[Music] she [Music] he [Music] [Music] she [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [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 April 24th 2024 Madam clerk please call the role mayor go here Vice Mary Gonzalez here council member Aras council member Weir council member Smith hi I am here council member Freeman here council member gray here and council member core thank you 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 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 a specific item will be presumed speakers for the 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 2-minute time limit 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 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 your item is called everyone in attendance is expected to adhere to the rules of Decor 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 disrupts City that sorry that disrupts this meeting May result in 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 and surpassing the two-minute time limit Madame clerk do we have any public speakers regarding items not listed on the agenda mayor go we have not received any speaker cards for items not listed on tonight's agenda or uh for items listed on today's agenda thank you and for the record uh council member core entered at 3:32 all right so now next item please reports item 3A report on fiscal year 20242 General Revenue general fund Revenue thank you city manager good afternoon mayor and councel we have uh Mr Randy McKean our finance director who give a brief presentation on revenues thank you welcome Mr mcken thank you Mr Holland mayor go council members uh my pleasure to be able to present this just so you know we are working through our budgetary process still so we were adjusting our budget workshops and our processes so I was uh offered up to do the first budget uh presentation for this upcoming uh fiscal year so I'll be presenting the general fund revenue and our review of it we've done this before we do this every year uh but we uh it is important information so I wanted to be able to present that to you so the first item on this uh presentation it's we do it every year but this is the breakdown of our estimated revenue for the upcoming fiscal year and it Compares it to our actuals from 2023 and what we estimate to receive by the end of this fiscal year so what you'll see here is that or for 2024 25 we expect revenue for the general fund which includes psvs Revenue to to amount to about a $43 million when you compare that to Prior year estimates or the actually the current year estimat of 408 you'll see that that actually is a decrease but to add some perspective there um our budget for the general frund last year was $43 million four $ 43.8 million so basically we're flat the in the increase from the prior that estimate and what we currently have is primarily from property taxes we had $105 million budgeted for property taxes we re we're estimating to receive 1108 so that is where that difference really comes in from what we budgeted and what we expect to um budget or receive for next year so in essence what we're seeing here is a flat budget 103 $43 million was budgeted last year and we expect to receive 403 uh for this upcoming fiscal year we're going to talk about the top three uh Revenue sources in in depth but you'll also see that the the next largest uh Revenue sour stream is charges for services and that stream is primarily related to fees collected from for services like Parks and Recreation Development Services Public Works it also includes maintenance District fees and as well as internal fees collected between departments uh for work done within the general fund so again uh $3.3 million anticipated for the next fiscal year um in the general fund this next slide presents that graphically uh with is a pie chart so you'll see that we have uh our top three revenue streams again our property tax our standard Bradley Burns tax and our psvs measure uh tax uh the level of increase or the the level of coverage from property taxes has actually increased to about a third of our general fund last year it was about 26% again because sales we'll talk about that sales tax revenues are pretty much flat this year and we'll talk about the increase that uh resulted in property tax though uh so that shows that property taxes has grown a little bit more as a as a piece of the pie as it says shows there so we're going to go through the individual larger revenue streams uh so we're going to start with the property tax revenue what you'll see here is we anticipate $115 million in property tax revenue which is a 4% increase from the prior year but just just so get you the lay of the land here that the bars represent the actual Revenue received and you'll see a steady increase because of Prop 13 there is in essence a steady increase in property uh assessed values that purple line is the increase or decrease in revenue from year to year so again we had some pretty significant increases post uh Great Recession uh and it's pretty much stayed uh in in a pretty good level uh since then uh but you'll notice that we've had some pretty large increases post uh covid but we've leveled that off and we're to being we continue to be a conservative on our estimates so we we're we're moving forward with a 4% increase from the prior year estimates and as I mentioned uh previously that uh revised estimate number is actually an increase of $5 million from what we anticipated to receive when we uh set up established the original budget uh for 24 uh the next slide relates to our sales tax our Bradley Burns which is the standard 1% sales tax that we collect and you'll see here that um be because uh sales taxes really prone to the rise and fall of the economy that there have been increases and decreases all based on the the performance of the economy so again lay of the land the bars represent the actual increase or the actual revenue and the Grain Lines represent the increase or decrease from of that revenue from year to year so you'll see here that we actually are anticipating about a two-thirds of a percent decrease from prior year in our sales tax for Bradley Burns uh so we'll have expect and this is all based on analysis from we have a tax revenue consultant a company called HDL and they analyze uh the performance of all the industries and we'll talk about that as well uh and what they're showing is that there's going to be a leveling off a continuing level off of since uh covid uh so we are going to have 96 basically 96.8 million in this Revenue stream compared to 97.3 or 97.4 that we anticipate to receive this uh this current fiscal year now feel free to interrupt if you have any questions on what I'm presenting so um we're not able to do that right now because of our new procedure we have to have the public comment before we go to council oh then don't interrupt just please go thank you okay so um so the next slide is our psvs revenue and you see that there's a obviously a less history involved with that Revenue stream but again the bars represent the actual Revenue the the green line represents the increases or decreases from year to year so what we'll see here is a 1% increase is estimated based on our HDL consultant uh analysis of of the industries within the uh local area so we expect to have 101.2 million or basically $11.3 million in this Revenue stream from uh compared to 100.2 from the prior year so basically a million dollar increase between um 2023 24 and the upcoming fiscal year 2425 so to to add a little more meat to the the analysis I wanted to present the revenue collections by industry um I have to be careful on how in depth we we we provide this information we can't identify specific tax holders so or taxpayers I should say um so what we have here are the various industries that are laid out by the the state uh for the collections uh you'll see that the largest industries that we collect revenue streams from are the auto and transportation and the general um consumer goods you'll see that there is a gradual decrease from the highs during the basically postco of 2122 to where we are now and we continue to see those decreases based on consumer uh spending being reduced as available fund available dollars that individuals have has reduced and those have actually decreased so that has resulted in part of this lack of growth in this Revenue stre I'm sorry this is related to Bradley Burns this specific one it doesn't include psvs I'll show that one later uh one of the strange I I find it strange but one of the the things that continues to increase is the restaurants and hotels uh people continue to go out to eat and enjoy those nights out at the restaurants and that continues to grow despite what you could would think as as a less available disposable income one of the things that is a big uh reduction from year to year is that County Pool that County Pool number is really online sales and uh used car sales and actually personal car sales in between individual so it's not through a lots um so th that activity um has basically been reduced because our share of the pool has decreased because of increases in affected sales so uh and I can't get into the specifics of the type of company it is but it's an a large online retailer um and and the county has a large online retailer and so those it reduces our share of the pool in addition to that there have been errors in collections uh that have to be right siiz so in essence individuals have char uh uh basically paid our our taxes um that were really belonging to other entities within the county so that has reduced in part because we have to pay it back so we've received some significant uh adjustments to our Revenue that we have to pay back from prior years so again all of this results in a basically flat actually point a 63% decrease in in in the Bradley Burns a little bit of different uh story somewhat again we talked about this is the psvs buy industry and again same Industries there is no County Pool for the psvs that all the funds are directly to US based on actual sales whether it be vehicles uh whether it be online sales so that all comes directly to us so you'll see here again this the reductions in Auto and transportation the reductions in in general consumer goods slight increases uh year-over-year in restaurants and hotels same basic pattern there again the issue is we don't have that amount that we had to in payback from overpayments from previous years so we're not seeing that affect this Revenue stream uh and so I I I wanted to really touch on this um go back to psvs if as you are aware last year we allocated portions of psvs to the general fund operations about $8.9 million so in addition to that I wanted to R rope in the fact that the transi occupancy tax which is a tax based on hotel stays within our city limits um also contributed to the general fund operations of a million dollars so it is a revenue stream that affects the general fund um but uh to a much less extent but it is continuing to grow you'll see here again same idea bar the bars represent the actual Revenue received and and the line represents the increases we continue to see some pretty good uh performance in this particular Revenue stream last year we had 10.5 million re uh estimated in Revenue in this stream and it is estimated to be about 12.4 so we're we're seeing uh and again we we we tend to we do I tend to we we do budget conservatively uh so uh again in 20 223 uh we budgeted $10 million and received $1.6 million so it continues to outperform our budgets uh so we are budgeting $12 million again we budgeted 10 a half last year and and for some perspective a large portion of this Revenue stream is transferred for CIP activity so last year it was about $9 million was is is is basically funding CIP so as this grows we have to understand are we're going to continue to deal with growth in the general fund or CIP um but in addition to the $9 million as you can see it's 11 and uh 12.4 uh in addition the this uh source of fund covers the arena operations and the uh visit Bakersfield operations so with that I am now available for questions thank you Mr McKean first we'll go to the public Madame clerk do we have any public speakers