the 3 30 PM meeting of the Bakersfield City Council is now in session good afternoon it's my pleasure to call to order the 3 30 special city council meeting of August 31st 2022 Madam clerk please call the roll mayor go here vice mayor Weir here council member Arias councilmember Gonzalez councilmember Smith I am here councilmember Freeman councilmember Gray here and council member Parlier thank you in keeping with council's resolution the public statements portion is now divided into two periods there's a period for items listed on the meeting agenda and items not on the meeting agenda statements for items listed on this afternoon's agenda are given a two-minute time limit 20 minutes total per agenda item statements regarding items not listed on the agenda are also given a two-minute time limit 20 minutes total if you have written comments that are longer than your verbal statement give them to the city clerk who will give copies to the council if you're here to make a public statement please fill out a public speaker card and give your completed card to the city clerk we ask that you mark whether you're here to speak on an item listed on this afternoon's agenda or in a matter not on the agenda speakers who do not identify a specific agenda item will be presumed speakers for the non-agenda portion those speakers will be called during the non-agenda portion of the meeting Madam clerk do we have any public speakers regarding items listed on this afternoon's agenda America we have not received any speaker cards for items listed on tonight's agenda thank you do we have any for public speakers regarding items not on the agenda America we also have not received any speaker cards for items not listed on tonight's agenda thank you next item please item three a reports annual update Economic Development strategic plan thank you Mr Clegg yeah good afternoon mayor and Council we're happy to provide for you a report on progress towards our Economic Development strategic plan this marks close to one year since the council adopted our Economic Development strategic plan and there is a robust level of detail in this plan we're not going to hit every one of those details but excuse me but try and provide a summary that shows good groundwork that's been laid and good progress that's been made towards our our 17 goal areas which just by that number you know it's a pretty long plan and so our economic and Community Development director Paul Saldana will walk through that with you again at a summary level but we're happy to dig into questions on key areas good afternoon good afternoon thank you mayor members of the council it's a pleasure to be with you a year later um in terms of providing you this update on our Economic Development strategic plan for so I want to start off with um the slide that we actually started off with when we presented the plan to you and this really is a statement about what economic developers and economic development organizations do and that's we wake up every day charged with improving the health of the local economy and before I I get actually into the the report of what we've been doing I want to acknowledge some of the folks who are behind me and ask that the members of the ecd staff would that that are here would they please stand so they can be recognized uh the work that I'm going to describe today uh many of these folks have been involved in the design and the implementation of that and I wanted to acknowledge that at the front end of the um of our presentation so as a city manager uh Mansion we have a number of goals and 17 various strategies that relate to those goals and I'm going to go through uh the strategies fairly fairly quickly because I'm just going to highlight some of the activities that have that have taken place so this first slide aligns to our first strategy which is to focus all of our business retention expansion and traction efforts around high priority uh cluster or industry clusters and we've done a number of work in this particular area and some of it will show in some of the other strategies but among the things that we've done have included identifying Target companies in each of these four particular areas as well as start the Outreach process to identify companies that are in an expansion or relocation mode we continue to see an increase in the number of prospects of of companies that are interested in expanding in our work with current EDC as an example we'll just continue to see that opportunity increase as you know probably the most significant announcement that we've had over the course of this last year has been uh the project that you approved was sign watts in their relocation from Charlotte North Carolina to Bakersfield this uh next strategy is to collaborate and expand entrepreneurial development resources we completed or I should say bitwise completed uh the their first cohort and have had a number of success and I don't want to take away from our um our psvs report I know that's coming out soon but it actually will be highlighting some of those those graduates from that program we've been designated as a ihub Innovation Hub in partnership with CSU Fresno and the uh the kite program that will bring more resources to support entrepreneurs particularly in the Southeast area and then we've developed the framework for an arpa-funded entrepreneurial Support Program which includes funding to the business ecosystem that will allow them to assist some of our growing entrepreneurs so the next strategy is expanding small business support and assistance here we've developed and are getting ready to implement our facade Improvement program which is uh established through the arpa funding process and then we've expanded the eoa funding through this fiscal year in combination with psvs as well as with the arpa funding we have uh staffed um Staffing over our ombuds cement program which was an identified strategy as nearly complete we actually anticipate having all of the final positions on our business success team filled by mid-september the next strategy is evaluating and refining our Economic Development incentives one of the things that we have done is procured a software license that allows us to evaluate the economic benefits and the fiscal impacts of projects and so that's an important part of that Economic Development incentive process because we want to be able to evaluate what the what the positive benefits are and so we could we could relate those and use those as part of the analysis we've also have been developing the opportunity Zone perspectives and a business resource guide both of those to help guide businesses through the the city's processes we worked as part of a region-wide collaboration in looking at with cap K looking at the development of a certified development financial institution and we're getting really close to having one of those local design aided financing for businesses here in the located in Bakersfield and then the last thing is we've established the framework by for providing incentives on a project by project basis and in this case we're utilizing the framework that is provided through State regulation and we don't have to actually create anything more other than what we have available to us through the eoa process and other areas in order to move that forward on a case-by-case basis the next strategy is launching awareness building of through an economic development marketing program pickbakersil.us continues to serve as that landing page for economic development and provides all of the necessary information for the site selection process we have procured a database of targeted businesses and which also provides us the opportunity to use artificial intelligence to determine what industries not only what industry activity is taking place but what specific businesses might be positioned to to grow and to expand we've performed some Outreach to targeted firms but more importantly in this fiscal year we are currently in the process of negotiating agreements with two or two organizations that will provide direct Market Outreach for the city of Bakersfield in different markets and different industry segments so this will extend the work that we do here locally by providing an external marketing reach and then as I mentioned we've had increased coordination and work with Kern EDC next strategy is enhancing our interface with education and Workforce Development partners for this strategy we've actually been meeting regularly with CSU Bakersfield and current Community College District staff to talk about and