Nov 7, 2023 6:00 PM - Redding City Council - Regular Meeting

>>We're back from closed session. There was no reportable action. Today is November 7th 2023. We're in Ready to conduct a regularly scheduled city council meeting. If anyone wishes to address the City Council on any item considered at this meeting before or during Council's consideration of that item, please fill out a blue Speaker Request Form, located in the lighted alcoves at the back of the Council Chambers, and submit it to the City Clerk. The City Council will allocate up to a maximum of three minutes per speaker for each agenda item. Staff reports are available on-line at the City's web site at www.cityofredding.org or in the Public View binder located on the podium at the north side of the Chambers. Would you please all stand and join me in the pledge and remain standing for the invocation? >>I pledge allegiance to the Flag of he United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >>Thank you. Good evening. And thank you for this opportunity to bring a blessing this evening. Will you please bow your head with me as we welcome the presence of our Father God, your Lord and Savior. We ask your blessing on this time together tonight. In season of Thanksgiving, may we do as your word says in Psalm 10710. Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Father, we give you thanks for keeping watch over this assembled Council. Over all of our city workers and our citizens, we ask for your protection on them and their families as well. May they know you, your peace, your power and your voice in their job and in their lives. We also thank you for our firefighters, our police officers and our first responders who protect our city 24/7. We ask for your continued strength and protection over them and their families. Thank you for all of these servant hearted leaders whom you've appointed in our community. We ask for your blessing on each and every one of them. We seek your will and need your wisdom to work together for the good of this city. And finally, we ask for your help. That this meeting is conducted in the spirit of fairness, cooperation and respect. We humbly pray these things in your holy name. Amen. >>Thank you. Next item is roll call. It's just limited to the council members not the audience. Thank goodness council member on debt here. >>[ ROLL CALL ] >>Next item is a public comment. Pursuant to the Brown Act City Council cannot take action on public comment items the council will allocate up to a maximum of three minutes per speaker for 30 minutes total at the beginning of the meeting for public comment or non agendized matters within the city's jurisdiction. The mayor will determine the order of the speakers. If 30 minutes is not adequate to accommodate all the individuals who submitted a speaker request form to the clerk. The council will trail this item to the end of the open session agenda. Remaining speakers will address the council at that time. We have some cards here let's start with Belinda Brooking followed by John watt followed by Nancy mags. >>Good evening everyone. My name is Belinda Birkins and I am your newly crowned Redding rodeo queen. I'm honored to be able to represent Redding Rodeo Association, the city of Redding and the surrounding areas. I'm very excited for what this year has in store. Thank you >>that was hardly three minutes. Now we wish you all the best. John watt followed by Nancy mags followed by Linda Mitchell. >>Good evening, council members and staff and those of you in the audience. I'm John I represent the Civil Air Patrol based here in Redding. The reason I'm here is we are starting the masterplan review for the reading airport. And we just wanted to introduce ourselves. We've only been in reading since mid 1980s. And at the residence at the airports and it's for 22 years and we're kind of unknowns apparently. We're the volunteer auxilary of the United States Air Force volunteers the key word. There are separate funding sources from the US Air Force and from our volunteer Civil Air Patrol Incorporated. And a lot of it's on our own membership. We have used in adult programs, cadet programs, emergency services in our own Nisha of aerial search, and other FEMA and state related assistance, and aeronautical engineering education to within ourselves within the aviation community. And we also sponsor STEM programs for teachers in public schools. Why we're at the meeting, is that under the initial draft, and the master plan, we noticed and why we're here is that we're misidentified on the airport properties and other volunteer organization, which we made pointed out to folks already. And then I noticed that in the also on there, and we'll address it to the master plan is the paving on our city lease ground is not even considered city paving. So we need to correct some of those things. The other item is over the years. My previous life I was with CalFire at the air attack base, and I participated in masterplan reviews, which included exactly what's being done concept of putting all commercial on one side, but in all general aviation on the other, which is one of the options. I just want to point out that we are a stakeholder at the airport. And we currently have a 2000 square foot building with parking for vehicles and airplanes. In our properties used for meetings, trainings, emergency operations, radio communications, other aviation groups use the property Red Cross stores vehicles on the property. We even have two airplanes belonging to the Northern California veterans museum waiting someday to be transported over to the Zoom site. Is that a Bing Bong? >>30 seconds. >>Okay, so we're at the airport if the airport improvements involve us moving we just want the consideration to understand that we have operations way beyond a club meeting room. We actually provide services to the state outside the state with FEMA, Cal OES and a bunch of other folks that were part of the emergency program. So thank you for your time. >>Thank you Mr. White. Next is Nancy mags, followed by Linda Mitchell, followed by Alex Maliki. >>Good evening. My name is Nancy moss. I'm also here on behalf of the Civil Air Patrol, Shasta composite Squadron 126. We meet at the airport behind FedEx. So Captain watt just covered most of our concerns. But I would like to address the issue of the increase in the rates of reading utilities. The water bill and electric bill is almost more than we can pay every month. Average is about $300 a month for our small little place where we where we run a sink and toilet and turn on the lights once a week. So I am against raising the rates. Thank you. >>Thank you. Linda Mitchell, followed by Alex Maliki followed by Nick Gardner. >>Hello, my name is Linda Mitchell. I'm here this evening representing the Center for Spiritual Living in reading. If you don't know us, we've been a part of a thriving congregation in writing for over 50 years. We're part of the interfaith community have participated in the Friday hope fan, choose for souls and many other community outreach programs. Our location on Hart no includes a large Sanctuary, a children's cottage meditation pavilion and a beautiful labyrinth, all built and maintained by congregants. Our property which is set back from the main road borders on the city property with Greek with a creek and a wooded area. In recent years, the lope location has become popular for homeless camps, as well as foot traffic through