Okay.

I'd like to call this meeting to order of the Sacramento Local Agency Formation Commission.

Can we call roll?

Yes.

Member Little.

Present.

Member Moore.

Member Hume.

Member Jones.

Present.

Member Desmond.

Member Pratt Pratt.

And Chair Kaplan.

Here.

And four of us makes a quorum.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

If uh I can have Member Jones uh do the Pledge of Allegiance.

My pleasure.

Please rise all who can do so.

Begin.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

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

Madam Clerk, I'll actually turn it over to you to make some opening statements.

Okay, I'll make the announcement.

Madam Chair, 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.gov.

Today's meeting will play Saturday, February 7th 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 encourages public participation, civility, and use of courteous language.

The board does not condone use of profanity, vulgar language, gestures, or other inappropriate behavior, including personal attacks or threats directed towards 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 clerk 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 waives their request to speak, and the clerk will file the speaker request form in the record.

The clerk will manage the 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 seek 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, Madam Clerk.

I'll now turn over as we hit our agenda.

We have uh item three in our business items.

It's to welcome new members as well as administer the oath of office.

Uh I do not see uh our new members here, so we can bypass that and now go on to appointment of LAFCO officers for 2026.

Uh I'll turn it over to our executive director to just remind us of the process.

Good evening, madam chair and commissioners and members of the audience.

Um you are selecting the chair for 2026 and the vice chair.

I will serve in that role.

You by commission uh practice.

It's been a rotation among the member categories.

Your um next in line.

However, you want to take that commissioner little is um is the public member will become the chair, and then uh a special district representative uh would be appointed vice chair um in this particular case.

Uh Commissioner Jones is the only one that's that's present, so present sorry.

Um but those would be your officers.

Of course, the commission always has a discretion to change the um to change the rotation if it if it's so suited.

Well, with that said, I would like to nominate Commissioner Little as our chair and Commissioner Jones as our vice chair.

If you guys would be so willing.

Yes, so willing.

And I have a second by member Pratton.

If we could uh call the roll, you may do the electronic vote.

Please vote.

Your motion passes unanimously.

Alright, now I get to do the fun stuff.

Um I get to swear you in if you don't mind, and then you get to take charge.

How does that sound?

All right.

Uh if we I like the stand part if you won't mind standing and and raising your hand, your right hand.

I state your name.

I, Chris Little.

Do solemnly swear that I will support.

Do solemnly swear that I will support.

And defend the Constitution of the United States.

And defend the constitution of the United States.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Against all enemies foreign and domestic.

And then I will bear true faith and allegiance.

And I will bear true faith and allegiance.

To the Constitution of the United States.

To the Constitution of the United States.

And to the Constitution of the State of California.

And to the Constitution of the State of California.

That I take this obligation freely.

And I take this obligation freely.

Without any mental reservation.

Without any mental reservation.

Or purpose of evasion.

Purpose of evasion.

And then I will well and faithfully.

Discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter.

Discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter.

Congratulations, Chair.

You're in charge.

Congratulations.

I will I will switch seats with you.

Madam Chair, will we take a brief recess so they can change the computer?

Yep.

Thank you.

So no.

Congratulations, Chris.

Thank you.

Okay, welcome back.

From that long recess.

Thank you.

Former Chair Kaplan.

Okay, we have uh see our next item.

Mr.

Chair, may I call roll to reestablish a quorum?

Thank you.

Okay.

Member Little.

Here.

Member Moore.

Member Hume.

Member Jones.

Here.

Member Desmond.

Member Pratton?

And Member Kaplan.

You have a quorum.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next item is.

Item number three.

Is the public is encouraged to address the commission concerning any matter not on the agenda.

Public comments are limited to two minutes.

The commission is prohibited from discussing or taking any action on item not appearing on the posted agenda.

And uh the chair has the speaker slips.

I do.

I have uh Desiree Fox.

Yeah, it should be on.

You can lower it.

There you go.

Good evening, Chair Little and members of the LAFCO Commission.

My name is Desiree Fox.

I serve as a policy analyst for Sacramento Lafco.

I'm here to state emphatically that I do not believe that Sacramento LAFCO is properly serving the residents of Sacramento County is special districts and the cities within Sacramento County.

I stand here and I encourage you all to look at your agenda packets with a lot of discretion.

Each agenda packet is paired with an astral sheet, which gives you updates on projects and the movement on said projects.

You all have requested that we adopted an MSR project plan.

However, have you questioned how that project plan is being implemented?

