06/16/26 Council Meeting

oh yes. >> you. >> I did. I I know. That's good yeah so I think it's good I have no something that I yeah and it's no no risk. No it's no. Yeah hey I ready? Yeah. Okay. So I was in it. To give it to. Yeah, yeah. Right? Right. Yeah yeah yeah. You know, and, uh. You. Um. So .So so I got. Yes. I know we're. There it is. .Right. >> all right. I'll call to order our. Um. >> regular city council meeting and if we can start with our invocation by our chaplain mary ann hawkins. Welcome. >> let's pray. Oh, GOD. >> our help. In ages past our hope for years to come. We give you thanks for the ability to gather this evening to see to the needs of the city. We pray for butte county and chico in particular for the. State of california for those who are elected to office office and those who are appointed. We give you thanks for their work on our behalf. We pray tonight that you would uh, give wisdom as they have important things to consider for the city to move forward. Give us a sense of hope and wisdom as we listen to the conversation that we can also be a part of. We thank you for our city. It's in your name we pray. Amen. All right. Please stand for allegiance. Um. >> so. United states of america and to the republic one nation under GOD, indivisible with liberty and justice for. Madam clerk, can you call a role for us? Okay. >> let's see. Council member. Goldstein present council member holly here. Council member o'brien here. Council member van overbeek here. Council member winslow here. Vice mayor bennett here. Mayor reynolds here. All right. >> speaker card announcement. Anyone wishing to address the council on any matters listed on the agenda should first complete a speaker card found at the back of the chamber. Once completed, please turn in your card to the city clerk. The speakers are taken in the orders they are received and once the first speaker begins no additional speakers will be taken. Persons demonstrating rude, boisterous speaking on matters outside the jurisdiction of the city council or engaging in otherwise disruptive behavior will be called to order if such conduct continues, I MAY call a recess requesting removal of such persons from the council chambers, adjourn the meeting or take other appropriate action as necessary. Um, MR. Ryan jones, can we have our closed session announcement for a couple of meetings that we yes. Uh, mayor happy to. Do we actually have. Uh, three. >> closed session. Meetings to discuss. One was on JUNE 9th. There was a city manager recruitment. Closed session. >> and direction was given to staff. Same thing on JUNE the 15th last night city manager recruitment and direction was similarly given to the recruiter and and to staff. As for a closed session earlier this evening there. Were uh. Five items on there and uh the city manager employment there was direction provided. Uh direction. >> was provided to our labor negotiators the two and then to uh existing litigations the waddell case and the schwab case direction was similarly provided to uh legal counsel on those items. That's my report. All right. >> thank you very much. Um, item 1.5 matthew allen, can we please um, have you come forward for a presentation on the status of bidwell park that will mention welcome. Um. >> thank you and good. Evening, mayor reynolds. City council members. City manager sorensen. Uh, thank you for inviting. California state. >> parks to provide this update on the bidwell mansion regarding your, uh or following your motion on, uh, MAY 19th. Um, my name is matthew allen. I'm the district superintendent for california state parks for the northern buttes district. And, um, I've heard your discussions and I want to just start off by saying that we completely agree with your sentiment that was expressed at your last meeting that, uh, while the state manages this landmark as a state historic park, that it remains a vital civic asset and is deeply woven into the fabric of the community. My primary goal tonight is to provide, uh, a transparent summary of our technical findings, our timelines, our next steps as well as um, the state's legal processes and administrative framework that is that we're up against uh, as we move forward through uh capital outlay project. Let's see. If you want to continue. I'm going to go ahead. I'm trying to get it on the display. Would you like me to pause for a minute. Just so I think you can go ahead and get started and city clerk should have it up here shortly. Okay. So podium. >> see it. It's very quiet. >> in here. I wish. Jason I'm. Sorry. >> no pressure. Or should. >> so mayor reynolds would you like to take like a five minute break so like oh there it is. There we go. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You know, it was a five second break. Uh. >> thank you. >> all right. >> thank you. Now following the arson fire on DECEMBER 11th, 2024, a team of our specialists have conducted a thorough structural evaluation. The baseline findings confirm, uh, total interior loss. Every wood framed floor, ceiling, joist door all, uh, were burned completely and collapsed into the first floor and basement levels. Regarding the masonry, the primary brick structure is obviously still standing along with several multi with interior brick walls. However the interior walls did suffered localized structural failures across the tops uh and collapse uh where the collapsing floor joist had torn away. In total the estimates are 30 to 40% of all remaining bricks. Brick structure. Uh would require extensive repair, repointing or full reconstruction or replacement if it were to be reused to support any new loads for future use. Retaining the standing masonry would involve significant engineering and financial hurdles before any interior fire debris can be removed. Engineering plans mandate that an extensive shoring system be put in place to both support the exterior and the interior walls because workers must operate around these fragile structures, debris clearing must be done strictly by hand. No no equipment can access the site. Furthermore, testing revealed that the building's brick wall lacks adequate in-plane shear strength to meet basic seismic thresholds. If we are to reuse the standing masonry under the california building code, we will be required to address the safety concern. Uh. >> now to address the council's interest in documentation, state parks does possess uh, precise pre fire records because the mansion was undergoing exterior rehabilitation at the time of the fire. We have extensive measure drawings an exact pre fire mapping of the structure if a full reconstruction path is chosen several original historic windows and doors were off site and they were saved and we can use those as exact physical prototypes for replication. And while the landscaping on the grounds were also impacted by the fire damage, I just wanted to take a brief moment and pause and thank the city council along with richie bamlet, the urban forest manager for city of chico who worked closely with state park staff and your recent vote to designate the massive magnolia tree out front that was planted by john bidwell himself as a city of chico heritage tree. It was a profound moment for the community. Concurrently, it also won the designation of state champion tree due to us due to its historic size being the largest southern magnolia in the state. The post-fire structural assessment was designed to serve as a flexible