[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] the 3:30 p.m. meeting of the Bakersfield City Council is now in session good afternoon it's my pleasure to call to order the 3:30 regular city council meeting of February 28th 2024 Madam clerk please call the role mayor go here vice mayor Gonzalez council member Arius I am here council member we council member Smith I'm here council member Freeman here council member gray here and council member core thank you welcome to all of you uh it looks like we might have some students do we have any students from CSU B just wave your hand thank you for being here uh Bakersville College all right thank you road runners and renegades appreciate it and any other schools represented thank you for being here in keeping with the council's resolution the public statements portion is now divided into two periods there's a period for items listed on the meeting agenda and items not on the meeting agenda statements for items listed on this afternoon's agenda are given a 2-minute time limit 20 minutes total per agenda item statements regarding items not listed on the agenda are also given a 2-minute time limit 20 minutes total if you have written comments that are longer than your verbal statement give them to the city clerk who will give copies to the council if you're here to make a public statement please fill out a public speaker card and give your completed card to the city clerk we ask that you mark whether you're here to speak on an item listed on the afternoon agenda or a matter not on the agenda speakers who do not identify specific agenda items item will be presumed speakers for the non-agenda portion those speakers will be called during the non-agenda portion of the meeting Madame clerk do we have any public speakers regarding items listed on this afternoon's agenda mayor go we have received um two speaker cards for tonight's agenda regarding item 3B thank you we have the cards please and go ahead and call the speakers please um first speaker is Sandra Placencia welcome please introduce yourself hi uh my name is uh Sandra Placencia and I'm a CRI policy Advocate with Leadership Council um so uh thank you so much for the opportunity to speak tonight um I am here here um want to thank the city for working with us um for you know finally giving funds for the eviction prevention program um I know it took a long time so we are very grateful I am here as a representative of the Coalition um the right to council Coalition um to thank the city for this um but second we do want to highlight that um $1 million in arpa funding have been set aside for rental assistance and we just kind of wanted to highlight um one that this is amazing so thank you so much to the city for actually doing this right right um rental assistance is really needed but two um you know when when folks apply for rental assistance they ask for a 3-day notice or proof that they're going to be evicted the eviction process actually lasts 3 to 4 weeks so by the time that the funds are actually out folks are sometimes already on the streets right so we are asking for the removal of the 3-day notice um requirement um additionally I did want to state that um we were asking for more funding for the eviction prevention program right originally 350,000 was given out um we do not believe that is enough right we submitted a letter earlier today to all of y'all um where we're highlighting that in Fresno their eviction prevention program gets at least $2 million yearly right and that is just for the program itself that program has been incredibly successful helping over 400 families right so we stress the need to ensure that Baker gold is adequately funding this program to ensure that um folks are housed right and that we're being proactive when we're keeping folks to so thank you so much and we hope to work with you all in the future thank you thank you next speaker please Veronica I'm sorry where is this council member arus where is this thank you mayor um thank you to the patients from our for her um from the public as well we are um probably into our second meeting into the transition of this new technological system so appreciate your patience uh thank you Miss placenia for your comments uh really appreciate your your handin partnership and really putting together the right to counsel effort I just wanted to give our city manager an opportunity to maybe talk about and shed some light on where we are with the deployment of that initial allocation for right to council yeah thank you council member Arias and mayor and Council uh for the eviction Protection Program specifically we have completed an RFP process and we are nearing award that will come to council for approval of a contract for that $350,000 so the program has not yet been implemented okay great thank you so much glad to hear that we're moving forward with the RFP and uh we should be able to allocate that award I just want to make a comment that both of these items are necessary right we do need ongoing funding for right to counsel uh I think it's important that uh we're not only providing that legal support to those tenants who are facing eviction uh wrongfully but there's also an important education component to all of this um that those individuals would be able to help support those tenants who are going through a rough time um so I just want to go on record that I'm a huge fan of this program looking forward to it getting uh started um and it is my hope that we'll be able to find ongoing funding to support that I also wanted to ask um uh city manager CLE if the three-day notice is this true that they do need a three-day notice in order to qualify for for that funding uh council member I have to admit that I don't know the answer to that question we'll have to follow up with Council okay great yeah if we could take a look at that I think that um you know a simple Ledger that demonstrates that folks are in fact behind on rent should suffice and if that is the way that it's codified in that contract I would like for us to look into amending that thank you thank you next speaker please hi my name is Veronica um I'm from work six uh I wanted to ask for the same thing I know it's very hard to allocate funding for any program because everything is needed and nothing is actually um we don't there's not enough funding for all the things that are needed but um the right to council it's a very easy uh well not it's not a very easy program but it's um uh in my opinion it's a very simple uh program where it's going to prevent people from needing assistance and other programs because it's going to keep people housed and it's cheaper to keep people housed than to find housing for people uh it's going to ensure that the landlords are protected just as much as the tenants and it's going to um further have a positive impact on the economy in Bakersfield that's it thank you Mr Ramirez next speaker please Wendell Wesley good evening mayor city council and U City management um yeah the right to council is uh very essential and um we want to thank you for what we've been granted it already um I just want to also emphasize that um a lot of things are connected you know we've seen a huge intake in the homeless population and on occasion I believe uh most landlords are good but there are some out there that are not so good and they're going to add to the homeless situation by evicting individuals wrongfully so it's very vital that people have this representation for this Council and that's one of the many reason everything is connected you know one so we don't put any people people on the street that don't belong on the street and being accused of something they didn't do you know so um I appreciate what's done so far and um I hope in the future we can meet our goal of U uh a million dollars for right to council house the city grows thank you thank you Mr Wesley Madam clerk do we have any speakers regarding items not listed on this afternoon's agenda Maro we have three speakers um first speaker is Michael turnips followed by Kevin Moreno and then noi Garcia as Mr turnips is coming up I'm just going to te check the technology we have some new technology council member arus would you press your request to speak please okay it's working now so City CLE you can clear that welcome Mr turn up seat thank you madam may members of council first one I like to talk about is a proposed zoning ordinance parking modifications which will be on tonight's agenda so I put it off agenda today uh specifically no parking required or multif units in the suburbs is Not Practical suburbs are car Centric public transit is poorly developed in the suburbs suburbs multi family residents rely on cars for their mobility and there are few alternatives to on-site parking in the suburbs and there's a lot of sprawl so there's a lot of distance it's not as compact it's not downtown and you have to remember a great number of Baker seal residents have to commute to work they work in the prisons they work in the oil fields they work they drive to La they go over to the east side to work they need their cars and they have to have a place to park them the next thing I'd like to do is uh thank Mr CLE and Gary Howen they had a meeting couple weeks ago with members of the uh real estate and development Community to discuss permitting streamlining and more efficient things I think uh current tax was represented at that meeting by Barry Hibbard um I think there's some very positive conversations and I'd like to thank the city manager and Mr Howen for taking it seriously thank you Mr CHC next speaker please Kevin Moreno welcome please introduce yourself hello Council uh my name is Kevin Reno I'm also here to show support for the tenants right to Council in Bakersfield I was not aware that it was an agenda item uh I believe that we should allow our tenants resources such as attorneys and legal counsel when dealing with eviction and any other housing issue because to start my family has been renting here my whole life we've faced eviction we faced rent hikes we faced landlord negligence and I know we're not alone it's a common complaint that landlords refuse to repair or maintain Properties or hear of people living in overcrowded conditions to make rent uh we saw that the current County Superior Court report a number well over 6,000 filed evictions from January 20120 to March 2023 with approximately half going unresponded by the tenant from my personal knowledge these people wouldn't respond du to their lack of knowledge of our legal system or their lack of resources to attain these lawyers for my case it was both with my family especially for our undocumented population where we're unable to receive free legal assistance in our city uh so it would be amazing to address some of our root causes of our community's issues with housing and the unhoused with this implement this implementation of these systems and I can say with confidence that uh that a competent right to counsil system would benefit the city we've seen in Fresno where in 2022 hundreds of people their situations helped with the right to counsel so please establish a right to counsel for Bakersfield penants because housing is a human right and it would be this City's job to protect that especially for this community thank you thank you Mr Moreno next speaker please noi Garcia welcome please introduce yourself good afternoon Council my name is no Garcia uh I want to thank you all for your support for the right Council program and the funding and councilman Aras for the support today as well um I'm here on behalf of the dorisa foundation speaking uh with lcja Sandra and partners as well um to really you know ask to remove the requirement of the 3-day notice to receive rental assistance I'm glad the city will be looking into that to see if that is the case and that's what we've heard from Resident testimony uh that it does take weeks to receive that funding and by the time it hits folks may have already been evicted um so supporting that and then supporting the request for additional funding for the eviction Protection Program as well um again we thank you all for the $350,000 as an initial funding and we hope that you all can see the success in this program uh to prevent future homelessness which we know is a growing issue uh and really protect uh our tenants and our residents and our community members here uh so again look forward to working with you all as well and and thank you all for the work so far thank you Mr Garcia Madame clerk next item please reports 3A worksh shop Cal Water update thank you Mr C thank you mayor and Council this presentation is in response to a council referral on the topic there's actually been a lot of very good infrastructure work that's been happening in our downtown core and other parts of the city on behalf of cow waterer and so uh Tammy with cowat is going to walk us through a presentation outlining some highlevel topics for cowat but then also specifically this uh infrastructure work that they've been undertaking throughout the city and in particular in our our older urban areas take it away welcome thank you mayor go city council members and City staff thank you for giving Cal Water the opportunity to present to you this afternoon on our main replacement program I'm Tamara Johnson district manager for cowat here in Bakersfield and I'd like to take a quick moment to introduce the other members of my organization that have joined me tonight as support for this presentation first Rafael Molina he's our assistant district manager Ron Gibbs is the superintendent for all the main replacement program work we do and then Justin Dietrich he is our project engineer for the main replacement program so first I'm going to start with just a quick background on cowat Bakersville District so we own and operate cowat water system and and as you know we operate the city of Bakersfield's water system as well collectively that includes approx approximately 157 Wells two surface water treatment plants and providing water to Residents uh that is purchased through K County Water Agency this is a map outlining the three permitted systems with cowat system on the east side of Stein Road um shown in the multicolored zones and then the Blue Area to the top portion top left portion of the map which is our North Garden system and then the city system to the left or the west side of Stein Road identified by the tan colored line outline sorry slow clicking it okay so there are some very unique differences between our system systems the biggest differences are the age of our systems and the average age of our Mains which is why is important for us to present to you today with that background we will move on to the main focus of the presentation however we are happy to go back to this slide at the end if you have any questions in regards to this information now I'm going to turn this over to Rafael Molina and he's going to provide you an oversight of our program with the details regarding some of our projects past and future with a little emphasis on the downtown work thank you thank you honorable Mayo uh mayor and council members my name is Rafael Molina I'm again the assistant district manager for California Water Service Company uh live in Ward 7 and uh my goal today is just to provide a little bit of insight on the cowat Bain replacement program just a little bit what we do and what it takes as T Tammy highlighted earlier um one of the the major reasons that we're doing our main replacement program is due to the age of our pipes the average age is 50 years old um they have a lifespan anywhere from 50 to to 80 years and so they're reaching that that end of their lifespan um a lot of the the type of material that we have in our system is old steel and cast iron kind of material that's been outdated um PVC ductal iron um is kind of the standard industry standard now that we're replacing all all of our pipe with um one major reason to to replace and be proactive with our main replacement program is just to help mitigate some of the damages that they these leaks cause when they do happen right and of course there is some benefits When you replace this pipe um you have improved water quality because you have water flowing through clean newer pipe um uh better fir flow and obviously new hydrants and with new hydrants means better fire protection helps us keep our classification right for our fire rating here in in in Bakersfield so um since the Inception of our program we have seen a big decline in the amount of leaks the amount of damages caused caused to the big Shield system um which is why it's really important that we we continue to move on um with this program uh approach there's uh different things in replacement criteria that we look at uh we just don't throw a dart and pick a main um we the some of the factors that we do look at is age the number of leaks the likelihood of the failure the consequence of the failure um how much feet of of uh pipe we need to replace and then the the type of material um there there are some uh considerations though that when we look at this right and some of it is just where it's located the number of leaks it's had um an example that I'll give I'll give the uh the council and and staff is um we may have a old main that's leaked once or twice but there's a school or a hospital attached to it and then you have a main that's leaked maybe five times um and it's in a residential neighborhood we we'll prioritize the the main with the critical users first just because of the importance of of keeping that reliable water source uh continuing going um to the hospitals or the schools or the or the critical users so um the the map that you're seeing um on your screen is is an assessment that we did um ideally we would love to replace every single water M that that's old right in our system um unfortunately though we have to have some balance and some consideration for our rate payers right um as you know the cost of doing business is is increasing inflation just getting materials which I'll cover in a little bit is is also causing some challenges so um we what we did is We performed an assessment we we rated all of our Mains based on the criteria that I mentioned earlier and the the red um lines that you see on this map is kind of what we're prioritizing right stuff stuff that needs to get replaced um the sooner the better and also just keeping um in mind the impact that the cost is going to do be uh be to our rate payers um so the following is some pictures of consequences of failure um consequences of failure um obviously be millions of dollars worth of damage um road damage U property damage these failures can be caused du due to nor uh numerous reasons right they could be um just because the pipe is aging and someone opens a hydrant really fast and then closes it really fast creates water hammer um sometimes contractors hit Mains there's various reasons why these Mains fails but when they do fail especially water mains um it could be pretty catastrophic um this uh particular picture is on 19th Street alley um and uh I don't know if uh you all may have heard of this but you know qu quite quite a bit of damage um the following picture on the left is the the main that we remove moved out of the ground you can see there's a split right right down the middle um the picture on the right is the the new main that we replaced it with um I want you to pay really close attention um to that picture on the right and this is one of the challenges that I'll talk about in a little bit um with our main replacement program um ideally you know in a perfect world you come in you you put the the new main you transfer it over from the old one um but in the downtown area we have a lot of challenges and uh you see an orange line you see some some old pipe um there's gas telecommunication um internet there's just so many different things in the ground and and a lot of it been there for so long we don't even know you know who it belongs to who's who's responsible so those are just some of the challenges I want you to keep keep in mind as we go through this presentation every project has its unique challenges and not every main replacement project is the same so um this this one is is the same as uh this leak that you saw on 19th Street so the before and and after um these are just some more pictures um of of flooding that that can occur when when a a water M gets damaged or uh just fails um and then this one is in a in in a residential neighborhood right so causes a big disruption and and something that we're trying to avoid with this with this programmatic approach now cowat has has always uh replaced uh this one a little fast cwat has always replaced Maine however in 2016 we kind of took a more aggressive proactive approach right instead of being um reactive and saying okay this this means Le this amount of times let's get it replaced we kind of did our assessment looked at it and in the last six years since we did this programmatic strategic approach um we've replaced over 26 miles of Main in the big Shield area right um our goal and kind of the industy standard is and I'm not sure if a lot of water systems are meeting the standard yet um but the goal is to replace 1% of our Mains a year which equates to 51,000 uh feet or 9.7 miles a year um I do want to add that this uh main replacement program is specific to the cowat baker shold system um the