Visalia City Council Meeting - November 3, 2025: Work Session and Regular Session
Visalia City Council Meeting - November 3, 2025: Work Session and Regular Session
The Visalia City Council held a work session starting at 4:00 PM and a regular session at 7:00 PM on Monday, November 3, 2025. The work session covered recognition of an innovation award, presentation of the 2025 public opinion survey results, an update on the Sanitary Sewer Master Plan, an overview of the Engineering Division, and establishment of strategic budget goals for FY 2026/2027 and 2027/2028. The regular session included public comments, consent calendar actions (with items pulled for discussion on animal services grants, bike lane redesign, and food assistance), a public hearing on senior meal program fee adjustments, and approval of the city's role as lead operator for a regional express transit service.
Consent Calendar
- Item 2 (Animal Services Grant): Authorized staff to apply for an ASPCA grant up to $95,000 to reduce return-to-home fees and pet adoption fees. Passed 5-0 after Vice Mayor Wynn requested a brief explanation from Animal Services Manager Candace Harrington.
- Item 12 (Bike Lane Configurations): Councilmember Poochigian pulled the item to discuss redesigning bike lane configurations on Tulare Avenue. The council unanimously voted to place the item on a future agenda for further discussion, pausing striping until a final design decision is made.
- Item 13 (Food-Based Non-Profit Donation): Councilmember Hernandez Soto proposed a future agenda item to consider a city donation to a food-based non-profit in light of SNAP benefit disruptions. After debate, the motion failed 3-2, with Councilmembers Nelsen, Poochigian, and Mayor Taylor voting against.
- Remaining consent calendar items (1, 3-11) were approved unanimously via a single motion.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Work Session: No public comments during the work session.
- Regular Session: Multiple speakers addressed the council during the general public comment period and on specific agenda items.
- A resident praised the success of recent community events and urged continued diversity programming.
- Kathy Faulkner highlighted Veterans Day activities at Mooney Grove Park and called for more veteran support.
- Isaac Herrera suggested tying SNAP benefits to civic engagement, questioned a logo contract expense, and offered to discuss free municipal Wi-Fi.
- Mary Jennings, Executive Director of Visalia Emergency Aid Council (VEAC), reported a 15% increase in food requests in October (1,750 households, 5,800 individuals) due to SNAP uncertainty, urging city support.
- Several speakers (Maria Guien, Michelle Kenner, Janet Fox, and others) spoke in favor of food assistance and against senior meal price increases, emphasizing the impact on seniors and families.
- Mark Wall (Southern Sierra Cyclist Bicycle Club) and Laura Anderson spoke in support of protected bike lanes on Tulare Avenue, citing safety benefits.
- Orvella Franzen and others raised concerns about parking loss and confusion over new bike lane markings.
Discussion Items
- Recognition of Innovators by Design Award (Work Session): The city received an award for its ECO program, which provides job skills and employment to individuals experiencing homelessness. Jason Serpa (Public Works) presented the award with program participants. Council praised the program's impact.
- 2025 Public Opinion Survey Results (Work Session): Richard Bernard (FM3) presented survey methodology (random sample of 556 residents, margin of error ±4.4%) and key findings: 92% favorable view of Visalia as a place to live, top concerns being homelessness (37%), crime, and traffic. Satisfaction with city services was at 72%, with fire/paramedic services ranked highest. Council discussed quadrant-level data and social media's influence; staff committed to providing breakdowns by quadrant.
- Sanitary Sewer Master Plan Update (Work Session): Catherine Woodholf presented the update, including modeling for growth, a nexus study, and projected fee increases (~$800 per equivalent dwelling unit). The plan is available for public comment until December 2, 2025, when adoption is expected. Council voted 5-0 to receive the update.
- Engineering Division Presentation (Work Session): Chris Crawford provided an overview of capital improvement projects ($450M backlog), staffing challenges, and major projects (Civic Center, Rawhide Clubhouse, Shirk widening, etc.). He highlighted 135 new construction starts and $60M in grants. Council voted 5-0 to receive the presentation.
- Fiscal Year 2026/2027 & 2027/2028 Strategic Budget Goals (Work Session): Finance Director Renee Nagel outlined the budget process and proposed continuing the current strategic goals (quality of life, infrastructure, fiscal strength, organizational excellence, economic vitality). Council agreed without changes, passing 5-0.
- Public Hearing: Senior Meal Program Fee Adjustment (Regular Session): Staff proposed a phased price increase due to vendor cost hikes (from $4.50 to $10/meal for Visalia seniors, $12 for non-residents). After public opposition, the council voted 5-0 to table the item, appropriate funds to maintain current prices until an RFP is completed (expected early 2026), and charge non-Visalia seniors the actual cost.
