he [Music] [Music] is [Music] welcome to the special meeting of the Bakersfield City Council now speaking The Honorable mayor Karen K go good afternoon it's my pleasure to call to order the 400m special city council meeting of May 8th 2024 Madame cler please call the role mayor go here uh vice mayor Gonzalez here council member Aras here council member Weir council member Smith I am here council member Freeman council member gray here council member core here thank you in keeping with council's new resolution public statements are now received at different times depending on the item I will call on the city clerk to call for public statements at the appropriate time so please listen carefully for the correct time to speak if you wish to make a public statement please fill out a public speaker card and place it in the tray on the counter next to the speaker Podium we ask that you mark whether you are here to speak on an item listed on today's agenda or in a matter not on the agenda speakers who do not identify specific agenda item will be presumed speakers for the non-agenda public statements if you're here on an item not listed on the meeting agenda you will be called first to speak statements are given a two-minute time limit per speaker 20 minutes total for non-agenda item public statements if you're here to speak on an item listed on the agenda I will call for you at the appropriate time so please listen carefully if public statements become disruptive and I have to clear the chambers to regain order of the meeting you will be called in one at a time to provide your public statement when the item is called everyone in attendance is expected to adhere to the rules of dequorum 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 of the city consider this a first warning to everyone in attendance that conduct that disrupts this meeting May result in exp expulsion and or the chamber being cleared behavior that disrupts the meeting includes repetitive statements shouting interrupting staff or presenters during the meeting speaking out of turn outbursts from the audience surpassing the two-minute time limit Madam clerk do we have any public speakers regarding items not listed on the agenda mayor go we have not received any public speaker cards for items not listed on tonight's agenda nor for items on today's agenda thank you madam clerk next item please close session item 3A conference with legal counsel potential litigation one matter I move to Jour to close session we are Jour to close session Veronica was that your record short meeting sort of [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] o [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I'd rather try and accomplish something great and Fa than try to accomplish can fully succeed I'll stand here all night [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] i' TR accom something TR to succeed all [Music] [Music] and fly suceed fully succeed [Music] [Music] oh oh [Music] oh a [Music] [Music] [Music] reconvening the city council meeting of 4 o'clock at 4:45 Madame City attorney thank you mayor there was one item on close session tonight item 3A a matter of potential litigation and City attorney was given unanimous Direction by a vote of 0 uh absent was council member Ken Weir and uh council member Bruce Freeman recused himself due to a potential source of income thank you thank you and with that we stand adjourn at 4:45 [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] for for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh o [Music] [Music] [Music] e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] that [Music] [Music] there right [Music] [Music] [Music] m [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh oh oh [Music] [Music] [Music] up [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [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 karna 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 700 p.m. you can download the agenda for this meeting at www. Bakersfield City city. us priding 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 May 8th 2024 welcome to all of you I see the office of Dr uh JM Baines assembly woman here thank you for representing Madam cleric please call the roll mayor go here Vice Mary Gonzalez here council member Aras here council member Weir council member Smith I'm here council member Freeman here council member gray here and council member core here thank you we have the pleasure tonight of having Pastor Kev Kevin Edwards Senor pastor of Rising Star Baptist Church to offer the invocation thank you Pastor for all the efforts of your church I know you've been very very involved in the community in the neighborhood following the invocation vice mayor will lead us in the pledge would you please stand Lord as your servants gather today for official business we want to thank you for our mayor the city council and the leaders at every level in our city give them Grace to bring truth justice and stability to our region and give them power to do what is right and to rule In fairness and may our communities be known for its Justice and then father we thank you for your grace and your goodness and may your face continually shine upon them so that your ways may be known in our communities and then we praise you God and may all the people praise you and then our Lord we yield his Harvest and and you Lord will bless us Psalms 67 1-4 and then Lord we give you our land our homes our labor and our city look with favor on our community protect our citizens and leaders and enrich our land so that we may be blessed to others and we may that you would be honored and lifted up in our community in Jesus name amen amened I to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you Pastor thank you vice mayor and Pastor if you need to leave we certainly understand that but you're welcome to stay and join us 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 courtesy to others no signs are allowed in the council chamber or in the lobby Applause is allowed during the presentations 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 deorum including any disruptive behavior that interferes with our ability to have an orderly and efficient meeting prevents the city council from conducting the business of the city consider this a first warning to everyone in attendance that conduct that disrupts this meeting May result in your removal from the meeting and or the chambers being cleared behavior that disrupts the meeting includes repetitive statements shouting interrupting staff or presenters during the meeting speaking out of turn outbursts from the audience and surpassing the two-minute time limit Madam clerk next item please presentations presentations item 4A a proclamation to Jeremy Tobias CEO of capk and Savannah oats advocacy and public relations manager and chair of diversity equity and inclusion in community development at capk declaring Community Action month in Bakersfield during May 2024 thank you may 2024 has been designated as National Community Action month celebrating the nation's 1,00 plus Community Action agencies cap K Works to connect people to lifechanging services and Pathways for Prosperity Across the Nation congratulations on 60 years of innovation impact and proven results to our community and thank you to Jeremy Tobias to Savannah Oaks and to Lewis Gil for all that they do in our community it's my honor to read this Proclamation whereas Community Action Partnership of kar has made essential contributions to individuals and families across Kern County by creating economic opportunities and strengthening communities and whereas cap K addresses underlying causes of poverty alleviates the effects and promotes dignity and self-sufficiency in the communities that we serve and whereas capc delivered over 20 million pounds of food across Kar County in 2023 through the capk food bank and whereas cap K operates Friendship House Community Center located in Bakersville tending to the children within our city and providing a site for educational assistance mentorship and Community now therefore I Karen go mayor of the city of Bakersville do hereby Proclaim May 2024 as National Community Action month in our city and thank cap K for its dedicated service to our Bakersville residents it's my privilege to present this to CEO Jeremy Tobias and his team thank you mayor and uh fellow council members cap K was founded in May of 1965 and we operate 19 distinct programs here in Kern County serving 114,000 people annually we have a staff of 960 dedicated and passionate employees that care about our community and our mission to move people out of poverty towards self-sufficiency as we like to call it we assist people in achieving their version of the American dream we all have a our own version of The American Dream It's not really important what it is but we help people get to that Vision to do that we operate programs such as Head Start the Kern County Food Bank Friendship House 211 homeless Services energy programs and many other services with me this evening is Savannah oats and Louis Gil and Savannah would like to mention a couple items to you good evening uh thank you for this Proclamation we wanted to uh invite all of you um on May 21st to our new facility on 18th Street we'll be having a community action month blood drive uh we like to give back in any way possible that's our celebration um from 8:00 to 4:00 p.m. um and just follow us on socials in regards to all the fun events we have planned for the rest of the year thank you and real quick in closing the most important thing about this evening is uh the partnership part of community action partnership is our Partnerships and we work very closely with the city I want to take a minute to say thank you to the