The Visalia City Council held a hybrid Work Session at 4:00 PM and Regular Session at 7:00 PM on Monday, May 6, 2024, at 707 W. Acequia. Vice Mayor Brett Taylor was absent. The Work Session included a review of the Narcotics Forfeiture Fund CIP, approval of the proposed Measure N budget for FY 2024/25 and 2025/26, and a presentation on a potential cannabis tax measure. The Regular Session featured a proclamation designating May as Historic Preservation Month, public comments on a mural application, approval of the Consent Calendar (with the mural item pulled for separate debate), and subsequent approval of the mural.
Citizens are now invited to comment on issues within the jurisdiction of the Victoria City Council and items listed on the closed session. The council asks that you keep her comments concise and positive. Creative criticism present with appropriate courtesy is welcome. Item one capital improvement program. Good afternoon, Council. Melody Murch from your finance department. This is a cleanup item from our capital process. It's to review a final fund that was left out of the presentation at the end on April 15th. Staff is available to answer any questions that you have, and we can bring back any answers that we can't give you tonight at a later date. And this fund will be brought with all the others for final adoption in June. And the fund that we're looking at is the narcotics forfeiture fund. This fund is restricted to uh to cover costs that are related to narcotics forfeiture for the police department. Council, any questions on this? Yeah. Um since I've been sitting up here, I've always spoke of when it comes to the safety of our uh personnel within our city that um that's foremost for me. So I'm trying to figure out um item number four, night vision equipment for SWAT team purchase equipment for all SWAT special weapons and tactical teams, purchase your seven sets of equipment annually until uh full unit is equipped, and it's concerning night vision. And I see we're appropriating money for 2024-2025. If that doesn't fulfill the entire grouping, why do we extend out 26, 27, and 28? Or is that a replacement again? Thank you, Councilman Nelson, Jason Sellers are chief of police. So this is new equipment for the SWAT team. They've never had this equipment before. Um, this is part of just managing the fund, but this is a rollout of this type is sufficient for the team, and we've discussed it internally, but this will work. It it better equits them and provides safety for them. It provides them with different um means of operating that they haven't had in the past. So it's a new type of equipment that they had. Um it could be a safety issue, but um the way that we're deploying it breaking it out in two years is is sufficient and fine. Okay, good enough. Thank you. Any more questions? Okay, this will all be brought back to you with the budget in June. Thank you. Thank you. Any public comment on this? No. All right. Thank you. That's the shortest one yet. Let's move to item number two. Review and discuss proposed fiscal year 2024/slash 25 and 25 slash 26 measure in budget and continue with the amended expenditure plan previously approved. Good evening, council. My name is Renee Nagel. I'm the finance and technology director for the city of Visalia. And with me, I have Amy Swaren, um, who is our budget analyst. And tonight we're here for the measure in 2425, 25, 26, proposed budget. Um, so as in previous years, measure in is per pulled out and done a little separately and then combined and at the end with the total budget. And that's just because it has additional additional processes that have to be followed, and then of course, it has to go to the committee and all that. So we're just here a little earlier with it. The capital for measure in is in here as well. So this is operating and capital for measure, and this is a total package for the proposed for measure in.