09-23-25 Folsom City Council Regular Meeting

>> okay, we will reconvene the special meeting, MR. City attorney any action to report out. >> nothing to report out. >> call to order the meeting of folsom city council, SEPTEMBER 23, 2025 call the roll. >> kozlowski. >> here. >> larry. >> here. >> and aquino. >> here. >> rise to pledge allegiance. 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. >> all right, would you raise your hand please if you have a vacant seat next to you, we have a bunch of people in the back, scoot in and come to the front. MR. City attorney. >> MADAM Mayor and we have item 5 on agenda, a copy previously provided to you and available on the table in the back. >> thank you. All right, this takes us to business from the floor. This is the public's opportunity to address the council on items not on the agenda. We are always happy to hear from you and understand that state law prohibits us from deliberating or taking action on items not on the agenda, please fill out a blue card and hand to officer at the front and clerk call you up. And we have a couple requests to speak on business from the floor. >> yes, we have two members from the public requesting to speak under this item. Call you up to the podium to speak, first speaker teresa garcia. Followed by molly slovac. Good evening hope you can hear me. >> we can't. >> that's my point, I have been coming to city council meetings pretty regularly, unfortunately I can't hear much of what is said because the city council members do not all speak clearly into their microphones when they are making comments or asking questions. I ask that you afford the audience an opportunity to hear everything you say. And every question that you ask by speaking into your microphone clearly, thank you. >> thank you very much for that reminder. For some reason we are getting feedback up here, apologize for that. >> could I have molly slovac approach the podium. >> molly and friends, come on down. Right there but you can lift that microphone. >> thank you. Good evening mayor, vice mayor, and council members, molly slovac and flanked by members of our planning committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak, my name is molly, folsom resident since 2008. I have three kids, high school level and middle school and elementary. And I a former paratrooper and our folsom church and we have a couple of members of reflection, we do our worship on tuesday nights but I convinced them to show up here. On sunday -- saturday OCTOBER 11, 2025, from 10 A.M. To 2 P.M. At lion's park hosting inaugural folsom pride event on first queer affirming lgbtqia+ pride celebration. It's free and family friendly and open to everyone, lgbtqia+ residents and allies and neighbors that want to celebrate support that call folsom, details at folsom ca.Pride.Com. Why does this belong to folsom, first belonging folsom family pride is a welcoming place to lgbtqia+ families and allies can join safely and people can celebrate more in civic life and build the community that we want and deserve. Secondly, safety and well-being, folsom family pride connects lgbtqia+ to programs and local services. For some, especially teens or people new to the region, one conversation at a resource table can make major impact. Third, local spirit and commerce, invites neighbors together and visitors that dine in restaurant and shows folsom as a welcoming city and keep goodwell, and what to expect. Arts and crafts and booths. And trained with partners to keep the day safe and family friendly. The goal is simple, a prideful celebration that lgbtqia+ residents and allies feel at home. Tonight I have two asks. Number one, amplify the event, share folsom family pride, and on city channels where appropriate and encouraging community partners to spread the word. And join us and meet the organizations of our lgbtqia+ neighbors and hello to the volunteers making this inaugural event and our leo members in the community, folsom is at best when we show up for one another. And on OCTOBER 11, we will do that celebrating lgbtqia+ and uplifting queer voices and inviting every neighbor to be a part of welcoming folsom. Thank you for your time and leadership, details at folsomcapride.Com. >> MAY I go. >> real quick. >> I want to let you know, hi, I am jenny and I am a mother and a folsom resident 20 years. And I have a daughter in the lgbtqia+ community and I did not make her that way. But I love her, I support her. I am so glad that we are having this event and that I'm here to be on this committee because we really need this for our kids and for everyone else in the community. It's a very important. I hope that you come out and support us. Thank you. >> thank you for coming out tonight. [Applause] >> is there brett hofstad, in the audience, you can approach the podium. >> good evening brett. >> hi, there, council, everyone. Thanks for letting me speak. I want to be sure that everyone is aware the nasa space challenge OCTOBER 4 and 5. It's an international hackathon that happens on the weekend in cities across the world, here for sacramento region happy to have it happen at folsom lake college, free event open to all ages. And people that go to it this year will get a new tour of stem building at folsom lake college and robots there and other surprises. And great sponsors across the community and raffling off tours and aged and teens that love to innovate and work with nasa open-source data with new solutions in a team environment and form teams there and have two days of creation and innovation and on sunday even teams give to a panel of judges who evaluate them. And prizes for winners. Lots of fun. Spread the word and look forward to a great turn out. We have 100 people registered. >> thank you for the information. Any other requests from the floor? >> no other requests to speak under this item. >> all right, call the first item. >> first item under scheduled presentations and resolution of commendation honoring fire chief ken cusano for his outstanding service to the city of folsom. >> all right, I feel that we have come full circle. I was the mayor when made chief and I am the mayor when you are retiring. This is a resolution of commendation honoring fire chief, ken cusano. Whereas fire chief cusano is retiring after esteemed time in fire department. And whereas chief cusano has served since 2020 and leading in steadfast to public safety. And whereas chief cusano utilized his construction management for fire station 39 and 34 and remodel of fire station 38. Whereas he championed programs such as the tactical emergency unit and the folsom fire investigation unit; whereas chief cusano represented sacramento, and sacramento regional training chiefs and sacramento air committee and fire safe council and helping foster positive community relations and support. Whereas chief cusano began in 1998, as arsenal investigator and paramed rick and rose to the ranks and engineer and division chief. And career marked by deep career in community service and unwavering dedication to keep folsom a safe place, to live and visit. I mayor aquino on behalf of residents of this community extend our gratitude to chief cusano for his contributions to the folsom community. And wish him all the best in his retirement commended this day SEPTEMBER 23, 2025. [Applause] >> wow, all of these people come out just for me. No, first I would like to say thank you to this council. And city