Have you looked at the items within the astral sheet to see how much projects has staff been working on to make sure that they are staying that they are competent in their performance and their duties and that they are providing the services needed to the cities, special districts, and residents within Sacramento County.

I believe that we have ad hoc committees dedicated to separating us from uh Sacramento County.

I believe that we have efforts that are administrative that might be getting in the way of us serving the residents, special districts, and cities with Sacramento County.

I have done my best as staff to try to do round table conversations to stay encouraged and to provide a forum for me to be able to be the best analyst to Sacramento LAFCO that I can be.

I have been mistreated as an employee of Sacramento County, of which I noted January 13th at the Board of supervisors hearing.

I've emailed you all directly with personal conflicts, some of which are being handled in the appropriate manner in the private channels.

But today I'm standing before you to say that I believe that Sacramento LAFCO needs to improve upon its service to the residents, special districts, and cities within Sacramento County.

Thank you for your time and have a good night.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Kim Stevenson.

I'm calling, first of all, good evening to the new chair and um to the board of LAFCO.

I come to you as a concerned citizen.

I watched the Board of Supervisor meeting.

I am very disappointed in the way that you are managing things within LAFCO.

As a um a citizen of Sacramento, I am requesting that we look at everything that regards an employee access, employee protective rights, to make sure that we are doing everything we possibly can to make sure people feel safe in their workspace.

Violations of that by any means by any means is unacceptable.

I challenge our county.

Those that work for you and with you, and those who are watching you in every aspect to make sure that we're upholding the laws, that we're making people feel safe in their work spaces.

When people don't feel safe, it is it causes mental issues, it causes emotional.

It's not a good representation of the brand.

We do not want people in fear of Sacramento County.

We want them to embrace Sacramento County with love and respect.

So I challenge you to do that.

You have a good evening.

Thank you.

The next item, please.

Okay, we do not have any of this.

The next item is the consent calendar to approve items four through eleven.

Mr.

Chair, I move uh uh to approve the consent calendar.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Okay.

Please vote.

Your motion passes unanimously for that.

Is there any public comment for consent?

We do not have any public comment.

Thank you.

All right, item 12.

You ready?

Is public hearing to consider and approve the proposed budget for fiscal year 2026-27.

Joseon, are there any public comments?

No, we don't have any public comments from this item yes.

Good evening, Mr.

Chair and Commissioners.

The uh item before you is the budget for LAFCO for fiscal year 2026 and 27.

Uh LAFCO, generally speaking, uh, approves a budget in the two-step format.

You uh take you receive a draft and you um approve a proposed budget that gets circulated to all the funding agencies, and then approval of the final budget will then uh signal for LAFCO staff to circulate and and um once again with the approved budget so that our funding agencies know what uh what's coming for next fiscal year.

We start the process very early uh as a courtesy, since um most funding agencies don't start their um their budget cycle until uh March or April.

And um having at least knowing what their quote unquote in for for in the LAFCO contribution portion, that helps.

So the budget for next year is um is uh uh right now uh proposed at 1.2 uh million dollars.

Most of the uh the the increase is driven by uh number one staff costs and number two by health insurance costs.

Um ironically, uh a driver from previous years is retirement.

Uh but that one doesn't seem to be a uh a factor as you can see from uh attachment A.

While the regular retirement costs do go up, our um obligation under the pension uh bond for uh unfunded liability actually has gone down significantly.

So essentially those two offset each other.

But the um what's really hurting honestly is the is the the is the cost for um health insurance and it's um it's it's high across the board.

So um uh that pretty much is is um uh uh the the main driver it's about six thousand dollars um on the operating expense um there are ongoing costs that are associated in there but there's also a non-recurring cost uh for example our lease the uh for the lafco office expires at the end of the at the end of August.

Uh so we're looking for a new space, and we're gonna have to factor in uh number one the moving expense, but number two, um the furniture that is for um uh your policy analyst Graybo is really outdated um and needs to be replaced.

And then if there's any crumbs left over, um we'll also be replacing my desk as well.

But um, those are essentially your your main drivers.

You're on the revenue side, you have a minimal amount for interest.

Project revenues they always fluctuate.

I I gave an example that the revenues for 2425 um is one is 113,000, which is fell short of the one ninety-five that we have factored in.

Um we have uh well I'll I'll get to that in a second.

And then uh we also have uh prior fund balance that basically makes up for that.

But the main driver really is the agency contributions.

They will be going up by seven percent, which roughly matches what the percentage of increase for the budget.

