4/21/26 Council Meeting

come. >> I hold. >> drinks. >> okay. >> good evening. 6:00 we're going to get started out of respect for everybody's time. We're going to get going on time. Um, they're going to call to order our. Bill meeting. With an invocation from marianne hawkins. Chaplain. Do we have marianne? Oh, there she is. Welcome. >> let us pray. GOD, you are the one that is high and holy and we give you thanks. You created all. Things from the smallest microbe. To our. Giant redwoods. And you. Care deeply. About your creation. Including the people. Who breathe the air and swim in the sea. Lord we. We ask with. A prophet of old that you give us wisdom. You promised that you would. And so we ask tonight above all things that you give us wisdom that you give wisdom. To this city council as they hear and respond and need to make decisions. People who genuinely .Care about our city. Or to pray that those of us who are responding or speaking tonight that you would also give us wisdom. Remember that this is the city we. Share and lord we thank you that you have brought us. Together in a time such as this where we can both look to one another our neighbors. But that we can also look to you. And so we give this evening to you in praise. Thank you. Amen. Amen. Thank you. >> and please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Salute and pledge. I pledge. To my. United states. >> of. America and to. >> the. Republic which. Stands one. >> nation. Under GOD indivisible from GOD. Roll call. >> MADAM Clerk, can you call our roll, please? Uh, council member goldstein. Present council. Member holly here. Council member o'brien here. Council member. Van overbeck. Here. >> council member. Winslow here. Vice mayor bennett. Here. Mayor reynolds here. 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, turn your cards into the city clerk and speakers are taken in the order received once the first speaker begins. No additional cards will be accepted. Persons demonstrating rude, boisterous um behavior speaking on matters outside of the jurisdiction of the city council or engaging in otherwise disruptive behavior will. >> be called to order if. Such a conduct. Continues. >> I MAY call a recess requesting removal of such persons from the council chambers, adjourn the meeting or take. Other appropriate. Actions as necessary. Um I would like to note consent. Hold on. Um we are not. Going to be hearing item 5.6 consideration of the three. Heritage tree application. It's not urgent. We have a. Full room busy. Room and we're going to try to get through as much as this as we can. So if you're here for 5.6. Um you do not need to stay to talk about trees. Um, we. Have our arbor day proclamation proclamation? >> it has been issued and but it's. >> not going to be read. Aloud like we. Normally do just out of, um. Respect for time and trying to get through this as quick. As we can. >> but we. >> have done our arbor day proclamation. And um, our city attorney ryan jones has a closed session announcement. >> for us. Yes I do, thank you, MADAM. Um. >> mayor. >> the.. Uh, city council did discuss. Uh, two items. >> there's a conference labor negotiators and direction was given to the city's negotiator. As well as a discussion about the city manager. Recruitment and direction was given to, uh, our. Recruiter from the city council. The item on the in the conference legal council has been postponed until the following meeting. Thank you. >> all right. Thank you, MADAM Clerk. I saw you looking at me. Did I MISS Something? Well. >> first of all I. >> just. Wanted to let you know that. >> the overflow room is set up and. >> we can. Only have we can't have anyone standing and blocking the doorways. Um. >> however, we only have the sound on right now. I'm trying to get. >> the video. >> feed into there, but they can listen if they. Do have cards. And they go in if you're standing you need to go into the conference room. Although we can have I believe. Uh, the fire chief indicated 20. People standing. However the rest would need to move into conference room two. Excuse me. Conference room one which. >> is over here. And when you will leave extra time for. If you place have put a card in to speak. I will make sure that I. Give you. >> enough time to leave the room to come into this room to speak at the podium. So I'm just very concerned about the number of people that are in this room. Okay, so everybody that's standing. Especially the standing in the door area we can. >> only have 20. People standing in the whole entire room. So um the conference room next door is open. They have. Audio on they're working. On editing video on. We will have extra time to. >> give it. So listen. >> for your name. She's going to call the first um person who's speaking and. >> then. The two additional people to follow and then you can just come through the doors, wait right in the center and then we can get through everybody as quick as we can. I know with some of these items we have 40 and 50 speakers on. So we want to make. >> sure to hear from everybody okay. All right. Um consent. Agenda all matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine in nature and can therefore be enacted with one motion. Do we have any no votes or any items to be. Removed? >> any council disqualifications? No. Do we have any speakers on consent? We do not. Okay. >> I will consider a motion. >> moved to approve. Second. >> all right. >> motion and a second. All right. And that. >> was to. >> approve the consent agenda as read. Um. Council member goldstein. Yes. Council member. Holly. Yes. Council member o'brien. Yes. >> council member van overbeck. Yes. >> council member winslow. Yes. >> vice mayor bennett. Yes. Mayor reynolds carries seven zero. All right. Public comment. Members of the public MAY. Address the council at this time on any matter not already listed on the agenda and are. Within the. >> jurisdictional authority. The council cannot take actions at this meeting on these requests made under this section of the agenda. How many speakers do we have? We have one speaker under public comment. >> all right three. >> minutes and that is nicole another. Good evening. So first off I want to start by saying how encouraged I am. >> at how many people showed up tonight. For what I know. >> to be a later item. But it's very encouraging to hear people. Whatever side they're on take an interest. So with that said. What I wanted to bring up which everyone. Has talked about before is encampments and my. Concern about public safety. Hazards, public health hazard. Etc. And I feel. >> like there are still. Things you can do within the framework of that. So I also want to talk about. >> the exit strategy. Again and I know I might sound like a. Broken record, but I feel. >> like it needs to be. Said that many of us are. Not hearing anything. About the plan for when. The settlement agreement. Comes to a. >> conclusion in JANUARY. Thank you. Um and so. Public transparency is key. And um. >> you. Have a lot. >> of. Good people who are. Involved and want to give you opinions on across. Both sides of the aisle, I'm sure. Um, I wish it was a more unified. Approach. >> but there are things that I would like you to consider. I would like you to. Consider that we do have shelters. We do have shelters that have beds available that folks need to go to. But there. Are gap. Individuals that are out in encampments that are such as the