manager. It truly is an honor and I was blessed to be able to serve our community. As one of the public safety partners. In the other public safety group, nobody cares about them. Just had to get that out there. i mean I remember standing here 28 years ago and being sworn in as a brand-new firefighter. I know bob holderness was at the council at that point. And like I said, I have had an amazing career. There's so many people I would just love to thank. I came up through every rank in this city, or in this department. I have been mentored by many great people and some are even here tonight. And I want to say thank you for your support. My son is in the background, he was five or six years old when I actually was hired here. And thank you for your support. I will be brief, that's it. I want to say thank you very much, thank you to our emt team. It's been a pleasure and an honor to work with all of you. Thank you very much. [Applause] Oh -- I can't forget the most important team and that's the actual members of our department. And especially my administrative staff. It's been amazing and fun to come to work. For the last five years. As the fire chief especially with you there every day. I appreciate it and thank you very much. And I will definitely MISS Being a part of this department. But I will always be a part of folsom, so thank you. [Applause] >> okay, the second item under scheduled presentations thissine een sine een thissine -- this evening is proclamation of mayor of folsom celebrating the 25th anniversary of center city relationship with pief detroit lions grappalions -- pieve del grappa italy. >> whereas the city of folsom has shared a sister city relationship with pieve del grappa, italy of mutual respect and cultural exchange, of the heritage by the life of native of pieve del grappa, and immigrated, and his contributions to our city are commemorated of a landmark that stands together that stands between the deep ties of folsom and his homeland. And the sister relationship was strengthened in AUGUST, 1999, when visiting folsom in friendship and shared values. And 2019, a merging to municipality of pieve del grappa, and this is the part of broader sisters program founded by PRESIDENT Eisenhower for peace and understanding and sister diplomacy. And the 25th anniversary is for all folsom residents to celebrate our italian roots and participate in a variety of events that highlight between the two cities. Therefore be it resolved that I mayor aquino, proclaim 2025 as a time of celebration with pieve del grappa and encourage all residents to memorial the 25th anniversary, this 23rd day of SEPTEMBER, 2025. >> well, thank you very much this is quite an honor. And we are very -- feel very blessed to be a part of this. My grandfather was a friend of joe muir and spent days at this property celebrating all those that immigrated here from that region in italy. I am proud to be a part of it and so proud to be a part of this celebration and participate. So much thanks to the city and everyone that participated. What a great celebration we had last weekend. Thank you all very much for making it such a special time. >> I'm going to show you quickly, last weekend we had expanded farmer's market and thanks to muir folks and folsom council, and our library team council, under the supervision of amanda, putting together a culture capsule and send to the mayor of del grappa and add snook's to it and then complete. I want to show you what is in here. Stress ball from the police department. Lots of vista del lago spirit ware. Postcards and fire department badges and police department badges and folsom postcards, they also made some bookmarks. With some flora and flanna from our region. City of folsom coffee mugs. Somebody crocheted a bumble bee. Anyway, lots of fun stuff in here we will be sending there. And we have elementary school aged kids in folsom that are writing letters to people in del grappa and continue to honor this relationship, thank you to the team library council and to amanda. [Applause] Now you have to repack the box. >> next item this evening was the consent calendar. You do not have any requests to pull anything on the consent calendar. >> all right, we don't have requests to speak and nobody wants to approve an item. Entertain a motion. >> move to approve consent calendar. >> second. >> we have a motion and a second. Please call the roll. >> kozlowski. >> yes. >> leary. >> yes. >> raithel. >> yes. >> aquino. >> next item this evening is public hearing 4, veranda at folsom heights project-east side of empire ranch road, north and south of summit street, in the folsom plan area. Resolution no. 11461-a resolution of the city council determining that the veranda at folsom heights project is exempt from ceqa and approving a small-lot vesting tentative subdivision map, planned development permit, and design review >> good evening jessica. >> good evening, mayor aquino. Jessica brant with community development. I will be presenting the veranda at folsom heights. A request for small lot subdivision map, a plan development permit and design review for 14.9 acre site located in the folsom plan area. So the project site is located on the east side of empire ranch road, or future part of empire ranch road and surrounded by folsom heights subdivision. To the north, east and south with russell ranch to the west. It is designated multifamily low density in the specific plan and this little guy all the way over here. So -- kind of landfill. As I mentioned the project is surrounded by the folsom heights subdivision because it was part of the folsom heights subdivision approval. The city council approved the folsom heights project that consisted of residential and commercial in 2017. The folsom heights project includes residential units at varying densities. Including allocation of high density residential units on two lots which have the stars up there. These are the lots that are subject, are the subject of this subsequent mapping and project review. Improvements for the backbone structure of the folsom heights overall and roadways and stormwater basins and utilities are already in progress. So this is the proposed project, this is basically north is facing to the right. It's kind of a long, narrow project site. It's turned here. But it is a for sale detached townhome project of 125 small lots with common private drives, open spaces and guest parking areas. On two large lots that total 14.9 acres calling it veranda at folsom heights. Access to the northern and southern sides of the site primary from circle on summit street that is cut down the middle on the project site. And secondary access points from iron horse drive that is around the east portion. Two sites here and there. They are all going to be gated access points. Because this is a vesting map request, the applicant has included preliminary grading and utility plans that have been reviewed by our city engineer. So the plan development component of this request, the residential units are proposed to be in cluster formations. Fronting on to paso. And with alley garages and the applicant is requesting through the plan development permit. And of note a request for reduction in minimum lot sizes and building coverages and setbacks. And note that the applicant is not requesting deviations from parking standards or lot widths. The design review component of the project, the project is subject to the