Stockton City Council Special ARPA Study Session - March 6, 2024
Stockton City Council Special ARPA Study Session - March 6, 2024
This special meeting of the Stockton City Council was held as a study session to review the status of projects funded by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The meeting took place on March 6, 2024 (note: the official transcript and minutes list the date as February 28, 2024, but the user-specified date is used per instructions). The session began at 9:11 AM and adjourned at 10:48 AM at the San Joaquin Council of Governments. No votes were taken; the item was informational. Staff presented an update on ARPA spending, project highlights, and recommendations for reprogramming approximately $6 million in unused funds. The council discussed the recommendations and directed staff to bring them back for a vote on March 12, 2024.
Discussion Items
- ARPA Overview (City Manager Harry Black): Stockton received $78 million from ARPA. As of December 31, 2023, $37 million had been spent, $25 million was pending obligation, and the council contingency balance was $2.9 million. Funds must be obligated by December 31, 2024, and expended by December 31, 2026. Key milestones included approval of the spending plan in September 2021, reprogramming for Project HomeKey, and previous workshops in 2022 and 2023.
- COVID Mitigation & Prevention (CFO Kimberly Trammell): Projects included PPE purchases (mostly using CARES Act funds, with $30,000 obligated for air purifiers), COVID tests, and open data dashboards for homelessness and public health (completed, $66,000 spent).
- Community Well-Being (Alex Bailey, City Manager’s Office): The Mobile Community Response Team (MCRT) pilot with Community Medical Centers (CMC) received $5.76 million. As of December 2023, MCRT operated seven days a week (8 AM–11 PM), responded to over 4,300 calls, made 2,600 follow-up calls, and added 17 positions. Data showed calls from 11 Stockton zip codes, with highest volumes in 95207, 95202, and 95206. De-escalation occurred via phone (79%) and mobile response (21%) in December. Councilmember Lenz asked about public awareness; Chief McFadden noted the number is on police cards and websites. Councilmember Blower questioned long-term sustainability; City Manager Black stated CMC is required to explore self-sufficiency.
- Essential Support & Small Business (Carrie Wright, Economic Development): Programs included community support for nonprofits (9 completed, 8 in progress, 28 total expected by August 2024), economic development strategic action plan (concluding), marketing (parted with JP Marketing, will hire photographer/graphic designer), nonprofit capacity building with United Way (two cohorts, 37 nonprofits trained, fourth year may be added), Flavor Fest (12,000 attendance in 2022, 14,500 in 2023, third year May 17–19, 2024), Uplift Downtown (street improvements, landscaping, parking garage cameras to come), and arena scoreboard (new scoreboard, ribbon boards, lighting; Adventist Health naming sponsor; event parking revenue up 38%).
- Business Facade Improvement (Jordan Peterson): 40 projects completed, 42 underway; program winding down.
- Business Attraction & Expansion: Three-year contract with Retail Strategies for recruitment and downtown strategic plan through 2025.
- Chamber & Business District Support: Contracts with Downtown Stockton Alliance, Miracle Mile, Greater Stockton Chamber, and Central Business Hub (Hispanic, African American, Asian American chambers) mostly completed.
- Entrepreneurship Support: Grants to eight micro-entrepreneurs in 2022-23; new contracts with business service organizations for technical assistance in 2023-24.
- Homelessness & Housing (Carrie Wright): Project HomeKey (Calaveras Quarters, $8 million city obligation leveraging $30 million state funds, 60% complete, expected September 2024); Stockton Shelter Crisis & Navigation Center (overall budget $1.8 million; challenges included CEO turnover, Caltrans lease renegotiation, winter storms, shelter collapse; St. Mary’s now operating; navigation center for families expected end of summer 2024; additional $1 million investment needed). Pathways project by St. Mary’s ($3 million ARPA for initial operations, 221 units, 288 beds, low-barrier, service-rich, goal of exiting people to permanent housing within six months).
- Recovery of City Government (Kimberly Trammell): Lost revenue replacement ($9.6 million allocated, eligible for up to $23 million, $4.5 million used so far); general administration ($407,000 for staff augmentation); essential worker premium pay ($2,000 full-time, $500 part-time, requires additional $311,000); COVID paid leave ($1.4 million budget, $3.6 million spent, $1 million shortfall from other funds).
