Nov 5, 2024 6:00 PM - Redding City Council - Regular Meeting

>> Madam Mayor, if I could do the report out from close. Closed. >> Please do. >> The city council met in closed session to discuss items 3A, 3B and 3C. There was no reportable action on any item. >> Okay, so we will close session. Is this supposed to be down or up? And then we will open city council meeting. If anyone wishes to address the city council on any item considered at this meeting before or during council's consideration of that item, please fill out a blue speaker request form located in the lighted alcoves at the back of the council chambers and submit it to the city clerk. City council will allocate up to maximum 3 minutes per speaker or each agenda item. Staff reports are available online at the city's website and in the public view binder located at the podium at the north side of the chambers. Welcome to the November 5th election edition of city council. We will begin with a pledge of allegiance. So if you could all please stand and stay standing. >> Ready? Begin. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> If you could stay standing for the invocation with Dan Conklin, chaplain of the Reading Police and fire department. >> Bow our heads. Dear heavenly Father, your word instructs us to pray for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in godliness and holiness. We pray for a peaceful transfer of power regardless of whether our candidates win or lose. That those ultimately elected you would grant each of them wisdom, humility and courage to govern our nation and community in ways that serve the common good. May the leadership here reflect service above self. Also, we pray for our first responders. That we never take them for granted. The risks they take for our safety. And Redding, please guide the men and women. Help equip them mentally, physically and spiritually to confront the scenes and scenarios before them. Bless Redding and its leadership. In Jesus name, amen. >> Okay, we will do roll call. [CALLING ROLL] >> Okay, we will go to public comment. Do we have any public comment? How exciting. Maybe. Okay. For public comment. Pursuant to the Brown Act, City council cannot take action on public comments. The city council will allocate up to maximum 3 minutes per speaker, 30 minutes total. The beginning, we've got one of you, Andy Clemens? >> And madam Mayor, if I just may add, since it is election day and we're within 100ft of the polling place, just remind everyone, refrain from any comment in support or opposed to anything on the ballot. >> Good evening, mayor, council members, Mr. Tiffin. My name is Andy Clemens speaking on behalf of the asphalt Cowboys. I think we're all familiar with the term a day late and a dollar short. We missed the meeting as a club regarding the Resolution 411B for the holiday fee for our annual breakfasts. And just here to try to catch up, tell you all we are very appreciative of that. It is very helpful and it should only help us get more people involved in what we all know is a great event. Just simply here to show that we appreciate that again, our upcoming annual breakfast is May 16, 2025. We'll be using this holiday fee in our advertisements again for that breakfast and future breakfasts at this time. Just want to show that we appreciate the support of the city council management staff. Redding police department, Redding fire department. Public works is always a great help and we appreciate the permit department as well. It just makes for a smooth road for a big event. One thing we kind of got talking about that I don't think happens. The term networking used to be kind of a thing in the past when I was in management. I'm not sure if it's utilized much anymore, but kind of got to realize that this is probably one of the biggest networking events in northern California. You know, if you got a concert, people listen to the concert. They're not communicating, they're not having a pancake. They're not sitting across from somebody talking. So we're kind of proud of that. Just like to see the people there, generation after generation, enjoying a good day and getting to know each other and getting caught up on business and all that stuff that makes the community great. Thank you very much for your time. >> Thanks, Sandy. Okay, we will move now to the consent calendar. Consent calendar contains items considered routine and or which have been individually scrutinized by city council members and are anticipated to require no further deliberation. If a member of the public wishes to address an item on the consent calendar, please fill out a speaker request form submitted to the city clerk before consent calendar is considered. It shall be the prerogative of any council member before consent can calendar is acted upon to one comment on an item to respond to any public comment on an item. Three, request a record, reflect an abstention or nay vote on an item or four, remove an item, place it on the regular portion of the agenda for delivery of a staff report and or extended discussion or deliberation. Are there any public comments for consent? No. Anybody have any comments? Oh, Council member Mazarin. >> Yes, Madam Mayor. I'll be recusing myself on 4.11g Old Oregon Trail shoulder widening as I do live in that area and so I will be recusing on that and I will make a motion to approve the consent calendar. >> I have a question on that. So what is the rule on recusal? Is it within 500ft of a of your residence or of property that you might own? >> So just briefly, it's anything that would be a material financial impact on a property that you have an investment of $2,000 or more in. There is a presumption in the regulations that if a project is within 500ft of the boundary line that it's going to have a material financial effect. That being said, even things that are further