7/14/26 Council Meeting

good evening. And I call to order. Our JULY 14th, 2026 council meeting and we will start with an invocation from pastor brian myers from grace community church. Welcome. >> thank you. >> mayor city council. Father, we. >> thank. You so. >> much for the opportunity we have to gather here today. >> I thank you for the. Freedom we have. Uh lord, to. Make decisions in the interests of. >> the people. >> I pray you grant the council in the city wisdom in the matters that are before them. But we thank you for the city that you love and. >> I. Pray that in all things GOD that this city would be a blessing to every person here. GOD I pray also for peace in the chamber and above all that you get all praise in christ name amen. Thank you. Thank you. >> all right. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Salute and pledge. Allegiance to the. >> yes. >> it's in the. Which says one nation. Under GOD indivisible. MADAM Clerk, can you call the roll for us, please? Okay. Council member goldstein. Present council. Member holly here. Council member o'brien here. Council member van overbeek is absent I apologize .Um. Council member winslow here. Vice mayor bennett here. Mayor reynolds here. Speaker card and remote participation announcement. There are some new rules on addressing the council on matters listed on the agenda. If you are in person, you should first complete a speaker card found at the back of the chamber. Once completed, turn your cards into the city clerk and the speakers are taken in the order received. In addition, due to the change in state law, citizen participation is now uh available via zoom. Please note that the city clerk will ask those of you wishing to speak via zoom to raise your hand when it's time for public comment on each item. Once this first speaker begins, no additional cards or zoom speakers will be accepted. Um persons demonstrating rude boisterous um behavior speaking on matters outside the jurisdiction of the city council or engaging in otherwise disruptive behavior will be called to order if such conduct continues, I MAY call a recess requesting removal of such persons. Um, MISTER Uh, city attorney ryan jones, can you do our closed session announcement for us please? Yeah, happy to do that. There were. >> seven items in closed. Session and. For all of. >> them just, uh, direction was provided to to staff. >> for legal. Counsel and. >> uh. First one was on. Real property negotiations. >> there were nine properties discussed. And there was a city clerk performance evaluation uh, conference with labor negotiators on items discussed there and then two existing litigations the waddell case and the schwab case also direction given to the counsel from the from to legal counsel from the city council. Uh one. Item uh potential litigation was discussed in finally public employment over. Uh related to the city manager position and that's the report. All right that uh consent agenda all matters listed in the consent agenda are considered routine in nature and there are four can be enacted in one motion. Are there any no votes or council disqualifications? Just want. >> to. Pull item 2.6. >> real quick okay. All right. >> um any any uh we're pulling 2.6 any disqualifications? No. Okay. Do we have any speakers? Uh yes we do. For the. Consent agenda. >> we take it at the beginning and. It's adam fedeli. And then if anyone. On zoom. Wants to speak on anything. >> on the consent. >> agenda, please raise your hand. Evening council. Mayor reynolds. I just wanted to speak briefly about this. Um. >> you know we are still way behind on infrastructure catch up. Uh, I would be cautious about adopting this out of a matter of routine business. You know, everybody would like to pay their police force more. There's no question about it. And knowing what police officers do, I have friends I grew up with police officers. I know what they do. So I would say just be cautious here because I don't know that we're even caught up yet with the backlog of street improvements and repair. So I see that I see the sales tax money getting siphoned off siphoned off. So I just want to speak to it. Thanks. Thank you. >> and he's our only speaker. All right. Consider our motion. Move to approve. Second. >> and this is for items excluding 2.6. Yes I was. >> all items but that. Okay. Council member goldstein. Yes. >> council member. >> holly. Yes. Council member o'brien. Yes. >> council member winslow. Yes. >> vice mayor bennett. Yes. >> mayor reynolds I carries six zero with one absence and then we'll go to 2.6. Six council member one. Uh, so I wanted to pull this only because I feel. >> bad. Sometimes voting no on contracts and I want to make sure that people understand. Why and that I'm it's nothing. It's the. >> police officers association and or their. Negotiators back. Under go. She just did. A great. Job from the. Standpoint of. The city's financial health in the long run this is a longer contract. Than we're. >> usually committing to with 4%. Increases in the end. And as. MR. Fedeli said we. Have a. Dwindling supply. >> of money for infrastructure. >> and. I'm concerned that we're. Getting getting ahead. >> of ourselves. This is one of the first, um, second rounds of labor negotiations since the measure has passed. I'm concerned about it for the. >> long run. >> so I think that we should reconsider um, the approach that we took to this contract. Council member holly. Thank you, mayor reynolds. Um. >> similar to council member winslow. I want to express my sincere gratitude to all of the city staff not only our safety labor force but also our, uh, labor negotiations to get. That's okay. Happens. >> sorry, councilmember holly, I'm trying to clear the deck here. You're so good. Um, but at the end of the day, just like the fiscal impact says it would be an estimated cost of $5.82 million over the four year term. And when we've been seeing our measure, each dollars being spent more and more on, um, supporting our our staffing levels and these pretty drastic year to year increases over major capital improvement projects. Um, that's that's painful and that's the voice that I feel that the this the city wants to be heard at the council level. So that is an explanation for my no vote. All right. >> any other speakers? Uh. >> I'll go ahead, COUNCILMAN. >> I'll keep it really quick. Yeah. Um. I also want to make sure that our public employees get raises that are equitable between departments and that. >> we prioritize our measure h tax dollars. For infrastructure where we can. So I'm not. Completely happy. With, um, this contract. Thank you. >> just so you know, for whatever reason this is jammed and the next speaker things not working so I'm playing with it. Sorry. Okay. >> so do we have a motion or council? Vice mayor bennett, did you wanna speak? So I actually did have someone. >> o push a button but apparently that. >> got.. >> yeah, it's somehow. Completely locked. It says disconnected trying to reconnect. So we're we're gonna have to go old. School and. >> all that school. So I'll. >> just. Look at you and you'll say speak. Thank you. >> look to. >> my. Left and my to my right. Go ahead. All right. Thank you mayor. So as that active shooter at the library proved response time save lives and a saved lives that night untold number of lives response time relates to staffing. Staffing is related to recruitment and retention and recruitment and retention is