folsom heights design guidelines approved with the overall subdivision project. The applicant proposes four residential master plans with three different architectural styles or elevations. These are spanish, california cottage and early california. Nine color schemes are proposed, which are three for each architectural style. On the slide is some samples of the renderings and then the color material samples for the spanish style. All the units would be two stories. have three to five bedrooms and two to three garages and outdoor patios and covered porches. Further on the design review the proposed project will install landscaping bordering the site and interior. The applicant proposes street trees at regular intervals along the private streets for shading and boulevard environment. And the applicant has provided for fencing and gates on the slide and fencing and outdoor spaces on paseo. The staff analysis the applicant proposes the small lot detached residential project 8.4 units per acre. This is consistent with the site general land use. And in addition to provide focal points and lower cost option for homeownership than standard single residential that supports the folsom area specific goals. The proposed map if approved concurrently with the plan development request and conditioned would comply with all the city requirements and the requirements of map act. The staff believes that the plan under the permit provides a well designed community in its own boundaries and adequate service and open space to serve its residents. And finally staff can confirm that the proposed site and architectural designs comply with the folsom design guidelines. And note that qualifies for a special exception which is ceqa guideline 15182, projects pursuant to a specific plan. After analysis staff is recommending approval of the project. and you have the language that we're recommending related to that approval on the screen. That is the end of my presentation. Price walker with elliot homes is here as well if you have questions for the applicant. >> thank you jessica. Any questions for jessica, council member kozlowski. >> I have one, because of the type of deviations from the regular standards does this mean there is additional units available here? And is that going to relieve density or add density in the plan area? >> I think so they're within they are trading off reductions in the size of the lots for shared open spaces but allowing for a for sale product. >> it's not necessarily making more units on that piece of property. >> no. >> otherwise planned for. That's it, thank you. >> any other questions? This way, council member leary. >> I have a couple of questions. And they come up because of my experience on the planning commission before. But I just was wondering if there was a view of what these pasio's are like, you mentioned they had side porches or small -- or small covered porches do those face the pasio or the side with the access to the garages? >> it varies depending on the floor plan, some of them do -- so with this slide here you can see for this one at the end here, that would be a covered porch. There is also this little porch here. but this one would be towards the alleyway. But for those folks they are in on the side here and that gives them more of an into that paseo and they have a larger sort of porch area here. It really depends. >> I think it's a great product for people that want a smaller home. And I visited some sites and other parts of our region. And one of the things that I like about the paseo's they offered some interaction between the neighbors. You know if they are shared spaces out front. But I like the product and thanks for the presentation. >> thank you. >> all right, this is a public hearing. So I will open the public hearing. Price, did you want to speak? >> a couple of things. >> okay, come on up. >> I was asked to be very brief. Mayor, council members. Price walker with elliot homes. We are proud of this product and built at golf links and natoma, pretty much the exact same design and the question on paseo, that's a good one and that's the front door and along the paseo and sort of jigsaw puzzle and the site fits different in the site. Something that we have had success with and proud of and ask you to approve tonight. >> thank you, I will open the public hearing, we have one request to speak. >> okay, the request is to speak under this item is alana wagner. If you want to go ahead and approach the podium. >> good evening. This comment is not specific to this project but applicable to this project. Really all of these small lot subdivisions with the exception small lots and getting smaller and in my opinion did know allow for city expect as as and municipal codes of trees in the front yard and in allocated and the space is not sufficient for the size and growth patterns of the trees. And that the lead to what I have seen in folsom ranch constant violations of tree removal with set-back of city right-of-way. And remind that the urban canopy is extreme to the quality of life and the view of the area. And to be more thinking about fla that because I have seen that in my neighborhood and others not mindful of the growth pattern of the trees. >> thank you. Any questions? Entertain a motion. >> move resolution number 1446 one. >> second. >> call the roll. >> kozlowski. >> yes. >> leary. >> yes. >> raithel. >> yes. >> aquino. >> yes. The public hearing is closed. The next item under this evenings agenda is your new business item, 5, resolution 11463, a resolution approval general fund cost saving measures for fiscal year 2025-26 and beyond. >> all right. Gotten to the main event. I think for some of you this MAY be your first time coming to a city council meeting. I want to be sure that you understand how this process works. City manager is going to make a presentation. And then an opportunity for the council to ask questions. And then we will give the public an opportunity to comment. If you think you want to talk on this item, we ask you to fill out the blue speaker card and give to officer Mccola, and each member of the public get two minutes and ask you to respect that time limit. If you have a question that was not asked by the council, you can go ahead and mention that during your comments. I will take some notes. And then once we get through all the public comment and ask the city manager to address any lingering questions. With that MR. City manager. >> thank you mayor, members of the council, the item before us is to review some general fund cost-saving measures for fiscal year 2025-26. And I thought it would be appropriate to talk about the process that is taken us to the point we are at now. Back in MAY, we held a city council budget workshop at folsom library, the meeting was open to the public and well attended. And on JUNE 10, the city council had budget presentation, held a public hearing and continued the public hearing to the JUNE 24 meeting. and we had public feedback and conversations at that time. On JUNE 24, the city council held a budget and received input and approved the preliminary budget that included the uses of just over $3 million of general fund reserves. And we had indicated at that time that the various departments and city staff would look at ways to try to close that budget gap. Basically that's where we are at today. Really appreciate the efforts of all team that looked at variety of options. I want