the CSL grounds and cars conducting drug deals from the parking lot. In addition to camping in the wooded area, Trespasser, the trespassers camp on our grounds, including the deck of the children's cottage, sanctuary, Park walkways and the meditation pavilion. drug paraphernalia requires daily cleanup, vandalism of Water and Power resources are prevalent. In fact, our greatest expense has become the repair of vandalism. We have spent 1000s of dollars to repair damages and increased security including protecting power and water resources and increased signage is recommended by the Redding police department. Our leadership is actively engaged in partnership with the Redding police to report crimes and trespassing. The response from the Redding police has been gratifying and we really thank them. A safety committee instructs teachers and others about best practices to help congregants and families to feel safe grounds must be checked daily, especially when there are children present. And there has been at least one life threatening incident. A recent fire in the encampment required multiple fire trucks and created a serious threat to our facilities. Our approach has been to lead with love that with necessary boundaries for the safety and wellbeing of both our congregants and the homeless and for the safety and protection of our property. And this is becoming a bigger issue than we can do alone. increased support for available services is necessary for the homeless. Now, this includes transitional housing, mental health and programs to address substance abuse. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. The county and city needs increased funding and services and resources to address the situation should not be the problem of just businesses and individuals to resolve. This is a growing problem and requires action and support from the entire community in suit including city government. Thank you. >>Thank you. Alex Maliki followed by Nick Gardner. >>Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I talked about dinosaur fish. And I know last time had to do with the water, not just the gravel. The fishing, what we do up here, which is basically we just live fishing, driving camping. We seem to have a major problem with helping the homeless, but they're not helping us to help themselves.But it's a big deal in this county. How we get around transportation. And right now the problem is sidewalks. What was that side walks unless you're medical, no bicycles. None of those little carts zooming up and down. None of those shopping carts just walking. Or if you have a medical problem? Well, it seems that the rights of the citizen do outweigh the privileges of driving and transportation. And I was hoping that the city and the county could look over how to get rid of the driving on the sidewalk.It'd be a big deal. But the rights versus privileges that means getting to the store not being jammed having somebody race up behind you and whack Yeah. Not only for the homeless, it's for us as people. It's a side walk. Thank you. >>Thank you. Nick Gardner. And I had one request for Nancy mags if you could leave your phone number with the clerk Mr.Mezzano wants you to get in touch with you. Just write on another blue card and bring it up to her whenever you get a chance. Thank you. Go ahead, Nick. >>Nine years ago, Christian Schrader ran on a platform that she was going to attack the homeless problem. Yeah, no, we spent millions upon millions of dollars, city and county. They had the home home key project, the room key where they're renting all these motels for homeless people. The Continuum of Care is just money after money after money and nothing's getting better. We need to try something new. Now, the city of Redding got an $8.4 million encampment grant, and they are going to spend it the key items are a shelter, a de Resource Center assistance with RPT CERT team, and other items that support these things. It seems to me that we're throwing good money after bad because nothing's getting better. We need to try something different. On top of that, it's attracting vagrants and parolees. I remember Annie Lewis witnessed a bus off of Eureka away in the middle of the night dropping off a busload. 35 4050 people, homeless people from San Francisco, each one receive $50 and directions to where they can get services. And they all disappeared, and evidently nobody could track her down. I talked to a fellow last week, and he witnessed within the last couple of weeks, a white bus with no license plate stopped down by Ace Hardware down there, south to town on to 73 and drop off 50 to 55 people. He went over and talked to two of them. And they just been released from San Quentin, and they were dropped up here. They were all ex cons being dumped off in our community. Now you might think that secondhand information, but if you want to talk to the guy, it's Jason Miller, he owns lucky Miller's over there over here across the street, go have a sandwich and talk to Jason he witnessed this. The solution I have is I believe that the city should talk to the county and build a homeless camp down off a burr lights are down here south of town where the garden was, and at least build a camp to where the people that want help and will receive help have a place to go and they can get it you could put dumpsters in their portable bathrooms and wash stations and the rest of them you can just keep moving them around till they get so damned uncomfortable. They don't want to live in our community anymore. Thank you. >>Thank you. Next is item for the consent calendar. The consent calendar contains items considered routine and or which have been individually scrutinized by council members and are anticipated to require no further deliberation. If a member of the public wishes to address an item on a consent calendar, please fill out a speaker request form and submitted to the city clerk before the calendar is considered shall be the prerogative of any council member before the council consent calendar is acted upon to comment on an item to respond to any public comment on an item to request the record reflect an abstention or nay vote on an item or to remove an item and place it on the regular portion of the agenda for delivery of a staff report and or an extended discussion or deliberation. Do we have any public comment on the consent calendar? Oh, just let's take that first. Jim Bremer. 