related to pay and benefits, competitive pay and benefits. And that's what we're looking to do with this contract is to be competitive so we do not find ourselves with less police officers than what we need and to build back the police department which we have done I have done personally it takes years. I do not want to do that again. Vice mayor bennett. So I remember in. 23 um receiving information about. What dire condition our. Police department. >> was. In and we took action and thankfully. To chief. Billy aldridge. >> he. Built back. >> the department to be very, very strong. To be where. >> it is. Today to. >> protect you. You citizens out there. This increase you know. 14% over. Four years. Is not a lot of money. It is what is necessary to retain our police department to make it stronger. I hope. To make it what it should be an entity. That will. >> protect us when harm. Presents itself. And that incident at the library is a prime example. >> of how. Well the police department responded in in less than two minutes they were there in a bad person. Was out the door. Thank GOD that happened and. Thank you people outreach. For all that you have done. Um we need to pay our police department equitably. We need to pay them what is right and. >> I believe this increase is very, very reasonable. Um so I'm going to support it and must that's my job. That's my responsibility. Council member holly. Thank you. Just in response to council member o'brien's comment, I do want to make it clear that if um, the the city does not have a long term cost recovery plan to support these drastic increases and that, um, money is going to have to come from somewhere else and really my vote is responsive to not wanting to cut the number of staff positions that we have. If we continue to pay increases either we're going to have to support those money is coming from long term loans uh, which scares me. I don't think that's fiscally sound. So I want to protect the number of employees that we have, um, and making sure that we do have a long term cost recovery plan for this. Um. >> yeah, it can I. Just add on real quick on. On the um when we gave a 20% raise to the same association in the first year of measure h, I thought it was a little excessive but there was such a good reason because we were struggling with vacancies. Uh, it's so much not the issue now. And there was measure h advertisements had preserve the number of public safety officers but we've been we've been adding positions in the police department every year ten the first year. Um and that's where we do have to strike a balance somewhere. So as councilor holly alluded to, either we're going to struggle with freezing vacant positions and layoffs in the future or we're going to make more responsible decisions now. Um, and I think we're we're. Looking to try to get us to make more responsible just now so I can make a motion that we do send us back to a closed session to re discuss. I'll second that. I'll make a substitute. Motion. Okay. Uh subs the motion is to approve the memorandum of understanding between the city of chico and the chico police officers association as presented in the staff report. And noted. >> in 2.6. Second. >> so we'll. >> take the substitute motion first we'll take the substitute motion which is to approve the resolution. And council. Member goldstein. No. >> council member. Holly. No. Council member o'brien. Yes. >> council member winslow. No. >> vice mayor. Bennett. Yes. >> mayor reynolds fails three three with. One absence. So if we. >> go back to the original. motion which was. To send. >> it back to closed. Session. >> the motion by. Council member winslow seconded. >> by council member. Holly, I believe. And we will take the vote on that one. Council member goldstein. Yes. >> council member. Holly. Yes. Council member o'brien. No. >> council member winslow. Yes. >> vice mayor. >> bennett. No. Mayor reynolds I. I you okay okay. And that carried for two with one absence. All right. Um public comment members of the public MAY address the council at this time on any matters not already listed on the agenda and are within the jurisdictional authority. For those of you who are participating zoom via zoom. Please raise your hand at this time if you would like to speak. Um please note that council cannot take any action at this meeting on requests made under this section of the agenda. How many speakers do we have? Uh we have. We have. Eight in person and I don't see any hands up in zoom. None on zoom and all right we minutes each so I'll take the first three speakers and if you hear your name if you can go ahead and line up in the middle aisle um our first speaker is dan hiptin followed by olivia henderson and then sam barber. So doug is first followed by olivia henderson and then sam barber. Good evening. >> I'm doug hitchen. District manager waste. Management chico. Mayor and. Council I want. >> to share start. >> by saying thank. >> you to skyler. >> and his team. For their time during our performance review process where I was able to showcase recent performance as well as address any concerns that we were previously unaware of. To recap some of those highlights, I would like to provide you with some statistics that I shared with them. In 2025 we completed 5,289,970 lifts. We brought our customer satisfaction rating up to an 8.25 on a goal of ten. Uh total customer service has been 99.84, meaning that nearly 100% of all of our customers were serviced. Out of. >> 5.3 million car lifts. Um was there when the customer expected it. We are not perfect. We missed 19 customer lifts out of every 100,000 but for those unlucky few we accidentally drove past they will get missed once in a 365 day calendar period. However we still drill down to the root cause of that one missed pickup per 1000 customers to develop real solutions to prevent repeat missed pickups. We conducted a recent graffiti audit here in chico after I drove through some of our neighborhoods and identified bins that needed attention over the course of six weeks we pulled bins in for repairs, repainted the critical ones to get them up to my standards and we'll continue this for the foreseeable future. I also heard our customer's concerns and listened by fixing our phone tree. If you. >> call the number on the truck, a person will answer in an average of 87 seconds when there is an issue and there will be with people in trucks, we solve that escalation within a day. Our premier customer service representatives are trained to address customer issues on the first call or escalate the issue to my operations team. I look forward to showing you the future possibilities that W.M. And I have to offer and as a butte county local, I plan on delivering world class customer service and real solutions for chico's waste for years to come. And I also want to thank. A lot of our great customers that showed up here tonight just to speak their mind whether it be negative or positive. So thank you all. Thank you olivia henderson followed by sam barber and. >> then kelly lesser. I don't want to give you trash talk. Whiplash but. I've got some other stuff to talk about I'm olivia henderson, I'm the recycle rep and I specifically want to talk about. What we've been doing out in the community in this first half. >> of 2026. We've been focused on meeting the customers where they are so out at schools, community events, senior resource fairs and local festivals. Two of our