Um for the most part, I don't really um foresee much changes in terms of activity and in terms of uh projects, what's gonna be um uh a factor is that we are currently active in one litigation, so there are those unknown expenses, and there's a potential for uh further litigation as well.

Um but um essentially that is it in terms of a budget overview.

I go into a little bit more detail in the staff report.

Um thing that I wanted to do that um I haven't done in prior years, but I but I did it for this year is that your other professional services um because lafco contracts with the with the county of Sacramento, salary costs, salary and benefits are actually in that category.

So for your budget, I've always broken those pieces out and I included as employee cost on your attachment A.

But as you know from previous years, in actuality, those costs get lumped back into other professional costs.

Um what I did this year that's that's uh different from from previous years is that I actually also gave you what the other professional costs are factored in.

It's in the staff report, so you see a broken out basically what what all that means.

Um there's the personnel cost, there's the uh the tech and car allowance um for uh for me as your executive officer, and then there's also the other costs are associated in there.

Um, and there's the moving expenses line item that I did I referenced, but we also have MSR contracts that we've already uh contracted in.

We have the county overhead charges uh as well as uh costs for clerk services from the clerk of the board, and then your audit contract for 16,000.

So um uh and and again we also factor in a um a 10 percent contingency.

So that is the end of my report.

Be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Um, you know, I I pulled up the attachment and I look where you've reduced in advertising and bus and conferences to kind of offset some of the increased costs uh can you just say because i know you're working on several msrs and there's always something judicial that comes up that might change it but approximately how many msrs are you doing at one time that are being looked at oh that's a great question so um right now the city of sacramento uh we're in discussions about initiating their msr an ongoing msr that um you'll actually be hearing to uh next month is um uh florin county water district we hope to also have southgate msr um that'll also be coming before you uh that's been in the works for years there's um the um uh cemeteries msr that process is is starting um uh at the moment and we have um there's one more what am i missing chrissy we have uh metro fire um the draft is gonna be available the end of this month um to staff uh omno chimney is in the works right now and that should be available next month um we're also working with floor and resource conservation elk road water uh staff has already reviewed that gave the district some com some comments so we're coordinating with that so that should be coming up soon yeah so it's about seven eight MSRs that are currently going and then how long just approximately does it take to do one?

I know there's no hard and fast rule but approximately how long you know when it's outsourced it's about six to eight months uh which in in-house it takes longer because it's competing with other um lafco staff priority um like I said uh Southgate MSR has been out there for years that's that's an in-house MSR.

Florent County Water District I believe that took about eight months right but there was a yeah it was about the the district basically took a while to give us some information so um so it it's hit and miss but about a year.

But that's like as we look at our budget that's kind of what you estimate and then the flow that comes from that even knowing that if something comes up you know judicial that we need to review it puts something on the back burner that we have to then take another look at correct um I'm curious commissioners you know as we look at this and then we have you know look at the one fiscal year do we want to also start having conversations of what does current fiscal year and one year out potentially look like um so that we're not just doing year by year because of the unknown what costs that are out there and then what we're experiencing and seeing with IT healthcare and other stuff just so we have an idea not necessarily saying we need to balance the second year but just doing it so we see current year and one year out so that we know where we're heading I'm curious as to your thoughts of that I just think it might be a good idea to consider it.

That's it.

I would agree.

And do you have anything further or any I would agree all for I know that's a starting all right um we have public comments.

Yes we do we do we have uh the first speaker Desiree Fox good evening Chair Little and member of the commission I have comments about the proposed budget.

Number one I'd be curious to know uh the reasoning why the agency contributions are being increased when some of the cities have had no projects related uh LAFCO related projects number two I'd be curious to see if there's been any conversation about um expanding the uh opportunities for staff to be able to promote within the county right now we have an executive officer two associate planners wonder if there's been any discussion about maybe adding a um uh different level that would allow staff to be able to have some career advancement and be able to transition into a different um classification for career development for the MSR and the budget.

I'm wondering if there's up how much money is going to our contracting and consulting with people outside of LAFCO as opposed to training staff on how to prepare these um simple and more complicated municipal service reviews.

Is there are any conversations about maybe hiring a consultant to do MSR training so that we can keep those in-house and not take them out house once again for staff to be able to grow and develop in their career and also maybe might eliminate some of that money that we're spending outsourcing the projects to other folks?

And um, that those were all my questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh we have Kim Stevens also.

Good evening again.

Um my question is as I overheard the budget.

Is there anything in line items that educates that you guys can allocate funds to training for staff and the executive?