city of bakeri system does not have a main replacement program however um their system as we mentioned earlier is relatively newer and uh their main failur are a lot low they average about you know five to six main leaks a year but it is something to keep in the back of our minds that eventually the city of Bakers Shield water system will need to develop a similar main replacement program to be proactive rather than reactive um so I want to highlight some of the current active projects that we have um some of these you may have driven on on your way over here or on your on your commute home um a big one that we just are wrapping up is the Chester Avenue project um this was from truckton Avenue to 24th Street we replaced a little bit over 3,000 fet of pipe um I do want to add that this project um was delayed a little bit um the city had requested cowat to to hold off on this project due to the economic sumach that was coming to Baker Shield um so we we did that we paused it that kind of pushed all of our projects back a little bit and and delayed them um we have a couple projects in the county too um you in on Lock lman and King Street um that's almost a little bit over 5,000 ft that we're replacing in the county um we have another one on Bernard Street uh we're replacing 2,000 ft of of Maine there from Robinson to Haley and then one that we're just finishing up as well is on uh 19th and 20th Street from N Street to R Street and replaced uh 5,500 ft of uh of Maine so um these projects are all in different stages right we we we typically try to finish one up and then roll right into into the next one so um upcoming future projects um we have two that were we're hoping to start um some you know early this this year and and mid 2024 um the first one is on Quincy and Pacific um from Stockton to Magnolia Street replacing 1,800 ft of uh 6in pipe there um the goal is to start that project um late late this month early March then we have uh Bank Street L Street to PE Street um 900 ft of 8 in and 3500 ft a 6 in we're going to we're planning to start that um Mid uh 2024 the next two projects are specific to downtown and uh as I mentioned have have their own unique set of challenges that um is going to make make these projects quite difficult um however we have been coordinating with public works and uh and they have requested that we uh we kind of coordinate together right on these projects um they have a city sewer project on I Street um and uh so the staff is requesting that we hold these off and and kind of coordinate them together to to minimize the disruptions that we're going to have to the businesses and the customers in that area right um so the first project in this area is uh what we're calling the service Street Alley we're going to replace that water main that those pictures that you saw earlier um from H Street to end Street um approximately 900 ft of main there and then the Wall Street alley which is H Street to end Street approximately 2200 ft of of 12-in pipe there so again um our goal was to get these done a little sooner um however the the pushing the Chester project back a little bit and then just coordinating with the public works department um this is kind of our goal now to do them um sometime third quarter of 2025 so with with every main replacement project that we have there's there's always Communications that we send out to to our customers um first every customer gets letters hand delivered to their address letting them know that um a project is coming up I'm I'm I'm hoping that you guys receive CE a copy of that letter that was provided um we also do door hangers and then we do postings on our website and social media um Avenues right just anything any platform that we can use to to let our customers know that we're doing these main Replacements um we look at a project kind of look at at specific targets and uh we identify schools hospitals businesses dialysis centers anything that's high risk that can't afford to be without water um we work a little bit closer with them and I'll talk a little bit about some of the challenges that we can and some of the things we can do to mitigate the challeng Alles that we faced with that um for the downtown projects we we learned a lot doing the uh the Chester Avenue project right and uh so taking those that feedback from from uh members in in the downtown community our goal with um service Street alley and Wall Street alley is to have a workshop similar to what we're having today right meet with those business owners give them a presentation of what to expect um before during and after construction um we'll work closely with the downtown Business Association to kind of help this help us um um facilitate this and then for those businesses that are not tied to the downtown Business Association they'll be getting um hand delivered uh notifications so well to par participate in these like town uh Town Hall workshops um our goal is to request feedback after we give the presentation and then make adjustments accordingly right um some of the some of the adjustments that we can make um cowat we we're kind of the the industry leaders and and a lot of things and and one thing that I'm really proud of is what we call our water on Wheels trailer this is an aill at Urgent Care on Stein and White Lane um we we had to do a shutdown due to a damaged water pipe there and the Urgent Care just can't can't function without water right they need their water and so um we got this water on Wheels trailer where we're able to connect them temporarily to a poble water system so while we're doing our work and everything is shut down they can still operate and still have water um this is a Burger King I think it's on 34th Street um same thing right um anytime we shut shut the water off we're causing A disruption to businesses and we try to do things that um mitigate right and so one of it is our water on Wheels trailer um there's other things that we can do as well um like when we deal with schools um businesses they're closed at night or on holidays weekends we can do we can plan our work during that time as well to help mitigate um the response to those um outages so our typical construction um process uh we we work with the city or the county to acquire the ne necessary permits um we begin our our customer notifications uh well in advance door tags letters um we start our pre-construction meeting we we tend to meet with the city inspectors other utilities just kind of be be proactive right and try to plan any challenges that that we're going to we're going to face um we be begin the installation of the main the picture that you're reviewing right now is your typical water main installation um and then after the main is installed in the ground um we we do some rigorous testing we pressure test it just to make sure it meets all the industry standards and then we also do numerous of water samples as well just to make sure that there's no contamination in the lines and make sure it's safe for public consumption up until this point in the construction process we we we probably got I want to say 90% of our water pipe in the ground um customers have not faced any disruption right um yes there's some inconvenience with with parking and and moving through the construction site but um we try to do our best not to uh disrupt their service um then it comes to to what we call the tie-in portion and so this is where we start transitioning the old main into the new Main and uh typically um this this only takes about 6 to 8 hours we notify our customers 24 to 48 hours in advance to let them know that this disruption is happening and again if there's businesses schools that are going to be affected by the shutdown and we can mitigate that by doing it at night or at after hours or using the the water on Wheels trailer um we do do that once the once the Main's tied over then we start we start tying over the old Services right um so if you see here it's kind of hard to tell from the picture but the old main is is right there and the arrows not working too well um right right there and then we have the old service connection and then right next to the old main we have our new water M the the nice blue new pipe that you see there and then we connect it with with the new with the new water service um this disruption is a lot less um and this is on an individual basis so this is on House to House customer to customer typically only takes two to three hours and again we can accommodate the customer with with the water on Wheels trailer doing it at night um anything that we can do to to accommodate the disruption of of potential Water Service once the uh the mains have been tied over and all the services have been tied over to to this new water main it's it's time to do the restoration right and we our goal at cow water is try to try to leave the streets better than what we found them so um we we do a lot of things um you know to try to minimize the impact to our customers the number one is just road closures um if there's businesses that you know have limited parking or they can't be open during construction um we we do things to to help mitigate putting up signs open during construction temporary parking here um our Paving uh the picture on the right is what we call our temporary Paving um so we go through finish the project once we're done with the project we go through remove all this and and do the final Paving and then just do our our final punch list right cleanup um raising valves markings um the pictures that you're looking at right now uh picture on the left is what a temporary patch would look like and then the picture on the right is is the permanent patch and and and uh you know we we pride ourselves in the work that we do and and and honor you know everything on all the on all the quality that that cowat does some of the challenges that that I mentioned earlier um uh the first one I think the biggest challenge that that we overcome and need to overcome at cow water with our main replacement programs just meeting our customers needs every customer is unique they have their own set of challenges um so it's really important to have that personal uh feedback with them right communicate with them hey this is our plan this is what do you need what can we do to help mitigate that and that's something that our our supervisors and our employees I think take very seriously um there's also challenges with just permitting right um a lot of often times we'll uh we'll pull a permit and do Paving and then after the fact um there's additional Paving requirements um I just want the council to be aware and City staff that um you know we're we're trying to be best Advocates of our rate payers keep the cost low and anything outside of our original project scope just adds another Burden Burden to our rate payers um we try to stay out of moratoriums and streets um and so that's that's something that I'm I'm hoping and that we're already kind of doing and I'm hoping we gain momentum on is coordinating our projects with City Paving projects um there's no point in us you know uh the city going in and and Paving a street and then cowat comes in a couple months later and and tears it up right um so what we're hoping is we come in we coordinate with the city um in solar Main and then after the the city can do do their Paving projects and then as I mentioned earlier just just the rising cost of materials the cost of doing business um is something that that you know we take very seriously um trying to be best advocates for our rate payers and then lastly that last the picture I showed you guys on 19th Street of all the other utilities is is another major challenge that that we have so um that concludes my presentation if uh the council members or uh City staff have any questions myself or Tammy be happy to answer them thank you Mr Molina thank you Miss Johnson thank you so much for your investment in the infrastructure and thank you also for your community engagement this morning I saw your whole team out at Martin Luther King Elementary where they were having their career day really appreciate that uh you were mentioning that you try to communicate with our residents and business owners during the construction recent construction downtown I was hearing from business owners that they that there were some delays and so they would just appreciate more frequent updates I know that you've made efforts to communicate but if something maybe is not quite running to schedule if there be more frequent communication they'd really appreciate it but again thank you so much for your investment council member Gonzalez thank you mayor I just want to say a few things number one thank you uh for again for your investment downtown uh we've had 100-year-old Mains uh and we've seen the uh problems that those Mains have created uh by all the Deferred maintenance and so um I really appreciate the investment uh number one addressing the issue and preventing future um episodes and uh disasters for many of our property owners but also for the future of Bakersville to allow us to continue to pursue our goal to really densify the urban core uh adding more additional housing units um more amenities to the urban core and by doing this investment now really helps us move towards that goal so thank you so much um I actually want to thank you for your coordination with uh various different downtown businesses and property owners and stakeholders including myself um I I will admit that Tammy and I have exchanged many many text messages on uh on hours beyond the normal business hours regarding this project or these projects in downtown and lots of nights and weekends when I've had concerns uh from various different uh business owners uh who operate their establishments in the evenings um and who were affected in fact one incident I I like to share and lift up uh was with regard to uh water shut off uh around Wall Street alley and some of our uh wellestablished well recognized um watering holes uh were very concerned about the impacts to their business and as a result of lifting up that concern actually cwat modified their schedule even though it was very inconvenient and disruptive and costly modify their schedule so that they could accommodate the needs of downtown business owners so I commend you for that for for continuously working with me directly uh and working with so many of our business owners in real time uh because I know you've been present and just a few days ago we were out on Q Street uh talking about the project out there and some of the impacts that it it had on the neighborhood residents so thank you for your commitment thank you for being sensitive to all the different uses in downtown um and I look forward to continuing the work as we address service Street and Wall Street and then finally I just will say on Wall Street um I appreciate the plan to really engage our uh businesses and downtown Property Owners regarding that project particularly since we have a project planned with Public Works to replace some of the sewer line on ey I think it really does require a lot of coordination and a lot of upfront communication and ongoing communication to the mayor's Point ongoing communication to all those stakeholders in the community and uh Count Me In as one of those um champions someone who wants to go out and and and lock arms with you and communicate with all of our um members of the community early on so that they can plan ahead they can plan for their business their future business needs um and then I I looked at the map I saw some other areas that are it's always in my ward all the oldest infrastructure is in Ward 2 and so we have some needs in Oleander as well so I look forward to coordinating with you on that and hopefully we can coordinate with some of our projects that we need to do as well thank you again congratulations and keep up the good work council member Smith thank you mayor yeah I just wanted to reiterate the we appreciate it you know we we can't build a city and maintain a City without uh good drinking water and and we tend to take for granted our our infrastructure it's underground and and to be able to turn the tap on and and get water is not an easy task and and I do appreciate it and and keeping it up to date is is a forever job so thank you very much thank you and council member Freeman um and thank you both for good presentation um what is the useful life of one of the new water mains that you showed us and we put them in how long did they last yeah t typically anywhere from 80 to almost 100 years so but but that's sort of the I mean from the manufacturer this ship last 80 to 100 years and then you showed us a lot of old pipes and you said this either the systems 50 years old or we have a lot of 50y old pipes I can't remember the average age what was the useful of those pipes and I know they may be different over the years but what's the useful life of those older pipes compared to these new pipes yeah there there's a lot of different factors that go into the age of a pipe and I'll give you an example like a cast iron pipe depending on the type of soil that's it's put in if the if the soil is very corrosive or or something like that or the water's very corrosive it won't last as long um also just geologically right if the Earth's moving a lot and you and you don't and you have main that isn't very flexible um it'll it's prone to Breaking also just insulation if it wasn't installed right settling all that affects life I don't know if there's a generalization that these older pipes were were intended last 50 years 60 years 100 years I doubt they were intended last 80 to 100 like the newer pipes um I'm just sitting here wondering how you're paying for all this and wondering is this is it built into the rate base that you have sufficient funds with all the repairs and the hundreds of miles of these old pipes to replace is that built into your rate base and and I mean adequately so that as as Rael explained in 2016 we really ramped up our approach to main Replacements I think the industry as a whole saw a need to really get in and update their infrastructure so yes we have a budget that is built into our general rate case filing that we do every three years and so we put together a budget for the mains that we need to get done while still considering having cost affordable rates right so we can't do them all um so we so we work on the more critical Mains now but yes we have a budget every single year that is built into to rates okay and I assume we recently increased our rates for residential I think Daniel's here did did in the city Bakersville system have we built in adequate reserves in the rate base so that there will be money there you know they will break I know they're newer but uh I mean they're maybe they're only 30 years old or or whatever but at some point they do start to break down they don't all go 80 years um and I'm just wondering you know is it working out that the reserves we've had have been adequate and should continue to be adequate in the city system uh you know so because we don't have such a unfortunately we don't have a rate based uh maintenance for our roads so we just hope there's money around to repace hundreds of miles of roads that are in terrible condition now because we didn't have maybe no city does it' be great if we did but something we in the tax base where there assessment so people were paying into this fund so we could keep our roads in good condition it's great that we keep our our water system in good condition and have that Reserve built in but um I assume we feel good about the rate base we have in our city system too counc Freeman May and Council uh I'll I'll defer to staff if they want to provide additional details but the the most recent 5-year rate study saw some notable increases not just because we've had further you know uh filtration you know requirements for contaminants um and also just Rising costs across the board as cowat has experienced but it did reflect the fact that we now do have an aging system increasingly and we saw some of those notable rate increases over a 5year period to account for these additional Capital costs that we're going to start seeing be higher as our system ages and so that was built into the most recent fiveyear rate study okay all right question thank you thank you and thank you very much for your presentations we don't have any other requests to speak um receive and file motion to receive and file motion please cat your votes motion was unanimously approved thank you next item please thank you kwat reports 3B fiscal year 2023 24 midyear budget recommendations thank you Mr click thank you mayor and Council we've got a brief presentation for you this afternoon um and it is already up so I'll I'll go into our summary page just to summarize um the midyear budget by comparison to recent years in which we've had Fairly notable one-time revenues we budgeted very conservatively we had some year-end surpluses and we made some fairly large midyear actions at the year you recent mid years we're not doing that this year and that isn't intentional uh very limited midyear actions there's a focus on really setting aside funds for contingency and reserves going into the next budget cycle revenues remain flat and costs are going up and so we want to be very careful going into the next budget cycle there are some targeted position requests but those