sex offenders. They are not allowed to be in the shelters. So we do need plans, we do need. Transparency and we need to figure out. >> what. That pathway looks like and who needs to lean in earlier and be having those conversations. If you. Guys are. Acting in. Silo maybe in closed session or. Wherever we don't know. We don't know what comes out of that other than action was taken, direction was given or no direction was given. >> it's very frustrating. >> as a community to be held to that um for this long I don't really. Feel like it. >> needs to. >> be in. >> closed. Session anymore. Um I'm really hopeful that the county can partner with you. They have really. Bright and. Eager people that are. Very seasoned who could get out there and be in more in my opinion, aggressive outreach by being planted there with card tables and things to be able to interact more continuously than just say hey, I'm coming here because we're going to be noticing you and then it's more of a scare thing than it is a we're partnering with you thing and that's not on the county. It's just how we're set up right now. So hopefully those kinds of conversations are. Happening and we just don't know it. But um we do have those populations. I would also like to see us, uh, build up more of the sobering centers and things that we've started to down the path of yeah, that I'm always been a fan of treatment and we do have a lot of people in need out there and also I'd love to see our medical community like public health. Get out there. And really. Start triaging the people who have um disabilities and untreated things to see about getting those people down that road as well. Thank you so much for your time. All right. >> public hearings um, harry gooding to consider the draft um, 20 2627 um annual action plan for our cdbg funds. Uh, mary jo one's alonzo, our. Housing program manager. Welcome. Hi. >> good morning. Or good evening? Sorry. >> good evening. Mayor, vice mayor and council. I'm before you. Tonight to present the draft 2026 2027 annual plan. For public hearing as required for use of federal funding from the department. Of housing. >> and urban development which is referred to as hud. The city is a uh federal community development block grant cdbg entitlement community and a home investment partnership home participating jurisdiction and meaning that we receive funding directly from the federal government. It's based on a formula that considers population, housing conditions and other socio economic factors. These funds are. Used to address the needs of low income households and neighborhoods in our community. Low income um as defined by hud is households earning at or below 80% of area median income. So for example for a family here in chico family of four that would be about $75,000 a year every five years a consolidated plan. >> is developed with. Broad goals to be achieved over the following five years. These goals were developed through a public engagement process which included interviews with stakeholders and was presented last year to council in JUNE. Tonight I will be presenting on the draft plan for the second year of the five year plan. There are five. Priority needs listed in the slide here and 12 goals identified. The needs are affordable housing homeless this prevention homeless services, neighborhood revitalization and economic development. Uh I do want to highlight that the proposed plan reflects a commitment to leverage cdbg and home dollars through partnerships with local agencies and nonprofit organizations and private sector stakeholders. Proposed programs and activities were prioritized because they align with our hud consolidated plan and approved 2022 housing element. The funding sources are listed above. The uh cdbg has estimated about uh $993,000 and home is about $573,000. Um final funding allocations were actually released after this draft plan was prepared. So I'll be bringing back an updated version next month when I come for the second and final public hearing which incorporates uh, the new final amounts. Uh, we did plan on flat funding which um our amounts are very close to what uh, we were awarded by hud. More detailed information um, about the budget. Is included in attachment d of my staff report. The city's annual action plan reflects priorities and projects identified in both the city's consolidated plan and our housing element, which aligns with both federal and state requirements. This slide provides an overview of the proposed use of home funds. Home funds can be used to support the development, preservation and affordability of housing for low and very low income households. Uh the eligible activities are listed here. We uh have continued commitment to develop five homeowner units with habitat for humanity. We will continue funding the tenant based rental assistance program. We're going to carry forward funding. >> for the rehab of turning point commons, which is an existing 66 unit affordable housing complex, and we're setting aside funding for the construction of affordable rental housing for a project to be developed. Funding also includes um expenses to cover program administration. Proposed cdbg has a broader overall range of eligible activities than home but somewhat restricted housing uses um the draft plan includes funding for housing programs and projects that includes funding for our homeowner rehab sewer connection assistance program. It includes a carry forward of funding to support the rental of um rental rehab with turning point commons. We're planning to set aside funding to support the design and planning of the warner street west sacramento. Multimodal capital improvement projects. This is in connect coordination with public works. Uh, we're proposing to set aside funding to support infrastructure improvements in support of an affordable housing project called humboldt senior housing, which is a project utilizing county excuse me butte county cdbg, D.R. Disaster recovery funding. It's located within the city of chico near the corner of humble and yosemite drive. We will also be supporting housing and services which includes the administration of t broom which is um uh housing authority assistance with that program we will continue funding to support economic development activities with our partnership with small business development center, continued funding to support city code enforcement services in low and moderate income census blocks and uh, continued funding for our program and administration. The uh final cdbg activity is public service funding and recommendations are made by our ad hoc citizens advisory committee, which is made up of members selected by the city's finance committee. Um our ad hoc citizens committee holds two public meetings. The first is to hear from applicants and then uh, the the committee then presents their funding recommendations. The grant. Applications are evaluated using a rating and ranking process along with applicant presentations and consideration of the services that are provided to our community. This year we have six eligible applicants after one applicant withdrew based on their review, the citizens advisory committee reached a consensus to recommend awarding the two highest scoring applicants $30,000 each and distribute the remaining funding evenly among the four applicants, which is approximately two uh $22,000. Similar to the overall budget, these amounts will be slightly adjusted when I come back next month uh with the final plan. A summary of that whole process is included as attachment c to my staff report and this slide summarize our public outreach for this year's annual plan information notices were posted on our city's website and via social media. A newsletter was sent out to interested parties and a notice was published in chico. We are um staff has presented at various um public meetings in the past few months and also as tonight's public hearing the draft plan is available to review on the city's housing website. Comments can be made tonight at this hearing or in writing to the email listed on the, uh, slide. We do have one more public comment or public hearing or will you say public comments and that is um the council meeting MAY 19th. This um concludes my report. The community director recommends that council hold a public hearing, invite public comments and schedule the final hearing of the annual plan for MAY 19th. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have. All right. Um we will open. >> the public hearing. And do we have any questions from council members before we. >> go to the public? No. Okay. How many speakers do we have? We have one. >> all right three. >> minutes okay. Uh, kim dietz. And I was. Hello. >> um, I'm. Kim dietz, uh, chico. Resident since 1982. For the past five years I have. Volunteered on the citizens. Advisory ad hoc. Cbd committee. That's a mouthful. Um, and I chaired that. Committee three of the. Last five years. Uh. >> this evening I'd like to express my appreciation. For the dedication. Um, of. >> the. Members who serve on this committee. >> as well as city staff. They do a great. Job. >> um, to support us to do the work that we do. To advise. The this. Group our team is committed to enhancing both the effectiveness and transparency of our processes. One of the greatest challenges. For this group. Remains to. >> be. The limited. Funding available. To distribute. Distribute amongst all applicants. Oftentimes we have more applicants than we do have many um as the sole citizen member with and without a background in the nonprofit sector, I was initially unfamiliar with many of the difficult face the difficulties that faced the applicants. However, my participation in this committee has provided valuable insight into the organizations that serve our community. The city staff and committee would continue to will continue to look for ways in our recommendations that utilize these funds. I fully support the recommendation of the cbdc. Voluntary ad. >> hoc committee. She is our only speaker. All right. >> any further. I don't have anybody in the queue. Councilmember holly. Yeah, I'd just like to. Thank MRS. Alonzo .Our speaker MRS. Dietz and. Everyone else who served. >> on that. Ad hoc. Advisory committee. Um, we really appreciate. All the. >> work you've done. Nobody else. >> all right. Consider a motion. I just had one word. Where did you go? Mary jo. I believe you. Said this in your presentation, but I just want to make sure there was seven applicants on here and one applicant, um, did not receive funds. But you said they withdrew their application? Yes. >> okay. One of the seven withdrew. Okay, perfect. I just want to be sure it was a withdrawal, not, you know, anything else? Okay. Um. Both moved to approve. I'll second. In motion by vice mayor bennett and a. Second by council member holly.. >> council member goldstein. Yes. Council member. Holly. Yes. Council member o'brien. Yes. Council member van overbeck. Yes. >> council member winslow. Yes. >> vice mayor bennett. Yes. Mayor reynolds. I know she didn't know that I officially. Closed the public hearing but. That'll close the public. >> hearing. Did I? Okay. Just making sure. Um, okay, onto our. Regular agenda. There was something I was going to announce here on the regular agenda. I wanted. To. >> um, before we get going and get too far in. I made a mistake. At our last meeting or I think I've actually done it a couple of meetings. Um, once we hit 10:00 we can amongst ourselves agree to finish the item that we are on and then we do not take anything else up after that. And I think I went to like city manager report and all the other stuff but um anyways what we can get there so I will be more cognizant of that. I missed it last time and then the other one was um that we as. Council members should do our best to try to keep ourselves. To three minutes an hour. Speaking um, as it could because that's what we give the citizens when they come to the dais um, at least three minutes when we have enough time to give everybody three minutes. Um, so just a reminder that for us to keep our. Brevity and try to keep within the three minutes that we give the public so that was I think that. Was it. >> right. Okay. Don't MISS Anything. Okay. Council member winslow, uh, oroville. Electric utility. It's all of you. Thank you. Mayor. >> yeah. >> um, interesting to have this come. >> up. At that. >> early on an agenda. Usually these things are at the end but. >> it. Got pushed over. From the last one. So this is a, uh, topic I asked to have a discussion on. Um, in general I've had uh, growing interest in electricity. It's become a rising share of. People's expenses overall and proportionately since uh, especially since this war in iran we've had the cost of fossil fuels go up. We're in this interesting moment where the cost of new renewable energy has gone down so precipitously that there are these new opportunities opening up. There's also a lot of legislative changes which I allude to in the report I don't want to get too much into unless people desire to hear um about that that. Are encouraging cities are allowing cities like san francisco that are pushing to uh to purchase their distribution system and to some move to a public power system from a um, what they currently have a monopoly on by pga and um, all these things I think converge like make some interesting opportunities and I have a general interest in this and I find that most people in the community do too. But in particular I was inspired by looking at what the city of oroville has been doing and it's. >> their elected leadership, it's their. City staff and it's also people within private industry that have been pushing these kind of interesting solutions and just in very brief what they're looking at doing is setting up some local generation of electricity through the. Form of solar. Farms and biomass plants. And building transmission lines to major industrial users and then handing those over to the city. >> so the city has actually. Formed a public. Electric utility. Where they currently don't own anything my understanding but they intend to. Be able to provide electrical service to. >> in particular some. Large customers so they can essentially offer it as an economic development incentive for employers to come to oroville. That's kind of the idea. It's very interesting. >> it's very complex. >> I've spent several hours having conversations with people involved with this in oroville. Uh, and I found that um, because there's interest in our community too in similar things I think it would be. Worthwhile to. >> hold in the future. >> a discussion with some people from oroville and um, that's all that I intend to ask with this. Um, you know the question of. Like purchasing a distribution system that people are interested in is a much bigger question than we're