Are there any funds or any opportunities where um where you can um make sure that everybody has the required training that they need in their current positions?

And how often are those trainings executed where funding can also go towards that because to have people to represent the brand, we need to make sure that proper representation is being done and they're moving effectively in alignment with policies and procedures.

Thank you.

So at this time, with it being a public hearing, I will open and make a motion to open and close the public hearing for the budget with when we come back, maybe having a portion for uh the commission to vote on whether we want to start seeing what a two-year budget does as this comes back.

You make it a policy thing that when it's presented starting next year, we look at current year and then what out year would look like.

Question?

Yes, uh I'm not sure if I understand the request.

I mean, there's been a couple of comments here relating to training for staff, and it really depends on the training level because uh as employees of Sacramento County, uh, the county does require that employees take certain certain trainings as part of just being employed within the county.

Um, and that is there's no separate category for it.

That's just a it's something that you take during your work hours and it's absorbed as part of your uh as part of your hourly rate.

There are trainings that are associated with Cal LAFCO.

Uh some of them are free as part of the California Association of LACOS.

For example, uh they have CalAFCO U, which are topic-specific trainings.

And those are those are free to the membership, and people are free to enroll, and I typically encourage them to take them.

And then there's also the Calavco workshop, which is primarily driven for or primarily it is driven for uh staff level trainings of various uh topics that are within the program.

It's uh total of two full days of training spread across three days because it's half a day Wednesday, half a day Friday, but it's cumulative two days.

Um those typically happen in the spring.

There's there are Cal Afco conference, which is additional training, but those are primarily geared towards commissioners.

They tend to be more policy-driven versus nuts and bolts.

So the training piece, it's it's in there.

If you look at business um uh conferences and workshops, there's a line item there specifically for it.

Um that's that's where that CalAfco training goes to.

And then everything else is kind of in internal um, there are some other nonprofits that offer uh uh training opportunities, ILG is the one that comes to mind, but there are others.

Um CSDA.

Those are um are um uh provided to staff as as applicable.

Some of them are are applicable before us, others are not.

So I'm sorry I wasn't clear.

I'm my motion is to open and close the budget, but as starting maybe next budget year, you come with the two year budget.

Because I know the trainings are already included and those opportunities as you've been very clear with with us as commissioners and sending on to us opportunities for that training, but I think I heard from most of us that you know this budget as presented, fine, bring it forward, but like well, let's put in a policy that starting next year.

We only we look at the current year plus maybe one year out so that we can look at maybe giving a heads up to special districts and others if especially with health care and IT going up.

I think we have to start looking more beyond just one year.

Oh, yeah, sorry, I I didn't uh I didn't catch um what um what you were recommending, and yeah, we can do it, we could do a two-year budget.

Um for the prior years, just so the commission knows, I've tried keeping the increases uh below five percent.

Um this year is just simply was not possible.

And and unfortunately, just I the cost of what I'm seeing elsewhere, I think it's just smart, um, and I appreciate you being fiscally conservative.

I just think it will help all of us as as we see things.

Um so with that, uh my motion stands to open and close the public hearing um and just add that policy change starting next year for showing to your budget.

And Mr.

Chair, I'll second that.

Thank you.

We have a motion with a second, all those?

Let me vote.

Vote this item passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Next item.

Let's see.

Mr.

Chair, the next item is consider supporting legislative effort to address underperforming water systems and disadvantaged areas.

Mr.

Chair and Commissioners.

Uh, this item, I'm gonna tweak the recommendation that's that's on your staff report.

Um just a little bit of history and and forgive me if um if you already know all this.

Essentially, um the legislat the proposed legislation before you was born out of a study um the conducted by you uh at UC Berkeley by uh Dr.

Kibben and Dr.

Um McBride, um, where they were looking at water system consolidations.

Uh I won't bore you with all the details, but um essentially they came up with a paper that said, you know, if we want to address underperforming water systems, there needs to be better coordination between the state and lafcos, since each bears a a um connection between between the two.

So we um uh after the the report was published, I can't remember who exactly initiated it, but essentially Dr.

Kibbon and um uh uh a couple of um of uh nonprofits uh advocates and nonprofits uh for disadvantaged communities and several LAFCOs, including Sacramento LAFCO got together to talk about well, okay.

You know, now we have this paper, we know that there are these gaps in the statute.

Is there something that we can do?

Um part of it is uh obviously the sincere wanting to address um water systems in underprivileged areas, but the other one was the um the um the the understanding that basically the in the past about 10 years ago, the legislature was um uh essentially chided LAFCOs for not being proactive.