technical baseline. It is not a final prescription or provides any direction on the next steps. I'll also mention that the structural assessment is posted on our website along with an executive summary. If you have not taken the time to look through those documents yet because there's a vast range of potential futures for the site, additional technical evaluations will be required once a preferred path is chosen. The report establishes what is left and what is technically viable, and state parks is taking a deliberate approach to avoid a hasty structural removal and historic preservation. Once you remove a historic feature it is gone or lost forever. We do not want to make irreversible decisions or changes to the site until we have all of the information available to us. Now it's critical that both the council and the public fully understand what a full reconstruction would mean under strict uh state preservation policies, practices and guidelines along with compliance with modern building codes safety laws while the pre fire documentation allows us to more accurately replicate the exterior to its original design, the interior provides many additional challenges because the framing and all of the interior was entirely lost. The alternative historic building codes that are available in certain projects would not be available to us under this circumstance. Therefore, modern uh california building codes will apply. So what that means is that because we have this existing footprint where we have structural rigidity inside the building with the existing brick walls, it will be difficult for us to incorporate mandatory fire sprinklers uh, stairs and egress access elevators for accessibility, new plumbing, electrical all of that could be incredibly invasive, infeasible or prohibitively costly because we must protect life safety and guarantee equitable access along with as much historical accuracy is feasible, a rebuild will likely require some non historic alterations to the interior floor plans while the outside will still could still mirror the 1868 building. The inside will be a modern replica. So we want to be transparent. The potential limitations that we have of a full reconstruction it will strive for historically documented accuracy but will require a modern code compliant facility that meets its intended public use purpose. Now before we launch a detailed and costly feasibility study, we must narrow our broad choices down to a single path and we're relying on three collaborative pillars. Number one is the public input. This is that reimagined bidwell mansion visioning process that we are underway with. This will help us to narrow down the options and also help us to answer a fundamental question how do you want to use the space inside? Whether it's for community features, educational programing or exhibits, the choice will determine our technical scope. Pillar number two is consultation with the indian tribe because the mansion sits on territory originally inhabited by the mature people, state parks is engaged in formal and confidential government to government consultation to help ensure that their history and their perspective help shape the final outcome as we move forward. And pillar number three is the state historic preservation officer consultation. This is a future step that will help guide us once we have our local visioning set. This process helps ensure compliance with legal preservation standards. And now I want to speak to the council's discussion regarding project costs and timelines. Moving a major public works project forward on a state landmark requires navigating rigid state administrative processes. We cannot generate a final cost estimate or legally request funding until the community helps us narrow down the scope to a single preferred alternative. Once we finalize the public vision, our sequential roadmap becomes clear first, a feasibility feasibility study will help us, uh, focus strictly on the path that we determined. Look at the precise technical requirements ,timelines and preliminary costs. Second, with all of this information it allows us to draft a scoping document um, and a concept that state parks would submit with a recommendation to the control agencies that work up above us. Third, the process moves into the state's formal capital outlay process. This is a multiyear budgeting pipeline process that we cannot get out of. It's funded on a multiyear basis where year one becomes preliminary planning, year two is working drawings and year three allows us to go out to statewide public bid to look for a the uh qualified contractor that is able to do the work with the path that we have chosen. I also want to emphasize that the state parks vision extends far beyond the mansion. We want to take a holistic look and an opportunity at the entire two and a half acre grounds. This includes updating the general plan. This could include updating our interpretive master plan, providing new or additional spaces with community and public input to allow for school groups, community events anything we can do to help update uh and provide additional access to the grounds, updates to our visitor center and our exhibits and provide more inclusive inclusivity in our programing and education. At this time I'd like to briefly just have our district services manager jared zucker, uh, join me at the podium to discuss the reimagined bidwell mansion process, the where we're at the status and the immediate next steps. Thank you. >> superintendent and good. Evening members of the council. So as the. Local planning lead for. >> the reimagined bidwell mansion planning process, it's really. My role to. Listen to the community understand you know what their needs and wants are for that space and then distill it into those actionable. Uh. >> data driven planning decisions. So our. Community outreach. Approach is really focused on this multifaceted aspect where uh, we're really trying to encourage, you know, robust uh and uh. Uh uh. What's the word for uh representative uh, community engagement? Um, we're also trying to ensure that our public engagement process is, uh, accessible so that um, again, multimodal we have a stakeholder group that we convened and that's uh comprised of various, you know, museums, businesses, tourism groups, local government, the tribe, um, etc. And that's important to ensure that they are challenging our process that they're providing input on it and that they're also, uh, promoting this process to the greater community so that we can have that public engagement. So uh, stakeholder input is complemented through the pop ups that we did. I know I saw uh, many of you at the pop ups that we did at the farmers market, uh, here earlier this year. Uh we also did the museum weekend. Uh we also did a online survey uh, which had broad representation throughout the community. Uh and then we also have done uh back this past APRIL a public workshop, uh, where we had about 60 attendees. So uh, another uh, outreach approach. So I guess the outcome of that outreach is essentially we we reached uh, more than 500 people through our pop ups. Uh, through our survey effort we had about a thousand respondents and then uh, at our public workshop we had about 60 folks and had great community dialog uh, around again what people were wanting to see what that site. So we're still reviewing the data associated with that survey. Uh, but one thing that I'm uh I think is