contractors or volunteers.

Manitos is a total volunteer operation.

We receive no funds from anybody but uh our own contributions.

We can assure you, Manitos can assure you that these cuts would impact quality and the services that we provide that are provided to us.

We the volunteers could not provide the program without the support of the staff.

Imagine each morning that we're there, the staff uh sets up 25 tables, 10 chairs in 20 minutes.

They meet us in the driveways or in the parking lot with carts to bring in the cases and cases of waters and boxes of supplies to serve 90 people.

They escort people on walkers and wheelchairs up ramps and into meeting rooms.

We close at 2 30 each each uh Wednesday.

They come in quickly and within again another 15 or 20 minutes.

They clean up and break down the 25 tables and 100 chairs for the drum, the Tyco Drum Group that will follow us at three o'clock.

During the meetings, we call them to handle everything from spills to escorting people for your own.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Gary Lee.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Gary Lee, and I'm here to discuss the return on investment of the Bell Coolish Community Center.

Can you all raise your hands?

When we look at the 70, 80, and 90 year olds attending a strength and balance class or a move it or lose it class, we aren't just looking at a social hour.

We are looking at a clinical intervention.

According to the National Council on Aging, evidence-based fall prevention programs can reduce falls by up to 50% among older adults.

The fiscal reality is stark.

A simple hip fracture can cost between 30 to 50,000 dollars in direct medical expenses, not including long-term care.

By contrast, the return on investment for these programs is extraordinary.

Estimated at up to $38 for every dollar invested in fall prevention.

By cutting hours or eliminating programs, the city isn't saving money, it is actually increasing the free the future burden on our local emergency services and public health infrastructure.

Furthermore, we must address the loneliness epidemic.

Research linked to Medicare spending shows that socially isolated seniors cost the health care system an average of over $1,600 more per person annually than those who are socially connected.

Isolation is a predictor of increased hospital stays and nursing home placement.

Our Zumba Mahjong Technology and Ceramus classes are not extra programs.

They are the primary defense against the health decline associated with isolation.

Our seniors are living into their 90s because of the consistency of our programs and classes.

Cutting even one day of operation disrupts the dosage of physical and social activity required to maintain these healthy outcomes.

I urge the council to view Bell Coolidge not as a cost center, but as a successful and preventative, as a successful preventative health hub that keeps Sacramento seniors.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Cynthia Lee.

Cynthia Lee, then Marilyn Morton.

I I'm not going to reiterate with everyone else said.

But you know, we're all getting older.

And we need these services.

I'm part of the walking group, and we walk rain or shine.

And it becomes, and there are people in that group who who join us who stop the who spend the time at the uh what you call the strength of balancing class just to come and join us.

Because we provide a very valuable community service.

We give them a chance to be part of the community that you know a lot of times we're neglected as as a as seniors.

We are often neglected.

We are subject to people taking advantage of us, and we need people together in a community of welcoming seniors as a vital part of society.

We worked all that time providing service and vital service to the society as a whole, as a working individual.

Why not help us continue that vital service to become proud to live in an age as it with dignity and pride and meaning.

So anyway, that's my thing.

Okay.

Carolyn Martin.

Marilyn, then Britt, is it Stofford?

Come on.

Okay.

Good afternoon.

My name is Marilyn Morton.

I'm a volunteer at the Heart Center, and I co-lead the Strength and Balance group, and we have 50 people show up three times a week in order to participate.

I have provided petitions for each of you separately so that you can uh see where we have approximately 250 people have signed those petitions.

We want you to, we respectfully request that you acknowledge that seniors are a priority.

And just as you've talked about youth and everything this evening, you know, we were all young at one time, and we've all, you know, many of us have raised kids.

So we certainly understand, but right now we also need you to talk about uh senior citizen well-being.

And we ask that you protect the staffing at the Heart Senior Center, avoid reductions in operating hours, and ensure that our senior care programs remain fully supported because we serve seniors from 60 to 98 in our at our particular center as well.

We urge you to uh we want to want you to understand that we that the heart center benefits from the dedication of many volunteers, but they cannot replace the experience, consistency, and accountability provided by professional staff.

Maintaining these services allows Sacramento seniors to remain healthy, independent, and active participants in the community.

So we should be a priority.

Thank you.

Britt is next, then Will Green, then Dinah Lee.

Hi, my name is Britt, and my son and I live in District 7.

Um, I'm requesting that you do not reduce access leisure services, and do not delete Paige Domgar's program coordinator position specifically.

Access leisure and page have been a shining beacon in my child's special needs journey.

While his life is full of doctor's appointments and surgeries, these access leisure events provide opportunities for him to feel safe, supported, and have fun meeting other children with special needs.

My son lights up when he sees Paige and the other employees.

Um Paige knows his name and remembers details about his life, making her feel like a friend to him and me.

The first event we attended years ago was the inclusive play date, and that was during a challenging time prior to my son's diagnosis, where as a new parent, I felt isolated and overwhelmed, not knowing how to raise a child with special needs.

Meeting Paige at that first event and having her provide resources for me and events to look forward to was life-changing.

There, I met Gil from NorCal Trickers, and they even provided an adaptive bike for my son so he could actually ride a bike like other kids.

Since then, we've attended um countless events and made lifelong friends and memories at events like the holiday um sip and thing that we attend every year, art and dance programs where Paige walks kids through creating beautiful works of art and choreographs and teaches them fun dances, um, drop-off events.

Um my son also looks forward to the baseball for all event in the spring, where Rivercats players teach skills to our special needs kids.

Um it's magical.

Our family is looking forward to the Access Leisure Egg hunt this Saturday.

My child has balance issues and um moves slower.

He's knocked over and pushed out of the way at other events, so this is amazing.

Um they say it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a special village to raise a child with special needs.

That's special village is access leisure.

Thank you.

Will Green, then Dinah Lee, then Florence Horton.

Is Will here?

Dinah Lee.

Following Dinah is Florence Horton, then Samaya Carabale.

Good afternoon.

I'm Dina Lee, and I'm here to say that Bell Coolidge isn't just a building, it's a lifeline.

Every week, seniors in their 70s and 80s and even their 90s fill the rooms.

They're just not passing time.

They're engaging in radical act of preventative health care.

When a senior joins a strength and balance class or a move it or lose it class, they aren't just exercising.

They are preventing a possible fall that may lead to a possible broken hip.

When they attend Zumba, they are protecting their cardiovascular health.

These classes are the front lines of safety.

Science tells us that physical activity at any age, especially for seniors, leads to fewer doctor visits, lower insurance costs, and a significantly prolonged life.

But the wellness at the Bill Coolidge goes deeper than the physical.

