Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to the Sacramento LAFCO meeting.

I want to call the meeting to order at 5 34 p.m.

Thank you very much.

I am have the honor of serving as chair this year.

My name is Lisa Kaplan.

I also serve the city of Sacramento as you'll see my feather fellow commissioners here.

We are locally elected who are designated by our agencies to serve on LAFCO.

Our role is to oversee boundary changes of cities and special districts, the formation of new agencies, including the incorporation of new cities, districts, and the consolidation or reorganization of special districts and cities.

The broad goals of the commission's directive are to ensure the orderly formation of local government agencies, preserve agriculture and open space lands, and to discourage urban sprawl.

Commissions must by law create municipal service reviews, MSRs, and update spheres of influence for each independent local government jurisdiction within their countywide jurisdictions.

Our meetings are always open to the public, and regularly scheduled meetings are shown live on Metro Cable Channel 14.

Web class live on Metro Cable TV and post it on the county's website.

Comments are welcome.

So please complete a speaker slip and return it to the county clerk up here, Miss Washington.

And time will be limited to two minutes per person to keep the meeting timely.

And we ask that you address your comments and questions to the commissions and don't turn around and talk to the audience.

So thank you very much.

Um I would now like to ask our clerk to call the roll and establish a quorum.

Thank you, madam chair.

Commissioners Little, Moore.

Hume here.

Desmond, Pratton, and Chair Kaplan.

Here.

You have a quorum with the members that are present.

Thank you.

Um do we have any meeting statements we need to make besides what I made?

Yes, ma'am.

This meeting of the Sacramento Local Agency Formation Commission is live and recorded with closed captioning.

It is cable cast on Metro Cable Channel 14, the local government affairs channel on the Comcast and Direct TV Uverse Cable Systems.

It is also live streamed at Metro 14 Live.satCounty.gov.

Today's meeting replays Saturday, August 9th at 2 p.m.

on Metro Cable Channel 14.

Once posted, the recording of this meeting can be viewed on demand at YouTube.com forward slash Metro Cable 14.

The Sacramento Local Agency Formation Commission fosters public engagement during the meeting and engages public participation, civility, and use of courteous language.

The board does not condone the use of profanity, vulgar language, gestures, or other inappropriate behavior, including personal attacks or threats directed toward any meeting participant.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to make a public comment and are limited to making one comment per agenda or off agenda item.

Please be mindful of the public comment procedures to avoid being interrupted or disconnected while making your comment.

To make a comment in person, please fill out a speaker request form and hand it to the clerk's staff.

The chairperson will open public comments for each agenda or off agenda item and direct the clerk to call the name of each speaker.

When the clerk calls your name, please come to the podium and make your comment.

If a speaker is unavailable to make a comment prior to the closing of public comments, the speaker waves their request to speak.

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The clerk will manage his timer and allow each speaker two minutes to make a comment.

You may send written comments by email to board clerk at SACCounty.gov.

Your comment will be routed to the board and filed in the record.

If you need an accommodation pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act or for medical or other reasons, please see clerk staff for assistance or contact the clerk's office at 916-874-5451 or by email at Board Clerk at SACCounty.gov.

Thank you in advance for your courtesy and understanding of the meeting procedures.

This concludes your announcement.

Thank you.

I'd like to do the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

If you can and you're able, please stand.

Pledge.

I think of the United States of the mayor and requirement for which it stands.

One nation under a individual with liberty and justice.

That does always remind us of which I shall as well.

Put our cell phones on silence.

Uh clerk, can you read the first item, please?

The first item is public comments matters not on the agenda.

Do we have any public comments that have been submitted?

We do not have any public comments.

All right, we'll now move on to the next item.

The next item is approval of the consent calendar items two through eight.

Do we have any comments or questions on the consent calendar?

Commissioners.

Do we have any public comments for consent?

We do not have any public comments.

Commissioner Little.

I move uh approval of the consent.

I'll second.

Move by Little, second by Jones.

Shall we vote?

You may vote.

Your motion passes unanimously.

Thank you so much.

Now moving on to our next item.

Item number nine is public hearing to consider and approve the environmental review and the annexation of 3330 and 3334 U Street into the Sacramento Area Sewer District LAFCO project number 2025-01.

Madam Chair, your policy analyst will handle this presentation.

Hello.

Hello, good evening, Commissioners.

My name is Christy Grabo.

I'm one of your policy analysts.

Tonight I'm presenting to you an annexation request.

The project descriptions and annexation of two vacant residential parcels into the Sacramento Area Sewer District, andor sax sewer.

The CEQA document for this project is a notice of exemption.

Here's an aerial photo of the sites.

Um both parcels are located in the orange.

It's three uh 3330 and 3334 U Street.

It's located in the unincorporated Sacramento County in the community of North Highlands.

The nearest intersection is Watt Avenue and Antelope Road.

Here is a map of the current Saks Sewer service area, and again highlighted are the parcels.

The parcels are located in the Sax Sewer sphere of influence already.

Um the key points to this project is the property is not connected to sewer, and the property owner wants to construct two single-family homes on each parcel.

Um, and in order to build, they either need a septic tank or a connection to sewer.

So SACS sewer will coordinate with the property owner on providing the requirements needed to acquire service.

The project is consistent with government code 5668 and LAFCO policies.

Some determinations of the project is that it is a landowner petition application.

Uh the territory that's being proposed to be included in Saks Sewer service area will uh reduce a whole um and it'll create a more logical and orderly boundary.

Uh the project will not negatively impact the adequacy or the cost of service in the area, and um the project will not affect agricultural or open space lands, and um, the project will not result in decrease of water supply available for regional housing needs.

As such, um BACO or I'm sorry, staff is recommending that the commission approve the project.

First uh is a resolution to determine that the project is exempt from CEQA.

The second resolution is for the annexation request.

Um, and then recommendation for the EO to complete all the necessary filings and transmittals as required by the by law, and determine that the approval date is five working days after the EOS certificate of compliance is recorded by the county recorder's office.

Um the property owner is here for any questions, but um staff is available for any questions as well.

That completes staff's presentation.

Thank you so much, Miss Graybo.

Uh, do we have any public comments on this item?

We do not have public comments.

Commissioners, any questions?

And Miss Grabo, this is just consistent with everything and any annexation we've done before, so there's nothing unique.

Okay, commissioners, motion.

Madam Chair, I so move.

Move by Jones, second by Desmond.

Shall we vote?

We shall vote.

Your ability to be unanimous with the members present.

Thank you so much.

Congratulations to the property owners.

Next item, madam clerk.

Madam Chair, item number 11 is invitation by the grand jury to respond to their report on the city of Isleton.

I'm sorry.

Correction item number 10, discussion on the state of cemetery services in the county.

Correct.

Thank you.

Turn too many pages.

We're really eager to have that discussion.

We're eager to have this discussion.

So Madam Chair and members of the commission, this uh item is before you.

It started off with a request from Mr.

Velasquez for the for the commission to consider prioritizing cemetery districts and and to connect our MSR ahead of others.

The commission asked actually to have a broader discussion on the state of cemeteries, and so uh this is what's uh before you now.

Wanted to um state a few things before we hear from our guests uh in the audience.

Um the first thing is that the because of the sheer amount of agencies that the commission has to review as part of the municipal service review plan, you've actually broken them into two separate categories.

And uh you have a five-year plan that starts this year, and then you have a second five-year plan that'll start in 2030.

And in that time, 2030, not 2030, uh, and in that time you'll be reviewing different types of districts.

Generally speaking, for this um for this cycle, um, or for this phase, you're looking at water districts and fire districts, and then uh you're looking at other types of districts in the second phase or the second cycle of the of the MSR project plan with the districts of um, sorry, with the park and recreation districts split between the two cemeteries are part of this phase, this first five-year phase.

Um, but since 2021, the direction that the commission has given to staff is look at water districts.

Um, and in that respect, uh staff has has looked at it both as part of the project plan, but also as part of other things that have come up to your attention thanks to the grand jury and other um uh in other dynamics.

Um so prioritizing the cemetery districts to be higher basically means moving them up uh ahead of the queue in front of the water districts in the front of fire districts, and so that actually has repercussions.

While most likely we could um uh outsource the creation of the cemetery districts, it doesn't mean the staff is basically not touching it.

The reality is um some of the things that you don't observe as part of the back office um processing is that staff still has to create an RFP.

Staff still has to evaluate the the responses to that RFP, negotiate some things, either that's part of their response or the cost or both, and then once uh once a um a consultant is selected, we still do a lot of coordination.

Um while the consultant is working, we still provide information to the consultant.