are fee supported um Enterprise positions uh a few priorities that have been requested by Council for consideration but just through arpa funding and then some some other administrative actions that just need to take place as part of a budget action like this uh this page is a little bit busy but we're going to walk into each of those but we wanted to have one slide that summarized um each of the requests uh but we're going to go into each one of these in um some additional detail uh on the fire side uh We've have continued to look at ways in which we can ease the development process increase both uh inspections on the front end and the back end um and uh this would be a fee supported inspection program the fire department has identified that they can get through a backlog of um um um Koopa or certified unified um program agencies inspections with the addition of this position but again fully fee supported there's also a small um CIP need that has emerged and we think there's actually savings that are going to be able to address this CIP need but to formally uh create a CIP in the budget budget to address um an air conditioning challenge at our training facility we share with the county and there's a share of costs there as well but again that's largely an administrative action when it comes to uh Public Works uh you'll recall a few years ago uh we purchased a recycling facility and at the time we had contract support uh in managing that facility but we also knew as a new operation we would need to get in there and assess uh those operations and better understand ways to use the equipment you know have efficiencies there since that time also our contract support has changed we no longer have those um contracted uh that contracted group they're uh doing some of that sorting we've looked at different um pieces of equipment that can also make things much more efficient and so after really these two years of analysis this is our recommendation for some positions that will help us to actually be more efficient and effective in the Sorting actually capture more recyclable materials that can be um sold and ultimately uh this is within our uh rate base it's continues to be more coste effective than Contracting out 100% of our recycling um operations uh to uh outside entities this is just an adjustment based on that analysis and again the fact that we don't have um that that contract uh support in that facility uh the next two are really sort of those you know strategic items that we could look at this arpa funding uh one was you know um continuation of our homeless prevention diversion through rental assistance we had set aside $700,000 in this last year from cdbg um cares monies and we've um nearly fully expended that $700,000 in rental assistance assistance through that program we've assisted um between 50 and and 60 families uh with that assistance program H and again we we think there's good results and based on Council referral merited a recommendation uh to consider using some of our arpa funding for this program um I should point out this is not coming at a tradeoff of other arpa funding because when you have more than $90 million in the bank for a couple of years even though we've spent some of it down there are still large portions there we've accured interest on those dollars and so that interest income is allowing us to program a few more items under arpa and this is one of those items our recommendation would essentially be to continue um the program that we have there have been some conversations at the housing and homelessness committee about U whether or not there are other ways to help with rental assistance maybe stretch those dollars a little farther because most individuals are receiving assistance for upwards of 9 to 12 months with case management because we want to make sure that they are self-sufficient once the program ends and can and continue to be um you know self-sufficient beyond the the life cycle of that assistance but there may be some other ways to also get folks housed or rehoused um uh but we don't have a specific recommendation at this time um Beyond um continuing the program that we've had in place the next [Music] item is our uh business um security grants program it's been very successful in issuing grants these are the grants for businesses that need security cameras lighting um uh there's been opportunities to on a smaller number of projects to do bigger improvements like security doors um security windows and um uh that funding has been um within there there's three different buckets of that program um there's a third bucket for uh private security support that is not yet fully expended but the other buckets have been fully expended since November of last year and so our recommendation to council is that there's there's definitely demand and that there's been good success in this grant program and that we allocate additional arper Monies to uh renew that program and again because this comes from that interest income it allows us to also offer these grants on a city-wide basis I am recommending that staff come back to council with some updated program criteria for the use of these funds because we we were limited to these qualified census tracks now that it could be eligible Citywide we think we probably should put some criteria around it so that it goes to those areas of the greatest imp impact are greatest need um and we can come back with that detail but at this point it would be to allocate the dollars to renew that program um in its Spirit um and then lastly we have some administrative transfers we had an emergency project for jastro Park um and we have um moved funding out of um one project that was uh a contingent project um to be able to meet this emergency need in this project and then the next one is um that we have some dollars that just need to be um transferred from one account to another in development services um related to our general Plan update again no new Appropriations just moving those funds but wanted to be transparent as it is between funds and requires Council approval again this slide is very busy but wanted to have a summary slide that puts everything up there for consideration for Council in questions as well as motions and that concludes our presentation happy to answer questions on any of those items thank you Mr CL council member arus I didn't realize that I had buzzed in but I'm happy to make comment um very well uh thank you city manager CLE for the presentation I think this is the shortest and fastest midyear presentation that I've received since been being on the council um but great great work and thank you for following up on your commitment to allocate some funding for um homeless prevention and diversion Services um as one of the speakers came up and um shared that it is much cheaper for us to make investments on the front end to keep people housed as opposed to um helping house them on the other side of things so um I completely agree with that we've seen the data and the evidence that supports that and uh really really just appreciative of of this commitment even while we see shortfalls in in our budget so uh really appreciate that um just a a couple quick comments and and thoughts I know that we've talked um at length in the housing and homelessness committee uh working with the brunish L navigation Center about the importance of security deposit assistance um so question would that be included in this million doll allocation as it's written right now no so the the um potential and and if I understand the question correctly couns you're you're questioning the the potential expansion of the blnc no so for the existing homeless prevention and diversion Services Program and contract um is there room in there to make allocations to support individuals who are struggling to um get into a new unit particularly because they don't have security deposits thank you I apologize I I I I didn't understand the question the first time around uh this um the way that our program has been working with the rental assistance is actually a contract with Open Door Network they've done rental assistance throughout the pandemic and we contracted with them to continue to allocate rental assistance um for the $700,000 that we had allocated from last year um I think that the the spirit and scope of this million doll allocation is aligned with what you're suggesting is just connecting uh individuals from our navigation Center to housing uh but we don't actually have a mechanism or a contract in place that does that and so an option for council could be to um recommend that a portion of the million dollars be reserved to identify other programs that would facilitate hate people being housed like paying first and last month's rent if that's the one barrier they have to be able to get into a placed into an apartment or a home um we don't have those programs currently in place they have been discussed and contemplated um but we could set aside a portion of this million dollars to um develop those programs and the remainder go towards the the the same type of rental assistance program we've had up to date great thank you so much I think it's such a critical piece that we're able to provide um that assistance to folks who are literally just a couple thousand dollars from getting into a unit freeing up that space in one of our shelters so that somebody else off the street can um you know sleep Comfort comfortably at night so uh with that I want to make a motion to approve uh the midyear um budget update um with the caveat that that $250,000 be set aside specifically for uh security deposit assistance um through an RFP process so that we can allow for some of the other organizations that operate um homeless facilities including the mission uh capk at M Street and also Mercy house at the brage lane navigation Center can compete and submit their applications for that funding thank you council member arus Mr Mayor thank you mayor um couple of comments tonight number one um I want to give a hurah to the city manager's office and to finance Randy McKean is in the back there um you know the it's it's very easy to point out areas of improvement but uh I don't think we often enough as uh elected leaders uh lift up um areas where there's a lot of good work being done and uh the fact that we were able to actually earn money on on some of our uh deposits and earn interest and then access those dollars for uh the benefit of our community that's a huge win for us million and a half dollars additional that we have now to do uh more work and create more opportunities for people that's a big win and uh I don't think it was stated enough during your presentation that's my only critique Mr C you didn't pat yourself on the black back enough um but this was a this is a good win and I'm really excited to have that opportunity um yeah I support uh council member aras's recommendation I think it's it's wise for us to help those individuals who are currently in our shelters and who have a significant barrier to to permanent housing and that barrier is their uh first month rent and security deposits uh in order to get into those rental units and so um you know I think this is one of the exciting parts of our work related to homelessness is that we're really drilling down now and looking at the whole Continuum of Care from people who are unsheltered on the streets tonight to those people who are in our shelter to those people who are permanently housed and we're able to really identify specific concrete issues that we can help address at the city level can't necessarily address them all we have to lean on a lot of our partners in the community um but but certainly there are areas where we can really lend a hand and and really make a significant difference so that's that's encouraging it's a great idea I love it um I want to turn to the security Grant uh program we're allocating a half a million dollars of this uh Revenue earned on deposit funds from arpa not arpa funds but Revenue earned um and I want to just highlight some of the great work from this pilot program 64 businesses were able to benefit from phase one funding either for window replacements uh enhancements through camera installations and additional lighting 64 of our businesses and uh six of the sites were actually able to benefit from uh additional sight hardening activities that phase or tier three uh tier three funding so uh you know there there's a lot of good work being done out there a lot of um property crimes that are being prevented in fact um some of the comments speaking with staff some of the comments that we received from um from applicants have been that um over 90% of the respondents when when asked uh rated their satisfaction with the program and recommendation of the program as five stars the highest rating 100% 100% of the respondents strongly agreed that the program made a difference for their business uh many of them communicated with staff that um they had the ability to watch their store even when they weren't at home with the weren't at the at their actual place of business and they were at home um and and that they felt much more secure uh because of the improvements that they were able to make and so um I'm very proud of this program I think it was a step in the right direction I'm looking forward to the second half of million dollars and um and expanding the program Citywide council member Smith thank you mayor I I to him for all of the I just I didn't want to miss the opportunity uh on the business security improvements grant program to remind one more time that you know a lot of the problems are because the sheriff will not keep people we arrest people and 15 hours later they're back on the streets and I think city manager clay told me last week to you know they did a study and 60% of the problems in one area is from 11 people you know and if we can just get the sheriff to keep some people for a while uh these types of things will be a lot less so thank you thank you council member Smith council member Freeman I just had a question for city manager um I can't I don't know how many months it's been since we did actually a a slideshow update against our budget revenues and costs but we're p last six months of the year I just is that uh is that something that we might be doing in the next 30 days just get you know used to give us a little snapshot here's where the revenues are and here's what you project here's where the costs are um it's a big budget lot that would be helpful I think to people on the council to have that pretty soon um so you can tell us how things are trending you know we read about bad stuff in the real estate market you know they're down 50% oil drilling down 90% egg having a bad time and I'm wonder if that's filtering through or you know we we get us from sales taxes are holding up pretty well property taxes don't move much it's just whether we're getting growth because it's pretty hard not to pay your property taxes but um that would certainly be be um helpful to me to know yeah counil Freeman mayor and councel we will have in the I would I think it probably will of the next 30 days as we do a preliminary look uh at uh the budget before it goes to the public safety vital Services oversight committee for some early conversations on that that will be in this about this next month we we'll do that projection for Council in addition we had a request uh I I don't recall if it was from council member Freeman or another council member but on maybe it was Council M Weir to give a projection on our Calpers and our OPB obligations that's going to come back to workshop at the same time for Council uh reflection and but what I can say at this point uh just quickly is for the first um quarter of the fiscal year uh we saw that things were trending about On Target the second quarter though for the first time because you know really for the last two fiscal years we've been carefully watching uh sales tax Trends and they've pretty much held to our projections for the first time in the second quarter we saw a little bit lower of returns than we've than we had um originally projected and so that's part of why our midyear budget is so conservative is that we need to watch closely we're not Way Off Track we're just you know it's we're talking about 1% 2% um but for a budget of our size that could relate to you know a couple million dollars by the end of the year um I don't want to uh give hard numbers because we're still watching that right now but we'll have um our latest quarterly update from our sales tax um Consultants uh and some projections going into next year as we lead into the budget process okay um well I on the one hand was would like to see how we had a lot of um salary increases and um bringing people in line with appropriate for this so so we had then we had 5% but probably another 5% and bringing people up to speed so I'd like to see how that's playing out um on the other hand we usually save money because we couldn't hire as many people as we wanted and that's where all the savings is is we budet 100 people we only go hire 90 of them uh but um that was um that's something I think everybody like to see well how the increase how's it all playing out for us thank you thank you council member fan council member gray well good evening staff and Mr CLE um I was really thrilled when I talked to uh Mr Cay on on Tuesday of the conservative approach that you all are taking um with this midyear budget not knowing what we're in for and you know seeing that we're flat a little bit down so I would just cont encourage you to continue in that thinking um when starting on this next budget for next year because that could that could be pretty um slippery itself so anyway I really appreciate the conservative approach we certainly don't want to be in the whole in our city um I'm very much in favor of the uh business security Improvement program I think that's those are dollars well spent that's going to save money in other places and so I really appreciate that that was brought into the um this midyear budget um since you had to really be careful about what you're doing but um I'm just curious adding staff to our murf um operation again is those are positions that going that are going to live on for a long time um do you have any idea how much of that $311,000 we can recover by having this extra staff and having more waste to sell that's a great question council member gray I don't have that top of mind we can get you that number unless there's anyone who can if Greg do you want to speak to that item okay we do the best we can I I think we'll probably give you some followup with details all right thank you for the question council member gray um Greg stas for the record um I'm one of the handouts as part of your package we show a very complete summary of costs um that are allocated towards our materials recovery facility but we also recognize that there's the MRC operation a privately run materials recovery operation that we contract with currently at a rate of about $120 uh per ton of material now we're providing the recovery of material at a less cost than that um somewhere about $90 at this point in time so so there's that Delta difference and occasionally throughout the year we'll have a conveyor belt go down and we'll have to redirect material to the the privately operated facility um but we do try to keep most material coming through our materials recovery facility so we process process that material at the lowest possible per ton rate that we can um your question is a little bit more broad about what that number is specifically I would have to come back with that number okay well I'm hoping that we can recover some of those costs so we're not just keep adding more you know employee cost Absolut to the city budget all right thank you thank you council member gray council member core thank you mayor um ju thank you for a great presentation um from our city management uh uh office and great work everyone uh who's getting us here to the midyear budget um first I want to uplift council member ai's additions on us as the city being um just good faith Partners to organizations who are also doing the great work um in rental assistance and and calling them in and welcoming them to the work that um you know we're doing second uh with the business security improvements grant program um one I think that this is uh one very exciting very necessary and since this is the revenue from arpa monies kind of thinking about as we encourage new development South Bakersfield um if we can also add criteria into this next phase that includes but isn't limited to sensitive economies um commercial corridors crime hotspots and if we can as we've uh um as we expand this we're compile a list of additional Industries and business coalitions that exist that could benefit from this program just so that we can have a bigger Splash with this program as well um and with those who have already received this grant uh in some way shape or form if there's kind of a presentation that can be created to just show how beneficial this is and all of the recipients and that being somewhat of like a database to reference thank you thank you council member Cor before we vote uh city clerk I think there's a blue memo yes a staff memorandum was received for this item transmitting correspondence thank you thank you and now you have a motion please cast