regarding this item may go I've not received any speaker cards regarding this item thank you and so now uh Council questions or comments and there's nothing showing up on my screen yet Madam clerk okay council member Smith thank you mayor uh just on the county pool I thought those monies came to wherever the purchaser lived the ZIP code but it has to do also you stated from where sure I'll try to explain it as best as I can so certain online so for psvs the revenue from psvs that for online sales that collection goes directly to the city So based on the ZIP code the location if they're in the city limits it will come to us uh but it if it's the Bradley Burns they don't have that direct connection it's based on the location of the actual seller and then it's they remit a lump sum to the state and then it's distributed to the county based on a proportion of the total sales for all the cities or locations within the county so it's not a direct link like psvs so and again that also it's not only online sales it's also related to uh when individuals have Private Sales vehicles that sales tax goes into the pool you could in theory you could have 90% of the sales occur within the city City Limits between private parties but they just put it in the pool and it's distributed based on proportional share of sales tax collected in the the various entities within the city I mean the county sorry okay thank you thank you council member Freeman thank you mayor uh Randy I just had a few questions um and maybe you explained it but I didn't totally understand there's three areas where we have pretty significant swings the others are almost the same every year but other taxes you know 2 million down this year and then back up again um is there one item in there that swung those so dramatically or what happened there yeah I'd have to look a little bit closer to that I do believe that there were some taxes related to franchise fees that were collected that that this is an estimate so um we haven't even received the franchisees from the various utility companies and those and phone companies and the and the like so I didn't increase that I actually kept it flat so I haven't I don't even have that money yet but they they owe us the funds and so I did increase it based on the prior year um well you back is this sort of a conservative yeah we don't have the money yet it might come in at 12 million anyway yeah it it very might it very well could but I wanted to leave it at what we had estimated in the budget uh so we didn't over you know over inflate what we had available in the upcoming okay next question intergovernmental you know pretty flat for 23 and 24 and then it plummets to about a third sure uh is that I mean is that like transfers that back in forth between your departments or what is that the intergovernmental is really grant money from state and federal sources so this is actual so in a lot of cases grants come in over time we we may not have it budgeted and then once they get the award they will add it to the budget so this 9.6 is actual Revenue that I think we had some pretty some significant grants that came through um but again we don't know what's going to come in so we we don't want to rely on that level um um until know what the that's smart I mean you it's just a guess um and then down at miscellaneous transfer in you know almost 14 million in 23 down to about seven and 24 and we guess it's back up or down again to four what's going on there sure that that one's pretty straightforward um in 2223 uh if you recall the arpa dollarss uh set aside 10 million that would could be transferred to the general fund is basically revenue recovery so that really that 13.8 is 10 million of that is arpa dollars that came in um that we basically added to the general fund is available available dollars for future use uh I just then maybe one final remark is we we should all if we're if we're flat and I know that in partly because we're not forecasting as many grants and things but even if we did and just looked at a pretty flat three years if we have to remember that round numbers were really down 20% that's what our inflation has been about 20% that means our revenues will buy 20% a fifth less of everything a fifth less police cars a fifth less garbage trucks a fifth less investment software that's what inflation has done to us and you know hey your retirement portfolio maybe flat well re really you're down 20% and everybody needs to remember that we're now losing ground and inflation environment if your revenues aren't growing together at least to match inflation you're not keeping up and you'll be able to invest fewer things Necessities that we need software trucks I mean all this stuff people um this is uh it's just something that we should be aware of that we actually have less money coming in in real dollars to run our city yes council member Freeman I think one of the issues is this is part one of the budgetary budget presentation so we still are compiling our general fund uh expenditure um uh numbers um so we will that is one of the major issues we're going to have to deal with there are inflationary costs operationally but also related to salaries and benefits pension costs that are also going to affect what's available in other areas um when we move into that and kind of finalize those numbers yeah theoretically if our expenses have gone up 5% which they very easily could have with our Union contracts and the cost of new equipment it never seems to go up equal to what they tell us the latest 3 half% inflation new equipment is now up it's 10% more for the for the garbage truck than it was uh it when we you know when we get a further along in the budget process I'd certainly like to hear probably account but where have you struggled you know where when you put the budget together and you looked at these what we thought our needs were but we don't have enough money to pay you know we're going to be driving old cop cars or we you know can't do these things that we wanted to do um it'd be interesting for you guys to give us some comments on where you had to where you had to work the hardest to balance the budget uh yeah we can definitely do that I think uh again we are at 4 4 $3.3 million in our general fund is that's what we estimate to receive so I anticipate there will be discussion from management to councel on decisions that are going to have to be made related to one-time costs related to CIP to really keep us in within that 43.3 million reason with it is we may have some debates here at Council on hey you're having to cut cut I might say don't cut those six Parks we haven't funded yet those people paid their fees oh but Bruce and we can't do the we need you know there's going to be some real tradeoffs that are going to be painful and I think you need to share those with us so as a council we understand and we get to give input on gee I don't know what it'll be but you know we may have to cut more here to make up here because we all you know we all want to have enough money for everything we need but there isn't going to be enough money and we're going to all have to make some compromises and struggle a little bit and maybe get creative and solve a few problems just by being a little more creative thank you thank you council member Smith vice mayor thank you mayor um first and foremost Randy thank you so much to you and your team for the presentation and for all the work leading up to um this budget season um especially given the fact that much of your time all of your time and overtime has been spent in uh the adoption of our Erp system for the for the city it's like building completely new city hall and working within that construction site at the same time and so uh you and your team you're 37 33 33 uh staff members all deserve uh much appreciation from this Das and so just please convey that to them I will I I really appreciate that thank um I wanted to ask you a couple questions first and foremost thank you so much for the sales tax revenue uh report by industry I I always enjoy this particular piece because it really does indicate um how some of our sectors are performing I wonder about the auto and transportation if it if if if it has to do with the economy or if part of it is the fact that insurance rates are escalating uh interest rates are at all-time high and people are um more reluctant to uh to purchase a new car or can't get new automobile insurance um but I am encouraged by the uh by the upward trajectory of restaurant and hotel um sales that's uh that's definitely a positive for us um wanted to ask you a couple questions regarding Transit occupancy tax sure uh we have an increase of uh to of around 30% over the last eight years that's that's huge I think partly that's because of new hotels new Hotel Beds and also um I think the the price per hotel room those rates have increased over time particularly after the pandemic is that right um so I wonder why we're estimating a 3.3% decrease in this next FIS school year when we saw an increase of 6.8% in the prior year given the fact that there's still a pretty strong demand for for Hotel Beds and uh from my cursory knowledge of the industry and I have a number of hotels in my ward um demand is still pretty strong yeah the the um the the room rates have gone up and the the occupancy it's is still pretty high um there are not a lot of vacant rooms so I will just own up to this this is my conservative brain just saying it's never been $12 million in the budget before so let me just but so it really is just a the conservative approach of I don't want to overstate it because we're relying on CIP to fund this so if I put it at 13 million we're going to have to roll back something so it's just like my mom was a small business owner and growing up she would always say you under promise and overd deliver and so that back of my head I didn't want to say that no I appreciate that so I'd rather be surprised later down the road uh than surprised uh later down the road so thank you so much appreciate it problem council member core thank you mayor thank you for this presentation I too um enjoyed seeing how we break it up by industry and I'm very proud to have the autool in w 7 uh we are very lucky to have um this tax base this Revenue base in our city and despite their small dip um you know I'm glad that glad to see that they've still been some of our highest performers as kind of an industry um and I just want to acknowledge that I think we can do more for our Auto Mall in terms of just the vandalism and theft that they've been seeing um as a city and just acknowledge that and all of the revenue that is coming from you know all the sales that they're they're doing so uh a quick shout out to our Auto Mall for still um being a robust part of the budget and uh the monies that keep the city running and keeping our lights on thank you council member core and to the finance team and to all in the leadership thank you so much for your prudent approach I was just in a setting with other mayors many of whom were boning their very very large deficits um and so thank you very much and I don't see other requests to speak at this point um vice mayor move to adjourn to close session receive and file oh a motion to receive and file pardon me we don't have close session so I'm sorry receive and file yeah a motion to receive and file you have a motion please cat your votes no CL s oh um motion is approved with council members Adias Weir and Freeman absent thank you and with that we stand adjourned at 4:00 and we will mayor go I would like to make an announcement that we received a staff memorandum pulling item 4A close session conference with legal council potential litigation from the agenda and that's why we are now adjourned at still 4:00 and then we will reconvene at 5:15 [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] w [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] i' rather the try accom great fail try to and fully suceed all [Music] I'd rather try and accomplish something try to accom suceed I [Music] TR and to anded allly suceed [Music] a a [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] oh oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] he [Music] a [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a e [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the no [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] la [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] w [Music] [Applause] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] right [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I Wonder [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] up [Music] [Music] oh e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] no [Music] [Music] [Music] I [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] oh a [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] come [Music] [Music] this [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [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 kar 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 preci 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 April 24th 2024 welcome to all of you we're glad to have you Madame clerk please call the role mayor go here vice mayor Gonzalez council member Aras council member we council member Smith I am here council member Freeman here council member gray here and council member core here thank you and for the record uh vice mayor has walked in 57 um we have the pleasure of having Pastor Gary Barber from The Oaks Community Church Pastor Sams there also to offer the invocation Pastor uh and the Oaks team we're just soad glad for your presence in our community and the wonderful cultural offerings that you've provided it was great it was great to see the hoola worship and then the various festivities but thank you so much following pastor's invocation we'll have council member core lead us in the pledge would you please stand thank you mayor go and City Council Members it is an honor to be here it is an honor to pray for our great City we are thankful for God's mercy upon Bakersfield today I was taking a walk and saw something I've never seen in all my years the colors of a rainbow in four clouds south of town I took a picture of it it reminded me of God's covenant of Mercy with all of creation where he said he would set a rainbow to remind us that his judgment would not fall upon all of creation again as it had in the early days when the flood took place so with that in mind I'm going to pray for God's mercy upon our city and I'm going to pray for the Fulfillment of what is called the New Covenant which God says he has now brought about through his son Jesus almighty God we give you thanks and praise today for your mercy upon all of our Lives we do not deserve Mercy but you have granted it to us we thank you for your mercy upon our city and your grace we thank you Lord for your blessings we give thanks today for our city council members for our mayor for all those who serve in this city we give thanks for the citizens that are here that are interested in what is happening with our government and with what decisions we're making we give you thanks today and ask for wisdom and strength and guidance we ask for your grace to cover us and Lord I do pray according to your word that as you set forth a covenant previously of law that didn't work you then said that you would establish a covenant of mercy and grace through your son Jesus and you say there that you will then write that law on our hearts it won't be an external law it will be written Upon Our Hearts it will be a a a special work of your grace Lord so that we will no longer have to search for you but we can know you you said that we won't have to tell one another or teach one another but each person will know you from the least to the greatest and you say that you will be our God and we will be your people that this Covenant of Grace and Mercy will be something that you work because we cannot by our own efforts establish righteousness we need your grace and your mercy to be people of righteousness so we remember then the promise that you said you will forgive our iniquities you will remember our sins no more and we give you thanks today Lord that through Jesus Christ Our Lord we can have the Forgiveness of our sins and Lord I do pray for the great city of Bakersfield that we might experience this New Covenant we might experience your grace we might experience Lord a deep knowledge of who you are we ask you Lord for wisdom because we don't have wisdom of ourselves that can solve problems we ask you Lord for knowledge because we can only discover a portion of what we need to know we ask you oh lord for power and strength and I do pray father for every single city council member and for all of those who are in government here in our County and our city that Lord they would have empowering from you and guidance from you we also give you thanks Lord for the international City that Bakersfield has becoming we thank you for those who you've brought to us from all over the world and we pray blessing upon all those who have joined here in this community to make this a great Community we pray father for your mercy and Grace now and we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ Our Lord amen amen thank you for for the prayer and thank you for our veterans who have served under this flag and for our veterans who are joining us today join me as we salute pledge i al to the flag of the United States of America and to the repu for it stands Nation God indivisible withy andice for all thank you and you may be seated and thank you uh Pastor Gary and Pastor Sam council member core mentioned our veterans and I think right now they are flying back a group of Honor Flight veterans from Washington DC where they had the pleasure of seeing the memorials built in their honor here 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 presentations portion of the meeting but not during the 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 the meeting May result in your being removed from the meeting 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 and surpassing the two-minute time limit Madam Clerk next item please presentations item 4A proclamation to elen par director of client services for the open door Network declaring Sexual Assault Awareness Month in Bakersfield during April 2024 my colleagues one in four women and one in seven men have survived some form of sexual assault in their lifetime this could be a neighbor A co-worker a family member or a friend these numbers are alarming they are unacceptable and thank you to the open door Network for their service uh to our community and their continued efforts to advocate for our survivors it's my honor to present this Proclamation whereas the president of the United States has designated April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month and whereas the open door network has dedicated the month of April to raising awareness of sexual assault in Bakersville and the other communities of kar County and providing the highest quality of service to the survivors of this heinous crime and whereas the city of Bakersville applauds the tireless efforts of all who care for survivors of sexual assault and where it's the city of Bakersville unequivocally condemns Those who commit sexual assaults and affirms those who do shall find No Rest in our city now therefore I Karen go mayor of the city of Bakersville do hereby Proclaim April 2024 as Sexual Assault Awareness Month in our city and call upon all citizens to observe this month with appropriate ceremonies and observances in which the residents of Bakersville and Kern County may join to uplift the survivors and create a community free from sexual assault it's my honor to be present this now to you thank you so much um again thank you for recognizing um April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month in our city one thing I like to share is um April 24th is recognized also as denim day so a lot of us in different agencies are wearing jeans to represent sexual assault survivors in 1992 there was a sexual assault that occurred with a um a student receiving driving lessons from her driving instructor um in 1999 the conviction was overruled um because the statement was well the jeans were too tight there's no way that this could have been a force rape so she had to assist with the removal so the jeans is in recognition of survivors who not only is it just the jeans it's constant of what they're wearing and also recognizing the men who are also sexual assault victims so thank you again for recognizing this month right in keeping with the council's new resolution public statements now received at different times depending on the item I will call upon 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 on the tray on the counter next to the speaker's Podium we ask that you mark whether you're here to speak on an item list it 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 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 20 minutes total for all non-agenda items in the 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 in order 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 have received um 14 speaker cards uh on items um list not listed on on tonight's agenda iiz public the first public speaker is gesh Patel followed by Roman Mata followed by NA welcome Dr please introduce yourself good evening my name is Gish Patel I'm I've been in beckersville since 1980 and have seen the city grow and prosper during these 40 years we have an excellent Indian Community in Bakersville and I speak on behalf of our community our temples and garas are heavily involved in service to community our members Hindu sik jant Buddhist whoever they are uh we contribute heavily to the well-being and success of the community we saw some tweets by a young girl in high school U that contain foul and dis disrespectful language unfort fortunately she was encouraged by her high school teacher this example tells us that no guard rails exist in schools to guide the students in the right fashion that is my issue most teachers most teachers are dedicated public servants we we instill good values and culture in children while they're growing up at home we educate them to become good productive members of the society send them off to college with excellent grades in most cases however when they come back they come back home with completely different outlook on life they learn disrespect in instead of respect Defiance instead of compliance they they spew foul language and obscenities instead of engaging in civil discourse and disagreements immediately become degenerate into arguments and relations are strained that is not good so I would urge our our teachers the root cause is the teaching and indoctrination of the students uh I I would urge our teachers to put some guard rails teach the students uh values manners and uh progress and learn life science activities so that they can be successful in life I think my issue is with the education system and hopefully it'll be Amplified by the board and the school thank you thank you Dr next speaker please Roman Mata followed by NA followed by Mary Kay welcome please introduce yourself hi uh I'm Roman Mata um you've heard me speak before about um the necessity of efficient land use usage so I wanted to come up here and do two things um number one I wanted to praise the efforts of the city um in the direction it seems to be going with its zoning initiative and I have submitted a separate speaker card to talk more about that um and uh number two I wanted to um add on a final part to my Approach um that I feel that the city should be taking um in addition to zoning reform and in addition to acquiring these vacant lots of land it's important to remember the necessity of good public transit um two weeks ago I believe I spoke at the um the multimodal transport committee meeting and I talked to the authority of the um get bus um shortly after the meeting I um I mentioned a few complaints that I had regarding the difficulty of purchasing bus tickets online and when they informed me of the actual um process by which you would do that through the token transit app I discovered that um well I was actually wrong and it is easy to buy bus tickets online um so I wanted to come up here and um express my gratitude to the um City authorities for helping me understand this process it's