important to share one of the key takeaways is that we we saw about 65% of our respondents really did favor uh, the historic reconstruction option. And I think it's important to note though that there is a pretty interesting gap between uh, the older demographic and the younger demographic with the latter really favoring the non reconstruction options. So we'll have to figure out how we kind of navigate that divide uh and then. Just as a reminder you know these treatment options are the historic reconstruction reconstruction for different types of uses. So you know whether that's education space or event space community group space those sorts of things whether we're just preserving the structure in place just the ruins as they are as you see it uh, or whether we, you know, just commemorate that site which would likely involve tearing the structure down and doing something again to commemorate that site in that space. So. >> uh. >> I think it's important. That, you know, the what we heard from the community at those pop ups, what we heard through the workshop we heard through the survey is really consistent. I mean, I heard the same similar themes when I was doing those pop ups as well. Those outcomes were out of that survey, which is important because obviously if we have a gap between what we're hearing from the public and those face to face community meetings and what we see in the survey that's problematic and we would have have to figure out and navigate that. But luckily we do have that alignment through those engagement efforts. So another uh takeaway I think uh which is also important is that, you know, the community really is longing or hungry for us to reopen this park and have it back as a community space. Um, they really want us to lean into the things that we're doing well, uh, but also figure out where we have, you know, gaps in our interpretation how we're telling the story of the the truth to people and also, you know, the immigrant population that uh, essentially helped, you know, build the build bidwell mansion in the state and also the early chico community. So those are important things that, you know, we're taking seriously and to heart and and that we would be reflective in this, you know, this plan moving forward. So next steps uh our next concrete milestones actually tomorrow will be having our next stakeholder meeting and I believe several of you uh, if not all of you are invited to that that meeting. Um, so hope hope to see you there. Um, you'll hear similar, uh, information about our engagement process. Uh, but we're also going to be using that stakeholder meeting to help us, uh, frame how we're going to go back out to the community at our public workshop in AUGUST, uh, which will help us again present our engagement and how how we've done that and then also refine those planning alternatives so that we can move forward with one planning alternative, um, to then move forward with additional analysis as uh superintendent allen mentioned with the feasibility study and again honing things in so we can continue moving this process forward. So uh, let's see. I think with that um I can hand it back to superintendent. Thank you jared. So this recovery involves rigorous administrative and technical pipelines and every step as necessary in the process. I want to thank the council once again for having us here. Uh, invite the public to visit our site reimagined bidwell mansion.Org where you can track technical documents, workshops and updates and I'm happy to hear discussion or uh, field any questions that the council MAY have. Thank you. All right any. Questions council member holly. No questions just a comment. I wanted to thank you for inviting the full council to the stakeholder sessions. I attended one myself and I feel your staff did a really wonderful job at creating. Uh, inclusive. Space that welcomed any and all comments. So thank you. Thank you appreciate that. All right I don't see any others. Thank you so much for coming and giving us the update. Thank you. All right consent agenda all matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine in nature and can therefore be enacted with one motion. Are there any no votes or council disqualifications? Um I would like to pull item 2.5. Because that was noted as originally going to be a discussion item. So I just want to give us an opportunity to perhaps hear staff tell us more about it. Okay. In various all right. Do we have any speakers? We do not have any speakers. All right consider a motion. Move to approve the rest second. Okay. >> and that was with. Item 2.5. Pulled pulled for further discussion. Council member. Goldstein. Yes. Council member. Holly. Yes. Council member o'brien. Yes. >> council member van overbeek. Yes. >> council member winslow. Yes. Vice mayor bennett. Yes. >> mayor reynolds. I carry seven zero. >> all right. Item 2.5 council member goldstein. Um, sure. So our city manager had noted that originally there was going to be this would be more of a discussion item than consent agenda. So I was just wondering if you could give us the quick overview of the item and then we'll see if we have any comments. Okay I'll start and. >> then. I'll turn it over to. >> the chief as I indicated in my email. The uh fire. Floater positions were a department request throughout the budget process. If you'll recall when we staffed fire engine one part of the staffing came from using the existing floaters that are used to fill in during vacancies when firefighters are off for any number of reasons uh sickness, vacation training etc. Etc. I believe in the typical day we have what 3.2 firefighters off um so this. By not having the. Floaters overtime is becoming um over and above what the rank and file would like to have for overtime. Uh, while it's a little bit less expensive to build full time equivalents with overtime there's a limit to how much you can stress your staff to work endless amounts of overtime. So the proposal before you is to hire three additional, uh, firefighters that would serve as floaters to fill in during those vacancies. And there are some some operational advantages and I'll leave that to the chief two to describe those. Or from there. Good evening. Mayor and. >> city council members and. >> city. Manager sorenson, thank you very much for the opportunity to present this request tonight. Uh, as city manager sorensen said the fire department is requesting council's approval to hire three full time firefighters to be used as firefighter floaters. Those firefighter floaters would be primarily used to offset vacancies, backfill behind vacancies that are opened up for fire personnel that are currently off on leave, sick leave, vacation comp time etc. The uh the firefighter floaters are not used to increase minimum daily staffing or staff any additional pieces of equipment. So as I explain this request to cover three areas really uh the first being the uh staffing challenges that are that we're currently experiencing as a fire department. Second, how firefighter floaters reduce and make an impact on that challenge. And then third, the fiscal impacts and the long term benefits of this proposal. So our. Staffing challenges at the core really revolve around the increasing trend in mandatory forest holdovers. Uh .. The department maintains a minimum daily staffing of 19 firefighters that staff a truck and five engines. As the city manager said we're averaging over three people