4.2 A. Oh, you're gonna pull it. Mr. Bremer. Mr. Mezzano wants to pull that item we'll have it on the regular calendar. You can make your comment now if you'd like or you can wait around a little bit it might be a little bit cuz I think it's after the rodeo item. Yeah, you can tell right now. >>First, I'm gonna apologize if I'm Jeff understands. I had tongue cancer surgery a few years ago and radiation so my speech is not very good. My name is Jim Bremer. I'm a lifelong writing resident. I'm also a private pilot on a partnership that has two airplanes, one at writing, regional, and batten. I've clicked this reef. I'm also president of Chapter EAA experimental aircraft Association. We do events like young eagles where we see kids flying for free. For 34 years. We also put on the Father's Day advanced ads that and working with not just chapter 90 nines and the FBO operator as to time. I just think that regarding item 4.28, there was a some surplus money from land sale, how thatRGG. And I think that money should go towards Denton improvements there, and I've clicked there almost at aircraft, basic Benton. And since there's no thrill there last year and a half, it's been difficult. Those, most of those hangers are owned by the city and rented the rental incomes over $10,000 a month. And yet we don't see those services furnished with that amount of income to the city. So your rating gets all the attention, but bigger airlines, they have big businesses and things like that. But Denton is also a viable airport in many, many ways. And there are a lot of risks there who support the airport next week. So with that, hank you. >>Thank you, Mr. Bremer. We have any council members that want to take items off calendar or hold for discussion went 4.2 A off right. So that becomes 9.2. A? Any other council members have any comments? I have one I'm going to be voting no on item 4.2 C, it has to do with some funds that are allocated to South City Park. I thought it was a waste of time and money to do the thing to begin with. And I still think it is. Other than that. Do I have a motion to approve the consent calendar? I have a motion. I have a second? >>I'll second. >> I have a motion in a second. All in favor? >>AYE. >>Passes unanimously with the one notation I noted. Item 6. 6.1 is Public Works public hearing to consider adopting three resolutions regarding implementing increased water wastewater and solid waste utility rates. >>Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members, the council? >> one question, is this your last presentation? Were you going to ask to raise rates >>say yeah, for as my last act here is public works director of your works director, unfortunately, gonna do something that I don't think you want to do. I don't want to do and I'm sure nobody in the audience wants to do but we something important that I think we need to consider. And with that, I will jump into proposed rate updates for the next four years. I gave a pretty detailed presentation on September 5, regarding the need for rates and some of the issues that we're dealing with with the utilities. So I'll keep it a bit more brief tonight. There's a lot of process involved tonight, where we are but at that meeting you set the public hearing for tonight. And we will roll in and get going here. So first, I want to give a little bit of information about the process.Going into this study, we have done over the last couple of years finished master plans for our water utility for the wastewater utility and did a facilities plan for the solid waste utility. So we spent a lot of time and effort where we analyze the utilities, the needs the capacity, the projects, develop plans for moving forward as the city continues to grow and develop financial plans, capital plans so that we can really manage our utilities in the proper way with that came utility financial plans and with that, developing the need for how we're going to pay for these things that that are coming up here in the future. The second thing we did after, after the utility planning was really in the first part of this process was to hire a consultant to help us with what's called a cost of service analysis. So they're an independent company comes in, takes a look at our books, looks at what we have planned. It looks at how we develop rates, how we develop revenues for the utilities, and make sure that we are acting according to law that we are spending the money appropriately, forecasting appropriately and helping us develop new rates moving into the future. They developed some draft rate models. After we hired them and got some information from them, we gathered together what we call an advisory group. So the six member panel that came from members of the community, we had folks representing the United Way, and some of our lower income folks, we had engineers, we had some financial people, we had a business owner, restaurant owner, folks that are repaying those. And we really spent a lot of detail going over the utilities going over our plans, how rates are developed in the state some of the legal requirements, and some of the challenges that we were having to debate in that sense. With that we advertised for an open house on August 31, once we had most of their inputs to kind of develop to and show the community, what we were planning to do what the needs are, and provide some information. With that we posted information on the website, we sent out some news information and some social media posts to advertise for that. As I mentioned, on September 5, we give a pretty detailed Council presentation about what the proposed rates are. And unfortunately, this year, it's more than we would typically like in terms of inflationary, we're usually in the three to 4%. But in a couple of these utilities, we have some pretty big hurdles that we got to get through. And I'll talk a little bit more about those later. So on the solid waste utility, the average monthly bill is looking at potentially 15% increase in the first year, and in others the next for water, six and a half percent overall. But because of the drought conditions and the conservation that's going on, we have less water that is actually being utilized. But we still have fixed costs. So you're dividing it by a less increase or less amount of people and water consumed. And so those costs then get translated into a bigger rate there. And then wastewater 5%. I mentioned the setting the public hearing for tonight and approve what's called the protest notice. And so we have to so to back up a little bit to property related fees. So these fees are based on parcels. And prop 218 requires that that you cannot tax your community without a vote of the electorate. However, they provide an exception for sewer, water and solid waste. And these are set by what's called a majority protest process. So each individual property owner gets a protest notice. And they're able to say whether or not they want increases. Most people don't. I'm sure most people in the audience don't. However, that's the way the process goes. And so we then collect those and if at the end of tonight, there is what's called a majority process, or 50% of the property owners plus one, say that they don't want rate increases, then the council's hands are tied, and we can't do anything, we have to go back regroup and take a look at what we're going to do moving forward. If there is no majority protest, then the council has the option to act. We sent out nearly 52,000 of these notices not just to property owners, but we would actually be on the law and in send them to property owners and tenants. So not just the folks that were supposed to. And we did it separately from the utility bill because a lot of times you get utility bills with other information in them. And sometimes that gets discarded without people really paying attention. So we want to make sure that we notice them. And it's separately so they can see where that was. Since then we have again posted all of our information, our cost of service study our our staff reports, all the information that went into this the the master plans, we posted on the website, again did social media posts, and we've done three or four different media interviews with the record searchlight with QRC, our action news that have noticed these things. So we have tried to spread the word as much as we can. So real quickly, though, I wanted to go over again, gave a more detailed presentation before but just some some