We're still involved, it's not completely hands off, uh, and then we have to review the report product to make sure that it's something that is um that is presentable to the public and that it meets all the government requirements.

So um a consultant doesn't necessarily put staff off the hook.

Um, and so the question before you is um what priority should it be vis a vis, everything else that you have going.

Um, and um as part of the background and it's an introduction to the presenters.

Um in Sacramento County, there's a combined total of 60 active cemetery districts that um that are still functioning, and they're a combination of private and public.

Uh in terms of the total number of cemetery districts, as you mean the inactive districts.

Uh it's something close to 126.

127.

Um, and uh that would include I'm sure a substantial number of pioneer cemetery districts that were probably um uh some family plot where the family members are are buried, and so again, that would be a private cemetery that's that's closed and not and not functioning.

Public cemetery services in Sacramento County are provided by by public cemeteries.

No city or county currently provides an active uh cemetery district, although some jurisdictions maintain uh closed cemeteries, like for example, Sacramento County has several memorial parks that are more like parks rather than an active cemetery site.

Um so uh in um in preparation for uh for this workshop or this open house, this discussion item.

Essentially uh uh staff contacted uh all four cemetery districts, and uh on page two of your staff report uh we listed basically hey, could you talk about these things to provide background to the commission in terms of a state of your cemetery districts?

Um, out of the four, three are prepared to present uh before you.

Um they'll be presented in the order in which we received um their um their um well we'll actually go by alpha.

So first it'll be um Fair Oaks Cemetery District, followed by Sylvan, and then uh Elkrav Casumness will also um speak to you, but they do not have a formal presentation.

And then in addition, we've also asked Mr.

Velasquez uh to present, and then as well as Brian Hughes, who has served as uh counsel for our cemetery districts, um, and he has also has prepared a presentation.

So we'll be hearing from from those folks.

Um and without further ado, I'd like to invite the representatives from Fair Oak Cemetery District.

Welcome.

How's that gonna work?

All right, I'll push this button.

Like that.

Okay.

Well, thank you very much for having us uh here.

I appreciate that.

We are a complete board is here as well as the district manager and the Misty, our administrative assistant who really runs the place.

So, uh without further ado, we'll go through this uh presentation.

Uh this uh this is um a basic overview of how the cemetery is right now, and uh it has to do with the history.

I'd rather get into some of the more current details than just focus on the history right now.

So I'm gonna slide through this.

Um the district boundary, which we'll see on the left there, shows our current district boundaries, and you'll see Fair Oaks, if you can see closely, is right in the middle of the upper center portion of that boundary.

So it's quite extensive, as you can see.

Uh we have three full-time employees, we have a district manager, we have a district foreman, and we have an office manager.

And we have three temps that we have gone through over the years, and uh we have a lot of confidence.

Our manager will tell you they have confidence in the uh quality of these employees.

We currently have a board of five trustees.

Um I'm the chair.

Uh Carolyn Flood has been a board member for many years.

Don Newfeld has been more board member for quite a few years, and John Oldham and uh Evan Curry are relatively new.

Uh, this is their first year.

We have two community events every year.

We have a Memorial Day event, which has been going on for a long time.

It's a greatly, it's a great uh event that the public really likes.

Um we put up um many many flags and crosses and stars uh at certain graves and throughout the cemetery, and we have speakers such as Supervisor Desmond, uh as well as other dignitaries uh locally that presented this every year, and it's uh really um beloved event in the community.

Our current state of us uh of the cemetery, you can see here we have total burials uh as of uh June 30th of this year is over 15,000.

Uh we have about 200 burials a year.

Uh and uh right now the plots available, we have uh 427 or a four to five year future uh for caskets and a five uh 971 or a nine to ten year future for cremations.

We have developed a 10 year plan, and uh we are under some constraints because of our financial situation.

Not that it's hopeless, but it's tight, and we do our best to stretch every dollar we get in.

Because we are landlocked, uh we do need uh additional land that uh we would like to obtain uh sooner rather than later.

Uh we have a budget of um just under a million dollars.

Uh we have um included 89,000 a year for land uh for the last five years.

Uh the average income over the last five years, you see from tax revenues it's 271,000.

Sales revenues is the bulk of our um income, and that's um for a total of uh slightly over 800,000.

We have expenditures of 717,000 uh over the last five years.

So you can see that we're running a tight ship.

Revenue funds, first and foremost, the tax revenue we currently receive does not cover the salaries of our three essential employees, and this shortfall presents an ongoing operational challenge.

You can see uh we're gonna leave you with a copy of this so you can see some of the other uh issues that we have regarding funding.

This is the map that is of extreme importance.

Uh Supervisor Desmond has seen this.

I believe um Ms.

Jones has seen this also.

Uh so you'll see this large green line is our current boundary of our cemetery district.

The purple line, which is in the upper center of that, is the original footprint for our cemetery district.

The pink spaces, in fact, are the TRAs or the tax revenue areas that are currently contributing to our cemetery.

Um it's uh a little puzzling, but some of those uh pink areas are outside even our original footprint.

And you'll see there's one tiny one to the far left that I'm not sure how that got in there.

We've talked to the tax assessor, we talked to the auditor, we've talked to many different people about how this is developed like this, and nobody seems to have an answer.

I do know that back in the 50s and 60s, the only parcels you could purchase in Fair Oaks were five-acre parcels.

And I'm not sure because again, this is from the 50s, so records are difficult to come by, but I would imagine that those large parcels were all contributing to our cemetery district, and then when they were subdivided into quarter-acre lots or parcels, maybe the original one was retained, but the other 19 out of the 20 were not.

So we're in this uh challenging situation right now.

We weren't even aware of this because for years we were covering we were charging all the people within our geographic footprint our lower rate when in fact they were not in fact contributing.

And in some cases, the reverse was true.

We thought they weren't in our original footprint, so we were charging them the higher you know rate, and they were contributing.

So it's an interesting situation, and I've alerted other um special districts to this um anomaly and hope that they would go back to see, and in fact, they're just assuming like it would be easy to do that everybody in their footprint would be contributing.

So I I'm not sure if that's the case or not, but I think would be of interest to the other cemetery districts.

You have any questions about this?

What before we move on?

Yes.

Yeah, and so um you mentioned how or the suspicion or how the uh parcels outside the district got in, but then why is there?

I assume that that's the boundary of your district, and there's a lot of parcels within the district that are not colored pink, right?

Yeah, right.

Uh well, who's to say?

We've talked to the county assessor about this.

They said they're told what TRAs to break down the one percent in your real estate tax, you know, that goes to Sacramento County.

Yeah.

And they said, Well, they're we're just instructed by LAFCO on who gets to you know contribute and who doesn't.

So, and I talked uh and Mr.

Enriquez and I have talked about this, and they said, Well, no, this is just not something we told them do this, don't do this, charge these people, don't charge those people.

So it's really uh one of those things because it happened so many years ago.

Uh our boundary was extended not recently.

Um so it's a it's a um try these, try talking with the county, try talking with the county assessor, try talking with the auditor, try to so we talked to all these different people, and uh nobody has a definitive answer, but what we'd like is not to go back and change everything from in years past, but we'd like to have something stable moving forward so we can get uh an appropriate uh tax revenue from those people in our district.

Well, and I would assume the issue is not just one of revenue, but also of providing the service in that if one of those persons passes away who's in the pink area outside the district, right?

You might deny them the use of the cemetery, not them specifically, but yeah, uh or the the obverse would be true, and you have somebody within the district who hasn't been paying in, who would be allowed.

What we do now, since we've discovered this uh situation is for everyone who comes in and is of interest on either buying a plot or using a plot they purchased in the past or something like that.

We ask them what's your address?

Where do you live?

And then we go to our map and find out on the TRAs have they been a contributor or not.

And then in some cases, they're very happy because they didn't know they were, but in fact they are.

In other cases, not so much because they thought they were, but they're not.

So we have to go case by case as these people come in.

And it's a very the cemetery is in high demand because it's very beautiful.

People want to come in and uh uh use our facility.

Commissioner Desmond.

Thank you, uh Madam Chair.

And and Pete, thank you for for being here.

And you and I have had many conversations about this, extremely frustrating for the district, and no one can really understand how this evolved the way it did.

I'm sure this is an anomaly in the state of California.

I'd like to act ask Jose if you can shed any light on this, and if you have any ideas on how we can address this.

Well, um I'll start the how we got here.

Uh I reviewed the documents that existed from the original enlargement of the district.

And there's uh there's a I'll tell you what's on the record, and I can speculate the other stuff, but what's on the record is that um as part of the LAFCO process when you're adjusting the boundaries, you go through what's called the ABA process or the property tax exchange process.