Regarding the loneliness epidemic, our mahjong tables, our ceramic studios, and our technology sessions are the cure.

Isolation is a silent killer.

It accelerates cognitive decline, heart diseases.

For many of our seniors, these five days a week are their only source of social connection.

Closing even one day, cutting even one program snaps that thread of that connection.

So if you reduce hours, you're not just adjusting a schedule.

You're telling a 90-year-old that their mental acuity doesn't matter.

You're telling a 70-year-old that their physical independence isn't a priority.

We see the proof of Bell Coolidge's success in the vibrant long lives of its members.

There are living evidence that when you invest in the body, the mind, and the spirit, you create a healthier, more resilient city.

So please, I beg you, do not balance this deficit on the back of our seniors.

Thank you.

Florence.

Following Samaya is Jan Goring, Rachel Brown, then Jenny Yarrow.

Hello.

My name is Samaya Garabello, and I'm the current vice chair of the Sacramental Youth Commission.

I'm here to express my unwavering support for the continuance of Yipsi's summer and semester at City Hall programs.

These programs play vital roles in molding the future leaders of our beloved city.

And if these programs are selected to be cut, this action in itself will pose yet another threat to the movement of youth civic engagement within the city of Sacramento.

I am but one youth leader whose entire life trajectory was changed by my participation in this program.

I would not be the person I am today without my experience from the summer at City Hall program.

I in fact stood in this very spot in 2019, presenting to the current city council at the time, advocating for the need of enhancing and creating more avenues for youth civic engagement.

If these programs are eliminated, so many youth will be robbed of pivotal experiences that have the potential to change lives for the better.

Thank you.

We can do all of the work to open and close the doors, and we can do it without paying the city $5,000 a month.

The city has Ypsy, Jackie Beechum has asked us to pay $5,000 a month and then pay for electricity and water.

But through our group of volunteers, we can save you money, keep the doors open, keep plant sales going, and invite all of you to come in and enjoy our activities.

So thank you for listening.

Rachel Brown, then Jenny Yarrow, then Raghav Mizra.

Rachel Brown had to leave, unfortunately.

My name is Jennifer Yarrow, and I actually worked for City of Sacramento Access Leisure for 35 years, running the Department of Access Usure.

And I recently retired, and it just devastates me to see where our programs have gone since I've left.

They've not only uh taken away the recreation general supervisor position, but they've also now threatening to take away another program coordinator position on top of already losing a program coordinator position, and currently already have gotten rid of eight part-time staff.

And it's so valuable that we have those staff there because our ratios are so important to run appropriate programs for the population that we serve.

Um, inclusive recreation is great, but it doesn't always work for our population.

And so the most important thing is that specialized recreation is what we've done for over 50 years and with the city of Sacramento, and we need to continue doing specialized recreation because these uh young adults, teens, and adults, and uh even our wounded, injured, and ill veterans, they need the opportunity to be with their peers.

So getting them involved in other outside, you know, uh social recreational programs is very challenging for families because they're not accepted as easy as we think.

Um so I'm here to say please, when you're when you're looking at the budget, we don't need to lose any more of the staffing for these programs.

You're going to um already uh I'm sorry, but often people with disabilities are excluded from participation in many community activities due to various um architectural programmatic and attitudinal barriers.

The personnel and the programming structure of all access leisure programs serves to systematically remove those barriers, and this is why specialized programs are so important and beneficial to allow them to feel connected and involved in their community.

So please, um, if you're gonna start cutting programs or and or staff hours, start from the above.

Start looking at people who have just recently acquired new jobs, and that maybe that their salaries and they need to lose that position.

Thank you for your comments.

Fraghov Mizra, then Olga Brown, then Audrey Newport, then Teresa Tarantano.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Ragolf Mishra, and I'm a sophomore at NP3 High School and a former participant in the Summer at City Hall program.

I would like to speak on agenda item 14 to express my opposition to Strategy L3-24, which impacts the Department of Youth Parks and Community Enrichment by completely discontinuing the summer and semester at City Hall programs.

The summer at City Hall program has had a significant impact on me and my peers, teaching us important skills like leadership, collaboration, and project management.

As a participant in the program, I experienced firsthand through our final project, Project City Hall, well, how to become a confident advocate for our city.

In this project, me and my peers presented to City Council on an issue that concerned us, and we offered a solution we devised for said issue, allowing us as participants to know that our concerns were heard and that our voices and ideas truly matter in this city.

These projects tackled real-world issues in Sacramento from food deserts to drug usage.

And without programs such as Summer and Semester at City Hall, the city loses a line to the innovative ideas of the next generation.

While I understand that the city is facing a 66 million dollar deficit, cutting the programs that build Sacramento's future leadership is a solution that doesn't take into account the impact such programs have.

These programs create a bridge between Sacramento's youth and our local government, crafting capable and driven students who can contribute in numerous ways to our city.

Investing in youth programs such as Semester and Summer at City Hall now allows for our youth to build the skills needed in order to make a positive impact on our city later on down the road.

I urge the city to oppose Strategy L3-24 in order to preserve programs that have offered so much to our youth here in Sacramento.

Thank you.

Olga.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and City Council.

My name is Olga Brown.

I'm a facilitator volunteer at the Senior Heart Center.

And let's make one thing clear.

The Heart Center is not a community center.

It is a senior center.

It just deals with senior citizens.

We are not a community center.

So everybody that's working there specializes with working with the elders.

So it's really important that you don't cut our employees by half.

These people are telling their story, their life, being creative.

I lead a poetry class.

Seniors are very creative.

We can't stop having classes that keep seniors active mentally.

It's important.

And our life history class, you'd be amazed at some of the stories.

We've had people that were in internment camps.

Native American.

We have had a servicemen that were actually spin on when they came back from Vietnam.

We're losing our history if you take away from a senior center.

You're losing us.

You need to not do that.

Sooner or later, you're gonna be us.

Okay.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council members.

My name is Audrey Newport, and I'm an active participant at the Bell Coolidge Community Center.

In fact, I go five days a week there, and it's really given me a new lease on life.

I learned about these classes while volunteered while volunteering at the food closet in South Sacramento.

And one of my dear friends from the food closet still attends these exercise classes, James Chu, who's 91 years old.

The Bell Coolidge Center gives various enrichment classes for fitness, the arts, and social activities.

They recently celebrated Chinese New Year, and they'll celebrate Cinco de Mayo soon.

These classes are the exercise classes are Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 8 a.m.

in the morning.

And believe it or not, people show up even when it's 35 degrees out.

This is a hearty group of seniors who want to actively participate in their lives.

They want to maintain their health and their independence.

This is a class of 50 to 95 year olds who have a reason to get out of bed and start their day, to meet their friends and partake of healthy exercise.