So we figured, you know what, we know that this issue is out there.

What can we do?

So over the years, this is spans back to 2022.

Uh we've been meeting on and off to uh come up with something that some kind of legislation that would address these issues, and we came up with a proposal.

Uh the commission uh I brought it to you for your consideration last year.

The commission uh supported it in concept, and the hope was that now that we have you know a language that's a little bit more nailed down to actually support the bill.

And this is where the tweaking from the recommendation comes from.

Uh we have had discussions with uh the California Association LAFCO's uh legislative committee.

And in that uh in that uh it's very clear that there are some LAFCOs that are very reluctant to support what's here.

Essentially, the the proposed legislation has three components.

The first component is um is that uh have the LAFCOs the ability to initiate either annexations or to have or to initiate uh out of agency service agreements.

Um the key difference between the two is that with annexations you're actually doing a boundary change similar to Del Paso Manor with Saxuburban or an out-of-agency service agreement, uh, which is basically an authorization for an agency to extend services outside a service area, but it's not a formal annexation, no boundary changes are are actually occurring.

Um right now, LAFCOs do not have the ability to initiate either of those, and so this legislation would give the authority to LAFCOs to do that within certain parameters.

So it's not a willy-nilly when you feel like it.

Certain things have to be triggered before LAFCOs can can initiate um such proposals.

The second component is uh to elevate the visibility of MSRs.

Right now it comes before the commission, and the commission uh obviously has a public hearing about it, they adopt it.

And um the agency that's being uh that was reviewed may or may not do anything about the MSR.

It's it's it's a LAFCO only document.

What this legislation would propose is um uh the that agency has to take it up at a publicly noticed meeting on their on their home court, and they have to respond to it similar to um what happens with grand jury reports.

Uh the third component is basically uh requiring mutual water companies and mobile home parks, which are currently private water providers, to provide data on their service levels to LAFCOs.

Um as a private entity, LAFCO has no jurisdiction over them, but at least it would be kind of a clearinghouse for information relating to how those those entities are doing.

Um at the Calafco ledge committee, um there was support for the MSR component, there was uh no universal support for the uh the annexation or the out-of-agency service component, and then there was a mixed bag relating to the to the private water entities.

Um the the so the tweet recommendation is once again uh to ask the commission number one to support the MSR piece, because I think that can move, um, and then still support in concept the idea of um LAFCOs being able to initiate at the very least an out of agency service agreement for me uh in and my capacity as EO, the main driver should be ensuring that a community has um portable safe drinking water.

And um if we cannot do outright annexations, then at least we need to give them a patch so that we so that we provide them with the with the services that those communities deserve.

And the um, you know, we we we struck gold with um Saxuburban that they stepped up, they weren't happy about it, but at least some of the directors weren't happy about it.

Um but they stepped up and they they knew the larger policy issue with Del Paso Manor.

Um but that may not be the case in future future annexations with troubled water systems.

And so again, the the focus should be um not on the agency providing service, not on the agency that's in trouble, but the focus should be on the community.

And if LAFCO is able to kind of at least address that piece, to give us that that toolbox, at least if you support it in concept that allows us to talk to sibling associations like Aqua and CSDA and come up with language that can work for them and can work for LAFCO.

So that's my tweaked recommendation for you.

Um support the MSR, support in concept the idea of at least an out of agency service extension, and then that'll allow us to you know keep this keep the dialogue going.

And that concludes my report, and I can answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

You have comments?

Um thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I uh support uh staff's uh updated recommendation, a tremendous amount of staff hours and contribution by volunteers at the LAFCOs and Cal AFCO level have contributed to this evolving system or this evolving uh concern about how to help people in trouble with their water.

It's a totally legitimate, important public community service that needs to be addressed, and I appreciate all the work that our staff and Cal AFCO staff, including the ledge committee, have uh have uh moved this ball forward.

So thank you.

Thank you.

You know what?

I shall also make a motion to approve staff's amended recommendation.

And I will second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Do we have any public comment?

We do have a public comment.

Desiree Fox.

Good evening, Chair Little and members of the commission.

Um I have some questions about this particular item.

So, number one, this was a very in-depth uh verbal overview of a very important topic that LAFCO has the ability to influence.

I would encourage that this type of topic compared with a visual or PowerPoint presentation.

As we can see in our audience, we have some youth.

We also have people who might be listening who are prior special districts who could benefit from learning and seeing a PowerPoint presentation or a visual associated with such a complicated topic.