away, if they have some obvious significance to the value of the property, would still be grounds for recusable. >> Okay, that's great. Madam Mayor. I'm going to be recusing from 4.2 B due to my employment. Good news. Rescue mission. Thank you. >> Okay, so 4.2 B recuse. All right. Second marks. All right. We have a first and a second by council member months. All right, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? And seeing none, we will move to our only item. Director Webb, you are up. >> Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the council. I am before you this evening to give a brief presentation regarding an update to the speed limits listed in reading municipal code, specifically volume three. And my goal tonight is to be brief yet thorough. So I'm going to jump through this presentation rather quickly and there will be time for questions and answers at the. So why are we here? Or excuse me. Table of contents, just listing the few slides that we have. I will touch on why are we here. The basics of engineering and traffic studies. The modifications that are recommended in the ordinance update as well as like I mentioned, have time for questions and answers. So why are we here? We're going to offer an ordinance amending. Ready. Municipal code, title 11, specifically chapter 11.12, speed limits for the first reading by title only. Mr. Curtis. >> Madam Mayor, if you'd like, I can read the title at this time. >> Please do. >> An ordinance of the city of reading, amending Title 11 Vehicles and Traffic Chapter 11.12 Speed Limits by amending Section 11.1 2.010 to update Volume 3 relative to speed limits in certain streets. >> Thank you. And then we are also going to ask for direction for the city attorney to prepare the summary ordinance if needed and then authorize the city clerk to publish the summary according to law and then also finally find that this action is categorically exempt from CEQA. So without further ado, I'll touch on the ENTS basics. Essentially, engineering and Traffic Studies or Ents are required any time that a regulatory agency or a city like ourselves deviates from the prima facie speed limit that is described in California Vehicle Code. The city of Reading has divided our streets into four volumes and tonight we're going to be talking specifically about volume three, which encompasses the easternmost portion of the city. A few other pieces of information regarding ents'like I mentioned, the California Vehicle Code describes the process of looking at those. And then the California mutcd, the Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices lays out the specific process required to perform the engineering and traffic studies. And essentially what we do is we send someone out along these streets with a radar gun and they collect speed data of roughly at least 100 vehicles in a free flow state. So essentially they can't be prohibited by anyone else. It needs to be a weekday, it needs to be during school and during clear weather. And what we're doing is we're collecting that data to determine what the prevailing speed is or what we commonly refer to as the 85th percentile. And then we use that data to look at the speed limit and adjust it as necessary. So after doing that along the volume three, the streets that were included in volume three, there were four street segments that we are recommending for modifications and you'll see them on the screen before you. The first is the southernmost segment of, excuse me, went one too far of Alta Mesa. So this is the segment from Rancho all the way up to Saturn. And we are proposing to lower that speed limit from 35 miles an hour to 30. Of note, the actual speed that we experienced or we saw there was 37 miles per hour. And then by using the procedures laid out and the California MUTCD, we were able to lower the speed limit to 30 miles per hour in that section, which is a good thing because there are a number of homes there and we have bicycle and pedestrian facilities there and a lower speed is usually better. The next route where we're talking about updating the speed limit is the segment of Dana Drive shown there on the bottom right of the screen, right in here, this is the easternmost section of Dana before it terminates into Victor. And we will also be reducing the speed from 35 to 30 miles per hour. Of note, this does give us a 30 mile per hour design speed or posted speed limit, excuse me, for the entire length of Dana. So we get route consistency, which is a good thing. And we also do have a number of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure components there as well. The third street where we're recommending changes is shown here. This is Goodwater. This is actually a new street that is being added to volume three of our ents. And we're adding that because Shasta county has decided to add good water to the north, to theirs or to their ents. And we are duplicating that effort on our portion of it. And we are proposing increasing the speed limit there from 30 to 35. And you may be asking why are we proposing to increase the speed limit there? The prevailing speed was the data was collected at 39 miles per hour. And then we were able to lower it to 35 using the information provided within the California MUTCD. And in the fourth and final speed limit adjustment that we have is shown here on the bottom right, this is a segment of Loma Vista Drive where we're again going to reduce the speed limit, posted speed limit from 35 to 30 miles per hour. This is an area, one of the areas where we have an accident concentration that is higher than the city average. So that is another reason why we looked at lowering the speed limit here as well as the prevailing speed limit was at 35. And then again, when we use the tools that we have within the California MUTCD, we are able to reduce the