going to. >> get into here. Or probably in the next meeting or the subsequent one. But I think there are. Steps forward that. The city can make. I think there are these general historical trends that we can um, jump on. I think we'd rather be one of the um early ones out and early ones innovating with this than one of the later ones. Um, so my only intention um, after hearing from all is to ask that we um invite some some probably oroville. City staff to come forward. They hold their city council meetings a little earlier. >> they actually started a couple hours ago. Um, but I think it's most likely that the community. Development director would be sent. Because he's been working on this. But I've also spoken with mayor de pitman and brian ring, the city administrator there. Um, and I think they're all supportive. >> of. Having these sort of conversations. Thanks. >> right. >> council member van overbeck. I think that's a great idea and I would encourage. Us to do that. >> uh, how do we move forward on this, debbie? Well, after public comment. We will uh the council can just give direction to invite uh, representatives from oroville to come over and do a presentation if the council agrees with that. I would support that as well. I think it's a good conversation to have. All right. >> do we how many speakers do we have? We have two okay three minutes. Each okay. And I'll call both your names and um. Hopefully the video is. Up now and running and the audio in conference room one. So the first two speakers are the only two. Speakers tracy vincent followed by brenda narain and if you can go ahead and line up and come on forward. So tracy. And then go ahead and make. >> sure you get. Close to the microphone. Okay I'm actually going to try not to. >> take. Up that much. Um I would like to say I'm seeing a trend in some skewed data points. Um in the. Proposal that was in. The agenda I think. >> it's great to talk to oroville. That's wonderful. But when it comes down to the bottom line, um, we need to really look at our own city and where we're spending a lot of money for sure. Uh, joining the cca which we're can I do in 2027? That's great. But it is just a step. But some of the realities and some of the data points that were listed like using briggs and and gridley. Um. >> that's not a good sell for me. They they started out with their own infrastructure. They built it because. >> they didn't. >> have. It and they've had it forever and having the. Um wiener bill, the sb 75 that doesn't affect us that san francisco and if his bill potentially gets through that still leaves us stuck with trying to buy infrastructure. So unless we've got 500 million to. Start with. And going up into the billions I don't see that happening either. I think there are some great alternatives and we can have uh oroville come talk about. But we. >> don't have their infrastructure and we don't have hydropower here. So while yes, let's have discussions but we need to look at some real things that are happening and where we're spending a lot of money to decrease our reliability on pga. And since we're going to talk more about it, I'm just going to leave it there for some of the talking points that I was going to have because I know we got lots. Of good stuff to. Talk about tonight. Thank you. And then brendan and I apologize in advance if I do not pronounce your names correctly. Uh, naren .Good evening. My name is. Brenda narayan. I'm a genius. Government affairs representative pge is proud to serve the north state. Including the communities of chico. >> and oroville. And we're deeply committed to delivering safe. Reliable, clean and affordable energy. >> to. Our customers. While we understand and respect. The focus on. Affordability.. Proposals to pursue a government takeover of utilities. Makes promises. >> that are. Not supported by real world experience. These takeovers of electric utilities are extraordinarily. Complex. >> costly and long. Term undertakings. There are many studies and examples. To draw. >> from. >> including the city of hercules which is about the same size as oroville in pittsburgh, california that show that these efforts frequently result in higher customer. Costs for decades and. >> not savings. I want to talk a little. >> bit. About the legislation that was referenced. So proposals like 875 ignore the significant. Risk of cost shifts. Potentially transferring. Billions of dollars of expenses. To remaining customers and. Many of whom live in smaller cities and towns. And the. >> legislation also threatens funding. >> for. Critical wildfire. Mitigation. >> system hardening. And low income. Assistance programs. Increasing wildfire risk and. Undermining energy. Affordability for the state's most vulnerable residents. And I do want to make note. >> and I only. Learned this about two. >> hours ago. That the legislation is. >> not moving forward. But I wanted. >> to. Mention it because it was. >> it. Was mentioned in your paper. So what are we doing? Pge is taking. Concrete steps to address. Affordability and electric rates were reduced again MARCH of this year, which is the fifth reduction since JANUARY. >> 2024. Bringing the bundle residential electric rates down about 13% with the overall goal of keeping future rate growth at or below inflation. I do. >> want to talk a little bit about chico. So according to u ut.Org there are about 156 cities in california with a local utility user tax and two of those are in butte. County and one. >> of those is. Here in chico. So it's 5% and pgd has no control over this additional. Charge and collects and remits the 5% tax. On electric. Charges on behalf of chico. So any decision to move forward with public power warrants careful consideration of these. Facts and exploring a new municipal utility or public takeover that is not viable. Would introduce. Additional risk and cost. And will not benefit. Oroville nor chico. Pge remains committed to working with you with local leaders to. Achieve shared goals without exposing customers and taxpayers to unnecessary harm. Thank you. Thank you. We only had those two speakers. All right any further. Council member holly yep. As always I. Just really appreciate are your speakers giving their $0.02 and I think to mitigate some of the concerns that were brought up. First of all, let's not make promises. We're opening the doors here to a conversation for orville staff to come and share their experience with the city of chico so hopefully we can learn from them. Um, and then secondly, every acquisition would certainly have a thorough review on return. On investment exactly what deal this city would be entering into. But right now it just looks like baby steps. So I would fully support um having a. Short presentation from. Oroville staff. I will say however council member winslow if you can touch on this I understand there was a small group looking at economic development solutions in oroville and um one of the council members really was was steamrolling that and I would hope that we could exclude oroville council member participation and really focus on staff when it comes to the presentation because I think that can have some uh, contentious. Items that come with it. >> so yeah, thanks. I think the fact that the. Oroville council's meeting right now and they'll probably be meeting most of the time when we're meeting this probably excludes themselves. But uh. I appreciate. >> all the people