These classes affect their very well-being and gives them a reason to keep participating in life.

There's a balance and strength class also here.

And these classes are full.

Don't wait to sign up.

The center all will also offers ceramics, mahjong, ping pong.

They offer a Japanese calligraphy class.

The only one in Northern California.

We're so fortunate to have this.

The person next to me is 94 years old, loves the class, has been participating for 10 years in Japanese calligraphy.

This center is filled with senior adults who still cherish their lives and their activities and so appreciate the accessibility of these classes.

Teresa Toronto, Joan Rodriguez, and Anna Toacolo.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name's Teresa Toronto.

I'm a retired school teacher.

And with Audrey I attend the Japanese calligraphy class.

Yay, retirement.

I get to go two times a week to this very special class, which has been working, and it's had members for at least 25 years that I can remember.

The only class of its kind in Northern California.

And attending the classes since I retired, I noticed the Bell Coolidge Center is alive and thriving and has classes before us, after us on days we don't meet, and even weekend events.

And I've realized how important as a community center it is.

It serves so many people.

In our class alone, we have range seven decades from people in their 30s up to members in their 90s.

The uh people come, the families can drop off citizens, knowing that they're in a safe, clean environment.

The staff is exceptional.

The people who live in the community, they feel confident to drive even then in their 80s because it's in the neighborhood, and many of them walk.

So it's really a vital community center, and I would encourage you not to cut anything from them if possible.

That's all.

Thank you.

Yay!

Bell period.

Thank you.

We're gonna take a uh thank you.

We're gonna take a 10-second break.

We can stretch.

10 seconds, and more importantly, we want to recognize our visitors in the back, the young ladies from Robla, who are the Girl Scout troop visiting City Hall today.

They were gonna present, but government's in action here, so I'm sure you learned a lot.

And thank you for coming down and giving us some sugar to help us focus on the meeting tonight.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Girl Scouts.

Troop number 732.

Thank you for joining us.

Yeah, you want to come up and do a little parade around and loosen it up.

Thank you, Joan, for being patient.

Oh, you lost uh good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You too.

Thank you for the putting.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mayor and Council members, for the indulgence.

Uh, you know, I always try and bring Girl Scouts once a year to do our pledge and land acknowledgement.

And you know, we're running late, so they gotta go home.

But thank you.

All right, and thank you, Councilmember Kaplan, for bringing them to City Hall.

Um, it's beautiful, and can't wait to eat these cookies.

Uh Joanne, you uh Councilmember Jennings.

Joanne, thank you so much for for giving us a 10-second break, and uh go ahead, you get two minutes.

Thank you so much.

Okay, no pressure after all that.

Wow.

So happy St.

Patrick's Day, everybody.

I'm a proud Irish immigrant.

Uh moved here when I was in 20 years old, so I'm obviously celebrating wearing my green, as a lot of people are.

Anyways, I won't miss my I need to move on.

Uh so um I moved up to Sacramento from the Bay Area about in 2018 when I retired.

My children are up here and my grandchildren, and I've always had a goal of staying fit and healthy and also socializing.

I come from an Irish family that's like six children, so I'm a social person, and I miss it when I don't get that.

It's like a drug to me.

Um, so I decided to join the Bell Coolidge uh community uh center because number one it's like 10 minutes from my house, and I didn't have a lot of friends here in Sacramento, they're all over the place because I moved here.

Um, and so my classes there actually have um had a an amazing uh a positively impact on my overwall overall well-being, uh, including um my uh health and happiness, I guess, from that standpoint.

Our classes are really well done, they go head to toe, and they include um you know, some Tai Chi, some gentle yoga, and uh the the people at Bell Coolidge are amazing.

We have an amazing instructor called Tia, she's high energy, she gets us all going, very positive.

I've met a lot of friends there.

I have six uh six posse, a six-friend posse.

I call them the bells, but they're all bells, and including Gary and James.

Uh so there are token guys in there, but I just want to say the program is just amazing because again, it it's not about just being healthy, it's also about being social and feeling active.

I'm with people of my generation and close to my age.

I feel very it's very inclusive.

Uh, we always welcome new people in.

It's a great community.

Joan, thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

I do appreciate you accommodating the Girl Scouts too.

Thank you, Joan.

Um, it's free in this economic times, that's very important to comment.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Anna Tokolo.

Thank you.

Anna, then Felicia Chan.

Hello, good evening, Mayor, City Council, and City Manager.

My name is Anna Tau Colo, born and raised in District 2 and here representing Youth Forward and the SATKids First Coalition.

Yes.

And we are here in support of all things young people and our elders standing in solidarity.

And also thank you to you all who supported the children's fund measure.

We appreciate you.

And thank you, Mayor McCarty, for meeting with us last month.

Also standing in solidarity with our elders here.

I hope to look that good in my 90s too, y'all.

Um our Sat Kids First Coalition is here to urge you all to please protect our funding for the Yipsi Department, which is not just any department.

It's the city's department that keeps our park safe, our young and elderly engaged and our communities connected.

I understand that the city is facing a difficult budget year, but we cannot balance the budget on the backs of our young people, elderly and the most marginalized.

Like Samaya and Raj.

Yes, yes, yes.

Like Samaria and Raj have.

I personally am a product of the youth at City Council program.

That's what we used to call it back in my day, which gave me mentors who really spoke truth and life into me and gave me the confidence to be the community organizer that I am today.

Cuts to these types of programs will have a real lasting impact across all of Sacramento.

And we also know from recent parks opinion research that Sacramento voters strongly value parks and would support a parks parcel tax.

So I urge you to please prioritize our young people, our elderly, and move forward with a sustainable funding strategy like a parks parcel tax to ensure that these essential services are protected.

Thank you for your time.

And this would not be a SACIS first coalition public comment without a quick call and response.

So when I say nothing about us, you say without uh nothing about us, without a nothing about us.

Thank you all.

Felicia, then Cal Yi Tao, then Stephanie Arnold.

Uh Felicia Hatsiko.

Um hi, I am Cal Yi.

I am with Long Innovating Politics, a proud partner of the SACKids First Coalition, as well as a member of the Sacramento Racial Equity Alliance, and I'm here to stand against the proposed cuts to the Office of Diversity and Equity, as well as Yipsey ODE is necessary for us to implement the racial equity resolution.

And they've done an excellent job with community partnership and with the limited resources that they have.

And I'm also against the proposed cuts to Yipsey because of the impacts to the real lives, especially of our vulnerable young people and our seniors.

We were talking about rivers earlier, and my question is who gets access to these natural resources in safe ways.

Many of us, where I come from, don't get the privilege to see these resources as recreation or not essential.