to say this is not a fun time. This is not a place that we would like to be at. This is not a place that we want to be at. But it's a place where as we have looked at our current circumstances and trying to take into account where we want to be, not just next year but in the years to come. That we need to do something different. So that we can close the budget gap and live within our means and a chance to be successful in the future. Today we are going over phase 1 of our cost-saving measures. And OCTOBER 14 we will talk more about the cost-saving measures and I will go into the details of different plans. Before that it's important to look at the general fund revenues and expenditures for fiscal year 24-25 that concluded. And I put this imagine together to mainly test your vision. But I will zoom in a little bit. this is kind of the general fund reserves or the revenues. And so you can look back and going back to 2019-20 and see actual, actual, actual. And then for 24-25 you see the actuals as of 9-9-2025. Still journal entries and other things happening to close out the budget year. I would like to highlight that column which has the actuals as of 9-9 with column 2024-25 quarter 2 amended budget. There are some changes that have so there's some changes that occurred. We know the amended budget have estimate of 111 million in revenues and the actuals we're showing is 116 million. And from your expenditures this is more of a highlight to show all of the different categories from the city council to our police, but I wanted to get down to the bottom line. So those same columns, the 2024-25 actuals as of 9// 9/5 and amended 2024-25, quarter two, you will see the net of five million 484,000 in that column. And then some changes with the different revenue increases. Expenditure adjustments. And transfers in, transfers out, we're now estimating the situation to improve slightly with 4, -- four million and one thing that makes it convoluted carry over fund that's didn't occur until the current year. This slide hopefully highlights that. When you look at the revenue, including transfers in, it's 120,000,409,000. When you look at ex expenditures, 124,000,489,000. there's projected change in restricted fund balance aasign for approved purchases for four million, finished to the good of 102,000. At the bottom we have unassigned fund balance from 2021 at 19 million grown to 24,002,023-24. Grows slightly to 25 million for the end of '24-'25. One thing you can say is well, is it really a budget problem if we see our revenue increasing? Well the expenditures, when we look at a percentage basis of what the general fund reserve looks at, the expenditures for 2021 were lower than for 24-'25. Our actual percent reserve is lower today than it was in 2021 when you had 19 million, why, is because expenditures whether inflationary or labor cost, just the cost of doing business, not just for cities but for everyone has gone up. So we see a diminishing value of our reserve even though it's higher. This is balancing the budge the, highlight where we were JUNE 24, 2025, presenting the current year budget. This shows a use of the proposed -- of unassigned fund balance 3,000,038,000 902-dollars so I'm going to highlight a little about our discussion today and our discussion for OCTOBER 14 will be like, and then we'll get into the details. So for tonight, we're looking at discussing the reduction in full time equivalent positions, including our finance, I.T. Department, which includes lay offs, city attorney, attorney's office which includes a lay off, a library position, and fire department positions, police department positions, the positions affected here are unfilled whereas the previous two departments actually have individuals that if this proposal goes forward will have their jobs eliminated. We'll also talk about our fire apparatus plan. Sometimes we pause for effect. [Laughter] Okay. So we have number three, brief introduction of our community development public works environmental water resources and parks and recreation reorganization, and folsom city zoo sanctuary discussion. I don't think anyone is here for that so we'll probably just spend couple -- no. Phase two which will take place OCTOBER 14th we'll go into greater detail and introduce reorganization plan at a macro level and we'll go into the details on the 14th. And so, we will at that time go over the cost-saving measures for parks and recreation and community development and public works. I think this is important to note, our goal, we're having our heavy conversation related to the elimination of positions, but if the proposal is accepted by the council tonight, it is our expectation that no further full-time employee lay offs are anticipated. So our current process, I think, especially in our circumstances, it's important for us to be vigilant as it relates to our expenditures and revenues, and so, in either FEBRUARY or MARCH the city council will conduct additional mid-year budget review to see where we're going, even if these changes are approved. Budget adjustments needed for our current year will be considered by the city council at that time. You know, really as we go forward with this we have options to live within our means, we can find new resources or keep things as they are. We will continue to look for additional revenue streams, but as we do that, that takes time. So our goal is to develop a plan that lives within our means and develop a budget with expenditures below our revenues. This is once again an eye test. This is the cost-saving measures relating to positions that gives the summary of those being proposed this evening. As we zoom into those in our finance I.T. Department we're recommending an elimination of gis specialist, gis technician, I.T. Manager, process improvement specialist and all those conditions are currently filled. We also have elimination of legal secretary position in city attorney's office, that is also filled. In the library we have reduction in full-time equivalence from 12 to 11 but essentially it is an unfilled position. We have a reorganization where we're reclassifying a position and will leave a library assistant vacant. Manufacture -- moving on to the fire department. There are seven positions affected in this. They are also vacant. we have administrative technician, a senior equipment mechanic which of note this has been a challenge for us to fill, and so we're utilizing contract options for that, so we'll continue with that but we're recommending we eliminate that position. And then also five vacant firefighters positions. The police department also has seven positions affected. A police lieutenant, we have a retirement coming up, and so we'll reef leave that position vacant. Police officer. We have four positions. And then the community service officers, we have two positions. Just to spend a couple minutes on this, related to the firefighters positions, if you look at the approved fte total of 119.5 in the original packet it showed 116.5. Because when the council approved the budget it approved an allocation of police officers where three of those were unfunded. So in order to be consistent we've added back the unfunded positions, because we have a unique situation, well, it's not unique, this is a pretty typical situation with police departments now, is we have some individuals retiring and then we have that constant job of trying to recruit and fill the