city council the city staff uh for all the assistance you give us and the Partnerships we cannot serve a community of this size and a county of this size without the part Partnerships at the Friendship House the food bank um our different programs we we coordinate with City staff all the time in fact I think an agenda item this evening for CBG funding includes a a project at the friendship house so we appreciate that partnership and the help that the City offers us to provide these programs to the community and they are life-changing programs thank you very much so much mayor if I may I just want to congratulate Community Action Partnership for giving me my allergies tonight or inhibiting me at some level but I just want to congratulate Community Action Partnership for all the work they've done throughout the years serving all of our community residents but certainly those in uh most disadvantaged neighborhoods in our community um youve done an incredible work particularly throughout the pandemic when so many people uh were experiencing crisis situations I want to thank you for all of the work throughout the years um and I also want to welcome you to downtown Bakersville I'm super excited that your administrative office is now in the Heart of the City of Bakersville [Applause] proclamation to Alex Esparza maintenance craft worker 2 for the city of Bakersfield and Greg stalo director of public works for the city of Bakersfield declaring National Public Works week in Bakersfield during the week of May 20th 2024 colleagues imagine a city with no roads to drive on no stop lights no sewer no running water that would be our plight without the infrastructure that Public Works provides and we're so grateful for the men and women who support our public works department and tonight we're joined by maintenance worker 2 Alex expar espara he's served our city since 2000 that's nearly 24 years of resolute commitment to the residents of our community thank you so much Alex Mr stalo and our City's Public Works we're going to keep shaking for all that you do and it's my honor to be able to present this Proclamation we're as Public Works professionals focus on infrastructure facilities and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and to the public health high quality of life and well-being of the people of Bakersville and where whereas these infrastructure facilities and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of Public Works professionals who are Engineers managers and employees at all levels of government and the private sector and whereas the year 2024 marks the 64th annual National Public Works week now therefore I Karen go mayor of the city of Bakersville do hereby Proclaim May 19th through 25th 2024 as National Public Works week in our city and urge all citizens and Civic organizations to recognize the contributions Public Works officials make every day to our health to our safety to our comfort and to our quality of life it's my honor to be able to celebrate this Alex and Mr stalo and I think you're going to introduce him thank you so much thank you mayor thank you Council um this year Public Works wanted to do something a little different we wanted to identify an employe and there were many to choose from but we won we chose Alex because um you may have heard about the story about the man who singlehandedly dug a 30 foot ditch 2 feet deep to reestablish the sanitary sewer line to a fire station you may have heard about the story who of a man who custom built cabinets uh for fire station I think it was number five um uh recently and you may have also heard about the rumors about a public works employee who actually does something with nothing he makes things happen when there are no tools to make it happen he finds a way to make it happen that's Alex Esparza um so Alex thank you for receiving the honor today take a picture oh that my father's going to take a picture over there too we take care of that right here come right here turn it around right here got a bunch of them here so all right three two one we got it when so much he wants to talk sure I'm glad you're not shy thank you for this uh I'm just uh one of the so many city employees that keep the wheels of the city rolling so thank you for this presentation I really appreciate this thank you Alex thank you for doing the work that uh might not and everyone at Public Works it's not always the most glamorous but without your work our city literally wouldn't run so um just from the bottom of my heart lots of gratitude and thank you for the humility and and and really doing the most essential work so we the city would not literally would not run without you our next portion of the meeting is public statements in keeping with the council's new resolution public statements are now received at different times depending on the item I will call on the city clerk to call for public statements at the appropriate time so please listen carefully for the correct time to speak if you wish to make a public state please fill out a public speaker card and place it in the tray on the counter next to the speaker Podium 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 non-agenda public statements if you're here to speak on an item not listed on the meeting agenda you will be called first to speak statements are given a two-minute time limit per speaker 20 20 minutes total for all non-agenda item public statements if you're here to speak on an item listed on the agenda I will call for you at a later time so please listen carefully if public statements become disruptive and I have to clear the chambers to regain order of the meeting you will be called in one at a time to provide your public statement when your item is called Madam clerk do we have any public speakers regarding items not listed on the agenda mayor go we've received nine public speaker cards for items not listed on tonight's agenda in addition a staff memorandum has been provided transmitting written correspondence um regarding an item not on tonight's agenda the first three public speakers will be Sharon Terell Roman followed by Roman Mato followed by Valeria Mr trell welcome please introduce yourself hi I'm Sharon Terell and it's nice to meet you the reason why I'm here is because on April the 5th I had my car stolen um out of the parking lot of my gym now the police department I love you and I want you safe but you guys dro the ball the car was found on the 16th and when it was found uh the person who stole all her items were in there at least I know she's clean her toothbrush and her purse deodorant tennis shoes everything's in there as a matter of fact uh she also wrote her name or love or something but nobody came to investigate nobody you know they came and they got the purse but nobody asked to go look at the video of where the car was stolen to find out but the most atrocity is being done by the towing company my car was found on the 16th and it was towed 2 miles from Harding to Buck olens I was charged for hour and a half for going two miles they charged me $328 all together the toll was $500 and something when I asked why this was done I was told that the Kern County Sheriff Department set the rate that you guys did this and you're the ones that set the rate I said I went down there and asked the current nope we don't do that sheriff department said we don't have anything to do with that we don't set the rates the toe company does I go back and tell her then I go over and I see the city the city's we don't have anything to do with setting the rates the toe company does it I went over and I asked General Services is there something here no we don't have anything to do with it your account accountant that was here last week when poor man I ran him down in the street to ask who sets these prices he says oh it must be something it's it's up there we we have a nobody has it nobody in the name of the county of karna they are robbing people and they are intimidating people because you see it it's yes Mr Ro you're time is up I'm so sorry that happened and Mr Howen can we have somebody on staff just follow up with Mr Terell we'll make sure that happens vice mayor than thank you mayor uh thank you Mr trell for coming and speaking today and raising this concern I'm sorry that this has happened to you um I'm glad Mr Howen will be following up to find out some more details um but what I'd also like to ask is that you report back to the council regarding what you find related to these rates um that she's referring to these Towing rates rates that are set either by the city or the county so that we can get some clarity um thank you thank you Mr thank you next speaker please Roman Mato followed by Valeria followed by Irvin Pike welcome please introduce yourself hello uh my name is Roman Mata I've spoke at a bunch of these um actually had two things uh one thing that come up came up actually just a couple hours ago uh I wanted to direct a question actually to the um city council um I saw that the 3:15 p.m. meeting today was canceled but there was a 4 P.M meeting held to address um some kind of litigation thing I was just curious why you canceled the 3 sorry the 351 um are you able to comment on that it was just because we had a very short item and so it was to move it ahead and it was a close session item okay fair enough thank you um so the other thing I wanted to talk about is I'm actually here to ask the city to not do something um this is a admittedly anticipating a problem um and I just would like to pull up a bit of a quote from an article that I was reading it says that it's talking about large vehicles specifically trucks and SUVs that every year are being made wider in fact according to the I quote the BBC according to the nonprofit transport and environments um