In 2017, Nang Tao tragic tragically passed away due to the drowning in San Joaquin River.

Nang was a senior in high school.

He was set to graduate as valedictorian and was going to attend UC Berkeley.

As a young person, he fought for youth investment and youth power, being involved as a youth commissioner in the boys and men of color and the youth leadership institute.

In honor of his legacy, the state passed the Nang Tao Drowning Prevention Safety Act.

His legacy continues today.

Nang is a reminder of the power, potential, and promise of our youth, and that we must still fight today to ensure fair, safe access to our parks and natural resources.

Things like pools aren't just recreation in the Central Valley.

They are safety when the weather gets hot and we need a place to cool down.

Places like community centers are not just recreation.

They're safe spaces for young people when they need a space away from home that may feel uncomfortable, especially if they're LGBTQ youth, and if they're needed to be able to do that.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Stephanie Arnold, then Dwight Jackson.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

We have 10 more speakers.

We have 10 more speakers.

Would you like the handheld mic?

Oh, yeah.

Got it.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Stephanie, then Dwight.

Hi there.

Um, I come to you as an active person of Access Leisure.

Um, I actually went to camp um when I was younger there.

And it taught me a lot about being able to open up.

Um, I'm not able to use my arms like everyone else, so I've learned how to adapt with Access Leisure because of the resources and the environment that the staff provides for the people that they care about.

They don't make us they make us feel seen, and I am grateful every day for the counselors that worked at Access Lee that works with Access Leisure, and um I know that I wouldn't be able to get around as openly and uh independently as I do um without Access Leisure.

So, with that, I applied you not to get rid of this helpful um company, and it it's a really great environment for people like me who just want a voice, you know, to be able to be ourselves.

So thank you.

This is kind of very emotional for me.

I am a senior in the Hearts Center, and they do a whole lot of things there.

But I'm talking for my mother who passed away just a few months ago.

She came to Sacramento um seven years ago from San Francisco, and she had no friends here.

She became an actual um recluse or shut in.

And and when I came to bit with excuse me, when I came to live with her three years ago, and we found the Heart Center, she began to blossom again.

And I saw this woman who found f friends.

All right, and I urge you not to gut the Heart Center by cutting their staff because they're very important.

And and uh I am now a strong supporter of the Heart Center, and I now participate in many of their uh programs.

Um you keep hearing it over and over and over from all these people who keep coming up, they're saying the same thing that I want to say, so I don't really need to say it.

What I need to do is ask you to act upon it and figure out a way.

Next speaker is Morgan, isn't it?

Flo moy.

I don't see movement.

Valentino Rodriguez.

Following Vanatino is Damian Smith, then Jim Marie Crawford.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

My name is Valentina Rodriguez, a former Yipsey employee and recreation aide to summer and semester at City Hall and the Sacramento Youth Youth Commission.

The Department of Yipse's mission is together, we empower our youth, strengthen neighborhoods, and provide life-enriching programs for a beautiful livable community.

That is bullshit.

On the Yipsey presentation, L326, you will see the proposal to discontinue summer and semester at City Hall, along with the 50% budget reduction to the Sacramento Youth Commission.

How are we as a city and department with the youth-centered mission going to eliminate a life-enriching program that teaches youth how to become active citizens and create beautiful livable communities without the resources and training?

This erases the ethos of both summer and semester at City Hall programs, along with marginalizing the official youth voice of the city.

How are we going to solve the current issues of this generation without teaching the next generation of youth to do so?

My ask to you, mayor and city council, is to place pressure upon the director of Yipsey, Jackie Beachum, and to come up with a better solution and proposal for the budget reduction strategies instead of removing core youth programming that have shaped the policy, public policy of the city of Sacramento for 15 years.

Thank you.

Damian Smith, then Jem.

I think it's Jemory Crawford, then Cindy Guest.

Hello.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

My name is Daniel Smith, and I'm a student here at Sacramento State University.

I'm here to speak on the proposed budget cuts to Yipsey as well as the cuts to the Sacramento Youth Commission.

As a college student, I can't stress enough how much youth programs matter, not only to the community, but also to the students and people like me that I see every day.

We students are looking for a life past high school and college.

And when we look forward to our careers, we're expected to have certain skills.

Yet when we look to find those certain skills, they're nowhere to be found.

And for the programs that are offered, they do not have the youth in mind.

It's programs like these that break down the barriers and bridge the gap between the leaders of now in order to inspire the leaders of the future.

To show young people like me that we can and will create change.

Education in all forms is consistently first on the chopping block when the money gets tight, and it's easy to cut services where the side effects isn't seen right away.

But it's bigger than budgeting.

Programs like these have the that support the youth have an exponential return on the communities that they're a part of and fundamentally better the future of the city.

To stand behind a podium and preach that we students are the next generation and the future leaders of tomorrow, and then turn around and cut the programs that build us as leaders, it is hypocritical and short-sighted.

I urge you all not to cut these vital programs that matter so much to the youth in your districts, but to also think ahead and look to the future of where a younger generation is not only passionate but also capable to take charge and create the change that matters to them.

Thank you.

Is it Jay Marie?

I have five more speakers, then Cindy, then Colin.

Tell me how to say your name.

Jamari.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Jamari.

I am a young Latino activist here in uh young Latin activist and organizer here in Sacramento and a student activist at SAC States.

I am here to oppose the proposed cuts to the youth commissioned programs.

I understand that the that there are that there is a budget deficit and many others and many other things affecting our community.

But making a by making a recommendation to cut funding to summer at City Hall and Semester at City Hall is not a solution.

We should consider.

Without these programs, youth are not able to get involved and local government, learn policy, learn to gain their own voice, learn to gain confidence for themselves and create meaningful change and create meaningful change.

Youth in government and youth who are involved and as giving them the opportunity to have opportunity and resources to succeed and do so is what allows for there to be great leaders in our community.

We mustn't consider these cuts to the summer and semester at City Hall programs, as this does not benefit the youth in any way, shape, or form.

As people who value the youth leadership and voices, to support such cuts go against the belief that youth can and should be in government.

I mean, look at all the youth here now that are here speaking and government, the activists, the young activists, once again into government.

There must be other ways to address the budget cuts we are seeing, but cutting these youth programs is not a part of that solution.

Gracias, and thank you.

Next speaker is Cindy, then Colin Haskins.

Hi, uh Mayor and Council members.

Um I'm here to talk uh to again with everyone else, as that you don't defund uh Yipsey uh and especially with no layoffs to staff.

Um as you can see from the community engagement you're getting this way.

People have a vested interest in their parks uh and the services that Yipsey offers.

Uh I'm a volunteer with Rewild Sacramento.