thanks to this that I can even be at this city meeting now um the only thing I would suggest if it hasn't already been done yet is that um when you look at the um where to purchase Fair section on the GET Bus website um last I checked two weeks ago um it doesn't actually say that you can buy them online it only mentions physical locations so I would ask that uh if that hasn't been fixed already to add token transit to that because it made a massive difference to me thank you thank you Mr mon next May mayor go yes can I respond for oh Roman thank you for your comment is wrong here is it not requesting okay just very quickly I just wanted to thank you and thank you for your commitment to still taking multimodal Transportation um around the city and for your feedback as well actually right behind you is Cindy para and she is um very much an advocate and on the board with uh get so I think you two could have a very fruitful conversation about improvements um so just wanted to thank you for your comments and thanks for your continued feedback welcome please introduce yourself my name is Navia no one because my name is lost amongst the faceless unnoticed and underrepresented migrant Community due to over policing we cannot be here but we stand with our brothers and sisters here and in Palestine we cannot vote so you do not care to represent us it is evident in the carcinogens spread through the pesticides we work with they contaminate our air water soil and food here in Kern County we stand with Palestine for obvious reasons we stand with the Palestinians because we know what it's like to have ice at our door ready to take everything we call home we stand with Palestine because we have seen our children die in cages and continue to see them die we stand with Palestine because we live in fear of ice detention centers reminiscent of concentration camps we stand with Palestine because the tactics used over there are the same ones used to threaten the latinx community and K County at the borders across us and Latin America we stand with Palestine because we see them and know their pain you might not see us but we see you we might not be here today but we know what but we I'm sorry but we know we stand with Palestine we are the ones feeding America yet you don't care to represent us we pay taxes with our ittin that go to fund the genocide in Palestine money that could be used to fix our streets improve our schools clean our water system not to mention the air quality in Bakersfield of rank number one in air pollution you've sold your souls as politicians and it is evident you do not care about the people here in this country from our Farm Workers our undocumented community and Humanity free Palestine thank you next speaker please can you announce that please uh M clerk I missed apologize mayor we're trying to fix the um timer if you give us just one moment let's just wait one minute till we can get our technology working it can be a wonderful thing to have technology but once in a while we have challenges okay may our next public speaker is Mary Kay followed by Kev followed by Cindy par welcome please introduce yourself um my name is Mary koharik I stand before you the third generation proud Slavic American I'm representing that because um I grew up with having a different last name that always was made fun of in school so it is not lost on me when I look at our news and I see the UN the complete and utter support that goes for Ukraine as I being a Slavic person I very much recognize this I it is not lost on me as well though that that same support is not given to our Palestinian brothers and sisters Palestinian brothers and sisters are experiencing the same thing that my Ukrainian brothers and sisters are experiencing an invasion so I ask you why why is it that Slavic that ukrainians why is it that their lives seem to actually matter the Palestinians do not all of our Liberation all of our freedom is all intertwined um so I would just ask the board to please look within yourselves question maybe a narrative that you have of why one group we care about and the other group um we are able to look the other way thank you next speaker please Kev followed by Cindy para followed by Gabriella welcome please introduce yourself as I stand in front of the council now it's been 200 days and 40,000 deaths of an active ethnic cleansing in Palestine and every single time we've spoken about it this Council has stared blankly at us there has been no real conversation had on the council's behalf and that makes you a liar Andre the chancef for conversation is here it is when we speak is when we talk to you in your photo ops it's when man PR said that they would introduce the resolution and to address what you have said this is more than a foreign policy issue it's my own tax dollars the ones I had to file last week it's my local spending where Bakersfield contributes about $4.5 million it's the families and friends of my neighbors and constituents and it's also the actions of my Representatives because I acknowledge that you can't stop it but you can pass a resolution that is a statement which says that this Council has Humanity in mind that maybe you would rather spend that $4.5 million here to do things like improve our infrastructure to better support the education system to fund Environmental Protections for the Kern River to fund attendance right to council to have just that much more money for our community for the community that you claim to care about and I know you would hardly do that now which is why I continue to show up especially with the Palestinians in mind because just as I see the genocide unfold on social media every single day I live in underfunded communities that prioritize brutal policing every single day and I see how instead of actually focusing on the systemic issues that harm us you criminalize those who suffer and unlike you I can't ignore it free Palestine thank you next speaker please Cindy par followed by Gabriella followed by Carmen Enriquez welcome please introduce yourself good evening mayor vice mayor and council members my name is Cindy par and I'm here tonight to remind you that may is bike month and a bike Bakers show will have several uh biking events during the month of May that we'd like to invite uh the council we'd like to invite Public Works everybody um planning everybody in uh our government to uh come out and join us on some of these events we will be having um commuter stands every Friday during May uh at the two locations will be at beach park and at the stockdell bridge at Kell State uh there will be a ride of Silence on May 15th uh anybody who needs a bike bike bakera has plenty of ebikes to loan out um we have organic bikes also if you'd like to just not have have a a a little motor on your bike um and along those lines I would also like to thank the council and public works for their continued efforts to um to embrace the complete streets ordinance and by putting down paint the green paint the um temporary striping and pilot projects that are going on for traffic calming and I just want to thank you um Mr stalo for leading that um challenge of making our streets safer for both pedestrians and cyclists and one added note is just to say that get buses also allow bicyles on their buses so if you need a little help getting to where you need to go to be multimodal and put your bike on the bus and get on your bike and ride thank you thank you Miss par next speaker please Gabriella followed by Carmen Enriquez followed by Maria kones welcome good evening hi thank you for looking at me and giving me your eye contact um like I've said before my name is Gabriela M I was born here in Bakersville both of my parents were born here I went to high school here I'm also a combat veteran um and now I live here in Bakersfield um I'm here tonight to address all of you um specifically Andre because I live in W 2 um I'd really like your attention if that's possible vice mayor um it's just a minute and 30 seconds is all that I'm asking for so you've been speaking to the news um and you know your other community members about how you want to have a dialogue with us as if we are mature adults most of the mature adults I know that want to have a dialogue with me can make eye contact and they can respond to me so why won't you guys pass the ceasefire resolution okay uh well this impacts your citizens especially the Palestinian ones who have lost their family members but all of us we can see especially the way that this is impacted Andre because of the millions of dollars that we send to Israel just from Bakersfield Millions to kill babies when we could Andre 30 more seconds is all the only one by the way not looking at me it's really difficult I know but I'm asking respectfully for my your attention because you say you want to talk to me like an adult so we could be using that money the millions to improve Baker's field Andre improve reward two members maybe just to listen to him at the coffee shop when we come to talk to the council member maybe you respond to us like mature adults like a combat veteran that you want to publicly Accolade listen to us please I'm almost done there's a 100 cities who have passed city council resolutions at the city council level you want to be like go ahead and bring comments to the close sure thank you so you want to be like the top 10 cities Karen how about Brentwood Richmond Oakland San Francisco just to name a few of the top greatest cities that have passed ceasefires why won't you pass a ceasefire resolution monit you told us you would we have it on your time is up next speaker please for the last four months members of the Bakersfield Community have been coming to these City Council meetings in hopes of finding whatever's left of what some might call Democratic Values we came to both speak on the atrocities that are happening against the Palestinians and the genocide that is taking place as we speak and to implore the city council to stand on the right side of History to vote to pass a ceasefire resolution instead we are met with indifference indignation and then with State sanctioned violence we were lied to when we were told that this chamber was the right place to speak on these matters it seems like all you care about is maximizing profit for those you truly represent on top of this you have the audacity to not only sick this nationally known killer police force on Peaceful speakers and demonstrators but it seems very clear that you are also out here inciting agitators to go after community members this is Christian Gray a person who was going around the grounds of City Hall assaulting demonstrators and bystanders and attempting to start fights with others as those in attention tried to deescalate Witnesses observe this individual go in and out of City Hall unrestricted as demonstrators were violently pushed out upon further research it was found that this person is related to none other than you councilwoman Patty gray and so I have one question for you why was your family member assaulting peaceful demonstrators on March 27th and to everyone else I want you to ask ask yourself why has he not been held accountable glory to our Martyrs and free Palestine next speaker please Maria kones followed by Valeria followed by dilia D Dominguez welcome please introduce yourself hi I'm Maria Quinones you know I have lost account of the number of city councils that we've been in attendance at we've been raising our voices against the continuing genocide in Palestine and gasa we've sent hundreds of emails we've sent hundreds of letters we've reached out as many have said to council members like Andre Gonzalez at his you know coffee with a congressman we have you know um responded to um council member CL and sent emails because she said she wants to have a dialogue and we had no response at all we've been told that this is foreign policy stuff and that isn't this is not within your realm but we have come to say not in our names and not with our tax dollars how can this not affect your constituents when the city continues to send $4.5 million to fund a genocide of 41,000 Palestinians when people In This Very Room have family members being forcibly starved fearful for their lives every day how