and to coordinate our Economic Development and our Workforce Development and education initiatives and through this has developed in a number of different uh Partnerships and and opportunities some of which I'll I'll share in some of the other strategies we've been able to provide support for both CSUB and kccd on grants and program initiatives that they're doing using um our Economic Development strategy to align with that and then we've also been engaged in collaboration Beyond uh the uh the borders of Kern County with UC Merced with CSU Fresno and with Arizona State University on a variety of very specific uh initiatives that would bring value to some of the strategies that we have in our Economic Development strategic plan the next strategy is to elevate our reputation for being Business Development friendly and our goal there of course is to be the the most business friendly city in California we've assisted a number of businesses with uh with their expansion and location projects we've worked with a number of local developers we internally we have regular meetings between the various departments to address some of the business success opportunities and some of the challenges that business are facing with their expansion or their development plans and I think a big key to our friendliness it will be or is I should say since it's now live is the Evolve software which allows for electronic permitting process through DS and the other various departments the next strategy is to coordinate with regional Partners on a variety of different areas we've worked with our regional Partners to complete the county-wide economic development strategy which is a precursor to various Federal funding opportunities we were involved in the coalition to ensure that Kern County was maintained as its own Economic Development region that's designated by the state and this happens to come with a you know some direct attention from some diff some programs such as the community economic resilience fund we've LED county-wide efforts on the development of community resilience through the microgrid initiative and that the department of Energy's designation for a partnership that I'll talk about in a minute that one is one of those ones where we're actually leading that out on a region-wide basis and then the the most recent thing we're involved in is with a public and private group that is going after a one billion dollar grant for direct air capture projects here in Kern County this next area is to pursue external funding sources we've been we've had some good good luck in this area over this last year we were we've received a 500 000 brownfields Grant through the federal Eda uh we the ten thousand dollar ihub Grant through the department or through the state go Biz office as I mentioned the community leaps technical assistance it's not dollars but technical assistance that is helping with microgrid development we've got a pending application in for 25 or 29 million dollars with uh transform of climate communities we are competing for five hundred thousand dollars for an aggro voltaics Grant in partnership with ASU and UC Merced and the surf planning Grant which we have our edsp written into as part of the implementation is pending review by the state on financing mechanisms to support real estate in uh underserved and under developed neighborhoods we've been utilizing arpa funding to stimulate development in these underserved neighborhoods we're doing a cultural resources survey which is a precursor to the Mills act and and eventually to a business improvement district we've been deploying uh at least the process or developing the the uh for deployment the process for tax increment financing through the eoa areas and then lastly creating a process for the use of reimbursement agreements and other creative forms of financing to promote development in these targeted areas and then uh another strategy is really a quality of place initiative the general plan process will actually contribute a lot to this um to this conversation but this fiscal year we will be doing the um some place making visualization Concepts so that we can demonstrate what downtown could look like at a build out a scenario what MLK Boulevard could look at look like at that build out uh scenario and then the city owns 40 acres at Kaiser Sports Village and so we will be doing some conceptual plans for that as well these will all help us in our marketing efforts as we promote these different areas next is our downtown positioning for as a regional center for housing for employment and for arts and culture we have an agreement coming forth to uh meet our housing or develop a strategy for meeting our housing goal for the downtown area and that includes inventorying those opportunities we have a property inventory of targeted Redevelopment sites that we would like to see redeveloped in in one form of the or another we have a variety of mixed-use projects that have been proposed including the former Greyhound building and another project on I Street we've been recently um having conversations with kccd on repurposing their District properties and their actually District board a couple weeks ago agreed to look at the highest and best use for that property which is a nice move in towards that direction and then uh here in the next couple months we'll be advancing a proposal for the uh development of the PQ property that the city owns the next area of revitalization in our strategy is southeast Bakersfield we've been we're working on the development of a Prosperity neighborhood in that area it will be the primary focus of round five for our TCC funding application it's the exclusive Focus for our ihub designation so those opportunities will happen in the Southeast area we're also focused on the development of advanced manufacturing Industries in that area and turn That Into You Know sort of our Advanced manufacturing Corridor because there's a lot of industrial land and opportunities there and then lastly we'll start to look at strategic implementation of the South Union Avenue revitalization study which has a variety of different goals and opportunities within that and then the third area of focus for uh reinvestment revitalization is Old Town Kern we develop a prospectus with uh for Sumner station and we've toured several interested parties in that and we're very um we're very hopeful that uh that we will be advancing a project a Redevelopment project for that station in the in the very near future we've increased the eoa programming that includes the removal of some of the vacant buildings and we'll begin the process of doing some more focused Redevelopment opportunity and we're just completing now an inventory of what those opportunities and those opportunity sites would look like in Old Town Kern we've um we're using our brownfields grant to do a focused Economic Development strategy similar to what we did on South Union and then we launched the prosperity neighborhood in um the Niles Monterey neighborhood this this past summer this next area is about our strategy is about the overall retail commercial centers throughout the city and particularly repurposing those that have a high vacancy rate uh we actually just in the last couple of months acquired a targeting system that allows us to actually look at each site and determine what the uh what the potential sales and activity would be for that site and then what's what retailers are missing from that part of the community and allows us to use again artificial intelligence to focus in on you know if uh let's just I'll use you know Panera Bread as example if that is a ideal location for them based on all these parameters it allows us to go out and Target a specific user in a specific area for that for that commercial center we're also um you know again looking at what what types of reuses or mixed uses could take place on those and I think the general plan will be a good opportunity to form inform those those decisions and those opportunities and then speaking of the general plan that happens to be the next strategy in the economic development plan is to evaluate our land use and Zoning policies and so again this is all part of the general plan process and I know um director Boyle is very engaged in that and we we have a lot of work that's taking place but it's really going to speak to a lot of those areas and then the last strategy that we have is aligning the city's Capital uh Improvement plan with the economic development strategy and there's been a number of things that have been done