Um we planted trees in city parks, uh, and many of you have participated in that as well.

On your own and with other groups and throughout the years.

Without Yipsey and sort of uh if we talk a little bit about uh maintenance, which might not be sort of as interesting as some other things until your toilets are overflowing, or the grass is dead, or the trees that you planted are all dead because nobody bothered to water them.

So those are some of the things to think about when you're looking at uh these budget decisions.

Um I noted in the 500-page budget documents that there were some equipment purchases that were proposed.

Perhaps now is not the best time to purchase equipment, although I'm sure it would be wonderful and serve us well.

So that's all I have to say.

Thank you very much.

I have three more speakers.

Colin Haskin, Leslim, then Nancy Azevedo.

Good afternoon, Vice Mayor, Mayor, City Manager, and Council.

My name is Colin Haskin, and I am a proud resident of District 3.

And I'm speaking today from my experience as a student, my experience as president of the College of Democrats of Sacramento State, and as someone who grew up in a small town where programs like Summer at City Hall and Semester at City Hall simply did not exist.

When you grew up with program without programs like these, local government becomes a singular narrative.

By that, I mean there is only one narrow story about who belongs in these spaces, whose voice matters and what is possible.

That kind of narrative shuts people out.

It tells young people, especially those without connections, resources, or proximity to power, the government is not for them.

Without programs like Summer at City Hall and Semester at City Hall, we risk reinforcing that message.

We allow young people to only see the version of leadership, one version of belonging, and one version of who gets invited into the room.

More often than not, the people excluded are the very ones who would benefit from those opportunities the most.

That feeling of distance is not new.

So many underprivileged yet deeply deserving young people in our community already feel disconnected from government and unheard by the local government that is meant to serve them.

That is why programs like these matter so deeply.

Restricting these opportunities cuts future generations off from civic engagement, advocacy, and a chance to see themselves as a part of their own local government.

I urge you not to cut these programs.

In fact, I believe we should one day expand them.

But for now, we must protect the programs of our youth and what they need most.

Please keep summer at City Hall and Semester at City Hall.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon, uh Mayor Council, City Clerk, City Manager.

My name is Lou Slim.

As a city resident, I want to strongly support all the comments that have been made so far in defense of parks programming, which is so vital for health, safety, and to build a strong sense of community.

But I am here primarily as a representative of Ecos and their natural areas team, and so I will focus my comments on the importance of park staffing to protect Sacramento's unique natural resources.

The EGO's Natural Areas team advocates for the strategic and systematic identification, management, and protection of natural areas in Sacramento.

As such a system does not yet exist in our parks plan.

Members of the natural areas team have done extensive work and are intimately familiar with potential natural areas in each council district.

And we would love to bring our expertise into conversation with the council and the city park staff to create a citywide natural areas program and to identify funding sources for this program.

But in order to start talking about exciting new programs that will help Sacramento shine, we must maintain a strong parks department.

We cannot protect our natural spaces without sufficient parks maintenance staff.

Two of our team members, including Tim Benlinski and Steve Schweiger, were unfortunately able to join us today as they are currently at the statewide land trust conference, in part to advocate for augmented city funds.

So I'll read Steve's comments on his behalf.

I'm opposed to further cuts to the youth parks and community engagement department.

If we do not invest in our parks, open space, and people, we will continue to lose competitive advantage in attracting people and investment to our growing region.

Sacramento's park score has fallen from number three in 2013 to number 32 in 2025.

Providing access to nature in the way is the way to improve our society, including public safety.

There is wide public support for increasing our investment in parks and nature-based solutions with Youth Forward's recent public opinion poll showing that 70% of Sacramento voters here comments your time in the case.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nancy Azevedo.

And Nancy is our final speaker on this topic.

The lucky one.

Good afternoon.

My name is Nancy Azevedo.

I'm from District 2.

Um, I urge you to please find another way to uh not cut our parks departments.

Um we have had the hardest time in District 2 trying to maintain our bike trail, which is part of the parkway.

Um we have had multiple in the uh homeless has had been a major issue.

Our park and our bikeway was hit very hard.

I have been a strong advocate for our bike trail.

Um we have been where I've been working on it with a lot of community, and we uh we work too hard to get this done just where we're at.

We're at a place where we're getting it cleaned up and we want to go further.

By cutting anything from Yipsey would just hurt us immensely.

So I urge please keep the parks and maintenance as is, find a way, another solution before cutting personnel, if anything.

Um that would that would depriment uh oh sorry that would hurt our our parks right now.

Thank you.

That concludes our public comment.

Okay, thank you so much to everyone that attended our meeting today.

Uh we will just be discussing asking questions of city staff and then continue deliberations at another date.

Um with that being said, Count Mayor Pro Tem Gera.

Uh thank thank you, uh uh Vice Mayor, and it's not lost on me that we have another council meeting to start that's already 55 minutes in.

Uh, but first let me just uh just thank all of the seniors who came out here today from Hart and from Bell Coolidge here.

Um, you know, I I if there's a question about a live essential service, it is our support for our seniors.

Let's give them a big round of applause.

And I do want to personally thank Antonia who gave me a heads up.

She said, you know, we've got years of organizing in our under our belt, and uh just want to give you preparation, Eric.

And she was right, did not disappoint.

So I do want to appreciate them.

Uh and and I do say that that the support for seniors is life-saving, uh a life essential saving service in the sense that I've watched the the balance programs, I've watched you know how it has created uh a change for many folks.

Um, you know, many of us, you know, and and I know he he's always talked about this, but many of us know Pablo Espinoza and his father was going through uh some uh very challenging issues.

But when he came to the Heart Senior Center, it re just changed his life and had a a wonderful, wonderful, you know, rest of his life.

Uh and uh and as I started off today, also, you know, um uh Miss Josefina uh Davila who uh started 30 years ago to start the the heart the the Manitos program was was part of that and and lived to 103.

So I wanted to correct somebody who said that they serve 16 and 98 year olds.

So it's like no, it's a 16 and 103 year olds.

So I I do think that that is uh uh a critical need that we need to identify that for this.

This is a motivating piece for folks.

Uh it helps them in uh in not only their daily living, um, but I wanted to add also something here that I'd like to ask the city manager to follow up with uh with the heart center and also public works.

Um you know, the the issue with parking in that area is is a significant challenge.

And so, you know, we have we created a general parking program for that area, but for the seniors there at that time, they're they're having a challenge of mobility as well.

So I'd like uh for uh our parking division to sit down with our folks there and discuss what options there are to help with them.

And as one uh as one participant told me, um try try to hust you, try hustling with your walker to the parking meter to try to get to the time frame there.

So even if we could look at time frames, adjustments.