off per day amongst those 19 people and anytime a firefighter or somebody is off that spot is backfilled with overtime to meant to maintain our minimum daily staffing. So what that means is anytime a person finishes their 48 hour shift and they're held on for an additional 24 that that is a force mandatory holdover. And to give some perspective on that, imagine a firefighter comes in to work monday morning and they're scheduled to go home wednesday morning. During those two days they train they run emergencies medicals rescues, fires they have nighttime calls that result in uninterrupted sleep. And then wednesday morning that firefighter is packed up ready to go home and the battalion chief calls and says sorry, you're stuck on for another 24 hours. And so that's a total of 72 hours sometimes more that that firefighter is running additional calls additional interrupted sleep at night. And what we're seeing with holdovers is an increased trend over the last. Three years. In 2024 we averaged 22 firefighter holdovers per month and then in 2025 that increased to 34.5 firefighters per month that were held over. And then in 2026 we're averaging right now 39 holdovers per month. So it's a trend that has gone up and the impacts of these of this trend is beyond the cost of overtime. These impacts on our employees really come down to an inadequate rest cycle between their scheduled tours of duty that are resulting in increased fatigue sickness, sick leave utilization, potentially additional workers comp compensation cases, reduced family home life balance, lower morale and an impact on the overall workforce sustainability. So my job as the fire chief is to evaluate these trends and make sure that our department has an adequate staffing level to not only meet the needs of our response to the public but also the needs of our employees. And so has a solution. Uh, I proposed the hiring of three floater firefighters and how do they impact this challenge? Well first and foremost they provide dedicated staffing that allows us to fill vacancies before overtime as needed. So we plug the floaters in first and as we said we have over three people off per day. So what that means is a single floater on each shift will cover behind a vacancy nearly 100% of the time. There are a few days out of the year we have nobody off but it's very uncommon. So these. >> positions provide immediate backfill. And one thing that we've learned over the course of a career is overtime typically leads to more overtime when you have fatigue that's going to lead to more injury illness burnout and those vacancies are going to result in more uh, openings that require overtime to fill. So the floaters are intended to to halt that cycle and allow us to rein in the number of mandatory holdovers and the overtime burden on the employees by having that extra person per shift offset one of those. Uh. >> with overtime in the fire service it's never going to go away completely and that's not the intention with this ask the intention is merely to simply reduce our dependency on mandatory hold over overtime required to meet our minimum daily staffing. So with that let me just discuss the fiscal impacts. The majority of these personnel cost will be offset by an overtime reduction. Now it's not cost neutral. There is a cost to it because when you have new firefighters get hired they're going to go through a recruiting and onboarding academy for eight weeks during which time they're not going to be available to offset overtime. The other factor is they have sick leave themselves or they have time off during which time they won't be available to offset overtime. So what we've done is provide an estimate. We estimate that three new firefighters will cost $480,000 with salary, benefits etc. We anticipate the number of days that a floater can offset overtime to be around 245 out of the year, resulting in an estimated overtime reduction of $369,000 and that's an average overtime rate of the three ranks. So that has a net financial impact of approximately $111,000 to bring on three floater firefighters to help reduce this overtime burden and the impact of the mandated mandatory forced holdovers on the employees. So what we're asking is council's approval to hire these three positions and allow fire to come back in the fiscal year with a supplemental request once we have actuals on the impacts of these flutters. We also anticipate potential additional savings through reduced sick leave utilization, reduce workers compensation claims, better morale and better workforce resiliency. lastly, the floaters also provide critical depth for the wildland fire season in the summer when we have numerous employees that are out fighting the wildland fires as well as providing extra depth from when we take on important tasks in town like prescribed prescribed uh fire burns in the upper part to reduce our fuels hazard. Additionally, they provide depth when there's periods of drawdown in personnel due to workers compensation use and also vacancy is created due to retirements. So in summary I've discussed our challenges that we're facing and the impacts that floater firefighters have on those challenges as well as the fiscal impacts and future long term benefits, those of those positions and the question that's here before us tonight isn't whether or not the fire department can continue to provide our level of service without these positions we can and we have but the question is do we want to continue to use a staffing model that requires us to force our firefighters on up to 40 times a month with a trend that's increasing and my position as fire chief that's not sustainable. It's not good for our employees and it's not good for their overall health and wellness. Uh. >> the fire department does understand the city's financial challenges and the difficult decisions of the council must make when requests like these are brought to your attention. We don't take these requests forward lightly. Again, the proposal is not to increase our staffing. It's to address a staffing challenge that is having an impact on our workforce wellness and overall resiliency. The department. Believes that these positions are a prudent investment and not only our workforce but in the community that we serve. And it is for these reasons that I recommend and I ask council to approve the request to hire three additional firefighters for use as floaters and to allow our associated staffing allocation amendment to be included. I want to say thank you very much for the time to explain this request and I am open to any questions. All right. Council member goldstein. Did you have something else? Uh, well, first thank you chief. Um great presentation. Uh, yeah, I I do have a question, um, for the chief and or our city manager. I would love to be reassured about the financial impacts of this. Um, it's good to hear that in addition to the costs of hiring the new employees, we. >> would. Recoup a lot of that through saving on overtime costs. But there still would be a cost and we'd see that budget supplemental coming up. So I'm wondering, um, if we know where we could find the funds for that. Would be general fund and we did have adequate uh, fund balance to take care of I think about $380,000 this is about 111 the first year. Mhm. >> okay. >> well that is reassuring. Thank you. Council member winslow. Um um. So last year. We had. Some like um. We we got an explanation of how much it