The Visalia City Council held a work session at 4:30 PM and a regular session at 7:00 PM on October 20, 2025. The meeting included presentations on aquatics facilities and recreation division activities, a zoning text amendment tied to the Housing Element, approval of city manager employment terms, and public comments on multiple topics. Council directed staff to study a combined competition and recreation outdoor aquatic facility and to report back within 60 days.
1. Aquatics Facility Presentation (Work Session)
2. Recreation Division Overview (Work Session)
3. Zoning Text Amendment No. 2025-03 (Regular Session)
4. Change of Terms and Conditions – City Manager (Regular Session)
Microphone check one two, microphone check one two. Microphone check three four. We are excited to announce the promotion of Amy Powell to HR manager over the past two and a half years. She has served the city with dedication and professionalism as the management analyst in HR and Risk and as the acting HR manager for the past six months, where she demonstrated commitment, deep knowledge of HR operations, and a consistent ability to manage a vast array of job duties. Amy holds a master's degree in HR management and brings over 25 years of HR experience across diverse um industries. Prior to working for the city, Amy served as HR manager for the housing authority for Tillerie County. Her strong work ethic, commitment to excellence, and proven leadership make her exceptionally well prepared to take on this new role. Please join me in congratulating Amy on her well-deserved promotion. Thank you, Shauna, for trusting me with this responsibility. And counsel, I look forward to continuing to support the goals you've set for our most important assets, our employees. Thank you. Good uh afternoon, Mr. Mayor and City Council. Um it is my pleasure today to introduce you to a new employee with the city. Um admin services technician, Jessica Mendez. Um we had a great recruitment for this, and there was a lot of great candidates, and Jessica truly shown above all of the other candidates. She comes to us from um the Tularie County Sheriff's Office while she was there. She worked there for about five years, and she was the department HR admin aide, and so she did a lot of the administrative work that we are going to need her to do now. And just through the interview, she truly shown through by just giving us a lot of information in what we're looking for. She's essentially doing the job already before a different agency, so we're very happy to bring her over to our um division and just look forward to having her um with us to continue on the great work she's already done for another agency. Good afternoon. My name is Jessica Mendez. I just want to say thank you. It's been a great first day on the job. The department has the city has been extremely welcoming, and I'm very excited to bring the everything I've learned over the years and bring it to the city of Visalia. And I want to thank you for this great opportunity. Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the council. Uh Paul Brunell, Director of Planning and Community Preservation, and is with great pleasure. I get to introduce Jared Olson, who is our new principal planner. Uh he started with the city uh last Monday, so it's always a good sign when they show for their second week of work after being uh indoctrinated into what we do in planning. Uh so just a little bit back, uh a little brief background on Jared. So Jared Olson comes to us from uh Provost and Pritchard. Uh we've spent a lot of time uh working on uh projects uh for the city. Uh prior to that though, he did have experience working for the city of Fresno, uh working in their planning department. So has over about nine years of planning experience and then some related work uh uh work that he did in the field working with uh Devin Jones prior to Jeff and Jones' arrival in the city of Isaac as well. So originally from Hanford, uh Jared has spent s uh several years in the Bay Area before coming back to the Valley. Uh Jared is a graduate of the University of San Francisco State, uh, where he uh received his bachelor's in urban studies and planning. Uh Jared lives in Visalia and he loves spending time with his wife and his two-year-old son. He enjoys camping, uh uh karaoke and tiki bars. So we've been asking him some great tiki bar locations, and hopefully he'll share those with us. Uh and we'll share those with anyone else that has interest in that. Uh but it is great to have Jared. I've I've had the privilege of just working uh when he was in the consultant world, uh talking to him about some ideas, and it's I'm glad to see that he's able to join our ranks and bring some of the experience that we're looking for, especially on the environmental side uh with the planning process. So, with this again, please introduce Jared Olson. Uh thank you um everyone, and I want to say um uh thank you uh for the opportunity to uh serve. Yeah, thank you much. All right, always exciting to get some some new amazing people working with the city of Isaiah. So welcome to all of our new employees. Next we're gonna go on to item number two, which is aquatics facility presentation. Thank you, Mayor, Council members, Jason Glick, Parks and Recreation Director.