I mean, I think there's solutions we could do.

So if I could ask our public works folks uh to look at that.

Um the uh the other thing I wanted to just uh also thank, I want to thank our my always proud to see fellow hornets, you know, as a proud alumni of Sack State, you know, stingers up, you know, to see them advocating for young people.

In fact, uh that's what got me motivated.

I I came here to um to you know uh uh give uh uh then council member Steve Cohn a tough time about sidewalks and accessibility uh at the council.

So I appreciate them here advocating for the essentials of participation in government uh as well.

Um and um uh I wanted to uh you know uh I think spend a little bit of focus here on you know the the concern that's been brought to me about how we look at our enterprise funds.

And so it was said over and over again that uh no general fund dollars go to um the enterprise fund, and so um uh I think that's important because I don't think those 15 percent reduction exercise um are should be treated the same in that category, especially because when I'm talking when we're discussing life essential services, if you think about every morning we wake up um, you know, and every morning we go to sleep, the first city service that anybody uses is the Department of Utilities, you know, from accessing the water to flushing that toilet, like that is the first service that everyone uses that's a city service, and most importantly, just the the essentials.

I mean, I remember when we had the scare about a certain pipeline that had a a number amount of bacteria, and we had to you know uh give some warnings, like we never want to be in that.

And you saw it today in the in the community survey about the the support for uh and uh and positivity towards the do you um and I do uh appreciate the consideration about where the fund is at and the need to make a rate uh adjustment.

Um most of that adjustment is because of the CIP, the Capital Improvement Program.

Um that is the largest chunk of it.

So I worry about you going too thin here and adjusting that the where we are on that without the the rate structure.

Uh yes, we have to give confidence to the voters that we're managing the the rates well, but um you get too thin on safety, and the outcomes are much more dangerous.

So to me, I think that um, you know, one DOU and our enterprise funds need to be treated separately and uh um and in their need versus the the general fund.

Okay, so that's a comment to the city manager here.

Yeah, can I add some clarification to that?

Maybe the director can also add to this.

Um the reason why we did that exercise because it's my understanding we have utilized all of our reserves.

Correct.

And that and uh as the as a presentation said that uh we that we will utilize or all reserves in the upcoming years if we don't adjust that.

It's not that it's a 15% exercise.

So it's it's that the the fund balance to manage it is I think what 2728 fiscal year.

Yes, so by uh by July uh 2027, uh our fund balance will be in the red if we do not have a rate increase.

Yes, correct.

Correct.

So and to just add, um, none of the enterprise funds were given reduction mandates or targets.

Good very good.

We proactively did the 10% uh goal for DOU.

Yes.

So and to my point in that, again, it's the what you're doing, I think is uh is important to maintain the fund balance, but the bigger costs are in the capital side of the fund.

And uh, and that I and that I think we need to address.

So more to come on that.

I just wanted to make sure that that we make a clear distinction, and I think the vice mayors made that comment before that you know our general fund is separate than our enterprise funds.

So um uh and uh and the one thing about that as well is that there's not there's no AI that's gonna fix the water lines.

There's there's no efficiencies that's gonna get someone out there when uh the water level is high, and we need to make sure that all our sump pumps are working.

So okay, let me go uh stop there.

Um so I I'll leave it there and just say that um when it comes to um I'm going back to the the the point on senior services.

Um man, I I have just seen so much impact on that.

And maybe it's because uh um, you know, uh, you know, now as as we've seen some of our the people who have mentored me and are are in that time frame.

Um those essential services for seniors.

Um and I think about the the needs where the needs are, and we have to balance all the needs, you know.

Zero to five, those kids need a need help, you know.

And then in our end of your life years, that's when people need a lot of help.

So to me, I think about how we have to look at this as well.

We need to make sure that we take of those those considerations.

So I'll stop there and say thank you for the staff for the presentation.

I want to thank our park staff they uh for their work this it's been a lot of work this week.

We did 22 23 trees at Tahoe Park.

We're working on the on the burned out uh park playing ground at Earl Warren Elementary.

We had a community meeting last night.

Like the parks department is endlessly never stopped continuing to work.

The cleanup, I mean, I'm uh I love our bike trails, the the work that they're doing on the on all their bike trails, not just up in uh Norsack, but throughout the city, I think are essential.

So uh want to just say not lost on me on how we need to maintain those services.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem Gera.

Next up, we have Councilmember Jennings.

Thank you very much, uh Vice Mayor.

Um, for many of our seniors that are 70, 80, 90, 95, 98, and I wanted to say that when they were in here because I shook hands with the 98-year-old and the 95-year-old, and it it was special for me because I have a 97-year-old mother-in-law at home, and everything that they said is absolutely true that you have to really help them to not get into a position of isolation so that they can really enjoy their lives.

But they have found these 70, 80, 90 year olds have found a lifeline at Bell Coolidge and at the Heart Center.

They have found their lifeline.

They go there three days a week, two days a week, whatever time.

Those lifelines, you heard them call it, move it or lose it, strength and balancing in all and to help you from falling, pickleball and much, much more.

And the lasting memory that one of them said to us, warned us and said sooner and later you're gonna be us.

And when I look in the mirror, I've already got there.

So also lifelines for our youth.

Summer City Hall, uh semester at City Hall, sports programming, all those things.

So I know right now for myself, I'm not gonna be able to support cuts to our seniors and for our young kids.

I know that the programs are too valuable for them.

They they help them to be able to grow confidence to be able to take positions of leadership to be able to grow into the the adults that we want them to grow into.

I I know that, but I also know that where I may not be able to cut, I may not be able to vote on a cut.

I know also I'm willing to do whatever it takes to raise the money to go back into those kind of programs so that we don't lose our programming.

And that may be mean that we have to go outside of the city of Sacramento and go to some of our supporters and sponsors and all those kinds of things, whatever the case may be, but we need to just make sure that we support our seniors and also our our young people.

And so uh I just wanted to kind of go on record is uh I would have a hard time right now, based on how I feel about cutting for our young people and for our elders.

Um, but I'm committed to doing everything I can to bring that money back so that we can have those kind of programs.

So I know I can count on every last one of you.

Thank you.

Well said, Councilmember Jennings.

Next up, we have council member bang.

Thanks, Vice Mayor.

First, I um just want to take this moment to thank everyone who came to speak today, um, from our youth to our seniors.

Um, I just think it's really important, especially during uh this time when we're discussing budget to understand how city programs have changed your life and continues to change your life.

Um, and so it's really important for us to hear that hear that as uh mayor and council.

And so I want to thank all the speakers that came today, and I also want to thank all the departments um who spoke today and share the work that you're doing in our city.

Uh, you are the backbone of our city.