would cost to fund. Another fire engine. Um I talked about it some years ago I've been told yeah we could just fill in that engine with just two floaters and then I looked into it a little more and asked fire chief at the time and was told that that doesn't really make sense because we're going to be stretching them out and over time. So even the cost estimates we saw last year in staffing fire engine one uh, said that it would make sense for us to fill in these floater positions. We're going to need to hire more than it seems like we need to hire, which is one of the reasons why I didn't vote to fund that fire engine, preferring that we prioritize other obligations that he has and capital improvement budget. But a majority of the council did fund that fire engine. So it only makes sense for us to go forward and um uh fulfill the full obligation which is to to. Staff is yeah. Council member van overbeek. Uh. >> chief, um. Why have. >> the. Holdovers gone up so dramatically in the last. >> couple of years? You know? You know, that's a really good question and I and without without knowing everything every intangible I think one of the biggest things is is we're seeing a change in a generation of the workforce, right? I think we have a workforce that values their time home and their time with family. Back when I started here 20 years ago, we had a lot of people that would work every day you could possibly get your hands on and I think times are changing and actually as a fire chief I'm glad to see that. I'm glad to see that there is a greater desire to have that balance work in home life. And I also think some of it is is our greater awareness to the health impacts of sleep deprivation multiple days on duty and that effect that has on your health and your overall wellness. And so I think it's a greater awareness and. Truly I think people are just wanting to pick up less overtime. So what we're seeing is what was normally grabbed up by a number of employees is now being spread out and we're seeing that that is not all being picked up voluntarily. Um, the other thing with the big trend that we've seen are the jump from last year to this year I think is really because we that's when we pulled our floaters. So I guess we all expected to see that number increase from last year to 2026. Um and we're and we're feeling that so I think this is you know I know it's a big ask but it uh from my view is really important to at. Least take a step, start reducing this overtime burden and reducing that hold over impact on our employees. Councilmember ryan. Thank you mayor. So for me and I think. For most of us this is about firefighter and community safety. They go hand in hand. Intermittent forced overtime is necessary I get that that's the line of work we're in. Sustained forced overtime does damage to our firefighters and our community. They serve. How do you understand our fiscal constraints? I'm glad we're mindful of that reality but the bang for the buck, however is worth the cost. Our firefighters and our police officers stand in the gap in constant readiness. That readiness is 24 over seven 365 days a year. That readiness does not respect birthdays. Kids soccer games, anniversaries, vacations or sleep. It impacts every aspect of their lives. I know that to be a fact and finding ways to mitigate those very real impacts is a cost I am willing to pay and I hope our council is as well because I believe it is a responsibility responsibility we bear as council members and community leaders. All right. That's all the speakers I have. So and we already are all the council member. Oh you're. Not in the queue vice mayor bennett. So uh. I communicated with. >> the city manager previously about this, so I've I've got the uh, information I needed. So, uh, financially it makes sense and taking care of your personnel makes sense. So from both sides is perfect when I'm going to ask you to do is come back in six months and tell me how it is and we give me a report and update so we can track this and make sure it's working the way you have designed it to work. Will you do that? You mean the full council? Yes. >> okay. >> sorry you just hit me. The council? Yes, absolutely. Thank you. All right. Consider a motion moved. I'll make a move a motion to approve. And a second council member holmes a. Okay council member. Goldstein. >> yes. >> council member. Holly. Yes. Council member o'brien. Yes. >> council member van overbeek. Yes. >> council member winslow. Yes. >> vice mayor bennett. Yes. >> mayor reynolds I. It carries seven zero. I just wanted to let you know if you're getting text messages from the public. Granicus the streaming live. >> is working. Except the sound is off but. >> the. Closed captioning is there so everything. Is being read at. This point but I have staff on line with them and we'll get it fixed. Perfect I'm glad clicks captioning is keeping everybody up to date. So if you're being sarcastic you have to note that they won't hear it in your tone. Um at a certain. Public comment member of the public MAY address the council at this time on any matters um not already listed on the agenda and within the jurisdiction authority. The council cannot take any action at this meeting on these requests made under this section of the agenda. How many speakers do we have, MADAM Clerk? Uh, we. >> have eight. All right. >> three minutes each. Three minutes each. >> I'm going to call the first three names and if you can go ahead and line up in the middle I'll um that would help janine stone followed by joanne guthrie and greg scott. So janine stone. Okay okay. Okay good evening. My name is janine stone and I'm a professor of economics at csu chico I'm representing myself and my husband kurt kester a professional civil engineer. We are here regarding the appeal we submitted contesting conditions of approval for our rusty lane parcel map in APRIL. We appeal to final determination from public works regarding the conditions of approval from our map. To be clear, planning approved our project so long as we comply with title 18 subdivision standards and title 18 grants public works the ability to modify those standards. They declined to do so and that decision was the subject of our appeal last tuesday JUNE 9th through we received a letter from the city attorney stating that our appeal had not been processed simply because we missed the filing date. This is a clerical error as we have a copy of our appeal time stamped by the city clerk on APRIL 17th only seven days after the APRIL 10th determination well within the ten day window required by code. We corrected this record seven days ago and have received no response yet. Our time to preserve legal remedies continues to run from a broader perspective. We have been caught in a procedural loop where public works decides on the map we are even allowed to present to planning and refuses to modify required subdivision conditions so that they are proportional to the impacts generated by additional homes on this private dead end road. Given the sewer fee issue and prop 218 requirements, I know you're all well versed in this idea that costs must be proportional to impacts in the case of housing loss similarly mandate that infrastructure be proportional to a project's externalities even for codified subdivision standards. My only goal in speaking today is to ensure that we receive our due process. As an economist, I find the amount of public and private