here uh by our Recreation and Parks Department our development services and our public works department we regularly the four of us regularly coordinate our activities and our strategies to make sure that we're uh you know we're accomplishing this goal and accomplishing the work that needs to be done in a collaborative and Collective manner we we're working on the spruce up downtown initiative which is geared to spruce up the area in preparation for the hosting the 2020 economic Summit we've got the downtown complete streets project and in the 34th Street project which is part of the uh this year's TCC ask let's say a summary of the strategies and the activity that we've had to date I I like to close on this slide just to um you know as a measurement or as a discussion of the work that we do you know we see ourselves as as connecting all of the folks that need to be connected to deliver results to solve problems based on our experience and our knowledge base and our entrepreneurial approach to develop opportunities into projects and those projects into economic impact for our community to create a positive impact and to inspire innovation in our community so with that I would be happy to answer any questions that you have thank you Mr Saldana Mr Clay would you like to make any further comments before we go to council no thank mayor we'll take questions thank you councilmember Gonzalez thank you mayor thank you Mr Saldana for your presentation today and uh thank you to your hard-working team um I will say this is one of the most exciting aspects of the public safety and vital Services initiative you know if you take a look at all those things that we uh committed ourselves to doing as a city as a result of measure n uh those those are the things that we absolutely have to do and you know Public Safety and homelessness related Services certainly involve within that category and then those and then the second category is those things that we really need to do we should do for our future and economic and Community Development is certainly number one on my list next to Quality of Life issues that really will help us create a better Baker sold over the next 30 40 50 years from now I mean my hope my big vision is that I will be able to in 40 years walk down the street with my grandchildren and be able to point to all the wonderful things in downtown Bakersfield as a result of the work we did in 2020 2018 2019 2022 and you know that work obviously starts today I have a few questions for you that I that I want to kind of drill down on a little bit number one is I was talking to councilmember Parlier earlier today and you know we were reminiscing about some of the strategies related to Economic Development when we when we first when the when the people of Bakersfield first adopted Public Safety and vital Services initiative and one of the points that he pointed out was that we really entertained the idea of perhaps partnering with an entity like current Economic Development Corporation to really be that Economic Development engine within or for the city on behalf of the city of Bakersfield and so my question to you is how are you thinking about really being much more proactive in in terms of you know going out and attracting and selling Bakersfield attracting new Industries but then bringing them back home um because in my mind there's a there's really a difference between approaches when we look at economic and Community Development there's there's a very um reactive approach you know we can we can open up an office and wait for people to come through the door wait for new Industries to come in and people who are shop in various cities wait for them to come to town and certainly give them a great service and that's a great and important aspect to the work but then the other aspect is being much more proactive and assertive and just getting out there and promoting Bakersfield all over the country pushing hard so that we can bring lots of new jobs to this region and lots of new opportunity to our region and and that that that aggressive stance is what I'd really like to see and so can you just talk to us a little bit where you see or where you would point to as aspects of where we're being very aggressive and competitive sure I I will excuse me say that you know part of this year and part of the presentation we've been putting a lot of the tools in the the things that we need in place in order to do that my my approach to Economic Development and to particularly to business recruitment is to convince you you that you need a location in Bakersfield before you even have decided you need a new location we want to be in front of that aspect you know and getting people to think of Bakersfield from a positive business climate and particularly in our Target Industries so the uh the the data and the the information that we have available to us about the industries and about the businesses in those Industries one of the one of the things that we'll be doing with both of these Outreach firms is actually outreaching two companies one of the things that will be built into their into their contract is to have a certain amount of of face-to-face uh meetings with businesses that are considering expansion or that could expand into Bakersfield so we're not waiting for uh you know an organization to send us something that says hey this company is thinking about expanding we're going to go out and be proactive about that similar to the way our um our visit Bakersfield team travels all over the the country to bring in tour operators and and sports events and those types of things we'll be doing the same thing on the uh on the business recruitment site as well thank you if I may council member I also just wanted to offer a couple of other thoughts um as we have been implementing our Economic Development strategic plan the b3k partnership has also been implementing strategies that were arrived at as a regional approach and and one of the key questions has been how do we better sell ourselves and Target Industries as a region and that that it's not just a city of Bakersfield or county of Kern or chamber or kadc you know kind of each scratching at the surface as opposed to really having a comprehensive plan that really puts a lot of weight behind this so over the past year there's been several conversations about roles and responsibilities in the economic development ecosystem I would call it for all those different entities and who's playing which role and and who's best suited to play those and kind of you know so in some ways who's stepping up to say we're gonna we're gonna go and and and get some of these things done um I would say respectfully that there was conversation about you know where would the b3k strategy um reside and there wasn't one one specific entity that said we think it all fits for us and so b3k has formed a Leadership Council for economic development to continue to drive the work of b3k and I see that increasingly becoming an entity that would speak and have voice for the region and pursue opportunities for the region such as this department of energy you know billion dollar Grant on air capture and it's really important for the city to play a big role in that but I do see that Economic Development Leadership Council uh playing in again an important role in being an entity that the city would work with to to leverage our efforts and and flex more as a region in ways that we had sort of contemplated might we do that with one of the existing agencies it looks like there's probably a bigger opportunity to do that on a regional basis through this new Leadership Council I really appreciate that and and it brings to mind you know another concern that I've had is you know it's there's one thing to go out and to sell Bakersfield right or try to convince someone and it's another thing to really try to create the conditions that make Bakersfield the right place for new Industries to exist and what I mean by that is that's part of education but also it's part of you know making sure that we have the appropriate sites available making sure that uh you know all of those different aspects within within even internal city government uh that those conditions are appropriate and right for new Industries to come and so you know who so so what who who on staff is it ecd is it City manager's office who has that authority to kind of bring bring people together bring all the players together and who's the captain a great question councilmember mayor and Council to date um myself I'm on the Leadership Council