most successful outreach efforts have been our touch trucks and the thursday night market. Uh, we've worked with schools so far in 2026 including chico oaks preschool, chapman elementary, the chico mothers club and mcmanus elementary. Over that we've uh, talked to 200 children, parents and educators. Uh students are be able to meet a driver, learn about the truck safety around the truck. Uh, they're able to learn about recycling and everything else that the kids find interesting about trash trucks. Uh, and our partnership with the sba for thursday night markets, I've been able to connect with more than 600 residents just between APRIL and JUNE, answer all of their recycling questions, general service questions. I'm able then to meet people of like I need my cart fix. I'm able to go and get it scheduled to get fixed the next morning. Um in addition to public outreach, I work directly with local property managers business owners uh, to support the implementation of sb 1383 for the recycling organics requirements. In the first six months of 2026 I worked with approximately 140 commercial customers. That includes site visits and providing outreach. We've also been involved with mvp's for housing expo passages aging and disability showcase, chico vallow's wildflower ride and through all these programs and outreach methods we've invested about $20,000 just in the first half of 2026 and in-kind and. Support in the community. So thank you for the partnerships and any time you have any questions you can always reach out to me. Thank you. Thank you. So just a second. So sam. Barber followed. >> by. Kelly lesser and. Then andy cavanaugh.. >> hello council. >> and queen reynolds thank. >> you. For the opportunity to. speak today. Um last. Time I was here I was expressing some. Concern over the. Disregard for constitutional rights of the public. When they. Come to speak. Um, thankfully. >> you allowed me my. Constitutional rights until. >> the last few seconds. When casey made up. >> a rule about using no vulgar language. Um, no. >> I know. >> you have your rules of decorum. >> and that's fantastic. And I want to warn everyone. I might say a naughty word at some point during this. But, um, the. Rules of decorum cannot supersede my first amendment right. Okay. >> as long. >> as I'm speaking. >> on. A topic that's. Within the purview, as. >> long. As I'm not. Causing a disturbance. >> like interrupting someone. Um. >> or speaking out of turn, I'm. Allowed to say naughty words. Um, it's been decided by the supreme court I believe it was 1971. Converse, california. A veteran wore a shirt to a. City council meeting and I'm going to tell you what the shirt said and again vulgar language warning everybody. Um the shirt. Said the draft. Okay. >> and the supreme court decided. That is within his constitutional rights to. >> say that you're allowed to use vulgar language. So I would appreciate if the council members and the mayor would stop making rules up and. trying to intimidate people and get them not to speak. Um. That's not. >> your job. >> it's your privilege to be a public representative. We're not electing little. Kings and. >> queens of fiefdoms here. Okay. >> um, the other thing I wanted to. Talk about just a little bit. Is that horrific shooting at the library. It was, you know, atrocious. >> I've been a millennial. >> I've grown up with these mass shootings happening all the time. It's always been on my mind every time I've gone to. School or a public. Building and obviously when it happens in a. City um maybe we're not thinking it's going to. Happen to. >> us but it's. >> a uniquely american problem and it's, you know, disturbing. >> and horrible. >> and my heart goes out to everyone affected. By that and I'm thankful for. The people who responded to that. I'm growing tired of the only. Resolution to this. Being more money to the police, more money to the. Police, more weapons to the police, more surveillance. It has not worked. It hasn't been. Working and. >> I would. Like to see maybe some mental health care. How can we. >> provide people with mental. Health care in the city? How can we give people um. Affordable housing so they can have a roof over their head? How can we. >> make. Sure that people. >> can afford groceries? How can we make sure that people, uh, can afford gasoline when gas continues to go up? You know, I know these things are happening. At large because we have a horrible. PRESIDENT And, uh, you know, fascist regime in office. >> that. Isn't doing. >> us any favors, but it is the city's job to respond to. That and to. Try to provide us. >> with some semblance. >> of safety. And I. Just sick of the weapons. I'm sick of it. Like they have 71. Types of. This ac ar 15. Patrol rifle. I'm not. >> a gun expert. I shoot guns sometimes. Okay. >> but why do they. Need 71 rifles? >> why do they. Need this like paramilitary force amount of weapons? I just. Don't see. >> the need for it in the. City and. >> I think. >> it's a waste. >> of money. Um. >> that's it. Thank you. >> for not. Violating my. Speech this time, MR. Reynolds. Appreciate it. Um. >> thank you. And then kelly lesser followed by. >> andy cavanaugh and. Then. >> uh, steve devore. Good evening, mayor reynolds and. Fellow council members. >> my name is. Kelly lesser, owner of urban couture located at 245 broadway. And I'm here regarding the letter to the city received from. Uh, greg scott. Doug gillen on behalf of the majority of uh, the business owners asking for the city to address keeping law and order to our downtown area uh, prior to the JANUARY 2027 warren um I believe mayor reynolds had asked to put this on the agenda all the way back in MARCH this year. So I was in hopes that this was still a. Priority and that we might find it on the next agenda before we lose any more of our downtown merchants. Um, I had an incident last month where I had to call chico. Pd and when the officers arrived just based off the situation that I had at the store um, those officers were. Extremely kind but they couldn't do as much as they wanted to do and at that point that's when they started um, sharing that they have been really looking forward to the end of, you know, warrant coming up. But they also mentioned that they have been asking a lot of the other officers have been asking their higher ups what do we have on the agenda? How are we going to start moving forward with this coming so close to the end? And um, they all three shared that they were frustrated that there was at that point when they were asking their superiors was that they're just waiting for direction from city. So um. Anyways I just wanted to bring that here and see if if I don't think you can respond to me but just really hoping that that is a priority because I do know two other businesses that are on their way out too. It's just a real struggle and I know there's other issues that we're having downtown as well but um it is very difficult. So thank you for your time. Thank you andy kavanaugh followed by steven devore. And then jenny fales. Good evening. Thank you. Mayor and council members for this time to speak. My name. >> is annie. Kavanagh and I'm a resident of chico. I've come to request that. The council vote. To put a topic on the agenda. I request. >> that the council. Proactively consider. The city's position on restricting establishment. Of private. Prisons for immigration. And customs enforcement detention centers within city limits. I