spots as they become available so having three unfunded vacancies allows us to continue the recruitment process to get the pipeline of qualified individuals ready so when those retirements occur they can move right in. That gives us additional flexibility. So the recommendation is for the elimination of four funded positions, but not the three unfunded positions. And I'd be happy to answer more questions as we move forward on that. As we look at the total adjustments related to the general funds fte's it's a reduction of 20 positions. Five of those are filled. And so, one of the things that's -- we need to talk about today is the changes for our fire apparatus, and the browning out out of a fire engine. And so, with that in mind, I've asked our fire chief ken to come talk about where our apparatus will be located with the browning out of the fire engine. >> thank you, sitting ---- manager. I'm ken -- your fire chief -- councilmembers, the apparatus movement plan is really just that, we are. Going to be browning out one of our engine companies, one the five engine companies that we have in the city. We've developed a map just so that you can see where stations are located and then on the right-hand side is what will be at those stations. What we're going to do is move our 'tiller truck 35 which is at station 35 right now, we're going to be moving that to station 34, that will become tiller truck 34. The engine that is currently out there at 34 now will just be eliminated from our staffing and that engine will become one of our reserve engines. The engine that is at station 38 we are going to move to station 35, it will become engine 35. The other moves that are going to take place is for our medic units, currently we're running two medic units right now medic 35 and medic 37. We have seven individuals that are going through their fto period right now. Once those individuals are cleared and able to work on their own we're going to bring back medic 36 which will be out at station 36. At that time we'll move medic 35 will go to station 38 and become medic 38. And that's the extent of our movement. >> great, thank you, chief. And just from the standpoint because we have those field training still going on that we originally intended to make this, if approved by the council, effective OCTOBER first but we won't have everyone necessarily trained and up and running to run on their own shifts so we're postponing that until later in OCTOBER so that we don't see any time period where there will be a fire station that doesn't have staff. So we're waiting, you know, a few more weeks to do that. So we were targeting OCTOBER 1st and want to let everyone know if this fire apparatus reassignment plan and browning out of the fire engine is approved that it will take few weeks longer for us to implement that just because we wanted to make sure that all fire stations had staff and that there wasn't a period where they were vacant. >> thank you. >> okay. So moving on, related to our i.T. Services plan, there were four I.T. Position that's are proposed to be eliminated. That does not mean that we don't have a significant need for I.T. Services, in fact, our goal is to continue to utilize information technology to enhance our ability to communicate with the public, and so, we actually want to improve and get better in that realm. So if this is approved we have been in contact with I.T. Management firm, a firm I've used before that is highly experienced in the municipal sector and this would be a temporary arrangement, I'm suggesting initial six-month period so they can I.T. Audit and provide temporary I.T. Management to oversee our in-house staff and help provide service with our internal customers as well. At that point we'll go out for rfp for ongoing I.T. Management services. And the next couple slides, I'm going to turn the time over to our community development director pam johns to go over our existing arrangement with our community development, parks and recreation department and environmental water resources department. Big thanks to rebecca nieves and marcus yasutake and kelly gonzalez and pam for being the spear head of this effort. I've been extremely impressed with the professionalism and willingness to collaborate and come up with the best way to provide these essential services. Mayor and members of the city council. pam johns, community director. This slide shows the existing organization of the four departments that brian just mentioned are part of phase two cost savings discussion coming back to you OCTOBER 14th with the mandate to look at efficiencies, with the general fund budget and how we're delivering services what we're focusing on in our core competent espey's competencies, we got together to talk about where there is overlap and opportunity to figure out you to deliver our services better, where we might need to consider reduction or elimination of services, and where we can do a better job collaborating or re-purposing our services under the four umbrellas of our departments. And so, we looked at -- talked with other agencies, we looked at -- kind of pulled up every rock and looked at what funding organization -- sources are available. To use other qualified funding sources for expenditures, not just staffing, but in terms of the additional services that we provide. We're going to present that information to you on OCTOBER 14th. But where we land said -- land said here in proposal supported bit the city manager in reorganizing our services. I will highlight a few things. We feel really good about the direction this reorganization is heading. So ewr would be expanded to broader utilities department to include other enterprise funded utility services, most of which are organized through the corp yard location with solid waste and recycling moving from public works to ewr, as well as fleet services to complement the service and operation maintenance and I -- infrastructure of capital projects that marcus is currently overseeing. Public works will focus on the delivery of capital project by formally organizing a team and transportation and planning and traffic engineering, public profit and improvement and acceptance as well as stormwater management. Improved collaboration between public works and community development in defining who does kind of development activity on private versus public property making sure there is efficient efficiencies between those departments, there's going to be reorganization of those community development. In parks and recreation will oversee planning improvement and maintenance of parks, open space, trails, municipal landscape with focus on efficient planning around delivery of the capital projects in partnership with best practices established through the public works department. The department will consider improve cost recovery for recreation facility and programs as well as strengthening strategic community partnerships. You will hear about that this evening. As I mentioned, community development will refocus our efforts on the planning services for development activity and community building, maximizing our efficiencies and cost recovery for building services that include code enforcement, and then focus on that development engineering for private property. So we've all talked about additional ways to update fees and we'll be bringing forward qualifying use of special revenue and other funds for both staffing and