your votes motion was unanimously approved thank you and that's our last item for this meeting so with that we stand adjourned at 4:43 thank you [Music] okay [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] m [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] TR [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to the Bakersfield City council meeting this television broadcast is brought to you by the local cable companies the county of Kern and the City of Bakersfield you can watch the rebroadcast of this meeting Saturday at 700 p.m. Sunday at 10:00 a.m. and the following Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. you can download the agenda for this meeting at www. Bakersfield city. us presiding over this evening's meeting The Honorable mayor Karen K go good evening it's my pleasure to call to order the 5:15 regular city council meeting of February 28th 2024 Madame clerk please call the RO mayor go here vice mayor Gonzalez I'm here council member Arius council member Weir here council member Smith I'm here council member Freeman here council member gray here and council member core thank you at this time we have the pleasure of having council member Smith lead us in the invocation but following the invocation we will have Cheyenne cornado who's a junior at Independence High School who will lead us in the pledge Cheyenne is currently serving as the Independence High FFA Future Farmers of America president the South San South Valley section president and was recently announced as the San waen region president for 20124 she placed in the top four of the state 2023 impromptu speaking so thank you and congratulations and her advisor uh also joins her here today would you all please stand father God we thank you for this day and we thank you for this opport OPP Unity to serve we ask for your wisdom your guidance your understanding your love and your peace in Jesus name we pray amen am amen fellow members and guests please join me in a salute to our flag salute pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and you may be seated uh you're welcome to leave at this point go steady thank you Cheyenne here are a few guidelines to help our meeting run smoothly we request that you turn off your phones please be courteous in the use of cameras and videos for safety reasons and as a courtesy to others no signs are allowed in the council chamber or in the lobby Applause is allowed during the presentation portion of the meeting but not during other portions of the meeting everyone in attendance is expected to adhere to the rules of decorum established by resolution of the city council failure to abide by the city's rules of decorum including any disruptive behavior that interferes with our ability to have an orderly and efficient meeting prevents the city council from conducting the business business of the city consider this a first warning to everyone in attendance that conduct that disrupts this meeting May result in expulsion and or the chambers being cleared behavior that disrupts the meeting includes repetitive statements going off topic shouting Outburst from the audience and surpassing the two-minute time limit Madame clerk next item please presentations 4 a proclamation to the safely surrender baby Coalition declaring safely surrender baby Awareness Month in Bakersville during February 20124 the safely surrendered baby law was first Ina Ed in 2001 and the law helps to decrease the number of newborn infants their deaths Statewide due to abandonment in very unsafe locations and we are just so grateful for our local Coalition and its dedicated efforts to increase public awareness about the safely surrendered baby law and help give parents safer options in surrendering their babies it's my honor to read this Proclamation the mayor of the city of Bakersville California has officially proclaimed February 2024 as safely surrendered baby Awareness Month in our city in recognition of the safely surrendered baby Coalition and its efforts to provide a safe alternative for newborn babies to safely be surrendered in recognition of the partnership of government nonprofit organizations private businesses and residents that are committed to providing places of sanctuary for these babies in recognition of the need to heighten public a awareness regarding this issue and the need to provide a safe refuge for the innocent newborns involved in recognition of the three infants safely surrendered in 2023 and in recognition of the 98 precious infants safely surrendered since the program's Inception in Kern County in 2008 and it is dated this day this 20th day of February it's my pleasure to present this to Aon Rogers from the Bakersville Pregnancy Center and she's going to introduce uh herself and her guests thank you it is our pleasure to be here my name is Aon Rogers I'm with the bille pregnancy center this is Wanda Brown and she is with Kern County Public Health and we just appreciate this Proclamation um for us a win is that we have had three years with no babies abandoned um and so we know how important it is when a woman is in a crisis situation and she cannot care for her baby at the time of birth this law allows her to safely surrender that baby within 72 hours of birth and she has 14 days of cooling off to be reunited with her baby at the 15th day if she has chosen to stay away her baby is placed for adoption and I personally have some very dear friends who have a safely surrendered baby who is now 11 years old and a very active and very competitive baseball player and um Ally and Anthony Davis uh are great members of our community who welcomed a safely surrendered little boy into their home so I know what a difference personally this law makes thank you uh to the city council for recognizing that thank you much thank you um to Echo aon's uh sentiments we are very proud that we have this Proclamation and it's going to help so much so many people here in current County that need it just no name no blame we're good so yes thank you so much for this thank you and Madam clerk next item please presentations for B retirement presentation to David Lyman convention and visitors bureau manager for nearly 40 years of service to the city of Bakersville the year was 1984 Ghostbusters top box offices neon colors parachut parachute pants giant shoulder pads workout wear and oversized hair were the top fashion trends singer Prince was at the top of the charts with hits like let's go crazy and when does cry and David Lyman was officially hired by the city of Bakersville as a temporary planning technician since then he's gone on to hold other positions in our organization with the most recent being our convention and visitors bureau manager now here we are almost 40 years later and David has become one of our most integral city employees he's been described as being passionate about the city always happy to help others and a mentor instrumental in the growth of those who worked with him David also has been a frequent presenter at the local and state levels discussing economic impacts of travel and tourism in Bakersville I've also relied on him along with my assistant Danielle for his exceptional knowledge of history and fun facts about Bakersville David has represented the city with integrity and professionalism we're so thankful for his Decades of committed service to the city and to the residents of Bakersville David Lyman would you please join me up here along with Mr Christian CLE first may I present this to you why don't you stand here since you're the important one right there uh presented to David Lyman in honor of nearly 40 Years of dedicated service to the city of Bakersville in recognition of your stewardship and of travel and tourism in Bakersville in recognition of your outstanding leadership in community engagement and in recognition of your Resolute commitment to the advancement of the city of Bakersville congratulations best wishes on your retirement just so proud of you and Mr cl's going to offer some remarks but I also think that it would be appropriate to to this hasn't happened very often 40 years is a long time to be serving in the city of Bakersville it's my honor to be able to present you with the mayor's medal oh thank you before you speak Mr CLE has some words I would just add to the reflections of the mayor that um David has many accolades he's an exceptional public servant who cares deeply about this community and always tries for excellence one note that I continue to point out to others is that recently the California Economic Development uh Association reached its 40y year anniversary and they wanted to recognize 40 individuals that during their 40-year history who had made the biggest contribution in the entire state to economic development of the state and one of those was our very own Bakersfield's David Lyman was amongst those 40 individuals most influential in economic development in our state over that 40-year period but more important to me again is that uh not only is he a consumate professional but a true public servant who cares deeply about this community thank you David thank you so much gotta stop crying uh mayor Mr CLE council members a good evening yes they said it would never happen but it has I have retired now you know what that means for me but what does it mean for you well I will not be here for my annual budget presentation later this spring so what I've decided to do is just take those 15 minutes and use them here um I have served under five city managers and six Mayors what many of you may not know is that I have a high school yearbook photo of our current mayor in my own high school yearbook oh little bit of fact fun facts uh because I've worked here for almost 40 years the math Wizards can figure it out I am a child of the 60s and the 70s and I was and remain very idealistic we were going to change the world and the way I was going to change the world was to be an elected official I was going to have your job but once I started at the city of Bakersfield your predecessors quickly disabused me of that idea because I rapidly found out that I do not have the temperament for what you do I did however find a passion for being on this side of the dayus and making positive change in my community I had some tremendous opportunities to represent the city of Bakersfield at the state Regional and National levels um and many people do not get paid to promote their own Hometown and I want to say that I just wasn't paid the city of Bakersfield made an investment in me they invested in my education they paid for me to attend the three-year uh Economic Development Institute the University of Oklahoma they paid for my Master's Degree in public administration at Cal State Bakersfield they gave me a three-year leave of absence to continue to pursue my graduate education I came back with a second master's degree and a PhD when you make that investment I think you're looking for a return and I'd like to think that I provided a positive return on your investment both for myself and the community um in closing I'd like to acknowledge a few people first of all my colleagues your members of your Workforce that are here throughout the audience here here you have a tremendous Workforce and I am so pleased and honored to have served with them during my time here I'd like to acknowledge a few people first of all the crew that I most recently work with the crew at visited Bakersfield Matt Billingsley um Andrea maroin Evangelina Medina and tyanne borski the visit Bakersville board of directors some of whom are here and the fellow in the teal shirt way in the back alen bomy who I've been with for more than 40 years he's given me lots of love and support and for which has always been appreciated and helped me make it from temporary planning Tech to a division manager and all points in between so thank you again for your recognition this evening uh and this it's all very headyy stuff for this Eastside boy from Myra a noble school and Washington Junior High School and thanks to the city of Bakersville for helping me be able to change my little part of the world thank you all welld deserved recognition 40 Years of dedicated service thank you so much David in keeping with the council's resolution the public statements portion is now divided into two periods there's a period for items listed on the meeting agenda and items not on the meeting agenda statements for items listed on tonight's agenda are given a two-minute time limit 20 minutes total per agenda item the consent calendar as a whole constitutes one agenda item statements regarding items not listed on the agenda are given a 2-minute time limit 20 minutes total if you have written comments that are longer than your your verbal statement please give them to the clerk who will give copies to the council if you're here to make a public statement please fill out a public speaker card and give your completed card to the city clerk we ask that you mark whether you're here to speak on an item listed on tonight's agenda or in a matter not on the agenda speakers who do not identify a specific agenda item will be presumed speakers for the non-agenda portion those speakers will be call during the non-agenda portion of the meeting if you're here on hearing items 9A now is not the time to speak you'll be given an opportunity to speak when that item is called later in the meeting we're very interested and concerned with your issues however due to the public notice requirement of the brown act the council cannot take action when an item isn't on the agenda the council can however refer your matter to committee or request that staff contact you madam clerk do we have any public speakers regarding items listed on tonight agenda mayor go we have received no speaker cards for items listed on this evening's agenda thank you madam clerk do we have any public speakers regarding items not on the agenda yes we have received eight speaker cards would you go ahead and call those please the first speaker will be Terry Maxwell is that the last in first up I guess uh my name's Terry Maxwell and uh I uh I'm a little concerned about the 24th Street uh mess that we've got going on uh a couple things I just tried to take a left-hand turn uh headed east on 2 24th Street on the beach took me over 10 minutes to make that left-hand turn the level of service would probably be in f plus would like to see something done about that during the uh peak hour traffic the uh ability to make that left hand turn is very dangerous people don't know how much time it's going to take for them to get across there traffic is coming at you pretty fast people make bad judgment calls I've talked to people in the neighborhood and they've heard of many uh accidents at that particular Corner think something somebody needs to look into that and maybe put a light there so that when you're in 5:00 traffic and uh it's appropriate that the uh traffic taking that left-hand turn can do so safely under a light as opposed to taking the risk they're taking the other thing I say about 24th Street you know we were promised that that Landscaping was going to be absolutely gorgeous wonderful lots of trees you know how many trees are left in the median I think two there are hardly any trees there at all and the trees that you put up usually get kicked over by uh some some vagrants that feel like hey this is a good idea let's kick this over uh I think 24th Street we were promised a lot of things that was going to happen it's going to improve things and you know it's really not improved hardly any anything we'd like to see those kind of things taken care of and it's been 2 years since I warned you about that narrowing uh as you're headed west at about a street where you're at going from four lanes to three lanes the furthest Lane to the right is eliminated and the lane to the left of that immediately turns pulls straight in front of that particular Lane uh there had been several accidents there also and I've warned you about that so if any of those people who actually had accidents had any injuries you'd be liable thank you thank you Mr Maxwell council member ARS vice mayor um clerks I don't see the request to speak so if you can just check that uh audience we're dealing with some new technology here so please pardon the growing pains vice mayor thank you mayor um Mr St loose would you please reach out to Mr Maxwell uh to identify the specific conc concerns related to the left turn on Beach Street um and i' like to follow up with you as well so that we can find um some remedy to the situation um there on 24th and then also I mean I I would agree in terms of the Landscaping on 24th Street I think we we did as a city um look towards 24th Street as a Gateway project uh for downtown bakersfi and um it is it is lacking and I I think we need to uh address the issue I know there was um some issues related to the contractor uh and it was the contractor's responsibility for a certain period of time but now that that contract period has expired I think it's important for us to revisit that and have a a better plan to address landsc keeping needs thank you thank you before we call the public speaker would you just test your request to speak please yeah oh um he signed up they fixed it okay there we go all right now it works thank you right uh Madam clerk would you please call the first Speaker or the next speaker Gabriela Moda followed by gasan cafini and then basan welcome please introduce yourself and would you please lower the mic [Music] my time hasn't started um hi my name is Gabriela Mona um I was here the last two meetings um and I'd like to repeat uh some of my sentiments as a combat veteran deeply committed to the principle of ahimsa the Sanskrit term for nonviolence my experiences have not only shown me the ravages of War but have also strengthened my resolve for peace and the protection of all beings my stance is rooted in a profound belief that violence is not the answer the laws of war while necessary are not a justification for conflict but rather a last resort to mitigate its Horrors today I stand before you to address the dire situation in Gaza where recent reports have painted a harrowing picture of human suffering and destruction the United Nations and various other humanitarian organizations have highlighted this crisis of unprecedented scale we've heard the numbers it's over like 40,000 deaths it's ridiculous majority of them are women and children and newborns the infrastructure damage in Gaza is C catastrophic it's more than street lights and trees y'all with over half of the homes destroyed or severely damaged and essential services like hospitals and schools are in ruins the blockade has led to a humanitarian disaster to put it lightly with the entire population facing food insecurity indicating a near total collapse of basic Services every single person is trying to find food struggling to find food and water our silence your silence in the face of these atrocities does not align with the values of Bakersfield City or my value of AA maybe some of y'all have that value of nonviolence too I don't know but it certainly doesn't reflect the principles of Justice Humanity or peace that our community does stand for that you guys are supposed to stand for it's crucial that we raise our voices against this take conrete to support the people of Gaza Karen go it is shameful that you and the council members have celebrated A Safe Surrender Proclamation for infants when you remain silent complicit in the middle in the murder of mothers newborns and unborn babies in Gaza why are you selective about which babies deserve your solidarity I request from everyone in this room room to raise your hand or stand if you condemn the murder of Palestinian women and children pleas stand now if you condemn the killing of Palestinians please stand or raise your hand proudly if you condemn the killing of Palestinian civilians newborns and mothers audience we have a two-minute time limit we're here to listen to you we want to listen to your comments but we're going to be respectful of each other so two minutes and we'll have the next speaker please gasan caffini welcome please introduce yourself right so my name is gasan kanafani and I'm a Palestinian Muslim constituent of Bakersfield we've heard repeatedly that there's not much the city council can do to affect International policy address Palestine or what's going on in Gazza and yet Bakersfield has a long history of direct Financial material and Military Support for Israel the Rudnick family of Bakersfield have a long and stored history in our city particularly with Aviation with Elanor Rudnick being the woman who founded what became the bakesfield municipal airport Elanor rudnik is also the woman responsible for training the first Israeli fighter pilots who after training right here in Bakersfield flew to Palestine to participate in the ethnic original ethnic cleansing of my people Elba in 1948 which saw nearly 600 Palestinian towns and cities completely eradicated and clans of their native Palestinian populations just as we're seeing happen today in Gazza this is the legacy of Baker's field and it continues to this day with SS of Bakersfield who are fighting overseas to participate in the ongoing genocide I am beyond the niceties of saying that I hope this never happens to you because it seems that for anybody here to care they would only care if it happened to them so I