resources spent on this process simply to get our appeal heard before you to be staggeringly inefficient, we humbly request that our appeal is actually agendized for the JULY 14th city council meeting and our filing date be corrected to no APRIL 17th in all public records. We also respectfully request written confirmation that we will not lose any rights while awaiting that hearing. Lastly, we request that all future discussions of our appeal be entered into the public record. As we have heard, our project has previously been characterized to council as too late when this is inaccurate. Thank you for your time and I sincerely hope we can move forward as a city that earns the designation as a housing friendly community that supports residential infill projects. Thank you. >> thank you. >> um joanna guthrie followed by greg scott and. >> beau powell. Good evening. Mayor, vice. Mayor and council I'm joanna. Guthrie from. Waste management. Um. >> I just wanted to come before you. Tonight and kind of get you an update on what we're doing. Um, currently we are in the middle of a. Uh. >> graffiti audit. Of our commercial bins. Um. Through our smart. Truck technology, we identified. 85 different bins that were. Needing repair from graffiti. Um, we're taking the opportunity to do it over the summer. So we can kind of. Get it. >> on a. Clean slate before our. Students are back. Um, in the fall. Um, because that's when we see more graffiti unfortunately. Um. So what's. Happening is we have. >> about. 15 to. >> 20 tickets each week that goes out to our staff. They are um prepared to go out and do most of the repairs in the field. However, they are looking at things that the smart truck technology doesn't catch like some of the uh missing wheels or extra graffiti graffiti that's on the back of the bin that couldn't be seen by a smart truck. So um, in those cases when there's a little bit more extensive um, repairs that are needed we are swapping out the bins. But for the most part we're able to do the repairs in the field so that it has less of an impact on the people that have the bins. So I just wanted to give you an update um. Let you know. >> what we're up to and uh. Thank you so much. Thank you greg scott. Beau powell and then sam barber. Good evening. I'm just going to talk about one. Thing again it's enforcement. I would like to point out that it doesn't matter what your living status is when you violate a public nuisance ordinance you should be held accountable. I counted 15 of them today from 3:00 until 530 up to and including not just a car going the wrong way on fourth street but actually parked the wrong way. Um fourth street bicycle skateboards, open drug use, litter, public indecency it has to be enforced and I just urge you to please please encourage that. Thank you. >> thank you bo powell for. Followed by sam. Barber and. Um jennifer. Memorial day. Um action news. >> they. Had a um. Their weekly. Missing person of the week. Was tracy's aunt. Um um. Butte county thought. >> she was murdered. I don't know if she is or not. They held the murder trial. Or um. Accused in. Richard pyle. Man him go way back. I never have liked him never been involved with them. But he is. My stepdaughter's father. He should. Have been. Convicted as. >> a. Juvenile of child. Molestation. >> and when my. Wife was there being. >> with him I tried to get. Butte county to. Um keep my children safe. They burned them past the um restraining orders. Because he was part. Of a murder trial, a witness in a murder trial. Butte county made my wife foster. Parent of three children. Which it wasn't until we found out he had been that he died a couple years ago, that those children were able to. Tell me that he had been molesting them. You know, now there are adults. My nephew grand nephew was murdered last uh, and DECEMBER 2024. We're going to we have to go to yuba city. He's the autistic child murdered by his mother. That, um, coroner still doesn't have a. Uh. >> time of death. They fired. >> the corner. I was there making a plea bargain. We went down there to talk with the district attorney. She sent her second when we get there, james gallagher's. Share sharing the. >> office with. >> the. Victims here. I've been telling this. Counsel and the supervisors about the illegal spraying and the palmers and we got a profiteer sharing the office building with the dea. We all know what they did there, you know, ceremonial it swearing in it, you know, normalize every person in that building can be sprayed every one of your children can be sprayed. This is a failure of local government. We spray every 21 year old kid has been sprayed his whole life. That's what we've done to our military. That's time. >> thank you. Thank you. >> um, sam. Barber followed by. Janelle and then matt for sure. Hello. >> uh, I wanted to. Express some concern. Over money's influence. >> on our. >> city. Council as well as some of. The harmful MISS. Informative and immature. Partizan rhetoric being used by council member. >> van overbeek. I'm a better chico. Pac which used to be. >> uh. Citizens for save chico I believe has. Poured hundreds of thousands of. Dollars into our local elections. Um, if you look at the. Elections before they were. Around it. >> was substantially less money. I mean it was a pac started by van overbeek in 2019. Um he. >> has received. Large cash donations. From individuals and interests. Whom I deem. >> morally reprehensible and a danger to the public. And the best example I could find was james gallagher. Um, he's one of the individuals who has donated tens of thousands. >> of dollars to this. Pac and helped start it. Um. >> this is someone. >> who. Recently said. He was honored. Uh, to receive an endorsement from trump. Now I don't know how much y'all have been paying attention. Um. But he's the most blatantly corrupt PRESIDENT And politician in our. Modern history. He's a rapist, a. Pedophile. >> a war criminal. Who was protecting billionaires that. Sexually exploited young women and himself is mentioned more on the epstein files. Keep it. >> um, she's a subject to chico, please. Oh, this is an issue because. >> you're associated. >> with these people. So please don't. Interrupt me. >> thank you. Um, so again, how am I to feel safe when our representatives or my representatives care about me or my safety when they're willing to associate and take money. From people like. This for a council member to have the nerve to. Refer to illegal camping as moral cowardice on social media when associating. People like. This and doing nothing. When you're. Actively sitting here. Rings incredibly hollow. There's quite a few times where the republican majority on the council has exhibited moral cowardice. I would like to reminisce about a few of those times. One of them was when palestinian children were here in. Tears begging you for help. They were going through a genocide. They were being called bombers at school and you all shut them up and you wouldn't let them speak and you violated their freedom of speech. You said that it wasn't within your purview. Those kids weren't asking. You to change foreign policy. They were asking. For safety and help from their city representatives. We know it's not your job to dictate foreign policy, but it is your job to respond to it accordingly and provide safety to citizens who are going to face the repercussions of that. There was a time when ice was in town and they took someone. It was over a year ago now. I remember the pregnant woman. >> in tears. Whose husband they stole um a history professor came in here and told you hey, the police seem to hold these people accountable. They're violating. Everyone's constitutional rights. The mayor smiled and nodded in disapproval because she doesn't understand the constitution apparently. Um there was more I was going to say but she flustered me a bit with the interruption. Thank you. Thank you junior followed by matt fisher and then molly copter. Hello council. It's been a while since I've been here. I actually wrote a speech this time. On MAY 27th. 2026. >> a coward with no. Insurance and an active warrant slammed into my son's car and fled. My son chased the criminal while on the phone with dispatch risking his own safety and helping the police to locate a wanted criminal. When officers booth badge number. 