have sent some background information to MISS Presson to share with all of you a draft ordinance that I borrowed from the city of los angeles and a spreadsheet with information about how many other jurisdictions have approached this topic. Many detention centers have been established in. Vacant warehouses and out of use incarceration facilities throughout the country. Although there haven't been any such proposals in chico so far that I'm aware of, I'm speaking on behalf of many concerned citizens who believe that is best to address the city's position in advance of any such proposals. Some of the concerns are impact on infrastructure such as road, water and sewage facilities. Also a law enforcement professional has stated that incarceration senator centers draw family members with no means of support, leading to an increased number of people without proper shelter. In conclusion, I request that the topic of restricting establishment of future detention centers be agendized and discussed publicly in city council thank you for your consideration. Thank you. I'm back there. Steve endeavor. Um I. >> thought it. Would have been. >> great if. >> sam would. Have kind of launched into like a lenny bruce. Routine or. Maybe even, you know, george carlin seven words can't say on tv but you know now you. Can at least on streaming um, the topic I uh even though this is coming up in 5.3 which is the city street light standards I've got a proposal to make all the streetlights and uh, city of chico more efficient and it would be to have the tree. Crews trim around the lights if anybody's walked. Through california. Park at night.. >> the sycamore trees. Have just about overtaken every street light or excuse me, that street light, um, you know, street light. In in the city. So although. >> we're. Going to be doing this in 5.3 and coming up with standards, I think it's quite. Important that we have public works go through and have the tree crews. Trim around the streetlights because effectively we're wasting probably a heck of a lot of that lighting canopy um by shading it out by trees. Um, this is something that was brought up about this a couple of months ago in the tree uh, section but when I saw this I said, hey, I got a say something and um, once again I think, uh, waste management is doing a great job. I wish they could be on both sides of highway 99 and pick up trash at all the properties that we have. So thank you very much mayor. I love the new hair edison years too so. Thank you jenny. Followed by. >> rob berry. Is this the. Good evening? My name is jenny sales. I'm the development manager with habitat for humanity of butte. County and. Tonight I wanted to. >> take a moment to recognize waste. Management for. >> being. An outstanding. Community partner to. Habitat for. Humanity. >> butte county. Our organization was. >> in need. >> of. A new truck a few years ago. It's an essential tool that helps our. Team transport. Materials, equipment and supplies throughout. >> the county. We had initially. Approached waste. >> management and. Applied for. >> a. $5,000 grant toward. >> the purchase. Instead of. >> simply considering. Our original. Request, their team took the time to learn more about our need and the impact this vehicle would have on our work. They then encouraged us to increase our request and apply for $30,000. That response. Speaks volumes about waste management's commitment to the community. They did not just see it grant application. They saw an opportunity to strengthen a local nonprofit and help us build more affordable homeownership opportunities for families in butte county. We're incredibly grateful for this their generosity, their partnership and their willingness to step forward in such a meaningful way and this support will have a lasting impact on our work and on the families and communities we serve. Thank you .Thank you. And then rob. Areas our. Last speaker. I just want to somewhat humorously share my experience in coming to the meeting tonight. Uh the first experience was driving around the city council. I noticed that the number of. Tents on the margins of the city council have increased. Not decrease. Then I came into the parking lot and attempted to park. >> in the. Visitor parking spaces and I discovered that three of those spaces have now. Been turned over. To city staff only parking. Once I parked my car I came walking through the pop up soup kitchen that was outside the city council about. 30 or 40 people there. Uh., using city property for that purpose. And then as I walked towards the city council there was a tent on the sidewalk on the way to the entrance to the city council with a big garbage. Bag sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. And so I asked would you. >> mind. Moving your. Van complied uh very nicely. And as I started to move. Forward there was a big. Terrier bulldog that. Growled at me on a leash that was long enough to reach me and I had to change my course and come in through a different way. Now I know that you're. Not purposefully trying to. Discourage public participation in the city council meetings. But if you were this would be a really good way. >> to do it is to create a sort of an obstacle course of unpleasant experiences as a way, you know, on the way in to to attend the meeting. So as you know, I. Believe there are plenty of things that the city could do between now and when warrant expires. And I think the feedback that I'm getting from people that talk to me is that the attitude increasingly is that the city council is not able or willing to take action even on a. Uh a minor level to try to improve the conditions such as I just described. So I just wanted to take this opportunity to share that with you for what it's worth and hopefully something can be done about it here soon. Thank you. Thank you. He was our last speaker. All right. Thank you very much. Public hearings item 4.1 uh, hearing of the abandonment of. Vacant portion of property and a utility easement. If there are speakers wishing to speak on this item on zoom, please raise your hand at this time and we have a report from our director of public works engineering brendan ottoboni. Yes. >> good mayor. Good evening. Mayor, vice mayor and city council members. Item 4.1 uh, was a. Request from. Owners of the property at 1075 via. Verona drive. Excuse me. Um, the request was to abandon, uh ,sewer easement at the rear of the property. Um, through our analysis and looking at future needs, uh, we. Do not see a need. For any. Municipal services coordinated with all other utility providers. They agreed they have no future needs. And so. Staff has brought forth, uh. Recommendation to abandon that. >> existing easement. >> that concludes my report. All right. >> any questions? No. >> okay. We will open the public hearing. How many speakers do we have? We do not have any. All right. We will. Close the public hearing. Consider a motion. Moved to approve. Second. >> all right. >> we got a motion and a second. Okay. >> council member goldstein. Yes. >> council member. >> holly. Yes. >> council member o'brien. Yes. >> council member winslow. Yes. Vice mayor bennett. Yes. >> mayor reynolds carries six zero with one absence. All right. Item 5.1 introduction and first reading of an ordinance establishing entertainment zones in downtown and marion park. Again, if there speakers on zoom that would like to talk at this matter on this the now is the time