The city does not run without each and every one of you.

Um, and I know that we have some tough decisions ahead, and I really appreciate y'all coming today to propose uh your baseline proposal, uh, you know, youth parks in community enrichment, uh see uh CDD, finance, human resources, IT, uh DOU, and public works, just thank you so much.

I know it's always tough coming up here to mayor and council and saying, hey, um, this is what we propose, knowing that uh it's gonna hurt the department.

Um I know that that's a challenge for you already as staff and as department leads, knowing that um this is gonna hurt us, right?

And it's up to mayor and council um to to discuss the trade-offs.

So just thank you for doing that.

Um, last week I know we had conversation about how some departments are significantly smaller than others, and we're not applying the 15% across the board as Pete has shared.

Um, but Pete, I did uh wanted to ask you just uh a question uh since this is still kind of early in the budget process, but I noticed that each department did present a proposal uh reduction amount.

Um I wanted to ask, would it be possible for you to come back and share what percentage those reduction actually represent relative to each department's base proposal?

Yeah, for sure.

So every department, as you mentioned, proposed up to 15%, and what we can do is put together the amount that comprises the baseline, so you can see what that looks like.

Yeah, that would be great.

I mean, I I don't I'm already against doing the 15 across the board, but I just noticed quickly when I was um scanning last week's presentation to this week's presentation that there's a huge percentage difference between PD and Yep C.

Like PD proposes 7.1 in reductions for a 225 million PD budget, and Yepsi was proposing a 4.8 billion uh 4.8 million in reductions for a 65 million Yipsey budget.

I know that um there's some offsetting costs and all of that too, but I just wanted to see it and have a better understanding of like the deeper percentage cuts of of Yep Captain.

Uh yeah, for sure.

So what we'll do is we'll show uh what the 15% target was for everyone, what was in the the amount that is in the baseline, and then uh what percentage the baseline amount represents, so you can kind of see how it compares.

Yeah, that would be great.

Thank you so much.

That's the only question I have for you.

Yeah, if I could just add it, you know, one of the things that we were trying to do, um, we didn't look at it necessarily department by department.

It was trying to look at it across all departments, strategy by strategy, and the various levels in terms of three and fours, right?

Exactly.

Absolutely.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Um, and then I know uh just on the same topic.

Um, last week we had police and fire presented, and again, I'm gonna keep reminding uh mayor and council that there was a resolution passed in 2020 before I was on the city council that redefined public safety to move beyond traditional services.

And uh while today folks may not consider it to be public safety, I absolutely um include uh Yipsey and Youth Center and senior preventative services as part of the public safety strategy.

Um last year, this mayor and council voted uh to have three priorities as council.

Um, one is economic development, housing and homelessness, and public safety.

And I just want to take this moment to highlight something that is often overlooked when we talk about public safety.

One of the most critical public safety services in any city, it's its parks and its recreational department.

If we are serious about public safety, then we need to invest in youth programming.

We need structure activities like prime teen and staffing to support some are at City Hall to keep our young people engaged, supported.

Um that's really key, right?

And if we want safer neighborhoods, then we need safe and welcoming, safe spaces for our seniors, places where they can stay active, connected, and protected from isolation.

If we are committed to reducing youth violence, then that means we cannot be cutting programs because it's actually risking us, you know, uh give as actually is a risk factor when we do that as a city.

Um, and so for me, prevention is public safety, community is public safety, and access to our community center and our parks is public safety.

And on the parks piece in particular, I just also wanted to uplift that I would love for the mayor and council uh to explore a potential park bond this year if if feasible.

I know that last year in conversation, I have had meeting with their assistant city manager Laney Um Jackie from Yipsey, Councilmember Plucky Baum, Vice Mayor Talamantes, and we had several meetings last year to talk about pooling to see if a potential park bond would be feasible.

And we did do that polling, and it actually pulled really well.

And I just want to put that on record.

And so I would love it if budget and audit could have a conversation and look at this poll.

Uh, it was a pool that was funded by the community, but those questions that guided the poll actually came from city staff.

And so I want to make an ask uh to our mayor and council and to our budget and audit to take a look at uh this pool because if it's pulling well, and I know our parks have so much deferred maintenance, and if it is doing well, then we should really explore this because it's not just about cuts, but how are we also gonna bring in revenue to protect our critical park uh services?

So I wanted to share that.

Um and then on the ODE office, I also want to center the important work that we're doing to advance racial equity across the city.

Um there's only three staff, and I know they work incredibly hard to build staff capacity and to ensure uh that this work is implemented citywide, not just in theory, right?

Because we're just beginning to implement our racial equity uh resolution.

Um and for me, and as I saw on the slides, a limiting this position would actually halt the progress before we have really started to take root.

And so um, you know, this position is really essential for me to make sure that we can actually carry out and support the work of the other two staff.

I think that is so key.

Um, they already so limited in staff capacity, and I want to make sure that as we're doing this work that this position is uh protected.

Um, and it can't just be a one-time effort, it requires um sustained commitment because I know every year we're gonna come back, and that position is gonna be on the chopping block, and I'm gonna have to defend it every single year.

Um, so really just want to put that on record um and advocate uh for that position because if we are serious about racial equity, especially in these really trying times, and we want to build that capacity for city staff citywide, we have to invest in the people responsible for doing the work.

Um, and then lastly, uh I know this conversation is gonna happen next month, May and June, but I would just urge my colleagues that as we have these conversations, um, and it's gonna be a few more weeks until we get months until we get to June, but before we cut any real people and position, we need to seriously look at vacancies.

Um, and that includes PD as well, because choosing to keep these unfilled positions while cutting real people and critical youth and senior services is a budget that I will and cannot support.

And I think taking away resources from children and families cannot be how our city leans into our values.

And yes, I know that you know we have to look at the PD vacancies, and there's like the issue on overtime, but I am not willing to cut a person who's taking home a paycheck, who's feeding their family, putting a roof over their head before we before we decide we want to cut a vacant position, right?

I rather cut a vacant position than before limiting someone taking home a paycheck.

And so that's just my position on the budget um overall, and um uh and I I want to share, I want to share that with my colleagues tonight.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

Next up, we have Councilmember Kaplan.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um, I think holistically, what I'm starting to see is where possible having the city look at where we may have vacant positions or expediency is there where um I hate to say the word AI, but somebody who can answer the phone.

If we have vacancies in 311 is is safe, can savings be realized by by utilizing artificial intelligence to fill the gaps so that we keep the same amount of service that we're looking for.

Um and I mean a lot of people do things online.

I still think we need to have limited some amount of in-person time that people can come in, but I also understand the man hours and having people and looking at you got a fill out online or process online and look at as I know the city is already doing efficiencies.