services at the OCTOBER 14th meeting but we want wanted to present an overview that is driving that discussion that will come back to you on the 14th. >> great. Thank you, pam. Just to highlight what you can expect to see at the meeting is we will have the org chart associated with the departments and we'll also show the impacts to general fund. For example, as mentioned, we don't anticipate any additional position reductions that are filled, but we MAY as some of the realignment have positions that are unfilled that won't be needed any more because we're doing things differently. So what you will see also is if you're to imagine a department let's just say it is a department that has an impact on the general fund of 30 positions, by utilizing some of our special revenue funds or just as a case in point we have a housing manager who all they work on is housing projects. We have a housing fund. They will now be charged to the housing fund. So what that does is it reduces the amount of full-time equivalence tied to general fund, therefore saves the general fund money, even though we're still paying for the service it's being paid from somewhere else. Another example is prospector park is currently being charged to the general fund, the maintenance there, it is eligible expense and cfd18 which has sufficient funds to pay for that at this time. So those are some of the changes you can see. As we do those things it reduces the ex expenditures tied to the general fund, to enable us to have a better financial stand. Moving on to zoo. I thought it was appropriate. There's plenty of folks here that know the history better than I, I apologize if I don't get this perfect but the zoo began in 1963, over the years has evolved from a traditional zoo to sanctuary model. The folsom city zoo houses injured or orphaned animals and unlike commercial zoos doesn't trade animals for breed or display and it teaches visitors about wildlife conservation, responsible pet ownership and story of animals in their care. The zoo sanctuary is run by the city of folsom and supported by a strong network of volunteers and donors, including friends of folsom sanctuary, non-profit organization. Although the sanctuary is very popular with over a hundred thousand visitors each year is heavily subsidy subsidized by the city's general fund. I want to be clear to you, the packet I sent out, I appreciate kelly gonzalez reviewing my figures, I added up the wrong revenue accounts so this is more accurate, so the information I shared previously was this year's subsidy was anticipated to be 1.8 million. It is anticipated to be lower than that at 1.6. But you can see the 2024 figures and 2025 figures, at 1.3 and 1.5 and 1.6 million. So the reason why I think it's important for us to have this dialogue, there's no action before the council today, I'm not recommending that we close the zoo, I have an 11 year old, I need to go home to him. And so, I think it's just, we're illustrating, these are the facts and as a community what are we going to do about it? Are there ways that we can generate partnerships? Or interest in the zoo that can slowly or over a period of time minimize the subsidy and ultimately eliminate the subsidy like other locations have done, where it is run and managed by a non-profit, a foundation or some other thing. So this is not a conversation tonight to say, hey, how quickly can we close the zoo. It's in many ways to highlight this so that hopefully there's more community discussion so that people become aware of the challenge. And we can see who is out there. I try not to put too much pressure on my kids, I say, if you can just be like steve jobs or bill gates that will be great, if they do that they will create a foundation for folsom, until then we're going to have to look at other things. So this is basically just a highlight what this is -- what we're looking at, there's been a lot talked about. So the staff's recommendation to the city council today is to improve a resolution approves the fire apparatus reassignment plan and browns out fire engine 38 and approves the elimination of the 20 full-time equivalents that were listed, and then, that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions from the council and from the public. >> councilmember rohrbough any questions? >> I have some requests not really questions, I will wait until after public comment. >> okay councilmember leary? >> oh, I have a few questions and thank you for your updates and revising some of those figures that we talked about. About the other day. I'm glad to see you had time to put together a whole other slide for us. I am, you know, concerned about, you know, the changes in the delivery for the fire services. And I don't know that we'll have a good measure of how that changes response times or impacts on residents until these changes have taken place. I do know that the residents south of 50 are concerned about their high fire risk as noted on the recent state-issued fire maps, and you did bring up that they do have sprinklers throughout there, but, I also wonder about the avail analytics of ---- availability of water not having an engine that carries water in an area. And I guess, there's a lot that goes into this equation, like how many fire hydrants are available and, you know, what is the capability of the one engine that will be left down there? In case of a fire. I don't know if that is readily available tonight. In terms of the zoo I was surprised to see it was listed in phase one since there's no actual cost projection at this time. I have been meeting with the friends of the zoo as well as with staff. And you. To discuss how we might move forward with making that a vinyl entity. I see it -- a viable entity. I see it as being an attraction, somewhat like we're looking to add to the river district and enhance our economic development plans. But, I would hope that you would consider looking at alternatives to just finding someone to come in and take over the zoo for us. I think there are some other options. And I know the friends of the zoo are working on some. I think they'll probably give us the details but I'm very concerned about us not being a little bit more global in how we solve that issue. And the other answer -- I don't know if you have that at hand is -- what is the cost differential between the cost of the I.T. Employees that were laid off and the -- what it will cost -- to contract with someone to do those services. >> sure. Okay. The answer -- so, related to the delivery of fire services, you know, chief can come up but I think the plan we have -- the reality is -- is -- these are all difficult decisions, right? I mean, and so -- we can make justifications of why we shouldn't make any of these. But at the end of the day, we are a household that has a budgetary problem. So households that are successful typically have to make tough decisions so they can right size their ship so that they can survive for another day. So related to the fire service, you know, I actually went out on sunday and drove through the folsom plan area and throughout the city and took pictures and I didn't share those today. But the -- the way things are south of 50 are significantly different than be in is some of our more established areas. If you go to briggs afternoon or ranch or at the bye-week beacon hill area where you have 60-foot tall ever green trees. The chief too that into account. Where