speed from 30 speed limit from 35 to 30. So with that, I will hold for any questions that you may have. >> Council Member Mazzano? >> In my 30 years in law enforcement, you did an excellent job of presenting that information. I found it riveting. You do a great job, Michael. And I'm assuming that, and I hate to do this, but Chief Barner, there will be a cooling off period for the citizens out there where we've dropped the speed limit. Great. I will make a motion to approve second. >> All right, we have a first and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Okay, we're on a roll, guys. All right, so item 11, the much anticipation, guys. I want to hear how it. How did League of Cities go? >> You want to go first? You're the actual delegate. I was there in case Mark got sick. >> We were in Long beach with the California League of Cities Annual Conference. A lot was learned and talked about going on in the state of California. And I brought back information and a lot of swag for the clerk's office. The voting was interesting. New resolution that was deemed appropriate. It was challenged, and then they didn't get enough votes to complete the challenge. So it went on and was going to be approved by the board, and we're moving forward and you can take the rest. >> I used the time to do some breakouts. Mark had some meetings as a delegate, and I used that time to go and learn a little bit about how to hold a meeting civility. They did a role play of people like a mob screaming out at council members and how do you handle a meeting like that and different things. So I thought it was really. That stuff was interesting and to kind of meet with others. It's like 2000 other elected all in one building. So it was interesting to talk to city managers. They were actually the most interesting to talk to. I mean, you know, they're the professionals. They have a lot of knowledge. And so it was kind of. I was curious about what other cities were doing about various things and what other challenges they had. So that was a lot of fun. So I used time to do that. I was unimpressed with how effective they are in voting on things. So that part was interesting to see as a first timer. But the vendors were fun to meet. I was texting our directors. They were getting random texts at random times from me, just curious about what vendors were using for what and what needs they might have and how I can get some contact info. So all of that will be coming to them here soon. I'm kind of. I've got all the business cards and whatnot. But it was fun, actually, to meet some people that we were working with and then to kind of get some ideas. Councilmember Misano and I toured a cool ADU as well that was being developed and just kind of getting costs for some of the projects that we might have down the pipe. So it was a lot of good times. Thank you. >> And Barry, there were code enforcement people there that spoke very highly of Seth. Pass that on. I think, Jeremy, you're out there. I talked to those guys at length, and they speak very highly of him. So thank you. >> One last thing, I'll say publicly, because Mr. Tippen and the directors know they showed a video that kind of did a montage of some of the cities that received awards for Various things that they were doing in their city. And I mean, it was cool what they were doing, but honestly, we would crush a lot of those cities in some of those. And I think that it's great. But honestly, even compared to Silicon Valley cities with the technology they're doing, I'm so impressed with reu, our public works department, our community services department, the things we're doing with City Fair, the piralysis, the various projects that we have going on. I think that if we put a foot forward, it could be interesting because it really showcases your city. It could be great for recruitment in the future. To just get ourselves out there in front of that crowd would be great. I think that we would be one of the top cities featured if we did that next year. >> All right. >> Would you say it was worth getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning to get that flight? >> Yes, of course it is. Government is always worth getting up early for. >> We want to support Reading Airport. Yes. >> Okay. We're going to move to item 12. I know I have one. Does anybody else have one before? All right, so we have an issue with an adult store. And it comes to my attention that maybe we don't have a very good defined ordinance on adult businesses in town. And so I'd like to know if the council is amenable to getting. Bringing back something with more clarity on identifying what an adult store is. >> I think they're already. Yeah, I think what we would. We would do is we would bring back information and have the city attorney present, you know, what our ordinance is and how it works and functions. And then the council could provide direction on changes that you'd like to see, or perhaps you feel like it's adequate enough and give us direction to go and, you know, enforce it accordingly. So I think there's a lot of opportunities for the council if they want to have that presentation on November 19th, and we'll be prepared to move after that. >> Yes, more than willing to do that. >> We have one on adult entered entertainment, but not necessarily an adult store. So could that, could we have some clarity for that? >> There's establishment and there's an entertainment venue. So all of those create some confusion. And I think that's what would be great for city attorney to be able to sort of go through how he would review it and how it would work and provide that information to you. >> Yeah, if, if the council wants this to come back, I'm. I'm happy to go through that. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Okay, great. We all agree? Yes. Okay. >> I agree. >> Okay. We're adjourn.