And for an agency such as a cemetery district that relies on property taxes, there's a negotiation to recalculate the formula or the allocation of the property taxes as Mr.

Hirschman had indicated.

Uh, as you know, Prop 13 essentially caps the uh property tax amount that you can collect from each property uh to one percent of the value at the time of the property exchange hands, and then the agencies that want a share of that property tax dollar, there's a formula that basically allocates a certain percentage.

And it's a closed because you can't increase the number of that you can collect, it's a closed system.

For a new agency to receive a portion of the property tax, other agencies have to lose.

So that's the background on on property taxes.

And when the district, when Fair Oaks is expanded, what's on the record is that the LAFCO and the county had indicated that there was not going to be a change of property taxes on the newly annexed areas, that the formula would remain the same.

They had requested that the district essentially adopt a resolution saying that they understood that and that they agreed with it, that strict never did.

So the annexation proceeded without the reformulation of the property tax formula.

Um that's what's on the record.

I can only speculate what happened in the in in the background, but that's what's on the record.

Um so that was a uh a research that I made at the request of Commissioner Desmond about what happened at the time.

Um that's what's there.

I actually tried contacting my predecessor uh who was the executive officer at the time he never returned my call so um that's that's what it is now what can we do on the going forward basis lafco can there are very limited ways in which you can open reopen the formula of of the property tax allocation a change in boundary is one of them that's probably the most popular one to do it there's other provisions within the revenue tax code 99 that allows you to reopen up the formula without lafco involvement but it essentially means that all of the agencies agree to reopen the the allocation and the chances of that do if of that happening um probably winning the lotto is is is a higher you have better odds um so the lafco options are limited there's one that that um I'm not sure if I'm ready to to to say anything about it but the what I can say is that essentially on the on the lafco front unless you're changing the boundary there isn't a way really to reopen up the the formula or from a LAFCO standpoint and even if you do reopen the the the the boundary it's only in the area that's affected can you reallocate it?

So you can't just let's say well we're gonna detach this little teeny tiny portion on the west side and that'll open up the property tax allocation formula for the remainder of the district you can't do that.

The revenue tax code is very specific that it's only in the area that's affected can you reopen that the property tax formula.

Commissioner so it and just have you seen this before with special because I mean when you break it down to its most basic terms the district expanded its service area dramatically did not expand its revenue in any way shape or form yet is still obligated to serve all the people in this much larger area and that cost is now borne by the people who have been paying an assessment on their property tax all these years.

I mean am I misstating that that no that's a situation have you seen this with other districts that expanded throughout the state it just seems how could this happen?

Not to this extreme and it has happened in other parts of the state um my previous counties that I worked in Yolo and El Dorado that's happened as well but not to this extreme where you've it you've folded the or you increase the size of the district multiple times over its original footprint without um without really addressing the formula and not really knowing at the time lafco law was the Cortesi Knox actually it was early 80s wasn't it so that was Knox Nisbit.

Yeah so it was Knox Nisbit I don't know I the enough about Knox Nisbit to tell you what the requirements are but I can tell you that from Cortesian Oxford now this wouldn't fly simply because whenever you're looking at a change of boundary for a district it has to be um revenue neutral is not the right word but basically you have to be receiving as much revenue for the cost of increasing cost of the of extending services so it has to be reciprocal and the law does not allow such a one sided annexation this way.

If I can just to add on that though I might want to remind you that even if the boundaries change and the tax um formula is reopened the parties must agree and the county must agree to the reallocation and as some of you know and and maybe reminded that it's often hard to get existing districts or the county to give up the formula because it's not like there's an increased tax overall the total tax amount remains constant.

What gets reopened is the distribution formula and I it is very common that for other types of districts even if you're annexed to a special district, the county does not agree to a reallocation of the tax formula.

So it's kind of a two-step process you're incorporat you you you the district boundaries change, and then the tax formula has to be changed.

Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not.

Okay.

Thank you.

One last question if is there a mechanism where whereby the cemetery district, if a resident who says a property owner in the district dies and wants to take advantage of the services of the cemetery district?

Is there any mechanism where the cemetery cemetery district can levy a charge against that person's property?

I mean, I'm just I don't know, yeah, top of my head.

Is there any other avenue for the cemetery district?

That is beyond my uh that is beyond my ability to respond.

Um I kind of feature.

You know that there the district is within its rights to have uh a fee schedule and create the fee schedule based upon the circumstances.

So like Mr.

Hirschman had indicated, if you're in the pink area, you um you can uh, you know, you you pay a certain rate because you've been paying as part of your portion of property taxes have been going to maintaining the district.

If you're in the purple area, you might pay a different a differential rate, and then if you're in the green area, you might pay it uh a different rate.

So they're within their their ability and under the law that they can charge different amounts even if they are all district residents.

Right, but the issue is ongoing revenue.

Correct, okay, thank you.

And I just want to follow up, thank you, Commissioner Desmond.

That was actually one of my questions.

Was it legal if they have differential costs?

Just in the meantime, something to consider for the board to consider.

Um, and then I don't know if the question had been asked, and it's okay if we don't know now, but I get all parties have to agree, but what about when you have the sale of property, which then the property tax gets reassessed?

If at that reassessment you can still pull in a property at a time.

No, um, the reality is that as Ms.

Gillick had uh explained every Mr.

Hirschmann indicated there's a tax rate area.

What the tax rate area is is essentially it designates what the allocation is of that property tax dollar.

And so the resident really they will continue to pay taxes based upon when they bought it, how much they bought it, blah blah blah, but it's always a one percent of the value of when they purchase that property.

What the tax rate area is basically tells the uh the assessor is that okay, we're collecting this amount of money, but it's allocated with this formula, and so an exchange of property doesn't change the formula, the formula remains the same.

Thank you.

Thought I'd ask that, and then always I'm sure you guys have people smarter than I.

If somebody wants to, this opens up Pandora's box of it was a good question.

I thought that's a good question.

Other potential lawsuits of treating taxing entities differently within a jurisdiction, you know, and how uh that applies.

Right.

So don't know that, but wow, what a conundrum.

Um one other thing I'd like to include before I sit down.

I'm gonna show you this partnerships.

We've been a long established district within our community.

We have tremendous interdependence with other partnerships with other districts, or not districts, but organizations within Fair Oaks.

It's a great community, as Supervisor Desmond has come to know.

Um, and we when I was uh president of our rotary club, my theme was building bridges.

I want to build bridges.

I'm gonna work with LAFCO.

I want to work with the county, I want to work with as many people as we can to solve the problems.

I don't want to go off, I don't want to alienate people.

We are interested in collaboratively figuring out how we're gonna handle the situation.

It's not easy, but it's absolutely we are very hopeful that there's some avenues that we're gonna be able to carve our solution out of, and um so this is what we want to will continue to do.

And I appreciate uh LAFCO's participation in this and I and the commission.

You guys, I really appreciate you guys too.

Thank you.

You've done the four-way test and rotary proud.

Thank you.

And Madam Chair, I'd like to appreciate uh like to uh uh apologize to Mr.

Shorter.

I kept calling you by the wrong name.

I'm sorry.

You did.

No COVID, I'll I'll behave.

Okay.

Very good.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, next I'd like to uh invite the representatives from Sylvan um cemetery District.

Good evening, Commissioners.

My name's Cindy Price, I'm General manager for Sylvan Cemetery, and I thank you for this opportunity to review the state of Sylvan Cemetery District.

Little quick fun history facts.

Of the four cemetery districts in Sacramento County, Sylvan Cemetery District is the oldest established in 1862 with a tenth of an acre donated by Daniel Lewis.

We expanded from there.

We were a freight wagon, freight wagon stop, the route to the gold country.

The next slide is kind of hard to read.

The original deed was consumed by fire, and in 1893, the board, this deed was made by the Board of Trustees, and we still have it in our office to this day.

So an overview of Sylvan Cemetery District, you can see Citrus Heights there is the only portion of our district that we get the property taxes from with a much larger sphere of influence.

So we have three office staff employees, myself as general manager, our office manager Brenda, who's here tonight, and our administrator who oversees the bookkeeping and board secretary.

We have five full-time, two part-time grounds crew.

Our foreman is here tonight, Pavel is here.

Nice tight ship.

We have a vacant board position at this time.

Three of our four acting board members are here.

Jim Monteaton, our chairman, who also serves on our finance committee.

Uh Tony Rago, who's a trustee and also serves on our finance committee, and Mike Cheney, our newest trustee.

We too have a couple yearly events that we host, our Memorial Day service and our Veterans Day service.