is the greatest fire hazard. So although the state map shows south of 50 as fire high fire hazard area, if you look at the map, not lost on me in the presentation in the public hearing, related to the subdivision it said it is due to new vegetation. So looking at the fire hazard where there is not significant urban forest, there -- all the homes and structures there do have internal sprinklers, the chance of a massive fire event is less than than in other areas that are older, with more vegetation, and don't have internal sprinkler systems. That was take neon account. chief, if you want to talk about that. >> MADAME Mayor, councilmembers, your fire chief -- city manager is correct. We did look at that when we were trying to kind of determine where the greatest risk was or the least amount of risk. And our tiller truck 35 where it is at, station 35 right now, it doesn't carry water, it's not a suppression unit. It has -- it's a truck that is a specialized piece of equipment. They have different roles on fires. But when you look at it here, at station 35, I consider this one of our highest fire risk areas for structure fires. We have the historic district and we have the central business district. Very little of that has sprinklers, or any fire suppression system in them. When we look at south of 50, for structure fires, 100% of everything south of 50 is mandatory to be sprinkler -- it has fire suppression sprinklers in there. Now, there's a little bit of a misnomer -- that there is no suppression capabilities with the tiller truck out there, that's not quite true because they cross-staff a type three grass rig, one of our type three engines, which does have water, that's what weize we use to fight vegetation fires. So there is suppression capability out there, when I talk fire risk I'm looking at the structure fire or commercial fire risk. One of your other questions dealt with the fire hazard severity maps that we just presented here few months back. Those were mandatory that we adopt those. Part of that is those cal fire maps, when they were drawn up and classified, I think they were looking at that area out there as just all big one grass land which maybe that would make sense to be moderate at that time. But when you look out there now there's very little vegetation out there. There are roads put in. Natural barriers. I would not classify that as a high vegetation-type fire risk out there now. Remember, part of mandate with those maps and us adopting them is that the city was not allowed to lessen the hazard class that they were in. We could have increased the hazard risk but none of that was really parented here in folsom. So we had to go with those maps and what they said. But in my opinion, I would not classify that as a higher risk than other areas in the city. >> thank you. I do want to thank you for putting the map up too, that I asked about, so that people could identify where the engines are in relationship to their homes and the disbursement throughout the city of the services. That's helpful. Thank you. >> did I hit all the questions? >> don't go too far, chief. >> okay. >> one quick follow up, if you don't mind. Asking the extremely obvious answer question, in spite of the fact that rigs and crews will be at individual stations, they still respond throughout thity. >> correct. We 'til respond throughout entire city. We still rely on our automatic and mutual aid partners to come and help with with true fires or any fire really. >> thank you. >> there's a question related to the cost differential for I.T. Services. There's two components to the I.T. Reduction, one is related to normal kind of I.T. Services, you necessity, software programs, and internal operations and then there's other components related to the gis operations. And so, with the individuals that are associated with the I.T. Services, I have a proposal now, if we were to go forward with that, that would save us about 80 to 90,000 dollars compared to what we're paying now for those positions. So those are still things that we'll be able to fine-tune. I feel very confident it will be that or lower goering forward so that factor in some ever the decision-making process. >> councilmember leary, I think one of your other questions was how are we going to track the data, and our response times, we currently do that now and we're definitely going to continue to monitor that and just, you know, get that data as we go. So. >> you have any question for the chief? Go ahead. >> I did have the other question about the -- staff's willingness to look at alternatives to enhancing our ability for the zoo to remain in place and well cared for. You know. I understand your proposal to have somebody come in and take it over but I just want to ensure that it's on the table that we can look at other options. >> sure. And let me be clear, there's no proposal on the table. Simply what has been discussed is what I've observed and read about others have done. For example, the sacramento zoo, my understanding is that the city of sacramento operated that zoo from 1927 in the 1997 when they partnered with the sacramento zoological society. I'm not saying that is the model. Whatever the model is, you know, we're not recommending anything today. And actually, this is not going to be my decision, it's going to be your decision. So I just think it's really prudent to look at where we are eliminating five good people from their jobs, we're eliminating basically 14 positions from public safety, and yet we have a zoo. So I just think as good as it is, when we're making these type of decisions, does it deserve some thought and some consideration? So I'm not saying that we do anything, ultimately you guys will decide how that goes and I'll help us get wherever you want to get to. I just think this is important for us to not -- we need to think about it. I think we just need to think about it. >> totally agree. Thank you. >> any questions for the chief over here? >> I do have a follow up. What is our response time? >> currently, right now, on average, we're around six minutes and 32 seconds. >> and do we keep that in different areas of the city? How do we report it out to general public? >> I -- I would have to ask our assistant back here. I believe we try to put that on our website and our other social media platforms. >> I just like to request that at our next council meeting we get very clear. I think the question from -- that I heard most is how does this affect response times and again we say it is going to affect response times but I'm up here and don't even know what our response time is. I definitely don't know what it was last year, the year before that or before that. I think we need to get better at reporting metrics and what the citizens should expect. It's not saying every time you need that support it will show up six minutes and 32 seconds but if we report a low, a high and an average, it helps the public evaluate and understand the impact of what the changes are going to be. >> the good news is that all that data is available. We can compile that. What we need to do is more proactively staff to bring it to council. I've talked to members already and that request has been made. So one of the best ways to measure the impacts if the council were to approve this is, hey, six months from now, let's compare the data before the decision, and let's -- see the data after the decision and see what that