03-24-26 Folsom City Council Regular Meeting

closed session. There we go. We're going to close the closed session and move on. With that we're going to move to the regular meeting for MARCH 24th, 2026. Will you please call the roll. >> okay. Councilmembers rohrbough. >> here. >> aquino. >> here. >> here. >> here. >> raithel. >> here. >> and councilmember kozlowski is absent, expected to arrive later this evening. >> thank you. And I want to give a warm welcome to the st. Francis high school civics and ap government class that's here tonight. [Cheers and applause] And now it's going to be time for the pledge of allegiance and I will let giana kick off our pledge of allegiance this evening. If you all will please stand for the pledge >> 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. >> thank you, everyone. Any updates to the agenda this evening? >> yes, mayor, we have an additional information transmittal on one of the new business items, I believe, jennifer, can you help me. >> yes, item 11. >> thank you. On item 11. The item has been transmitted to the council. We have copies for the public on the back table. >> thank you so much. That takes us to business from the floor. This is the time in the council's agenda where you can address the council on any unagendized items. So we allow you to speak for up to three minutes on really any item. So if you would like to speak with us tonight, there's blue cards in the back. Just fill one out and give it to the bailiff over here. Bailiff? To -- laughter -- to officer mccullough right over here. With that, we have one speaker, lilly nichols. Come on down. Hi, lilly. >> hi. Thank you for this opportunity. I've been meaning to come here for, well, a couple years, but specifically the last year, since the new light rail expansion. And I'll just say, I lived in sacramento for 26 years, moved to folsom in 2021, just five years ago, and -- in MARCH -- and I was so happy to get away from sacramento and the light rail. I used to live on second avenue, free port by the light rail. It was basically my front yard. And that bell just drove me crazy. And then I lived here for several years and it was very peaceful and then there was that expansion and with the expansion there's -- instead of, like, one light rail every hour, there's double tracks and it's every 15 minutes or something like that. So this bell is now back in my head and I just wanted to to see what can be done to lower maybe the decibel of it so that it's not so loud. It rings throughout the neighborhood. There's a mile-marsh area to walk around and whenever the bell goes off wherever you are in that mile-area you can pretty much hear it. It is coming all the way down folsom boulevard. I've even gone to the cemetery bring a book and I can hear the bells, or on the river trail taking a walk. It is just very intrusive, I feel. So, I can mention one other thing, which is, when I lived on second avenue we had asked for bell mitigation and it wasn't apparently possible because it was shared tracks with union pacific. But I have gone back in recent years and seen that they did something, because they did mitigate the sound of it. It's much lower. So I was hoping that something could happen here. >> vice mayor rohrbough is actually our representative on rt, I will let her introduce herself. >> yeah we're not supposed to go back-and-forth on business from the floor because it is not agendized item but I'm that rep and took your name and number, will be happy to follow up. >> thank you. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. >> all right, any other speakers? From business from the floor? All right. We'll move on to scheduled presentations, please call item number one. >> okay, under scheduled presentations, only item is presentation regarding assembly bill 1572 and nonfunctional turf. >> thank you. Good evening mayor raithel, maybes of the council, mike yastrzemski -- utility director. Quick presentation on assembly bill 1572 as it related s to nonfunctional turf, this is grass so not artificial turf. Just a brief overview, this prohibits the use of potable water to irgate nonyou functional turf on commercial, institutional or industrial properties and hoa properties including road medians, fences, parking lots, streets, there's exemption for private single family or multi family prompt, sports fields, picnic areas and cemeteries. water suppliers or agency city of folsom is required to communicate this. The implementation timeline is shown below. When different entities are required to implement this, so, JANUARY 1st of 2027, our local government properties. 28 commercial and industrial properties. 29 common areas of HOAs. And then 20 1 31 any local areas in disadvantaged communities. Functional turf is a ground cover surface located in recreation use or community space, designated by property owner or governmental agency to accommodate human foot traffic for civic, ceremonial or community events or social gatherings. So you have to go through all that to identify areas within the city that kind of meet that definition or do not meet that definition to know what nonfunctional turf is. There are other slight exemptions. If you have trees or perennial shrubs in areas of turf, they can be irgated with potable water. Couple examples, on the left, effectively recreation community space, parks, ball field, et cetera. On the right, example of nonfunctional turf, effectively you're not using it except for when you need to mow it. That's the easiest way to look at it in terms of functional versus not functional. Couple more pictures, functional turf, soccer field, cemetery, picnic/park area. These are nonfunctional, so these are the median areas alongsides of roads, between, as you can see here, one is a sidewalk and the fence. Then you've got the sidewalk going into another area as well. So what does this apply to, hoa, common areas, public properties, commercial industrial and institutional properties. These are just a list of what falls under each of those categories. I won't read them all out loud. But, you know, shared outdoor spaces, in common areas, you know, libraries, public schools, universities, and public properties. Office buildings, restaurants. Retail spaces, et cetera. In what is known as the cii sector. So, where can turf irrigation continue? It can continue where recycled water is used, where it's used for recreational purposes, sports fields, golf courses, cemeteries, picnic ground, peck exercise areas, so any of the dog parks that are available to our community. And then, when it's necessary to ensure the health of trees and other perennial nonturf plantings. So what are the requirements of the city? One of the main requirements is to revise a regulation ordinance or policies governing water service to include the requirements of the assembly bill and what that means is next month -- so the first meeting in APRIL -- we will be coming back to city council with an ordinance update to include the definition of nonfunctional turf for assembly bill 1572. We're also required to communicate these requirements with the various customer classes. I have a slide at the end where I outline what our timeline is on doing that. An then obviously the stop irrigating nonfunctional turf with potable water on city or government-owned properties beginning JANUARY '27. What are requirements for some of the affected customers? This one is quite interesting. I'm