of the key factors that are really going into this. First off is there's been a significant inflation pressure over the last couple of years. Everybody feels like our cost of gas cost of food. So for the utilities, it's the cost of chemicals, the equipment, the fleet, all those things have gone up exponentially. If you can even get a lot of those services. The labor market has gone up. So there's been significant inflationary pressures that are beyond just what we have normally seen over the past couple of decades. The other big piece that I talked about quite a bit and the council has heard me over and over is the aging infrastructure. We have utility pipes that have been in The ground since the late 20s, you know, 7580 years old. On some of our infrastructure, we've got a pump station that's been in, since 1935, that that provides the water to two thirds of the community. Those are all aging infrastructure. And that has been deferred and deferred and it's coming due, we're having a lot of issues with breaks with sanitary sewer overflows, those are very costly. Not only are they disruptive in the time, but they're also costly in terms of they beat up the pavements, we've had claims of adjacent homeowners we do flooding, and also the water quality impacts too, if we're having a sewer overflow, or if our equipments not working correctly, and we have violations of discharges in the river. That's a water quality impact. On the solid waste side, a big part of this sort of push right now to is some of the growth, we've got a lot of new residential subdivisions over 1000 new homes that have gone in over the last five years. And we've sort of gotten to the brink of where it hey, we just can't get by with the routes that we have, we have to add each route in we our facilities are needing to be expanded our composting area, our call our floor out of the transfer station that handles the garbage and the recycles that go in there, out of space there, we have significant growth improvements that we're just pushing over. And then finally, regulatory. That is a big push right now, there's a lot of regulatory impacts that we're having to deal with something called SB 1385. That says that we can't take any organic material to the landfill, that affects not only our solid waste, in that we can't take food waste out there or green material and those types of things. But also wastewater, we can't take our biosolids out there. And so that's having to invest in significant technology so that we can make sure that we're not doing that as well. A lot of water conservation legislation is coming out there, which which means forced conservation, which means less consumption and less revenue and cost recovery for those utilities, and then having to continually move towards more contaminants, P Foss and other things like that, that we have to monitor for and potentially treat. So starting with the solid waste utility, what we're looking at here in the first year, the current, most people have a 96 gallon container. So that's you get all three, you get your gray cards, which is your your waste your green card for leaves in sticks, and gonna be food here pretty soon. And then also your recyclables. And so current rates, there are about $28.38 A month or 30 cents a month, we're proposing that goes up in the first year to $32.59, and then actually all the way up to 40. By the time you get to 2027 with the approach rates out there. One thing that you can do, and we're trying to tell people through this process is that you can mitigate some of expense by dropping down to a 64 gallon guard. So if you look at that, if you drop down to a 64, that's $28.34 in the first year. And, and I think as we get into some of that's part of that is is by choice. Again, with these regulations, we have to minimize our waste. And so recycling more or putting the food waste into the green cart, that's going to have to happen here pretty soon. And so that's that's the reason that we think we maybe can move towards towards a smaller cart, and mitigate some of those costs. On the commercial side, those are based on number of lists volumes that containers how many times a week. And so they kind of vary. Again, we went through a big cost to rate cost of service study, we looked at how those costs are broken out, arm pulls on each different type, whether you're a front load or a side load or a rear load compactors roll off containers, looking at all those they have different rates, there's a table in your, in your staff report on all those types of different rates, but they they're looking at going up anywhere between 11 and 13%, depending on the type and the number. And that first year when then we have a proposed new rate. So I mentioned SP 1383 They are no longer gonna allow us taking food waste out to the landfill. And the rationale is that food waste or organic waste breaks down creates methane, methane is a greenhouse gas and that's leading to some of the climate change issues that we're having. So the state is really cracking down on that and forcing compliance. And so one of the things that we're gonna have to start doing is collecting food waste. And for the commercial side on the on the residential side, they'll simply put it in their green container, no extra charge. On the commercial side though, we have to have a separate container particularly for places like restaurants or grocery stores or other places that create larger amounts of food and, and so this is a whole new rate schedule that we're looking at in terms of The size of the cards and the number of pickups per week, ranging from $29.91 for 145 gallon cart all the way up to 1800 bucks if you want and six poles each month on a two yard container. That's a lot. I don't think we'll ever see anybody getting to that amount. But but it's, it's expensive. Yes. Oh, I apologize. So looking at some of the revenue requirements, bottom line is, is on the solid waste side. So this first chart in the green is showing you what the cat days cash on hand is going to be available per year. In our projections as we're going forward, we we are doing actually pretty well with our reserves right now. But we have two pretty large capital improvements that are going in over the next couple of years $3 million, and it's going to reduce that rate. And then we also have, we had to hire several new employees for these new routes that we have going in. So we're going to be outspending what our current revenues without a projection would be in the next couple of years. And so that will really bring down our our cash on hand, we try to keep 90 days as a reserve in that utility. And so that's what that blue line is. And the line on the right is, is what the revenue needs or cost recovery needs are over the next 10 years. The black line that's relatively flat, that's what we'd be getting if we didn't raise any rates. And all those bars that are above that black line are costs that we would not be able to afford at current rates. And so the dashed line is what the increase in revenue would be, if we go with the recommended rates. On the wastewater side, and that's moving from our current rate to for a single family residences is about $64.17, or pros and that goes up to $67.38 in the first year, and then up all the way through by 2027 $76 a month. That's a resident that's not based on any usage that says a particular residence, the commercial is based on on a housing equivalent, so