for this Economic Development partnership uh Paul is participating as well with that group and and especially in many of the specific initiatives and and subgroups within that Collective uh I would communicate to this Council that there isn't a particular governance structure that's been put together for what this Leadership Council looks like yet it's actually been a little bit fluid and we're working on that as a council to be able to come back and say you know this is from a governance standpoint we're all committing to you know work together in this way and so I've been uh stepping forward in that just without necessarily having you know direct direction from Council about what role to play there but I've been very active there with Leadership Council just because I knew it was important enough to be part of that conversation and crafting what that really will look like and I would reflect to what you said earlier many of those uh diverse aspects that you pointed out like creating a talent Rich Workforce you know in this region that's one of the groups from this Leadership Council is to we need to focus on Workforce Development and talent development we also need to focus on marketing we need to focus on these industry clusters we need to focus on site development those are each pieces that are fitting into this new governance model we're taking a very big Vision to what are are the things that we need to address and then identifying who amongst the partners can take each of those pieces on so um I am deeply involved in that from my standpoint and um our assistant city manager uh Scott Andrews is going to be involved there and and Paul and his team are you know involved and in full support there as well okay thank you so much I appreciate that let me move on to a few more questions I know my colleagues also have some comments um one of these slides indicates that you utilized arpa funding to stimulate development in underserved neighborhoods I'm just hoping you can give us some examples of where those dollars have been utilized so far uh let me go back to that real quick foreign dollars most of those have not um I don't think we've programmed anything specific uh specific for that uh yet the um we have been using some of the community revitalization and and um the set-aside that we have through psvs for that um I I believe that when I'll look at this slide here real quick that we said that they were being programmed okay okay great looking forward to learning more of how we do that um and then finally we we read here that the city's interfacing with education Workforce Development Partners which I think is fantastic for mention for things we just mentioned um my question is how are we being really strategic to address those individuals who are living in disadvantaged neighborhoods and and working towards our strategy and something that we've communicated on the diet as some of us have at least to really move people out of poverty in in the city of Bakersfield so we've been we've been taking a very purposeful approach to that particularly as it relates to the grants and the other opportunities that we've been seeking so as an example the ihub designation that we received in partnership with CSU Fresno we specifically designated Southeast Bakersfield as the the target area for where that the the training and the uh the um employment opportunities would come from and so we we've done that we've also in every element that we've worked on uh for example the microgrid project that we're working on through the community leaps process well it's a region-wide process our Focus has been on how do we deploy those opportunities in the Southeast area so we we've been very specific and very targeted about where those take place and then this from in the same manner we've also advocated with our education Workforce Development Partners similar strategies to make sure that they recognize that those you know that those areas are ones that we want as a city prioritized for those types of opportunities okay great thank you so much thank you councilmember Gonzalez vice mayor thank you mayor um it looks like you've been busy and it looks like you're going to be busy the rest of your life at this point or I have a question on the launch city-wide quality of place initiative and could you dive into that a little bit more specifically sure that uh that strategy as it was developed was really about looking at how we uh you know how we uh characterize our community you know how it's how it's planned how it's designed um how it's maintained so it's really from that quality of life standpoint that's the that's the idea behind uh the quality of place initiative as a Consulting team developed that what the visualizations that we talked about is really to give folks the uh the ability to sort of see what that would look like and I know we as an example on the the downtown area the city manager shared the uh you know a visualization from our sister city Bouchon and and it would be that type of you know presentation that we're able to show folks that want to invest or that we'd like to see invest what that would look like what that investment would look like in the downtown area or in some of these other targeted areas is it only targeted areas because it seems like to me that maybe Mesa Marine Sports Complex might tie into this very well and the city lights that's coming forward would be another fine example of that am I correct or yeah we have no we have no limitation on where we okay yeah I'd like to have those included please thank you thank you vice mayor councilmember Smith thank you mayor I just would like to reinforce it psvs is Public Safety and vital services and the best thing we can do for Public Safety is to create jobs in Economic Development so it really does tie in and I appreciate the work I kind of remember a year ago that you had a list of things to check off for the first year uh you know third year goals five-year goals do we have that am I correct there um there was a table I think in the in the plan that had recommended strategies for that first year and so that actually the activities that were reported out this afternoon are in alignment with those uh with those strategies yeah okay you could send that back out to me what we looked at last year just to refresh me I would appreciate it thank you thank you councilmember Smith council member Arias thank you mayor and thank you Paul and to the rest of the team who are doing this tremendous work um I want to acknowledge all of the work that you guys have been doing which is really such so important and important to the foundation of what you guys are going to be doing over the next you know five to ten years which is building out that program getting the right people into the right positions um and making sure that you have all the tools and resources that you and your team need and even the region uh to start going you know a little more aggressively uh towards recruiting businesses uh building out some of these programs and really scaling in an effective and sustainable way so I just want to acknowledge that um I I've seen the work I appreciate the work and I'm excited for where we're headed um I think one of the concerns that I have is that I there are a ton of advantages to working collaboratively uh with the county I see Mr zervis thank you for joining us tonight um coming from the county and working with other partners in the process of building out this Regional plan to invest in Economic Development and Workforce training the fear that I have is that if we don't continue to push ourselves to drive that and be leaders of that effort that we might lose what our own internal goals might be as part of this larger plan and effort and I think that you know it's so important that you know we have you know goals within the broader regions goals for us to strive towards that are independent but also you know in alignment with what those broader goals are and I think that it's just so important that you know we have those goals internally for our local staff members to continue to pursue that whether that's you know business recruitment a number of programs and Grand dollars that we're bringing down um Community Development projects I know we're doing a lot of good work in the MLK downtown corridors but I think you know the more that we continue to push ourselves to meet those metrics internally it'll help us not only achieve what we're trying to do as a city but also push us through that that broader collaborative so I just wanted to