the size of the average car is growing wider at a rate of 1 cm or 04 in every two years now the reason I bring this up now is because you know right now there's probably not much of an issue but if these Trends are continuing and these Trends have been continuing for the past 20 to 30 years I would bet that you know at some point you're going to get some people whether some kind of Citizen or maybe even a lobbyist from you know one of the car companies saying something like the changing standards of the auto market and Industry are mandating that you ought to consider making the parking spaces bigger and if they happen to say that I would ask that you say no because these bigger cars hurt the environment increase the amount of potholes stress City budgets and I I just think that they're they're a nuisance to the public thank you thank you next speaker please Valeria followed by vvin Pike followed by Jose Ruben rangle Lopez welcome please introduce yourself afternoon um I was not able to find the time to make a can you get a little closer to the mic please thank you I was not able to find the time to make a speech today but I just wanted to come again to show you guys I'm going to keep coming um I've come I think this is my eth meeting now and I have yet to receive any response from you guys even though you know you like to say that you're going to you're going to work with your constituents but it hasn't happened for for months now um I've been thinking a lot about this article from Huff poost in 2017 it had a very Str breing headline um and it's all I've been able to think about lately um it reads I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people um that's all I have to say free Palestine the death toll has hit over 35,000 innocent civilians um and you guys have yet to do anything about it next speaker please Irvin Pike followed by Jose Ruben Wrangle Lopez followed by Kev welcome please introduce yourself hi my name's Irvin I want to thank uh our mayor go and council members and police officers that are here words words can be very powerful actions since October 7th 2023 the day that Hamas raped killed tortured mutilated and kidnapped innocent men women and children there's been a group that has come to the Bakersfield City council meeting me to demand that our local city council put out a proclamation for ceasefire I always like to take a look and see how a person's another person's view is other than my own yes I understand how emotional they have become with all the deaths but I find it very difficult um why they would not distinguish between innocent gauen lives as the Vivian just said and the ones that caused the War Hamas uh words words the one thing leads to another Miss Patel with the others here have used words of hate calling terrible names to our elected officials wearing masks to hide their identity reminds me very much of the intimidation from the Klux Clan which wasn't that long ago if our city council cowers to the intimidation and does a declaration for a ceasefire of Hamas for the people of Gaza and Israel what would happen next well I'll tell you it would show that all you would have to do is to come here and be intimidating to the city council and come and ask for a declaration I would like to quote Hamas how witty who is a resident of Gaza City who has a message for the anti-israel protesters you are hurting us you know what would help the Palestinians in Gaza condemning Hamas atrocities whose ideology is entirely based on the elimination of Israel Israelis from their land if the pro protesters cared about Palestinians they would have one Central demand Hamas must surrender because we have all suffered from Hamas and can no longer live under the rule of a terrorist group Mr Pike your time is up can you bring your statement to a close just go ahead and only then can a ceasefire be achieved thank you very much thank you next speaker please Jose rubben Wrangle Lopez followed by Kev followed by Sandra Placencia welcome please introduce yourself I'm nobody who are you Jose rangle heavy is the head that wears the crown when the sailing smooth we hold you guys in regard when you're down we kick you I know you guys are down right now but the only way back is up it's never too late to do the right thing as of late your actions have been deplorable disingenuous and unforgivable even still I find it within me to forgive you because I know I know you don't know what you're doing how could you no one is greater than the system the whole is greater than the sum of his Parts I know you don't know what you're doing what I don't know is what you're doing here are we just the leg up a stepping stone where your little assembly runs Kern County Board of supervisor seats Zach scrier um rest assured the positions are set in stone your seats are safe but we wear the year of the ballot this is my o to the city of Bakersfield this is my ballot thank you next speaker please Kev followed by Sandra Placencia followed by Wendell was Lee Jr welcome please introduce yourself okay at this point it's hard to come up here with having anything but dissatisfaction with the city council and I'll just start with the fact that you guys haven't passed the ceasefire resolution because as I stand Here Rafa has been invaded and they close the Crossing into Egypt and that's kind of it that's the final stage of their genocide of their ethnic cleansing and this could be something that might change your mind that if you already didn't know it um but just so you're aware and just so it's public record if you weren't already aware we would love to educate you and we'd love to have a conversation about it I know there's many members in this community who would love to have an honest well-intentioned conversation about the genocide uh but maybe you won't listen to me because I come in here with the CFA and I advocate for Palestine uh but you haven't listened to the residents who've been coming here advocating for tenants right to council uh it would surely benefit the city if you allocated $2 million in funding the eviction prevention pilot program or why haven't you listen to The Advocates of the Kern River those who ask you to provide proper research for ensuring the protection of the wildlife or maybe you can let people call into the meetings for those who can't be here feel included but I don't really it doesn't really strike me that you guys are the caring type that really want to look at the proper concerns of the community and look deep with the issues that are going to create long lasting impacts for everybody you can't even sign a paper saying that you don't agree with murdering children you can't really look at our faces and acknowledge a lot of the statements that we say um one of my favorite speakers comes here too and a to acknowledge that you don't look at them in the eyes when they speak but today I talk to you Cal and you look and you look into my eyes like you're actually going to do something about this genocide about passing a ceasefire resolution or that you're heating my words but you don't many people come here on a bi-weekly basis and they bring concerns to you that are a lot larger than these resolutions that you pass but you ignore them and you let them slip out of the way I don't know maybe it's that or maybe you with the guy that compared mask wearing with the KKK by the way I'm done with my speech and just so you guys know and for the clerk to know I have another slip turned in uh so don't miss it clerk last week you like to you missed me and previous to that you've missed me before so I do have an agenda item as well next speaker please Sandra Placencia followed by Wendell Wesley Jr followed by Paul lenfesty welcome please introduce yourself hello uh my name is Sandra Placencia and I am a current policy Advocate with Leadership Council um so Leadership Council for justice and accountability and our partner organizations and community members stand before you to ask the city to allocate $2 million for the eviction prevention pilot program we Advocate the city fund a comprehensive program that will provide effective community outreach and education on tenant rights provide legal guidance to prevent landlord tenant issues from reaching the eviction process and attorney representation in courts given the amount of comprehensive Services we underscore that the urb original 350,000 that was originally allocated for this program is not enough this is why we urge the city to allocate additional funds to equate the funding total to 2 million for the pilot program it is important to elevate the impact from the delayed implementation of this program according to the Kern County Superior Court since June of 2023 over 20 2,500 evictions were filed against tenants throughout Kern County this includes Bakersfield hundreds of our most vulnerable populations such as children and seniors continue to face evictions without the availability of resources to prevent their evictions and remain housed the long-term impacts of the lack of interventions um result in families who are displaced living in homeless shelters couch surfing facing substantial death depth and having evictions on their credit the city must take action to stop perpetuating impacts that contribute to the housing crisis and ultimately the homelessness crisis multiple cities throughout the United States have implemented various versions of their own eviction prevention program Stout a consultant agency has done numerous amounts of research and cost benefit analysis on eviction right to counsil programs their cost benefit analysis covers a wide range of jurisdictions including urban and rural jurisdictions within the country based on their data um their return on investment on a right to counsil program ranges from $3 to