I know in the oroville city council. I think that they're they're doing um, pretty pretty ambitious things and I'm impressed by them. Uh yeah. And think thank you brenda. I mean brenda's our rep from pg um, had a great relationship with her. She's been wonderful to be able to talk to and kind of, you know, um, uh, discuss these things naturally there's going to be some differences of opinion or or interest on these sort of things but yeah, it is kind of baby steps and and I would emphasize to as far as the. >> public takeover goes. Well that's certainly an alluring concept. I mean if you have interest rate that makes it. Like offsets. >> the profit that currently. >> is being pulled out by. Shareholders there, then it becomes economical but it is. Difficult to get. >> through and that's why not a lot of cities have moved forward with this in recent times although you know there's some good examples out there I would love to talk about but I don't think people are here for that right now at a future meeting. I hope that. More of the public gets. Engaged and that's kind of part of the intention to um, that people who who know things about this or have an. Interest are able to participate. And we can kind of move forward as a community that way. Um. So happy to have more discussion. But I would just make a motion that we um um what do I say to invite the city of oroville to present to us to plans and. Explore a deeper partnership. On, uh, electricity between our cities? I'll second that. Council member. Goldstein. Well. >> I support this. I'm very supportive of learning more and especially if it could lead us to being able to save our residents some money on their utility bills eventually. So yes. Okay. >> all right. >> we have a. Motion and a second I just have a question for council member addison and winslow. Um, I. Believe that. This is on the agenda tonight for oroville to hire a new, um, to do their um what do you call it? Their outreach and investigation and all that. Could we maybe wait. To get the presentation until after they have all their information back from their consultant? And so the we have a little bit more information and we're not just. Totally yeah. Um yeah. >> I actually agenda is quite a while ago they got postponed a bit I hadn't put it. >> in. The report. I was doing some fun research on the unit of electricity. If you're interested. >> go read the report. Um. And and then it got postponed a couple times. So I put it off because we had a full agenda then we had such a full agenda got postponed and um yeah. So state. Bills orville's frog grass I haven't really checked. Um I think we'll just leave it up. >> to leeway to our staff to. Schedule it when makes sense but I totally agree. Yeah I just want use the best of their time in our time when sorry when we can real information. So okay. Thank you. Uh, council member goldstein. Yes. >> council member. Holly. Yes. council member o'brien. Yes. >> council member van overbeck. Yes. >> council member winslow. Yes. >> vice mayor bennett. Yes. Uh, mayor reynolds. I it carries seven zero. Uh council member holly request uh regulations on commercial cannabis. Thank you, mayor reynolds. I hope this is going to be quick so we can clear up some seats for the folks who are waiting on the next item. Um, but really, I'm just looking for an opportunity to close the loop and production. We have, um, commercial retail and manufacturing legalized here within city limits and I know a lot of municipalities are hopping on legalizing commercial cultivation as well. So my revert my review is pretty thorough so I don't want to take too much time to dig into it and I kind of want to let the rest of the council pick out items as they arise as concerns. Um, but when conducting meetings not only with staff but also the greater community and people who are interested in the industry and active in the industry. One of the really easy wins that consistently came up was commercial cultivation permitting there are pretty significant differences between indoor and outdoor cultivation. So to me that's where the bulk of the discussion lies. But you'll see that my motion was considering changes in commercial cannabis legislation. So that's what the discussion is open to my council member right up is really just focusing on cultivation because I feel that was coming through as a consensus building item. Um surrounding that. So with. That I think. I'm open to questions and after that we can open to public comment. We back. Council member winslow. Sorry we got these new beepers and. My beeper keeps breaking. >> it's always him. >> yeah I don't. >> know why did I push. >> it too hard the first time? Yeah. >> um user error. So I. >> was. Just thinking. >> when this came up that we would um we were going to. Talk about. Uh. >> some some of the other I mean points of contention as far as like you know, how much does the city. Allow because it very much. >> is up to the city and. Uh. >> retail dispensaries and um in other delivery. Companies were to the ones. That I'd heard. Of in. >> the. Past, you know, and uh, given that. We've had a lot of tax. Revenue and I didn't pull the numbers but I mean several million dollars have come out of these um, I think there's the. Potential for. More and then it's just the reason why we limit these is similar to the reason why the state limits alcoholic establishments is because there's considered to be like a public safety risk. >> with having more of these more places. So we're pretty we're pretty rigid about where they. >> can go where they can't go and then and then the number um is set and. But as far as. Like how. >> what the number is I mean it's sort of arbitrary. >> what we found. >> our. Experience in these. Years is these. Retail dispensaries operate. So admirably. >> so. Successfully they. >> give a great name to cannabis sales everywhere and there's been like. I think. >> zero police calls last I heard like. Associated with any of them. So it's um in. >> any case a very it's very safe operation. Um so then it's a question of like. Well should. >> we lift the cap on. Competition a little bit? Um. >> to a certain extent and um, I imagine I know that that we've had. >> we had contacts from. A lot of businesses in town and I think we've had three. Businesses that are. Opposed to. >> more retail. Um, those are the three. >> that have the. Franchise and I think that if we. Had two. Franchises we would have. Two businesses as opposed to opening up a third one, you know, um, and uh I'm interested in other council members thoughts on um on opening up that. A little bit. More to okay. So your question to me is why commercial retail licensing was precluded from the report? Is that your question? Yeah. >> why why limit it to just. Um yeah. What you would do. Yeah that's a great question. So it came up consistently throughout all of my meetings and a reoccurring point of concern of course was market oversaturation which I know a lot of um areas in like la and other south southern california municipalities ran into everybody jumps on this brand new market um, market oversaturation occurs and then you have a pretty significant number of um closed down storefronts and closed down businesses and that can sometimes create an environment that that feels like blight. So I think that's the concern there. Um, so as far as like slashing all license and licensing limitations as far as cannabis