give that feedback the other thing that I wanted to highlight and really ask is to what extent does your department interface with development services and the process of plan check we're not um well thank you for the the comments and and the question council member we're not um directly involved in the plan check process as a you know as a approving entity but we do get involved and engaged in a variety of different projects I communicate regularly with my counterpart Chris Boyle when whenever we receive a call from a developer or a business that you know might have a question about where their their process is they are very quick to respond and to and to provide that that information and insight and so we do have a very close relationship and I think folks have learned now to you know call our office and and we can you know serve that's the ombudsment role that we play on behalf of the city um as uh as David Lyman I've heard him make this reference before about being the personal bureaucrat uh and you know and he describes that as somebody that comes in and helps people navigate through city government meant and that is what you know that's one of what we do as part of that uh that role so we certainly are engaged in that activity and if I'm a council member just just take it one step further um and I think to Paul's Credit that he's not necessarily uh highlighting uh there's a couple different aspects so Paul's created what he's calling a business success team that's that Ombudsman group that are available to help make sure projects and and proposals that come forward we find a way to help folks get those done and of course we're interested in helping you know any proposed development or project big or small but in particular we you know we've been aware of some big ticket items in recent months and in this past year and said we're going to make sure those things happen and so some of our key Partners out in the development Community know I can just call Paul and he'll help me figure out where to go where to where to get this thing unstuck if they're feeling that way and then secondly um Paul has convened a a group of colleagues on our operational departments where they sit down on a regular basis and work through both I think systemic issues of how can we get better but then also specific projects hey here's a big one coming up and so you know that they sit down together with development services Economic Development Public Works and parks to say how do we find ways to you know bring this project forward and so Economic Development does view themselves as that assistance and that success team to have that customer service level we we want that and I think do have that in our other departments but they they are inviting the development Community to see them in that role of you know let us know and we'll help you figure it out excellent that sounds great um and I'm glad that there's some Synergy and some interfacing between your department and what Chris's team is doing I just want to highlight that you know across the board we're facing Staffing challenges right um and I've I've you know gleaned that there are some particular challenges within our planning department and making sure that we have sufficient staff to do the plan check to make sure that everything's adequate and to move you know some of these critical processes along for these big Big Time Investments that some of the developers are trying to make in our community I and I think that process itself is probably the most fundamental part of what we do to create like councilmember Gonzalez was mentioning uh to create that recipe that's Prime for business development and growth in our community um now I don't know to what extent I know you don't need anything else to be thrown on your plate Mr Saldana but I think you know getting the fundamentals correct to make sure that we are creating that that right environment for those types of Investments is going to be critical I know that you know classification and compensation is in the process it's in the works we're eager to bring that back as quickly as possible um but I think that you know we've got to get the fundamentals right so that we can continue to develop and um you know pursue some of our more ambitious goals so that's that's something that I would like for us to look at I don't know um Christian maybe you have some thoughts on how we can bring that back for Council to potentially take a deeper dive or even get you know discussed in maybe Planning and Development Committee uh thank you councilmember we we do have an acute challenge right now in our plan review process our development services director and Gary Holland in my office have been putting their heads together you know you know to make sure we build our capacity to make sure we can move those reviews through on a timely basis I would say you know today we don't have something ready to share and present but in the very near future I would actually expect to see because of the urgency to move on this on a council agenda some items that would add some outside third party capacity to help us in that realm and would suggest that we we move and expedited in that way and come directly back to council if it does mean you know Contracting for some of those services or making some internal shifts currently to make sure sure that we're balancing workloads and getting to all of those reviews but it is a stretch on the team and so I would suggest Lou will come back with our our action plan in the form of you know um immediate action for Council determination to to bring some contract resources in fantastic sounds good thank you if I can if I can just add to an earlier comment just to provide some clear Clarity to give you an example and I think I mentioned this we made sure that the surf application to the state had written into it the city of Bakersfield Economic Development strategic plan alongside of the b3k and the county comprehensive Economic Development strategy we wanted to make sure that we were we were well positioned for the projects in the city of Bakersfield to be considered and part of that overall region-wide region-wide plan and and if I if I may make a correction uh to the to the presentation to in response to councilmember Gonzalez's uh question the that line item should have said utilization of psvs and other funding like arpa so I apologize for that that but I wanted to make that correction thank you Council membrarius we have a rare opportunity with the California Summit coming and then in addition the two-day pre-summit uh Institute coming here to highlight our Regent highlight Bakersfield so we look forward to taking full advantage I've heard some of the people are coming and we have leaders coming from all over the state so let's do our very very best to highlight our community thank you for all your efforts thank you you next motion please motion to receive and file you have a motion please catch your votes motion is approved with council member Freeman and council member Parlier absent thank you next item please reports item 3B city-wide high-speed internet thank you Mr Clegg yeah I think American Council to provide some context for this next presentation for some time there's been interest in expanding the availability and capacity to high-speed internet within our community I think that comes in a couple different forms one form is that there are gaps in service within our community both within the city as well as the county unincorporated area that's adjacent to the city that there is not access for all residential and even some commercial areas to high-speed internet the second also is that we've received numerous complaints um over my time here in service outages and in service levels and customer service responsiveness of amongst existing providers and we've been exploring what our other opportunities and possibilities that would bring both addition National infrastructure into our community to make sure that there is high-speed infrastructure throughout the community as well as frankly and I say this respectfully it's not bad for there to be some competition in Bakersfield amongst service providers to make sure our our residents as customers to those providers have options and and can get the best customer service that they're seeking out and so we have for you today a workshop item on a concept that we have been pursuing that we think has a lot of promise and I'll turn time over to our Public Works director Greg straklus to walk you through that thank you city manager Clegg Greg