over $12 none of their cost benefit analysis have led to a loss of funds therefore we can confidently state that every dollar that the city invests Miss Placencia your time is up can you bring your comments to a close please um every dollar that the city invests into the eviction Protection Program will have a positive impact on the city's overall physical stability we urge you to continue talking with us and meeting with us so we can talk about this further and we urge you to set aside the funding from psvs thank you thank you vice mayor thank you mayor uh thank you Miss Placencia for uh making comments tonight and Mr W I know you're going to comment as well I assume it's related to this uh so thank you as well in advance um you know I I think um the folks who' have spoken on this issue have a point evictions uh are a it is a it is a dire concern uh for me uh in in my community uh in War I we've seen a number of families who have struggled um and certainly we've seen evictions throughout the county um and in the city of Bakersfield um as well um I I'm interested in finding out you know out of the 2500 um evictions that have been filed against tenants in Baker sold how many of those actually are in the city um but I think we we ought to um take some time and actually look at this issue uh head on and much more comprehensively look at what uh policies or programs or practices are available for us to address um eviction Protections in our community for Baker so residents so I'd like to make a referral tonight to send this to safe and healthy neighborhoods uh so that that committee can explore this issue and then also I know I've asked for it in the past but would would like again for um the public record a um update on the um pilot program that we had allocated funding for uh last fiscal or this current fiscal year um but I think those two items we really need to get moving on and figure out what ways in which we can better uh address the um issues related to evictions facing our families thank you again thank you next speaker please welcome please introduce yourself my name is Wendell Wesley jior city council City management um thanks for um allowing us all here to uh speak our peace you know for our city has a lot of problem what city doesn't our nation has a lot of problems but we can't be so overwhelmed by our problems to not see real solutions that are in front of us there is a solution for every issue and every problem out there okay and we just need to challenge ourselves to take a look at everything that's been out there from other cities and other areas that have worked I know for Community Land Trust works I figured out a way to make Community Land Trust even better I just need to find the right team around me to put together a business to make Community Land Trust something that will help the situation that we have all the problems that we have with homelessness a lot of it is because we created the situation and problem ourselves by just not building enough affordable housing and right now what we call Affordable is really not affordable for a lot of residents okay that type of a strain creates a lot of mental illness which creates a lot of violence and other issues which creates a lot of broken homes and families which creates a lot of homelessness and drug abuse so by not doing the right wrong by not doing the right things we create our own havoc in Mayhem in society so we need to get past that and start making the safe insane decisions starting with making uh affordable housing a constitutional in human right not just here in Bakersville but we can need thetion in this and show them how it's done please talk with us please approve the eviction prevention program and um everything else we need to make bville safe and sane and affordable for all thank you thank you next speaker please Paul linfesty uh Paul oh Paul and festy Ward uh one um I'm someone that actually did show up to the 3:30 meeting the I saw the notice on the uh on the on the door that said the meeting had been cancelled but apparently there was a 4:00 meeting when I got here tonight and looked at the agenda and saw it actually had an agenda which was the same kind of agenda it would have had 3:30 which allowed for not just a closed session but also for non-agenda items from the public so I would like to ask why it was stressed this way on the door it should have said meeting has been rescheduled to 4:00 instead of Turning Away people that did come when it said 3:30 p.m. that was just that was just uh wrong that need that really needed to be clarified um I am now kind of uh trying to remember what I wanted to speak about since I did come to 3:30 because there was more opportunity at that time um I do want to say that as long as three people in a row are being called up all the three of them should be allowed to get up and speak I noticed from the footage last week I mean two weeks ago meeting how three names were uh were read but one only the first one got to actually complete before the time was cut off but someone else had already moved from her seat from back there to get close as the instructions are given at the beginning to be ready to get up and speak and then they came up for their turn and of course the time was out for them that's also it comes across like the council doesn't really care about public input as I said 3:30 is a great time to come because there are very few people come up so you can actually get to say something and um they they just when these things are suddenly changed they don't get that at all and I think there really needs to be a lot of improvement and I'm running out of my time now I understand that I need to get this off before what I will have to try and remember what I came at 3:30 to talk about thank you thank you vice mayor uh thank you Mr lyest I appreciate your comments today I'll be quite transparent I think uh the cancellation the 3:30 was a surprise to some of us on the Das as well uh and the special meeting moved to 4:00 and so I'd like to ask Miss jaro Mr CLE and Mr mchas if we can ensure that uh there's proper notice on uh the exterior of our council chambers uh denoting the 4:00 special meeting I'm assuming that happened uh but if we can make it explicitly clear as day whenever we do cancel a 3:30 meeting and uh substitute for a special meeting uh that we make that clear that there is an available opportunity for members of the public to communicate but in fact we do want to hear from the public we do welcome uh public input um and certainly 3:30 is a is an appropriate time to come and speak as well thank you we'll now move to the public statements listed on the agenda if you're here to speak on items listed under consent calendar item 7 now is your time time to speak again each speaker is given a two-minute time limit and each agenda item is limited to 20 minutes total the consent calendar as a whole constitutes one agenda item if you're here to speak on hearing item 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 Madam clerk do we have any public speakers regarding items listed on consent calendar item seven Mayo we've received three speaker cards for um items listed on tonight's agenda the first public speaker is Roman Mato regarding item 7 D1 followed by Kev regarding item 7 G3 and then Sandra Placencia regarding item 7 E6 welcome please introduce yourself hi um I'm Roman Mata um and uh as you've heard from all my prior as you can probably infer from all the things I've said at past meetings you can imagine that I'm in Firm support of this um I've been advocating exactly for the city to engage in this kind of purchasing process to you know clean up some of this like unused land and uh put it to better use so I think it's I think it's an amazing thing that you're doing I wanted to clarify a couple things just a couple quick questions um number one uh what's currently there at 901 Union Avenue Avenue yeah we are not able to respond this way so oh sorry sorry I didn't know so I guess I would just ask um what is there how much land is it it's not listed here and I know you can't list everything but that would be an important thing and uh finally um what do you plan to do with this land once you purchase it um personally I would push for some kind of U either like apartment or you know maybe some kind of mixed use thing that has like room like a building for business and for housing um but um really just purchasing the unused land and doing something with it is a big Improvement um so um that's all I had to say thank you thank you and next speaker please Kev regarding 7 G3 [Music] so now that I can give my agenda comment I want to speak against the miscellaneous agenda item 7 G3 because it's a topic that ties into what I intended to say about two weeks ago that as you the city council sits here and approve the conditions for the police you increase their funding you give them more surveillance power which is likely to be used for discriminatory policing and you offer them A system that lets them go and checked and on top of everything last meeting you had two resolutions that allowed the use of General funds to pay for Surplus police ammunition do you know what that ammunition would be used for because I have an idea it' probably be used to train killer cops or to bring potentially fatal harm to members of the community because it's known that police here in Bakersfield like to be violent uh or also if it was put into the hands of the sheriff it'd probably be used to shoot cats because I'm not sure if you're aware of that video that came out but I don't want to see funding for police for that are going to be used to harm people or animals within this community and that there is such a large police budget here and that much of those funds can be used