not quite sure how the state is going to manage this one, given how many of these properties are properly across the state but cii properties with over 5,000 square feet of irrigatedded turf will have to self-certify compliance to the control board every three years starting in JUNE 2030. So I'm not sure if the state is developing a database with properties that match this distribution description but those properties will be required to report to the state that they're in compliance with this bill. And hoa properties in that same kind of 5,000 square foot marker will have to do the same self-certification compliance, but they have until JUNE of 2031 and will have to do that every three year years as well. So enforcement, the state -- or the bill doesn't say that agencies have to enforce, it just says agencies MAY enforcement provisions of the chapter. and enforcement can happen at a couple different levels, one is customers enforcement. If an agency decides to choose to enforce it's up to 1,000 a day or another number as defined by the urban water supplier, could be the city. And then supplier enforcement, the state water resources control board, if they so choose to, can come after each of the water supply agencies and decide that you MAY not be doing enough to help either educate or provide outreach to your customers that could be impacted by the bill. That also up to a thousand dollars per day. So some of the misconceptions, it doesn't technically ban turf, it just says you can't irrigated that with potable water. You don't have to replace a nonfunctional turf by a certain date in 2027, '28, or '29, you just need to stop watering it with potable water unless it meets the exemptions of providing tree health or perennial shrubs. You don't have to remove all nonfunctional turf and replace it with extensive and potentially expensive new landscaping, that is not true either. This law does apply to all government hoa, and cii properties. There is no size threshold. It's not just, okay, here comes a new large development, this applies to you -- it applies to everyone under those different headings. And again, it doesn't apply to private, single family or multi family residential properties, apartment, condo, complexes are also exempt if not part of an hoa that has some nonfunctional turf within that location. But in reality, unless you have another sourcer, or you don't have trees or shrubs, it does make it challenging to have nonfunctional turf and find a water supply that is not potable or is recycled water. So, city resources, what do we have? What do we have to offer? One is water influence. This is a program or dashboard that the city has that customers in the nonresidential sector, so commercial properties, institutional properties, HOAs can sign up for this. It is a dashboard that identifies and it looks similar to the screen -- or picture below that will identify on your property what is categorized as nonfunctional turf. What is categorized as functional turf, et cetera. And shrubs. So what we're able to do with our customers is if they have access to this, it doesn't cost those customers anything to sign up. They just have to sign up and they gain access with a user name and password, it identifies their property. They can see all this effectively in realtime. They can reach out to our team to come out to their site and walk it more closely, because there might be some instances where this shows something as nonfunctional but there are maybe trees or perennial shrubs in the area. so you might be able to carve out certain areas within that. And again, we would meet with city staff or they can meet with city staff to be able to go over the specifics of their area. And then by the end of this week, we should have a website dedicated to the nonfunctional turf with resources, not only that the city offers, but resources that they can, like, reach out to the regional water authority, and they will be hosting different webinars, they can reach out and get more tools or information from the california water efficiency partnership or cal whip that has information related to this. And this is the last slide, just in terms of the city timeline, so we finalized all of the nonfunctional turf documents with our communications team and our water conservation team to get this all ready to post at the end of this week to the city's website, obviously tonight we're here -- sorry it says MARCH 27th it should be 24th. The 27th should be on win page launch web page launch. I will fix those two dates. We'll begin outreach in MARCH and APRIL to the customer bases affected by this. In APRIL, as mentioned, we'll bring back the nonfunctional turf item for consideration to be placed in the municipal code. Then in MAY, different webinars offered by the regional water authority, so MAY, AUGUST and OCTOBER. And then in MAY, if our respective customers want the site visits, our team will begin site visits, and we'll continue that throughout the rest of this year and effectively after OCTOBER as we move into the future. And that is all for that. Thank you. >> thank you, marcus. Any questions? Councilmember aquino? >> thank you, marcus, my biggest frustration is we become the messenger for the state. If they pass things like this they should be the one to let people know, otherwise people think it is us making these regulations. Right? So I guess my question is, what is the penalty to us if we don't do those things? If we don't notify customers? >> I imagine the state water resources control board would probably just use the thousand-dollars per day penalty saying, look, here's what the regulation required, you weren't doing it, and you haven't done it since x-date. Here's how many days you're at, times a thousand. >> and if I'm an hoa, and I've got a swath of grass with nothing in it, can I just plant a tree and at that point it's not nonfunctional turf, because I need to water the tree. >> according to the definition, if you are keeping a tree alive or in an hoa designates it as a gathering or social area for certain events within the hoa, so they have a community picnic once or twice a year, they have some sort of celebration once or twice a year, which is also interesting, because the language doesn't state it has to be once, twice, ten times a year -- it just says if it is part of a community gathering space that it could be. So technically, if you put a couple park benches in there or a couple picnic tables in there, it's now, I would say, in compliance with the definition, if you read it as black and white. >> all right. >> without being a lawyer. >> and just to confirm, the regulation says that we MAY enforce but we don't -- it's not shall enforce. >> correct. And that was one of the biggest things that us, and many other water agencies within the region, through the regional water authority and through aqua and cmua, initially opposed and less amended. That's one of the biggest factors was we don't want you, the state, saying do this then we have to go be the enforcement arm. >> right. I'm all for water conservation. It's just frustrating when the state does this and puts the onus on local government. Thank you. >> and it's also unfunded. >> I'm sure they're sending checks to cover our costs. They're in the mail. Councilmember here leary. >> yeah I wanted to bring up actually something that when looking at the cost for LNLs one of the highest cost in our districts