hope that one day you might have to endure this complete ER of everything you've ever known the slaughter of your friends and family the dehumanization of your people as your city's as your cries fall on deaf ears unwilling to do so much as even mutter a single word in Fain support as you saw us disruptive recently you have not begun to see disruptive free Palestine from The River To The Sea all support to Armed resistance against the forces of fascism in Israel and Zionism wherever they are and may the zus settler colony of Israel one day burn thank you next speaker please ban followed by Lina Selenas welcome please introduce yourself two weeks ago I came and spoke under the name of bisan AA bisan is a 24-year-old journalist reporting the horrific atrocities happening to her own people in razza she is documenting a live genocide and this voice memo was from Ban 2 weeks ago us to Egypt to the north of Egypt to see night desert we will just die we will die I don't know why do you guys are watching without doing anything to end this just end it just stop it stop it stop it in any price stop it any cost stop it just stop it for anything just stop this it's a nightmare I can't continue just thinking about the displacement more and more it's Nightmare and I can't I can't keep it I can't keep it I can't keep alive while thinking of being displaced more and more I just want to go back to my home she's pleading to you to stop it and I'm now pleading to you to stop it let me describe to you one of the worst feelings during war before a bomb drops it makes the whistle sound as it's falling from the sky it sounds so close and loud it is the most terrifying because you don't know if it's going to fall on you so you stand there confused do I run do I sit is it going to fall on me will I be in pieces am I going to die immediately will I lose all my limbs what about my family what do I do and where do I go you feel so helpless at that moment I can't fully convey the feeling it's been 9 years and I still dream about the bombs and that same feeling of hopelessness comes to my dreams why is our blood so cheap to you why do we all have to B beg for a ceasefire as if the Palestinians are not worth living they're more deserving of life than everyone refusing to pass for a ceasefire in this room I am out of words and I don't know what else I can say to touch your hearts I demand a call for a ceasefire I am ban a and just stop it I request from everyone in this room to raise their hand if they condemn the murders of Palestinian men women and children thank you your time is up just so you all know let listen the council does not engage in raising hands for any topic so just so that you're aware of that we don't respond and that is not appropriate um next speaker please Lorina Selenas welcome please introduce yourself all right hello again city council my name is Lorena Selenas and I stand before you with a heavy heart to let you know that in just these past 24 hours six children have died and seven more are in critical condition not just because of the bombing but because of the force starvation that is being imposed on them by the iof and I'm here to ask ask if those were your children would you still be just as silent as now or do they have to be safely surrendered for you to care if it was your homes that were being destroyed by constant air strikes would you be just as silent or would you actually want someone to speak up for you Aaron Bushell an active member of the US Air Force he was not able to look away he was able to recognize the absolute Horrors that our country is complic in and he refused to be any part of it he chose to make the ultimate sacrifice in the hopes that our soul less leaders including all of you here would finally open your eyes to find your humanity and call for an end to this genocide if you won't listen to the cries of the thousands of Palestinian children that are suffering maybe you will listen to the final words of this Brave Soldier which were free Palestine week after week you say that you don't have time to deal with this foreign policy stuff but Karen go seems to have plenty of time to make Instagram reels and throw money around with the rich to be relatable on social media I don't know what that is you guys seem to have time to celebrate the opening of a corridor that only goes from west to east giving access to the rich part of town to the rest of the city but conveniently not from east to west which would do the opposite give the Poor Side of Town access to the rest of the city we don't want your fake reliability we don't want your fake support I don't know what it is that you guys are doing with those videos we want a city council that we can actually trust to have our best interest at heart and as your constituents we need to know that you stand for justice over profit so I ask everyone in this room to please raise your hands if you condemn the murder of Palestinian men women and children come on Eric Ken Bob Karen and again just a reminder Bruce Patty any of you guys condemn murder no just a reminder the council does not engage like that with the audience thank you next speaker please motaz my name is m and I'm a Muslim Palestinian constituent of Bakersfield I have a scenario for all of you imagine you're at home with your loved ones enjoying a quiet evening together when an arm an armed individual storm in claiming that your home belong to them 2,000 years ago despite your rightful ownership and the fact that you built your home with your own two hands they force you out leaving you helpless as they kill your family and take everything that you own de devastated confused and angry you're forced to seek refuge in a cramped camp with thousands of others who just experien similar injustices but your suffering doesn't end there the group that took your home returns and surrounds your camp with a 30-ft wall cutting you off from water food food electricity and denying anyone from entering the camp or further stripping you from your freedom and Humanity in a in a desperate attempt to survive you resort to building underground tunnels to smuggle in basic necessities for you and your community with each passing day the weight of your losses and the struggle to rebuild your life grows heavier and heavier tragedy strikes again when an Israeli missile destroys a shelter that you and your family had sought refuge in shattering any remaining hope of peace or stability imagine the feelings you'd have after losing everything you hold de the pain of witnessing senseless destruction of your home and the lives of your loved ones how would you cope with this overwhelming injustices I know for a fact that none of you would ever be able to handle living outside of your privileged lives in this country but this is the harsh reality for the Palestinians in Gaza for the last 142 days the fathers the mothers and the children of Gaza have changed what it means to be called a hero they've set the bar higher than any of us could ever reach and they continue proving to the world that Palestinians will never be defeated that we would rather die standing defiantly against the terrorist occupying Israeli diaper forces and all those who choose to Ally themselves with this fascist regime Karen last city council meeting and repeatedly you keep telling us that we act inappropriately how the hell do you expect us to react when all of you refuse to condemn the killing of our family and our friends this is just the start of it you have not seen an appropriate yet Palestinians will continue mobilizing around the world and victory will be ours by any means necessary and as Palestinians are remembered for their resistance courage and bravery you city council members will be remembered as cowards until you condemn Israel and denounce your you and you and you call for a fire thank you next speaker please Matt Burnham my name is Matt Burnham um I'm a former Cadet of the Air Force Academy and I'm autistic and uh like gr thurberg I have mutism which means I only speak when truly necessary and now is not one of those times because the words have already been said by Aaron Bushnell and I would invite everyone in the room to raise their hand if they condemn the murder of Palestinian people well I yield to Aaron Bushell help you the board on the board the board [Applause] [Laughter] [Applause] that is all thank you Mr Ram next speaker please Martin hagera welcome please introduce your self now that the international court of justice has found that there is a plausible case of genocide that the Israeli occupation forces are currently escalating in the Gaza Strip what do you have to say for yourselves will most of you continue to remain silent and confirm that you're all genocide deniers hundreds of letters from people all across Bakersfield have been sent to the city council members demanding that they introduce and pass a resolution calling for a permanent ceasefire to the Relentless terrorist bombing campaign being funded by US taxpayer dollars it has been 35 days since multiple community members first came here to ask that you all do the bare minimum to stand with the Palestinians in our community that have been asking you to for five weeks now and long before that and in these five weeks each of you have continued to refuse except man preor to do anything at all so in this case your continued silence after giv multiple opportunities to easily use your influence to speak out and uplift our Palestinian Community makes you even more complicit in this genocide actively again being carried out by our tax dollars horrifically a US active duty Airmen who you just listened to burned to death recently became the second person to pour gasoline everywhere on their body and set themselves on fire to protest the genocide of Palestinians since it has been escalating for several months this man Aaron Bushnell who graduated at the top of his class and had been moving up the ranks since entering the United States Air Force is being smeared as Just Another Broken crazy person you should disregard are going to let that happen just how we're not going to all actre Gonzalez if you or any other coward you R elbows with still think this you will soon realize that you're dead wrong list Mr G your time is up please end your comments Perman Seas fire resolution next speaker please Novi M mclanahan good afternoon Council my name is lahen I was raised and born here went to Independence High School and I've served my community since I was a child I don't know if you remember Mar and Karen go but I was in your call center when you promoting in 2016 for your current position I was there I don't know if you remember me Onre Andes for the MLK initiative where I was there I am highly disappointed all of you sitting here you say you care about people there are innocent children men and women dying and you have done nothing you have said nothing you can sit here and look at your all your computers and look at motionless There Are People Dying they have no food they have no water they have no medical dine they're starving and asking everyone for help and you sit there and do nothing how can you soulless people do that you are I don't care if this is b or so you are a human you share the same flesh and blood as everyone in this room it is your human obligation to see when you see something wrong that is happening to say something about it it's your obligation Andre I am highly disappointed you you have been in my home you have been in my home my Mother Counts you as a friend I hope she no longer does you say we don't have time for foreign policy stuff it's not foreign policy stuff people are dying Point Blank period that's it you're a human speak up use your influence you all have influence use it thank you thank you and that concludes Madame clerk is that the last public comment yes it is Mayor CL thank you next item please next item is consent calendar items 7A through 7i for approval we have received a staff memorandum for item 7 D6 submitting a missing exhibit thank you vice mayor does any member of the council wish to recuse themselves from an item on the agenda seeing none I have no request to pull any items for separate consideration tonight I just want to recognize the members of the downtown Business Association and downtown businesses for being here this evening and with that i' like to move approval of the consent calendar you have a motion please cast your votes motion was unanimously approved thank you next item please hearings item 9A thank you our next item is public hearings each side will be allowed 15 minutes it's 15 minutes for all speakers per side so it's important that you identify yourself make your statements succinctly So Others May speak we'll hear statements from those opposed to the staff recommendation first that is those that are against the text Amendment changes to Bakersville municipal code title 17 then we'll hear from those who would like to speak in favor of staff's recommendation those that support the text Amendment changes to Bakersville Municipal Code title 17 if there's testimony on both sides each side will be allowed a five minute rebuttal there's a clock on the TV screens behind me which indicates 15 minutes please step to the microphone identify yourself after 14 minutes a yellow light will come on at the end of 15 minutes a red light will flash indicate your time is up quickly end your statement you may ask questions during your statement but they won't be addressed until the public hearing is closed if you have written comments that are longer than your verbal statement give them to the clerk she'll give copies to the council please be courteous to others who wish to speak Madame clerk please read the public hearing item title 17 amendments first reading of text amendments to the Bakersfield Municipal Code title 17 by adding deleting and amending various chapters primarily related to residential zoning and mixed U zoning to addressed evolving Community needs enhancing housing options and providing compatibility with the city's long-term development goals in support of the Bakersville General plan comprehensive update specifically the housing being disruptive you need to stop right now you were disrupting the meeting if you do not stop right now officers we are going to take a recess please clear the [Music] chambers [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] reconvening at 606 Mr Bole is there a presentation that needs to be turned on Madame mayor council it's a pleasure to be here this evening uh t tonight's only public hearing is concerning the text amendments to the baker C Municipal Code title 17 the updates necessary for three separate reasons to address the council referral that was received to update the zoning ordinance to comply with State housing law and for housing element certification um Council referral came to us uh to complete the adoption of the comprehensive update of the residential zoning ordinance sufficient to provide full compliance with state law ah thank you City attorney thought it was cursed there for a minute the second reason is to comply with State legislation I use this graphic just as an example and that that's all the housing bills that were um proposed by the state of California during the 22 2022 legislative session and of those and of those the highlighted in blue were the laws that were were um adopted by the state and signed by the governor that's just one year in the last eight years that encompassed our fifth cycle and there's just a lot of housing law that we need to address within our zoning ordinance um lastly is for housing element certification when we first sat down with hcd some time ago now um they identified the residential zoning ordinance as the number one constraint to housing in the city and uh we noted to them that we were working on addressing that and um we're anxious to demonstrate hcd as part of our housing element certification that um we have adjusted our ordinance to be uh more streamlined more development friendly and uh provide more byright opportunities for housing development in the city um you know that housing element challenges us to build 4783 units annually which is no small no small task at hand and uh although the city itself doesn't build anything the zoning ordinance provides for opportunities for developers to come in and build those units in terms of the adoption process this has been an ongoing process for some time now about a year and a half the referral originally came into the planning from planning and develop Committee in um September of 2022 um from that we had three separate workshops with the Planning and Development Committee itself prepared the ordinance at stakeholder workshops and that draft of the ordinance went to the Planning Commission um just two short weeks ago tonight introduction the ordinance second reading hopefully uh on March 13th what does the ordinance changes do there's a consolidation of the residential zoning chapters into a single chapter you'll find uh some examples of what the ordinance looks like that there's a Reliance upon the utilization of tables as opposed to Long lists there's a removal of zones let's remember that the current General plan and the housing element relies Upon A a joint housing uh joint um General plan between the county of Kern and so consequently have land use land uses within our land use zones within our current ordinance that are really akin to rural residential types of development those are being paired from from the zoning ordinance there's new zones to provide for compliance with state law and there's residential parking requirements that have been removed that's is topical and objective development standards were added consistent with state law the zones are broken down as uh from RS or residential Suburban at 0 to2 units and they run through our 1 2 to7 our typical single family residential zoning our two envision a small lot single family residential at 7 to 13 units R3 would be your at typical um apartment complex types of densities R4 and R5 are there because in order for the city to count as part of our vacant s timory land as low income or very low income for low income there must be a minimum density of 20 and for very low income there must be a minimum density of 30 dwelling units our six is a visionary of um the high-speed rail station where uh hopefully one day we can Envision Transit oriented development and the residential Holdings is in order to develop those lands that may not be quite ready for residential development now but in the future though the residen of holding Zone requires that a general plan Amendment and rezone be entertained at time that development is desired you can see a look at the residential the table tabular makeup of those uses a nice tabular use schedule that uh allows for people to maneuver through what's permitted the various use schedule all in one table the sidebar on the on the right hand side of the table provides for um tie-ins to state law and in some cases directs people for additional direction from within title 17 there are new purpose statements included in the ordinance to provide uh written examples of what would be permitted within the zones and there the development standards of the individual zones is also uh arranged in a tabular format there are two new mixed use zones the mx1 zone or neighborhood mixed use and the MX2 Zone these are uh recommendations that come to us wherein we should entertain a mixed use opportunities to provide for additional housing we have uh lots of underutilized main transportation corridors today um that one time were maybe our primary commercial corridors that today may have vacant or underutilized properties the MX Zone allows for the C1 and C2 use schedules to remain in place but also provides for residential uses in a byright way um hence the mixed use um title there are objective development standards um that you utilize a point system to provide for amenity within apartment complexes in multif family settings and um the point totals are based on the total number of units provides for equity in residential development throughout there there is not any um these are more um design based and not architecturally based development standards they they they don't provide for any architectural requirements they're mostly about site design not entirely about site design per the Planning and Development Committee as a as a good place to start um some additional revisions in terms of updated definitions tabular formatting bring the bringing the residential component into into a similar look and feel um there's a 10 acre requirement for PD zones mindful that with the reduced development stand s that would allow for density in the past to build anything beyond a or smaller than a 4500 square ft you'd be faced with a rezone into a PUD Zone consequently we're hopeful that um we have more streamline processes and to entertain a PUD type of development really should be something that's of a larger nature there's a removal of single family from our downtown CC Zone um there's a rem removal of residential uses we'll talk about um comments that have been received from the commission along those lines uh we rely upon state law with our accessory dwelling unit much like uh density bonuses our density bonus law points out points the reader to state law and and so whenever that's changed and it's changed regularly