It's very well attended by our citrus heights community as well as our mayor, our city council members, our city manager, board of supervisors, chief of police, our police department, color guard, daughters of American Revolution, and we're supported by the American Legion Post 637.

We have our seventh annual 9-11 memorial service this year coming up, where we honor our Citrus Heights first responders and also United States first responders, including police officers, firefighters, and chaplains.

We also do an annual or biannual cemetery tour and um participate in many of the local senior fairs.

So as far as occupancy, um, we do offer both a single and double depth casket burials.

We offer ground cremation burials where we can fit two to six cremations in each plot, and we have the niche wall.

As of June 30th, 2025, we had 11,442 total occupancy.

Um last year's uh at the last five year average of 353 burials per year were one of the more active cemeteries.

260 of those were casket, which um makes up 73.5% of our total burials.

87 cremation um makes up 24 and a half percent, and then 32 baby.

As far as availability, we currently have 467 plots available, casket plots available, 285 cremation ground, 317 niche, and 30 baby.

We have 1.7 acres of undeveloped land.

We do have a project planned for this fall.

Um we will be installing 1,000 vaults for for um that will make up about 0.6 acres of our property, which is gonna leave us about 1.1, so roughly 1,800 plots.

We anticipate the the 1,000 that we're putting in to last about six or seven years worth of sales.

Based on these numbers and the fact that we have suspended our pre-need sales.

We anticipate our remaining 1.7 acres to yield approximately 16 or 17 years worth of plot sales.

So as previously stated, um, we anticipate 16 to 17 years of plot sales with our remaining undeveloped property.

Beyond that, we just don't know.

Um, the city of Citrus Heights has reached its growth limit.

Um, the annexation of 1980 that we were talking about um expanded the service area of our district, but did not include the normal AB8 tax exchange for the annexed territory.

Um, our annexed territory is growing by leaps and bounds, antelope, um, some of those areas, but our tax base does not grow.

So this not only puts a financial strain on the district, but a property strain as well.

So the financial position of our cemetery, our last year five year average, 1.2, just over 1.2 million dollar budget, the revenue sources that five-year average, um, we get.007 of the tax exchange for citrus heights.

Um, our interest income, so that's investments, and we get about 12,000 of recurring, and then sales revenue for us also makes up the bulk of our funding.

Um, as stated before, without the AB tax support, we're limited in our opportunities to buy more land.

Um, we'd love to be able to explore ideas and strategies to be able to continue providing for our community.

So the next slide is just some of our annual um expenditures and final thoughts.

So, we believe that we perform a vital service to our community.

Um, we're responsible for the efficient and effective operation of our cemetery, while also um protecting the historic gravesites for future generations.

We're the final resting place for many of the early settlers and builders of our towns, cities, and state.

Our present mandate to provide our families with dignified yet affordable burials is one that we take very seriously.

We serve a very individual and unique community that comes with our own traditions and customs, and we've learned to adapt to them and serve them to the best of our ability.

So we thank you for your support.

Commissioners questions.

So again, as you've stated, uh, you're in a rapidly growing area with a county.

Um, has there been any discussion in any way about how you go back and relook at it?

Have you had those discussions?

We have had those discussions.

Um, there was actually even a lawsuit that happened um just before my time at the cemetery, um, but the statute of limitations had been met.

All right, anything else, commissioners?

Oh, Commissioner Hume.

Thank you.

I do have one question.

And looking at your kind of financial state of the district, uh, I believe the lion's share Joshiva million dollars was sales income, which is one time, and which if I recall in looking at sort of the future, even though you have land available, you have stopped uh pre-selling.

Did I read that correctly?

That is correct.

So um at the time we have about 400, just over 400 casket burials, and our average is 353 per year.

Our project that we plan to start in fall will probably be ready by next summer.

So we're trying to reserve our inventory of what we have available right now for at needs.

So we are just accepting at need burials at this time with the exception of like a spouse.

If someone wants to bury husband, we will allow for pre-need of the spouse, but people can't just come in and prepare for the future like we've allowed for as long as I've been there.

And so obviously, I think it stands to reason, and that exacerbates the financial strain.

It sure does.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, it sure does.

All right.

Oh, Enrique, Madam Chair.

Uh, Commissioner Hume's question actually uh prompted me to um my answer was incomplete relating to a new increment, sorry, inserting a new recipient of a property tax dollar and and the reallocation of of the formula.

It's actually only on the growth in the value of the property.

It's called increment.

So with property taxes, you have base and you have the increment.

Base is basically what it is now, and going back to the past, and then increment is basically any growth from whatever and the value of the property at at whatever time slot you you want to put it.

So if let's say we were having a discussion about the uh annexation of the large area for either Sullivan or or Fair Oaks, and let's say that they received a portion of the property tax, it's only on the value from that moment forward, from the moment that the annexation becomes effective forward.

So you um it is possible to reopen base, but there are the legal there's a lot of laws relating to it that makes it very, very difficult.

So typically on LAFCO related annexations, we're talking about increment.

So you're never looking at, let's say, you know, properties value that ten thousand dollars, and so you now receive one percent of that, and that's what you get in property tax dollar.

No, it's ten, it's ten per 10 percent of the added value beyond 10,000.

So as the property increases typically does, it's only on the future value of the property that you get that portion of the share.

It's quite possible for older districts or in older areas that they receive an increment of property taxes, but they never see their property tax revenues grow because the value of the property doesn't grow or it grows at a very slow rate.

So even inserting a new inserting a new agency into the property tax formula isn't necessarily the cure because it's always relying on the future growth of that property, all right.

Well, then that makes me want to ask another question.

If you have a development that's coming in the area, can somebody put a requirement on the new development before it's ever approved that this comes in?

That would be the dependent upon whether or not you have a um change in boundary.

So like your typical development here in in Sacramento County, right?

You're annexing to let's say a city or a special district because a new development is going to come in.

In order for that agency to provide services to that area, you have to adjust the boundary.

And so in that area where the boundary is being adjusted, the property tax formula is is opened up and it could be reallocated.

It's never a guarantee as Council Gillick had indicated.

Um but if it is changed, it's only in the increase in value of that of that area.

So it's never, again, it's not the necessarily the the cure.

Um, no, but it goes from empty land to then land with houses on it.

Correct.

And so it's now it's on the growth of the property.

So the base is the undeveloped land back to 1850, I guess.

And that that revenue will always go probably to the county.

It's only on the growth after that.

Well, a lot to think about.

Thank you.

And and even if like let's say there's a new development that's going into the Sylvan service area, because the property tax formula isn't changed because there's no change in boundary, they get no benefit out of it.

Lovely.

Awesome.

All right, madam chair.

Then I uh like to uh request uh the representative from uh Elk Rof Kassoonis Cemetery District to come up.

Good evening.

Uh my name's Jonathan Lambden.

I'm the general manager of the Oak Grove Consumnist Cemetery District.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to make a nice slideshow, but I would like to tell you a little bit about our district.

Um our district has an area uh a proper in district area, I guess you would say, of about 250 square miles, with the sphere of influence, which includes another 250 square miles.

In that we have six cemeteries total, three of which are active.

My youngest cemetery is uh started in 1877.

My oldest cemetery started, we have reason to believe that it started as early as 1849, but we're not 100% sure.

Um so very old cemeteries.

And we also have uh, which we just purchased recently, one standalone building for a future site for our office and our grounds to come back together.

Um, so that is our total district.

Uh we have seven staff that's made up of three office staff, and three seems to be the number for all the office staffs, uh, and four groundskeepers.

Uh we have a uh board of five members, one seat is currently empty.

I do have one board member with me today, James Means.

Um we conduct regular monthly board meetings with very little attendance from the public generally.

Of our three active cemeteries, Hilltop is our busiest and has room for about five to ten years of interments left.

Uh, it is a landlocked cemetery on Waterman Road.

Franklin Cemetery uh has about the same five to ten years of plots available.

That is also a landlocked cemetery and it's located on the corner of Franklin and Hood Franklin Road, next door to the old Franklin Elementary School.

Pleasant Grove Cemetery is our largest cemetery and has about 15 undeveloped acres.

Unfortunately, the only access to this cemetery is by a small rural road that does get clogged with traffic from the elementary school next door.

I project that this cemetery will provide 50 plus years of interments.

We will require more land for interment use within the next 20 years.

I only mention that because I do not think that the cemetery where we have uh those 15 undeveloped acres would be a viable place for a cemetery since it does not touch a main road.

Um our budget is roughly uh over the last five years, about 4.8 million dollars with about a million dollars in tax revenue and about 100 to 150,000 in one-time sales.