to raise your hand and we have a report from our um assistant city manager. Interim city manager um art gustafson. Mayor and. >> council, thank. You for the. Opportunity to speak to you tonight on this item. Uh, while I queue up the presentation, I do want to call out excuse me. Uh, chico area recreation district general. Manager annabelle graham. Um, some time ago I. >> think it was when we. Conveyed depot park to the to the district she introduced herself as the director of fun and I thought well challenge accepted. Chico city staff can also have fun. So here we are uh, introducing an ordinance to, uh, layer an entertainment zone in downtown chico marion park. So quick overview. What is it we're going to talk about the legislature that um, allows it the reasoning. Uh to. >> do it here. In chico the boundaries. Rules will end on a timeline. So entertainment zone it's a designated area, uh, established by the mississippi polity whether it's a city or a county, um, where adults aged 21 and over MAY legally possess and consume alcoholic beverages purchased from participating. And licensed. Businesses while walking within a specified area of public right of way. The zone operates only within the defined boundaries established days, hours and conditions established by the ordinance. So basically customers can purchase a drink from a licensed and abc alcoholic beverage control licensed participating bar or restaurant carry that beverage outside within the designated zone in an approved container in socialize walk and the hope is to shop a little bit extra within the zone. Alcohol cannot be brought in from outside of. >> the. Zone are taken beyond its boundaries. The legislature that allows this really um started in the california senate in early 2024. It was signed into law it's sb 969 in SEPTEMBER on SEPTEMBER 28th of 2024. Um and then it went into effect JANUARY of 2025. So it's not new we were aware of this effort when it was going through um the state senate and really thought you know, we have some uniqueness. We had a lot of other things going on. Sounds like a great idea for economic development, but let's see how it goes with some other agencies. Before we didn't want to be the first on the bandwagon if you will to to introduce an entertainment zone. So we've monitored some uh over the last year and really witnessed um their success. So we feel the timing is right uh, to bring this to you for consideration. Uh, really the reasoning is to assist the downtown area and marion park and creating an experience. Um, we've heard from a lot of retailers, you know, even post uh, covid if you will the be the purchasing behaviors have really changed to um an online situation. So what we really have to do is focus on creating an experience that will attract folks to come down and enjoy. So we're trying to enhance public gathering spaces opportunities really support economic development, increase foot traffic uh create some vibrancy in these particular areas, encourage people to stay longer and visit multiple businesses. And really it comes down to trying to activate. Activate activate. So that's the reasoning behind this effort. As I mentioned earlier it's been proven elsewhere. We're not uh the first to the show again we kind of wanted to take a back seat to see how this um uh played out in other areas and it's been quite successful. San francisco has I think just over 20 entertainment zones now. They've added quite a few since they started early 2025. San jose has a handful sacramento has a handful santa monica, long beach uh san diego many others that aren't listed here. And then of course our neighbors to the north introduced one last year and it's been quite successful in their downtown area. And this picture is taken from redding's in entertainment zone. This shows the what we could use as an identifier band. Um the wristband is purchased or acquired from a participating bar or restaurant. It has that bar restaurant's name on it. Um, we hope that those will of course would say sierra nevada brewery or ramble west brewery one of our local establishments here in town and then uh an authorized vessel and they've used a pretty simple uh, vessel with a color coordinated dot um, that's aligned with a wristband and that changes from time to time and rotates color coordination depending on the week. Uh, our month in in the zone currently it's a single use um, only vessel if you will. Um, but our recommendation and our policy will go with a recycled um, single use vessel that will of course place more recycled recycling facilities within the zone boundaries to to accept um the. Trash or recyclable trash that's that's created from as a result of the of the zone. So these are the two boundaries that we're proposing the two entertainment zones. One of course is is a pretty large swath within the downtown area. It goes from normal street all the way to uh flume and then um first basically all the way to ninth you could see it does incorporate our first in main area lost park uh area if you will with you know we have some some hopes and intends to redevelop that in the near future. So we wanted to make sure it included that uh, those parcels as well and then the marion park parcel on the right and I do have some other images if you want to get a little clearer we could expand those later in the, uh, presentation. So business signage this was taken from redding's. You know, we we don't see the need to reinvent the wheel. Um, this is. Posted on each participating business. It shows how it works kind of the do's and don'ts. I like the color coordination as far as green go on the do's and red on the. Dolts on the don't. >> excuse me. Um, just simple things, you know? Show us how it works. You have to show valid photo id when requesting a wristband. Uh, purchase your beverage from a participating business and stay within the posted entertainment zone boundaries and those will be signed accordingly with existing budget resources. The don'ts the easy ones don't bring your drink into another bar or restaurant. Um that's a pretty strict abc rule has. >> to be. Consumed before it goes into another licensed on premise facility. Don't leave the entertainment zone with your beverage and of course don't litter. Don't leave the cups on sidewalks, streets or planters and we will increase our recycling receptacles to accept that. So that's kind of the basic signage. Um again just kind of benchmarking what others have done. We don't see the need to reinvent the wheel pretty simple and we will create those with existing budget. Resources timeline um if it's uh. Accepted tonight. During the um initial reading uh the second reading will be at the AUGUST 18th city council meeting. Uh, then it will go into effect 30 days after that on SEPTEMBER 18th. So again, um this is not just a uh an intent to allow relaxed open container laws. It's really to and uh assist in creating an experience for patrons increased foot traffic support economic development, create some vibrancy and really to support businesses in the downtown area and marion park so that my recommendation is uh council move forward with the proposed ordinance and I can answer any questions. Any questions from eric before we go to speaker. Um, councilor o'brien. Thank you for. >> that report. Do we. >> have. Any input. From the university since. This borders um the. Campus have. >> they weighed in. On anything. We do? Yeah, we we held a, uh, stakeholder