in the last few years um you've had to go and update your own regular ordinance this allows us to rely on state law with uh accessory dwelling unit um ordinance that sees a lot of changes almost annually right now since it's so topical um parking considerations as I noted um there's a proposal to remove uh minimum parking requirements from the ordinance um I use the example of leading as opposed to following in my planning department planning Planning Commission conversation it would seem that that's probably where the state is going showing if you look at AB 2097 there's no requirements within a half mile of a quality Transit line and um or AB 2244 where there are no parking requirements allowed when housing is constructed in conjunction with a religious institution there's been some confusion that the ordinance impeded any providing any parking but that's not the case uh we're relying upon the market to drive the bus as it relates to minimum parking and um so that that's uh that's been proposed by the planning and development committee and is inclusive to this proposal um I've got to say it it's the first time in my life where a developer was opposed to not being regulated um my wife said it was the end of days and um I never in 20 years uh some Commissioners some commissioner comments there there was opposition um uh to U minimum parking requirements not being within the residential ordinance um at least two uh Commissioners um had reservations about residential zones not having parking there was some dialogue about the C1 and C2 zones exclusively for commercial and not allowing residential I would only note that um we created an mx1 Zone that has C1 uses as a buite or the same exact use schedule as a C1 Zone as well as C2 zones and the exclusion of housing from just the C1 and C2 Zone because they would be the only two zones that exclude residential development is more in inclined to try and protect some commercial properties to from in incursion of housing within them it it's almost like if I was to allow residential development at at um any one of a number of opportunities Bea cup or otherwise you would have no commercial zones that are dedicated to commercial uses no commercial zones dedicated solely to commercial uses and we felt that there may be a a negative downside to that you might look at it in terms of if I if I've allowed all commercial zones to have residential why am I not allowing all residential zones to have commercial because we have we'll have no real zones protected just for commercial development um as part of public testimony there was a suggestion to overlap zoning densities I did some research as to whether that's something that's entertained and I found uh no Zone zoning zoning or ordinances within the several ordinances that I pulled from surrounding or or popul municipalities about our size I didn't find any a single example where zoning densities were overlapping I would also note too that the R4 must be at 20 dwelling units an acre or more and the R5 must be at 30 dwelling units or more for the State of California to recognize those zones as providing for low and very low income housing so the city's currently not in compliance with State housing law I'm going to knock on wood I haven't got a nasty gram letter from hcd as we continue to work hard towards bringing them uh an adoptable housing element we provided them one draft and we're currently working through the review of the edits from our consultant for the second draft which we would like to submit in a fairly timely way uh we've been without a h without housing element certification now for the these last two months and um we'd like to make Headway in having an adopted housing element that provides for certification um with state law um the zoning ordinance is really a necessity for compliance and adoption because the ordinances with the zones within it and the various uh laws that are brought into compliance by it um are are almost mandatory for the for consideration of support from hcd um state laws addressed there so the housing element bacon sites rezone relies on it we tomorrow night um we'll take our first round of those rezones to the Planning Commission for hopefully a supportive resolution to council um the annexations that are going to be moving forward to um lafco they rely on these Zone districts being in place because those annexation areas have been pre- zoned consistent with this ordinance the housing element as I noted relies upon it and so adoption makes all those puzzle pieces fit into place thus staff concludes the recommended amendments to title 17 of the begar Su minicipal code are appropriate and consistent with Planning and Development Committee Direction therefore staff and the Planning Commission recommend first reading of the ordinance approving text amendments to willness code title 17 thank you for the opportunity to present thank you Mr Bole Mr CLE do you have anything further to add before we open thank you mayor no all right thank you uh Mr Maxwell you're welcome to listen from out there and we'll call one in one at a time be U at this time item 9A is open is there anyone who would like to speak in opposition please come to the microphone identify yourself and proceed okay uh Jess Frederick WCI I have some written you're welcome to uh thank you mayor go uh Madame mayor and council members I'll be brief uh the action before you uh came as a surprise to many business owners that I've spoken to uh we received perfunctory notice concerning a proposed change in zoning uh to alter our Common parking area from parking to mixed use we sought advice from our partners and Commercial development contacts uh only to find that such action would devalue commercial property uh potentially affecting loan covenants we scrambled to wrap our heads around this matter in terms of the first proposed uh project only to find that the final action taken by the Planning Commission had no relationship to the squa document the analysis which we considered to be inadequate in the first place instead of making a instead they were making a blanket alteration to commercially zoned properties as opposed to just simply shift ing parking to mixed use uh we can do better and uh for the broader Community a first reading we believe is premature instead we respectfully ask that this be returned to planning for additional clarification of the project uh additional study to address Community impacts uh communities such as Westchester will be very very strongly affected and I saw no real consideration uh given there and in conversation with most of those people they had no clue what was coming at them and we also need more time to adequately uh understand this as a public uh and and the review and input I think can make this a better uh zoning change our formal comments I've already given them to you um are in writing uh and we're providing them to the planning department I plan to be at the uh tomorrow's meeting to uh present them and um we reserve the right to expand the formal comments that we've submitted as additional information regarding this action is brought to us thank you thank you Mr Frederick is there anyone else who would like to speak in opposition Mr Frederick at this time if you could leave and then we'll have the next person if there's anybody else officers or anybody in the the lobby who wants to speak in opposition to staff's recommendation there we're we're having them come in well they'll come in one at a time we'll just wait for the next speaker Mr Maxwell are you here to speak in opposition yes I and don't worry I'll I'll give Jess the things that he left here thank you um I'm speaking in opposition of something that is to me uh a a uh uh I don't know an atomic bomb on a small problem uh this is not going to make my neighborhood any better than what it already is we we are the stepsister to just about everything we got that City serve going on that nobody's happy about that got sprung on us uh I have talked to some of the property owners in that area that they're afraid they're part parkings parking lots are going to get turned into multi-use uh they'll lose all of the all the control that we used to have uh I I just I can't see that this council is wants to put themselves in a position where your your ability to determine what happens in the city is thrown out the window because you have to quote comply figure another way of complying put it on the outskirts of town put it in other areas but don't take this neighborhood in one more time kick us kick us in the in in in the in the in the teeth we're tired of it we're really tired of it and and you know I haven't been in on some of the presentations that have gone on in the Planning Commission at this point I have been given a lot of documentation from the people who have been there uh as you know I probably talk to an awful lot of people in the community because they depend on me to to uh take that information and inform the rest of the the community about it because a lot of people listen my program and the number one thing they tell me when they tell me well I love I love your program I love it when you talk about what's going on in this city the local stuff and stuff like this just doesn't look good it just doesn't look good it's like you guys are are not using your brains to think of other ways of trying to comply or basically just telling the state we're not going to comply so take us to court you know if more of the Cities would tell this the legislature that maybe you'd get some traction but this is not a good idea this just isn't a good idea at all um leave leave the neighborhoods that have been established for a long time alone we we've been beat up over in the the north side of 24 Street the Westchester area enough already and now you want to beat us up some more allow all those parking parking lots to get turned into multi-use with no control over exactly what happens to them you'll have people who who are looking at it with dollar signs in their in their their eyes and turn it into anything they want they'll tell you one thing and the next thing you know is they're turning into something completely different how do you stop them and we've already experienced that with with some of the things that uh in in the road structures we put in that which we were promised is not going to come to fruition I can guarantee you that 24th Street is still going to be a parking lot in the morning and in the afternoon because when you look at it when you look at it on the map the s the corridor is not going to help them whatsoever let's let's do it smart this time let's just do it smart thank you mayor yes I did I did open I just know yes that I stepped out but I believe for the record the public hearing was opened approximately um 15 minutes ago and remember it's not 15 minutes Madam city clerk for each speaker it's 15 minutes total so we by my ccul should be down to under 10 minutes thank you madam City attorney uh is there anyone else who'd like to speak in opposition go ahead and are you in opposition all right um let's just make sure there's nobody else in opposition if you could just check on that uh we'll just let our assistant city manager make sure um Mr s we're going to have to just have one person in here at a time we will call you definitely if you just wait oh opposition oh I'm sorry come on up and then we're going to ask you just to step out for right now we'll call you right back good evening Madame mayor welcome uh members of the council my name is Scott the senior vice president castle and cook I'm really here to talk about one um segment of the um of what was this discussed and that's the parking um I'm here today to express my concern with staff's recommendation to eliminate residential parking while I condemn staff for thinking outside the box to help provide more uh affordable housing which would certainly cut down housing cost I can't help imagine the challenges it would create um if there are any alternatives for residents and their guests to park such as example street parking parking lots and or parking garages or or structures uh was a parking demand study done that showed the effects this policy would have 10 20 30 years from now and if so what were the negative externalities associated with such policy and how are they addressed this parking policy may show little effect in the short run but will likely become a burden to nearby properties when more projects are added without providing onsite or off-site parking I hope we don't enact a a parking policy today without having a plan to address the future parking needs of those projects approved under the proposed parking policy that's it thank you thank you Mr the or probably this particular is there anybody else in the lobby who wishes to speak in opposition if there's is there anybody else who wishes to speak in opposition Mr Andrews is there anybody else out there that are you here to speak in opposition welcome good evening Madame mayor uh council members Dave dmowski Home Builders Association of Kern County um actually we don't oppose the ordinance overall there's many features of it that we support particularly the broad mix of product types and densities that are contained in the zoning ordinance but we do have a pretty specific concern about uh wholesale elimination of parking standards in the residential districts we we think that may be ill advised in in a Suburban development setting we don't have a position on downtown you know parking reductions are probably favorable in that that setting but a little bit out of breath from all the excitement here tonight but anyway um the feedback we've received from a number of our uh apartment Builder uh colleagues in the community is that they're seeing an increase in occupants per dwelling unit and actually an increase in number of vehicles for per dwelling unit and so you have to be real careful about eliminating parking all together together because it could force in the situation where a developer opts to not provide adequate parking there's no real onsite sorry it's okay it's been a challenging evening go ahead just take your time I'm just a little bit out of sorts here because of all the excitement um if a developer opts to to reduce the parking well below the expected demand or simply miscalculates it forces the underp parked units uh onto street parking and when you have more and more small Lots uh built into your zoning code there's less parking space available on the streets so it kind of compounds the problem and again in a Suburban setting we're not taking a strong position on on what happens downtown or in other are of the community where you might designate uh pretty intensive Urban uses so I guess what our preference would be just in a nutshell would be to consider Suburban parking standards on a case-by casee basis and where parking can be accommodated offsite uh you know deal with it on a case-by casee basis so again uh that that would be our input from the Home Builders Association so that that's that's all I I can say tonight thank you Mr thank you and Mr Andrew are you aware of anybody else who wants to speak in opposition okay thank you and now is there anybody who wishes to speak in support of staff's recommendation that would be in favor so if you could just let them in one at a time please ready give her one minute should we set the clock 2:15 there we go welcome please introduce yourself good evening mayor go and city council my name is Blaine Neptune I'm with mtos and Associates I'm here tonight and speak in favor of the proposed amendment to title 17 of the municipal code I stood up here at the Planning Commission on February 15th and support of the amendment specifically as it relates to residential zoning the new ordinance will allow developers to process and develop housing tracks with smaller Lots the current zoning ordinance has a 6,000 ft lot minimum and uh down to 4500 ft in a special R1 4.5 Zone over my 35e career the construction the cost to develop Lots has gone along with the construction cost index and prior to co a typical 6,000 to 8,000 ft lot cost around $40 to $50,000 to deel since February of 2020 according to a report from the associated building contractors residential construction costs have risen as high as 40% this means that the same lot cost 70 to 80,000 to develop right now the increase gets passed on to the cost of the new homes the only way to compat these increased costs is to make a lot smaller and spread those costs out over more Lots prior to the new ordinance to accomplish this we would have to rezone lots to R3 and do a PUD overlay this required numerous hearings uh and modifications for setbacks and and other items this new ordinance will give the developers the ability to develop smaller lots and keep Bakersfield housing affordable now in regard to the ordinance regarding parking on February 22nd an article on the front page of the Bakersville California titled developers may get relief from the city's residential parking rules I was quoted and insinuated that the proposed parking changes would keep housing affordable I was referring to the lot sizes when I stood up in front of the Planning Commission while I can support in the core area no parking requirements in the downtown core area when it's close to mass transit or public transit uh I do not support the no parking for more Suburban areas uh where public transportation is not present I have several multif family projects going out in the suburbs and in the rural areas and I think that parking is is required there uh residents need cars to transportation to get them to to to work and to other places if no parking is required uh that might spill over into the residential communities so thank you very much for your time and I appreciate it thank you Mr nepon Mr Andrews if you can just get the next speaker if anybody would wishes to speak in favor or in support can we just have one at a time please welcome please introduce yourself thank you and you might lower the mic a little please mayor go members of the bville uh city council staff uh no no audience today uh but uh thank you for this opportunity to um allowing me to speak in in favor of um the um amendments uh to title 17 that the city of bakersfi uh planning department and Community Development have uh proposed uh over to uh your entity um myself I've been a uh planner for over 40 years uh in the current County uh area um I also had the uh pleasure and honor of serving as chairman for the current County Housing Authority for over 30 years as as as it uh chairman um our goal is to create uh better planning uh projects uh for our community here in in Bakersville and U for the the residents U uh times are changing you know uh uh the times that we have um where everybody said the minimum we needed for six to 8 10,000 square foot Lots um there's a shortage of uh of housing not here not only here in Kern County but uh throughout the state and we found that that there's a need to uh make the lot sizes uh much smaller there uh We've also uh uh identified that that uh there uh that we need uh uh much more um housing uh and that's being forced on us by by uh by the state and and I've worked with with staff for uh almost a year coming with ideas that would really uh streamline the the planning uh uh process and make changes to our commercial and uh and our residential um uh zones to make it easier uh uh to have a viable housing developments here in town um I think staff has done a outstanding job and in trying to um figure out how to best um shape uh uh housing applications planning applications uh that will be coming uh before uh the planning department before your your city council um so the I I really feel that the um the Amendments the text amendments that the city staff has made and are presenting to you today are um are valid I think they they make a lot of sense and as a longtime uh planner I I really do support uh uh the uh changes that that are being um presented to you today so it is my hope that uh your city council would would uh approve uh uh the Amendments that staff is recommending uh to the to to uh title 17 thank you mayor thank you Mr bah Mr Andrews if you could get the next speaker who wishes to speak in support or favor welcome please introduce yourself hi uh my name is Alex MOA with the mo Partners um I just want you know here to here in full support of the uh enhancement made to um to the ordinance the housing element and uh you know I know this will just create uh bigger more uh Economic Opportunity for everyone uh I know for myself personally I almost got a project denied because I you I was lacking one one parking spot in uh in a multi family project uh in the city and uh it it wasn't even for the residents it was for for uh for visitors um and so so we have plenty of parking you know per unit but uh because of this one one uh ordinance you know we always had a project denied so uh I can attest personally attest to that it definitely will help and keep our uh development goals moving along so that's it thank you thank you Mr MOA thanks Mr Andrews if there's anyone else out there you can just check again anyone who wishes to speak in favor or in support that's all uh is there anyone who wishes to speak in rebuttal in opposition Mr Andrews if you could go out there there and just make sure there's nobody who wishes to speak to rebut in opposition and while