how much they're producing relative to what a single family home would be. And that's actually based on water consumption and use, as in water in water out. And it also depends on whether you have significant waste, like food waste, and food prep facilities are more expensive to treat. And, and those rates are much higher based on their their, what we call revenue requirements on this one, again, same sort of chart to the bar charts there on the left. black line is if if we didn't raise rates, and the blue dashed is what we need to get to. And really what's big on taking on water, wastewater are the needs of the capital infrastructure in that pipe replacement. Again, on the days cash on hand, we actually just didn't show this this year, but it's even higher year. And it's going to go down, we actually have almost $20 million in active construction going on right now in just the wastewater utility. So we have significant needs there out in the out years, we'll we'll be above that chart. But we have again, big plan for ones there. And you can see here as our capital is proposed capital expenditures that $33 million in this year, and then what it ramps to as we move forward and and what what I don't show and what I showed you last time is out into the later years, you know, a decade from now when we have a lot of that 7060 year old pipe that's going to become 70 and 80 year old pipe that's really past its age and really needs to be replaced. On the water utility, this is billed in two different ways. First is just a basic meter charge and that pays for the fixtures. So before you get a drop of water, your house, there's a distribution system, a plant that's got to be maintained, there are pump stations that have to be maintained all that just to get water to you. And then once you get a drop of water, we currently charge about $1.59 per 100 cubic feet. So moving into the first year, again, I mentioned that a six and a half percent increase overall. But if you look at this chart, your numbers really are 12 and 18%. To get that same same cost recovery. So for a single family residence going from $24.92 up to 2792. So $3 there, and then the commodity, right so for every 100 cubic feet that you use, it's a it's an up to $1.88. And the average customer really, you know, it depends obviously by time of year but it's more on the maybe 1600 1700 cubic feet per per month and again, people can look at conservation, conserving water consumption and potentially be able to lower their bill or at least get it back to close for what it is today by using less water, same type of chart here, put your attention a little bit to the to the green bar chart. And that's there is a significant, healthy reserve in our water utility right now, because we're just about ready to embark on a $40 million project to replace the past one, as I mentioned before, we've got in both water and wastewater, we have about $100 million each in capital improvements to build in the next five years. Water, we've been holding a significant reserve in order to pay for this pump station. And so that will happen over the next four years. And that's why you see that day's cash on hand will will significantly reduce as we're moving forward. There's, again, the capital improvements, you know, 3024 28 $27 million a year, I will temper down a little bit and then again, pick back up and what you don't see out of the out years is that number keeps rising out in the out years as time goes on, and expenses increase. So for combined utilities, this is roughly what a residential customer will see if they have a 96 gallon cart. And if they're using 2100 cubic feet of water per month, and again, I think that's on the high side. But just for comparison's sake. And last time, on September 5, I kind of give you every, every utility kind of broke it out into these charts, but this is just the combined rate here for tonight. So the proposal will increase the bill from about $150 $151 to about 167 per month. This is a comparison some of our partner agencies here in Northern California. And what you don't see on some of these is, is we got ahead of the curve a little bit on particularly on the wastewater in terms of doing a lot of improvements to our plants and some of these municipalities have not sort of got there and plan to here shortly and so we still are below average here. But you know, wish we were a little better on this. And this is 10 cities. So Roseville Fairfield Tracy Folsom, Vacaville Lodi Davis, these are areas that we often compare ourselves to in terms of personnel and size, you know, what, what we don't see in a lot of these. And again, what I talked to the council a lot about is how big a community we are, we're 60 square miles compared to Chico and so we have that many more miles of pipeline that many more roads to maintain that many a bigger spread out, already tried to collect garbage, police fire beats all those types of things very difficult. And a lot of this is based on population. And we have, you know, roughly the same populations that Chico and so it's very difficult to maintain these. Um, so when we're compared to, to the 10 cities, we're going from relatively low to, you know, getting closer to average, but still well below average by, you know, close to $30 a month. And this chart here is to, to take a look at where this combined utility rates have gone, you know, since 2015, up until now, and then the, the blue line in the middle is what that cost is as a percentage of household income, particularly on low household income. So that's 80% of median. So back in 2015, we're about three little over 3%. There, today, we're down to 2.69%. With these increases, we would be up to 2.99%. Based on 2023 numbers, we haven't received the 2024 numbers. So I'm not sure what that would be. But undoubtedly, it will be more than it is this year. And so that number will will come down some but just trying to give an idea of where we're trying to be on terms of household income. And again, this is data we got from HUD and this is 80% of median income for households of a family of four in this city. So I want to go through a few of the impacts. Obviously, this is a choice by the council and and we can choose to to defer down the road a little bit but wanted to talk a little bit about some of the impacts that that could be happening if that's the case. Kind of the key takeaways there. You know, if we weren't able to get the revenues that we need, we'd have to do a few things in solid waste, reduce surrency free service and frequency maybe not once every week, we have to get rid of household hazardous waste potentially, programs that aren't necessarily required but keep our city clean. Some of the program work efforts that we do with our police enforcement and some of the homeless camp, encampment cleanups, safety and risk to our folks that are out there working and potential regulatory action. On the on the water and wastewater side. It's mostly around Capitol work and that is if we don't replace this infrastructure, we're going to have breaks we're have overflows. That's safety risk for not only that To our workers, but the community regulatory impacts could affect bond ratings, borrowing capacity, those types of things. So a lot of things that that could happen. And I'm not trying to be a scare tactic, but that these certainly are things that are on the horizon. This is just to give the council some perspective, if, if