could this not be a local issue and I ask how dare you lie to our faces to say that you can't do anything 4.5 million is enough to provide 536 households in this current Community with free housing for a year or to cancel the debt of 119 students instead you have been using my tax dollars to fund Israel's Mass killing of 41,000 Palestinians including 15 precious 15,000 precious children we have come to hold you accountable to adopt an immediate ceasefire as more than 100 cities in the US have already done we ask you to put an end to your complic complicity in Israel's violence including ending Kern's military funding to Israel miss konas your time is up please bring your comments to a close one one more sentence yet history will remember each and every one of your actions amidst this genocide and when it comes time to vote in November I guarantee that all of us will as well next speaker please Valeria welcome please introduce yourself um I had to come speak in person today to make sure Andre is hearing me since he blocked me and many others from commenting on his Instagram uh which is in violation of our First Amendment right to free speech after pointing this out to him that as an elected official he is not allowed to censor us he changed his biography from Bakersfield's vice mayor W 2 city councilman to this is the personal page of Andre Gonzalez All Views expressed are strictly my own this is his attempt at a legal loophole to continue censoring us despite the fact that the page is still used for sharing information about things like government services um I also find the sunship very funny considering that he went on Kg and CNN to do interviews where he says that basically what we need is to have a conversation we need to and I quote sit at the table like adults and exchange ideas and go back and forth and really try to figure out how we can find a path together I'm just wondering when you're planning on doing that with us today marks 4 months since I came to my first city council meeting I have come to every 515 meetings since then you have yet to have a conversation with us all you've done is go on to local news interviews and say it's foreign polic it's a foreign policy issue when we've made it very clear that we know Bakersfield cannot send orders to Stop The Killing Karen had the nerve to say she stands with Israel in October where was the indifference to Foreign Affairs there since then the Israeli occupation forces have killed over 40,000 Palestinians including over 15,000 children and over 100 journalists we want this resolution because the people of Bakersfield deserve to know what side of History you are all on we want this resolution because it is your job to represent your Palestinian constituents that have been showing up for the past four months free Palestine and Madam city clerk does that bring us to the end of our 20 minutes yes may go we still have three remaining speakers okay but but we're at the end of our 20 minutes is that correct correct okay uh I'm sorry but we've reached the end of the speaking period so we welcome you you back at another time uh next next item please agenda item public statements we've received one speaker card from Roman Mata for item 7 C1 all right welcome please introduce yourself hi yes uh I am Roman Mata um I've talked about this at the last meeting I think this is a wonderful initiative that you guys are taking with the zoning so I wanted to come out and express my full support for it I also did want to reiterate a uh concern from the um I don't know if other side of the aisle is the right term here basically the people who had some concerns about this rezoning initiative you see um I spoke with them after the meeting and one of the concerns that they had is that um a lot of these Acres that you're Zoning for in this community I think in the um Northeast uh part of the uh city um don't have a bus line running out there and they were concerned because you know like as we zone for more mixed use things that can accommodate people with smaller living spaces public transit is often a a vital part of the services that they rely on to get to their jobs and to get around so um of course I support this resolution please do pass it I just think that it would also be good if you meet their concerns and um also uh extend or uh perhaps make a new bus line out to those areas that way um those new people in those regions can uh get the access that they need to the services um thank you thank you so uh this is the public speaker public statements on the agenda and do we have anybody else Madam clerk for appointments item six or consent calendar item seven is there anyone else who has already indicated that they want to speak under those two items no additional speaker cards were received regarding items under appointments item six or consent calendar items and we'll hear hearing item 9A later thank you next speaker please uh next item please appointments item 6A appointment of one member to the Planning Commission to a term to expire April 2028 this is for Ward six one application for appointment has been received from Zachary Basher tach thank you in that this appointment is by Ward no ballots will be required I'll call on counc member gray for the nomination of the ward six planning commissioner yes thank you mayor I do nominate Zach Basher tach Zachary Basher to the Planning Commission um to represent Ward six thank you thank you and is that uh a motion a motion yes thank you you have a motion please cast your votes motion is approved with council members Aras and Weir absent thank you and next item please consent calendar items 7 a through 7 I for approval additional correspondence has been submitted for item 7 C1 and a staff memorandum was provided for item 7 d10 transmitting the signed agreement M mayor mayor and council members uh council member gray has requested to pull item 7 D2 for separate consideration and I will pull item 7 i1 for separate consideration tonight uh council member Freeman would like to abstain uh from one item and I'll give him the floor go ahead thank you uh I will be abstaining from item E5 uh let me see uh because I uh up on the category that a person are in involved in the proposed action is a source of income to me so that's item E5 thank you mayor with the exception of items 7 D2 and 7 i1 I move the approval of the consent calendar you have a motion please cat your votes motion is approved with council members Adas and we are absent thank you and now we'll hear 7 D2 council member gray thank you mayor um this this particular item involves the Bakersville youth jobs program and I would just like to read what I had written I think I can get it across um a little bit uh more understandable so in May of 2022 the city received a grant of $5.4 million for a youth Workforce Development program initially I was excited to hear that we've received uh these monies hoping that they would go to local businesses that could train our youth in all sectors from trades to hospitality to our key Industries um oil a and so forth but I was quickly dis disillusioned by the guidelines that were put in place by Sacramento often times when money comes to us grant money or probably I would say all the time there are certain strings attached and when I began to ask questions about this I found out the money was only given to prop up the government sector by providing internships for city government positions rather than giving it to advance all sectors this is the epitome of waste I believe coming from Sacramento when we are in a huge debt as a state in all fairness I do have to say that a very small percentage of the 50 positions that are being filled with this grant um will be going to public works department for training and Fleet mechanics in the trades that I was happy about I am passionate about my position on this funding because it is a fact for every five Tradesmen that are retiring today only one is replacing the five I believe that these funds should be awarded in Balance to the needs of the communities a larger percentage going to the private sector 5.4 million in funding could be used in a much more effective manner by capturing those youth that would be interested in an apprenticeship program that is offered by the city through like our public works for Fleet mechanics or trade schools there are many use falling through the cracks because they don't realize is there's other options other than a four-year degree what we're doing what we're voting on tonight is to approve funding to be used to add two positions to the city manager's office for management assistant positions with job specifications and compensation identical to management assistant classification these positions will be funded by the grant but when the grant money Runs Out will the taxpayer take on the burden of more government I could almost bet that we will so in good conscience I cannot support such waste from Sacramento to further bloat our state and city government however I could support this funding if most of the grant was being spent on promoting the trades and if it were available to small businesses that earn the tax dollars that pay for public employment I am making a motion to not increase increas administrative employee compliment to the city manager's office by not passing resol resolution D2 thank you thank you vice mayor thank you mayor um just want to respond to council member Gray's comments this program is designed to give um young people the age 18 to 30 uh experience in City Hall um gives opportunities for paid summer internships for high school students ages 16 to 18 uh allows for nonprofits to take advantage of uh nonprofit internships and I think that no matter where our young people find themselves in their career uh moving forward this is a really valuable experience to get a firsthand look on how city government runs um and I fully support this initiative uh I think it has been very successful I've had an opportunity to meet with many of our uh fellows throughout uh the time they've been at City Hall and have been extremely impressed by their experience and on their knowledge based on working within City Hall and so I would um I will make the motion to adopt staff's recommendation tonight thank you council member core thank you mayor um I also would like to respond look if you haven't talked to a young person recently between under the age of 30 which is what I would consider young but also high schoolers um young people in college if you have not talked to one recently I would highly suggest it because it is very tough to find a job right now for young people um the job market is not looking kindly upon anyone and I am very encouraged by the office of the governor and um the program our Californians for all youth Workforce Development program uh that is an initiative administered by California volunteers and I believe they were here in the city of Bakersfield last week or so um but this program is not the end of the cycle this is really to bring young people to learn about City governance and as we're a growing city we are within the top 10 um but our population continues to grow we're one of the fastest growing cities um there was a wonderful article highlighting how how uh folks are actually um very much uh their attitudes towards the city of bakerson being residence of Kern is improving improving and council member Smith was quoted in this article as well so um you know the I feel that it is very encouraging that our city Administration as well as Partnerships with our governor's office and our state um allow for us to create this cycle of employment for young people and this is within not only City Hall but also our Parks programs which are essential and we talk so much about Parks programs and the cuts that we see but there are people who fuel these programs in our departments um whether it's um Baker so fire department however it may be young people have the opportunity to look within we're calling them in uh to involve them and and have that ownership over their local city um and all of these departments that we all rely on and we all count on um um so the goal is that now that we have this encouragement um from our state leadership that we can then train these