really means. If our average is six minutes and 30 seconds and now that's six minutes and 40 seconds or seven minutes or eight minutes, we would know. So we -- one of the clear messages toecaps and the community me as your city manager I'm not making special promises that hey, everything is going to be as it was, these are really hard decisions that are significant reduction in force and reduction in services. I'm not saying everything is fine, we're going to do more with less we're actually going to do less with less. That's just how it is related to the bumet structure ------ budget structure. So how we manage the resources is up to community to provide comment us to put together proposals and for council to consider those. So we've given considerable thought where we are at and where we think we need to be and we're always open for input. >> you have another question for the chief? >> no,. >> okay I'm going to ask a couple questions. So approximately what about 75% of calls you get are medically-relate related? >> that's probably accurate. >> of those calls, how many result in an ambulance transport? >> ew, I would probably say of the 75% there's -- maybe 80% of those don't end up in an ambulance transport. >> oh, do not. >> do not. >> okay. >> well, no, I take that back -- 20% do not -- 80% do. >> okay. >> sorry. >> the majority of calls we receive for fire are medically related. >> correct. >> and majority result in ambulance transport. >> yes. >> so in my almost seven years on the council there have been multiple times we have browned out an ambulance due to staffing shortages, we have that now. But under this scenario all three ambulances will be in service once our new recruits are fully on their own. >> yeah. >> and then at station 34, you say we're going to have the truck and what's the other apparatus called? >> there's going to be an air unit there. That's what we utilize on bigger fires. They refill our air cylinder bottom el cajon -- bottomels it bottles. It also has a light tower to provide lighting. The other apparatus out there -- currently is our oes grass rig. >> grass rig. That's what I was thinking okay. >> that will -- once we get our new type three engine that is on order, that should be arriving some time this year, that will be placed out there. But it's the same type of unit. It's a type three engine. >> got it. So forgive my naivety here but if the personnel is out at the station, four people at station 34, if you had the truck and the engine that were taken out of service both there, couldn't they go, take the correct apparatus, based on the call? >> they could, but, like, I mean, that starts to get a little bit more tricky because now when they're out on the call, you basically lose, let's say they take the engine out on the call, now you lose the truck capability which is -- sorry -- specialized equipment for the city, meaning we have no vehicle extra equipment, no trench rescue, confine space, those are all specialty, you know, tasks that we provide to community. And if that's engine is gone or they're out on a call in it, we lose that for the city. >> okay. So you always need to have at least one truck in service. >> we try to keep the one truck in service, correct. >> okay. All right. >> mayor, if I could add -- I think it's important to note when there is actually a structure fire one fire station is not the only respondent to that fire. >> right. >> so they're going to come. If they are at empire ranch station and is something south of 50 other resources are going to come, vice versa. So it's a unit that mobilizes where the issues are. One of the biggest risks with the reduction in the fire engine is our ability to respond to multiple calls that occur. So in general, if the community can just plan to only have one issue at a time -- right in. [Laughter] We'd appreciate it. Because you'd get pretty much the same response. But when we shrink ourable ability to response that is where our struggle and weakness is. >> in addition to needing more data about response time, I think it would be helpful at the next meeting if we had the data about the call volume. Because it's my understanding that on average, depending on the station, they are receiving between two and eight calls in a 24-hour period, meaning the slowest station is averaging 2 calls and busy station is averaging 8 calls. I bet the general public thinks it is more, to be honest with you. The other thing is what percentage of those calls are, hey, I got a rattlesnake in the garage, can you come remove it. Because those are types of things that we MAY have to say sorry, can't send anyone right now. >> it's interesting in conversations with different shifts, that came up, is, are we going to continue to respond to those calls even with these reductions, my thought is, if we're able to respond we will respond. right. If they're not handling something of greater urgency, if you get called out to a rattlesnake situation and then get another call that says hey there's a building engulfed in flames, of course they will call off that -- >> right. >> -- so that's the difference. I don't think we'll stop responding to different calls, it's just based on the availability. >> okay. Any questions for the chief. >> at the risk of asking for a lot of extra data, we have had discussions about response time and sometimes it's been in a vacuum, just looking at folsom, and sometimes it has been foisted upon us or we did some research and compared that regionally. I think we need to lookout ward in the comparison response times as well. So to the extent we can have it available it would be worthwhile to have response time data for the region, so that we can see where we stand relative to the overall picture of things. >> we can get that. >> I think there have been times when we actually had significantly better coverage in folsom than most of the rest of the region. It would be worthwhile for people to know that. >> if you recall at all right JULY 8th meeting we did show information with us dropping to the five stations, or the five -- from five engines to four engines, that are capabilities were still similar to other departments. Around us. Right. So it's not where we want to be but I would say in many ways folsom provided higher level of service compared to our neighbors in some regard. Although this is reduction in service it's not necessarily when compared to other jurisdictions something that is significantly different. And with adding of the medic, I would say, in some ways there's enhancements related to those higher volume of calls. >> sarah. >> go ahead. >> were you done, mike? >> are we done with the chief? >> well it's along the same line. Just to clarify further. What I would be looking for as far as response time and data is data up to the end of this month, as far as our response times for our fire and then in six months looking at that data so we can see what changed, if things changed, and so we can compare where we are as far as service levels. I think our public would really respond to that if it's only changing by seconds or ten minutes that's a big difference, and would allow tuesday make -- allow us to make a decision in an upcoming budget. We can adjust at that point. That's the same thing for police. We've never had a presentation on their response times. So I'd like to see the same thing. I don't think it's going to change from now until then because we have