- Regional Express Transit Service Project (Regular Session): The council approved the city's role as project lead and primary operator for a cross-valley express bus service connecting Hanford, Visalia, and NAS Lemoore, funded by $59M in state grants and other sources. Capital improvements include signal priority, zero-emission vehicles, and transit centers. Council voted 5-0 to authorize the city manager to execute necessary agreements.
Key Outcomes
- Award Recognition: Council formally recognized the Innovators by Design Award for the ECO program.
- Survey Acceptance: Council accepted the 2025 public opinion survey results and requested quadrant-specific data for future use.
- Sewer Master Plan Next Steps: Public comment period open until December 2, 2025; adoption scheduled for that date. Nexus study to proceed, with new impact fees expected by summer 2026.
- Engineering Division: Council received the update and commended staff progress.
- Budget Goals: Existing strategic goals were affirmed for the upcoming biennial budget process.
- Animal Services Grant: Application authorized for up to $95,000 ASPCA grant.
- Bike Lane Redesign: Future agenda item approved to discuss Tulare Avenue bike lane configurations; striping paused pending decision.
- Food Assistance: Motion to place donation item on future agenda failed 3-2; council members encouraged direct discretionary fund donations.
- Senior Meal Program: Tabled pending RFP results; interim funding appropriated to keep prices unchanged; non-resident seniors to pay actual cost.
- Regional Express Transit: City authorized to participate as lead and operator; agreements to be drafted and returned for final approval.
Meeting Transcript
Hi, good evening or good afternoon, everybody. We're gonna go ahead and get this uh city council work session meeting started November 3rd, and we will call this meeting to order. We'll start off with public comments. 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 will be 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. Do we have anyone from the public wishing to speak? Seeing pretty much all okay. So I see no one. Is this microphone working? Okay. Perfect. It's a little low. It was working, then it wasn't. All right, so we're gonna go ahead and start off with item number one, which is uh recognition of City of Isaiah Innovators by Design Award. And that's gonna be given by Jason Serpa. Good evening, Council. Jason Serpa, Public Works Manager for Solid Waste. On October 8th, uh the workforce investment board held the Innovators by Design Conference, uh, which uh invited a lot of partners, community partners, community individuals, uh, to collaborate and uh um uh inspire change uh and in community involvement. Um, in addition to having a keynote speaker there and other breakout conferences that they did give out individual and uh team awards uh to recognize um uh not only organizations but individuals, and the city of Isalia was awarded the um innovation award for our eco program, and so I uh they also did a real special video. Uh they um which will I guess become a lot longer video for um to send out to other cities and organizations as an example and uh we do have the video to show today, but before we show the video, I do want to introduce our individuals that went through the eco program. I have Michael Gonzalez uh and Celeste uh Paras. They are both in our sweep program now, full-time uh full-time employees, and uh Griselda Harrow, who's a solid waste operator. And we do have Alyssa Ojeda also in our wastewater uh collections department. Uh she should be able to make it, she might be a little late today. Um Griselda was featured in the video, but uh they're all superstars, they all came through the program. Um, and we can go ahead and start the eco program was developed in order to provide individuals that are experiencing homelessness in the city of Aysaya with the skills needed to be successful and also the resources and confidence needed to be successful in the workforce. I had been evicted from my apartment, and I was not on the streets for a very long time, but I was on the streets for about three weeks before I got into a shelter. I saw another participant there in her yellow shirt with their pants and her boots, and I was like, where do you work? I want to work where you work, you know. The ECO program was always a partnership between the workforce investment board and CSAT, along with the City of Isaiah. What do I do? Start on here and then we'll walk up this way. C SET does run the level one crew, which is a cleanup crew supervised with a C set employee. It was like a real eye-opener to uh cleaning up the unhoused. I I was able to see if I would have stayed out longer on housed, and then that could have been me. That kind of gave me more of a motivational push to continue to move forward. So phase one, it helps people get their foot back in the door with the workforce, right? In addition, what they're doing is job preparation workshops, helping them with interview skills, with resume writing, you know, career expiration, figuring out what's out there, and then we also have phase two. Those individuals are then working directly under the supervision of the city of Visalia's public works department. They send them over to the City of Isaiah Solid Waste Department, and they work here in place of hour leaves that we would have hired anyways. There are folks out there that have a hard time finding the avenue to get back to work. We consider a success when they achieve outside employment. I really enjoyed the program getting up early and becoming responsible. I started saving money. That's when they asked me if I wanted to apply for a position here at the city. And then um I ended up getting my license, my license, and I got the solid waste operator job. I love my job.
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