The Visalia City Council held a work session at 4:00 PM and a regular session at 7:00 PM on Monday, July 21, 2025. The meeting included a proclamation, public hearings, a cannabis ordinance discussion, a surplus policy review, a consent calendar with 34 items, and six regular agenda items. The Council took votes on numerous items, with all but one passing unanimously.
Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the Visaya City Council meeting. We're gonna start our work session uh today on Monday, July 21st with doing uh public comments. Anyone from the public, uh citizens are now invited to comment on issues within the jurisdiction of the Visaya City Council and items listed on the closed session agenda. The council asks that you keep your comments concise and positive. Creative criticism presented with appropriate courtesy is welcome. Each speaker is allowed three minutes, and a timer will notify you when your time's expired. Please begin your comments by stating and spelling your name and providing your city of residence. Anyone from the public wishing to speak. So one half of it talks about Base Camp Better, which are gamified itineraries. So the more coffee spots you go to, the more tacos you try, the more breweries you visit, the more prizes you win that are based on living in Visaya. And so it's really kind of fun for our tourists. But I think you'll notice the second side. So people who need transportation around town while they're visiting also have access to that. So you'll see these in merchant windows and also at our hotels. But just wanted you to know that these are being distributed all through our hotels. So that's all I have. Thanks. I'm Brian Thoburn with Southern California Edison. Uh, just wanted to come and express my appreciation for the latest example of the uh great partnership that we at Edison have uh with the city. Um, as council member Soto and Mr. Lawless know uh a couple weeks ago we met out at the our old DeVisitero substation across from the ballpark to address some customer uh and code enforcement issues, and um those are being addressed. Uh, we expect to have our veg management crew out there uh this week or next week to um take care of the bushes out there to address the issue that was uh out there with uh vagrancy, and then our folks are also following up with the customer on the uh potential uh uh energy uh theft investigation. So again, it was just another uh the latest example of the great partnership that we have. So I just want to express my appreciation of councilmember Soto and Mr. Lawless and to all of you. Thanks. Anyone else wishing to speak? All right, we'll close public comments and we'll go on to item number one, um, which is park and recreation month proclamation. Um I guess I get the honor of reading this. All right, so this is a City of Visaya proclamation um designation of July is parks and recreation month, whereas parks and recreation is an integral part of our community throughout this country, including the city of Visaya, and whereas parks and recreation promotes time spent in nature, which positively impacts mental health and increasing cognitive performance and well-being and alleviating illnesses such as depression, attention, deficit disorder, and Alzheimer's. And whereas parks and recreation encourages physical activities by providing uh space for popular sports, hiking trails, swimming pools, and many other activities designated to promote uh active lifestyles and parks and recreation programming education activities such as as out of school time programming and youth sports and environmental education are critical to childhood development. And whereas parks and recreation is essential and uh adaptable infrastructure that makes our communities resilient in the face of natural disasters and climate change. And whereas the United States House of Representatives has designated July as parks and recreation month, whereas the city of Visaya recognize the benefits derived from parks and recreation resources. Now, therefore, let it be resolved that the city of Visaya or that the Visaya City Council that July is recognized as parks and recreation month by the city of Visaya. So do we have our parks and rec staff that we can present this to? Yeah, that's yeah, we'll do a picture of the community, So we're definitely blessed to have an amazing uh Parks and Rec staff. Um I think the perfect example was our our recent Fourth of July uh extravagant that we did on the third of July. It was so well attended by our community. I mean, there was I don't know, five, six, seven thousand people that showed up. We had all of our Parks and Ref rec staff out there. Everything was, I mean, beautiful, it was seamless, and so we really have an outstanding staff. So I want to say thank you guys for uh making Vicelia a better place to live. You guys really are special, so thank you. All right, now we're going on to item number two, which is new employee introductions with the convention center. Good after good afternoon, Council. John Lalla's assistance city manager, and it's uh my distinct honor and privilege this evening to officially introduce Samantha Rumaj Matthias as the city's new convention center manager. Samantha is a well-respected and longtime involved member of the Visalia community and brings with her more than 35 years in the hospitality industry with the last 27 years as the general manager for the Windham Visalia Hotel and Conference Center. Vicea's largest full service hotel. While general manager for the Windham Visalia, Samantha supervises a staff of more than 100, and under her leadership, the Windham Visalia received the distinguished best of windham award the past five years for outstanding service and inspection performance, an honor only awarded to 75 Wyndham properties each year of the approximate nine thousand properties worldwide across ninety-five countries.