you were wanting to defer, say just even a year on what this proposal would be, you know, this is to the water utility you're seeing over a 10 year period, that would be about $27 million total less in revenue that it would be available or have had been available, if you just deferred for a year. On the wastewater side, it's about 22 million and for solid waste about 15 and a half million. This chart tries to show if you did, if you wanted to do something less than what was being recommended, so say 5% on the water utility versus the six and a half percent. Again, you're pretty close to 22 and a half million dollars over that 10 year that you would not have received had you not just because of the compounding effect, wastewater, we're talking about 5% there anyway, so So no change, but on solid waste, actually, going from a 15 down to a five will be almost a $48 million hit over a 10 year period. These are just some of the things that have happened over the probably last five years, I would say maybe five years plus of some of this is a main break that happened at Shasta B Noelia Magnolia, we flooded out some apartments, had to relocate some folks for quite a while and had significant claims out there. Our raw water line broke that goes from the pump station up to our treatment plant out on Shasta high. So this is flooding of of Shasta high area up in and around there. Fortunately, there were no kids at the time that were hurt. But pipeline that just completely split in half there because of because of agent failure. Lake Boulevard not too long ago. And again, as I mentioned, once these things break too not only do they impact the utility itself and and disruptions to folks in the area, but it does significant damage to our roadways, which are already again falling behind in terms of their maintenance and not easy to keep maintaining. This was a sewer line going down Jinny creek just into the river that again, had some pitted out and corroded pipe that eventually started spilling out into Ginny Creek, we've got since got that repaired. And another couple of utility line breaks again, that one in the upper left showing how much it can damage the roadway. And on the right there some of the damage that can happen when that water line breaks and the pressure that it's under. And one thing I also wanted to let the council know is is it is a lot of money. There's a lot of capital work to be done. But that also on on the positive side means means jobs in our community. And those are all projects that go out to public bid, mostly received by local contractors paying prevailing wage. And so as I mentioned, just in water and wastewater alone over the next five years, we have about $225 million with a capital improvements to do that would equate to by the US government or is it the infrastructure law plan their their projections, that'd be about 815 jobs annually, well paying jobs annually that would invest in our community cycle that money back through and economic confusion into the community when we may be potentially looking at recessionary times. So that's one added benefit, I guess, when I'm talking a lot of things that people don't want to do. So tonight, getting back to process, we're asking the council to open and conclude a public hearing receive that testimony. And as I mentioned, if if there's a potential majority protests, I think the clerk will will kind of take it over from there, see where we are in terms of that number. And if it's, if it's doesn't look like it's close. So then I think the council could act tonight. But if it looks like it's close, and they have to tabulate it to set a time and date to do that tabulation and come back and have the vote after that. If there is it looks like there's no majority protests and the council can act, adopt the resolutions that have attached to the staff report that would set those new rates over four year plan. And again, those those are rates that would be the maximum over four years and that can be revisited by the council in any given year if projections are different. The Council could also direct alternative rates and or not approve the rate increase in provide other direction. So that is what I have for you tonight. I'm happy to answer any questions and I've got a great staff that I've worked with. Paul Clemens in and Ryan Bailey and others in the staff that have really helped me put a lot of this information together and really know the detail of the program. So any questions? >>Have a public hearing. Before we do that we have questions from council members. I just had a couple of questions, Miss Winter? >>In evaluation looking because you've worked with our Citizens Committee? Do you believe that they got the right information that they came to the right conclusion? Because we are dependent on them. We asked for a broad abroad base from our community to look at the whole process of where the rates fair, did they take care of our capital deeds? Were they equitable across the classes of rights? So I just want to know, if you felt like the process, the consultant did a good job and that the committee had the right information and came to the right conclusion? >>think that committee is key. There's a lot of great dialogue that happened in the you know, they invested a lot of time and I can't say thank you enough to them for listening to everything that we had to provide and try to try to understand some pretty complex issues pretty quickly. And and, and I believe they provided a lot of great impact and community suggestions. And really, I think tried to weigh the impact of their constituents and folks that they might be representing and I think by and large, felt that we were moving in the right direction, and agreed with it. >>My My other question was, I mean, to not do this, if we don't do the rate increases do we have? And perhaps, maybe even Mr. Robinette can speak to this. Do we have other sources of funding? Obviously, these capital repairs have to happen. Like it's kind of like you have a failing roof, you have to fix it because it causes so much damage. So this is stuff that we need to do. What if we don't raise rates? What would be the other source of revenue for us? Are there grants available? Does the State of California kick in like, is there any other source of funding other than our general fund >>so we do actually apply for and receive quite a few grants, probably more on the transportation side, but there are water utility and wastewater utility grants back we have a big one in right now to help us pay for some of the what we call it pyrolysis down at our wastewater treatment plant that's taking that food waste and breaking it down to something called biochar, which is reusable product in the end. And so we're applying for grants. In that sense. We're applying for what called Water Smart grants to help us build new source water wells, things like that. So we are trying to get grant money. But short of that, I think you can, the state does have some low interest loans, which we call SRF. Money State Revolving Fund, that that you can borrow at lower interest. And we actually do intend to do some of that with and then it's built into some of these studies for some of the major capital improvements. But short of >>that are things that we're already doing, and that those are taking into consideration. >>Absolutely. You can't count on a future grant. So that's not built in. So if that's if that