young people to take on the jobs that you know hopefully they can one day replace um some of maybe City leadership maybe any of the jobs that they see the thousands of jobs that they'll be exposed to within the city um but even Beyond and this is just the start of that cycle for them but at least we need to we need to bring them in so that they can find employment um and they need to know that our local city has a commitment to that uh so I for one am very much in favor of this program and I uh support council member Gonzalez's uh motion and um yeah thank you thank you council member Freeman are you trying to Signal council member Freeman might be a question for Mr CLE where is the state getting this money uh if I um need some help from staff there you're welcome to help uh come and clarify for me but initially there were federal funds that came through the arpa program that funded the first trunch of this program but subsequent to that it is coming from the general fund for the State of California of of the I just wondered if it was from uh yeah these are State monies yeah I just kind of on principle so they are they're marriage to the problem I would much rather see the money but I guess the state doesn't agree with me to help our working people because actually there are many many open jobs in the trades that can't be filled today that pay very well in Bakersville but we don't have people with the skills because we eliminated those skills from the schools 20 30 years ago so I would have preferred to see at least a split of the monies but since we're running 70 million in the whole of the state I'm really not sure where they're getting the money they said they're going to cut education for the majority of this which really bothered me as an ex teer um so you know I just have trouble on principle I do I I do agree it's good to have people train and get exposed to City Hall so I'm kind of torn on this one uh but um I really don't think we should do it by cutting education U so I have a little trouble supporting uh taking the money okay well that that's my comment thank you council member Freeman so we have two motions we'll take the second one first which is the motion by the vice mayor you have a motion please cat your votes and this is to support staff's recommendation motion is approved with council members Adas and Weir voting no I mean I apologize being absent and council members Freeman and gray voting no thank you and now vice mayor mayor and Council item 7 i1 is an Economic Opportunity area Grant agreement with Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church for site improvements are EA program has been very successful at supporting many many um small businesses and nonprofits and churches throughout our community particularly in those neighborhoods that we hope to see economic revitalization uh Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church is one of bers so's most historic churches and a church that should be celebrated uh this year in fact uh Mount Zion is celebrating its 138th year uh serving the people of faith and the faith community here in Bakersfield and it's their 75th Anniversary at 825 California Avenue uh I have uh partnered with Mount Zion since uh I actually left uh college and first came home and and started work as a community organizer working in southeast Bakersfield and had an honor to uh partner with the church and their leadership and and working with the city on economic development related issues so before there is Maya Cinema before there is MC Mery uh pool before there was the Marriott Hotel Mount Zion was there and Mount Zion was in the neighborhood it's been holding it down as a beacon of light for our community and tonight we're joined uh by uh the pastor of Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church Pastor Reverend iwaa Calhoun and first lady uh Calhoun as well so thank you for being here as well as many of the uh parishioners at Mount Zion as well will you all please stand up to be recognized thank you so much for your service not only to the faith community but to the entire community Through many acts of community service and development throughout the years uh we hope that this investment uh goes a long way in preserving the church and for many years to come success be upon you thank you for being here with that I'd like to make the motion thank you you have a motion please catch your votes motion is approved with council members Adias and we absent thank you thank you pastro Calhoun and team appreciate you uh next item please hearings item 9A public hearing to consider a resolution adopting fees pursuant to the cost recovery system and approving the master fee schedule a staff memorandum was provided uh transmitting a revised Master Fee schedule 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 then we'll hear from those who'd like to speak in favor of the 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 phone 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 until the public hearing is closed if you have written statements that are longer than your verbal statement please give them to the clerk and she'll provide copies to the councel please be courteous to others who wish to speak and I'm just before I open the hearing uh if there's anyone who would like to leave at this time this would be uh an appropriate time to leave before we start the hearing at this time I'm sorry before we it uh Steph please thank you mayor mayor and Council our finance director Randy McKagan has a brief uh introduction to this topic welcome Mr mck thank you city manager clay good evening mayor go council members this public hearing item relates to the city's cost recovery program and the related Master Fee schedule and so we state law requires that the uh any change or increase to fees needs to be approved by uh Council through ordinance or resolution and have a public hearing uh so we are um asking for the uh Council and the mayor to open up for the public hearing uh there are a few items of note related to this uh that I wanted to highlight uh one of the major items is in addition to to f to fire service fees should be uh noted that these fees recover the reasonable cost for emergency services but they are not charged to property owners who do not have uh related uh insurance and in addition to that we've added the animal control control fees that were omitted from the Master Fee scheduled before uh so this basically uh corrects that Omission but again we are we have staff available for questions after the public hearing thank you Mr McKagan and at this time item 9A is open is there anyone who'd like to speak in opposition to staff's recommendation please come to the microphone identify yourself and proceed seeing none is there anyone who wishes to speak in support of staff's recommendation please step to the microphone identify yourself and proceed seeing none I'll close the public hearing and return it to council for comment and action Vice may I don't see any oh I'm sorry they just came up council member Freeman and then council member Smith um a question the U we're approving the I'm sorry um okay I I didn't hear what was said was there somebody who wanted to offer a comment oh if you want to speak on this item come come on up um I'll have to open up the hearing sorry we're opening it up again I'm sorry for the confusion go ahead and come up so are you speaking in for or against item 9A I thought that I had understood that you were going to say that there was going to be the the for and against and then public comments but maybe I misunderstood so are you speaking in for in favor or against I'm speaking in opposition specifically about the introduction of RMS which is within item nine I believe the risk management the risk terrain that one that's what I'd like to speak about but I hope that my time hasn't begun because I'm not sure can my can I start with the whole two minutes just if I can pull my thing here I don't I don't mes go ahead thank you mayor um again hi everyone I would really appreciate if you could give me two minutes of listening um I've been here as well for the past six sessions and I Contin you know I'm going to live here so I I want a respectable relationship to where you know I can get smiled at when I walk in and you guys can wave at me and stuff like that too um so my name is Gabriel Mota um I'm a concerned citizen I'm a combat veteran with firsthand experience in the use of surveillance and Predictive Technologies I stand before you Andre Gonzalez um to express my strong opposition to the P proposed purchase of risk terrain modeling software for our local law enforcement during my service I witnessed the capabilities and the risk associated with these types of Technologies while they can appear to offer strategic advantages their application in civilian settings particularly law enforcement must be scrutinized rigorously these Technologies can lead to unintended consequences especially when applied without critical insight and oversight in our community we have already faced numerous troubling instances of police violence the use of excessive force often in scenarios that should have been deescalate not only has been questioned but has resulted in fatal outcomes these cases are well documented and they have contributed to a profound distrust and a crisis in accountability within our law enforcement agencies and our community at large introducing RTM software and the similar relies on heavily flawed historical crime data it risks deepening the biases that lead to overp policing a vulnerable neighborhoods this is not speculative it's a risk that has tangible negative impacts on real people's lives enhancing surveillance and control without genuinely increasing or enhancing safety furthermore the introduction of RTM raises significant privacy concerns and it could create an environment where residents feel as though they are consistently on constant watch this is contrary to the principles of free and trusting Community drawing from my experience I believe we should focus our resources not on surveillance technology but on Building Bridges between the community the law enforcement and you all through accountability transparency enforcement of those things and then meaningful engagement Andre meaningful engagement I urge you to please consider these points and consider them seriously let us invest in our community with community-led initiatives let us invest in the community by improving Mental Health Services or developing programs that address the root causes of crime these are the types of solutions that truly build a safer Community without compr iing our values or the public trust we should really scrutinize it so thank you for your your scrutinizing uh consideration and for considering the voices of your constituents um just wanted to reiterate that I I come from an experience of of of my military experience and that's something that you guys like to speak about you like to ulad the veterans and the things that you do for veterans um but I have not it is the first time that that all of youall have had your eyes on me oh Bruce looked away so yeah I really would just like for you guys to listen not only to me about this issue but in the future when my community members and and myself come here to these meetings to give us the same respect that you give to everyone else instead of looking down at your phones or your computers and then not responding to us so I'm here I hope to hear a response and some more information about the comments I said at this time I will close the public hearing and return it to council for comment and action council member Freeman okay I want to be sure I'm on the right item this is about the cost recovery fee schedule or not yes okay so we're voting to approve the cost recovery scheduled in front of us that correct okay just want correct um how would you explain either Mr CLE or M McKagan exactly what do you mean by the cost how do you define the cost recovery process that you appli to looks like I don't know 50 or even more individual fees how are each of those what's your process for determining those uh council member Freeman thank you for the question uh these fees are basically a calculation