are watering nonfunctional turf. you know. And so, when we've looked at the future costs to the community, as we move forward, and one of the ways that we'll be able to save some water is to convert to one of those nonturf areas into, you know, native plants, bases, not talking about massive areas. But there's a lot of strips where there is a tree and they have to be irrigatedded. So, in a way, this kind of reinforces the need to switch that turf out and hopefully people will come up with some better options for the lnl districts when we're replanting them. -- to keep them attractive and still reduce our water cost. That's been a huge part of the bill. People don't understand that. When you say lighting and landscaping district they think you're just talking about the plants, sidewalk and don't think about the electricity that keeps the lights on and the water to keep it looking nice. Thanks. >> thank you. Vice mayor? Councilmember kozlowski? >> any idea of the quantity of city-own owned, either through LNLs or anything else -- any idea of how much nonfunctional turf we're talking about? >> I don't offhand. But I can ' work with our team to get that information. >> that was JANUARY 1, 2027. So, like, six months -- sorry -- eight months away. >> correct. >> that we're going to turn the water off on all of that throughout the city. >> I am not stating that we will. >> okay. That seems like we're going to have a lot of dead grass, right? Not in JANUARY, not FEBRUARY, not MARCH, but come -- come MAY, we're going to start getting calls. Right? So we've probably got a little less than a year now. It would be nice to know what that number was, LNLs aren't flush with cash. And so, I think there's -- that's -- something that we need to kind of start getting our hands around. >> we have it from, like, in that water influence tool. We can pull that out, I just unfortunately don't have it with me this evening but we can get that within a couple of days. >> that would be great. Thanks so much. And I will just, you know, echo councilmember aquino's comments, I don't want to be the fine-master for the state from an enforcement standpoint. So I would definitely -- all in for communicating it -- hey, here's the new state law. You should be aware in case the state comes to fine you. We just want to make you aware what the state has decided. We can use state few more words. >> state of california. >> any other questions for marcus. All right. Thank you so much. >> thank you. >> that takes us to the consent calendar this evening. We have one request to speak on item number 7. Any other items to pull. >> I can move items 2 through 6 on consent calendar. >> second. >> please call the roll. >> councilmember rohrbough? >> yes. >> aquino. >> yes. >> kozlowski. >> yes. >> leary. >> yes. >> and raithel. >> yes. And please call item number 7. >> okay, item number resolution no. 11583-a resolution of the city council authorizing the mayor to execute an amendment to the employment agreement for the city manager,. >> all right. And we have one public comment this evening. Bill turner. Thanks for coming down, bill. >> thank you. Bill turner, resident of the city of folsom. I was actually expecting some discussion from city council on this item before I came up here to speak. But I'll give my opinion anyway. For the last year or more, we've continuously been hearing from the city about the budget situation and I was surprised to learn this evening that there's not only this item but another item on the agenda tonight, increasing salaries. I'm not in a position to say anything about the performance of the city manager, who by the way, I've met with on occasion and is a great guy. But it seems to me that if we're in this budget crisis, now is not the appropriate time to be increasing salaries. You know, because I learned of this on such short notice I haven't been able to do what I consider adequate research, however, I do believe that the city manager's compensation package is substantially higher than the previous city manager. So I'm really confused about what this resolution is about. I'd like to hear from the councilmembers. And apparently I need to remind the council that we have a fire engine that's been closed in the city and we should be looking to conserve every penny we can, rather than spending more. Thank you. >> thank you. All right, I can talk briefly to this item. I don't think we have a staff presentation prepared for it or anything, correct? All right. So, last -- at the last council meeting, we had -- during closed session we reviewed ther performance of the city manager, and at that closed session we reported out afterwards that the city manager had exceeded the expectations. We had also previously approved salary tables for the city manager. So we had a successful performance valuation after 12 months on the job. That -- at the start of his 12 months, I will also say, we went out in a wide-ranging search for city managers to replace our retired city manager. we went out and had a very competitive pool of candidates that we short listed, interviewed and took through the process. And we negotiated with city manager whitemyer in order to come to an agreement on salary so that he would come up here and take the job, because we thought he was a great fit for the city. 12 months in the job, successful performance valuation, all of the council was pleased with the work he had done, with that we recommended a step change, which would bring him actually to the top step in our city manager salary table. So there would be cost of living increases going forward. He is basically at the top step now for city managers. He came to us with quite a built of experience from the outside. From being previous city managers in two other municipalities. So that was the rationale behind the decision, just to give it more -- lots of detail. And the report, also other salary tables we've approved in the past. But that is the idea behind this increase in pay. Was based on the successful performance evaluation. >> can I say something. >> yeah, just wanted to give that in summary. Vice mayor rohrbough. >> I will just speak to a couple things, one of the -- reasons I believe that he had such a successful evaluation and why we believe that the compensation is viable is because during this last year he's actually kind of right-sided our city. He's had to make incredibly touch decisions, as the council has as well, to put us in a situation where we were sustainable and we are now, our beth budget is balanced and we're not going into the general fund. Going forward, to do some projects that our community would like to do, it would look different. But right now we're living in a balanced budget and he's done that this past year with all his hard work. I believe when we hired him MARCH 10th, last year, his salary compensation was absolutely comparable to the previous city manager. So, it isn't out of line. And then going through the recruitment process, which we were all a part of, it was absolutely not out of line with the community and the region and the quality that we have with our city manager today. So, you know, he's had to make really tough decisions and made everything very transparent to our public. That's why you are hearing a lot more this year. You're kind of seeing a lot more pain points because that's been one of the things we have been supportive of him bringing to public is making