happens, then we can do you have less that goes to a particular capital improvement might help us Yeah, with the gas reader, >>does it does dropping our cash reserves. I know in the in REU. It affects our our ability to borrow? >>Yes. >> That would that happen is that affect us too, if I let our cash reserves that we're going to be paying higher interest rate? >>Absolutely. >>Okay, thank you. >>Mr. Mezzano? >>Mr. Hoffman, thank you for an excellent presentation on behalf of all the residents at home watching, don't have the benefit of having your staff report. I'm sure they appreciate your efforts. We have talked long and hard about this project. And I for one, don't like raising rates. And nobody does. But in our discussions that we've had the claims that the 50 save the city faces are in the 10s of 1000s of dollars when we have a broken pipe, am I not correct? >>Can be we have one recent claim for homeowners it was almost $450,000. >> Right just from so that requires some thought. One of the things you didn't touch on but we've talked about the fact that we're refurbishing our trash trucks, aren't we not? >>Absolutely, yeah. >>that's buying a new one. We furbishing the old one. So we're saving some money there. The regulations coming out of Sacramento are making our life miserable. I would gladly pay the reading water rates in comparison to what I'm paying out of Bella Vista. We have invested in our infrastructure, and we are the benefactors of that in this city. Let me ask you this question. This is the Well there's two points here. One, if you pollute that river with a broken pipe, what's that going to cost us in terms of fines? >>Well, it depends on depends on how much you pollute the river and it's got you know, fines are gonna be $10,000 per day per gallon. So it's it can get really expensive. That's usually a negotiated deal. But to we try not to get to that point >>and The $64,000 question What happens if pump house one implodes? >>Well, as I mentioned, that's a that's about two thirds of where we get our water for our residents. Today we we are in decent shape in terms of forefathers and mothers that have planned this system, we do have some groundwater wells out in the east side of town in the south side of town, but nowhere near that would be able to pump that amount of water that we would need to serve the city. So that would be pretty catastrophic. >>So,do you go to water rationing? >> Absolutely. >>Fix it. Thank you, and I appreciate your presentation. >>Okay, I have to declare the public hearing open, I'd probably get a bang this. If you're a property owner or a fee payer and have not already submitted a protest ballot, blank ballots may be obtained from the city clerk. A protest may be made against all or any individual proposed utility rate increase. If you have an ownership interest or RFP payer on one or more parcels, a protest ballot may be submitted for each parcel. Only a ballot submitted to the city clerk prior to the close of the public hearing will be counted as a protest. Only one protest ballot shall be counted per eligible parcel. If you've already submitted a protest ballot, you may withdraw your protest, but only by written notice to the city clerk prior to the close of the public hearing. And I would just state it's an it's because of the state law or the constant state constitution that they do this bass ackwards, we vote negative and you have to have more than 50% of vote negative it ought to be how many vote yes, and how many vote no, as to what it should be. But unfortunately, we don't have that option. I didn't see counsel, we have to follow what the law says. And it's I don't know they've ever had 50% plus one voted no, most people just throw the darn thing away and go, What can I do about it? Anyway? I'm now going to request public comment. If anybody has a ballot or anything they want to do there. Did you fill out a blue speaker request card? And what's your name? Since you raise your hand, I will call you first Tom do so you can walk up there and get three minutes to speak. You bet. you can sit there if you'd like, Is my microphone there. Just make sure there's a green light is on the microphone and you speak close to him so that the person recording this can hear it. >>I don't see one. >>They tell me it's on. >>Can you hear me now? >>Yes. >>perfect. One, two, I've listened to a lot of stuff over this. And my God. You guys are missing one important factor. You haven't even thought about it. What about us elderly folks? We're on fixed incomes, we're poor. And each time you guys make a rate hike, you take more out of our Social Security money that takes more medication off our tables, more food off of our tables. I understand that pg&e is proposing right now to do a rate income thing depends on your income, how much you should have to pay. I'm not a one percenter. If I was, this wouldn't matter to me. But I'm not a one percenter. I'm just a poor man who's trying to keep his, you know, why don't I just give him my social security card and you guys just have fun with it. Go out on a party, rent a boat, do whatever you want with it, because you're just getting it all anyway, I worked hard all my life, pay taxes, save money for my retirement. And now that I'm retired, I'm just getting blood. So one thing you guys haven't taken into consideration, I've listened to a whole lot of I don't even know what you want to call it. But the real fact is your hurtness. And I hope I speak for all the elderly people in this town. When I'm telling you this. My proposal would be that you guys need to look over your rate hike, forget all the graphs and drawings and I'm I could read this verbatim. But I'm not I don't need to. But I'd like you guys to take into consideration of proposal where rates are based on income. That's all I want to it's scary when I have to dip into my savings account. It gets scary. I didn't work on my life to do Do that. Anyway, I'm done. I'm sorry, I apologize. I want to apologize if any, my behavior might have come across as being whatever you want. >>Fortunately, South County Supervisor, you did find Mr. de sel. Thank you, >>Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, can I briefly address it? >>Sure. Go ahead. >>Just for your information. Mr. Tippin and I have actually discussed how we're well aware of seniors and the challenges they have with their pay. We haven't come to any conclusions, but we have discussed it on more than one occasion. And I will continue to bring it up with him as the certificate is brought up to me. So just FYI, we are and we haven't forgotten it, and we are talking about it. >>Okay, next is Greg Washburn followed by Nancy mas, or Moss, follow us followed by Tony thomassie. >>Good evening, Mayor, City Council staff, I'm back again, this is about the fourth time you guys we've done this so far, in a five or four year increments. I agree, the senior citizens don't have a chance here. They get a 3.1 or we get a 3.1 increase on our social security checks, which comes up if you're making $1,000, that's roughly $35. And you're asking them now to produce $15 of that, for the utilities. You know, my belief is basically just put a freeze on anybody that's senior citizen, and go ahead with your other because you know, obviously get it and never, never fails, we'll never get that 50% plus one the way the protest system works. Also, to you guys were mentioning before about all these improvements and