77 russell badge number 69 and sergeant reed badge number 13 arrived, they only spoke with the two white. Criminals in the car. They asked my son three questions. Give me your driver's license, your registration and your insurance. Not one time was my son's statement taken for what happened to him and his financed vehicle. I am an active member of this community. I have sat on the very steps of this council and back the blue. My oldest son is a black deputy sheriff in this county who wears his badge proudly. I have defended law enforcement but today I stand here filled with rage and disappointment because your officers both russell and sergeant reed violated my black son's civil rights and his 14th amendment. They arrested the driver for the warrant but never was he booked into jail for that warrant. They refused to cite him for the misdemeanor hit and run under california. Vehicle code. 2002. >> and now this department is refusing to release the body cam footage. This was not incompetence. This was unequal treatment based on race. It's the only thing I can deduce three white officers, two white men in a car and my one black son there. The 14th amendment guarantees every person equal protection under the law. But your officers both russell and sergeant reed denied my son that protection simply because he's black. They silenced the helpful black man while he protected a criminal. That was the chico police today I demand the following right now reopen the case. Take my son's full statement recorded released the body cam footage I would like reports from the officers booth uninsured motorist. My son has usaa. We still haven't gotten a police report launch a full internal investigation into racial bias and 14th amendment violations and hold these officers accountable. Thank you so much. Thank you. Um matt bissau followed by molly copter. Good evening council. Um before I. >> start I just wanted to. Take a moment to offer my uh uh offering gratulations and well wishes to city manager sorenson on his upcoming retirement. We haven't always agreed on everything, but, uh, it doesn't keep me from recognizing and appreciating, uh, what you've given the city. So, uh, anyway, um, I wanted to come and, uh, revisit what I talked about last time, which is the park and the park rangers. Um, last time I provided some quotes at the time when we were making that conversion from park rangers to um sworn police officers who worked as park rangers and I wanted to offer some, uh, you what might seem as blasphemy in today's environment of, you know, of conflating public safety and police but I think that we should consider moving the park rangers. Back under public works from the police department. And there's a lot of reasons for this. The main one being was presented by chief aldrich to begin with, which is these positions are not being filled and the reason those positions aren't being filled is what I said in 2017 at not this podium because it's been remodeled but you know, figuratively this very podium which is police officers and park rangers respectfully are not the same people. They perform different functions and I think the proof is in the pudding on this. We have not been able to fill these positions over the last almost ten years. Whereas in 2012 we had wood they when there was an opening for a park ranger position with city there was 100. Applicants in 2010 there was 400 applicants. These are. >> jobs that people want and on top of it all it would be cheaper for the city. Park rangers don't make what police officers make. They don't get the same pensions that police officers make. It's a lower pay scale and they perform a different function. One of those functions I want to talk about tonight would be patrolling the park where there was an attempted sexual assault last week. I will applaud the chico pd for catching the guy. Um but I don't want to look at this reactively. I want to look at this proactively and when we have a regular rotation of park rangers in the park that helps deter that type element. Another thing since we're talking about public safety with the park, if we had park rangers within that park they would know that the the section of road on manzanita between centennial way and east avenue currently has 24 streetlights that are out of service. I think there might be a total. Of 75 there so a third of them. That's the kind of. >> thing that I feel like when we talk about public safety and we you know, beat that drum, we got to look at the full picture and I think the things like that are a big part of it. And so uh so I have to say thank you. Thank you molly it's our last speaker. All right. >> not going to. Touch the mic. It's been fixed. It's actually the one thing working. Sorry, debbie. Um good evening. Members of city council. Uh, for. >> the. Last six months, the chico chamber of. Commerce has been working with. >> a. Cross-functional group. >> of community. Stakeholders to. Explore the opportunity. That was brought. About last year. To establish entertainment business zones. Within our city limits. Next week we are hosting an informational. Meeting for businesses. Here in chico who want to. Learn more. About not only the um, structure. Of what. >> an ordinance might look. Like and come. >> to life here in chico. But also. What it is and what it isn't. Uh, when it comes to what you can and cannot do within an entertainment business zone. So we wanted to make sure we shared that information with. As many. >> people as. Possible and we're eager. To, uh, provide information and answer questions about what that can do and that opportunity. Presents to this community. Thank you. Thank you. >> she was our. Last speaker. All right. Um, we don't have any public hearing, so we'll head into item 5.1 sewer enterprise study brendan o'connor body director of public works. Yes. >> thank you. Uh, deputy. Director david. >> keane will be. >> doing the presentation. Oh, okay. Thank you. all right. Good evening. Members of council vice. Mayor bennett arnold. My name is david keane, deputy director. >> of. Public works engineering. >> and tonight. >> we'll. Be continuing the discussion. >> on. Stewardship and financial sustainability of the sewer enterprise. So tonight we'll briefly go. Over the background. Look at some alternative revenue sources and then for council direction look at some reduced capital improvement program scenarios and then the uh anticipated impacts from those reduced rate scenarios. Uh and then lastly we'll finish up with some financing options. So if you. recall there are a uh