The Visalia City Council held a work session starting at 4:00 PM and a regular session at 7:00 PM on April 20, 2026. The work session included a public hearing on vacancies and recruitment, a mid-year budget review, and a capital improvement program review. The regular session approved a consent calendar of 15 items, adopted the 2026 Annual Action Plan for HUD grants, held a first public hearing on the Measure N 10-year plan and budget, approved an ordinance update for code enforcement procedures, and authorized an airport lease agreement. Mayor Brett Taylor presided. Council Member Steve Nelsen was absent; all votes were 4-0.
The Council approved the consent calendar as read without discussion, including:
Note: Council Member Steve Nelsen was absent for all votes, resulting in 4-0 for all actions requiring a vote.
So we're gonna go ahead and uh start the meeting in about five minutes. Uh we actually did have our roadway assist vehicle, the one that scans the roads. Uh it was supposed to be here a few minutes ago, but it showed up a few minutes late, so we're gonna do a quick five-minute break so we can go out and take a look at it and we'll we'll reconvene in about uh five to ten minutes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Everyone's welcome to join us, but we will go ahead and get started just a few minutes late today. All right, well, thank you everybody. We appreciate that. Uh we got to go out and look at our machine that's out there checking our roadways and seeing the condition that they're in so we can uh better uh make sure those roadways are safe and uh prepared for our community. So uh we appreciate you letting us take that little break. Uh we're gonna go ahead and uh call this uh work session to order, and we will start off with uh 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 times expired. Please begin your comments by stating and spelling your name and providing your city of residence. Anyone wishing to speak at this time, please come forward to the podium over here. All right, and seeing no one running up there, we're gonna go ahead and start our our work session with item number one, which is vacancies, recruitment, and retention efforts. Staff report, please. Good afternoon, Mayor Taylor and Council members. I'm Amy Pell, the human resources manager with the city, and presenting with me today is Rachel Archer, Management Analyst in Human Resources and Risk. Today we will be presenting on Assembly Bill 2561. As you may recall from last year's presentation, AB twenty 2561 requires public agencies to present during a public hearing on job vacancies, recruitment, and retention efforts prior to the adoption of the annual budget. Included in this law is that bargaining units can come and make a presentation during this meeting. We did reach out to all five of our represented bargaining units, and none chose to do so today. So the data contained in this report was compiled as of February 28th. This slide shows the status of our city workforce as of that date. This reflects the health of the city workforce and the efficacy of our recruitment and retention efforts. Some of these are like the professional uh land surveyor, the wastewater treatment plant superintendent, and senior communications operator positions. Communication operator positions are challenging to fill, and this isn't just a city of Visalia issue, this is a nationwide issue. Um there are currently seven vacant communications operator positions within group M. And we are pleased to report we recently conducted another round of testing, and this produced our largest list of candidates in a long time. That candidate group is now moving through the interview and testing process. So this page right here, this is a visual breakdown of that data. On this chart, you can see the number of budgeted positions by bargaining unit in the dark blue. The light blue shows the amount of vacancies by bargaining group, and the green line shows the vacancy rate. So at the top of the chart, you see that 20% vacancy rate threshold that triggers further reporting and uh would show to us that there is a possible issue. As you can see, we are far below that rate, reflecting the health of our staffing levels within each bargaining unit. So this slide right here is an overview of our recruitment process. Hiring the right people and filling critical vacancies is fundamental to maintaining the level of service our community expects and deserves. So step one, you'll see on the top right, is vacancy and requisition. So departments will identify a vacancy and submit a requisition to initiate the recruitment. Step two is job posting and advertisement. The position is posted and advertised to attract a qualified and diverse applicant pool. Step three, application screening and examination process. HR screens applications for minimum qualifications and administers any exams if required. Step four is eligible list and certification. Qualified candidates are placed on an eligible list and certified to the hiring department. Step five is department interviews, selection, and appointment. The department conducts the interviews, selects the top candidate, and makes an appointment, and then we have onboarding and probationary period begins. So the new hire is onboarded and begins their probationary period.