- Miscellaneous Projects (presented by various staff): Digital traffic camera replacement ($1.4 million, some savings expected); automated restrooms in 10 parks (first phase late summer 2024); fire apparatus (six engines, battalion vehicles, brush rigs nearly delivered); emergency generators at fire stations (six generators, additional six proposed); clean city initiative equipment (10 pieces, mostly delivered); Miracle Mile traffic safety improvements (construction to start soon, 20 days); City Hall HVAC (completed); animal shelter upgrades (100% design, construction summer 2024, original budget $6.1 million, additional $4.124 million needed due to inflation and design scope).
- Police Equipment (Chief McFadden): ARPA funding used for communications upgrades, bomb vehicle, bomb dog, protective equipment, range upgrades, undercover vehicles. $1.2 million total, $51,000 pending for animal shelter washers/dryers.
- Digital Divide (Ann St. George): Connectivity program distributed 1,550 Chromebooks with hotspots and 500 data-enabled tablets with three years of internet to households; 73% went to highest-need census tracts; usage stable at about 70% per month.
Key Outcomes
- Staff recommended reprogramming $6.035 million from identified project balances and revenue loss funds to: complete arena scoreboard work ($100,000), add a fourth year to nonprofit capacity building ($300,000), cover essential worker premium pay shortfall ($311,000), support a co-location data center for disaster readiness ($200,000), complete emergency generator installations at all fire stations (additional $1 million, total six new generators), and increase the animal shelter project budget by $4.124 million.
- Council members expressed support for the recommendations but noted concern about the lack of park investments. Councilmember Warmsley questioned the $4.124 million increase for the animal shelter; staff explained it resulted from design completion and inflation.
- No formal vote was taken. The recommendations will be brought back to the council on March 12, 2024, for approval.
Meeting Transcript
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the special council meeting for Stockton City Council. Today is Wednesday, February 28th, 2024. City Clerk, please take roll. Councilmember Pidier is absent. Councilmember Blauer. Present. Councilmember Lenz. Present. Councilmember Wright. Present. Councilmember Via Pudua. Present. Vice Mayor Wormsley. Present. Mayor Lincoln. Present. We have a quorum. Thank you. Item two, public comments. City clerk, do we have any comments from members of the public? We have no cards, Mayor. Thank you. Item three items for discussion. Item 3.1 study session on projects funded by the American Rescue Plan Act. At this time, I'd like to hand it over to City Manager Harry Black. Okay, thank you, Mayor. And good morning to everyone. We've been very busy. And so the purpose of today is just to provide an update on where we are with the various projects that you all have approved, as well as to make some recommendations at the end of the uh at the end of the workshop. So we we're gonna I'm gonna provide a uh a summary of what the American Rescue Plan Act looks like for the city of Stockton. Uh then we'll go into our efforts, which have concluded in terms of COVID mitigation and prevention. That will be presented by our administrative services department. Uh, our community well-being uh category, uh, that would be the city manager's office and as well as uh Stockton PD. Uh then we'll go into the essential support to households, uh, that'll be economic development, small business support and economic recovery. That'll be economic development as well, homelessness and housing, economic development department. Uh recovery of city government. That's just really in essence where we were able to use some of the ARPA funds to offset some budget uh impacts, uh financial impacts of the pandemic. We'll go into an overview of that, then the digital divide and internet connectivity category, uh, then miscellaneous projects, and then we'll conclude with a discussion with a discussion uh sort of wrapping up in this discussion in terms of a general overview of where we are financially with some recommendations. So you have a PowerPoint presentation. You you have a PowerPoint presentation, uh, and you also have a notebook. And so the PowerPoint is really a summary of what's in the notebook. You should look at the notebook as just really telling the entire pandemic story for the city. Uh uh, which you'll have in section one is all of the resolution, this background information along with all of the resolutions that you all have have have passed related to these funds. Uh so you've got a compendium of all of that, uh, and then you've got more in-depth detail on each category and each project within each category, along with uh project schedules and and all of that. And then you also have a master schedule here of everything. So I would look at the notebook as a reference document, and we're just gonna focus on the on the PowerPoint. So just to recap, again, I think it's important that we understand, you know, how we got into this and all of the different milestones that uh that have gotten us to this point. Uh, you know, I I think we all would agree that Stockton as a city government and as a community. We we uh I would I would probably give us an A in terms of our pandemic management efforts all around all across the board. So again, March the 10th.
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