for other things because if you did care about public input you'd hear how most people come here advocating for wanting projects within this community they want funding for things to provide a proper Environmental Protections we want to see proper infrastructure we want to see wellestablished housing we want to see this place be affordable but you are doing a lot to increase policing we've seen that there's been more surveillance systems within the community we see that you increase budgets and we see that you use funds from the general fund to fund the police and we don't me many members in this community don't want to see more police funding but it's like I said you don't truly care about long lasting impacts on this community that are going to bring the benefit of people you just want more policing you want more control and you want to exert that power thank you next speaker please Sandra Placencia welcome hi again um so um my name is Sandra Placencia I'm a current policy Advocate with Leadership Council I just wanted to come up here and um thank the city and also give a shout out to Greenfield walking group and Vis compromiso for all the amazing work that they did for the safe routes to school um I know they have been advocating for years so just wanted to come up here um show our solidarity and our support with them so thank you thank you Miss Placencia Greenfield walking group and uh Vio thank you so much and the action that you all have taken has been admirable and your help with the youth uh Madam clerk uh no vice mayor I think that's the that's the last one yes okay uh no member of the council wishes to recuse themselves from any item or remove any item for separate consideration so with that I'll move to adopt the consent calendar you have a motion please cat your votes motion is approved with council member Weir absent 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 and make your statements succinctly So Others May speak we'll hear statements from those opposed to the staff's recommendation first and we'll hear from those who'd like to speak in favor of staff's recommendation 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 and after 14 minutes a yellow light will come on at the end of 15 minutes a red light will flash indicating your time is up quickly and your statement you may ask questions during your statement but they won't be addressed rest 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 provide copies to the council please be courteous to others who wish to speak Madame clerk please read the public hearing item public hearing item 9A HUD fiscal year 20242 action plan thank you Mr Helen thank you mayor uh we have uh Miss Jenny buers who will give us a presentation Miss buers if you just hold one minute till everybody has an opportunity to finish clearing the chambers thank you welcome thank you Mr Howen uh mayor and council members the item before you is our 2425 action plan it's our HUD required document every 5 years we have to do a Consolidated plan which really identifies for the next five years what Pro what types of projects that we will spend our cdbg funding on so those goals that were identified for the 2025 Consolidated plan up on the screen we will be entering into a new Consolidated plan this summer for the next 5 years with that we anticipate the resources [Music] maybe or not jie at Julie okay so we have these as anticipated resources because HUD didn't release the funding the actual funding until this morning these items that are shown here the dollar amount shown here are from last year's action plan so HUD has updated it there's a couple of changes that have been made we also took this to our budget and finance and economic development committee on February 26 and we have identified at that time that we didn't know what our end resources would be but it would be split uh if there was some changes to that funding to the sidewalk repair program this action plan is due to HUD on May 15th we don't typically like to bring something just one meeting before Council when it's required but we kept hoping that HUD was going to distribute what our funding resources were like I said they did distribute that to us this morning we have um three um almost 4 million in Community Development block grant uh $1,801 th000 to our home program ESG is $334,000 and then hwa which is our housing for people with AIDS program is1 mil 80,000 is the proposed funding in our action plan these are identified by Hud and so that uh is how the city based off of the Outreach that we have done that where the funding is proposed to be allocated with that uh with that I propose that city council approve the funding plan for our 2425 action plan thank you miss buers anything further Mr Helen thank you and at this time item 9A is open is there anyone who would like to speak in opposition to staff's recommendation please come to to the microphone identify yourself and proceed welcome hi uh Sandra fenia Leadership Council not necessarily an opposition more of a suggestion um but I will commence um so uh the city of bakersf has proposed a variety of different housing programs and resources that fall under the HUD action plan we encourage the city to leverage this funding um in the housing element to ensure that proposed programs and policies will have a beneficial impact and be implemented during the sixth cycle as the City Works towards State compliance with her sixth cycle housing elements we highlight concerns raised through our April 29th 2024 housing element comment letter government code 65583 subdivision C states that the city must ensure beneficial impacts of the programs within the planning period that the local government is undertaking or intends to undertake to implement the policies and achieve the goals and objectives of the housing element in order to ensure that the PO Lees um in order to ensure that the policies are achieved and the goals as well um we encourage the city to utilize the HUD action plan funding for the proposed housing element programs community and Bakers HS has continuously ask for a permanent rental assistance program the current housing element draft does not include an actual ongoing rental assistance program but under the HUD action plan funding funding hwa and ESG funds are eligible and are currently being proposed for a rental assistance program we propos the city include an ongoing rental assistance program and the housing element draft um ensuring that the Hut action plan funding is cited as a potential funding source additionally action 5.1 proposes building approximately 25 units of housing for persons with disabilities during the 8-year planning period we reiterate hdd's concerns of low numerical objectives that do not meet the need of the jurisdiction approximately over 500 residents within the city of Bakersville have a disability and live on their own with the High concentration of residents with disability located in Northeast and Central Bakersfield likely due to the need to live live near Transit and Medical Services as well as having income restrictions and other issues related to the housing to housing access there needs to be more housing units built during this housing cycle that will accommodate persons with disabilities as they have they are a special population we encourage the use of cdbg funds to ensure that at least 60 units of housings for persons with disabilities are constructed during the planning period lastly we want to uplift the need for the city to continue hosting workshops Community meetings and education on the housing element to continue Gathering Community input and feedback on the housing element we reiterate the importance of public participation in the development adoption and implementation of the housing element as essential to effective housing planning thank you thank you Miss Placencia is there anyone else who would like to speak in opposition to staff's recommendation see none is there anyone who wishes to speak in support of staff's recommendation please step to the microphone at this time seeing none I'll close the public hearing and return it to council for comment and action council member Arius thank you mayor uh just one quick question uh for you jinny I know we don't have the official numbers um but in the first slide uh you mentioned that all of these buckets of funding uh are aimed at preventing and reducing homelessness can you identify which of those buckets um allows for prevention dollars yes so in the Consolidated plan it is a an Outreach that we do with the community for the five-year goals here this is the proposed buckets of funding and that is determined by uh HUD so HUD tells us this is how much you're getting for hotwood this is how much you're getting in ESG this is how much you're allowed to receive for the home funds um so what we're proposing in based on the Consolidated plan and this year's action plan in our home budget we have a chto set aside and a chto is a community housing development organization it it's a special status that is to receive 258,000 we have the down payment assistant program which is also 258,000 and then for new construction out of the home budget we are proposing $1.1 million to be set aside for the construction of housing units in the ESG budget we have uh rapid rehousing prevention is one of the programs homeless Outreach and shelter operations so we have 109,000 set aside for rapid rehousing and prevention uh 25,000 for homeless Outreach and then 175,000 for for shelter operations uh as far as the uh cdbg budget you are restricted to how you're allowed to use that funding so you're only allowed to have 15% of the funding go for it um 10% can go for administrative 15% can go to public services and so there's a lot of restrictions that