everything as transparent as possible to around back the city trust that has been lost over several years. So for all of the reasons that justin said that's why the council -- we discussed contract in closed session, we had already discussed it, that's how we got here. So I think he has our full support. >> I will offer during this last year, too, despite being in a budget crisis we didn't negotiate mou's over all bargaining units and none of those bargain units did we raise salaries because even though we're in a budget crisis the most important thing is that we retain quality employees to execute on the work that gets done by the city each and every day. We might be living with less employees or the same amount of employees as the city grows, but so far we've decided that we needed to stay competitive in the market because what we didn't want to do is take the other cities or county's second or third-rate employees to save a few dollars, we don't think in the long run that saves us money as an organization to kind of reduce pay and not be competitive with the other city that's are around. >> I have some questions. >> sure. >> this is actually on the agenda for the city -- the whole city council's final approval. It's been my experience -- I've only been here a year -- that the mayor or the vice mayor or both generally make these agreements with the city managers and, you know, bring them back to the council for a final approval, and some of the questions that I would like to have answered is that there are colas and there are step raises. And so, in my reading of this document, it looks like a step raise was given, but is a cola also automatically awarded? Or is that something that's already been included in this year's salary, in addition to the step raise? Or are we just talking about a step raise? Because, you know, it makes -- it's a significant difference in money if you are looking at adding both of those to the salary. There's been a lot of concern about how we're spending money here and what kinds of services have been cut. And as MR. Turner brought up, there's concerns about the fire engine and some other services people are concerned about. So I think we need to be 100% transparent about what this is. >> I would be happy to answer that. So, back in DECEMBER, when mou's were approved, we presented a compensation plan to the council, and I think this is one of the most transparent things the italy has city has done to put out there. Here are all of the salaries and steps, here's how it works. Part of it was from -- and we've -- I've done this in other jurisdiction where when negotiating agreements we actually made the executive management team similarly situated as are other employees where you have an established salary table and we follow those tables, much like for the fire union, the police union or for the other. So when the compensation plan was developed back in DECEMBER, it was built following the same model, all of the mou's that war proved were three-year agreements that had cost of living adjustments related to the executive management team, cost of living adjustments were also included in those, so you don't have compaction. So as other employees salaries raise, there are sometimes cases where there's compaction where it gets -- in the field -- it gets too close. We actually have had agreements where we had to increase maybe mid-management salaries up, because the field staff employees raises were up. So, I think we have been extremely transparent. Everything is on our website. And that is what was presented, the compensation plan with all of the mous back in DECEMBER. >> so just a yes or no question -- was a cola included in this increase along with the step raise from your initial salary. >> it's within it, would be my understanding. It's within it. >> so -- so it's my understanding that the agreement being put forward today raises the city manager salary from step five to step six, following the salary range. So the council approved compensation plan for all employees includes over the next two years colas as well. >> so the salary tables are already in effect. Go ahead. >> so for this item there is no cola included. There was previously approved a cola in response to the resolution that was passed by the council in DECEMBER. But this particular item only includes the step increase. >> so just to reiterate , the cola was included in DECEMBER's salary range? >> correct. Yes. And I can read from the staff report if that's helpful. >> that was higher than the initial salary that was proposed. >> so the initial salary was agreed to and signed, I think, on MARCH 10th of 2025, documented in the agreement, and separately in DECEMBER the council approved the salary tables, which, with that approval, resulted in a cola for, I believe, all of the executive management team members, the city manager obviously one of those individuals. >> okay. Thank you. >> MR. Mayor, I'd like to make a comment. I do think we need to acknowledge it's a significant amount of money. He has a very, you know, it's a big salary. Unfortunately, that's the going rate. When looking at whether talking about executive management team or any bargaining units are not the highest or lowest paid in the region but they're competitively made because we're a service delivery organization, 75% of our budget is salary and benefits. 24 this is what we have to pay to attract good employees. It is not realistic for us to think we can freeze salaries when other cities around us are not because we would have an exodus of employees. Unfortunately, that's the way it is. I would add that I think the city manager has done an exceptional job this past year and I think we got a really good hire so I support him 100%. >> I agree completely. I'd like to move for approval. >> second. >> we have motion and second. Any further comments or questions. Please call roll. >> okay. Councilmember rohrbough. >> yes. >> aquino. >> yes. >> kozlowski. >> yes. >> leary. >> I would agree that the city manager has done a great job but I'm going to abstain. Because I think this -- the way that these steps were created with the cola install is a little misleading and that no is not intentional. So abstain. >> and raithel. >> yes. All right, -- >> point of order -- abstentions usually are for purposes of a conflict of interest. Can we just randomly abstain from voting on things? [Overlapping speakers] >> I believe it's a city attorney question. >> so typically, it's not encouraged unless there is a very specific reason, in this particular case, there's not a strong legal justification, either way. >> thank you. >> all right. That brings us to public hearing. Item number eight. Please call item number eight. >> okay. Item eight under public hearing is zoning code update- accessory dwelling unit ordinance hearing and determination that the project is exempt for ceqa; ordinance no. 1361-an ordinance of the city of folsom for the repeal and re-enactment of chapter 17.105 of the folsom municipal code. Pertaining to accessory dwelling units accessory dwelling units this is introduction and 1st reading continue from MARCH 2026. >> good evening I'm nathan with planning division for city of folsom. Tonight we're bringing ordinance 136 x for the repeal and re-enactment of chapter 17.105 of the municipal code pertaining to accessory dwelling units. The city's existing ordinance was adopted in 2020, and since then the