strackloose for the record um good afternoon mayor go members of Council in following up councilman Arias's point about recipe for success for future businesses this could be an ingredient towards that recipe um with this unique proposal we have a team here today to to um that we've put together to help answer some of the questions that might come up but um essentially I have the honor of making this presentation from a public works perspective and in terms of infrastructure into the public right-of-way we also have economic development director Saldana who can speak a little bit more to the impacts to Business Development we have technology Services director povinos who can talk very clearly on the technology and the state-of-the-art capacity of this particular proposal we have Josh Rudnick from the city attorney's office who will be presenting two of the final slides in this in terms of steps for moving forward if it's City council's consensus to move forward and of course we have Mr Scott Bradshaw here to my right who is president of sci-fi networks who is here to represent his company and his specific proposal for Bakersfield so in short the presentation will review Broadband access what that is it will introduce sci-fi networks and their proposal for Bakersfield it will review staff's collaboration with Kern County and the research of sci-fi as a company and their work in other communities and I integrate Kern County in this because they have been a partner as this proposal is applicable to the city of Bakersfield in the Incorporated limits but also sci-fi has approached the unincorporated County areas or the metropolitan area and the county islands that exist within the city um and also we'll just summarize with a potential path forward on on this proposal uh Josh will wrap it up with the specific steps there so what is broadband service well the Federal Communications Commission defines Broadband Services high-speed internet access with minimum download speed of 25 megabits per second and um the best and most efficient way to do that is through a fiber optic connections that allows data to travel at the speed of light some of the reasons why that is important because there are so many data devices that we all depend upon number one high-speed internet allows us to connect with each other friends family it allows businesses to connect amongst each other video media meetings and sharing of of data it's access to information at a moment's notice so you'll see some of the photos up here you'll see some medical devices where folks are wearing these meta devices and it allows real-time data to flow from the person to a medical facility or doctor and it will send warnings or alerts to either medical officials or the individual you'll see a photo here you know autonomous truck or Freight which would rely on data in terms of high-speed access to data you'll see the numerous types of electronic devices and also autonomous vehicles in their dependency they're actually Vehicles today that can communicate with sick traffic signal controllers to understand just how much red time is left at that signal before it turns green so that that technology exists but it's not yet widespread but high-speed internet and broadband service will help facilitate a lot of those Data Solutions in terms of how Broadband connectivity exists we the center photo here is of a project where they're doing a directional drill or Jack and bore to install conduit within the roadway this is actually a step up to open trench method of installation which is probably the most labor-intensive and costly approach this is a step towards improving that technology from the construction aspect you see small cell towers that exist and they rely on high-speed fiber optic they allow our connected devices to communicate there are also satellite opportunities where high-speed data can flow over satellites now that that sometimes weather can play a factor in the reliability of that type of service so one of the most reliable ways to provide Broadband access is through fiber optic Network foreign so a little bit about sci-fi what is sci-fi networks it's a company that funds builds and maintains community-wide fiber optic networks across the city and the United States if we look specifically in California you see 11 California library City locations that are working with sci-fi but that's now up to 12 there was a recent addition to that the city of Bakersfield would be the largest area the largest fiber City Network that sci-fi has approached to date which which means that sci-fi's private investment in the infrastructure would be an enormous investment and I and I say private investment right because this particular proposal requires no Public Funding for this which is unique um and I'll get a little bit more into that in upcoming slides a connected community so in terms of sci-fi networks and I'll call it their mission and goals uh you know they do want to connect Community with high-speed fiber they do want to do it in such a way where they're using state-of-the-art technology and they're installing that technology with state-of-the-art construction techniques uh they they want to provide a resilient and sustainable infrastructure and and all of these things kind of we've pretty well into some of the overarching goals of the city um so let me talk a little bit about their business model essentially sci-fi provides the funding and maintains the fiber network of the infrastructure that serves the each and every pre that can serve each and every premises within the city so they'll pass by every single resident and business which means they're working on both sides of the street their infrastructure is on both sides of the street and they provide that redundant system sci-fi creates a Level Playing Field by which the operating operating the network and wholesale wholesaling access to Internet service providers who wish to provide residential and business services in the community so they're providing the backbone infrastructure and then an internet service provider comes in to essentially light the fiber up um isps will continue to focus and provide services within the city so really Summit Broadband ATT and those other service providers will continue to exist this is just another uh company competing with the public the community's internet access so again sci-fi will own the backbone infrastructure and maintain that infrastructure uh and repair it if and when it gets damaged residents and build businesses will have the option to remain with their current Internet service provider or seek subscriptions with providers who have least fiber from sci-fi open access uh existing again existing internet service providers will continue to operate so sci-fi Network's construction approach I talked about Innovative technology and construction approaches again the picture on the left is a directional drill Jack and bore operation which requires you to still open up the street but you'll notice on the right an operation that only opens up about an inch and a half to two inch trench to install those fiber lines that you see on the upper Center portion of that photo those are conduits actually and the fiber is blown through those conduits to establish the fiber Network this is uh this approach moves rapidly more rapidly than a Jack and bore you'll see the 200 to 300 linear feet per day at a cost of 20 to 40 dollars per linear foot where micro trenching goes much quicker at a much cheaper price I will say that the city of Bakersfield has 1300 Centerline miles within the city working on both sides of the streets that's 2300 uh linear feet and I'm sorry 2300 linear miles to install this and um so that is a significant investment of construction resources so the proposed coverage areas for the city of Bakersfield you'll notice that in the yellowish color there those are the incorporated city limits it doesn't exempt anyone every street every resident every business within the city of Bakersfield is covered on on this map and would have access to this particular infrastructure in this opportunity for high-speed fiber the purple covered colored areas are the unincorporated areas that the county has been working with sci-fi to include into the metropolitan area um so again Broadband infrastructure to drive economic growth as part of the installation process um I spoke earlier about no cost to the city so sci-fi um would appoint a community liaison to get out ahead in terms of communications with neighborhood construction schedules all of this