retail goes, I would not be partial to but if we're talking about on a small baby step I'm I'm willing to open that conversation. Uh. >> and to be frank, I'm just trying to be realistic of of what our council makeup is right now. So. All right. >> um, council member goldstein. Um, first question for council member holly. That I probably. Could find more deeper. >> into our policy but so for indoor versus. >> outdoor. Cultivation right now, are. Either of these legal in any capacity in chico? No, there is no, uh, commercial cannabis cultivation legalized within city limits limits. We have personal cultivation um, that has very strict rules surrounding it that I hope we can touch on at a future date. Okay. Thanks. Um, and here and council member winslow's question about, um, store fronts I would support. Looking into. Expanding that. We can talk more after. Public comment but. That is my feeling on it. Any other questions from council? Councilmember council member o'brien. Yeah thank you mayor. Um so council member. Holly, how do. >> we address not. Just in this county. >> but. Um throughout california. The cultivation. >> of. Illegal black market marijuana which is substantial in the billions. Of dollars. How are you. How does this or have. You thought of how are we going to. Address that because. Some of. The dangerous pesticides that come. From those. Particular illegal. Grows which are. Typically organized. Crime related. Have very. Dangerous pesticides levels, levels of pesticides. >> that have been found in the. Legal um. Uh, marijuana market. So how do we address that? That's a phenomenal question as as you'll see in my introduction, um, there's a pretty substantial supply demand imbalance which has led to california having such a. Vast illegal cultivation market .I first learned about this from our sheriff when I was a freshman at chico state in 2018 as he was a guest speaker and it's prevalent in butte county. And one of the goals actually here is to ensure that if we pursue uh licensing options for cultivation, they have to be cost competitive options with those illegal markets. And although since it was so recently legalized in and in the state it's an under-researched. Topic the research that is coming out in fact by the government itself this is coming from the usda forest service asserts that there's a statistically significant linkage between state level legalization and reduction in illegal growing. And my biggest concern is is the adverse impacts that illegal grows have not necessarily on the city of chico more so in the foothills and our foothill neighbors. So thank you for that. I'll have more. >> to say. >> on. This but I appreciate your response. Thank you. >> all right and I'll see you anybody else in the queue. So how many speakers do we have. We have six. All right three minutes each okay. And so I'll call the first two names uh we have tracy vincent followed by mark breckenridge. And if you could. Please line up. That would be great. So tracy vincent. >> yeah. This might take the three minutes I don't know. Um, and let me preface. By saying. >> we are farmers so if we could make money out of this I am all for it. But and however again I am seeing. Some data points being skewed like for instance the 2019 study that you were just referencing was small. It was only in national forests. >> it does not deal. With uh broader market. >> that we're. >> with today. Um so. I'm going to try to hit my high points. So let me just start out considering commercial cannabis cultivation. I just want us to be clear on what we're actually talking about, what's going to work and what probably isn't going to work. And this is coming from a farming perspective and I would put a psa out there if you want to be a farmer, buckle up. People don't like farmers. They want to eat food but they don't like dust. They don't like trucks and they don't like noise just telling. You anyway. Um. >> initially when they legalized in some. Places it was great big. Cash boom. Just watched the netflix series see what happened in humboldt. You talk about chico being a great place to grow it. It's not we're way too hot and we have and we're we don't have the humidity the humidity that you need. So my concerns with that are it's likely going to turn into a lot of greenhouses. Because to. >> grow it correctly you're going to need to control the heat. You have to have constant air so you don't have all sorts of problems. Yes you have to have pesticides. You have to have herbicides. If you're going to make money with this you need more than one crop more than one crop here it's got to be inside otherwise it's not going to do well. We're just not going to grow good pot here. It's just not going to happen. But that's okay. We can have mediocre pot. >> people still. Want to get. It will be fine I promise you. I'm not going to lie. The second big issue I have and we need to talk about it is water growing marijuana is a high consumption of water, high consumption of electricity and. we're already fighting over it to grow your food. Like I said, if we can figure these things out I can make some money. I'll grow some out there. We got room, we. >> got room. >> I'll do it. Um, but the fact of the matter is it's going to turn into greenhouses. So we really need to talk about that. What I would recommend because we need to run this to ground because I think it could turn out we can get good tax revenue. We could make some money maybe some farmers even. But I would suggest. If we do do it. Moving forward and exploring it have a very limited pilot program rather than broad rollout. The pilot should be tightly structured with a cap on permits, canopy side. Local zoning and setbacks from homes and schools. We need to verify the water, the legal source where it's coming from and I don't recommend somebody try to come off water to water pot. It's going to cost an arm and a leg you need a well. That is all. Thank you. Um mark breckenridge followed by josh lewis. Uh good evening, mayor. And members of the council. Uh. I'd like. >> to. Thank everyone who has. >> reached out to me concerning this subject. Um. >> my name is mark breckenridge and. Co-founder and owner of oregon chico. One of the city's. Licensed dispensaries. I'd like to express our sincere appreciation. For the ongoing partnership. Between the. >> city and our business. We understand that the council MAY be. Receiving input. From stakeholders regarding potential updates to chico's cannabis ordinance. While we are not involved in the recent correspondence, we appreciate the opportunity for the operators to share their perspective as part of a thoughtful public process. We remain grateful for the city's careful and deliberate approach for cannabis regulation. The current licensing framework has helped foster a stable and well functioning local market one that supports tax revenue, local jobs and meaningful community investment. Once again, thank you for your continued leadership and partnership and building a well-regulated and successful local cannabis market. Thank you josh lewis followed by tim dodd. Uh good evening honorable mayor and members. >> of the council staff. Uh, thanks for letting me speak tonight. Uh, my name is josh lewis and I have the. Honor of serving as government community relations manager for embark. We're one of this community's three licensed cannabis retailers. Uh, I want to start with a simple point. And