come with this funding I'd also like to State we can't guarantee this funding source it changes every year there's been threats of the program being eliminated so to tie it to something like the future housing element that's a tenure uh is is not really allowed but we do try to make sure that we have some programs so one of the programs that we do have in cdbg that has been supported after the last 5 years is our home access Ada program and we have done that because of the Consolidated plan goals uh to include that we have Curb gutter sidewalk Ada lighting public Services the senior center uh typically receives a portion of that and so that's about 190,000 and that is capped by that 15% in cdbg uh Senior Center is one of the uses Habitat for Humanity also has a Workforce Development program out of that public service and so it really goes to a variety they apply for the program so when we were looking at the calendar that we have where we had Outreach where we had that action plan was out for review where we presented it to the budget and finance committee we had about five opportunities to have comments have programs submitted and so that's kind of how we work through some of this for the home application I'd have to go back and look to see where uh it's proposed from last year I do know that housing authority received 1.1 million out of our home program last year and so it really is going for the development of housing currently I don't know if I answered your question you absolutely didn't and then some uh so thank you for for uh walking me through that I I just want to uh one say thank you for putting this together I know sometimes there can be significant delays with getting the official uh um numbers from um the federal government um I also just want to Echo you know some of the points that have been made tonight from Miss Placencia and others um that you know in Al allocation towards rental and utility assistance uh to keep people house can those dollars stretch so much further when it comes to actually keeping people in their homes um so I'm not familiar with the details of home or cdbg and whether or not we can utilize some of those prevention dollars for that purpose um but I know that those dollars that we've recently set aside will go very fast um so I think where there's opportunities in the future to continue to make those allocations um through steady streams of funding you know $5,000 can keep you know a family in their home um as opposed to you know having to create a brand new affordable housing unit that's going to cost upwards of $150,000 um I think it's it's a no-brainer it's it's common sense so um just thank you for the work that you're doing and um looking forward to Future conversations to see if we can find some future funding for that purpose thank you thank you council member arus council member core thank you mayor thank you Jenny for the presentation even though HUD maybe on brand sent you all the information this morning uh it's good to still have this to work with uh for us um my questions uh are quite similar to council member adius is which is not a surprise um you mentioned curb gutter sidewalk and of course connectivity is essential also to just the infrastructure we're building um could you remind me where we that's through the cdbg bucket that we have have uh a lot of the curb gutter cyb programs that we have and I'm sorry that I don't have a slide for you on that uh it is something that Greg's team tracks and so I don't know if you know which projects are we really Cobble together any funding source we can find the the areas that we're focused in on are altav Vista uh East truckton and the Oleander area areas we've been focused in on today that we are need to complete because there's a lot more curb sidewalk Ada access Rams to do there Bel terce Bel terce Bel Terrace as well got it and um just for kind of public knowledge what does this administrative fee cover that's listed so when we do projects such as the one that uh Mr stalo is speaking to there because there's prevailing wage we have Davis bacon we have uh so our administrative cost Rel cover our our budget and finance person they cover the staff member who's working on it it covers the engineering it covers uh the reporting that's required for the use of this funding and that's the majority of where that funding goes to is there room to build capacity like sta are we building staff capacity into some of the at least proposed budgets that we've outlined here is there room to do that or is it just to unreliable I know we can always grow and um I know that capacity is an issue that you know maybe we can spend some time thinking I was just curious if we've given some thought um to dedicating that here as well um we do have some fairly dedicated staff that work on this uh we also utilize this funding sometimes for Park activities or not Park activities I'm sorry Parks equipment and so it's really divided up between Public Works parks economic and Community Development we we do have quite a few staff members who touch these projects and with that uh the funding case for there sorry I should have been clearer are do these budgets allow like the criteria within it do they allow for us to expand our staff within our departments that are working towards some of these goals that we have set at the city uh if we we can go up to that 10% but like I said the the funding source it it's always fluctua and um I personally have seen it be very low uh there were threats of it going away alt together and that would mean laying off staff um but I've also seen it right now it's at a a great level but we we always have to be cognizant that this is year after year and gave us our numbers today even though our documents are due to them on the 15th great just that's plenty of time I'm sure for your stuff it is um I want to Echo the same sentence that in um kind of creating a vision for how we're increasing and preserving affordable housing I think it's also um an urgent priority for us to kind of mitigate the symptoms of homelessness and kind of how we find ourselves here uh and if we can where we can dedicate those dollars to something like an eviction prevention program like uh you know our friends at Leadership Council have indicated today uh I I also council member ai's sentiments um and and believe that that is a that should be an urgent priority for us as we kind of create uh some of these budget guidelines um and my next question is also to Sandra's question what what do our next round of community workshops workshops look like around the housing element or different ways in which we're engaging community currently the city is absorbing the comments that were received at the last uh onewe period where we might accept um comments which was between April 22nd and April 29th our Consultants digesting those comments providing response to comments and those will be assembled along with our second submitt to hcd which will go out in approximately 2 to 3 weeks from now after the after we complete that and send to hcd there'll be at least a 60-day comment 60-day period where hcd can review it and then it comes back to the city so at this point in juncture with a a document going to hcd there is any plans for additional comments or additional workshops in that the finished product it will be with hcd for their digestion and it's really a waiting period for the city then to take any further action specific to the comments that are that come back from hcd what did some of those comments look like could you give us a summary how many comments did we get what was kind of the the major themes that you observed we received um three letters that were in support of the housing element um in a more generic form and we received a letter from the Leadership Council uh for justice and accountability that provided if I'm not mistaken 24 to 26 pages of commentary and those are specific um specific comments that um as noted by Miss Placencia as an example that might provide for a numeric recommendation for a number of units to be produced for a specific um specific sensitive Community um as an example um staff was responsive to um Leadership Council comments that asked for additional farm farm labor housing units to be um produced over the 8-year uh six cycle element um and uh we adjusted that number in accordance um so some of them are numeric some of them are policy-based where um as an example uh the note for the eviction um the eviction protection plan um that that's a policy decision um from from um decision makers and um staff absorbs those comments and and um looks for additional guidance from from ACD in um whether or not to incorporate those comments tangibly within a housing element document at the same time I think it's fair to State um and uh it's topical as it relates to our action plan um that we have to be cognizant of of our fiscal and be fiscally responsible it you want to be able to produce those those goals within your your policy document um within that 8year span and so we're cognizant of things that we can do uh based on the funding that's available to us um noting questions from the dis just now and um that's an important Dynamic when we look to uh take in comments because we don't have a bottomless pot of funding that we can dedicate towards uh creating housing over an 8-year span um I've noted in Prior conversations that when you're asked to produce 18,21 units or 2277 units a year if you were to build those you'd be looking at something like $570 million annually over the eight years span pardon me yeah $570 million annually over each of those eight years that's a difficult lift for the city to entertain um by the same token I said we'll do our our levelheaded best to produce as much housing as as