would be regulated through the public works department in terms of an encroachment permit so we're talking about the installation of infrastructure not occurring simultaneously throughout the city but Over a four-year period in zones and getting out ahead of that sci-fi provides a community liaison this is a locally employed resident with a daily presence single point of contact available at all times to address any concerns or questions um and really could could be seen as a marketing approach too for informing folks about the opportunities to connect to an alternative internet service provider um these are some of the ways that uh they they go about um greeting folks with uh eat and greets and the taco truck okay so a little bit about the city county coordination uh to date we've talked with many communities we have uh Greg and I visited the city of Fullerton and spoke with their Public Works director and their staff about um the the experiences they had with sci-fi and as they worked with sci-fi I think there's a lot of opportunity that we've seen where we can kind of learn from things that as they took the Forefront in the lead position they were one of the first cities in California to actually coordinate with sci-fi so there were hiccups along the way in that process we understand that those have been corrected and so there's plenty of opportunity for us to implement the successes that they've had for city of Bakersfield project um we've researched microtrenching standards and again this is a new type of construction Technique we are working with staff now on on developing specific standards for anybody who wants to come in and micro Trench we've discussed potential approach or path forward with the city attorney's office and you'll hear about that in the next couple of slides and Kern County has presented the Sci-Fi networks proposal to the board of County Commissioners on their August 23rd meeting and I understand that went well as well so now I'll I'll turn it over to Josh to present the next two slides okay good evening mayor City Council um so what is this uh what contract are we going to use or was this going to look like for the city of Bakersfield um we would use a license agreement that the other cities that we have the benefit of looking at and researching and comparing and picking the best Clauses out of and it's the license is going to be a non-exclusive uh use of the right-of-way so that sci-fi can then install and maintain and operate the fiber optic Network in our in our system in our city at no cost to the city and the city will enter into other licensing agreements separate ones and with some fees for additional sci-fi facilities because part of running the fiber optic Network throughout the city you're going to have these other hubs that help move that Network along and so these um though they're called shelters and those some of those shelters might be housed on city property and some may not now so we've talked about the license the term of the agreement most of the cities and counties that have entered into contracts with with sci-fi are it's an initial 30-year term with an up to optional 30-year renewals so these are long-term Investments long-term licenses and if the if the system is abandoned then the city would have the right uh you know would become property of the city and then we would we would own that system and then just like in a lot of agreements we have um the agreement can be terminated for default of either priority or breach uh the license agreement will also cover uh what what Greg mentioned uh well sort of a single point of contact but we would have a single point of contact that could be a city employee that does that processes permits plan checks and inspections of each time that sci-fi needs to then start micro trenching throughout a certain area or Zone and they need to check in and make sure they filled out the encroachment permit for that area and for that work and that they're working with City staff and uh that we would have a an employee or possibly I mean it could be an option we were talking about third parties uh Contracting out to then help process this so that that huge investment then we're accommodating that investment with a single point of contact and sci-fi is part of the agreement would then reimburse or pay for their fees for that salary or for for the work um on that uh person who's processing the paperwork for the project then let's talk about the the contract also would also have provisions of construction and and location facilities uh the city would have a right to oversee and the construction and and and inspect it uh part of it's through the permit process so we would have uh you know um different uh issues or was it called conflicts could be cleared and things like that with with the with the city and use the use of that uh system and then so with the with the construction of the system uh there's also you know they have to comply with our code and we would also negotiate in good faith of on where those up to eight facilities with or shelters would be and and how they would look like and Sally blend in to to our landscape and all that and then of course with all contracts we want to protect ourselves even further with insurance requirements and indemnification requirements to and with that we're on the last slide I don't know if Craig you want to wrap it up so just to summarize um there's a company called sci-fi networks and they're willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to install new state-of-the-art infrastructure that will provide the highest speeds Broadband access at no cost to the city in fact they're willing to pay the city to uh facilitate the permitting process to do the permit reviews to do the inspections and to help communicate any advance notice regarding Construction in the field if city council consensus is to move forward the the next steps for moving forward would be to develop the negotiated license agreement and Define those responsibilities and conditions for each party those would be followed by Street encroachment permits which we the public works department would regulate very closely in develop zones planned with sci-fi on implementation we would come back to city council at some point in the near future for a license agreement and so it's staff's recommendation that city council consider the proposal before it and provide staff Direction and moving forward with this proposal thank you Mr struckless council member Arias thank you mayor thank you Greg um and team that have been working on this this is exciting um this is really fantastic in the fact that you know they're able to install uh without you know it costing us a single Dollar in public funds is really something that's truly fascinating um but super exciting I I do want to ask and this is a question either for Greg or even City manager's office you know how are we thinking about Equity when we're talking about installing some of this fiber it is clear that there are certain parts certainly in southeast Bakersfield and in my district that struggle more with getting access to you know any and and certainly strong you know Broadband or or Wi-Fi so how are we thinking about implementing this in a way that addresses and is Equitable sure well I think there are two points to to that one one is that the infrastructure will be available to everyone Citywide regardless of where they live or what their economic situation is the second part is a negotiating Point within the agreement that sci-fi currently provides a condition with their internet service providers or discounted internet access and I believe that would be a point that the city would be negotiating hold true once a system is put in in place so there would be discounted availability provided economic hardship can be demonstrated that is fantastic and I think you answered my second question somewhere in there but to be clear so with we feel confident that with this plan with the eight areas that we're going to be installing a lot of this fiber with the eight shelters that anywhere in the city limits we will be able to provide um access to Internet services yes that is the plan that is excellent and that's inclusive of County pockets yes that is true now we can't control the County's approval of their agreement but the assumption is that that will move forward in conjunction with the cities proposal if it were to move forward fantastic um my last question is about you know emergency preparedness this is one of the most critical components I think you laid