meeting on JUNE 23rd that was well attended between 30 and 40 um stakeholders both from marion park, uh, in the downtown area. The university had representatives there. We've engaged the university on this item in several occasions and they're very supportive of this effort. Councilmember goldstein. Um, sure. I guess first question is the boundaries if say in the future we were to need to change them, would that just be an amendment to the ordinance? I ask because downtown is I noticed I think. >> at the south. End it doesn't necessarily include all the downtown south overlay area. Correct. And say that a business opened there that wanted to be included in this um, just want to know that we could change. >> in the future. >> we can yeah, we would have to amend the ordinance or it would have to go through a first and second reading like this introduction does. But we absolutely could. And there was an. Intent from uh you know we had some focus groups I'd like to think uh, the downtown chico business association de and the chico chamber uh for all their help, assistance and support um, we've had a lot of discussions had kind of an interest group working on this and um, that was brought up early in the process. There was kind of an intent to really go down to park avenue and we just felt, you know, at the time this is we're pretty new to this. That's that would be a very large zone. So let's start here see how it goes and if we need to amend or make adjustments in the future we could certainly do so. Okay that's great to hear that you were already considering the downtown south and the park avenue area because I could see in the future those being great areas for this if it goes well. My other question had to do with the cups themselves. You mentioned trying to make sure they're recyclable. We're going to hear a lot about waste and recycling later. Um but most plastics. >> aren't. Super recyclable so I'm wondering if there's any um examples in other cities of more sustainable types of receptacles used. I noticed it said no glass or metal. Correct. And I've seen like recyclable reusable metal cups um at some you know bars and things like that. I'm just wondering if we looked into other options. And that could be something that's introduced in the in the future is you know, maybe the state legislature uh relaxes that a little bit but at this point it's single use. The idea is to try to prevent somebody from, you know, having a reusable container and bringing their own alcohol in to the zone. And so that's right. It's it's required that it's a single use at this point but hopefully that improves um the vessel that we will standardize to if this moves forward uh we'll definitely be a recyclable material. Okay thank you for that clarification and that again we could maybe reevaluate this later as things develop. Great. >> thanks. >> all right. And okay I'm speakers do we have. Uh we have four. All right three minutes. All right I'll call the first three. Barbara hanson. Followed by. Jen roth and wonder and. Followed by molly copter. So barbara hanson. Hello. >> my name. Is barbara hanson and my husband and I live in. District six. We've been here. About three and a half years and we. >> have. Come to really love. >> the city. I'm here to ask the. Council to. >> please vote no. On the. >> entertainment zone. The data. Tells the story. In chico. California about. 21% of. Adults who regularly. Drink to. Excess exceeding the. California statewide. Average of 18%. Butte county. As a whole ranks 45th out of. 58 counties for. Cirrhosis and liver. Disease related to alcoholism. Alcohol is. >> a. Related factor and roughly 34%. >> of. Local car accidents. Placing it in the upper tier. Among pure cities. For victims killed or injured. A 2022 community. Assessment data in. Chico showed that 24% of. 11th graders. Are using alcohol. Or drugs. Compared to. Statewide average. Which is 19%. But despite the historically high. Rates associated. With the college demographic, recent surveys show a nationwide and local downward trend in consumption and bar patronage among young adults. I suggest. >> we assist in this sober, curious trend by discouraging practice that encourages freer alcohol use. The chief cause of developmental delay in children is fetal. Alcohol spectrum disorder. F.A.S.T. Alcohol consumed by both parents contributes to the brain damage that affects 1 in 20 births higher than autism 5% of the population. The estimated cost of fasd in california is 27 billion. A responsible city council sets policy that protects its electorate not set up a new practice that harms please vote no. Thank you uh jen. Robin wunder. >> followed by molly. Copter and then. Austin barron. Good evening. Thank you. Um I'm jen here. Speaking on behalf. Of miriam park. And not only are we supportive of establishing an. Entertainment business. Zone, but we are truly excited for the. Opportunities it can offer. We can. >> see this. >> as. More than an ordinance. We see it as. An investment in. >> what. Chico could. Be a community that feels. >> more. Alive, more welcoming. And more worth sticking around in. And when people stick around longer they. Shop. >> eat and spend. Which means. Growth for the local small. Businesses that. >> make this. >> town special. Speaking specifically. >> to. Miriam park. We intend to build our own plans and. Implement new processes. Around this ordinance. That means adding more public. Seating so people have a comfortable place to. Sit with a beverage rather than. Crowding sidewalks, increasing our private security. Presence beyond. >> what's. Currently in place. Installing clear visible signage throughout the zone so rules. Are easy. To understand and follow and committing to ongoing public education about the boundaries and. Expectations of the zone. Our whole food and beverage community see this as a chance to bring. More foot traffic. And vitality to the area, while doing it responsibly lets you. We're asking the council. >> to. Move forward. >> with this ordinance. Chico has the chance to do this. Carefully. >> collaboratively and. >> with the. Community's trust as top priority. Thank you. Thank you molly copter. >> followed by austin barron. Good evening mayor, vice. Mayor and council members. My name is molly costa and. PRESIDENT And. Ceo of the chico chamber of commerce. At its. Core this proposed ordinance. Isn't about alcohol it's about economic opportunity. It doesn't create. >> a. Single new business. It simply creates another reason. >> for people to spend more time. Supporting the businesses that we already have. The chico .Chamber of. >> commerce did not. Arrive on supporting this. Position lightly. Over the past six months we have. Met regularly with. >> city staff. Heavily researched. Senate bill. 969 connected. With communities. Already implementing entertainment zones and spoken .Directly with. Businesses located within the. Proposed districts. Our support tonight is. >> a result of that work. Successful commercial districts aren't built around a single destination. They are. Built around experiences. Think about the way. People already. Enjoy chico. Whether it's thursday night market in downtown chico . >> or an. Evening in marion. Park, people rarely visit. Just one. Business they. >> meet friends for dinner. Enjoy live. Music, browse local shops. Stop for dessert, grab a cup of coffee and spend time together. Every additional stop supports. Another