series of challenges facing the sewer enterprise primarily that's deferred maintenance and regulatory compliance which has led to insufficient reserves. But this was all presented at the MARCH 17th meeting. The key takeaway from this slide is that the sewer enterprise is in a position where it needs to catch up and then critically establish sustainable rates moving forward. So there's two components to what we're looking to do tonight. So those are the challenges facing the sewer enterprise and who pays for those. It's the ratepayers. And so the way that rates are established are by how much you discharge and the strength of that discharge. So the table you see here before you is from the state water resources control board revenue program guidelines. And for example you can see that a restaurant is about 3 to 5 times the strength of a residential customer. Therefore they would be expected to pay more per gallon for that amount of effluent. So that's how people pay is by how much and the strength. So that's how we get the money. Another way to get the money the council is asked to look at is alternative revenue sources. So the city is currently undertaking a recycled water feasibility study which is anticipated to come out in DECEMBER or JANUARY of next year. Initial findings are that the cost of recycled water will not be a revenue source and that is because currently groundwater is in the order of 400 or $500 an acre foot and an acre foot. Just to put it in your head is a football field a foot deep and that's how much that would be four $500 recycled water tertiary treated that's the purple pipe kind that goes on agriculture is 1500 and $2,000. So about three to 3 to 4 times the cost for recycled water. So here's a situation that we are now today we have good water quality and we have good water reliability. Now that can change in san diego for example they get their water from the colorado river basin so they have water quality issues but also water reliability issues. If there's drought they don't get the water here we don't have that. So currently recycled water is not looked at as a revenue source. So that's where we get the water and the money. What do we do with the money. We use it for operations staffing and the capital improvement plan. So in MARCH 17th we presented a $134.5 million cip. Those projects are taken straight out of our adopted master planning documents. We have our strategic planning report and our sanitary sewer master plan report. So that's what you've seen. That's are what we're calling our original or our low risk scenario. At the previous meeting council asked us to come back with some reduced cip scenarios where we have some tolerable risk. So we've come back with two additional scenarios. So we have 134.5 which you've seen will present a moderate risk 105 million and then a significant risk that to $81 million uh cip and so to be clear the risk is obviously physical infrastructure but primarily financial. So what you don't pay for and out now it doesn't go away. You just have to pay for it in the future at a higher cost escalated to that point in time. So let's get into what risk we have identified. So this is the moderate risk cip scenario on the left we have the drivers in the middle or in the project and then on the right is the five year reduction. So these projects they isn't a single project necessarily there are components to them. So we look at them on the five year reduction. So the pond line I'm going to go through these one by one so we understand what the risks that we're looking at are. So the pond lining project we talked about not necessarily needing a concrete line project and we confirmed with the state water resources control board that a clay line project is feasible. However we've gone back to the drawing board and looked at the cost of that and it is still on the order of $34 million. That is a significant reduction on 14 million. So there is something there. Next is we have a cip to remove an abandoned outfall that we have in the sacramento river. The state lands commission had indicated that they want this removed but they haven't required us to do so. So we can say okay we'll wait and if they if they put a mandate on us to do such we can tell them put this in and we'll put it in the next rate study and do it then. So that's a tolerable risk. The 2027 sewer pipe main replacement due to the deferred rated option from from MARCH we are now in position where this project needs to be paid for with reserves and other project fundings. So we'll do still. Do the project but this is the same cycle of activity that we've been in where we're using reserves and other project funding to fund this. So that project in this rate study goes from 4.2 to 0 4.2 million to 0. Next is the long term sewer pipe replacements. We're reducing that by 25%. But what's critical to note here is that in 2022 we presented a uh sewer main replacement program to replace every pipe every 100 years at that time, council said we want in the last 200 years this is in addition to that. So this would be the assumption that every pipe in the ground is going to last 250 years. Reasonable assumption plastic last a long time. It's been in the ground 5060 years 70 years maybe it will last that long but that's a risk that we are. Where we are looking to take under the cip. And then lastly is the sanitary sewer master plan existing user contribution. And so what this is is imagine a scenario where you have a new development and a new pipe serving just that new development that developer would be 100% responsible to pay for that. Now imagine another scenario we have a new development but the pipe goes through town and the pipe needs to be upsized so the developer would be responsible for their share but everyone along the way would be getting a brand new pipe. That's what this pays for. So the current assumption is that general plan buildout will occur in 20 years. This halves that or doubles that time and extends general plan build out to 40 years. So this is the moderate risk scenario that we have presented. Um and it's $30 million cheaper than our original presentation. Next is this significant risk scenario here and I highlighted on the bottom that the the risk is that we'll be back with significant rate increases in 2032. So all the projects in black are the same. That change is that the 28 through 32 pipe replacement is now extended out to each pipe lasting 300 years. And then the critical item for this one is that any water pollution control plant uh, project over $1 million has been slashed in half. So those. >> projects are bundled. It's not like one specific thing it's components of a project. It's there's usually 6 or 7 parts of a project that they bundle together. So we would prioritize those take the projects we can't do move them out to the future escalating costs 6% compounding annually to that year and have to pay for them in the future so they don't go away. We just defer them to reduce near-term impacts. And then the last one is we take the existing user contribution and we don't save for that. And if a developer comes and they look for their you know, the city share we tell. Them will reimburse you or we look at some of their financing options to do so. So that's the significant risk that takes us down from 135 when 34.5 to 105 and 81 million. So those are the scenarios low moderate high or significant. In MARCH we presented option one that