state of california enacted several new laws changing the state adu requirements and are now inconsistent with state law. The code states any part of the local jurisdiction ordinance is out of compliance, the california department of housing and community development, hcd, can deem the city's ad-ordinance null and void. And only the state adu-requirements can be enforced. Effectively this means the city would be unable to enforce its adu-design requirements, including in the historic district, which are intended to promote quality design that respects privacy and compatibility. Thankfully we've not reached that point yet. However hcd did send a letter to city in DECEMBER of last year requesting that we update our adu-ordinance. The city has provided a timeline to adopt an updated ordinance by APRIL this year. These updates are ordinance 1361. Generally, the intent of the draft ordinance is to accomplish four things, number one, to maintain the city's existing adu-requirements to the extent permissible under state law, two, to align the state's regulation with state adu-regulations where required, three, to standardize, clarify and strengthen existing regulations to provide greater clarification where there is ambiguities in the existing code, and four, to reformat adu-requirements and to reduce number of sections homeowner would need to look through to understand the requirements. The next few slides go over the key changes to this ordinance. Firstly, the state law does explicitly prohibit discretionary review or public hearing for the adu-applications and the requirements must be objective to allow for administerral view at staff level and furthermore must determine whether application is complete within 15 days of submission and to approve or deny an application within 60 days. If the city is unable to approve within 60 days the application is automatically deemed approved by the state. State law expanded the number of adu allowed, for single family jurisdictions must allow for four type of adu, one is jadu which is con version of 500 square foot of existing resident, created entirely through the conversion of the existing resident up up to 50% of the existing resident, one newly constructed detached adu, not exceeding 800 square feet and one additional adu that complies with the city's optum adu standards up to 1,000 square foot. This is you obviously assuming that this number of adu's can get on the property and meet the city and state regulations for that. For multi family properties, existing multi family developments now MAY construct up to 8 detached adu's not exceeding the number of existing primary units on the property. And existing multi family MAY convert nonlivable space in the structure into adu's not to exceed up to 25% of the number of existing primary units. Beyond the updates required by state law, the draft ordinance does propose a few modifications, one includes the option of allowing applicants to deviate from the objective adu-design standards through a standard discretionary staff level design review process. The option allows for flexibility for applicants proposing a design that MAY not conform strictly to the city's objective adu-standards and would be evaluated against finding including neighborhood compatibility as well as any applicabilitiable design guidelines for that site. To comply with the 60 day state mandated review timeline, the process would be at a staff level. The draft ordinance does include minor modifications to the adu-design requirements as they apply to attached adu, whereas the existing ordinance applies the same design standards for all adu's both attached and detached and doesn't zinc between the two. The draft ordinance provides modified standard for adu's attached to the main residents. The standards are intended to encourage more compatibility with the primary resident since its attached to that. The draft ordinance modifies staircases standard, by requiring them to be enclosed with material that match the existing building to screen these access staircases with which are often located close to the property line and create privacy concerns. The ordinance adds a carriage house style to list of permitted style in the historic district. It removes the contemporary style that does not exist in the district. Additionally -- new styles to be added -- to be approved to be allowed in the historic district by resolution which would make the process easier to amend in the future. Both the historic district commission and planning commission have had public meetings to discuss the draft ordinance and both recommend approval of ordinance 1361. After tonight there will be second reading and voting on APRIL 14th, if adopted the ordinance would go into effect MAY 14th but these change changes would need to be review the by the california housing community development to have legal effect. With that, staff does respectfully request that the city council make the finding that the proposed ordinance is exempt from ceqa and also introduce and conduct the first reading of ordinance 1361. I will be able to answer any questions. >> thanks, nathan. Councilmember kozlowski? >> yeah, can you back up on the screening/enclosing stairs. That seems -- I don't know, to me that seems a little over the top. How did we arrive at that as a component of this? >> so currently, the -- at least how our current ordinance is worded -- the staircase has to provide some screen from the bottom of the landing to the top of entrance and there's been a lot of confusion with that standard. So this is really to say that it has to be enclosed to provide greater clarity for that, since the intention is to maintain privacy. it's just been difficult to enforce because of the way it was worded. >> so hypothetically you have a house with an outside deck with a set of stairs leading up to the deck, then that becomes entrance to an adu. You're saying that now the deck and those stairs need to be enclosed? Isn't that, like, a pretty ungamely design exercise? >> I -- believe you are correct. That -- if it is used as a main entrance to second-story adu, at that point that standard would kick in. Having said that, this would really only apply if it is an adu that is constructing new additional space to that primary resident. So if it's conversion of an upper story of the ry and they have existing staircase that design standard wouldn't kick in. >> I have a very large ic space. I add a dormer to make better head room inside. So I'm converting my upstair that's already exists as interior space and I'm using as a primary entrance the upstairs deck. So now is the deck need to be enclosed along with the stairway? Are we just having a stairway enclosed to get to a deck to get to a door. I'm just saying, if you take these things to their unusual consequences, this one seems problematic. And honestly, the screening of a set of stairs or enclosing a set of stairs, period, is it self an unusual design exercise. that makes you do a lot of construction for very little actual gain visually. And there's open stairs everywhere in the world. >> yeah, we don't -- I think what you're pointing out is one of the fundamental flaws of objective design standards. So we have to adopt on the design objective design standards. And we have to use those universally. And the reason we had the design standard that nathan referenced which was creating problems is because when we first