Um it requires about 1.4 million dollars of operational costs, excluding land construction uh and equipment.

Um in all, we're in a very strong financial position as a district thanks to uh the very careful conservative efforts of the staff and my board.

Uh we typically hold one major public event each year, which is Memorial Day.

Uh and before the COVID COVID setbacks, uh we saw around 300 to 350 people attend.

Um we're slowly getting back to that number.

I think this last year we had an attendance uh well over a hundred people.

Um we do partner uh for our Memorial Day events as well as many other things we do throughout the years.

We partner with both American Legion Posts in Elk Grove, the VFW Post, and the CCSD.

Uh we believe that it is very important to have strong community ties with the other districts and the other agencies within our area and our community.

Um that's pretty much all I got.

Uh does anybody have any questions?

Commissioners?

Questions?

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Madam Chair, uh, your next presenter will be uh uh Mr.

Velasquez.

Thank you.

Great to see all of you again.

Very happy to be here.

Um previously provided uh copies of the presentation to hand out, but I've got extra copies for anybody that wants it.

My goal, as I've said the last couple of times I've come to this commission, is to focus, is not to solve the county's problem, although I'm very happy to help in that this is all brought forward, what's happening with especially the cemetery districts in the northern part of our of our county here.

So I will focus on what my main goal is, and that has been a cost-effective cemetery for the citizens of the city of Sacramento.

You've got a bigger picture, but part of that is actually the elephant in the room, which is a city of Sacramento of 529,000 that has zero cemetery districts in it.

Um as part of the presentation, I'll show you in a second here.

Um there is one benefit cemetery district, which is really just the fancy word of nonprofit.

It was the early nonprofit way of saying nonprofit, and that's um uh Oddfellow Cemetery, and as I stated before, they've got about five years left of barrels before they're done.

Uh there are private cemeteries within the city of Sacramento.

That's not my point, because most people can't afford them.

Um, some data, which is besides our population is oh, sorry, 535,798 and growing.

The average medium income for the city of Sacramento residents is 42,170.

That is unaffordable, so that makes private cemeteries unaffordable.

What is the option?

That's why I'm here.

That's my goal, is to get the city, because that's what's going to be coming next, is to get the city to submit that application to this board to create another cemetery district.

Now, um, I've created I've with the help of somebody uh this leason associates who gave me their time pro bono.

Yeah.

Have out.

Um sorry.

They helped me create this vision.

I've looked at it.

I'm trying to do some of the work of planning that the city should be doing, which is let's look to see where is the locations that we can develop a public cemetery district.

And I say public cemetery district because I really understand the practicalities.

That's why I like a cemetery district idea, and that's what our wonderful legislators many, many years ago saw.

And they said, Great, let's create this idea of a cemetery district, because that takes the burden off of the cities and counties to focus on what's that one particular need is.

So I have started it's just a vision, but this is um building on land that the city already has, that this the land the city purchased for future um public needs, which I think we all agree a semi public cemetery district would be.

Um, and this vision kind of takes into account the survey that the city already did onto what to do with this property.

I kind of picked this property because it's there, the city purchase it for future needs.

I also picked this property because it has enough land.

What you might have seen in these reports that you've been hearing from everybody is at this day and age with our populations, 10 acres doesn't cut it, five acres doesn't cut it, even 15 acres doesn't cut it.

We've got what I'm looking at.

My vision is half uh is 50 acres.

Actually, it's 48 acres of the 102 acres that the city had purchased for public needs.

And this vision that I've got incorporates all the other things that the public screams about every day, regardless of anything, which is affordable housing and recreational services.

Okay, let's put it all together.

And uh, okay.

Button, other button.

Yeah.

Again, here's that picture that you might have seen a couple of times.

You've got Fair Oaks and Sylvan to the top.

You've got Elk Grove and Arno Cemetery District to the bottom, and right in the middle where the majority of the population really is, the city of Sacramento has one green dot, and that's Oddfellows, and a bunch of red dots.

Um, okay, going to this actual, and this is wonderful stuff.

I'll let you read it on your own, but this is starting to look at that one piece of parcel, the 102 acres that's off of basically Meadow View, which I'm looking at, I'd say half of it to be a public cemetery.

And I don't call it a public cemetery, it's a memorial park.

Our cemeteries, have you also heard before, are parks, they're a type of park.

They can be used as basically open.

Yeah, I hope they could be used as um away open space, open spaces.

You can have trails through it, and then you could actually see what you do here when you take pictures.

This is a picture of land park, of course, but um you can add other items into it, such as trails, and you could um there's certain gardens that we put in there because this area does have some wetland issues, and this vision kind of takes that into account and says, Well, we can't bury there, let's make it um, you know, part of the necessary landscape there and make it even prettier.

Um, can I go back?

Yes.

So that's kind of the big overview of the location.

It's near uh Delta Shores, all that building down over there, it is near transit.

Um it is where am I now?

And this is kind of the bigger picture, right?

Half of it's the cemetery in the bottom.

That's our vision where we have grass or green or little pools there.

It's because that is actually where the the uh vernal pools are, and then of course, if we could uh combine this with um affordable housing and some um recreation, we don't well it's a win-win-win ideas of what you can do with this wonderful place.

Um, and it really starts if you notice their division, it's adoption by the city.

Actually, before we get there is the city needs to request put in an application to this board to start a new cemetery district so we could actually have this wonderful vision in what 10 years or so, hopefully.

Um, I did want to make a couple of points.

I understand the realities.

Um I understand your limits and lafco.

So my asks after today are kind of simple.

Make sure the MSR stays on track, because that's gonna be key for the city.

I know it's going to be, I could see see it happening.

I'm really disappointed when I heard staff today start talking about the beginning of their five five-year first phase of your MSRs, and we're at the bottom of the first of that.

I'm hearing staff today say our MSR for this won't be for another five years.

That's what I heard.

That is not what was discussed when this was before this commission a little over a year ago.

We had a session on this and a discussion, and what was stated from staff was by the end of 2025 or 2026 is when the MSR for this was gonna be.

We had a very vibrant discussion.

We discussed how the cemetery districts are the oldest of the MSRs not to be done over 20 years ago, 2004.

There's lots of discussion, so I'm I'm a little disappointed that I heard what I heard earlier from staff regarding the MSR.

So my ask is to keep this MSR on on track, not in five years, but by the end of this year or next year, which was what was discussed last time.

Of course, I'd even loved it bumped up even further.

That is for you to discuss and to decide the priority of that, but please don't let that fall behind.

Take back what you're hearing today and what you've heard from me for the last two years to county board of supervisors and city council because it's now on city going to the city council to really discuss.

This is for the city of Sacramento, right?

And these bigger issues are for or all the county issues.

We're hearing over and over and over the tax issue.

That is something, especially for Fair Oaks that I think this commission should really work hard at getting.

I appreciate staff.

They sound knowledgeable, but that's not county council there.

We should have county council discussing the issues of how we can fix what this commission's predecessors failed to do, especially when it came to Fair Oaks.

Don't back down, don't be afraid to find outside the box of how we can fix some of these problems.

We've heard your commission's named used as part of the problem that lafco said don't, or LAFGOS did not follow through.

Well, your lafco now it's time to let's let's do the extra work to fix some of these problems.

A couple of things because I am a semi, uh I'll take my two minutes on things that are not exactly for Meadowview Park, which I think is beautiful.

If the city has better ideas, wonderful.

That's silly.

That's a BS answer because in that very how many times have we been talking about oh, the Yellow Rail Yards project?

We've got the I Street Bridge, we've got uh the stadium issue.

Of course, our government entities are working on big projects all the time, regardless of budget issues.

And as a matter of fact, on our city's website, the 102 acres that this park that this vision is for is listed as one of the major uh projects for the city of Sacramento.

So my ask is for the council members go back, speak with get it on the agenda for the city council, start talking about cemetery needs, district needs, and planning for it.

Um, I do not, I really really want my my goal is to have a cost-effective option for the city of to the residents of city of Sacramento.

There isn't one, well, there's one done in five years.

My goal is not to see, like I saw last year, families on the corner of street corners with buckets to try to fund burials.

My goal is not to see urns of remains on mantles or door stops because that's all they could afford.

And all of a sudden, it's just another class system where the poor don't get to bury, they stick the urn, they pass it around, but the rich get actually, and I'm of course, you know, trauma making this a large example, but the the rich get to actually bury, but the poor don't.

That's silly.

This comes down to planning and action and just getting it done, giving direction, and um, so that was my second ask.

Take it back.

Oh, by the way, um, because I am an attorney, I have done a lot of this work.