that is that the cannabis program that you all created is working. And for that we thank you. That's not to say it's easy. This is a tough industry across california. But the framework the city put in place has created a stable. Functioning market. Which is more than the majority of jurisdictions in this state can claim. Our three licensed retailers are operating paying meaningful local taxes, employing chico residents and contributing directly to the community through local philanthropy and partnerships that stability matters. It's what allows. Businesses like ours to consistently generate tax revenue for the city and reinvest in the community. In many parts of california, markets that expanded are now dealing with closures, unpaid taxes and declining revenues for the operators that can stay open. Chico has avoided that outcome this far. For that reason, I'll reiterate something we've all heard before and as at least as it pertains to cannabis retail in this community if it ain't broke, don't fix it. We do not. Believe changes to the retail program are necessary at this time, and several of the ideas that have been proposed by members of the community put these existing benefits at risk. With that context, I do want to briefly address the cannabis revenue loss analysis quote unquote that's been submitted to the city. That document has been framed as reflecting the views of chico's operators it does not embark. >> was not. Aware we were not involved and it does not reflect what we were seeing on the ground or the reality of the cannabis market today. More importantly, its conclusions. Rely on basic errors. Given limited time this evening I won't dive into the details, but the broader argument that adding more retailers will meaningfully increase total revenue has no basis in fact and it's directly contradicted by observations from jurisdictions across the state of california. More often it leads to market saturation, reduced revenue per store and ultimately less reliable tax generation for communities that expand. That last point is critical when revenue is split across more operators in a market of fixed demand like we see in chico, the result is not more tax revenue it's less stability, more risk in declining returns to the city. When you take those issues together, the analysis does not present a reliable case for changing chico's current approach. And that brings us back to where I started, which is that the city made a deliberate decision to limit the number of retail licenses and select operators through a competitive process. That structure is producing consistent tax revenue and enabling ongoing community investment from the operators you selected. Even in the difficult statewide industry we face today. So our request from embark is straightforward maintain the current retail structure, codify the limit of three licensed retailers and move forward in full confidence in the system that you've already built because the stability you've created is exactly what supports reliable local tax revenue, employment and sustained local giving and changing that structure now risks undermining all of the benefits that this industry delivers. Thank you. Thank you tim dodd followed by david peterson. Uh um. Good evening and thank you for the. Opportunity to speak marion. Council members. My name. >> is uh, tim dodd. I'm the. >> co-founder and. Ceo of. >> sweet flower and sweet flower chico. We've operated. In chico since 2022. We pay our. >> taxes, we hire locally. We are. Locally owned and operated. We follow. >> all. The rules we are, if I MAY. Say a. Model of responsible. Retail and I would say that chico. Has a model. Cannabis program. A competitive local market with. >> good. Retailers with strong local ties to. Give back. Locally in a. Meaningful way. And as a good. Local retailer legal. Retail here in chico we. Have been. And we are. >> supportive of a good legal. Cultivation program. >> in chico. Should the city so decide. I should say that. >> we have. Nothing vested. >> in this but we are supportive. I would like to address one topic a document placed before this council purporting to reflect our views. It doesn't I want to be very clear does not represent our views. We have not been consulted nor informed on this analysis. And also most importantly it's wrong. It claims chico has a $30 million annual cannabis market but that is unfortunately. Two years of sales. Not one. Presented as one year of sales. So the correct number is divided by two is only half as big which undermines every other conclusion in this document. What I find puzzling about the document is the author is not only chico's only licensed manufacturer, he is also chico's only licensed distributor. This author holds in other words not one but two monopolies here in chico. Now I don't want to sound unsympathetic but if you hold only the only manufacturing license in a city and the only distribution license in the city and you are still not making enough money. I would gently suggest. The problem is not with the. Regulations it's a different conversation. It's a conversation to have maybe with one's accountant, not with his counsel. There has been a lot of argument about a room for another retailer. What this argument doesn't conclude is the state average reflects a state market that is fundamentally flawed and broken .As has been discussed hundreds of retailers many thousands actually are going out of business and not paying taxes. Chico has avoided this. The council built and maintains through MARCH and through charlene a very. Sensible program. The adage. Works if it ain't broke don't fix it. There is no retail gap. Well there is a free well. >> play. Stores delivering products selling products at. Every price point for. Every chico one there is free delivery from two of these. Locally there is simply no evidence of unmet demand. What there is unfortunately is someone who applied for a license didn't. >> get it. Is a monopoly. Position holder and would materially benefit from a well from a new retail license. That's not a retail gap, that's a business. Strategy and is not a strategy the council should subsidize through public policy. Please keep the retail program as it is so we can contribute back to you. Chico thank you so much. Okay so david peterson followed by charles brennan. Thank you. Good evening. Mayor council members, I want to say start by recognizing the city and staff for what's. Honestly been a very successful integration of commercial cannabis here in chico. Specifically, I want to acknowledge angie, doug hope at the burn and charlene durkan, the work that went into building this program navigating the risk, the uncertainty and the complexity of bringing a highly scrutinized industry into the city was not easy and I think it deserves to be recognized. The city took a chance on cannabis and that chance has paid off. The original goal was clear generate revenue to support the city and today we're seeing that success. The program is generating millions in revenue and more importantly it has resulted in the increase. It has not resulted in the increase in crime or public safety issues that were uh that were many we're concerned about early on by most measures it has been a very responsible and effective rollout, but the industry and the environment around it has changed significantly since those regulations were first adopted. Nearly every state in the country