brought the ordinance to the commissions, the feedback that we were getting from the public, particularly in the historic district, was concerns regarding privacy. And particularly -- >> -- whose privacy? The neighbor or the people using the stairway. >> the neighbor. The concerns that the neighbors -- >> -- so it's enclosed and has windows the whole way. >> so -- yeah -- I mean, you could -- if I could just finish. >> I'm sorry. >> so, they were concerned with people looking into yards, whether that was through the top of the stairs, or through windows that were on the adu itself. And because some of these under state law can be constructed quite close to property lines. So this is where this all stemmed from. We agree that there are lots of homes and construction where they have stairs, a landing and then you just go into the unit. That is not that unusual. We can certainly strike that provision from the ordinance, if the council feels that that's overly burdensome or will lead to worse design than -- you know -- than having kind of an open stair. I think what we were just trying to be responsive to was the fact that we have a standard that isn't working very well, number one, and number two, doing something to address privacy for these second story ADUs, again, we acknowledge it isn't perfect. That's one of the problems with losing that discretion that we would have to recognize, oh, yeah, this is not a good design. We don't want you enclosing. But the scenarios you played out. But when you have an objective design standard you look at the project, does it have an outside stair, is it enclosed, no, it violates the objective design standard so we reject and deny the project. >> okay. Hate is a strong word, but I hate this provision as on objective design standard because it presupposes that you can't have an open stair or semi-open stair that can also have screening elements to it or design elements that can serve the purpose of lightening the burden on the neighbor. I get that. If it were paired with -- if that stair is in the setback, that makes perfect sense. but if it's fully within the setback, you know, it seems excessive to condition an entire project on that particular provision, to me. And literally, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of open stairs, and lots of them that are primary design features of structures. So. >> yeah, again, this was our attempt to address that privacy issue. But at the same time, you know, this is not something we view as, you know, essential as an objective design standard so if the council wishes, we can either modify that or remove it. >> got it. So whatever it's worth, I think that one is weird. Everything else I can go along with. >> thank you. Vice mayor, any questions? Councilmember leary. >> thanks for bringing that up, councilmember kozlowski. It's a little confusing though. Was this stair wall supposed to be a solid insulinnated wall? Or could it be something less intrusive like lat is or something else to diminish the fear that someone's going to be looking into another yard. And -- so -- some of these ADUs also have a top, you know, patio outside of the main door that over looks the yards. >> so, currently -- the way it's worded, it does say that the siding -- at least the enclosure, needs to have the same siding as the main resident. If it is stuck "that's what it would need to be constructed of. having said that, to the point of an upper story balcony both current and proposed regulations do place restrictions on upper story balcony for adu. It is not a feature allowed under current or proposed ordinance for adu standards. >> so restriction that they can't have an outdoor upstairs patio? >> currently the restrictions state if they have an upper story balcony it is limited to 20 square foot and is only on the front elevation. The draft ordinance preserves that. I think it makes some modifications saying it is not limited just to the front. But the size would be limited to 20 square foot. Fairly small. >> okay. Thank you. >> councilmember aquino? >> I will defer to architect on the council. >> haha. I just had one, it's always my favorite, you know, ministerial review -- and -- so, we've always had this -- okay, well, the state defines adu a little tighter than we define adu, right? But if I'm understanding this correctly now, if somebody builds a 3,000 square foot two-story adu in the backyard is that ministerial review. >> of that size wouldn't be allowed, the city does cap it at 1,000 square foot. So we have that provision in place, an objective standard we can enforce. >> if someone wants to build 1001 square foot adu in the backyard now we take them through the normal design process, we call it a structure for living that's not quite an adu. We just call it something else? Or do we still call it adu and they just go through design review. >> so accessory dwelling units is a separate independent dwelling unit that is accessory to the primary dwelling unit. The reason we have adu as a term because it has a unique aspect of being exempt from certain density requirements, if it says we can only have one primary dwelling unit on the property, can only construct an adu not a second primary dwelling unit if it is over 1,000 square foot not meeting the standards, just wouldn't be allowed. Not sure if that makes sense. >> I think practically speaking, we would give the property owner an option and say, well, our recommendation is if you want to remove one square foot then it will go through. If you done want to we can talk about entitlements based on zoning and other criteria. >> I seen in other jurisdiction, we have this ministerial review process but if you don't build the state-mandated tiny adu then there's not a clear path forward. I want to make sure that our residents still have the opportunity to push things forward, that's a two-story adu. I know the historic district is still 16-foot requirement, is that still there? >> so the -- at least -- if we're talking about a detached adu, in the historic district currently and in the proposed ordinance can go up to 25-foot. >> so now we'll allow administerral review of two story adu in historical district. >> it will be citywide, as long as they meet height and size, it is a requirement from state law. >> okay. Yeah. And I guess I need more clarity on that path forward. We don't have to solve it tonight. But I think, I just want to make sure we have a path forward for someone to build an 1100 or 1200 square foot adu because I think it says, hey, I want to build a mother-in-law quarters, when she passes away, then I'm going to rent it out long term to somebody to provide housing unit to somebody. I want to make sure we have that path forward. >> so, as nathan noted earlier in his presentation, we do have a pathway, if they don't want to comply with our objective design standards. But that being said, we have capped the size limitation at a thousand square feet. And I think part of that is in reaction to the fact the state is now allowing for up to four ADUs on a single family property. When you start, you know, somebody MAY in the scenario that you've explained, somebody MAY have one adu that maybe they want to do that's 1500 square feet, given the size of their property it seems reasonable. But at the same time, that property MAY change hands, somebody adds more property -- more ADUs on to that site, and you get something that's much more