made by the department depending on the fee you're talking about um they basically analyze the work it takes to get that that service provided that permit done and then they they calculate the number of hours and then they they in essence add overhead cost to that and it comes up with a fee that they're going to charge related to those time calculations in addition to that though there are some fees notes in the admin that are subsidized based on the populations that they serve so they do not look for full cost recovery on those ones so so I mean there's so many different ones but each department does an analysis that's correct do they you know saying here's how we did it some way is do you determine the overhead factor that they use yes the overhead factor is calculated by the finance department yes so it would be actual C actual hard cost if there's there probably are very few just you're increasing in Fe of there aren't any really hard costs this is strict is it 99% overhead the time they spend calculating the fee or processing the fee is that how or is it actual just a little more is it is no they had to spend money costs that you have yeah it's twofold there are hard costs related to the department time they spend on it and they do some analysis of how much time it will take so they do look at that they based it on the employees the types of employees that are doing it so they use their cost uh their salary costs and then there is this overhead cost so that includes the cost of the general service that city managers HR uh it the city finance department all of those are rolled into this calculation and each each department does actually prepare a worksheet that analyzes all of that and we don't initiate that that we really rely on them to uh basically calculate those costs and come up with those direct costs but you give just I'm not putting words in your mouth but you give them an overhead factor in general to apply or they use an overhead factor for each different department that they take resources from now the overhead factor that they apply is the one calculated by the the finance department for non their the basically supporting services of the other supporting departments so as I said HR city manager City attorney those types of services saying this is um this is the amount of time we think we'll spend on this item so they determine the number of hours yes guess my only question because I've been through prior life a lot of overhead reduction assignments that big corporations does anybody check if they all turn this in so I'm going to spend so many hours in this this and then you just say multiply overhead and that's how much we're going to raise the fee is there anybody who who scrutinizes his challenges hey that looks a little high is that really good just to be sure it you know if you're asking me I'm always going to be conservative on how much time I spend and I don't know if it all adds up to more overhead than we really spend on it I just wondered if there's any sort of checkin balance here before we bring it the council say just vote to approve all these I'm not saying they're high or low I'm just talking about a process that ensures that somebody challenged that that is the rounded time that it takes to do this because the rest is just math after they plug in the hours um I'm not saying you do that I'm just saying does anybody do that well in those calculations we do rely on the Departments but they are reviewed by their management and their department heads so we're rely on their their review of the calculations of time we and the finance department do not in essence what I do when I review it is I look at the changes is it is it really outside of what I would expect something like a CPI increase to how that would affect an increased fee but I don't do any audits of time that and that type of thing is there what was not included in here it's a long list was here's a I don't think or correct me if I'm wrong okay yes it is so the real check is to see what the percentage increase does that look reasonable is that really where you check it that is that is what I do with the finance department yes okay well I think it's worth talking about just to let everybody know how we go about this okay thank you thank you council member Freeman Mr McKean uh before I call on our next council member I just want to offer some clarification I know some of you maybe have never been at this portion of the meeting this is the hearing portion of the meeting which is item nine and the explanation that I offered earlier is the process that we use uh for this section which is separate from the way we do public comments in earlier parts of the meeting so just for future reference uh you might it's just run differently according to the way this is set up council member Smith thank you mayor uh first a comment when I looked at this online when you just like on the format it was sideways on my computer and I couldn't get it to flip so I don't know if that's my technical problem or your technical problem if you would try and look at that but I did have questions I I did not see we've talked recently about the plan check and inspection fees on subdivisions that's not included in this correct Council not we're still re-evaluating the the Nexus based on that Council referral on that topic and also a lot of the building permit similar to subdivision work is is based on the construction cost and then it's a percentage of that cost do we go back and check to make sure that the that is making sense or how or or do we charge it in the beginning and then even up at the end it because it's cost recovery but construction costs I think historically go up higher than inflation higher faster than your cost would so theoretically if you're using the same factor you're going to end up charging more than you [Music] should I want to say back in March uh councilman Smith we were asked to take a look at the construction costs um for bonding prices right and review of that and we're coming to the conclusion of that review and are preparing uh a summary of that for for Council and the city manager's office um to to look at I think that review of those construction costs um had led us to more accurate numbers for for looking at what uh those bonding rates would be which are also used to determine uh what the um fees are for uh permit inspections and permitting that's different I mean there there's no bonding cost on residential construction on what we're voting on tonight no no there's not and so but the same logic applies here is that if those bonding costs are out of whack for for reasons that you've now found then then these numbers are going to be out of whack and and is there some way we go back and and check these numbers also well the numbers that we found that were different were the ones that we were focusing focusing in on from public comment uh the excavation cost uh all the other numbers seem to to be right in line but the excavation cost was a little bit off there um whether excavation is a component of the fees that are determined here I'd have to take a look at um to see if there I don't think it is I think this is strictly you know Sticks and Bricks and so it's still with the correlation between construction cost and inspections escapes me uh I guess you know if I'm if I'm using cheap marble or I'm using expensive marble the inspection's the same but I'm going to pay more for the inspection conser Smith only in I I understand what you're saying and the logic there um often with some of our fees we have to use a proxy measure and I think you're questioning just the fundamental theory of whether that's the right proxy measure right um so a couple options we have you know to move forward we um um could take that uh as a topic to really take a hard look at we could move forward with this you know fee schedule as it is today I think it would be a fairly significant delay to change how we're looking at all of those construction fees you know collectively uh but could look at um you know a revision to the master fee schedule after we uh take a look at that sort of proxy measure um you know and one of the and let well I'll finish that thought and then I'll come back to one of the reasons we use proxy measures but um we could I think if we were to um again try to address that um in the short term would be a challenge to identify a different you know cost methodology uh but we could take that back review it take it back to the full Council or committee and still revise the master fee schedule if we change the methodology but allow us to move forward um tonight I think if we uh were to um uh postpone this item for that set of fees it could be a challenge with you know being able to collect the other fees as well so I think uh happy to have staff do some research about are there other measures that we could use to identify the you know the cost recovery for construction one of the reasons we use these types of proxy measures is that the only other way to really identify that is to do pretty um labor intensive time studies uh and um those time studies usually take a while and have a certain cost element to them uh and so we you know often look at things that are a good approximation but in this instance uh particularly given the direction of council a look at how do we continue to um keep our development costs as low as possible to stimulate more um Housing Development and more Economic Development it makes sense for us to look at is that really the right methodology I I get that and I wouldn't want to slow down where we're at but just you know the logic doesn't work for me and it seems like with I assume you know time sheets are all on the computer these days and you know as the inspector is moving along he's punching in where he's at and what he's done and and so it should be easy to say you know he was on this house X number of hours and therefore it should cost X dollar for his inspections of that house not being uh as familiar with how they track that um at that level of detail I couldn't say I think that um there's Sound Logic to that I couldn't say if our record keeping truly that good but we can again we can go back and look if there's a better way a better methodology that's more accurate to our true costs okay I would make that part of my motion and I would move to approve but also look at uh if this is truly cost recovery or not I mean that's what it's called Thank you thank you council member Smith move to approve thank you does anyone else wish to speak right I don't see any or are you signaling okay so we have a motion by council member Smith please cat your votes motion is approved with council members Arias and we absent thank you next item please Council and mayor statements just waiting for the screen to clear council member Freeman a couple of items uh this is just a request uh for the city manager um could you at a a meeting soon I don't know next meeting or the meeting after that update us on what is going on with I think it's called the b3k effort uh it's almost I know they're doing stuff but it's almost like this secret group we give money to we never have any idea what they're really doing to and working with the KDC and how that's going it's OB like it's over here in a black box and the council's behind it and supplying money and it's to promote Economic Development and I'd just like to know what have we done this year what's going on do they have even have goals Milestones that they have to achieve uh I think before it gets renewed we' like to see here's were their goals here's what they achiev maybe they report every quarter just what's going on uh it was heralded as this great study of the areas where we should be investing in Bakersfield for different types of jobs so it's a very important subject but um I don't know what's going on there I don't think anybody else in the council does either so so uh keep us informed maybe quarterly something it could be a report from you it doesn't I think you're on the committee it doesn't have to be one of their speakers coming down but would sure like to know what have we accomplished what do we expect to accomplish things like that um and then one other item which I won't I'm not