locally owned business. That's exactly what this. Ordinance is. Designed to. Encourage. >> economic opportunity, however, cannot come at the expense of public safety. That's why we appreciate that this ordinance is built with thoughtful safeguards. And participation. Is entirely voluntary. Businesses decide. Whether to opt. In existing department alcoholic. Beverage control regulations remain fully in place. Drinks must. Remain within. Designated boundaries. Be served in approved. Containers and the. City will. Continue evaluating the program to. Ensure it is meeting. The intended goals. Reasonable people MAY. >> reach. Different conclusions. >> about. Whether entertainment zones are the right fit for. Chico. >> and those conversations have made this. Proposal stronger. But tonight. I and the rest of the chico chamber of commerce board. >> of directors. Encourage you to evaluate. This ordinance for. What it. >> is another economic development. Tool that helps. Our locally owned. Businesses succeed. While creating vibrant places. For residents. And visitors. To spend. More time. This ordinance won't. Determine whether chico. Has great businesses. We already do. What it can do is support. And create. Opportunities for those businesses to succeed. It's time. Thank you. Oh, you're almost there. Sorry. >> thank you. Austin barron. Is our. Last speaker. All right. Good afternoon. Council vice mayor bennett. Mayor reynolds. Uh, my name is austin barron. Um, first I just wanted to. Thank, uh, eric. Actually for. >> doing so much homework. >> on this. I cut. >> down my. Speech by like 90%. So I'll. Keep it brief. Um, as you know from his presentation, this has worked in many, many, many cities across the state. Um, I have personally been to the one in redding, the one in fort bragg, the one in sacramento. They work very well. Um, one of our council members that, uh, former police chief might be happy to know there were not many incidents that I saw. Um, I saw one cop car, the one in sacramento, um, dealing with something that looked like it was actually outside of the entertainment zone. Uh, fort bragg was nice and clean. Nothing going wrong there. So, um, I don't think this is going to be a concern with people over. Consuming um, this is going to be your casual wine and beer walk, um, and stop in the shops downtown. This is a this is a great. Part of a uh, hopefully future broader uh, downtown business vitality plan. Um, and excited to hear it is going to be going on in marion park too. But um I think this could be huge for our downtown area. Um I. Highly encourage you to support it. So thank you. Thank you. He's our last speaker. All right. Any further comment from council members? Uh. >> council member goldstein. Go ahead. Yeah. >> so people live in chico for a lot of reasons and we all stay here because we enjoy the outdoors and living in a community like this. I started hanging around in chico and then moved here about ten years ago because of our music scene and our venues. Covid 19 nearly killed all of that. But as the pandemic faded we got to saw something beautiful that a lot of cities also experienced outdoor seating areas where people could not just hang out in a business but also go outside and bring their food and their beverages if that's their choice. Um, I really you know, we've talked a lot about parklets and about other concepts for getting people outdoors more, but I'm glad that this is one of the solutions or we can let people ,um, enjoy our beautiful streets, enjoy our wonderful weather. Sure it's hot on a lot of nights but um, I go to a lot of. I have music shows still and I still hear dang I wish we could bring our beers outside like we used to be able to. Um so I just want to say I'm really excited for this. I think it'll be a wonderful thing to let more people spend more time downtown and at other commercial areas like marion park. Thanks vice mayor bennett. So she thought. There we go. Chief aldridge. Uh, for the benefit. >> of. Those who are. Watching, uh, this council meeting. And for the. People present here tonight. Do you have. >> any major concerns. >> or. Issues with this particular and I. Did read the, uh, staff report so I already know the. Answer that uh, I would appreciate. It if you would. Share your thoughts. Sure. >> yeah. I spoke. With, uh. Writing chief. >> a. While back about this in detail. Um, when this idea came up. Our concern was that. >> it would create problems. And in speaking with. Him they've. Had zero problems with it. And they've had it in. Place for., uh. >> quite a while now. And it's. Very successful. Uh, no extra. Calls for service. No added. Issues or anything of the nature. So my. Recommendation was, you know, approval. >> from the police department. Thank you. Council member holly. Thank you, mayor reynolds. Um, I'm always in favor of encouraging pedestrian use of pedestrian friendly regions and cultivating community spaces. So I'm really appreciative of staff and community members for working together, um, to hold stakeholder groups and facilitate those conversations to have some tangible policy in front of us. Um, I also really welcome the uh, voiced concerns not only of people who spoke today but also um, any concerns that, you know, city staff might hear in the future in relation to the entertainment zone because those voiced concerns help us guide safety procedures that are fit for chico. So if you have concerns please keep sharing them. Um those are important things for us to hear. And lastly I, I just want to read this little excerpt from the staff report because I think it's important staff does not view entertainment zones as a standalone solution to the challenges facing downtown and to our brick and mortar retailers. This effort is considered one piece of a larger solution puzzle to create vibrant destinations where people choose to spend their time increasing pedestrian friendly traffic and supporting local commerce. So this is one piece of a much larger puzzle and I'm really looking forward to stimulating downtown through multiple other initiatives. Councilmember o'brien. Thank you mayor. So yeah, I can understand if we do this right. Uh, there's a lot of advantages and good things that go along with it. >> and I. Certainly understanding that dynamic. >> of course. >> I've got to. >> look at the other. Side of chico. You know, we've. >> had a. Unique relationship with alcohol. Over the uh, the past few decades. I lived some. >> of that uniqueness. Some of you in. >> this room probably. >> have as well. So you can understand a little bit of my. Trepidation. >> um, when we have worked so hard, so many people have worked. So hard to bring that under control. >> it really is it's such a much healthier. Situation now than when it was um when chico. State when the chico police department were working because we had students. That were. Od'ing on. Alcohol and dying. >> it was that bad. We've gotten. Past that. We have made great strides. I'm encouraged by what the uh the chief said as far as the. Experiences of other uh, communities that um I think comforting to me as well. Um, but I want to make sure that we do this right. I'm a little concerned. This zone downtown is huge. It is a massive, massive entertainment zone. It's a little too. Big for my liking the miriam park I'm not concerned about. I think that's much easier to control but an entire section of our downtown that's a lot of area so I'm a little