you're out there you can ask whether there's anybody who wishes to rebut in favor seeing none I'll close the public hearing and return it to councel for comment and action at this point I don't council member Smith thank you mayor uh as part of the Planning Development Committee we've seen this a few times and I want to thank staff uh for all the hard work and uh hopefully hcd likes it also but uh yes changes more density uh R1 simpler I I guess I want to address the parking issues we did talk about it extensively also at Planning Development um from what I'm hearing it seems that people think that you know we are going to require that they cannot put parking in that is not the case as Mr Bole stated they can put all the parking in they want in Suburban developments and I am somewhat surprised like Mr Bo that developers and Builders want more regulation not less we want affordable housing and developers know who their Market is I I spoke with step pels the other day at the ribbon cutting and and affordable housing 40 units and he had to put in you know parking spots for all of them he said you know I'm not going to have you know maybe five people driving cars here but he was required to put in the parking and every project that he's built for affordable housing he's had to do that there are lots of examples where the developer knows his clientele and can save money and cut regulation and I'm inclined to trust the free market I don't believe anybody's going to go out in Suburbia and build a 100 units with no parking and expect to rent the units it's just they're not going to spend $25 million and not provide parking where their customers need parking so if we want to move forward with more affordable housing I thought of the example of uh right now our standards are if you have a three-bedroom apartment it requires three parking stalls so if you have a single mom and she's got a couple kids she's paying for those three stalls if she's renting that apartment and if we want to make it more affordable we need to make it size it right I guess so I am in favor and I will make the motion for approval thank you thank you council member Smith council member gray thank you mayor I've thought about this a lot um I didn't have a lot of time to think about it because it was just given to us uh Friday but in doing my own research and talking to several different people um many people that I reached out to um I'm looking at a bigger picture with this thing than what I think some are I've really taken to Heart what is happening in our state legislature and how the push for high density populations and unrealistic expectations are affecting our housing element approval overall the California Department of Housing and Community Development has once again dictated to our local government as to how we are going to plan our community and Hold Us hostage by holding their funding from us if we don't comply in drawing up this new housing element the state has imposed unrealistic goals on us a goal of producing 36,6 41 dwelling units in our city at a average of 4700 whatever that was a year until we accomplished this there are some of us that entirely understand that this is an unrealistic goal why is it unrealistic because it's impossible with all the state regulations talking about regulations place of solar sprinklers High permit fees the rising cost of materials and labor that it will not pencil out for a builder to make a return on their investment so and then with with my colleague um council member Bob Smith what he just said that even scared me more because then we could end up with Builders coming in that it's just the bottom line they don't care about the city and they would and they would put in multi-unit housing that could affect the city negatively but there's other there's other ways that this is not a real good great idea either of where are those funds going to come from to provide the affordable housing that the state is opposing on us where are they going to come from if the builders aren't going to come in where are they going to come from well la has a great example of this with their affordable housing policy for their homeless population that came at a low price tag of $800,000 per unit in 2022 with a total of $1.2 billion budgeted and it didn't make dent in their problem so guess who who paid for it the taxpayer at a at a tune of $800,000 per unit to me that's socialism at its finest so the last paragraph in our administrative report that we received is selling this recommendation under Council goals sums up the real reason behind these amendments as part of the safety and resilience goal completing the residential zoning code update is high priority objective to pursue action plan for ending homelessness and and then also to provide full compliance with state law is a high priority objective to Neighborhood Vitality well after reading through this mment summary obviously these zone changes are more in favor of high density neighborhoods all over this town rather than what I would rather see or developments that will attract large companies to relocate here that will offered good paying jobs and support our economy with their tax dollars that's what I would like to see one of my constituents brought to my attention and talking about this in the last few days that creating high density areas all over our city will promote and create a living situation that has people too close to one another where neighbors and people groups will become frustrated with one another leading to more challenges in our city as in parking because they don't have a parking space somebody took took their parking space and so forth those are all things that can come from high density planning people need their own space and they're leaving big cities a lot of them for this very reason because they don't want to be in a place where it's high density Bakersfield has been a refuge and a city of Open Spaces that's invited every every group of people here because we have some room to move so I thought his comments were worth considering I thought it was very interesting perspective so removing parking restrictions like I say is a great example of creating this kind of chaos and our this amendment reads parking parking standards are no longer required for residential construction period I mean that was the first sentence and then speaking of parking there's talk of a compromise that no parking standards would only pertain to downtown some business owners are very concerned of what an impact this would have on their businesses if the city was not committed to making sure that parking was available I understand that concern as a business owner and would want to see the results of the parking study that's been in the works for over a year before we commit to no Park parking restrictions downtown policy I feel that we've gotten the cart before the horse again and Common Sense is alluding us if we don't even know how we're going to take care of these people and our businesses downtown before we vote on this this amendment so in conclusion I find this is a very complicated and involved amendment that staff has spent a lot of time on which I appreciate but it's come before us tonight for vote and I do not believe that the council at this time has a and we've heard that from our speaker tonight too to review this document properly for me passing it and then reading it after it's passed for me is not an option so I would like to make a motion for this to come back to the council within the next two months I know that excuse me my throat's getting dry that time is of the essence I know we can't wait 6 months we we got to we've got to get this thing done um but I would rather come back to it where we can ask some questions I talk to the only person on the D the deas that has done any type of Planning and Development um or colleague council member Freeman and I said Bruce I'm reading this stuff this is very complicated I'm trying to figure out the are all the the zoning if I could just get more clarity on R1 2 three because I'm reading through some of that stuff and it's very Troublesome to me that I'm not even sure we really have R1 zoning left in our city so there's questions like that that that I want to be able to ask and I think and I've talked to some of my other colleagues too and they really don't understand all of it so we're in a position that I think if we could just take the time to because this is a big deal deal that's probably going to last Way Beyond my life that could affect our city Way Beyond My My Life um I think it would be prudent for us to be able to do so instead of just trying to push this through quickly so I'd like to make a motion for this to come back to the council within with in a given time that staff feels is appropriate um after we've had a workshop and have an an opportunity to revie and ask questions thank you thank you council member gray council member Freeman don't know where to begin I agree with Council M gray I agree with Council M Smith I on the one hand and I've been developing for 33 years and have built tens of thousands of units including multif family and I agree no good developer and intelligent developer would go out and build a 100 units and not in the suburbs and not put any parking in because it wouldn't be able to rent them so um because you know I said good developer um uh I also um spend a lot of time down in Southern California driving around I would say almost every single City there in the greater Basin and most of them were developed before they had parking standards and so the multi family would built with no parking and it's a total disaster for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of square miles apartments are all parking up and down the streets people live in the apartments Drive block after block after block at night trying to find a parking place it is a total disaster which is why all the laws were created to require onsite parking for apartments in the first place um so in those were suburbs then uh I'm I'm totally against this in what we'll call the suburbs and I've had no I've had 100% negative feedback on the idea that you would go into the middle of you know my War down on whatever Old River Road build a big apartment have no parking and I don't think a good developer would do it but I have lived long enough to know there are bad developers there are people who try to cut Corners you can't you can't guarantee there won't ever be a bad developer someplace so so I don't really like to open up that that window um I'm also a little concerned with some of the SQL arguments raised tonight I don't know Texas se Attorney to know if those are legitimate I don't want to get sued on this thing um I would like more time for people like council member grade to fully understand the zoning I think uh Mr do did a very good job and the committee get a job many hours in creating the zoning to facilitate the possibility to build these units which I think was our responsibility we can't guarantee they'll be built because in California the costs are too high to build you can't build anything and so they're not going to get built okay we should know that but the law says he has to create the zoning to facilitate this formulaic thing and he's abided by the he's done a very good job of it so my compliments for that uh I I'm just hung up on parking and I'm not really hung up in if we called it a downtown Zone and someone better than me needs to defin to downtown GES I don't want it to include Westchester I don't want all those people to have everything in front of their houses with thousands of cars out of a bars coming every night so I'm not sure what the downtown zone is but I would like to see us uh facilitate in a downtown core Urban Zone uh the ability to have no parking commensurate with either the developer showing there is plenty of parking around a study or something or that and I would like to see the city commit to building parking structures downtown because we need people to leave downtown to revive the businesses and without more parking structures we're not going to have them that we're just not going to have them and major cities all have these parking structures the ones even referenced in the uh in the text all have massive parking structures in their downtowns we need parking structures for people uh who don't have it on site so there's more I just think there's a little more thinking to be done on this what I would really like to see is All of Us address these issues make some compromises with each other and for once get a 70 vote where the council agreed on something we could all learn to work together and each of us give a little bit and come up with a good policy that we didn't always have to have a fourth three Vote or a three four vote split down the middle I don't think the community likes that I don't think that's I don't think we're doing a good job of our job when we do that I'd really like to take a little more time and see if we can work out some bugs in each of us compromise a little and get everybody in agreement on a good policy um and I'm mainly talking about the parking I think the rest of this is in pretty good shape so U for that reason I I'll be supporting counil members Gray's motion just to give us the time to work out some bugs here and I really hope reach some consensus thank you thank you council member Freeman council member core thank you mayor okay um I've been asked just for a little break so if we can just hold for one minute um if anybody else would like to do that uh you're welcome [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] reconvening at 7:07 council member core thank you mayor um one as uh I wanted to Echo council member Bob Smith's uh comments and having seen this in the planning and development subcommittee quite a few times um wanted to congratulate Chris Bole Paul Johnson and team on um a very impressive housing element as a student of City Planning you often read through housing elements and it's exciting to know that a student somewhere will read um this housing element someday and be very impressed with some of the things that we'll be able to accomplish um I will say that I think two things can be true at once you know housing in terms of housing the burden to develop is very much real um we do need to lower the cost to build and uh we can we do need more complete Transit System systems I don't think two are they're not isolated the two go hand inand um but people must have somewhere to live first um and in order to do that we need to kind of decrease the burden in order to build and um I agree I think you you know as as we rely so much on the market we let the market decide in terms of parking requirements I think in in having no minimum and having a no minimum parking requirement um as council member Smith said a lot of the times that's assumed as being as um being that no parking will be developed uh and that's not the case and uh there are many many cities within California that serve as case study San Jose is one and if we look at kind of demographically and geographically San Jose even you know being a city of urban sprawl really mirrors kind of this the scenes that we'll see here in Bakersfield um and serves as a good case study that has removed parking requirements for anyone who needs to do further research on that that so I would encourage others to look at other cities as precedent studies um as someone who uh represents uh one of the southernmost districts that is arguably urban sprawl however a suburb of of the urban core however you want to kind of identify it um I I'm concerned one um housing is obviously a concern but as we see so much rapid development I'm also taking into account that so much of w 7 is a is just a large parking lot and when we think about living in a city as as extremely hot as Bakersfield I'm thinking about the heat island effect that comes with just having surface parking lots across the city um and not to mention um the socioeconomic burden of the heat island effect that falls on different communities um and I know a lot of the conversations been about the urban core but that housing diversity should kind of span across the city as well um I trust a free market I think less regulation less burden does save money for developers this is not just my own personal opinion this is proven time after time for cities Across the Nation that have that have removed parking minimums um and ending parking requirements actually you know it it actually decreases the involve ment in in government and it decreases government's involvement in development the government cannot actually dictate the quantity and location of the parking that you then develop that is the exact definition of having no parking minimums um so instead you kind of trust the developers you trust the markets to to determine how much parking will be necessary um and they can be creative with this this can be a parking garage this can be a parking garage that's uh you know that's located a little bit further than the Housing Development no matter if it's an apartment or if it's homes it also allows you to get more creative with what you're developing you can have Town Homes you can have Cottages Garden Apartments all of these things then become a reality and can be a reality whereas right now we kind of see the same kind of housing stock but you can't really diversify the housing type um until you can remove some of these parking minimums um and I think at you know bottom line it is you know it's who we're designing for and I'll take the very specific example of those who don't need cars uh senior citizens if we are trying to develop housing um for senior citizens who don't drive who either have maybe one individual who drives who have you know in some senior uh centers there's one person who drives a multitude of people you know we are also preventing um the development of housing for for for that population base uh very much in need of housing we know so many of our houseless uh neighbors and residents of the city are senior citizens are veterans so if we're we're serving a certain population base who who may not even need a vehicle can we now develop housing for those um without this parking minimum um and then my last point that I'd like to make is that you know there's this point of folks who are leaving California and at the root of that is that it's you know it's too expensive for families to afford to live here it's just too expensive to live anywhere it's too people are even leaving Bakersfield because it's expensive um but the reason is also because there are so many burdens to build housing so this is a step in in the direction of removing some of those barriers um it's it's a different it's a completely different issue if folks need to spend more time researching um what uh a no minimum parking requirement means and and and positive case studies that have come from it and I'm sure that our staff would be happy to provide those um that that's a entirely separate issue but to be like completely against parking minimums um I don't want it to become like an ideological issue it's actually a it's a barrier and um it hinders us from building housing for people in dire need um and I would just encourage us to think of those who are a little bit more vulnerable um citizens in our in our resident in our in our city um for example senior citizens building affordable housing for senior citizens who who actually don't need a vehicle um so close with that example and and return thank you council member core I don't see any other requests to speak at this point point so you have a motion oh okay council member Arius I am over for three tonight I'm trying to make comments if you hit it twice I think it cancels it thank you mayor um lot lots to digest here but just a couple questions for staff um I know we've generally talked about the importance of passing the housing element can you probably tell me for the empty time what those deadlines look like like and uh how fast does this body need to move to come into compliance with State regulation thank you for your question um as I noted in a presentation the city fell out of compliance by not um certifying a housing element and approving the housing element here from your dis and having that housing element certified by the state so at present we're 60 days in with without certification we've made one um application to the state and taken one um round of comments back uh you may or may not have seen the multitude of pages of comments that come from various stakeholders and we've been as been altering the current draft to be reflective of or be at least responsive to those comments in terms of timing because I don't have a certified element right now timing is of the essence um we've been working very hard to bring our second draft to bear and um I just got an email today from my consultant where they will be returning the draft back to staff for our review and additional comments and they want those comments back by next Friday um which is uh a lift um but we're we're preparing to to put all hands on deck to provide those comments some of those comments um staff has been anticipative of being able to highlight some of our progress in um creating a just creating a zoning ordinance that um provides for all types of housing types to be built in the city at at varying densities and