we can with the resources that we have available to us thank you thank you Jenny um to you and your staff as well for creating this I'm encouraged by seeing things like rapid rehousing being um kind of one of our strategies and and out and goals really so thank you thank you council member core thank you mayor I'm going to make the motion but before I do so I just want to commend staff on their mendous job throughout this year's action plan and also uh for every year and this is uh a a labor intensive exercise um that often goes underappreciated when we're dealing with these Federal HUD dollars there's a lot of Staff time spent uh on just compliance-driven documents and I just want to congratulate all all of the staff Who's involved every year looking forward to the Consolidated action plan planning for the future uh look forward to that exercise as well and just want to just want to say what an amazing opportunity that we realize when we use these dollars in a strategic and focused way uh we are able to install basic City infrastructure to neighborhoods that have been for too long forgotten disadvantaged neighborhoods it's it's amazing but colleagues there are neighborhoods that I represent that don't have curb and gutter basic infrastructure these dollars are intended to help those neighbors those residents get those curbs Cutters and sidewalks that they absolutely need we're providing lighting upgrades to folks in Bel terce neighborhood uh working with uh Ventura Community uh Development Corporation and their down payment assistance program I've had an opportunity to witness firsthand some of the work that they're doing there are families who are getting into homes who have been for decades renters and for the very first time have been able to get into a home Home of Their Own because of this down payment assistance program these are life-changing Investments that we're making through cdbg and I know there's a lot of great ideas out there of other things that we could be doing and I certainly want us to explore and see that but I also I hate to Discount a lot of the great work that's being done within this current action plan so with that I'm going to make a motion to approve thank you you have a motion please catch your votes motion is approved with council member we absent thank you Madame clerk next item please Council and mayor statements council member arus thank you mayor um tonight I just also want to commend staff um as the chair of the safe neighborhoods committee alongside Council woman Corp and uh council member gray um just last week we received a presentation uh and an update on everything related to Public Safety uh some of the great work that um our um amazing Police Department is doing but also some of the work that some of our community based organizations are doing um and I just want to shed light on the California violence intervention prevention program uh we received an update and um we were pleasantly surprised to find out that the city of Bakersfield is one of the top five cities uh in reducing gun violence across the country uh which is just incredible for us um and and deserves to be appreciated uh but it it's required a lot of work um and so we were able to learn about all of the great work that's happened and I wanted to share a little bit of data um that was brought to our attention uh in the year 2021 uh the city of Bakersfield experienced 60 homicides across the city uh this was a record-breaking year and in fact the year before um we had also set at that time a record at 47 and we thought oh no there's no way for us it can't get any worse uh well it did in 2021 and was at 60 um now in 2023 we cut that number even more than half uh than in half and we ended up with 27 homicides now um everyone of these lives is cherished and um we wish that there were none across the city um but to cut that number in half in so short of a time span uh is just really a testament to the great work that our Police Department is doing um you know with the uh creation of the um you know mental health um positions in 911 dispatch uh were're able to divert calls that otherwise would have taken a PD officer out um um to that call when could have been addressed potentially with the conversation with the therapist um so I just want to say thank you so much to our Police Department thank you to uh some of our community- based organizations uh you know the Wendel Davis Foundation the Kern County Superintendent schools stay focused uh cap K who was here tonight uh Garden Pathways and so many others uh that have brought this program to life um and the one thought that I'll leave the community with is that uh it it is incredibly hard work to get to this point uh it is even harder for us to actually keep it at this level and to continue to make progress um and it would be my hope that uh staff bring a presentation to the full Council uh to share these thoughts um and the successes uh but also that this Council be prepared to make ongoing investments into this program to continue to keep our community safe and with that I would like to um offer an opportunity if it's okay with you mayor uh to council member gray who joined me at that meeting uh to uh provide some additional thoughts on on this item council member gray do you wish to yeah comment yes absolutely thank you mayor and thank you um uh council member Arius uh yes I Eric and I were both very um uplifted when we left that meeting last week uh on the professionalism the Ingenuity of our bersell Police Department they're looking for way ways that they can make a difference they're not just using standard traditional methods to police our city but they're looking for ways that they can bring down response times our response times now uh the national acceptable response time is 7 Minutes our response times are now under 7 minutes going down under the national average um are and that is um for our priority one priority two it's for all of them but the bulk of our calls um 911 calls are coming in for burglary assaults um and those are down to 32 minutes but our Priority One response times are at 6 uh 75 minutes so that was very encouraging that they're finding ways to get those response times down because that's something that we've been talking about um as a council that we needed to improve and we're definitely improving we've added because of uh psbs funds we've added more officers to our department and and that's helping in that but I believe that there's just some really good thinking going on um the 911 uh calls our goal and National Standard is to answer 95% of all 911 calls within 20 seconds and 91.7% of our calls now are answered Within 20 or I'm sorry 93.6 it's up by 2% um over 2022 and 23 were answered so that's another shout out um the two clinicians that we we start out with one um therapist mental health clinician we uh got up to two and I believe um assistant manager Howen do we have one or two in our 911 call center right now I know we sounded like we were down by one we're trying to get to three what are we now I believe we have two we have two okay and we're trying to get to three but they handled 84% of the calls that came in that people were dealing with mental illness 84% that was 84% of the calls that the officers that could deal with priority one priority 2 calls could go out to so that is huge and we do have in the budget for that third clinician it's just a matter of hiring that person right now it all comes down to hiring people it seems huh and then um overall our crime rate is down by 12% in the city which is is was great to hear unfortunately we have we're having a huge spike in domestic violence in our city that is way up and I think our I think people are just stressed out today there's a lot of things going on with inflation and so forth and I think it creates a lot of Havoc that's just my thinking on it no police officer or the chief did not tell me that but it's it's harder today so overall um we're down by 12% and I went home and shared all this with my husband at dinner and I just want to give a shout out to our Bakersville PD all of our um community action part partners that are working to make this city a safer place and I want to thank my colleagues on the Das that we are in one Accord here with funding our Police Department our fire department to make sure that our city is a safer place to live and I'm just really grateful to be and honored to be able to serve this community thank you thank you council member gray council member Freeman thank you mayor uh well I thinkk think this this question is directed at uh Mr Howen and the ab Mr Craig and what I would like is let's say within the next two Council meetings give you a little time just an update on a few directives we've given to the planning and direct uh development committee that are six to 12 months old and that's because they are difficult issues they we probably do the easy ones first but the first was we asked for a recommendation from the p&d committee on how we could scale the the city's fees for the develop development Community specifically residential to help with our affordable housing uh to make the fees just the ones the city controls uh based on some formula of the lot size and the house size um recognizing that the smaller the lot and the smaller the house house the less impacts we have on everything um um so we asked for a study you know where can we scale the fees um from you know it could be a park fee it could be a road fee but things the city controls we can't control school fees and other things but uh that was the first um the other study we asked for was how we're going to um change I will suggest probably change the the future parks cost engineer the parks so that we can uh limit either hold the park fee flat