substantial than one adu that's 1500 square feet. So, I think we're trying to put, you know, given the changes in state law, we're trying to put kind of a reasonable threshold on this, in terms of square footage, given that there can be up to four of these on one property. >> okay. So that is a substantial change. Because before we had a path forward for somebody to build over a thousand square feet. >> no, we did not. >> okay. We used to. >> before 2020, yes. >> before 2020. Okay. >> just as a point of clarification. In terms of the maximum sizes for adu that is not changing between the existing standards and proposed ordinance. It's always capped at 1,000 square foot maximum for attached for detached adu. >> okay. >> mayor, if I can add, going back to councilmember kozlowski's question about the staircases, looking as the ordinance on page 22, says staircases necessary to access soaked story accessory dwelling units shall comply with following requirements, shall be located initial to the building or along the edge of the building. Setback side and rear comply with fire code. And then the design. The staircase shall be enclosed. if located on the edge of a building, the staircase exterior walsh use the same colors and material as uses for the exterior of the building. I just point that out, to your point, if the council so desired -- nathan, if you can talk a little about that -- would it be simple striking that language? >> yes. If you're just talking about that design standard to be enclosed we can either strike entirely or propose a different -- alternative wording for that. >> could you read that just one more time. >> the design one. >> yes. >> it says, design, the staircase shall be enclosed. If located along the edge of a building, the staircase exterior walsh use the same colors and materials as used for the exterior of the building. >> I think if we struck the word enclosed and said that the stairwell shall have screening elements that match the building, I'd be satisfied. So. >> so moved. >> so, I will make the motion that we do the finding that we're exempt from ceqa and introduce and approve the first reading of this ordinance with the modification to that one particular sentence to strike the word enclosed, and make screening requirement that it be of materials and colors similar to the rest of the building. >> if I MAY, councilmember, I think, if you are okay with it -- I think we can accomplish that by just deleting the word enclosed and replacing it with the word screened. Then the second sentence would solve what you're talking about. >> yeah, and I think that leaves enough ability to make a determination in in the planning department that it's doing its screening job effectively. Thank you. >> second. >> if I can offer clarification. So, if this passes, the second reading, we'd bring that revised language. So they would have the ability to see if that's what they want. >> yeah, do you need two separate notions here? -- motions here? >> I think one is fine. >> hold that motion for a second. We're going to open the public hearing. Anyone to speak on this item? >> come on, somebody wants to talk about stairs with me. >> is that lilly raising her hand. >> yep. >> yeah, come on up, lilly. >> definitely appreciate your perspective. I don't understand why the color has to be the same. I mean, there are lots of interesting buildings where they have complementary color for a design principle. So I think it shouldn't be limited. And I don't really understand -- I mean, to me, it feels a little hypocritical to talk about screening to speak to people's privacy concern when we have so much building where every house is, you know like, six feet from the other house and there's, like, no privacy. And that's how all of these developments are, like, being built. So. To talk about someone's privacy on their -- I mean, of course I want people to have privacy and not have -- but -- I feel like that ship has sailed. Like. Yeah. So, I don't -- I don't understand how that can be such a part of this discussion. Yeah. Sorry. >> thank you. >> I don't disagree. Just for the record. I'm just trying to find a reasonable accommodation that respects the device that -- advice we go from the the planning commission and historic cyclical commission which they historic commission. Which they did have concerns about hitting the screening quality. I can make a motion again after public comment, I think coordinated design is probably better way to call out any screening elements. Your point is well-taken. Color shouldn't always necessarily be one thing. >> yeah I don't know if I came across as hostile to your position, but -- >> no. >> -- but I thought that was a very illuminating point and I'm glad that that was proposed to take away, that it has to be enclosed. >> fantastic. >> because there are thousands of outdoor staircases. And they can be aesthetically pleasing to have variety, you know, to see a nice staircase. >> I grew up in chicago and there are lots of staircase that's have been enclosed over the years for weather purposes and most of them look internal. So. -- look terrible. >> before the next speaker, desmond reminded me unfortunately we're in an era now where the only standards we're allowed to have, have to be objective. So I think coordinated design would be found by the state to be subjective. So if you want to think on another way to reword it that would be objective. >> we can also bring something back. >> okay. I think screened is what I was going for rather than enclosed. If we can find a way to meet that idea, I'll be satisfied. >> does compatible work for you? >> that part of it -- [ Overlapping speakers] >> sounds objective. Yeah. >> screened, rather than -- >> I see staff all shaking heads. >> I welcome the next -- do we have another public speaker. Yeah, did you fill out a blue card. >> I did not have a pen. [Inaudible] Okay. I'll say my name on the record. my name is miranda pond and I'm a resident here in the city of folsom. I did just want to speak to a comment that one of the staffers made about second story ADUs and staircases going behind units. That actually is happening at 505 colomo street. When I first relocated here, I was in an adu that had just gone through approval with the city. And so, one I want to say, that is happening. On one of those history historic properties, in the historic district. And my -- it was -- what's actually happening there is that the primary residents, the -- they built a fence line to make it appear like there was two properties and created an adu and then after a year or two, went through plan check and everything to -- it ended up being zoned as a commercial garage -- or commercial garage and office. And so, and -- the planning -- the housing department knows about that. Or the code enforcement knows about that. So it's happening. And as for the enclosed staircase, as a woman, going up the stairs, when my neighbor's backyard where they are gardening and actively hanging out, having guests, going up there it provides me privacy when I'm wearing dresses. There's a lot of privacy issues with those very close fence line accessory dwelling units but I did want to bring that to the attention. I will prepare more thoughts for the second reading on that issue. Thank you. >> thanks so much. Feel free to send those thoughts in between now and the second reading so we can review and have staff look at them. I saw