When do people really come and use that time?

And and if we were to reduce hours, does that make sense?

You know, because there's a cost benefit, and I think what's partly missing is we're saying statements, but I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Um, and and I know that's hard when you look at the data.

How do you really measure that?

But I think there's some way, like for me as we look at this, because none of these options are good, and I don't like any of them, but having a little bit of data that may justify if we um I'm not saying we should because seniors and our youth essential, but if there are some hours that have to be reduced, we've done it based off data that we know that you know only five percent come at this time and we can redirect them elsewhere.

Um, because we really do when we look at um as as council member bang and Jennings said, when we look at our seniors, that's actually economic development.

That's public safety, that's health, that's housing because when they're active, it's keeping them out of the hospital.

You know, uh they're they're healthy, they're not calling 911 to get transported to the hospital because it is keeping them healthy, and it is also making sure that we are keeping our our um our city safe.

Uh economic development um really is summer at City Hall.

If we are looking at for the next generation of leaders, people need to know, and our youth need to know what actually happens at City Hall and how you make a city run.

Um I'm concerned about the reduction in special events because that's economic development, and that's one of our priorities.

When we look at that, are there ways to streamline it and make it maybe so it's not as intensive, but still look at economic development where we have our youth and and and special events?

Uh I am uh I am very concerned that we would lose and cut any of our parks maintenance staff.

They are some of the lowest paid in the city, and they are living paycheck to paycheck, and that is just not something that knowing that an individual who uh is part of our parks maintenance staff uh would be on the chopping block.

I'm willing to look at a bunch of other things, but um knowing that somebody who is the lowest paid among us who is already hard hit by the economy and everything else would lose a job.

I don't think um is in the best interest of the city and what the residents want.

Um I really appreciate all that building and code is doing to streamline uh with everything that you, the mayor and council member plucky bomb are doing on streamlining, but I am concerned.

One of the items was we know housing is a priority, so how can we eliminate the stipend that helps close the gap for affordable housing?

When we already have a affordable housing gap, why are we eliminating things that would actually get us more affordable housing?

So there's a balance um in that.

And then um I'm really supportive of public works.

They are 86% restricted uh enterprise-based.

They are finding innovative ways to uh make it to a hundred, but 100% we should not touch our our quick build emergency response team that we set up that is making our streets safer and making a difference around our schools and our communities that for too long had to wait for years for street improvements.

Well, the state may be cutting us.

I think this is a priority um at the city that I would hope that we could keep.

And I'm a lot of me too on my other colleagues, but thank you to the staff for all that you were able to do.

Thank you so much.

And then I have a few questions.

One for parks.

I think Jackie.

Uh one of my questions is for last year.

I know we did a scholarship fund uh to offset the increasing cost in our community centers.

How much money of the dollars that we allocated were used?

Ooh, that is a great question.

So we did provide a sub a um supplemental budget inquiry response to that.

Let me put up here.

I'm pretty sure we did 500,000 dollars last year, didn't we?

Or was it 250?

Do you how much did you provide?

Yeah.

For the scholarship fund?

We will look at that.

We did get the um we did apply for measure L funds though to enhance a scholarship funds.

So we have um a significant amount of funding to um continue funding a scholarship fund for the next several years.

Okay.

Yeah, and you guys can get back to me.

I'm just curious to see if it was utilized uh in you know, wanted to make sure we're taking oh Pete.

That will be um uh Yipsey did submit the SBI, it will be published with the next uh budget report.

But I just don't have it in front of me right now.

But for last year, can you guys just get back to me on how much money was used from that fund that we allocated?

Okay, and then uh for our parks, I know I get a lot of concerns in my community about the high cost of using the rooms to be able to do small community meetings, and that is a concern for me, so I guess it's a budget addition that I want to explore because like I don't think it should cost like 250 dollars to be able to reserve reserve a room for an hour if community leaders just want to meet.

So if you can look into that, that would be great and get back to me on what that would cost.

So we currently have the um community center fee waiver and fee reduction program, and that's one of the strategies that is on here to reduce that program by half.

So it currently allows a 100% um waiver or 50% discount for qualifying uses.

Um we would reduce that in half, so either 50% discount or 25% discount, depending on the use.

For youth organizations, there would be no impact, they could continue using utilizing the youth program scholarship fund, but there would be an impact to non-youth organizations.

Um so we didn't touch any fees this year, but unless we um if if that strategy is selected, then there would be an impact uh to non-youth organizations.

Okay, well then I'm I guess against reduction reducing that.

So uh and then this is probably a question for the city manager.

That's about it, Jackie.

And just kind of my train of thought is you know, we have contracts that come here for the parks department, for example, like the tree trimmers.

And in the past, we've gone over back and forth whether to keep that in-house, but then we don't have capacity, so then we contract it out, and that's like six million dollar contracts that come to council.

Oh, or for example, uh two weeks ago, uh, I voted no on the consultant to help us track the Sacramento Children's Fund dollars, uh, because I thought that that could be done in-house.

I'd be curious to see how many contracts we have per department on consultants or like outside agencies that are supplementing the work that our city staff are doing.

And oh Pete.

Oh, uh sure vice mayor.

So we do have a list of contracts.

We're going to include that with um the SBIs.

So uh those will all come with um the next report for the 24th.

Oh, okay.

Um so we will have the contracts that the city's gone into for the last five years.

Um it might take a little bit more digging to get to uh the specifics around what is supplementing, but we can kind of give the high level this is a counterparty, this is the amount, this is the service, this is a department.

Oh, wonderful, so it could be attached to departments.

Correct.

That's wonderful.

Okay, thank you so much.

I'm really excited to see that.

Thank you, Pete.

And then my only other request is I've seen on social media that our revenue counter is closed, and sometimes it's closed on Mondays and Fridays, and we shouldn't make it difficult for people to come make payment uh this morning.

I know I saw like 15 people outside, so uh I I mean one of the issues we've had with that is staffing, but I will work with our new revenue division manager to see if you know maybe it's more days but fewer hours a day.

Because I I agree with you, we want to make it as as easy as possible to pay us.

Yeah, yeah, because uh and when we used to my brother and I used to own a business and we'd come and sometimes it'd be really tough to pay our BOT.

And so uh that'd be great.

Okay, that's about it for me.

Is there any other colleagues?

Nope, we're good to go.

Okay, is there any public comment for matters not on the agenda?

I have um one speaker, Michael Melton.

Is Michael still here?

I don't believe he is, no.

Okay, so we do have a 5 p.m.

and IT needs a few minutes to be able to uh close this meeting out and start the next one.

So we'll take a five-minute break.

630.

So 630.

And this meeting is adjourned at 624.