Speaker numbers apply only to this recording. Names come from transcript evidence. “Possibly” marks uncertain attribution.
The Visalia City Council held a combined work session and regular meeting on Monday, November 2, 2026. The work session featured presentations on the Cross Valley Corridor transit studies and the Race Communications fiber optic network. The regular session included general public comment, approval of a consent calendar, and two public hearings adopting updates to the Entertainment Ordinance and Fireworks regulations.
Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the Vaisia City Council work session. We're going to go ahead and get this meeting started today. Creative criticism presented with appropriate courtesy is welcome. Speaker comments during public comments must be limited to matters within the council's authority, generally referred to as within the council subject matter jurisdiction. Josh is filling the vacancy from Brian Kustra, who's retiring after 30 years of service, and then Chris Terry is being promoted from information systems analyst to information security analyst, and Chris will be leading a new team to focus on cybersecurity and ensuring the city is meeting its compliance and security needs. Good afternoon. My name is Samantha Romage Matthias, and I'm the convention center manager. And with me today, I have Octavio Avila, and he joins us from Hanford Unified School District, uh, where he was there for 18 years, and he is the facility services technician at the convention center. Um, he brings a lot of experience with live performances, um, setup and managing events. Um, he has brought great customer service to the convention center. We're excited to have him. And he actually worked at the convention center back in 1998. So he's come full full circle. Um he enjoys spending time outside of work with his uh wife and his five-year-old son. And um we are very excited to have him on board. Thank you. All right, well, welcome uh Cavio and congratulations to Christian Josh on your guys' promotions. Yeah, you don't see the IT guys come out very often, so it's always nice to see you. All right, we're gonna go on to item number two, which is the cross valley corridor special area studies. Good evening and thank you, Council. Um, appreciate the opportunity to present this evening. Uh John Lawless, Assistant City Manager, and joined by Angelina Baker, our transit manager. Um, we had hoped to have our uh representative from TGAG with us this evening who facilitated this study that was done by TCAG, um, presented this to the um TCAG Board of Directors at its last meeting last week. So thought it would be appropriate to bring before you the uh the study that was done as part of the Cross Valley Corridor uh phase one operation plan and specific studies at the uh COS Vicalia campus as well as in the Visalia Industrial Park. So a couple of acknowledgments first. Um it was um this is a description of the sh uh stakeholders that were involved in the study and a lot of outreach that was done uh with them. Um the uh again led by the cleric county association of governments who funded the study, and then uh involved with Caltrans District Six, uh, as well as City of Isalia College of Sequoia's uh Armone Boulevard Roundtable. Appreciate Vice Mayor Wynne for her support through that uh effort. The Tularia County Regional Transit Agency who we coordinated with, as well as the Vicelli Economic Development Corporation, and the study was uh done by or conducted by Arab. So this provides an overview just as a summary of what the Cross Valley Corridor plan is. It's interconnectivity. Um it started between the city of Lindsay and Hanford, and then connectivity between Vice through Vice, and then uh connectivity between Visalia and Tilary. Uh since then, the boundaries I would say of the first of the phase one operation plan is from Farmersville, again out to Hanford, and then um uh they call it the Cross Valley Express, which would be express bus service between Farmersville and Hanford through Visalia, and then bus rapid transit on Mooney between Vicellia and uh City of Clary. So uh two different areas I shared, two different areas that were focused on uh as part of this. So uh this is in the Biselia Industrial Park and showing what are some of the current um transit stops as well as what was being evaluated for what is the best location to serve the industrial park. So there were three subject areas that were evaluated with plaza and Goshen, Goshen and Shirk. And then we also looked at the TCOE complex as we continue to evaluate that and have received funding for to begin transitioning that into our employment resource center for the industrial park. So that's the three areas that were being evaluated. Similarly, this is uh and was really one of great consequence. Before was more future thinking, this was much more logistics and how to in this very busy corridor, how to best move uh with the cooperation of Caltrans, doing bus reprotransit through something that's very congested, uh a very busy corridor, and to do it effectively is so as not to interrupt um uh signal operations and just the move movement of traffic through SR 198, SR63 or Mooney Boulevard.