things you have to fix. Every month, you guys get $5 million on all these three utilities every month, 5 million. And you guys talking about $10,000 repairs and stuff like that? What do you do with a 5 million each month? I mean, that adds up after a year. But nonetheless, I'm still back to the senior citizens I think it should be for the handicap too. And anybody who's on a fixed income, just put a freeze on it. Go ahead with what you're gonna do now because you're gonna get it anyway regardless. But right up, you know, an amendment to this or some kind of addendum that they can't take it from the seniors. And if they fill out an application, they just freeze it then they do what they want. The rest of them are fix. Were fixed to anyway, he got up. He got up before me. Anyway, thank you. >>Thank you. Nancy mas followed by Tony thomassie. Followed by Steve harasser. Oh, okay. And she doesn't want to talk anymore. Tony thomassie followed by Steve . >>Mayor council members. My name is Tony Tomasi, longtime writing resident recently retired from the water industry. And so my experience include and work on water race studies, I can sympathize with the seniors. I believe that the background on him would show that most seniors are your lowest water users. So I'm here tonight to protest the water rate study. Not for what it does, but what it doesn't do. As big as the seniors water rate study states reach it addressed other utility concerns including water conservation. It also states to reach should encourage water conservation. Yet it falls short of doing that. Approximately 70% of water utilities agencies in the state of California have adopted in use some form of a consumption based rate structure or tiered rates. When properly defined this type of restructure meets all California law and absolutely promotes and encourages water conservation and deters the wasteful use of water. San Juan, San Juan Capistrano was mentioned in your RE study as a reason not to have a consumption based Rachael Ray structured, the San Juan failed to properly define their reasoning. A uniform rate structure or fleet flat rate does nothing to promote water conservation is not encouraged water conservation does does not determine the wasteful use of water unless it includes an additional mechanism. That additional mechanism is a modified consumption base rate structure, you can have a flat rate structure, if you have a mechanism in place that deters the wasteful use of water. For example, in my neighborhood this summer at a resident that for two and a half hours he ran a runner ran a river down his gutter. This morning, when I woke up, drove around the corner, we had good rain yesterday, there must have been six houses in a row that actually watered if a type of restructure was in place to deter that I believe that would mitigate some of those issues. That mechanism that I speak of is a law that was passed in 2016 SPE 14. Now that mechanism, or that law states that a urban water supplier, which there's three of us, three organ water suppliers in North State, are required to have a mechanism in place to deter the wasteful use of water specifically for residential customers. And it's been stated, I believe, at the previous meeting in September that the city is using the water shortage contingency plan to somewhat meet that guideline. However, the water source contingency plan is broad and covers all customers. It does not specifically target residential customers and the way they use water. Thank you. >>Thank you. Steve, Steve parser Harris or sorry? >>About sewer thinking any increase in that? I'm looking at >>hy don't you speak a little closer to the microphone. You can sit down there if you'd like. >>Oh, okay. I'm one of those old disabled, social security people to that are poor. Anyways, I'm dressing this notice that you guys sent out. And as far as the prop 218 requirements. As far as like the layman, people that don't understand your charts and all that stuff. Still, how you arrived at those numbers. It's number two on this says clearly demonstrate the basis on which the rates are calculated. And I haven't seen anything that shows me how they were calculated, I just see kind of an average of what you'd like to get for it. And I'm not against necessarily 100% of everybody. I know how they have to get things built and stuff. But a lot of these things aren't our problem like the homeless picking up their trash? Well, I've offered that solution many times before with a program I developed a life shop. And I offered it up to you guys and nobody called me on it. I was two years ago. So anyways, that's not our responsibility necessarily be picking that up. That's the ramification. Of course, you guys aren't following helping anybody's taking care of this situation you're allowing people dumped here, like I'm hearing that it's not right, that we all penalized for that. So but I don't see any clear basis of this rake calcs at all to be done at all on any of the charts that he shows. I see a requirement that he wants to get that but how do you calculate it? Clearly, I don't see anything. Is there a formula? Does it go by? Do we all get to see that because I always have his charts in my paper that says what they want and it doesn't explain it in a calculation how they arrived at that number as far as what I've got. So that's my only concern is how is he coming to this conclusion anyways, other than Yeah, everything's going up. I understand that I'm, I can't I can't even eat now because hardly like I haven't eaten all day, because I can't afford to. Because the rates I'm paying utilities to these people, and so much and they are water in and water out. That's a joke. I use less water than I even put out by three times that I use very much little water. I conserve water like you wouldn't believe. Same with my electricity which I have solar for which I get robbed on that. And I have proof. So, you know I'm contending with all these different things. And you know, I don't see any reason to increase anything right now because I don't see a calculation or bases, you know, that you're calculated on. It should have something to the layman that they'd understand, like a formula, you know, mathematically how you came up with that. I don't see it. So I'm concerned that we're just, you know, being railroaded into another rate hike because you want to do all this stuff. You know, you got grants and everything. Why don't you ask Biden for money? He's given it out to the whole country, all these other people all the time? No, I mean, that's our tax dollars. Why don't you ask him for some. >>Thank you, Mr. Harris. Have a good day. >>Public Hearing is closed the time for submittal of protest ballots has ended. I want to ask the city clerk if tabulation of the ballots is complete or should be trailed to a later time. The clerk says it's complete. >>I'll make my statement. In compliance with the city of Redding procedures for conducting protest hearings for proposed new or increased property related fees and charges set forth in resolution number 2019 Dash 093. The City Clerk's Office has number one, publish the notice of public hearing in the newspaper once per week for two weeks. Number two certified by affidavit the proper mailing of notices, and protests ballots. Number three performed a cursory review of the protest ballots, which demonstrated that the number received is less than one half of the parcels that wo