now has some form of a cannabis program. The federal government has directed the department of justice to move forward with rescheduling. Chico state this year received grant funding to study cannabis and more people are participating in the legal market than ever before. At the same time, studies including those from hdl show that access and participation directly impact legal sales and revenue when access and limited people don't stop purchasing. >> they just purchase. Elsewhere and that's revenue that revenue that leaves the city right now chico has a strong foundation, but it's not fully capturing the economic opportunity that already exists. Vertical integration is a big part of that allowing businesses to cultivate, manufacture, distribute and sell locally keeps more value here more jobs, more investment ,more taxable revenue expanding license types and allowing more participation doesn't weaken the system it strengthens it. And beyond cannabis itself this is also about a broader economic condition. Chico's facing real challenges businesses closing, commercial spaces sitting vacant and ongoing pressure on the local economy. This is one of the few industries where chico has already has a proven regulated revenue generating system in place. The opportunity is now to build on that. Success thoughtfully, responsibly and in a way that continues to benefit the city and as residents I'll close where I started. The city took a chance on cannabis and it has been an overwhelming success. It MAY not be perfect., but there. >> is a clear. Opportunity to continue improving it and generating even more revenue by allowing thoughtful industry expansion. Thank you for your time. Thank you. And our last speaker is charles brennan. Good evening. Uh, I'd like to. >> start by. Thanking you all. >> for. Bringing this topic. Back up and into light. This is. >> a. Big topic. >> in. My life as. I am. >> one of. The founders. Of chico's best. We are a local business built right here in chico, california. Yesterday we happened to celebrate our three year anniversary. Along with embarek. Who has taken us. From one store to now. 16 stores. Across the california. Market and we're now. >> we're also available in over 20. So our business is growing. Over the time we've sold over. $2 million in cannabis. Yet none of that. Cannabis has been. Growing in. >> our. Town and. >> none of that has. Really benefited us. Uh, we would like to. Move it so we could start. Purchasing cannabis that was growing in this county. It was. Growing by our local people. Uh, when we started doing this ordinance. And I. >> do say when I start when we. Started doing this ordinance. Because I was here. >> when we were doing this. >> when we were talking. >> in the building over there we. Really wanted to. >> make. It local. >> we wanted to build brands. >> we didn't want to bring in budweiser. >> we wanted to build. New sierra nevada. And in this time we can do. That and. It's not really. Looking towards a small future. It's looking towards. >> the. Big future. Cannabis is here and it's going to stay. It's not going anywhere. >> it's only going to. Build and we're either going. To import. It or we're going to. Export it. Everybody in business. Knows you. Make much more money exporting. Now this is a great spot. The farmer that came up and. >> said that this isn't a good. Community to grow in. I will tell you I am an a cannabis. Award winning. I do. >> this I do this for a living. If we could put this back. >> in our. Town I would love to put chico on the. Map for some of my strains. That I've created in this town that can take that 100 degree weather. One thing. >> we also need to look at is the way that this ordinance. >> was really written. It actually said that we were going to have unlimited. Distribution. >> unlimited manufacturing, unlimited delivery, unlimited testing. I personally. Applied for a license and I got my distribution license. I chose not to activate it. The reason why I chose not to activate it is because david paterson and the c4 team actually made it less more. Economical for. >> us to just team up with them. We need to open up this. >> we need to bring more. Distribution into our town, more manufacturing. We need to get a testing facility. You're correct. We do need to have things tested like we need to make sure that this cannabis is a product that is safe for our families and our friends. Something that I do believe in. Along with doing that we need. >> to open up new licenses as bars are starting to close and businesses are closing downtown consumption lounges could be the new thing. Instead of having your. 2:00 fights you could have 2:00 pizza parties downtown could become a new place. Could you imagine if we turned to cannabis instead of opioids saying that you. Know. >> I just like. >> to open. Up all. >> licenses if we can get some growth, if we can get some things in this community we could actually bring money to this town. Now I have a. Dream and you guys could actually really help me get it. My dream is to get my cannabis across state lines, across world lines and be all around the world. We could start this today. Chico's best is a brand that's going to make chico proud. Please help us to do that. Thank you guys for opening this up. Thank you for listening to us and I really appreciate you guys. Have a nice day. Thank you. >> and he's our. Speaker all right. Council member winslow. There those are some great speeches from people. >> and it's really nice that these are people that have been brought I mean allowed to. flourish in business. Because we. Decided to act on legalizing this. And I think the. Result that. >> we've seen is that it has not really caused the unintended impacts. >> that people thought they are. The reality. >> is there's a blend there's been a black market in marijuana for. Much longer than we've even considered legalizing it. Um. And and there is there. Is a like a trade off between the two of the more. >> you. Suppress it the more black market you get. I want to address some of these comments about. Market oversaturation. >> and this being a concern I didn't. Follow the whole. Process with cannabis like legalization. I wasn't on the council at that time. Frankly I had other things on my mind um, related to the city but I. Don't think that was ever our intention. To avoid. >> market oversaturation. I remember when this was going on 2016 legalization, this concept of the green rush. >> we we. Knew that a. >> bunch of people were going to. >> see. This as an opportunity and they were going to come in and we knew that like. >> the gold rush. There was going to be a boom and there's going to be a bust. There was going to be equilibrium over time. But in that process some businesses were going to fail. And so the fact that some cities have. Allowed more. Business than than was able to succeed doesn't to me say that we need to limit it and be the government picking winners in an industry. Um I mean I hadn't really. Thought about this before. I've mentioned that sierra nevada comparison you know what if we put a cap on craft breweries and ken grossman didn't get the permit right? >> and where would we be as chico? Um. >> there's there's. >> a. Whole that philosophy here but it's really reality of our. Economic system. And free enterprise. There's something called. Creative destruction the understanding that not all businesses succeed when they're. Subj