or limit the increase because right now uh we're told from uh Parks and Rec that the fee covers about 50% of the cost we're not building Parks because we've collect in some cases we've collected most of fees others we have about I heard eight or nine parks where we're in some stage the land's been set aside the subdivision designed the parks in the middle it's just dirt we're collecting fees and we have no schedule to build a park because it apparently cost a million an acre and said we were collecting fees for 500,000 Acres so we're just turning our back we're basically pretending this been years now we don't have a problem people say well where's my Park I paid for it um so I was hoping we could get U two things one was we have to come up with a new design of a park that doesn't cost so much to build and that only occurs where we can only implement this on future subdivisions where we haven't already designed it and set the land aside so we're talking out there in the future but it we got to do it uh and that means revising what equipment goes into the park does it have a bathroom or not what is the size is it a 5 acre park instead of 10 but the only way you reduce cost you have to reduce the inputs okay let's not assume inflation's going to come down the cost of Park's going to plummet because I don't think it is I think it's you know government wants to slow the rate of increase of inflation they're not talking about reducing deflation uh so that's critical uh the other is that I'd like a I'd call it a a schedule that is our our best effort on based on as the subdivisions developed that are already out there collecting fees build out when we will build each of these finish these nine Parks start and finish and that would probably be over three or four it could be 5 years but at least it's a profor of schedule says this is how we're going to go about it because those will be priorities in every Year's budget and the ones it may only be two of them this year the next year may fall in the next two but we don't have a game plan and once you at least lay it out we have a game plan and we can fold it into our budgets and know it's going to happen uh because I think up until now we sort of been wishing the problem to go away it's not going away and we kind of have an obligation to people who you know Builder if if the Builder spends 5 or 10,000 for uh land set aside and park fees and it's in that house trust me he doesn't he doesn't do it to lose money uh they've already paid so we have an obligation to to fund those parks in the in the proper amount of time and maybe we have to phase those parks that we've already committed to but we we need a game plan and I'd like at least a an update to the council within a couple of Council meetings on on each of these items and or when we're even going to schedule the um the way we might scale fees or if you come back and say we can't do it but we haven't even tried to think about it yet and all of these are to try to create more affordable housing and control the increases in housing so it's definitely one of the city's goals everybody talked about it tonight everybody's talking about it it's a huge problem uh for all of us in California but even Bakersfield the most affordable City it's a huge problem here so I just want to see us start dealing with it thank you thank you council member Freeman vice mayor thank you mayor um I didn't expect to talk so much tonight um but here I am uh tonight we ratified uh the purchase of a blighted property at 901 Union Avenue this is The Ram cabir Hotel this is item 7 D1 uh tonight's on tonight's agenda um this property has been a problematic site for the city with over 25 code complaints since 2003 including seven that occurred within the last two years Alone um it recently went up to for sale at an auction after being um foreclosed upon I just want to commend staff uh Gary Howen uh Jenny buers um I know there were others who are involved in this process I want to thank everyone for being so creative Jenny janaro was involved in her team at the city attorney's office uh for acting so quickly on this once we heard of this auction how quickly they moved uh was impressive um and they utilized the past authorization that this Council gave through a resolution in 2022 uh to pursue this chronic nuisance property which I thought was ingenious uh and they moved very quickly in order to uh get this into our hands um this project I think is unique and Innovative and I think it's a win-win-win situation for the city number one it will hopefully provide an additional 35 units of housing um don't quote me on that probably maybe a little fewer than that when when it's all said and done and finally designed but it will provide more housing units uh for those who are experiencing homelessness uh far more quickly than new construction would frankly um it'll also the second win I think um is that uh that this new this rehab um actually is far cheaper um when we took a look at the cost per door of other residential motels these SRO as they call them single room occupancy uh complexes uh the cost per door ranges anywhere from 50 ,000 a door to $96,000 a door when I took took a look at the last five sales it averaged out to around $78,000 per per door uh this particular uh residential Motel uh was sold to the city for around $37,000 uh 37838 per door uh significantly less we know that it will require some renovation work and so you can probably add $ 800 to probably $1.2 million on top of that so all in it'll probably be it still be less than that $78,000 average um so that's that's the second win and then the third win uh is that it really addresses the issue that is really close to my heart um and and there's two interrelated issues one is this continued deferred maintenance of a lot of these residential motels throughout the city of Bakersville that ultimately end up in disrepair and being closed by environmental health or code enforcement or they catch fire or they have some other type of issue which reduces the inventory of housing that so many people For Better or For Worse res uh they rely on um and so for us to continue to go down this road um that is problematic so I'm very excited now that we're taking a new approach and we're taking this step forward in acquiring this property getting it into our control and then um re revitalizing it in order to make it far more safer healthier cleaner for the residents who need it the most and then the final thing is it cleans up Union Avenue and as I mentioned in my comments last meeting we must do more to address the chronic issues and compounding issues that are facing Union Avenue especially between Highway 58 and California Avenue so so there's a lot of winds here there may be Four Winds actually uh in in this whole action at according to my count uh and I just again want to thank staff for being um so Innovative for being bold for being Nimble agil agile all these things that we want in government 2.0 right government in the 21st century we we we we know that the the challenges require us to be far more Swift in our action and uh that certainly was demonstrated in this particular project so two thumbs up from this councilman thank you council member cor thank you mayor uh first I want to wish a happy Mother's Day to all of the moms in my life and all the individuals and people who um play either the role of a mom sister ant uh in someone's life and are pouring that kind of love in into someone's life happy Mother's Day to all of you um and as my uh On a related note but unrelated I'd like to make a request um of City staff as well I'm I'm still kind of thinking about the comments that council member Adias and council member gray had made about um the ways in which we've successfully at least improved um the rates of certain types of crime in our community and I'm still sitting with the stats on the domestic violence and while um while many times this is deemed to be an intimate partner household issue or matter um I'll be honest I I receive a lot of calls related to domestic violence and a lot of times most of the times I'm left feeling helpless and uh without any resources to to Really provide any Aid there um so I wanted to ask if we could uh return with having done some research on community based solutions that Exist Elsewhere that um might be Partnerships between local organizations and City governments um I've seen uh City local government governments do trainings of that sort of thing I know there's uh efforts from kind of federal organizations and entities like hersa um there's a few organizations at our state level as well but I think at least a local approach since this is such a high level of crime that we're seeing um in our city maybe it looks like us supporting organizations that are already doing the work that might have a capacity issue um and I think most of the time when I hear uh when when folks do call me um and most of the time it's women with you know children young children and what they kind of respond with is we've tried that we've been turned away there's capacity issues so maybe it is just us looking to support work that already exists but if we can explore some of those opportunities to partner and have a similar kind of targeted Approach at this kind of bucket of crime that we're seeing so we can you know ease that burden off of our local law enforcement for them to handle some of the more um more dire and Urgent needs of the community um that that they can address and we can have a more community- based solution and approach to to at least helping um but I would love for us to be a part of that solution and at least work towards that thank you thank thank you I don't see any other requests to speak and so we stand a journ at 6:46 [Music] for