Chair Kaplan, yes, you can charge different rates for different people within the district.

Um, our esteemed staff over here who talked about the county since Prop 13, county does take it or leave it.

We're sure, we'll give you all, we'll expand your sphere of influence all you want.

We're not giving you a dime.

They do that all the time, not just in Sacramento, Sacramento County, up and down the state.

They've been doing that.

It is a take it or leave it.

Scarily, scarily.

Um, unfortunately, in the law, it says that the county just um negotiates on behalf of the districts.

It is the that is what's creating.

They're not playing by the rules.

That is what's creating uh, well, it's a the biggest conflict of interest I've ever seen in my life that the county's negotiating on our on our half.

So, yes, I will wrap this up.

Thank you.

Um, with leaving you with my presentation and thoughts.

Thank you, and and I I really uh appreciate this.

Um, you know, uh I think as as each of us in a local jurisdiction know, I would always say start with the council member whose district that land is in, because she has put in a lot of time and effort with her community about a vision.

Um so outside of that land, I would encourage you to come to city council and ask for the city to study and look at this, whether it's this piece of land or other piece of land, um, it will have to be council direction of what gets it there, and a majority of council.

So I encourage you to also come to council to ask for that.

But I can't get it on the agenda.

You can.

No, I can't.

The mayor and the vice mayor and the city manager can put things on the agenda.

Roger that.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Uh Commissioner Desmond.

Thank you, Chair.

And I know this has been uh already a long discussion.

I and I appreciate the discussion.

This is you know, it's a bit of a mess in in many ways.

Um, and I tell you I've had I have had conversations with county council about this, and uh oftentimes they're left scratching their heads as well.

And and I do think that hearing from Faroaks and Sylvan at our board of supervisors meeting would be very effective as well.

I don't think we have really done that yet, Pete, but uh let's let's follow up and talk about that.

I did want to follow up.

I I know Sylvan mentioned a lawsuit and you're outside of the statute of limitations for some litigation, but there was litigation filed by the Faroaks district.

Can you do you have the history on that, Jose?

Or would you mind if I asked Pete?

Do you have can you give us a little information about that litigation and what was the result of it?

Please come up to the come up to the podium, Pete, so we can hear you if you don't mind.

Sorry.

For the record, yeah.

Thanks, Pete.

We just want to get you extra exercise tonight.

I like it.

I need more steps.

Just ask my wife.

Um yeah, it was uh suggested uh that we sue based on we wanted development fees to be charged for new construction, new builders, and we thought this was a way of getting extra revenue from a different source.

Uh and one thing led to another, and we ended up withdrawing it because it wasn't the indication was this was never gonna fly, so why throw good money after bad and things like that?

So you you recall that Jose?

No, no.

Um, before your time.

Um before my time.

But uh it was uh an attempt to go in a different direction to obtain some additional revenues.

Uh that had nothing to do with the TRAs or the anything like that, but it was for the builders and uh when your predecessor was uh involved, okay.

Pete, that's so that's it.

Okay, that's helpful.

I I just so I will follow up anyway with our our county council once more about this, and I think it would be helpful if you came to the board meeting.

In terms of the MSR, I mean, uh you know, Mark, I understand where you're coming from.

I I, you know, I a question I did have.

I'm not I'm not inclined to change our schedule because of the critical needs of our water districts and our fire districts, certainly, but is there a path for if uh if one of the districts say wanted to pay for it, could they be moved up in the queue, Jose?

Yes, if a district applies for it and and they're willing to pay for it, they can.

So there's okay, all right.

Thank you.

Or another entity, it doesn't have to certainly have to be the cemetery district.

Thank you.

Wealthy benefactor.

Um thank you, Commissioner Desmond.

I also had that.

Um Commissioner Hume.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh, first of all, I appreciate everyone's time and coming out to provide the uh uh information on the different districts.

This has been a very worthwhile discussion, in my estimation, and obviously one that we haven't had in a while.

Uh, and it uh it should be, I think, prioritized at whatever the workload allows.

Um, but uh a couple of questions.

The first is do we have a map that I would be able to to find and pull down to look for the I believe they're called the TRAs for each of the districts.

Is that available on the website?

Yes, but that you could get through that through the assessor's office, not through LAFCO.

Um we we wouldn't have that.

But the assessor's office, you can you can split it one or two ways.

You can request a spreadsheet of all the tax rate areas within a specified district and they'll provide that to you.

Okay, um, or you can ask for a map that shows you basically not just the map of the district boundaries but also the the the tax rate areas within it.

Okay.

Um yeah, I would like to take a look at that and I'll work with my colleague uh commissioner Desmond uh to look at how we can examine different options because obviously it was identified as an issue for the two districts to the north.

I assume it's not an uh an issue for Elk Grove.

No.

Uh and maybe or maybe not for for Galt Arno.

Um, but these new growth areas, if they are not annexed in, then that increment really is not being utilized for the benefit of an of a very important need.

Um and then the last thing I wanted to know is um in the map of the districts, there is a gap between uh Elk Grove and Fair Oaks, and it covers the areas of Rosemont and Ranch or Cordova.

Um what's planned for those folks?

I know that they're within the sphere of influence of the Elk Grove uh cemetery district, but that would require an annexation uh on their part uh to bring in an area that has not been paying into the TRA.

Correct.

So um that would have to be addressed either through the formation of a new cemetery district or through the annexation into um into Elk Grove Casumness.

Um if it's it if it's an annexation into Elk Grove Casumness, it opens up the the property tax formula for that area.

And in that case, the the cemetery district could uh could lobby or request um that they be added to the to the formula.

Um so on an annexation LAFCO can't initiate it.

That's not within our allotted uh powers.

What is allotted under our powers that is that LAFCA could create could form a new cemetery district in its place, but then at that point, number one, LAFCO bears all the cost.

But number two, we would really have to study to see whether or not a district would be viable in that area.

Um, it might what I can tell you generally speaking, and this is um applicable to to some of the cemetery districts, statewide cemetery districts are are tend to be very much a cash poor type of district.

Um, and it was essentially they were victims of their own success at the time of Prop 13, because what happened at Prop 13 is that when it capped the the amount of property taxes that can be collected, it essentially froze the ability of new agencies to receive a portion of the property taxes.

And so actually rural fire districts, cemetery districts, uh, some park and rec districts, because at the time they had a very low share of property taxes.

They relied extensively on volunteers and they were basically making do with that with those kinds of revenues.

When Prop 13 froze everything, they received a smaller share of of proper uh in the in the property tax formula.

And so they ended up being basically taking a unvoluntary vow of poverty at that point.

Um because they just receive if they receive an increment of proper if they receive a a percentage of the property tax dollar, it tends to be very, very low.

And that's pretty true of up and down the state with very few minor exceptions.

And so at the time, let's say the the commission was inclined to form a new district to encompass that area that's not within the current currently within the cemetery district.

Let's call it Central SAC cemetery district, just for discussion purposes.

Um it would have to determine basically an ongoing revenue source, and if it becomes uh property tax as what would be the main source of revenue for that district, it means that any district currently receiving a an incremental property tax in that area would actually lose in order to accommodate these new district to receive a portion of of the the property tax amount.

Which then back to Mr.

Velasquez's point is somewhat of an inherent conflict of interest because I can tell you every dollar is precious and then so if it's not up to the the body approving the annexation and it's up to the body that's currently collecting that increment correct to voluntarily take on that vow of poverty for themselves.

Yeah because basically as Mr Velasquez indicated the county negotiates on behalf of the districts which is very separate from city annexations in which the city and the county have to sit down and and hash that out so okay thank you chair.

All right anything else commissioners direction oh commissioner jobs thank you very much thank you uh a few a handful of different thoughts one I wanted to let this commission know that this issue has been a discussion under the special district advisory uh committee for many many many years uh in terms of how to go about this so it's not something that was thought up the last couple years it's probably been around for 20 years this discussion.

So that's that's that.

Now in terms of the MSR, where is and and I should already know the answer to this so forgive me I'm asking a question and I don't know the answer.

Where is the Sacramento City MSR on our MSR plans?

Interestingly enough we just had a discussion uh this afternoon about it the city has requested uh the the the uh the start of the municipal service review for this the for the entire city they have not paid a deposit yet um and I met with city staff I met with city staff this afternoon essentially um what the options are uh because of the complexity of the city we would have to outsource it but cognizant of the issues of hat that arose with SAC metro um we requested essentially that the city provide us with a list of uh for every major department if they've have had a an updated plan you know for um for example for for fire dist for the fire department would be a standards of cover for planning they just updated a new general plan um for uh the the parks department they would have to they would have a um uh uh a uh forgot what it's called master plan park master plan it's basically provide us with a list of those documents that we can then incorporate into the into the RFP so when we solicit bids from consultants they can see oh all these things are already updated and so we don't have to recreate anything we would just have to make sure that it that it complies and so maybe hopefully the price of that MSR would be would be lower.