going to send it to a committee yet I'm GNA actually again as a director city manager ask think about it I sent um no I sent you Chris and I don't who else have to be worried about the brown act but a new new ccil member can you pull the mic down please newspaper that surfaced um out of I think came out of Southern California with a u with different buyers just praising the heck out of Bakersfield because they were buying houses here and it was because they could finally afford a home they were coming out of La talked about a young couple I think they paid 415 or 30 and they got this fabulous house remember in in Valencia down the road you can't get a one-bedroom condo for under 750 they bought a beautiful new home up here 2200 F feet whatever for 415 or 30 and they were just they say you can't believe this and and the article researched that and then I follow some Builders today and asked that's what that's the only bailing them out of the recession right now with the complete collapse of the housing market 7% interest rates it's the people coming from out of town discovering feel that are keeping the home building industry going so it's real important they're remote working or finding a job here a lot of lot of remote working and these people are thrilled it we're sort of this and we're still undiscovered and and I had said well maybe we ought to do some housing advertising or Co you know co- advertis with Builders maybe that's not the right idea what and I actually asked the builders and they said you know what they would really like to see us do and we talked about this about a yearo is a promotional video ad slideshow showing what an incredible place it is to live in Baker field show all our amenities and Parks show the start show the houses and what you pay for them you know all the like bu Vista heart show the beautiful things here and the ball fields and all the things the cult the great restaurants the back promote Bakers field but you can have have a great video but if it never gets to anybody it won't make any difference and then we have to have someone help us because it's all done on the internet now nobody uses newspaper advertising anymore and I don't know how to do that but there are plenty of people who do know how to do that so that we make a you can call it a video a slideshow whatever a promotional piece that shows the best of Bakers field and why you would want to move here from Southern California or Northern California or the coast because your your quality of life is going to double and retirees we us toar MC they came from Ventura they came from the valley all to buy their retirement home at here and it was one half the price and Twice As Nice well now we have all the young buyers who young families who want to get out of LA but because they can't afford anything down there and many of them can remote work or find a job here uh so you know that's a Target but I really think it's time the I I may be exaggerating but I really say the only asset Bakersfield has above all other California cities that sets us apart where the number one asset is affordability it isn't that we don't have great egg and we don't have other Industries but the one that makes us stand above all others is affordability of homes and therefore quality of life because a lot of people associate that with whether it's a rental or or a home they own they showed their quality of life with where they live the home they go home to so I really think and I'd like you just think about I don't know if this needs to go to a committee it might be something you can handle with your staff you know but I'd sure like to see but I like you to get back to us give us some feedback within a month maybe include it in the budget there's a time if if you agree here's a timeline it takes six months to get it done but rather than just talk about it I think especially now with the home building is still down I mean it doesn't matter they're getting these out but we're not booming put it that way and there's no greater the biggest job multiplier every Economist knows is Home Building of of more jobs that created Home Building than any other industry in the nation so there's a huge ripple effect that goes through your local economy lots of locals get involved you know they buy draes they go to Home Depot they fix up the Landscaping buy furniture it has a huge multiplier effect and we know where unemployment is is double the unemployment rate for California and California is the highest unemployment rti in the nation so that's how bad things are if we want to be compared to others so I think I just think we need to kind of move on this and at least seriously evaluate it so if you could get back to the council with your plan or opinion maybe in the next month or so I really appreciate it thank you thank you council member Freeman council member core thank you mayor I wanted to share some good news coming to our city as well as s and um a quick shout out to council member Bob Smith who is on our current Council of governments and brings us good news to us as well um their April 2024 progress report for projects of regional significance um some exciting news coming to Ward 7 near bers near our Ash Road um to the 99 Taft Highway is going to be improved with uh being widened as well as bicycle lanes are coming shoulders are being improved the median Lane and sideways and other Ada improvements are coming this is an investment of $59 million in our city um and within w 7 in South Bakersfield and um the expected start date of this project is this fall in October um so that is very exciting news especially as we think about a South Bakersfield development plan and uh Taft Highway really has become kind of this transportation Corridor especially for our Trucking and Logistics Industries and this Improvement will radically improve um and really uh enhance not only multimodal Transportation but also uh just how we're getting fleets in and out of our cities and of course also supplementing the jobs that um such a big industry uh helps apply for us here locally so wanted to thank calr wanted to thank K Cog as well as our um local uh you know our departments that have worked on this and um just wanted to thank you and encourage your continued advocacy uh for improving our roads um especially when we are multimodal so thanks Bob thank you council member core vice mayor mayor council members uh we still have some members of Mount Zan here tonight and we made an investment through our eoa grant to the church um I also recently have had a conversation with the church just across the street came Memorial am uh with many different uh City officials uh to discuss some of their concerns uh for their surrounding neighborhood it was very productive um very well attended community meeting and uh we had a um a list of uh things to do uh over the next few months um but one of those items and one of the questions that came up was uh with regard to the six acres that the city owns in our Entertainment District on P and Q and California uh this uh was bought during the old Redevelopment days uh by the city of Bakersfield and it's shovel ready it's ready it's primed for development uh The Vision by this city council years ago uh was to see uh the completion of our entertainment district and uh and so I think it's important that we still maintain that Vision but I'd like to get an update from City staff on where we are and uh and what is what what is the status of that project and so I'd like to make a referral tonight that we revisit that uh particular project at Budget Finance and economic uh development uh secondly you know bigold is not just a collection of disperate neighborhoods we are a city with Collective uh Community uh characteristics we're bound together by shared values aspirations and challenges uh when one part of our city suffers the entire city suffers when one neighborhood thrives we should all benefit and so we can't afford uh to turn a blind eye to the struggles of one particular neighborhood or a particular neighborhood because inherently in the future it will become a struggle of the city and we've seen this in American cities throughout throughout uh history uh and so I want to call attention to the struggles The Chronic struggles uh of Union Avenue particularly between uh State Route 58 and California Avenue uh this area actually just became a part of my ward uh after redistricting uh and since that time I've had a number of conversations uh with business owners with residents uh we've had uh copies with the councilman as was indicated by one of the speakers uh in order to hear what those pressing concerns are but I I have to tell you uh from from all of my conversations there are um very real chronic issues on Union Avenue and we can no longer afford as a city to ignore them and I want to thank uh the city manager and staff for engaging with me on some of these issues related to Union Avenue but I really think that it's time that we take a concertive approach to addressing both in the short term some of the challenges but also long-term uh development opportunities for that particular Corridor and so I'd like to make a referral tonight um that staff prepare um a a plan of action uh with shortterm midterm and long-term uh goals uh to address some of those systemic issues uh on Union Avenue uh and and to prepare that for the safe and healthy communities um committee thank you thank you council member Smith thank you mayor I'd like to make a referral regarding the youth commission uh my youth commissioner's here welcome again Carter uh it seems that when the youth commission was set up uh it was set up to teach them I guess the rules and they his first statement was well we learn a lot about the brown act and I've met with them quite a few times but I don't know that they learn a lot about the city or actually what the city does or actually what council members do and so I would like to make a referral for us to uh start fresh with the youth commission and and maybe it has a different format maybe it has uh different rules uh but I think we could engage and teach the Youth of our community more about what we're doing than what we have been so I would appreciate that thank you thank you council member Smith council member gray thank you mayor um being part of being a Committee Member for safe and healthy neighborhoods um I have been receiving from different constituents um and not even my own constituents to other people in the community that the street racing and the um illegal quads the bikes all this is becoming beginning to become a problem again and I think all of us in this room can say that we've been witnessing this on the streets just as we're driving so um it was brought to my attention again I think it's time we put some more um um effort into this I talked to the city manager about it yesterday Mr Cay um very much agreed and thank you for your quick response that I got from you within 5 minutes today I appreciate that um that we can there's a Community member that's very um wants to be very actively engaged and had some great ideas he had sent a letter actually to every one of us elected Mr billstone so I want to just bring it to the attention of the community that we are aware of what is happening Bakersville PD has done a great job of of doing some stings in the past arrest impounding cars and I just want to bring it shed light on it once again that we can bring more attention to this because I think it's starting to become a bigger problem again so anyway I just want the community to know that we are not deaf and we do have eyes to see and we are going to be working on that and I appreciate um Mr C's um involvement with that with me thank you thank you council member gray I don't see any other request to speak uh Public Safety remains a top priority for our residents we're grateful that the state has sent some CHP officers to partner with our Bakersville Police and we're just uh grateful with that we have that opportunity for even more reinforcement to keep our public safe the Great American cleanup is this Saturday we invite all of you to participate in that keep Bakersville beautiful initiative that we do once a year we stand adjourned at 6:48 [Music]