we've we we worked very hard in trying to find um property owners who would Embrace um varying densities um across the board and I'd like to be able to um highlight those efforts within this draft housing element because it's I think it's something that is anticipative of um the State Department of Housing and Community Development that we are making progress along those lines um that said uh you know I I have a a a zoning ordinance hearing tomorrow that relies upon this or pardon me a zoning a rezoning effort tomorrow in ESP special session of the Planning Commission that relies upon these zoning districts as our first effort in creating our vacant sites inventory we do not have zones currently that will satisfy the requirements of the state in terms of providing those minimum densities that I noted um so I guess it it if you ask me for a timeline that the you know the timeline is in in real time it it it's now now I I'm hearing that the the council um and the committee specifically Embraces the majority of the ordinance and that the major problem here is a dialogue uh additional dialogue as it relates to minimum parking standards and in light of my sense of urgency in in completing that second draft and getting that to the state and being able to highlight the efforts of of the city to provide for 65% of the housing requirements in this in the county of Kern for our current Regional Housing needs uh assessment um I don't want to make recommendations to council but it might seem prudent that perhaps we we take action on all but the parking and um staff will work hard to bring a a a workshop to the council that then and you might be able to all vet more fully um but it's important it it's certainly an important matter within within the development services department to be responsive to the deadlines of the State Department of Housing and Community Development and work um Uber diligently towards the adoption and certification of our housing elements we we have not received any communication um from the state of California that would lead towards a de desertification of of the city and and that's a tribute to I believe hcd seeing us as making every effort to certify a new housing element and I don't want to send any message to Sacramento that says anything other than that and that would close my comments great answered questions one through three on my no cheat so well done um so does that mean that we have reason to believe that hcd will approve the rest of this plan should we remove and table for further discussion the parking elements of this plan thank you for your second question I I can't speak for hcd I can speak for the efforts of our consultant and staff that we will prepare our second effort and we will resubmit submit and it's our hope that um the comments that come back from hcd as it relates to our second submitt will be minimal and that will be only a short time frame for staff to make the necessary Corrections that we would hope would be um largely textual and and less content based such that the city could then um certify it six cycle housing element and move forward with implementation of that with purpose great well I think the research is very clear academically and in practice um that a reduction and parking requirements does a whole host of good for the community uh it streamlines development it makes development cheaper uh which increases our housing Supply uh it encourages active modes of transp Transportation uh which is not only good for people but also good for the environment um ID densifies uh Urban cores and and cities um I think it's it's pretty clear that this longterm should be the direction that the city of bakersfi heads and I'm a huge fan of cutting red tape to make it easier for us to produce that type of development as a city but I'm not in favor of getting rid of local control and I think that's that's the hard pill for me to swallow tonight um not in favor of giving up our local control to uh the federal government the state government and also certainly not our developers while I recognize that most developers are good players and good actors uh we cannot make the assumption that all developers are going to uh be good and also include um appropriate amounts of um of parking so with that I think I would like to make a third motion uh that we move forward with approving all of the rest of this plan uh and tabling for discussion at a later time um some of the parking modifications that staff is proposing thank you thank you council member arus I don't see any other request to speak so we will take Council me aras's motion you have a motion please cat your votes motion was approved with council members AR I'm sorry we and Smith and vice mayor Gonzalez voting no thank you now Madam clerk next item please 10A reports budget presentation by the youth commission $7500 for fiscal year 2425 thank you and I know coun U assistant manager Andrews is getting them it looked like he was going to get them one at a time Commissioners thank you very much for your service thank you for being here and the first Speaker go ahead oh I believe there's a presentation okay the there's a presentation City cler can we get that up it was like at the we just okay well good evening Madame mayor Mr vice mayor council members one of the last times that I was here speaking to you guys was to request funding for the Bakersfield youth commission and vice mayor Gonzalez you requested that we would come back with a budget proposal within 90 days to present to the council and we are here to deliver a few of my commission colleagues and I are here to present that budget proposal to you this evening and I want to thank our full commission for all of the hard work that they've put in in making this possible our role as youth Commissioners is to create an annual project that is aimed directly at empowering the Youth of our city and informing our peers about the issues that impact us unfortunately we have had no funding of our own which has left us to collaborate with local nonprofits to join on to pre-existing projects and while we would say that those projects have been successful and have helped the Youth of our town we believe that we can make a much more substantial impact if we have a budget to carry out our projects with the budget proposal that we are bringing to you this evening we will be using funds to enhance the already standing commitment to create a project to enhance and improve the Youth of Bakersfield we are extraordinarily grateful for everything that you all do and for the hard work and time that our city staff has put in to make this happen and we hope that you can take our budget into consideration uh thank you commissioner Beardsley my name is her Jessel BR I'm a senior at Stockdale High School uh and I am currently the mayor's appointee to the youth commission and I'm the chair um so I just wanted to cover some of the history of the youth commission for you guys so the youth commission was uh created in 2016 as a 16 member commission we're still we still exist like that with two members from each district and two appointed by the mayor um each of us serve a two-year term with a possible one-year uh extension uh there's one main member and one alternate member uh who fills in for the main member in the case that they're absent we generally meet every uh fourth Monday of the month uh at around 4:30 the goal of the youth commission is to create a yearly project uh which kind of empowers the youth or helps the youth in some way or addresses some sort of problem that faces them uh as commissioner Beardsley just mentioned uh and we've done that in the past with several projects so I just wanted to introduce some of them that we've done for you so last year uh we created a project where we would collect school supplies for children living in motels uh the year before uh we collected uh supplies uh for children who are living in hotels as well uh with the help of the Assistance League and the year before that we did an anti vaping Campaign which was aired uh on the news uh and targeted specifically to teenagers and this year we're creating a project uh which is an um which is an extracurricular Fair um that will go along with the GI big at the current event uh so that way students can find extracurriculars that they really care about and they can do some more things outside of school so with that uh thank you and I'll pass it pass it off to commissioner terango to continue and give more details about our budget thank you thank you commissioner BR uh good evening mayor vice mayor and council members my name is Natalie Tango I'm a senior at Golden Valley High School and I represent Ward one on the Bakersfield youth commission uh and I'm going to introduce the budget proposal um unfortunately we don't have slides but I would like to start by saying that this is an estimated budget based on past projects and our current project to potentially use in the future this budget proposal is also based on planning and events similar to the ones we have done in the past to get this budget we did thorough research by finding budgets of two comparable cities San Francisco and Honolulu uh who have youth commissions and that put on funded events uh we also research past budgets from the Kern Community foundations event give Big C give big Kent at the park which we plan on collaborating with this year um to begin the facility permit and usage fees which is around ,000 covers the rent of the park and to make sure that all permit um needed for the event are paid for uh for this event and specific tables and chairs are needed for the invited organizations to have booths uh for our extracurricular fair and to be able to put out flyers or resources for the Youth and that would be about $500 the supplies we have a supplies of materials category um which applies to anything that can be used as decorations uh markers Flyers tablecloths for the tables balloons bons um up to a balloon machine anything that we would need to make our event more entertaining and appealing to the youth uh these are things that we could also reuse for the future and we put around $1,500 for this category um with this budget we would also like to get shirts we calculated the total number of people on the youth commission and the staff by the cost of a shirt and it roughly comes out to $750 and the shirts would be used at the event so that people can easily pinpoint one of us and we would be able to help them um they would also make us look more professional and well established so thank you and I'll pass it on to commissioner bath who will continue with the budget go good evening mayor vice mayor and council members my name is gur bat and I'm representative of w 7 so um so continuing on with our budget proposal we are looking at banners for a price of roughly $250 and these would be used to guide the attendees to different booths in the events that we could be planning in the future and also to like to acknowledge the youth commission and that we are holding the events so maybe like something that says like the youth Commission on it and then furthermore we would also be spending on popups and photo backdrops uh of an estimated $500 and these will be used to um to create more of an interactive environment at our events and also to like make like our attendees like more comfortable at the event you know so they can take photos you know and have memories for the future as well and then continuing on we have a budget of about 2500 or like an estimate of 25 $2,500 for vendors and Entertainment rentals which is not which includes but isn't limited to um DJ Services Inflatables and even um food rental food vendors as well and I mean that would also vary by which type of event we are planning to do so that would like have some variation of what we would look into for entertainment um also depending on what type of event we have we would also be wanting to hand out some prizes at our events which we have an estimated $500 for that and these prizes that we are looking at could be candy branded pens pencils and other swag and now I would like to present the grand total which is $7,500 and and thank you for all your consideration and we are now willing to take any questions thank you thank you so much commissioner it's been a delight to watch you in action and just see the projects that our youth have come up with uh year after year uh vice mayor thank you mayor uh thank you Commissioners for your presentation and for being with us this evening and for doing all this work I appreciate it you know I I firmly believe that when you you uh challenge uh folks and you set a high goal uh that uh people will meet your expectation and they'll reach for it and certainly you have and uh you've risen to the occasion uh tonight so you should all be commended um and if you need a letter of recommendation knock on my door more than happy to help you um couple of questions for you all right uh how many students do you hope will attend this event what is your expected goal here here um as as I'm going to be uh resigning from the board next year for college I'm going to leave that to commissioner Beardsley taner who will be here so um we would like as many students as possible of course I think that what we were discussing was probably about 250 students coming out to this year's event um yeah it's about 250 okay and what's the strategy to publicize this event to students so the strategy that we're hoping to use to raise your mic please thank you I apologize um we would like to of course do media through the news and things like that as well as publicized through City Pages um we also being that we're students we want to really get connected within the schools and get it directly to students I know that some of the best things that we've heard about come directly from our counselor's canvas pages and things like that so um just connecting with students in the the best way that we can see fit okay and then regarding supplies materials walk me through exactly what that line item is about once once again I know you did but if you can just in further detail describe what specific supplies and materials so supplies and materials was basically anything that would be needed to make the event more not more appealing but like um for example to put out fly if we want to put out flyers for the event or if we want to put out flyers for our own um like youth to Brand the youth commission that would have to come out of the budget so we kind of made it into a big um into a big balance where it's both the more of the entertainment aspect for the individual event but also for the um basically anything that would allow us to um put fly out and like get the information out um in specific we talked about um tablecloths which were kind of expensive for the tables um if we wanted like a youth commission like you know fancy um it would obviously be more um we wanted it to be more like uh a balloon machine is specific because a lot of that stuff um are like stuff we have have to buy and so it kind of all came together in the supplies and materials which is stuff that we can reuse in future um events as well great thank you two more questions one is if you can um if you can describe for the council what a successful event would look like great so uh in terms of uh what we look at when we want a successful full offend uh the biggest thing is you know bringing as many youth out there as possible uh from as wide of an array of schools in Bakers field that's why it's really helpful that we're from all over Bakersfield because we pretty much all go to different schools so we get a lot of students out there just generally uh through you know communicating through the canvas Pages as a commissioner mentioned but also through organizations for service such as like National Honor societies you know Spanish honor societies math honor socities and everything of that sort um but beyond that we really want to help kids in some way so this year for example we want to connect them to extracurriculars which is something that we've personally heard from other students and we find ourself as something that's hard to find uh find information about extracurriculars to connect to uh in the past it's been about you know sharing information about the dangers of vaping uh as well as just for collecting supplies for students so we just want to to have as big of impact as possible and to involve as many youth as possible okay great and then my last question and this is maybe unfair to ask you tonight but if you can come back with a response in in a future U meeting perhaps after your next youth commission is what council goal does this project align with and so you might want to take a look at our Council goals unless Carter has a a response I might get this wrong but it uh Innovative city or intive government yes uhhuh and I would say that it aligns with that because um this is a way to kind of get that youth perspective into it and I would say that it's in ative to you know get a younger perspective of the people who are going to someday sit up on the stus before they're up there so that we can kind of you know make sure that those ideas are cycling through as it goes I love it I'm super proud of all of you and all of your work and your responses to these questions and so um I'm going to make a motion to approve the recommendation tonight thank you thank you council member core thank you mayor um to our youth commissioners super proud of you all for one drafting a budget presenting it with the utmost confidence and I agree I think it's such a strong suit of your group and your commission that you all come from different high schools different parts of the city and you really bring together different perspectives uh different lived experiences and I I'm very excited to see uh the the end product the event and can't can't wait to attend it with you all so please let me know how I can help too and I will be happy to to help broadcast it with you all thank you council member core council member Freeman um well very quickly uh thank you for your service and I applaud your initiative um I want to let you know that whenever you do a budget especially something you haven't done before you ought to put a contingency in that's the only line missing in your budget um something will go wrong it always does something you to anticipate but something you really have to spend not a nice to have it's something you have to have so I'm going to make a different motion okay I'm going a motion that we approve your budget with the addition of a 5% contingency thank you council member Freeman council member Arius thank you mayor I support that motion I think it's very um good practice uh with budgeting to always have a backup fund to be able to account for any unforeseen circumstances uh which often happens so uh my other piece of feedback is that it is my hope that this is an ongoing uh contribution but there are a lot of materials that you all will be spending with these dollars and it's my hope that we save those resources for future commissions to come um so that we don't have as much cost going out every single year um and I hope that I get an invitation I would love to be there and really uh kudos to you Carter um really proud of your leadership on this and appreciate all the Commissioners uh for coming and presenting this and putting this together uh but let this be an example of what can happen when you approach the right folks um and you know some days you just get these crazy ideas um and you have these honest dialogue and conversations um with with the powers that be and you're able to you know in some cases maybe not move mountains in this particular instance but you can create a change uh so congratulations and uh looking forward to the event thank you council member arus I don't see any other requests to speak you have a motion which uh is council member Freeman we take the second one first before the first one so that one is the one with the 5% contingency colleagues please catch your votes motion was unanimously approved thank you very much Commissioners we very much appreciate you and all the best Madam clerk next item please Council and mayor statements are those the same thank you go ahead and clear that and then council member gray thank you mayor I just I have a referral tonight um as we are fully aware 10 million illegal immigrants have entered our country in the last three years and I'm very very concerned of what we're seeing now at the California border that our border is more open than ever and I'm concerned that we are going to get an influx of those immigrants into our city we're only 5 hours from San Diego we've seen in the other cities in the United States where they've come in it's been a huge burden on the um budget and so I'm very I was thinking about this the other day watching the news are we prepared for such an event if we have a huge group of people start coming heading our way and so I'd like to make a referral to staff um if you could report back to us if there's anything in the that are we prepared for this and if so how are we because it's not something that we've ever talked about and I think we need to be able to be considering that scenario it spills over into Bakersville thank you council member gray any other request to speak sing none the meeting is adjourned at 7:44 colleagues so [Music] [Music] we