Well the uh the point about uh city of Sacramento needing cemetery services that would be discovered in the MSR so that's where this MSR uh list uh needs needs to be pushed for the yeah and it'd be something the discussion that would have to happen with city staff because for the city for MSRs it tends to be a um snapshot of how they're currently providing services for the services that they are providing and then number two um if they're planning on providing new services it has to be enumerated so the LAFCO can um review those so cemeteries right now they maintain them but as parks for the building of a new cemetery district they would probably have to be um included as something to to explore within the MSR.

But again I reiterate that an MSR is a snapshot of how an agency is currently providing services since the city doesn't have an active cemetery would have to be kind of exploratory in nature?

That discussion.

Well I'm I think the MSRs deserve a certain futuristic look.

There's uh that's what we're talking about here, and that's what we need.

So let's uh let's uh expand that, please.

But but the reason why the city has to specifically request it is that um there's no reason to be looking at a service if there's no plan to provide that service.

So if the city's interested in providing cemetery services, it should specify so that we could discuss it.

Otherwise, it would just be an empty discussion.

Well, sounds like the first step is to uh come before council as well.

Uh city sex city council as well as county board of supervisors for this um exercise in group think and try to come up with some ideas.

The only thing I can come up with, and this is totally brainstorming, was to um I know park districts have been successful with uh special assessments.

That's an ongoing day-to-day thing, and it'd be harder to do that for um long term planning, like uh cemetery districts, but those are other options and um big assessment.

Um here's a wild thought, and then I'll be quiet.

If the district boundaries are reduced, and it's Ali Alex and free on the rest of it, and then a year and a day later, a petition is made to exp to put in a new SOI.

Does that open up the tax increment potential?

Yes.

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

Commissioner Jones, your intelligence and wisdom is always uh appreciated on this body.

All right, anything else?

Yes, uh, madam chair.

We have a last presentation of and it's Mr.

Brian Hughes.

Welcome, Mr.

Hughes.

Thank you all for having me tonight.

I really do appreciate it.

My name is Brian Hughes, I'm of counsel with Best Best in Krieger.

I'm general counsel to two of the cemetery districts here.

I also have 30 other cemetery districts that I'm general counsel to across California from Northern California to the Nevada border to the Pacific Coast and then all the way down to Mexico.

So I have significant experience in this, and um just I'd like to quickly because I know we've talked about this in extensive amount, uh, go over the potential choices and the impacts on the districts.

All right, so average public cemetery district.

I'll give you a snapshot of that key considerations to survival impacts due to expansion.

Generally, you have a board of trustees, three to five people.

District manager runs the district, they usually have two hats, the district manager and the office manager as well, office staff, three to five people with a grounds crew of three to five per cemetery.

As you might have noticed, some of the presentations tonight, some of them had multiple cemeteries, while some only had one.

That's a key consideration in terms of expansion as you expand the district boundaries and serve other communities, oftentimes to be able to actually have the amount of land that you need.

You need to stand up a new cemetery.

You usually cannot do that with the staff that and equipment that you have on hand.

So what does that mean?

Well, you have to still survive, and we've talked a lot about the night three avenues of survival property taxes.

Again, it never covers anything.

It's always just what can you get out of it?

Available lands.

What I thought was interesting from the conversations tonight.

A lot of the questions is are the cemetery districts in this county similar to other counties?

Yes and no.

Are the problems that you are seeing similar?

Yes.

All counties are trying to solve the problem of what to do with cemetery districts.

However, I thought a key consideration that was significant here is two of the presentations and potentially three, all included a survival factor of less than 10 years.

That's a problem.

Most of my cemetery districts, I want to I want to see 50 to 100 years of interments available with land.

Usually that happens is they have land and they have a lease on that land, so you have a farmer that's currently uh maintaining it.

When they need that land, they break the contract and they develop as they need it.

But again, I want to see my districts at 50 to 100 years.

Three of these presentations were at five to 10.

And I'm gonna tell you they don't really have the income to buy the amount of land to actually get to 5100.

Obviously, that's not your problem.

You can't solve that, but it is a consideration.

Continued interments.

The one thing that wasn't mentioned, again, because these were snapshot presentations, is how internments change over time.

You know, when our parents were um deciding on how to plan their end of life, there was always the consideration of full burial, so not ash.

You know, a couple people mentioned double depth, so you have one over top of the other, or you could have them side by side.

But there was always the distinction that, oh, full burial, even certain socioeconomic groups.

It was culturally important for them to have full burial versus ash.

However, that is changing with time.

Things are going from full burial to ash.

That uses less land, but it also is less costly.

So the revenue figures that you see on the one-time purchases will go down inherently over time because the people are transitioning from full body casket burials to just ash interments.

And so you see you might see like anywhere between 50 and 200 interments in a year, maybe 50-75% are ash versus full body.

I have some districts that are at 80% ash.

Those revenues are significantly down.

Does that allow them to have that full staff to even take care of the land?

Not really.

Two of the cemeteries that presented have one cemetery.

What does that mean?

They have their office, they have their um warehouse where they keep all their equipment, and they have their interments all in the same place.

If they open up another cemetery due to an expanded service area, what does that mean for the district?

Well, it means they have to have duplicative grounds crew and either duplicative equipment or equipment to move that equipment from site one to site two.

Oftentimes that would mean buying hauling trucks, you know, or potentially buying new backhoes.

You know, you're going from three crowns crew to potentially 10.

And does the revenue actually account for that increase of operations?

Usually it doesn't.

So what are potential solutions?

I'm not gonna stand here and tell you to, hey, help us negotiate for property tax.

I'm not gonna do that.

But I am gonna give you potential solutions.

You guys aren't necessarily in charge of again.

I'm not asking anything, but just presenting potential solutions.

Development impact fees and inclusion inclusion in the entitlement process.

Development impact fees, everybody knows about them.

School school districts get you know average five dollars per square foot for all new homes that are built.

What would the districts need?

25 cents, back of the hand calculation.

Is it legal?

Absolutely.

Placer County already has it on the books that development impact fees for cemetery districts is available.

What would need to happen?

City or a county just needs to pass a two sentence ordinance that allows cemetery districts to develop their own impact fees to be in uh enforced.

The other option, include inclusion in the entitlements process, no impact fees, fine.

If developments come in to development lands, then they provide entitlements similarly that they do for other special districts.

How do I know this?

Well, I'm with the largest municipal law firm in the state.

I write these.

Oftentimes, these developers will give land, they'll give equipment, and they'll give money just to be able to develop their housing developments in these areas as part of the process to special districts.

Cemetery districts could be involved in that process.

So that's all I have today.

I just wanted to give you guys kind of a generalized quick overview of potential problems and potential solutions.

Again, there's no expectation for you at all on any of this, but just food for thought.

So I really appreciate it.

And I'm available for questions if you have any.

Otherwise, I'll sit down.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And let's see.

Do we have uh any comments, questions?

Oh, okay.

So our next do we have all the public comments on this item?

I mean, I have that opportunity.

Yeah, um, you should provide uh the opportunity for the public comment on this item.

Okay, is there anyone who has public comment on this item?

We have not received any speaker slips.

Okay.

Seeing none, now we can move on to the next item.

Yes, Mr.

Chair, item number 11 is invitation by the grand jury to respond to their report on the city of Ileton.

Mr.

Chair, uh, I'll begin by just thanking everybody who's in the audience who provided information to you uh and and responded to the request for uh for this presentation.

Um, on this item I'm gonna uh speaking of invitation, I'm gonna invite counsel to kind of weigh in and present on this on this item.

The grand jury looked at uh what's uh happening with the city of Ileton and their challenges.

Um relating to governance and finance.

Uh they issued a uh a new report um in June, and uh in it they can they contained a numerous number of uh a numerous amount of findings and recommendations, and they invited the uh for the commission to weigh in on the report.

It's not a requirement, and so therefore you're not required to provide a uh a um a response um you don't even believe it, you don't even have to decline to the invitation, but because LAFCO was was um uh was named and invited, um, this item is before you as to whether or not you want to contemplate um providing a response to the to the grand jury.

Um if you were to do so, council has uh an idea as to which um which recommendation you can respond to, but um I'll ask the council gillick to add uh anything.

What are the recommendations for the city to consider um or LAFCO to consider um options for disincorporation or or that?