one more hand raised briefly. But -- >> st. Francis students, let's go. Jump in. >> there will be an e-mail to the -- is it -- the civics teacher. Yeah. No one came up and spoke during the public hearing. All right. We're going to go ahead and close the public hearing. And I will -- we'll just act like you didn't make the motion the first time. >> thank you, very much. MR. Mayor, I'd like to move approval of the item with modification of the language of the staircase requirement to say screened, rather than enclosed. >> second. >> all in favor. >> I think you got to do a roll call vote. >> yeah, will you please call roll. >> councilmember rohrbough. >> yes. >> aquino. >> yes. >> kozlowski. >> yes. >> leary. >> yes. >> and raithel. >> yes. Thank you, councilmember aquino for keeping me on task tonight. all right, that takes us to new business. Please call item number 9. >> okay, item number 9 under new business is to receive a presentation from the city's independent auditor and receive and file the city's annual comprehensive financial report for the year ended JUNE 30, 2025. [Overlapping speakers] [Indiscernible] >> it wasn't you, stacy. >> good evening, mayor and councilmember tstacy -- chief financial officer. I'm here to introduce this item on your 24-25 annual financial report and audit. The annual comprehensive financial report has been delivered to you tonight in hard copy. It is also available in tonight's council packet and on the website if anyone would like to take a look. I'm happy to introduce a partner who are certified public accountants they are the city's auditors and he'll deliver presentation on the fiscal year 24-25 audit. With that I will turn it over. >> all right, thank you, stacy. Mayor, members of council, I'm used to that, it's completely normal -- for me at least. But I have a short presentation here on the audit. And I'm happy that the council wants to hear from me as I go through the process of the audit results and audit process. I have a few items to go through. I will just give a brief introduction about our firm and the engagement team, deliverables, and scope of the audit, our audit methodology, areas of audit risk, our auditor's report what it means, required communications we make to the governing body, and will also touch on the new upcoming accounting standards implemented this upcoming year and the following year. Just about us, we have 25 years in municipal auditing experience with 65 clients, majority are cities, which are 44, about 30 employees, and we don't have any current lawsuit or legal or actions against the firm, which we'd like to keep it that way. As far as the engagement team, I was the engagement partner, this is my first year as the partner. We rotate per state guidelines which requires rotation six years, and madoy, the controller. We utilized the I.T. Be specialist who looked at internal controls of I.T., roman is cpa, and also certified information systems auditor. Our manager -- and then we have three audit staff, joyce, amed, and azeyed, helping with the audit this year. As far as deliverables and scope of the audit. So we mention our report on the city's annual comprehensive financial report. We have the single audit report, which is the audit of the federal awards. We have a separate audit on the folsom public -- [Inaudible] Authority. Another audit on folsom ranch finance authority. Also separate on on the successor agency. We do an agreed upon procedures engagement on the game limit and we also have a separate letter, essentially, the required communication section of my presentation but just in the form of a letter with some other more granular communications. As far as the audit methodology, our audit is done in four phases, the planning phase we gather information, discuss timing with management, and also reaccustom our selfs with the addit audit. We do interim phase over the summer to discuss with client, management staff, internal controls, accounting processes, any changes, kind of review the council meeting minutes and assess our risk. Our year-end phase done later in the year is essentially to validate the numbers. So, we obtain the numbers from management, test those numbers, obtain confirmation, do analytical procedures, review estimates and lastly, we prepare auditor reports. So, as part of the risk assessment process, and just to let you know, do not get alarmed by what the risks are here, these are standard risks that we have really addressed. So these are the main risks that we identified in our audit. This is a default risk that we have to essentially identify and address, is the risk of management override of internal controls. This is the risk that management MAY not follow their own internal policies. So we assign staff based on certain consideration of audit risks. we look at manual adjustments made to the accounting records through journal entries. We look at the accounting record for unusual business transactions. We also do a lot of inquiries about fraud to city staff. The second risk here, again, standard risk we have to address, is the risk of improper revenue recognition. Revenue are significant line item in the financial statements so the audit standards require us to essentially do more work on that area. As we do a lot of confirmations and analytical procedures and also testing in this area. And lastly, our estimates are considered to be a significant risk as we do a lot of testing of the fair values, we do also look at your useful. Over capital assets and also your pension plan has a lot of actuarial assumptions in those numbers, and also your post-employment benefits, can which is the city's retiree healthcare plan that is also with a lot of assumptions in those numbers. The auditor's report, as mentioned, we don't necessarily do the audit on our own judgments and make up the rules. We essentially follow guidelines set by the aicpa, which are referred to as gas or generally accepted auditing standards. And then, because this audit is subject to governmental auditing standard, referred to as the yellow book, we also need to comply with those standards, which are supplemental set by aicpa. An example would be to have more continuing education on governmental accounting requirements. And then, lastly, the uniform guidance, is the rules that essentially dictate to us how to conduct an audit of the federal awards. So we follow -- we conduct the audit in accordance with that. Nd r. -- and so you'll see for all the reports -- the main financial statements and also the individual small reports we've issued unmodified opinions. Unmodified opinions are referred to as a clean opinion. What that means is that the financial statements are presented in all fairly and tall material respects, material is the keyword in that statement. It's not very popular word for some councilmembers when I present essentially, we don't necessarily mean that your financial statements are completely error-free, it just means that there shouldn't be anything that would cause the reader of the financial statements to make a different decision when they're reviewing those financial entertainments. So -- statements. So when we do the audit we would essentially look at material items and do the audit in accordance with a sampling so that provides reasonable assurance that the numbers are fairly stated in all material respects. We also look at the accounting policies. We look at estimates. And then a