Number two, I think that this shows how unique LAFCOs are to address a uh a need that the community that a lot of a lot of different other government entities cannot cover.

And I would hope that this is an example of if staff is properly educated on how to handle water districts that um special dishes that are water districts, how we can help make sure that we're serving the special districts within Sacramento County LAFCO.

The trainings that are provided normally to staff are not technical trainings, they are overview on topics.

They don't give specifics about how to handle each district.

I believe there are 63 special districts within LAFCO's purview.

Fire, park and rec, water, uh reclamation districts, um, and a plethora of other ones.

So it's kind of challenging for staff to be able to say confidently that we can understand a um water consolidation district, and we just had a big project come through as you all know with Sachs Suburban Del Paso Manor, and I do believe it will be a great asset to emphasize that staff, in addition to the executive officer, are equipped with the tools to handle them within house so that we can best serve the special districts, cities, and the residents of Sacramento County.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have a motion and a second.

Please vote.

Your motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Mr.

Chair, the next item is discussion on the Cal AFCO 2026 special corporate business meeting.

Appoint voting delegates and consider and support the recommended changes to the association bylaws.

Mr.

Chair and Commissioners, this is a new one for me.

I've been a 23 year uh year professional in LAFCO World.

We have never had a at least I don't remember having ever a special membership meeting uh mid-year to approve um uh changes to CalAfco.

But here we are, and actually these are welcome changes.

Um these are things that um that uh is part of the reorganization of CalAfco, as you know.

Um Cal Afco ran into into a little bit of trouble, a lot of trouble in 2024.

Um, and over the course of the past year or so uh CalAfco has been um uh undergoing a uh a sincere though sometimes um very tough conversation about how it uh can reform itself and how it can move forward um from this point forward.

And uh at the membership meeting at the CalAfco conference over the fall.

They uh the membership approved several bylaw changes that uh reformed CalAfco, but those were in anticipation of the changes that are being brought to you that are gonna be considered at the February 23rd meeting.

The item before you essentially has three pieces.

Number one, uh just a background on what the proposed changes are.

Number two, uh to appoint voting delegates uh for this membership meeting, and then number three to provide direction to your voting delegates as to how to vote on these changes.

So I'll go through um these uh three changes and um you know feel free to interrupt me midway if you have questions about them.

Um the first one is uh is to eliminate Calafco director seat type categories.

At the moment, Cal AFCO is divided into four regions.

Each region elects four commissioners to sit on the um on the board of directors for Cal AFCO.

The four um seats from each region basically reflects the categories that serve on a lafco uh county, city, special district, and public.

So um what the first reform says is we should eliminate the seat categories and allow any any commissioner who is willing to serve on the board of directors.

I'm sorry, any person who's willing to serve on the board of directors to sit on the board of directors regardless of the seat type.

So it's possible that our region may elect two special district commissioners.

It's possible that they might elect a county um, you know, two county representatives, whatever the case may be, it's like the it's it's essentially allows the person the the people who are willing to serve the ability to serve regardless of the category.

Um, it would allow executive officers to be eligible to serve as voting members on the Calafco Board of Directors.

So these two kind of go hand in hand in that the um by eliminating the seat types, you're also opening it up to um to practitioners to also sit on the board of directors.

This is not unusual.

CSDA, for example, they're um on their uh board of directors, practitioners, general managers are allowed, are eligible to serve on the board, if so elected.

Um, and we also have um several private entities that also have a board of directors that's similar that compose similarly.

I'm thinking specifically of like a hospital uh director to a public health um system, they typically also have doctors who allow who are allowed to sit on the on the board of directors for um for such entities.

So um it's not that unusual.

And then the third one is basically it's a cleanup of the Calafco bylaws where you have inconsistent capitalizations, you have inconsistent definitions, um they're really non-substantive.

This is more of just cleaning up our board of uh uh or our bylaws simply because the bylaws get amended, but sometimes things as they are amended just don't conform with what's been there before.

So it it cleans up the bylaws so they read a little bit better.

Um those are the three uh changes the uh Calafco um uh uh at least the regional officers, I'm one of them.

Um and the um and the uh Cal AFCO executive director is also recommending uh approval of these changes, and please correct me if I'm wrong, Commissioner Jones.

I think the legislat the executive committee for Cal AFCO recommended adoption as well.

Uh yes, we this has been a well yes, yes, and make comments.

So the board unfortunately has not had the opportunity based on their meeting schedule to actually weigh in on this.