If um, for example, a disincorporation uh matter came to you however it it comes to you, the commission would be required to make findings, and that would be presented based on information you have at the time.

So um the recommendation is for uh the commission not to make findings at this time because you obviously don't have information, you have not conducted it, and your staff has not conducted it.

So it may be appropriate to respond as to information as to the process and um the procedures that LAFCO um uh is available and how LAFCO might be involved, but it is not recommended that you make any response as to any findings in the event that the matter comes before you.

Um so the request was optional.

Um, you know, if if if it is helpful and the desire of the commission to respond, um, information on the LAFCO process and disincorporation is what would be recommended.

Commissioners, thoughts, comments, um Commissioner Him.

Uh thank you, Chair.

Uh I will just say as the supervisor taking off my commissioner hat and putting on my other hat for a second that represents Ialton.

Uh that poor city is in a tailspin.

They don't need LAFCO piling on, uh, whether it's legally advised or not.

They have some tough decisions in front of them.

Um I've been in negotiations uh with the individual council members, with the uh interim city staff, the contract city staff, um obviously with our staff, um, and we are praying that they are able to write themselves and come out of this.

Um, but if not, and disincorporation is one of the things that they have to pursue that will come before this body, and it uh from what I understand has not been done since sometime back in the 1970s or so.

And so basically there's nobody alive that even has gone through this process, let alone knows how to unwind a city.

So, um, they might be online, they're just not a currently a LAFCO professional.

There you go.

Yeah, that's right.

Good point.

Um, I I think uh wise words from Commissioner Hume.

Um, if it's gonna come forward to us at a future date, we'll have all the information in front of us at that time to make a decision and um let's hope that they can they can work on their own and we can be here as the backstop uh if harder decisions need to be made, but so do I hear direction uh to not respond at this time?

Yep.

All right, and Madam Chair, for what it's worth, LAFCO staff has uh provided input and insight to uh the interim city manager to county staff on this.

So it that's it's not we're not taking an entire hands-off approach.

We're we're as requested, we're able to provide information uh to the parties about this.

Well, and thank you for again being a partner and helping provide context, which if it does come to us, puts it in a way that we can make a decision that needs to be made or helps them survive this on their own.

Uh so direction has been given to uh not move forward on this and and hope for the best and uh give our good graces to Commissioner Whom that you you can come up with an answer uh and lead them out of this.

So uh moving on to item 12.

And were there any public comments on this?

We have no public comments.

Thank you.

Sorry, I missed that.

Um, and then now consider the Cal LAFCO Awards.

Jose.

Madam Chair, commissioners uh it's that time of year in which Cal Afco recognizes um the um achievements for LAFCO statewide, and they're inviting uh LAFCOs to um submit nominations for various categories that are listed on on the memo uh provided by this interim Calafco ED, whoever that is, um and the never heard of them.

I yeah, I don't know who this person is at all.

Um, but the uh various categories um that are uh that are provided are actually listed on um uh on the memo as well as on the attachments.

Um I will respectfully um request or submit to the commission to consider, is that it uh your your commission should nominate itself for um the my gotch innovation award because uh your courageous act last May uh relating to Del Paso Manor.

Um that was the first time a LAFCO head utilized the provisions of SB 938 uh on an active district, Fresno LAFCO has the distinction of being the first one to to do it, but they did it on inactive districts.

You did it on an actual active district, and while you never really followed through and dissolved El Paso Manor based on the provisions of 938, your actions actually led to a very uh good outcome, which is the reorganization of Del Paso Manor into Saxuburban.

And so uh I think your commission should consider uh that as a nomination.

Uh and uh before I I turn it over to you, Commissioner Jones.

Um I appreciate that.

I was going to say under LAFCO's leadership as well as Supervisor Desmond, who was the chair at that time, uh, and many stressful evenings, meetings, late night, you both went above and beyond on this, and I can't think of somebody, something better to nominate, especially Supervisor Desmond and all that you did to help make it happen.

Uh Commissioner Jones.

Thank you.

Uh I concur with every word said.

Uh to uh if we need a formal motion, I would like to make the motion that we nominate Sacramento County LAFCO for uh the Mike Gotch Award for at the Cal LAFCO conference coming up in October.

And that is based uh as is in our packet, it says innovation, collaboration, outreach, and effective support for the delivery of effective delivery of municipal services.

And uh Sacramento LAFCO with terrific leadership from our county supervisor Desmond as well as EO uh executive officer, Jose Enriquez.

And the everyone step forward with their best foot.

The community, the boards, this council, staff.

I think it's uh an appropriate nomination.

Thank you, Commissioner Jones.

Commissioner Desmond.

Thank you, Chair.

I'm happy to second that.

I think uh you're certainly piling it on a little thick in terms of my uh contribution because I was just really a bit player.

It was the the LAFCO staff and Commissioner Jones' tremendous leadership and support.

I did well, I was in a unique position to take the slings and arrows from the constituents who didn't did not support this.

But uh I think this is really something to celebrate and I didn't know we were the first.

I didn't know we were such trailblazers, it would have been a lot more stressful had I known.

Thank you.

So I hear a first uh motion and a second, uh, if we're in favor, please vote.

Your motion passes unanimously.

And I'm assuming, Clerk, we had no public comments on this.

I we do not have any public comments.

Thank you for that.

All right, moving on to the next item.

Item 13 is executive officer commission counsel, the astral sheet correspondence and letter of opposition, SB 777.

Madam Chair and Commissioners, uh, before we get to the uh to the astral sheet.

Um I wanted to just uh uh point to the uh letter of opposition, SP 777.

Uh, this is the letter that I submitted um on behalf of the commission a while back, and uh this is about three or four iterations of the bill since then.

So it's really irrelevant.

Um I'll probably end up sending a letter based on the new based on how the bill currently reads, and I think it's probably gonna get out of the legislature.

Um it is related to for members of the audience relating to cemetery dist uh abandoned cemeteries and the uh original language of the bill basically uh mandated that LAFCO appoint abandoned cemeteries to either cities or the counties.

Uh and then it went on to mandating LAFCO form a new cemetery district, and then it went on to um various different things.

And uh, I was negotiating wearing my interim CalAfco executive uh interim executive director hat, negotiating with the author to try to change it to something that would be more manageable and more palatable.

Um we did get there.

We actually uh request uh the bill was amended to include um going through the LAFCO process with no predetermined outcome.

So you still retain your discretion as to whether or not the action that's gonna be taken eventually it's just morphed into the current state of the bill, which is essentially a study about what to do with abandoned cemetery districts.

So it's much more benign now.

Um but that the letters there for you know that to let you know that the letter was submitted uh from Sacramento LAFCO.

Uh and with that, I'll turn it over to your policy analyst Garebo to talk about the um astro sheet.

My favorite thing, thank you.

Um so we don't have any new applications um submitted formally um since our May Commission meeting.

We do have some projects that are moving forward.

Um, and let me back step real quick.

We do have Desiree Fox, our other policy analyst, she's back this week.

So I'm really excited to hand over some projects to her, yeah.

Um, but um some projects that are moving forward.

We have um as of tonight, you guys approved the consent item, which is hiring a consultant to kick off the Metro Fire MSR, so that's gonna be in the works.

We also have the Florent County Water uh District, which is the MSR.

We have a draft that we're reviewing with staff internally.

We'll be meeting with the district soon and and with the recommendations on what that looks like.

And Omno Timney Hartnell.

Um we um are working with doing an agreement with a consultant to do the MSR for that one as well.

So there are some rumors of some annexations in some cities, but those are still in discussions, and we'll see what that looks like soon.

You have to talk about it.

We do have Airport South.

Um did send an email, and we are going to be accepting the application and moving that um annexation um application forward.

So Desiree Fox will get that one.

So that's all that we have right now.

Commissioners, any questions, comments?

Seeing none, all right.

Uh that kind of takes us to item 14.

I jumped a little bit.

Any separate commission, uh, chair commissioner comments uh uh before we head into uh our next item.

Uh actually, madam chair, one more uh announcement from the executive officer.

I did uh hear that uh Chris Tucker is a former LAFCO commissioner, public member uh for many years, uh, passed away recently.

Um so if you wanted to um adjourn the the meeting in his memory.

I will adjourn uh the meeting in Chris Tucker's memory.

Do we have any other comments on items that I did not call?

We do not have that.

All right, then um I would like to close this meeting in the service of Mr.

Tucker uh who has passed away, but thank you for all your public service as we now adjourn into closed session for a public employee performance evaluation pursuant to government code section 54957B, and we will do that now.

Thank you.

Okay.