out a couple of situations where you know individuals in our community utilize access to not only devices but also to broadband and Wi-Fi as part of their you know Healthcare regimen and so I think it's something that's super important that we take seriously that we not only install something that is accessible but something that's going to be strong and sustainable and so you know looking ahead you know no offense to the representative here from sci-fi but companies come in and you know they could go away rather quickly depending on economic circumstances and a whole lot of other challenges you know so I'm trying to imagine a day where you know maybe sci-fi isn't around what is the um ability for other companies or other industry providers to come in and then operate that system that's sci-fi has already installed sure this would be a non-exclusive license agreement so any other company with the similar interest could put forth a similar proposal to to do it at T Summit Spectrum so so nothing is preventing other companies from moving forward in this direction we would just need to regulate the location within the right-of-way if city council were to approve a subsequent license agreement in that case um in the case where sci-fi were not able to sustain into the future whatever infrastructure would be built would be turned over to the city for its use and and that's not to say that we would need to operate the internet portion of that although we could but just having the fiber infrastructure for communications amongst City facilities is very important fantastic and we we feel confident that there are other players in the industry that can potentially come in and operate this successfully I I ask this because there are certain other systems that are very unique to a particular company right um where you know the company maybe goes away they've built a particular system that nobody knows nobody else knows how to use and so I just want to make sure that you know this is something that you know other folks may be able to come in and operate in the future should that be the case yes I do believe the technology is is common in the industry great thank you thank you council member Arias councilmember Smith thank you mayor uh I agree this is exciting and uh something that I tried to get done six years or so ago and there was problem with the and Josh I don't know if you remember or not the the City attorney the city's position was that somehow if this fell apart then the city would become responsible for I don't know if they sold bonds or what it was in order to finance it but but at that time it was seemed to be a risk do you remember that Joshua councilman I don't remember that but what you were talking about in bonds probably back maybe around that time that's how cities were were financing these fiber optic networks a few of them went out and got bonds and and then tried to purchase and and build it we don't need the bonds it's being installed by sci-fi right and there's so there's no guarantee and no funding from the city correct yeah okay thank you is there is this like a franchise agreement is there an annual cost to the Sci-Fi it's not a franchise agreement it's more like um that's a license agreement to use our our right away they're not a public utility they they build the infrastructure uh and um and it's a non-exclusive right and so they are not considered a public utility providing internet uh which would make it count as a qualify as a franchise agreement and um uh it's almost like a lease or a long-term lease of of our property so they're only two feet down somebody else is cutting a trench and and tears their stuff up uh how does that get worked out well then we have that in the in the in the contract and they would have to have you know Insurance Indemnity we have some Clauses to to deal with that it would just be repaired and by sci-fi yeah okay thank you uh I think I heard four years was he expected to serve the whole city is is there actually a time in the contract or how long it takes his home we haven't gotten that far in terms of planning out the zones or the implementation schedule okay uh the other thing was the micro trench uh from the pictures and what I understand it sits right at the edge of the Lipa gutter and as a bicycle Advocate and writer that is a critical spot and if if that is not repaired properly it's a very dangerous spot and so you know whatever we can do in the agreement to make sure that that is a good smooth transition would be appreciated understood thank you thank you councilmember Smith vice mayor thank you mayor I just had one question so they're going to be working on this for four years or any Bakersfield workers going to be participating in this or are they bringing in their own Crews well if I could defer that question to Mr Bradshaw specifically mayor welcome Mr Bradshaw good afternoon um mayor councilman I do apologize for limping I just realized I've been lean on my leg that long listening to all the great information you're just I'm just going a bit numb um so yeah absolutely an answer to the question council member we we have what we call our transient crew which is the specialist operators that are building this not only in California but in our over eight states that we're investing in right now because we have 27 different communities across the country as well as that transient specialist crew we also employ local people to actually build this because the reason we do that is not only to create the job creation locally during the construction but for every year you will allow us to be in your public rights away then the infrastructure still needs to be maintained so those people what we would call out then once it's built our field service crew so they live in the city they're 24 7 responsiveness week in shows that we're also able to maintain the longevity of that local employment as well okay thank you my pleasure thank you vice mayor councilmember Gonzalez thank you mayor um exciting opportunity and looking forward to learning more I have a question regarding the micro trenching you know in in war two we've been doing a lot of Road reconstruction work much needed over you know I mean in many neighborhoods that have been um that haven't been repaired in 20 30 40 50 years and so um and I noticed that the micro trenching trenches um pretty shallow and I know that in some of our projects oftentimes our new road design comes into conflict with some of the utilities that we then have to bury um and so wondering what your thoughts are on that how we're going to negotiate this moving forward yeah that's a very good point councilman um in terms of we currently have moratoriums for roads that we resurface for a certain period of time because the last thing we want to do is see a utility company dig into that road that we just paved so in planning any construction work we would have to take into account recent work that we've done because I'm not sure we'd want to cut into those roads until maybe a few years have passed but again the the type of construction is is minimally invasive and it's probably one of the best approaches I think we still have utility companies that have emergencies where we couldn't prevent them from cutting open the road and they do anyways but this is probably the least impactful foreign thank you motion okay what kind of motion do we want receiving file for sure yeah council member or vice mayor I appreciate that question because one of the slides does indicate that if there is some Council consensus to bring this back forward that we could you know prepare that I I we did not agendize this item as a a voting item and so I think that the motion would just be to receive and file but based on the feedback that I've heard from tonight and I would just ask for if there's a different direction from Council if you could provide it now we feel like that there was positive comments and energy around this potential idea that we would go and work on that Master license agreement with this um with with sci-fi and be prepared to bring that back to council unless there's a direction different than that that's how we'll move forward a motion to receive and file you have a motion please cash your votes well Mr service you got up really easy last week with the council with your board no questions whatsoever we're really engaged thanks for being here motion is approved perlier absent thank you and with that we have completed our agenda We Stand adjourned at 4 58 and we'll start to our 5 15 shortly thank you for being here