Um so we don't know how the board is recommending, but at least the the practitioners, the executive committee, um, and and your staff's recommendation is is um to direct your voting delegates to approve it, which leads me to the next category, which is that um uh uh the recommendation is to designate Commissioner Jones to be the voting delegate at the February 23rd special meeting with me as an alternate.

Um originally was gonna be Commissioner Desmond, unfortunately he had a scheduling conflict, so he wouldn't he wouldn't be able to um he wouldn't be able to to attend the meeting, so that's why um the recommendation is is me.

Um and then the third uh component is to um you know uh take questions um have a discussion and then direct your voting delegates on uh on whether to approve or or or oppose these proposed changes.

And that concludes my report.

Thank you.

Do you have any please Commissioner Joe?

Thank you.

Um yes, um I fully prepared to support uh staff recommendation on this and carry it forward to the Cal LAFCO uh association, the association for state uh LAFCOs.

This has been a tremendous lift well over a year in the making in terms of trying to sort out priorities and objectives and what will make this state agency the state association work as smoothly as possible.

And I would like to emphasize the hours and hours and hours not only yours truly but up and down the state of practitioners and commissioners who have committed in in your words in the sincere effort to move this forward make it accommodating to to the state and to the goals of lafcos.

So I would certainly appreciate our commission's support for uh for this recommendation.

I will second do we we have uh public comment on this desire fox.

Good evening Chair Little and members of the LAFCO commission.

I'm here to raise concerns about Sacramento LAFCO's participation with Cal AFCO and the amount of time SAC LAFCO participates in CalAfco Affairs.

When I returned back from my leave that a part of the reason why there might have been some challenges in communication was because our current executive officer was carrying a couple different roles one of those being sitting as interim executive director and also having to uh carry out the responsibility of being executive officer for Sacramento LAFCO I want to put on record that I staff uh didn't feel prioritized in that season and that the participation with California LAFCO which has experienced a grand exodus from a lot of LAFOs in the Southern California and have gotten some um there's been documented complaints about how CALAFCO is being governed so that is a separate issue separate topic if you all are not familiar with how CalAfco is around what it is what it does how it supports Sacramento and its other LAFOs go to his website.

Also recently I submitted a comment on the analyst listserv and uh in occupying a length that I thought was appropriate inquiring about other experiences that different analysts had experienced within county dependent LAFCOs I was further uh in violation of the a policy and without there being a um a um progressive system to address the the violation of the policy of the question I asked I was immediately removed from a lafco resource by the executive officer who was also uh great friends with the executive director of Cal LAFCO and I did not feel like I was provided the proper opportunity to be told why that was out of bounds how I could have adjusted my approach so I could still maintain a working relationship with my colleagues throughout the state of California and be a good LAFCO analyst thank you.

Thank you for we have any further comments from the board okay seeing none all those in favor please or hold on please vote.

Yeah I know I'm just your motion passes unanimously all right thank you our next item please next item is 15 executive officer commission council and astral sheet and correspondence christie gray well uh mr chair uh and and members um I'd like to take the opportunity to um welcome the new uh lafco uh counsel josh nelson um he's uh actually uh I worked with you briefly in El Dorado like if it was one hearing but um uh josh has been a tremendous resource uh he's also counsel for um for a couple of LAFCO San Benito and Santa Cruz is it any more?

What do you do in Santa Cruz?

Sorry.

Okay.

So Key's certainly uh qualified uh on the on the Calafco front.

He is part he's partner at Best Best in Krieger.

Uh so now we also have the resources of b of BB and K.

As part of your your um your packet.

It was a contract with uh with BB and K for LAFCO Council services.

And in addition, um we also now have also backup council with uh Colentino Highsmith and Wattley.

So both firms are um uh have uh very deep benches and they uh are very familiar with LAFCO matters um and uh you know we enjoyed certainly the the the service of uh Sloan Sakai Um and uh we thanked him for for all the years of service to to Segramento LAFCO.

Um your policy analyst, Grabo.

We'll go over the astro sheet uh on the correspondence.

A very, very late letter uh basically was sent to s to Governor Gavin Newsom to um sign the uh the local government um omnibus bill uh which included a couple of uh LAFCO related items.

They were non-substantive uh technical changes that uh make CKH work a little bit better.

Um we are thankful for to the Senate Local Government Committee because typically they do not include LAFCO work in their omnibus bill, but in this case they they made an exception for us, and so I'm very thankful for that.

With that, I will turn it over to your policy analysts to go over the astro sheet.