concerned about that. And the other piece that. >> I would like to bring to my fellow council members attention is in section 100 that asks for a bite. Any old review. I would ask if we're going to move forward this this becomes an annual review at least initially. So we make sure that this is not going to cause this problem and I hope that's the case. But we have to be responsible make sure that it does not. We are adjacent to a university with vulnerable populations that we need to also be good stewards for as well, not just our businesses. So if we're going to go through this let's do it right and let's make sure that we have an annual review to make sure we're doing just that. Councilmember o'brien that all makes sense and I appreciate your concerns. Um, if you make a motion to that effect and I'd support you. There anyone else in the queue? >> mayor council? Um, I. Probably did. You have something else? If you were going to make a motion based upon that, I would reflect council member winslow's views and that's actually what I was going to do. But it sounds like. You're going. >> to. Do that. >> so you. Go ahead. >> wait. >> what if I want to make the motion? We're going to. >> find somebody make a. Motion so we can. Okay I would make a motion that we um pass the original ordinance establishing entertainment zones in downtown and marion park with the amendment that the reports be annual rather than biannual. Second I'll second that okay. So that was you. Took my mic on um that was. >> a. Motion and a second to introduce the following ordinance. Ordinance of the city council of the city of chico. Amending the chico municipal. Code chapter. By adding a new. Chapter 5.45. Entitled in. >> entertainment zones and. Amending section 9.30.040. To allow. >> the consumption of alcoholic. Beverages in designated. Areas pursuant. >> to. Senate bill. 969 as amended to include an annual review instead of biennial. For myself.. >> council member. Goldstein. Yes. >> council member. Holly. Yes. Council member o'brien. It's a reluctant. >> yes but yes I'll give it a shot for a year. Okay. >> uh, council member winslow. Yes. >> vice mayor bennett. I actually had a large make a comment a, uh, large property owner in downtown chico make the suggestion that we make it sunset it after one year. But I like this idea. We can look. At it. >> every year. And decide what we want to do next. So I will support the amendment and the motion. Okay. >> and mayor reynolds. I'm a yes I can I just ask one clarifying question. The one on the map for eric for first street does it go to. That side of the street like I feel like bidwell presbyterian church probably isn't really concerned about it but if somebody was leaving um. Uh. >> trace and. Going over to the college to see a performance. You once you're beyond you can't. Not on not. On campus. Yeah. >> not campus. >> at all. It is on that side of the presbyterian church that sidewalk on first. Okay. So they could traverse in kind. >> of if they wanted to. Once they get to campus then they're correct. >> it stops. Yep. >> okay. >> I just make sure it did include first street because that's. You know. >> in this this will be signed appropriately. >> but. I also will point out it's the on the boundary it's the interior sidewalk is the boundary where the line is so if that makes sense it's it's on the interior um side. Perfect okay. Thank you I'm still a yes on it I just. Want okay clarify. How does. >> that apply to the roundabout? Um it looks like it wraps. Around this. >> that's why I don't. See somebody walking in the roundabout for we can. >> figure. Out the. >> roundabout is. >> okay with their beer. Uh. >> all right. >> uh, 5.2 solid waste franchise and franchise. Uh, agreement direction if you're a speaker on zoom and you want to speak on 5.2, now's the time to raise your hand. Um, and we have a report from our public works director of operations and maintenance skyler lipski. All right. >> thank you. Mayor. Uh. >> vice mayor council community .Uh. >> as we near. The end of. Our existing. Solid waste. Franchise franchises. That are in. Place now. Um. >> we have. >> a decision. Point here. >> to make, uh. >> as we as we move forward. So the purpose. >> of this presentation is really. Just to summarize, uh. >> the more. Detailed staff report. So it's going to be kind. Of high. >> level and uh, you know, it's kind. >> of just here. >> to help frame this. >> the. Discussion if you will. There's a lot. >> more detail in the staff report itself. So first of all what is a franchise agreement. So this is for the folks maybe tuning in that are uh not familiar with it but it's a contract that gives haulers an exclusive right uh, to provide waste recycling and organics collection. And so communities use these franchise agreements for all of those bullet points listed below primarily to control cost, set maximum rates, set performance standards, coordinate routes, service days operations as you can imagine uh waste solid waste recycling uh trash pickup has a certain impact on a community and you know, we coordinate closely with them for all the other services that we provide and operations and maintenance, you know, from tree trimming to street sweeping and everything in between. Uh, we have had these existing agreements in place since 2017 their 11 year nine month agreements. Uh, we have two haulers in the community waste management for all of the residential service and then waste management and recology split for the commercial service and the services include those items listed there on the screen. So key dates and timing of this um march 2026 the city completed our performance review of the haulers and today uh we're requesting council direction and uh, by the end of SEPTEMBER, um, late summer or early fall should change. Should council choose an rfp rfq option? We would like to start moving forward with that. Um JULY 20th uh JULY 1st 2027 each hauler MAY request the first of up to two additional five year extensions subject to city council approval and of course the franchise agreements term in uh JUNE of 2029. So it MAY seem like this is coming to you, uh, you know. Very early when you look at that 2029 timeframe but you know, due to the long lead time to procure and negotiate, uh, transition or even restructure any of these agreements, uh, you know, we wanted to make sure to get this in front of council early so that we had time to do all of that. Um, we can't go without trash service in a community. And I should note, uh, that important note down there below that any proposed extension, amended agreement, procurement or open market market regulatory framework would return to council for further consideration and approval. So this is simply just like policy. Direction at this time. These are kind of the key themes that came out of the performance review. And if you look at the staff report you'll see a little bit more detail and of course um you know council was provided with the full performance review uh from both haulers as well. So you know, um in general reporting and field conditions have not always fully aligned. Uh, customer service complaints remain a concern diversion contamination monitoring processing performance need closer review uh long term mixed organics infrastructure remains unsolved. That is kind of a regional issue for us. Um, and I'm sure any of the haulers would be willing to take that on. Um it's not a problem that ca