Great, good evening, commissioners.

Um, so that I'm not going back over the MSR um items that we already covered earlier.

Um something to prepare for in March, we have tenderly scheduled the airport south um industrial annexation project that will be coming forward.

In addition, we have um we will be bringing the Florin County Water MSR um item forward to open for public comment.

Um and those two items are tenderly scheduled.

Um, and so other than that, that's what we have going on in addition to the MSRs mentioned earlier.

And I would just like the public state, uh, can you keep me in the know?

Because we'd have to have my uh the alternative for this city come as I am FPC conflicted out of participating in that.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

We have any public comments.

We do.

Yes, we do.

Are we done with the report?

Okay, thank you.

Uh Desiree Fox, please.

Good evening, Chair Little and members of the LAFCO Commission.

Um, I requested multiple times to get in contact with our new commission council as I was navigating some private personnel matters.

I was told that I had no access to council, although our previous counsel with Sloan Sakai, I was able to communicate with directly multiple times.

So I would like to know if there's a policy um in place that does or does not allow for staff to communicate with council if they're having personnel challenges.

In regards to the Astro sheet, the um astro sheet stands for application status time report and overview.

I created it at the at the request of the commission so that you all can stay updated on how projects are moving and what staff is spending their time on.

It tells you how much time we're spending on it, the status of it.

Is it active?

Is it is it march uh is it active, is it pending, is it on hold?

We're for time, it says is it a lot of staff time, marginal time, or um, and I forget the other category, forgive me.

But within that Astro sheet, there was mention of a project called Airport South Industrial.

I was the uh project manager for that.

I made mention to my executive officer that I was uncomfortable performing certain duties with said project, and because it was high profile, I requested that my name be removed from the project.

And that because of my discomfort with it, I also said I did not want to act in the capacity of a licensed land uh land surveyor.

There's a lot of controversy associated with Airport South Industrial, and I did not want to be responsible for making my commission liable at my hands and um not performing on my job duties and staying within my scope of work.

And then in regards to um the astro sheet, generally I will reiterate that I encourage you all to make sure that the projects are moving forward on the Astro sheet and that there are things that uh staff is being proactive in how they are approaching municipal service reviews and other projects that are within the LAFCO office.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Chair, quick questions.

Um to the to the general counsel, can we can would you mind stating uh what is the general with uh staff requests as knowing that employees are under the county if they have questions, what that process is.

Uh yeah, uh thanks, Commissioner Kaplan.

First, um I'm Josh Nelson.

It's it's nice to meet everyone.

I appreciate the the words.

Um Jose.

I'm just really excited for the opportunity to work with this commission on both personally on behalf of the firm.

Um to answer the question uh uh commissioner.

Um all employees do work for the county, and so it's appropriate for them to address any personnel related issues to their contact of the Department of Personnel Services and not directly related to LAFCO council.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next item.

Next item is Commission Chair and Commissioner's comments.

Anyone?

I I have some short one.

Thank you.

Good researcher.

Well, first of all, I'd like to uh welcome uh our new chair, Chris Little.

I'm sure you're gonna do an excellent job, and you have the full support of all of us here for all of us to be successful.

I appreciate that.

And I'd like to welcome Josh Nelson.

Welcome aboard, nice to have you.

Uh we appreciate uh we appreciate you signing on, and uh we'll move forward.

Thank you so much.

And Chair Little, I just wanted to say congratulations.

Welcome to the chairmanship and good luck.

Well, thank you.

And thank you for your service as well and continued service on this commission.

Um Mr.

Chair, I do have one other request comment.

Um we we missed this the last time we met, but uh I see that our last item.

Uh I would like to take the the last item before closed session so that we can in the fullest uh expression uh of a meeting be able to uh adjourn the meeting in memory of Don Lockhart, our previous executive officer.

And I would like to do that before the closed session.

Now that with that since we have a uh full meeting going on, I think that's appropriate to have a record uh recognition at this time.

So uh if I may, I would like to uh have all of us uh stand for a moment of silence in memory of uh previous executive officer Don Lockhart.

We've been friends since 1995 when he was a planner with the city of Sacramento, and I was an acting uh fire marshal at the same time.

So it's been uh it was many many years of professional friendly uh collaboration and in his memory.

Thank you, Mr.

Jim.

Thank you, Commissioner Jones, for that.

That was that was nice.

All right, so do we?

Okay, so the next item uh is for closed session.

And so we will now go into closed session.

Will we that would be in hearing room one?

Hearing room one, okay.

Thank you very much.